(+)30

It was early in the afternoon, and frigid winds were blowing all across the Mojave.

The winds blew to the south in Goodsprings, and in my hometown of Primm, where they blew against the shuttered windows of Mother's casino. The McBains and their town militia stood at a winter standstill with them powder gangers from out the penitentiary, and the cold was doubtless setting into both sides by now.

The winds blew East, too, over the Dam where the Legion and the NCR were locked in a similar engagement. In the West they swept over the quarry, which I had heard no news from, and the remains of the Amish tribe. Seems they too had been stricken by the bitter wastes.

Up north, the winds blew on the strip, but you wouldn't know it from how folks acted. Vegas was still just as sleazy as ever. Sure, the hookers started wearing fur and the lights changed a different color for the holidays, but the spirit was the same. Drugs and caps still flowed like water from out the Casinos, and the surrounding neighborhoods still couldn't catch a break. Every day Fort Mormon more and more saturated with displaced loners out of Freeside who couldn't fight off the cold any longer. We took in some sharecroppers too, but most of them were lucky enough to have radiators on account of being so near the NCR water stores.

Or I should say, most of us. I couldn't stand the thought of living in a tent with all them noisy people over at Fort Mormon, so I used some of the caps that I got from selling off Mom's Casino to buy myself a vacant, two-story farmhouse on the outskirts of the sharecropper compound. It was a long walk to work and I didn't ever intend to do any actual farming, but it was safe and cozy. Plus it had a real nice view of the Lucky 38 Casino, and while I never cared much about the view, I knew someone who did...

That wind, that cold, cruel wind, it blew all over the Mojave, but it didn't blow here. I was safe in here. The windows might've shook, and the roof might've creaked, but it was warm beneath the covers, and I could smell something delicious wafting up from the kitchen. I rolled over onto my side.

"Dag-gum… what time is it?" I fumbled about for my pip boy on my bed stand, and squinted to make out the numbers on the screen. 11:43. I growled and pressed my face into my pillow.

I really needed to get out of bed.

Of course, I didn't technically have to, on account of having Sundays off for the lord or whatever, but I had some things I wanted to get done before dark. So, I stumbled out of bed and threw open the curtains, let the light flood in. The high-noon sun was almost blinding, reflected off the sparkling blanket of snow.

Snow in the Mojave. It'd hailed once when I was young, with chunks of ice as big around as quarters, but I'd never seen fluffy snow before this winter. Guess it'd never been wet or cold enough. All of the smart science-folks in my life had their own theories as to why this winter was so frigid and snowy, and every single one was completely beyond me. I snatched my fancy new horn-rimmed glasses off my nightstand and stumbled into the bathroom.

"Oh Isaac, you funny-looking bastard!"

I grabbed a half empty whiskey bottle off the sink and took a long, mournful drink. Seeing myself in the grimy mirror, I didn't look hardly anything like the boy I used to be, which was good because according to the NCR, "Isaac Saller" had been executed about a year back. I'd lived a lot of life in that time; the scars alone told the story pretty well. A welt in my cheek, a scar across my nose and brow, a hairless streak in my scruffy blonde beard… I splashed some water over my head and face, ran my fingers over my prickly, shaven head. Over in the bedroom, my alarm went off again, and I found myself lost in the music, staring deep into the mirror. The world faded out around me.

And you, and your sweet desire,

You took me higher and higher, baby!

It's a livin' thing,

What a terrible thing to lose...

"Hey, there he is!" I made a noise like a wounded Brahmin and swung around to face the intruder. The beautiful, one legged intruder with the white morning gown and the most dazzling smile in the whole Mojave...

"...Savanna?"

Slowly, she hobbled on over to me, and tossed aside her brace. It clacked against the floor as she transferred her weight to my shoulders.

"Lan Dan! I've been calling your name for like two minutes now, Ikey, I made brunch!" I blinked and looked her up and down again, just to make sure that she was really there. Perfect as the day we'd met. She'd recovered so much from the ghostly days when she first woke up from that coma, when her skin still clung to her bones and her eyes seemed sunken deep into her skull. The days when her breaths were deep and raspy and she could barely struggle out a word, much less a sentence, and her muscles were too weak to carry her out of bed…

We'd gone through a lot together so that she could function again. There'd been a lot of arguing, and shouting, and tears- god, had there been a lot of tears! But holding her in my arms now, staring into those sparkling brown eyes, taking in the warmth of her smile, there wasn't a doubt in my mind that I'd go through it all again. Every fight, every late night crying session, every snide, frustrated comment that she hadn't really meant, it was all a small price to pay so that she could finally be happy again. I'd saved a hundred lives by then, but still nothing had ever filled my heart more than the work I'd done to make her happy.

Ain't love crazy?

"Anyways, I think you'll like what I made this time- I shamelessly stole the concept from this chef from over the border, and I know how much you love Mexican!"

Breakfast was heavenly as usual, on account of Savanna made it, but I couldn't stick around to let it settle. Soon as my fork had hit the plate, I was strapping my boots and layering up to brave the nuclear winter.

"Whoa, slow down cowboy, where are you going? I thought we were gonna watch those Space-Wars holotapes you keep telling me about?" I grinned.

"Don't worry, you ain't escaping that Star Wars binge. I just got some business to attend to first." I went back into the kitchen and stood on my tiptoes to reach the mantle, and snatched up a glistening bouquet of copper flowers. My reflection shimmered in each of the petals. "I'll be back in an hour. Two hours, tops."

"Well, can I at least tag along?" She poked at her belly. "I could, uh, use the exercise. Haven't exactly been sticking to my routine..." The look in her eyes was hard to say no to, but just this once, I had to. I pocketed the flowers and shook my head.

"I really oughta be alone for this one."

I didn't need to say more than that- Savanna understood. She always did. We shared a long, soul-warming hug, and a kiss that tasted like breakfast quesadillas, and then I was off. I blew her one last kiss as I stood in the doorframe. She giggled and blew one back.

"Au Revoir, Ikey!" she said, which made me smile. She insisted we use Au Revoir instead of goodbye nowadays, and while I still to this day don't understand why, it made me happy to hear her say it.

"Au Revoir, Savanna!" I closed the door behind me. "Au-Revoir indeed..."

The snow was already gathering on my beard, and my glasses were starting to fog up from the cold, so I took them off and put them in my pocket. It's not like I needed them to get where I was going.

December 30, 2280: Today would be my Mom's birthday, were she still among the living. She'd made me promise back when I first started Practicing that no matter where I went galavanting off to, I'd come back to visit her on her birthday when I could. And as long as I lived, I intended to keep that promise.

The cemetery was one mile South, and a couple miles East from the house, meaning that I'd have to walk all that way. Which sounds like an awful lot of distance to cover in the snow, but when I compared it to the walk from Primm to Vegas, with all its turnarounds and surprises, a few miles didn't seem so bad no more. The cold still did, but the miles didn't.

I passed by some (currently vacant) sharecropper greenhouse tents on the way there, and the soldier manning the pump station gave me a wary nod. This was a pretty safe spot on account of the NCR presence and the lack of obvious things to steal around here, but the soldiers were still always careful on account of the food reserves they were guarding. Turns out that an unprecedented winter hitting an already struggling community can drive some folks to desperate measures.

"Howdy there!" I cried out, and the soldier didn't respond. Just as well. I'd shaved my head and started calling myself Isaac Zhao, but everyone who saw me still somehow saw Lucas Saller's kid, and that was a big old liability with the NCR. Come to think of it, the beard probably didn't help none neither; I moved my scarf up over my mouth and nose.

The rest of my journey passed in pleasant silence. The intimidating skyline of New Vegas and the admittedly less intimidating Fort Mormon both lay ahead of me in the barren white plain, but my destination was thankfully much closer. I almost missed it at first on account of the snow, but the rusted front gate stood in stark contrast to the coat of white around it. Shivering, I made my way through the onslaught of snow and rattled open the gate, which had been frozen shut. The cold seeped in through my fingers.

Here I was. I paused for a moment, and took a deep breath. I could make a straight beeline to my mom from here, but it still felt respectful to make my way there slowly, and stick to the path as best I could. I wouldn't want to disturb any of the other folks who had made this lonely place their final home; their dirty, crumbling headstones did not invite errant footsteps.

When I arrived at the place- a quiet plot, on a little hill with a tree- it felt like I'd reached the end of a long pilgrimage, like I was home at last. I fell down on one knee.

"I'm back, Momma. Just like I said I'd be." I did my best to twist my face into a smile. "Happy Birthday!"

The headstone was encrusted in a layer of snow and ice, so I took my scarf in my hand and scraped it away. I hadn't done a perfect job, but by the end, the words were at least legible:

PENNY SALLER

2243-2279

Gambler, Proud Adventurer.

Best Mom Ever.

And underneath the text was a picture, and it really did look like her. Hair let down, smiling all big, just like in the photo of her and Father that hung on the wall of The Old House. Exactly how she'd want to be remembered.

There was another grave too, just beside hers. Older, but not any less well maintained. I brushed the snow off of that one too:

LUCAS SALLER

Do No Harm.

This grave had no date and no picture, and it didn't need to. If you knew, you knew. I could still see the outline of some of the recent offerings he'd received beneath the thin layer of snow, and while I wasn't big on offerings, I figured that since I was visiting anyways, I might as well leave something for the two of them.

"So, uh, hi Mom. Hi Dad." I paused for a moment. Tears stung my eyes. Dad. Not Lucas. Not father. Dad. I laid the copper flowers between the two graves. "I- I wish y'all had stuck around longer, but I'm doing okay without you. I met a girl who I think you'd both really like, and I've been thinking about- about- well..." I closed my eyes. "You know."

Surely, if there was one thing that both my parents could understand, it was love. Most everything they'd ever done, it was out of some kind of love.

"Of course, I been up to all sorts of other things too. I've carried on your legacy, Dad, helping out the folks of Freeside and all that. I've been talking with some other young colts like myself about starting some sorta emergency response program, and I think you'd like that! We even bought ourselves a rusted-out vertibird off the NCR to make these theoretical rescues, and while getting the parts to restore it is gonna be tricky, I think I remember enough from my aero-vehicles phase that, with some instructions, I could pick them out of a pile…."

The wind blew. The sun arced across the sky. All in all, I think I spent quite a long time there, just talking with my folks. The cold hardly even bothered me.

"-And, and y'all, you should see how hard I'm hittin' the books right now! Aunt Julie and all them folks are teaching me how to read, and how to be a better doctor, which I think is pretty Disco. And Savanna helps me out with the reading stuff too, sorta like, between physical-therapy sessions. Gives us another thing to bond over, and…"

I trailed off. "And What?" The sun was starting to set behind the mountains already, and while I knew that wasn't indicative of much in the winter, I began feeling a strange ache in my chest. A heartache in the same vein as a full belly, an ache that told me that I'd seen all there was to see, said all that I'd had to say. It told me that it was time for me to make my way back home now.

I looked over the graves once more. Suddenly, they didn't seem like much more than elegant pieces of stone.

"... and, I guess I ain't really got nothing else to talk about just now. Nothing that I got time for anyways." I stood up. There were tears on my cheeks, but they seemed like they belonged now. I smiled and let them be.

"Au Revoir, Mom. Au Revoir, Dad."

I love you.

[+] THE END