Bab 32: The Misadventures of Gladys and Jack: Part 3
I don't own Fallout
This one gets… pretty mortal kombat violent so… hey if you're still reading this thanks.
16 some odd years ago…
Detroit… once a golden jewel of the auto industry… the motor city… now little more than collapsed buildings and Raider gangs locked into perpetual war. One gang on top one day… then a dozen others gang up on them, kill them… then kill each other some more until once again another gang is on top and the process repeats… drawing in more raider gangs from across the wastes…
Gladys and Jack… were thankfully just passing through. Just outside the borders of the city, muzzle flashes flickered in the distance as relatively famous ghoul One-Eyed Jack absently tended to the campfire. Gladys cleaned her shotgun, sighing to herself as Jack's good eye glanced at his long-time partner. Before calmly looking back into the fire…
"…Want to head back south?" he asked with the air of someone asking what they wanted for dinner. Glayds sighed softly.
"…Non…" she said silkily, but with her ghoulish voice.
"North?" Jack asked calmly as Gladys shook her head, her stringy blonde hair bouncing under her 'RAID' bandana.
"…Non…" Jack put the stick he was using to stoke the flame into the fire itself where it burst.
"Well, we just came east." He said frustratingly, "So West?" he said, a little sarcastic.
"I do not know what I want Jacques." She said softly, reloading her shotgun and putting it into her coat. She eyed him softly. "…Maybe… I am tired of traveling…" she said, gazing forlornly into the fire.
"…With me?" Jack asked hesitantly.
"Non, not with you, you idiot…" she smiled at him faintly, her insult little more than playful banter "…But I'm tired of moving across the country… I just… I don't know what I want…" she continued to stare into the fire. "…A long time ago… I wanted a family, a little girl or boy I could tell stories to…" Jack stared at her like she was crazy. "…I know I'm not going to have children anymore but…"
Jack sighed, watching her and shrugging. "…Can't help you there…" he said as she sighed again. "…But we can't stay here…" off in the distance an RPG blew off a chunk of building, it collapsed loudly onto the street below.
Gladys groaned reluctantly… "…Want to leave now?"
"…Do you?"
Gladys sighed again, but was a little more irritated now. "…Do you think just once, Ben, you could have an opinion?"
Jack frowned angrily at her and raised his hands defensively. "…You must be pissed at me." He said, not sounding particularly chipper himself right now… he HATED his real name… he wasn't that man anymore. The schmuck driven out of the town he helped build because he mutated. He was Jack the Gunslinger. One-Eyed Jack more recently…
"I'm not mad at you." She said in frustration trying very hard not to be, "I'm just… I'm tired… there must be something better for us than wandering across the wasteland other than looking for a place to go feral and die!" she said bitterly as he stared at her, a little unnerved. "I'm TIRED. JACQUES…" she said firmly.
"…Then go to sleep." he didn't mean to sound so irritated... but he hated it when she used his real name.
"UGH!!" she grumbled, rolling up in her coat and lying on the soft dirt. Speaking in rapid French, probably something angry, or calling him names.
Jack took off his hat, adjusting his Jack of Hearts and Jack of Spades in the wrapping as he ran a hand through his stringy hair… he could've handled that a lot better… he looked up, and glanced in the distance as the firefight seemed to calm down… moving a few blocks over. He sighed… if he closed his eyes he could hear… screaming?
He frowned… wait, that… someone was screaming… shrieking… horrible shrieking…
"Gladys… Gladys!" he said, getting up, drawing his revolvers. "Galadriel!"
The French ghoul snorted awake, blinking. "You never call me that…." she mumbled, but stopped as she too started to hear the shrieking. "What is…?"
"Someone's in trouble…" Jack said as she stared at him. "Could be a raider… or…" he let the word linger as Gladys got a steely look in her eye and drew Wolfe's sequoia… HER… Sequoia. It's been a long time since Wolfe.
"Let's go." She got to her feet, together they followed the noise… it went quiet for a little while… then it started again.
"Ahh! Ahhg!! Ahh-HA-OOOWW!!!"
"…That's not a raider…" Jack scowled angrily. "…It sounds like a kid." They crawled over a pile of cars and stared in fury as a naked man furiously beat a small child with an empty bottle… he wasn't even yelling at the kid… just wailing away with the bottle on the poor boy, covering his head with his heavily bruised arms as Gladys stared.
"Hey SLIT! You want your turn with the whore or what?" barked out another raider as he kicked open a rundown shack door, naked as well and… dripping… from his dick.
"I'm busy!" Slit declared, stopping the beating for a moment, "Fucking little SHIT!" he kicked the boy who shrieked in pain, eyes full of tears as he wiped his chin. "Your fucking mother's only gotten loose after squeezing you out!"
"Ah don't mind it Slit…" the other raider said, taking the bottle from his hand. "That's no way to treat your boy…" he grinned as Slit spat on the whimpering child. "This IS!" he then broke the bottle across the boy's back.
…For the rest of his days… Jack would remember the utter FURY in Galadriel Bowman's eyes. The complete and utter contempt she had for them was something bordering on non-human… Her fingers clawed into the car as her teeth gnashed so furiously together he thought he heard them crack.
"…Ben…" she said, so angry she didn't remember his 'name'… "We are going to KILL them…"
Jack stared at her… falling in love with her all over again… it was a little weird. But he didn't care. "…You got it."
They rounded the car as the grinning raider raised the broken bottle, clearly intent on stabbing the young boy to death with his 'father' watching on. His hand exploded at the wrist as he screamed in pain, dropping the bottle. Gladys' gun was smoking as she fired again and he was falling to the ground, his crotch bleeding as the other raider jumped in surprise before Jack blew out his knees.
They were both screaming on the ground, the boy scrambling away from the dead raiders as two more exited the shack only to be gunned down by the furious ghouls. They shrieked in anger and pain, one died instantly in the doorway as Jack approached the first raider.
"Fuck you! Fuck you! I'm going to fucking kill you!"
"You or me?" Jack asked as Gladys reloaded her sequoia. Heading for the shack.
"Save me one." she declared coldly before blowing the brains out of the one who had come out of the shack and was still alive.
Jack glanced at the spite-throwing raiders before he reached for the broken bottle he picked it up, eyeing the raider coldly as he continued to scream about his hand and dick… Jack kicked him over… and delivered some deeply karmic punishment.
Gladys soon left the shack looking disgusted, covering her stump of a nose as she watched Jack ram the broken bottle into the raider, blood briefly pumped from the funnel of the bottle… and then it didn't… Gladys ignored the bloody display and went to the young boy's 'father' stepping on the back of his neck.
"W-Wait… wait WAIT!"
She didn't…
So covered in bruises he was almost completely black and purple. The boy stared vacantly at them, not afraid but… unconcerned… just staring with a thousand-yard stare. Gladys stared back into his eyes as Jack got to his feet.
"…Well?" he asked as Gladys frowned sadly at the young boy.
"…There's a woman in there… she's… not there at all."
"Dead?"
"…I wish." She replied as Jack walked over to the shack and entered, as Gladys approached the young boy.
"…Bonjour." She said kindly, softly… he flinched as if she raked him with a knife. Not used to kindness. At all.
Jack walked into the shack and flinched, recoiling at the smell of dried semen and old jet… probably actual shit. There was a woman on a raggedy stained mattress on the floor, staring up at the ceiling and covered in semen… and probably yet more shit.
Needles, empty Jet breathers… the girl wasn't there alright… an empty smile on her face as her eyes stared vacantly into the magical dream she must be having. Jack frowned… then found a blanket, before covering the poor girl…
He hauled her out of the shack as Gladys kept speaking softly to the young boy in French, soothing and soft… even with her gravelly ghoul voice. The boy just stared at her as she held out her hand to him… he blinked, tilting his head as if the mere gesture was more foreign than her language. He even seemed more animal than boy...
"Gladys…" Jack noted, gently putting the empty-minded woman on the ground before grabbing the raiders and tossing or dragging them into the shack. "Mind giving me a hand?"
But Gladys ignored him still taking gently to the boy as he promptly tossed the corpses into the shack, taking a shot of whiskey from his flask. Then poured some into the shack, and lit a match…
"…Jack." She said softly, getting to her feet, the boy staring at her. "…Jack we can't let them stay here…"
"Uh huh…" Jack noted, tossing the match into the shack as the flame started. "I figured." He lifted the girl. "…If I remember… there's a Followers fort nearby…" but Gladys stared at the girl as Jack threw her over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes, the shack, poorly built and easily flammable, began to light on the inside.
But Gladys didn't answer him, kneeling next to the boy and holding out her hand again. "…Come with me Garcon…" she said softly as he stared at her hand… a hesitant hand slowly reaching out… and taking it.
…Gladys was uncomfortably quiet as she, Jack, and the boy walked away from the towering inferno. And she was quiet for a very long time even as they arrived at the Followers camp… easily the closest thing to a 'big good' that the wasteland has… doctors, scientists, soldiers… the best the wasteland has to offer without a hint of insanity… usually.
The camp itself was based in an old Military outpost… surrounded by durable APCs. the ghouls approached as one of the mercenaries, standing guard at the entrance held out a hand. "Hold it."
"Tell Alan we want to talk to him." Jack declared as the guard frowned.
"…Alan?..." he asked, clearly confused at the name.
"Alan Wiser?" Gladys asked curiously trying to clarify as the guard frowned.
"There's a… Jim Wiser…" he said.
"Little Jimmy? Has it been that long?" Gladys asked dismissively to Jack as he shrugged if off.
"Let's talk to him then."
The guard frowned, eyeing the bruised boy and the doped-out girl before radioing for a Jim Wiser.
It took a minute but a young man in a lab coat scampered quickly out. He smiled at Jack and Gladys. "Jack! Gladys!" he approached them both grinning. "I haven't seen you since I was 8! It's me jimmy!" he said happily as they smiled at him.
"I remember when you were about as high as this boy…" Jack said, gesturing to the child. Still tightly holding Gladys's hand.
"…Oh my God." He said, gazing at the boy, kneeling down and reaching for him only for him to flinch and stand protectively behind Gladys, whimpering into her leg.
"…Look at this one first," Jack said as he stared at the woman and sighed.
"Damn raiders… bring them. Bring them in." he then checked his radio. "Prep a medical bed." He said seriously.
In the medical tent, her hand was still tight around the young boy. She lifted him and placed him on the nearby bed as Jack lied the woman down on another a handful of Followers doctors already tending to her, but the boy refused to let anyone near him, trying to cling to Gladys as Jack watched her expertly soothe the young boy…
"At least… give him a stimpak." Said a doctor, handing one to Gladys.
She eyed the needle, then the young boy. "…It will sting…" she said softly, "But you'll feel better…" she said as Jack took it. "Jacques!" and jammed it into one of the only unbruised spots on the boy's arm. He shrieked and clung to Gladys who held him tightly… but the shriek quickly diminished. The pain eased almost immediately… and his eyes closed as Gladys held him… looking awed.
"Better him hate me, than you..." Jack noted, surprisingly sage like. He had his moments
"That stimpak was one of ours." Jim said, checking the unconscious woman's pulse. "It has a mild sedative in it. He'll be fine in a couple of hours." Jim shook his head. "…This one though?" he frowned at them. "…I don't know if she'll ever come out of it…"
Jack scowled and sighed. "…Nothing can be done?"
"No…" Jim said, "Nothing but time…" he said softly. "Who is she?"
"A Raider's toy…" Jack scowled as Gladys carried the boy away, soothing him gently as she sat in a chair. "Found them wailing on the kid. We think he's her son…"
"…What are your plans? Want us to take them?" Jim asked, "…I remember what you did for my Dad Jack, I'd be happy to help."
Jack opened his mouth. But Gladys answered. "…I'm taking the boy…" she said as both men jumped at the statement..
"But. I… what?" Jack said shocked. "Gladys I know… that… well…" he took a breath. "This... WE are NOT the life for him! He's not a damn gun you can just pick up and claim!"
"I'm not going to abandon him here Jack." She declared softly, holding him tightly.
"You're not abandoning him here…" Jack said, "You're…" he sighed furiously. "Fuck we would be… we can't take him!"
"If anyone could protect him, it would be you two…" Jim noted rather awed at the two (in)famous ghouls.
"You are NOT helping…" Jack declared before snapping back to Gladys "What about his mother?!"
"Jim said she might never wake up…I could be his mother…" Gladys said, holding the boy tightly. "…You could be his father."
"I… you… I don't want to be a father to some brat." He said hesitantly, not cruelly, more out of shock than anything.
"He wouldn't be some brat he'd be OUR brat…" she said. Jack seemed legitimately flattered… but his concern was valid.
"You don't even… know his name!" he said trying to find ANYTHING to discourage her... knowing he was going to fail regardless.
"…Judging from potential trauma… and the fact that he's a raider's child, he might not even have one." Jim noted and flinched at the fury in Jack's eye.
"You ARE NOT HELPING…" he repeated coldly… he then looked into Gladys' beautiful eyes.
"…With or without you Ben… I'm taking him." she said as Jack sighed and tried one more attempt at reason.
"Why not just leave him with the followers?" he said gently. "They are GOOD people? Remember?"
"…Because he needs me…" she said softly, staring into his eye… "…And I help people, WHO NEED ME."
Jack sighed, loud and long. And he was quiet for a long time… he took a breath. "…What's his name then?" he said softly, knowing he'd never abandon Gladys for long… they had been together longer than just about anyone else alive… She closed her eyes, thinking about it. "If you don't think of something good I'm just going to call him Brat for the rest of his life." He said, sitting next to her as Jim left them alone, checking on the boy's mother.
She was quiet, gently stroking the young boy's back as he snoozed peacefully on the ghoul's shoulder. "…Brat huh?..." she closed her eyes. "…Bard… his name is Bard Bowman…"
Jack rolled his eyes. "I almost like Brat better…" he relaxed in his seat as Gladys continued to soothe the boy… his hand reaching, and rubbing the young man's dark hair. A small smile twitched on the grumpy ghoul's face but he quickly hid it. "…I don't envy the conversation we'll have about killing his 'father'…"
"You are his father…" she declared firmly as Jack quietly accepted that as fact.
"…I guess I am…" he sighed then smirked. "…If I'm his father, why doesn't he have my last name?"
"Because 'Bard Parker' doesn't have the right ring to it… Jacques." She smiled. As he silently agreed with… and that he also needed a drink.
He got to his feet. "I'm going to fill my flask… twice." He declared drinking the rest down and heading towards the closet bar as Gladys stared at the woman on the bed… before finally. She adjusted the young boy on her shoulder… and began to tell him a story, a story her parents long ago once told her as she slept…
"…In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell-…" She knew the story by heart… and she would tell it to him every night in sequence… until one day… a year later…
He called her Mom…
End of Chapter
How Swat met his Mom and Dad... his parents' real names, and what happened to his biological mother.
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