Chapter Summary: The companions hunt down the newly enslaved Powder Gangers. Beth more fully realizes the stakes she's playing at going after the Legion. She also learns some of what has been haunting Boone.

Chapter 13: Remembering September

The companions entered Nipton's old general store and were surprised to see a man sitting rather calmly inside. His pants were soaked with blood and his legs were twisted at odd angles, as though the bones were broken in several places.

"What the fuck do you want?" he asked before they said anything to him. From his clothing, he appeared to be one of the escaped Powder Gangers from the NCR prison near Primm.

"We were looking for survivors."

"Well you found one. After the Legion got done, it was just me and that idiot Swanick."

"I think we saw him running out of town earlier. Wore glasses. Said something about winning some kind of lottery."

"The Legion doesn't usually leave survivors unless they're up on a cross," Boone observed.

"Guess we got lucky," the Powder Ganger said spitefully. "Rounded up the whole town, told us we were all whores and needed to be punished. Then they gave everybody one of these lottery tickets." He pulled a slip of paper out of his shirt pocket and flung it onto the floor.

Beth picked it up and studied it. It was gold-embossed, bearing the words "Nevada State Lotto" on it. "This looks pre-war. The Legion must have found a stash of these and decided to have some fun with them," she commented with disgust.

"Oh, they had fun alright. They started drawing tickets to pick who got punished how. First batch got beheaded and their heads put on pikes. Called them the 'lucky losers.' At least those were quick. Second were the crucifixions. Those took fucking forever, beating the shit out of them before they strung them up to die slow."

Boone backed away and leaned against the wall, listening silently to the man's recount of the Legion's brutality.

"Then the mayor's number came up," the Powder Ganger continued. "They burned his ass alive on a pile of tires. I swear, fucker was still screaming even after he passed out."

Beth shivered. While the Enclave was brutal and did some truly horrific things, it was usually from a distance: bombs, poisons, viruses, ranged energy weapons. They kept the illusion of their humanity. The Legion, however, liked getting its hands dirty. It liked killing up-close to see the suffering and the blood, hear the screams, smell the fear. There was no reasoning with that.

"Whatever. He's the one who sold us out to those freaks," the man added. "The next ones were taken as slaves. When it was only me and Swanick left, they drew my number and told me that the good news was that I got to live. Bad news was that they were going to beat my legs with hammers." He gestured down to his mangled, bloody legs. "I managed to crawl in here and get some med-x out of a medical kit."

The med-x explained how he was able to be so composed despite his injuries. "Mind if I take a look at your legs?" she asked. "I have some medical training. I might be able to help."

"Don't you fucking touch me, bitch!"

Beth heard the wooden floor creak behind her and she looked back at her companion, who had taken a step forward. At her gaze, he took a deep breath and leaned back against the wall again. She nodded and turned back to the Powder Ganger. "Well, there aren't any medical facilities anywhere around here where they could treat you. We could take you to the Mojave Outpost, but I don't know if they even have a doctor there."

"Oh, fuck no! The NCR would put me back in a shitty cell for the rest of my life. Except this time I'm a cripple. Fuck that. I'd rather die here."

With a sigh, she reached into her bag and pulled out a small metal box. She handed it to him. "Here, there's enough med-x in there for whatever you want to do."

"Really?" He looked skeptical and she couldn't blame him, since he had no reason to trust her and she seemingly had no reason to help him. She knew what it was like to be in pain and there was nothing else she could do for him. Besides, she didn't want to have that stuff in her bag anymore.

"Really." She nodded, hoping Boone wouldn't take note of the fact that she had enough med-x with her to literally kill a man. If he did notice, she hoped he wouldn't ask why.

"Then you're a fucking dream come true." Snatching the box from her hand, he opened it and counted the syringes.

"You're welcome." It was sort of a "thank you," she supposed. "You said some of the ticket-holders were taken as slaves?"

He didn't look up from the box of med-x. "Yeah, they took them off right away. Heading east, if you give a shit. Now, if you don't mind, fuck off."

"Right."

Upon exiting the store, Beth asked her companion, "Why would the Legion take those men as slaves? Aren't they going to be a lot more trouble than they're worth?"

"They're not going to be work slaves," he answered. "They'll be toys for the legionaries. Target practice, torture, training for the younger ones to desensitize them. Things like that." His jaw clenched, making his face tighten. Clearly, he knew far more about the Legion than anyone should.

"Oh. We should go after them. I mean, they're criminals, but they don't deserve...that."

"I guess. We can kill a few more Legion bastards while we're at it, anyway."

They continued east. As much as they would have liked to rest, time was of the essence if they were going to catch up to the legionaries and captured Powder Gangers before they reached the river. The hottest part of the day was approaching and the water they resupplied with in Goodsprings was running low.

When they found them at a small Legion raid camp, they saw that only three legionaries guarded the two prisoners tied up by the fire pit. Their faces were bruised and one of them had his eyes nearly swollen shut.

Taking position on a rocky hill overlooking the camp, Boone whispered to Beth, "Sit tight. I can take two out before they know we're here, then the third just after. You keep an eye out in case more show up once the shooting starts."

She nodded in understanding, a bit eager to see the First Recon sniper in action when she wasn't distracted by killing legionaries herself. Just as he said, the first two shots permeated two of their skulls, causing a large spray of blood behind them before they crumpled to the ground. The third stood quickly and looked around, hand to his weapon. He clearly had no idea where the shots came from. Another bullet from Boone's rifle caught him between the eyes and exited through the back of his head, taking whatever last thought he had along with it.

"Impressive," she commented with a raised eyebrow. "Glad I'm on your side."

He turned to her and gave a small smirk.

They paused for a couple of minutes while they scanned the area, Beth with her binoculars and Boone with his scope. Satisfied that there weren't any more in the area, they made their way down to the prisoners and untied them. The Powder Gangers ran off into the desert without so much as a thank you, although their rescuers hadn't really expected one. Perhaps if they knew exactly what awaited them on the other side of the river, they would have been more grateful.

The camp itself was sparse and had little in the way of supplies, but she did find some meat skewers that seemed fresh, along with a couple of carrots which would make a decent meal later. She was immensely grateful to find a decent amount purified water, as well.

The two companions proceeded onward, looking for a nearby place to rest. They decided they would stop at the closest ranger station in the morning to report on Nipton's status to the NCR. Since the Legion raiding party was dead, they figured it wasn't pressing. Besides, they were both exhausted.

Spotting an abandoned camper trailer with some sleeping mats, they wordlessly dumped their gear and sat down in the small amount of shade. The trials of the day bore down on them. The spot was hidden from the road, so passing legionaries or raiders were less likely to be a problem.

Boone crossed his arms over his chest. "Pisses me off that Legion slavers can just operate on NCR turf like that. There should be patrols. Checkpoints. What's the point of taking territory if we can't protect it?" Face pinched in frustration, he kicked a rock with his heel and sent it rolling across the dusty sand. "Those bastards are getting brazen, too. They didn't used to come so far west, but now they've attacked both Nelson and Nipton. And what they did to Camp Searchlight?! What's next?"

Beth listened, but didn't respond as she removed her armored vest. The button-up shirt she wore underneath clung to her sweaty skin and she noticed the sniper glance away until she fluffed the fabric loose. There was a slight flush to his face, which she found curious. After a minute, she spoke up, "I just realized I didn't thank you...for saving my ass back there in Nipton."

"No need to thank me, but you're welcome."

They stayed silent for a while as she got a fire started to roast the meat skewers and carrots she'd found at the raiding camp. As she worked, she rubbed her forehead absentmindedly.

"You okay?" he asked.

Her eyes fixated on the fire as she poked at it with a stick. "That legionary...I can't believe I let him get the drop on me."

"First Benny, now him," she thought. "What is wrong with me?"

"Vulpes Inculta is—or was the sneakiest son of a bitch in the Mojave," he reassured her.

"Second sneakiest. You didn't even give him a chance to be surprised. It's more than that, though." Taking a deep breath, she touched the healed cut on her neck. "He...he wasn't going to kill me."

"...I know." There was a gravely quality to his voice, like his throat was constricted.

Of course she knew what the Legion did with their female prisoners. Until that moment, however, with the hand gripping her wrist, the knife to her throat, and the hot breath in her ear, she hadn't really let the possibility sink in. Beth closed her eyes, sighing deeply, then opened them to look at her companion with a steady gaze. "Boone, if they take me...and you can't get me out..."

Before she could finish, she saw the change in his face as a look of anguish washed over him and his breath quickened. Gripping the rocky sand with his fingers, he gritted his teeth with a grimace. For as second, she thought he was going to yell at her, but he stayed quiet.

Then she realized what would make him react that way and her eyes widened. That was why he had so aggressively refused to tell her what happened, how he knew his wife was dead. It was too horrible.

"Oh, god...Carla?" she whispered.

Taking a sharp intake of air through his nose, he gave an almost imperceptible nod.

Putting her hand over her mouth, she felt a wrenching in her chest at the thought. "I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to-"

Holding up his hand, he stopped her. "You didn't know." After a long minute, he put his head in his hands. "I came back that morning from my shift. The house was a wreck and she was gone. Found a Legion coin on the floor...that's how I knew. I headed along the river, figured they had to cross at some point. Thought I could catch up to them." He cleared his throat roughly. "Found a camp to the southeast, swarming with hundreds of Legion. Through my scope...I saw her."

Beth listened in continued horror. She couldn't see his eyes, but his brow was furrowed in a grimace and she could hear the pain in his voice.

"They were selling her." He stifled a sob. "They were selling her and there was nothing I could do. It was just me against all of them. So...I took the shot."

"Oh, Boone," she said softly, dropping her hand to her chest. She knew it had to be bad, but she hadn't expected this. Moving to sit next to him, she put her hand on his shoulder. "You did what you had to do." The words sounded so trite in her ears, but she didn't know what else to say.

Rubbing his hands down his reddened face, he sniffed. "Yeah. What they would've done to her...that's worse than death." his voice broke and trailed off. "I'd have done anything to save her, but there was nothing I could do. I had no choice. I couldn't stop it. It was always going to play out one way. It still is. I just wish it would hurry up and be done with me." He sounded so resigned. So defeated.

Her eyebrows drew together in confusion. It was unlike him to speak so cryptically. Did he really think that it was some kind of fate that made that monstrous bitch sell his wife to the Legion? Maybe he didn't have much of a choice, but other people certainly did. "You make it sound like it was inevitable."

"Because it was. If I'd never met Carla, something else would have happened. I should've never gotten close to her. I should've known better. I should've known something bad would happen. I deserved it, but she didn't."

"What? Why would you deserve that?"

"Because fair is fair. You don't do the things I've done and just walk away." Looking at her through his dark shades, he stated flatly, "You'd better keep your distance."

It then occurred to her that she might know what he was talking about, but she wasn't sure if she should ask. After everything, maybe it was okay to. Keeping her distance be damned. She wasn't going to let him push her away and retreat back into himself. He might never come out again. "Does this have anything to do with what happened at Bitter Springs?"

He turned to her with his mouth open in shock, but he stayed silent.

"Manny mentioned something about it when I talked to him, but he didn't seem to know much."

"Sometimes people would call us murderers when we'd come to secure towns," he had said. She also remembered Boone's assertion in Boulder City, that things would go better if he didn't go in with her to meet with the Khans.

"He wasn't there."

"But you were?" she asked cautiously.

"Yeah, I was there."

"You don't have to talk about it."

He stared at her for a moment as though assessing if he should say more. Then he looked away. "We'd tracked a group of Khans that had been hassling some NCR settlements. There was a...miscommunication."

"...And?"

"Bottom line is we followed orders and people got killed." His voice was now clear and hardened, more like a soldier and less like a grieving, repentant man. "That's war. Any hesitation, you or yours will die. That's how it is."

"If you really believed that, you wouldn't think you deserved to be punished."

"You don't come out of a tour of duty without regrets."

"Do you think about it a lot?"

Nodding curtly, he confirmed, "Yeah. Always. Even when I sleep." He kept his face turned away from her.

"I know what that's like. You've seen it. I have things that haunt me, too."

"It's not the same."

"You don't know that." Grasping his hand, she tried to meet his gaze. "Maybe it would help to go back there."

He jerked his hand away forcefully. "No. It won't change anything. And that's a memory I don't want refreshed."

"Okay." Him pulling away like that hurt her feelings, but she reminded herself that this wasn't about her. This was a man in pain who didn't know what to do with it. She wanted so much to help him, like he had helped her, but she wasn't sure how. Moving back to her previous spot by the fire, she pulled off the somewhat burnt skewers and handed him one. They ate in silence.

Boone stated flatly that he would take first watch and that Beth should get some sleep. She complied without comment. Seeing the sad look on her face after their conversation made him feel like such an asshole. He knew she was only trying to help.

As he sat there staring at the fire, he regretted opening up to her, especially about Bitter Springs. He wished he had just told her to drop it when she brought it up. The memory played over in his mind every day, but except for the debriefing afterward, he hadn't talked to anyone about what had happened there-not to Manny, not even to Carla. Being with Carla had a way of making him forget, but now it was all boiling up to the surface and he didn't know why.

There was still more, though. So much more. The details of the battle—no, massacre—were still so vivid. He could practically hear the gunshots and people screaming, smell the gunpowder and blood. How could he tell Beth? How would she ever understand? He didn't even fully understand. Would she recoil from him in disgust? Or fear? He didn't want to see that.

Another dark thought passed through his mind that he had tried not to focus on before: what if the Legion did take her? A hard lump rose in his throat at the thought. She was one of the strongest people he'd ever met, but even she felt that death was preferable to being enslaved. If it came to it, would he be able to kill her out of mercy, too? After everything? After Carla? He didn't think he could. He didn't even have it in him to put down those crucified Powder Gangers in Nipton. Beth had done it on her own and he was grateful for that. To do that to her now, it would take more than he had left in him. To pull the trigger and see the bullet go through her...it was too much. Not again.

He regretted letting himself get close to her. Just like with Carla, he should have known better. Even if Beth was just a friend, he cursed himself for letting it get this far. He had saved her life and he didn't regret that, but anything beyond that was dangerous. How many times had he reminded himself that getting close was a bad idea?

For her sake, he knew it would be better for her to go. She should forget about him, forget about Benny, and go back to the Lucky 38 or to the Followers in Freeside where it was safer. He knew she wouldn't, though. Right after he told her to keep her distance, she'd pressed further and he'd let her. The truth was that he didn't really want to push her away, despite how selfish that was.

Then he remembered something: "To move forward, you have to go backward. Trust the stranger who is not a stranger." Looking over at his sleeping companion, curled up under the desert ranger duster, he realized that it could have been referring to her. It hadn't occurred to him before, since he had been so focused on the rest of what the kid at the 188 had said about blood and ghosts. When she came to Novac, he trusted her to help him because she wasn't from there, a stranger, but they were well acquainted now. Even though he'd dismissed the idea originally, he thought about what she'd suggested. Maybe she was right about going back, to move forward.

Lost in thought, he stared at the fire. When the embers died down, he added more wood to keep it going. Coyotes howled in the distance, but nothing got close enough to bother him as the moon moved across the starry sky. Looking up at it, he was momentarily reminded of night fishing out on his grandfather's boat. It was strange. He hadn't thought about that in years.

The clock on Beth's Pip-Boy chimed, startling Boone out of his thoughts. Apparently, she hadn't trusted him to wake her for her turn at watch. He supposed that was fair, since he wasn't keeping track of time and had no intention of switching shifts anyway.

Pulling the heavy duster over her shoulders, she got up and sat across from him on the other side of the fire pit, her eyes still wilted from sleep.

"I've been thinking about what you said," he spoke up.

"Oh?"

"I think maybe you were right about going to Bitter Springs."

"Really? What made you change your mind?"

"Nothing. Just tired of thinking about it."

"We'll head out first thing in the morning."

He hadn't meant for them to go right away. "It's a good ways north from here. What about Benny?"

Pausing for a moment, she answered, "This is more important."

That surprised him. Only a few days ago, going after Benny had been the most important thing to her, more important than even her own life, it seemed. Now, she was offering to go in the opposite direction and possibly lose her chance at revenge. "You're sure?"

She nodded. "I'm sure."

"I hope this isn't a mistake."