A/N: Okay guys. :) This is my very first time writing for this fandom, and if I'm being totally honest I'm just kind of writing to write and play around with my silly thoughts. So please go easy on me!

This is an O/C, not the Lone Wanderer. This will pretty much go along with the story line, except it's more from the perspective of someone who isn't exactly apart of the story. I don't want to write a super long A/N at the beginning so if you want to know more I'll write a longer one at the end. Please give this a chance and review!

And one last thing! I'm trying to write fics and actually finish them so I have quite a few chapters written already. Just so you know. :)

Chapter 1:

Fran liked to think that she was a smart girl. Not the smartest, she knew, but she always found a way out of trouble.

This time, she wasn't so sure she had a plan.

Yet.

She had to keep her head up, because she knew that getting depressed wouldn't help. She'd already spent six whole months being depressed, but that was before she'd found the secret. The secret that would help her come up with a genius plan to escape.

Six months ago, Fran had been your average New Vegas citizen. She was originally from Freeside, just another scrappy punk kid who was fighting to survive. She had to scrounge and save, beg, borrow, and steal just to get by, until one fortuitous day she found something. A passport.

It was just lying there on the street. She picked it up and looked around, expecting someone to come running and screaming at her to give it back. But no one ever did, and hell if she was ever going to look for the owner. Those babies went for hundreds of caps.

That day she had been feeling lucky, almost possessed. She knew that it was probably a forgery, and that those robots could sometimes tell. Passport in hand, she marched straight up to the Securitrons, half-expecting them to shoot her down on the spot. Instead, the automated voice greeted her with words that the average Freesider never got to hear: "Welcome to The Strip." And the gates had opened.

Life from there had been just as Frank Sinatra would have put it—beautiful! She had been living the dream, baby-she learned how to deal cards and roll dice with the best of them. She wore pretty dresses and dated eccentric men, and, most importantly, she made money. That passport had been her lucky break, and she knew what it meant: New Vegas was calling to her.

So what if her brothers were still slugging it out in the slums? She sent money home. Sometimes.

Sometimes she even visited them (but rarely, because they were so judgmental, and kept pressuring her to come home). In fact, her last visit home had turned into a huge family blow-out and she'd stormed out without saying goodbye. She fumed as she wandered down the empty streets.

She couldn't stand it when they told her she was a snob and that she needed to come back down to earth. She hated when they told her that she couldn't keep up her lifestyle. What do they know, she thought angrily. They were just jealous that she wasn't going to sit at home all day while they pretended to be in a gang and have all the fun.

She had been so angry and infuriated that she hadn't been paying attention to her surroundings. She barely registered footsteps approaching her from behind, and when she'd finally noticed it was too late.

There was a dirty hand reaching over her mouth and muffling her scream, and strong limbs trapping her so she couldn't move. She struggled until she felt the sting of a switchblade against her skin.

"Look what we have here, a little girl walking all alone at night. What's your name, honey?"

She gasped when he took his hand off of her mouth. "Leave me alone, my brothers are in the Kings-!"

She was cut off when his hand clamped back down.

"I didn't fucking ask who your brothers are. Try one more time, baby, and maybe I won't cut you open like a fish."

He didn't talk like a Freesider, and he couldn't be a King, she thought frantically. She felt tears prick at the back of her eyes and a sob form in her throat. He pressed the knife a little harder against her neck. "I'll only ask one more time. What's your name, and tell me the fucking truth."

"Fran," she gasped. "I didn't do nothin', I swear! Please don't hurt me, please…" He let her go, but only to push her roughly to the ground. She scrambled to her feet to make a run for it, but he shoved her right back down, skinning her knees in the process.

"Liar," he grunted, reaching out and snatching her arm. She yelped in pain as he yanked her up. "You're in big trouble, Doris," the man growled into her ear. "You're in debt, and I'm here to collect."

"Doris? I'm not Doris!" she said frantically, trying to shake herself free from his grasp. "I don't even know Doris, I swear, I swear!"

He shook her a little and she stopped struggling. "Nice try, honey. Now let's get moving."

Fran just knew that she could solve this. It really was just a case of mistaken identity. "Please, mister," she said, shakily smiling her most charming smile, trying to relax in his unrelenting grip. "I swear I ain't Doris. It's dark out, I can see how it might be hard to see but my name is Fran and I'm from here and my brothers—"

"If you can't keep your trap shut," he replied, "I'll shut it for you." He tapped the side of his knife on her cheek before tying her hands up in a tight rope and shoving a sack over her head.

That was how she eventually found herself in the Underworld, surrounded by ghouls (a group of people that she didn't really care for) and working off another woman's debt. A debt that would probably never be paid off. Ahzrukhal, the ghoul that had originally been after "Doris", didn't seem to mind one bit that he had the wrong girl.

Every evening she served drinks and sold chems in The Ninth Circle, and at night she entertained whoever Ahzrukhal told her to. Rarely did she see any other humans.

She usually drifted off to sleep at around 3am, after the last customer was gone. But this morning, as exhausted as she was, she just couldn't sleep. She lay on her thin little mattress, staring up at the ceiling, wondering when she'd gotten so used to strange ghouls in her bed that it was hardly even disgusting anymore. She even had a couple of regulars and that was comforting, somehow. And that in itself was just screwed up.

She sniffled and tried to cry, but found that she couldn't. She squeezed her eyes shut in an attempt to get some tears out but she had no success.

She sat up, a sort of fear rising. She was so tired that she felt delirious, but she couldn't give into sleep just yet. She blinked and sniffled, but nothing was happening. She was beginning to panic. A wild thought flashed through her mind—what if she wasn't alive anymore? What if she was just like those ghouls, except on the inside? What if she was dead?

The fact that her heart was pounding in her ears did nothing to ease her fear. She couldn't hear her own ragged breathing as she scrambled around the room in search for something, anything, to prove that she was alive. Maybe someone had left some alcohol or some sort of chem in her room…

And that was when she spotted It.

It was just a floorboard. But it was different from the rest. It was slightly raised, and as soon as she saw it, she knew that her luck had just turned around. She carefully and quietly pried the floorboard up to get a good look at what was underneath, and what she saw stopped her in her tracks. She could have sworn that her heart stopped for a whole minute.

Underneath the floorboard, someone (probably the prostitute that had lived here before her) had stashed caps, a knife, and a straight razor.

Fran knew what this meant. Lady Luck had turned her eye toward her again. She was getting another chance. She could use these caps to escape, and somehow find a way home. Home to Freeside, home to her brothers, home to New Vegas.

"Home," she breathed, "Home home home."

She counted the caps. There weren't a lot but she knew that if she applied herself, she could figure out a way. She always did. She would find more money and blow this joint, she would go home and see her brothers and they would forgive her and they could start over.

Smiling for what felt like the first time in ages, she replaced the floorboard and sat back down on her mattress. Tomorrow was a new day.

For the next few days, Fran made an effort to act normal. She smiled as she served drinks, made small talk as she wiped the counters. She found herself feeling calm and peaceful for the first time in a long time. She hadn't even felt this happy when she was living on the strip. Because now, she had purpose.

"Here's a little tip, honey," a gravelly voice said. It was one of the regulars, Lars. Fran smiled and threw the caps in her pocket. She'd have to give them to Ahzrukhal at the end of the night, but it was a nice thought.

"Thanks, Lars," she said with a grin. "You were always my favorite. Are you gonna stay the night?" Lars gave a nervous chuckle.

"Not tonight. Naw, don't act too disappointed." Fran shrugged her shoulders and took his empty glass.

"Maybe tomorrow," she simply said.

The shift was over and she had just a little while before she had to start entertaining. The bar was mostly empty, except for Ahzrukhal who was counting her tip money in the back, and his lackey Charon who was sulking in the corner. As usual.

Fran was swishing glasses around in the dirty water in the sink. She knew she was probably just making them dirtier, but she was past caring. She had other things on her mind.

In the middle of drying a glass, she felt the hair on the back of her neck rise up. She turned around slowly to see that Charon had moved from his position in the corner to stand near the bar. Close to where she was.

It took a second for her to speak. "Can I help you, Charon?" she asked, the words coming out quieter than she wanted them to.

The huge bouncer didn't reply. He just narrowed his milky eyes and stared at her. She narrowed her eyes back.

"What do ya want?" she said, her voice finally doing what she wanted it to. She didn't want stupid Charon to think she was scared of him.

The ghoul sat down on one of the bar stools and she almost thought that he was going to order something. She grabbed one of the cleaner glasses and was about to ask him what he wanted when he spoke.

"I saw what you did there, smoothskin," he said. Fran froze in her spot.

"I didn't do nothin'," she said slowly, setting the glass down in front of him. Before she could get away, he reached out and grasped her wrist. She tried to pull away but with a firm hand he drew her closer. With the other hand, he reached into the pocket of her ratty apron and pulled out two caps.

"Give those back," she whispered, her heart pounding. If Ahzrukhal found out she was holding out on him… Charon let go of her wrist but didn't give back her extra caps.

"I'm doing you a favor, smoothskin," he replied. "You don't want to get caught with those."

"But they're mine," she said quietly, reaching for the hand that had taken her money. "I earned them."

"What're you gonna do with caps?" he replied. "You don't need money, because you're always here. Unless you're planning something." She felt the blood drain from her face.

"Then keep 'em," she said with a sneer. "Just thought I could buy some booze, that's all." Charon snorted.

"Don't try to steal from Ahzrukhal again," he warned, and then stalked off. Fran let out a breath when he was finally out of sight. That was the longest conversation she'd ever had with him. Charon was the ghoul she hated the most, because he should have been her friend. She reasoned that since they were both "employed" by the same man, they should stick together.

Not only did Charon ignore her, but now it seemed that he also kept an untrusting eye on her. It was a good thing that he didn't know about all of the other caps she'd pocketed, but now she had to be much more careful.

A/N:

Okay! What did you guys think? I'm a little nervous about publishing this because it's not really about the LW, and it's not super action-y yet. The main character is sort of this illiterate, rude girl but my goal is to kind of play with this character and make her grow (into a better or worse person? Who knows?).

Also, in case anyone is wondering (I know that I always think about this when I'm reading fics) I imagine this O/C to look like Jena Malone when she plays Nancy in the mini-series "The Hatfields and the Mccoys." Has anyone seen that? It's awful. They just kept doing bad stuff to each other. You just want to go back in time and smack some sense into everyone. ANYWAY, Nancy just has this mean look I really like. And she goes kinda crazy, which was just awesome.

I don't really know if there are going to be any pairings or not. I'm really playing with some ideas in my brain, but I'd REALLY like to know what other people think. So please review! Tell me what you'd like to see happen. Tell me any wild or crazy idea. If you have a thought about where you'd like to see this go, message me!

I humbly offer this story for your reading pleasure and I genuinely hope you like it!

-Deena