Alright, tenth chapter finally out after a year! I'm really sorry, but I've just been really busy with school, and I actually forgot to upload this for a while, oops! But here's the chapter! Hope you all enjoy it, read and review and there will be a little note at the end.
"The only other time he's been like this is when he lost his father in Project Purity," Sarah said quietly, hoping the others wouldn't over hear the conversation. After they had reached the outpost, Jay immediately ordered a scotch, gulped the whole bottle down, and had another, and another, and another.
"And you already told me all about Project Purity," Rosa continued, "maybe he's calmed down by now. You should talk to him!"
"No, I think it'd be better if we just let him rest for now," Sarah replied, "It's been a long day."
"Alright, well, whatever you say, lady!" Rosa said, "I'm gonna go bunk with Colvin, who may I say is pretty good looking!"
Colvin and Dusk followed Rosa, leaving Sarah alone at the bar. Both Jon and Cass went straight to the barracks when they arrived.
Sarah rolled her eyes, but still giggled at the comment.
"She's a funny girl, that's for sure," she thought, "I should check on him."
She got out of her chair, and left a tip for the bartender.
"Hey, ma'am?" the bartender asked.
"Yes?" Sarah replied, surprised.
"Are you going to go see how your boy is doing?"
"Uh, yeah I actually I am."
"Goddamn it Rosa," Sarah thought, "Why do you have to talk so fucking loud?"
"Well, you might want to look for him in the main building," Lacey continued, "he walked right past both of you when you were talking."
"Oh, well thanks for that, uhm," Sarah said, struggling to remember the bartenders name.
"Lacey and it's no problem, hon," Lacey said, grinning, "you have a good night and be safe now!"
"Thanks, and you too, Lacey!" Sarah replied, happily.
She left the bar and headed to the main building. Sarah could hear Rosa's drunk giggling in the background. She rolled her eyes again, before opening the door to the building. Jay walked right past her, not even bothering to look who he just cut off.
"Jay!" Sarah called out.
Jay didn't reply, but he continued walking down the road. Sarah followed in suit.
"Jay!" she called again.
No reply.
"James Stahl Jr. don't you walk away from me!"
He stopped.
"The guy in there," Jay said, coldly, "Ranger Jackson, asked if I could clear out the road for caravans to come through. Feel free to tag along."
"Okay!" Sarah replied, startled.
"C'mon, then."
They both continued down the ridge to the road where the caravans were blocked. Giant ants crawled through the debris of the road, clicking their pincers loudly.
"Alright," Jay said, breaking the silence, "let's get to work, shall we?"
Jay pulled out a machete he obtained from one of the Legion soldiers earlier that day, and Sarah took out her pistol.
Jay slashed through the abdomen of one of the soldier ants, and Sarah shot the other in the head. He threw the machete at one of the workers ants and hit it right in between the pincers. Sarah shot the other two and their heads splattered onto the floor.
"That's all of them," Sarah sighed, she reloaded her gun and holstered it.
Jay took the machete out of the ants head and threw it to the floor. He stared out towards the smoke coming from Nipton.
"Y'know, in the Old World, they had a company named Nipton," Sarah said, breaking Jay's concentration, "Nipton or Lipton, I can't remember too well, and they made stuff like tea. And according to one of the holotapes that the Pride found in D.C. it apparently really sucked."
"Wouldn't doubt it," Jay chuckled. He looked at Sarah apologetically.
"It's alright," she said, grabbing his hand, "I get what you're going through, sort of. You know I'm not good at talking with people about stuff, and I never really tried. I loved Dogmeat as much as you did-"
Jay opened his mouth to speak, but she cut him off.
"-and if you're going to ask how I knew. The only other time your eyes were like that was when your father died."
"Someone's observant," Jay replied, sadly, "I knew Dogmeat's time was coming soon, but I never thought it would come so," he paused, "violently. I can't even begin to describe it. He was stabbed with a ripper. A fucking ripper! I think you can guess what happened to Dogmeat after that."
"Oh my God," Sarah said, startled, "I never thought that would happen to him, I was hoping that he'd meet a nice girl dog, and have puppies and die peacefully in his sleep, but not like that!"
"You say some of the strangest things," Jay said, "it may have been really dark, but I'm glad you came with me."
"Me too," Sarah said, smiling, "now c'mon, let's go back, you need your rest for tomorrow."
"Wait!" a voice called out to them in the darkness.
"Who's there?" Sarah called, pulling out her pistol. Jay turned on the Pip-Boy light.
"It's me," Duke said, walking into the light with his hands raised. His eyes widened at the sight of the ant corpses. "Somebody's been having fun here."
"Oh alright," Sarah said, "I think everyone forgot about you for a little while, honestly."
"It's easy to forget anyone," he said coldly. He took out a flashlight from his pocket and started walking up the road. "I'll tell you all the events of my day at dawn tomorrow, until then have a good night."
"Good to know someone isn't completely heartless," Sarah thought, she nodded to Jay and holstered her pistol again.
"C'mon let's go," she said to Jay, grabbing his hand, "it's been a long day, and tomorrow will be even longer."
"Yeah, you're right," Jay said, quietly. He squeezed her hand lightly, and started walking with her back to the outpost.
The next morning….
"C'mon people!" Sarah yelled, "Wake up, and get your asses out of bed, we're leaving in a little while!"
"We barely got here, Sentinel," Colvin groaned, rubbing his eyelids, "can't we just stay here a few more days?"
"No, Colvin," Sarah said, stonily, "I don't know if you can recall we have a mission to carry out and we're going to do it. Are there any more objections?"
"No, ma'am," Dusk said, quietly, strapping her boots on. "It'd be best if we got moving now."
"That's the spirit!" Sarah said, cheerily.
"Hold," Duke said, "I need to explain the Primm's predicament."
"Alright," Sarah said, surprised. Duke nodded.
"The gangsters that were holed up in the casino are taken care of," he explained, "the bigger problem is who is going to watch over the town. The sheriff was killed in the attack, and Deputy Beagle is too much of a pussy to take charge of his town. We either need to get the NCR to deploy more troops to the area so they can hold it as a strategic position on the Long 15 or we can get someone with experience from the correctional facility a short while from here. What does everyone think?"
"Can't have both watch over the town?" Jon said, "It may be a small town, but there are plenty of ways another group of gangsters could get into the town."
"May be true, but we don't even know where this correctional facility is," Sarah replied, "how are we supposed to find where the place is?"
Almost on cue, a man wearing a green beret and NCR armor walked into the room.
"Major Knight," he said, "and I can mark it on the map of those two Pip-Boys if you're interested in doing so."
"Since when did the NCR start giving out handouts, Major?" Jon said, sarcastically.
"Since that Brotherhood kid saved your life," Knight replied, "and cleared out the road for our caravans to pass through. I figure I owe them that much, I don't think Ten of Spades would appreciate if you died either." He tossed the map to Sarah. "Best to start getting your weapons ready, it might be a tough fight. It's been the Powder Gangers stronghold since they took it."
"The man we're looking for is named Meyers," Duke replied, "know anything about him?"
"Took justice into his own hands," Knight explained. "We were going to release him, but due to the uprising, we weren't able to."
"Alright," Jay said, "I'll go there and fi-"
"That wouldn't be the best idea," Knight interrupted, "the Powder Gangers would probably have heard about what you and the courier did at Goodsprings by now like I did. It'd be better if some of the other people in your group go for the ride. They didn't catch the major details of them, so if you all go in with a disguise, then ya'll might be able to slip in, as well as Ms. Courier over there. I'll give you a picture so you know who you're looking for."
"Maybe Rosa, Jon, and Duke can take care of this one," Sarah said suddenly, hoping to avoid Rosa's constant barrage of questions of her relationship with Jay.
"I guess the Brotherhood will be taking the troops then," Jon said, "so much irony in that statement."
"That's true," Major Knight replied, "do you have a change of clothes or armor to hide the insignia?"
"Why don't we give them some of the spare ranger clothes we have in the back?" Jon said.
"I'll go with the Brotherhood folk," Cass said interrupting Jon, "could use a change in company."
"Alright it's settled, then," Knight said, "the courier, Jon, and Duke will go to the correctional facility, and everyone else will be heading to Primm. Oh, and before I forget, you should take a shortcut to Novac, since you're heading in that direction anyways."
He took Jay's arm and slid a disc inside of the Pip-Boy. While he did that, Rosa held her arm out eagerly.
"Alrighty, people," Jay said, "we all got our jobs to do let's get ready for them!"
"Jay?" Major Knight said suddenly.
"Yes, Major?"
"Have this," Knight replied, handing him a shaving kit, "you look like you need it right now."
"Oh, well thank you, sir." Jay was grateful, but somewhat felt insulted. He had grown proud of the way his hair was, but he figured he may as well cut it.
"If there's any time for something new, it's always now," he thinks.
He walked back to the barracks, past where the company was loading, cleaning, and trading weapons. He spotted Jon looking at his trench knife on the table fondly.
"If you want that, go ahead and take it," he smiled. Jon nodded gratefully and took the knife gingerly into his hands. He swung it in a few times, just to get the feel for it.
Jay continued to the barracks with the shaving kit. The barracks were nearly empty, save for some NCR soldiers who were sleeping from patrolling the night before. He walked into the bathroom, and placed the shaving kit onto the counter.
"Shit," Jay thought, "it really isn't that bad." His hair had grown little, it still swept over his forehead, and however, he had begun to grow some stubble on his chin and sideburns. He opened the kit and grabbed the shaving cream to apply to his face. He did so, and took the razor, which was a straight razor, and raised it to his face. He remembered when Duke had killed the Deathclaw with a straight razor and shuddered at the thought, but nonetheless continued. He placed the blade just above his left cheek and slowly ran it down.
"Ah, fuck me!" he groaned. He had cut the side of his cheek slightly. It was a rather large incision, running down the length of his cheek, and was bleeding profusely. He quickly finished shaving the rest of his face, carefully, and applied pressure to the cut.
"30 seconds," he thought, "just 30 seconds and its done bleeding." Remembering what his father had taught him about small cuts and bruises. He took his hand off the cut and checked to see if it was still bleeding. It had stopped, and his hand was covered in blood. Jay shuddered, remembering not even a day ago had Dogmeat's blood been on his hand before. He shrugged the thought off and continued with what he was doing. He cleaned the area around the cut with a clothe in the kit dabbed in alcohol, which was also in the kit. After the sting from the alcohol wore off, he took the scissors and started to cut his hair. It was back to the clean cut he had a few years back. He put everything back into the kit, and walked back outside.
"You look exactly the way you did when we met," Sarah said, swinging her arms around his neck to kiss him.
"Yeah, well, I feel younger that's for sure," Jay replied jokingly, "does everyone already have their gear ready?"
"Pretty much," Jon said, "but we put your stuff together, don't worry."
"Thanks, a lot," Jay continued, "alright, well, everyone we got our shit together, let's go!"
During the downtime between writing this chapter and everything else, I've just been thinking about rewriting this story. It's not that I'm bored with it or anything, I'd just like to put better story elements into it, and this really was an amateur writing story. You can see little gaps in the writing style and I've grown as a writer since I started this. I'd love to improve this story, without changing what it is, of course. I think I'll leave this story up for a while, until I complete a rewritten version of the first, then I'll take it off. Until then readers! Read and review, good day