Wendy

I wake in the morning; take a shower while he sleeps. I feel my left palm itching, burning, and try to ignore it. There's nothing I can do about it anyway. If I reach over and find empty air, it'd just frustrate me, make me angry, and make things harder.

As always, I spend a good part of my time justifying what we did. What we do.

We need each other. We have to cope somehow. We don't love each other, so we're not really cheating. Excuses, all of them.

I know how Virgil will see it. I'm the one that started this – I betrayed him. I cheated. The vows we took mean nothing now. And Charon? He poached on his own son's territory.

I lean my forehead against the wall, as tears roll down my cheeks. The shame is almost unbearable. Almost.

Virgil

Joseph comes to get me this morning; tells me to dress in my uniform instead of the jumpsuit. "There's someone I'd like you to meet," he says, sporting a broad grin.

"Who?" I ask.

"I think I'll let her introduce herself." He leads me to the same room where I first met him, and quickly retreats back down the hall.

Sitting in a chair is a woman about my age, slender, dressed in a support personnel jumpsuit. She rises slowly, and blinks nervously. "You must be Virgil," she says, hands clasped in front of her. "Hi. I'm Emily."

"Hi." I smile. She's very pretty, even in a baggy jumpsuit with her dark hair tied back in a rough ponytail. We sit across from one another. The atmosphere is awkward, and I decide to fill the silence. "Why did they want me to meet you? Why am I here?"

"Oh – they didn't tell you?"

"Tell me what?"

"When we were little. We were…matched." Her dark brown eyes flit around the room, anxiously. She wrings her hands in her lap.

I jump to my feet and stalk to the door. "JOSEPH!" He appears almost immediately.

"What is this?" I hiss at him, pointing at her. "You know I'm married."

"Virgil, there is no harm in meeting her."

I sigh. No, I suppose not. "Why don't you two go to the mess hall, get something to eat? Talk for a little bit. She could answer any questions you have about living here in the bunker," he suggests.

I think about Wendy. Where is she, while I'm on a lunch date with another woman? Well, not just another woman – a woman that was promised to me, probably before we were even born.

I look over my shoulder at Emily, who is fidgeting nervously. "Well…I am hungry."

Charon

I lay on Mallie's side of the bed, clutching the pillow to my face. I can't smell her on it – it's been too long – but she laid her head on it once. That's good enough for me.

I can hear Wendy in the shower.

I can remember when Mallie'd take soaks in the tub, and asked me to read to her, or tell her a story. She liked listening to my voice. At first, I didn't speak much at all. When the contract started to fade into the background, she was still brusque with me sometimes, but a tenderness crept its way in. I remember how she'd dip her head under the water, and come back up dripping, smiling, content. I remember when she stepped out, pink and wrinkly, and I'd wrap a soft white towel under her arms.

I reluctantly pull myself away from my memories, and into the present. I decide that I want to go to the Citadel first. If anyone knows where the bunker is, the Brotherhood would. A stop by Underworld would be nice, too – I have an idea for something to help Wendy, and hopefully Moira is still there to help make it a reality.

As anxious as I am to get Virgil back, I have a feeling that they won't hurt him. When they took him, they treated him like he was important. We need a little bit of time to get the lay of the land before I come up with a plan. Getting him out isn't gonna be easy.

Man, I'm dyin' for a cigarette. Wendy's probably jonesin' pretty bad, too. We ran out a while back, and figured we'd better save our caps.

Hopefully we can find some raiders along the way, and persuade them out of their weapons and chems, so we can sell 'em. It's bad enough out here without nicotine withdrawals.

"If you stopped catching bullets, we'd make better time." I growl.

She sits on a rock, bent over with her elbows on her thighs, forearm trickling blood. I hit her with a Med-X and start digging a bullet out of her shoulder.

She grits her teeth and grunts loudly as I reach in with a set of forceps and wiggle the errant piece of lead. "Can't we just leave that one in there?" she asks.

I roll my eyes. "We could. Medically speaking, it wouldn't do much harm. This one isn't too far in, and isn't close to anything vital." Then again, the one in my ass isn't near anything vital, and we never bothered digging that one out. Best not to mention that.

"However," I continue, "It could have taken cloth in there with it, which could breed infection."

She shouted in pain as I plucked it out. I irrigated the wound with vodka – eliciting more shouting and swearing – then hit it with one of our dwindling collection of stimpaks. Luckily, it was in the same side as the through-and-through in her forearm. "We need more stimpaks. Let's strip these idiots, and sell all their shit."

"Boy, you're in a bad mood today." she observes.

I grumble as I pack up the medical supplies. "Here," she says. "This'll make you feel better." She tosses something in my direction, and I catch it reflexively. It's a pack of cigarettes. "Smoke one of those. Much more of your bitching, and I'm gonna wanna put a bullet in myself." She jokes.

"Where'd you get these?" I ask.

"There was a whole carton of 'em in that footlocker over there. Merry Christmas, big guy."

I fish Mallie's lighter out of my pocket, flick it, and hurriedly light one. "Mmm…." My head swims deliciously for a few seconds, and I close my eyes, the hot smoke filling my lungs as I breathe in deeply.

Wendy laughs. "Do you two need a moment alone?"

I hand her the lighter, and she plucks another pack of cigarettes from a side pocket of her pack. After fumbling with the packaging for a bit, she manages to extract one, lights it, then tosses the lighter back to me. She inhales, then exhales through her nose – clearly enjoying herself, although not as much as I did, apparently.

"How far away is this Citadel?" she asks.

"Not far. It's in your Pip-Boy, I checked. One of the markers that wasn't corrupted."

"Hmm…" she says, fiddling with it.

I frown. "Finding it isn't the issue, however. It's getting inside. Your illustrious mother-in-law didn't make many friends there, either."

About Forty-Seven Years Ago

Lilith

Playing Freddy, Wally, and Butch against each other is the most entertaining thing I've done in, well, ever.

It's obvious to everyone that I'll be paired with Butch. Dad has been pushing me towards him for a while now. Even though pairings are announced around eighteen, this generation is so small that it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out who'll be paired with whom.

Butch and I have been a hot item for a while now. So I seduced Freddy, for the hell of it. Not only that, I started makin' goo-goo eyes at Wally, which drove Butch batshit.

I was caught with Freddy, of course – both Dad and the Overseer were pretty steamed. After a tense meeting in the Overseer's office, Dad told me to stop screwing around…then gave me a handful of condoms and told me if I was gonna screw around anymore, to use 'em. Sure, he was disappointed in me – but I can live with that.

It's gonna get real fun tonight at the Overseer's Day party.

I put on my dress and head towards the mess hall when Butch grabs my arm and drags me into a maintenance closet. "What the fuck are you thinking? I thought we were goin' steady!" he hisses at me.

"We are." I reply.

"What happened?" he squeezes my arm tightly, painfully. I put on my most pathetic mask.

"He made me, Butch."

"That's a lie! Tunnel Snakes don't take each other's girls!" he snarls.

"What? Scared that he's more of a man than you?" I retort. His arm swings back, and he slaps me in the mouth. I'm instantly wet.

I grab his jacket, pull him towards me, and kiss him, forcefully. He fights at first, then softens when he realizes my enthusiasm. I break my mouth away from his. "Now." I turn around, flip up my dress, and pull down my panties.

He can't help himself.

The party is awfully tense. I get a thrill that I'm the one that's made it that way.

Freddy asks me for a dance, and then Wally cuts in. Butch stalks up, shoves them both back, and the brawl is on. All the adult males in the room struggle to get the teenagers under control. I back away to the wall, with a smirk on my face. Dad meets my eyes, and shakes his head. "Young lady, we're going home." He grabs my arm and drags me back to our room.

Once in private, he gives me a pill. "Take this. God knows you didn't use a condom."

"But Daddy, I didn't do anything." I chirp, sweetly.

"Oh, stop lying." He hands me a glass of water. "I don't know who you slept with, but I know you slept with someone. You're my daughter." I toss the pill in my mouth, and wash it down. He shakes his head, mumbles, "What did I do to deserve this?"

"Deserve what? Are you ashamed of me?" I accuse.

"I just wish you could control yourself. Until you're paired up. Why you turn those boys against each other, I'll never know." He sighs.

"Because it's fun." I say, defiantly.

His eyebrows shoot up. "Excuse me…what did you say? It's 'fun'?"

"Yeah. It's boring here. I have to get some entertainment somewhere."

"And manipulating people is the best way for you to do that?"

"I like it."

"Well…try to stop it. For a while. Until things die down." He sighs. "I'm going to catch Hell from the Overseer for this." He meets my eyes. "I hope it was worth it."

I smile.