With nothing new to report to Chel, I settle for sanding her grave marker down a little. She spent the majority of her short life overshadowed by Legion symbols, and like hell was I going to let her spend eternity under a cross, so I carved a tombstone shape out of a desk from the abandoned schoolhouse. Even etched her name into the wood on a night much like this, which is a lot more than most of the other graves have. But- well, let's just say that my sawing skills leave a lot to be desired...
She looks mighty out of place in the middle of what looks like the site of a mass Radroach crucifixion, but so she should. She is out of place. I can think of more than one place I would have liked to bury her (most of them either encroaching on or squarely within Legion territory), and Goodsprings definitely doesn't feature on that list. But after wasting precious time wandering the desert in a numb daze, my sister's corpse in my shaking arms, I simply didn't have the time or the nerve to get to any of them before her lifeless body started to visibly deteriorate, and I had no choice but to get her six feet under pronto before she inflated like a balloon in the blistering, relentless heat.
From what I've seen of it over the past four years, 'relentless' describes the Mojave Wasteland pretty well. The distant glittering lights of the Vegas Strip and the occasional genuine friendly faces and places may tell one story, but make no mistake, this sand thirsts for blood. Ghouls, Deathclaws, Radscorps, Geckos, Fire Ants, Nightstalkers, Lakelurks and their many friends don't give a damn who you are. Nor do the chem-addled Fiends (call me a hypocrite all you like, but I have not hit their level by a long shot, nor do I ever plan on doing so), the radiation, even plain old dehydration. So many tales of survival, luck, love and altruism end with a Cazador sting and a poorly-timed lack of antivenom, or a bullet to the heart over a handful of caps.
So what put an end to Chel's tale, you ask? My stupid naive decision (of course, everything we did was my damn decision, short of when she had to piss...) to go pick through the skeleton of the REPCONN HQ building advertised on that billboard near one of our first campsites (you better believe that shooting the red robot in his smiling fucking face whenever I pass it now is worth the ammo...). I figured there should be decent salvage in there, maybe even functional robots. I was right. Too right. Frenzied Sentry Bot got her from behind before we knew it was there, spat the smouldering ashes of her brain through her forehead into my face... and then somehow failed to hit me once as I scooped her up and ran. Guess it's lucky that she didn't straight up disintegrate... if you could call any part of the situation 'lucky'.
I make all sorts of excuses to haul myself to Goodsprings to visit her, but the truth is that I just need to be close to her. Back when she wasn't rotting under a wonky plank, she was the one who couldn't get enough of me, much to my irritation. I'd give anything to have her clinging to my arm from behind now.
Would I really? What good would that be? What would she think of what I've become in her absence?
Truth is, I don't really know what she ever did think of me. The fact that I was, by chance, lifted from our mother's butchered stomach a few seconds before her (imagine their disappointment. Two girls...) resigned her to a lifetime in my shadow- though how much of that was by her own choice is up for debate. It was always 'yes Charlie, no Charlie, whatever you say Charlie' with her. She may not have spoken her mind a whole lot, but she sure as hell had one. Spoke three languages, could and did read- a lot- could argue her opinions well on the rare occasions she dared to voice them. But she lived and died in a shell, using me as her mouthpiece and compass.
She was my compass too. A moral compass. She tried to talk me out of shooting anything that hadn't spotted us and wasn't headed in our direction, did what she could to let me sober up every so often (ha. The sorrows I was desperate to drown back then barely feature now amidst the agony of grief, lingering guilt and aching loneliness. Perspective is everything), tried to hide any Mentats I managed to get my hands on (I wonder what she'd say if she knew how long my list is now- Med-X, Calmex, even Jet once. Oh, that's right, she'd have nothing to say. Nihil. Nada. Maybe a disapproving glare at most... until I fell asleep and she leapt at the chance to 'accidentally' dump my stash into Lake Mead or wherever), once even kicked my legs out from under me when I had an indoctrinated, oblivious-in-every-sense Legion Recruit who looked about our age in iron sights (something that I'm eternally thankful for now that I've had to crawl back to them in defeat...). She really was my better half, in every sense of the word. And she did not fucking deserve to die so young, so suddenly, so unceremoniously. I promised her that I'd protect her. She was the only thing in this broken world I'd ever want to preserve. And what did I do? Dragged her out of The Fort, through a whirlwind and straight into her grave. I should have known she wasn't made for this life. But I didn't want to stick around. She didn't choose to run. She didn't choose to live on my fucking terms. All she did is nod and follow, a lamb to the slaughter. I failed her. I killed her...
When the last drop of vodka in my canteen is nothing more than a memory and a burning sensation in my throat, I curl up next to her crudely-made 'gravestone' and await either sleep or death, whichever wants me. Let them battle it out themselves. I don't give a damn. The last thing I see as my eyelids droop closed is that weird tree gradually blurring out of focus. Joshua trees, they're supposedly called. And behind that name lies a whole other bucket of fuck...
Absolvo, hisses the wind, pulling me back from near-sleep. No it doesn't. I'm drunk out of my mind is what. I think all I can do at this point is sleep. Sleep. Sleep next to her, as usual, and rise first, again as usual. Well, I'd bet every cap and piece of scrap I have that I'll be the first to rise. Even if I die they have to pick me up, right? I just hope I don't get a fucking cross.
I laugh bitterly. Then I weep.