Deacon was waiting for us in the underground entrance to the Railroad headquarters. As soon as we staggered into view, MacCready supporting me while I fought to stay conscious and on my feet despite the blood loss, he leaped into decisive action. Slinging my arm over his neck, he swung me into his arms. "I love to sweep a lady off her feet," he commented lightly, to Mac's immediate irritation.
"Watch it, she's injured!" my partner snarled. Even bandaged, my arm was still seeping, staining everything a sticky red.
"Bloody tie-dye is all the rage these days," was Deacon's only comment about the mess I made of his white T-shirt as he carried me inside the catacombs. "I'll be the envy of HQ!" Moving swiftly, MacCready only a step behind, he made a beeline for the front left corner of the crypt where a couple of stretchers were lined up, setting me down on one. "Carrington, got a couple of patients for you!"
Dr. Carrington looked up from his terminal in annoyance, which faded as soon as he saw the amount of blood on both of us. Rushing over with a handheld diagnostic tool of some sort, hastily donning a pair of gloves, he pushed Deacon out of the way to begin his examination. "Definitely a concussion," he declared firmly. "What have you been up to?" he asked gruffly, "wrestling Deathclaws?" He tutted at the state of my face, which probably looked quite colorful after the number of blows the raider boss landed.
"Raiders." I gasped out, trying not to wince at Carrington's examinations. "Tried to take my Pip-Boy, but it wouldn't come off..." Lying down had restored some of my energy, but I was still drained.
He and Deacon exchanged a look at that. "I'll get Tom," Deacon volunteered, moving quickly out of view.
MacCready had taken up a protective position at the head of the stretcher. "They snuck up on us while we were clearing out the path from here to Bunker Hill. Stunned her and knocked me down long enough to drag her away," he continued, his voice tight and clipped. "By the time I dispatched the rabble and got to her, their leader was trying to cut her arm in half lengthwise with a nasty looking saw of some kind." His bloodied hands gripped the stretcher on either side of my head as he leaned forward slightly. "Damn scum used up all the stimpaks, too. I bandaged what I could, kept it elevated, but it won't stop bleeding."
Carrington looked quite grim when he heard the whole story. "That's... not good at all." He turned to inspect my arm, carefully unwrapping the compression bandage that was completely saturated with crusted blood. "Deacon, get back over here!" As soon as the last layer was free, a rush of warmth flowed down my elbow onto the sheets. Weakness crept in, and I started to feel a chill in the air.
"I'll help," MacCready offered, standing back upright with a slight wince.
"Not like that you won't," the doctor retorted. Pointing to a basin against the near wall, he snapped, "Wash quickly but thoroughly and get back here."
By the time MacCready returned and was instructed to apply direct pressure to the wound to slow the bleeding, Tinker Tom was examining my Pip-Boy while Deacon took his own turn at the sink. Dr. Carrington set up an IV bag to help mitigate blood loss, as well as prepping a general anesthetic to be injected the moment my Pip-Boy came off. Tom was holding the device, ready to bear it off to his own station. Deacon came back over to stand a few steps away, waiting for orders.
"All right, Anne," Dr. Carrington announced. "See if you can remove that thing. If you can, we'll have to move fast. It's providing a certain amount of pressure itself."
Looking up at my partner for courage, I slowly reached over to unlatch the arm band. As soon as I pulled, the Pip-Boy came free with a painful tearing scrape and a spurt of fresh blood. The anesthetic took hold before I could see the full extent of the mutilation, but the men's shocked exclamations followed me down into unconsciousness.
-0-
The rocky ceiling overhead was barely illuminated in a dim flicker when I opened my eyes. The catacombs were quiet, only slight whispering noises reaching my ears. I was lying flat on my back in only a T-shirt and jeans, a thin blanket warding off the chill in the air, and my head and right wrist swathed in bandages. My left arm, too, was heavily bandaged, splinted and secured against the side of the stretcher to prevent movement. Everything was out of focus, and I realized my glasses had been removed. Craning my neck to try and locate them, I heard the quiet rustle of movement behind me. "MacCready?" I called quietly, wanting to see him, feel the touch of his hand on mine.
A sardonic chuckle answered me instead. "Sorry, amiga," Deacon's articulate tones murmured quietly, "He's out for the count. You've been upgraded to me." His bald head moved into view, holding out my glasses. I noticed he was still wearing his sunglasses, even in the dimly lit room.
Bald?
"What happened to your hair?" I groggily blurted that out before I could stop myself. Feeling the heat of embarrassment on my cheeks, I was relieved when he chuckled.
"This is my normal look, if you can even call it that." He moved around to the side so we could speak more comfortably, one hand running over the top of his head. "I like to think it gives me a dangerous 'tough guy' impression. Is it working?"
"Not with that grin, no."
"Darn." He snapped his fingers in feigned disappointment. "I'll leave that to your little mercenary friend, then. He might be scrawny, but he gives off some serious 'don't fuck with me' vibes." Leaning back against the wall, Deacon crossed his arms nonchalantly. "Maybe I can get some lessons from him while you're stuck here." A quick glance to my right showed my sleeping partner sprawled face down on another stretcher, his back covered in bandages, a sheet tucked modestly around his hips.
"Wait? What do you mean 'stuck here'?" I tried to sit up, my bound left arm hampering my movements.
"Ah ah ah, none of that." Deacon pushed me back down onto the stretcher. "Doc Carrington did some of his best work fixing up your arm. Don't undo it." He reached out to grab a purified water, offering it to me as he continued. "Consider it thanks for taking care of some of the nasties getting too close to HQ. I know those raiders can seem like idiots, but they're a serious threat. You've done some good clearing them out.
"Doc also fixed up your bodyguard, despite us having to practically tie him down to do so. Even after you were stable, he was determined to stay right by your side until his injuries finally caught up with him and we could get him on a stretcher. Stimpaks are good, but they're no comparison to actual medical treatment. Do you have any idea how many bullets that kid had in him?" Deacon let out a low whistle of astonishment. "He's sleeping off the anesthetic, and you're both going to stay here until the good Doctor says you're ready to go."
"He's not a kid," I emphasized. "And you two are almost the same height." He might be young, but he's very much a man. A lover and a brutal killer both- a confusion of personalities. He had to grow up so fast...
Deacon snorted. "He's younger than anyone else here. That automatically makes him the kid. It's the law, you know?" At my irritated glare, he merely shrugged. "Hey, I would love to be a kid again!"
I decided to change the subject. "What's going on with my arm? Why can't I move it?"
A headshake met my questions. "I can't speak for Carrington's medical diagnosis, but I can say that your arm looked like minced brahmin meat when the Pip-Boy came off. MacCready (See, using his name isn't all that difficult, is it?) told us about how that raider did a real number on you trying to sever the connections." Deacon looked almost green at the memory. "Doc worked on you for hours. We think you'll have full use of your arm, but..."
"What?!" I gaped at Deacon. I'm left-handed! My mind shrilled the thought. I need both hands to fix instruments! I can't play clarinet without both arms. I can't even wield a rifle out here with only one hand. What am I going to do? I started to wheeze in short panicked gasps, desperately looking around as if to find a miracle cure.
"Hey, you didn't let me finish!" Deacon said quietly, snapping his fingers in front of my face to refocus my attention. "Earth to Anne! But," he said again, "it's going to take a while. You can't move your arm right now because of the delicate work he had to do to reconnect the nerves and vessels, especially with those intertwining metal wires. If you move, it could tear everything back out again. Technically," he sighed, "you're not even supposed to be awake yet. In fact," he moved around to the IV setup, taking a labeled syringe and injecting it into the line leading to my arm. "Doc left this here just in case. Sweet dreams, amiga." He chuckled as the drug pulled me back into darkness.
-0-
We ended up spending a week in the Railroad's headquarters. Doctor Carrington had devised a treatment plan alternating delicate surgery with stimpak-assisted healing and lots of bed rest. MacCready was up and about by the second day, bullet removal being much less intensive than completely reconstructing a limb from the inside out. To Carrington's annoyance and Deacon's eyebrow-raised amusement, he insisted on staying by my side, sleeping sprawled in a chair next to my head.
At the very first opportunity, I asked him about the execution-style murder of the raider boss. "I can't express how happy I was to see you," I told him quietly, when we had a private moment one evening. "But you scared the ever-living daylights out of me when you disemboweled him in cold blood like that, leaving him to bleed out on the floor."
He looked startled, eyes searching my face. "I don't understand. You knew I was a hired killer."
"I did," I nodded in agreement. "But the hired killer I know kills quickly and cleanly, one shot to the head with amazing skill. He doesn't torture his victims like a raider, letting them die slowly in agony. You stooped to their level, and it frightened me."
"He was hurting you." MacCready's expression grew stern, and his eyes narrowed at the memory. His hand grasped my shoulder fervently. "Something snapped in my head, and I just had to hurt him back. I couldn't stand seeing you in pain."
"Oh, RJ..." I reached up to caress his face, feeling the rasp of stubble beneath my fingertips. He closed his eyes and leaned into my hand. "I love you so much." He's young, as Deacon reminded me. It's all he knows, this tit for tat mentality. All I can do is try to show him a better way. "Just... keep your promise to Duncan and take the moral high road if you can."
"I love you too, angel." he murmured quietly into my palm, kissing it lightly. "I don't ever want you to be scared of me, okay? I'll try to do better."