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Stronger than death itself 2b/?
Date: 2012-05-09 10:36 am (UTC)Passing by them on their way back, both Amanda and her father cast a look at the mercs, hers a shy one, her father’s an outright furious glance that already burned with the sheen of alcohol in his bloodstream.
“Don’t you dare look at her again”, he snapped at the mercs. “I know your kind! Fuck off!”
“Easy there, old man”, the merc who had smiled at her gave back while lighting up a smoke. “I wasn’t doing anything to her...”
He was a sinewy man with hair somewhere between auburn and ginger, a rascally smile and a goatee. Harkness couldn’t place him, at least not as easily as he had been able to recognise her. And he still wasn’t completely sure if he really had.
“Fuck off!”
The merc was just about to make a nasty reply, Harkness could see his eyebrows draw themselves together, when the girl took her father’s arm and pulled.
“Please daddy”, she muttered. “I’m afraid of these men. Let’s just go.”
Her father huffed and dragged her away, and over her shoulder the girl cast a hasty, haggard look at the merc with a hardly perceptible shake of her head.
The merc, in turn, swallowed what he had meant to say, obviously getting the message: Say anything more and you’ll only get me deeper into trouble.
Harkness followed the couple out and watched them descend the stairs, leaning on the railing before him with a frustrated sigh. But what could he do? He couldn’t go there and tell her to abandon her parents and live in Rivet City. He knew he couldn’t just go to her father and tell him to treat his daughter with more respect. With the man he likely was, that would only worsen her situation. But doing nothing... it was the worst moment of his life to watch her go like that, being dragged at her arm and scolded within an inch of her life for nothing more than looking at a man in passing.
He watched them load their brahmin, watched the two guards check their guns, and he watched them depart wondering if he would ever see her again. If it really was how it seemed to be, if it was her soul, the Lone Wanderer, the Saviour of the Wastes. He still shied away from using her name in this context because even if it was true, it wasn’t Her. She was dead.
Harkness watched them vanish out of sight and into the ruins of D.C, and with a shake of his head, went back inside.
x-x-x-x-x-x
It wasn’t even fifteen minutes after their departure that the door of the marketplace opened again and one of the guards on duty at the drawbridge yelled for help and a medic. All heads flew around, Harkness’ included, and to his utter dismay he saw the guard now help a staggering, bleeding figure down the stairs that he identified after a few moments as Amanda.
He was at her side in an instant.
“Miss Amanda, what on earth...”
She looked up at him, her eyes blank with horror. “Mutants”, she whispered hoarsely. “Mutants. Six of them... oh god, please help. Please help...” Blood was splattered on her face and all over her shirt, she was bleeding from gashes in her arm and on her cheek that seemed to have been caused by grazing shots, her shirt was torn in two places and her hair was matted with blood and dirt. “Please help them, oh god, someone... please...”
The mercenaries, having heard and seen what happened, had hurried over while loosening their guns in their holsters. But as they stood there now they exchanged a few glances with each other and with Harkness before one of them, a tall, lanky man with greying hair and moustache, spoke in a low voice. “Not likely any of them are still alive by now, what with six of those bastards having gotten them.”
Stronger than death itself 2c/?
Date: 2012-05-09 10:37 am (UTC)“Miss Amanda...” Harkness gently paced his hand over hers. “The gentleman over there is most likely right. I’m sorry, but...”
“You can’t just leave them...” Her voice broke, and the tears spilling from her eyes washed white stripes into the blood and grime on her face. “You can’t let them be turned into gore bags, being cut into pieces and eaten. You can’t just leave them! Please! Please...”
“Please, Miss.” Harkness spoke as gently as he could. It made his heart ache, even if technically he didn’t possess one, to see her like this. “This is a suicide mission and I can’t order my men into something like it. You have to understand...”
She stared at him, tears still streaming down her cheeks.
Into the silence, the mercenary who had spoken before spoke once more after clearing his throat. “Let’s go boys.”
Silently, the other four drew and cocked their weapons and followed him up the stairs and through the door. Alerted by one of the citizens, Doc Hanson now entered the marketplace and hurried over, a worried frown on her face.
Amanda just stared at the door where the mercs had vanished, still as a stone.
Harkness let go of her hand and stood up as the doctor reached her, and after relocating her into the stall at her back, the ones selling meds and other such goods, he left her in the care of Hanson and slowly walked up the stairs again. He watched the mercs head down the ramp and vanish up the path into the ruins and now wondered if he would see any of them alive again. With a shrug, he turned and went back inside to assure the people that the mutants hadn’t followed the injured girl as much as to assure himself that she wasn’t seriously injured and would be all right.
x-x-x-x-x-x
Roughly half an hour later the door opened again and every single pair of eyes in the whole hangar came to rest on the stairs again, to watch the five mercs enter the marketplace again. One of them, the one with the cocky grin and the ginger hair, was pressing a bloodied rag to his left temple, and blood was running down his face and chest. He didn’t seem too impaired, though, as he still had a smoke clamped into the corner of his mouth. Another, the tall, broad-shouldered one who had been involved in the coffee-accident, was being supported by two of his comrades and walked a little doubled over.
Doc Hanson, just having finished with the girl who was now sitting on the sofa that was part of the stall inventory, a blanket around her shoulders and a sweetened coffee clutched in her trembling hands, picked up her bags and hurried over.
“Bullet?”
The red-haired merc removed the rag and nodded. “Graze. Doesn’t even hurt that much, but the fucker bleeds like mad.”
“Head wounds normally do.” Hanson soaked a clean rag in disinfectant.
“I know”, he gave back and closed his eyes with a soft hiss when Hanson applied the distilled alcohol on the wound.
A quickly applied stimpack was all it took to treat the wound to Hanson’s satisfaction, and, for safety’s sake more than medical need, she applied a bandage around his head before sending him to the sofa as well to sit down and take a breather. He followed her orders, lighting up another smoke on the way.
“And what happened to you?”
The other merc looked up with a strained expression on his face. “Got a thumb in the padding with a nail board. Backside, thankfully.”
With a tight-lipped frown, Hanson tugged his shirt out of his trousers and shoved it up to examine his belly that already sported a large bruise in interesting shades of green and purple. She prodded here and there a few times, and then shook her head when all the merc did was twitch with his eyebrows.
“Nothing serious”, she said and jabbed a stimpack into the centre of the bruise. “Just a bruise. Hurts like shit, but will be over in a day or two.”
“Thanks, Doc.”
Stronger than death itself 2d/?
Date: 2012-05-09 10:38 am (UTC)He adjusted his position with a low grunt. “Gotta smoke, Steve? I lost mine.”
“Sure thing.”
The ginger one produced a smoke, lit it and handed it over Amanda’s lap to his comrade who took it and leaned back into the cushions with a little groan of relief.
Amanda looked back and forth between the two, and although the doc had washed her face she still looked dreadful. At that moment the leader of the troupe, the greying guy with the drooping moustache and sideburns, came over and looked down at her.
She looked up and could read the truth in his eyes even before he spoke. She bit her lip even as he opened his mouth.
“I’m sorry kid”, he said in a low voice. “There was nothing we could do for them. We brought them back, though, so you can bury them. Found the brahmin, even. It’s down in the pen. Sorry for not giving you better news.”
She swallowed but was unable to hold back her tears. “Thank you”, she whispered. “I don’t know... I don’t know how I can...”
“It’s all right, kid. We’ll worry about it later.”
He left her then and as he passed Harkness, lighting up a smoke, the chief nodded at him and gave him a pat on the arm. “Thank you”, he said. “I admit I wouldn’t have expected something like this from guys like you. No offence intended.”
The merc finished lighting up his smoke and shrugged. “None taken. I know the reputation mercs usually have, but not all of us are assholes that people need to be afraid of.”
“I know.”
He lifted an eyebrow, but didn’t pursue it further.
Watching him go, Harkness thought back to the other two friends he had had, and lost, a long time ago. Wasteland mercs too, both with a colourful past, and both of them, while still tough as balls, had been men with a strong sense of honour and with hearts of gold.
And as Harkness looked back at Amanda, he suddenly realised what he should have seen before.
They were there. All three of them. Sitting side by side on the same sofa as they had so many years ago. He couldn’t say why he had failed to spot this before, but looking at them now, it was as clear as rain to him.
Then the memories came back, unbidden as usual, but this time, he didn’t send them away.
Re: Stronger than death itself 2d/?
Date: 2012-05-09 07:38 pm (UTC)Re: Stronger than death itself 2d/? A!A
Date: 2012-05-09 07:43 pm (UTC)Thanks for letting me know someone is actually reading this :)