28
She bolted upright and reached for her sidearm. The ensuing crash from the drip stand didn't help her confusion and not finding her sidearm at her hip caused her to look around in alarm. Before she knew it, several hands caught hold of her, trying to coax her to lie back down. She stared at the out-of-focus faces and tried to make sense of the dull sounds reaching her ears. She didn't have the strength to resist as gentle hands pushed her down.
She blinked several times, trying to clear her vision, and swallowed, a feeling of razor blades tumbling down her throat. She heard the croak emerge from her throat and found a straw placed against her lips. By instinct, she sucked on the straw, drawing cool liquid into her mouth, feeling it cascade into her throat, soothing the sharpness.
"You're okay." A voice, becoming clear to her ears, seemed familiar. Comforting. "Slow the fuck down! Don't drink so fucking fast."
"I'll put the drip back in. I'm good with drips." Another voice, again familiar, sounded like it dipped down to the side and raised up again. The sound of metal scraping upon concrete. "Hey! No need to push! I'm just trying to help."
Another pair of hands held her arm and she looked down, her vision beginning to clear, and saw the hands inserting the drip back into her arm. She didn't resist. She felt like she should, but a hand brushing her forehead calmed her, making her feel safe. She looked towards the owner of the hand and recognised the older woman.
"Good to have you back." Valrie smiled. That didn't seem right. It seemed odd. Another hand waved in front of her face and she turned her head that way.
"We found you. Totally naked and totally bald." Gia leaned on the bed by her elbows, resting her chin on her hands. "Your hair's growing back, but, I don't know, the bald look was kind of hot."
"Gia! Give the woman a fucking chance to wake up! Jebus fucking Christ." Valrie swatted a hand towards Gia and missed.
"How ... how long?" She reached for the water and the straw that Valrie still held. Her throat still felt cracked and brittle. She took another long sip of water.
"Only a couple of days. That, what do you call, 'transformation' really did a fucking number on you. Dried you out." Valrie pointed at the drip bag hanging from the stand. "You've gone through a shit load of those things."
"But, not to worry, your turning into a monster and back again hasn't ruined that awesome rack. You've still got a rocking bod'." Gia performed a "Chef's kiss". Patience doubted she even knew what the expression meant.
"I doubt, very fucking much, that that is the thing she's most concerned about." Scowling at Gia, Valrie clasped Patience's hand. Patience tried to laugh, causing a coughing fit.
Now her head had cleared, she took a look around. The place looked somewhat familiar. Hers was one of several beds lined up against one wall and a man, dressed in Brotherhood of Steel fatigues stood at the end of another bed, checking notes on a clipboard. Then she remembered a few things.
"The King! He didn't get away?" She tried to sit up again and her head swam once more.
"Nah. We caught that crazy old coot. We knew who he was, 'cos he kept shouting 'I'm the King!' and 'I'm going get my revenge' and stuff." Gia made a cute, pretend sneer as she pointed a thumb over her shoulder in a general direction. "Then he collapsed like you and I arrested him.
"He did not say anything about 'revenge'. Why fucking lie?" Patience could tell her two friends were acting as normal. That made her feel better. Especially Gia, seeing someone else turn into a Super Mutant in front of her.
"But I did arrest him!"
"You tied him up while he was unconscious."
"Same thing."
"Guys!" Shouting hurt her throat, but her friends would have continued the snark filled argument forever if she allowed it. "So, how long before I can get out of here?"
Valrie shrugged her shoulders and pointed towards the Brotherhood medic. The medic looked over and shook his head. Patience didn't know what that meant, only that, at least for the time being, she would be going nowhere. She noticed the other beds and their occupants. Some of their injuries looked serious.
"Don't you dare!" Valrie caught hold of Patience's chin and turned her to face her, scowling. "I know that look. You are not going to fucking blame yourself! You asked for help, they made a choice."
Patience was about to say something, along the lines of 'forcing them', until she found herself interrupted by a whelp from Gia. The young ex-raider almost jumped on the spot, holding a finger up, as if telling them to wait. Patience didn't have the heart to say she wasn't going anywhere. Gia disappeared through the infirmary door and returned a few seconds later, carrying a sack and dumping it on the bed beside Patience's legs.
"We saved your stuff! There's your outfit, but that's pretty fuc ... uh ... pretty much ruined." Gia glanced at Valrie and then began digging inside the sack, pulling out the tattered remnants of her leather outfit, taken from the raider not that long ago. "There's your belt and pouches. Your pistol, which I'm totally not going to steal. Honest. Uhm, oh yeah, your rifle, knife and this ..."
From inside the bag, Gia pulled out her Pip-Boy. The catch had broken as she transformed, her extra muscles pushing the lock apart. As Gia held it, the bottom half swung down on its hinges, revealing the network of wires and tubes that had penetrated her forearm. Patience turned her arm over and saw the scars where the wires and tubes had once been. The Super-Super Mutant virus had not healed that.
"That's great. Thank you, Gia." Patience pointed at the sack. "Maybe put it away and I'll look through it all later?"
"Okay." Gia dropped the Pip-Boy back into the sack, followed by the tatters of the leather outfit and then dropped the sack to the floor, kicking it under the bed.
"Say, where's Vincent?" Patience pushed herself up in the bed and caught the look between her two friends. "What? He isn't still being debriefed by that Knight Captain, is he?"
Patience could tell something was wrong. The look on Valrie's face, for one. Valrie had few different expressions. Tearful sadness was not one of them. Patience looked towards Gia, but the girl turned her head away, avoiding her gaze. Then Valrie squeezed the hand she held and took a deep breath.
He had a room to himself. Patience stood by the doorway, leaning on the drip stand, and stared. They hadn't removed the top half the armour and he looked strange, almost as if he was half sat up, but the bunch of pillows beneath his head told her that he wasn't laid like that to relax. Half his face had bandages and dressings covering it, the other half looked battered and broken. Where he should have hands, she only saw stumps, enlarged by the dressings.
"You have five minutes." The Knight Medic put his hand on her shoulder. "You should make your peace now, while he's still conscious."
Patience nodded without looking at the medic. She hesitated longer than she wanted to and then stepped towards the bed, pulling the drip stand with her. He didn't move, at first, the one visible eye shifting in continuous movements, as if reading from a book. By accident, she scraped the drip stand on the floor and the eye stopped flickering and turned towards her. He smiled and grimaced at the same time.
"Hey. If it isn't the Hero of the Mall. I'd get up, but, apparently the armour's the only thing keeping my body together." He grunted and Patience knew he was trying to laugh. "If they take it off, my internal organs'll flop all over the floor and I'd have to clean it up, even if it killed me."
"And you'd clean it up too. Gotta follow those orders." Patience tried to smile, but only tears emerged. She covered her mouth with her hand. "And I heard it was you they call Hero of the Mall. Took out about forty Super-Mutants alone. I have some catching up to do."
"That's a dirty lie! It was never forty." Vincent blinked. Patience knew it was a wink, however. "More like thirty, thirty-five. Tops."
"Vincent. I ... I ..." She wanted to clasp his hand but, because of her, he no longer had one.
"Don't you dare! Don't you fucking dare come in here and start that shit!" Vincent glared at her, trying to turn his head and wincing. "I made my choice and I won't have you take that from me. You didn't do this. I did this! To be honest, you're pep talks are shit anyway. They need work."
Despite how she felt, Patience laughed. She gripped the bed sheets, staring down at her hands, no longer green or huge. The wound from ripping her hand from the knife not even a scar. She had got out of the battle with nothing. No injuries, no damage, only a bald head. And her hair appeared to be growing back at a fast pace.
"Thank you." She wanted to stroke his forehead, to kiss it, but it looked raw and painful. "Without what you did, Valrie and Gia might be dead, or worse. I just want you to know, I'm sorry. I know we butted heads, a lot, but you ... you ..."
"Hey, Patience." Vincent lifted the stump of his arm and placed it on her hand. "Do me a favour? Say goodbye. Not that 'see you later' bullshit people say when they don't want admit someone is dying. I want a proper goodbye. A real one."
"Okay." She continued to stare at the bed sheets.
"Oh, and I want you to have my .45." Patience glanced at a table beside the bed where Vincent's pistol lay, still covered in his and the Super Mutants dried blood. "I know you prefer that pea shooter but, I don't know, maybe you can find a use for it. Now, I'm feeling kinda tired, so, if you could fuck off, that would be great."
"Okay." She picked up Vincent's pistol, testing the weight and the balance. "Goodbye, Vincent. I'm glad to have known you."
"Goodbye, Patience." Again Vincent tried to smile and she smiled back before he raised his remaining eye back upwards. The conversation over.
She turned, not looking back, and headed for the doorway where she found Three Dog leaning against the frame, hands in his pockets. He stepped aside as she left Vincent's room and joined her as she walked back towards the infirmary. They said nothing for a while, but Three Dog broke the silence.
"So, what now, vault dweller? Are you going to disappear on us like the Lone Wanderer?" He glanced at her, a questioning eyebrow raised. "There are still a lot of people out there that need help. The Super Mutants may be scattered, but they won't stay quiet for long and, word is that some feral ghouls have started wandering outside during daylight hours. Raiders are already making moves back into the Downtown Ruins. A lot of shit happening. We could sure use help from our Avenging Angel."
"I have some things to do, but I'll not be going anywhere once they're done." She drooped her head and then lifted it again, looking direct into Three Dog's eyes. "How many died?"
"A lot." He inclined his head, pursing his lips. "But a damned sight more were rescued. Thanks to you and Vincent and a whole bunch of others, there are over a hundred people alive today that would have died, or turned into Super Mutants. I'd say the scales tip in our favour."
They reached the door of the infirmary and Patience hesitated. She hated that she thought it, but she didn't want to be around her friends, right now. If she went back into that room, they would talk and fuss and argue between themselves and try to make her feel better.
She didn't want to feel better. She wanted to feel every last bit of guilt that she felt twisting and turning in her mind. She wanted to think about Vincent and those other injured people in the infirmary and all the dead and injured out in the Ruins. All due to her stupid need to be the hero. Feeling better would be obscene.
Three Dog must have sensed her misgivings, placing his hand behind her back and leading her on, past the infirmary door. She could hear Valrie and Gia bickering over how tall she had been while transformed into the Super-Super Mutant. Patience hadn't even begun to work through that nightmare.
"What's going to happen to the King? Who was he? Originally, I mean." She linked her arm into Three Dog's as they walked, like a romantic couple on a stroll through the park. "He said he was like me, but he couldn't have been. He was too old. You can't make super soldiers out of geriatrics."
"The Brotherhood think he was a scientist. The way he talks, the way his mind works. But he does seem to be a vault dweller, whether he is like you, I don't know. Maybe the virus aged him. No-one knows." They turned a corner, heading towards the canteen. "As to what they'll do with him, I don't know that either. The Brotherhood are soldiers, not the police. They don't feel they have the authority to judge him, especially with everything that goes on in the Wasteland. Who does?"
"The people. The people have the authority, just like back in the World-That-Was." She groaned as she lowered herself into a chair, finding it strange to breathe so heavy after so little effort. "I don't know. Maybe after two hundred years, it's about time civilisation made a comeback. Give the King a fair trial.
"Maybe it is time. How about some of that oily shit they call coffee?" She nodded and Three Dog moved over to the coffee machines against the wall.
Patience placed Vincent's pistol on the table and stared at it. There were one or two things she had to do before she even thought about her future. And now, looking at that pistol, she had an idea what she could do with it. As soon as she felt well enough to enter the Wasteland once more.
"You're listening to the adventures of me, Herbert "Daring" Dashwood, and my stalwart ghoul manservant, Argyle. Today's episode: Who's On Third!
"Say, this is a sweet deal ya got here, Doc. I never seen so much sciencey equipment anywhere."
"Oh, yes, my lab certainly is scien-terrific! Sorry about the joke. I don't get many visitors. Not since I became ..."
"A ghoul? Yes, we did notice that. The rather, ahem, rotting nature of your skin gave that away."
"Yes, my experiments in nukula physics caused my current status."
"Nuclear! It's nuclear!"
"Argyle! I'm sure the good doctor knows his own profession! So, is it due to your current state that you disappeared, leaving your delightful wife worried and alone?"
"Yes. I could never let her see me ... like this."
"How could you think that would make any difference to how much I love you?"
"Hey, Boss! It's the dame!"
"Ms Dérobé!"
"Norma Jean!"
"Yes, I followed you, Mr Dashwood. It was the only way that Alphonse would ever open the door to his lab. I'm sorry to have deceived you."
"Not to worry, madam. People deceive me all the time."
"I'll say!"
"But, Norma Jean, I never wanted you to see me ... like this!"
"Not even if I look ... like this?"
"Why, Ms Dérobé! You're a ghoul too!"
"Jeez! Dames really can cover anything with good make-up skills and an expensive wig!"
"Oh, Norma Jean! I made you ... like this! It's all my fault! How can you ever forgive me?"
"Forgive you? Now we can be together forever! Thank you, Mr Dashwood, for bringing my husband and I back together. I can never repay you."
"Money would work."
"Hush, Argyle. I think we've just witnessed a genuine happy ending."
"Yeah, if only all adventures could end that way."
"If only, Old Chum. If only."
"Be sure and tune in next time for another exciting adventure of me, Herbert "Daring" Dashwood and my stalwart ghoul manservant Argyle!"