[color=00aeef]FRIEDA RICHTER[/color] -- Salem town square

In response to her question, the man reached into his Leather Jacket pocket and took out a box of embassy cigarettes, opening the box he held it out for Frieda “Sure, you can have one -- if you tell me your “pedigree” as you called it.”

Time froze still for a moment as she regarded an entire box of cigarettes, held so casually before her.  She licked her lips and refused to become too distracted.

"How about," she drawled with a smirk, "you tell [i]me[/i] what the word even means, and you toss a girl a smoke, and we call it even?"

“Well then No smokes for you.” Steve teased as he shut the cigarette box. “And these are some high-class smokes from England...good luck finding someone else with them.” he added on as he put the smokes back in his jacket pocket. 

Frieda's brow twitched.  [i]Whatever.  There's bound to be at least one pack of smokes in this place.[/i]

“Well regardless of whatever mysterious group you seemingly worked for I was a combat engineer in the Talon Company, 3rd company for 17 years, worked my way up to Staff sergeant before those Tin-can dicks ruined everything.” 

Frieda tensed, and realized he might have been referring to the Brotherhood.  She bit her tongue and nodded politely, though she wasn't sure what exactly he was referencing.

“But that was life time ago now...” Steve said as he took an puff on his cigarette “if your plasma pistol breaks or you want to upgrade it I should be able to fix it ... Brotherhood weren’t the only one to get some of those enclave toys.” 

Frieda smiled and pointed to the scar in the dirt where she'd shot at Rook.  "I have a feeling the Enclave wouldn't call them toys, and neither would --"  She paused to look up, intending to call attention to the super mutant himself, but found he was gone.

Long gone, by the looks of it.

"Dammit!" she swore, whipping around, looking frantically for Rook.  "Where did he go?"  Frieda walked the length of the square to the other side and looked around.  She rounded on Steve and jabbed an accusatory finger.  "If not for your unnecessary babbling, that mutant wouldn't have just walked off like that!"

"You better hope he doesn't end up killing someone, or that blood's gonna be on [i]your[/i] hands," she growled.  "Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to find a fucking cigarette!"

Frieda stormed off, realizing most of her irritability stemmed from her cigarette craving.  Her unit back home used to ridicule her for the habit she started once Brian had gone missing, saying things like [i]"Two hundred years of perfect genetic grooming, wasted on you and that disgusting habit."[/i]

[i]Easy for them to say.  None of them lost their closest family, and best friend.[/i]

She found herself coming back towards the diner.  Didn't they tend to be like general shops, most of the time?  Or, they would at least attract other people who might be smokers...