"Come on it wasn't so bad", the courier said obviously lying as she popped Boone's shoulder back in place. The loud crack noise almost made her sick as his bone reconnected with the right muscles.

Boone doubled over resisting the urge to cry out, "yea…right…super mutants..not bad at all". He groaned again as she shoved a stimpack in his neck to dull the pain. Six frowned at her newly acquired companion already in pain. Well how was she supposed to know they were carrying rebar clubs, or how to spot the fuckers in partial darkness when they were invisible? And how Boone took the frontal of most of the blows was probably her fault too considering she was jumping and screeching behind him at every sound trying to locate them before they would charge.

"Ugh", he recovered into a sitting position rolling his muscled shoulders. She visibly saw the strain of his neck muscles as he tried to cover it. He suddenly looked very uncomfortable and stood up a little too fast, "you..should treat your wounds".

The Courier shrugged looking herself over as she stood up, "just some bruises and scratches nothing to worry about".

"Then let's get the hell out of here".

The duo made their way down to Jason where they were preparing for final task in order to launch. Ghouls everywhere were getting dressed in their space suits and appeared to be working on one thing or another. Six walked over to the window looked at the four rockets with curiosity. They're all gonna go 'Kaboom'.

"Hey!" the familiar scratchy voice startled her. She turned and saw directing his words towards Boone, "Jason says I have to cooperate with you on one final task necessary to launch the Great Journey.

"Hey Chris", I walked over, breaking my stare from the rockets. "What is it that you do here exactly?"

He sighed and turned to me, "I'm the flocks resident engineer. I've always been good with machines", he seemed to puff up with pride, "Jason says the Great Journey would have been impossible without me. But of course my skills aren't much use here without the proper materials. That's where you come in".

I mentally saw Boone groan behind me, "you need something else?"

Chris almost looked reluctant to ask which didn't surprise me, "yes we need a thrust control module and some atomic fuel to finish the assembly. You should be able to find them near the town of Novac or out in the wasteland somewhere".

"Somewhere huh? Well that's a lot of help bro", Six said placing a hand on her hip.

So after some constant arguing with Chris about his bad advice on how to obtain the objects Boone eventually forced her back to the surface so they could get his charade over.

"What makes you think the atomic fuels out here?", Boone asked as they trudged off road toward a big factory. Supposedly it was heavily guarded by the NCR, but from the looks of it Six was just taking them along the outskirts.

She started walking backwards for a moment, "call it a hunch" and when she turned around again there was a dead guy lying in a ditch, wearing a radiation suit. Six began to feel that tingle in her skin. The same tingle she always get's when she's exposed to radiation.

"Jackpot", she grinned shuffling through the man's things. She held up the case of atomic fuel in victory, "now let's get out of here before I grow a third arm".

.

"So how far do you think they'll make it?" Six asked as the four rockets, one delaying and almost crashing, took off from the launch site.

Boone shrugged next to her, the reflection of the engines fire bouncing off his shades and then disappearing as the rockets disappeared over the factory.

She brushed her short hair back away from her forehead, "Give it about to the moon. Manny better pay me big. That thrust control module cost me 500 caps".

The duo said nothing as they made their way back to Novac with the idea of a nice warm bed on their minds. They hadn't slept since they began clearing out those ghouls and mutants. They were on the outskirts of the small town when Boone stopped behind her.

"I'm not going back there. I'll wait for you here", he said in that monotone voice of his. The courier nodded understandingly and made her way up Dinky the Dinosaur. He thanked her for clearing out the ghouls and compensated her with 500 caps.

"The guy you're looking for, Benny, he was traveling with some members of my old gang. They said something about Boulder City".

Six nodded, she had no idea where that was but Boone might.

"Any idea why they went that way?"

"No clue. I know Benny hadn't paid up yet. Maybe that was where they were supposed to get square. And if you don't know where Boulder City is it's straight up Route 93 from here. Just keep following the road North".

"Thanks that's all I needed to know!" She turned excited about the good info she's gotten. Maybe Benny will still be in Boulder City. The image of his face being crushed by a giant rock in her hand was quite satisfying at the moment.

"Hey I know your busy and all but you haven't seen our night time sniper Boone around have you?"

She turned around taking her hand off the handle of the door, "haven't had the pleasure of meeting him why?"

Manny's face flustered, "it's just that we always cross paths on his way down and I didn't see him this morning. Not that we talk or anything….I was just a little concerned".

Six recalled Boone not wanting to see or talk about Manny. She had to admit she was lying if she said she wasn't curious as to why. "Bad blood between you two?"

"Me and his wife, we didn't get along to well. I dragged Boone down here to share a good position and future and here she comes acting all too good for it….So yea I never saw eye to eye with the bitch".

The courier felt her eyebrow twitch. If Boone was here he wouldn't have a head on his shoulders to talk through. "That's a little harsh".

"If you knew her you wouldn't think that way. Anyway I figured he'd come around after her disappearance, but he hasn't. I'm starting to think things will never go back to the way they were".

He sighed and the moment he did it was like a light bulb went on in Six's mind. The snap of her fingers startled him, "you have the hots for Boone don't you?"

The sniper's mouth opened as if he was about to retort but closed when he realized he was too transparent for her, "that obvious huh?"

.

.

.

.

The Courier fiddled with the engraved cigarette lighter in her hands, twisting it around, tossing up and staring at it intensely as if it was going to produce some long lost answer to her past. The stop at Boulder City wasn't as much cake as she thought it would be. There were hostile Kahns that took a couple NCR soldiers hostage and it was up to her to defuse the situation. The Kahns were in a bad position and they knew it. The NCR could have stormed in and took them out if it weren't for the captives. Luckily she knew someone that was there. The same Kahn that was with Benny the night she was shot and buried. The moment the bastard saw her his eyes got wide as if he was seeing a ghost. Well he kind of was.

Six stared at her refracted face in the reflection of the lighters smooth surface and smiled. After she had got the information needed from him she shot him in the head with her modded 10mm pistol just as quickly as he let Benny do it. Little did he know that his reinforcements outside were all taken care of and the prisoners were free. With Boone and E-DE, the robot we detoured back to Primm for, behind her they managed to take the whole building out in a spray of gunfire. She so happily looted the lighter, recognizing the engraving immediately, and returned to the NCR commander waiting outside.

If she was a happy, peace loving, go lucky girl before getting shot in the head she sure as hell wasn't any more. She was going to kill anything, or anyone in her way of Benny.

Now only ten miles away from Freeside the young wanderer flicked the lighter open and shut as her mind whirled. Her eyes swiveled from the dancing flames of the fire to Boones twitching form resting on the bed roll. His eyes shook back and forth under closed eye lids as if he was fighting a war inside his dreams. His muscles would strain and relax at different intervals while he grumbled unreadable things.

Six tossed another chunk of deadwood inside the fire. She felt his pain. She didn't sleep much since her new awakening. The Courier would see things in her dreams, horrible things, things she was afraid of turning out to be who she was in her past life. So no, a few doses of psycho here and there and she was just a chipper as ever. Boone didn't know she was a chem addict yet and she was going to make sure she stayed that way.

The Courier pulled a small, leather bound, notebook about the size of her hand out of her satchel and began writing down the past events. Doc Mitchell said that starting a journal would help her regain lost memory, but so far no progress. Still it helped relieve some stress. She looked up when Boone stirred nosily in his sleep and frowned, she heard the name 'Carla' grace her ears like ghostly touch from his lips. E-DE was silently hovering in sleep mode over to her right blinking lightly against the firelight. She leaned back against the boulders that surrounded their encampment, feeling herself start to drift off.

Looking down at her pipboy she noticed she was about done with her shift time, but didn't wake up Boone. He needed more sleep than her anyway. She pulled out a psycho syringe and jabbed herself in the arm, feeling the tingling, warm serum work its way into her veins. Flicking the cigarette lighter open and closed one last time she shoved it in her back pocket and held her rifle at the ready.