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The door opens; Ellen ducks in from a hotter-than-usual Wasteland summer day and spends some time blinking as her eyes adjust to the local light level. She lets out a sigh of relief- there are only so many doors you can try in Arlington before your cow gets frustrated and wanders off- and trots over to deposit an envelope at the Bar. Inside is an assortment of incomplete and fragmentary comic books, some bits as small as just a portion of a page, and a note.

Dear Steve-

I made it back to the Citadel today to deliver my most recent report, and I stopped by the archives like I promised you. Here's copies of the incomplete comics I found. The originals are back at the Citadel, so you can have these.

I'm not sure what else I can bring from home to make things more interesting for you on the road, unless you have a record player with you or something. If you like violin, I mean. There's a woman who has what I think might be the last Stradivarius violin in the world, and she makes her living by playing for traders. I might be able to get some recordings from her, if you ever wanted.

Take care out there,

Ellen.

Once the envelope's in Bar's keeping she deposits two fistfuls of bottlecaps on the bartop. "As much film as this will buy me," she says, "and there's more where that came from, if you have it. And some Cram and noodles, please."

It was a long day in the saddle and she could really use something to eat.

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"Hey, Ellen," Dean says, dropping into a seat at the bar.

"Long time no see, huh? How you been?"

He'd say he's hoping for no disasters, but given both of their luck --

Yeah, not likely.

"Oh, hey!" Ellen grins at the sound of a familiar voice. "Hi, Dean. It's been- gosh, what, months? I got promoted! And ordained. Which made for an interesting birthday. How have you been?"

Dean smirks.

"This where I go 'bless me Father, for I have sinned'? Or do you get some other title that's a little less -- "

What's the word?

"Catholic? Congrats on the promotion, though. Leveling up in badass ain't too bad. And I guess happy belated birthday, too. Want me to spot you a drink, or something?"

It's as convenient a way to avoid discussions of how he's been, anyway.

Ellen makes a small, rude noise. "Aren't those the priests with that weird rule about not ever having children?" she says. "Definitely not one of those. I'm a Brotherhood of Steel Chaplain now, and they just use our rank titles instead of giving us any extras. Keeps people from getting swelled heads or something, I guess."

"I wouldn't say no to a decent beer, though..."

"That and the creepy-ass collars, yeah. Though I've gotta say, the idea of you with a swelled head is kinda hard to imagine."

His grin widens at that.

What? Ellen's pretty cool. Seems to come with the name, kinda.

Anyway.

"Preferences as to the beer, or you up for a flash to the alternate past?"

Ellen just shakes her head. "I can't figure out how they justify taking people who theoretically ought to be really good at things that're important to future generations out of the gene pool that way," she says. "It's weird... and, um, thank you. People at home keep expecting me to when they meet me. It's nice to know it hasn't happened yet."

Seriously, if she meets one more person who thinks she feeds the news stories to Three Dog.... ugh.

"Anything you can recommend is fine. I've had a few really good ones here- not that that's hard compared to back home, but whatever they have in the selection is fine!"

"It's pretty freak to me, too. And I'd ask how the hell they even stick to the vows, but I'm pretty sure I don't wanna know."

Really, really doesn't wanna know.

"You up for a Canadian beer? I got kinda used to Molson back -- "

Damn.

" -- back a ways. It ain't terrible. And fuck if I know what happened to Canada up ahead where you're from."

Ellen shakes her head. "I don't know, I really don't. 'Not having urges' isn't the kind of thing they put on aptitude tests to sort out the people who ought to be in the job. At least it wasn't on any aptitude test I ever took."

She makes a dismissive gesture with one hand.

"... they make beer in- I'm sorry, everything I know about Canada is pretty much from the part of history where we annexed them so they'd stop blocking American troops from passing through their territory to get to Alaska. Okay, sure. Canadian beer is fine."

" . . . yeah, and that's the shit about Canada I definitely don't know, so. Good for us?"

He cracks a grin.

"Anyway. A Molson for me and for Ellen here, Bar. Thanks, sweetheart."

He'll tip his bottle to Ellen as soon as he pops the cap off. With his ring.

What? It's kinda fun.

"Thanks!" says Ellen, and proceeds to start crimping the edges of the bottlecap under as best she can before returning the gesture with her own. "I appreciate it. I spent most of today either in the saddle or going through the archives at the Citadel looking for old fragmentary comic books, when I wasn't handing in project reports. It's been a long day."

"Comic books?"

Dean doesn't scoff, just raises an eyebrow.

"Did someone write 'em in code or something?"

Weirder things have happened.

"No, no-" Ellen pauses for a moment, trying to decide how to phrase this. "The Brotherhood has a standing bounty out for any intact pre-War books people find and are willing to turn in or at least allow us to copy. Any readable pre-War book's rare enough to be valuable, whether it's textbooks or fiction or children's storybooks or even just old comics. So we have them in the archives. I wanted to make copies for a friend of mine here to take back with him."

"Huh. Gotcha. Guess it makes sense. No printing presses anymore, for you guys?"

What do they use? Mimeograph?

"The Citadel has a couple- we got them out of the old Hubris Comics printing room, actually- and there's a woman in Megaton who has her own printing setup," Ellen says. "Moira's is more for printing documents out that were stored in some kind of computer format, though."

"Hubris, huh? You think they were one of the first to go?"

He cracks himself up sometimes.

Really.

"The old computers're still running? Damn. Who woulda thought."

Ellen's mouth twitches. "I think it might be like the way countries before the War used to name themselves things that they really, really weren't," she says. "You know, the People's Democratic Republic of Wherever was guaranteed to be the least people-run and least democratic hell-hole on the continent, that kind of thing. Hubris' building was in fairly good shape when I found it, although it had a ghoul problem."

"Oh- Moira's an engineer. Self-taught, mostly. She got a couple of terminals up and running herself. I'm not sure how many dead ones she left behind in the process of bringing the ones she's using up to snuff, though."

"Yeah, truth in advertising doesn't really come up with that kinda crap."

At least it seems that way.

"Self-taught engineer, huh? She hot?"

So Dean has a type. Ish.

So sue him!

Ellen thinks for a bit. "She's a redhead," she says. "I understand that's a point of interest for some guys. She's in pretty good shape for somebody who doesn't leave Megaton much, too. Twenty-four, if I remember right. Mostly wears jumpsuits, but it's not like she has time to go to Rivet City for anything fancier..."

Dean laughs.

"Yeah, lookin' for fancy shit'd be a little weird with all the crap you guys've gotta get up to."

Priorties, man.

Priorities.

"If you ever wind up visiting my side of the door, and we're in Megaton, I'll introduce you," Ellen says. "Right now I'm on a field assignment to get a two hundred year old robot factory working again. We've already got our first wind-based electricity generator up and running, but it's going to be a while before I can go home for any length of time."

"Sweet!"

Not that he's looking to hook up, but. You know. Sometimes image matters.

Or something.

"Hold on a sec. Is this a robot factory for the creepy kind of robots, or the butler kind?"

Shit. It's like Ellen never gets a break.

"The kind that can do the factory work of five human beings without ever sleeping or getting cancer or mutating into monsters, the way the people in the Pitt do," says Ellen. "Here-"

She pulls a black and white snapshot out of her sylladex. (Thank you, Karkat.)

"This is an example of the kind. Deputy Weld guards the Megaton city gates."

Dean looks at the picture for a couple seconds.

Then he looks back at Ellen.

"So the creepy kind, but not the creepy dangerous insane kind?"

What?

Dean saw Battlestar Galactica and Terminator, okay?

Edited 2012-07-31 04:34 (UTC)

"I don't know, I never thought they were creepy," Ellen says. "I mean, there were two of them in the Vault standing guard over the storage rooms. You got used to having them around."

"Well, I'm glad they didn't give you nightmares, I guess."

Dean doesn't think he'd be so lucky.

(Or maybe unlucky.)