She was standing on a stretch of road, sand baked golden by the sun overhead. The rocky mountains rose high on either side. The tiny caravan was making its way towards them.

Something was wrong.

"Want anything?" Jax asked, behind her.

She turned with a grin. "Nah," she said. "They'll be able to smell it. Or see my eyes. When we're done, maybe."

The blood was drying on her skin. Something was wrong. "Others in place?" she asked.

Jax nodded.

"Good. Jax, I want you to my left just here, and Sam, I want you further up. Make sure they can't see you. Wait for my signal."

She watched them duck behind the outcroppings of rock. She sat down in the dust by the side of the road and slumped forward, elbows on her knees and head hanging down. Her pistol was in a holster by her side.

This was wrong. She should be somewhere else. Not here.

She waited, not risking a glance up to see how far away the merchants were.

She could feel something, the Med-x curling around the back of her head. Dulling her thoughts. But she hadn't-

And suddenly she was aware of it. This was a dream. She wasn't meant to be here. She needed to get out. Her heart was pounding but she could feel the Med-x coiling around her, keeping her here, trapping her.

Footsteps, up ahead, just faint. She needed to get out.

She lifted her head. "s'cuse – excuse me?" she said weakly.

The merchant was looking at her cautiously. "Ma'am?"

"Sorry," she said. "I got – got attacked. Nightstalkers. They got the others." She stood up unsteadily. "I don't know where we are."

The merchant walked over to her. "Do you need any-" he was cut off by the barrel of her pistol pressing gently, yet firmly against his stomach.

"Tell your guards to drop their weapons," she said. "Or you're not going home."

He was staring at the pistol.

She gave him a prod with it. "Go on. No sudden movements. I'm sure you know how this goes."

"Drop them," he said, his voice strangled. They lowered their rifles slowly.

She grinned. "That was easier than I was expecting. What are you paying these guys for, huh?" She raised a hand. "On the ground, thanks."

The others came out from their hiding places, picking up the guards' weapons; covering the three prone figures; opening the brahmin's saddlebags.

A shot rang out, deafening in the echo of the valley.

"Who-" Verity began, turning around. She stopped, mouth open.

Sam was dead, blood and grey matter oozing out of his shattered skull. She stood, staring, unable to figure out what had happened. The three members of the caravan were still all lying on the ground. Another shot rang out, and the girl standing behind Jax dropped.

"Fucking run!" she shrieked.

Jax had a head start on her, and took off running for the rocks. She didn't dare look back as the bullets kept coming, careful and measured. She heard the pounding feet behind her drop off, one by one.

Ahead of her, Jax stumbled and fell. He lay flat in the dust. Verity grabbed his arm on the way past and tried to haul him back up. "Jax, move," she yelled.

He stared up at her, eyes full of shock and terror. Blood was bubbling out of a hole in his chest. Her eyes widened. She covered the wound with both hands, trying desperately to keep the blood inside, but it was a hopeless task. Blood was pouring through the cracks between her fingers, in between her white knuckles.

"Go," he rasped. Blood trickled out of his mouth. Wake up.

"I can't," she whispered.

With the last of his fading strength, he tried to push her away. She watched as his hand fell, limply, into the dust.

She stifled a choked sob and pushed herself to her feet.

Behind her, the remnants of her gang opened fire. She didn't turn back, scrambling into the mountains, climbing through the tiny gaps between rocks in order to stay out of sight. She curled up in an almost impossibly-small gap, and waited to be found, covered in Jax's drying blood.

Instead, the sunlight faded into night. Eventually, the Med-x let her go, and she was falling once more.


She opened her eyes into the blackness. Her cheeks were damp, but she didn't lift a hand to dry them. She could still feel the Med-x tugging at her limbs.

So that was it. What she'd been hiding from everyone, hiding from herself. She was too exhausted to move; too exhausted to think, all she could do was stare into the dark.

Something changed. She wasn't sure what, maybe a shift in Boone's quiet breathing next to her, the warmth of his arm against her side. "Verity?" he said. His voice was thick with sleep, and for just a moment her heart felt like it was going to stop.

She didn't answer, but she could see his eyes shining in the flickering light of the campfire outside.

"What is it?"

She felt her chest rise and fall, listened to her breath.

Boone sat up, concerned. "What's wrong?"

She opened her mouth, then closed it again. What could she say?

"Something happened?"

This time she could speak, almost. "Yeah." She breathed.

Boone waited. The silence drew out, second by painful second, until she couldn't stand it any longer.

She licked her dry lips. "Told you once," she whispered. "There wasn't anything good. In my past." She couldn't see his expression in the darkness, so she kept going. "Got all my friends killed." The image of Jax floated into her mind, but she pushed it aside. "I – I was-"

She couldn't keep going. Boone put his hand on her arm, gently, and it almost made her want to cry. She swallowed, and when she could breathe properly, tried again. "I was – we were going to ambush a caravan. Things seemed okay, but – we weren't the ones caught in the ambush. I ran. Everyone else died."

Boone was silent.

"Wasn't the first time," she continued, the words almost painful as they crawled out of her throat. "Maybe – maybe that's why they knew we were there. I got sloppy. Too many fucking chems and not enough – not enough recon."

The words seemed to sit between them like a barrier.

"I've – I've done some bad things," she said. "I – I'm-"

"Where was this?" he asked.

She frowned at the question, and lifted her head to look at him. "What? I don't know. Out east, probably. Why?"

She saw him shake his head. "It doesn't matter."

She let her head drop back onto the ground. "Fuck," she said. "I didn't – I don't want this."

"It's okay," he said, finally.

"It's okay," she repeated, barely a whisper. "Did you know already?"

"No," he said. "Not – not really. I knew there was something strange about the way you – tried to stay away from it. Thought it might be… something like this."

"And – and that's it?" she asked. "That's all?"

He sighed. "That's not all," he said. "But – I know you now. Not then."

She struggled to sit up. "It's not something I can just file under 'past'," she said. "I – I've killed people, and because I wanted their shit, not because they deserved it. If anyone deserves it, it's…" she trailed off.

"Everyone's got a past, Verity," he said, his voice low. "Some things we'd all like to forget. Manny was in the Khans. That kid from the Boneyard up at Golf, he was in a gang."

"It doesn't make any sense," she said, despairingly. "Why – why any of this happened. I just – I don't understand why I'm here. I shouldn't be."

"How much do you remember?" he asked, after a pause.

"Bits," she mumbled. "Scraps. I don't know. Not everything."

"Like what?"

She took a deep breath. "Places," she said, her voice strained. "People. Pictures. Things I've said, or done. It – hurts."

She could feel his eyes on her, even in the dark. "It's strange," he said. "Seeing someone else like this."

"So I'm a curiosity to you now?" her words had more of an edge than she'd intended, but he didn't seem to take any notice.

"After – after Bitter Springs," he said. "I thought that was it. That was everything. After that, things couldn't get any better; couldn't get any worse. As far as I was concerned," he sighed. "The rest of my life was marking time until things caught up with me. But – I was wrong."

"It's not the same," she said, looking up at the pale canvas overhead.

"Tell me how."

"You didn't fucking choose it," she snapped. "Every day, I'd wake up, get wasted, and then try and shake someone down for caps or weapons or whatever. You were serving your country. Doing what you were told."

He didn't reply to that directly. "When I first met you," he began. "I wondered about why you felt like you had to fix everything," he said. "I thought – for a while – that you must have been making up for something."

"I don't even know," she whispered despairingly. "I feel like – everything I've done isn't enough. It can never be enough."

"You're a good person, Verity," he murmured, lifting a hand to her face.

She turned her head away. "Don't say that," she said bitterly. "I'm really fucking not."

"If you weren't, you wouldn't be feeling this bad."

"Fuck off," she said, though her heart wasn't in it.

"Listen," he said. "Please. I know that right now you probably won't be able to believe me. I wouldn't have believed anyone trying to tell me that a year or two ago either." He reached out again, and pulled her close. She let him. "Things are going to be okay," he said. "And I love you."

Her eyes widened in the darkness.


Sorry for the kind of short chapter.

So. Uh, this is hard to say. Basically, I'm going to put this story on hold for a while – I feel like the quality is dropping a little. I'm not as interested in it as much as I used to be, and it seems like others are losing interest too. At the moment, I'd like to focus on this one awesome/terrible idea I have for some original writing (finally started today :) ) and as I legitimately do not seem to be able to focus on more than one writing project at once, this story is going to go on an indefinite break.

If I fail at writing original stuff I'll probably come crawling back, but until then – Goodbye. And thanks for reading.