The week Leda was trapped in the Sierra Madre was a challenge for Boone as well. Not only was she kidnapped on his watch, but knowing her she was alive and fighting who knows what kind of drastic power by herself. And as strong and skilled as she was, there was a reason she preferred to travel with as many people as possible, if you counted himself and ED-E as people. And the fact that while he was out trying to track down any clues about that broadcast and who had taken her, she had come all the way back to Novac in dirty, ripped-to-shreds clothes and the warm, sunny tan she always bore had turned to frightfully pale skin. Chemical burns from the clouds literally covering 70% of her skin surface, and she was completely and utterly exhausted. Yet despite her health being in shambles, being past the point of exhaustion, and loaded down completely with loot and new armor and weapons - she had only stayed six hours in total, half an hour to dump off the haul, half an hour to eat, and five full hours to sleep; then she was back on the road, properly set up and hot on Boone's trail.
He wasn't sure if it was the three shots of whiskey - neat - or if he was going crazy from not knowing what happened to her nor being able to track her down, but when Boone saw her pale white yet still-freckled face standing next to the saloon door in Goodsprings, he wasn't sure whether to cry because she'd returned out of the midst of nowhere, or because she had died and was now a ghost haunting him for not finding her. She must've heard his choked gasp, because her head snapped in his direction. Though her general demeanor to that point had been bedraggled and dare-I-say downright surly with exhaustion - the opposite of Leda normally - he saw her start to glow with warmth, and underneath the ratty veil of sleep-deprivation and frustration, Leda's trademark effervescent smile shewn through. Just for him. Her clearly living state was enough to make relief hotter than the bottom-shelf scotch he'd been drinking flow through him from his ears to his feet.
Before he'd realized that he had stood up from the dusty corner of the bar and made his way to her - shoving aside a barfly who had been trying to chat up Sunny Smiles - as swiftly as if he were gliding across a frozen lake with but one destination in sight and one destination possible, he found himself with his eyes locked on Leda's merely a few inches from her. He crept closer to her, slowly and cautiously; if this was just a drunken illusion, he wasn't sure he wanted to snap out of it. Leda looked up at him with doe-eyed graciousness and just a little bit of embarrassment, and Boone reached out to touch her tentatively. As his calloused, sandblown fingers made contact with the rough, plastic fabric of her dingy, chemical stained jumpsuit, sensation and emotion came flooding back to him, hitting him like a slap in the face.
"H... Hey Boone... Long time no see...", Leda stammered sheepishly.
"I... Well, I'm sor-"
Leda was cut off abruptly by Boone pulling her into a bone-crushing embrace, wrapping his arms around her tightly enough to force a choked gasp out of both of their lungs.
"What the fuck happened?", Boone whispered into her ear.
The look of surprise melted off of Leda's face, and she gently wrapped her arms around his back, resting her hands on his shoulderblades and allowing herself to bury her face in his collarbone and inhale deeply, the familiar and comforting scent coaxing loose a few tears she'd been saving up for when she could afford the luxury of crying.
"Where do I even start?", Leda sighed, "What's the last thing you remember 'fore I disappeared?"
Boone pulled away from his grip encircling Leda with a composure-regaining sniff, letting his hands drop to her elbows.
"We'd made our way into that bunker. You were in front of me, and went to check out that radio. Sprung a trap. When I came to, you were gone. I looked around the bunker, followed your trail for a day or so - well, it took a day to find enough to have a trail - but it wiped out when I reached the mountains. I found your gear a good ways away from the bunker, scattered around the mountains base; like somebody didn't give a shit about the high-grade supplies you carry. We're lucky I was able to find as much as I did", he told her, nearly stumbling over the words as he raced to say them.
He saw Leda's eyes widen.
"Don't worry", he added with a slight smirk, "Shiny is safe."
Her face perked back up as she breathed a sigh of relief of the state of her sniper rifle.
Which led to Boone being even more caught off guard when Leda swiftly leaned in, planting a full - yet very gentle - kiss. He could have stopped at any time, pushed her away with ease; instead he stood in her arms, stunned - yet it took him less than a second to reciprocate.
He couldn't tell himself that these were drunken, subconscious thoughts anymore.
Leda could barely tear herself away from his lips, and the slight taste of warm, cheap whiskey - on it's own strong and burning like cinnamon - that lined his mouth, paired with this moment a long time coming tasted so sweet and stung so good it made her teeth hurt. Boone leaned in when she began to slowly pull herself away. He didn't ask her to kiss him, but at that instant he would've sold what was left of his soul for another three seconds. Though the look on his face was sleepy, almost spellbound yet mixed with surprise, but inside he felt ecstatic. Not like he'd been made new, but rather like he'd been washed clean. There was still an (un)healthy smattering of darkness weighing down his mind, but it weighed so, so much lighter.
"I was so worried about you", Leda said with a shaky voice.
It took a little while for him to register she was crying, though in truth it was only a few tears, borne out of strong, mixed emotions.
"When I found out where I was- I asked what happened t'you, where they stashed you- no one had seen you. Dog was incomprehensible and God would barely talk about what happened at first. Eventually I gave up askin'; but finally, just before I merged them, God told me he'd left you unconscious."
"God?", Boone asked incredulously.
Leda smiled.
"That's what he called 'imself, anyway. He was this wackadoo Super Mutant with a bad bad case of 'Split Personality'. One personality was dumb 'n' subservient - that one was called "Dog" - and the other was scary smart- and scary unhinged. He was called "God". Heh, cute, huh?", she replied, tilting her head to the side.
It took hours for Leda to explain, and even then she didn't have the answers to all the questions Boone had. Leda talked extensively about the Sierra Madre as they walked along towards New Vegas, towards the '38. Boone had stowed her ejected gear in the suite, as well as convincing Rex to stay with the King and ED-E to float around with Cass while he was out searching. He could have - should have - told everyone in their gang of misfits and murderous do-gooders what had happened; maybe they would have found her. Maybe she would have had someone waiting for her when she came home. But he didn't. He didn't know how to ask, what to say, what to do to convince them this was big enough of an emergency for them to go after her. None of them were inclined to worry much about Leda after spending any time with her.
Except for him. He surprised himself with that.
He wasn't just worried about her; he was sleepless with worry. Once a week he'd take the proper amount of rest, and then he'd spend as much time as he could without destroying his mind. He spent the most time with her out of anyone, not even Veronica - who'd been picked up by Leda first out of everyone - could hold a candle to the sheer number of days, weeks Boone had spent with her.
When he was back at the '38 - and Leda was elsewhere, either alone or accompanied - as they all sat around the table or the den late at night, the others would joke about them.
"Hey Boone, I got a question for you", Cass asked him admist the drunken laughter and chatter of the room.
"Yeah, what'd that be?", Boone replied, taking that moment to sip at his glass of Moonshine a la Cass.
"Is Lee as good for a fuck as I assume she is?"
Boone tried hard not to spit his mouthful in her smug face.
"You've got way too much time on your hands, Cass."
She scooted closer.
"Aww, come on. Everybody knows you two've done it. Sweet, pretty girl like her... Strong silent type like you... She's right up your alley!"
"You claiming to know my MO?"
Cass stared him straight in the eye.
"Yes. Yes I am."
He could hear Raul and Gannon stifle laughter.
"Look... You aren't exactly tied down. Hell, none of us here are; but like Cass here so elegantly pointed out, even if you two aren't knockin' boots, the sexual tension when you two are in the same room together is so thick you could cut it with a hair!", Raul said, putting a hand on Cass' shoulder.
Even through his sunglasses, they could tell her was giving them his patented look of disapproval.
"And you all think that?", Boone asked.
Raul shrugged. Cass shouted "YES!". Gannon and Veronica merely took a long, long drink from their glasses.
Boone sighed and leaned forward, placing his glass on the coffee table between the couches they sat at.
"Fine. Fine! You want in on a little secret?"
He beckoned them to come in closer with his hand, waiting patiently until everyone had moved towards him.
"There really is...", he said quietly, tentatively, "nothing going on between us."
Groans and complaints from his friends.
"Besides. I'm under the impression that given the option, Leda's more of a Veronica type", he added.
"Oh trust me, if I thought I had a snowball's chance, I'd go for it. Don't need to be in love to be intimate, especially in our business. A little 'tension relief' is important to aim straight, even if you're more than a little curvy. But she's definitely got her eye elsewhere, and I don't think she's got any inclination for casual encounters in the meantime", Veronica said, like a sister to a brother.
"And what exactly makes you think it's me she's after? If you know her at all then you know she couldn't give half a damn about what someone looks like."
"Hey, just because you care more about the actual gift on the inside, doesn't mean you can't go for the prettiest package. And no offense to anyone else, but out of those of us who spend a lot of time around her - specifically those in this room - you're the most compatible, and the most physically appealing. Hell, you're not even my type and even I know you're sexy."
"Okay, where are you even getting the impression she's into me?"
"Oh come on. We've all seen it. She acts like a damn teenager with a crush! Brushing her hair behind her ear, blushing like a lush, that goofy grin..."
"But she always does that. I saw her brush her hair behind her ear last week when she was talking to Rex!"
"Because Rex is like two feet tall and she was bent over to pet him. Face it Boone; Leda's into you."
"She wants that NCR DICK!", blurted Cass, raising the bottle of whiskey in her hand.
"Well put, Cass", Gannon said with an oddly straight face.
It was only now that Boone was willing to admit that they were right.
