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After a quick tour of Gomorrah to check out the floor plans and a stop by the suspicious stealth weapon vendor down the street, Boone was itching to get his hands on an attendant and their uniform. Blending in with the crowds of NCR soldiers that ran in and stumbled out of the strip was simple enough, but to get very far inside of Gomorrah, he'd need to disguise himself as one of the workers, not a patron. There was an unmonitored patio area out back where the workers went to take their smoke breaks, one hooker informed him, and for the right price, she was willing to lead an unsuspecting Omerta thug right into Boone's sights.

And so Boone waited as he had a hundred times before: crouched, hidden and gun to shoulder. And waiting had the terrible tendency of making a man think when all he wanted to do was go blank and focus on that future trigger pull. But the stillness in his sights inspired in him thoughts of his past, of other missions, of Dahlia. Memories and emotions so big, they couldn't be pushed out of his mind.

Boone remembered the first night he didn't dream of Bittersprings.

It was six weeks after joining up with Dahlia. She had asked too many questions at first, eagerly prodding the silent soldier at every spare moment. In-between gunshots and rounded corners, in the middle of Viper raids and gecko hunts—even once while they attempted to sneak past a deathclaw nest.

The questions seemed trivial at first: favorite color, middle name, whether or not he liked crunchy mutfruit (her favorite) and how well done he liked his mirelurk meat (extremely well done). Then she moved on to questions like, why aren't you and Manny friends anymore? Why did you leave the NCR? Why didn't you go looking for your wife? Real hard-hitters that left Boone sputtering for a response. She didn't push the subjects, just threw them out there like curve balls were her specialty.

Six weeks of questions and not-so-sneaky side glances left Boone weak, vulnerable to her openness. That night, against the silhouette of the desert sky, she sat with her knees drawn up to her chest and the fire reflecting in her eyes, asking. Her voice was tinged with sadness as she said, Your wife, she must have been beautiful, pushing her tangled hair behind her ears. Carla, was it? What was she like, Boone?

He opened his mouth to speak, but the images were blurred. Carla, all dressed up and laughing like the clinking of champagne glasses. Carla, heels clicking against the dance floor, skirt moving like a watercolor painting in the evening glow. Carla, screaming his name, perfectly manicured nails digging into his back. Carla, the only put-together woman in all of the Mojave.

Then his eyes met Dahlia's above the firelight, and Carla seemed so far away. The woman before him filled his vision. He had loved Carla because she made him forget about things. When he looked at her, she reminded him of what life could have been, before the war, before the bombs. She was glitz and glamour and romance all rolled into a pretty little pre-war package.

Dahlia was different. The Wasteland was in her veins, the bombs like a birthmark etched across her skin. The desert sun had colored her and the sand was forever under her nails and in her hair. But she didn't let these things weigh her down, in fact she seemed lighter than the heavy desert air that surrounded her, like any minute the radioactive energy that simmered under the surface might send her shooting off into the sky like a rocket. The Wastes had made her strong and in return she made the Wastes beautiful.

Boone realized then that he hadn't asked the courier a single question of his own. He knew nothing of her parents or homeland or travels. And anyone to flounce about the Wastes with as much moxy as she had was bound to have stories.

And just like that, the dreams of that canyon and the gun to his shoulder and the refugees in his sights died. The nightmares were replaced with dreams of Dahlia as a little girl, each night with a different past. He swore to himself that, when he got her out of this mess, he was going to finally ask her about it. He wanted the real story, not just his fantasies. Although he was particularly fond of the dream in which she grew up on a homestead in Kansas with her ma and pa and a hound dog named Dragon.

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