Love and Sunny

"How can you do this to me? You promised that you would forget your military history!" cried Sunny

That hurt. I did promise her that I wouldn't go back, but after seeing Corporal Davis's tags hanging on outside New Reno, I felt compelled to find the others.

"Babe, listen to me. There are things I haven't told you. Things I can't tell you. But I owe to those men. They were under my command, and I owe it to them to make sure they get back safe. I promise you this: I will be back, and then I will explain everything."

With that, I left. I slung my rifle over my shoulder and placed my pistol in its holster. The pistol was a standard 9mm, but the rifle was one of a kind. It was the only thing I kept from the vault. It was a very old L85A1 a fully automatic rifle with a 4x scope on it. The vault I mentioned was Vault 58, a prototype cryogenic vault that was to be the standard. But the 45 billion dollars it took to build made it economically unviable.

My name is Captain John Davenport, and I was a US Marine who fought during the Great War. I bought a seat in the vault and took command as the highest rank officer in it. 200 years passed by before the vault opened and we took our first steps into the "new" world.

My first stop was to the ranger outpost on the border. An army had arrived there to negotiate with the Desert Rangers, called the NCR. I wanted to see if they had any data on anything north of the area. While there I met a man called Major Hsu, who told me that they had limited data on that area, but he would give me what he could.

His data helped me get into Idaho, but before I left I met a man who said he wanted to come with me, he was a Veteran Desert Ranger called Jackson. And right now he was 15 feet to my flank, ensuring that if we were attacked, they would not take both of us in one hit. He had what the people here called a service rifle, but I still called it my its name, the M-16 assault rifle. We made good time in Idaho, eventually coming to the town of DubWey where we traded clothes for bullets. I bought some Jet black combat armour and a duster, which I wore together. Jackson stayed in his Ranger armour.

When we made Montana, we discovered that Private Thomson had started her own tribe, the 75th and had taken control of the majority of the state. She had gone mad with power, and attacked us on our second night in Montana. Jackson was killed by a a.50 calibre round through his armour, destroying his chest. I managed to fire enough bullets to drive off the attackers, but realised that my men were gone.

I couldn't go back to Sunny afterwards. I became a courier with the Mojave Express. I even worked with the NCR, delivering a piece of tech to a place in Ashton. But what happened there is no anything I care to remember. After that I run around the Mojave for nearly a year, even visiting New Reno. But there was one thing that I missed more than anything was the one thing that I made the decision to leave: Sunny Smiles. I couldn't bear it any longer. I took a final job to deliver a chip to the New Vegas Strip then I had planned to return to Sunny. But fate…had other ideas.

"Sorry you got dragged in this mess. From where your sitting must look like an 18-carat run of bad luck. But the truth is…game was rigged from the start…."

I'm sorry Sunny….

"Whoa there, easy. You been out cold a couple days now" the voice drilled through my head like a-bullet. With that thought everything came rushing back, except who I was, and what I was doing before the…shooting.

"Ok, that hurt. Note to self, don't look at the light. Huh, ironic"

"What about your name? Can you tell me your name?"

What is my name? John? That sounds right, but I must have a last name. Davenport. John Davenport. As soon as I had that I remembered everything. I was a marine during the Great War, who bought a place in a vault in Montana. I entered Vault 58 the day before the bombs fell. Vault 58 was a cryo vault, and filled with military personnel. 200 years after the war, the vault opened and 125 soldiers entered the Montana wasteland. I headed west, meeting the woman of my dreams. Then I left her to chase my old unit. I got a good man killed and I hid from it. After that, there's a gap until I wake up in Goodsprings

"John Davenport. Captain John Davenport to be exact."

"I'm Doc Mitchell. Welcome to Goodsprings. Now I hope you don't mind, but I had to go rooting around in your noggin to pull all the bits of lead out. IO take pride in my needle work, but your better tell me if I left anything outta place. How'd I do?"

"Well Doc, I gotta say you do damn fine work."

There was a series of tests, at the end of which the Doc gave me a 9mm and pointed me in the direction of a Sunny Smiles. Sunny. She is still here

"Cheyenne Stay. Don't worry, she won't bite unless I tell her to."

"I know. I'm not surprised you don't recognise me. Hey Baby"

"John, but you said you were going back East, to see if you could find any of your men"

"I dunno what to tell you Sunny. I remember what happened up until 2279. What year is it now?"

"2281, John, you've lost 2 years."

"Fucking hell, 2 years."

After catching up with Sunny and relearning my way round a rifle, which came back remarkably quickly, I headed back to the saloon, to see a loud mouthed asshole mouthing off to some woman. Well I wasn't about to have that. Using my military training I walked up behind the loud-mouth and snapped his neck.

"Don't talk to a lady that way," I said aloud as his body slumped to the floor.

After discussing the mans presence and talking to Ringo, I chose to end the problem. I grabbed my rifle and 9mm pistol and headed to an overhang on the road to Primm, and picked them off as they came.

Sunny came running up to me and said that she couldn't lose me again and that she was coming with me. I don't know why I done it, but as we walked towards Primm, and hopefully answers, I placed my hands over her shoulders and pulled her close.

"Well here goes nothing" I smiled….