AN: Well this certainly took long enough hasn't it. It's not my favorite of chapters but in my opinion it turned out rather well. Friends are met and lost and our beloved Courier gets a name. So that's all there is to say, other than please review.
Here we goes again
The day was beautiful, cool breeze blowing through the valley, through open windows of ancient brick buildings, providing fresher air for those living within. Outside in the maze of broken asphalt and concrete gutters children laughed, giggling as they ran through the streets playing whatever the game of the day was. Their families close at hand, enjoying the day for all it had to offer and reminiscing of days prior. It was in this variable paradise that she found herself standing. At the edge of the town, on the road that used to be the only lifeline for the pre-war city. As she made her way into the mass of persons flooding the streets the residents slowly took notice of the courier amongst their ranks, admiring their peaceful little town. Her peaceful little town. Everyone was at peace, everything thing was right with the world and she felt at home. This felt right, and there was nothing else.
But then the calm was shattered by a blinding light appeared on the horizon. A soundless explosion shattered the sky and shook the earth. With a light that burned all that it shined upon, scorching the walls, and melting the skin from muscle and muscle from the bones of everything in sight. Her home disintegrated before her very eyes, and the sky itself burned.
The pain quickly took hold of her, burning like her skin had been set ablaze. She turned and ran with all the speed she could manage but she couldn't outrun the light. The pain all the while grew ever greater, feeling like death itself was breathing down her neck.
Suddenly something caught her leg and sent her falling forward. The ground hit hard, gravels digging through frail skin and spilled her life blood upon the dirt. She looked back at what she had tripped over and almost lost it when she saw a skeletal hand wrapped around her ankle. Muscle blackened and charred barely clung to the bones and miraculously held it all together. Then the rest of the arm came into view, dragging behind it a burnt corpse. Cut off at the waste it dragged itself over the rocks, trailing organs and shredded tissue. It picked up its head and started at her without eyes, the skin of its face barely clinging to charred bones. With a hundred voices speaking in unison it spoke at her. "You killed us! Why? WHY'D YOU MURDER US?" The voices boomed with enough force to sent her sailing into a wall where she impacted with a sickening crack. Still the light burned at all it could find. Slowly her vision narrowed, the color draining. The last thing seen was a figure, cloaked in black with two blood red eyes staring into her. Death was its purpose and she its victim.
Courier six jumped awake, hand unconsciously bringing her pistol up at the darkness. Slowly the world came into focus and with it the visions of the past subsided back into her dreams. These dreams, more like nightmares had been haunting her sleep ever since she had awoken in that damn hospital. Why she had them she couldn't tell you, all she knew was that the faces never changed.
Thumbing the safety back on she set the gun back down on her pack. Mojave Outpost was safe enough. The encampment seemed the perfect place to rest her heels for the night, but there was an old saying that crept forward as an unwelcome reminder. 'There ain't no rest for the wicked.'
She ran her hands through her hair, damp with sweat, and slicked it back put of her face. Taking a sleeve she dried the tears from her cheeks and looked for a water fountain. Her throat was dry and the last thing she needed was another shot after her drinking contest with the outpost's resident drunk. She stumbled through the darkness until she fell against the cool metal casing of the object of her search. After several attempts at drowning herself her thirst was sated and she glanced around the vacated bar.
Cass had simply passed out where she sat knocking over a bottle and several shot glasses. Someone had at least had the decency to drag her to a bed but the broken glass on the floor remained. The area behind the bar was neat and tidy, thanks to the resident barkeep with OCD. Funny as it might be to mess with her, the courier left the shelves alone and continued her scan of the building.
Eventually her eyes came to rest on a window in the front of the building, and the moonlit wastes clearly visible through the pane of glass. It was something she found she just couldn't look away from. The way the sand caught the pale light, and the wind stirring up little drifts of dust. For whatever reason she found she needed to be out there… any thought into the matter she made for the door.
As soon as the chilled night air contacted her skin she felt as if a weight had been lifted from her chest and she could breath for the first time in ages. The cool air filled her lungs and never had there been a more wonderful feeling in the short time she could remember. With her mind enjoying the world for all it was worth, her body set itself into autopilot and proceeded to aimlessly wander around the camp.
Feet willing her to go she eventually found herself perched on the rooftop of the barracks. From her standpoint the wastes looked so peaceful. Pale light glimmering over windswept dunes, distant lights flickering across the desert, warming the bodies who were sure to be bathing in the light around them. Taking another deep breath of the delicious air she closed her eyes and just listened. To the wind, to the hum of the lights overhead, to the footsteps crossing the courtyard.
'Wait? Footsteps?' She thought. The only others awake were the perimeter guards who where nowhere near. But there they were, the click of boots on asphalt. Curiosity getting the best of her she decided to see who it was that was still up at this hour. Slowly she brought herself to look out over the courtyard. Lit by harsh overhead lamps the hardtop gleamed like a supernova.
She quickly scanned over it and located the source of the disturbance. A lone figure strolling through the checkpoint in the strangest of attire. Almost like a black combat armor, but the way she moved in it. Graceful yet demanding authority at the same time. Something about her was different than anyone else, all the people up until then had been a hell of a lot more skittish. Like they'd faint at the drop of a hat, everyone looking over their shoulders. They were afraid. Of the NCR the Legion, hell, even the local wildlife scared the piss out of the travelers here. Everyone felt their neck upon the chopping block and you could see it in their faces.
But not her. She walked though the wastes fearing not man nor creature. Like she was the top of the foodchain, the wolf amongst sheep. Then as she stepped into the light more of her features were brought to light. Though hard to see at a distance the scars were none the less visible. Like the great canyon to the east they divided her otherwise flawless face, though somehow she still managed to catch more than just the courier's eye. But, then again, it wasn't her appearance that stood her out the most. It was her eyes, set and determined on the horizon. A woman on a mission if ever there was one.
The drive behind her steps, unknown as it was, was still the most unstoppable force she'd ever witnessed. It was the Courier Six made a rather concerning discovery, while pondering the woman she seemed to have drifted off for a minute, and had lost sight of the stranger. She felt… something at that realization, she had wanted to see more of that person. Why, she didn't know, but she had definitely wanted the stranger to stick around.
As she looked over the courtyard once more she didn't notice the light footfalls climbing up the ramp beside her. Nor did she notice when a person came to stand beside her. Fatigue was catching up with her and that bedbug ridden mattress was looking all the more comfortable. She looked out over the silent wastes once more and was about to start back to her bed when a person spoke up beside her. "It's something else isn't it."
The voice, feminine in tone, surprised her more than she'd like to admit. But as it continued the courier found she could care less that this person had snuck up on her. "Seemingly so peaceful, quiet. But under it all lies the biggest powder keg west of the divide, just waiting for a spark."
The courier looked over at the source of the voice, and sure enough it was her. Same black combat armor, same face, and here she was. But for the life of her she couldn't tell why. Deciding she'd better toss back a response else the stranger might take her for a mute she opened her mouth only to be silenced once more by that decidedly soothing voice. "But I suppose that matters not at the moment. Not for us anyway."
The courier was honestly surprised, this stranger knew her better than she did herself. In her confusion she barely managed to ask the all to simple question of, "What do you mean, Us?"
"You can try all you want. Fact of the matter is you call neither of these 'countries' home." She stated in a matter-o-fact tone. " Its in the way you look at desert there. Not eager to come or go, not with want nor need. But with contentment only seen when returning home. You care as little for the NCR and Legion as I."
The courier could safely say she learned something about herself that night, but she was not about to let that be the end of it. "And what of yourself, since you have no connection with either and were about to storm through the Mojave like a woman possessed, where might you hail from?"
"West." She stated.
"West?"
"West."
"Not very helpful."
"Enough if you know what your looking for." Her tone suggested it wasn't the most comfortable of subjects and the Courier wisely dropped the subject. Whatever, wherever this person called home would wait.
"So, what brings you to this wonderful little slice of paradise?" The courier questioned, trying to keep the conversion going.
The woman's gaze hardened as she answered. "Looking for someone, you?"
"Looking for myself." Instantly she berated herself for saying something so stupid.
Before she could actually get around to kicking herself the stranger started laughing, not a harsh, at you laughing. But a warm, light natured chuckle, "That's something else, how did you lose yourself?"
The Courier smirked at the halfhearted joke, "Don't rightly know. Woke up in a hospital without a memory of myself and not a cap to whatever my name may have been."
The stranger blinked, her smile fading as the words left the courier's mouth, "Damn, sorry to hear that. So what do I call someone without a name?"
The Courier thought about it for a second before remembering the old man at the Mojave Express office "Courier Six has been the most popular so far."
"Courier?" The stranger repeated, almost surprised to hear that. "Hmm… it does have a nice ring to it, but how about Six for short?"
"Six… I can live with that." She held out her hand, "I'm Six, pleasure to meet you."
The stranger laughed, Six instantly decided she liked that laugh, "Nice to meet you Six, you can call me Cristine"
The night passed far to quickly for either of them. They shared laughs and tears, just talking, one stranger to another. Christine shared some of her past and Six touched on what memories she could recall. But as dawn broke their destinations demanded their attention once more, Six tracking down any memory of who she may've been and Cristine tracking down the man who'd caused her so much pain. One northern bound, the other going traveling farther south. Goodbyes were said and they went their separate ways, both hoping to see that strange woman again, from Mojave Outpost. But both knowing the harshness of the wasteland, knew it could never be.
AN: So, how were it? Worth that all to long wait. Worth a review maybe?