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When they leave the Vault, Felix doesn’t particularly want company on her way to Megaton, but she gets it anyways. She doesn’t invite him into her house, but she lets him in when he follows her. She tells him where he can get some supplies to supplement what he lifted from the Vault. He’s asked around about the Wasteland and decided he wants to go to Rivet City. He stays at her house and she doesn’t have much to say about it.
In the morning, after he’s gathered his things together and is about to head out, there’s an awkward moment where he seems about to say something, but he doesn’t. She doesn’t say anything either, because what’s the point? Idiot’s probably going to get killed either way, nothing she says is going to help him.
He’s gone less than half an hour when she’s laying in her bed staring at the ceiling and she finally says, “Motherfucker,” and gets up, grabs her gear, and goes after him, because the idiot’s definitely going to get himself killed.
She catches up to him after a while, but doesn’t feel like announcing herself. She follows a ways behind him for several miles before something happens. She hears gunshots and shouting up ahead. Raiders.
She sprints forward and finds them easily, and sees idiot-features bobbing around trying to avoid gunfire when there’s perfectly good cover not ten feet away in the form of an old automobile. She’s already pulled her .44 and shot one in the head before anyone even noticed her. Then Butch goes down.
“Shit! Idiot!” She makes a run for him and kneels in front of him--he’s definitely alive, clutching his leg. She takes three more shots (they all hit their marks, and if circumstances had been different she’d have been smirking), and then goes and pulls Butch’s arm around her shoulders and drags him around behind the car.
There’s only two more raiders left now, and once she takes out the first, the second turns tail and runs. Butch is leaning against the car holding his leg and trying to swear to cover up the fact that he’s whimpering and trying not to cry. Felix kneels down next to him and pulls his hands away from the wound.
“It’s not too bad. I can fix it.” She begins pulling out her first aide kit. It’s kind of calming, using her medical skills. She trained for so long to become a doctor like her father before her, but it so often seems that that was stolen from her along with him. It’s nice to be occasionally reminded that it wasn’t.
“Thanks for having my back,” Butch says through gritted teeth, “but where’d you come from? Thought I left you back in Megaton.”
She cuts his pant leg open and starts disinfecting the wound and lies, “I found out I had to make a trip Rivet City. Happened on you along the road.”
She think’s she’s convincing, she knows she’s a good liar, but he snorts and says, “Yeah, okay, whatever you say, nosebleed.” He doesn’t say anymore, which is unexpected, but then, it might just be because he’s injured. She jabs the stimpak into his leg with a little more force than is necessary, though.
As she wraps bandages around his leg, she starts lecturing him about about life in the Wasteland because maybe if he listens to her she won’t lose the last piece of her childhood home that she has left. She tells him to keep his leg elevated and goes to loot the bodies of the raiders. One of them happens to have a decent shotgun. She takes it back and tosses it to Butch.
“You’re going to need better equipment.” He looks it over while she lights a fire.
Finally he asks, “Why are you doing this? You don’t even like me.”
“Told you. I was going to Rivet City anyways. Might as well look after your sorry ass along the way. Not like you’d ever manage get there on your own.”
He sucks air through his teeth theatrically and says, “Harsh, sister,” but he has a bit of smirk on his face. Felix can’t even find it in herself to be too annoyed.