You Never Cry

Back to Megaton

"Damn these Talon Mercs!" I yelled.

Charon and I were currently were pinned down by the river. There were four Talon Company Mercs shooting at us. Well me mostly but one was firing at Charon too.

I peeked my head out from behind the cover I was in I had to jerk it back. A bullet sliced the air by my ear. I growled and pulled out a frag grenade. I looked to see Charon hiding behind a pile of rubble that was once a road.

I pulled the pin and jumped out to lob the explosive behind the cover the Mercs were behind.

"FIRE IN THE HOLE!" I yelled. Ducking as a bullet sliced my cheek. The explosion effectively took out two of them. This allowed Charon and I to get out of cover and start firing at the remaining two. I was using my sniper rifle to hit them. Charon used his shotgun. Soon we were able to get rid of them. I sighed as I rummaged through their bodies. I took a few caps and some ammo.

"They just don't give up..."

Charon and I continued to push our way back to Megaton.

After about an hour I groaned as I brought a hand to my stinging cheek. I hissed. "Ah fuck. Let's stop here. This things a bitch..."

Charon walked over and looked at my cheek. "Allow me." He said.

Charon immediately took out one of the clean rags I kept in our bags. He wet it with a bit of water from one of the water bottles and cleaned the blood. Then he used some vodka to disinfect it.

I stood and waited. It was a quick fix and he was done in a matter of minutes. I went to thank him when I saw his armor had a dark wet spot on it. I realized it was a blood spot and immediately reached forward. The blood was still wet but from what I could tell, he'd had this for a while. I looked at the butt of his shotgun, blood.

"Oh my god! Charon you were shot?!" I pushed him against a still standing wall of an old broke down house and pushed him into a sitting position.

"I will be fine. We should check our supplies." He protested and started to try and stand back up.

"No! God how long have you been sporting that wound?" I shoved him back down and set the pack down. I pulled out the medkit I kept in it and started to reach for his armor to remove the top of it when he grabbed my wrist.

"As I said I will be fine. You do not need to be wasting supplies on me."

I let out a frustrated sigh. "Charon, I am the daughter of a doctor and I am NOT letting you walk around with a bullet stuck inside of you. I will try not to hurt you worse than you already are. Now stop protesting and let me help."

Charon's grip on my wrist didn't falter for a moment. Then he let go. I quickly removed his armor to reveal his chest. Remembering that ghouls are healed by radiation, I also pulled a bottle of irradiated water.

The bullet didn't go all the way through meaning I'd have to dig it out.

"When did you get this?" I said wiping the blood.

"One of them got me while they chased us to the river."

"Good lord. That was about an hour and a half ago! And you've been shooting things since. When were you planning on telling me about this?"

"I wasn't. I've had worse and as with my previous employers, I was just going to wait until we had settled for the night when you had no need of me for the moment. I am a gun. Used to protect the holder of my contract and to serve them."

I looked at him as I started to disinfect the tweezers. "You mean to tell me you'd go hours with injuries worse than this before being able to treat them? You could have died that way! Bite down on this." I handed him a wadded up cloth. He nodded and took it placing it between his teeth.