The smell of rotting flesh and sickly sweet datura quickly filled the area.

"Well, fuck me."

If Caesar had looked surprised at their arrival, he was shocked now. Six savored the sight. Caesar on his throne, surrounded by Praetorians, back to the great vista of New Vegas and the Mojave, quite possibly the most powerful man in thousands of miles. She found success when he thought it impossible. The old pride at pleasing him started to creep back in. The old hope. She tried to quash it. The look on his face was all she needed. Now he would reject her again, and she could leave with the knowledge she had done all she could.

"I truly did not expect this, Courier. How did you manage it? I assume Vulpes had something to do with it."

"You instructed me to refrain, my Lord-"

"He wasn't even there! I did this, I did!" Caesar raised an eyebrow, and Six nearly lost it. She managed to keep her voice below a shout, but only just. "I assassinated Kimball. I blew up the NCR monorail. I wiped out Forlorn Hope without help and destroyed the Brotherhood of Steel. I killed House and that's the only reason you are sitting in this room right now! Why would you think I couldn't handle one burned Legate?"

Silence fell, and as it lengthened Six worked hard to maintain eye contact with Caesar. It was pointless to argue with him, but she couldn't help it. Just like with Vulpes; Caesar got under her skin and she was livid before she knew what was happening. And at this point, she might as well keep being angry. To back down now would be weakness.

"Alright," Caesar said quietly. "Tell me, how did you do it, Courier?"

He didn't look like he believed her, but there was something in the tone of his voice that said he might.

"I slit his throat with a machete."

"And you came out uninjured?"

"Well, it's not like I offered him arena rules."

He laughed and leaned back in his chair. "You have done many great things for the Legion, Courier. I have never tried to hide or deny that. But perhaps I have been underestimating your usefulness. I have lost many Frumentarii to the Utah, but you came out unscathed. I expect that Graham never imagined a woman to be working for me, and that was instrumental to your success."

"Among other things," she muttered.

"Of course. If I had sent any other woman on this task, they would have failed, element of surprise or not. It is only you who continues to perform above my expectations."

Six rather doubted that. She had met many women she was confident would have been able to kill Graham just as easily. But it didn't seem like an issue to press just then.

"It makes me curious, Courier. Something I have long wondered. Did those bullets to the brain cut that weakness out of you, or were you always an exceptional specimen?"

The Praetorians stopped scanning the room and looked at her then, and she saw Vulpes turn and glance at her from the corner of her eye. But she had no answer for them.

"I don't know, my Lord. I have no memory of before."

"Yes, Arcade told me. Amnesia, he called it. But you remembered how to speak, and you couldn't have learned such skill with guns in a year. But Arcade says that your other memories are unlikely to return at this point. A shame. Maladies of the brain hold a special interest to me now."

A fascinating case study, Six was sure; Arcade certainly enjoyed theorizing about it. Apparently he found someone more willing than her to talk with him.

"Forgive me, Lord, but I am slightly more concerned with the future than the past."

He laughed. "You have proved your point, Courier. There is no reason for you to be kept inside washing clothes. There are a few things I think could do with your special touch. Come back tomorrow and I'll see what I have for you." He waved his hand at her, a dismissal. "Vulpes, stay."

"So, I'm a Frumentarius now?"

For the second time, Caesar was surprised, but he quickly recovered, and smiled wanly. "I should have foreseen that. Of course you want the title. And if I told you to think of yourself as one, that wouldn't be enough for you, would it?"

Vulpes gave her a hard look, but she ignored him. "No."

"Frumentarii report to Vulpes, not to me. Are you tiring of my company, Courier?"

There was a time, not long ago, when Six would have done or said anything to remain in Caesar's company. And there was still a small part of her that twinged at the words. But her infatuation had steadily declined since the battle at Hoover Dam, and her answer came easily. As would his, she supposed.

"I don't wish for special treatment, Lord Caesar. If it would please you and Vulpes, I would rather be a true Frumentarius than a false one."

Six could hear a clock ticking. She was very aware of the feel of the carpet beneath her boots, the color of the perfectly preserved sofa, the grain of the wood in the table between her and Caesar, the red of the Praetorians' garments. This was it. All his pretty words before meant nothing if he did not grant her this. And she couldn't focus on him in the silence. Instead she looked out of the window at the Mojave and waited.

"All right."

Her mind ground to a halt. She could hear him talking about accommodations, armor, pay rates, and she understood the words, but she couldn't concentrate on them. It worked. It actually worked. A small voice in the back of her mind said sadly that of course it worked this time; she didn't want it anymore.

After leaving the Lucky 38 Six walked slowly back to the Casa Madrid, watching her feet and her mind reeling too quickly to grasp the separate thoughts. It wasn't until an hour later, when Vulpes returned to the room to find her sitting on the bed, that she realized she hadn't meant to come back here. Chalk was waiting for her.

But that was before.

Vulpes smiled when he saw her. A real smile. It looked odd on him. "What success today!" He began to remove his outer armor and drop it on the ground. "I thought you were going to doom us when you refused an honorary title. Oh, I wanted to slap you. But this - I didn't let myself think that - oh, it was a gamble, but you won it."

He stood in front of her and grabbed her hands. She felt like she couldn't process his excitement; after the shock of the day and the unnerving strangeness of his open, demonstrative happiness she had nothing to say. She didn't even know the correct facial expression. He noticed her flat affect and his face fell into suspicion. The grip on her hands tightened minutely.

"You didn't want this, did you? You wanted to go back to your savage boyfriend secure in your failure." She didn't respond. He dropped her hands and walked to the window. "Oh, but maybe you are weak after all. You lost all your determination, your strength of mind, over an ignorant boy. And if it could be lost, perhaps you never had it at all."

She felt her anger rising, was about to stand, to shout, but suddenly she was exhausted. "Don't try to bait me, Vulpes, I'm not in the mood."

Maybe that was all he was trying to do, because he came and sat next to her on the bed. He looked as tired as she felt.

"What do you want?" he asked.

"I don't know," she answered.

"Tomorrow you will be fitted for armor. You can walk the streets of New Vegas in red." He paused. "Do you want that?"

"It means I have to give up-" Vulpes put a hand on her shoulder, and she stopped.

"Do you want that?" he asked again.

Six hesitated. "Yes."

"Good. Then you know what to do until tomorrow. Then you will make the next decision."

"I could decide to leave now. Chalk is waiting for me."

"And how long did you tell him to wait?"

She smiled slightly despite herself. "How did you know I gave him a time limit?"

"It's what you would do."

She rolled her eyes. "Three days."

"Then you have three days to make that decision. You might as well wear the armor for one of them."

She laid down on the bed, swinging her legs around Vulpes and rolling over to the far side. There was no bedroll in the room anymore, and it wasn't like they were strangers at sleeping near each other. She thought she would feel guilt as he settled next to her, and maybe there was a bit, but mostly she felt relieved. She had time.

When Vulpes' hand came hours later, seemingly unconsciously, to rest on her arm, she left it there.

Vulpes snatched the armorer's wrist and snarled at him. "Watch your hands or I'll cut them off."

"I have to get a feel for the curve, sir," he didn't quite leer at her, but it was close, "I've never made a breastplate like this before."

Vulpes eyed him, picking up a newly forged machete and fingering it. "Do what you must," he said simply.

The rest of the fitting passed with only minor groping, and as the metal cooled Vulpes took her to some scribes who were in charge of pay rates. It was incredibly exciting and incredibly dull at the same time.

They returned to pick up the armor, and Vulpes helped her put it on.

"It takes repetition to don and doff the armor quickly. The laces twist easily and the metal can stab into the skin if it's crooked."

When fully dressed, Six asked Vulpes to leave her. He seemed to understand she wanted to do this alone.

She returned to the room a few hours later.

"Was it everything you dreamed it would be?" he asked with a smirk.

She smiled at him. She was in a good mood. "Well, I dreamed I would be a Praetorian. No offence." Vulpes scoffed. "I got a lot of strange looks, but nothing more than that. Everyone I talked to was respectful. I mean, you could tell that some of them didn't mean it, but they still were."

"I should hope so. I announced last night that you were a fully fledged Frumentarius and anyone who had something to say about it was free to speak their mind from the top of a cross."

Six just smiled again. She supposed an order from a man was probably necessary for the soldiers to take her seriously right now. But it was progress. She had armor. She was getting paid. She was Legion.

Vulpes touched her waist, and she jumped back. "Did you want to keep it on?" He cocked his head to the side. "I will admit, you look very fetching in it and if you wanted to celebrate the day with some role-play I could see my way to agreeing."

"It wouldn't be role-playing; I am a Frumentarius. Unless you're suggesting you want to play the role of the dissolute whore this time."

Vulpes looked considering. Six threw a pillow at him.

She began untying the laces that held the breastplate and the backplate together.

"If you untie them completely it will be very time consuming to put it back together. Don't you remember how I would take it off?"

"I wasn't watching you undress, you know."

He chuckled and reached for her waist again. Six sighed and let his quick fingers loosen the ties. "Your loss," he said quietly.

"Is it?" she whispered.

"I suppose this way you get me to put my hands on you."

"Shut up. Anyway, all I have to do to get you to put your hands on me is to stop saying no."

He smirked. "You think that word is an impediment to me? Perhaps the answer is that I don't want to put my hands on you."

"He says, moments after putting his hands on me."

"And I didn't hear you say no."

"This is a bit different than-"

"Arms up."

She lifted her arms and he pulled the armor over her head. With only the red fabric she felt surprisingly cold and exposed. When he turned to set down the armor she quickly walked to the bed and got under the blanket. He joined her after removing his own armor.

"You're shivering."

"Tomorrow," she said. "Tomorrow I have to make more decisions."

"Yes," he answered.

She shuddered again, and he covered her arm with his own. It was warm. She wanted to burrow into the warmth, wrap him around her to ward off the morning. But that didn't make sense. The morning would come regardless.

And, she thought, it would probably send mixed signals to start cuddling. Best not.

She opted for regular clothing the next morning. No need to strap herself into Legion clothes if she decided to go back to Chalk. She told Vulpes she would be back in an hour and went to find Arcade. She didn't pretend to hope he would be happy to see her. But, perhaps selfishly, she wanted to talk to him before making her decision.

And also, in case this was the last time she saw him, she wanted to apologize. Perhaps that was also selfish. She doubted it would mean much to him.

She found him sitting in the clinic, reading a text. She smiled sadly before entering.

"I'm back, and I don't even have anything for you to fix," she said.

Arcade looked up. His face was blank. "Congratulations. On that, and on becoming a Frumentarius. Mission successful, eh?"

She sat next to him. "Sure."

"You don't sound very thrilled." He folded over a page and closed his book. "Having second thoughts? Finally?"

"You could say that."

"A bit late, now."

Six shrugged. "I could go. They wouldn't find me. Since Vulpes is in charge of the Frumentarii they wouldn't even be looking."

"That must be so nice for you," he said flatly.

She said nothing. It was a terrible idea to come here. She should give her apology and leave immediately.

"Though I find it difficult to imagine what would possibly convince you to leave after you achieved what you wanted."

"I'm sorry, Arcade, I shouldn't have come here. I know you don't like seeing me, and you have every right. I don't deserve to be able to talk to you."

He paused for a moment. "Well, it's not so bad." He leaned toward her and whispered, "There aren't a whole lot of people to talk to around here."

"I don't understand you, Arcade. You should hate me."

"Oh, I do hate you, don't worry. But honestly. There is no one to talk to. I kind of want to go back to being Caesar's private doctor. Aside from not being enslaved, obviously."

"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I don't know what I should've done, but I shouldn't have done that. It's unforgivable."

"Jeeze, what happened to you in the last two months? It's a whole new Six sitting next to me."

"I don't know. I lost faith in the Legion, after which they promoted me. It feels a lot like getting shot twice in the head."

"Well, you would know." Six smiled thinly. "Where would you go if you left?"

She shrugged. "South, probably."

"Just wandering?" she nodded. "Alone?" She bit her lip.

"There is someone who would travel with me. A tribal I met in the Utah. I don't know. I haven't really done well by him, either."

"Color me shocked."

"I'm sorry, I should go-"

"No, you don't get to make that decision. If you really are sorry, you'll sit here and listen to every barb I fling at you, and continue to talk to me. Because that's your punishment. It's not very dramatic, but my options are limited here."

She looked at him. His face was serious, with one eyebrow raised. She looked at the ground. She smiled a bit.

"So tell me, are you in love with this guy or something?" he asked.

Six laughed. "No. I am not. I just like him. And I feel responsible for him. I've done things that if he knew what they were he would hate me."

"What did you do?"

"I killed his mentor and then pretended he was still alive so I could convince him to travel with me."

"Ah. That's pretty shitty of you."

"I don't think his mentor was all that good of a guy, to be honest. And it was the mission. He had to die."

"Alright, Six. You clearly came here for advice. And I'm going to give it to you. This guy is probably better off without you." Six swallowed thickly. "You look like you know that already, so good. At least you're not completely stupid. If you have to lie to him and keep secrets to hang on to him, just to keep him from hating you, that's actually a bad thing. He doesn't deserve that. Now, I don't know everything about the situation, so I don't know if you should tell him the truth or not. But at the least you shouldn't go on travelling with him and keeping that secret. That's pretty horrific, Six."

She tried valiantly not to cry. It almost worked.

"Secondly, and I'm loathe to say more importantly because I don't want to do downplay the terrible things you're lying about, but still. You broke the Mojave, Six. You destroyed New Vegas and gave it to the Legion. They have it, now. But you've actually become a member of a society that oppresses and enslaves women. You can't run away from that. I think you have a responsibility to use it and try to continue the progress. In twenty years time, fifty, the Legion may be in control thousands of people, and they might look back at their history books and say, 'Can you believe we used to think women were worthless?' And if you get them to admit they were wrong about women, then eventually they might rethink their stance homosexuality, or slavery in general, or any of their terrible shit. You owe it to this world you helped create to try and make it the best version of itself possible."

"God, Arcade." She wiped her face on her sleeve. "You're so good. Why do you even bother talking to me?"

"Because you're a history-maker, Six. Whether you like it or not. And I shudder to think what the world could become if I let you go blundering around haphazardly."

"Arcade Gannon, saving the world one nudge at a time."

"Also, if you get to be big and powerful enough, you'll be able to arrange my freedom."

"My third wish is that the genie be set free?"

"No one wishes the genie free."

"Well, I already won New Vegas and became a member of the Legion. So if I ever get that third wish, I will."

That afternoon, Vulpes took her on a long, meandering walk through the buildings and fields outside Vegas. It was quiet and calming after her morning with Arcade. But it couldn't last much longer. The sun was a few hours from setting and she had to decide what to do about Chalk. Before this morning, she thought that even if she decided to stay Legion, she should go say goodbye to him. That it was the right thing to do. But after talking to Arcade she wondered if it would be better for him if he never saw her again. A goodbye would be a lie like the rest of their relationship.

Or, she could just travel with him and keep lying. It might be horrific, but if he never found out, it would never hurt him.

"It's time for another decision," Vulpes said.

"I suppose it is at that."

"If you chose to stay, I have a mission for you. You might be interested in it."

"What is it?"

Vulpes considered his words. "There is only so much I can tell you. If you decide to leave it isn't information you need to have."

"Well, what can you tell me?"

"Have you heard the Divide?"

She sucked in a quiet breath, shocked. "Yes."

"What have you heard?"

"Not much," she answered truthfully.

Vulpes paused. "And yet you were surprised when I mentioned it. Perhaps you've heard more than a little."

"I heard..." She swallowed. "I heard that there might be someone there. Someone who might know me somehow. From before." She shrugged, and Vulpes continued. "There are a lot of maybes. But I had thought about checking it out, when I got the time."

Vulpes smiled, but it looked more like a grimace. "Well," he said, "now you have the time."

"What would you want me to do there?"

"No. That's it. Decision time."

"Even if I leave, I can still go to the Divide."

"Indeed you could, but without more information than you have now my interests will be protected."

They came to a low, broken wall and Six sat down on it. Vulpes sat next to her. They didn't speak for a while. Six knew what her answer was. She knew it from the moment Caesar made her Frumentarii.

"I'm going to stay."

Vulpes wasted no time. "There is a man there, in the Divide, one who has worked as a Frumentarii for many years. I need a message brought to him."

Six thought about this.

"He worked as a courier, didn't he?"

"Yes."

"Ulysses."

He eyed her. "I suppose you heard that name from the Malpais Legate."

"Yes. He worked for you?"

"Yes. For a short while, anyway."

"So... If he did know me before, I mean, there's a possibility that you know that he knew me. Did you know?"

"I was promoted only shortly before the last time I saw him. He did not report to me for very long."

"Wait, he deserted?"

"He is on an extended mission. We do not keep in regular contact."

"Oh." Six paused. "You didn't answer my question, though."

He turned and looked at her.

"I had heard of you, yes."

Instant, hot fury coursed through her. She stood up and faced him. "And you never told me? Why not? What did you think gave you the right to keep that from me?" she shouted.

"You never gave me the impression that you cared about your past."

"Maybe because I never knew anything about it! We don't sit down every night and hold hands and talk about our fucking feelings! That's the worst excuse I ever heard."

"There are reasons I didn't tell you. There are reasons I never mention his existence to anyone. Most think he is dead or else travelling far, far away from here. If I told you I had heard of you, you would have wanted more information. You would have wanted to go find him. You weren't ready." Six said nothing, only fumed. "Besides, I heard of your existence. I do not believe he ever met you, either, simply heard of you. It was just a story of a rumor."

"At least I would have known that! That I was somebody that people told stories and rumors about! What were the stories? You don't just 'hear of someone's existence'. No one says, 'Hey, I heard about this girl that's alive somewhere,' and that's the end of it. What did he tell you?"

"You were a courier. You often worked in a place called the Divide. It was annexed by the NCR, and I sent Frumentarii, and later legionaries, to take control. That is how he learned of you."

Her eyes narrowed. "There's more than that. Your agent wouldn't put in a report that a courier worked there on occasion. That's not report-worthy."

Vulpes smiled. "It's not, is it? Your reports better include things like that. But you are correct that there is a bit more. It iseemed/i as though you might have been working for the NCR. Although as a courier it's possible you had no scruples whom you worked for, or perhaps the NCR tricked you in some way."

"Into doing what?"

He eyed her for a moment. "You blew it up."