Debauched

Redemption

Angelina slowly came to with an intense feeling of confusion, dizziness and sickness in the pit of her stomach and as she woke up those feelings got even stronger until she felt as if she would puke but that relief never came. Instead she sat there with a pained expression on her face and her eyes closed. All Angelina could make out through her intense discomfort was that she wasn't dead. She wasn't dead. She was laying in a bed somewhere with whatever pain killers they'd given her wearing out. She didn't know who they were exactly, or even vaguely, but she knew someone had saved her from her certain death in the wasteland. Yet again Angelina had been saved by sheer luck and most likely more idealistic people who were out to save every last little life they could no matter how likely they were to fail miserably just like those she had met at the purifier. Slowly opening her eyes which hurt as a dull but still too bright light hit them Angelina started to take in her surroundings.

"Hey! Hey, you're awake." A woman quickly approached the bed and took a seat next to Angelina, "Are you okay? Can you speak?"

Angelina strained to do so, barely opening her mouth and croaking out weak, incoherent sounds shaking her head after that, "N-no..."

"Okay, sorry... well, listen, you're alright." The woman smiled gently, looking her over, "We got to you just in time. I don't think you were going to make it much longer."

Angelina simply nodded, her face appearing as blank as ever, or so Angelina assumed. She certainly didn't try to. Perhaps she looked pained, she couldn't tell, she was still far too disoriented to make much sense of what was going on.

"Alright well... I'll be right here, or rather just outside - I'll come check on you every so often. Okay?" She smiled when Angelina nodded again, "Alright... well, go ahead and rest up."

As Angelina began recooperating in her bed she regained the ability to speak, if only barely at first, and that was when she learned where she was and who she was with. As it turned out a aravan headed up to the Republic Of Dave had stumbled across her just as she passed out and brought her the rest rest of the way, taking care of her as best they could as they went. Eventually the caravan had reached the isolated Republic with Angelina who was barely hanging on and had been recovering for quite a while before she had regained conciousness. It was also by pure luck that she had managed that as well as the Republic Of Dave had a hospital now that it had grown but it was still a bit less capable of taking care of its own citizens let alone others compared to any other settlement in the Capital Wasteland. All of those factors combined proved to be worrying when it came to the condition to the Republic's newest arrival, though once she had stabilized and regained conciousness things started to look up, once she started speaking things got that much better and it was decided she would recover almost completely.

Despite hearing the news that she would recover Angelina knew she wouldn't ever be the same after that night physically or mentally. Yet again the wasteland had broken her in its eternally brutal, harsh and violent way. As Angelina started to think about it more and more during her slow recovery she realized she had come full circle as disturbing as it was. She had once been living an average life in the wasteland when it had seen fit to take it away from her and tear her apart, utterly and completely destroying whatever life she'd had and leaving only pain and suffering in its place; from that her second life slowly started forming. Eventually Angelina had built her new life as a mercenary and never looked back. Now she didn't know where she stood, and it plagued her all the way through her recovery, unable to figure out what her new life would be like. It would be easy to keep doing what she once had, but where she would go, that was a major problem. In fact it was the only one or at least the only one Angelina wanted to admit to. For some strange reason she simply didn't feel content with the idea of going back to life as it had been, as if it shoudl change like it had the first time,, but she didn't kow what to do with herself and simply burried that feeling as deeply as she could manage. Soon enough however Angelina had recovered and kept herself busy doing what little her still worn out body would allow to assist the locals, not being able to pay them for their services like she normally would have. It was during that time that she had started to think about leaving, having heard from more traders that Canterbury Commons - and much of the rest of the Capital Wasteland - was still a mess. The riots that had started in Rivet City had spread to much of downtown and all sorts of other violence broke out elsewhere and none of the communities had come out of it unscathed - including Canterbury Commons. That gave Angelina enough time to pay off her debt, recover, and decide what she would be doing with herself.

A month later as the wasteland was still reeling from the massive outbreak of mostly unrelated violent incidents Angelina had packed what little possessions she had gathered during her time in the Republic Of Dave and prepared to leave. Rosie, who had taken over after being elected president, agreed to let her go, considering her debt paid and even gave Angelina a small sum to help her on her way mostly as incentive to point people in their direction should she run into anyone on her way out of the Capital Wasteland. Angelina had agreed, and actually found herself meaning it as the words slipped out of her mouth without thought. Not bothering to stay any longer than she had to Angelina departed as soon as she'd received the paultry sum and headed further north unsure of where she was going or what lay ahead of her. Whatever it was Angelina knew she would be ready for it. Shedding her old self once again whatever happened out there in post-apocalyptic America would serve to shape the beginning of her next life.