Title: His Six

Notes: Written for the Reverse Fallout Big Bang, to go with a piece of artwork that was unfinished at the time it was created. Hopefully they work well together. Artwork by javvie (check out her stuff on tumblr).

This story took me forever to start, because I couldn't figure out where it was going. Initially it was conceived very, VERY differently, but when I started writing Boone he had other ideas. I hope you enjoy.

Somewhere over a ridge, there was the howl and rattle of a nightstalker; from here Boone would guess they were still a good half-mile off and running the other way. Not close enough for him to worry. The other direction was silent, still. No need to hang out up here, not when there was food below; he could come back up later to make sure all was quiet. He climbed down from his perch above their camp carefully, his feet skittering a little in the dry dirt at the bottom.

Six sat at the fire next to Arcade. It wasn't Boone's job to have opinions about things – he'd leave that to the boss - but he liked Arcade. The guy was solid, could hold his own in a fight, and even if he was a little sarcastic he helped fill the silence. At least the constant banter between Six and Arcade helped keep the chattering demons in his head quiet.

If it had been up to him, they would've skipped the fire entirely; in the dark it would give away their position too easily, and the flickering light it cast made it difficult for him to see in the dark. No, if Six had given a shit about what he wanted, they'd be bundled up in blankets under the stars and eating cold Cram out of a can. Safer that way, even if two-hundred year old potted meat made him want to gag.

"You know how lucky I am," she'd said in that tone that made him want to wrap his hands around her throat and strangle her.

The best he'd been able to do was get her to agree to find some cover, a more defensible spot than making camp out in the open. So here they were, halfway up this ridge and sandwiched between the sheer face of a cliff and some rocks. Not perfect, but at least it would be hard to see the flames and getting the jump on them would be nearly impossible.

He couldn't sit next to her; Arcade was on one side and Rex on the other, giving him a knowing doggy smile and a quietly snide tail thump. So Boone settled on the edge of the blanket she'd thrown down – always thoughtful about things like that, his Six – and patted the dog's rear. Rex's coarse fur between his fingers, the smell of gecko roasting where Arcade and Six held skewers in the fire. Boone leaned his head back against the boulder behind him and for once the itch in his trigger finger seemed to calm.

And then she pulled out the goddamn guitar.

She strummed it lightly, dusty fingers whipping up and down the frets, turning knobs and who knew what else until she deemed it was in tune. Then that perfect, improbably beautiful voice – smoky and dark and so different from Carla's - came out.

"Oh give me a home…"

"Where the bighorners roam," Arcade chimed in. Boone dropped his head into his hands.

"Really?" He looked up at her, at her eyes twinkling in the firelight, at the bright reflected in Arcade's glasses. For just a moment he thought she might stop, she might just listen for once –

"Where the mole rat and fire gecko play," she continued on, Arcade singing harmony on the high and low notes. The two of them went through the entire song that way, grinning like idiots as he alternated looking at them and away.

There was no hiding their position now, that was for damn sure. It seemed like an hour before she finally got to the last verse, and the whole time, all he could think about was Carla. This was exactly the same kind of shit she would pull, singing and playing a guitar with them so exposed. Insisting on a fire, roasting meat. Like they weren't on the eve of battle, like the Legion wasn't out patrolling all over the goddamn place.

Home, home on the wastes,
Where the mole rat and the fire gecko play.
Where seldom is heard a discouraging word,
And my skin is not glowing all day.

She ended the song with a flourish, her fingers seamlessly transitioning into a new tune. It was light and complicated; once she'd told him it was an arpeggio, though he didn't know what that word meant. It sounded like a Legion term, and that'd made him irritated with her at first. She'd gone into some long explanation of notes and then he'd started to get a headache and she'd shaken her head. She'd smiled and he'd wanted to kiss her but he hadn't, and then he'd regretted not doing it. But the moment was gone; he didn't think it'd ever be back.

The arpeggio – "broken chords," Arcade had called them – sounded like stair steps. Six had told him once that she wrote it one night when she was sitting alone over by Ivanpah, listening to the sounds of the fire ants roasting some poor bighorner that had wandered into their turf. No idea why that should come out so soothing, but it was.

Or it would be, at any rate, if it weren't for the fact that the Legion was probably looking for them, and they had a campfire going that would make their position clear a mile away, and she was playing the goddamn guitar.

"This is bullshit," Boone growled, standing so quickly that Rex let out a yelp. He should've cared – he liked the damn dog after all – but all he could think about was how she was going to get the lot of them killed and he didn't have time for this, not while Caesar still walked free.

Six looked up at him but didn't change the rhythm of her fingers. The dog gave him a baleful look as he stalked away, back to his hidey-hole up the hill. The music followed him, very quietly, and when he got to his perch he could barely hear it. He pulled out his rifle, using the scope as binoculars, and looked down into the valley below. One radscorpion walked aimlessly; it'd be more trouble than it was worth to take it down from here and the stupid things weren't any good at climbing anyway.

Maybe he'd overreacted.

He didn't like thinking that, didn't like to consider that maybe he wasn't right. After all, if he wasn't right about this, where else had he failed?

Eye to the scope, he scanned the horizon. Nothing to see but desert black. Overhead the moon was a slim crescent, like the side of a bottlecap, silver and scratched with age. The stars were bright, though; sometimes he wondered if it had been like this, before the war. If people had gone to the desert at night, away from the lights of their big cities, and looked up and counted everything they could see. He hoped they did.

He heard her coming before he saw her, heard the specific sound of her feet in the gravel. Six had so many good qualities – a sense of humor he loved, even if he didn't always show it; a vengeful streak that rivaled his own; huge bright eyes fringed with long, dark lashes – but sneaking up on people wasn't one of them. No, she usually bashed her way into everything, counting on her "lucky streak," as she called it, to carry her through.

It killed him when she was right. And – of course - she usually was.

She came into a view a moment later, swaying a little with the effort of walking up the slope, and then settled next to him. Too close, just a little too close. Her thigh touching his, the heat of her body somehow seeping through the fabric of her pants and his so that he could feel it. Both of them on their knees, leaning on the large flat boulder he'd selected to use as a rifle stand.

"You're mad," she said after a moment. Boone nodded. It was dark and she couldn't see it, but he nodded anyway, knowing that she could feel the way his body moved and would know his answer.

"Why?"

Good question, he wanted to tell her. Why was he mad? Was it because she never listened to him? Because she never listened to him? Because of the way she and Arcade had their own little club that didn't include him? Because –

"I'm not sure," he said, cutting off that train of thought.

Beside him, Six nodded. He hadn't quite been able to pin down how old she was and she might not know, but there was at least a decade between them. Maybe she was even closer to forty. Didn't stop her from having the clearest, smoothest skin he'd ever see on a living person. Looking at it, so close, he wanted nothing more than to reach out and touch her cheek, just there, where it met her jaw, along the line of dark freckles there.

"I think you're mad because I make a lot of decisions you disagree with."

That was certainly part of it. All of it? It was safer to keep it short. "You're right."

Her smile, dazzling in the blackness of the desert. "You wish I'd take your feelings into consideration more."

Boone nodded, not trusting himself not to say something he'd regret. From her hip, Six pulled a small steel flask and spun the cap open. Took a long swig, then offered it to him.

He wasn't in the habit of drinking – too many things could go wrong there – but what the hell. It seemed worth it in that moment, so he took it from her and took a long drink. Whiskey, foul and too sweet, hit his mouth and he almost gagged. When he finally swallowed, he saw Six watching on with an eyebrow raised.

"I'm surprised you did that," she said when his coughing had subsided. "I know you're not much for drinking." The woman was smiling. Smiling, as if he wasn't choking to death on her cheap rotgut.

Boone gagged again, then spit. It felt like his mouth was on fire and tasted like he'd eaten sugar-laced brahmin dung. He made an immediate vow to anyone listening that he'd never take a drink out of a flask like that again; if he wanted to drink, he'd stick with beer.

"I am too," he finally managed. For some reason, her smile made him think of Carla. Or maybe it was the flip of her hair, or the smell of the campfire drifting up to their small perch. From here he could see Arcade leaning against the boulder, feet pointed towards the fire and munching on a blackened chunk of roasted gecko. Add that to the list of things she couldn't do, too – cooking evaded her entirely. Rex leaned against the doctor's leg, head on his calf, feet kicking in a dream.

"So what's going on with you? You've been so weird lately." Six reached up to pull her hair back from her face, and her arm brushed against his. So soft it was like it didn't quite happen, but the sparks that shot through his skin told him it had.

He couldn't answer that question – that answer led to another question, and on and on and on. It would be easier to keep pretending nothing was happening, he thought, and so he raised his rifle again and looked through the scope. Scanned the desert floor, hoping for a distraction, but there was none. His scope showed nothing but dirt and cactus and darkness, stretching off until he couldn't see any more.

"Boone?"

"What?" It came out gruffer than he meant for it to, and she recoiled, her hip moving far enough away that he couldn't feel her heat any more.

She didn't leave, though. He counted to sixty to give her time to go, but she didn't. Counted to sixty again, and still she was there.

"Seriously, Boone," she said when he'd finished the third count. "What the hell is going on with you?"

"Nothing."

Six let out an exasperated sigh, the kind you make when you're sick and tired of your kid acting up. Made sense, too; to her he probably was a kid, and always would be. That had to be at least part of the reason she preferred the doc. "Fine," she said, standing. "If you want to be an asshole, I can't stop you."

He wanted to tell her no, stop, wait, but she was gone, back down the hill before he could. His voice caught in his throat, and so Boone stayed at his post, the sniper keeping watch.

At least he could protect her this time.

Judging by the position of the moon and the Big Dipper, it was around one in the morning when he saw them: a small contingent of Legionaries, their bare legs and arms giving them away against the dark. He watched them scurry across the desert like radroaches, tracking them until they were close enough that he had a reasonable expectation of hitting them. Six of them, one in the stupid feathered helmet some of them wore, all of them wielding machetes or rippers. Probably attracted to the fire still flickering between the rock and the wall.

Boone breathed in, catching the leg of one in his scope, and traveled up the body until he got to the head. Held his breath until he was sure, then – breathing out – fired. There was a loud crack and a magnificent splatter of blood, and the tiny, up-close image of the Legionary in his viewfinder dropped.

The rest of them scattered like the radroaches they were, but not before he was able to graze the shoulder of another, just barely missing the bastard's head.

He got up, gripping the rifle in one hand, and shuffled along the narrow ledge to the right. Most of the Legionaries had gone to his left, which meant switching his angle was both the best way to avoid being caught and the best way to get another crack at them.

Didn't take him long before he found another spot. This one had no boulder but a nice gentle slope tapering off at the edge of the cliff. He lay on his stomach, rifle propped on the ground, and tracked the movements of the four cowering at the far end of the valley. It only took him four bullets to incapacitate them, although he did have to reload and hit one of them a second and even third time to make him stay down.

He waited, the breeze cool against his neck and the ground rocky and uneven under his belly, for the last one to come back. The desert quiet felt unnatural now, with the last man hiding somewhere. Should he move? Could the bastard have bled out somewhere?

It didn't matter; if he had to wait all night, he could. Wasn't as if he didn't have enough practice.

Up here, with his gun and the silence, Boone felt like himself for the first time in a week and a half. Since the day Six had asked him about Carla and he'd finally told the truth. Standing in Nelson with Legionaries dead around them and nothing in it for her, he'd finally cracked. Told her the truth about what he'd done, about who he was. About what a monster he'd turned into.

And Six? She'd said nothing. Her face hadn't changed; she'd just walked forward, wrapped her arms around him, and held him. She'd held him while he cried, and she'd kept holding him after, when he shuddered quietly and finally had become still. She'd held him, and she'd asked nothing, and when he'd pulled back there had been a look in her eyes – a look of patience, and understanding, and something else he hadn't known how to interpret.

The next day, Arcade had joined them. The two of them, laughing together, joking together; it sounded nice in his ears, but he knew what was happening. She'd replaced him with someone more fun, someone with less baggage.

Wasn't like he blamed her.

His eyes just caught a flicker of movement down and to the right. Boone turned the gun so he could watch through the scope and there, just off to the side, was a leg. The leg was followed by a torso, and then arms and a head. The last Legionary, moving slow and stupid after Boone winged his shoulder.

"Won't hurt for long," he told the man grimly, voice so low he was the only one who could hear it anyway.

The last shot cracked, echoing across the valley below. The man reached for his head and then dropped.

The last thing you'll never see.

Down at the camp, everyone was asleep. Arcade and the dog were curled up together on one side of the fire. It looked like Six had gotten up at some point and ended up with the short end of the stick; she lay on the opposite side of the fire, half a dry-rotted blanket slung across her, face turned against the rock. Aside from the crackle of the flames, it was silent.

Boone stood for a moment, watching her, tracing the line of the scar on her temple with his eyes. It was insane to think a woman who survived something like that might fall for a man who'd shot the only other woman he'd ever loved, no matter what his reasoning.

And then she shivered.

He became aware, suddenly, of how cold the desert night had gotten. Maybe he was used to it, all those nights he spent in the mouth of Dinky waiting for movement in the distance, or maybe the chill that'd settled over him when he made the decision to take out Carla was more permanent than he'd realized; either way, he hadn't felt it until he saw her bare arm shaking where it was exposed to the air. Quietly – if there was one thing a sniper could be, it was quiet – he set down his rifle. Stepped to where she lay on the lumpy padding of her bedroll, and pulled the blanket back over her exposed limbs.

Six's eyes opened.

She stared at him, her eyes so big he could practically see the wheels turning in her head as she tried to figure out what was happening. For a moment he wished he was wearing his sunglasses, impractical as they were at night.

For a moment, he felt exposed, and he didn't like it.

She smiled.

She smiled, and she stretched her arm towards him, and flipped the blanket up a bit. A gesture of invitation, of welcome, though he had to be wrong about that.

Right?

"You've got to be freezing," she said softly, tossing her hair over her shoulder. It rippled, shiny in the light of the dying fire, as gold and pale as the desert by day. There was a stippled scar on her shoulder, mingling with the dark freckles there. Probably gunpowder.

"You were shivering," he said. Why did he say that?

Six frowned and sat up a little, the long line of her throat exposed as the blanket fell away. She looked smaller, somehow, than the woman who'd turned his life upside down when she walked into Novac. When she'd helped him for no goddamn reason, when she'd helped him avenge Carla. When she'd helped him make up for Bitter Springs. She looked like the woman who'd held him when he told her the truth, the one who'd shaken when she came out of The Tops and told him what she'd done to the man who'd killed her.

She looked beautiful.

Across the fire, Rex let out a small doggy sigh of contentment, kicked his feet once, and then fell still.

"You're cold," she said, holding the blanket up again. "Come on in here."

That seemed like a terrible idea. "I'm fine," he said, rocking back on his heels.

Her hand snaked out, faster than he thought it could, and caught his wrist. "Goddammit, Craig Boone, stop being a 'man,' or whatever the hell you think you're doing, and get in here."

She yanked his arm and he toppled forward, half on top of her. Six let out a small giggle, then wrapped the blanket around him as she pulled him onto the bedroll. The was a lump under one of his ribs, and the fire was too bright and too loud, but for a moment he thought he'd never been more comfortable. Even this close to her, with her eyes shining and the small smile on her face. Even this close to her, and she smelled way better than any woman who'd been wandering the Mojave had any right to.

He stretched out his legs, trying not to touch her and failing. She reached one arm around him, spreading the blanket across his back, and then he was warm from chin to toe.

"Comfortable?"

No. "Yes," he told her. Tried to ignore the way his heart hammered his ribcage, tried to ignore the way she moved her arms away from him and her breasts brushed against his chest.

Tried to ignore the part of him that wondered just what the hell was happening here.

"You're a terrible liar," she said, not taking her eyes off his.

He didn't say anything. What was there to say, after all, beside the fact that he might just be falling in love with her?

"What's wrong?" Her voice was low, pitched just for him. His heart skipped a beat.

Boone shook his head, closed his eyes. Maybe if he just tried to go to sleep –

"What's wrong is that he's in love with you," came Arcade's voice, irritated and sleepy, from across the fire. "Why in the world did you think he was following you around like a puppy?"

Six blinked, darted her eyes towards the doctor though there was no way she could see him from this angle, then looked back to him. He'd have to remember to kill Arcade in the morning.

"Is that true?"

He shrugged. Looked past her to the enormous tan boulder behind her. Let her interpret that however she wants, he thought.

"Boone? Is that true?" Her fingers found his chin, smooth and warm and strong, and turned his chin so his face was forced to look at hers. He let his eyes follow. "Boone?"

"Oh for heaven's sake," Arcade grumbled, never moving. Rex stretched, yawned audibly, and rolled over. His tail hit the ground a couple times in a happy thump-thump. "He loves you, and you love him and will you two just get it out of the way already so the rest of us can get some sleep?"

She didn't speak again. Her eyes locked onto his, and Boone found he couldn't look away from the question that lingered there.

Is that true? She'd asked him, and he'd resisted telling her, just as he'd resisted admitting it to himself.

No more fighting it.

He wasn't always good with words – he'd trip over his tongue, he'd mangle his thoughts, he'd get confused and turned around and lost – but he could still find a way to tell her what he thought.

Small as the distance between them was, he crossed it. Leaned forward, took her into his arms – oh, her skin is soft, how is it so soft? – and she let out a soft exhale. Pressed his lips against her mouth and breathed her in.

She kissed him back, bringing her own arms around him, strong and hot from being under the blanket. The kiss was endless, infinite; it stretched all the way through time and back to the beginning again, through the Great War and the centuries of suffering and to this moment. The moment he'd thought he'd never have, didn't deserve after Carla.

For the first time in a year, he'd found peace.

He pulled away first, eyes on hers, looking for an answer to the question he hadn't dared to ask. Six, quiet for perhaps the first time since he'd met her, reached up with one hand and traced a line down his cheek. It tickled; it promised. The small smile on her face promised even more.

"Me too," she said.

Boone realized he was smiling, realized his cheeks hurt with the effort of it. When she rolled over, she took one of his arms with her. They lay there together, close as two spoons, his arm around her waist and her hair pooled beautifully beneath them, and he thought he could die he was so happy.

"Took you two long enough," Arcade mumbled, as if to himself.

She'd always had his six, and now he had her.