The next thing to do, the Ghoul figured (he was back to being the Ghoul; Cooper Howard went back into cold storage for the time being), was to part with Lucy and possibly Dogmeat as well. Not because he didn't like them, but because Lucy in particular had no reason to keep on traveling with him, and quite a few reasons why she shouldn't.

First of all, Lucy had no dog in this particular fight, so to speak. Her father had been dealt with and that part of the story was done.

Also, they were somewhere on the brink between a father-daughter relationship and becoming lovers, and the latter….would be a bad idea, for her and for him. She wanted a family, and hooking up with a sterile, rad-addled ghoul was not going to get her one. The years in which a woman could hope to bear and birth a healthy child were few, and fewer still out in the Wasteland, where radiation shredded chromosomes and mutated genes. Also, she was too damned young and at this point he had practically raised her. So that was a hard 'No'.

Dogmeat…well, the problem was, no matter how long they lived, dogs never lived long enough, and if he didn't go feral, he had at least as many centuries ahead of him as he did behind him. Parting with her would hurt, and seeing her age and die would hurt. Better that she go off with Lucy and have a few years where she got to play with Lucy's kids and get her ears chewed on by toddlers and her tail pulled before death came for her.

The problem was, how to convince Lucy of that?

When he got back to the place they were staying, the first thing he heard was, "NO! Four, you are a bad girl! Bad dog! You shouldn't have done that!"

When he reached their quarters, he started to ask what Dogmeat had done, but it was all too clear. His duster was all over the place, in pieces. Dogmeat was still chewing on a sleeve, and looking the exact opposite of guilty.

"Aah, Dogmeat, you bitch," he said, accurately.

"I'm so sorry," Lucy said. "I didn't know she could open doors on her own."

"Neither did I. Well, I can't blame her too much. A dog is gonna chew, and that wasn't the first duster I owned and it won't be the last. Let's go out. All three of us."

While they walked through the streets of New Vegas, he spun her a lovely story full of falsehoods.

"So you saw Janey and you and Barb are maybe getting back together?" Lucy gasped. "I'm so happy for you all!"

"Thanks," he said with a wry smile. "So…this is goodbye. Not right at this moment, but tomorrow. Look, I want you to take Dogmeat with you. She'll watch your back and keep the radroaches off you at night."

"You want me to take her? But she loves you more than me. And your little girl will love her, too." Lucy looked at him wide-eyed.

"She doesn't love me more. I know you'll take good care of her. You got more patience than I do any day."

"Maybe we should ask her." Lucy said.

"What? How are you going to ask her?"

"Like this. Four, sit. Now you walk this way and I'll walk this way." Lucy demonstrated.

"More goddamn bullshit," he muttered, but he did it. "All right, what now?" the Ghoul called once she stopped.

"Now we both call her. Four! Four, Four, Four! Here, girl!" Lucy crouched down and called to Dogmeat.

He stayed silent.

"Oh, come on. You have to call her too, or it isn't fair." Lucy insisted.

He sighed. "Come here, Dogmeat, that's a good girl."

Dogmeat looked from one of her people to the other, whining in conflict. Finally she made a move…in Lucy's direction, but just as she was about to reach her, Dogmeat did an about-face and ran to him.

"That settles that. She's going with you." Lucy stood up and dusted off her rear.

"Sonuvabitch." He swore, but he did it while rubbing Dogmeat's ears.

"Oh! Oh, hey! Look at that!" Lucy pointed at a stall which had second-hand leathergoods for sale. There was a male mannequin with a dark leather duster on it. The duster itself was deceptively simple looking, because there was tooling on the facings, around the neck, and on the yoke. The conchas and buttons were dark and coppery.

They made their way through the crowd to the stall. The Ghoul, who was still wearing the tan suit and tie he had picked out for the meeting with his daughter, reached out and rubbed the lapel between two fingers. "Can't be prewar, it's too supple. Can't be postwar, because it doesn't look like a piece of shit. What is it, and why is a five thousand cap garment here marked down to two-hundred fifty? Somebody die wearing it?" he asked the stall owner.

"Not exactly, but close. These are made by a leatherworker who calls herself Jael—that's J-a-e-l, who comes to Vegas twice a year, spring and fall. Mostly she brings smaller things—belts, wallets, holsters, but there's always a few big pieces. She comes with a whole caravan and she brings her apprentice. You were right about the price, nearly. It was seven thousand, on account of having ballistic lining, see?" The vendor opened the coat, showing the quilted armoring inside.

"Plus, this is Yao Gui leather, naturally dark and very durable. Ages like fine whiskey, too. Anyway, between last fall and this spring, Caesar got the idea he wanted a fancy custom-made breastplate with bulletproof lining made by Jael. So he sent legionaries to pick her up and bring her back to his camp.

"Problem was, they didn't ask first, and they left her kid behind. She didn't like that, and….leatherworkers, they have all kinds of tools in their kits. Shears. Knives. Punches and awls, that kind of thing. They took her gun—but they didn't take her case away."

The stall owner lowered his voice. "It looked like a deathclaw got them, that's what I heard. Jael got away, but first she flayed the leader of the legionaries—alive. So now Caeser has it out for her, and nobody uptown wants her stuff, because he don't want to see anyone wearing it. So it's dumped down here at a fraction of the price. Want to try it on?"

"Sure," the Ghoul said. He pulled it on over the suit, feeling the weight of it—not too heavy, not the least bit flimsy. There were pockets where there should be, a built in-holster, gussets under the arms to allow for freedom of movement. He hadn't tried on so fine a garment since his Hollywood days, in the world before. There was enough room for several layers, for a bandolier and a kit. The proportions were right, too—the sleeves long enough, the coat skirts the perfect length. Looking at himself in a half-mirror, he found the duster looked good, building on the air of menace that clung to him. The coppery metal pieces glittered like a scorpion's carapace.

Just because you were a ghoul, that didn't mean you had to give up style.

"It's like it was made for you," Lucy said admiringly.

"Hmm," he said, looking down at the coat. "Any chance she makes hats, too?" There was nothing wrong with his old hat, but it would look shabby paired with this new duster.

Jael did indeed make hats as well. And sturdy collars, reinforced so nothing could take a bite out of a dog's neck. Plus a few other things…

Four hundred some caps lighter, they were on their way back to the inn.

A/N; All right! Thank you so much to my readers!

I have a question. In that junk-drawer vault, there will be some experiments that were not implemented on a larger scale, for one reason or another. Among them will be a pet/guardian. What should it be? A cat? A dog? A bird, fox, marten or squirrel? A cougar or lynx? Whatever it is, it should be suited to life in a colder climate at a higher elevation. Show me your ideas and I will run with them.