She woke up, propped against a rock under a set of cliffs, with Jericho standing in front of her. Stared around her at the area, looking over a huge dip in the land.

To the southwest was a tall building partially hidden behind an overpass. To the northwest was her goal, a garage that might hold some information. Elder Lyons had soldiers out searching for more, but there were so many Super Mutants around the D.C. ruins, even he doubted that their reconnaissance would prove useful.

Lillie rubbed her eyes, staring at the surrounding area. She hated the monochrome―it screwed with her ability to tell how much damage she was actually doing, and jarred her senses. It had very little effect on her navigation of the wastes, considering the Capital was fairly lacking in color, but...

She stopped herself, lowering her hands as she leaned against rock, and stared at them. Blood flecked her knuckles, glistening in the light of full moon. She'd almost forgotten―

Lillie sat straight up, glancing at Jericho, remembering. What happened with Moriarty, what he'd talked her into doing. She felt sick to her stomach, knowing she'd―

She'd killed a man in cold blood. Even if Moriarty had sold any information about her, it wouldn't have mattered. That flimsy pretense she'd given him... her excuse for doing what she had, though she really hadn't wanted to actually kill him...

She groaned and covered her face, closing her eyes. She hadn't even thought she could kill him. He'd forced her hand, calling out for the ghoul bartender, and she'd―she didn't even see what she'd done until it was over with―

A horrible way to die. Lillie shuddered, feeling the urge to cry. Could have put him down any other way, and it would have been more humane... he'd bled so much!

She was no stranger to violence. Didn't think seeing blood would ever bother her, that badly. When she'd stabbed Moriarty in the shoulders, it all went onto the floor. But, after she'd put her knives into his eyes―

Lillie stared down at her arms, shivering in the moonlight. She was covered in his blood, still. When she'd... she'd stabbed him in the eyes, after that―when Jericho stomped on his head―

She shivered and closed her eyes, but she could still see the blood splashing up onto her, feel his still-warm body twitching under her, hear the laughter Jericho gave when Moriarty finally stopped breathing. She could hear his praises for her, telling her how great it was that she'd done that―and Gob's horrified expression as he poked his head into the back room, as they were fleeing the scene―

Jericho was an ex-raider bastard. Everything that he did now, was something he'd done before and was... expected. Him acting like a raider was normal.

She was just―just a stupid little girl, like Jericho kept calling her. A stupid little girl who couldn't help but become a bastard when being taught by someone like him.

She should've remembered that, when he'd said he had a plan. When she let him take the lead, she'd damned herself to those actions. Accepted the... she groaned, closing her eyes. The inevitable outcome of having Jericho as a mentor.

Lillie opened her eyes to shoot him a glare and saw him chewing on something, watching the wastes. Jericho was just as bloody as she was, but the blood on his armor was drying. Her armor was still wet. How―how was that―

She ran a hand over her knuckles, trying to wipe it off. Nothing happened. She moved her hands wider, rubbing at the plates of combat armor, feeling the hardness, but nothing came off. Why wasn't the blood coming off? She rubbed at the armor pieces, as hard as she could, but she could still see―

Lillie breathed a little faster, moving her hands over both her shoulders. No, it had to come off, she couldn't―didn't want it on her anymore―

A gunshot cracked in the distance, immediately catching her attention. Jericho stood up straighter, holding up his rifle. Eyes down the sight, striding forward a few steps, searching for the source of the sound. She blinked away the haze in her eyes and looked back down at her armor.

Lillie, you're losing it, she told herself. You've been in the wastes for too long and now you've gone insane, just like the rest of them. There's no blood on you. Look!

She looked. There wasn't any. She blinked and breathed out, confused. Why―how―what was going on? Her mind was playing tricks on her, for sure.

Her hands shook. Her stomach growled. She hadn't slept much, and when she had slept, she didn't feel safe. Even with Jericho watching out for her, she couldn't help but feel like she'd never be safe, never again―not if―

Not if Colonel Autumn was dead. He was gone. Gone forever.

She moaned, lowly, and pulled her legs up to her chest. Rubbed her forehead on her knees and tried not to cry. Felt lost. She'd gone too far, too long―stuck out here at the direction of a madman, even―

She was... like Alice, down the rabbit hole. She'd been in this messed-up place for too long, now. Even the impossible felt possible, and―she'd joined in the dance. Will you, won't you?

Lillie felt her thoughts slipping away into fantasy again. She was too tired fight it. It was easier to imagine she was anywhere else, just like she had as a little girl. How appropriate, she thought, bitterly.

"Musta run off," Jericho muttered, as he came back to their temporary camp. "You awake? Let's go before whatever the fuck that was, comes back."

"Little girls eat eggs quite as much as serpents do, you know," she mumbled, trying to remember. She was Alice, out among the grass in the woods, out of sorts in her size―

"The fuck are you on about, now," he said, staring at her. "Get up, stupid, we're leavin'."

"One side will make you taller, and the other side wi―" Jericho grabbed her arm and pulled her up, dragging her away from the rocks.

It wasn't very long after they'd started traveling that real trouble cropped up. A few radscorpions, a bloatfly or two, no other enemies around that were of much concern to Jericho. He dragged her along the wasteland floor without stopping, his head turning in every which way. After a time, she found herself wondering who Jericho was. She couldn't quite remember who she was, even.

They passed a power station and ran into a group of raiders, the first human life she'd seen since they left Megaton. Jericho swore repeatedly as he shot and killed the first two. Lillie watched him, standing back and letting him do all the work.

"You wanna die, be my fuckin' guest!" he snapped at her. Stared knives into her eyes, waiting for her to say something. She should have been helping deter the threat, but...

Lillie stared up at the white sky, remembering when she'd left Raven Rock for the first time. Felt like ages ago that she'd even been there, now. Felt like she had always been outside and the bunker was only a brief memory stuck in her mind as a tempting daydream―

What would Alice do? She mulled over the thought in her head. Alice was always giving herself advice, usually very good advice, even if she hadn't listened to herself.

And Alice had lost hope at times just like Lillie, but she never forgot that she needed to go home. Lillie wondered which point of the story she was at―was this the tea-party with the Hatter? Or was it the Caucus-Race? She couldn't think.

"I know who I was when I got up this morning, but I think I must have been changed several times since then," she mumbled. Tried to remember the Caterpillar's advice. "I can't explain myself..."

Jericho snorted and walked off, disappearing behind some rocks.

Lillie sat down on a rock and tried to straighten out her mind. It seemed impossible―

She was too disoriented to notice someone behind her, someone who crept and put their arms around her. One hand went to her mouth and the other grabbed at her weapon.

Immediately, she came back to reality. Lillie raised one arm, slapping the other hand onto the pistol before the assailant managed to disarm her, and jabbed her elbow backward as hard as she could. The deep-toned yelp of pain was satisfying―but not enough to stop her attacker.

The hand on the pistol jerked away, disarming her. It fell from their hands, flying out onto the rocks―Lillie flicked out her knife in the brief second she had, and jabbed backwards ineffectively.

The knife nicked a rough surface, but bounced off. He must be wearing heavy armor―she raised her other hand to dislodge the man's hand on her mouth, prying at his leather-covered fingers.

She actually breathed a sigh of relief when, like some vile sort of guardian angel, Jericho swept into the scene. The report of his rifle was all she could hear, followed by ringing in her ears, and the back her head was suddenly wet. Warm blood splattered over her neck, and a chunk of skull dripping with brain matter landing on her shoulder.

Jericho grabbed her by one arm and roughly dragged her to ground level, pulling her closer to himself. "Not a fuckin' game," he snarled, breathing hotly on her face. She turned her head and coughed a little, but didn't reply.

He let her go after a moment and glanced around, as she picked a few pieces of gore from her shoulders. He was acting―paranoid, like he had back in Megaton. She found that curious.

"Jericho," she said, her voice shaking more than she wanted to admit. "Thank you."

Jericho fixed a glare on her, raising up a hand in a jerking motion as if to backhand her. "I fuckin' told you," he said. "You're gonna get your ass killed with this shit."

"I'm sorry," she mumbled, looking at the ground apologetically.

"I ain't like to go out like a stupid bitch―" He glanced around again. "We need to get the fuck out of here, okay? Let's go."

"Why are you acting twitchy, Jericho?" she asked him, evenly, brushing a piece of brain matter from her neck.

"The fuck you care!" he snapped. His foot kicked out and contacted the headless body of the raider who'd grabbed her. "Let's. Fuckin'. Go!"

"But why are you so angry," she muttered to herself, reaching down to pick up the pistol.

He reached out a hand and slapped her across the face, grabbing her cheeks with one hand and squeezing her mouth as he stared her in the eyes. "You stupid fuckin'―"

Lillie put the pistol to his head, narrowing her eyes at him. "I trusted you," she started, angrily. Her words were jumbled by the awkwardness of his hand squeezing her face. "But how can I, if you don't tell me what's going on!"

"You got a fuckin' map on your pissy little wrist computer?" he growled, his eyes falling to the Pip-Boy on her wrist.

Lillie lowered her pistol and raised her other arm, bringing up the map. Jericho let go of her face and held up his rifle, glancing around the area again. She could see the terrain information, but nothing about the local or large-view map stood out to her. "What am I looking for," she asked him, confused.

"Big fuckin' raider encampment," he muttered. "Called Evergreen Mills."

She shook her head at him. "I don't know where that is, and it's not on my map―"

"Goddammit," he swore, gripping his rifle a little tighter.

"...Are we avoiding it?" she asked him, tilting her head up to gauge his expression.

"I ain't dyin' today," he growled. A tiny sound behind him, a small rock falling from the higher ones piled up about them, made him jump in fright.

Lillie lowered her arm and considered him for a moment. "The ones you're so scared of," she said, even more curious than before.

"Look, kid," he started, turning wide eyes onto her, "them Enclave fucks might do some bad shit to us, right?" She nodded, solemnly. She expected they would execute him on the spot, even. "Alright, well―" he glanced around once more "―these raider fucks find us, we'll probably get invited to dinner."

"You mean to say, they would eat us," she inferred.

Jericho gave her a sick look and nodded. "Yeah, and if we're lucky, it'll be after they kill us."

Lillie nodded, and moved forward. "Let's be on our way, then," she said, calmly.