Coyote Tail Ridge, 4:17am.

It was a little after four in the morning when Frances was lightly shaken to wakefulness. Making light grumbling noises she checked her Pip-Boy.

"What the h-?" she began, alarmed at the time.

Putting his hand up to silence her, Boone quickly brought her up to speed. "Something's wrong. Got a group coming our way. Looks like a Legion raiding party. It's big." He stopped, his brow knitting in thought. "Might be too big. Even for us." He turned to look behind him, using Frances's binoculars to watch the oncoming Legionaries split off into three groups. "If you want out I won't blame you, but I'm going to stay. See if I can hold them off."

A little more than half awake now, she asked, "Why would they come to Bitter Springs?" In her mind it didn't make sense. It was just a tiny refugee camp in the middle of nowhere; it was so far out that it was nearly starved for supplies. What could possibly be here that was of worth? Or maybe… they had been following her… "Hey, aren't those my binoculars?" She frowned, hating that he had dug through her bag when she slept.

Boone supplied an answer that should have been obvious. "Easy target for grabbing slaves. Bunch of refugees, just a few soldiers defending it." As if reading her mind, he added, "I don't think they're here for us." His eyes went to the ground, and a hard smile formed on his lips. "Too bad. Would've made me feel good about myself," he mumbled, the words leaving a bitter taste in his mouth.

Awkwardly, Frances put her hand on his shoulder. Even after traveling with him all this time, she was still a little unsure around him. "Well, what are we waiting for?" she said encouragingly, pulling her 10mm out its holster. By now Rex had also woken up and was standing at her hip, watching both of them eagerly.

Boone looked up, somewhat surprised, and nodded. Without another word, he jumped off the edge of the ridge, rifle in hand.

"Wait! Boone!" Frances quietly called out. "You can't just run in by yourself!" He either didn't hear her or wasn't listening as he kept running until he reached the top of a small hill. A second later the first shot was fired, and the (second) Battle of Bitter Springs had begun.

Frances and Rex had run through a cemetery to the command center to warn the NCR troops. By now Boone had finished off the first group and was running up the hill to the camp the tear away at the second wave. Captain Gilles was trying vainly to herd the refugees up to the troops' tents, firing at oncoming Legionaries as she did so. Mongrels were ripping into anything that moved, clearing the way for the Legion who began mowing down anything in army green. It wasn't long before Frances lost sight of Boone entirely. In the back of her mind, she was beginning to seriously regret bringing him back here.

Nearly deafened by the cacophony of gunfire and screaming, she gave Rex orders to attack. Raising her pistol, she cautiously made her way into the camp. A mongrel quickly spotted her and came bounding in her direction, but it was easily put down with one shot. As its body fell to the ground, she ducked beside the metal siding of a makeshift hut. Bullets went whizzing past, but she didn't dare to check if they had hit their marks. A Legionary ran by her, and she fired three times before he went down. Two fleeing refugees followed, and she signaled to them to run to her. Just as they were turning her way, a spray of bullets from the other side of the shed threw them to the ground. She almost screamed, covering her mouth at the last moment. Before, she had only seen the aftermath of war. Actually living it was proving to be an entirely different animal.

Swinging around the shed, she fired wildly at the Legionary responsible. One bullet managed to scrape his face which only served to piss him off. He came stomping towards her, replacing his machine gun with his machete. With shaking hands she tried to reload before he got too close. When he was just a few feet from her a bullet pierced the back of his skull to come blasting out of his forehead. Blood sprayed over her chest and face as his body fell beside her.

"What the fuck are you doing? Wake up!" Boone bellowed at her.

Wiping away the blood on her glasses, she scrambled to her feet. I've been through worse than this. Get it together, Frankie. Although this may not have been her worst experience, it was definitely working its way up there. Killing the Legion had been a simple matter when she hadn't had to defend innocents as well. She slammed a clip into her pistol and, after taking a steady breath, began clearing the Legion out of the camp.

Boone shook his head, clearing it of all thoughts of her, regaining his calm composure. Without any hesitation he fired a shot through the neck of a Veteran Legionary. Everything that he had kept inside since his first battle at Bitter Springs was currently fueling his fury, and with every dead Legionary, Boone gained a little more inner peace. In another time, he would have been ashamed of himself for taking such pleasure in killing. But years of enduring every horror the Mojave had to offer had turned him into a methodical killing machine. Whenever he saw a Legion soldier, he was instantly reminded of Carla cowering in a cage in Cottonwood Cove, five months pregnant and completely without hope.

Their ranks were beginning to thin out. One of them tried to get the jump on him, but he smoothly dodged the oncoming machete, letting it embed itself in the ground. Pulling out his combat knife, he cut off the hand gripping the heavy weapon. The Legionary fell back howling in pain, and Boone put a bullet between his eyes to permanently shut him up. Footsteps behind him caused him to do a full 180 degree turn. It was a recruit; probably his first time on the battlefield by the way he was half heartedly holding his machete. Boone raised his combat knife in an offensive position. Spying his mutilated comrade, the recruit fell to his knees, gripping his machete with white knuckles. As far as Boone could tell, he was the last raider.

Smirking, he lifted the machete to his throat. "You won't kill me, you NCR bastard." His words were strangled, unsure, and before he could think twice about it, he swung the blade into his own exposed flesh. Boone made no move to stop him, and watched with morbid interest as he bled out at his feet.

"Boone! Above you!"

Alarmed, he looked up just in time to see a Legionary fire two bullets into his shoulder and chest. His battered leather armor did nothing to protect him, and he hit the ground with an audible thud. There was more gunfire, but it sounded as though it were miles away. Frances was instantly beside him, worriedly repeating his name like a mantra. He felt pressure on his chest as her hands clamped over the raw wound, and he suddenly had the urge to cough. When he did, a red spray dotted her glasses. He wanted to apologize, but he could only make gurgling sounds. He had known it would all end here, but he didn't expect it to happen this way. To die in the company of someone who cared about him was more than he deserved.

She ripped her glasses off, and then he felt her hand on his face. He suddenly wished that he had taken the time to shave recently. It was a little thing that wouldn't matter in a few seconds. A pained smile spread across his face, and he would have laughed if he wasn't choking on his own blood. Her thumb was rubbing against his scruffy cheek, her eyes wide and shiny with tears. His own eyes were becoming harder and harder to focus, and there was a darkness at the edge of his vision. For a long time, he had wanted her to touch him like this, but under much different circumstances. Why had he kept himself so closed off to her?

Just like always, you're too damn late…

No longer able to keep his eyes open, he drifted off into a deep, untroubled sleep.

Panic instantly overtook her as his eyes closed.

"Goddammit, Boone! Keep your damn eyes open!" The hand that had been stroking his cheek pulled away to smack him hard. "Wake the fuck up!" she hoarsely screamed, the sound tearing at her throat. She raised her hand to hit him again, but someone caught it before she could.

"Hey, we got a wounded one over here!" an NCR trooper yelled. His baritone voice was hard to miss, even among the sounds of anguished moaning and shrill crying that had overtaken the camp.

Frances turned her head to look at him, her tear-filled eyes making him blurry. He was a massive man, all muscle and hard lines. Despite this, the grip on her arm was not painful, and he released it when she had regained some of her senses. Gently, he moved her out of the way, and scooped Boone's limp body into his arms like the sniper weighed nothing. Boone's hand dangled haphazardly, and Frances grabbed it, holding it in her own as they walked quickly up to the medical tent.

"This isn't the first time he's been shot," she blurted to the stranger. "He'll be all right. God knows he's been through worse." She squeezed Boone's hand a little harder than she intended, her knuckles going white. "He'll be all right…"

"He's First Recon. Every one of them I've known has been a tough bastard," the trooper told her, smiling calmly while holding a dying man. They reached the opening of the tent, and the trooper said something about how she should stay outside because the tent was going to get very crowded very soon. She barely heard him, too focused on Boone's slipping beret, which she caught before it hit the ground. His hand slipped from hers, and the trooper disappeared inside the tent. Frances stood there for a long moment, gripping the beret for dear life, not breathing. Then someone rushed by her, and the Mojave started moving again.

A/N: This is a re-post of a somewhat older story, in case you noticed. I changed the title and altered/added to the first chapter, and the story will follow a new plot. Thanks for reading!