Six blinked awake, dazzled by the morning sunlight flooding in through the broken shutters of the dingy Westside room. She heard the bathroom door click open and glimpsed Boone padding back in from the shower, steam clouding the air.

Damn it. The big lug had probably used up all the hot water.

Six might've forgiven Boone if he'd been nice enough to walk out with just a towel knotted around his hips and give her a bit of entertainment. Unfortunately, he dashed her hopes on that count too, emerging fully clothed, as if he bathed in camo pants and those insufferably clingy T-shirts of his, the damp white cotton outlining the muscles of his chest and back in a most promising fashion.

Of course, she just wanted to look, not touch. Observing a magnificent male physique was permissible. Enjoying some scenic anatomy from a safe distance and maybe indulging in a fantasy or two was different from trying to throw herself at said body - particularly when it was attached to the winning personality of Craig Boone, the most unfriendly, taciturn and discouraging son-of-a-bitch west of the Colorado.

Six lowered her eyelids and pretended to be asleep, her face half-covered by the blankets. Really, she was intent on watching Boone run himself ragged, pushing himself through his morning exercises.

He'd observed the same routine since they'd first hit the road. He hauled himself up at daybreak to take care of his business. When they had the benefit of a room, he scuffled around the washroom, fogging up the mirror with his scalding-hot showers, pissing loudly and leaving the toilet seat up just so there wasn't any doubt that he had a dick between his legs.

Once Boone had decided it was mission accomplished on that front, he shielded his eyes behind sunglasses, shoved his beret on his head and set to meeting his daily quota of push-ups, his hands splayed against the hard wood floor, his back so straight Six could have used him for a coffee table.

He did so many reps she lost count and all the while, he seethed with anger, his panted breaths coming as a steady rhythm, one that might almost have been reassuring if she hadn't known he was suffering. He did jackknifes, crunches, sit-ups and even chin-ups, when he could find something to approximate a bar, performing each exercise with the same relentless fury, the grim resolve of a man taking his punishment.

When Boone finished, he crept over to his pack, eased open the zipper and rummaged around in there until he found his stash. Six didn't have to see the pills to know he was slamming back a Buff-out.

It was hard to broach the topic. She wanted to stop him, maybe help the guy out, but Boone wasn't somebody you could just sit down for a heart-to-heart. He didn't want to talk about it and he didn't want anyone's help – in fact, he would barely tolerate her concern.

Six had considered just stealing his stash one day when he wasn't looking and flushing it down the toilet. Boone probably would've been too embarrassed to call her out on it, so she wouldn't have had to worry about trouble there. Still, it was a short-term solution and chems were everywhere in North Vegas. If she didn't get things worked out properly, it wouldn't be long until he found the caps to buy himself some more.

She finally saw her chance while they were hunting fiends through the ruins northwest of Camp McCarran. Six had been scrounging through a dead fiend's clothes, a sad, dirty business, when she discovered a tab of Buff-out tucked in the back pocket of his hide trousers.

Turning, she held it out to Boone. "Here. I figured you might want this."

He folded his arms over his broad chest, refusing to take the bait.

"And what makes you think that?"

"Because you've been popping a tab every morning since we got out of Boulder City. That supply isn't going to last forever."

He scowled. "Get that shit out of my face."

"Alright," Six made a great display of slipping it into her pack. "I'll stick it right in here. In case you're planning on sneaking back for it later. I wouldn't blame you for changing your mind. The stuff's very addictive. But I guess you're already an expert on that."

"Mind your own goddamn business."

"Look, as far as I'm concerned, the day we started traveling together, you made it my business. You think I haven't noticed?"

"Hmf."

"And Buff-out too, for fuck's sake. Turns you aggressive, cuts your impulse control, clouds your thinking. Doesn't exactly make for effective sniping."

Boone looked away, squinting at the horizon. "I know."

"So, yeah, the way I see it, every time you dose up on that shit, you're doing the Legion a favour."

His frown deepened. "Yeah. Maybe."

"And that's the way you want it to be?"

He shrugged, casting his eyes down to the dirt.

"That's no answer," she said.

"You can quit the angel of mercy routine. I'm not looking to be saved."

She threw her hands up in frustration, giving them an emphatic shake.

"Do you see any wings sprouting out my back? I'm not polishing my halo here. I'm just telling you to figure out your goddamn priorities. You think it's a good idea to yourself up on Buff-out like a blockhead? Pop back those tabs 'til you can't shoot straight? You want to do that, you go right a-fucking-head, but don't pretend you're here to kill Legion."

"I'm not pretending. Never lied to you."

"No. You never lie. You just sneak around and hide and put things off, tell me it's none of my goddamn business. Hell, if you bothered to lie, at least it'd show you were trying to be polite about it."

Six could have gone on venting at him, but she could feel herself starting to sputter. Besides, the angrier she became, more complacent Boone appeared, as if he didn't mind the abuse. In fact, the way he was taking it, it seemed as if he was almost...savouring it, as if he figured it was exactly what he deserved. She wasn't sure she liked that.

"Is that it?"

She sighed. "No, that's not it. Boone, if you want, I can get you some Fixer. We can mix it with the Buff-out then you can work yourself down in doses. You're still going to get a bit of withdrawal, but it won't be anything too bad. You don't need to messing yourself up on that shit."

The exhaustion in her tone appeared to give him pause.

"We'll see. Could be you got a point. Still doesn't mean I need an intervention. If I want to stop, I'll cut it out. Simple as that."

That was vintage Boone, acting like everything was a do-it-yourself project. God forbid he admit to needing a little help every once in a while.

Six decided to wait and let him ponder it over. Maybe he'd come around to the idea. She sure as hell hoped so, because as amiable as he was on the average day, he was going to be a real delight going cold turkey.

She switched on the radio to fill the tense silence that followed, listening to the dulcet tones of Mr. New Vegas. The man was a bit smarmy, but he knew how to lighten her mood. His choice of tunes was also a lot swankier than the crooning and yodeling on Mojave Radio or those crazy mutants yammering away on the Black Mountain station.

It took until the next afternoon for Boone quit moping around and make up his mind. She was sitting down on the stoop outside their boarding house, watching a couple of neighbourhood folks working in the community garden. He hunkered down beside her on the concrete steps, his shoulder nudging hers as he moved to rest his arms against his knees.

She was surprised when he didn't flinch away at the accidental contact. Had he finally figured out that she didn't have any communicable diseases? Was he finally convinced that she wasn't going to misinterpret a casual touch as some kind of come-on? The way he acted around her, she might've thought the Legion had turned her into some sort of irredeemable swamp monster – thankfully, she had access to mirrors every once in a while and was capable of seeing that she was scarred, certainly, but still attractive...maybe even pretty, if she ever bothered to get herself gussied up.

"Hey. So I thought about it."

It was a pretty vague statement, but Six caught the gist of what he was talking about.

"And?"

"You were right. Have to stay effective. Figure the, uh, Fixer can't hurt."

Six knew better than to smile or to show any signs of relief. Boone would immediately think it was smug, that she thought she knew better than him, or worse, he'd assume that she was having a joke at his expense.

Hopefully, once he'd flushed the Buff-out out of his system, he wouldn't be so paranoid, but Six wasn't too optimistic on that point. There was a place where the chems stopped and Boone began and it was likely that some of that mistrust was just in his nature.

She did a little asking around and found out there was a neighbourhood on the east end of New Vegas that specialized in producing and dispensing Fixer. Old Mormon Fort, they called it, and for some reason, the name sounded familiar, like something she'd dreamed and forgotten upon waking. Six decided they'd better head to this Freeside place and figure it out.

Freeside was livelier than sleepy, rundown old Westside, with flashing lights and dilapidated marquees that were a pale echo of the famed glamour of the Strip. Street toughs, merchants and criers lined the streets, hawking protection services, meats of questionable origin or places to get a good drink and a half-decent lay.

Six wasn't looking for any of this local colour so she kept right on walking. Boone trailed her with the same guilty, gut-sick expression he'd been wearing for the last two days, since she'd called him out on the Buff-out.

Old Mormon Fort was a primitive structure of wood and stone yet sturdier than most of the other buildings in Freeside. It seemed to come from an age of certainty, its rough-hewn walls built to last the centuries.

Six stopped short at the front gates, a spike of panic jabbing at her throat. She clenched her hands into fists to keep them from shaking.

Boone's voice behind her, even more gravelly than usual. "You alright?"

She didn't know why she was so upset. If anything, Boone was the one who had the right to be nervous.

"You ever feel like somebody's walking on your grave?"

"More often than you'd know."

There was something about the place that reminded Six of another Fort, one she didn't want to enter unless she was armed to the teeth and out for blood. Mastering herself, she managed to push open the wooden gate, walking straight towards a security barricade.

A female ghoul in a cowboy hat looked her up and down, a funny expression on her shrivelled grey face.

"You're late."

She turned around, hollering towards a semi-circle of dusty white tents.

"Dr. Farkis! Doc! Come see what the nightstalkers dragged in."

Six glanced around, a little frantic now. The hard glint of the afternoon sun sliced into her eyes.

Boone stared at her. "What's going on? What aren't you telling me?"

"Whatever it is, I'd tell you if I knew."

A woman strode up to them, her spiky black mohawk a strange contrast to the pristine white lab coat that distinguished all the Followers of the Apocalypse. She saw Six and her eyebrows nearly jolted up to her hairline.

"Dr. Margaret O'Shaughnessy? Dr. Julie Farkis. We expected you months ago."

Was that her name? It plucked a familiar chord for Six, like Old Mormon Fort, like the Followers themselves.

"I...I'm a courier. You were expecting a delivery?"

Julie shook her head. "Are you all right? You seem confused."

"I had an accident. I survived. A lot of my memories...didn't. This place - it seems like somewhere I should know, but nothing's coming back."

"Hm. Maybe you ought to look over the file they sent from Temperance Hills. There's a photo attached... and well, the resemblance is uncanny."

Julie darted a glance back to a lanky blonde man wearing thick black specs and a know-it-all expression. He'd been loitering around from the start, pretending to be absorbed in a ragged Pre-War tome, although Six was pretty sure he was just eavesdropping.

"Arcade, can go you pull the file, please?"

"Sure thing."

Arcade rushed back towards the white tents, lab coat flapping at his heels.

He returned with a file about a quarter of an inch thick. As he placed the file in her hands, he smiled and his eyes crinkled a little behind his glasses. Somehow, Six had the distinct impression he'd already skimmed through all her papers.

Six gave Arcade a nod of thanks and opened the file. She read the dossier like it was a storybook the nice folks in the lab coats had made up to amuse her.

Once upon time, there was a doctor named Margaret Ellen O'Shaughnessy, 28 years of age, unmarried and in good health. Educated by the Followers, her medical training and residency had been completed at Temperance Hills Clinic, NCR territory.

She'd lived a pleasant life, but she was sometimes bored with the mundane existence of a small town in a civilized country. She wanted adventure and a purpose, the thrill of the frontier, so one day, she'd struck out on a journey towards the Mojave Wasteland and New Vegas, the fabled neon oasis of the east...

Margaret had made the unfortunate error of leaving her emergency contact form blank. An innocent mistake, surely. She'd likely never imagined anyone would need it.

The woman shown in the photograph clipped to the top of Margaret's file had the same features as Six, but there was less wariness behind her eyes and her lips already curved into the beginnings of a smile, despite the fact they'd probably instructed her to keep a straight face. If Margaret could have looked into the future and known that somebody would hunt her down and pump two bullets into her head, would she still have worn that bemused expression?

Six stared at her own face, simultaneously so familiar and so foreign. This woman in the picture, she'd taken courier jobs to support herself during her training. They'd been a lark, a way to meet new people, see new places and walk away with a surprisingly decent payday. She'd been lucky all her life – until she wasn't. That's where Margaret had ended and Six had begun, born out of a shallow grave in Goodsprings Cemetery.

Six handed the file back to Arcade.

He glanced at it, blinking. "Uh, not to look a gift brahmin in the mouth, but you probably need this more than I do."

"I don't. That's not me. Not anymore."

Julie offered her the same look of concern she'd probably used on a hundred Freeside junkies.

"What happened to you on the way here? The last we heard word of you, you'd stopped in to pick up a package in Primm. One more delivery."

Margaret had probably figured it'd be easy work. Drop the chip off at the gates of the Strip and mosey on over to her new job with a sense of accomplishment and a fistful of caps. Six knew better.

"I wound up catching two bullets to the head. When I got back on my feet, I happened to stumble into Nipton. I don't suppose you've heard about Nipton?

Julie frowned. "The Legion razed the place to the ground. People were saying they slaughtered the whole town."

"Not the whole town," Six said. "There was a lottery. First prize winner walked away with his life. Second place winner, they busted his legs with a tire-iron. They took some slaves too. I was one. Hauled me out to the Fort and gave me the benefit of some good-old fashioned Roman hospitality."

Arcade gave her an inquisitive look. "It's fortunate you survived. Per aspera ad astra."

Through adversity to the stars. The man's accent was execrable. Vulpes would have had him whipped from here to Phoenix for such desecration of his native tongue.

Of course, Boone couldn't differentiate good Latin from bad stuff learned phonetically – all he heard was Legion.

He scowled at Arcade as if he expected the man would throw off his lab coat to reveal full centurion armor and the Mark of Caesar. "Where'd you pick that up?"

Arcade rolled his eyes. "Really, it's not what you're thinking. I read. Books. Funny habit, I know. Still, as far as I can tell, it doesn't make me a machete-wielding psychopath. So maybe you can cool your jets? Just a bit?"

Julie rewarded her coworker's witticisms with an admonishing look. She turned back to Six, putting on her most sympathetic tones. "You know, if you wanted to stay here for a while, we'd be happy to have you. You wouldn't have to see patients. You could just take some time to rest."

Six shook her head. The idea of being the Followers' pet project, another one of their saintly missions, made her feel like clawing the walls.

"No thanks. I appreciate the offer, but I've got other business to attend to."

Arcade looked baffled.

"What kind of business are we talking about here? Meetings with heads of state? Clandestine missions to save the world? Because, frankly, if I'd just escaped from Fortification Hill, I'd probably be spending at least a couple weeks rocking back and forth in the fetal position."

Julie reeled around, snatching the file out of Arcade's hands in undisguised annoyance. She passed it to Six.

"Just consider it, okay? You're welcome here, Dr., whenever you like. Anyway, I'm in the midst of a consultation, but I hope we can talk again soon."

Julie bustled off towards the Fort's guard tower, probably glad for the brief reprieve from having to deal with an amnesiac former doctor, a surly-looking veteran and her socially awkward colleague.

The aforementioned socially awkward colleague watched her departure with a rueful expression, as if well-aware that his attempts at levity had not been appreciated. Arcade nervously jammed his hands into the pockets of his lab coat.

"So... are you planning to take her up on that offer? Consider sticking around for a bit?"

Six had no interest in hanging around to be Julie Farkis' science fair project.

"I appreciate it, but none of you owe me anything. We just came here to pick up a few supplies, not to give you all some colossal guilt-trip."

Arcade smirked. "Aw, really? But guilt is what we Followers do. It's our lifestyle."

"Give us some Fixer and we'll be on our way," Boone said gruffly.

"Fixer, huh?" Arcade pushed his glasses a little further up his nose. "And there's another reason to stick around. Here in scenic Freeside, Fixer is our specialty."

Boone glowered at him, his usual misanthropy only intensified by embarrassment. Six was almost certain that if the sniper's eye had fired bullets, Arcade would no longer be in possession of a head.

"Hmn. You have a job description? Or are you just the asshole in residence?"

"The asshole Researcher in residence, actually," Arcade replied. "Not that I, um, actually research assholes. That would be proctology. In truth, I study the medical applications for various desert plants. And try to avoid talking to patients. For obvious reasons."

Six obliged him with a chuckle. Boone didn't.

When Arcade bolted off in search of Fixer, Six turned to find Boone looking at her. She'd become significantly better at reading his hieroglyph of a face but she still couldn't tell the difference between when he was pissed off and when he was just plain hurt. So far as she could tell, neither could he.

"Never told me about Nipton."

"You never asked," she said. "I didn't think you cared."

He sighed. "Well, you thought wrong. What'd you see in that file?"

She told him about Margaret, who she was, where she'd come from.

"So you're a doctor?" he said. "Figures. You're good at that stuff. Couldn't have just pulled it out of thin air."

"No, I guess I couldn't have."

"This new name of yours – it's going to take me a while to get used to."

He sounded almost apologetic, although she couldn't imagine why. She wasn't sure she liked Old Mormon Fort. Everybody around here wanted to coddle her like some bloody victim or strap her onto a gurney and declare her a patient.

"Don't bother. I'm Six. Everything else is ancient history. Another person's life. It doesn't matter now."

"You sure?"

"Yeah. Give me a cigarette, will you?"

"You don't smoke."

"I do right now."

He slid two cigarettes out of his pack, holding them between his lips as he lit them. He kept one and passed the other to her, cupping a hand around the lit butt to protect it from the breeze.

Six took a long drag on the cigarette then crouched down, setting her dossier on the ground. She set the lit cigarette on top of it, watching as the flame spread from the butt to the paper, a pyre burning the remains of Dr. Margaret O'Shaughnessy.

"Hmn," Boone said, and for once, that seemed to be all the eloquence that was required.

Somehow, she'd known that he, of all people, would understand.