Notemeal: (It's healthy, it's nutritious, it's deathly boring!)

1. This one was kind of a bear to write. The early stuff not so much, the latter stuff, very much so. The last few scenes, except for the very last scene (which wrote itself months ago, actually) went through several iterations before I got something I was marginally happy with. As it stands, like I said, I'm only "marginally" happy with it, but I've been beating my head against a wall with this chapter for a month now, and I just need to move on. I know it's... lacking... and I do apologize, but hopefully there's still enough here that y'all will have fun with it.

2. I mean, c'mon, I included a Babylon 5 quote and everything. One of my favorite B5 quotes. Heh.

-----

Entry D, Subsection E-11: "No Boom Today. Boom Tomorrow."

Craterside Supply

Megaton

"It's a fusion pulse charge."

"Oh, wow! I haven't seen one of these in ages!" Moira Brown, the perpetually cheerful (it was as if she had a kennel full of adorable puppies housed in her brain, keeping her constantly dosed on endorphins,) proprietor of the Craterside Supply general store in Megaton, turned the breadbox-sized device over in her hands and gave it a careful inspection, hemming and hawing thoughtfully as she poked and prodded at the slightly dented external casing. There were no real markings on the box to indicate its function, just the sticky residue that was left behind once the warning labels pasted all over the casing had worn away.

She pulled a screwdriver from the breast pocket of her jumpsuit and removed a couple of the tiny flathead screws keeping one of the side panels on, then peered inside at the various bits of wiring and circuitry inside. "Where'd you get one of these? I didn't realize they even made them anymore."

Megan grinned and offered up a casual little shrug as her only explanation. "Oh, I picked it up from some guy."

The "some guy" she was referring to had been the character in the tan suit she'd run into just outside Moriarty's Saloon: one Mr. Burke. He'd explained to her that the charge, when properly wired into the Megaton bomb's detonation mechanism would be just the catalyst to trigger a rather spectacular nuclear explosion that would remove 'this absurd collection of inbred simpletons and their pitiful tin-can hovels' from the landscape. (His words.) He'd told her that he needed to make a few final preparations – including securing the contents of Moriarty's computer terminal onto a portable storage medium – and that after she'd finished wiring the bomb, to meet her at Tenpenny Tower, his normal base of operations, and the home of his employer. It was a safe distance away, and the bomb could be detonated remotely from there.

She'd accepted both his terms and the small package he'd proffered, then watched him leave to go about his business. Once he was out of sight, she'd ducked into the Megaton Common Room, found a corner where she wasn't under any direct observation, and after finding a jagged piece of scrap metal to use as a makeshift screwdriver, managed to get the front panel off of the charge. Another minute or two, and she was poking around in its neatly organized innards. A minute later, and she'd determined that, indeed, Burke's little toy would be just the thing to 'help' that aging Chinese warhead in Megaton's town center be all it could be. Another five minutes, and she'd discovered how best to -disable- the charge. Thusly armed with that knowledge, she'd picked herself up and set off for Moira's.

"So, I know you don't have any old thermonuclear warheads lying around you need reactivated, but I was thinking you could yank the power supply out of this thing and use it to juice up your Mr. Coffee." She pointed to a battered beverage percolator on a nearby shelf. The plastic trim had long ago succumbed to "battle damage" accrued by extended exposure to the harsh conditions of the Wastes, not to mention old age, but Moira and her almost obsessive desire to tinker with various bits of machinery had kept the internal components in serviceable condition, and all the appliance needed to become operational again was a power source. A micro-fusion reactor was probably (i.e. definitely) overkill for such a job, but that wasn't the kind of mundane detail that had ever stopped Megan before, and she had a feeling Moira was a kindred spirit.

Proof of that theory came when the other woman's eyes, hidden behind a thin layer of grease and soot, twinkled in excitement. "Hey, that's a brilliant idea!"

"I know, I thought of it."

Grinning with the kind of innocent delight that only a child receiving a particularly incredible birthday present can exhibit, Moira carefully extracted the pulse charge's power supply. It was an exceedingly delicate affair, requiring a few minutes hunched over the small metal box, pulling apart bundles of cable with a pair of needle-nosed pliers, tweezing apart a few lightly soldered connections here and there, and loosening a handful of teeny-tiny screws, but when she was finished with her task, she had her prize.

The little power cell was no larger than the end segment of her thumb, but for its size, it could generate an enormous amount of power, enough to run hundreds of the little coffee makers simultaneously. Even more amazing, the power unit had incredible longevity, and was likely to last decades longer than the Mr. Coffee itself was. In theory, there were probably better uses for such a miniature technological marvel, but then again, good coffee was a minor miracle in and of itself. It was practically impossible to find any in the Vault; Megan could only imagine searching some out in the Wastes was an even more foolhardy task.

She smiled and watched as Moira quickly installed the power cell into her dilapidated Mr. Coffee machine, and her smile turned into a full-on grin as the machine powered up with a soft hum, seething with pent-up energy, waiting to unleash its capacity for brewing hot and delicious caffeinated beverages on an unsuspecting Wasteland.

Moira reached into a drawer underneath her shop counter and retrieved a small bag containing several vacuum-sealed, foil-wrapped packages. She carefully tore the corner off one of them and emptied the contents into the machine, then loaded the Mr. Coffee up with some fresh water. Though she looked much the same as she had when Megan had first walked in, with her slightly grimy jumpsuit, frazzled hair and soot-stained skin, there was a look of barely contained manic glee on her face, and her voice, always perky, always cheerful, seemed even bubblier than normal. "Want some coffee?"

She was already reaching for a pair of battered ceramic mugs hanging from a rack above her head.

Megan's grin felt like it was going to split her face in half. She held out a hand to accept the mug Moira was already handing to her. "Hell, yes."

-----

Megaton Town Center (i.e. "The Crater")

They called themselves the Children of the Atom. At the moment, they were looking rather disappointed. Confessor Cromwell? Disappointed. His wife, Mother Maya? Also disappointed, and perhaps a touch peeved. The rest of their "cult" ran the gamut from indifferent to 'mildly miffed.'

But the way Megan saw it, yes, she was partly responsible for depriving them of some of their spiritual needs. Maybe she -was,- in some small (ok, huge) way trampling upon their religious beliefs, but at least they were still breathing. At least massive radiation exposure hadn't liquefied their internal organs. At least their town hadn't been reduced to a half cup of disoriented atomic matter. At least they weren't completely destitute and could afford a roof over their heads, even if that roof was constructed out of the remnants of old baked-bean cans. And, that last part had nothing to do with the bomb being disarmed, but still, it was something they could be grateful for, and Holy Mary, Mother of God, they oughta be grateful for it, damn it.

Anyway, despite the cult's philosophy of harmony and peaceful coexistence, striving for unity amongst men and women while waiting to be annihilated, (sorry, reincarnated upon a higher plane of existence by the holy, unifying force of the atomic bomb,) they were still a touch irked that Megan and Moira had gone and unholified their holy relic. There had been some very nasty words thrown around, words that Children really weren't supposed to use: words like 'blasphemer,' 'heathen,' 'heretic,' and something that began with the letter "c" and rhymed with "bunt cake" (minus the "cake" part.)

In all actuality, however, the two women hadn't really defiled the bomb/relic, so much as turned it into one enormous, but ultimately benign and completely inert conversation piece… much like the books on neoclassical art that people had used to adorn their coffee tables before the Great War. Those things had never actually been -meant- to be read, no matter what all the cute and sprightly blondes working at those trendy bookshops had tried to make people believe, and it was a complete crying shame that before people had realized the truth of the matter, they'd effectively spent the entire gross domestic product of a small African nation (Namibia for example,) on what essentially amounted to glorified knickknacks.

At any rate, Sheriff Simms hadn't been one hundred percent behind the idea of letting Moira Brown anywhere near a live nuclear warhead – not that Megan blamed him, given the chronicle of Moira's previous escapades. The woman was well-intentioned, one had to grant her that, she just failed to… consider all the possible outcomes of some of her schemes… like the time she'd tried to expand the town's west wall through the judicious use of some surplus detcord and blasting caps. Or the time she'd attempted to "upgrade" the settlement's Protectron defense bot with some enhanced leg servos for faster movement – it'd taken the Stahl family a full week to rebuild the front façade of the Brass Lantern after Deputy Weld had crashed through there on a sprinter's high. (Moira had also seen fit to mess with his programming and had worked in a couple of positive feedback loops "to make the poor thing feel better." Apparently, the deputy had gotten quite the rush from Godzilla-stomping Jenny Stahl's fridge full of Mirelurk cakes.)

Regardless, Moira's help in disarming the bomb permanently had been invaluable. "I've got good news and bad news," Megan said, as Simms looked on nervously from behind her. "Here's the good news. The bomb's deader than disco."

"Who?"

Megan sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose between her thumb and forefinger. She waved her hand dismissively. "Never mind. It's dead." Walking the short distance over to where the Sheriff stood, she turned her wrist to show him the display on her Pip Boy, then punched a couple of buttons to bring up some tabulated readings she'd been taking with the unit's Geiger Counter since beginning work on the bomb. "You're still getting a little radiation leakage through the cracks in the casing, but a few good hunks of scrap welded over the soft spots ought to take care of it, no problem."

"All right, what's the bad news?"

"The bad news is that you've got yourself a rat in town, Sheriff." Megan sighed again and wiped her hands on a rag, then stepped back fully from the bomb, letting Moira finish putting the access panel back on. There wasn't much need for it now that the nuke was completely inert, but there wasn't any reason to keep it off, either. "Someone tried to hire me to set this weapon off. Wipe Megaton off the face of the Earth. You know, cleansing fire, all that. Real Biblical stuff." She headed over to Moira's toolbox and fished out the remains of the fusion pulse charge, also perfectly harmless with its power supply now serving to bring tasty hot beverages to the lucky chosen few of the Capital Wasteland. She handed Simms the small metal box then went on to explain when he shot her a questioning glance. "He gave me this. It's a fusion pulse charge. I was supposed to wire it into the nuke here to trigger it to explode. We took the power supply out of the charge, so it's about as harmful as a paperweight right now… which I guess is pretty harmful if you chucked it real hard at someone's head, but other than that, won't do anyone all that much good." She shrugged. "Anyway, I ran into this guy over at Moriarty's. Nice fancy suit, hat, the works. Goes by the name Burke?"

The Sheriff's brow furrowed and his expression went dark as the corners of his mouth dropped into a sharp scowl. Unconsciously, his hand dropped down to his waist, fingers twitching as if itching to grab the handle of the large-caliber pistol he wore holstered at his hip. "I know that weasely son of a bitch," he muttered through grit teeth.

"He mentioned another name when I was talking to him. Someone named Tenpenny. No idea who that is."

Simms' frown deepened even further and he let out a disgusted scoffing noise as he pulled the brim of his hat down a little further over his eyes. He wrung his hands, as if needing something to keep them occupied lest he go off and start shooting suspected criminals. "Hmph. Alistair Tenpenny. Some rich asshole, lives in a tall tower a few miles southwest of Megaton. Don't know too much about him other than he's got a ton of money, and money's power out here."

"Of course it is," Megan said with a frown of her own as well as a bit of a sigh. Though still fresh from the Vault, she was starting to understand how things on the "outside" worked. Simms might have been the law here in Megaton, but someone like Tenpenny was well beyond his reach. After all, if Tenpenny could hire someone like Burke, and Burke had the authorization to hire anyone he thought could prove useful, not to mention negotiate the terms of their temporary employment with little to no oversight from his superiors, that meant two things: it meant Burke had a great deal of influence and was well trusted within the organization he worked for, and it meant his employer had some serious resources to spend.

Even with the limited information Simms had just imparted her way, Megan could tell that this Tenpenny character was the kind of man who regularly bought and sold people basically on a whim – the kind of man who thought nothing of playing with people's lives because it amused him… who -destroyed- people's lives because he could. Certainly, he'd proven that with his megalomaniacal plan to wipe out an entire town just because he didn't like the way it looked. The only problem was, if Simms' assessment was correct – and it likely was – someone like Tenpenny was untouchable… at least for now. The idea stuck in her craw – she'd had her fill of tinpot dictators back in the Vault. Back in 101, though, getting to the Overseer hadn't been an impossible task. Difficult, yes, but not impossible. She wasn't yet sure if she could say the same about this Tenpenny fellow, and until she -was- sure, she had to handle things one step at a time. She'd never considered patience to be one of her virtues, but at the moment, she had very little choice. "Well, at the very least, you can put Burke away, right?" she asked.

The Sheriff nodded, his face set in a mask of grim determination. "I plan on it."

He was just about to leave when a man emerged from the rickety old building (all the buildings in Megaton were rickety, but this one was especially rickety – even more so than the others) that served as the town's clinic. He was an older man, dark-skinned, his close-cropped hair and beard having gone white years ago – though perhaps the stress of his life had contributed to that, as it had contributed to the complicated spiderweb of lines on his face. His brow was heavily creased, and he had similar furrows buried all around his eyes, as well. His mouth seemed etched into a perpetual scowl, and every time someone had the ungodly misfortune to make eye contact with him, they'd find themselves on the receiving end of an almost hellish glower that made them suddenly wish they were at the bottom of a ditch, ten miles away, doused in kerosene, on fire, being slowly nibbled to death by diseased molerats.

Only Sheriff Simms didn't seem fazed by the old man's withering, see-into-your-soul stare, and if that annoyed the curmudgeon or earned his grudging respect, no one could really tell; no one had ever worked up the courage to ask.

"Hey, Doc." The Sheriff offered up a perfunctory greeting.

The other man merely grunted as he looked over in their general direction. He'd been headed somewhere else, but when he saw the small crowd gathered over by the bomb, including a face or two that he'd never seen around town before, his curiosity was piqued. It was unsettling that a man so perpetually cranky could still find it within himself to be curious about anything, but it was even more unsettling to be the object of that curiosity. Megan suddenly felt rather like one of those cute little creatures who lived inside a glass cage and who existed for the sole purpose of having fearsome and ghastly concoctions injected into her veins by cackling mad scientists bent on world domination. She tried not to shiver as the man with the white hair and the unnerving stare sized her up, tried not to flinch as his eyes fixed on her Pip Boy, on the bright blue of her Vault suit, on her fair skin… all of which marked where she'd come from as clearly as if she'd started skipping through the streets with a sparkler in each hand, screaming "One. Oh. One!" at the top of her lungs.

She took another quick glance, confirmed that the crotchety old man was, indeed, still staring intently at her, wondered what nefarious purpose he could possibly have in mind for her, and suddenly wondered what it would be like to wake up in a bathtub filled with ice with one of her kidneys missing.

Could I even -tell- if I was down a kidney? I mean, I just tend to think that's something you'd -miss- but really, how would you even know it was gone? Aside from… you know, that big gaping hole in your abdomen where they went in with the scalpels and stuff-

And… okaaaaay… you really need to stop thinking about this kinda shit, Megan, because it is -seriously- morbid.

"Bomb's been defused for good," Simms commented.

"No boom?"

Megan shook her head, swallowed a growing lump in her throat and whispered quietly in response to the old man's question. "No boom."

The man Lucas Simms had called "Doc," however, snorted as if not quite buying what he was hearing. He rolled his eyes and waved a hand, as if he'd heard stories like this one thousands of times before, and wasn't about to believe another one unless he had some kind of proof he could see with his own eyes. Barring that, he was just going to go on assuming the worst was yet to come. "No boom today. Boom tomorrow. There's always a boom tomorrow."

Megan, Moira and Lucas stared blankly at him, as did the members of the Church of Atom that had been watching the proceedings and preparing their nooses for the lynching (behind their backs and out of sight of the Sheriff, of course.) A few of Megaton's other settlers, who had been going about their normal day to day business also stopped when they overheard what was being discussed in the impromptu powwow surrounding the massive nuclear bomb in the town's center. In the space of a few moments, what had been a rather smallish gathering of a dozen or so people had swelled to about three times its original size. All of those people were staring at "Doc" with confused looks on their faces.

He threw up his hands. "What? Look, somebody's gotta have some damn perspective around here!" He grumbled and started walking off towards the Brass Lantern, Megaton's finest (i.e. it's only) restaurant. "Boom," he muttered, half under his breath. Then, louder, "Sooner or later… boom!"

Megan stared blankly at his back as he departed. "What… what's with him?"

"Ah, don't mind him," said Simms with a chuckle and a shrug. "That's Doc Church. He gets a bit ornery sometimes when he's got something on his mind… which means he's always ornery."

-----

Moriarty's Saloon

She wasn't sure what she expected to see on Burke's face when she walked through that door behind Simms: surprise, maybe… anger. She briefly entertained the notion of him leaping from his chair, his countenance twisted with savage horror as he realized she'd betrayed him, stabbing accusatory fingers in her direction, and maybe hissing a 'YOU!' of scathing condemnation at her, right before the Sheriff cut him down in a hail of gunfire for his wicked deeds.

But the instant she set foot once again in Moriarty's place, she realized just how wrong she'd been… how blatantly she'd misjudged and underestimated her opponent. Burke was far too skilled at "The Game" to ever make such a foolish move; he had far too much experience with this sort of skullduggery and backblading. It had never occurred to her before, but it suddenly did now, that he must've been the type who'd been -born- spinning wheels within wheels, juggling plots within plots, always analyzing every angle of every situation – that twisted and disturbingly precise mind of his constantly working to determine just how best to turn any situation to his advantage.

Most people couldn't operate that way – chicanery that complex would drive them mad – but for Burke, it was imperative to his continued survival. It was a skill, no, a talent that he'd relied upon for years, and it had never failed him.

Megan met his eyes briefly as she entered the room, but he showed no signs of acknowledgment – showed no signs that he even recognized her – all part of the game, she knew that much. All part of the unspoken, unwritten rules set forth by people who'd been forced to master these kinds of skills just to survive: people like him. That's what he was, after all, a master: and she was just a rank amateur – a crass youth who'd, in a moment of utter folly, thought that she could get the better of him.

Oh, God… what… what have I gotten myself into?

She might have foiled his original plan, she found herself thinking, but he had to have contingencies in place. He had to have planned for a possibility such as this. Megan felt the little hairs on the back of her neck stand on edge. She'd come here expecting to gloat… expecting to bring a psychotic to justice, and his murderous plans crashing down upon him. It should've been a moment of triumph – good vanquishing evil, just like in all the movies, the books, the comics… but something… something just didn't feel right. Yes, the bomb was disarmed. She was sure of it. Moira was sure of it. And now she was here with the Sheriff, about to put the bad guy behind bars… or… more likely, in front of the barrel of a .38 Special, given the distinct lack of jails around these parts… but even so, something just felt -wrong.-

Burke seemed too calm, too composed. She and Simms had found him in a corner of Moriarty's place, casually sipping from a tumbler filled with bourbon, looking one hundred percent nonchalant. And yes, she knew that much of it was simply professional pride: the man had been on the other side of the law for far too long to let a little backwater rube with a tin-plated badge intimidate him. But there was more to it than that. He said nothing, even as Simms made his accusations, outlining in excruciating, damning detail, all of what Megan had told him about their deal… she'd wire the charge to the bomb, Megaton would be destroyed, and she'd be rewarded for her efforts.

The evidence was ironclad, at least as far as Simms was concerned. He had Megan's testimony, he had the fusion pulse charge, a disarmed nuke, and a lawman's instinct that had long ago told him that Burke was the type to never be trusted. All told, that was more than enough to convict. And out in the Wastes, convicting a man for a crime of this magnitude could lead to only one conceivable punishment: a death sentence.

Carrying out that sentence, on the other hand, was where things could start to get tricky.

"Edmund Burke? You'll have to come with me," Simms said through grit teeth, keeping a thin veneer of civility only because he didn't want to start a panic by shooting a man dead inside a public building.

"Of course, Sheriff." Burke mostly managed to maintain that pleasantly ingratiating tone he used when dealing with most people he needed to pretend he didn't hate, but his voice slipped slightly on the very last word. He drained the last of the amber liquid from his glass and stood, carefully adjusting first his hat, and then the lapels on his suitjacket. His movements were slow and deliberate, his hands never straying to anywhere that might appear threatening. He looked completely casual – a man merely out for an afternoon stroll. Megan wondered how someone clearly facing death could be so calm, so collected. It was as if he knew something they didn't-

And then it hit her-

What if he -did-?

The Sheriff's eyes were focused on Burke. Naturally. The lawman was watching his target like a hawk, keeping his distance and making sure he didn't try anything. But he was watching Burke so intently that he had no attention to spare for his own back-

"Sheriff! Behind you!"

She was in motion before the words had even finished leaving her mouth.

She couldn't fire her pistol in here. Too crowded. Too likely some innocent bystander would be hit. But the man drawing a bead on Simms didn't seem to have the same compunctions about collateral damage, didn't seem to have the same hang-ups about firing a handgun from in the middle of a crowd that she did.

She dived at him, reached him just in time to spoil his aim, clamping one hand onto his forearm, fingernails digging into his shirt sleeve just above the wrist, while the other hand locked itself onto the gun, trying desperately to force the barrel downwards. The weapon went off with a beguilingly quiet *Tick!* followed by an equally deceptive faint tinkle of brass as the spent casing bounced onto the ground. Someone screamed "Gun!" and the saloon's patrons instinctively went for cover, even as Megan and the gun's owner continued to struggle.

For the redhead, however, it was a losing battle. She was several inches shorter and roughly fifty pounds lighter than the gunman. The initial ferocity of her attack had caught him by surprise, but he was quickly recovering his equilibrium, and as soon as he had it back fully, she was dead. She needed a solution, and she needed it fast. Her eyes scanned the bar, searching desperately for something that could help her, even as her brain fired over and over again, looking for a way out that didn't end up with her dead.

Think, Meg, THINK! Use that head of yours for something other than a hat rack!

The only reason she wasn't yet full of holes was because she'd kept her opponent off balance, which meant the only way she could continue to keep herself hole-free (Er… aside from the ones she already possessed,) was to make sure he stayed off balance. She dragged their fight over to one of the nearby tables that had been vacated when the shooting started, and backed her opponent into it, while continuing to whipsaw the gun back and forth, even jamming her own finger between the trigger and the back of the trigger guard so that it couldn't be fired. Not that that was stopping the gunman from trying.

She cried out in pain as he tried to shoot the gun, anyway, his pulling on the trigger nearly crushing her index finger in the process, but she doggedly refused to let him have his weapon back, instead trying to use the pain shooting through her hand to make herself keep fighting. Adrenaline surged through her veins, blurring the edges of her vision, but making everything in the center of it hyper-clear. She caught sight of a bar stool, hooked it with her ankle and flipped it at his shins, causing him to stumble for just a moment. She ducked her shoulder and threw all her weight against him, knocking him backwards into one of the tables. His hand slipped from the gun for just a fraction of a second, but it was enough, and she wrenched it free, sending it skittering across the floor and out of his reach. She wasn't sure where it landed, but it was out of his hands, and that was good enough for the moment.

Unfortunately, though, her move had only angered her opponent, and, snarling, he retaliated by shoving her away from himself with all the force he could muster. She spun into a wall, cracking the side of her head against a support beam. Her vision whirled, her grip on his arm slackened, and he started to fight free of her, reaching for the wicked looking knife at his belt; but now her legs were tangled in his, and the two of them tumbled to the floor. Her limbs felt sluggish; she was having a hard time thinking straight, but she could see his hands moving, see his fingers closing around the hilt of the serrated six-inch knife in the sheath at his hip. She tried to roll free, but his weight was all across her thighs and knees, keeping her pinned, and she had nowhere to go. She'd landed at an awkward angle, partly on her side, her right arm trapped underneath her, her hand twisted underneath the small of her back, making it impossible for her to get to her gun even if she wanted to risk shooting it.

Images of herself lying dead, limbs twisted… her body crumpled in a heap in a pool of her own blood, on the floor of that filthy bar suddenly flooded her mind, but she flung them aside.

Ok, I get it. You're scared. You don't want to die. So just… just don't die, ok? Not like this. Not to some two-bit hoodlum in some seedy tavern owned by some jerkwad asshole. You fight this son of a bitch, y'hear me? FIGHT him! You get your Irish -up,- girl, and you kick this prick's ass!

Her fingers scrabbled for the closest thing at hand, anything she could use as a weapon. They crawled along the gritty tile of the saloon floor before closing around the neck of a shattered beer bottle, the mouth still intact enough to hold on to, but with the rest of the browned glass broken away to leave nothing but jagged edges behind. Her eyes were filled with something sticky, and it was hard to see, but she didn't really need to aim, and she brought her arm up in a quick and violent stabbing motion, plunging the makeshift weapon right into the side of the man's neck.

It surprised her how easily the bottleneck penetrated flesh, and even through her haze, she found herself sickened by the eerie *Thuck!* sound it made as it went in. Something hot and wet and slick flooded over her hand and ran down her arm, then splashed onto the front of her suit, but she didn't really notice, she was watching the man's face as it relaxed, the feral snarl softening into an almost confused expression before his eyes started to roll back into his head.

The anger, the fury she had used to keep herself going, to make herself fight, slowly started to fade, replaced instead by a sense of cold numbness deep inside her chest. She blinked, hardly able to believe what she'd just done. But a moment or two passed, and as the import of what she was seeing started to sink in, panic soon followed.

Oh, God… you just… you just killed a man… I mean, he was… he was going to kill you if you didn't stop him, but… but you… he… you... oh, -God-…

She lay there, panting, her heart fluttering so much she thought it would seize up like an engine running without oil. The corpse of the man she'd fought still lay slumped half across her legs, his hand still wrapped around the hilt of his knife. When she realized she was still partly buried underneath a dead body, she gave a little yelp and kicked her way free, then got to her feet, her knees wobbling so badly she nearly collapsed again.

She looked around, saw the other patrons in the bar crawling out from behind tables, saw Gob and Nova peeking up from behind the counter. Then she remembered Burke and the Sheriff.

The former was dead – two large caliber rounds had torn through his chest from nearly point blank range.

But the Sheriff was down as well…

No…

She staggered over to him, her eyes watering as she realized what she'd done…

Hubris could be such a horrible thing.

She thought she was being smart. Thought she was being cute. Pretend to play along with Burke's little scheme, get him to tell her all about his plans. Worm her way into his confidence by pretending to be his accomplice, and once he'd revealed himself, once he'd incriminated himself so thoroughly that he couldn't possibly talk his way out of things, drop the hammer on him. Report him to the authorities and let justice sort itself out the way justice tended to.

It'd seemed like such a good idea at the time, but she hadn't planned on… well, she hadn't planned on a lot of things. Of course Burke would have brought some muscle with him. He would've been a fool not to. And if there was anything that man was not, it was a fool. She, on the other hand... that was a whole other story entirely, and now it looked like a good man was dead because of her stupidity and her arrogance.

She knelt down next to him, finding the bullet hole in the front of his jacket where Burke must've shot him, saw the growing pool of blood underneath him. "I… I'm sorry," she whispered, her voice cracking from the strain and the raw emotion that was flooding her system. "I'm so… so sorry…"

He groaned.

Her eyes widened, and suddenly every other thought that had been in her head vanished. She was back in the Vault, back in the Infirmary, her father by her side, his patience, normally near infinite, but stretched to even its limits as he tried to teach her some of the skills he had learned over his many years. She hadn't paid as much attention as she should've back then, but… but maybe she'd paid enough. "Someone get Doc Church!" she called out, and was relieved when a couple of the bar's patrons nodded, leapt up, and dashed out the door in response to her words.

As for Megan herself, she carefully rolled the Sheriff onto his side, checked for an exit wound on his back, but couldn't find one. She frowned, but there was nothing she could do about it now. She didn't want to risk removing the bullet herself – she didn't even have any equipment. All she could do was try and stop the bleeding. She rushed over to Burke's corpse, trying not to flinch too badly and trying not to stare at his face which was blank, eyes open in death. She searched for a spot on his suitjacket that hadn't been soaked in blood, looked relatively clean, and was near a seam, then tore it as best she could with her hands. When she did, something fell out of a pocket. She stared blankly at it for a moment before realizing it was a holodisc – likely the information he'd promised to retrieve for her.

No one was paying much attention to her at the moment, so she surreptitiously slipped the disc into her pocket, then took her makeshift bandages back over to her patient, folding one of them into a thick wad and laying it over the wound. She started to press down with both hands, but suddenly felt something cold and metal pressing into the back of her neck. She'd never actually been held at gunpoint before, but she knew instinctively that that was what was happening at this very moment.

"Perhaps you'd best be stepping away from him right now."

She shivered slightly at Moriarty's voice, shivered even more at the shotgun barrel being pressed into the back of her neck. He'd done a shoddy job of filing down the edges of the barrel, and the steel was both cold and sharp against her skin. Her hands came out to her sides and she slowly raised them. "He'll die."

"Aye, that would be the point, lass." The off-handedly callous way he said it made her skin crawl.

For a brief moment she considered doing it. She knew there was no love lost between Simms and Moriarty… knew that getting in the way of their eternal feud was tantamount to suicide. And in this particular case, it -would- be suicide. She had little to gain from getting in Moriarty's way at this juncture, other than earning herself a double dose of ten gauge buckshot to the back of the skull. She could even understand why he was trying to stop her: he wasn't about to risk killing the lawman himself, but if the poor Sheriff had just so happened to get himself shot in the line of duty and bled out before anyone could come to his rescue, well that would just be a crying shame, now wouldn't it?

But Megan didn't see it that way. All she knew was that it had been her arrogance that had gotten Simms into this whole godforsaken mess into the first place. It was her fault that he was lying on the ground with a bullet in him, and if he died, the blame could be traced back to her, and her alone.

Don't you -dare- back down, now. You got him into this, you are not going to let him die to save your own skin. I don't care how scared you are, you stand your ground, you do what's -right.-

Her voice wavered, her hands shook, but otherwise, she didn't move. "Then… then you're just going to have to shoot me."

He snorted. "Well, then… if that's how you want it…"

She flinched, waiting for the shot. Somewhere, in the back of her mind, she wondered if it would hurt… if she'd even have enough time to register that she'd had her head blown off before she actually died. (Probably not.)

"Put the gun down, Moriarty. I'm not going to ask twice."

Before she could even begin to process what had just happened, she felt the barrel of the shotgun being pulled away from the back of her neck, and the same voice that had ordered its removal spoke again. "You're all right now, Miss."

"Who… who are you?" she asked, but she didn't bother to turn around. She was curious, yes, but her curiosity wasn't enough to override the fact that the Sheriff was still bleeding out right in front of her. She went back to trying to staunch the flow of blood from his gunshot wound.

"Deputy Stockholm. I heard the shots. Came running. Good thing, too."

Of course Burke would bring backup. Likewise, of course a Sheriff would have deputies. Well, besides the glorified tin can standing sentry at the town gate. And thank God, too. He'd showed up just in the nick of time. "Where's… where's Doc Church?" she managed to rasp out, her mouth dry.

"Dunno." There was some shuffling from behind her, but she couldn't spare the time or attention to look. She just had to assume the deputy was handling things behind her. "Saw Lucy West go tearing out of here looking for him. Hopefully she'll find him soon. The Sheriff… is he-"

"It… it's bad…" she confessed. "I… I'm going to need some help."

She was pushing down as hard as she could on the makeshift bandage, applying direct pressure to where the bullet had penetrated the man's side, trying to stop the flow of blood. But the cloth was beginning to soak through, so she reached for another of the scraps she'd cannibalized from Burke's suit, folded it over the one she'd already applied and kept up the pressure. Minutes passed, and still no doctor. "Damn it… where is he?" She whispered to herself. But as frightened as she was, as much as she wished someone more qualified than she would just show up and take over, she wouldn't let herself give up… not when there was so much at stake. She kept her hands clamped over the wound, and maybe it was wishful thinking on her part, but the flow of blood seemed to slow. Of course, that could just have been because he'd lost so much already…

Whatever the case, the job was soon, blessedly, out of her hands. Doc Church came rushing through the door, and soon hands were lifting her up and away to make room for him to work. Someone hustled her outside, and she found herself standing face to face with Nova, the other redhead looking at her intently. Concern was plastered across her features. "You… you all right, sweetie?"

Megan stared blankly back at her, not able to find the words to respond. Her mouth worked itself open, but closed almost immediately afterwards. Her brow furrowed as she kept searching, kept trying to make herself speak, but she simply couldn't manage it.

Nova understood. She nodded her head, put a hand on her shoulder. "Hey, don't worry about the Sheriff. He's a tough guy, and the doc's taking care of him right now. Says it looks worse than it is. You managed to stop the bleeding pretty quick, even with that bastard Moriarty trying to stop you. You probably saved his life, you know."

Part of her wanted to say "thank you." It was a… nice sentiment. The other woman was trying to make her feel better. Another part of her simply wanted to tell her she was out of her goddamn mind. That it was her fault that Simms had been shot in the first place. But she was too damned tired to say either of those things, and so she said nothing at all.

The hard and bitter truth was she should've known better… never should've let things get as far as they had. What she -should've- done was leave Burke to try and find some other patsy. But no… she'd told herself… worse, she'd convinced herself that people like Burke didn't just disappear because they didn't have any toys or people to play with. Folks like Burke lived to cause trouble, and if they didn't have any tools to cause that trouble with, they'd find some. Or make some.

So she'd told herself that this was her only chance to put him away for good. And maybe it had been. But she hadn't seen… hadn't predicted what it might cost – and the simple fact was, she should have.

And so, what should have been a simple arrest had turned into a shootout. The Sheriff had been wounded, and only through sheer dumb luck – she wasn't about to pat herself on the back and give herself any credit for helping him last as long as he had – had he survived. Two other men were dead, one of whom she'd killed herself-

She'd almost forgotten about -that- part.

"Almost" being the operative word.

Before her conscious mind even realized what was going on, she'd whirled around and heaved the upper half of her body over the railing just across from the entrance to the saloon. Her stomach contracted – violently – and she pitched up a good-sized helping of Yum Yum Deviled Eggs.

They were neither Yum nor Yum coming back up, but they were most certainly Deviled.

A few moments later she was down to dry heaves, and Nova was beside her, doing her that most blessed of favors that a woman can do for another woman: she held her hair back while the poor girl continued to hack impotently over the railing. "You ok, honey?" she asked, once Megan's horrific retching had finally come to an end.

"You know… they… they don't tell you about all the crazy stuff that happens once you leave the Vault… all the shooting, stabbing… the killing people. The bits where you almost piss yourself… or, in my case, -do- piss yourself."

"So… you're not all right?"

"I'm fine. I'm so dehydrated, it was only a little pee."

"You're not fine."

"I am. I'm good. I'm not rambling incoherently, am I? I don't think I am." The words were coming out of her mouth now in one prolonged jumble. "I'll just stagger over to Doc Church's once he's got things squared away with the Sheriff. Maybe he's got something to help me sleep. Or, you know, I could just head back inside and stare at those dead bodies a little more until I turn white and pass out. That might work. Oooop, no. Don't need to. Think I'm gonna pass out right now, actually. Here we go." Her knees started to buckle.

Nova's voice sounded very faint all of a sudden, but she could just barely make out what sounded like "Awwww, crap…"