Hello dear readers! This is chapter 26 of United Under Two Skies, and I just want to say that I appreciate all of the people that have allowed me a second chance at this story. Whether you're a follower of this story or just a reader kind enough to devote the time to read this far, thank you from the bottom of my heart. So, please continue to read my story and keep leaving awesome constructive reviews as we continue this journey together.
Wren Baker watched the sun rise on the horizon as the lights of New Reno from her bedroom window. Already a line of old timers and roughed up bar flies were filing towards the clinic preparing caps, or barter in the case of the old timers, to pay for her and her mother's medical attention. The cracks of old joints and the grumbling about cuts floated through the thin floor boards as she put on her white nurse's clothes and slipped her 9mm into her belt. She looked herself over in the mirror and for the thousandth time wished she was as lanky as cup noodles and descended down the stairs.
She found her mother herding the collection of graybeard mercenaries and their younger counter parts. Most quietly rested their aches and bruises in the cushy waiting room chairs and the old timers began chatting between themselves. The younger generation nursed hangovers and wounds in sullen silence as they waited for treatment. Wren poured some coffee and made sure all the old timers got there cup before she divvied out the rest to the younger mercs and bar flies.
"How you doing this fine morning, Wren?" Old Griff, one of their regulars, asked as she put the coffee tray away.
"Oh doing just fine Griff," Wren gave him a smile as she looked a shallow gash on his old tanned leg "Where'd you get that?"
"Oh I got on old Lucia's nerves and that one legged bi...witch through me out onto a broken bottle," Griff scratched the grey fuzz on his chin "I was down at the bar telling everybody how's I saw a ghost coming into town last night."
"Oh shut up old man," Johnny Zat one of the younger mercs in town snapped from his chair "Some of us have hangovers, so kindly stop yammering about ghosts."
"It's true, I saw the Crimson Gun walking into town last night," Griff insisted "Sure as I'm the son of Mary Hippo I saw him walk back into New Reno just like old times."
"The Crimson Gun's back in town?" Wren's heart stopped at the old man's words.
"Who the fuck is the Crimson Gun?" Johnny rubbed his temples and glared at the old man.
"The Crimson Gun was a bad egg among bad eggs my boy," Another old timer wagged her finger at the younger man "Every family in town had him on call and when you hired the Gun things got done."
"Aye, a right bastard that boy was," Another old timer chimed in "You think you're hot shit lad, but the Gun was something else. A bloody ginger nightmare he was."
"I saw him coming into town last and actually got a chat in with him, we ran a few good jobs back in the day you see," Griff said with more than a hint of pride in his voice "He bought me a bottle of the good stuff and went walking off towards the burnt outskirts of town."
"Did he tell you where he was going exactly?" Wren's hand went to her holster.
"Nah, all he said was that he had to retrieve something he left behind when he sprung town, savy?" Griff licked his lips and took a drink of coffee "Must have been some buried treasure or something cause he had a shovel."
"You know what?" one of the other old timers said "Maybe he buried a stash or something near Old Betty's place. That was his last job before he left town and you know that old biddy was hoarding her girl's, if you could call them that, earnings."
As the last words left the woman's mouth Wren was out the door, her pistol drawn and the whipping dust of the wastes staining her uniform. She ran through New Reno and into the dilapidated outskirts where her only companions were the bums squatting in burnt out wrecks and the anger in her stomach. When she caught sight of the object of her anger he was standing above a small hole moving shovel fulls of dirt onto a pile. His back was turned and he stood before a petrified tree coiled in vines of budding wild flowers that blocked the morning sun.
She stopped a hundred yards from the man and raised her gun to point at his back. This was the moment she'd waited for over half a decade. The moment when she could finally pay back the bastard that had taken so much from her, and avenge her father. Wren put her finger on the trigger and let out a breath as she prepared to pull the trigger.
"You know, if you're going to sneak up on someone," The man turned and looked at her with grey eyes that froze her in place for a moment "The least you can do is not make all that noise running."
Wren's grip on the gun loosened for a moment and she actually stepped back before she regained her composure.
"Shut up!" She yelled and adjusted her aim to his chest "I'm going to kill you."
"Oh, well I'm afraid there's a waiting list," The man's eyes softened and he offered a smile "You can fill out the correct forms in New Vegas."
"I have a gun pointed at your chest and you're joking?"
"It's either that or groveling, so I'll take my chances," The man let the shovel fall to the ground "What's your name kid?"
"Wren Baker, daughter of Martin Baker, the man you killed," Wren put her finger back on the trigger "The daughter of the woman you raped."
"Oh, who knew this particular Chekhov's gun would be aimed at me?" the man asked with a small chuckle "You're the gamblers daughter aren't you?"
"Yes, because of one mistake the family's sent you to kill my father," Wren snarled the words "We couldn't pay so you raped my mother."
The man looked at her for a long moment and the smile slipped from his lips.
"It was a little more complicated then that but that's the jist," the dust whirled around them both as they stood there "I suppose it wont help to tell you that I'm a different man than that monster?"
"Words are cheap and sin is forever."
"Sin is as made up as the words in the book the word came from," The Crimson gun sighed and looked over her shoulder for a moment "My name's Rex Craster, I've done a lot of good in my life, but I don't know if that washes away the bad but here we are."
"I don't fucking care if you spend your days helping the sick," Wren glared at the man "You killed my Father."
"You're father was a weak man that got himself into debt with men he knew killed on a dime, and instead of doing something remotely honorable he let his wife fuck a mercenary to get out of it," Craster took a step forward and Wren almost pulled the trigger but his eyes bore into hers with an intense glare "Now, I took advantage of your father's weakness, but it wasn't me who killed him was it?"
"He only did that because you..."
"Because I didn't kill him and sell you both to a brothel to cover his debt?" Craster sighed and looked at the gun "Kid, I wasn't a saint and I'll go to my grave regretting everything I've done in this fucked up town, but I was a symptom not the cause of your father's woes."
"I should still kill you," some of the anger in her stomach was gone but Wren gripped her gun tighter "Who would miss you?"
"I have two daughters named Penelope and Alena and I have a woman I'm gonna marry one day," Craster said with a hint of a smile on his face before he shook his head and looked Wren in the eyes "Wren, ever kill a man with that gun?"
"Yeah, you live in this town long enough you have to defend yourself somehow."
"I mean kill a man outside of self defense?" Craster took a step forward "Have you ever murdered a man who wasn't going to hurt you? Ever look a man in the eyes and fire that gun knowing he wont fight back? Because I have and let me tell you once you do there's no going back from that and what it does to your soul."
Wren stared into his eyes and felt a strange sadness in them and she let the gun fell to her side.
"What are you doing here? Why come back?"
"I left someone behind when I left and I came to get her," Craster turned to the hole and clicked a metal plate off his belt and dropped it to the ground "Now get behind me."
"What?" Wren muttered before Craster stepped forward and he drew two 10mm's from his belt as a low beeping came from the metal plate.
She looked over his shoulder as four men walked towards them with Johnny Zat at the lead. Sunglasses shining bright in the glare of the sun rested on his head as he rested an assault rifle against one shoulder. His stooges formed a sloppy firing line as they took position fifty yards from Craster and Wren. Wren looked down at the plate on the ground and raised an eyebrow as a small spiral of dust coiled above it before she looked to Zat.
"Yo, you the Crimson Gun?" Johnny asked.
"No, if you're looking for him he's buried over there," Craster pointed to a burnt out building.
"Actually I'm thinking you're him and my boss would have some words with you," Johnny stepped forward and leveled his gun Craster "Wren, how about you come out and run on back to your mother's."
"How about you punks, and the snipers you have posted at two hundred yards just head home?" Craster's lips curled into a smile "Otherwise I'm gonna have to teach you a lesson in manners."
"Oh well too bad for you, but I've got quite an education already," Zat sneered as he and his goons stepped forward "The boss told me to bring you to him untouched but if you insist."
Zat's finger went to the trigger and he aimed the gun at Craster's chest just as the red headed man laughed. The goons rushed forward and before she could move on her own cold metal fingers wrapped around Wren's collar and she was flying across the dust as a small sand storm erupted from behind the courier. Confused yells and the light of muzzle flashes revealed silhouettes struggling in the coiling dust. When the dust cleared, Zat and his goons were writhing on the ground with gun shot wounds in their knees and arms.
"God, I miss cigarettes," Craster slowly reloaded his weapons and casually stared down a spot around two hundred yards away "You alright Wren?"
"I'm...I'm fine," Wren dusted herself off as she stood and looked to the groaning men on the ground "You didn't kill them."
"They're young and stupid, in time I hope they recognize being young and injured is an acceptable price to pay for that," Craster turned and limped back to the hole and grunted as he pulled something wrapped in a decrepit red leather duster out of the hole.
Wren knew what it was immediately, she'd seen enough shallow graves in her young life to know immediately. Craster took out a dark bundle of matte black fibers and placed it on the duster wrapped body and Wren watched as the fibers spread out and gently wrapped the body in a black body bag. His eyes watched the process with a softness that Wren thought was impossible for such a man, and when the job was done he stood to cradle the wrapped body in his arms.
"See you around Wren," Craster fished a small device from his pocket and it began to hum as a black metal finger pressed a button "Things will be changing soon, an upheaval that will probably affect even this rotten town, so keep your eyes open and your head down."
"What do you mean?"
"War, and as the old saying goes," Orange light pulsed around him and just before he seemed to dissipate into the morning sun "War never changes."
/
Thane sat on a stone bench as he watched groups of people mill about the strange park he found himself in. From his perch atop a hill, Thane had an excellent view of the park and it's strange flora as groups milled about. In his considerable free time, Thane had made it a habit of reading up on the strange oddities of bio engineering in the flora all around him.
A massive slime mold beneath just beneath the soil linking every single rooted plant together as it pulled pollutants from the soil to turn them into nutrients. Hardy grasses bred to spread across the wastes and turn the coiling dusts green as the myriad of bred species of trees, shrubs, and wild flowers that would creep across the Mojave. Thane glanced up at the dome ceiling above him and closed his eyes as the warm sun shined down on his face as he contemplated the strange flora all around him.
"Beautiful isn't it?"
Thane opened his eyes and looked to his left to see a red headed woman sitting next to him on the bench.
"Rex's doppelganger I presume," Thane said as he stared out at the park below them.
"Sister actually," the woman offered him a wry smile as she waved her hand "Can you believe in just a couple of years they'll have whole fields of crops engineered to produce twenty times today's output?"
"A hopeful prediction from what I've read," Thane countered.
"I'm an eternal optimist," the woman said as she watched a group of children play in the grass below "So how's my brother's physical therapy going?"
"His knees give him trouble but Rex is one of the strongest humans I've ever met," Thane smiled softly "Honestly, I've never seen a human with his stamina or pain threshold. Though he hates morning stretches he is making progress."
"Good, I worry about that gearhead," The woman laced her fingers together "I suppose you have questions, who am I? What am I doing? That sort of thing."
"If your answers could be trusted I suppose I would ask," Thane said "With your ability to disappear seemingly at will it seems that if you meant to kill anyone important you would have already."
"I knew there was a reason I missed talking to you Thane," The woman's eyes focused on something far away before she continued "For the record, every thing I do is to protect Rex and the Mojave."
"I once killed to protect and provide for my family," Thane looked to the woman unphased "It led to my son hating me and my wife dead. Though it seems that you've only threatened and incapacitated up to this point."
"Oh I've killed my fair share," The woman stared off into her memory for a few seconds longer and shook her head "There's a certain moment when the bad taste it leaves becomes too much, but we both know that I think. The real fight is coming, and I have no idea how it'll play this time around. So, tell Shepard to keep you and the rest of the Normandy's crew close until it all blows over."
"Though I will offer my support in all things she does," Thane said as the woman stood "My fighting days are numbered as the saying goes."
"Oh I dont know about that Thane," The woman palmed a white chunk of chalk in her hand and winked at him "You've got a few fights in you I think."
Without another word she disappeared in a flash of white flame leaving behind a scorched section of grass.
"Rex is correct," Thane muttered to himself as he enjoyed the warm sun on his face "This would get old after awhile."
/
Alena sat in her new room scribbling a rough sketch of a hot pot smoke machine she was tinkering with when she heard a crash out side her door. Her father was out and Jack had left to help the Shepard lady with running errands, so that only left Penelope in the house. Cautiously, Alena opened the door and looked out to see the upstairs light illuminating the spiral staircase leading up into the kitchen. As she quietly stepped towards the staircase Alena could smell something mouthwatering on the air as she quietly ascended.
Popping her head over the top of the stairs she caught sight of a frantic Penelope with a glass dish full of food haphazardly thrown onto the counter. There were tears in her eyes and she stooped over the dish with a forlorn look on her face as she glared at the food. Alena had no idea why she looked mad at the food, it smelled delicious and as she watched her sister from another world her stomach growled loud enough to draw a pointed look from Penelope.
"Alena, what are you doing up here?" Penelope used a dish towel to wipe her eyes quickly before leveling them leveled on Alena.
"Well, I uh heard a noise and then I smelled whatever you were cooking," Alena stepped up into the kitchen and shuffled on her feet "Were you making dinner or something?"
"I was cooking something yes, but I wasn't thinking..." Penelope stared at Alena for a long moment before she sighed "I had a craving for my mother's fried potato casserole, and decided to try to replicate it. From the sound of your stomach I assume you'd like some?"
"Uh, yes please," Alena padded over to the counter and took a seat as Penelope scooped a steaming helping of casserole onto a plate and slid it over to Alena with a fork.
"My mother used to make this when I was a girl and it never failed to satisfy," Penelope took a wash cloth and began wiping down the counter.
"It's really good!" Alena managed between forkfuls of steaming casserole.
"It's nothing like hers though," Penelope shook her head and leaned back against the oven "There's something missing from it and I dont know what."
"Hm," Alena took another bite and chewed over the food and Penelope's words "Is that… is that because you don't remember the recipe or because she didn't make it?"
"No, it's just a recipe and I'm sure I didn't add enough mushroom soup or something," Penelope insisted as she looked at Alena "My mother was a brilliant cook you know? The things she could do with hydroponic carrots and spices could melt the heart of a super mutant. This is just a pale imitation of her simplest dish."
"Hm," Alena took another bite of the casserole "You know my mother had a thousand and one stories that she'd tell the exact same every time, but how she told them they always came alive."
"Is that right?"
"Now...now that she's gone I sometimes try to tell myself some of my favorites, but I forget things or I dont do the voices right," Alena's mind drifted back to cold snowy nights in her mother's arms as her mother told her where the stars came from and how they fight in the sky every night "But, I dont think it really matters if I I get things wrong or if I don't do the voices right because even if I mess them up I'm still telling the stories she taught me."
"Keeps her alive if only just a little bit, eh?" Penelope stared at Alena with a feint smile on her lips "Maybe I wasn't just craving her cooking after all?"
"Ye...yeah," Alena blushed and looked away from Penelope "So, just because you cant get it exactly right don't think what you're doing is bad, cause it really is good, but also because as long as you think about her when you're cooking it it dosent matter how it tastes."
"That's a very comforting philosophy Alena," Penelope leaned forward and dipped a fork into the casserole for a bite "I sometimes forget why you ended up with your father in the first place, so thank you for being...understanding, I suppose is the word."
"Well we share the same blood even if not the same mother, so I think it's kind of my job," Alena reached forward and scooped another helping of casserole onto her plate.
"Is that right?" Penelope raised an eyebrow as she took another bite off the casserole.
"Well yeah, like father said there's not a lot of Crasters alive and maybe we should look out for each other," Alena took another bite and savored the taste as she hid her face behind her copper hair.
"My father stopped using the Craster name a long time ago," Penelope said as she made a plate for herself and leaned back "I'd have forgotten my real name if not for my mother, so being a Craster again wouldn't be terrible at least."
"It's kind of fun, but also strange cause father is a bit weird," Alena said taking another few bites "Though it never gets boring around here."
"May you live in interesting times, my mother told me an old traveling woman cursed her with that once," Penelope laughed, a strange genuine laugh that took some of the edges from her face as she ate.
Alena laughed and as the night rolled over New Vegas the two not quite sisters spent the net few hours sharing stories of mothers lost to sickness and madness. By the time the casserole was half eaten they'd rolled through ten bottles of Nuka Kola and a dozen stories of the happy moments of their lives. When the food was wrapped up and stowed away Alena excused herself and retreated down the stairs back towards her room. As she did, Alena saw Penelope staring up through the skylight into the gloomy night sky above New Vegas with a contemplative look on her face before she was lost behind the rise of the stairs.
/
There was a storm coming Rex saw as he appeared in a flash of orange on the abandoned stretch of beach. It coiled and threatened with massive tongues of lightning lighting the black clouds with green and white energy. Even at what had to be a hundred miles out the storm was very visibly a monster of a system as it churned the green waters into choppy surf that almost reached his feet as it crashed against the sand. Despite the storm, Rex closed his eyes and let the cold mist of the choppy ocean splash across his face and for a moment he was somewhere else. He was sitting on a dock letting the water splash the summer heat away as the cool Oregon blew around his shoulders.
In that moment his arms were his own and all of his aches and pains were gone. He could smell fish frying or smoking in the homes of people he'd known since birth and could hear the laughter of the other children as they played in the afternoon sun. Then he opened his eyes and looked to the north to the loose collection of burnt out buildings and felt the cold mist of rain and surf on his skin. The black bundle in his arms was somehow both as light as a feather and heavier than pig iron as he started the long walk up the beach towards the burnt out town.
When Rex finally reached the outskirts of the burnt out collection of concrete and wood structures he stopped at the dead town's sign. Years of rain and wind had stripped the ash graffiti from the metal and Rex stared at the faded white Town of Dust pop. 124 for an eternity before moving into the town. Like twisted tombstones, the remains of Dust's homes rose around him in his one man parade to the town docks.
Memory assaulted him as he walked among the homes that had become funeral pyres for the townsfolk. He recognized the homes of childhood playmates and the stingy scrappers who sold him baubles and parts. Looked into the destroyed parlors where he and his parents would share mirelurk cakes and deep fried brahmin with struggling friends. Tears came unbidden and cut through the dust on his face in salty rivers as he sobbed to the quiet town. Mourning for the people that had loved him and all that this silent place could have been.
As he walked the ghostly forms of his mother and father walked at his side each with a hand on his shoulder as their quiet procession was led by the specter of his Rose. They stepped through the dead town, past his childhood home and the town's small square and slipped through the ruined streets till they came across large dock with a still mostly intact boat house. Once inside, Rex laid down the black bundle and went to work searching through the over turned and mostly broken boats until he found the correct one buried under the wreckage of a dingy. A white row boat only big enough for a skinny little boy and a girl no older than five with "Rexi and Rosie" written in chipping green paint on the side.
With his arms whirring he lifted the boat and slipped it over to the black bundle and in sight of his ghosts he carefully stuffed interior with dry cloth and poured pitch in between the layers as he did. Then with utmost care he slipped his hand over the black bundle and released the bindings revealing the form wrapped in faded red leather. He adjusted the duster and found himself starting into the near mummified face of his Rose as she lay peacefully wrapped in his duster. Most of her hair had been sheared away so only a few clumps still clung to her dried scalp and her features had morphed from peaceful acceptance to a macabre smile.
He heard the woman's footsteps the moment she'd stepped onto the dock and didn't react as she slipped into the boat house to hover near the entrance. Rex knew it was his other, or sister by her own words, but at that moment he was busy carefully lifting up the dried corpse and placing her gently into the boat. To her credit the woman didn't offer any words as he stood and turned the boat away from the water and grabbed the dock line to drag it past her and towards the town's center.
She followed about a hundred yards back as Rex pulled the boat through the light mist to the town square where his whole world had once centered itself. When the small boat was nestled in the small depression where water would pool in the hot summers he turned and stared at the woman over the little white craft. Grey eyes stared back with a grief so true and profound that it threatened to rival his own, and with a final silent prayer he threw a small glass cylinder into the boat and watched as green fire burst out and slowly began to consume the little white boat and the only passenger it had ever known.
They watched the fire burn for a long time. Maybe they stood there for an hour or maybe twelve but as they gazed across the fires at each other time seemed to slip its hold on both. There was no need for it as the wind blew around them and the flames devoured the dry body of a girl lost to the wastes. A silent understanding formed between the two as the rain of the storm finally crashed into their private world and the last of the boat and body were consumed in green flame. Without a word Rex turned around and walked to the concrete military checkpoint that had been his childhood home and as he took shelter in the remains of his mother's burnt out workshop she followed.
They sat on the charred slag that had once been a tractor as the world outside erupted into a fury of rain and lightning. Cold air whipped stray bits of leaves and rusted screws across the floor as the storm let loose outside. The pair didn't speak as they watched the water collect and flow out into the drainage system dug long before either had been born and only after the world seemed to be lost in lightning and rain did she speak.
"You know dad was heartbroken when he showed her that little dingy he spent all summer carving and all she wanted to do with it was play make believe," The woman said with a sad laugh "Now going into the water? Absolutely fucking terrified of course."
Rex didn't respond for a long moment and when he did his voice was so soft that he could barely be heard against the sound of the storm.
"She'd scream that I'd fall in and get gobbled up by a fish," Rex stared into the storm and allowed himself a thin smile before he asked "Who are you?"
"That's a complicated question with a very complicated answer," The woman said.
"I don't have anywhere to be, and a very high tolerance for complicated answers," Rex gestured for her to start and went back to looking at the storm.
"I'm the hero of the story," The woman shook her head and let a bitter laugh slip out "I am… I was the Courier, but most of all I am your twin sister. I'm Roxanne Craster."
"Well that's going to require a tad bit more explanation," Rex raised an eyebrow and tilted his head at the woman to continue.
"I started here like you did, yet on my g o round you and Rose were alive and went north," Roxanne laced her fingers together as she spoke "I can still the smell of the ash on the wind as I watched you lead a Shielder with Rose on its back away with the Astrolge."
"She...wasn't taken?" Rex's voice was shaky as he let the question slip out.
"We took her with us on our little birthday expedition," Roxanne's lips twisted into a bitter smile "Let me guess, you didn't want to risk her getting hurt in that old factory and made her stay behind?"
"Yes," Rex clenched his metal fists and shuddered softly "I left her here in Dust, Mom was having a mostly stable day and I thought she'd be alright till I got back."
"It always took the two of us to keep her entirely in check so I cant blame you," Roxanne sighed and Rex noted a bit of extra moisture in her eyes "She...she didnt die that day did she?"
"No, I found her hooked on chain and beaten down to mush in a New Reno brothel around ten years later," Rex's voice cracked but he recovered and after shaking his head continued "I ended her pain and went on my long walk with just my ghosts to keep me company."
"Oh god," Roxanne put her hand over her mouth and bent forward as she dry heaved into her hand as tears flowed down her cheeks "Oh god Rosie..."
Rex sat there watching her as the storm raged just outside their little shelter. He could feel something like a headache forming in the back of his head and he felt something warm trickling from his nose. With a swipe under his nose Rex looked down to see blood on his black fingers and then grunted as something seemed to snap in his head. A memory bubbled up from some lost segment of his mind and burst into crystal clear resolution in his mind's eye:
"Rex, what's wrong?"
He looked up to see Roxanne standing in the doorway looking at him as he clutched the wrecked machine to his chest. Rex hiccuped and dumbly thrust the little twisted thing at her as she walked forward and knelt down in front of him. She gently took the mangled thing from his hands and turned it over in her hands. His fingers stung from the dozens of tiny scratches the little machine had left and Roxanne's eyes darted between them and the machine.
"Mo...ma...ma...ma...mom got mad all of a sudden and broke my bird," He sobbed and started to cry.
"Oh, so that's what happened," Roxanne nodded and sat down beside him to wrap him in a one armed hug "Well when dad comes home we can have him make mom's medicine and I'll help you build a new bird, how does that sound?"
"Tha...that sounds nice," Rex half hiccuped and half sobbed as he cuddled closer to Roxanne.
"Of course it sounds nice, I'm the one suggesting it you spaz," Roxanne said as she put the broken bird on the ground and held her brother "Ranger Roxanne to the rescue just like always."
Rex slipped out of the memory in a shuddering spasm and blinked at the raging storm before he muttered:
"Ranger Roxanne to the rescue."
Roxanne stopped moving and looked over at Rex with red eyes and blinked away tears. A series of emotion played across her face in a matter of seconds. Relief and hope mixing with apprehension and suspicion that painted her face into a mask of uncertainty. It lent a certain fragility to her that Rex hadn't seen before and with the nagging pull of the memory still in his head he didn't quite know how to process it.
"You remember that?"
"Yes and no," Rex massaged a temple and tried to blink away the pulsing headache "I remember the day mom broke my mechanical bird, couldn't have been more than nine, but instead of crying alone...I...had you there with me."
"You always had me with you," Roxanne wrapped her arms around herself and sighed "Till the day you went north with Rose and I went south. You had such a soft soul that you could let what happened here go and focus on keeping our little flower safe, but not me, I had to go off on a revenge mission. You begged me to come north and wait out the winter, and I don't think I saw Rose without tears in her eyes for years after."
"I still don't understand," Rex clutched his head as his nose bled as his memory split in two like opposing cuts of a film. One half his very real and concrete memories of his life and the other a phantom almost dream like recollection of a life lived far away from the mantle of the courier.
"They told me this might happen," Roxanne offered him a handkerchief "This is why I've stayed away for the most part. Opposing memories existing within the same timeline will cause some nasty headaches. On the bright side you haven't been engulfed in a reality warping seizure of trans dimensional distortion."
"Who…?" Rex shook his head and closed his eyes letting the sound of the storm was over him to try and focus his mind only for something cold to enter his perception to soothe his head.
"A really nice set of twin doctors from another multiverse," Roxanne said as he opened his eyes and shivered as a cool sensation in his head begin to distance the other memories from him "Though that comes later, after I left Dust I got a job as a hired guard on a Brahmin crew and spent the next couple of years gunning and digging up anything I could on who attacked us."
"Did you ever find anything?" Rex timidly massaged his temple as the cold sensation in his mind seemed twist and block out the new memories despite mental prodding from Rex himself.
Tyrone, I sincerely hope that's you practicing some hitherto unannounced ability to affect my memory, Rex thought to himself and hopefully the other him as Roxanne continued.
"Nope, I never found anything credible in all the years I searched," Roxanne blew a lock of damp hair out of her eye and sighed "After awhile I gave up and started taking courier jobs for the caps and the exotic tail scattered across the wastes. It gave me a lot of freedom so I could swing up to visit you and Rose, but I believe you know where that particular profession led me in the end."
"Straight through the Divide and right into the battle for the Mojave," Rex nodded as he bitterly processed the information and implications of if her words were true.
"Yep, delivered the last word of the old world to the Divide and got nabbed by Benny and his Great Khan thugs in Goodsprings," Roxanne let out another bitter laugh "You know the bastard actually tried to offer me a job before he shot me?"
"Really?"
"Oh yeah, he had this whole spiel about how I'd look great in a tight black dress with a silver pistol on my hip," Roxanne cracked her knuckles "Naturally since my appetites favor the fairer sex I had to refuse such a kind offer."
"If it makes you feel any better I shot him in the gut," Rex offered "Honestly he was more upset about the blood on his suit than anything else."
"Oh fun, I broke his neck with a pipe," Roxanne made a swinging motion "Anyway, after Victor dug me out I made my way through the Mojave on a holy mission of revenge. Picked up a good friend or two out in the wastes and meddled in a lot of people's personal lives. I thought I learned the lesson of the Sierra Madre, I failed to help an angry soul find peace in Zion, took over the Big Empty and locked Klein in the basement, and finally met with Ulysses under the old world flag."
"When it was all over I stood where you stand," Roxanne continued "I had the dam, the think tank, and an army of robots at my beck and call with nukes aimed at the NCR and the Legion banished to whatever irradiated hovel that was left to them. I was so high on my victory that I didnt stop to think about what I was doing, and I had the same question that conquerors since the stone age have asked themselves..."
"What next?" Rex looked at the woman and offered a smug smile "Not a question with an easy answer is it?"
"None at all," Roxanne ran her tongue over her top teeth "Honestly, it was a cluster fuck as suddenly everyone wanted a piece of the Mojave dream. Who knew we were supposed to be listening when Dad droned on about an efficient bureaucracy? We got it working though and had a good couple of years and then the sky fell and Shepard stepped from that glittering broken bird to change everything. Suddenly I had honest to god aliens in my city and a flying saucer landing on the old El Rey motel not to mention our evil twins from a parallel universe."
"Wait, evil twins?" Re said raising an eyebrow.
"Yeah, I fought Reximus and Roxsia instead of just Reximus," Roxanne wriggled her eyebrows "You should have seen my doppelganger Rex. Wore this skint tight gladiator get up that could barely be considered dental floss let alone armor. I mean, I know I have sub dermal armor but I'd rather not show off my tits to every schmuck on the street, you get what I'm saying?"
Rex raised the other eyebrow.
"Oh, haven't quite gotten that far yet have we?" Roxanne looked away for a moment and Rex noted that her eyes lingered on the door to his father's connected clinic before returning to his face "Check the cellar when you get a chance. Anyway, once the New Legion was little more than a very big blood stain I helped Shepard get home and take the fight to her Reapers. It went well till I fell in love, you see there was this girl..."
"There's always a girl," Rex bitterly chuckled as he let the cold sensation in his head drag the last of the other memories away for now "Alyssa right?"
"How'd you know?" It was Roxanne's turn to raise an eyebrow.
"There have been ten sightings of a tall red head in the New Vegas area and all of them have been in New Columbia," Rex patted his knees idly as he watched her "Not exactly hard to make an educated guess all things considered."
"Well being stealthy was always more your thing," Roxanne pouted before a smile broke on her lips only to sour "I fooled around and fell in love with her, and planned a whole life after everything was done. I was gonna leave it all behind for Veronica and the council to run and take my spicy little medic up north. Build a cabin and spend the rest of my days watching my nieces and nephews grow and cuddle the cold of the nights away. Then she died and all of that went out the window."
Rex looked at the woman and nodded his understanding.
"It wasn't even during the final battle or anything, She was helping find survivors trapped under rubble after the Reapers were dealt with," Roxanne's face twisted in anger as her words left her lips "A bit of rubble the size of a baseball fell from a pillar and struck her right on the head. She died three days later unable to speak or give me one last beautiful laugh. Once again the day had been won, but for the first time since childhood I'd lost everything that mattered."
"It's a strange thing loss," Rex said as much to himself as Roxanne "It opens us, creates a space within us that we can fill with change and rise above our grief or we can let that space hollow us. Let it define and destroy who we are only to leave the husk of what you were behind. Which was it for you?"
"I let it destroy me," Roxanne looked out into the storm and sighed "Once she was gone and buried in New Columbia I took the device that allowed me to send Shepard home and I left. I used it to throw me so deep into the wider Omniverse that it would take years of wandering from world to world to get back here. It was just supposed to be a little bit of self exile to clear my head and help me forget about her, but something happened when I left. Instead of just leaving our Universe I created some kind of ripple that wrote out the part I played in the timelines."
"You… you erased every version of yourself from the timelines?" Rex asked definitely as thunder cracked through the air.
"Yes, instead of me taking up the Courier mantle on a tale of jaunty revenge and intrigue the new timeline forced you to walk down a path of pain and damnation," Roxanne clutched her arms tight around her chest "It was never you that failed to protect Rose, Rex, it was always me that killed her. Everything you've suffered and all that you've lost is because of me. I may have been the hero of this story once, but now I'm its greatest villain."
The storm roared to new life as the last words escaped her lips and the sky opened with blinding white and green lightning. Rex stared into the maelstrom as he processed her words and somewhere in his mind knew she spoke the truth. All of it, from the contrary memories to her admission of guilt was true and he could feel fury bubbling to a boil in his stomach. The world shifted around him as vertigo griped his perception and the spectral faces of his ghosts flowed in and out of the shifting mist and rain of the storm.
He stood and the world shook and shifted around him as his head exploded with pain. All around him his ghosts came to stand their silent vigil, each cast in ethereal greens and whites by the raging storm as they stared at him. Only they weren't just his ghosts, there had to be dozens of strange faces that Rex had no memory of standing alongside the likes of Caesar and the Miradas. Roxanne stood and turned her body towards Rex and let the cold writhing mist of the storm blow through the doorway onto her skin.
"I have ghosts too Rex," Roxanne offered a bitter smile as the storm sent coiling tongues of mist and wind through the doorway.
"My...my...my ghosts….my choices..." Rex clutched his head as a fresh pulse of pain erupted outward shaking the world "Everything.."
"Every choice you made and all that came from them was because her selfishness."
Rex watched as his father stepped from the storm in his immaculate doctors coat to glare at Roxanne.
"Dad..." Rex muttered as he tried to shake the headache away.
"Hello Dad," Roxanne returned her father's scowl.
"You...see him too?" Rex asked as the world twisted around him and black filled his vision.
/
Thought Seeker Wrail sat in her quarters with her attention totally focused on the streams of data flowing across her screens like a river of pure information. She had always preferred this method of raw data consumption as a way to prepare her reports and plan her strategies. Even as a young Krogan on holy Tuchanka Wrail had spent hours pouring over terminals and holo screens until the rivers of data burned their truths into her mind.
It was the same with the data brought back to her from the strange little world they now watched. She had to give it to the Qaurian infiltrators and their Geth whispers, there was truly an amazing amount of intelligence on the nations that stood as the powers of the irradiated world. Her young assistant had been correct in his assumptions about the two technological powers being separate from each other culturally yet connected by a seemingly strong alliance. The Agricultural power to the west while a trade partner dependent on the Desert faction was seemingly floundering without any true allies. Wrail has sifted through all the data, countless reports on crop yields, recent economic trends, and civil discourse leaning towards war, and couldn't stop a smile from forming on her lips.
"So, that's the game you've decided to commit to, eh?" Wrail muttered to herself as her eyes focused on the segment of data relating to the desert faction called the Mojave Alliance.
"Thought Seeker Wrail, what do you have for me?"
Wrail turned to see Captain Nao Tiburton stood in the doorway to her quarters.
"I have an inkling of the board and the pieces," Wrail said as she entered the command to summon a display of the main continent and its post apocalyptic powers "As with all nations there are plots and stratagems underway, but how they will play out? Who's to say?"
"It's my opinion that the people with the heavily armed spaceship generally turn out on top," Nao said as the Turian woman came to stand beside Wrail "Though there is something to admire about a people that use said spaceship to prepare for a possible hostile void approach over more terrestrial matters."
"Speaks to the idea that maybe the terrestrial matters are already decided, no?" Wrail smirked and zoomed the image in on the center of the Mojave Alliance's power structure "The Qaurians tell me that the Mojave is ruled by a kind of over council of leaders, that itself overseen by man called the Courier, that make laws on a national level with smaller councils governing on the more local level. The nation to the West, known as the NCR appears to be a pure democracy with all the lovely avenues for corruption and incompetence that brings. Finally in the mid section of the continent we have a military culture, The Midwest Brotherhood, that is industrially active but nowhere near advanced as the Mojave."
"So, the Mojave is the dominant power, at least for the moment, with this Brotherhood close behind," Nao scratched her chin and looked to the thought seeker "Your ship has been ready for the last two weeks, so I assume you will be making contact soon enough?"
"Yes, I believe I will," Wrail said as her eyes focused on the core of the Mojave's largest city "They remind me of the Krogan of not so long ago. When all the proud Krogan were blackened as sinners living in the fallout of our matricide of mother Tuchanka. Though, where we united to hold back the death of our mother these broken little things are sharpened in the competition to innovate and rebuild."
"Conflict is what drives a species, and all species react to it differently," Nao said as she looked upon the scorched world "Be it for tomorrow's meal or to fulfill your ideals there's few forces that can spur change and reinvention better then conflict."
"Yes, the Asari insurrection taught that lesson well enough," Wrail muttered before clapping her hands together "I suppose you'll want a few of your representatives on my ship when first contact is made?"
"My second, Zoli, will accompany you in my stead to represent the Shard Command," Nao nodded "We cant afford another Irune, especially with a promising race like this."
A red blip appeared on Wrail's screens and she exchanged a look with the captain. Wrail activated the prompt and a new stream of data and images appeared on her screens that drew a gasp from the captain. A string of images opened before them of a Krogan, a Turian, a Geth, a Quarian, a Drell, and an Asari in various parts of the Mojave. Wrail and Nao looked at the images for several long moments as their minds contemplated the images.
"Now this is interesting," Wrail said as another smile spread across her lips.
/
Veronica sat in Rex's office looking over paperwork and lamenting the fact she had another stack and several appointments to get through before the day was over. Honestly, she actually felt a little bad for forcing Rex to do this everyday before he went on hiatus. Granted, she had helped to build the very bureaucracy that was now assaulting her with paper work, but it still cut to her soul every time she had to sign in triplicate. Luckily, Christine was home and she did have around twenty minutes before her next appointment, and who could blame her if she took a break?
Then there came a knock at her door.
"Yes?" Veronica sighed as a soldier stepped into the room.
"Sorry to bother you ma'am, but councilman Sylas is here and he wants to speak to you," The soldier said as the thin and proper form of Sylas Reger stepped into the room.
"I am very sorry that I come to you without an appointment, but I'm afraid the matter I wish to discuss is a bit too sensitive for general council," Sylas said with an apologetic.
"It's alright," Veronica hid her eye roll and another sigh behind a hand wiping her face "I have about twenty minutes till my next meeting, so please have a seat."
"Thank you," Sylas said as he gratefully took a seat in front of the desk "Now, what I've come to discuss with you today is you taking Rex's position permanently."
"What?" Veronica blinked at Sylas "Sylas, where's this coming from?"
"It's coming from a place of concern for Rex," Sylas said with a nod "It's been three years since the Second battle for the Dam, and almost since day one Rex has been integral in building this fine little nation of ours. Yet what has he earned for his diligent work? Endless stress from fighting invaders on our behalf, too many failed assassination attempts to count, and injuries that have almost taken his life time and time again. Perhaps it's time for Rex to step down and spend his days as the legend he is, and I think you and I both know that he deserves to raise his daughter without the weight of the Mojave on his shoulders."
"Now, I'll have to admit this isn't entirely out of concern for Rex," Sylas continued before Veronica could interrupt "I'm fond of him and hell he's a living legend straight from the old tales of the wasteland, but as the Mojave grows into a true nation we need a leader not a legend. Don t misunderstand, Rex is a more than capable leader, as much statesmen as gunslinger, but there's concern among the council that all he's done and the stress placed upon him is close to breaking Rex."
"Rex just needs a little R&R and he'll back to full power," Veronica said with a shake of her head "Listen, I know that Rex is a bit unpredictable at the best of times, but I can assure that he's the best man to lead the Mojave."
"Is he?" Sylas' cool blue eyes seemed to grow just a tad bit cooler as they locked with Veronica's "How much punishment can a man go through until he's broken beyond repair? Look at what the last year has done to him, not only did he cross blades with an evil version of himself, but he's been injured so badly that he literally died before being resuscitated. Is it really fair to allow Rex to continue on like this now that he has a daughter and that young lady in his life? Can we as his friend and ally really let him carry this burden as we watch it crush him?"
"That's ridiculous," Veronica shook her head again but frowned as a cold thought slipped into her mind.
What if he was right? She'd spent nearly three years at Rex's side and watched him tear himself apart defending his friends and country. Veronica had watched him struggle through adapting to his robotic limbs while working himself ragged building the skeleton of the Mojave's future bureaucracy. Watched him break against the likes of Athena and watched him die on an operating table after the mutant attack. He was her best friend in all the world, and you were supposed to protect your friends, right?
"It's not ridiculous Veronica, it's a simple fact that Rex has endured more than any man should even to protect his country," Sylas offered her a sympathetic smile as he interrupted her thoughts "As it stands now, it's only a matter of time until the weight of all we've placed on his shoulders weather him down enough to break. You are one of the brightest young people I've ever met, wickedly smart and tough enough to keep the councils in line, but you also have the compassionate heart that lets you feel for the people of the wasteland. The little guy and the fat cat are the same in your eyes, and with you at the helm the Mojave can truly prosper."
"I see your point Sylas, and it's not like I haven't thought about Rex's condition," Veronica said trying to shake away the cold thought from her mind "It just seems like a betrayal."
"Don't think of it as a betrayal, but a transition of power to maintain a stable government," Sylas insisted with a wave of his hand "You have been nothing but a brilliant leader in Rex's absence and indeed most of the other leaders prefer dealing with you over him. You don't have to make any decisions just yet, but please consider what I've said here today. Just know that with my voting bloc you can assume permanent power under council rules."
"Thank you Sylas," Veronica stood and summoned a guard to lead him out "I'll consider what you've said here today."
Sylas was escorted from the room and Veronica canceled her next few appointments to stare out the window onto New Vegas below. She thought about his words and thought of Rex broken and bleeding on an operating table. Veronica clenched her fists until her knuckles went white as the cold thought slipped further into her brain like an ice pick. Looking out onto the cityscape that was New Vegas and watched the late afternoon sun play off the inert neon and she blinked away greenish haze as the sun bounced off a bit of metal on the side of a building and flashed her.
Turning back to place a hand on the desk Veronica steadied herself and let the cold thought slip further into her mind until it was no longer a simple thought. Icy resolve formed between every synapse and Veronica sighed as she fell back into her chair and a decision was made. Sylas was right, Rex had shed enough blood for the Mojave, and honestly how much more could he shed before it destroyed him? How long until she watched the last of the light die in his eyes, or worse, see Alena crying over her father's body?
"You've already green lit projects without him," She mumbled to herself "You're fighting the war against the NCR, and keeping the council productive. Continuing on like this wouldn't be so bad, would it?"
She gazed at the stack of paperwork and spread her fingers across the surface of the desk. Rex was in Dust now, laying his Rose to rest and seeking answers to the mysteries of his genetics. Would he view it as a betrayal if she assumed permanent powers when he was away? It was Rex himself that helped to write the very rules that would allow her to take the power in the first place. Maybe he'd see the point was to help him, free him from the stress and burdens of power so he could raise his daughter and live a life with Jack in piece. Veronica reached forward and picked up the phone receiver and dialed a number.
"Sylas Reger, New Vegas office."
/
Rex sat on a dark sand beach with his back against a rock as he stared out onto an ocean of churning red waves. His body was limp and his muscles ached, but here in this strange dream he was whole. Two organic arms with two organic hands buried in the wet black sand. Here his ghosts were gone as well, only the sounds of the red waves crashing into the beach filled served as his company. It was a peaceful place, a place where he could almost remember visiting yet also had no memory of the place.
"You always enjoyed laying about,"
Rex looked up and saw himself standing before him, only it wasn't. His skin was a chrome metallic with hair made of streams of red wire. Two grey lenses served as eyes and Rex saw that his doppelganger's teeth were black steel. He thought for a moment and then recognized the voice coming from the doppelganger.
"Tyrone,"
"By the fates he's figured it out," Tyrone said with a roll of his glass eyes "You've been incapacitated for three hours twenty minutes and thirty six seconds."
"Thanks for keeping track," Rex rose to his feet and brushed black sand off his pants "Where are we?"
"A mental representation of the convergence point of our subconscious and conscious minds," Tyrone explained with the tone of a bored tour guide "You retreat here when ever knocked unconscious, first time I've been honestly and I can understand the appeal from an aesthetic standpoint."
"Reminds me of a few dreams I've had," Rex looked out at the red waves and shuddered involuntarily "What happened up there?"
"I've been going over it as you've slept," Tyrone leaned against the rock and cracked his metallic knuckles "This Roxanne, whoever she may truly be, somehow woke a conflicting set of memories in our mind. Naturally as our own memories exist, the addition of an entire lifetime's worth of memories was a shock that we couldn't quite cope with."
"You..." Rex shook his head as he thought of what had happened in Dust "You did do something to those alternate memories, didnt you?"
"The mental stress was causing the both of us extreme distress, and I shunted the memories away to save us an aneurysm," Tyrone stared off into the red waves with a conflicted look on his metal features "They now lie suppressed in a corner of our mind behind several mental blocks for our safety."
"Not the least bit curious?" Rex asked.
"It would hurt too much to watch our life played out without the suffering we've endured," Tyrone said as he looked to Rex "If it would hurt me Rex, it would destroy you to know what might have been."
"You and your logic," Rex bitterly nodded in agreement "Just as a hypothetical, what would happen if you unblocked those memories?"
"We wouldn't survive separately," Tyrone admitted with a sigh "Our inherent mental divide may have allowed us to survive the brunt of the new memories but a fractured mind wont survive it a second time."
"So, our personalities would have to merge," Rex scratched his chin "I assume that will hurt."
"There is that possibility yes," Tyrone muttered "Though acting as the ego my personality would no doubt be mostly consumed by yours. We'd gain the memories of another life and the knowledge of a sister, but I would be nothing more than a function of you."
Rex looked to his brain's personality and raised an eyebrow.
"You always told me that the process of coming back together would overwrite both our personalities."
"I lied, though I lack the instincts and biological impulses of a physical body I still possess tendency for self preservation," Tyrone leveled his grey lenses on Rex "As we spent more time separate from each other I developed a certain fondness for my own solitary existence. It seemed prudent to ensure that you would never attempt to reconcile our separation, so I devised the lie that you would be harmed as much as I if we came together again."
"Don't think I can really blame you on that one," Rex nodded more to himself than Tyrone "Changing the subject, Roxanne talked to our delusion of Dad."
"Yes, that was certainly anomalous," Tyrone said with a tilt of his head "Perhaps she has developed a method to determine when we enter one of our hallucinatory states?"
"Dosent explain why she specifically knew it was Dad," Rex shook his head "Granted, in Dust there's a somewhat limited pool of people to hallucinate, but if she was guessing to throw us off kilter than it was a damn good guess."
"Perhaps..." Tyrone muttered before shaking his head.
"You cant be thinking what I'm thinking," Rex turned to look at Tyrone with a raised eyebrow already knowing the impossible thought in his brain's head "Aren't you supposed to be the champion of higher thought and logic between us?"
"When the possible becomes unlikely you must look to the impossible," Tyrone's gray lenses locked with Rex's gray eyes "Even I have trouble explaining some of the phenomena we've witnessed in our lives, and who could deny the possibility in a reality where one can hop from one universe to another and rub elbows with aliens?"
"I know I call them ghosts, but..."
Rex's eyes opened and he found himself staring up into the concrete ceiling of the garage. Sitting up, Rex had to shield his eyes from the sun as it hung above the western waters like a fat orange eye. Dust was as silent as ever he noted as he stood and yelped as his back twitched in pain. He groaned and felt his knees join in on the complaining and sighed as the smell of cooking meat and vegetables hit his nose.
Roxanne sat a few feet outside the garage with her back to him as she tended a small cook fire with skewers of meat and vegetables roasting over the flames. She was humming a tune his, he supposed it was probably their, mother favored in her more lucid moments. The smells of the meat filled his dry mouth with drool and his stomach grumbled loudly. Roxanne turned around and smiled at him before gesturing to a small milk crate next to the fire.
"Come on over," She flipped the skewers "Food will be done in just a few."
"Smells like weasel," Rex said as he sat down next to her.
"Yep, without Old man Peters to hunt the buggers down they've retaken the whole forest," Roxanne said as she gave him another smile "Sleep well?"
"Had a bit of a discussion with my brain, and almost had an aneurysm but otherwise it was a nice nap," Rex hesitantly returned the smile "So, you talked to one of my ghosts."
"They're not just your ghosts," Roxanne said as the smile dropped from her face "They like to haunt me too."
"So they're actual..."
"Listen," Roxanne's fingers snapped a stick she was using to poke the coals "I don't understand it anymore than you do. Maybe we just have some fucked up shared delusion because we inherited mom's schizophrenia, or maybe you and I can see the dead. Does it really matter? In case you haven't figured out by now neither of us are normal in any sense of the word."
For once in his life Rex didnt have any sort of reply.
"And if you're thinking of grilling them for information on the chance that they are some kind of real ghost, don't," Roxanne sighed "Trust me I went down that rabbit hole and all I got was a week long migraine."
"What? Me, play with powers beyond my understanding with potentially dangerous results?" Rex asked with a small laugh "Dosent sound like me at all."
"You know I missed that stupid sense of humor," She whispered looking out towards the setting sun "Almost thought I destroyed it."
Rex looked at the woman who on some level he knew was his sister. There was a strange sense of familiarity with her now. Not that he actually knew or remembered anything about her, but it was as if she'd been a companion once long ago and they'd bumped into each other again. He thought about her story and all she'd done, and instead of the anger he felt during the crescendo of the storm he felt only pity. This woman who'd once done all he'd done and had friends and lovers not unlike his own wasn't his enemy or someone to be hated.
She'd left a world that had nothing to offer her and paid the price when all she knew was shattered and reassembled without her. Rex understood the immensity of loss, and all the things that grief could do to a person. The fact that her decision had inadvertently created the world he lived in and had set the stage for all the things that he'd done and experienced. Was it her fault that Rose was taken or that he'd succumbed to his anger? Could he blame her for all the wrongs he'd committed and all the pain he felt?
Rex looked out at the sun as it slowly fell beneath the waves. A calm seemed to grip the world after the storm and a comfortable silence was their companion as they sat there. Rex's mind raced and pondered as the skewers cooked and the sun set until a decision formed in his mind. It was a simple thing, just a simple decision that had the impact of a meteor. He decided to forgive her.
"I don't hate you for what you did you know, if there's anyone in the wasteland who could understand it's probably me," Rex said to his quiet sister "You think you destroyed me, you blame yourself for Rose and all the rest, but you just reshuffled the deck. You didnt come to Dust to rape and kill our friends and family, You didnt take Rose and break her, and You didnt put the gun in my hand or the hatred in my heart. In the end, my decisions are what brought me here, as yours did, and if I was always destined to walk into Goodsprings and take a bullet because you didnt then so be it."
"It's that easy? No anger? No punches?" Roxanne asked with a suspicious look "You'd just let it all go."
"I learned to let things go when I locked an old man in a casino vault," Rex grabbed a skewer and waved it around to cool it "Besides, from what Veronica tells me even with metal fists I might not do anything if I punched you."
"You're really a mystery you know that Rex?" Roxanne let out a laugh as she visibly released tension in her shoulders "Even after all you've been through, you're still my Rex."
"I'd like to think I'm cast from a certain very exceptional mold," Rex offered as he bit into a roasted mushroom.
"No doubt about that, though in our case it was more a test tube than a mold," Roxanne grabbed a skewer and bit off a whole chunk of meat.
"Care to elaborate?"
"Nope, just check the cellar when I leave and you'll find what you need," Roxanne said after gulping down the greasy meat.
"Oh gee, I was wondering if you'd be a vague tease or not," Rex took a bite of the meat and couldn't stop a smile when he recognized the taste of Old man Peter's weasel recipe "So, what's the plan? Continue skulking around in the shadows?"
"No actually," Roxanne threw her empty skewer into the flame "Things are different this time around, the NCR is on the move whereas they were scared shitless in my timeline, you've actually managed to get the Mojave government working better than I ever did, and that Reaper painting didnt exist in my timeline. Like you said, the deck's been shuffled and I cant count cards worth a shit, so I don't know where to go from here."
"Well, I'm sure that spicy little medic in New Columbia would appreciate spending some more time with you," Rex said "And since I'm apparently gathering a collection of lost Crasters, I'm sure Alena wouldn't mind a visit from her Aunt Roxanne."
"You know it would be nice to not have to sneak around," Roxanne looked to Rex and she offered a vulnerable smile "It would be nice to be your sister again."
"Not the worst thing to have a sister," Rex looked away and blinked away the uncalled rush of familiarity that had struck him "If you need a place to stay I've got plenty of rooms in my house just waiting for guests."
"Living on the Strip again, now that might be fun," Roxanne stood and cracked her neck "Tell you what, you finish up here and maybe I'll see you in a few days. Deal?"
"I'll keep the light on for you," Rex rose and stood directly across from Roxanne and offered his metal hand.
"You have no idea what you're doing," Roxanne smiled as she took his hand and pulled him forward and locked him into a hug that he couldn't escape "I'm very hard to get rid off when I get comfortable."
Then in a flash of white fire she was gone and Rex stood coughing in the smoke cloud.
"That gets a bit old the second time," Rex muttered to himself as he waved white smoke out of his face.
Rex turned to look into the dark shadows of the garage at the metal door to what remained of his father's clinic. Turning on his Pip-Boy light, Rex shook the days events out of his mind and focused on his task. The last thing he needed to do in Dust before he left his child home to the sea and the forest was apparently somewhere in his father's cellar. He could feel the ghosts slip from him to stand behind him, be they actual ghost or delusions he couldn't say, but that didnt matter now. It didnt change the fact that the key to understanding possibly the greatest secret of his origin was in that cellar. So, as he'd done a thousand times before, Rex Craster stepped from the light and into the shadow.