Chapter Text
Two months after fleeing New Vegas…
October 6, 2028
Sebastian Monroe stumbled home from the bar alone, feeling quite pleasantly drunk. After spending the last week breaking his back in the coal mines outside of town, he’d once gain been paid and had immediately put it to good use. Not finding himself interested in any of the local girls this evening, he’d spent his time and money tying one on instead.
So far he’d managed to pass five weeks in Wright, Wyoming completely undetected – four of those weeks had even been spent gainfully employed. This time he determined not to make the same mistake he’d made in New Vegas. No, he was determined to stay under the radar.
He really shouldn’t have been surprised that he’d been tracked to New Vegas. As Jimmy King, he’d made quite the name for himself in the fight ring. He’d waltzed right into town and quickly picked his way through the other fighters in town, becoming Gould’s number one draw within a week. By the time that those bounty hunters had tried taking him down, his reputation had begun to spread outside of New Vegas as well.
After all, it wasn’t every day that someone came through taking down men half his age and outweighing him by a good fifty pounds. No, riding high and undefeated had simply attracted too much attention and he should have known better. It wasn’t his fault he was the best, but he didn’t exactly have to flaunt it so much.
In Wright he lived a quiet and perfectly boring existence under the alias Jack Smith. He worked in the coal mines during the day and gambled and drank his pay away at night at the local tavern. The job came with a small shack that met his needs and there were just enough pretty women in town to keep him from going completely stir crazy when he had an itch to scratch – although he tried to keep his association with them discreet. Sebastian Monroe was known to be a total man-whore, so jack Smith could not be.
As it was, mining brought him in almost as much as prize fighting had. The resource was in high demand in both Texas and California, with more and more trains being put into service. The work was demanding and could be dangerous – they’d lost thirty men in a cave in just weeks before he’d arrived. Still, he didn’t mind. He’d even made a few friends here and there—helping people out here and there and so on. Sebastian Monroe was known to be a total dick, so Jack Smith couldn’t be.
He stumbled into the shack, just barely missing the downpour that had been threatening on his way home. The row of shacks was just on the outskirts of town, which was how he liked it. Close enough to get around but far enough away to avoid attention. It was just one room, but it was his one room. Sure, he had to share an outhouse and pump with the occupants of five other cabins, but it was better than nothing.
He kicked his boots off and was just about to slither out of his clothes when he could have sworn he heard something outside his window. He almost ignored it, but old habits die hard. He grabbed his gun and a sword. He hated having only one, but Sebastian Monroe was known to wield two, so again, Jack Smith could not. Lamenting the fact that he was about to get soaked, he popped out of the shack. Pausing for a minute under the small covered porch, he took a deep breath and stepped into the rain.
Creeping around the side of the building carefully, he stopped at the corner so whomever was by the back of the house didn’t see him. Sure enough, there was a lone figure propped up against the wood siding, crouched below the window. More than likely he (or she) had likely been waiting for him to pass out before making a move.
The noise from the storm provided him an advantage as he snuck up on the would-be assailant. Within moments, his sword was at the assassin’s neck. “Drop your weapon and move slowly.”
The figure didn’t move. “I said drop it!” he commanded once more. When he didn’t get a reply or reaction he knew something was off. His sword still at ready, he reached out and shook the intruder by the shoulder. It was then that he realized the sound he’d heard was from the body hitting the side of the house. He sheathed his sword and dragged the body around to the front of the house. He was surprised that even as dead weight how light it was. Even in the darkness he could see the held what appeared to be a crossbow.
As soon as he got the body to the porch and out of the rain, he went inside and grabbed a lantern. There in the warm glow of the lamp light was of all people, the Matheson girl. She was alive, but that was all he could say about her. She clutched the crossbow like it was her lifeline. “Aw hell,” he muttered under his breath.
Setting the lantern on the table near the door, he picked her up and carried her sodden form inside. Relieving her of her weapon (and wisely stashing it as far under his bed as he could), he went about removing her soaked clothes before she froze to death. The several thin layers she wore under her jacket suggested she’d been out on the road a while and hadn’t expected the abrupt temperature changes as she went further north -or, she hadn’t anticipated going so far north in the first place.
October in Wyoming could be quite nasty when it wanted to be, and this fall was turning out to be a prime example of that. As he stripped her down it hit him… She must have followed him here from New Vegas. It made sense. She was the girl – the one the bookie had convinced him to go meet; she had to be. At the exact same time the bounty hunters had made their move, a crossbow bolt had whizzed just by them landing into the side of their wagon. If the bounty hunters had not interfered, that bolt very well could have killed him. On the other hand, it had provided just the distraction he’d needed to stash a piece of broken glass inside his wristband.
They hadn’t made it far before he’d used it to cut his ropes and escape with no one the wiser. In turn both of the parties out to get him had unwittingly aided in his continued freedom and existence. But here she was now – more than likely the cause of his abrupt flight in the first place. “Aw hell,” he repeated.
Having removed everything down to her undergarments, Monroe wrapped her up in a blanket. She was still unconscious and her skin was like ice. The girl looked like hell. She’d probably been out in the elements for far too long without proper supplies, trying to track him down. On top of how unusually wet it had been in the past few weeks, since the first of the month the temperatures at night had just barely hovered above freezing.
In short, she was lucky she hadn’t died of exposure before she even found him. With an annoyed sigh, he gently laid her in his bed before building up a fire in the small hearth. As soon as he had it going he turned back to her. He spent the next hour getting her warmed up and trying to awaken her. He finally gave up. She was no longer cold but she looked far too pale. Her cheeks were now flushed. Tentatively touching her forehead, he could feel the fever.
“Dammit,” he muttered to himself before heading back out into the rain and back towards town. In the process of tracking him down (with most likely the intent being to kill him), she’d gotten herself quite ill. “You have got to be kidding me,” he grumbled miserably as he passed the closed businesses in the center of town.
Reaching his destination, he started banging on the door. This went on for several minutes before a lamp was lit within. “I’m coming! Stop the racket!” an annoyed feminine voice shouted. The door opened to reveal a small Asian woman in her mid-sixties, looking entirely put out. “What do you want at this time of night, Jack?” she snapped.
“Sorry Mei. I found a girl,” he began.
The woman went to close the door. “Good for you. Thanks for sharing the news. Have fun and don’t let her give you the clap; I’m closed!”
Monroe stopped the door with his boot. “Come on, Mei. She needs help.”
She paused and let him in. “You’ve been here barely over a month. Don’t tell me you knocked up one of the local hussies already?” She took a minute to look him over. With the shake of her head, she reached under her counter and tossed him a small towel.
“What? No! Not that kind of help. It looks like she’s been out in the cold for a while, has a fever or something. I found her outside in the storm, passed out,” he rushed to explain as he used the towel to dry off somewhat.
“Of for heaven’s sake,” the woman muttered as she disappeared into the backroom that served as both her storeroom and her private living quarters. Mei Lin may be small, but she had the demeanor if a pit viper. Monroe had taken an instant liking to her the moment he’d gotten into town and had done his best to stay on her good side. As the daughter of a Chinese herbalist and a pharmacist in her own right before the blackout, she was the closest thing to a doctor that Wright had – and she was good company at a poker table.
She came back out to the front of her shop a few minutes later fully dressed with a large satchel and an umbrella in hand. “Well come on then, let’s got see your mystery woman.”
“I didn’t mean you had to-” He instantly felt bad for dragging her out into the rain.
“You want me to help the girl; I need to know what’s wrong with her. Let’s go, Casanova.” She left him staring after her. Yes, he definitely had taken a liking to this cantankerous woman.
When they got back to Monroe’s shack, she went about her work. The Matheson girl had yet to move, which worried him. After briefly looking her over, Mei started digging through her bag and setting things aside. She went back to the bedside and put her ear to the girl’s chest. “Well, she has a fever…”
“Yeah, I already figured that one out,” Monroe said with a roll of his eyes.
“Shut up and let me finish. Her lungs are wheezing; she could have bronchitis-- but as sick as she is, my money’s on pneumonia.” She slapped a jar onto the small counter where she’d left her bag. “Rub this on her chest three times daily.”
As she started digging things out again, she ordered him around. “Stoke the fire. Heat some water,” and so on.
Monroe went about the shack, doing as he was bid and tried his best to stay out of her way. He went to the barrel on the porch he kept for drinking water and filled a pot up. He noted it was getting low and he’d have to fill it from the pump he shared with his neighbors in the morning. When he had the water boiling, Mei poured some into a cup and started dropping various herbs into it.
He leaned against the wall in the corner and watched her work. When she deemed the contents of the cup ready, she set it aside to cool. She pulled out a small vial filled with some type of liquid and began to add a powered substance to it. She shook it well before filling an old medicine dropper with its contents, immediately feeding it to the girl. “Penicillin,” she explained. “I’ve been growing it myself. Dosing is guesswork, but maybe it will help. Give it to her morning and night and if she wakes up, make her eat. Make her drink that tea, even if you have to spoon feed it, three times a day,” she added as she pointed to the cup. “I’ll send you some broth tomorrow. You’ll have to get it in her somehow until she wakes up – if she wakes up.”
“Thank you,” Monroe offered as he dug into his precious stash of diamonds and paid the woman for her services.
“She might get better, might die. Don’t get your hopes up. Too bad – she’s a pretty thing, isn’t she?” Mei collected her things and headed towards the door.
“Yeah, too bad…” he repeated as he followed her out the door to see her home. When he returned a little while later, she was still out.
He started to strip out of his own wet clothing. He only owned the one set and a pair of old flannel pajama pants. They would have to do until his others had dried. He spread his clothes out next to hers and left his boots sitting close to the fire as well. It was late and between running all over creation in the rain and the whiskey from earlier, he was starting to get a headache. He spread his only spare blanket out on the floor and did his best to get comfortable.
As he drifted off, he started to question the wisdom of his decision. As he’d seen it his options regarding Charlotte Matheson were limited. He could take off and hope she came out of it, ditch her somewhere and leave her to die, or he could do his best to nurse the young woman back to health. He had a feeling that taking care of her would be something he’d soon learn to regret, but for some reason he just couldn’t bring himself to leave well enough alone.
He awoke just before dawn. After stoking the fire back to life, he checked on their clothes. At least his undershirt was dry. Casting a wary glance in her direction, he yanked it over his head. He carefully crept over to the bed to check on her. She didn’t appear any different than the night before.
He did his best to ignore his hangover as he followed Mei’s instructions before going to get dressed. His remaining clothes were a little damp, but at least the rain had stopped. He’d just have to make do. With one more last glance at her, he left the shack to head into town. If he was going to care for her, he’d need supplies.
As he made his way back to town, he started thinking of an excuse to get out of working without losing his job. When he got to the center of town, he found that for once in his life, he’d caught a lucky break. A few of the mine shafts were flooded from the storm. With the recent cave in the owners decided that it was too much of a risk to open any of them until the water receded completely. Ordinarily he’d be as annoyed as the rest of the workers were – a closed mine meant no pay, but it did give him the out he needed for at least a day or two.
He used another chunk of his savings to get extra food and a few other odds and ends he’d need to care for her, including the broth from Mei. He’d just been paid and already he was almost broke. Berating himself for helping a woman who’d just tracked him down to kill him, he headed back to tend to her.