Cherry
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The trio left sanctuary on foor and headed out across the wasteland together, two women who had only known each other a few weeks and a child who had only known the women for a few hours

Cherry sighed as she thought but smiled, guess if anything were true in this world it was the old saying

"Bonds grow fast in the wasteland, thats why, unfortunately its not always a good thing "

She looked at the child again then sighed, the girl was precious, and with the clothes cherry had given her she had the mismatched look of a wastelander although for an unknown reason she stuck out like a sore thumb

Cherry thought back to when she had met piper and the way she knew a vault dwellers even without the suit and grinned now seeing what she meant, that look of hopeful innocence

They had been walking for around two hours now when Cherry heard a noise above the music coming from her pip boy

She quickly lowered the musics volume grabbing her 10mm pistol and bringing it up to the ready

"Hear that?" She whispered to piper as quite as she could

Piper nodded and removed her own pistol from its holster

The two women pivoted and were back to back with y/n between them both guarding her with their bodies

The sound Cherry had heard was a type of feral barking, not to Cherry's surprise a mongrel dog pack

Cherry relaxed slightly now that she knew the threat would be minimal this time

The woman gave each other the look as the began to lay waste to the mutated dogs taking them out in very quick succession, this was helped greatly by Cherry's access to V.A.T.S

To be completely honest she wasn't 100% sure how V.A.T.S worked but it was a useful tool

She targeted the mongrel dogs heads, took her aim and fired, with her good luck (and 95% hit chance on each) she nailed the dogs one after the other with one bullet to each head

She smiled and turned to look at piper, to her shock however she saw y/n curled up into a ball on the ground

"Shit!" Cherry whispered to herself as she checked the child, shoving her pistol back in its holster

She found no injuries but could see the utter fear in the child's eyes, dammit, the girl was probably gun shy, that wouldn't do out in the wasteland

To the rescue came piper as she put her hands on y/ns shoulders

"Hey hey kiddo, its alright, its ok, sorry, are you ok?"

The child shakily breathed as she stared in fear at the gun still visible in its holster

"M-mummy... s-said guns were d-dangerous and not to go near them..... their scary..... thebad people used them to.... to"

Tears were welling up in the child's eyes as she fought against a full melt down

"D-daddy...."

Was all she could say, It took Cherry a second before she put the puzzle pieces together, y/n hadn't mentioned her father till now and he hadn't been with them at the vault.

"And now *sob* mummy to... gone..."

All the child's emotions seemed to overflow now as she let it all out, going from grief striken to simple mindless rambling as the trauma of it all caught up and the child crashed with only pipers hands on her shoulders to keep her up

Cherry sighed and looked to piper before sliding her arms under the girl as she seemed to cry herself away

"I'll carry her, we can probably make it to the great green jewelry in another few hours , let's go"

Piper nodded as they headed off in relative silence