The two Vault Hunters stood over their latest kills, confident that that was the last of their assailants. Axton smirked as he picked over the weapons dropped by the raiders and nomads that had previously inhabited Frostburn Canyon, while Maya stood guard.

As he was examining a rifle with a bayonet and drum magazine, Maya yelled the feared words. "Axton, look out! Badass!" He looked up just in time to see a Badass Psycho crash through a solid-looking piece of ice. They opened up on it with their assault rifles, but the Psycho was not to be stopped. It swung a piece of piping at Axton, knocking him on his back and shattering his shield. He tried to struggle to his feet, but found he was too winded to do so.

From his vantage point in the snow, he watched Maya throw a grenade that detonated in the Psycho's face, putting it down. She smiled when she saw him struggling to get up.

As she moved to helped him up, two things happened at once. One, Axton saw a marauder with a sniper rifle standing on top of the ridge. Two, the bullet went through Maya's neck, shading the snow around her a deep crimson.

Axton was instantly on his feet, finishing the bandit with a swift headshot from his own sniper. Rushing to his longtime friend, lover, and confidant, he knew instantly that the wound was fatal. Still, he tried to staunch the flow of blood the best he could.

Her voice stopped him. "Hey." she groaned. He looked up. Her skin was an alabaster white, making the blue tattoos that started at the left side of her collarbone and ran down her left side stand out disturbingly. "W-when I die...promise m-me...you won't b-be bitt-" she coughed up blood. "-Bitter. J-just stay like y-you are." Axton took her hand. She smiled weakly. He squeezed. "You're not going to die. I'll get you back to Sanctuary, Dr. Zed will patch you up. We'll stay in Sanctuary, we'll raise a family, we'll be happy, you know?" As he finished, he realized that she had gone limp.

He woke up covered in cold sweat, the image of Maya laying in a pile of bloody snow still frozen in his mind's eye. He looked for what woke him, and found Maya standing over him. "You okay? You were shaking and whimpering. Do you need the Doc?"

He looked at her, particularly the barely noticeable bump in her abdomen indicating that she was four months pregnant. "I'm fine. Bad dream." He told her, not exactly lying, yet not exactly telling the truth, either.

"Mmm. Okay." she slipped back into the bed next to him. "You know, you've been having nightmares a lot lately. Maybe you should see the Doc." she told him.

He considered it.

He had been having nightmares more often since Maya had gotten pregnant. He remembered the day that she came back from Dr. Zed's and told him she was knocked up with their first child. He had been so happy. But in the back of his mind there was the little voice that told him that something was going to happen to her. That if anything did happen to her, his unborn child would suffer the same fate.

He got up, dressed, and took a last look at Maya's supine form, her chest slowly moving up and down in the throes of sleep. As he moved to the door, he heard her start to snore, bringing a smile to his face.

As he walked to the doctor's place, Claptrap, whom never seemed to stop bugging people, even at one in the morning, rolled up. "Wassup, minion? Never seen you out this late. What's up? The other minion having the baby?" "Jesus, I hope not." Axton grinned. "It'll be a few more months yet, Clappy. I'm just going to see Zed. See if he can stop me from having these nightmares." "Oh. Well, see ya!" he rolled off, muttering dubstep beats under his breath.

Axton walked past Marcus's shop, the Black Market, and Mad Moxxxi's Bar on his way to Dr. Zed's 'hospital'. When he got there, he knocked on the door. Zed opened it a moment later, grumbling under his breath. He instantly brightened when he saw Axton. "Hey! Maya's not having the baby yet, is she?" "No, but I need something to help me with these nightmares." "Sure! Come on in and lay on the table." Zed led Axton to the operating table.

Axton lay on the table, trying to ignore the bloodstains and splatters all over the walls. "Now, cover yourself with this." Zed instructed, giving Axton a blanket. Confused, he did as he was told, and Zed punched him in the face, knocking him unconscious.

When he woke up, Axton was still on the table, still covered by the blanket. He opened his eyes to see Zed standing over him. "Sleep good?" Axton scowled. "Er...did I ever tell you I don't have a doctorate?" "Might have mentioned it." Axton snapped back.

On the way home, he stopped by Marcus's shop and bought a new combat outfit for Maya, a cool purple number with a yellow stripe down the left side. He figured she would think it was garish, but it was pretty neat. He knew Salvador would had loved it. Sadly, Salvador and Zero had both perished on that fateful day on the train, when Handsome Jack had tried to off all of them with a rigged train car that was wired with at least a ton of plastic explosives. His plan half-succeeded, killing Salvador and Zero, and nearly Axton himself. Only a split-second intervention on Maya's part had saved him.

When he got home, he was greeted by a sight that made him shudder in horror. Maya was standing in the foyer, grinning at him. "Skag bacon?" she asked hopefully. He raised his eyebrows at her, sighed, and grabbed his pack off the hook on the wall. As he walked out of Sanctuary, he muttered a single sentence.

"Damn cravings..."

Later, after finishing half a dozen skags, he figured he had enough meat to appease his girlfriend and started back to Sanctuary. As he headed back, he saw something that made his blood run cold. Sanctuary was rising off the ground, preparing to speed off. "Scooter! What's up? Why the hell is Sanctuary in the air?! I'm in Three Horns, for Christ's sake!" "Aw, jeez, ya are? I thought you was in the city! Can't set her down now though. We need to get out of the area STAT! Jack's launched a nuke at us! The city's shields can't take a hit like that! Listen, we're headed to Bloodbane Gulch, see ya there! CATCH-A-RIDE!" With that, the city sped off into the distance. Axton felt weak. Maya...

Then he saw the bomb. Speeding towards the spot where Sanctuary had been moments before, was a yellow missile. When it hit, a small mushroom cloud billowed up, engulfing everything that had been Sanctuary. He sank down. Bloodbane Gulch... That was over three hundred miles away. "Well, better start moving then." were his last words before getting into the drivers seat of his light runner, which was parked a little ways away, under some brush.

As he got onto the remains of the road leading to Bloodbane Gulch, he thought of Maya, of Moxxi, of Zed, of Marcus, and even of Claptrap. He was getting back to all of them, and may God help any raider, nomad, or creature that tried to stop him.