Fallout 3 - Beautiful Stranger

Chapter 18 Part 2

Patience could understand that, too. They'd only known her for a day, or so, and the girl had already found a place in Patience's heart. Brave, loud, full of a zest for life, funny. Patience couldn't imagine the girl not being around. Battles and being in terror had a way of doing that, bringing people together. Making strangers in foxholes the very best of friends.

"How are we doing over here?" Patience crouched beside Valrie and Gia.

"She's getting there. Fucking Mentats. It's like having adrenaline pumped into your brain." Valrie clicked her fingers in front of Gia's face as the girl tried catching something that didn't exist from the air. "Still, it's a damn sight better than the girl fucking dying."

"You! You called me 'sweetie'. I liked that. Not sexually, 'cos your, like, a million years old, you know? But I liked it. 'Sweetie'. 'Sweetie'. 'Sweetie'." Gia said the last three 'sweetie's' in different tones of voice, one high and two progressively lower. "Not that you aren't sexy, because, wow! You totally are! Have you seen your ass? You should! I could bounce caps off that ass."

Valrie tried to stifle a laugh into the crook of her arm, glancing towards Patience. It was funny, Patience had to admit. She didn't know whether to feel insulted or flattered and settled on bemused instead while trying to stop Gia reaching around to pinch her behind.

"This is getting there?" Patience pointed towards Gia, who seemed to have forgotten how to open her eyes and her mouth at the same time.

"You should have heard her a minute ago while you and Vacant were talking. She swore blind there were Bloat flies buzzing around her head singing 'Meet me in St. Louis'." Valrie pushed her football helmet back. "Where she heard that, I have no fucking idea. Three Dog doesn't play it, that's for sure."

Gia did seem to be calming down. If only a little. She had stopped taking so fast her lips couldn't keep up and her eyes did seem to be moving around in a much less frantic fashion. If she continued calming down at this pace, they should be able to move out within a few minutes, but that would bring other problems.

She feared the possibility of more Super Mutants. Here, deep inside the ruins of downtown D.C., the chance of a running battle with the outsized monsters caused her a great deal of concern. There were far too few places to take cover. Far too few spaces open enough to take advantage of being faster than the hulking brutes. Tight spaces worked to the advantage of those with longer reaches and getting in close to fight would be pointless against something that didn't feel pain the same way as humans do.

So many factors worked against them. The only factors she had going for her were her Pip-Boy's ability to mark out targets on her enemies and the training that she didn't remember taking but, she felt so happy to know, came as natural as breathing. Those had helped against two of the creatures attacking at separate times. If more attacked, at the same time? Patience wasn't so sure they'd get out of that alive.

She spotted Vincent returning from his recon. Standing up to meet him half-way, she saw that he appeared puzzled, rather than concerned, resting his rifle over his shoulder in a lazy, lackadaisical fashion.

"You look confused. What did you see? Aliens?" It was an inappropriate joke, but she said it anyway. She'd spent far too much time around Valrie.

"No. It's ... unexpected. Yeah. Unexpected is the best way to describe it." He looked down at Gia and smiled seeing the girl had calmed down.

"I take it, it's not bad out there, otherwise you wouldn't be so relaxed." Patience frowned when Vincent shrugged and raised his eyebrows.

"No. It's nothing. I mean, almost literally, nothing. I was worried that there'd be a whole bunch of Super Mutants back there, but there's just nothing." He scratched the back of his neck and half-turned back the way he came. "You should see for yourself."