My Echo, My Shadow and Me

1: With Plenty of Money and You

Well, baby, what I couldn't do
With plenty of money and you.
In spite of the worry that money brings.
Just a little filthy looker buys a lot of things.

The moment the so-called "Lone Wanderer" had a hold of that condemning slip of wrinkled and worn paper, Charon felt a fire in his gut. His fingers tingled and his back itched where his combat shotgun chafed against his armor.

"I'll give you the pleasure of informing him yourself."

Charon certainly wasn't deaf, but his now-former employer was a bastard enough to pretend that was the case. At least he had the intelligence to realize the contempt Charon held for him.

Even from the corner, Charon could see the self-satisfied smirk on Ahzrukhal's face—a well-earned 2,000 caps, it would appear. Disgust mingled with the fire now raging through Charon, but not for his own self; rather for those who had decidedly made him who he was, through no consent of his own (as if he would have consented, of course). Brainwashing, Ahzrukhal claimed. Charon wasn't always sure himself, but whatever it was, that tiny slip of paper (oh, how he longed to burn it) held his fate—in fact, had held it for the last one hundred years.

Charon had heard everything that had transpired between the two, but as the Lone Wanderer approached, he made the decision to play dumb—for Ahzrukhal's sake.

"Talk to—"

The Lone Wanderer was quick with her response. Shaking her head, she said, "Slow down, there. I have good news." She glanced at the faded sheet of paper in her hands, before looking Charon straight in the eye, a smile on her face but a hardened look enveloping her eyes. "I'm your new employer."

Hearing it face-to-face as opposed to through eavesdropping was profoundly different, Charon found out, as he fought the relief attempting to force its way into his voice. Instead, he focused on the deed yet to be done, and the grim satisfaction he could already taste.

"You purchased my contract from Ahzrukhal?" Charon glanced in Ahzrukhal's direction, but the Ghoul was busy serving a drink to a patron. Before him, the Lone Wanderer nodded with finality. More to himself, Charon stated, "So, I am no longer in his service." Even more profound than hearing it face-to-face was hearing it from his own lips (or what was left of them, anyway). Now that he had, and having heard the facts stated three times now, it had truly sunk in. Ahzrukhal had held his contract for so long, Charon had been sure he would die before Ahzrukhal relinquished it.

Free from tyranny. Free from an unruly bastard who deserved to die—by none other than the man whom had grudgingly guarded him for the past twenty-some years.

Which he would. Soon, in fact. Very soon.

"Please, wait here." Charon could feel his shotgun digging against his armor again and his hands shook with anticipation. "I must take care of something."

The Lone Wanderer tilted her head, almost curiously, but Charon wasn't stupid, and he knew the Lone Wanderer was just as anxious as he was. Someone had given her inside info on the wretched Ghoul, and she wanted him just as dead as Charon did.

Charon almost smiled, but the act was so unfamiliar to his face that he was afraid his muscles would refuse to form one at all. He opted instead for the blank look he typically reserved for dealing with Ahzrukhal, and approached the man, fingers twitching.

"Ahzrukhal," he began. The Ghoul turned to him, a fake smile plastered on. Charon continued, unabated. "I am told that I am no longer in your service."

The fake smile continued. Could the man honestly be so daft? "That's right, Charon," said Ahzrukhal. He placed a glass he had been cleaning down on the counter beside him, and the fake smile turned to a smug smirk. "Have you come to say goodbye?"

Something like that.

In one fluid motion, Charon grabbed the shotgun from his back, flicked the safety, aimed (not that there was much aiming to do, at this range) and fired. Bits of Ahzrukhal's mid-section spattered across Charon's front, and behind the bar. On the ground, laying and gurgling in a pool of his own blood and innards, Ahzrukhal still managed to give Charon that damn smug look.

Charon blew that smug look straight off his face.

*

Charon dipped down next to Ahzrukhal and nearly gave him another shot of lead, but refrained. He dug through the dead Ghoul's belongings, just under the counter, and retrieved a swollen bag before standing and turning to his new employer.

"Alright," he said. "Let's go." He extended his hand to the Lone Wanderer, the bag held loosely between two of his fingers while his other hand was occupied reattaching his shotgun to the back of his armor. After the short-lived look of confusion had left her face, the Lone Wanderer accepted the return of her 2,000 caps.

"What the fuck was that?"

Both Charon and the Lone Wanderer stared in the direction of the voice, but only Charon looked away after a moment, to eye the rest of the crowd that had gathered. The girl, on the other hand, seemed oddly pleased and kept her gaze focused upon the man who had spoken. Perhaps she'd had other business here in Underworld, Charon mused and again flicked his gaze back to the girl and the Ghoul.

She and the Ghoul were now having an avid discussion and moving back into the next room to continue speaking. Charon followed the Lone Wanderer dutifully and took his place behind her as she sat across from the scandalous Mister Crowley.

"...I've got this list of people. Ghoul bigots. Real scum," Crowley was saying. Charon watched with amusement. He wondered if the Lone Wanderer knew what Crowley was really up to with these "Ghoul bigots." From the way she'd clearly known about Ahzrukhal, he suspected she did and was in it for whatever Crowley wanted.

Charon had listened to Ahzrukhal drone on about the money he and Crowley could make if they sold whatever it was Crowley was seeking access to, while Crowley continually stated he wanted it for himself and didn't need Ahzrukhal's help. Of course, in further attempts to persuade the stubborn Ghoul, Ahzrukhal would bring up Charon, mentioning how he could simply order Charon to go and retrieve it, with no danger involved for either Crowley or Ahzrukhal.

Charon, duty-bound, would have done it, but he wouldn't have been happy about it by any means. He had never enjoyed being an errand boy for any of his employers. Bouncer for the Ninth Circle and personal bodyguard for Ahzrukhal weren't necessarily his preferred positions either. Charon would much rather be out in the wastes, killing raiders and mutants side-by-side with his employer. He had never considered himself to be a sedentary sort of person.

But now, with the Lone Wanderer as his employer, he was hopeful that his job would be different. Listening to Galaxy News Radio broadcasts had brought word of her activities and accomplishments, and from the sounds of it, she was always out fighting, fighting, fighting. Doing the right thing, in most instances, but still fighting.

Already antsy, Charon shifted his weight from one foot to the other. He'd been standing in that corner for far too long. He was ready to see the Wastes again.

"Bring me back a key or a ring or something." Sneaky bastard.

Crowley stood and shook hands with the Lone Wanderer before departing for his room over at Carol's Place. Then, the Lone Wanderer did something completely unexpected.

"Charon," she said, "sit down, would you? You're making me uncomfortable, and I'd much rather see your face while we're talking."

Stunned, Charon did as she asked, taking Crowley's vacated seat.

Furrowing her brow, the Lone Wanderer said, "You seem...surprised." Her fingers drummed the table absently. Deep in thought, but still interested in holding a conversation. How strange.

"I am," Charon simply said. "Ahzrukhal would have died before allowing me to sit with him, as if I were his equal. Or, allow his worthless back to remain unguarded for even a moment."

The Lone Wanderer chuckled. "Honestly, I much prefer my front." She smiled, before looking grim. "But seriously, Charon—you watch my back, and I'll watch yours. I'm not looking for a bodyguard, I'm looking for a companion who is capable of both watching my ass and keeping me company." She paused, her fingers stilling as well. "Are you up to it?"

"I was up to it the moment you purchased my contract."

"Charon." That hard look Charon had noticed earlier returned to her normally warm eyes. "I'm asking you. I'm not asking for further explanation as to what my owning your contract means."

Charon was silent. An employer asking him what he wanted? A first. Normally the contracts he made were far from mutual agreements. In fact, the thought made him almost uneasy.

"Yes," he finally said, though with little conviction. "I will do my best to provide you with my support and company."

She nodded. "Good. Now let's get the hell out of here already. I'm not so sure everyone's pleased you murdered their bartender and chems supplier."

A quick glance around the bar confirmed the Lone Wanderer's observation. Charon stood from his seat, and stepped aside to allow the Lone Wanderer to pass before him. As they exited the Ninth Circle together, she looked back at him and asked, "How's Megaton sound to you right about now?"

Charon grunted. "Never been." He dug between a space in his armor and scratched where the leather was chafing. His fingers came back out with small bits of mottled skin beneath the hardened nails, and he made an irritable noise. Longevity was not worth having skin fall off at every opportunity it got, even if it did (mostly) heal back up by the next day, it was still patchy and loose as ever—and hell, other Ghouls weren't even lucky enough to have their skin heal. Charon was "lucky": his cellular mutations had awarded him with a relatively long lifespan (he probably had a good hundred more years yet, if he was to guess) and relatively "normal" healing (as compared to smoothskins). Sure, he was still missing large parts of his skin, but at least what was left (and what was exposed) healed up nicely.

Lucky being a rather optimistic term, when one considered the circumstances behind his transformation into a Ghoul. But maybe those circumstances had made him different than other Ghouls, as opposed to lucky. Hell if he knew, and hell if he cared, at any rate.

At the thought of the circumstances behind his Ghoulification, a glower formed on his face. Nothing unusual to the other Underworld residents, of course, nor to himself.

But he hoped that, some day soon, the Lone Wanderer would change that. Whether it be by helping him get back at the assholes behind how he was today, or through other means, it was all he was silently asking of her. To give him hope, for the first time in a long time.

*

When he and the Lone Wanderer (Kate, he reminded himself. She'd said her name was Kate.) arrived at Moriarty's Saloon, Charon wasn't expecting to see another Ghoul. As Kate was sidling onto a barstool in front of the Ghoul, Charon stood just behind her at a distance he deemed close, but not too uncomfortable. After twenty years of bouncing, he wasn't going to let his guard down in a bar by taking a seat—and especially not a bar where the looks he was getting from the patrons were less than favorable. He imagined the Ghoul tending the bar was probably not working here by choice. It was either that, or the idiot was masochistic.

"So, Gob," Kate started, waving him off when he offered her a drink, "what've you got for me today?" She was all smiles and big, bright eyes. Charon wanted to chuckle, thinking the girl probably had no idea just what one little smile could do to a man, and a Ghoul doubly so.

The name clicked into place in Charon's head. Gob was that "son" Carol was always talking about (when Greta wasn't around, of course). Poor bastard didn't seem to be as well off for himself as he probably thought he'd be.

Gob took a long look around the bar before saying, "A couple of stimpaks and some Rad Away." He stiffened as a door slammed upstairs. "Usual price?" The Ghoul had a huge smile on his face as he talked and Charon wondered just how huge of a crush he had on Kate, probably the only human in town who treated him right.

Kate nodded and set a bag of caps on the counter. With one final look almost directly behind him, Gob dipped and reached under the counter, coming back up with a handful of stimpaks and a packet of Rad Away. As Kate packed away the items into a number of easy access pouches lining her waist, Gob pocketed his payment and immediately moved to refill some sorry-looking man's drink. The creaky sound of a door opening in the back captured Charon's attention momentarily as a white-haired man stepped behind the counter.

Charon watched the white-haired man idly. Moriarty, he concluded, after the man approached the register and punched in the combination to open it. Moriarty sifted through the register's contents quickly before slamming the drawer shut and making his way over to where Gob was refilling drinks. A sudden movement sent Gob to the floor with pleas for Moriarty not to hit him again, while Moriarty demanded to know why the till was short.

Gob's pleas sent a sharp pain through Charon, and he felt an emotion he hadn't felt in years: shame. Charon remembered Gob. He remembered him very well, as he remembered everyone from that period in his life. As much as he wished he could forget what he'd done (been forced to do, he corrected), he couldn't. It hurt, thinking of it again, and he cursed his creators for failing to program emotions out of him. It would have made things a whole lot easier for him over the years. Instead, the best they'd done was put a metaphorical lock on his emotions: he felt (holy hell, did he feel sometimes), he just didn't show it.

He heard Kate sigh. "Poor Gob," she murmured. "No matter how hard he tries, Moriarty just finds a way to take what few spare caps he has." Charon swallowed. He wanted to leave. Right fucking now, before Gob got a better look at him. He felt guilt-ridden enough.

But Kate was ordering two purified waters and Charon wasn't about to express his eagerness to leave. It would lead to too many questions that Charon wasn't willing to answer; questions that he knew, with one simple command, he would have to answer, whether he liked it or not.

Gob's hands trembled as he set the two water bottles down in front of Kate. Charon turned around but he could feel the other Ghoul's eyes burning two deep holes into his back.

"Who's your friend?" Gob rasped.

"Oh, I'm sorry, Gob," Kate said, sincere apology in her voice. "I should have introduced you earlier. This is Charon." She turned her head to look at him, then tugged on his arm. "Don't be a sourpuss, Charon," she teased. "Sit down and say hello."

"If that is what you command, then I shall do it," Charon instinctively said. "However, I feel that I may fail to provide you support from such a position."

"Fuck the support. No one's going to mess with me here, Charon. So relax. Sit down and talk with us for awhile." Kate's voice was firm and unwavering. Charon obeyed her immediately. If she felt she did not require support at this moment, so be it; he would provide her the "company" she'd previously asked of him. But that didn't mean he had to like it.

Charon took great care to open the water bottle Kate had purchased for him. Anything to keep his face from Gob. He'd stare at the counter all night if he had to (and oh, how the thought of sitting all night in this hellhole and avoiding the gaze of a Ghoul who certainly loathed him irked him).

Again, Charon could feel Gob's gaze burning straight through him. Hearing Charon's name had more than likely been enough to spark Gob's memory, but Charon didn't want to see the hate in the Ghoul's face. He'd seen it enough. There were still Ghouls who thought of him as a worthless scourge, even after knowing there had been nothing he could do.

Thankfully, Kate kept Gob's interest enough of the time that Charon was free from scrutiny. An hour passed, and patrons, one after another, had been filing out, until it was only himself, Kate and Gob left. Moriarty had gone upstairs long ago, and the whore in the corner had gone up as well, with a man trailing resolutely after her. Charon longed to leave. It was obviously closing time, and certainly Gob had duties yet to attend to.

But Kate was persistent in getting Charon engaged in conversation. She'd been trying (to little avail) over the past few days to get him to speak outside of warnings and tactical appraisals as they'd traveled to Megaton, but Charon was keeping his mouth shut. The problem was that Kate wasn't getting the picture that he wasn't interested in talking. It'd been almost ingrained into him after all these years, that his employers simply didn't give a mole rat's ass about what he had to say, or whether he had anything to say at all. But the girl was stubborn as hell, and Charon wondered was when she was going to give up and outright order him to speak his mind.

"Where'd you and Charon meet, anyway?" Gob was asking. Charon was focusing intently on the nearly empty bottle in front of him, pretending to read the well-worn label.

Kate took a final swig from her own bottle. "Underworld," she said. "I bought his contract from some lousy scumbag of a Ghoul down there."

Charon watched the Ghoul from the corner of his eye. He didn't like where this conversation was headed. It was time to derail it, before it got out of hand.

"Miss Kate," Charon began.

"Please, Charon—just Kate."

"Kate," he amended, "may I suggest that we depart for lodgings? You're looking as if you need your rest. It has been a long day."

Kate nodded, agreeing, and stifled a yawn. "Charon's right. I'm dead tired." She stood and stretched, before turning back to Gob. "I'll stop by before we leave tomorrow morning."

"I-I'd like that," Gob stammered, rubbing the back of his head sheepishly. Charon took Gob's momentary distraction to stand himself, but the Ghoul's peripheral vision was sharp.

The two locked eyes and Charon knew he deserved the look of cold loathing he received.

Charon had done many terrible things in his life, but none had yet to beat what he'd put Gob and countless other Ghouls through. What many of them were probably still going through, if Gob's situation was any example. He deserved their hate. He always would.

Maybe one day he would forgive himself, for having been stupid enough to fall into this life.

Maybe.

Notes:

(1) I hated giving the Lone Wanderer a name, but I didn't want to call her the "Lone Wanderer" throughout the entire fic. Therefore, she is henceforth "Kate."

(2) "Kate" is a reference to Hecate, a fellow psychopomp (a spirit, angel or deity whose responsibility is to guide newly-deceased souls to the afterlife) to Charon. However, this is only a superficial reference, as the -cate in Hecate isn't pronounced anything like Kate. Also, "Kate" after "Catherine." (Yes, I will admit that I didn't make this connection until after the Hecate thing.)

(3) Fic title and summary, and chapter title and lyrics are from The Ink Spots songs of the same names: "We Three (My Echo, My Shadow and Me)" and "With Plenty of Money and You."

(4) I'm trying to keep Charon as in-character as possible, but still give him depth. Considering so little is actually revealed about him in-game, I think I'm allowed a little leeway. :P

(5) And yes, I did do extensive research on Charon by interrogating Ahzrukhal over and over again (loading saves when I had to) until I had copied down every single bit of information regarding Charon and the purchase of his contract. Don't judge me! XD

(6) 02/02/09: Thank you to Haisley for the beta. Chapter one has now been edited and reposted.