She grabbed at Benny's sleeve and he followed as she fled. ED-E soared just ahead of her, halting and turning every few seconds to guard their backs, then swooping back to the front. Benny kept up with her, though he looked strained; she recognized the look, not of exertion, or exhaustion, but pain. ED-E began firing over their heads.

They topped a ridge and the world fell out from beneath their feet, plunging them into a ten foot freefall ending in a splash of icy water.

Honor struggled to keep her bearings as the cold water closed her throat. She fought to the surface and pulled her rifle. ED-E had taken out one deathclaw already, the corpse still ablaze. She shot at another, pumping bullet after bullet into it until it finally fell. A third had followed them and she fired on it.

Her rifle jammed.

She heard the popping of small arms fire and turned to see Benny treading water and firing his pistol at the thing, unable to kill it but drawing it away from her and ED-E. ED-E spun toward it and torched it. It lay still where it fell.

The humans climbed slowly out of the icy pond. Benny shook his jacket and droplets flew. "Well, that was bracing." He turned away to cough out water.

Honor propped her hands on her thighs and tried to steady her breathing. Her hearing had returned, but now her ears sloshed. Benny took a seat on a wide, low boulder and, after wringing as much water from her hair as she could, she joined him.

He grinned at her, his own hair slicked back, his clothes clinging. "I'd offer you a cigarette, but..."

She grinned back. "Just as well I don't smoke, then." She began peeling off her leather armor.

Benny grinned even bigger. "Oh, baby, I thought you'd never ask."

"Yeah, dream on," she said, still smiling at him. "Do you often find women want you after you've shot them in the face?"

"Oh, ouch again, Pussycat. Those are some sharp claws."

"Benny, you shot me in the head."

The smile faltered and he bent to pry off one soggy shoe. "Yeah, I know."

"Not saying I take it personally," Honor continued, struggling with her boot, "just that I'd love to be sure it's not going to happen again."

"Need a hand?"

She gestured at the boot; it was stuck fast. "Be my guest."

He stood before her and took her heel in his palm as she leaned back. "I'm never gonna hurt you again, Pussycat."

"Well, I don't intend to ever get between you and your city again..."

He wriggled the heel of her boot experimentally. "You have no idea how much shooting you bothered me."

"Yeah. Pull the other one."

"Hm. Funny." He wiggled her heel again and easily slipped the boot from her calf and off of her foot.

"Thanks." She held up the other foot. He raised an eyebrow at her unspoken demand and repeated the procedure. "I have to say...I can't really blame you."

"You what?"

"You were trying to protect your family. I've killed plenty of people doing the same thing. At least you had the honor and good grace to look me in the eye first."

He stood there, staring at her, just a little too long.

It gave her a chance to really look at him. "Are you shivering?"

He shrugged and turned away. "I'm all right."

"No, come on. I'm not carrying your ass all the way to Vegas if you get sick."

"Being wet and cold doesn't make you sick."

"Benny-"

His shoulders tensed but, his back still to her, he began peeling off his clothes. Jacket first, exposing a fine white shirt that clung to his back oddly, as if covering a raised pattern, pink and wet...and then he removed the shirt.

"Benny- oh, my god-"

He almost- almost- looked at her over his shoulder. "I told you. They were persuasive."

In spite of herself, in spite of everything, Honor felt hot tears spilling down her cheeks. She stepped forward and touched his shoulder gingerly. He flinched, the violence of the reaction far out of proportion to the gentleness of her touch. "My god. Why did they- oh, Benny."

He turned to her, revealing more angry, raised scars streaked red over the muscles of his chest and abdomen. When he saw she was crying, he frowned and raised his hands to her cheeks, brushing away the tears with his thumbs. "Oh, honey baby. It's all right..."

"No, it isn't 'all right.' It isn't- they tortured you! Over that stupid chip?"

"No. Over rulership of the Mojave. I told you, the level of game we were playing-"

"It wasn't a game, Benny. They didn't even want what was down there, no matter what it was. Caesar just didn't want his men to see it. He could have achieved the same goddamned thing by blowing up the weather station over it and blocking the entrance. He didn't have to do this to you- he wanted to do this to you." She felt herself shaking, but she couldn't stop it. It was too much. It was all just too much.

Benny encircled her with his arms and she sank into him, her tears flowing from her cheeks to his shoulder and bicep. She brushed his back with her fingers, but hesitated, fearful that she would hurt him, as the wounds had clearly not been fully- or correctly?- healed. "It's okay to touch me, honey baby," he murmured into her hair, and she reached around him and clung tight, like he could save her from drowning. He brushed one hand up and down her back and pressed his mouth into her wet hair, rocking her almost imperceptibly. As she sniffled, her tears finally subsiding, he breathed into her hair, "We all have our scars, Pussycat. Just...some of them show."

At length they finished undressing to the barest of necessities- Honor got the feeling that, once his scars were discovered, Benny would have been fine stripping to his skin in front of her, but didn't out of deference to her, which again she found surprising. An ambushing, backstabbing, honorable gentleman. She decided to give up trying to figure him out; once they got back to the Strip, she'd never see him again, anyway. It hardly mattered. While she arranged their clothes on the sun-warm boulder to dry, Benny built a fire nearby to hurry the process and get their body temperatures back to normal.

She dropped to the ground next to it. "Wow."

"'Wow,' what?"

"I always have to use a flint starter. How'd you do that?"

He quirked one corner of his mouth. "It's like breathing, baby. When you're born to it, it just comes naturally." He sat back next to her, comfortably close but not touching. "I can teach you how, if you'd like."

"Yeah, I would."

"Really?" He sounded genuinely surprised.

"Really." A thought occurred and she leaned over to dig in her pants pocket. She sat back and handed him his lighter. "It's, ah, a little wet. Sorry."

He took it from her slowly. "Thank you," he said, his voice soft.

"You're welcome."

They fell quiet, but it was an easy silence.

~#~

She wasn't sure when, exactly, but her restless night before coupled with the adrenaline rush and subsequent crash of their flight let her drift to sleep by the fire. She woke, slowly, and for a few moments she had no idea where she was or what had happened. Night had fallen, and she could hear ED-E's soft hum as he patrolled overhead. She was on her side on the ground, but someone was cradling her upper body in his lap. She thought for a moment it might be Arcade or Boone, but whoever it was stroked her gently from head to shoulder. It was amazingly soothing. But Arcade would never touch her so intimately, and as she woke more and realized she was dressed only in her underwear, she launched to her knees, vowing to break Boone's hand if he was the one taking advantage-

She found herself nose to nose with Benny. "You all right, Pussycat? You were mewing an awful lot in your sleep."

She blinked rapidly, coming fully awake and remembering the events that had led here. "Um- nightmares," she said, backing off of his lap and hoping her blush wasn't visible by firelight.

"Ah. I know the feeling."

She tried not to look at his scarred body. "I'm sure you do."

"So, to update. I imagine our clothes are dry, but I'm not sure how safe we are traveling at night with a nest of deathclaws moving in next door. Your call on what we do."

She retrieved her pipboy from the boulder. "If we're where I think we are, there's the remnants of a little shack over that way a bit." She pointed. "It isn't much more than a roof set against the rocks, but it did have an old tent hanging from one side- could probably use that as a ground cover, or blanket, or..." She bit her lip.

"I promise to keep behaving myself. Shall we?"

The sheet of tin was still there, propped up with four by fours in the front and wedged against the mountainside in back. A length of canvas hung from one corner, long enough that they were able to reattach it to form a wall on one side that trailed down to cover the "floor," as well. They had redressed, and after Honor removed the more uncomfortable pieces of her armor, they lay down to sleep through the rest of the night clothed and with a careful space between them.

Honor woke a few hours after falling asleep. Benny had built and banked another fire just outside their shelter, and by its light she could see him shivering. As hot as the desert was by day, it was equally cold at night; or, she thought, he could be reliving the acquisition of those scars. Despite her best judgment, her heart went out to him. She edged closer and slipped her arms around him, and he stilled, his breathing settling and the tremors subsiding. He turned a little in his sleep and snuggled toward her.

She let him.

In the light of morning, her decision to hold him was more awkward, and though she could tell by his amused expression that he really, really wanted to make snide comments about waking up in her arms, he wisely refrained. They broke camp and got well underway before he spoke about it. "So, honey baby, what exactly is this?"

She stared resolutely ahead. "What's what?"

"Oh, come on, baby. Bluffing isn't your strong suit. We both know the score. Why did you rescue me? Why did you come back for me?"

"I told you."

He took her upper arm in his hand and halted, letting her momentum swing her in an arc and into his chest. He brought his other hand up so he cupped both of her shoulders. "There's more to this than you're admitting, Pussycat. Maybe even to yourself." Though there was no room between them, he stepped forward, pressing their bodies together. He bent his face close to hers, his breath warm and sweet on her cheek, his mouth only an inch from the corner of hers. "What do you want from me, honey baby?"

She met his eyes squarely, if not fearlessly. "I don't know."

He smiled a little. "Now you're being honest." He trailed a finger up her throat and touched the edge of her lower lip, parting her mouth slightly.

She closed her eyes and turned her face away. He let her, his hand hanging in the air where she'd been. "I don't- I don't even know you."

He ducked his head toward her, bringing her gaze back to him. "Then get to know me."

"What?"

"Stay in Vegas," he said, and she would have sworn he sounded earnest. "Let me show you who I really am. What I did everything for. Give me a month."

"Benny-"

"A month, that's all I'm asking. Four weeks. After that, you want to go back to the road, you go back, with my blessing. But please, baby- if you were willing to cross the depth and breadth of the Mojave to find me, there must be some part of you willing to give me a chance. Isn't there? Isn't that what this means?"

She stared up into his dark, pleading eyes, her own wide, and could not answer him.

He leaned in and took her mouth with his. She whimpered as he worked her lower lip between his, fire plunging through her belly as she scrabbled at his back with her hands. He kept her clenched against him, his lips moving against hers until her knees gave beneath her and she cried out into his mouth. He released her from the kiss, then, though not from his embrace, and whispered to her huskily, "So, whaddya say? Give me a chance?"

She pushed against his chest with a hand that trembled, and he opened his arms and let her go. She stumbled back two steps, three, her thoughts racing too fast for her to follow. The rush, the warmth, the want of it all, shook her to her feet. She wondered if that had been her first kiss. Surely not- but what could she know?

She staggered back to him and grabbed his head in her hands, pulling him toward herself without really knowing what she was asking for. He, apparently, knew, and put his mouth to hers again, dazing her with heat and desire.

She knew she wanted more. And right now, that was enough.