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Cort, Charon and Dogmeat came back to the Memorial loaded down with ammunition, medical supplies and food at the end of the fourth day after they had left, staying in another Metro room overnight after pressing on from Underworld the previous evening. Leaving her pack with the ghoul to take downstairs, she bee-lined immediately for the Control Room in the Rotunda, correctly guessing her father's location. James looked up from a set of notes he was taking down on a clipboard by the glassed in column of water, smiling at her as the GNR signal drifted softly out of his Pip-Boy.

"Welcome back, sweetheart." Beaming at her, he put the papers aside and hugged his daughter to him. "Did you sort out what you needed to?"

"Parts of it. Remember that escaped android I told you about? I ended up with more holotapes." Holding up her arm, she brought up the recordings one by one for him to listen to. After they had finished, she kept fiddling with the buttons, looking for something. "I don't know when I can find the time to go look for him, but if I've got all of these, then that creepy little guy Zimmer or anyone else won't be able to find him either. Or it'll at least be harder for them."

"I'm glad you're taking care of people out here Cort. They're yours, you know, and mine. We're responsible for them."

"I remember. I was born in here, not in some hole." She paused, staring at the screen and working her brows together before looking up at him. "Dad. What happened to Mom after she died? Did you bury her like people out here used to do or..." She stopped as her father sighed quietly, slowly rubbing the back of his neck.

"If you go outside, then scale the wall directly behind you, there's an area of ground right next to the corner of the Rotunda's outside steps, behind the largest trees you'll find out there and hidden behind some large boulders. There, you'll find what appears to be just another random pile of white stones; they're not. There's one for every year of her life. She's there, Cort. I didn't make a more permanent marker because scavengers tend to dig...uh, dig..." Choking back a sudden surge of emotion, James struggled to control his voice and tapped at her right wrist, held over her Pip-Boy. "What's this? This is new. Looks like part of a Robobrain."

Tactfully averting her eyes as he quickly wiped at his own, she held her arm out for him. "Oh. It's a present from Charon, and it is. He pulled it out of a particularly nasty version of one that tried to kill me a couple days ago, after blowing its head off. It's even got my favourite number on it, see?"

Watching Cort spin the titanium band on her wrist with a completely besotted look on her face, James got some of his good humour back as he took her hand to get a closer look. "Yes honey, I see very well. It's very pretty."

Cort flushed and smiled up at him. "Thank you. Actually, I've got something for you, too. Hold your Pip-Boy up, map setting please." Letting her go, James did as she asked and smiled back as Cort transferred the locations of the new Vaults she had found out of her own. "Look! Four more Vaults, and they're not even that far away. I found the coordinates at the Vault-Tec building. Maybe one of them has a G.E.C.K. in it. Cookie?"

Dropping his arm, he reached into the pocket of his lab coat and pulled out something she found to be an entirely acceptable substitution. "Apple. Enjoy it honey, it's the last one we have." Taking it and another hug, she backed out of the room and grinned.

"Not anymore, I brought a bunch of food back, thought we might be getting low, I'll still take this though, thanks Dad!"

"You're welcome. Now come back after you settle in and you've finished eating my supper, I want to talk to you about some things you can do for me tomorrow!"

Cort's voice floated back in from the other room, garbled from filtering through a full mouth. "Mmpfkay! Wha? Yeth Li, I got more Thtimpaks for Gartha. Keep your thkirt on."

James grinned and turned back to his notes as one of the repetitive instrumentals finished playing and Three Dog came back on, the expression quickly turning to a scowl when he started talking about Cort.

"...that crazy little Vault kid has been seen poking around out in DC again, folks, without her father in tow this time. Word is he's still hard at work down at Project Purity, which my sources are telling me..."

Irritated, he snapped it off, jabbing at the button on his Pip-Boy and muttering to himself. "The worst mistake I made after coming back out here was talking to that blabbering idiot." When he had managed to teach his daughter enough for her to make a solid effort towards maintaining the Memorial, at least for a limited time, he decided he was going to make a point of trekking out specifically to have a little talk with the DJ, regardless of any positive contributions the man was making. Cort had already outlined her difficulties in trying to stay hidden while the man somehow tracked and broadcast her every move, and it seemed he was repeating the same treatment with James. "Loose mouthed bastard is going to get someone killed eventually."


Descending into the bowels of the Memorial and nodding absently to the members of Li's staff as she went, Cort made her way to the room she had started occupying with Charon when they first moved in, having selected the Pump Control area and eschewing comfort for privacy. Stripping her helmet off and placing it on top of the turbine cover, she pushed up on her toes as he came over to her and then grabbed the neck of his armour, talking to and kissing him at the same time. "Do you know...how crazy...you drive me?"

"You were already...completely batshit...when I met you." He broke away to press his forehead to hers, working his hands into her hair. "You're beautiful. You're mine."

"Only for you." Both of them jumped when a bored voice floated over from the entrance.

"You two are disgusting. Particularly you, Cort. How did you even end up this way? Wait, I know how, a deadbeat father. Goes along well with being a deadbeat scientist." Heart still pounding in her throat, Cort glared over to where a blonde man in blue coveralls was leaning against the wall, looking in at them.

"I'm a teenager, Daniel. I'm supposed to be this way, it's a hormonal compulsion. What's your excuse for being a total prick, trying to make up for your lack of one?"

Ignoring the barb, he jerked his head towards their packs. "Doctor Li said you were back with supplies, including food."

Charon snorted as Cort pulled a face and pointedly turned her back on the man, walking to the far end to strip off her dirty armour. "Yes, not that you're going to fucking get any now. You can wait until we're finished settling back in, shithead."

"Or I can just take out what I want, since they're supplies for the Project."

Charon grinned darkly and moved to where Cort had gone, shaking gore loose from herself as she removed the last of her plating, and started doing the same. "Dare you. Dog dare you."

Sneering, Agincourt had a split second to lay his hands on their packs before Dogmeat boiled up from behind them, teeth clicking smartly in the air as he narrowly missed sinking them into his flesh. Cort snorted with laughter as he jerked back, swearing. Jumping over the packs, the dog started snapping at his heels, chasing him back out of the room and up the stairs, Cort hot on their heels after quickly grabbing up a bunch of Stimpaks. She came back down empty-handed with the dog a half hour later, looking pleased and baffled at the same time.

"Well? Did you let him eat that fuck? Because I'm not cleaning it up if he gets sick and pukes." Charon clapped his hands and crouched, Dogmeat coming over to have his armour removed, then impeding the ghoul's progress as he tried shoving his head under his hands. "Quit squirming or I'll end up yanking fur off with your suit. It'll get caught and you won't like that at all." Closing his eyes in a pinched expression as he realized he was talking to the dog like Cort did, he shook his head and resolutely focused his attention back on her as he worked, Dogmeat now sitting quietly and looking annoyed. Mouth twitching at their antics, Cort rubbed a hand vigorously over her upper lip to keep from laughing and replied.

"No, you know I wouldn't let Dogmeat touch him, he's just a jerk. But Li just tore into him like blue fury when he went whining to her. She sounded like Mister Brotch giving an etiquette lecture if someone had kicked him in the nads first, it was awesome. I'm actually starting to like her, I don't know if I should be pissed off at myself for that or what. And I don't know exactly what the hell happened while we were gone, but it must've been good. I didn't get a stink eye off of anyone upstairs just now, aside from that dickwad. Dad laid into them somehow."

Charon raised an eyebrow, trying to parse what she was telling him. "He did what?"

Cort shrugged."I went back to talk to him about stuff he wants me to do tomorrow and he asked what all the noise was, and I told him. Then he told me not to worry about anyone being rude again. So I won't. Anyway!" She clapped her hands and bounced up on her toes, excited. "Stuff tomorrow, filled with the great stuffing of stuff. We're going to bring the Purifier online, and since everyone else will have their hands full, I need to do the running around for them." Cort paused for a second and blinked. "Unsurprisingly." Dropping back onto her heels, she yawned.

"Right now you need to run to bed, once you've finished up everything. You're exhausted." Finishing up with the dog, Charon grabbed and then flicked their blankets out as she yawned again, getting down on his own and giving hers a pat.

"And whose fault is that, hm? No don't, don't do that." Seeing his face suddenly fall, she quickly dropped down next to him and crawled into his lap. "I didn't mean it that way, I'm sorry. Nothing's your fault."

He wrapped an arm around her and started playing with her hair. "It's my fault you didn't sleep well, I kept waking you up."

"I remember being pretty enthusiastic about it whenever you did. I don't remember telling you to stop doing it either."

"Do you want me to?"

"What, stop waking me up, or stop doing that?"

Charon snorted, then grinned foolishly, the unfamiliar expression startling on his face. "Considering the places you've managed to leave bite marks on, I think it's a pretty fucking safe bet that you want to keep up with that, I'm not that dense. You're practically a damned rabbit once you get going. What I want to know is if you want me to stop waking you up."

She sputtered and twisted to look up at him, blushing. "Wha-what? How the hell do you know what a rabbit is?"

"I learned about them from a book. I can and do like to read, Cort, not that you get to see me do it much. Now answer the question." He paused, remembering something she liked people to do. "Please."

Chastised, she hunched lower. "I really don't want you to stop, but you probably should. I'm not sleeping enough."

"We could have slept at Carol's again instead of the Metro last night."

"I didn't want to, it was our last night out." Stifling another yawn, she snuggled into him. "Besides, we'll sleep all night tonight, and we're staying here tomorrow, it'll be an easy, lazy day. Let's get up early, even. I can teach you how to get into terminals."

"I'd like that. We can go over to one of the office buildings later on and I'll show you how to remove a door with charges." Running a hand down her thigh, he nuzzled behind her clipped ear, making her giggle.

"We have the weirdest pillow talk."

"We don't have pillows." Reaching down farther, he unlaced her boots one by one and pulled them off, fussily tugging her socks back up her feet.

"Point." Cort rolled her head around to face the dog where he was sprawled on the floor. "Dogmeat honey, watch the door for Momma. That'll keep that dink from poking his head in again." She smiled as he hauled himself over to flop down across the entrance, blocking the base of it entirely after rolling onto his back. "That's my best boy."

"Don't we need to unpack everything? Not that I want to feed that asshole." Closing her eyes, she went back to resting her face against his chest.

"Nah, they have some food left, just not a whole lot; Daniel was just being a pig. Big shocker there. Supplies can stay in our packs for now. Li told me everyone ate already anyway, just to unload tomorrow after everything's the...thing...n'thin..."

Charon looked down as Cort started snoring into his chest. Rolling his eyes and sighing, he smoothly moved her around until she was down on her right side where she preferred to be, resting her head on his arm as he cuddled up behind her. Putting his face into her hair he inhaled deeply, closing his eyes as the scent of her filled his head, tantilizingly mixed with his own. She was practically saturated in it at this point, wet decaying copper overlying her own sweet smell. I used to hate that fucking stink. It's better with her. I'm better with her. Carefully sliding his left hand up between her arms and over her chest, he gently pushed against the top of her right breast, finding the flat hard spot below her collarbone a moment later. I'm better in her. Sighing again, he resisted the urge to roll her over and move her shirt up, settling for pressing his head against hers and holding her tighter. Feeling Cort's steady heartbeat against his palm, he fell asleep thinking of bare white skin in red light.


Coming out of the Rotunda early the next morning, James found Cort sitting with Charon on the floor next to the turret control terminal, patiently teaching him how to break into it using a ragged sheet of paper and an ancient, chewed up pencil she had dug up from somewhere. "It's easier if you have something to write on first like I'm doing now. After you get better at it, you can kind of just read the encryption and pick out the right ones to select."

"What if I fuck it up?" He watched as the ghoul attentively leaned in towards her, their heads almost touching each other as she scribbled lines across the paper, copying from the terminal.

If you think you're going to, leave it alone. Better yet, leave it alone and come get me. If you do fuck it up, there's ways around it if you remembered to prepare in advance, but it's boring as hell. It's like you're reliving the same damn moment in front of the terminal over and over and over until you get it right." Finishing, she shoved the page and pencil across to him. "Okay, now look at that carefully until you're sure, then pick the most likely answers out, I'll tell you if you got it right. I already know which one it is."

"Good morning, honey. Charon." Coming over to them, he absently flipped through his own pages on his clipboard, the big man picking up the battered pencil and carefully reading Cort's notes after nodding politely in his direction.

"Hi Dad." She grinned up at her father and quickly whipped something out of a pocket on her cargos, smiling wider when he snapped the apple she had thrown out of the air without even looking up, taking a bite out of it a second later. "You almost missed, slowpoke." Swallowing, he raised an eyebrow at her and grinned back.

"Not very likely sweetheart, considering I'm the one who taught you how to do that. Whenever you're ready, come find me in the Rotunda and we'll get started with those tasks I told you about. Everyone else should be set up shortly, we've been preparing since dawn. Oh, and you might as well put your armour on first, I'll need you to go outside immediately once everything is finished to check some of the piping for leaks."

"Okay." He walked over to the door as Cort looked down again, the ghoul having shoved the paper back over. She clapped lightly after examining it, bouncing in place. "Yes, you got it! Good job, get a hug." James pretended to make notes and finished eating, unobtrusively watching as Charon obligingly spread his arms, Cort immediately launching herself into them and nearly bowling the big man over, her knees pushed against the floor as she embraced him. After recovering from the impact, he picked her up as he stood and then set her down gently, poking her in the direction of the basement and rasping disapprovingly at her.

"Come on, get suited up. And eat something, don't think I didn't notice that you skipped, scatterbrain."

"Mother hen." Charon said nothing, only reached his hand out to brush against her hair as they went through the door.

James stood there for a moment longer, a peaceful look on his face. Whatever had transpired further in her relationship with the ghoul had seemed to settle Cort out entirely, the instabilities he had been so concerned about disappearing back into the mild, playful nature he remembered and loved. No, not what I hoped for or expected, but I can live with the substitution if it puts her back together. My beautiful little girl. Finally re-entering the Rotunda, he raised his voice to the assembled staff of Project Purity, each one looking attentively back to him as he strode up the metal staircase. "All right people, let's get started."