"Find a place inside where there's joy, and the joy will burn out the pain." - Joseph Campbell

Rivet City may be one of the safest places in the wasteland.

Actually, it was by far the safest place in the Capital Wasteland. There was no contesting that fact.

It didn't mean CL saw it as anything other than a detestable rotting ship in irradiated water. It wasn't even whole, it looked driven in two, as if somebody had just snapped it over their knee and tossed it here.

She descended the stairs into the science lab, and her nose scrunched up. The air was foul. It made her feel rusty and moldy, which a person should definitely not feel. No, seriously. A person should definitely not feel either of those things, or else there was a serious issue there in terms of health.

And this ship was so not good for hers.

And every step she took, she felt worse and worse. The ghastly lighting didn't help a pinch. There was the tromp of Charon's boots on the metal behind her, and her dog had already slipped passed her, and was waiting at the bottom with mismatched eyes locked on her, tongue lolling out the side of his muzzle.

CL would have grinned at the sight, but right now, it was hot as fuck, on top of being dirty and moldy and rusty.

Even Dogmeat looked miserable.

She felt miserable. Her clothes were sticking to her in the wrong places.

Thank god she hadn't worn her combat armor. (Which ended up still being too big, and shot to all hell. Moira was once again fixing it, for a good amount of caps.) Her level of misery would no doubt increase to 'Fuck This'.

Her boots hit the last step, and then the bottom. And that's where CL stopped, thumbing her nose and running her hand through her recently shorn hair. The longer bits were sticking to the back of her neck. (At least Snowflake thinned it out. She loved it. Pretty easy to care for. But the sticking. Gross.) Yes, this place was hell.

So why the fuck was she even here?

Oh, right.

Doctor Fucking Madison Goddamn Li.

That picture was still in her Pip-Boy, but CL didn't need to look at it. She knew what the woman looked like. The memory of her face was burned into her mind. Everything, from the lines on her brow to the curve of her lips, the angle of her eyes.

She had spent a long time staring at that picture, trying to figure out why her father had gone to visit that woman.

She was pretty, if CL had to admit. But more than likely it was because she was a doctor and her dad was a doctor and maybe they had worked together. That was actually very logical, but there was a little niggling feeling in her head that maybe her father really liked this woman. (Enough to leave the vault and his daughter behind for.) It was completely irrational.

But still.

(Nope, completely irrational.)

A hand clamped down on her shoulder, and her body jerked a bit in surprise, head whipping around.

Charon was staring at her oddly.

Well, more oddly than normal. Which meant his frown was marginally gone and the corner of his eyes didn't have that crease he got when he was glaring. Well…glaring for real and not the default expression that just looked like a glare.

"Yeah, pops?"

It was funny how her mouth formed the words and she spoke as if nothing was wrong, as if she wasn't at the precipice of what felt like a downward spiral into feelings she didn't want to even acknowledge.

Anger. Hate. Intense regret. Self-loathing.

They were bad, horrible feelings and did not exist, thank you very much. It was stupid to feel them right now.

And still, Charon stared at her with ruined eyes that saw impossibly well. Stared as she grinned at him, trying to push away her concerns so he didn't see them. It never worked of course.

He always saw through her.

"Do you want me to wait here?"

Large hazel eyes blinked, and her grin faded as the hand left her shoulder.

There wasn't a second gone before it returned, full force, and she planted a hand on her hip. Her sticky, sweaty hip.

Ugh.

"I know, it's like, fucking blasted down here. You take Dogmeat and head on up to the market, okay? The air's easier to breathe up there. I won't be long. Promise."

She wanted him to stay, really…but...

There were some things she had to face by herself. She started this quest on her own, and this doctor was the end of it.

So she kept the smile on her face, and made a shoo motion with her hand.

And Charon stared at her with that look, before turning around and heading back up the steps, growling out words that made her smile less difficult to keep on her lips.

"Come on, mutt. I expect an explanation later, Chen."

Of course. And she'd give it to him. But she waited until the dog's tail had cleared the door, and it clanged shut, before she turned to finish this.

The steps had never been so hard to take.

"Excuse me? Doctor Li?"

The woman looked busy. CL knew that. But she also knew that if she didn't do this now, she would never do this. The woman answered before turning around, snapping.

"Look, this is a restricted area, I am tired of telling you people…"

It was then that she did turn around, and CL looked straight into the doctor's face as she sputtered and died on her words. It was odd, that look that came over Li's face.

"I…It's…you…my heavens."

Well, that wasn't weird at all. It certainly didn't make her feel any better about, you know, talking to the woman she needed to talk to. So she just shifted.

It was super uncomfortable as is.

"You look so much like her…You're Cath—James' daughter, aren't you? What are you doing here?"

"I…"

Wait. Wait a damn second. Wait a damn second.

"Uh…wait. You…know who I am? Have…have we met?"

Because CL certainly did not remember meeting this woman. At all. Not even a picture before she got to Galaxy News and talked to Three Dog.

Sure, the woman might know her dad…maybe her mom, judging by that brief lapse in words, but herself?

Li gave a long suffering sigh, before crossing her arms and pretty much rolling her eyes. The action was very…petulant teenagerish, and CL rose an eyebrow.

(An action she'd unconsciously picked up from Charon. In fact, it was one of the many small habits she'd adopted and not really noticed.)

"You were too young to remember, and I assume James never spoke of me. Typical."

Not…really helping the teenager vibe, Li, with all the passive aggressive venom.

"I am Doctor Madison Li. I worked with your parents many years ago…and now I run the science lab here in Rivet City."

And the obvious is explained! CL felt her lips twitch, and she rubbed them to prevent a very rude comment from coming out. Like, of course you run the lab here. Unless that was supposed to be sarcasm, and in which, that sarcasm was so great it was impossible to tell if it was seriously sarcasm. Or something.

Oh wait, there's more, because Li was very bad at, you know, reading expressions on how much CL cared.

CL really couldn't give a shit. Not about this woman and her slightly woe tone or the fact she was stating the obvious in an effect to…she didn't know. Garner sympathy? Big hazel eyes blinked, and she regretted ever speaking.

"It…was all I had left…When your mother died, your father decided to leave with you. He abandoned our work. We had no choice but to do the same."

Oh. Oh, that was…actually very interesting. What work, exactly? That's what CL needed to know.

But as much as her dislike of this woman grew, she knew…something about her parents. Her mother.

Curiosity was greater than dislike.

"I'm sorry. But…I never knew my mother. My dad…didn't speak of her much. Can you tell me something about her? Anything?"

Li blinked at her, and it was hard to decipher the expressions on her face. It really was. They seemed almost confused, angry, resigned.

"Yes…Your mother…Catherine…well…she was a good woman. A very dedicated scientist. Your father…he loved her very much. It was a shame she died, she had been so excited to meet you."

Frustration mounted in the pit of her belly. She knew that much. God dammit. Something else!

"Why did my mom die?"

"Complications from childbirth."

That hit like a ton of bricks. And Li went on, in a flat, clinical tone.

"None of us were expecting it. We weren't as prepared as we could have been. Of course, you have to understand that we were struggling with scavenged, derelict equipment. We did do everything we could. I'm just…sorry it wasn't enough."

Not as sorry as CL was.

Not nearly as sorry as she was.

That frustration died, and all that was left was…she didn't even know. The gnawing hunger to know more about her mother just perished. And all that was left was a small seed of regret, buried under something else to be revisited later. Her head shook, and black hair was pushed from her eyes.

She couldn't be sad. She had to finish this, and get the hell off this boat. She'd be sad later, when Charon would ask and she could just…be sad because…

Because…

CL didn't even know.

So she opened her mouth.

And asked. Pushed aside her discomfort, her misery, and asked about what she needed to know.

It was getting dark. CL didn't like it when it got dark out here.

Everything in the shadows seemed to be threatening. Everything seemed to move. The noises were chilling, if it wasn't the things, the animals, it was the dust, the wind, the people.

The groaning of the concrete that was hundreds of years old and slowly giving away from neglect after nuclear war, overpasses about to collapse

So when she skittered out from under one, only to catch sight of a shack precariously standing beyond a rusted fence, relief slipped through her.

If she could get inside, maybe she could feel safe enough to sleep through the night. It was a serious set of 'if' and 'maybe', though.

And it didn't look good either way, slipping past a rusted fence into the scrapyard, trying to open the door. A shake, a rattle, a kick, and nothing. Locked, and for a shack, extremely sturdy.

CL moved on. It was useless, and dark was approaching far too quickly. It would have to do, to crawl into one of these skeletons of busses, or trains in the labyrinth of rusty metal.

Her hands were placed on the door of a subway car when the shouts and snarls made themselves heard.

A dog barking, people yelling. Her feet were moving before CL realized she was running toward, and not away.

Spinning a corner, though, and seeing a raider slammed on his back with a dog attached to his throat...that stopped her dead.

Especially when the dog looked up at her, blood still gurgling between teeth. She took a step back, and the dog bounded forward, leaving the raider behind and stopping in front of her with a bark. Chest to the ground, tail in the air, tongue lolling out the side of his bloodstained mouth.

It was morbidly adorable, and CL laughed, kneeling, a hand out experimentally.

"...You know, I think you're the first dog I've met out here that didn't try and eat me."

Because they attacked in packs and ate anything they brought down. A Yao Guai, brahmin, people.

This one, though? He sniffed her hand and licked it. Warm tongue on her palm, her wrist, and then he sat back to put his paw in it with a bark.

"You're pretty friendly, aren't you, boy?"

And super cute, with his head tilting and ears flopping like that, staring at her with warm, mismatched eyes. She felt a pang of true loneliness. She had nobody to talk to, nobody to understand, and while he was a dog...she just wanted to bury her face into his fur and tell him everything.

She settled for just rubbing behind his ears as his tail thumped the ground.

"You wanna come with me? I guess we could both use some serious company now..."

She was asking the dog. Yeah. Company would be nice.

He wuffled. Some insane mixture of a soft bark and the way he was sniffing at her face before licking her mouth, muffling her laughter as she patted his neck, finding a leather band under the fur, peering closely as the name scratched onto it.

"Dogmeat, huh? Not a very nice name, but I guess it's yours."

Another lick at her mouth, sniffing at her hair, or what was left of it after her impromptu cut a few days ago. He was warm and smelled of dirt and blood, and CL found her arms around him, soaking it all in.

"Yeah, I could use some company."