Standard disclaimer: None of the characters, places, etc. in this story are mine, but are instead the property of Bethesda Game Studios. No copyright infringement is intended by their use in this story.

Author's note: I came up with the idea for this fic after the return to Vault 101 and hearing Butch's deeply stupid desire to take the Tunnel Snakes on the road. I tried all the dialogue options to dissuade him, but found that none of them worked. (Although apparently he's not as dumb as one might think, given that he later winds up in Rivet City having taken no discernible action toward putting his gang back together.) He may be a little out of character here, as he's less stupid and much less obnoxious (I took him on as a follower for a while and quickly realized that every time he opened his mouth, I experienced a powerful desire to punch him), although part of it may be chalked up to the rather drastic learning experience he undergoes at the outset. Here my version of the Vault Dweller is female, and her name is Samantha; this is roughly set in the same continuity as my earlier Charon fic "The Contract." As I said there, I normally don't like names given to nameless PC's in fanfic; I tend to find them jarring. Nevertheless, sometimes there's no way around it. I just hope the name isn't too alienating here. There may be some hints of Female Vault Dweller (Samantha)/Butch here, if you look right. Be warned: there's a couple spoilers too, although if you've already done Trouble On the Homefront, nothing too shocking. Thanks as always to the wonderful LadyKate, who was kind enough to beta!

Butch DeLoria had only been outside the Vault for a day or two, and already he was becoming discouraged.

He had set out from the Vault with the dream of taking the Tunnel Snakes on the road. The vision had been clear in his mind: He would put together the biggest and baddest gang in the Capital Wasteland, and they would rule. His imagination had soared, and he could see exactly what it would be like to be the leader of the new gang: caps, power, chicks, an army of loyal and willing followers to execute his every command. Maybe he could even find a doctor out there in the Wastes somewhere who would be able to dry out his mother at last—hell, with enough caps, anything was possible, right? So after that Samantha had come back to the Vault and killed the old Overseer and Amata had taken his place, Butch had taken off. Fame, fortune and glory awaited him on the other side of that steel door, and all he had to do was seize it.

Now, after two days of wandering the barren Wasteland, he was beginning to revise his earlier projections.

The Capital Wasteland looked nothing like what he had thought it would. The pre-war books and holotapes in the Vault had always shown the world outside as green, full of things like trees and grass with tall buildings and good roads; instead, the Wastes were dead. Blackened trunks reached skyward to a scorching sun, and brown, dry grass blades crumbled at the touch. Dust was everywhere. The roads he'd been able to find were merely broken chunks of pavement still clinging to the sun-scorched ground beneath, and the buildings were all either burned-out shells or broken concrete stumps. All the water he'd been able to find smelled funny, and the Geiger counter built into his Pip-boy told him it was irradiated. Butch had carried some pure water with him from the Vault, but soon it would run out, and he didn't know what he'd do then. Worst of all, he hadn't seen anyone, not a single living soul, since leaving the Vault.

And if I don't find other people, how can I start up the Tunnel Snakes again?

Never mind, he told himself doggedly. All great men in history have had problems; I know 'cause I read that in Grognaak the Barbarian issue 3. I'll find people, and they'll have clean water. And then I'll build the Tunnel Snakes again. Tunnel Snakes rule!

Just as he thought that, he checked his Pip-Boy again, and lo and behold, what did he see but the dots that indicated other people nearby, perhaps a couple of miles away. See? There they are, he told himself, scrambling down a piled jumble of rocks. Other people. Now go down there and recruit them into your gang. Snake life forever!

Fifteen minutes or so of hard walking, climbing and even scrambling through the rocky terrain brought Butch in sight of the settlement: from a distance, he made out a bunch of flimsy-looking, rusted structures made from corrugated metal, with people drifting in and out among them. All right—finally! Civilization! A grin crossed his face. He drew himself up straight, brushed some of the dust off his black leather Tunnel Snakes jacket, and patted his greased hair, making sure it was still high and oily. After all, he had to look his best for this meeting with history. Here we go!

He strode into the settlement confidently, with his head up and shoulders back, fingering his switchblade through the pocket of his jeans. Heads turned as he stepped out of the sheltering rocks into the center of the corrugated tin structures. The sun was hot on his shoulders, and reflected so brightly off the tin buildings that his eyes watered. Butch swept his gaze over the men and women around him. They were all young, he saw, about his age, and dressed in a collection of odd bits of metal and leather armor that seemed to have been scrounged from whatever lay to hand. It looks good, though, in a weird sort of way—sort of intimidating, he thought. Maybe I'll make that into the Tunnel Snakes' new look. Their hair would have to change though; it was done in a variety of strange styles, not much like the greased-back slick look of Butch and his old crew. That's not right for the Tunnel Snakes, no sirree. Well, lucky for me I'm a barber—that should be easy to fix.

There were maybe about half a dozen of them, he saw—not many, but it would do for a start. Their heads had all come up and they were watching him with a strange glitter in their eyes. That's anticipation, baby! Oh yeah! He could tell already that it was all going to be just as easy as he had thought. Going for the dramatic, he held out his arms.

"Well, here I am!" he announced. "I'm the one you've been waiting for!"

Silence. That bright glitter in the eyes of those watching him did not change; if anything it strengthened. One of the women gave a slow, lazy smile. A strange quiver took hold of Butch's insides; he swallowed it down. They're just so amazed by your greatness they don't know how to react, he reassured himself.

Another one of the women straightened from the stained mattress on which she was lounging. Her hair was done in two rows of spikes, one over either ear. She turned toward one of the males—a man with one half of his head shaved and his hair bleached blond—and spoke in a high, rather unpleasant, almost sneering voice. "Well, look what we have here, Rocket."

"Your new leader, that's who!" Butch announced. "I—"

Rocket completely ignored him. He had been sitting at a battered card table; now he pushed back his chair, rising to his feet. "Well, well, well. Looks like one of those Vault kids, Bell." He gave a slow, toothy grin. Somehow that grin reminded Butch of a picture he had seen in a pre-war book—of an animal called a shark. He pressed on.

"That's right," he announced. "I just got out of Vault 101 two days ago. I ran the baddest gang there—the Tunnel Snakes—and now, look out Wastes, 'cause I'm gonna do the same out here! And you lucky folks are the ones I've picked to be the first members of my new gang. Stick with me and the sky's the limit, baby!"

Another woman—this one's head was completely shaved except for a few random dangling pigtails here and there—rose from her own seat. "I like those Vault kids," she said in the same almost sneering tone as Bell. "Fresh—" she paused to run the tip of her tongue over her teeth and her eyes glittered, glittered "—meat."

A trickle of sweat started down Butch's back. The thought crossed his mind that this wasn't happening quite like he had envisioned it. He swallowed. "That's right—there will be fresh meat, and more. For all of you. In my new gang—"

"It's not often we get someone just walking into a Raider camp," sneered Rocket. "Usually they're dragged. Screaming." Somehow a huge knife was in his hand. Butch hadn't seen where he'd gotten it from. The rest of his words died in his throat as he looked at the sun gleaming off the edge of the blade. His switchblade seemed pathetically small in comparison. The blade had all kinds of interesting brown stains on its edge. Could those be.... He swallowedagain, hard.

This wasn't going like he had thought it would. Maybe it would be best if he just walked away and tried somewhere else. In fact, he was sure that would be best. His legs had apparently reached that decision before the rest of him, because he was already backing up. "You know what? Never mind. You guys don't really seem like Tunnel Snake kind of material." He tried for a sneer of his own on the last words and almost managed it. "I'll try somewhere else."

He continued to back up until he felt the point of something sharp jab into his spine. "Leaving so soon?" a smooth male voice hissed in his ear. "But the party's just getting started!"

Raucous laughter rang out, and the woman with the shaved head called out, "Nice catch, Chopper!"

Something in Butch broke. "Let me go!" he cried out, and whirled on the man, reaching out and locking his hand around his wrist, trying to drag the knife away from him. But his attacker was fast—too fast, and too strong. He yanked his hand free of Butch's grip almost casually, spinning aside so quickly that Butch caught only a blur out of the corner of his eye. A strong hand planted itself between his shoulder blades and he was shoved, sprawling face-first in the dirt. Sand gritted between his teeth. His heart was pounding and he could feel the prickle of sweat down his spine. He was no longer interested in the Tunnel Snakes; all he wanted was to get out of there. Just let me get out of here, just let me, just let me—

A heavy weight dropped onto his back. Wild, shrill laughter rang in his ears, laced with jeers and taunts. He tried to get his hands under himto push up, but whoever was sitting on him was too heavy. Then something hard crashed into his temple. Tunnel snakes rule… he thought incoherently, and then there was darkness.

The first thing to come to him was the stench.

The reek filled his nostrils, choking him, drowning him. It was a stench of unwashed bodies, feces, urine, sweat, dirt, and rotten things, all rolled into one. It was completely overwhelming, suffocating; simply smelling it made his gorge rise in his throat. The closest thing he had ever smelled like it had been the time Mr. Brotch, back in the Vault, had taken his class on a field trip to the Vault's septic vats; he had thought it had been bad then (and he and the rest of the Snakes had had a lot of fun flinging handfuls of the brown sludge at that stuck-up bitch Amata, until Brotch had made them stop), but that was nothing compared to this fetid miasma. It choked him until he could barely breathe, and he struggled to sit up, hoping a change in position would allow him to get away from it.

That was when he made his second discovery: he was lying on something soft and sodden in a chill, gelid liquid, and his limbs were stretched out, spread-eagle fashion. He had apparently been like that for some time, because his overstrained muscles were aching. He tried to change position, and then he made his third discovery: he couldn't. Something hard held him, around his wrists and ankles. A bolt of fear rushed through him and he opened his eyes.

It was like waking into a nightmare, a scene from the hell his mother sometimes talked about when she was drunk and angry, or drunk and crying. There wasn't much religion left in the Vault, but an attenuated version of the Catholic faith had been preserved in the DeLoria family line and on her good days—which had come more frequently in Butch's youth—Ellen DeLoria had tried to teach her son, with the aid of an old, tattered copy of the Bible which had come into the Vault with the first DeLorias two hundred years ago. But the scene around him had nothing to do with the few warm memories of Butch's childhood and everything to do with horror.

He was in a dark place, the concrete walls lit only by the harsh glare of an electric light hooked up to a battery. The walls were filthy, splashed with blood and gore—the stains were too vehement to be anything else. The soft thing under him was a mattress, soaked with something he was afraid to guess, lying in the middle of a floor strewn with a tremendous amount of trash—papers, old ruined books, empty liquor bottles by the hundreds, dishes crusted with layers upon layers of decaying food. Chains hung from the ceiling with hooks at the end; impaled on the hooks were dismembered, bloody human torsos from which the limbs had been hacked away. Rusty sharp implements lay everywhere—bone saws, knives, daggers, scalpels, smeared with clotted blood and tissue. And worst of all, he was not alone.

Surrounding him were the faces of the raiders from the camp, but lit with the glaring white light they were distorted into something alien and unrecognizable. As he opened his eyes, they began to laugh.

"Looks like the little piggy is awake," sneered the woman with the shaved head.

"So he is, Blossom," laughed Bell. "Good, I was afraid he was going to miss all the fun." She held up a dagger. Her eyes—all of their eyes—had a strange, too-bright gleam of a kind he had never seen before.

Panic was running through Butch like a live wire, bright and raw. His heart was hammering in his chest as if it were about to explode. His breath whooshed in and out of his lungs. He struggled frantically against the chains, not feeling the pain in his wrists and ankles. He had never been so frightened in all his life. Inanities dribbled from his lips. "O—okay, forget the Tunnel Snakes. I'm sorry I ever mentioned 'em. What—what do you guys want? Is it caps that you want? I can get caps for you easy! Just—just let me go and—"

"He squeals pretty good, don't he?" mused a man with a completely bald head and heavy scarring down his face. Even in his terror, Butch recognized the voice as that of Chopper. "And just think—we haven't even touched him yet!"

"He sounds like a mole rat," laughed Blossom. "I heard a couple mole rats squeal almost as good as he does. Maybe better. I wonder if I can make him squeal better?"

Butch tore against the chains as Blossom leaned forward, curling her hand around one of the metal implements lying nearby—a heavy, wickedly curving knife. Butch had never seen anything like it before, but suspected that shortly he and it would be very intimate. A high wail burst from his throat.

"Please!" Tears were streaming from his eyes; he was too far gone in the fear to feel ashamed. "Please, just let me go, just let me get out of here, whatever you want I'll get it for you, please—" The chains tore into him, adding his own blood to that of the mattress underneath him. He struggled, not caring if he scraped all the flesh off his bones, just as long as he got away—

"Scared, ain't he?" sneered Bell. "Just like a little bitch. Hey, no fair, Blossom!" she demanded. "You got to do the last one!"

"I did not! I just gave her a little poke, that's all! Just a little bit—it's not my fault she was a weak sister and couldn't take it!"

"You did too! Rocket!" Bell complained.

"Aw, back off, Bell," jeered Rocket. "Let Blossom go first. After all, looks like there's plenty for all, right?"

The knife. The knife in Blossom's hand. Long and gleaming, coming closer and closer. He screamed as he felt his boots being yanked off. "Look at that," she sneered. "Ten little piggies, all in a row." The blade caressed his toes. "I think I'll start with the little ones first."

"Please, oh please, oh please, Jesus, Mary and Joseph, HailMaryfullofgrace, please, just let me outta here, pleaseohpleaseohplease—"

"Why start with the toes, Blossom? Why not the tongue?" Bell demanded. "After all, he's making such interesting noises now—but I bet they'd be even more interesting if we took out his tongue. And made him swallow it," she smirked.

The knife hesitated as Blossom considered. "Nah," she said finally. "I like hearing 'im beg. And he's gonna be begging a lot by the time we get through with him." She focused her strange, brightly glittering eyes on his, showing every tooth in her head in a sharp-edged grin. He couldn't believe that such a cruel expression could exist on this earth. "Squeal, bitch. Squeal like the little bitch you are."

The knife advanced. Butch heard his own voice, whining, pleading, begging, but it seemed unreal. The fear was monstrous, all-encompassing; at any second he was sure he would black out—he prayed to black out—but it didn't happen. Blossom's vicious, glittering smile filled his world; that and the knife. He thrashed violently, wrenching the mattress off the floor, but to no effect. Closer, closer, the smile and the knife; the blade brushed his toes again, first the flat, then—deftly, taunting—the edge. Again, with just enough pressure to cut this time; he felt blood trickle down the sole of his foot. He heard himself howl, a high, mindless sound that tore his throat raw. Blossom stopped to raise the blade up before his eyes, so that he could see the bright trickle of his own blood on the gore-dark surface. That teasing, delicate smile widened—

And then her head exploded in a shower of green sparks.

"What the hell!?" The roar burst from Rocket's throat. All at once the Raiders scrambled from their positions around Butch, snatching up tire irons, baseball bats, hunting rifles, any weapon that came to hand as they swung to meet the new threat. Dim light and a wave of slightly less fetid air washed over everything, coming from what appeared to be a newly opened door, and in the doorway, facing the enraged raiders, was the source of the threat.

If this is Hell, then that must be one of its demons. The form standing in the doorway was vaguely humanoid, but covered in solid, greenish-black metal plates, segmented and jointed almost like the scales on a lizard, with wing-like panels at the shoulders. Its head was nothing human, with huge, staring yellow eyes and fans on either side like the ears of a dragon. Protrusions jutted from the armor, giving off a greenish energy that sparked and crackled. The terrifying figure strode forward into the chamber of horrors without so much as a pause, moving toward the raiders, and following close behind it was another frightful figure: a man—or what had been a man, once—taller than the demon, with broad shoulders, but with the rotted and decayed face of a putrescent corpse. As he strode forward, he took a shotgun from his back and aimed it, sighting at Chopper. Behind these two apparitions came a dog, growling with blazing yellow eyes and slavering canines, its hackles raised, looking like nothing so much as a hound of hell.

The Raiders were unfazed by the terrible appearance of the new arrivals. "Get 'em, guys!" ordered Rocket, and shouting, they charged the two monsters, howling war cries, striking out with blunt weapons or blasting away with hunting rifles or shotguns. And they were cut down. The demon raised its rifle and fired, precision blasts of that terrible green fire. Its unlucky targets did not just die; they were disintegrated, collapsing into puddles of brightly glowing green goo that showed nothing to tell that they had once been human—nothing to tell that they had once been anything. The rotted man killed as well, taking cool aim with his shotgun: exploding heads, shattering rib cages, ripping limbs right off their bodies with the force of his blasts; and once they were down, the dog leapt upon them, tearing out throats with its long, sharp teeth. Within moments, all opposition had been silenced; the only sounds in the room were Butch's terrified breathing and the crackling of the demon-figure's armor.

The demon turned, and began to advance on Butch.

Butch had gone beyond fear. A strange, tingling paralysis had fallen over him; his entire body was totally numb. He watched that menacing figure advance on him, closer and closer, its heavy echoing tread ringing off the concrete walls around them, the walking corpse following. Butch's cold lips moved, whispering over and over, please, God, oh please, God, oh please….

Closer the figure came. Closer, those glaring yellow eyes fixed on him. There was something terrible, implacable about that relentless advance. Closer. Closer….

It came to a halt. There was a voice, distorted and ringing with electronic overtones.

"Butch DeLoria, you are an idiot."

The figure reached up, seized its head in both hands and pulled it off. Underneath—incredibly—was the visage of—

Butch's breath caught in his throat.

"Samantha?"

Samantha gazed down at Butch, lying chained on the mattress. He was sobbing in relief and shock. "Samantha—oh, Samantha, am I glad to see you—you gotta help me, Samantha, please—"

"Butch, please shut up." She turned her head. "Charon: check the bodies and see if there's anything worth taking. Though I doubt it. Raiders never have anything good."

"As you command, Mistress," Charon responded calmly, putting up his shotgun. As the ghoul went about his task, she turned toward her dog.

"Dogmeat: Guard, boy! Guard!" Dogmeat responded with a bark, then turned to face the door, ears up and yellow eyes bright. Having disposed of her two followers, Samantha knelt next to Butch.

Butch was still babbling semi-hysterically, but she ignored him, checking him over for injuries. There were none. Looks like I got here before they really got started, she thought. Good thing, too. She pulled out a bobby pin and began to go to work on the locks that held the manacles closed.

"You were lucky," she told him as the first one snapped open. "Usually when the Raiders want to secure someone, they pierce the wrists and ankles of their victims with hooks. It holds them down better and it keeps holding them down after the Raiders start chopping." She gestured to the mutilated torsos hanging from the ceiling. Butch paled and trembled, but Samantha ignored him, continuing to work on the locks. "What were you even doing out here anyway? No, you know what—scratch that. I don't even want to know." The last manacle sprang open. "Come on. We've got to get out of here quickly."

"Wh—why?" Butch asked, trying to sit up. "You ki—they're all dead." He gestured unsteadily to the carnage around them and made a sick-looking attempt at a smile. It turned into a grimace. He raised one shaking hand to his greased hair—checking to see if it's still all right, Samantha realized, and snorted at the incongruous gesture.

"All these Raiders are dead. There may be more of them—out scavving, or looking for fresh prey." The smile had dropped; now Butch just looked sick. "Raiders are rock-stupid violence-drunk sadists who spend all their time juiced out of their minds on chems, but there are a lot of them, and I'd rather not waste any more ammo on these degenerates than I have to. Microfusion cells for the plasma rifle are hard to come by, after all." She put one arm around Butch's shoulders, helping him to his feet. The blood and brains of the woman she had shot were splattered all over his proud leather jacket and the front of his shirt. "Can you walk?"

"Walk?" Butch tried to bluster. "Sure I can walk, I—" His words cut off as he pushed away from Samantha's arm and promptly fell right on his ass.

"Can you or can't you? Because if not, I'll have to carry you."

"Carry me?" He attempted a derisive laugh. "I'd like to see you try. I outweigh you by what, like, fifty pounds?"

Thirty, if that. For all of Butch's attitude, he had never been a noticeably big or muscular guy. Samantha sighed heavily. "Butch, this is powered armor I'm wearing. In this getup I can hoist a Brahmin steer over my head without even breathing hard. If I deactivate the Tesla system so you don't get shocked, I can carry you all day. Now can you walk or can't you?"

"I can walk, I can walk," he said sullenly. Then he turned his face away from her and began to scrub at his eyes. "Just leave me alone, okay?"

Samantha waited a bit while he composed himself, biting back the urge to say several unkind things and reflecting on how strange it was that she should have come to Butch's rescue—back in the Vault, Butch had done his best to make her and her friend Amata's life miserable. In the Vault, he was a bully. So what is he out here? She sighed. "Can you walk?" she asked, somewhat more gently. "Because we have to get going—"

"Sure, sure, I can walk." He got his feet under him, and, leaning against the wall, managed to stand up, though he was still avoiding her eyes. He brushed ineffectually at the stains on his jacket with shaking hands.

"Good. Then let's go. I want to be a long way away from here by sundown."

The moon was up by the time they came to a halt, sheltering within the walls of an abandoned house. They had been traveling for most of the day, away from the Raider camp; Samantha had forged ahead with long, assertive strides, while the dog—Dogmeat, she had called him—trotted next to her and the horrible, half-rotted man-thing followed slightly behind and off to one side. Butch, stumbling in their wake, had done his best to keep up, but he was fatigued from his ordeal, and his limbs were weak and trembling. Finally, after he had tripped near a river bank and nearly gone sliding over a dramatic drop into the scummy water below, Samantha had come back. Without so much as a word, she had picked him up and swung him onto her back, draping his arms over the hulking shoulder plates of her armor. Butch had let her, too exhausted to protest, though in other circumstances he would have been deeply humiliated to be carried like a child—and by her, no less. But there was something about the smooth rhythm of Samantha's strides that was hypnotic…soothing…and he badly needed to be soothed. The air had turned chill with the advent of evening, yet Samantha's armor had absorbed the heat of the day and gave off a pleasant warmth. He rested his cheek against the curving metal surface underneath him. After a time, his eyes drifted closed.

He was jarred awake roughly, as he slid from his perch to impact against a hard surface. A bolt of fright rushed through him and his eyes shot open, afraid that he was back in the Raider camp. His eyes picked the huge bulking form of Samantha and the flayed features of her terrifying companion out of the shadows, and his fear spiked for a moment before he remembered who they were. Peeling wallpaper and tattered furniture met his eyes, and instead of the fetid reek of the Raider camp, the air smelled stale and dusty. Slowly, he recollected himself.

Faltering, he managed, "Wh—where are we?"

Samantha looked over, then came to crouch next to him. "An abandoned house I know of," she explained. "We're going to stop here for the night." She glanced back at her companion. "Charon and I are going to go out and collect some food and firewood. There aren't any Raider camps in the vicinity, and even if there were, Raiders are too dumb to go house to house looking for victims. Hell, the door even locks," she said, smiling a bit. "Do you think you'll be all right if I leave Dogmeat here for protection?"

"Me…Ahhhh, sure," he replied with a feeble attempt at bravado. "After all—" He trailed off. He had been going to say, Tunnel Snakes rule, but somehow the words turned to ash in his mouth.

Samantha nodded. "Good. Here," she said, and held something out to him. The windows to the house had been boarded up, but moonlight slipped in through the cracks, and he could see the gleam off the metal. "It's my scoped .44 Magnum. I'm giving it to you for protection in case something tries to break in, but I think it's very unlikely. This place should be safe."

Butch considered trying to explain to Samantha that he had never shot any gun other than a BB gun in his life, but pushed the objection aside. The Samantha he had known had also never shot any gun in her life. He took the weapon out of her hand.

"Hey—Before you go, ah…." Samantha looked back at him. Butch swallowed and glanced sideways at Samantha's rotted companion. He was doing something to his pistol and didn't appear to be paying them any attention. "Ah….who is that guy?" he asked in an undertone.

"That's Charon. He guards my back," Samantha replied.

"Did he fall outta the ugly tree and hit every branch on the way down? 'Cause I gotta tell you, I've seen some freaks in my time, but he really takes the—"

He saw Samantha raise her hand, saw it blur, and then a miniature explosion rocked his head back on his neck. His eyes streamed, and there were two Samanthas before him, looking at him with iron sternness.

"Charon has saved my life more times than I can count." Her voice was ice cold. "You will not speak that way about him again. Do you understand?"

Butch recoiled from her, raising one hand to his cheek. Every nerve ending was afire, it seemed. "I…I understand," he said in a small voice.

"Good." Samantha rose to her feet and donned her helmet, turning again into that terrifying demon. Her voice crackled with electronic static. "We'll be back."

Samantha and Charon set out across the countryside, heading for a stand of dried, blackened trees where they could find firewood and most likely, food in the form of mole rats or dogs. The dried grass crunched under their feet as the stars peeked one by one through the cloud cover overhead. After a time, Samantha glanced over at Charon, striding along silently at her side.

"I'm sorry," she told him.

"For what?" He was scanning the horizon for threats and did not bother to look back at her.

"For what Butch said. I know you could hear it—"

"Apologies are not necessary, Mistress," Charon responded calmly. "Nor was it necessary for you to discipline him as you did. If you were concerned that my…feelings…were hurt—" here, Charon paused as if describing a concept so alien to him that he could barely begin to grasp it "—you need have no fears on that score."

"Nevertheless. Charon, I owe you my life many times over. I won't let someone who travels with me talk about you that way."

"As you command, Mistress." Charon paused. "Is it your intention that he join us?"

Samantha grimaced. "God, no. My intention is to drop his ass back at the Vault just as soon as we can get over there. We've got enough problems without trying to drag him along with us."

"And if he will not go?"

"Don't scare me like that." She sighed. "Butch is a moron. He was a moron in the Vault, and he's a moron out here. Only out here, being a moron can get you killed. Hopefully his experience with the Raiders has thrown enough of a scare into him to realize that. If it hasn't….then I'll just take him back to the Vault anyway, if I have to carry him every step of the way."

"I see. So you will make the decision for him."

Samantha's eyes jerked toward him. The ghoul's face was imperturbable in the moonlight. Nevertheless, Samantha felt the blood rise to her face.

"Charon—" she began, flustered. "Look, do you want him traveling with us?"

"Whatever it is that you want, I want that as well, Mistress," he replied calmly. She had heard this from him before, but this time irritation suddenly flared in Samantha's chest. She stopped, shouldering her weapon.

"No, Charon. That's a cop-out. You tell me right now. Yes or no. Do you or do you not want Butch DeLoria to travel with us?"

She held his eyes. Charon blinked, and backed up a step. He looks…uneasy, she thought, somewhat surprised. She had never seen the taciturn ghoul look uneasy before. He blinked again, started to say something, and then hesitated.

"Mistress—"

"Answer the question."

If anything, Charon's unease increased. Samantha watched, fascinated, as Charon took yet another step back and shifted from foot to foot. She had never seen anything like this reaction from him before, not even that time when they had taken a wrong turn and stumbled into the midst of a super-mutant encampment. He actually swallowed, then wet what remained of his lips briefly. His eyes locked onto her, closely searching her face. He's practically squirming, she thought.

"N-no, Mistress." Charon offered the answer as if he half-expected it to be brutally struck from his lips.

"You're not just saying that because you think that's the answer I want to hear?" she asked bluntly.

"No, Mistress," he replied, on surer ground this time. Because he means it, or because the answer that I'm looking for is clear? She considered pursuing the matter—her curiosity was piqued by his evident discomfort—but the ghoul already seemed to be on the verge of crawling out of what was left of his skin. Pushing him further would be cruel. Best to let it drop for now. Another time, perhaps.

"Then what would you suggest we do with him? Abandon him in the Wastelands? How long do you think he'd last there? Look how quickly the Raiders picked him up."

"As you say, Mistress," Charon agreed, visibly relaxing as she released the pressure.

"Then taking him back to the Vault is the only thing to do. It's the only choice."

Charon was silent for a time, as they picked their way across a steep and rocky slope. Samantha pointed. "Let's make for that pond. My Pip-Boy isn't showing anything yet, but I bet there's Mirelurks there."

"As you command," Charon replied. After a moment, he added, "The DeLoria boy may not follow your orders."

"What do you mean?"

Charon turned to face her. "You can take him back to the Vault, Mistress…but what if he chooses to leave again?"

"If he chooses to leave again…." She bit her lip. "That's his problem, not ours. At least we'll have him off our hands."

"As you say, Mistress." Charon stopped, shielding his eyes, and squinted ahead. "Mirelurks. You were correct."

"I see." The rounded shapes of Mirelurk shells were rising out of the water ahead of them; even as she watched, the first of them stepped on land and rose to its full height, lifting its shell to reveal the soft, clawed underbody. Charon had taken his assault rifle from his back, and now Samantha drew her own, well-worn combat shotgun. She glanced over at her companion.

"Let's go get dinner."

When they got back to the house, the front room was empty; however, the staticky strains of GNR drifted into the room, along with a welcoming bark from Dogmeat. The house had a radio in the kitchen, and Samantha guessed that Butch had retreated there. Probably because it feels safer, she thought; the kitchen had no doors to the outside, and the windows were more tightly boarded than in front. He must have been more rattled than I thought.

The front room had several mattresses scattered around a steel drum in the center of the floor; Samantha guessed that caravans used this house as a stop on their routes, since it was safe and out of the way, though she had never come across any caravan there. Charon kindled a small, nearly smokeless fire of hardwood sticks in the drum, and began to roast the Mirelurk meat, while Samantha extricated herself from her Tesla armor. For all of the benefits of powered armor—and there were many—it took much longer to put on and take off than regular armor. No wonder Sarah Lyons practically lives in the stuff. If it weren't so uncomfortable, I might too. Shed of the heavy metal, clad in the under-armor jumpsuit—but with her plasma rifle at her back; she had learned the hard way to keep her weapon on her at all times—she made her way into the kitchen.

Butch was seated at the battered kitchen table, moodily smoking an old pre-war cigarette in the glow of a battery-operated lamp. Dogmeat was curled up at his feet; the dog raised his head and thumped his tail as Samantha entered. The radio was on, and Three Dog's voice drifted through the air. There was none of the breezy informality that usually characterized his broadcasts; instead an unwonted seriousness pervaded his tone. Samantha groaned inwardly when she heard what he was talking about.

"—but I'm here to tell y'all, listeners, that I've never been happier to admit I was wrong. Little Miss Vault 101 has just about singlehandedly restored my faith in the world. She is a hero of the highest order. More than that. I'll tell y'all right now: based on what I've learned of her, that former Vault kid is nothing less than the Last, Best Hope of Humanity."

Butch raised his head and looked up at her in the lamplight. Shadows fell across his face, but despite that, there was something like awe in his eyes. "That's you, isn't it," he said quietly. "That cat Three Dog is talkin about you."

Samantha grimaced. "Three Dog tends to lay it on a little thick." She reached out and shut the radio off with a decisive snap.

"He was sayin all this stuff about you—that you'd fought fire ants, that you'd cleaned out super-mutants and took on mercenaries, that you escaped from the Enclave….he talked about you a lot—"

"Yeah." She felt her mouth twist. "Actually I wish he'd shut up about me. He's not doing me any favors by giving me all this attention."

"He was talkin about your dad too…he mentioned something called—" Butch frowned. "Something like…Project Purify," he came up with, finally.

"Project Purity," Samantha corrected, with the sting of sudden bitterness. "It was my dad's lifework. An attempt to invent a device that would cleanse all the water in the tidal basin. Clean, pure water for everyone in the Capital Wasteland. The Enclave killed him before he could do it." The bitterness in her voice deepened. "Come on," she said curtly. "We've brought back Mirelurk meat and Charon has a fire going."

Butch looked like he wanted to continue the conversation, but then thought better of it. He stubbed out his cigarette instead and rose to follow her; Dogmeat started up from underneath the table as well, and they went back through into the living room. Charon glanced up from the steel drum.

"It's ready, Mistress." He had not needed to speak; the strangely acrid aroma of roasting Mirelurk filled the air.

Butch glanced at her sidelong. "Why's that guy call you Mistress?" he asked in a half-whisper.

"His name is Charon. And it's a long story. Why don't you ask him?" Samantha returned. Butch threw an uneasy glance at Charon and shrank back.

"Ahhh…never mind."

"Suit yourself. Here." Samantha handed him a chunk of meat and a bottle of water—dirty, unfortunately; she'd run out of her last purified water three days ago and hadn't had a chance to get back to Megaton since then. She took another hunk of meat for herself, tossed one to Dogmeat, and settled onto one of the mattresses. Butch examined the rations she'd handed him dubiously, then ran his Pip-Boy over them. At the clicking of the built-in Geiger counter, he glanced up, startled.

"These're irradiated."

"Yep. Everything out here is." Samantha ran her own Pip-Boy over her rations to show him. Butch shifted helplessly.

"I can't—Samantha, I can't eat this," he pleaded.

She looked at him with little patience. "It's eat it or starve, because there's nothing else." She bit into her own chunk of Mirelurk meat to demonstrate. Butch hesitantly took a nibble and then spat it out, choking.

"It tastes foul! Like swamp water and—"

"Butch, Mirelurk meat is the best kind of meat there is. Now if you don't want it, hand it over. Charon or I or Dogmeat will be happy to take it off your hands."

"No—no, I want it," he hastened to say, and took another bite, though he couldn't help screwing up his face in disgust. Samantha rolled her eyes.

For a while, there was silence while they ate. Charon finished first, as he usually did—he hardly eats enough to keep a fly alive, Samantha had thought on several occasions—and with a final swallow of water from the bottle Samantha had handed him, he rose to his feet. "If you have no objections, Mistress, I will take the first watch."

"No objections, Charon," Samantha told him. With a nod, he drew his combat shotgun and headed up the stairs. Butch watched him go nervously.

"Where's he going?"

"A couple of the upstairs windows have boards loose. Charon is going to watch from there for trouble, though I don't expect any."

"Oh." Butch contemplated that for a moment. Despite his claim that he wanted it, he had only picked at his piece of Mirelurk meat; now he set the less-than-half-finished chunk down by his side. "Do—do you want me to stand a watch?"

"No. And I will take my gun back," Samantha said, holding out her hand. Butch quickly handed over the .44 Magnum. "Turn in and get some sleep. You've had a rough day today—" there's an understatement, she thought "—and we've got a lot of traveling to do tomorrow."

"Where are we going tomorrow?"

"It's not where we're going. It's where you're going. As in, back to the Vault," she told him. "We'll drop you off there on our way back to Megaton."

Samantha watched as dismay spread across Butch's face. "What? Samantha, no, wait," he began to plead.

"Don't argue with me," she told him sternly. "The Wastes are too dangerous for you and you know it. What happened to you today was just a small taste of the dangers that are lurking out here. Raiders are far from the worst of the perils in the Wasteland, believe you me."

Butch stared at her. "But—but Samantha, I don't wanna go back to the Vault!" he protested.

"Then you're an idiot," Samantha said flatly. "Think, Butch. You were almost tortured to death by Raiders your very first day out of the Vault—"

"It was my third," he protested lamely.

"That's close enough." She glowered at him. "Two more days and you'll be mole-rat chow. Back you go."

Butch's face flushed. "You can't make me go, Samantha," he insisted angrily. "Not if I don't want to—"

"I can and I will."

"What are you gonna do?" he jeered. "Carry me?" He stopped then, biting his lip; Samantha could see the memory of that afternoon in his eyes. All the better.

"If I have to." She folded her arms. "Butch, face it: you don't belong out here. You don't have the skills or the knowledge to make it—"

"You did it!" Butch insisted. "How hard can it be?"

"The Wastes were less dangerous back then." Back then, she mused; it had been less than six months since she had made her escape from the Vault, and yet she sounded as if she were talking about something that had happened a lifetime ago. In a way, I am. "The Enclave had not yet moved in; the super-mutants were pretty much all holed up in downtown DC, and even the yao guai and Deathclaws were less active. And even so, I was extremely lucky not to get killed my very first week out of the Vault. Do you think you're that lucky? Because so far it doesn't look like it."

Butch paused, considering that. "Well…so what. I don't need luck. I've got you!" he said, looking at her hopefully. "You can teach me the things I need to know, Samantha—"

"No, I can't," Samantha snapped, feeling her temper beginning to go. "Charon and I run a tight ship, Butch. We've got no time to spend babysitting a greenhorn ex-Vaultie who's so clueless he lets himself get captured by Raiders right off the bat. Besides, if the Wastes are too dangerous for you, the places we go and the things we do are about a hundred times more so. Charon, Dogmeat and I—where we go, we're operating out at the thinnest margin of survival. There's no room for mistakes—and no time for us to spend keeping an eye on you to make sure you're not being tortured by Raiders, shot by Talon Company, or abducted and vivisected by super-mutants. Like as not, you'd get your head blown off—or else," she said harshly, "Charon or I would get our heads blown off coming to your rescue. I'm not going to take chances like that for you. Not with my life, and doubly not with Charon's."

Butch's flush deepened. He started to say something, but Samantha cut him off with an upraised hand. "No. You go back to the Vault tomorrow. That's my decision. End of discussion."

She had expected he would protest, but instead he bit his lip again. Butch shoved his hands in his pockets; his shoulders sagged. Abruptly he got to his feet and began to pace back and forth, with jerky, broken strides. At length, he rounded on her.

"That's it, is it?" he demanded, his voice quivering a bit. "The great Samantha, the Last Best Hope for Humanity, has spoken. An' the lowly peon must obey. That's how it is?" He glowered at her. "You never even asked why I wanted to leave the Vault. Just made your decrees like Moses comin' down from the mountain with them two big tablets, and badda-bing-badda-bang, that's all she wrote."

"All right, fine," she sighed, humoring him. "Why do you want to leave the Vault?"

"Why do you care? You just said you was gonna drag me back kickin and screamin whether I wanted to go or not." He turned away from her sullenly and pulled out his pocket comb, running it with practiced flicks through his oiled hair.

Samantha could see his anger, and underneath it, his hurt, but at the moment there were very few things she cared for less than Butch DeLoria's emotional state. "Okay, Butch," she said shortly. "You're right. I don't care. You'd better turn in; we've got a long way to go tomorrow."

Butch paled. "No—Samantha, listen, just listen, please—"

"I'm done listening. Good night, Butch." She unrolled her bedroll on top of the mattress and climbed in, ostentatiously burying her head under her blankets. The Brahmin-hair blankets shut out the noise of Butch's whining most effectively; it wasn't long before Samantha was asleep.

Samantha slept poorly that night. She dreamed of the Vault and Raiders and the Enclave, but they were somehow all mixed up and jumbled together in a way that badly disoriented her; worse, she knew it was somehow her doing that everything was so disorganized. As she wandered through the topsy-turvy dreamscape, her father stood in the background; he was showing the mottling of the radiation poisoning that had killed him, but he remonstrated with her sadly that she must learn to put things back in their places. I'm trying, Dad, but what if they won't go? She came to wakefulness with that sentence on her lips, and opened her eyes to see the gruesome visage of Charon gazing down at her. For a moment she couldn't place him, and she started.

"Charon! You scared the hell out of me!" she gasped, sitting up with a jerk.

"I apologize, Mistress," Charon responded evenly. "I came to wake you for your watch. If you have no objections."

"No, no objections. Thank you." Samantha ran her hands through her hair, trying to compose herself. She glanced over to Butch's corner of the room, and she realized that if she had slept poorly, at least she had slept; Butch's mattress was empty.

"Dare I ask where he is?" she groaned, indicating the vacant bed.

"Upstairs, Mistress," came Charon's calm reply.

"Upstairs?" She stared at him.

"That is correct, Mistress. He came upstairs perhaps an hour ago."

"Huh." Samantha frowned. She was surprised Butch would go up there; I was fairly certain that Charon intimidated him. "I'm sorry. Did he bother you?"

"No, Mistress," Charon responded. "He settled in the east room of the house and has not moved since."

"Huh," she repeated. "Okay then. Well, thank you for standing watch, Charon. Turn in and get some rest. You can rest till sunrise, but I would like to get an early start; we've got a long way to go tomorrow."

"As you say, Mistress." Charon began laying out his bedroll as Samantha took her reservist's rifle and headed for the stairs. Checking her Pip-Boy's chronometer, she saw that there were only three hours till dawn; Charon had let her sleep longer than he should have. She glanced back at him as he settled down on the mattress, his weapon lying close to hand at his side. Next time I should make it clear that I want the watches to be equal length. Of course, he hardly sleeps anyway, she mused as she began to climb, any more than he eats. Another ghoul trait? Or just him?

The upper story of the house was shaped like an L; there was a small landing, and two bedrooms, one to the north and one to the east. As Samantha came up the stairs, she glanced into the eastern room, and there was Butch, tilted back in a chair. His feet were up on the desk and his arms were behind his head; a cigarette dangled from his lips. It was getting on toward dawn, and a dim gray light was beginning to seep in through the cracks in the boards, turning Butch into a dark shape and the end of his cigarette into a glowing coal. There was a gap in the boarded-up window—enough for someone inside to see out, but not vice versa—and Butch was gazing pensively out through it into the Wastes beyond.

Sensing her presence, he took his feet off the desk and straightened up hurriedly. "Samantha."

"Couldn't you sleep, Butch?" Samantha asked, turning into the northern room. A tall stool had been drawn up to the window in there, and she slid onto it, laying her rifle on the nearby table along with several rounds of ammo.

Butch followed her into the room. "I tried. I—had bad dreams." He gave a weak smile. "Do—do ya mind if I sit in here, just for a while?"

"Suit yourself."

"Thanks." He dropped his cigarette to the ground and crushed it under the toe of his boot, then took a seat on an old, rickety, stripped bedframe against the far wall. As he drew out his comb and began to go to work on his hair again, Samantha rolled her eyes. I don't spend as much time on my hair as he does, she thought. Then again, he was assigned as a hairdresser….oh, no, sorry, make that a barber. Her mouth twisted a little in amusement. The two of them sat in silence for a time as the light slowly gained around them and color bled into the dawn.

It was Butch who broke the silence first, hesitant. "Say, Samantha…I been thinkin'."

She glanced over at Butch. "You have?"

"Yeah. About—about what you said earlier." His voice was uncharacteristically subdued.

"And?"

"And…well, I guess you're right," he admitted quietly. "Or partly right, anyway. I…." He grimaced. "I don't know how to make it out here. Gettin caught like that by the Raiders…that was stupid of me. So stupid." He thudded the heel of his hand against his forehead. "And my idea of hangin out with you and that guy, that Charon…yeah. I can just see that. I'd be nothin more than a…a whaddayacallit, a liability, wouldn't I?"

He glanced at her to see if he had the word right, and Samantha nodded. "That's right, Butch, you would," she said with no particular sympathy. "I'm glad you realize that."

"But, see, okay—you're right about that, but I think I'm right too," he rushed out. "On why I wanted to leave the Vault in the first place. Okay, I admit," he hurried on, "I mouthed off to ya last night and I probably shouldn'ta done that, especially after you'd bailed me out earlier, but…Will you please just listen to me now, Samantha? Please?"

He was looking at her with an almost painfully earnest expression of appeal. It was on the tip of Samantha's tongue to blow him off, but that expression stopped her; well, that and the knowledge that if she did, it would be out of her irritation at him from earlier and not for any valid reason. In a sudden flash of insight, it occurred to her that there were probably very few people who had ever actually listened to Butch DeLoria. Well, who the hell would? His drunk mother? Those idiot Tunnel Snakes? Mr. Brotch, whom Butch spent most of his time trying to piss off?

"All right, Butch," she said after a lengthy appraisal. "I'll listen. No promises, but I'll listen."

"You—you will?" Butch looked almost flabbergasted, confirming Samantha's suspicion. "Great! I mean—I mean, thanks, Samantha. I appreciate it." Abruptly he flung himself off the bedframe and paced the room, as if trying to organize his thoughts. Samantha waited patiently. After a moment, Butch pulled out the chair from the small battered desk, turned it around, and dropped into it, resting his arms on the back.

"Okay. It's like this, see." He was holding her eyes intently. "You've been gone from the Vault for months now, so you didn't know. But after the radroaches got Amata's dad—"

Is that the story Mack put around? Samantha wondered.

"—things got really bad. See, after Amata's dad died, Wally Mack's dad took over—well, I guess you already knew that—" Butch stopped in confusion.

"Go on," Samantha reassured him.

Butch frowned for a moment, as if trying to restart his train of thought. "Well, anyway, Wally's dad took over as the new Overseer. And right off the bat, he started—well, he said that the reason the radroaches had been able to get in in the first place was that the old Overseer had gotten too lax, that he hadn't done a good enough job protectin people, and all that. So Wally's dad started makin all these new rules, like people had to be in their quarters by six, that everyone needed special permission if they wanted to go anywhere other than work and home, that kinda thing.

"He also started really crackin down on people talkin about the outside. He said that the radroaches were all your dad's fault for goin outta the Vault in the first place and if he hadn't opened the door, they never woulda got in—"

"You didn't actually buy that, did you?" Samantha asked, raising one eyebrow.

Butch shrugged helplessly. "To be honest, Samantha, we didn't really know what to think. I mean, Mack sounded pretty sharp, and then he had Vault security on his side too. He was throwin people in jail, roughin people up…it could get pretty uncomfortable if ya disagreed with 'im. Not that that stopped any of us Tunnel Snakes," he said with some pride, "but it did lotsa other people."

Samantha nodded thoughtfully. "But even so, Butch, I don't see what that has to do with your not wanting to go back to the Vault. Mack is dead. I know; I killed him myself." Butch shifted uncomfortably at that. "Amata's the new Overseer now, and I don't think that she's going to be like Mack was."

"No, see, Samantha, listen," Butch said urgently. He stopped, catching himself. "I'm not tellin this very well, am I? I never was much good at talkin and stuff. The point is that watchin Mack got me thinking."

Samantha bit down hard on the urge to say, Well, there's a first time for everything. "About what?" she asked instead.

"About—" Butch hesitated. He heaved a sigh, and reached up, patting his hair with his hands in an unconscious gesture. Samantha got the impression that he was trying to organize his thoughts—to find a way to put into words something that he intuitively felt on a gut level. "Okay, this may sound crazy," he said finally.

"I'm listening."

"I think…I think somethin's wrong with the Vault."

At that, Samantha sat up sharply. "Something's wrong with the Vault?"

"Yeah."

She frowned in thought, studying Butch closely. Ghosts of the other Vaults she had visited lurked in her mind, and a prickle went down her spine. "Wrong how? Like, wrong with the water systems, or wrong with the atmospheric recycling, or wrong with the hydroponics bay, or—"

"Nah, nah, not like that." Butch gestured impatiently. "Nothin' mechanical or anything. Something's wrong with…" He paused, groping for words. "Something's wrong with the people."

"The people?"

Butch bit his lip. "That's not exactly it, but it's close." He sighed in frustration. "Look, Samantha. How long did it take Wally's dad to go bad, eh? He was a lousy Overseer right from the start. But it wasn't just him. Amata's dad wasn't much better. And— Okay, when I first started gettin my idea, I actually tried doin some looking through the Vault's history—" He saw her dubious expression and grimaced. "Yeah, yeah, I know what you're thinking. Me, Butch DeLoria, lookin at moldy old history books. Hell, I barely believe it myself. Go ahead. Laugh if you're gonna. The rest of the Snakes sure did."

"I'm not going to laugh at you," Samantha said quietly. Almost against her will, she found herself intrigued—whether by what Butch was saying, or by the simple fact that it was him saying it, she couldn't have told.

"Anyway it wasn't easy to find stuff—or maybe I just didn't know where to look; I'll admit I never did pay any attention to all them times old man Brotch tried to show us the library system—but I wanted to see if my idea was right. And it was." Butch looked at her seriously. "Far back as I could find, just about all the Vault Overseers have been—what did that one book call it, 'to-tal-it-arian?'" He pronounced the word as if it were from some alien language utterly unlike English. "Which as far as I can tell, means they were all real bastards. Or bitches. Can a girl be a bastard?" he queried, looking at her. Samantha shrugged. "Some of them were better'n others—Amata's dad wasn't so bad—but all of 'em ended up that way. Even if they started out nice, like Amata's doin, they still ended up that way. As far back as I could find, it was a pretty solid rule."

Samantha tilted her head. "So what are you saying?" she asked curiously. "Are you saying the Vault dwellers deliberately choose people like that to be Overseers?"

Butch waved his hand. He had come alive, talking about his idea; there was an interest and a seriousness to his demeanor that Samantha had never seen there before. "Nah, nah, that's not it at all. In fact, I'd say—" He frowned in thought. "I think it's the other way round. I think there's something about bein the Overseer that makes people go bad. I don't know what it is, but I think there must be. 'Cause it happens every time."

Lack of oversight once in office with no meaningful curbs on essentially unlimited power, Samantha thought. Who oversees the Overseer? She almost laughed, but Butch wouldn't have understood it. "The Vault Overseer essentially gets to play God to an utterly captive population," she murmured. "That's a hard temptation to resist."

"Yeah—yeah!" Butch said, excited. "That's it exactly. The Vault Overseer gets to play God, just like you said. Now I'm not sayin that's gonna happen with Amata—she might turn out to be, whaddayacallit, 'the exception that proves the rule'—but I'm sayin the odds aren't good, if you know what I mean." He looked at her appealingly. Samantha frowned.

"So you're saying that you left because you don't want to live under tyranny." Samantha paused for a moment, trying to imagine Butch as a latter-day Patrick Henry. No matter how she tried, she couldn't quite see it. "Okay, Butch, I can understand that, but still—Butch, look. At least inside the Vault it's still safe. The way things are in the Wastes—"

"It's my decision, not yours!" Butch said heatedly. "I'm the one deciding for myself whether it's better in there or out here—"

"Yes, but you said yourself you don't really know what it's like out here. I mean, in the Vault, you may be at the whim of the Overseer, but at least there's enough to eat, pure unirradiated water, and no wandering Raiders, no supermutants, no Feral Ghouls or Slavers, no yao guai, no Deathclaws— " She shivered involuntarily. "There's a reason why my mom's dying wish was for my dad to bring me up inside the Vault," she told him fervently, "and believe you me, since I've come out here I can fully understand—"

"Yeah? If it's so great inside the Vault and so crummy out here, then how come you're not in the Vault this minute?" Butch shot back.

Samantha dropped her eyes. A sharp pain bit at her, and she swallowed unexpectedly. She had to draw a breath before she could say the words. "Because Amata exiled me."

"What?" Butch sat up straight and looked at her closely. "When did this happen?"

"After I killed Mack. I killed her father too, on my way out of the Vault the first time. It wasn't radroaches that got him. I didn't want to, but it was him or me. Amata told me…." Samantha bit her lip as the pain sank deeper. She hadn't discussed this with anyone, not Nova, not Gob—not even Charon, and he had been there for it. Strange that she was now talking about it with Butch…or maybe not so strange. Somehow she couldn't meet his gaze. "After…after it was done, with Mack, she—Amata came to me. She put her hands on my shoulders, was very polite, thanked me for everything I had done—and then told me to leave. And never come back." Her friend. Former friend? The first friend she had ever had. Samantha's hands moved on her reservist's rifle, clicking the safety off and on pointlessly. "'You're a hero,' Amata told me. Just like that. 'You're a hero….and you have to leave.'" Some dust or grit must have gotten in her eyes; they were stinging. Samantha blinked to clear them and tried for a smile. "I guess there's no place in the Vault for a hero."

"Oh," said Butch quietly. "I didn't know that." There was a snap and flare as he flicked a cigarette alight.

Samantha drew another breath to steady herself. "She was right, though. Right to do it," she said. "I'd caused too much trouble in the Vault already. Hell, when I went back there, just about everyone I talked to—Officer Armstrong, old man Taylor, Freddie's sister Pepper—they all blamed me for starting everything in the first place. And they weren't the only ones; I talked to enough people to figure it out. I –I could see that if I stayed, Vault 101 wasn't likely to be a very friendly place for me anyway…"

That wasn't the whole of it though, she was forced to admit to herself. Not by a long shot. Part of her had been devastated by that final breaking, to be sure—especially since, with her father dead, it had been as if she was losing the last thread that bound her to what remained of her past. But there had been something else at the same time, hadn't there? Another part of her, standing aside, observing the Vault with a cool, calculating eye, that had heard Amata's decree and murmured, Good riddance. She had seen more and done more in the six months since she had left the Vault than just about any Vault dweller managed to do in their entire lifetime; she had traveled as far as Oasis to the north and Little Lamplight to the west; had seen Rivet City and Paradise Falls, had explored the ruins of downtown D.C.—and mapped the locations for Reilly's Rangers—she'd met ghouls and mutants, the Brotherhood and the Outcasts, had joined the Regulators, and fought Talon and the Enclave… Thanks to Three Dog, she was known far and wide across the Wasteland, and though mostly she thought his broadcasts had brought her more trouble than they were worth—she'd had occasion to curse his name more than once—that was still not something that everyone could say. To be out here, fighting the Good Fight—being part of something that actually matters—

There was a line she had read in one of the pre-war books she had scavved for Scribe Yearling at the Arlington National Library, that had managed to stay with her: Bliss it was in that dawn to be alive / But to be young was very heaven.

Of course she couldn't say that to Butch. She drew a breath. "But anyway, that's me. I can't go back. You can. If you think the system is bad, work to reform it from inside. It'll still be safer than being out here…."

She trailed off. Butch was shaking his head. "You don't get it, do you? It ain't just the Overseer. The whole Vault—" He broke off, rolling his head on his neck as if working out a kink, and pressed the heels of his palms to his eyes. "Ahhh…Jeezus, I'm no good at explaining this. I think…" He stopped and looked at her squarely. "Samantha, I think there's somethin wrong with the whole idea of the Vault to begin with."

"Something…wrong." Samantha looked at him closely, trying to understand. Again, the ghosts of former Vaults thronged her mind. "Something…morally wrong?"

Butch's lips moved, tracing her final words. For a moment, she wondered if he were going to ask her what morally meant. He brushed her words aside with a wave of his hand. Frustration crossed his face. "I mean somethin wrong," he repeated, gesturing for emphasis. "Something broken. Something that ain't workin right, maybe somethin that never worked right. Maybe…." He frowned and drew a breath. Samantha watched him, fascinated. "Maybe something that was never supposed to work right. Not something mechanical, not something to do with people, but the whole idea of the Vault." He looked at her helplessly. "Do you understand what I mean?"

Samantha pressed a finger against her chin. A chill was running up and down her spine. Images danced in her head: an open Vault door and an entryway strewn with windblown trash; eerie laughter echoing up and down bloody corridors along with calls of "Gaaarrryyyy…..;" a music room where skeletons lay tangled up with each other, chairs tipped over as they had tried to flee back from the door, where lay another skeleton with its hands curled around the haft of a rusting pistol. Something that was never supposed to work right. "You're saying," she said after a long moment, "that you think the entire Vault concept is invalid."

"Yeah!" Butch nodded eagerly. "Yeah—what you said. Samantha, I think the Vault is dying."

There was silence as Samantha contemplated that. Butch pulled on his cigarette; the end glowed red briefly and white wisps of smoke curled into the air. It was getting on toward dawn; the light seeping through the cracks in the boarded-up window was growing stronger, and color was beginning to bleed into the air.

"What makes you say that?" Samantha asked at last.

Butch shrugged, kicking at the floor restlessly with one boot. "Just thinkin about it. From what I could find, about a thousand people went into the Vault when the bombs started fallin. Now it's two hundred years later and how many of us are left? Maybe a hundred, maybe even less than that. " He worked his shoulders briefly. "When we were growin up, Samantha, how many kids did you see our age? There was you and Amata, and me and the rest of the Snakes, and maybe two or three others, and that was about it. Can't have a Vault without kids." Samantha waited for him to add a lewd comment, but he just took another drag on the cigarette, blowing out the smoke in a thin stream. As if struck by a thought, he added, "Y'know, maybe that's part of why they let your dad into the Vault in the first place, huh? 'Cause he had you with him."

She nodded. She had been wondering the same thing.

"This business of lockin ourselves up away from the world—stayin shut up all safe-like inside our doors—I think it's maybe not so good," he said, flicking ash from the end of his cancer stick. "I think maybe that's part of it. I can't say exactly how or why—Christ, I never was one of the smart ones, that old cat Brotch even said so himself—but I think it has somethin' to do with it."

Samantha frowned. "But Amata has said she's going to open the Vault up to trade and exchange. Surely that will help…"

"Yeah, she's said that," Butch said, spreading his hands. "Will she actually do it? Maybe she will, maybe she won't. Will it help? Maybe yes, maybe no. If I had to guess," he said, shrugging again, "….I dunno. I think the Vault might be too far gone for anything to bring it back. And I gotta say," he added, looking at her with an unaccustomed seriousness, "kickin you out for bein a hero don't exactly seem like a step in the right direction to me. Know what I mean?"

For some reason, Samantha felt her face heat at the words. She fought the urge to avert her gaze. "Why, Butch DeLoria," she said instead, "I had no idea you were such a deep thinker."

Now it was Butch's turn to blush and look away. "Aaaaahhhh….." He waved one hand vaguely and kicked at the floor again. "I ain't no smart guy. Not like you. Not—ah, not that you're a guy, or nothin," he fumbled. Samantha suddenly felt a big, foolish grin tugging at the corners of her mouth and clamped down on it hard. Where did that come from? "Usin' all them big words, and what with your daddy bein a doctor an' all….Yeah," Butch finished awkwardly, and the color in his face deepened. There was silence for a moment. Samantha suddenly became very interested in her rifle, while Butch pulled out his pocket comb and began to go to work on his hair.

Thus engaged, he spoke again. "Don't send me back to the Vault, Samantha," he said quietly. "Even if you do, I'll just leave again. You can't make me stay there, you know. Okay, my idea of takin the Tunnel Snakes on the road was really, really stupid. I see that now. But Samantha, I can't keep livin under a rock all my life," he pleaded with her. "The Vault is dyin. I wanna go someplace that ain't."

The simple depth of feeling in his voice touched her. Samantha gave a heavy sigh. "Butch," she said with gentle regret, "I can't take you with us. All that stuff I was saying before—it really is that dangerous out here. If you—"

"No, no, I understand that, Samantha," he rushed to reassure her. "I really do. Hell, I already said you were right, didn't I? But there's gotta be someplace out here in the Wastes you can take me that I'll be all right. You—you said you and that Charon guy was goin to—where was it? Megaton? You could leave me there—"

"No, Butch, I can't," Samantha told him. "Megaton is very particular about who they let settle there these days. Hell, the only reason they gave me a house is because—well, it's a long story, but take my word for it, it wasn't easy. They'd never let you in."

"Okay, so maybe not Megaton," Butch said, shrugging. "But Samantha, there's gotta be somewhere else. Those places that guy Three Dog was mentioning—Arefu, Bigtown, Grayditch—"

Samantha ticked them off on her fingers. "Arefu is dealing with vampires, Bigtown is under constant attack by super-mutants, and Grayditch was overrun by mutated giant fire-breathing ants. It's a ghost town now."

She saw him swallow a bit. "O—okay, so maybe not them either," he rallied. "But there's gotta be somewhere. Samantha, please…."

Samantha regarded him, gauging the strength of his emotion. At length she sighed. How is it that I've gone from dragging him back to the Vault by any means necessary to actually taking his request to stay out here seriously? She let her eyes drift briefly closed, envisioning all the places she'd been. Somehow she couldn't see Butch in any of them. Underworld? Butch would probably freak out to be surrounded by ghouls like that. Canterbury Commons? Hell, except for the caravan stops, that's just a wide spot in the road. Girdershade? I don't think he'd last a day before he brained Sierra with one of her beloved Nuka-Cola Quantum bottles, and to be honest, I couldn't blame him if he did. Agatha's house? No, that's just crazy. Arlington? The Lincoln Memorial? Ri—

She opened her eyes.

"There is one place," she said slowly.

"Yeah?" Butch's eyes lit up.

"It's a long way away from here," she told him, "and it would be dangerous to get there. But maybe we could take some of the safer routes—" Already her mind was working, tracing a diagram of the underground Metro tunnels; she and Charon had cleaned out most of the feral ghouls down there already—and even if there are a few left over, ferals are still much easier to handle than super-mutants….

"Yeah?" Butch interrupted her thoughts again.

"They have pretty good security where I'm thinking of, so no starting trouble," she told him sternly. "Especially because they like me there and I don't want your actions to reflect on me." She was heartened to see him nod at once. "They've got a big marketplace, a couple of bars, and a regular caravan stop. They're right next to downtown D.C. if you must have excitement, but they're safe from Raiders, super-mutants, and Talon…."

She went on to tell him about Rivet City, the thriving settlement built in the ruins of an old aircraft carrier, the largest settlement in the Wastes. She described the lights, the people, the places; talked about the beauty of seeing the sun come up from over the water from the flat plane of the flight deck; described the dizzying heights of the bridge tower, the murky depths of the hold. "It's the closest thing to a big city left in the Wastes," she said, and went on to tell him how there was always something going on, at every hour of the day or night. She talked and talked, and as she did, she watched the light in his eyes grow stronger, like the morning sun flooding the room with its rays through the gaps between the boards. It felt like she went on for hours, and when at last she finished, she tilted her head and asked him, "Well? What do you think?"

"Samantha," Butch told her, grinning widely, "when do we leave? 'Cause I wanna get there yesterday."

She laughed. "I thought that's what you'd say. All right, Butch; we'll set out for Rivet City today."

"Just one question."

"Shoot."

"Aaahhhh…." He hesitated, fiddling with his cigarette. After a moment, he glanced at her sidelong. "Would….would you ever come there? I mean, like, when you were passin through or somethin," he qualified hastily. "If not, that's fine; I mean, I was just askin."

He was blushing again, she saw, and she felt an answering heat rise unbidden in her own face. Somehow she found herself looking at the wall. "Maybe," she admitted, and glanced back at him.

"Okay. Okay, then." Butch smiled suddenly, a bright, delighted grin that called forth an answering grin from her. "All right, baby, well, look out, Rivet City, 'cause here I come! Butch DeLoria is on the way!"

He clapped his hands together in enthusiasm, and Samantha couldn't stifle a laugh. Around the two of them, dust motes danced, disturbed by the air currents and sparkling in the bright morning sunshine.

Finis.