"It's a little less than a week of travel; we can hitch along with the next set of traders that comes through town. They move pretty slow and they've always got a merc on hand. A little cap exchange and they'll make us feel right at home." Fisher pointed down at a crudely sketched map of their location. She could see where Vertville was underlined and several long roads leading out. The nearest one ended at another underlined city, Megaton. She also couldn't help but notice a freshly drawn in image of a green tree, just a little north of them. She flinched as something inside of her recognized the place she had been found, even if it were just an image on a map.

"If the trader sticks to the main road, you shouldn't need the merc." Gabe looked down at the map with a frown. "Though if you took this road here, you'd cut your trip by more than a day."

"You aren't coming?" Anya caught his gaze questioningly. The thought alarmed her a little, she had gotten to know Fisher and liked him well enough, but Gabe felt like an old friend, he felt like home, as silly as that sounded even to her.

"Wouldn't have to hitch with any cap thieving traders if ya did." Fisher eyed Gabe too, apparently disappointed that Gabe wasn't coming for his own reasons. Fisher was far from an old man, but he certainly wasn't young any more. Anya suspected her own weakness was the cause for Fisher's alarm, traveling across the wastes with a sickly woman was by no means going to be easy.

"Well…" Gabe stuttered, apparently not expecting the both of them to gang up. "I thought with you gone the shop," The attention of both of them was clearly too much and he struggled to think of what else to say.

"Well, if you need time with Heather, just say so." Fisher waved his hand in the air with a shrug.

"No," Gabe said a little more firmly than necessary. "I'm sure she can handle the shop herself. Much better than the two of you would handle travel by yourselves." He sat himself down at the table now, an active participant as opposed to a guide. "We can leave tomorrow if it's not too much of a bother. We can cut across here and here," He pointed both points out on the map of his complicated road systems. Anya noticed how quickly he was to change the subject from Heather but she pushed it to the back of her mind. It was hard enough to focus, even on the limited jet she was taking, she didn't need to stretch her thoughts any further than what was right in front of her.

Kosh had insisted on continuing to administer doses of jet into her system after a poor experience in withdrawal had reared its ugly head and pushed her recovery back a few days. By then Gabe had found the man they were looking for and promised that they would get her to the medic in Megaton who would be able to cure her addiction.

It had taken a while for Kosh to give her an okay for travel, which had been frustratingly agonizing. To keep her impatience at bay, Gabe had brought her some old junk he hadn't sold off yet. It was slow going, but she slowly started to remember the way things went, the tools slowly started to feel familiar. She had even managed to fix the juke box that Fisher had put in his café just because he thought it added to the feel. Now Gabe was on strict orders to bring back any records he could find in the wastes and the patrons were so excited about choosing a song none of them questioned her too hard about where she had suddenly come from. The acceptance was good, but the most reassuring thing was getting the hang of the tools again, it made her feel like somewhere deep inside, she was still that same girl who lived with her uncle, fixing mechanics up. Still a whole human being, even if it didn't feel like it sometimes.

"Not more than another day south, I'd say." Fisher stretched and stamped out the small fire they had cooked up their breakfast on. They were in a beaten down old home that had one full wall remaining and an attic with a floor solid enough to sleep on. It was almost a whole neighborhood but the rest of the buildings seemed to have fallen and crumbled to the ground.

"I didn't know you'd been to Megaton." Gabe said eyeing the old man curiously.

"I've been lots of placed." Fisher snapped a little curtly. Gabe just shrugged and continued to pack up his own bag. Fisher and Gabe had been splitting up the night watch, even though Anya insisted she was perfectly capable of serving one of the shifts. But they had both refused to let her share the burden, she knew it had everything to do with the jet. Now, progressively through the trip, Fisher was growing more irritable. She didn't blame him, she was feeling quite raw and she was getting the most sleep out of both of them. Gabe seemed little effected, it was almost irritating the way he seemed perpetually well rested every morning when it seemed to take every ounce of her being to get up off of her rolled out bed.

She did her best to make it up to them by cooking up meals for them, they hadn't packed much, a few tins of old food, but both Fisher and Gabe seemed pretty adept at tracking small game. Everything mostly ended up as a stew, it was the easiest way to stretch the food to make it last. Gabe had been wary of this initially; stew used up a lot of water, and that was something he was accustomed to struggling to find. Anya had found it pretty easy to maneuver them often enough that they had a plentiful supply without being too obvious.

She could feel the tug in her stomach, constantly urging her, it was easy enough to ignore, but she didn't want to. They were closing in on a large reservoir, she almost wanted to push on yesterday but she thought they might get suspicious if she insisted. She tried to hide her smile as they wandered out across the wastes in a single file; it was nice to know she wasn't completely useless to everyone, even if they didn't know it. There was a trail that wound up into some rocky terrain and she could sense that the water wasn't up on that trail, but down below it. They would pass it completely by if they climbed this hill.

"Gabriel," She called out quietly, he stopped and looked back over his shoulder. "Is it alright if we go around? I'm not sure I'm strong enough for that kind of a climb." She nodded her head up to the hill that was before them. It wasn't a small hill by any means, but it was certainly something she could probably manage. She had used this excuse several times on the trip already, but usually later in the day when they were ready to about stop. It was unlikely that she'd be tired already, but she doubted Gabriel was going to challenge her on it.

He watched her very carefully then, almost suspiciously. Fisher broke the silence behind her.

"That'll add two hours of walking," He said a little grumpily. Gabe broke his gaze with Anya for a moment to watch Fisher.

"Yeah, but it is a rough climb. Might as well go around, don't want to burn out this early in the day. Is it okay to go west?" His question was leveled at her again.

"Sure." Something flashed in his eyes that she didn't entirely trust, but she tried to shrug nonchalantly. "I guess."

"Come on Fisher," He smirked as he led them down around the rocky trail. "Maybe we'll find something on the way."

She didn't like how suggestive his tone was, or that smirk on his face, but she certainly couldn't argue with him now. The ground rose up around them and soon the sun was hidden behind the small foothills they were working to avoid. The shade of the hill was a relief from the unrelenting sun of the last few days and even Fisher seemed to appreciate the cooler weather and cheered considerably. They made excellent time and had reached the far base, she couldn't help but hurry, knowing her goal was almost at hand. She was nearly astride with Gabriel when he turned and looked at her over his shoulder.

"Hm," He said noncommittally. "Thought you were tired."

"Guess the shade was just the thing I needed." She shot back at him, aware of his smug tone.

"Sure sure," He nodded. "You've just been surprisingly weak this trip. You sure there wasn't another reason you wanted to avoid that hill?" He watched her carefully. "Maybe a reason you wanted to come this way instead?"

She was about to open her mouth to defend herself when a series of loud cracks caused them both to flinch. Gabe dropped to the ground followed immediately by herself.

"Raiders!" Fisher hissed from behind them, he was also pressing his face into the ground hoping to dodge any stray bullets coming this way. Gabriel shuffled the bag off his shoulders and pulled his rifle from his shoulders.

"Stay down. And stay here." He whispered to them both and squirmed his way down the trail and out of sight behind a boulder. She was definitely afraid, but she was more angry, she wasn't going to let them scare her any more, and she certainly wasn't going to let them hurt her friends. She stuffed her hand into Gabriel's bag and pulled out a heavy hand gun. She had gone out hunting twice with Fisher and Gabriel and they had let her practice shooting a few rounds. She might not be as good as Gabe, but she wasn't useless either.

"Anya," Fisher hissed at her. "He said to stay down!" He sounded alarmed as he noticed her crouching and making sure the gun was loaded.

"I'm not letting him go down there alone." She whispered back and made sure the safety was off. "I'll be fine." She flashed him a quick smile and followed the trail he had disappeared down. A few more shots echoed off the wall and she made her way cautiously, staying ducked low behind the rocks. She poked her head around and finally saw Gabe down lower using an old tree stump as cover while he fired into two raiders who were opposite a small pond that was fed by water that trickled down the side of the hill. The raiders didn't seem to have much aim as they showered bullets in the general direction that they needed to, but never with much accuracy. It looked like they had been camping here for a while, a small shelter was set up across the way, and broken cans and trash were strewn about.

Gabriel peppered a few shots across the path ahead and one of the raiders slumped down from view. The other fired wildly over their head and took off running, no honor amongst thieves. Out of the corner of her eyes she saw movement. Up in the steep cliffs someone had taken shelter. The raiders in front of them weren't meant to shoot him; they were just supposed to be a distraction until the woman reached higher ground.

Gabriel hadn't spotted her yet; he was too busy firing shots to chase the last raider away. As she raised her hunting rifle to her shoulder and took aim, he stood and at the last minute Anya cried out to warn him. He started to turn but the shot had already been fired, Anya was up and firing before she saw him fall back. Her aim wasn't pretty but she managed to focus enough of the shots into the woman's chest before she could retreat. She collapsed with a groan and slid down the hill like a sack of rocks.

Anya was shaking ever so slightly as she held the gun still in the air; she had managed to stop herself before she wasted all of the bullets. She slowly lowered her hands and took a deep breath, trying to relax.

"Anya," She turned to where Gabriel was laying, his fist pressed against his side and his teeth clenched together. "I thought I told you to stay put." He still managed to sound disapproving.

"Yeah," She smirked, "Fat lot of good that would have done." She dropped the handgun and knelt down next to him. There seemed to be quite a bit of blood pooling beneath him and she felt panic surge up from the pit of her stomach. She tried to reassure herself that if he was good enough to scold her, he was good enough to live.

"Fisher!" She called back over her shoulder. "Bring the packs, Gabriel's hurt!" She peeled up his jacket, ignoring him insisting that it was fine. The bullet had just shot through his side, feeling around to the back she found the exit wound. At least they wouldn't have to worry about fishing out the slug.

"It's fine." He repeated, he hissed out a slow breath as she tugged the jacket up to keep it away from the wound. "Leave it."

"You're bleeding quite a bit." She pulled her hands back cautiously; he tilted his face down a little to inspect the damage himself.

"Probably just a flesh wound." He leaned his head back against the stump again.

"Went and got yourself shot." Fisher came up just then, the two packs carried over his shoulders. His eyes were wide at the sight of all the blood.

"Yeah, sorry about that." Gabriel rolled his eyes and tried to settle more comfortable. "There's a stimpack in my bag, that should fix it up enough to keep going."

"Don't be silly," She picked through the bag and found the antiseptic and bandages that had been packed for her own wounds. "We can rest here for the day, there's already a camp set up. It was just luck that those raiders came across this place."

"Yeah. We were pretty lucky too." Gabe gave her that same suspicious look so she busied herself cleaning out the wound. She pressed a little harder than she needed to and she felt him flinch in response. That would be good enough to keep his mind focused on something else. She covered it up with gauze and taped it down as well as she could.

"Yeah, I'm sorry about that." Gabe rolled his eyes and lay back again. "There's a stimpack in my bag that should fix it up good enough to keep going."

"Think I can get the stimpack now?" He sounded a bit annoyed to have been taken care of; it was clearly something he was used to doing himself. "Maybe you're too tired?"

She clenched her jaw and snatched the stimpack from Fisher's startled hands and stuck the needle in Gabriel's side and pressed down the plunger before he had time to grunt in pain. She pulled out the used syringe and tossed it to the ground.

"You're welcome." She glared at him and grabbed her pack from the ground. She turned on her heel and headed down toward the water to change out her now bloodied bandages.

Fisher watched her for a moment and then turned to Gabe. "What was that about?"

Color was returning to Gabe's face now as the stimpack was flowing through his blood stream and he let out a low breath. "Nothing, it's nothing." He lifted himself from the ground with a groan and watched her stooped down near the start of the stream that led into the pond.

"Young people," Fisher humphed and gathered up the mess they had left behind.

Anya fiddled with the dials on the portable radio that was laid out on a towel in front of her. She was hoping to get it working so they might enjoy some music on the way, but so far she had been too exhausted at night, and too busy with cooking to tinker with it at all. The issue seemed to be in the battery box, some frayed wires somewhere in the machine. She had pulled it all apart now, well rested and waiting for Fisher to return with something to cook up. She stayed far away from camp, not wanting to look Gabe in the eye quite yet, she had been a proper jerk but wasn't quite ready to admit it to him. Working with the radio was relaxing, as was the small stream that bubbled along past her feet; it was what fed into the pond down below.

She slowly began to reassemble the radio, finding the wires as she went and replacing them when she had something in her small pile of junk that worked, or finding a temporary fix that she hoped would work. She finally clicked the plastic casing back into place and flipped the power switch. A low hiss came on and she smiled slightly, the first hurtle was over. She pulled out the small antenna for the machine and started to spin the dial slowly the hissing fading to irregular noises, voices, music, she wasn't sure, but she was out of range for those signals. She continued to spin the dial until she nearly jumped at the loud voice of a DJ and spun the dial until it passed.

"Finally got that working?" Gabriel walked up behind her; she spared him a quick glance before returning her attention to the radio. She was still embarrassed but she certainly wasn't going to apologize to him, he had also been an ungrateful toad. She made a noncommittal grunt in response and he walked over to sit by her. He groaned as he hunched down and had to lean back on his arms to sit without clenching his teeth.

"Stimpacks aren't going to do much good if you insist on ripping the wound open like that." She commented as she lowered the volume and tried spinning the tuner back the way it had been.

"You're right. Seems that Fisher grabbed a super stim so it's nearly sealed up; doesn't stop it from hurting something fierce."

"Well, I'm sorry I wasted your time with all that bandaging then." She replied a little curtly, still spinning the dial. The clearest radio signal seemed to be someone called Three-Dog, reporting news and his own unusual anecdotes. She left it there and put the radio down, it was interesting to hear the news, she hadn't thought about the rest of the world in a very long time.

"Anya," He spoke gently, but the accusation was still there. He tried sitting up and succeeded but only with a grimace. "Don't be like that. I'm sorry I was rude before, you did good. I was just a little preoccupied with being shot; it's not like me to be so careless."

"Fair enough." She shrugged and they both listened to the radio in silence for a while the DJ's voice nearly drowning out the gentle flowing of water.

Have you guys and gals ever seen...a tree? No, no, no! Not those shriveled-up black things! I'm talking real trees: brown bark, green leaves, photosynthesis, all that good stuff. Now what if I, the all-powerful Three Dog—bow wow wow—were to tell you that somewhere right here in the Capital Wasteland is a place with lots of trees? A veritable Oasis of green in that depressing sea of brown? Look, it was years ago—and I may have been experimenting with jet at the time—but I'm telling you; it's out there.

Anya twisted her hands uncomfortably and she heard Gabriel sigh.

"I'm guessing there aren't many of those around." He commented casually. "A bit odd really that your group of slavers found it. Kind of odd like how we keep running into water out here, clean water too, in a place that earned its name; the wastes." He gave her that same suspicious look he had given earlier, waiting for her to respond.

"Yes, it is odd." She finally responded, felt the anger bubbling up in her. "Lucky too, I guess. Seems to me you've been pretty lucky too. Living to tell the tale of a point blank shot to the chest and the annihilation of a small town; escaping slavers, junkies, and raiders. Traveling through the wastes on your own, surviving long enough to fall in with good people. Finding Fisher, and Heather." She said the last name pointedly; she couldn't help but sound bitter, even to herself. "I would have thought luck in the Wastes was just as uncommon as water." She leveled him with a stare, daring him to deny it. She was the one who had been enslaved, tortured, drugged, and raped. And that had gone on for years, how dare he be suspicious about the only piece of fortune she had had in all that time.

He seemed startled into silence by her comments, his face was blank as he opened his mouth, trying to speak, but closed it again, finally shaking his head.

"Oh Anastasia." He spoke quietly now and all the blame had died from his tone, just sadness. "The things I've done…" He couldn't quite meet her eyes any more. "Luckier than you, I suppose," He shrugged. "But not by very much."

She snorted her disbelief, but the way his shoulders sagged and he pointedly looked away from him eroded at her determination.

"The water, Anya." He finally spoke, and this time he did look at her. "How are you finding it? If there was a map one of the slavers had, I mean, we could come across another band of raiders, a bigger band; I can't keep you safe if I don't know what I'm up against. I don't want you to have to-" He wiped his hand across his face with a shaky sigh. "I just don't want that for you."

The concern in his voice formed a lump in her throat; she hadn't known he really cared, though maybe it was still just guilt from all those years ago. She swallowed carefully, she didn't want that, didn't want him thinking she was some fragile thing that needed protecting. She didn't want him constantly in fear for her safety, but she didn't want him to know the truth either. She would be labeled either way, a waif too fragile to trust, or some kind of wasteland freak, just like the ghouls. She just wanted to be his friend, she wanted one damn thing from her old life, that was it. She sighed, she supposed honesty was the best path here; she didn't want him worrying that they were going to run across a band of slavers anyway.

"It's not a map. There is no map. The slavers are just as blind out here as everyone else."

"Then how?" He looked at her curiously, she shrugged under the scrutiny.

"It's me. I don't know how it works, but I can feel the water. I thought it was just a weird stomach bug when I was little. The slavers," She was surprised by how it seemed each time she spoke about her horrible past, the pain seemed to ease; almost as though talking about it made it easier to do so. "They figured it out and kept me high to keep me finding water when I stopped trying to help. The cleaner it is, the stronger the tug is."

"Dowsing?" He asked, a little shocked. She was more surprised he knew the term; she had only heard it from the slavers. She still remembered his dead eyes on the side of that hill, his life pooling out of him moments after speaking the word.

"I had never really heard of it." She shrugged.

"I guess I've heard more rumors, a colony of people, calling themselves the Dowsers. They trade in clean water, but they move around, knowing the slavers are on the lookout for them. Water's almost as profitable as people. Some kind of mutation they think, that did it. I thought it was just a story though," He half laughed then. "Of course, I thought those trees were just a story too." She was a little relieved that he hadn't recoiled in horror, he almost didn't seem to be phased at all, but maybe he was just good at coping. He looked back at her, earnestly now. "Don't speak of it again. Whatever you do, keep it to yourself. Please."

"It'll be out little secret then?" She grinned at how silly it sounded, but Gabe's face was still serious.

"Please, if someone finds out. Even Fisher, mouths wag and it can end, well, badly."

"Alright, I promise. But you can't protect me forever."

He seemed satisfied at that with a little of the worry fading from his face. "Says who? Thanks for saving my skin, by the way."

She laughed a little, "Thanks for teaching me how to shoot again."

"Bah, I'm a terrible teacher. It was probably ole Phil and the practice that worked." She swallowed at the mention of Phil's name, which was still a fresh kind of hurt, remembering all she had really lost. But it felt good to remember something positive. "Phil was a good man."

"Yeah, he was." She smiled and he was able to return the reassuring smile.

"Hey now, where'd you all get off to?" Fisher's voice called down toward them, he had some kind of catch slung over his shoulder. "I caught us a nice fat mole rat to celebrate, and look at this, a bottle of wine I brought with. Too bad I'm here all by myself; have to drink the whole thing."

"Better get down there before he's too drunk to stand." Gabriel grinned and Anya stood up to help him get up off the ground without too much agony.

"Race you." She grinned and Gabriel just rolled his eyes as he hobbled along behind her.