The bag was dripping all over the floor.

A squeak of clean, polished shoes. A fresh shave and an awkward crewcut. "Come on, I just mopped!"

The ghoul looked down and lifted a single muscle of his brow, his rasp hot like the desert sand blowing outside the door. "Yeah?" The cigarette at his lips wheedled along the curve of his mouth until it nestled on the other side. "Looks like ya missed a spot."

He swung the bag over one shoulder, splattering a nice red painting up along the wall. A grin crept up his mouth as he sauntered on past and down the hall, swinging his catch in time with his steps to a silent tune.

A set of double doors at the far end were met and already welcoming him with open arms. The Major was seated behind her desk, as per usual, a pen in hand gliding over paper with an almost bored air about her.

A bucket, placed specially for his visits, was parked just outside her door. He dropped his welcome gift inside, the loud thunk lifting her eyes from a summary report.

"So, who was it this time?" She licked the tips of her fingers to brush over a stack of papers at her side, sifting through while the bounty hunter ghoul wiped his shoes prior to entering. "Khan? Legion? Slaver-?"

The ghoul put out his smoke in the tray on a small stand (also for his visit) and loudly cleared his throat with a rumble. "Two-Timer Wally."

Her fingers paused, and she looked at him with newfound respect- if only slightly.

"Really?" she drawled. Her eyes crept past his massive frame to the blood-soaked bucket near the entrance. With a sigh of her chair, she leaned back in her seat. "You're telling me you brought one of the NCR's most sought after AWOL's?"

"Yes ma'am." He shoved his gloved hands in his duster pockets. "Had to go through about twenty other defects to get to him…that should be a little extra."

She wasn't biting. "Did you bring their tags?"

He scratched the back of his neck. "Uh…no?"

"Then you'll receive payment for the original bounty, as was stipulated on the prewritten contract." She stood from her seat to open a drawer in a filing cabinet, shuffling through the assorted files until she retrieved the one in question. It made a loud slap on the desk. "Bring him in."

Obediently, he scooped up the winning fish by the barrel and held it over with one hand for her to verify. With a nimble touch of her fingertips to the soiled and reeking burlap sack, she carefully lifted it back with a disgusted scrunch on her face.

The bloated head of one of the NCR's most wanted insubordinates was silently screaming back at her, two gaping voids for eyes.

"Where'd they go?" she questioned.

He shrugged, ever so nonchalant. "I ate 'em." The look she gave him made him chuckle, a deep resonating thrum. "Just kiddin'. Birds got 'em while I was takin' a shit."

The burlap fold fell back into place as she returned to her seat. "I really didn't need such vulgar information."

He blew out a breath and returned the bin to the door. "You asked." A wolfish grin gleamed under the brim of his sun-faded cowboy hat. "And I delivered, just like I always do."

"Yes," she mused, heating up a stick of wax to melt over a parchment. "Somehow you always get the job done."

He watched his letter of payment become sealed, folded, and then handed over. Their fingers met as he reached out to retrieve it. The scent of citrus and honeyed flowers was gently wafted up his nostrils.

"Good work," she said. Dismissed.

She sat down, picked up her pen, and continued her original business.

He glanced down at the large sum to be acquired through the finance department- always with the bureaucracy.

When he refused to leave, she glanced up. "Was there something else to report?"

"Uh, no," he garbled, tucking his payment away inside a breast pocket. The glint of the gun in the holster at his hip winked out as the duster flap was brushed aside.

"Then you may close the door on your way out."

The ghoul tipped his hat with a mumbled yes ma'am and strode for his exit, his gloved hands wrapped around the faded brass knobs to pull them closed. He did, with himself still inside.

The Major once again halted with her paperwork, her tone mildly annoyed. "Is there a good reason for you to still be here?"

The ghoul spun on one heel, snapping his fingers in the air. "Jasmine."

Her brows furrowed. "Pardon?"

"Jasmine," he repeated, taking a few steps to cross the room. He set both hands on the backside of a chair across from her desk, leaning his weight forward as it groaned in protest. "That perfume you're wearin', it's jasmine. That's a pretty damn hard thing to come by. Bein' a Major and all that must come with its perks."

She blinked, the surprise on her face quickly replaced by annoyance. "Are you standing here, wasting my time inquiring about my perfume?"

"No." He grinned, leaning over a little more. "I'm standin' here, wastin' your time on askin' you out for a drink tonight." He flourished a hand at the amass of bullshit spewed across her desk. "Once you're done playin' chess and checkers and all that other crap."

The Major set her pen down, crossed one leg over the other, and steepled her fingers together in her lap as she leaned back in her seat to properly glare at him. "I can't tell if you're joking."

He rubbed a gloved pinky in one ear hole, flicking the gunk off and away. "Nope."

"So you're serious."

"Could just say yes."

A humorless laugh left her lips, hollow and mean. He took it all in stride and came to rest on his forearms, waggling his brow muscles at her from under the brim of his hat.

"Could just skip the drinks," he offered suggestively.

She gasped, her tone borderline threatening. The glare in her eyes would have sliced a lesser man to paltry ribbons. She scathed, "If you take me as some cheap whore or common wasteland slut, you are more than sorely misinformed."

He held up his hands in mock defense. "Damn, alright, I'll let you buy."

A finger was snapped to the exit. "Get out."

"Hell, I ain't that expensive."

She growled, stood from her chair and thrust open the top drawer to snatch a pistol. The end of the barrel was aimed at his forehead. "I will not politely ask again."

He scratched at his chin seemingly in deep thought. "Didn't know you were."

The hammer clicked back, and he backpedaled a step.

"Heyhey whoa, alrightalright…" He gave her a serious once-over and tilted his head. "Safety's still on."

A snarl ripped from her pink lips as she smacked her aim to the floor and tore her glare away to reconfigure her weapon. The large shadow that seemed to darken the room made her snap her head upright.

His palm came to rest over hers, the worn leather smooth against her pale skin. "Take a load off, Major." He cocked a smirk as he gave a gentle squeeze. "Jus' not that kind."

"What the hell are you-?" She snapped her mouth shut and shrunk away as he came to corner her into the filing cabinet. He was as tall as he was broad, and seemed to make the rest of the world fall away into a shroud of gunpowder, whiskey, and sweet tobacco. She snapped, "Are you crazy?!"

"Maybe," he confessed, sweeping a loose strand of hair back behind her ear. The intense hunger in his eyes swallowed the rising lump in her throat. "Can't say I'm not, when you're the one makin' it that way."

"Ugh," she grimaced, planting a kneecap in his groin to stem his presence. "I've heard better from a Freeside junkie pissing on himself."

"Ouch."

She lifted her leg higher, pressing a little bit harder to get the message across. "I don't know what you're trying to pull-"

"Ain't so much as pullin' as it is puttin' in," he rasped. A large hand with thick fingers came up to cradle the curve of her jaw with his thumb sweeping along it. A breath hitched in her chest, and he traced his palm around her neck to pull at the base of her braid. "Unless, that's what you're into."

Her lips trembled, her voice shaky. "I-I can have you arrested-"

"Handcuffs, huh?" he mused. "Just temptin' me with a good time."

She licked her mouth; he watched. "I can have you hung-"

He moved her knee a smidge to the left to feel the gigantic bulge tenting his pants, rasping lowly, "Already am."

"Jesus," she breathed, all anger forgotten as she looked down.

He chuckled, "Heh, not quite." A flirtatious wink. "Like ya said, I always get the job done."

The Major brought up a fist and decked him in the jaw, upsetting his grasp on her and making him stumble backward into the mess of paperwork and files as he sprawled over her desk. Cross grunted, rubbing at the crack she had put in his molar. It'd have to be pulled out.

"Next time you decide to put your hands so comfortably on me," she growled, adjusting her uniform and tucking her braid back behind her. "I won't hold back."

Hold back?

The bounty hunter stood, wobbling as he felt his head begin to pound and the lights begin to dim. Who was turning them out?

"Damn," he garbled, going to one knee and looking up into that face he'd quite literally fallen hard for. She was beginning to blur, his vision swimming and his thoughts turning muddy and his mouth just giving her a big ol' drunken smile. "I think I love you."

There was the loud thump of his skull hitting the deck, and he was out.

One Month Ago

Bang!

A gasp as deep as a drop in a well rose up from the pit of his chest. His hands shook, his eyes unfocused and mind raw and breathing heavy and-

"Hey, easy now. Slow down…it's about time you woke up."

The ghoul groaned, cradling his bald head in his hands and rubbing circles into his bleary eyes, squinting around the room for any sort of semblance to…well, to anything, really. "Fuckin'…what?"

The other man, a short, wiry mustached smoothskin seated at his side sighed, "Yeah, that's what we said, too. Here." He reached over and handed over a cup of water. "Drink this, might help you think a little better."

The glass was emptied no sooner than it was in his palm, the beads of water at the corner of his mouth wiped on the back of his hand. A rough fabric texture met him about halfway to his small hole for an ear, and he slowly explored the side of his skull to feel along the bandage wrapped around his head.

"You're lucky to have come out of this in one piece." The smoothskin crossed his arms and leaned back in his seat, observing the way his patient was beginning to unfurl his dressing. "I tried to not take out more than I had to-"

"Fuck happened to me?!" the ghoul snarled, swinging his legs over the side of the bed to go to stand. The sudden inertia was more than his body could bear in that moment, and he was suddenly slumped over his knees, exorcizing his soul out with a loud groan.

The smoothskin didn't betray any concern, but rather tsked in chastisement. "I don't know the full details myself, but word was, you got shot in the head. Victor had brought you to me and I found you at death's door…but it'd appear you weren't yet ready to go."

The ghoul tried once more to sit upright- successful, if not for the slight wavering. His voice was thick with rage. "Who the fuck shot me?"

Smoothskin shrugged. "Dunno. You'd have to ask Victor. He's the one that pulled you out. Seems he was keeping an eye on you…lucky, too." When the ghoul only focused on his breathing to clear his head, he continued, "You remember your name? Where you're from? Maybe why someone wanted you dead?"

The ghoul went to bite back with nasty sarcasm when he considered the question seriously for a brief second. He…he only knew-

"Cross," he rasped, his eyes drifting to the far reaches of his mind as he searched for anything else he could remember, anything else that he knew, fuck, just anything. When he couldn't, no matter how hard he concentrated, he gave the smoothskin a blank stare. "Name's Cross."

"That's all?"

The ghoul nodded, once, and then licked his mouth before rubbing at his jaw. "Yeah. That's it."

The smoothskin sighed and stood from his seat, beckoning him to do the same. "Well then, Mister Cross, my name's Doc Mitchell, and I'm the acting practitioner here in Goodsprings. I'd say it's a pleasure, but then that'd just be cruel, considering the circumstances."

Doc chucked a thumb over his shoulder to the hallway. "Bathroom's just down on the right."

Cross ambled on over, pausing every few steps to regain his sense of direction and settle the stars that had been shaken in his head. The whole world had taken on a thick sort of fog anytime he tried to just remember. Fuck, his head hurt, his gut churned, his dick-

He shoved a hand down the waistband of his pants, urgently shuffling the goods around for a proper headcount. One, two…three. Phew. So long as he had those, the rest was just cosmetics. He looked up in the cracked mirror hanging over the toilet as he took a satisfying leak.

And man, what a makeover that'd be.

He traced the scar running up his left eye all the way to his forehead, cursing those bastards under his breath as the sound of his piss in the bowl deafened the whole house. The milky hazels of his eyes stared back at him, the stern line of his mouth none too friendly and the dark gray of his weathered muscles speckled with dirt and blood. He eventually rubbed at his bald head, flushed the can, and came back out.

Doc was seated in the next room over. "Why don't ya come on in and take a seat? Let me finish examining you before I let you loose back in the world."

The ghoul only grumbled, his heavy weight sinking the cushions as he did as he was told.

"Good, now, tell me what's the first thing you think of when I say the word-"

Cross immediately got up, scratching at his bare chest as he surveyed the room. "Nope. Don't need a fuckin' shrink, alright?" His eyes settled on a thick duster neatly folded on a table beside a holster and faded cowboy hat. "That mine?"

"Sure is. It was all that came with you." Doc watched him go about getting his gear thrown on together and pulling up his boots. "You know, most people wouldn't be so lucky-"

"Peh. Lucky."Cross buckled his belt and pointed to the fresh scar on his face. "You call this lucky?"

"I do." When the ghoul just shook his head and began to mumble under his breath, Doc got up from his spot and walked over with something in his hand. "I would've given you some cleaner clothes, but it looks like you're three sizes too big for my wife's. Here. This might do you some good, instead."

Cross looked down and took the offering with his gloved hands, the muscle of his brows pinched together. "Fuck is it?"

"That right there is a Pip-Boy," Doc explained as he watched him strap it to his left wrist. "It's like a computer, only easier to carry and convenient for traveling. I'm sure you'll figure out how to use it in no time."

The bounty hunter frowned under the brim of his hat as he fiddled with the knobs and began button smashing. "Said I was-?"

"Goodsprings." Doc gave a hand. "Here. I'll mark it on your map to give you a head start."

Cross observed the way the screens were sifted through and how the dials worked, grunting in appreciation of the device and how helpful it would be for his future needs.

Doc stood back and gave him a once-over. "Can't say I can do much for you now, just try not to get shot in the head again. Maybe go on down to the saloon there, talk to Sunny Smiles for any work or information on who those men could've been."

Cross was soon on the other side of the door, holding a hand against the harsh light of the sun and inhaling the dusty breeze that rolled on by like a scented tumbleweed. He didn't know what had happened, who he really was, or where to go from here…

…and something told him he liked that.