Pennsylvania
Jan. 22nd, 2012 11:55 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
aaaaaaaagh_skyWhere they are right now in terms of pre-war boundaries, Ellen isn't sure. Tunneltown's long since fallen into the distance. There's been pre-war highway to follow in some places, and only the scent trail of a group of people big enough that they have to be slavers in others, and the occasional confirmation in the form of ashes and trash heaps and latrine pits that some large group passed this way recently. There've been things coming at them out of the landscape in places, like mole rats but smaller and more numerous and vicious, and the occasional ghastly-looking bird that circles remarkably low overhead before changing its mind and moving on. There've been ridiculously massive giant ants. Once, they found the body of a woman in slave rags. There wasn't anything they could do for her except move her off the road and lay her straight for the final rites, and then move on.
Ellen is beginning to hate Paladin Renny and her orders, although she'll never admit it out loud.
"Hey, Voodoo?" she calls instead at one point, eyes on the scent trail as Dogmeat sniffs the night air around them. "It looks like they veered off the road here and headed for that bunch of houses up in the distance. I don't know if they're still there, but the trail's pretty fresh..."
And pre-war houses, back in the Capital Wastes, tended to attract raider groups like a corpse attracts bloatflies.
Ellen is beginning to hate Paladin Renny and her orders, although she'll never admit it out loud.
"Hey, Voodoo?" she calls instead at one point, eyes on the scent trail as Dogmeat sniffs the night air around them. "It looks like they veered off the road here and headed for that bunch of houses up in the distance. I don't know if they're still there, but the trail's pretty fresh..."
And pre-war houses, back in the Capital Wastes, tended to attract raider groups like a corpse attracts bloatflies.
Re: Later
Date: 2012-01-24 04:03 am (UTC)It was different.
Ellen just nods, and doesn't say anything.
Re: Later
Date: 2012-01-24 04:19 am (UTC)"We were about to get on the helo when a rocket thrashed one of its engines. It had to fly back to a repair facility. Mother and Rabbit got on. Preacher and I didn't."
Re: Later
Date: 2012-01-24 04:20 am (UTC)Re: Later
Date: 2012-01-24 04:53 am (UTC)"About oh-four-hundred, we heard M4s below us. I thought it might be Rabbit and Mother, but we were ambushed before we could get to them. A couple minutes later, I heard a gunship fire off a burst from its forty mike-mike, but that was it."
"We met up with a couple Rangers the next morning. Said they were part of a Quick Reaction Force to get us. We set off looking for Rabbit and Mother. Took us a while, but we found 'em."
( can you see them? )
(by the sandbags, they're by the sandbags )
( breathing hurts. )
"The fighters'd beaten the shit out of both of them. I could barely recognize Mother, his whole face was just black and blue. Same...same thing with Rabbit."
( you came back for us. you came back. )
"He was a mess. Couple fractured ribs, both legs broken, a sucking chest, and a lot of blood lost. A lot. I could see it soaking through the carpet he was on."
"We get him outside, and Preacher gets to work on him. Tells me to keep Rabbit awake, so I do. We call for evac, but the hangars at Bagram're locked down. We're waiting on helos from an airfield ninety minutes away. And through all this, Rabbit keeps coughing up blood and telling us he's dizzy. I just try to keep him awake, keep him alive, you know?"
He pauses, buries his head in his hands.
"He stops breathing just as the CASEVAC helo touches down."
Re: Later
Date: 2012-01-24 04:57 am (UTC)There's a hand on Voodoo's shoulder. Ellen doesn't remember putting it there, but... best not to take it away. Not now. She might say something unbelievably stupid if she did.
Re: Later
Date: 2012-01-24 05:13 am (UTC)"I had an uncle once. Used to be a Green Beret back in Vietnam. Caught up with him at a family reunion after I came back from Somalia, asked him what he did about the bad memories."
He crosses his legs, leans against the windowsill.
"He said, 'it’s real simple. Take all the bad shit, put it in a shoebox, and tuck it away, as deep as you can.'"
"'And promise yourself you’ll only look at it once you run out of stuff to put in it.'"
Re: Later
Date: 2012-01-24 05:21 am (UTC)"That sounds familiar," she finally says, "at- at least a little bit... not that." A breath, as one hand goes to a spot on her side where she knows there's a scar under her armor. "Not that anyone's said it to me. But it... feels like a familiar tactic."
Re: Later
Date: 2012-01-24 05:33 am (UTC)"I thought I could do it. I thought I knew what I'd be putting in there. But I never thought that one day it'd be my best friend."
He sighs. "It's not right. To just- brush him off like that."
"I guess I thought we were invincible. Who knows. I don't."
Re: Later
Date: 2012-01-24 05:42 am (UTC)She can hear Colonel Autumn's voice at the edge of her thoughts; she pushes it away, hard.
"The world has a way of- of blindsiding people with that kind of thing. And even though you'd give an eye and an arm for answers... you just don't get them."
Re: Later
Date: 2012-01-24 06:01 am (UTC)A lone cricket chirps somewhere in the blackness.
Voodoo picks up his helmet and shaving kit and slings the M60 over his shoulder.
"I'll be downstairs if you need anything."
Re: Later
Date: 2012-01-24 06:03 am (UTC)Which means she's definitely going to check on him. People who don't sleep make foolish mistakes.
Re: Later
Date: 2012-01-24 06:05 am (UTC)After a while:
"Ellen?"
Re: Later
Date: 2012-01-24 06:05 am (UTC)Re: Later
Date: 2012-01-24 06:06 am (UTC)Re: Later
Date: 2012-01-24 06:07 am (UTC)Re: Later
Date: 2012-01-24 07:01 am (UTC)Voodoo's in REM before his head touches the ground.
It's been that kind of a week.