AN: A repository of flash fiction. These are excerpts that were cut or ideas that didn't make it (for whatever reason) into my longer fic, Dispatches from New Vegas. This one takes place prior to Chapter 1.

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Once upon a time, after a particularly lucrative month of slinging packages around the NCR, Isa Reyes—some years younger and infinitely more foolish—had spent two weeks worth of caps on an all night bender in New Reno.

She can't remember much about the night, but the next morning, she remembers struggling out from under stale hotel sheets into the too bright curtain-less room, with a taste in her mouth like something had vomited and died, an attractive man in the bed next to her, and a screaming need to piss. The moment she set a foot on the floor, she was rushing to stick her head over the toilet as her stomach mutinied and the pressure in her temples felt like someone had smashed her head with a power fist.

That had been bad.

Waking up now is worse.

The light hits her first. It's close, bright, searing. A dull blade scraping her eye sockets.

And there's an ache in her head that can't be explained by alcohol. This is dull and deep, thrumming through muscle and bone and squeezing her lungs.

When she tries to think of what led to it, she gets only dark, grainy images of men—men that don't look like they belong together, one shined and polished in a loud suit, the others dirty, grimy, wearing threadbare clothes—the smell of gun oil, of dirt; a tinny echo of laughter and—

BANG!

Despite the light and pain, her eyes fly open. She can just make out an unfamiliar ceiling above her and she hears a man cursing softly, then the scrape and clink of metal or glass being picked up.

She tries to speak and all that comes out is a harsh rasp. But it's enough.

The cursing stops suddenly and her vision is filled with a face. It's a peculiarly angled face. Kind of ugly. And old. Hair in odd places…like that long, shiny one coming off the bridge of the nose. But there's a softness around the eyes that hints at kindness.

The mouth moves and it takes her a moment to realize there are words coming out.

"…unconscious for about five days now. Wasn't sure you were going to make it. Last time I had to do such an operation, I was in a vault. Had a better selection of medical equip—whoa there."

She thought she'd be able to sit up, maybe slide off the table. And slide off she would have, straight to the floor, if his hands didn't catch and steady her.

"Easy," he says. "Easy there. I've got you higher than a Freeside Junkie. S'no time to be moving around. Tell you what? I promise to stop rattling on if you promise to not try running away, okay?"

She nods as he pulls a stool up in front of her and sits, cupping her chin and lifting her face so he can study her eyes.

"Now….can you tell me your name?"

His voice is soft and concerned and, just for a moment, it takes Isa back to her childhood, makes her think of worn blankets and warm Brahmin stew and a cool hand on her fevered forehead, a voice telling her "Everything's going to be fine."

But she's long grown past the belief that everything turns out fine.

And when she opens her mouth to give her name, there's a catch in her throat and the world goes blurry and then she's crying into his shoulder—and God it makes her head feel like it's going to split—and his arms are around her trying to still the racking shudders of her body.