(AN - Probably one of the only longer ones I'll write.
I wanted a darker courier story. I wanted her to walk through hell to come out a changed woman. I wanted something different from most of what I've seen on here or AO3 where everything seems to work out for her after getting shot in the head. I wanted to explore the aftermath of blunt force trauma and the PTSD that comes with it, as I also suffer from PTSD and being able to channel how I process memories is very cathartic. I wanted her to find a kind of redemption for herself. So this story came to be. I won't give her a name for the purpose of immersion, I find it's easier to read Fallout stories when we don't assign them a name, though if I stick to it long enough I may eventually change my mind in later chapters.)
Trigger Warning - Violence, blood, and brief mentions of sex.
The beating of her heart like a war drum was the only sound she could hear as she made her way through the Mojave. She was sweaty and dirty and entirely grateful she didn't possess long hair - the caked dirt would have been an absolute bitch to get out. The logical response, she'd mused after heading this way, in the wake of recent events would have been to go home. To go back to her friends waiting anxiously for her who would kiss her wounds and bathe her and love her. But she couldn't. Not with this blood on her hands. She had to know, she had to find him. The man Caesar told her about between gasps. Ulysses. In an instant she'd barreled over and wretched along the dirt aligning her path.
As she looked up, Courier Six found herself standing in a memory from a month ago, standing across from the man in the checkered suit and the air in her lungs seemed to be punched out of her body. Everything had led to this moment; every person she'd met along the way, every favor she'd done, every asshole she gunned down or punched a hole into. Her war path started when she woke to her long dark hair in pieces across her head and a nifty scar on the top right of her hairline. With nothing - not her name or knowledge of who she was prior to taking a cap in her crown - she shaved off the remainder of her mangled hair and set off across the wastes, making a name for herself in place of the one she'd lost. Courier Six. The only memory was the one she festered in, of the man standing across from her now, the man in the checkered suit who put a bullet in her brain.
At this point in time, she was in Caesars camp, given the direct order to dispose of Benny in whatever way she desired. With limited options and the need to finish this herself fresh in her mind, she'd chosen death by combat. And now there was nothing left to do, the pawns were set and the rest of the chess pieces looked on in condescending interest.
She knew coming here was a mistake, she knew that there was something about the Legion that set her spine rigid with warning. She knew she should have gone about killing Benny in a more stealthy way, one that wouldn't require her to be here. She knew she should have listened to Cass and seduced the wormy little man, or Arcade who thought a silver tongue would convince him to just hand over the damn chip. She knew she should have brought someone. Their eyes, slavers and rapists and murderers alike, were unnerving her and distracting her. She glanced to the side and was almost cut down by Benny's first blow, his promise of not making this easy for her fresh in her mind. The courier dodged his machete swing and lunged at him, a shrill cry of rage breaking out past her lips.
Though he was quicker, more agile like a feline, she had the advantage of strength and each blow she landed was deep and unforgiving. He panted out in pain as she made a direct cut across his chest, she gasped as he sliced into her abdomen. Everything moved so quickly, the rage building inside of her increasing as they beat into each other more. Faintly she heard war drums, though whether this was just the pumping of her heartbeat in her ear or actual war drums pounding in the background she had no time to decipher. When the fight was close to finishing another wave of adrenaline rushed through her like a storm crashing with thunderous intensity. She dropped her machete, jumped atop his body effectively disarming him, and proceeded to beat the life out of him with nothing more than her leather-clad fists.
Something from her past resurfaced then. A different man under her much in the same way, only this was more intimate, the faint memory of hair bouncing in time with their movement. The smell of tobacco and sweat hanging loosely around the clammy room, the feeling of being alive and the way the mans dark eyes lit up with life. The way the light in Benny's eyes faded as she beat into him more and more, until she had so much pent up anger inside of herself she released it all in this moment, a great cry of victory and agony ripping again through her as she sat atop his lifeless body. If she was able to cry she would.
Courier Six hung limply on top of him, the blood from the cuts across her legs running down and mingling with that which pooled out of his body. She became conscious of their eyes again, knew even though she could not visibly see them in this moment over the torch lights that they were watching her. One set of eyes in particular she knew was watching her, and as she glanced over towards the exit door opening she spotted him. The Bull King, toxicity personified, Caesar himself. The way he looked directly at her, true interest etched into his face and the wheels inside of his balding head turning, she knew she had made a huge mistake.
As the memories of the past month left her for the time being, she decided she did not feel like listening to the gravel voice of Mr. New Vegas, didn't even feel like sticking to the road. Instead she opted for the steady humming of ED-E traveling close behind her as she trekked a straight path to the location of the Divide. The letter A kept emerging as she walked her road, in billboards or in the way the clouds had formed. The smell of lavender and cool breeze against her paled skin kept emerging. More of the memory she felt as she beat Benny bloody kept emerging. A life that was long gone from her now, she decided as she spotted a vacant building off in the middle of the desert. Courier Six made her way over, ED-E dutifully following behind, and much to her delight there was a bedroll and a place to build a fire that clearly had been out of commission for weeks.
"What's your name," came the distant sound of a thick tone as she stripped out of the outermost layer of sweaty wasteland combat gear. A muffled response as she could hear herself giving him an obligatory introduction. She said more afterward, but for the life of her she couldn't remember what it was she'd said. She plopped down atop the thin material and with the force of the jerk the memory jumped quickly to the two of them in a dirty motel, their bodies winding around each other. Then the cool feeling of emptiness followed.
The memory exited her mind as quickly as it came, whether by her own volition or through her blunt force trauma, she couldn't tell. Frustrated that this shift between memory and reality was now going to be her normal routine, she tossed onto her back and decided, as she gazed up into the endless night sky the building was too torn apart to shield her from, that if this Ulysses didn't have an answer for her - about where she's from and who she is - then maybe one day she would remember and maybe one day she would grieve, but today she needed to focus on what she was best at. Surviving.
Yet the more she stared up at the stars, the longer it felt like the stars were no longer glimmering off millions of miles away from her and instead were staring daggers into her. Thousands of eyes ravaged her body unmercifully, accusingly. Another kill on your notch. Murderer. Monster. A dark storm swirling in around her, the colors of black smoke and crimson blood filling her senses. Before she had time to realize she'd fallen asleep she was jarred awake by ED-E's notification that it was time for them to move on.