When Gemma awoke, her head was fuzzy. The room smelled like vomit, and she could feel it crusting the hem of her shirt, dried on her neck in clammy chunks. Ugh.
An hour and two showers later, she was back in her living room, dressed in clean clothes with dripping hair and flipping the cushions on her couch to hide the mess. She'd mop the floors later.
It was a few more hours before she realized Charon wasn't back yet, so she set out looking for him. The Doc hadn't seen him, nor had Moira. A terrible feeling was creeping into her chest as she approached the bar. It was the last place she could think to look for him. In town, at least.
"Hey, there she is! Up and back on her feet! How about you buy me a drink to celebrate?!" Jericho hollered from his corner. Gemma shot him a half-hearted glare before climbing onto one of the bar stools. Gob was busy cleaning a glass, although the rag looked anything but clean. A smear of lipstick disappeared under his occupied gaze, and he wouldn't meet her eyes.
A glance over at Nova was rewarded with nothing but a pitiful look before she went to join Jericho at his table. Gemma's eyes slid back to Gob, a pleading look on her face, and he could only sigh and finally set the glass down.
"Gal named Lucy West saw him leaving this morning, came here to report a runaway ghoul to ol' Moriarty. I guess we all look the same to them or something," he muttered.
Leaving?
Tears welled in her eyes like she was some forgotten child, and she couldn't do anything to hide them. Because she was. Her dad walked out on her, and now Charon. She glared down at the bar, watching the cracks in the wood blur so she wouldn't have to meet Gob's gaze.
"Oh, poor little flower, did she finally realize Daddy doesn't want her? Lil' tyke's lucky she weren't drowned as a babe, sickly thing that she was. Nary a tit to suckle then, nor now, it seems."
Gemma tried to drown Moriarty out, but the man was having none of it. He wasn't an idiot, he'd probably figured out she had hacked his computer. But with no way to prove it, he was left with torturing her the only way he could, she supposed.
"Nova has a tit, girl. 120 caps, and she's yours for the night. Supposing that rotting shuffler you dragged in didn't get to you first. I won't be toleratin' any diseases spread to me best gal, you see," he said in a sing song voice, draping an arm over her shoulder. And at last, Gemma knew what he was getting at. If she socked him, like she wanted to now, he could have her thrown out of town. Whether she'd disabled the bomb or not, Simms wouldn't allow a brawler to stay and threaten the status quo here.
She held her gaze on the counter below her, hands picking at a hangnail in her lap to keep occupied.
"Of course, if ya be needing company, an old fox such as myself might have some things I could be teaching ya, lassie. Could even take on another gal, take somma the strain off'a Nova. I had heard you was looking for work, the first day you came here."
His eyes were on hers, and she couldn't help but glare back at him, hangnail forgotten in favor of clenching her fists into the fabric of her pants.
"Whadd'ya say, lass? Bet you could sell that house o'yours and pay for room and board here for a long while, I can cut you a nice bargain, make you forget all about that Daddy of yours and yer zombie friend. I bet lot'sa men will be linin' up to see if they can't make you scream, in one way o'another!"
His chuckle vibrated down his arm and into her shoulders, sky rocketing the beating of her heart. She had very few options, here. Either she ignore him, and hope he doesn't figure out a way to spin that into consent on her part. Or she could leave, but without Charon and all alone in her house? What would stop him from taking her anyways? She knew how he'd gotten Gob, but Nova was another mystery. Most likely, he'd string her out on chems and use that to get her working for them, and as an excuse to rack up a debt she'd have to spend her life paying off.
"Why don't ya come into the back with me, and we can take ya for a test run," Moriarity said, the arm on her shoulder turning hostile, clenching down so hard that she had to grit her teeth. If she followed him to the back room, and made sure to escape without leaving a mark, he wouldn't be able to say anything against her. No witnesses that way, and she could go through the back door.
It was the best option she had so far. She'd found his gun, last time, in the upper drawer of his desk. She could take it and use it to threaten him, show him she wasn't worth messing with. That way, he'd leave her alone for good.
But when he clutched her wrist and dragged her off the bar stool and around the counter, Gemma found her plans leaving her quicker than she could formulate them, dull terror clutching at her chest. She looked around wildly, until her eyes met a milky blue gaze and suddenly there was another hand on her wrist, prying Moriarty's bruising fingers away from her.
"Mr. Moriarty, she hasn't paid her tab, sir. You told me not to let people leave my sight before they have," Gob said, his rough voice wavering.
The two men had some sort of stare off, while Gemma was praying Moriarity wouldn't point out that she hadn't had anything to drink yet. But he had eyes only for his bartender, with the curl of his lip promising retribution after everyone else went home.
"Gemma, why don't you come back and sit down, and I'll get you another beer, alright?"
To his credit, Gob's hands only shook a little as he turned his back on Moriarty, and grabbed her a beer from the shelf, popping the cap for her and sliding it across the counter.
It took another tense minute for Moriarity to leave, stalking back to his office and slamming the door shut hard enough to make Gob flinch.
He steadied himself on the counter, hands clenching the edge hard enough for her to see his inner tendons trembling.
Slowly, so he could see the movement, she reached out her hands and took one of his palms into her own, squeezing it gently and rubbing small circles below his thumb. When his eyes met hers, she could see the panic there, and could only squeeze his hand harder and hope he saw the question in her eyes.
"I…. Fifteen years I've been here, and I've seen him ruin girls in less than six months. I couldn't…. I couldn't just stand by and let it happen again. If he'd gotten you into his office, that'd be the end of it. He'd have you on payroll by morning, and Simms wouldn't be able to do a damn thing about it," Gob explained, lowering his eyes to where their hands met, watching the way her fingers tightened around his.
She didn't hesitate when she brought their joined hands to her lips, and pressed a warm kiss to the back of Gob's palm, failing to prevent a couple of her tears from joining it. There would be hell to pay for what he'd done, for her. And she had no way of paying him back.
He gasped at the contact, and jerked, though not hard enough to dislodge his hand from her own. When she lowered them back down to the counter, he was shaking anew, but the smile on his face was the brightest she'd ever seen from him.
"You're welcome, smoothskin."
Gob had known he was in trouble since he watched Moriarty sit beside the vault girl, and had been preparing himself for the inevitable beat down since he'd laid his hand on Moriarty's wrist. But it was worth it, for that fleeting moment of human warmth and the kid's obvious gratitude. Gob felt pretty fucking proud of himself, even as he watched Nova disappear upstairs with Jericho and watched the last of the patrons leave the bar.
Even when Moriarity took after him with a cane and left him bloody and dazed on a floor he'd have to clean before morning.
There was no use getting up. Blood was pouring from a wound in his head, and Gob found himself wondering if the old bastard had finally managed to kill him this time. It didn't matter, really, if he died here or in his room. He'd saved someone, instead of sitting back like a coward like he did every time before. If he died over that, it was a good way to go.
He was trying to remember what Carol's stew tasted like when he heard someone gasp, and prayed it wasn't Nova who'd found him. His eyes were too swollen to see, but when hands gently brushed his scant hair away from his forehead, he knew immediately who it was. There was only one person who touched him with no hesitation in their movements.
"Kid?" he wheezed, trying to figure out how she'd gotten in here. Moriarty had waited until he'd locked the door, and surely Gob would have seen the kid come back in if she'd been here before then.
His answer was the feel of a needle sliding into the skin in the crook of his elbow, and he couldn't help his answering hiss at the sting. But then the sweet warmth of med-x floated into his system, and the tension melted out of him with a groan.
"That's the stuff," he murmured, allowing himself to be re-positioned. Gemma managed to pull him out of the curled position he'd put himself into, to protect his vital organs, and straightened him out on the hard floor. Any pain he might have felt was quickly chased away by the pull of the med-x, and he was pliant under her fingertips.
The sickening crunch of bones being set was the only sound he heard over her breathing, but the sharp pains faded just as soon as they came, with a dull sting and the strange feeling of a stimpack knitting his bones and flesh back together. When it came time to straighten his ankle, which was currently facing the wrong way, he couldn't help the whimper that came out of him.
Some hero he was.
But then her hands were back in his hair, gentle and grounding, before she put her hands back on his leg and straightened the bone without so much as a wince. The med-x couldn't quite dull this sharp pain, of several bones grinding back into place, and even when the stimpacks had been administered, his whole leg still pulsed. Fingers prodded at his ribs, and Gob's newly healed fingers closed over her own.
"Just… just give me a minute, please, smoothskin."
Her hands left him, and for a moment he worried he'd chased her away. He hadn't meant to inconvenience her, it was just getting too much and his jaw hurt from clenching his teeth through the uncomfortable ministrations. He only had time to worry for a minute, before hands were on his shoulders gently lifting his head, and placing it back down on something soft and warm, and her fingers carded through his hair once more.
It wasn't until a drop of something landed on him that Gob realized. He was laying halfway in her lap, and the small hitching of her breath he could hear gave him a pretty good indication of what she was doing.
Hesitantly, he raised his arm and searched the air above him with his fingertips, eventually landing on what he guessed to be her cheek.
"It's alright, kid, I've had worse from that ol' bastard, don't worry yourself over me," he whispered, feeling her clench a hand around his own on her cheek. She was young, far too young to be worrying about an old ghoul like him.
"Say, anything you can do about my eyes? I can't see nothing," Gob said, hoping to distract her.
While he wasn't crazy about the feeling of a large needle pressing against the skin under his eyes, he couldn't deny that the stimpacks did their job quickly. He didn't even know they worked on swelling.
When he was finally able to crack his eyes open and blink a few tears out, he wasn't at all surprised to find her face hovering above his own.
"What are you doing in here? How'd you get here?" he asked, bringing his hand back down to his chest, trying to get the blood flowing again. Her own followed, and they both rested on his sternum, despite the burn from the pressure.
She used her other hand to hold out a bobby pin, and made a few movements with the instrument that he recognized for what they were.
"You picked the lock? You sly little shit! And here ol' Moriarty thought you were helpless," he grinned.
She gave him a small, wet smile, and clutched his hand tighter. After a few moments of companionable silence, Gob finally sucked in a deep breath and lifted his head slightly, to look at the mess his body had become. Truth-be-told, he looked a lot better than he did the last time his eyes had been able to open.
Her hand pulled away from his and nudged at his shirt, a question in the halting movements.
"Yeah, I'm ready as I'll ever be," he said, dropping his head back down to her thighs. She smiled gently, smoothing his hair back before grabbing another stimpack and sliding his shirt up to inject it in the space between two ribs that were definitely cracked. It took three more stimpacks before he could take a breath without pain, and he couldn't help the tears of relief that slipped from his eyes at the realization.
The empty needles joined an impressive pile near his right shoulder, and Gob tried not to count how many meds the kid had wasted on him.
But when she pulled him to his feet and he was able to move with minimal pain, he couldn't find the guts to wish she had saved her supplies. She lowered him onto one of the stools by the bar, his back pressed against the wall to support him.
He almost laughed when she came back with a clean cloth from god knows where, and started gently wiping the blood from his face. His head pulsed, but was no longer bleeding. He must have missed her stimpacking his scalp, and could only guess she had done it the first time she'd stroked his hair.
It was strange, having someone's face so close to his, and not having to cower or worry about being hit. Gob was free to notice the flecks of gold in her otherwise black irises, and the way she bit the inside of her cheek when she scrubbed at a particularly stubborn flake of blood stuck in the seam of his skin.
The soothing monotony of her ministrations lulled him into a sort of trance, and he hadn't even realized he had fallen asleep until she was shaking him awake, a knowing smile on her face.
His legs worked fine now, thanks to her, but that didn't stop her from slipping her arm under his shoulders and helping him make his way up the steps. She let him take the lead and set the pace, directing her to his room with a nod, so as not to wake Nova or Jericho. If Moriarty found out she'd been here, all of her careful work would have been for nothing.
He fell into the bed gracelessly, his head swimming from both the aftermath of the beating and the side effects of the heavy amounts of meds. Gemma tucked up the blankets around him, making an unhappy face at the fact that he had no pillow. She shoved a corner of the thin blanket beneath the base of his skull, providing just a bit of padding between his battered brains and the rusty springs of his mattress. He caught her hands as she retreated, and she stilled, looking at him expectantly.
"Thanks, smoothskin. I don't know what I'd do without you," he murmured sleepily, trying his best to meet her eyes despite the fact that his were rapidly closing. He thought he caught a smile, before his eyelids fluttered shut.
And he wasn't sure if the feeling of lips on his forehead, pressing a gentle kiss to a faded bruise there, was a dream or not. Somehow, it didn't matter. It was real to him all the same.
He didn't know when she left, or how she locked the door again when she did. But when Gob came down the next morning, she was gone and the floors were spotless.