Chapter 14: To be yours

The fog rested over the water and the wasteland seemed to be asleep. Everything looked so serene. For once, the outside was calm. The sky was gray and muggy. The only sounds were the river water gently splashing against the rocks and bow of the ship.

I sat down gently on the deck with my legs dangling over the edge. A sharp pain jolted through my body and I adjusted my sitting position.

Harkness really gave it to me. And left. That was my job. I was a real asshole to Charon last night. I should find a way to make it up to him.

Charon exited the market with a bowl of cereal. He handed it to me wordlessly.

"Thank you, Charon."

He grunted in response. Something was definitely up with him. He hasn't made eye contact and he refuses to say anything besides one word answers. I was losing him.

"What's wrong, Charon? You've been acting funny ever since we left the room."

"Nothing." He replied.

I took a bite of my cereal. He was being childish. "Clearly there's something going on."

"No." He snapped.

"Fine, if you wanna be like that, you can be. Be an asshole." I took another bite of my cereal.

"We need to get going, mis-" he paused momentarily, "Eleanor."

I glared at him from my bowl of cereal. "Yeah."

I quickly finished my bowl and stood up to give it back to Gary. Charon reached for the bowl.

"I'll get."

"No, I shall take it."

I looked up at him and failed at trying to intimidate him. He stared at me with hard eyes.

"I said I will get it. I can do things for myself."

"Are you implying that you no longer need my services?" He asked with a hint of something besides irritation.

"I never said that. You know I wouldn't give your contract to someone." I reasoned.

He was quiet for a moment. I couldn't read his face but something about his eyes seemed to be asking something.

"Permission to ask a question?"

"You know you don't need my permission for anything."

"Why don't you want to sell my contract?"

"Well," I started, "I don't want to risk you ending up with another Ahzrukhal. You don't deserve to be treated like that ever again. There are really shitty people that I feel I need to protect you from. I think of our relationship as 'I protect you and you protect me'." I smiled up at him.

His brows knit together in confusion. "You want to protect me?"

"Well, duh. You are mine. I am yours."

"You... are mine?" He whispered. It was more to himself than it was to me.

"Yeah. I am yours and you can't do a damn thing about it."

"You are my employer. I don't own you."

"Well then, I think there is something that needs to be done here."

"What do you mean?" He asked.

I need to find some paper and a pen. I grabbed him by the arm and dragged him into the market place. People moved out of our way and I rushed past the various shops and dropped the bowl on the counter as we past Gary's Galley. I rushed up the stairs and into the stairwell.

"Where are we going? I can't properly protect you with you pulling me through a boat."

"I have an idea and I think you will like it."

"What are you doing?" He asked as I tugged him through the halls and into the Capital Preservation room.

"Abraham, do you have any pens and paper I can use?"

"Well, I think I may have some somewhere around here. Why?"

I pushed Charon out of the room and locked the door. He banged on the door in protest and yelled about protecting me but I was already down the stairs and looking for paper.

"I'm making a contract. Charon has one so I think it would be fair if I had one."

"Are you crazy? You are willingly becoming a slave!" Abraham said shaking me by the shoulders.

"Shh, do you want the whole ship to hear you? I know what I am doing. Charon would never let my contract fall into the wrong hands. He'll protect me."

"You really are crazy."

"Can I have a pen?" I pulled a sheet of yellowed paper out from an old filing cabinet.

Abraham pulled back from me and pushed me up the stairs. "I am not going to let you hand your body over under my roof."

"Fine, I'll find someone else." I opened the door and slammed in shut to find Charon angrily kicking a potted plant.

"What are you doing?"

"I couldn't break the door so the plant had to take it."

"Don't be a plant bully. That plant may have a bad home life."

He glared at me and noticed my paper. "What's this?"

"I have half of the things I need. I need a pen."

I rummaged through the old suitcases in the hallway and came up empty. I explored the room adjacent and looked through the cabinets and desks. My fingers wrapped around something and I pulled it out. A pink pen with white hearts on it and engraving that read "Be my Valentine".

I dropped my arm on the nearest desk and slid the junk off with one swipe. I got to writing after a few minutes of trying to get the ink to run. Charon tried looking over my shoulder once and I swatted him away.

"Don't peek, cheater."

"I was just wondering what you were writing. How is this cheating if I don't even know what you are doing?"

I wrote a few more paragraphs out and signed the bottom left corner and left a blank on the left for him. I cut my finger with my pocket knife and dripped blood on the paper next to my name.

"What did you just do?" Charon wrenched my hand towards him and wrapped my finger in his shirt.

"I wrote a thing out." I handed him the contract with a smile.

"What is this?" He mumbled to himself as he read through it. When he was done reading it, his hand dropped to his side and he stared blankly.

"You should sign that so no one else does." I pointed at the blank.

"You do not know what you are asking."

"I know exactly what I am asking, Charon. I was being serious about being yours. Now I am yours in the same way that you are mine."

"You are insane."

"But now you have to deal with it. I am yours, Charon." I wrapped my arms around him gently.

"I can't believe you did this." He pulled me closer to him and crushed me with his massive arms.

"I think you should sign it." I mumbled into his chest.

"I shall." He let go of me and leaned over the desk to sign the contract.

"I wrote it the way so you are the only one who can hold my contract."

"I know, smoothskin." He stood up and tucked the paper into his bag.

"I am yours, Charon."

"And I am yours, Eleanor."

"Oh Jesus Mother Mary. Fuck this place so much!"

The Jefferson Memorial was so crowded with mutants that you couldn't turn a corner without hearing about how much they wanted to eat you. It was like Jack and the Beanstalk.

"You like that?" Charon hollered from behind a desk. He chucked a frag grenade over the edge and it landed to my left.

"Oh shit!" I grabbed it and hurled it over my head towards a group of mutants. It exploded in the air around their heads.

I turned to glare at Charon whose face was a mix of shock and shame.

"I should have been more careful. I am sorry."

"We can talk about it later. We need to clean this place out." I rounded the corner to see the wall dripping with mutant chunks. They were all missing heads and upper torsos.

Charon followed me down the halls and in to the basement. He pushed me against the wall and led the way into a room full of bunk beds. He readied his shotgun and sneaked over to the door to the left. The roaring of a mutant alerted several others and before I knew it, I hit the wall far to the right. I reached for my side and felt a large rough hand on my arm pull me up painfully and throw me at Charon.

Charon rolled me over and on to the floor and everything was hazy. Loud thumping and gunshots and screaming filled my rushing ears. After several minutes of fighting, the edges of my vision were fading to black. Large hands picked me up from off the ground and carried me. I couldn't see or hear anything but what I could feel was a soft mattress under me.

A sharp needle brought me to my senses and I could feel someone shaking my face and I could hear them calling my name. The voice was raspy and panicked. Something lay below the surface of that voice.

"Eleanor! Wake up!"

I opened my eyes slowly to find Charon very blurry and there were three of him.

"Why are there so many of you?" I asked groggily.

"What are you talking about? You need to see a doctor." He injected me with another stimpak.

"I should be fine. You're here."

"No, you won't be fine. We need to go back to Rivet City." He picked me up and carried me out of the basement.

"No. I don't want to go back there." I whined.

"What? Why not?"

"I don't want to see Harkness ever again."

"I'll make sure of it."