A/N: Sorry for the delay of this chapter. Next week is testweek so the next couple of chapters will take a little longer, but hey, after that; Three weeks of freedom. Enjoy this chapter, cheers.

Monday September 6th, 2281 – 18:03, Camp McCarran

Martin's world was spinning when she woke up, her body numb and tired. She mumbled something incoherent to anyone around her, having no idea where she was or how she'd gotten there. She tried to sit up but her body wouldn't let her, so she stayed down.

"You're at camp McCarran." Sounded a familiar voice to her left. She opened her eyes and to her biggest surprise, she was still wearing her sunglasses. Boone was sitting next to the bed she was lying on, toying with a small object he held in his hands.

"Whaddya have there…" she slurred, trying to focus.

"A key. Fell out of that rat Benny's pocket, figured it might be of use later."

"Oh… cool…" she closed her eyes again and lay her head back on her pillow, sighing softly. "What happened…"

"I got you to the infirmary as soon as we got off the train. Your bullet wounds were pretty bad so they had to operate to get the bits of lead out. You're all drugged up, that's why you're so dull. We should be able to leave in a day or so, if you still want to check out what this key's good for." Martin only nodded, drawing shallow breaths. Her throat was dry and sore, her head still cloudy from the anaesthesia. Rex lay curled up at her feet as though her were guarding her in his sleep, his ears on full alert, or so it seemed.

"Boone…"

Boone looked up from the key in his hands. "Yeah?"

"Keep that key for now… We're goin' to Cottonwood Cove first." She took a deep breath and pushed herself upright by her arms, her entire body numb and stiff from the procedure. She leaned back against the tent and sighed. "We can always go back to New Vegas... that's not my main priority right now, and I'm hopin' it ain't your first either… I'll need you there, especially once we reach the Fort."

With the last two words she could feel the silence grow heavy. The Fort with just the three of them as manpower was basically a suicide mission, she knew that, and Boone knew it even better.

Boone was dumbstruck for a moment, staring at her with his mouth shut. He knew that he was ready, that assaulting the Fort was what he'd been waiting for.

"You have a daughter at home." He said, his voice stern and almost unforgiving.

"I spoke to Mitchell about this… it's something I have to do, as selfish as that may sound. I owe it to myself to have that peace of mind, I owe it to her that she can live without her mother having a mental breakdown at the sight of her own child."

"What if we don't make it. What if we don't survive that assault."

"Then I'll never forgive myself for that, but if I don't take that risk, I'll never forgive myself for that either."

"Do you want her to grow up without a par-"

"I have VERY WELL considered that." She barked, turning her head sharply. "Agree or disagree as much as you want, Boone. I need you there and you know it, now are you in or not?"

"Fine." He bristled.

"And then you ask me why 'I care so much, anyway'. Why do you?"

Boone clenched his jaw, his fists clenching as he looked back at her. Even with their eyes covered by sunglasses, the anger was obvious in both of their expressions. "It gets real goddamn lonely up in that dinosaur, too." He said, his fists unclenching. "I don't like the thought of losing another companion."

Something in Martin's expression seemed to soften at that, but she kept her composure. "You were out of line, but as far as that goes – I wouldn't ask you to have my back if I didn't think you were as damn capable of that as possible. I trust you, so for goddamn once, trust me as well, will ya?"
Boone kept his mouth shut but nodded, watching her lie down again and turning her back to him. He couldn't shake the feeling there was a lot more behind that remark than she let go, all of his head screaming that she'd been right.

The rest of the day went by pretty much the same. Both were silent and mentally preparing for their trip to the Legion's hideout. Boone wasn't in need of mental preparation, really, he had been doing that for years. He cleaned his rifle and repaired any minor issue he could find. Martin had been working out all day, trying to get her body working as it did before she got shot. He looked over to her rifle that was sitting on the bed, and found himself that it just didn't look right when it wasn't in her hands. As carefully as his trained hands could, he took the rifle in hand and took his rag, cleaning the barrel – even though that wasn't really necessary. He was fairly impressed by how well it had been preserved as he couldn't find any true, deep scratches in the shining metal. He was just cleaning her scope when he heard a loud throat clear in front of him, looking up to find Martin standing in front of him with her arms crossed.

"Mind tellin' me what you're doin' over there, Boone?"

"Just doin' you a favor."

"You do realize that if it weren't for you, you'd be dead by now."

Boone almost chuckled at that. "That so?"

"You're a sniper, you know more about guns than I do plus, if I trust you with my life I might as well trust you with my rifle."

"I'd trust you with my rifle."

She snorted and burst out laughing at that, Boone's confused expression only adding to her amusement. It took Boone another couple of moments to figure out what in the hell he'd said, then shaking his head and wishing he could pull his beret over his head.
"Not what I meant." He grumbled, continuing to focus on the sniper rifle in his hands. Martin continued laughing next to him for a while, before patting his back and getting up. "I know, I know. I'm just very immature."

The next day would be a long one, the hike to Cottonwood Cove taking forever. They stood on a cliff over the slave camp, watching out over the river and both savouring the last moments of peace before hell would break loose.

"I've been here before." Said Boone out of nowhere. "Any crimson, I'm takin' the shot. That won't be a problem, I suppose."

"Don't steal my kills and you'll live."

"Heh."

Martin checked her ammo before she turned and walked back to the road. She kept her weapon at ready when they walked down, because as soon as the first shot was fired, they'd be on a Suicide mission. She raised her scope to eye level and took a deep breath, kneeling down to keep her aim steady. A recruit walked right into her scope, and she took the shot. The bullet hit him right in the head and she grinned. Still got it.
It rang full alarm around the camp, Rex making a run for every faraway legion with a rifle in his hands. He'd been trained surprisingly well, she'd noticed that on their first day, when he'd only attack long range targets.
Boone took one shot after the other, his reloads swift and his aim more precise than ever – and that was saying something. She could guess why, maybe Carla had been here – maybe she'd died here, everything was possible, but unimportant to think about.
She ran another hundred feet, taking cover behind a crate. She shot another recruit in his dominant hand, knocking his 10mm straight out of it. Rex made quick work of said recruit, ripping him to pieces as both sharpshooters took care of the surrounding legionnaires. Martin had to reload as quick as possible, seeing as Boone was as well and they couldn't waste a second at a critical moment like this one. She heard a bullet hit her crate and she cursed under her breath, waiting for her opponent to reload. As soon as she heard even a second of silence in between the distinctive 9mm gunfire, she came up from behind the crate and shot the damn Decanus that had been shooting her.

Boone ran over to her and dropped himself in front of her, reloading his rifle as fast as he could. "There's a goddamn centurion near the HQ building… I can't reach him, but if he sees us, we're dead."

"I'm very willing to take that risk, are you?"

Boone cocked his gun and looked up at her. "Hell yeah."

She grinned at him and got up, taking a sprint to the nearest cover on the other side of the camp. Bullets caught up with her, missing her feet by a hair as she dove behind a barrel. She tried to find Boone, who had taken cover behind another crate not too far away from her. The centurion was in goddamn heavy armor, which meant that they'd have to hit him right in the face. Rex biting at the centurion's leg, who tried to kick away the animal while shooting at his enemies.
When Martin finally had a good aim of his face, his head exploded and she could hear Boone cock his gun again.

"What part of 'don't steal my kills' didn't you understand?" she asked, a faked anger in her voice. Boone huffed and got up from behind the crate, walking over to her.

"Told you I'd take the shot."

"You're such an ass." She nudged him with her elbow and smiled, inspecting Rex for damage. Luckily it was nothing that couldn't be fixed with some scrap metal and a stimpak.
"Now… let's check out those headquarters."

Once they were inside the headquarters, Martin had been scrambling through papers like a woman possessed. He was confused but kept his mouth shut, watching her toss one unimportant paper after the other into the air.

"Goddamn it… shit… where is it?" she yelled, kicking over a file cabinet.

"What're you looking for, anyway?"

"My husband's papers. You said it'd be like them to keep paperwork, so I want to know. What happened."

She sat down behind the desk and pulled out one of the drawers, flipping back one file after another until she reached the letter 'M'. Boone stood behind her as she tossed it on the desk, watching her shove papers out of the way until she had what she was looking for.

She read it aloud; "Martin, Cadell. 32 year old male. Status: … Deceased… Date of death: … 5 - 5 - 2275…?" her hands lowered, her body going limp for a moment. "That's hardly a week after he was taken from me…" she whispered. "He gave up…"