Disclaimer: I do not claim ownership of any in-universe locations, characters, or concepts. Only the player character and any AU plot tangents are my creation; all else remains the property of its respective owners.
A/N: An acceptable level of violence and coarse language awaits you. Openly queer characters await you, too, but I don't see as to how that should require a warning.
Nor Dark of Night
1.
"I wrote my new song on a five-dollar bill
But I won't be able to sing it until
I get hot on the trail for to pick up the track
Of the dirty little thief and get my five bucks back
I first got the five dollars from a Montana man
When he come across the line with a pistol in his hand
He said, 'Gimme all your money!' but I got to his first
And I took his Colts too and the whole first verse
But he picked my back pocket, worked the five bucks loose
I had it tucked in behind a can of Copenhagen snoose
I wrote my new song on a five-dollar bill
But I won't be able to sing it until
I get hot on the trail for to pick up the track
Of the dirty little thief and get my five bucks back"
-Corb Lund
After a good three days of her vitals stabilizing and her color returning, the girl on Doc Mitchell's bed began to stir. He smiled, laid a soft hand on her forehead, and asked, "Can you hear me, kid? How do you feel?"
Her eyes slowly opened, focused, and she opened her mouth, though no sound came out. Doc Mitchell stroked her forehead and said, "It's alright. Take your time. Take it easy."
She screamed. Doc Mitchell stepped back, and just in time as her hand shot to where his wrist had been a second before. After a few minutes' sustained screaming, she began to thrash wildly and yelled, "Fuck you, you bushwhacking, limp-dick son of a bitch!"
Doc Mitchell blinked.
"Do it! Go ahead and do it if you've got the balls! You won't! Bushwhacking, back-biting coward! You won't! You won't!"
More screaming, and the thrashing gave way to gasping and trembling. Doc threw a blanket over her and muttered, "Apparently he would."
She threw in a long, ragged breath and whispered, "Oh holy hell . . . What?"
Doc moved to the end of the bed, grabbed her heels, and lifted them. "You're in shock," he said. "Just breathe normal and try to relax. You're safe here."
"Where's here? And who are you? Crap, who am I?"
"My name's Doc Mitchell, and you're in Goodsprings. You been shot. Take it easy; you been out a couple days now. Do you remember anything at all? What's your name?"
"Molly . . . my name's Molly Nguen. Some guys bushwhacked me, and one of 'em friggin' shot me in the head, I guess. I remember now. Doc, how am I alive?"
"Viktor—the metal fella—he was passin' by the graveyard, pulled you out the ground, and brung you here. Things were touch and go at first—I kinda had to root around in yer noggin to get all the bits of lead out, hope you don't mind—but I think I got you fixed up. What else do you remember, Molly?"
"He was wearing a checkered suit. There were some guys with him. Heavies. I think he called them Khans."
"That's good. Keep going, keep remembering."
"It had something to do with my parcel. Turned out to be a chip. I got popped in the dome over a goddamn poker chip."
"You don't sound like you're from around here, Molly. Do you remember where you're from? And what was that about a parcel?"
"Parcel. Delivery. I remember that, too, now. I was—I am—a courier, Mojave Express. I'm not from around here, no, I'm from up north. Portland. I got no family now, so I headed east to get away. Eating gecko steak and sleeping with my head in the dirt got old after a while, so I found a town and asked about ways to earn some scratch. It . . . it hasn't ended so good so far."
"Do you remember what happened, Molly?"
"I remember being thumped on the back of the head. After that I remember looking up at Mr. Fancypants and him pulling out a gun. Then I woke up on your bed here. Say, Doc, where's my stuff? Where are my clothes?"
Doc pushed a box toward her. "This here is everything you had when Viktor brought you. It's yours again. I know how it feels to have something that's yours taken away."
Molly threw the blanket aside, seemingly oblivious to her own nakedness, and groped around in the box until she produced half of a pair of glasses, about which she observed, "Well, shit fire and save the matches."
Doc hobbled over to his nightstand, opened one of the drawers, and took out a pair of horn-rimmed reading glasses. "Try these. They belong to my wife; she was four-eyed, too."
Molly put them on, judged them sufficient, and said, "Thanks, Doc. And thanks for all this. You really saved my ass."
"That's what I'm here for, kid. Don't even mention it."
She produced from the box a pair of blue jeans, a cotton t-shirt, underpants, boots, a cowboy hat, and a pair of dirty wool socks. After dressing and settling the hat over her head, she groped around in the box and said, "Hey, Doc, did that Viktor dude happen to bring any guns with him?"
"Afraid not."
She chose not to hear him. "There'd be a long arm and a sidearm, a hunting rifle and a nine. Rifle has a cracked stock wrapped in electrical tape, nine has a pearl handle. They were my dad's."
"No guns, Molly, I'm sorry. You could talk to Viktor, but I wouldn't put any caps on it."
"Dad's guns," she said flatly. Digging about in the box again, she commented, "Took Dad's guns . . . took all my caps . . . took my NCR scrip . . . holy Hell, they took change of underpants . . . Oh, thank goodness!"
She sprang up triumphant, holding a stiletto in one hand and a pip-boy in the other. "At least I've got Mom's stuff."
Doc Mitchell was standing as well. "Are you hungry, kid?"
"I could eat. If it's no trouble."
"Not at all."
He left, returned with a can of beans and a can opener. Molly held the two objects out in front of her and stared at them as if they were alien artifacts. "Doc, I, uh . . . I think we have a slight problem."
Doc, chuckling, took them from her, said, "That's perfectly normal. Sometimes our memories get mixed up when we take a few lumps, and you've just woke up from a coma after suffering a traumatic brain injury; if the worst side-effect is you disremember how to use a can opener, you're damn lucky. It goes like this."
He started opening the can, handed it back to her, and her hands recalled what her brain had lost. Son she was drinking the beans, indifferent to the sauce dribbling from her mouth, and between gulps asked, "Say, Doc, you got a mirror?"
"Sure do."
He took a hand mirror from the same drawer that had held the glasses and held it up from Molly to examine herself. She touched the cauterized scar on the side of her forehead, followed it to the stitched, hairless patch on the back of her head, winced, said, "Damn. I guess it went in oblique-like over here, and tore out some chunks before most of it went on its way."
"Exactly right. You know something about medicine, then?"
"This and that. You don't last long out in the wilderness if you don't learn a thing or two about a thing or two. I've purged my own guts, stitched up my own wounds, hell, one time I set my own busted leg."
"Is that so?"
"It was a long, weird road from Oregon to Nevada; a whole lot of it was touch and go. And to think it almost ended with me being bushwhacked by some guy in a fancy suit. Ain't life some crap?"
"Can I ask what would drive a young lady down that long, weird road?"
Molly stopped eating. Flatly, she asked, "You remember I said my folks are dead? Remember I said I came here to get away?"
"You did."
Her eyes narrowed into a hateful glare, and she growled, "Fuck NCR."
After eating, and chatting a bit longer, Molly asked, "So, Doc, what's in Goodsprings?"
"Not much; we're a pretty quiet little town. If you're itching to get back on the trail, you should head over to the Prospector Saloon and see if you can't catch Sunny Smiles. She usually helps out newcomers."
"Suppose I will, Doc. Thanks for the grub, and for taking me in, and thanks for saving my life. I owe you big."
"No, you don't. It were no trouble at all."
"No-can-do, Doc. If you ever need a favor, come find me and I'll take care of you. I've always been one for favors."
"Reckon I'll keep that in mind. So where will you go?"
"Someplace out there is a man in a checkered coat who could use killing. And he's got something that isn't his, and I've got a delivery to complete."