The ghoul found the quiet stillness of the early hours of Boston somewhat soothing. Braxton had been too quiet, at times. Like a graveyard, full of unburied corpses and a crypt just beneath their feet. That city had been suffocating; Boston was...fluid. Open. Rich in the variety of characters that roamed its streets and always ever-changing in the hierarchy between the majority of factions. The past year had been the most entertaining. Roman had witnessed the dramatic entrance of the Brotherhood of Steel descend upon the Commonwealth symbolically against the rising of the sun...to then also watch the fiery crash of its downfall, trailing like a comet from its high seat in the clouds.

The newly appointed General of the Minutemen had wasted no time cutting the cards in terms of power. Dozens of recruits for the cause, dressed and armed with their laser muskets, now roamed the majority of the roads as a bold statement of security. The skirmishes between disorganized raiders and the armed militia were becoming fewer by the day. Caravans were repopulating the area; ghouls were officially allowed back into Diamond City (not without the occasional bigotry), and synths were no longer the boogeyman hiding under settlers' beds.

The Institute was now its own tomb, much as Braxton had become, and Roman found he did not care for any of it.

There was a faint glow of light just coming over the horizon. A door opened behind him, and he half-turned his head to the sight of his employer standing on the balcony beside him, her naked breasts protruding from her open robe.

Carol was busily trying to light a smoke, unaware of her thoughtless interruption to the towering ghoul's private time of reprieve. She eyed him through the hazy shadow the early hours seemed to cast; he was completely naked, arms resting over the railing and his eyes aglow, watching her, waiting for any hint or sign of a command. Roman was good at following orders, very good.

Their previous night together attested to that.

"Why are you awake?" she questioned from the side of her mouth, her cigarette still dangling from the other corner. It wasn't a question of concern. Carol did not care for Roman, and he did not care for her. Their relationship was strictly power-play, and she always held whatever inch of rein over him that she could.

He had to answer. "I cannot sleep."

"Why?" She took a drag, studying him with a narrowed slit of her eyes.

He shifted his weight, and a hand curled into a relaxed fist. Roman turned his head back to the cityscape, appreciating the way the small beacons of light in buildings and streets seemed to mirror the starry sky. "I am restless."

"Over what?"

And this was how their conversations would proceed. He would directly answer her question, in the most straightforward way possible. He did not have to elaborate unless told to do so. There was no appreciation for her constantly worming into his brain, but when they were alone together on nights like these, it was all she would really do. She always had to be in control of something; the lab, the Lackins twins, him.

Roman cleared his throat. "Braxton."

Silence. Carol remained in spot, inhaling on her cigarette as she studied this man standing before her; he was so very incredibly powerful in stature, and had amazing abilities in terms of espionage and violence. He was her greatest asset, and she desired to keep him that way.

"What the fuck are you thinking about Braxton for?" It had been ten years since they left that burning pile, with the buildings alit like tinder and ghouls screaming like wisps of smoke. "What are you thinking about?"

"I do not appreciate Braxton as I do for Boston."

"Elaborate." A flick of ashes at her feet.

He paused for a moment too long, his indication he really did not care to speak his mind. Carol took a step forward, her small height laughable in comparison to him, and yet he was completely powerless against her.

"Roman, are you thinking about X-17?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

"Because-" Carol hated the mention of that test subject. Evelyn had nearly cost her everything she didn't have left to lose. Roman did not feel animosity towards his twin sister...he did not know her, but he could still see those wide eyes and wiggling hands and small feet pattering down the hallway in chase of him. They both had had something taken from them beyond their choice.

"Answer me damnit." Now she was cold, clipped...nervous.

Roman stood straight and released the breath he had been holding. With a turn, he faced his employer fully, noting how she slightly shrunk back from his intimidating nature. That made him feel good.

"Because she is still alive."

Morello Espinoza was a smalltime gangster, and fulltime dick in the ass. Russel had been kept waiting in her seat for longer than she anticipated, nervously glancing at the clock ticking away on his desk. He held the Pip-Boy 3000 in his hands, twirling the knobs and reading the green script as he passively smoked a cigar.

When he finally lowered the damn thing from his face, he shook it at her. None of the information made any sense to him. "Why would that fuck have something like this?"

A shrug of her shoulders. "Isn't that what you're supposed to tell me?" she nipped sarcastically.

"Watch it," he reprimanded. He tossed the thing to the side, puffing smoke from his lips. "So that's all you got?"

"It was the only thing he kept locked in his office." Another glance at the clock. They were going to ask questions, at this point. "I need to get back."

A chortled snort. "Who the fuck you working for? Me? Or them?"

She had no retort; she kept her arms crossed and looked down at her feet.

"You don't know when he's coming back?"

"No."

"Where the fuck you say he went? Barston-?"

"Braxton," she repeated for what felt like the hundredth time. There was a creeping annoyance in her tone, and he gave her that look.

"You giving me a fucking attitude right now?" A slam of his hands on the desk. "You being fucking ungrateful to me, Russ, to me? After all the shit I did for a little undeserving whore such as you?"

She kept her lips pursed tight, shrinking back into the moldy cushion of her seat in an attempt to feel as small as possible. If Morello wasn't fucking her ass bent over the desk, then he was fucking her ear with manipulative threats. At least the damn ghoul never spoke to her in such a fashion, and her crewmates didn't stab each other in the back with a literal knife, trying to gain rank amongst their fellow members.

Morello's gang was lawless. It was disorganized. He didn't know half the men who supposedly held his best interests as their own; it was nothing like the Black Cazadors. They had resources, a molded crew. They got paid. Morello himself had to use them for clearing out a rising faction threatening their doorstep. Morello didn't have the manpower, firepower, or the balls to face them head-on. So Cross had them wiped out instead...but not without a very high fee.

She raised her freckled face to the man still berating her, his voice fuzzy as she stared at his portly visage, the sheen of sweat across his forehead he always seemed to have, his shrewd eyes and chipped front tooth. Morello didn't keep a journal full of poetry to read each night; he didn't put himself on the battlefield, taking shots to the chest while still firing away; he didn't gently place his large, rugged palm to her cheek as he explored her mouth with a bashful hesitance.

She squirmed, thinking of the situation she was now in. Morello wasn't an idiot...but he had made a simple mistake in thinking she was one. Without him realizing it, she had a very tactful upper hand.

...who was she working for?

"So, how'd ya get her out?" Cross snapped a bubble, his hands deep inside his jacket pockets. He was being indulged in a story about the incident when Evelyn had gotten herself stuck in a crevice she had claimed to be small enough to fit in.

"I had to cut away her clothing-" Charon popped his neck to the side, grunting. "-and slather her in grease." A smirk twitched at his lips, but it didn't fully commit. "She was most displeased."

Charon, what're you- DON'T YOU FUCKING DARE YOU FUCKING MORON, I'LL-

"Must've been from all those fuckin' cakes," the merc joked. "And you two didn't have sex after that...not even a dirty thought?"

"No."

A disbelieving snort. "Don't know how ya did it."

Charon shrugged. "She was my employer, that was all."

"I know what I would've done," Cross started suggestively, and Charon threw him a dirty look. "Hey, what?! She probably would've liked it- she's got some weird fuckin' kinks."

"She had."

"What?"

Charon's offended glare had dissolved; it was left cold. "She had."

Cross snapped his mouth shut, the correction as painful as a slap to the face. They walked together in stifled silence, completely unaware of the woman they referred to in the past tense presently bumbling along through an irradiated swampy marsh, spitting curses and almost losing a shoe in the depthless muck.

Charon stole a glance behind him. The merc had his jacket open down the front, exposing his close-fitting dark green shirt and a hint of Evelyn's journal peeking out from underneath.

"What will you do with her journal?"

Cross snapped his head around, his hand subconsciously stroking the curled leather edges. His voice was casual, but his eyes were brimmed with grief. "Figure I'd give it back to her."

A solemn nod. "I am sure she would appreciate that."

"Yeah...me too." There was hesitancy. "...did, did you ever find her, um-"

"No," Charon answered before the question could be fully asked. "I did not."

Cross coughed; there was a painful bulge lodged in his throat. "Yeah, yeah, uh-you think, she, uh-"

Charon halted, forcing Cross to do the same as he rasped, "It will not help to think of such things. She was...prepared, in the end. You know that as well as I do. It makes no difference now."

The merc began to cry. "I know."

Charon had not seen him so consistently emotional for years now. Not once had Cross offered to come to the city of ghouls to pay homage to her. He never asked about his yearly visit; he pretended as though Braxton was some unreachable place, as though it wasn't real, as though she had never died...just vanished. Went up, in a ball of smoke. Poof. Gone. There was no physical evidence of her death, and so it made the fantasy and denial that much easier to believe.

Charon countered Cross' question from that starry night. "Do you think you will ever love another woman?"

The ghoul clenched his jaw shut, looking away with furious airs. "Fuck kind of question is that?"

"Do you?" Charon persisted. "Can you tell Evelyn goodbye?" A step closer. "Can you let go of that journal? Can you look at that recruit the way you did with her?"

BAM!

A fist decked into the side of Charon's face. He grunted in surprise, taking a few steps backward as his skull buzzed with the sensation of a thousand fire ants. The merc pointed a bony fingertip threateningly at his companion's face. There was unrestrained malice behind his hazy eyes, the curl of a snarl at his mouth. He was well aware of the terms of their contract, but at that moment, he didn't care.

"Don't you fuckin' ever ask that kind of question again. We fuckin' clear?" Any other man would have buckled at the knees from the pure hate pouring from his throat.

Charon rolled some blood around his cheeks; he had bit his tongue. He spat loudly to the side. "We are clear."

The merc reached inside his jacket, still riding high from his temper, and pulled out a crinkled note that Charon did not recognize. He whisked out his lighter, lit it on fire, and dropped it to his feet. It burned slowly, the edges fading to black as it reduced to nothing but ash. Cross then pulled out another pack of smokes, worked a cigarette at his lips, and took a long inhale.

The ferryman watched him, making no move to quell his bad habit like he had done before. Angry Cross was better than depressed Cross... It made him think, move his feet, press forward.

The smoke curled from his nostrils before being blown to the wind. "Carry on."

It had been a little over a week since her rude wake-up call from that liquid prison.

Evelyn had her hands held out to her sides as she precariously balanced walking along the edge of an overpass. A stumble, and she righted herself before taking the plunge to certain broken bones and a splattered skull down below. A hop down when she made it to the other side of the bridge, and she gripped the shoulders of her straps as she blinked up overhead to the rusted signs indicating which route to take. The sun met her eyes, and she sneezed.

The map had been studied more times than she cared to, at this point. Her fruitless efforts at least made her an expert in folding the damn thing, and it no longer attempted to carry her away as a makeshift parasail when it fully opened to the braying wind. A highway was followed with a hum in her throat and a snack at her fingers. The bits of frosting coating her lips were licked away as she climbed a skeleton of a water tower for a better view of her local surroundings. Her pack was left in its place as she walked to the tower's edge. The first mark on her route was no longer a dot on the horizon, as Braxton was now a solid ten days behind her.

The Cascades.

A glance down; the fall was sure to kill her. It would be no loss. The world had already moved on without her, and it would continue to do so, just as it always had.

How very selfish of you. She thought grimly. A sigh, and she laced her fingers together in an overhead stretch. If she kept this pace, she was sure to sleep in an actual bed and indulge in (hopefully) a hot shower by early evening. She needed one- that swamp had left her smelling atrocious. She turned her head. Charon was standing there with his powerful arms crossed, an expression of complete aggravation on his face.

What are you doing up there?

Uh, looking around, duh!

A shake of his head, a terse sigh.

This is not a game. Get down from there.

I think you're just jealous that you're too old to climb this-

He quickly started for the ladder.

-uh, I didn't mean it! Charon, no, wait!

She turned around. He was standing behind her, pissed, the heavy weight of his stature sounding creaks from the rusted rooftop beneath their feet.

If you do not come down this instance, I will ensure you do.

The ghoul made a move for her, his fingertips reaching out to nab at her arm, but before the contact could be made, she blinked, and he was gone. She looked back down to the empty space, willing him to appear from thin air. She cupped her hands around the sides of her mouth, taking a deep breath and belting at the top of her lungs, "CHARON!"

Her voice echoed throughout the once quiet plains- a yao guai raised its head from feeding on its fresh kill, a murder of crows took to the open sky, and a few feral ghouls twitched in their slumber inside a paneless greenhouse.

Her hands fell limp to her sides; the only reply she received was a warm breeze, caressing her face with almost gentle comfort.

What is it?! What is wrong?!

Evelyn, you cannot scream for me like that for a fucking radroach! I had assumed you were dying!

Do not be stupid. I will always come when you call... I will always be here to keep you safe.

"Where are you, big guy?" she questioned to the four winds, hoping, praying, somewhere, somehow, he heard her begging plea. "You told me you'd be there...you told me."

A few hundred miles to the north, the ferryman felt a crawling sensation prickle the base of his neck. He snapped to attention and turned to his employer. "Did you just speak?"

Cross raised a brow muscle. "No?" His hand rubbed the back of his head in serious thought. "I don't know, fuck, did I? Ain't that a sign of goin' feral?"

Charon snorted. "It would make no difference for you."

"Fuck is that supposed to mean?"

Charon turned back around, his eyes roving the empty streets. "It is nothing...it was the wind." He looked over his shoulder. "Carry on."