This is a story I'll be updating when I'm able between all my other stories. The character of Catherine is a composite of a few Fallout New Vegas Couriers I've played, but her basic path is the Independence path as the story's title hints. I'm also not following any strict chronological sequence—basically the framework of the story is Catherine talking with her friends about the events that led her to where she is now. When you talk with your friends like this in real life, you don't really follow a set script—start at the beginning and then go A...B...C...D. It's more someone brings up something, you talk about that for a while, then someone brings up something else that might have occurred earlier or later. This format means that chapters will, for the most part, be self-contained adventures. In other words, you'll get all of Big MT—the next chapter—in one go...all of Dead Money in one set...so on and so forth right up to Hoover Dam and Catherine's ultimate fate.
I hope you enjoy this little diversion from my other stories and don't worry, "Who Are You?", "Through the Looking Glass", and "That 70s Gate" are still very much in progress—in fact, I'm currently working hard on the next chapter of "That 70s Gate" now.
BETWIXT THE BEAR AND THE BULL
Chapter One
Catherine Foster smiled as her guards let in her friends. "Sunny! Trudy! Doc! Come in! Have a seat and a Sunset Sarsaparilla." She encouraged, waving her hand at the couch and chairs and at the refrigerator.
"Thank you, your..." Sunny replied for the others before being hushed by a raised hand from their old friend.
"Please! I'll be the other thing for the rest of my life. Let me be just plain old Cathy Foster the Courier for just a little while longer, ok? These are my last few hours as a normal person and I wanna spend them with my friends." The attractive blonde pleaded as she took her seat behind a wood pre-War desk, shaking her head at the paperwork already piled up on it.
"Ok...Cathy." Sunny smiled back as she took her seat on the couch with Trudy sitting next to her while Doc Mitchell, after handing each of the women a sarsaparilla, settled himself down in a comfortable pre-War chair. "So, anyone else coming?"
"Cass and Ronnie should be here soon." Cathy replied, "And ED-E's beeping around somewhere." Hearing a complaining yelp, the Courier chuckled, "Yep...there he is. He's busy teasing Rex."
"What about Lily?" Trudy asked, "She was a big part of making this happen too. Be a shame if she doesn't show"
Sighing, Cathy nodded her head, "Yeah...I know. It's just that she doesn't do big crowds very well—afraid Leo might come out and play—if you know what I mean. Plus...super-mutants still tend to make a lot of people nervous. So...she went back to Jacobstown and is listening to it on Radio New Vegas with everyone else."
"Anyone else showing?" Doc Mitchell asked.
Cathy sighed, "The King...Julie...a few of the Boomers will be there. Even the Brotherhood is sending a couple of paladins fully decked out in their power armor. As a sign of respect they said, but don't kid yourself: it's meant as a statement of intent and a show of force. I know that and they know I know it." Shaking her head, the lovely blonde remarked sourly, "I knew I should have dealt with them before Hoover Dam, but...I let feelings get in the way."
"You didn't want to force Veronica to choose sides." Trudy sagely conjectured.
"Right." Catherine sighed. "I didn't want to hurt her after all we'd been through, but now...a lot more innocent people are probably gonna get hurt because I didn't do what I should have."
"You had good reasons for doing what you did at the time." Doc Mitchell responded consolingly. "From where I'm sitting, I'd say you've done the best you could to treat everyone fair and square."
"I'll second that." Trudy chimed in as Sunny nodded her head. "You could have taken the easy way out on more than one occasion."
"Couple of times..." Catherine ruefully confessed, "I did."
"We're only human." Sunny replied reassuringly, "Ain't none of us perfect."
"Yeah...well..." Cathy shook her head, "You know what they say about good deeds." Sighing, she bitterly remarked, her eyes showing steel. "Looks like they're intending on making the same mistake House, Yes-Man, the NCR, Caesar, and the others made—they're underestimating me. I've already warned Veronica that if they get outta line—I will step on them—hard. But, I'm afraid their Elders aren't going to listen."
"Speaking of Yes-Man..." Sunny spoke up, "Whatever happened to him?"
"Like I said..." Catherine replied, her lips curling up in an evil grin, "He underestimated me. Dummy told me his plans. I've already set things in motion to deal with him. Won't be long and he won't be a problem."
"Yeah...well..." Sunny advised, "Don't you make the same mistake the others made about you and underestimate him."
"Good advice, Sunny." Catherine smiled, "As usual. Don't worry...I'll heed it."
"Glad to hear it, Missy." Doc Mitchell nodded his head in agreement.
Laughing merrily, Catherine jibed as she tossed an unopened bottle of sarsaparilla to the doctor, "Why do I get the feeling that you're gonna call me 'Missy' even after they put that thing on my head, Doc."
"Yeah..." The old man nodded his head, his lips turning up in a fond smile as he caught the bottle with one hand and opened it, pocketing the bottle cap after receiving a slight nod of the head from the former courier. "You're probably right. But then...you're the closest thing I've ever had to a daughter."
"It's all right, Doc." Catherine smiled as a lump formed in her throat, "You go right on ahead and keep on calling me that. Keeps me grounded. Gonna be enough glitz and glamour today."
"I thought you liked all that." Trudy remarked, "After all...you're always wearing something fancy and well...we know how much you love to...well...you know..."
"Oh...don't get me wrong!" Cathy exclaimed with a mischievous twinkle in her eyes, "I love all the attention and looking pretty and all and can't wait to go to the parties afterwards—you should see what Swank and the boys at the Tops got cooked up for me! Tony and the Rad Pack are putting on a special show that's gonna be a gas! And..." She added with wink, "The boys and girls from Gomorrah have something...special...planned for me for later. I don't think I'll be walking or sitting down for a week after that."
"Heh." Doc Mitchell shook his head. "Looks like my duties as your personal physician are gonna start early."
"One thing I'm curious about." A red-faced Trudy interjected, changing the subject, "Why are you doing this in Goodsprings? I'd think you'd want to do it on the Strip. After all, that is where the new capital's going to be—isn't it?"
"Yeah." Cathy nodded her head. "The capital has to be New Vegas. It's the largest city, most of the principal players are there, and it's close to the Dam—although Goodsprings or Primm are more centrally located."
"So..." Sunny inquired, "Why are you doing this in Goodsprings?"
"I guess..." Catherine responded with a winsome look on her face, "Well...besides the fact that ya'll are my best friends and practically family...I guess it's because this is where it all began..."
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"Kid's waking up." Catherine barely heard as her vision saw fuzzy shapes all around her.
"Get it over with." Another voice growled as the blonde courier feeling the rope binding her hands, began to panic.
"That might be the way you Khans do it, but that's not my style, dig?" Turning her head towards the voice, Catherine was barely able to make out a loud checked jacket and then the next words she heard chilled her to her bones, "When I kill someone, I like to look at them in the eyes."
"Why?" She tried to force out, but though she moved her lips, there was no sound.
"For what it's worth, Kid, I'm really sorry. I know that from where you're kneeling..." He remarked in an almost apologetic tone as he held up the platinum poker chip she had been carrying in one hand while aiming a pistol at her with the other, "...this is a run of 18 carat bad luck, but the truth is, baby doll, that the game was rigged from the start."
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"Then I heard a crack from that pistol, a flash of light from the muzzle and that was it. Everything went dark until I woke up again in Doc's house." Catherine related.
"It was the middle of the night and I had gotten outta bed." Doc Mitchell remarked as he picked up the narrative. "I couldn't sleep, so I decided to read a book and catch up on some paperwork. And then I heard a commotion at my front door and Victor callin' my name. So I grabbed Ol' Bessy, my laser pistol, in case Victor had fried a circuit or two, and opened the door. And there that robot stood, with you in his arms, caked in blood."
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"Put her on the table, Victor." Doc Mitchell ordered as he quickly grabbed his doctor's bag. "Where did you find her?"
"I was moseying on by the ol' Boneyard..." The Securitron related, the Texas twang in his mechanical voice matching the cowboy appearing on the screen in the middle of his body, "An' that's when I saw that owlhoot shoot this poor thing. Couldn't do anything about it at the time." The robot confessed, "But once they'd left, I went over and dug her outta her grave and when I found out that she was still tickin', brought her here."
"Well...you did the right thing." Doc Mitchell remarked as he poured alcohol over his hands and instruments. "I'm gonna need Sunny to help me out here. Go get her, Victor."
"On my way, Pardner." The Securitron replied as he rolled out of the doctor's house, returning minutes later with an out of breath Sunny Smiles following rapidly behind.
"Need your help here, Sunny." Doc Mitchell called out. "I got her stabilized, but I'm gonna have to dig that bullet out and I'm gonna need you to administer some of your healing powder to keep her sedated."
"Right, Doc." The redheaded scout acknowledged as she produced a small pouch. "This should knock her out long enough for you to do what you gotta do."
"All right." Doc Mitchell took a deep breath as he looked down on his patient, "Let's get to work."
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"You did a good job, Doc." Catherine declared as she sipped her sarsaparilla.
"I can't take all the credit." Doc Mitchell demurred modestly, "My patient was one tough filly. A couple of times, it was touch and go, but you just wouldn't give up. I still couldn't fix the scars from that bullet—how'd you ever get that fixed? To look at you now, you'd never even know you were hit in the head."
"You can thank the autodoc at the Big Empty." Catherine explained, "He fixes all my scars."
"He?" Trudy interjected, raising an eyebrow.
"Yeah." Catherine chuckled, "Let's just say that I've got a cast of...characters...working for me at the Big MT."
"This is one story I have to hear!" Sunny exclaimed as she fetched fresh sarsaparillas for everyone.
"All right!" Catherine grinned, "But it's a long one, so make yourselves comfortable."
Chapter Two we go into the Big MT...