Virgil

I ask to go outside again, and I'm denied. What – are they afraid that I'll run away? With no weapon, dressed like I am – and no idea where I am? It's driving me batty. The rest of these people grew up in this cursed cave. I'm used to clouds, sky, wind, the sun on my face, and the dirt beneath my feet.

Emily doesn't understand, but she tries her best to console me. She doesn't know the reason they're keeping me down here, and if Joseph knows, he's not telling. I pass a lot of time reading in the library, practicing in the range with the Enclave's bewildering array of energy weapons, or in their gym, where I shoot the shit with the soldiers that have been outside recently. If I can't go outside, I can at least find a vicarious thrill in the stories of people with much more freedom than I have.

It's been about two months, I think. I'm not sure. When you can't see the sun, it's hard to judge. I don't even know if it's day or night – all I have to go on are the clocks in here, and for all I know, they tell me the time on Jupiter.

Wendy and Dad pop into my thoughts at odd intervals. I wonder where they are; what they're doing. I don't have to worry about Wendy – she's got a good head on her shoulders, and Dad is more than capable of keeping her safe. I just hope they aren't stupid enough to try to break into here to save me. Not that I really need saving, per se. I haven't been harmed. I haven't been starved, or tied up. Just confined to the bunker.

It didn't take me long to get used to the daily schedule in here. Right now, I have no responsibilities, so the lights, color-coded decals, and warning buzzers mean nothing to me. The culture is bewildering. I'm used to brassy accents, loud talkers, laughter, singing, and good-natured ribbing. Everything here is subdued, polite to a fault. Even the broadest of smiles show no teeth – it's as if their happiness means nothing; all that matters is restoring the United States government to its pre-war glory.

The people in here are as gray as the walls.

I start to think of what it would be like to live here. If I couldn't get out, I might as well try to be as happy as I can be. I look at Emily. She smiles back at me, shyly.

Charon

We stand at the entrance to the Mall metro.

"I'm not going in there." Wendy's voice is clipped; panicked.

"It's the only way there."

"We'll go back to the Citadel then, the way they took us with the car."

I sigh. "Wendy, that would put us miles out of our way. This is quicker." I pull back the gate with a screech of tortured metal and step in. "Now come on." I grab her arm and drag her in after me, and she starts screaming bloody murder. "Shit!" I drop her arm and press my hands to my temples. Her screams were so shrill, it felt like someone was stabbing my brain from inside my ear.

She runs out, and into the sunlight, whimpering and breathing heavily. Goddamit, we don't have time for this. I do some math in my head. She's what…a hundred and twenty pounds? Probably less. Her pack must weigh at least seventy. With a rest or two, I could probably do it, no problem. Hopefully the Brotherhood cleared the ferals out of these goddamn tunnels, or I'll be in for a world of shit.

I follow her outside, drop my pack, and start to rummage through it. I extract our first aid kid, and find what I'm after. "Hey Wendy," I call to her. "Can you come over here for a second?"

"Sure." She strides confidently over to me and crouches. "What are you looking f – "

I hit her in the shoulder with one of our pre-measured doses of Med-X, and she stares at me in shock. She exclaims, "Charon, you didn't – "as I gently lower her to the ground.

Now the fun part.

I'll have to carry my shit, her shit, and her.

Fuckin' grand.

I have to stop every so often to check her Pip-Boy and make sure that we're going the right direction. It hasn't changed much down here in almost fifty years – apparently, they're focusing on above-ground first – but I don't want to risk getting lost. If she wakes up down here, she's gonna freak out, bad.

Luckily, it's largely empty – radroaches here and there, but those things can crawl into pretty much anywhere.

Anywhere we have to go above ground, I grab everything and book it. They said they cleared it out, but I've lived this long by not trusting anybody. Well, almost. I did trust Mallie – to a point.

I find a little nook by Friendship Station, and set everything down, to wait for her to wake up. I didn't have a lot of time to fiddle with the dosage, so she'll probably be out for a while longer. I feel both lonely and content – lonely because I haven't been alone for as long as I can remember, and content because it's nice to have a little time without chatter. I crack open a bottle of irradiated water and take a swig, rubbing my aching leg muscles.

She starts to wake as the sun's setting.

"Oof, where am I?" She rubs her head as she sits up.

"Friendship Heights."

She points at me, angrily. "Oh, YOU'RE in trouble, buddy!"

"Do you wish to punish me?" I ask.

"I – what? Punish? Well, maybe. That wasn't cool." She squints at me, and crosses her arms over her chest.

I snort. "Well, I had to do something. It's the only way here."

"You didn't have to DRUG me!" she yells.

"What else could I have done? Drag you through the metro, screamin' your head off?" I ask. "Well, until you ordered me to put you down. Then we'd be back at square one." I light a cigarette.

"You could have talked to me. Persuaded me."

I laugh. "I tried! Besides, I ain't a psychiatrist. I ain't good at holdin' hands and talkin' people through things."

"Well…don't do that again. Drugging me without telling me first."

"As you command."

"Don't start to think you got away with it. I'm still really fuckin' pissed off at you."

"Has Virgil ever told you how cute you are when you're angry?"

She screams in frustration as I laugh maniacally.

We trudge west until we find a small house. It appears deserted, so I'm in favor of finding a place to pack it in. It's dark and getting a little too cold for my comfort. We go in carefully, me with shotgun at the ready, and Wendy with an Assault Rifle. We find a couple radroaches, but the place is otherwise largely intact. Messy, but it's four walls and a roof – for the wasteland, that's considered lucky. Plus, it doesn't look like it's been lived in recently.

"Wanna stop here for the night?"

"Is it getting too cold for you?" she asks.

"I am a bit stiff."

"All right, here it is. Let's barricade the door and eat dinner."

We tuck into some Salisbury steak and Instamash, splitting some Fancy Lads for dessert. She lights both our cigarettes, since she saw me struggle with the snack cake packaging earlier. "Gimme your hand," she says, holding out hers. I hold out my right hand to her, and she grasps it. "Holy shit, you're cold! Why didn't you tell me earlier?"

"Was there anything that you could have done about it?"

She frowns. "Yeah – I could've got you some warm clothes in Underworld."

"We need to save our caps. I'll cope."

"I'll decide what's important to spend our caps on," she replies, brusquely.

"Yes, Wendy."

"Let's go to bed."

Charon

The sun's about to come up. I can see a hint of light on the horizon, and I light a cigarette. Wendy stirs, rolls over, and I glance briefly at her bare back and sigh. I was cold last night, and she…I clench my teeth. I'll think about it later.

Guilt and grief go well together, I think. I stand, creep over to the window and look out, resting my hand on the sill. I'm not here. I'm in another room, a long time ago, far away.

With her.

Forty Years Ago

Maleficent

I tell him to use me. To do what he wants with me. I don't want comfort this time. I want to submit, to lose myself. I want to be his; for a little while. To take orders. To surrender.

He pushes me onto my hands and knees on the edge of the bed, and I bite into the pillow to muffle any noise I might make. Don't want the rest of the inn knowing what we're doing – we might get fired, and while we don't need the caps, I want to keep moving.

There is no foreplay – we don't have time for it, and I don't need it anyway. Just the thought of him taking me makes me wet. He dives in with enthusiasm, thrusting vigorously. I moan into the pillow, and tighten around him. His fingernails dig into me as he pulls me to meet each thrust of his hips.

He breaks away abruptly, with a heavy slap to my ass. I sigh, my insides throbbing. "I'm not done. Roll over." He wants to look into my eyes again. He likes to watch my face, see my expression while he's dominating me. It turns him on, and it gets my motor running, too.

He pushes me into the mattress, covers my mouth, and I lock my legs around his waist as he enters me, forcefully. I wrap my arms around him; feel the hard muscles in his back tense and relax. Our eyes lock, and I feel him shiver. He's getting close. He pulls my head to the side, and I can feel his hot breath on my neck, in my ear. He finds his favorite spot and bites down as his whole body stiffens, his grunts muffled in the flesh of my neck.

He takes his hand off my mouth, and we lie there, breathing hard. My hands explore his back as he brushes hair away from my eyes. He kisses me on the forehead, on the lips. "I have to get back to my room." I say. We get separate rooms – adjacent, if possible – to make it easier to arrange a rendezvous when we stay over in a town. It's easier for me to sneak into his room than it is for him to sneak into mine.

He rolls off me, careful not to crush my leg. "Not yet." He says, wrapping his arm around me, and reaches over to retrieve the cigarettes from the nightstand. He shakes out two, lights both, and hands me one. I take a long drag, exhale.

"Ever think of where you'd be if you hadn't met me?" I ask.

He squeezes my shoulders. "I thank my lucky stars every fuckin' day." He replies, dreamily.

"Yeah…you'd probably still be moldering away in that corner. I'd probably be dead. Shot by some dipshit slaver when I tried to take over Eulogy's operation."

"That was your plan?" he asks, with a smirk.

"Yep. Sidle up next to him and make sure he couldn't run his business without me. Once he let me get close enough, I could slit his throat in the middle of the night." Charon grunts. "It'd been easy to blame it on one of his slave whores." I add. He shakes his head. "But then you happened." He kisses the top of my head.

I sigh. "Lemme up. I gotta clean up and get outta here before someone notices I'm gone." I hop up, plant my cigarette in my mouth, clean up briefly with a washrag, and then start pulling my clothes on.

"I left some money on the dresser for you." He says, jokingly.

"Oh, really? Am I your 'kept woman' now?"

"Well, now that I make more money than you…" he smirks.

Shrugging, I say, "Well, you know what they say: you don't pay 'em to screw ya; ya pay 'em to leave." He buries his face in a pillow as his body convulses with laughter.

"See you on the trail tomorrow, Romeo."