Christmas comes to New Vegas like it hasn't since the war. Marilyn has pines shipped down from Jacobstown, sets them glowing in every casino. Her workers dismantle the gate between the Gomorrah and the Tops, build a central square there instead.
She unearths plastic trees from the basement of Camp Golf—located by some obscure shipping manifest House hoarded—and decorates her new stage with unwilting evergreen. More trees find her gates; one gets anchored to the King's roof. Fairy lights string the doors of every shop and casino from Freeside to the piles of broken bricks stacking up outside the city as it shakes off two hundred years of dust.
Strung with lights and pine-sap, December creeps onward. Ms. New Vegas plays every surviving Christmas song anyone can give her, and if Raul rewrites the programming to play Dean Martin's Jingle Bells three times an hour, well, who can begrudge an old man his hobbies?
If Marilyn notices, she doesn't say.
Cass, on the other hand, does. "Christmas party at the Tops tonight," she says, hovering over his workbench. "You gonna sit up here and let Domino make eyes at her all night?"
"I'm an old man," he tells her, his eyes on his .357s. "What do I care?"
It's such a poor lie, Cass doesn't even do him the favor of pretending to believe it. She snorts, propping her hip on the edge of his workbench. "If you asked, Marilyn would jump you in a hot second. But you're not asking," she says, leaning down just enough to get in the way of his tools. "You wanna guess who is?"
Raul rescues a handful of screws from rolling off the edge of his bench and levels a glare at Cass strong enough to put her on her feet again. "Don't you have somewhere else to be, chica?"
Apparently, she does. But she leaves shaking her head, "Your loss."
That night, Marilyn walks into the kitchen wearing Benny's coat, the skin of her enemy cut to suit, and a black dress she brought back from Mexico.
Raul looks up from his work, hunched over his Christmas present, and cannot breathe. She smiles at him like a vision of the old world—hair done up in platinum curls, her mouth burn-blister red—and he's two hundred years away, young and human and still with so damn much to lose.
"What do you think?" she asks.
Raul's vision steadies. The heat mirage of past-over-present dissipates, leaving him old and lost and hurting, every joint, every scar in his soul. This is his chance, he knows. If he's going to ask, it should be now.
But he can't. He can't. He's not stealing cars anymore with a skip in his step, chasing after any pretty girl to half look his way. He's ancient and crumbling; regretful and so, so bitter. Marilyn forgets how bitter. Somehow, she looks at him—looks into him—and smiles at the wild fool he used to be.
Mouth dry at the look in her eyes, Raul swallows, shrugs, returns to the guns on his workbench.
"I'm sure that's a great idea, boss. Killing one of the most influential leaders on the strip and wearing his clothes like a trophy."
He regrets it—he doesn't—stealing glances at her face like sighting down a barrel. But Marilyn doesn't flinch.
"You're right," she says, and disappears into her room.
A half-hour later she steps out, and again, Raul's breath catches in his throat. Marilyn smiles at him across the hall, all sharp teeth and vicious angles. She wears the right side of her head sheared close, the scars Benny gave her poinsettia stark against her remaining wisps of silver.
Slowly, Raul stands, crosses the hall to her side.
He forgets just how much she's been damaged, too.
And he can't ask, not really. But he can try. "You wearing all your trophies tonight then, boss?"
Her smile softens. Her shoulders relax. Marilyn rests her remaining curls so gently against his shoulder, loops an arm through his.
"Now I am," she says. "You ready?"
For a moment, Raul thinks of Dean Domino, snake-eyed and hunting, dripping charm. But Marilyn looks up at him, eyes laughing, and the radio by his workbench begins to play Jingle Bells again.
Raul smiles. "You look beautiful, boss," he tells her. "Let's go."
