Leith looked up at Kaye, and was silent for a long moment before he finally sighed and said, "Kaye, we've known each other for a...long time now. Look at you, girl. You grew up on me and I absolutely hate it." He lapsed into silence for a long moment before he chuckled. "You're a grown woman now, Kaye. You should be thinking of settling down somewhere, setting up a store, getting married, having children. Yet you don't. You've never even mentioned doing anything of that sort. Instead, you stick around with someone like me, who's rarely allowed into a town, shot at on sight by more than seventy-five percent of the wasteland, can't have kids, is hard to even look at. Why do you let me just...hold you back like that, when I'm being selfish to even want you around at this point? When I see something in you that is...selfish of me to see?"
He was fumbling all of this, and he'd just gotten started, too.

Kaye was taken aback by his words, not having expected him to say anything along those lines. She released a small sigh before smiling at him. "You crazy fool." She leaned up enough so she could put her hand on his knee and shook it slightly. "I do not leave you because there is no where else I would rather be. I'm happy being by your side whether you believe it or not. I love you...you're like family to me. You are my family." A pause. "You can think whatever you may like, but I guess in the end we are both using each other for our own selfish reasons. Isn't that how it is now in this day and age, anyways? I never had a family of my own...but then you came along and took me away from that sorry existence that was my life. If you didn't come when you did, then I would probably still be in that town and probably would have died there without knowing what was past its walls. You showed me that there is more in this world than what I was living. You proved to me that there is more to a story than looking at it's cover. And you taught me everything that I know about the meaning of life. You are my teacher, my mentor...and are like the father that I never had, and I can never give you what you have given to me, but my utmost loyalty."

Leith remained quiet, but then smiled and wrapped one arm around Kaye, bringing her in close for a half-hug. He then said, "I'm proud of you, Kaye. You may have a few loose screws jangling around there in that skull of yours, but you grew up into a fine, young woman." He then pursed his lips, contemplating briefly on whether or not to broach the topic that'd been on his mind for the last couple of days, ever since those two boys had dug up a past that he'd much rather run from. But, if he kept running, then he'd just be a hypocrite, wouldn't he? He sighed. "Kaye, you remember me telling you about how I was alive before the war, yeah?"

"You didn't tell me much, but I know you had a family and lived in a vault for awhile. That's about it to be honest." Kaye's eyebrows furrowing slightly in confusion, not knowing what had suddenly brought this on. She was a little excited, though, despite trying to hide it. If he was in one of these moods to talk of his past, then she wanted to hear as much as he was willing to give because in all honesty, she really knew next to nothing about what made Leith into the man he had become.

He nodded. "Yeah, there was my wife, Christina, and our daughter, April. I worked in human resources, back in the day; it was a government job, though I was certainly no politician." He smirked at the thought. "I earned a decent living. We had a little house in the suburbs. It was...pink. I'd disagreed on the color, but Christina had been stubborn and insisted upon it; imagine me, Kaye, living in a pink house with a white roof because, well, it happened." He smiled at the thought, laughing softly as the memories resurfaced. "She kept it so warm, though, and full of life. Sometimes, I'd come home late and she'd be waiting up for me. I'd come inside, all exhausted and frustrated with my boss, but there'd she be with a bottle of wine and a smile." He sighed, leaning his head against the tin wall of one of the buildings. "God, she was beautiful. And mean. Oh, she could be mean when she wanted to be--never hesitated to share her opinion on a subject. Then again, she was right the vast majority of the time and just made me out to be the big idiot that I really am. She'd fold her arms over her chest--like, like this," he continued, trying to imitate her, "And quirk one eyebrow up--pretend that I have eyebrows--and it'd be like in those sitcoms, where the husband did something really stupid that the wife specifically told him not to do. Probably where she got it from, actually."

Kaye smiled throughout the whole story and laughed towards the end. "I can't imagine you living in a pink house, Leith, but I believe it. It sounds like a fairy tale coming right off the pages of a book. But what is a 'sitcom?'" She could imagine his impression vividly in her mind, but that one word could have painted a completely different scenario in her head that could make a difference in the portrait in her mind. She wanted picture it as perfectly as she could, how Leith's life had been, when he was happy. For once, she just wanted to see that smile on his face even if it was only an image of her mind.

"Uh, they were television shows," Leith explained, "Of the comedic nature." He sighed forlornly, eyes almost glazing as he became more and more enraptured with the past. "We'd watch them together every Saturday night. As we drew closer and closer to war, though, most of them were cancelled in favor of drills, governmental announcements, propaganda, and the like. You see, our government argued that communism was bad, yet they usurped our own freedoms in order to 'protect' us from the Chinese threat. People who were suspected of not agreeing with the government were arrested and tortured for information, deported, you know, that sort of thing. When you wanted to go into the bigger cities, then you had to go through a station. They'd ask you questions, check your person--they had the authorization to go through your vehicle entirely, if they thought you to be anything but a true, down-to-earth American. In the last year before the bombs fell, I was checked every morning at work, considering that I worked for the government; before even then, we had new security installed, as well. It was...terrifying. The horror stories of them malfunctioning, of not believing your ID. You know those sentry bots? Think about doing your work while having one of those hovering over your shoulder, bombs and lasers at the ready if you made the slightest move that it detected to be 'threatening.'"

Kaye fell silent for awhile after that. For a moment she had seen the closest to happiness she'd ever seen in Leith's eyes and now he was growing into the somber Leith again. She wanted to see him smile more, so tried changing the subject. "If it's okay to ask...what was life like before the war started? What was everyday life like?" For a moment she thought he was going to shut down because the train of conversation wouldn't be on his terms. She was beginning to wish she hadn't asked but was legitimately curious.

Leith was quiet, but then said, "Just like it is today, Kaye. People are just more honest about the darkness in their hearts than they were back then. We cleaned up nice, but we were just as willing to cut strangers' throats and stab friends' backs as we are now."

Kaye winced at that and felt guilty that her plan had failed. She remained silent for a long time, not knowing what to say. "Thing must have been better than they are now, though," she said, barely above a whisper. "People were happier back then, weren't they? I've read in a book once before from an old saying 'the grass is greener on the other side of the hill.' Was there a lot of green grass back then? It sounded beautiful."

Leith glanced at her, but then chuckled and said, "Well, yeah, the grass was green back then. But it was still dangerous because, well, we had the habit of using pesticides and such." He laughed. "That's what we did with everything good--we poisoned it, added unnecessary risks. But there were good times. You've got a point on that." He adjusted his back against the wall, becoming more comfortable before he continued. "Let's see, uh, I grew up in Atlanta. You know that big city near the dead center of this state, yeah? Well, it used to be the capital. It's too dangerous to get into now, of course--super mutants took it over a long time ago, and only God knows what else might be crawling around in there. I don't really want to find out, either."

"Oh," Kaye muttered softly. "Atlanta...I thought that was the city under water or something like that where the lakelurks live?"

Leith stared at her for a long time before he corrected, "You're referring to Atlantis, sweetheart." He shook his head, chuckling. "I'm talking about Atlanta, the real city."

"Oh." Kaye blushed slightly in embarrassment and looked at the ground. She didn't know what else to say, but she wanted to keep hearing him talk about his past. "I don't want to hurt your feelings in any way and you don't have to answer, but...what did you look like? I bet you were handsome when you were my age..."

Leith snorted at that, though he immediately wondered how he even managed to make the noise when he, well, didn't have a nose. Shaking his head, he said, "No offense taken." He thought for a long moment, struggling to remember the finer details of what his appearance had been. "Well, I was quite roguish. You know, I possessed a certain devilish charm." He chuckled, glancing at her. "But assuming that you want an actual answer and more detail than that, I had, um, blond hair. Yeah, it was of the lighter variant, but during the summer, I'd get these brown highlights. More time I spent out in the sun, more apparent they were. Or...or was it vice versa? Eh. Anyways, my eyes were, uh, brown. Yeah, brown, dark brown. And I had a fair complexion. About like yours, actually. Maybe a tad bit darker."

Kaye remained silent for awhile as she drew the mental picture in her head. She smiled when it all came together, a young blond guy wearing a suit, standing outside his family's pink house as he walked up to greet his wife. Yeah...it was indeed a beautiful life that she imagined.
She then grew somber and frowned slightly, staring at the ground. "You have a beautiful life, Leith," she said, smiling slightly, though it held a tinge of sadness. "I wish I could have known you in a different time. Maybe we could have even been neighbors. I could have played with your daughter and taught her some mischief. Get into some trouble a bit, then you would get on to me and call my parents to scold me. You would tell us to never do it again, then we would turn around and do it just to spite you." She finally looked up at him again, smiling.

Leith laughed at the thought, but then said, "I'm glad that I know you today, Kaye."
He then found himself becoming lost in his thoughts again. Then, "Kaye, I...I've been through a lot of hardship in these last two centuries. But I have to tell you that the worst part of my life was in that damn Vault. That's what I wanted to talk about, honestly. It's about time I did. I got off track, though, rambled, started stalling. Sorry about that."

"No, it's okay," Kaye said quickly. "I...am glad that I got the chance to learn more about you. But if it's difficult to talk about the vault, then I don't want want you to force yourself to. I don't want you to relive painful memories." She bit her lip in worry. Why was he deciding now of all times to tell her all of his?

"No, I need to. Not only because you deserve to know, but because...going back there, it may actually help us," Leith said. He took a deep breath, then exhaled slowly. "It was about six months before the bombs fell. My boss organized a meeting, and there was a Vault representative there; he told us all about how wise it'd be to register for space in a Vault, as well as for our families. Because we worked for the government, we'd have a higher chance of being accepted, though the first people to be invited were of the particularly talented sort or were well-known and respected soldiers. Well, I went home that evening and of course, I told Christina about it. I showed her the paperwork, the brochures. I thought it was nonsense. My reasoning was that if one country launched the bombs, then all of the rest would, and then where would we be? Well, looks like...logic doesn't always matter in the grand scheme of things."
He sighed. "April was three at the time, and, as to be expected, she was on the forefront of Christina's mind. We both had a bright future in mind for our baby girl, and we wanted to do all that we could to ensure and protect it. So Christina convinced me of the vault. Together, we filled out all of the forms, and the following week, when the representative returned for a follow-up meeting, I gave them to him. A few months later, we received the news that we'd been accepted. In the event of nuclear disaster, we'd have our new life--underground." He hissed out the last word, his tone a mix between venomous and sarcastic.

Kaye frowned at seeing the pain and anger written in his eyes and reached her hand up to pat him on the shoulder, but stopped herself at the last minute. "The vault...something went wrong...didn't it?" It was barely audible.