In March, Boone walked with Courier as spring began the weather started to get hotter in the Mojave. She took him north past the strip, past Westside and Fremont all the way to the mountains, where abandoned fields of corn and gardens of barrel cacti were abundant.
Her Pipboy was playing a broadcast about some caravan company going to New Canaan. Boone heard about it before, and it was typical that they were headed there in the spring. Something about the whole thing gave him a bad feeling. As soon as she finished physiotherapy for her arm with Arcade, she goes off and follows some weird broadcast. It just wasn't right.
Even when she left, Carla didn't seem too keen on him following her. It was also very uncharacteristic of her to not leave with Rex or ED-E, who was just recently been repaired and upgraded by the Followers. Whatever she had planned, strange was written all over it.
After combing through the mountainside, the courier led Boone into a cave. In the cave was a group of people, all of which seemed geared up and ready to go. Carla spoke with the man who seemed to be running things, and Boone had the feeling that he was going to be left behind.
"You can bring your companion, the more the merrier."
She looked at Boone with a dull, brassy look in her eyes. "No, I don't want to risk it, plus I'm all the skill you'll need." She jeered and winked at the man, and Boone stifled a grunt from the blow.
'What the hell is she doing?' He thought, fighting off the sting of rejection.
The courier finished the deal, and the man in charge announced they were leaving right away. She came over to Boone and wrapped her arms around him. He returned the gesture, and it was obvious he was distressed.
"I need to stop depending on you." Her words were like ice; they were cold and it burned.
"Carla..."
"I want to impress you and the others."
Boone squeezed her against him, confining her to his embrace. He couldn't find the words to tell her how much he admired her, how nobody else accepted her as much as him.
He fretfully whispered to her as she tightened her embrace around him too.
"I'll see you soon."
A nervous chuckle answered him. "Yeah, see you soon."
She left. A little bit of him went with her.
After losing track of time at the presidential suite, Boone slept in her bed awaiting her return, but as much as he tried to keep his worries away he started dreaming less about the original Bitter Springs incident and more about finding her almost lifeless body, lying beaten and broken.
One night, he felt a small frame crawl into the bed and curl up against him.
The following morning, Courier led him to another place hidden in the mountains, this time just a little ways from Primm.
"See you soon." He said as she left him again. There were busses covered in messages for someone called Courier Six, it made him uneasy due to their aggressive nature.
She came back in the early morning after word spread of the decimation of the legion camp Dry Wells, and Boone was the only one awake in the suite. She stood in the elevator with a sullen expression that didn't change when he greeted her.
Carla led him south past Nipton to an old drive in, where a satellite laid in the broken ground with its pieces laying all over the old cement. They spent the day sitting in the sun, and Boone couldn't ask her what happened in her last expedition.
"How long has it been?" He grumbled as the sun began to set.
"Almost a month. I was at Zion for two weeks and The Divide for eight days." She fiddled with her Pipboy, avoiding having to look at Boone.
"Did you hear about what happened to Dry Wells?" Boone nodded to the east.
"I nuked it myself." She pompously replied. Boone smiled halfway before turning to look at her.
"Wish I could have seen it." He crossed his arms and waited for her to say something witty like she always did, but instead she stayed quiet and he found himself wanting to break down her walls instead of the other way around.
After a while, he asked her another question. "What are we doing here?"
"I'm leaving again."
Boone sighed.
She tucked her legs between her arms. "I'm sorry if I'm being... cold. I just met somebody and I couldn't convince him to change his mind about the Mojave and the NCR. I couldn't convince him to think otherwise so I had to kill him. I'm just a little upset."
Boone shuffled closer to her.
"Then stay." He said solemnly.
"I need to rest."
She moved to his side and rested her head on his shoulder, and soon enough she was asleep. Her Pipboy alarm went off half an hour before midnight, and she sent Boone back to the Lucky 38.
Before he left he said, "See you soon."
It must have been four weeks before she got back. Boone spent time in the penthouse shooting House's stuff and drinking his fine wines and high end liquor that maintained their labels in that glorified time capsule.
"There you are." She stood at the top of the staircase, looking amused at the messy sight ahead of her.
"You sure know how to respect a dead guy's sanctuary." She snidely said as she walked down to greet him.
"Are we leaving?" Boone was starting to hope she would say no.
"I only need to go to one more place."
She looked very haggard and unkempt. Her hair had grown and she seemed like a completely different person, like a different type of wild child amongst the crazy people in the wasteland. The girl used to be very vain about her appearance and would always cut her hair if it became too unruly. She even began to carry herself differently, and was proud in a different way contrasted to her old extreme affinity for herself and herself only.
'Who are you?' He thought, but it was her. It was the Carla he knew, it was the Courier shedding her old self into something new.
He escorted her to a Brotherhood bunker and she didn't let him come inside. Courier gave him a kiss on the lips before leaving, and with his lips brushing against hers he whispered,
"See you soon."
