Note: Aw, hell, there's gonna be a few more chapters. Had hoped to wrap this up to deal with AIW but nooooo... Dammit Maggie.
Thank you for the review Nicole, I hated to publish that but I had to try it out. Hope this fills in better as a sub
Maggie's hands wouldn't stop shaking. She leaned onto Boone's shoulder for a long time, almost too long, trying to make sense of what had happened. Was still a little out of it―everything hurt.
Boone laid his hands onto her hair and stroked it, gently, whispering in her ear. She couldn't hear the words. Heard the tone. She'd been scared of Boone's crazy and now here he was, being completely normal, trying to make her feel better. It didn't make sense. But that was okay, he'd never made sense to her. Maggie sighed, rubbing her forehead on his leather. Didn't need the complication he brought, though.
Didn't want to have to explain to Sal about Carla, either. But he was waiting. Watching her with a pissed-off look, waiting for her to get her shit together and explain herself. Waiting for her to tell him in better details why he'd had to kill Nero.
She couldn't really explain it. Not in truth.
And hell... she damn near died again. Maggie stared at Boone's feet, blankly. Thinking. About death, about being alive. About how she just couldn't get herself killed, no matter how hard she'd tried, or how hard others had. It was ridiculous, made her feel... shit, it made her mad. Mad that she couldn't die.
If that wasn't the stupidest thing Maggie could ever think, she didn't even know what was.
When Nero started to choke her, she remembered him talking, but couldn't really remember what he'd said. He'd... he'd distracted her with an old trick of his, something he'd done whenever he wanted her to stop thinking. That was something he'd been especially good at, deflecting her thoughts. Along with brainwashing her into thinking he was perfect for h―she sighed and closed her eyes. Didn't want to think about that, anymore. He was dead.
Everyone she'd ever loved was dead, now. Even that cocksucker Benny, though she hadn't really loved him beyond physically.
Boone... was looking to die on his own and still hadn't managed it, either―
She shook her head and tried to clear her thoughts. Nero was choking her on the floor, and everything went black, she remembered that. When she'd regained her vision, she was lying spread eagle on the floor and Sal was punching at Nero. They were both yelling at each other―she couldn't really remember the words―but she got the idea that Sal thought she was Carla.
It was absolutely hilarious in a horrible way. Carla had saved her life, in death. Sal thought Maggie was Carla, and seeing Nero assault her put him over the edge. No one was supposed to touch Carla.
Because Carla was the golden one, the one Sal had taught all his tricks, the one who was supposed to make him proud. The one he'd planned to marry into the Chairmen, planned with Nero to take over the casinos. The one he expected to carry on his bloodline since he hadn't had a son.
Not that he hadn't tried. Maggie hated him for what he was, in the present and in the past. For how he'd been a monster, for how he'd treated their mother. Only now... now she realized him being a monster was his way of making them tough, so she and Carla wouldn't get abused. So shit like this―with Nero―wouldn't happen. So shit like Carla running off wouldn't happen.
That had happened because they'd left the Strip. Dad couldn't protect them if they weren't within his reach. Maggie was leftovers, she'd thought. The second daughter, another useless girl, unwanted by Sal. But... she wasn't. Sal had defended her against Nero because he was protecting his blood, just like Maggie―only he was much more successful because he was older and craftier. More tough. More batshit insane.
Sal had always been weird like that. Doing things Maggie didn't understand, like his refusal to let anyone hurt Carla. Loyal to her. Like Maggie. She chuckled and sniffled a little, trying not to cry. Stupidly loyal to blood, just like Maggie. Guess I got a lot more from dear old dad than I thought, she told herself. More than just learning the right way to throw a punch, even.
...She'd lain there on the office floor, coughing and spitting, for a minute or two before she croaked out to him and told him Carla was dead. That she was Maggie, that Nero killed Carla six months before. He hadn't believed her until she started swearing, her broken voice rising to the highest level she could manage.
That was when Sal shot him. She found it hard to believe, still.
Maggie opened her eyes and rubbed her throat again, blinking rapidly. The warmth of Boone's body against her face felt comforting. She turned her head to look at him and saw his expression, distressed and confused.
"Boone," she asked, her voice still hoarse. "Do you have a stimpak."
Boone's hands were fumbling with a pocket, dropping needles and shoving a handful of meds at her. "What happens now?" he asked, watching her trying to pick up a stimpak.
Maggie swallowed and whimpered, then worked her fingers through the stimpak grip, and moved to inject it into her shoulder. Boone steadied her hand, rough fingers on her own. Maggie reached up with her other hand, laid it onto his, and held on as tightly as she could.
"I think," she said, rasping, "that you need to go back to the Lucky 38."
"What?" Boone's hand on hers tightened and his voice wavered. "Maggie―"
"Don't get all weird," she said. She let him go. "I'll explain later."
Boone stared at her for a moment with a confused and slightly betrayed look, and Maggie scoffed at him. Her throat felt a hell of a lot better, now. She stood, leaning down to brush her lips against his ear. "Trust me," she whispered. "This is family business, but you're just an in-law. Go home and I'll meet you there."
She waited with his mouth near his ear, breathing evenly. Waiting for a sign. "Look, Sal is my father," she added, very quietly. "And I've got my straight-edge." Her voice took on that cocksure attitude that she'd had before, when they first met. "He won't fuck with me. Promise."
Boone stared into the air, then turned his head quickly, catching her in a swift kiss. Maggie ran her hand along his neck, then pushed him away. She smiled, patted him on the shoulder, and slowly wobbled over to Sal. Boone strode out of Club Zoara, moving quickly, glancing over his shoulder.
She didn't return the look. Hope he's not gonna get all crazy on me again, she thought. Last thing I need right now―on top of trying to convince this ass that it was okay to kill Nero.
Sal had turned to look back out over the the casino floor. Maggie leaned onto the rail and sighed, pushing a blonde hair out of her face. They stood there for a long while before she opened her mouth to talk.
"I―" she grumbled. "I killed Benny, you know."
Sal just grunted and took another drag on his cigarette.
"Well, he shot me in the fucking head, so..." she grumbled. "And he was plotting to try to take over Vegas."
"So was Nero," Sal said, flicking his cigarette down into one of the braziers with a well-practiced move.
"It started with Nero," she said, leaning her chin down onto her hands. "Nero found out where Carla was. Told me about it, told me he was gonna get her and bring her home. That she would learn a lesson." Maggie closed her eyes. "And I thought that was a good thing, because she left me to get married to that asshole―"
"You two never learned no fucking lessons," Sal said, angrily. " 'Bout as dumb as your fucking mother―"
"Just shut the fuck up and listen, Sal!" Maggie said, standing abruptly and glaring at him. Sal stared back at her, then set his mouth in a grim line and slowly nodded. "Nero let me marry Benny because he wanted Vegas, because we were planning to take him out. That's all."
None of―anything I've ever been to him―none of that mattered. Maggie felt the sting. Sal was aware of her relationship with Nero―always had been, never said a word about it to her. Maggie had always suspected Sal was Nero's right hand man because she'd been giving it to Nero on the sly, but really, it didn't fucking matter. Sal didn't have any say in who she loved.
Not that it was ever really love, not when Nero was using her like he had. Finally, she felt some real anger. Ten fucking years, she gave him, and he couldn't even trust her. Let her go to Benny and wrote her off like an aging whore. Betrayed. And she had to let her daddy deal with it because she couldn't let go.
She clenched her fists and stared at Sal. Cleared her head. "Benny found a way to take over. But―he musta known Nero was out for his blood. Wasn't nearly as stupid as I thought―fuck, wouldn't surprise me if he was as smart as that!" She threw a hand up at Nero's office door. "...And Benny, he never liked me, he didn't even fucking care about me." Maggie breathed in and out, slowly. "So he sets me up to take a bullet, and he made sure I died. Only I didn't, see?"
"Fucking tough," Sal said, coughing a little. He tapped his hat and shot a glance down at the casino floor, watching Boone leaving.
"Guess it runs in the fucking family," she grumbled, and Sal chuckled a little. "So he shoots me and I'm stuck out in a puddle of piss called Goodsprings. And I thought, why the hell shouldn't I look up Carla, since she got me stuck in this shit?"
Sal shook his head a little. This was the part he really wouldn't want to listen to, Maggie thought. She sighed and loosened her fists. "But Carla was dead. Legion raiding party came into town, took her right out of her home. And that dumb jerk―" she flung a hand out at Boone, who was at the doors. "That one, he tracked her down and found out that someone had sold her to the motherfucking Legion."
"The soldier boy," Sal said, so quietly she could barely hear him.
"Yeah." Maggie flipped another hair out of her face. "The soldier boy. He did what they taught him in in the army. He put her down, so she wouldn't have to live through that shit, because he was one man against an army."
Sal looked away and Maggie stared at the back of his bald head, feeling her rage against the Legion return. "Someone in Novac sold her for one thousand caps. And a little note at the bottom, you might like this one―" Maggie lifted her Pip-Boy and read off the bill of sale.
Sal's hands on the railing gripped tightly, knuckles going white even in the dim interior of the casino. "I teamed up with the soldier boy to try to get some revenge. For the Family. And I did, but I learned one important thing, Sal." She breathed out, shakily. "I learned that the Family had sent a man down to talk this bitch into selling Carla, and that means―"
"Fucking Nero," Sal said, spitting the words.
"Exactly. And I got revenge for me on my way back. Not-At-Home sends me on this crucial mission with that thing I was supposed to deliver. Sent me down to Cottonwood Cove and I get taken up to see that big bitch Caesar, and his man tells me that Nero has a plan to work with the Legion." She crossed her arms. "A plan Nero never told me about because he made them get Carla, to prove they meant business."
Sal cursed, pushed himself off of the railing and stomped over the floor. He jerked open the door to Nero's office and Maggie waited patiently, listening to the gunshots. Well, she sure as hell got her temper from him.
"I never knew nothing about no fucking plan to get rid of your sister," he said, when he emerged, holding his gun. "Knew about the Legion plan. But I didn't do Carla."
"What is that plan, Sal?" Maggie asked, staring him down.
He ran a hand over his chin. "Kill everyone on the Strip, take over. Caesar said Omertas could run the show, but we had to help make the NCR weak." He wiped his eyes and looked away from her.
"You ain't gonna do it." Maggie rolled her eyes. "You think they'll just let you sit pretty in a throne? No, that fucker is gonna take all these girls and make them slaves, and you all―" she moved closer to him, poking him in the shoulder, "―you assholes would be made into recruits, to bolster his fucking army. I saw that, up at his fucking Fort."
"Fuck, Mag," he said, hissing. "Nero was the one behind it, I didn't never like it."
"What the fuck ever, I don't care. Whatever shit you got planned is gonna be unplanned, starting now." She stared at the open door, the body lying inside, then turned away. "I ain't Family. Not no more. This is your business, and you shouldn't be doing no business with the goddamn Legion."
Sal looked up at her, sharply. "Not no more," he repeated, slowly.
Maggie shrugged and rubbed her neck. "Ain't coming home, Sal. I left a long time ago. And I've got to finish some shit for Not-At-Home, anyway."
He stared at her for a minute, then grumbled and pushed his hat backward on his head. "I'll get Troike to burn the shit," he said, under his breath. "But not a fucking word of this, not to anyone, Mag. They ask, I'll say that fucking Courier Six did it."
"Good," Maggie said, and threw him a small smile. "Goodbye, dad."
He watched her leaving, without a word. She didn't look back. Couldn't look back.
As long as he was true to his word―and as much of a bastard as he was, she knew he'd keep true to his blood―as long as she left him be, he wouldn't fuck things up on the Strip.
So that left her with House, and this fucking chip. She felt it through her pocket as she opened the door, and sighed.
House... and Boone, to deal with. And she wasn't sure what she was gonna do, now.
Guess I just keep playing the game.