His employer was still new to combat. She cried a little as he cleaned her wound, but did not struggle or pull away. She knew it was necessary to clean out molerat bites as early as possible.
When it came to bandaging it, she finally said, “My father is a doctor. I, um. Spent some time in the infirmary, learning.”
Charon frowned down at her leg. Two months, and he was still learning the distinction between a roundabout order and a benign comment.
It would be easier if she gave direct orders, but outside of combat she could never bring herself to clearly say: “Eat now, sleep there, we leave in the morning.” It was always: “There’s food in the fridge and I think Moira and I finished making up the spare room, if you want to sleep there, and what do you think about that note we found about the cult, I think we should check it out…”
When she did not elaborate or begin to bandage the wound herself, he continued with his task. She grunted when he tied the pad to her shin.
When she tried to stand, she went pale.
Charon pushed her back down onto the rock. “You cannot walk.”
“Sure I can,” she said, trying to stand again. Charon took a step back and watched.
She made it five steps, over to her abandoned backpack. She looked down at it, obviously going through the mental steps: she would need to be able to make it back to Megaton with all of this on her back.
She looked back at Charon plaintively. “I can’t walk.”
Charon kept his face carefully straight as he picked up her backpack.
“What are we going to do? There’s a long way between us and Megaton.”
“I will carry you,” Charon said.
“But our things,” she whined.
“If it comes down to you or your possessions, I will save your life first.”
Ashley pouted. Sighed. “How much do you think you could carry with me on your back? There’s a few things I really, really don’t want to abandon out here.”
It took a bit of sorting. Charon had to help Ashley back to the rock, where she put her backpack between her knees and dug out the things that she absolutely had to have. Her repair kit and the med kit, of course. Her guns. The paperbacks she’d found in an abandoned house they’d passed.
All in all, Charon had been expecting more. He lightened his own pack into hers- he had been carrying enough scrap metal to make Winthrop cry- and hid it under a low outcropping. It was the best they could do, for now. They would come back for it later. Ashley was already marking the spot on her pip-boy.
That done with, he put on his own backpack back-to-front, turned around, and bent over. “Get on.”
Ashley giggled, the nervous giggle that always gave away when she was uncomfortable. It wasn’t easy, with her leg, but eventually she managed to scramble up. “I haven’t done this since I was a kid,” she said.
“Keep a lookout,” Charon replied. “If we are in danger, I may need to drop you.”
Ashley did not hang her arms around his throat as Charon had feared. At first, she awkwardly held onto his shoulders, most of her weight on the thighs in his hands. After a minute or two of walking she discovered that she could reach the handle of his backpack. It helped to distribute her weight and to keep him from slipping.
There were three miles between themselves and Megaton, an unhelpful part of Charon’s brain said. And it was a hot day.
After half a mile, Ashley figured out that she could just barely reach far enough into his backpack to get the water. “Here,” she said, uncapping it and holding it for him. “It’s this, or figuring out how to get me back up without a rock to jump off of.”
The water was a little warm, but far better than nothing. Ashley had a light touch with most things she did and a tendency towards neatness; barely a drop escaped from his lips.
Once he drank, she capped it again.
It was outside of his purview. She was not obviously dehydrated and they would soon be in Megaton, where she would have access to water, so it was not dangerous to her life. Still-
Five minutes later, she said, “I’m afraid that if I drink, I’ll need to go to the bathroom.”
After two months, that was the first practical thing she’d ever said to him.
