I told Nicole, Dr. Usanagi, today.

First, a story.

I first heard of Ruth months before I met her. A story on the radio- a Mohave express courier who had miraculously survived being shot in the head and was recovering in Goodsprings.

Then came the other stories. There's no shortage of gossip I hear… that I've overheard in the Fort.

Several insisted she'd left a Vault, although nobody could seem to decide which or where from. One traveling merchant speculated that perhaps she had been one of the New Canaanites once, that she had abandoned their Heavenly Mothers and Fathers and fled into the Mojave to start anew under a quieter sky. Others insisted that she had come from the East, a mix of places the locals could not name, and places that made my chest clench when I heard them spoken.

Chicago, Denver, Philadelphia, and even just once D.C.

I even overheard a woman gossiping with Beatrix that the Courier had been one of the Legion, maybe even that of Caesar himself, that she was the real reason his army marched relentlessly west.

Then, finally, that night in Nicole's clinic, long after the doors were locked for the night and most of the guards had gone to sleep. We shared a bottle of wine sitting together on her little cot, reminiscing about our days at ABMU, how coming out to New Vegas had felt like watching history rewind itself as we left civilization. We'd taken years of safety and hot showers for granted, hadn't been entirely prepared for what practicing medicine outside those walls would really look like.

She told me about the Courier, who had come into the clinic seeking one of those nociception regulators to manage headaches that had never quite stopped since the day she'd woken up on Doc Mitchell's exam table. Said the Courier had told her that she'd grown up somewhere South, surrounded by pine and mountains. Told me she didn't believe her, and I asked her why.

I imagine the alcohol gave her courage, or at least foolishness, because she looked at me so earnestly and said "She's like us. All the signs of good nutrition and limited rads during early childhood. But…" she'd continued, so quietly I could barely hear her, "I know you weren't borne of any vault."

She never brought it up since that night.

I told her everything. I told her about the Enclave, the life I can scarcely remember in Navarro. I told her about FEV, that my father's fathers created it, gave her the missing piece to a puzzle she'd already been putting together. I asked her why she'd never said anything after that night.

"Your reaction," she answered, so blindingly obvious in retrospect. "Whatever it was, you'd protected it your whole life."

Sometimes I forget these gifts that my father gave me, more than flesh and blood, the parts of me that are of him under the layers of deflection and humor that I wear as armor. I told her that I would fight the Legion and defend these people, about an uncertain future following Ruth away from this place and hoping the NCR and Brotherhood never caught up to us.

Whatever I'd expected, I wasn't prepared for her to ask me where we were going. She packed her bag, purchased medical supplies from her own clinic with caps I gave her. Said her goodbyes to the guards who have been protecting her day and night for years, asked them to pass a letter on to Julie.

I don't understand. All the things I've told her… and she still walked with me to the bunker. I am heavy with love and duty for this friend who knows me and does not see a monster.