Vulpes sat up with a start. He could hear a clanging sound outside, footsteps… multiple sets. Glancing over, his eyes met Maria's. She, too, was awake. Without a word, she slipped her feet from the bed and into a set of boots. Armor next. He was following the same steps, and finished first. A spy had to get used to dressing quickly in the dark, though.

She raised her arm, elbow bent, to get his attention, and then pointed at the door with two spread fingers. He nodded, taking up a spot on the opposite side of the frame from her.

"Now," he whispered. She hit the button and the ancient metal slid open.

The smell came first. A look to his right told him Maria could smell it, too. Ghouls.

The hall was empty, strange vault echoes making the sounds seem much closer. They headed off in the most likely direction. One turned a corner and rounded on them. Maria shot it without pause.

The noise drew more of them. As half a dozen turned the corner, they were followed by a much more welcome figure.

"Didn't think to check the reactor level?" Cato said, hacking into them with his machete.

"It slipped my mind," Vulpes said. He had just brought one down, only to see another had Maria by the hair. He moved to help her, but she slammed the blade of her weapon backwards between her arm and waist, straight into the monster.

"I'm sure it did," he said. "Which is why I'm going to have you fucking gelded."

"Just see how well that ends for you," Vulpes said, beheading the last of them.

"It certainly couldn't be worse than ending up ass deep in ghouls." He was glaring at Vulpes, trying to use his larger frame to intimidate. "If you paid more attention to your surroundings, and less to fucking your little wasteland—"

"Um, excuse me," Maria interrupted.

Vulpes didn't even turn to look at her. "Now is not the time," he said. How could she not see that? "Cato, you're my brother, but—"

"But what?" he snapped.

Maria was tugging on his sleeve, he brushed her off, probably too roughly.

"Do you really want to find out?"

"What? Crucify me? Burn me alive? Just fucking try. I'm not some ignorant tribal—"

"Really?" Vulpes snapped. "You could have fucking fooled me!"

"Will you two shut the fuck up?!"

They both turned to her. It took all his self control not to slap her across the face. Taking a breath, Vulpes reminded himself that she was ignorant. She didn't know any other way to behave. "Thank you! Fuck." She shook her head. "The ghouls are wearing Vault-tek gear," she said. Neither man commented. "Which means they didn't just wander in here. The inhabitants of this vault, or some of them at least, were turned into ghouls."

"And?" Cato asked, uncaring.

"And a vault this size was made to hold at lot more than a dozen people."

They all stood in silence. Vulpes shook his head. "Well then," he finally said. "Perhaps we should think about leaving?" He thought he could hear distant noises, but it could have been his own imagination spurred on by too little sleep and the idea of a thousand prewar ghouls ripping them to small chunks.

"That… sounds like a very good plan." Cato nodded, glancing back. "Sorry. Temper, all that."

"Understood," Vulpes said, already moving. He couldn't get too angry at Cato, not when he was right.

Maria was watching him with caution. Since the argument in the Vault, Cato apparently decided he would be nice to her. "So," he said awkwardly as Vulpes checked maps. "I've been told you knew Ulysses?"

She glanced over, he didn't seem to be goading her on. The question actually appeared to be sincere. Of course, that meant about as much as a pile of sand when you were talking about people who basically lied as a profession. "I guess you could say that," Maria replied slowly, not sure where he was going with this line of discussion. Depending on that, her answer could go a long way to making things even more uncomfortable.

"Funny," he said. "Us knowing some of the same people. Small world, you know, just like they say. I mean, what are the odds—" He was babbling. Maria wondered if Vulpes had asked him to be nice. Probably.

"You do know she killed Ulysses, right?" Vulpes interrupted him with a roll of his eyes. "And he was undercover with the Mojave Express for years, so it would make sense they met- they were coworkers. Of a sort."

Cato looked surprised for a moment, glancing from Vulpes to Maria. "Really?"

"He did try to kill me first," Maria replied quickly. She had no idea if Cato and Ulysses were friends, but didn't want to antagonize Vulpes' brother any more than necessary. They had remained civil… mostly… but she could tell the tension was starting to bother Vulpes.

He looked thoughtful. "Really?" She nodded. "Just you? Huh." There was a long silence before he shrugged. "Well… I was never too fond of the man," Cato said eventually. "I think he was more Fox's friend."

Vulpes made a face. "The man was a damned lunatic," he said. "He put on a good show but… deep down, something was very, very wrong with his mind. I should have seen it sooner. Looking back, I don't believe he ever fully recovered after his tribe was destroyed."

"Ulysses would have totally hunted you down," she said. "He went on and on about how you betrayed him. But, well, dead."

"What did happen with that?" Vulpes asked. "I have to admit… I was rather impressed to hear you were able to kill him. I trained the man myself."

"It wasn't easy," she confirmed, which made Vulpes smile, "and you're right, he really was a madman," Maria said, finding herself in complete agreement with Vulpes' assessment. "At first he sounds really smart, like he totally has a plan, knows what he's doing." She thought back to the man in the Divide. "You hear him and think 'wow, this guy totally has his shit together.' He sounds really, really smart."

Vulpes nodded. "And then he continues with a reaction so far beyond the bounds of sanity that it makes your teeth hurt to think about whatever broken reasoning must have led up to the decision."

She nodded, laughing. "Mine was 'I passed through this town a couple times. It seemed nice. I thought about moving there. You delivered a package, not knowing what it was, that caused a bunch of underground bombs to go off. So I'm going to nuke the NCR.'"

Vulpes blinked. "Are you serious? Not that I would weep if the NCR were to disappear but… gods below, that's a bit much."

"From you that's saying quite a lot," Cato interjected. Maria was surprised to see Vulpes burst into laughter.

"I am totally serious," she said. "My poor little eyebot blew itself up disarming that damned bomb."

"That is complete lunacy," he said. "I am referring to your unnatural feelings of attachment to a chunk of metal, by the way, as much as I am Ulysses' absurd overreaction."

"I liked that eyebot," she said. "Ed-e was fun. He played music when we shot things! The world needs more victory music."

"I'd just like more victory," Vulpes said, "the music is completely optional."

Cato was staring at the two, shaking his head. "Yeah," he said, leaning back on his palms, ancient carpet scratching the skin. He could feel the sun on his bare arms through the missing boards on the windows, this early in the morning it was actually rather nice, before the Mojave became a punishing inferno. "That probably isn't the best plan you've ever had." Fox and the courier exchanged a long glance, in perfect sync. The three were all sitting on the floor of an old house, hiding from the daylight after hiking most of the night.

"I don't see why," Fox said.

"Because, you arrogant ass," Cato began, "Aurelius isn't some drooling fiend or ignorant tribal. Maybe he's not as smart as you, but he's not fucking stupid. You think he'll just let you waltz back into Flagstaff?" His brother was pale with rage, one hand clenched into a fist on his lap. "Look, if it was me, sure. I can play dumb. Hell, he's always thought I was dumb. But you? Not a fucking chance."

The entire plan was so mind-bogglingly foolish it made him quite sincerely afraid. Was he actually brain damaged? They both swore up and down that the bullet had caused no damage… but Fox should have known better. Aurelius had known him for more than twenty five years, he knew what Fox did to anyone that crossed him. He would know immediately that Fox returning was just the first step towards his revenge. There wasn't a damned thing any of them could say that would ever convince him otherwise.

And returning with the courier, of all people? While it would be an interesting way of keeping people distracted from anything but the courier, it would also draw an absurd amount of attention to them.

"I knew I was rusty but… these are things I should have long since realized." He sighed. "Once I had a plan to work towards, I never went back to rethink the actual merits of that plan. I should have."

He didn't bother to argue.

"I don't think you'll have trouble finding allies," Cato said. "Right now… the Legion is collapsing in on itself. We haven't incorporated a new tribe since Casesar Prima died. What slaves that are left are, quite literally, being worked to death as a result. Birth rates are all but nonexistent, and desertion is up. And believe me, the two are completely linked."

"How so?" The courier's tone was strange- she looked anxious to hear his answer.

Cato shrugged. "We're getting older," he said. "Everyone like us who was raised among the Legion is an adult. Same for the first generation of slaves." He felt embarrassed discussing this among a stranger, but there was no way to separate the courier from Fox. And, looking at her, he suspected that she had already pieced together what he was going to say, or something close to it. "I've got this woman at home," he said. "I mean, I guess she's a slave, but I don't think of her as one. I don't treat her bad or anything. She runs my house when I'm gone. She's…" He shrugged, not sure how to accurately explain it.

"You're in love?" the courier asked.

"Yeah, I guess you could say that," he said.

"And what happens when she gets pregnant," she finished. Cato was correct, she had understood. She was a woman; it should have been no surprise. It was probably something she had brought up to Fox herself, just like Sage had brought it up to him a few years ago. Women thought about that sort of thing, he figured, and men generally didn't. Not until a woman pointed it out to him.

"Exactly," he said.

Fox looked confused. "What about it?" he asked.

"A boy, well, he would follow me into the Legion. That's fine. But a girl…" He shrugged. "I would have to leave. Take my woman, take my daughter… just grab what we could and run. I couldn't live with myself if my own child… Gods, Fox, think about it."

Those cold eyes evaluated him. Cato looked away, feeling raw. "How far along is she?" his brother finally asked.

"Five months, almost."

Fox let out a long breath. "Well then," he said after a silence. "That complicates things." He looked over at the courier, they stared at each other for a long time, some mute conversation passing between them. His eyebrows raised, she made a thoughtful noise and looked doubtful.

"I don't know, Vulpes…" she said, sounding nervous. "I never have."

"Had you performed many brain surgeries before me?"

"That's different," she said. "You would have died anyways. There was nothing to lose by trying." He continued to stare at her and she made a groaning noise. "All right, yeah, I probably could. I'd like to at least get a book or something first, though."

"You two care to let me in on what you're talking about?"

"Delivering your baby," the courier replied. "You know, if it comes to that. I'm usually pretty good with medical stuff. I've never done that before, though."

"You underestimate yourself," Fox told her. "Besides, I'm sure you read about it at least once. You read every book within arm's reach."

"Yeah," she said, nodding. "Figured you never know. Cass and all…"

Cato was surprised to hear that. He recognized the name as one of her associates. From what Fox had told him of her morals, he assumed the Courier associated with a better caliber of people. "She was a whore?"

"'Course not," came the reply, sounding horrified. "She had… issues."

"Whores charge," Fox said in a matter-of-fact tone. "That woman gives it away freely to anyone with a drink to share. And I do mean anyone. For a time I was seriously contemplating sending someone to charm her with a bottle of gin just to get us closer to Maria."

The courier turned to glare at him. "Excuse me," she snapped. "Watch what you say about my friends. You don't even know them."

"I know enough," he said. "Profile, remember? I had Alerio reporting back to me on your activities for ages."

She looked shocked. "You had someone spying on me?"

"I had several someones spying on you. He was stationed in New Vegas, though, so the bulk of the work fell to him."

The courier's face was twisted in concern. "I never even noticed…" she mumbled, more to herself than anyone else. After a moment she looked up. "Wait, was he young? Dark hair?" Fox nodded. "Did he always wear that same awful hat you did when I met you outside the Tops?"

"It's possible," he said. "The hat was just from one of our safehouses, we keep supplies of clothing for infiltration on hand." Fox stared at her. "What was wrong with it?"

"It was big enough to fit a Supermutant. Or two. Other than that, though, absolutely nothing." The courier looked bothered again. "I can't believe I didn't know he was spying on me. I used to see him everywhere."

Cato broke in. "You saw him enough to remember him, what did you think he was doing?"

She shrugged, blushing. "Cass said she thought he must have liked me, since he was always staring and stuff. I tried smiling at him once, since I saw he never drank, but he just looked all freaked out and left the casino." Cato shook his head, trying not to laugh. Just when he had managed to forget she was nearly half his age… "I didn't know he was one of you guys. I just figured he thought I had an ugly smile or something."

"There is nothing wrong with the way you smile," Fox said, sounding like he was fighting to hide annoyance. It wasn't working.

She quickly changed the subject. "So if she has the baby in Flagstaff, and it's a girl… somebody will scoop it up and take it away?"

"Basically," Cato agreed.

"Hm." She looked thoughtful. "Of course I'll help. I wouldn't wish that on anyone. So we would need to sneak your wife out of Flagstaff before she's ready to pop, then?"

"She's not my wife, but yes, that would be the idea plan." Cato didn't like the idea of traveling with a pregnant woman to worry about, but he liked the other options far less.

"If you love her, how come you never got married?"

"Legionaries don't get married," he said with a shrug.

It took all of two seconds before Cato realized he should have glanced at Fox before speaking, since he was screaming shut the fuck up as loud as any human possibly could without opening his mouth. His brother winced visibly as soon as the words were out.

Her mouth opened slightly before snapping shut again, teeth clicking audibly. "Oh," she said after a moment, face turning red. "I didn't know that." The silence was agonizing for a moment before she hopped up. "Excuse me."

Fox glared at him as her feet hit the stairs. "Really?" he asked, the sound of a door slamming on the second floor punctuating the statement.

"You didn't think she would find that out?"

"Not like that!" He groaned, rubbing his face with his hands. "This is going to become an enormous pain in my ass. I can already tell."

He didn't feel particularly sympathetic. "She sits around whenever we're not walking to read romancenovelsand fucking love poetry," Cato said. "In all these years she's been on the radar you've never known her to be involved with a single man. What did you expect? I wouldn't be surprised if she was a virgin."

"She wasn't." He sounded slightly annoyed about it, as though he had wished she was. "Probably not far off, though," was added as an afterthought.

Cato laughed. "You should be glad she wasn't, that would have made this even worse."

Fox shrugged. "It isn't what you think. At first, I was relieved. I realize that can be painful and…" He looked somewhat embarrassed. "Well, beyond simply not wanting to hurt her, I strongly suspect that would dampen any enthusiasm I possessed for the act. If I wanted to hurt someone I could just as easily find some slave. Why would I bother with free women?"

Cato was surprised by that confession. While he could certainly understand the sentiment behind it, he never would have expected it from his brother. Fox wasn't exactly a compassionate or gentle man. He couldn't even be called kind by most barometers. He could easily feign sympathy when the job called for it, but it wasn't a quality he possessed under any normal circumstance. But looking back, Cato realized Fox's romantic life, such as it was, seemed to be restricted exclusively to free women.

"I do admit," Fox said, glancing at him from the corner of his eye, "it really enrages me to think of her with anyone else." He made a face, leaning back on his hands. "Gods, I hope it wasn't that imbecile Swank."

"Surprise, surprise." Cato said. "You're better off not even trying to guess that sort of shit. No good will come of it."

He was surprised Fox hadn't run up the stairs after her. "If it was, I might just kill him." He had produced a box of gumdrops from a pocket and was speaking between popping them into his mouth.

"Would that change things?"

"It would change my mood. That's more than enough for me." He sighed, throwing the box away. "And he's always annoyed me. Ring a ding ding. What the fuck does that even mean? Damned tribals." Standing, he glanced at the stairs. "I suppose it's been long enough for her to cool down. I would prefer not to get shot today."

"How will you manage this?" he asked, curious as to how Fox thought the situation could be corrected.

"I have a plan," he said. "Give me half an hour. She'll adore me more than ever. Or… she'll shoot me."

Shaking his head, Cato turned his attention to oiling his guns. He wasn't entirely surprised when there was a faint sound of ancient bedsprings creaking in protest some time after Fox went upstairs.

As the sun was reaching the peak of the sky, Cato heard boots on the stairs. Fox walked in, looking pleased with himself. "Problem solved," he announced. His smile faded as he dropped onto the ancient couch. Coughing at the dust his disturbance had sent flying, he stood again, brushing himself clean. "Disgusting," Cato heard him mutter to himself.

"Finished begging for forgiveness?"

"As if I would do that," Fox said. "Have we just met?"

"Crying for it, then."

He narrowed his eyes. "If you ever see me crying over… well, anything, it's safe to assume I've gone completely fucking mad." He sat on the floor, back to the couch. "We had a perfectly reasonable discussion."

Fox could lie, very easily, to a great many people.

Cato wasn't one of them.

Looking over, he shook his head and chuckled. "I'm sure it was very reasonable," he said.

Rolling over, Maria pulled the blankets up. Vulpes was probably just manipulating her, but it was nice to know he actually cared enough to put forth the effort.

That probably wasn't the best way to think of things. Arcade wouldn't approve, that was for sure. Cass would get it… but that wasn't exactly a comforting thought, either.

He had stuck his head around the corner, giving her time to yell to go away before entering the room. Vulpes approached slowly, likely expecting a bullet. "You're angry?"

"No," she said.

"Yes," he said, sitting next to her. "Had I known this was something you wanted I would have found a far more… tactful way to approach the topic."

"It's not that," Maria said. "I don't want that. Really. If you asked me now I'd tell you no." He raised his eyebrows, clearly surprised. "What, you don't think that's a bit much at this point?" He didn't reply. Maria glanced over, trying to see if she had offended him. It didn't seem so, but he was wearing that flat blank expression she could barely read. His work face. "It just surprised me. And then I have you two staring at me like I'm some… I don't know, silly little girl that will lose her goddamn mind at the drop of a hat. I mean really, give me some credit."

"But you are upset."

"Well, yeah," she said. "It was a big surprise. And I have to wonder, what kind of future does that leave? For us?"

His expression did shift then: confusion.

"I don't plan to live out my years as nothing more than Caesar's whore, Vulpes!"

His eyes narrowed. "If anyone called you such a thing I would cut out their tongue and hang them by their entrails while they still breathed."

Maria blinked, imagining that. He was being completely serious. "Um… thank you?" she said. "But even if no one says it… well," she sighed, "I'd still feel like it."

"What, then? Do you want jewelry? I can find you something in the next town."

"That's not it, Vulpes."

"Then what?" he said, annoyed. "What? If my word isn't enough for you without some... some sort of ritual, well, I simply don't understand why you're even sitting beside me in the first place. I honestly cannot understand why you think this is at all important."

"You're joking, right?" She made a face.

"No," Vulpes said, drawing the word out. "It is, as far as I was aware, a religious ritual, yes?" Maria didn't answer. She hadn't thought of it that way. "Which leads to two new problems- the first is that you should know I would never swear any oath in front of some profligate shaman. Never." She made a noise to show her understanding. There was no argument to make; Maria knew if it came down to her or his loyalty to his gods, she would be gone. "And the second is that, last I knew, you subscribed to no religion. You have no gods. You believe in… nothing."

He sounded sad. Maria tried not to roll her eyes, and only mostly succeeded. "Could you possibly make it sound a bit more bleak?"

"It seems very bleak," he said, shrugging. "I can't help that. I don't understand how you can face the world without some hope for… I don't know, contentment in the next life. This world… it's corrupt. It's polluted. It is awful in every way a human can imagine. I have to believe there's something better. If not, why go on?"

"I don't believe in any next life," she reminded him.

"Yes, I am well aware of that," Vulpes said. "I don't understand it, but I am fully aware of your ideas. As misguided as they may be."

"You know, you have a really shitty way of apologizing," she snapped. "Could you possibly go one fucking day without preaching at me?"

Vulpes had been sitting with his hand on her leg up until that point. With her shout he jerked back sharply, nearly shoving her aside. "I'm sorry," he snapped. "Maybe I'd just sleep better knowing when I die, you'll be able to meet me."

She stared, he turned away immediately. "Did you mean that?"

"Well, I certainly didn't mean to say it," Vulpes told her.

Are you really going to fall for that? Even if she couldn't tell that she had been sitting next to Mr. Fox, not Vulpes Inculta… well, it hinged on her honestly believing he wanted to spend eternity with her. After being involved for a couple weeks. Highly doubtful. Still, though… moving the conversation towards religion, egging her on until she snapped… It was really pretty clever.

Looking over, she could see his entire posture had changed. More guarded, back straighter, hands folded calmly on his lap. That was the man she knew. He had a worried expression on his face. Her silence must have been making him second-guess everything. He knew she wasn't buying it.

Vulpes had gone through a lot of trouble just to get back in her good graces. That had to count for something, didn't it?

Reaching over, she put a hand on his cheek. "That's the sweetest thing anyone's ever said to me."

Sorry for the delay! New chapter, though, as I promised a couple people yesterday who worried my posting a Skyrim fic would mean I was abandoning this. Nope! Also, speaking of, I've posted a Skyrim fic, with a heavy helping of Morrowind influence. It's called Under Distant Moon and Star. So... if you are an Elder Scrolls fan, please check it out.
Thanks for being so patient with me, and for all the kind reviews. :)