Charon lay on his back near the fire, his new employer with her bedroll at an angle to his so that their heads were only a foot and a half away from each other. Normally the proximity would annoy him, but he had already decided that he liked this one well enough. She was certainly better than the last. She also seemed determined to treat him like a human being- not even as a ghoul, but a human being.

That surprised him. Vault-fresh as she was, he doubted she'd ever even heard of ghouls before meeting Gob in Megaton. The fact that they greeted each other with a hug when she returned to Megaton with Charon in tow told him volumes.

He glanced over at her. In the firelight, he could see her furrowed brow, see her gnawing at her lower lip. Probably worrying over tomorrow's itinerary, finding her father, any one of a hundred things. He turned away and let his gaze wander the fathomless sky. A thought struck him, and he turned back to the girl. She was staring, wide-eyed, straight upward. Afraid. He cleared his throat; as infrequently as he spoke, he didn't want to startle her further with his growl of a voice. "Did they teach you astronomy in the vault?"

She turned toward him a little so they could make eye contact. "What's that the study of?"

"Stars." He pointed upward, just in case she was that ill-educated about the outside world. "The points of fire in the sky."

She looked back upward. "Fire in the sky." She frowned. "But they're so much smaller than the sun. They're a lot further away, then?"

"Yes. Farther than we can imagine." He pointed again. "That's the north star. Polaris. I can teach you to find your way by that star."

"Really?"

He nodded and pointed again. "There is Altair. And there, Deneb."

She had relaxed now, her eyes still wide but her expression no longer so worried. She listened with great interest as he pointed out a few more- honestly, the few he could remember the names of, and when at last she drifted off, her sleep was not fitful.

~#~

Benny didn't completely understand why his kitten loved the roof so much. He kind of got her fascination with the beauty of the night sky, dimmed as it was by all the neon, but frankly he'd much rather be indoors where it was climate controlled, safe and dry. Well, the desert was nearly always dry, but sudden seasonal downpours and the resulting flash floods didn't have to occur very often for a cat to develop a deep and abiding hatred for them. Sandstorms, fiends, and cazadors he could do without, too. But he didn't feel so safe letting her wander around on the roof of the Tops all alone, so he tagged with her on those nights when impulse took her up there...often enough, in fact, that he'd had two deck chairs brought up that sat waiting for them any time she wandered there.

This night, he sat back in his chair with a martini and just watched her watch the sky. Her face practically glowed, and not just from the moonlight and neon playing across her pale skin. As if reading his thoughts, she said, "I don't know why I like the stars so much."

He shrugged as answer. "Don't have to know, honey baby. Can just sit back and enjoy them."

She nodded, a breeze lifting her hair a little and exposing a sliver of her throat. He grinned. He did enjoy watching her. "I wonder if I always have."

"Maybe so. Once you got used to 'em."

She turned to look at him now. "Used to them?"

"Sure. You're a vaultie, Pussycat. You never saw a sky until they tossed you out. Had to be tough, ya know, to suddenly have a horizon."

"Huh." She turned back just in time to see a meteor fall. "Ah! Didja see that?"

"I sure did. I think you're supposed to wish on 'em. That's what Maddie..." He let the sentence trail.

She didn't remark, and he was grateful. "But what would I wish for?" She turned back to smile at him, and now he'd swear she did glow. "I have everything I could ever want right here."

He held out his hand and she came over to take it, sitting gracefully in her chair and gazing upward again, their hands still entwined.

He did enjoy watching her.