Foreword:
This is a romantic story about Craig Boone and the (female) Courier, both from the Fallout New Vegas game. I have attempted to give the Courier much more of a backstory, seeing as how that poor character basically had none at all in the game. Seriously, the game could have run without the Courier and you'd never know the difference.
Craig Boone made me want to slit my wrists, he was so depressing. I kept him as a companion for pretty much my entire game because I felt so goddamn bad for him. So I have attempted to give him a slightly happier ending without changing his character too much. I have kept most of the story elements the same, but I have taken some liberties with the characters, plot, and settings.
I'm not much of a writer, but hopefully this didn't turn out too bad.
The story reads easier if you have played this game, obviously. If you enjoy it, feel free to leave comments. Rated Mature for violence, cursing, and sex later on. Going to try and keep it short, probably going to be about 40,000 words. Almost done with it.
Lonesome Hearts
Craig Boone needed a way out. This dinosaur's mouth was like a prison. The sun was only just starting to go down... Just another night of bitterly wasting away the hours until he could find out who had sold his wife.
Carla, the love of his life, was dead. What else did he have to live for?
If he was being honest with himself, he was ready for his life to be over. But he needed vengeance for Carla, he had to have that first before he could rest easy. But he still had no idea how he was going to uncover the guilty one... But he knew exactly what he was going to do once he did.
Boone sighed, squinting out over the horizon, looking for any approaching threats. The sun made the Mojave glow a warm orange.
He wasn't exactly expecting visitors that night, or any other night for that matter. Ever since Carla had disappeared, the townsfolk could barely look him in the eye anymore... and then this wisp of a girl just waltzed up to him, asking him senseless questions. He heard her chipper voice at his shoulder.
"Excuse me?"
"Fuck! Don't sneak up on me like that!" he grumbled as he spun around, only to find a very, very white female face looking out at him from under a hood. The face was smiling.
"Hello," the girl said happily. She was dressed for light travel, and she didn't look the least bit dangerous, so he relaxed a little.
But her face... her delicate face was so white, she might have been dead... it was unnatural.
"What happened to your face?" he blurted out before he could stop himself. The girl frowned, pushing back her long, black hair that was escaping from under her hood.
"What happened to your face?" the girl shot back.
The sniper had looked down at that point... Bone white fingers were sticking out of the girl's gloves.
"I... what?" he asked, still somewhat in shock.
Two different eyes were looking back at him, one bright gold and the other sapphire blue. The effect of such bright eyes staring out of a white face was extremely unnerving. The girl raised an eyebrow that was so pale he could barely see it.
"I mean... what are you doing up here?" he said, more firmly.
The girl shrugged, but he saw her look around once more like she expected to see someone else up there. But then her gaze landed back on his face, and he saw her smile come back. Her teeth were bleached white as well.
"Well... I was just wondering what was up here," she said lightly, tilting her head to one side as she observed him.
"A sniper's nest," Boone snapped. "Happy?"
"I take it you're a sniper?" she asked curiously. Her eyes flicked up to his 1st Recon beret and then back to his face.
"Obviously," he said shortly. The girl regarded him coolly for a moment, seemingly trying to decide if it was worth trying to continue conversing with him. Her white face glowed in the light from the setting sun.
"My name's Zero," she told him, holding out her hand. Boone stared at it. Was she not getting the hint that he didn't want to talk?
"It's called an introduction," she said brightly. "Now you tell me your name."
Boone snorted, but decided to play along. Her slim hand disappeared into his large one.
"Craig Boone," he said. "Just call me Boone."
"Nice to meet you, Boone," she said happily. Boone said nothing. Zero's bright smiled faded slightly. "Well, I'll be going then... See you around?"
"Yeah... see you..." the sniper started to say before an idea popped into his head. An idea that was so obvious he wondered why he hadn't thought of it the second she'd walked into the dinosaur's mouth.
"Wait, don't go just yet," he said swiftly.
The pale girl turned around, looking surprised.
"Yes?"
"You're not from around here..." Boone began, looking at the girl with renewed interest. He was beginning to suspect that this young woman wasn't nearly as helpless as she seemed to be. After all, nobody wandered the desert alone and lived for very long if they weren't dangerous.
"Obviously," the girl said, rolling her mismatched eyes.
"Right, so... maybe you could do me a favor," he said slowly, afraid she'd refuse. But who else could he turn to? No one in this town, that was for sure... one of them was a fucking murderer.
"Okay," she said brightly. "What do you need?"
And that had been the start of it all... she had performed what he asked of her flawlessly. Within a few days, she had figured out that it was that old Crawford bitch who had sold his wife to the Legion. She'd led the old woman out in front of the dinosaur, just like he'd asked. He'd seen her yammering away happily, pointing off into the distance with one hand... And while Ms. Crawford was looking out to where Zero was pointing, the pale girl had swiftly plopped his own 1st Recon beret on her head over her hood.
Boone had pulled the trigger without hesitation.
Moments later, Zero had appeared behind him up in the dinosaur's mouth, silently handing him back his beret. The instant he'd asked, she'd shown him undeniable proof that Ms. Crawford had sold Carla to the Legion. The girl had looked devastated, like she had personally known Carla...
Boone didn't know what to say. Then again, he never did. He'd never expected a stranger would care enough to actually help him get justice for Carla... He owed her something, so he dug into his pocket and pulled out his spare beret from his military days.
"Here," he said, avoiding looking into her odd mismatched eyes. "I want you have this."
"Oh, no..." she said, sounding stunned. A cold hand touched his, closing his fingers back around the beret. "I can't take that. It's yours."
"Well..." he said hesitantly. "Take this, anyway. I don't have a lot of money, but..."
The pale faced girl frowned at his offer of money, too. He was really starting to get confused... If she didn't want money, what did she want?
"What will you do now?" she asked, still frowning at him.
"Dunno," he said, shrugging his shoulders. "Maybe I'll wander, like you..."
The girl looked pained at that. She flexed her thin fingers, fingers that were littered with tiny scars, so pale he had to strain to see them, too... She held out one hand as if offering him something.
Maybe that was why he'd trusted her. As soon as those words had left his mouth, he had seen something in her face... something that told him she knew about pain and suffering.
"You could come with me," she said quietly, fixing him with an unwavering stare. Boone quickly looked at the floor... He got the feeling that she could see straight through him with those odd eyes.
Still, he hesitated to accept her offer.
"You don't want that, trust me," he said gruffly, his eyes flicking back up to her face after a moment.
Zero, on the other hand, had given him a look that told him she didn't give a damn.
"We'd kill more Legionaries working together," she said brightly, a sly grin on her face. "Besides, I thought snipers always worked in pairs?"
Boone snorted, impressed against his will at the strength of her argument. Really, there wasn't much he could say against it...
"You a sniper?" he asked, curious despite himself. She wasn't carrying a rifle...
Zero's grin widened.
"I guess you could say that," she said with a wink. "If you change your mind and want to come with me, just meet me outside room 201 in an hour, okay? I'll be happy to give you a demonstration."
Boone had watched her go, and to his surprise, as soon as she was gone... He was wishing he was still with her. For some reason, this odd girl made him feel better.
/
Abandoning his post, Boone went back to his lonely apartment. The place was starting to become a little gross without Carla to clean up after him. She'd taken such good care of him... An old dress of hers was hanging out of the closet. Boone quickly shut it away so he wouldn't have to see it.
Because remembering Carla hurt too much sometimes. Some days, just thinking about her made him want to end his life... But he couldn't, because he still hadn't avenged her death.
And now he had, with Zero's help. So now he could put a bullet in his brain, knowing that he'd at least taken down the person who had sold his beloved Carla.
But... did he want to anymore? He heard Zero's voice in his head...
You could come with me.
It was like she'd come along to offer him another way out, just when he'd been thinking he couldn't go on.
Boone stomped into the bathroom, still at war with himself. He stared into the broken, blood stained mirror at his tormented face. Though he was only twenty-six, he had to admit he looked older than that... His past had aged him beyond twenty-six so that he seemed closer to maybe thirty-five. His chiseled features were still the same, but his green eyes... they might have belonged to a corpse.
That seemed appropriate, since he was obviously dead inside.
Craig Boone didn't believe that any power on earth could bring him back to life, so that had to mean... Zero was here to lead him to his eventual doom. Whether that was his death or perhaps something worse he wasn't sure, but now he got it. He had to go with her and find out.
Besides, traveling with her... he could leave a trail of Legionnaire corpses behind him.
And she did make him feel better... at least he'd be more at ease until he met his maker. Hopefully Zero wouldn't be too disappointed if and when he ended up dead at her feet.
Boone swept from the bathroom and began packing his things.
/
Zero stepped out of her apartment. Her face brightened when she saw him waiting for her.
"So... Zero," he said cautiously. Boone had been waiting outside her room for her to get ready. He'd been so absorbed in his own misery that he hadn't noticed that a very pale girl had moved into town, and right above his head at that. "Where are we going?"
The girl had suited up for travel. She was wearing form fitting dark brown leather armor, leather boots, hand wraps, and a thick hood that obscured most of her face. She had a small pack on her back. A pistol was strapped to her thigh, and she had a machete at her hip.
She was beaming at him from under her hood.
"We're going to check on Camp Guardian, and then I need to visit the Followers."
Boone was surprised.
"The NCR camp that's watching the Legion?" he said, shifting his rifle on his shoulder. He was starting to wonder if he should have packed more.
Zero nodded.
"That's the one," she said easily.
"Why there?" Boone said suspiciously. It occurred to him that although he knew Zero was friendly, pale, and most probably quite deadly... He knew almost nothing else about her. Then again, she didn't know him either, and she was still open to trusting him.
"Well..." she said slowly, turning her face away from him. Boone couldn't see her eyes, they were hidden under her hood. "I hate the Legion as much as anybody, and I..."
"You what?" he asked, quirking an eyebrow at her.
"I'm looking for something," she said quietly, her pale fingers twitching. "It might be there."
"In the middle of nowhere?" Boone said incredulously.
"Yes," she said, peering up at him from under her hood. "I only took this job as a courier so I could look for it, you know? But I, um... don't really want to go back to being a courier right now. So I just want to spend my time stopping those slavers and trying to find what I'm looking for."
Boone's curiosity was peaked. He was starting to wonder what he'd gotten himself into. But as long as he got to gun down Legion soldiers, he supposed he shouldn't complain. And whatever she was looking for was none of his business anyway.
"Okay, I'm in," he said, readjusting his pack into a more comfortable position on his back.
He had no regrets. Because honestly... anything had to be better than just sitting around and waiting to die. Now he had a chance to punish the Legion more soundly for all the pain they'd put him through. And he could pay back Zero for her help in exposing that Crawford bitch.
Zero beamed at him. Boone flinched, her skin was so deathly white it was more unnerving than her eyes... he felt like he was talking to a corpse, it was even stranger than talking to a ghoul. Her smile faded.
Sorry... Boone thought, embarrassed, as she turned away from him. I really don't think you're that odd. I'll get used to you.
"Let's go, huh?"
"Wait," Boone said suddenly.
"Yes?" she said without turning around.
"Zero's not your real name, is it?" he said in a rush. He wasn't sure why it was important, but if they were going to be working together, he wanted at least one piece of truth from her. The ex-soldier saw the girl's muscles tense up.
"No," she said shortly.
"I'd like to know who I'm working with," he said, a little more harshly than he'd meant to. Zero sighed, flicking her dark, purplish braid over her shoulder. She turned slightly, so that her one gold eye pierced him from under her hood.
"Ask me something else," she said quietly.
Boone frowned, racking his brains...
"How old are you?" he asked. It was pretty lame, but it was all he could think to ask.
"Twenty-one," she said promptly. So other information about her wasn't off limits... just her name.
He wanted to ask why she was so white, but after he'd just flinched at the sight of her, that might be pushing his luck.
"You said you're a courier?" he asked, digging through his memory banks for one particular piece of information he'd heard in passing... something about a phantom.
"Was," she corrected him. "Not anymore."
"Why not?"
"Turns out there was unfriendly competition, and I ended up shot in the head," she said easily, pulling back her hood to show him a thick scar on her forehead. "Decided to retire after that."
Boone cringed, but didn't comment on the scar. A shot to the head should have killed her...
"Sorry," he said swiftly. "So..."
"So, are we going or what?" Zero said, cutting off his next question. "Come on, there should be time for all kinds of awkward questions on the road, right?"
Boone almost laughed before falling in line beside her as they headed north.
/
A few days later, Boone was surprised to find that traveling with this weird little girl made him... happy. He was the happiest he'd been since Carla died. Not that that was saying much.
The first thing he learned about Zero was that she was modest. Whenever she had to pee, she made him wait as far away as she possibly could. She, in turn, gave him an excess amount of privacy whenever he needed it.
The second thing he learned about her was that, although she was indeed friendly when she wanted to be, in reality she was quite shy. This lead to quite a few hours walking the roads in silence. But that didn't bother him, he was glad she understood that conversation wasn't always necessary.
She kept them to a strict schedule, but Boone didn't mind. He was used to that from the military. Every morning she would clean her teeth, wash her face, and brush and re-braid her hair. If they were closer to a water source or civilization, they would find a place to bathe. When they were clean, they would eat something and set out together.
Almost every day, Zero would refuse to travel during the hottest part of the day, and instead she would seek shelter somewhere shady. Boone didn't mind that either, it wasn't like they were on a time limit, and she could move pretty damn fast when she wanted to.
"Geckos," Boone said, nodding down the road.
"I got this," Zero said brightly. She pulled out her pistol, aiming it at the critters that were charging towards them...
She fired three shots in rapid succession.
Three geckos fell dead on the ground.
"Nice," Boone commented appreciatively. She was a crack shot with a pistol, almost as good as he was with his rifle.
"Thanks," she said happily, holstering her weapon. Boone felt his mouth twitching as he tried to remember how to smile without it looking forced.
She definitely wasn't like other combatant women. Ladies in the NCR had been very rough and tumble, not usually the warm and gentle type. But Zero was warm and gentle. Whenever he would have one of his anti-social episodes, she was patient and didn't try to force conversation with him. She even managed to do it without making him feel like she was just humoring him.
It was like she really understood what he was going through... but how could she? He hadn't told her even a fraction of what he'd done.
"So you work with the NCR?" he asked as they continued on their way.
"Kind of... Well, James Hsu is my friend," Zero said, twisting her pale fingers together. Boone nearly stopped dead.
"The Colonel?" he said, stunned. "At Camp McCarran?"
"Mhm," Zero said distractedly.
"You're... friends with him? You?" Boone said incredulously. The ex-soldier himself had only met the Colonel once, but he had immediately respected the man. Most in the NCR believed that James Hsu would be a General by now if he were more ambitious.
"Yeah?" Zero said, quirking a white eyebrow at him. "Does it matter?"
"Just... surprising, is all," Boone said slowly. "Are you doing this at his personal request?"
"Sort of," the girl confessed. "I knew he was worried about Camp Guardian so I just kind of thought I'd check on it."
"Oh," Boone said. He still wasn't quite sure he believed her about being friends with James Hsu, the man was so busy, but if she really was... how the heck had that happened? Either she was related to him, or she'd impressed him somehow, enough that he would take notice of her...
She could have been lying, but somehow he didn't think she was. That meant she must have some skill that the Colonel could make use of.
What are you hiding, huh? Boone thought. I think you're way more deadly than you're letting on.