(A/N: Sorry this chapter is a little late, guys. I was out saving the world with my crack team of gorgeous superspies from bloodthirsty Mayan zombies. There was no good wi-fi in the Mexican jungle, so what can I say?)

IV. So Long

"Well," Julie said as she gingerly removed the cut cast frame from around the Courier's arm, "it'll be a little sore and probably tire easily for the first few weeks. Good thing it's not your shooting arm I guess. Just don't get in any fistfights with the locals, okay?"

The Courier ran her other arm over the newly freed limb, noting how dry the skin was and how oddly light it now felt.

"I can put my Pip-Boy back on and leave now, right?"

"Yes, if you want. Though I do think that even the Mick and Ralph's crier is going to wonder where you went, as many nights as you've wandered up and down these streets after dusk. Arcade told me you've been keeping him awake pretty often with some interesting topics, and even helped with a formula for stimpaks. We didn't have that one, thank you."

"Oh, Doctor Gannon? He's a funny one."

Julie seemed introspective. "Yes, more than most I think. That man holds his cards close. Which leads me to my next question. Where do you plan on going? You said you were looking for more information on Rex? Arcade told me you meant to ask again but hadn't gotten a chance."

"Do you know anything that could help?"

"Actually," Julie said as she helped the Courier down from the makeshift examination table, "I do. Arcade and I were the ones that helped restore Rex when the King purchased him, as I think I mentioned to you. Arcade got his motivator restarted and I did most of the body work. I'm amazed his biological parts even survived. He was a quick healer though, up and barking around before we even finished fixing the bio-nerve interfaces to his tail. The only thing, as you've noticed, that we couldn't do was give him a mental overhaul. Brains get old in cyber units, even if the robotic body doesn't. Eventually they decay, and where in most creatures this leads to the end of life, in a cyberdog it's a repairable condition. He just needs a new brain and some fine-tuning of his robotic parts."

"Yes, but where?"

"There is a scientist northwest of here in a place called Jacobstown, Doctor Henry, who I've heard could help him. I didn't want to tell you before now though, it's quite a trip and with a broken arm, well you certainly wouldn't have survived. I really wish I could go with you, but I don't have the time or resources to just up and leave at the moment."

The Courier patted Rex's head. "Oh, that's okay. I'll go."

"By yourself?" Julie looked surprised.

"Well, I got here by myself."

"Yes," said a now-familiar voice behind her, "and we all remember how that turned out."

The Courier turned to see Arcade peering in through the tent flap.

"I couldn't help overhearing your conversation, and now I can't help thinking that I'd hate to have patched this girl up, only to have her wander away and get eaten by a deathclaw. I've been to Jacobstown, and I think I know the best route…would you mind if I take her?"

"Well," Julie said, "this is unexpected. Especially from you. But of course, you're free to go. If you feel that you can do more in the name of the Followers by taking part in this journey, then I trust you. That is, if she wants you to go?"

"Well," Arcade said, glancing the Courier's way, "I'm not exactly the begging type, you'll have to answer this however you see fit, I suppose."

The Courier was about to protest that she could do fine on her own, and wasn't dead yet. Then she looked down at Rex, who sadly wagged his tail. What if something happened to him on the way because she was all alone?

"Do I need to mention again that I'm a doctor," Arcade added, "and that you seem to be in need of one with alarming regularity? You almost lost your toes last week alone to one of Henrietta's hooves."

"I wouldn't mind someone else," she admitted, "and I guess if I do get injured you didn't kill me last time so-"

"Oh, that sense of humor again, this trip will be interesting," Arcade replied dryly. "Anyways, I'll go get my things packed. Meet you at the Fort's entrance in two hours?"

The Courier nodded, and Arcade disappeared from the tent.

Julie smirked at her, hiding it with a hand in an attempt to be polite. "Hmm... Arcade decided to travel with you. You certainly won't be bored, I can guarantee that."

.o.O.o.

"It's been a while since I've walked this road," Arcade said as they headed off down the cracked and mangled bits of asphalt in a northerly direction. "So you like traveling alone?"

The Courier considered this for a moment, pulling her cowboy repeater out of the rifle scabbard at her back and eyeing a suspicious looking rock about a hundred feet from them. As she did, they passed silently under the derelict bones of a crumbling overpass, the brief respite of the shade it provided welcome in the growing morning warmth.

"I guess. It's always just been me and the road since I started out from Goodsprings. I repaired an eyebot outside of Primm though, and it followed me around for a while until I sent it back to help at the Mojave Express office there. I can go get it any time I need it, so I guess it's sorta my companion…but it really didn't say much."

"An eyebot?" Arcade replied, looking slightly startled. "Isn't that old Enclave tech? Aren't you a bit worried it might, you know, freak out one day and turn you into a smear on the roadway? Heck of a way to go, really. Don't you think?"

The girl gave him a sidelong glance, then sighed and shrugged, reholstering her rifle when Rex took off after a giant mole rat that had just leapt from the rock.

"He's just an eyebot, what's there to worry about? Really Arcade, I appreciate your concern but you need to lighten up. We've barely left New Vegas and you're already acting like my damned mom."

Arcade watched Rex tackle the mole rat and proceed to bite into its neck.

"Lighten up?" Arcade answered. "I'm not the one fostering friendships with pre-war tech that will get me shot at. But whatever, your funeral. I said I'd lead you to Jacobstown, not die doing it, all right?"

The Courier glanced up at him, sighed by way of reconciliation and shrugged a shoulder, then started toward the now limp mole rat that Rex was dragging toward them, the dog growling as he tugged at it.

"Well nobody's dying tonight, are they? Actually, Rex just caught us lunch! You've got a ripper right? Why don't you come help me saw some steaks off for the road and I'll shut my mouth. Aye Arcade-mom?"

.o.O.o.

The hours stretched on endlessly and in silence as they walked the broken road toward the distant hills. Various small buildings and a derelict power transfer station beckoned them to leave the slight safety and relative visibility that the highway provided to explore the surrounding countryside. But the Courier noticed constant hostile blips on her Pip-Boy whenever she would scan an area, and Arcade explained that sticking to the road had always been his best bet, even if they could prove more of a target.

It was late evening by the time they happened upon an abandoned farmstead and possible shelter for the night. The Courier was threading her way through a patch of struggling maize, watching the lights of Vegas flicker to life, when the first shot skidded over the shoulder of her duster and off into the twilight beyond.

"Geddown," Arcade yelped, pulling his plasma defender out as Rex took off into the shadows.

The Courier ducked, eyes casting about for any shelter in the dimness. Finding none, she pulled her cowboy repeater off her back and crouched, hoping the shadows would at least block some of her body from sight. Somewhere off ahead echoed the sounds of Rex tearing into someone, his muffled growls and the screams of a woman punctuating the silence.

Arcade moved to her shoulder, and then gestured her around the side of the barn before firing a plasma bolt off into the darkness. It briefly lit the interior of the barn, illuminating the dancing shadows of three figures, before plowing into the shoulder of one of them and sending the wounded individual crashing into the dirt. The Courier nodded and moved, her duster scraping against her calves and her breath ragged in the cooling air as she tried to skirt the barn as silently as possible.

A large shadow in leather armor got off a shot just seconds before she ducked against the frame of the barn, wood splintering as the blast hit above her head. She attempted to turn, but Arcade dropped her attacker, having moved in upon watching him flank her. The raider's body slid heavily against the side of the building, twitching faintly but definitely lifeless.

Inside the barn, Rex still fought with one of their attackers, the audible sounds of wood hitting metal, punctuated by a muffled whimper from Rex, drifting through the broken planks of the barn. The Courier poked the barrel of her rifle through a hole in the wall, and tried to peer into the gloom. The woman Rex had originally attacked lay broken and bleeding out against the sandy floor of the barn. But his second victim, the man that Arcade had knocked back, was swinging at Rex with a two-by-four pulled from the structure, his other arm held back as if useless. She took aim at the glint of his eyes against the starlight when cyberdog and man broke apart, and fired.

Rex set upon the fallen body for a moment, taking the raider's arm and shaking it in his mouth before stepping back, panting, when he realized nothing was happening. Whining once, he bounded around the side of the barn and back to the Courier as Arcade glanced about cautiously.

"Well, it looks like that was the last of them, then." He holstered his pistol and stood up.

The Courier slipped to her feet as well, dusting off her knees. "You know, it would be nice to find a decent place to crash once in a while that didn't have anything and everything already there wanting me dead."

"The Followers have a safehouse not far from here," Arcade answered. "We could keep going, stop there. It's only a couple miles away last I remember."

The Courier considered the barn, then walked over to the raider that had fallen against the side.

"These were Vipers," she said, noting the insignia of a broken snake notched into the leather of one of his shoulder guards. "I've fought a few of them. Pretty tenacious. Know anything about them I don't?"

"Only that they have some sort of shamanistic tribal hierarchy." Arcade joined her, then knelt to search the man's pockets for anything of value. "They aren't exactly the most friendly bunch, which you've undoubtedly noticed. They drink snake venom, worship some sort of giant serpent. You know, the usual post-apocalyptic-nonsensical-anarchist's-paradisiac-practice of religion we're all so familiar with now? Makes Caesar's god, Mars, look relatively tame."

The Courier had no idea how she felt about praying to a huge snake. She didn't really pray, except in muttered explicatives whenever somebody got off a lucky shot aimed at some portion of her body. Who was there to pray to? And if there was someone, she wouldn't fault them for abandoning this wreck of a world a long time ago. Additionally, who was Mars? She filed this away to ask later, under better circumstances.

She slipped her cowboy repeater back into its scabbard. "Let's just search them for anything of value then and head for the safehouse. I'll go check the inside of the barn."

"Hey!" Arcade said, suddenly pulling something small and metallic up into the moonlight. "You collect these?"

The Courier looked down at what he was holding out, before taking it into her own hand. It was a small bottlecap, lacquered blue, with a star on the top.

"Sunset Sarsaparilla stars? Sure, I wanna make a necklace. Isn't there a legend about those things?"

"That if you collect enough of them you win a prize? Supposedly. But really? If I were you I wouldn't hold my breath." He regained his feet as she stuck the cap into the bag at her belt. "I'll help you in the barn so we can get this over with. Lead on, Girl Friday?"

The Vipers had not been guarding much of value and so a few hours further into darkness the small band clustered in front of the door to a white adobe and steel building. On one side of the door was painted the Follower's customary 'cross-and-circle', and the Courier stared at it for a moment as Arcade searched through the pockets of his white coat until he found the key.

"You need new armor," she finally said.

"Huh?" Arcade said, looking up from putting the key into the lock. "And you think now is the time to discuss this?"

"Not really," she said as he opened the door and she slipped under his arm. "But I just noticed how much the Follower coats stand out, you can't stand out like that out here."

Arcade just shook his head and turned the key in the lock, biting his tongue against mentioning how much her lack of tact really helped her to make friends, and stand out, all at once.

The interior of the safehouse was not large, but it was more spacious than many of the actual homes the Courier had recently spent time in. She looked around at the well-organized main foyer, Rex crossing between her and Arcade and hopping up on one of the ancient blue chairs around the corner. He sighed, then rubbed his head against his paws before settling down and closing his eyes.

"Well the coats are white because most groups, excluding Fiends and some raiders, won't shoot at us. They know who the Followers are, and that we aren't out to take anything that belongs to them. Of course, I do see your point. But at this hour?"

The Courier flopped down into one of the beds in a room adjacent to the foyer. She didn't even bother to take off her duster, although she did start to kick her boots off the mattress.

"We should have taken some of that leather armor. One of those Vipers might have had something that fit you."

"Their bodies weren't even cold yet." Arcade took the bed across from her own, setting his duffle bag down under the frame and untying one of his boots.

"And therein lies the problem," the Courier said, turning her face to look at him. "We have to take what we can get out here, and you're forgetting that. When was the last time you actually LEFT the Fort? I mean, I know you think I'm just a kid...but I can actually survive out here."

He gave her a look that could've melted lead, and she turned over and away from him, scrunching into a ball and wishing she didn't hurt all over so she could go get her sleeping bag. But that seemed like too much work, since even taking off her coat felt impossible. She listened to the sounds of Arcade pulling off his boots, then the muffled swishing of his socks against the wooden floor as he left for the outhouse. The Courier was almost asleep when she felt something threadbare but warm fall over her, her sleeping bag, and hugged it close as the squeaking of springs at her back indicated Arcade crawling into his own bed.

.o.O.o.

Arcade awoke some span after sunrise with a confining roof over his head and one less blanket than he would have liked. He couldn't guess how long they'd been sleeping, but the Courier was still snoring, rather loudly, her sleeping bag smushed up into her face so that he couldn't even see how she was still breathing.

"Good morning, slacker."

He immediately flipped onto his side, reaching for his pistol under the bed before he remembered that the voice was actually familiar, and he was in a location that, barring further nuclear fallout, was likely safe.

"Doctor Luria?"

"Oh, got one right. I just stopped by to re-stock supplies, didn't expect to see you here."

Arcade swung his feet over the side of the bed and sat up, running a hand through his sandy-hued hair then down over his chin, realizing he should probably shave. The sounds of Luria opening the refrigerator behind him and moving things around echoed surprisingly loudly in the small room.

"You neither, actually," he replied. "Although, my reasons for being here are hardly duplicitous either."

"Usanagi said you'd left for the wider world, but I didn't believe it. Said you were going to Jacobstown because Julie sent you on some suicide mission with a girl and her robo-dog. Didn't think you'd ever find a woman you liked quite that much."

"She did nothing of the sort, Luria. The 'girl' in that bed happens to be the NCR's supposed 'Mojave Legend' and she's obsessed with getting a brain for Rex over there," he said, indicating with a wave toward the cyberdog that was watching Luria with interest. "Remember Rex? The King's dog? In any event, Jacobstown is our destination, yes. I guess I must feel partially responsible for this whole mess, I fixed her injuries after all."

"Or you have ulterior motives," Luria said, finishing with the fridge and throwing something into the trash can beside it. "Though far be it for me to question a doctor who'd rather work with plants than human beings."

Arcade remained silent.

"Oh," she said with a sigh. "Well I didn't come to be mean to you. I just came to restock things…and, well, since you're here, offer a word of warning. Other than the super mutant spook stories, I've heard from some of the troops patrolling outside of Ranger Station Foxtrot, that mercenaries are hanging out in that crater too. A couple NCR girls I deliver stimpaks to up there told me yesterday that they got hit on by two boys wearing salvaged Jackal armor. Both mercs were headed up the mountain. They weren't doing anything but being obnoxious, so the gals had to let them through. Watch yourself up there, okay?"

Arcade reached down to pull his glasses from their resting spot on his duffle bag. "Isn't that always the case out here on the road?"

"Yes," Luria said, "but it's been a while since you've traveled it. Just remember that."

Thanks: Thank you to my reviewer, Radio Free Death, who provided some important grammar critiques, and was of great help in reminding me to brush up on some of my usage that was slipping. Also, mucho kudos to Bishie Huntress, who is my go-to for much-needed editorial experience when it really counts. And to I'mWelsh, for the fav. and the follow! I hope all my readers are enjoying this, I can see the hits, so I know you're out there, and thank you!

I wanted to update two chapters this week due to lateness but I'm lacking in internet, so I apologize! Look for chapter 5 and 6 on the 31st, when I'll actually have internet. I'll also be grammatically updating the first three chapters to make them more readable. Don't worry, I'm not changing any plot points, just fixing some issues that were brought to my slacker-author-self's attention.