A few weeks later found Nora a few thousand caps richer and even more strung out. She was starting to get what Hancock had meant when he'd warned her that chems were all fun and games until they weren't anymore. While walking home from busting Emogene the Drama Queen out of house arrest, she noticed that out of the five inhalers of Jet, two tins of Mentats, and seven bottles of Buffout, she only had one bottle of Buffout left. Reasoning with herself, she cited the pesky raiders and super mutants who posed much more of a threat without Hancock watching her back as plausible reasons. Even if she could convince everyone else in the Commonwealth that she wasn't close to baking away the rest of her brains, she couldn't fool herself.
Frustrated, Nora cursed Hancock for choosing to stay in Goodneighbor and sit this one out. It gave her a sort of sick release to shift the blame, and she hated herself for it. After another good hour of beating herself up for her weak character, she realized that if she wanted to not be such a bad friend, she would to stop abusing chems. Dr. Amari could probably help out; she seemed more competent than most wasteland "doctors." And so, she made up her mind to get clean.
The rest of the walk back passed without incident. Not even stopping to unload the few knick knacks she had picked up on the trip at Daisy's shop, Nora headed straight for the Memory Den.
"Hey doc," Nora called out upon entry, "do I need to schedule a check-up or do you do walk-ins?"
The reserved woman peeked her head around a corner curiously as the Sole Survivor made her way back to the clinic.
"Ah it's you," Amari noted dryly, "What business do you have now? Did little Billy fall down the well?"
"You're a riot doc," Nora smirked, following Amari around as she fiddled with scalpels and other doctor things, "I was actually looking for some more...conventional assistance today."
"Oh?" Amari asked curiously, not turning from her work. The doctor was making Nora nervous, scuttling around like that. In the big scheme she had cooked up on the way back, she hadn't accounted for how utterly embarrassing it was to ask a professional woman like the good doctor to help her with a matter she could have handled herself if she wasn't such a useless tit.
"I think I took a few chems too many," she finally confessed, pretending to toy with a nearly blood pack so as to not make eye contact, "got anything?"
"Of course. I had figured as much," Amari said, already pulling out a syringe, "Our mayor may be a good man, but in my opinion he isn't the best company to keep."
Nora bristled at that somewhat as she was injected with whatever it was modern medicine passed for those days. It wasn't Hancock who had landed her in this position. Hell, he had probably prevented her from overdosing on occasion. The man wasn't sainted, of course, but he didn't deserve that. As soon as she opened her mouth to say something, though, Amari was already on her.
"Yes, I know he's charming and smart and probably has you wrapped around his little finger," the older woman warned, gently swabbing away the small blossom of blood on her arm, "But if you were to take my advice, you would keep your distance. You do a good job of keeping up an intimidating front, which serves you well no doubt, but you must take care that you look after the little girl hiding behind all that armor. That is all. Try not to overdo it next time."
Shell shocked and mildly confused at what had just happened, Nora took her time getting to the Third Rail. She felt naked and exposed, kind of like her mother had just scolded her for coming home with a letter from the principal. It was an odd feeling. All her life before the bombs dropped, Nora had been the model American. Dutiful daughter, diligent worker, obedient wife. That may be a bit of an exaggeration (she was no pin-up girl after all, and no high-class lady worked for RobCo as a product tester), but she had never had something like this happen. Then again, she'd only been a mild alcoholic before the war…
"Well hello beautiful," came a familiar voice, jolting Nora back to the present. She had made it to the back room of the Third Rail on autopilot. "Come here often?"
"Are you kidding? I wouldn't be caught dead in this rotten town. I hear the mayor is a rotten womanizer who mercilessly hits on business associates," Nora shot back, taking the glass of something he offered her. She downed it quickly before taking a seat across the way.
"Fahrenheit," Nora acknowledged, nodding to Hancock's second-in-command in what she hoped was an amiable way. She was pretty sure the bitch was never going to forget the whole heist/fiasco with Bobbi No-Nose. Fahrenheit just eyed her down in response. Yep. No love lost there.
"I'm just gonna go...ogle Mags or something," Nora decided after a few excruciating minutes of listening to business talk. Something about a supply deal with Vadim back at the Dugout Inn for some of his famous moonshine.
"Wait, we're almost done here," Hancock called, but she was already out the door. No more stress today. She just wanted some good jazz and strong booze. So, she lit a cigarette and headed over to Charlie so that she could make Hancock sorry he put her on his tab.
About halfway into her second Rum and Nuka, Hancock finally emerged from the back room, motioning her over. Nora signaled for him to hold up for a second and grabbed a couple of bottles off the racks behind Charlie before following him in.
"How'd that errand go," Hancock purred in his best business voice as soon as the door closed, "A little bird told me you made a stop at the Den. Musta been a real doozy if you needed Amari to patch you up."
Nora cursed him below her breath, even though she knew full well it was her who was being shady and dishonest. Making a spur-of-the-moment decision that was really just a throw-back to the days when she used to lie to her mom about stealing cookies out of the jar on top of the fridge, she decided to spin him this tale about how the cult they had traced Emogene back to was actually a large colony of dangerous super mutants, how she had barely escaped with her life – after rescuing the harpy-in-distress of course – and had returned to Goodneighbor at once for immediate medical attention.
"I see," Hancock drawled after she had finished trying to spin her sack-of-shit tale, "Did you by any chance happen to rescue Billy from the well while you were at it? I hear he's been trapped down there a while."
"Nope. Last time I heard, he'd been rescued right before falling down another well somewhere south of here," Nora said before taking a frustrated drag from her cigarette.
"Poor kid," Hancock said passively, "But if you don't want to tell me, I respect that. Everyone's got secrets, I just hope you've got a good reason for this one."
"Yes," Nora said before she caught herself, "I mean no. I mean...ugh. You can fuck right off if you think I'm just going to come out with it after putting so much effort into that lie."
"You actually put thought into that?" he said, giving a low whistle, "This is gonna be a long night."
A/n: Cutting off in the middle of a scene so I will be publishing the next chapter soonish. Don't everyone pm me with confessions of undying love at once!