Morning

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

It was still dark when Ellen and her father and Dogmeat emerged from the depths of Smith Casey's garage. A faint glow stained the very edge of the eastern skies, barely enough to even notice. Ellen shook her head. "I didn't think we'd spent that long in there," she murmured.

"One loses track of time in circumstances such as those," James said. "How's your Pip-Boy's light holding up?"

For answer, Ellen switched it on, bathing the area in front of them with enough light to navigate by. There was a wordless agreement between the two of them: dark as it was, dangerous as it might be, neither of them wanted to be anywhere near that Vault's entrance so much as a moment longer than they had to. And if nothing else, at least the sun was coming up. They picked their way in silence along southward and then east along the scabrous grey rock that was all that remained of an ancient road. As the eastern skies began to fade from black to blue, Ellen heard a gurgling noise. She glanced curiously at her father, whose expression was mildly tinged by embarrassment. "Did you want to stop?" she asked.

"I didn't think I was going to need to eat so soon after those pods," James murmured. "You haven't got anything extra in that pack of yours, have you?"

"Actually, yes," Ellen said with a suppressed smile. "I only found out about this garage from a trader I ran into, Doc Hoff- I topped up my supplies with him just in case. Find somewhere to sit, I'll see if I can get a fire going."

"You seem to have adapted pretty well to life on the surface," James observed once Ellen's fire was well under way. "Who taught you about burning Brahmin chips?"

"Nobody, exactly," Ellen admitted, shifting her weight. Sitting on the road in the armor wasn't particularly easy. "There's enough people in Megaton who do it that I picked up the idea on my own."

"Megaton. You're living there now?" James lifted one eyebrow, a feat Ellen had never been very good at.

Ellen nodded, and added a few more chips to the fire; it would be a while before there was enough sun to warm the Wasteland air.

"Did you really disarm that bomb?" James asked. When Ellen looked up, wide-eyed, he pointed to his Pip-Boy. "You're not the only one to get Three Dog's signal, you know."

"Oh- well-" Ellen ducked her head, embarrassed. "I had to study up for days first, but-"

"Ellen, that's nothing short of incredible," James said. With a shake of his head and just a hint of a smile he added, "Your mother would be so proud of you."

Ellen thought back to the great looming shape of the Failsafe Terminal in the moments before she activated the Chinese invasion program. "I- I don't know, Dad-"

"Well, you should." James pointed at her. "I heard what Braun wanted you to do, you know. He would never have stopped with just making you make the Nussbaum boy cry."

"I had a feeling," Ellen admitted. "But-"

"Hmm?"

She looked down and drew a deep, deep breath. "Even if... what I did in there. Even if that was the right thing... Dad, there's been so much else..."

"I thought there might be," James murmured. "And we'll talk about it. All of it. But first I really would like to get something a little more solid than pod nutrient solution into me."

"Whoops. Sorry," Ellen said, and dug out the cans of Cram she'd bought from Doc Hoff and the bottles of water she'd been carrying since Megaton. "Will this be all right?"

"Definitely." James smiled. "I believe I've got my knife around here somewhere..."

The Cram cooked up rather nicely once cut into thin enough slices, and made for a reasonably palatable breakfast. Ellen set part of it aside for Dogmeat- the last thing she needed was for him to run off after a molerat in search of his own meal. "Where'd he come from?" James inquired around a mouthful of Cram. "I don't recall any like him in Megaton."

"No, I got him from farther north," Ellen said. "I'd taken a message from Lucy West up to her family in Arefu, only there was a problem..."

He gestured to her to go on, and she did, first about Arefu and then about the Family, and then about Dogmeat and the Scrapyard and a dozen other things that had happened. The fire had all but burnt out and the remaining Cram had long since gone cold when he finally shook his head. "Ellen, that's incredible. For you to have come so far, through so much trouble, and still have the core of the young woman I remember-"

( "So, you're worried he won't recognise you?" )

She couldn't quite speak. She just swallowed, and did her best to smile.

"The Wasteland's not a good place, Ellen. Not unless people make it so," said her father a little more seriously. "And I think we both know how easy it is not to do that. The fact that you've kept at it in spite of everything- yes, including Andale- well. That takes a very special kind of person."

"I-"

But she never finished the sentence. Dogmeat leaped abruptly to his feet, growling. A ragged, worn-looking group of figures was stumbling their way. "Oh, God," said their leader, a man of dull brown hair and dark tan skin. An odd, heavy-looking collar encircled his neck. "Please- you've got to help us- I don't know how long we've got before these collars go off!"

James' expression hardened. "Slave collars," he translated, for Ellen's sake. "Paradise Falls uses them to control their captives. If they try to escape- boom."

The man and his companions all nodded. "Can you help us? We'll do anything-"

"I can try," Ellen said. "I have a little experience. Hold very, very still."

It was touchy work, but not much more so than the landmines Moira had taught her to defuse, and Ellen had grown used to working quickly under awful circumstances. As she started on the third collar her father said, "I'm surprised you got this far south."

"We're not coming from Paradise Falls," said the second man, leathery-skinned and blond from too much sun. "Those slaver bastards bought us up months ago, south of here, past the old car tunnel. When they stopped to clear out a bunch of ghouls west of here we got away. We'd be goners by now if they'd noticed we were missing."

The third collar came away from the man's neck with a click. Ellen looked down at the things with some distaste, then turned and flung them, one at a time, as far southward as she could. If they were going to explode, let them explode somewhere that would only harm the landscape.

"Thank you," said the third man. "Oh, thank you. We owe you our lives."

"Will you be going back now?" said James. "Where's home for you three?"

"Nowhere," said the first man. "There's nothing left. First came the mutants, then the slavers- I don't wanna know what's living there now."

"So what happens to you, then?" Ellen asked. Mentally she ran a finger down the list of places she knew that might take in three strangers; it wasn't a long list.

"Well-" The third man fidgeted. "Some of the other slaves were talking about a place far to the north, past ... Canterbury Commons? I'm not sure where that is-"

"I am," Ellen murmured. "Go on."

"A- all right- anyway, they said it was a place where slaves were made into free men. Where we'd find sanctuary. We were going to try and find it..."

Ellen cast an eye over the ragged figures. There was no way they'd last on their own, she was sure of it; if they had so much as a single weapon among them, she didn't want to know where they'd hidden it. They looked underfed, dehydrated, and- not to put too fine a point on it- sick in more than a few ways. They didn't even know where Canterbury was. If she just sent them on their way as was it would be nothing short of murder. She bit her lip, then half-turned. "Dad?"

"I can reach Rivet City on my own," was his surprisingly gentle response.

She blinked, and turned the rest of the way. "How did you-"

"Ellen," said her father, "I think, after everything that's happened, that I know at least a little bit about what I can expect from you. Go on. You know you want to."

.... he was right. Ellen nodded, and turned back to the ragged men. "Like I said before," she said, "I know where Canterbury is. And we can probably find this Temple of yours without too much trouble between the lot of us. Would you three gentlemen like an escort?"