By the time they were clear of the Vegas ruins, dark clouds draped over the morning sky, cooling off the Mojave with an ominous heaviness.
The pair travelled along the cracked pavement and dirt roads in silence. Angel had her gauss rifle out and partially disassembled, working on a dampening coil with a pair of pliers as if completely unaware they were about to be on the most dangerous stretch of highway in the whole desert. Boone didn't appear nearly as nonchalant; constantly scouting ahead and checking trails, always coiled like a snake ready to strike. Since leaving Westside he hadn't taken a single moment to relax.
Eventually though, everyone gets bored.
"So why do you carry that thing around, anyway?" He asks out of the blue after coming back from one of his recons.
The question brought Angel out of her daydream. She was thinking of her father and the rest of her family- hoping they were still safe five thousand miles away.
Hoping someday, she would be able to see them again.
"What- you mean this little guy?" Angel pushes the thoughts out of her head as she replies, eyeing up and down the rifle's battered exterior with a hint of affection.
"I don't really know. I've had it since I left home. Survived my first battle with it, and it never left my side... I guess the rest is history." Over time she'd made countless modifications to the old gauss cannon. It was one of the only reminders of her past, forcing her to remember what she had lost, and what she gained along the way.
"Seems like a lot of extra weight for a woman."
"Are you implying you want to carry it for me?" She asks sarcastically.
"Not exactly."
Angel smiled to herself. Boone was the only person she knew who called her a woman. To everyone else it was 'girl' or 'child', even though she was twenty seven, almost twenty eight. Of course she didn't blame anyone for it; she could only blame her parents for the strange ageless beauty she possessed.
"Well, if you really need to know, it only weighs thirty kilos… plus it's the only man in my life who hasn't let me down yet," she finishes with a sly wink.
"Hey.." Boone shoots back in an offended tone, and Angel burst out laughing, her soft voice carrying over the hills ahead of them.
"I'm just kidding, you're not all that bad."
Boone didn't respond, cold blue eyes focused on something in the distance. His 'good' mood vanished as quick as it always did.
For a long moment she studied him. Those eyes reminded Angel of someone, but at that moment she couldn't quite remember who. Sometimes it was hard to remember. Ever since Goodsprings, Angel's memories had gradually returned to her, but many of them were muddled and unclear. Mixing together with her dreams until she couldn't tell one from the other. Her physical wounds may have completely healed- but mentally, everything was still fresh.
Another mile down the dusty, winding dirt road, a gulf opens up in the clouds, letting sunshine pour through and bathing the landscape in gold. Suddenly a glimmer catches her eye.
"Hang on," she motions to Boone, squinting her eyes and peering down the road in the direction it came from. Probably nothing, but it never hurt to check- Angel learned what happened to those who weren't fully aware of their surroundings while traversing the Mojave; she'd nearly paid the ultimate price herself.
Looking behind her she sees that Boone already noticed the reflecting light, his rifle at the ready and aimed at the abandoned homestead. "Right behind you."
With her gauss rifle slung over her shoulder, Angel crosses the short span of packed dirt, free hand on the 10mm in her trenchcoat. The wind picks up and whips at her back as she walks up to the front portico and sticks her head inside the open doorway. No one's home- just as she thought. Stepping over a splintered fence in the house's side yard, she goes around back-
and can only stare at what she finds.
The corpse of a headless ghoul lies in a twisted heap, covered in flies and dried blood. Bullet holes riddle its body, and six shells are scattered in a loose pile three feet away. Angel felt her stomach lurch; the sight is worse than the smell.. like some kind of brutal execution taken too far. She'd seen worse, much worse, but something about it deeply unsettled her...
That's when she sees it. The gold coin right in front of her.
For a second Angel stands there, curious. So that's where the light came from. She'd never seen a coin quite like it before, yet somehow it held a vague sense of familiarity. She bends down and picks it up. The mysterious coin glimmers in her hand, a set of scales engraved into its otherwise flawless surface, and the depiction of a serpent intertwined on the beam that separates them. Again, the same feeling of hazy recollection. She turns the coin over.
And all at once it came flooding back.
A kaleidoscope of memories crashed into her like an ocean. Stifling. Suffocating... and she was lost in the tide. For a moment it was impossible to even breathe as she struggled to reach the surface, the flood of images threatening to consume her- but eventually Angel broke through, and she rode the waves. Waves of forgotten people, places, and events. Every repressed memory she thought she'd never come to know again slowly clicked into place.
She remembered why she left Chicago. Her journey out west, and how everything went wrong. How she fell in love and could only watch helplessly as her entire world was torn apart. She remembered what happened the last day of the war. The betrayal. How she was forced into it by those she thought were her allies, but knew she couldn't do it. So she ran...
And suddenly she was staring right at him. Staring right at those beautiful blue eyes.
No…
Angel felt tears well up before she went completely numb. Her gauss rifle hit the ground in a plume of dust as she fell to her knees. No. Her body trembled, but she didn't notice; she wasn't even aware of Boone coming up behind her.
"Angel…"
She wanted to scream, but nothing came out. All that was left inside her was a deep sadness that echoed with the emptiness. Tears streamed down her face, onto the coin she still held in her hand.
Slowly, she stands up and opens her eyes toward the sky.
No…
Boone still stood behind her, face twisting with confusion as much as worry. Not sure what else to do he reaches out a hand and places it on her shoulder, "Angel-"
"Get away from me!" She yells, lashing out and swinging at him, overwhelmed with a white-hot flash of anger. Boone grabs her wrists and holds her back-
"Hey! What's gotten into you?"
He holds her there for a minute, and she looks into his eyes. The anger leaves her almost instantly. Resigned, Angel falls into him and buries her head in his chest, sobbing uncontrollably. Boone wraps his arms around her in silent understanding, feeling her body shake against his. As strange as it was to see her like this, something about it comforted him, too.
They stood embraced like that for awhile. Eventually Angel stopped crying, her shaking lessened, and she pulled back, looking at him again.
"I'm sorry," she said weakly.
"It's okay. We should get out of here."
"Yeah, let's go." She picks her gauss rifle up off the ground and dusts it off.
Before they leave and get back on the road, Angel took one last look at the gold coin. He'd given her a coin just like it once. But now he was after her, and she would do whatever it took to survive; even it it meant…
Discarding that train of thought, she slips the coin into her pocket and they leave the homestead behind.