Note: Haha this sucker ain't going nowhere

(minor edits to chapters 5, 7, and 8)

One week after he'd walked away, he'd immediately turned around and gone back. Shameful, he knew. Not the going back, but the fact that he'd walked away at all. The fact that he'd taken a week to come back to his senses and realized how much of an ass he'd been.

God, he was such an asshole. He'd left her high and dry on the bridge of Rivet City, left her crying and vulnerable... left her without anyone to turn to. How could he do that to Emily? His heart was broken, thinking about how badly he'd treated her. She would never want to be around him again―

But he'd been so damn angry at her―

No, no, it wasn't―yes. Yes, it was her fault. All the horrible things that happened to her, her poor judgement in Annapolis. Everything he'd tried to do, everything she'd done, the outcome of those things. The blame. Elder Lyons gave him that option, to take the blame. Emily didn't get that option. She knew she was at fault, but Lyons held him accountable because he'd been commanding officer. He took the blame for everyone in Annapolis, for failing to maintain order.

He broke the Chain, he let her antics get the best of him. He took action where he shouldn't have, and completed the mission with stupendous failure. His fault. He was lucky he'd been allowed to carry a weapon out of the Citadel, he was such a shame to the Brotherhood.

Sarah hadn't understood. She hadn't had the chance to fall in love, yet. She didn't think his affection was normal, said he was obsessed with the Wanderer. She didn't know what he was going through, thought he was insane to feel so strongly about Emily. She hadn't had to fight for affection, been jealous, hadn't been tortured like he had been, over another person.

Sarah thought he'd let his affection get in the way of their work. That, he knew, was the truth. God, he―he shouldn't have let Emily help, should have told her to go away. Go home and be safe. Stay away from him and stay away from that slaver fortress.

But―God, the last time he tried to order her around she'd left him high and dry, and he'd thought he would never see her again. Tore his heart out, last time. Let her ghoul practically eat it in front of him, this time. Emily's hands were firmly wrapped around his heart and he could not budge her one way or another, by giving in or ordering her around.

And her ghoul... Her ghoul gave her away. To him, to the rival. Because that bastard had hurt her and he knew it, and by God Irving wanted to find him and splatter his brains out onto the ground for what he'd done to Emily―

He'd thought that was his chance to get in the door, when the ghoul gave her away. Emily had listened to him, for once in the three years he'd known her, and she'd done as he asked when he brought her back to the Capital Wasteland. He'd had her alone and with him, and she was open to suggestion. It was obvious at that point, he could have taken control and made her do what he'd wanted, been a family, been safe together.

But he couldn't. He was too angry. Too upset, because he knew then it was wrong to try to make her behave―

Who was he to order her around, when she'd been campaigning against slavery for so long at that point? If he told her to do as he said and she stopped her awful shenanigans, if she listened to him, it made him no worse than those slavers she wholeheartedly hated.

He wanted Emily. But he wanted Emily to be Emily, not the sad woman he'd met after the ghoul was "dead" and not the wretched creature he'd come across after her ghoul went under contract again.

Even if it meant she was scandalous and teasing or if she was playful and tempting. He wanted Emily to be herself, more than he wanted for himself to have her.

Maybe he was obsessed.

Emily had been at Rivet City for a while, before moving on. Irving found she'd annoyed the hell out of most people on the tub while wandering around in a drunken haze. A stab of fear in his heart, then, because he knew how bad she got when she was drunk. How... needy. And he was perfectly aware of her... talents.

He'd let her get to that point. God, it was all his fault. He deserved this pain.

She had a friend with her when she left; another Vault 101 resident, who'd escaped into the wastes like she had. A young man the same age as her, who had a similar drinking problem. Belle had nothing but good things to say about this Butch character. She wasn't as high of opinion about Emily, but that he attributed to minor jealousy. Butch had been a well-paying customer, and the ship's barber.

Emily left for Megaton some time before. Irving struck a deal with a merchant to get an escort out west, where this Megaton was. He'd been out of the D.C. area before Annapolis, many a time, but he couldn't remember every place he'd ever been. Came out to D.C. as a boy with family, and lost them.

The Brotherhood took him and his brother into their fold, made them into soldiers. He owed them everything. They took everything the boys had as payment and put it to use. They'd spent his brother's life, in the war against the Super Mutants. He made himself work through the pain, made himself lost in the simplicity of killing things. Worked himself to the bone to become better than all of them, so that they could not spend his life, too.

It had been an existence fraught with loneliness, until he'd met Emily.

His heart hurt like hell. Hid head hurt, too. Hurt all over, really. Felt like he was going to die if he didn't find her. He needed to find her. She made him feel alright.

He was losing it, again. Nothing bothered him, right now, not even his expulsion from the Brotherhood―the loss of his entire life's work, all his merit for being a Brotherhood soldier, the status of being a member of the Lyon's Pride. But the idea that Emily had gone off into the wastes as a wreck with another wreck walking beside her... The thought that she might be dead, right now, and he could do nothing to stop it? That she was lost to him, forever?

He... he didn't know what he would do, if it came to that. Last time―he'd sworn vengeance on

the slavers, and executed it. This time, it would only be him to blame. Himself to take revenge on. He rubbed his temples and tried not to think about it.

The merchant was selling power armor. Irving bought it just to own it, wondered where he'd gotten it. "Our wandering friend," he said, in a chipper voice. "I hear tale her house was destroyed recently."

"Explain," Irving demanded.

Wasn't much else to say about it. Megaton had been at war with raiders for years. This time, they'd tunneled under the wall of town and made short work of a metal shack near the entry to the town. Turned out it was Emily's house. She hadn't been inside; the young man she was with had been killed, but she was lucky to have not been in the building when it fell off of the supports.

He had to get to Megaton. If she had nowhere to go, had lost her friend in the attack, and she was still drinking―

They came to Megaton in the middle of the day, trudging without stop over the rocks and roads. Irving did recall that he had been this way, once before. He remembered the little town with the robot guarding the gates, but only vaguely. It had been such a long time ago, for him.

His life was not so much different, than it had been before. Forced to eke out an existence in the wastes. The only real difference was that he was now working as a temporary guard to the caravan to pay for his food, rather than scavenging through junk for caps.

As they approached the town, he saw her. His breath caught in his throat as it always did. God, she was beautiful. Even when she'd been injured, her face smashed in by raiders, she was beautiful. From her rich brown hair to those sparkling blue eyes―eyes that were slowly dimming after a few years of shit heaped upon her by the wasteland―to her obvious physical assets.

He stared, he couldn't help it. Not so long ago, he would have been imagining her undressing in front of him, preparing for bed. He wouldn't even care if she was wearing power armor, or wearing a trashy nightgown. He loved her, everything about her. And he knew the feel of those soft lips on his. He might have imagined her touching him before, but now―all he could feel now was her mouth on his, and how it had made his heart beat faster than anything.

How he'd been so scared of her, that she would reject him. And when she had... Irving sighed and put his hand to his heart, clenching it into a fist. God, such pain was not meant for a man. He was still terrified for her. Still wanted to protect her.

The merchant elbowed him and told him she was the Wanderer who'd sold him the power armor. He knew that already, ignored the man.

Emily was standing with a group of men and women outside of the gates, being spoken to by a black man in a long coat and a cowboy hat. Irving kept his head down as the merchants took up a position near and watched this group with interest.

They were mostly ordinary wastelanders. Emily had changed her leather armor for a merc outfit, baring her stomach. She was watching the man in charge with a nervous look, fiddling with her infiltrator in her hands. He was going on about some raiders in the nearby school, and about the attempt to tunnel under the town.

Irving had already heard that. His eyes picked up on something else, something far more disturbing. An older tanned man was watching Emily, his eyes starting low and sweeping up. He cracked a grin that could only be called knowingly deviant, staring at her behind.

He didn't like that. It meant one thing, and Irving knew how Emily had acted, in the past. If this was the replacement for her ghoul―

He was his competition.

God, she'd fallen low, picking some leering old man. He never should have left her at Rivet City.

"Alright, folks, let's head out," the man in the cowboy hat said, waving them north. "Sooner we get out there, the sooner we can come home." He began to lead the way, and Emily followed at his side. They talked as they walked, Emily staring up at this leader, her eyes intent on his.

Maybe there was more competition than he'd thought―

Irving closed his eyes and swallowed hard, and went into the town.