Death had a smell to it, and the corpse they found was absolutely no exception.

It hadn't taken long to find it, rotting away and beginning to decompose as exposed bits of flesh had been picked away by vultures and other wild fauna. Despite the fact that her mother's voice in her head told her nobody deserved to end like that, Juli couldn't quite bring herself to feel very much pity. It was a fitting end for an animal, and this corpse was no different. After all, it had Legionary armor rotting into it, and eventually the tattered remains of that armor would be all that was left of the piss poor excuse for a human being that had once lived beneath.

"There's never just one," Boone shot at her darkly, and his voice, so rare it was that he spoke, pulled her from her brooding reverie.

"Fresh..." was all she had to say in reply.

As if the two realized at once, they snapped to attention and became aware that their steps were very likely being watched with pitiless eyes, envious of all that the two of them had together. Thereafter, a somber mood had befallen them, and, after looting the corpse's things - some bullets and some caps - the two proceeded onward more carefully than before. The slope gently tilted upwards, but they didn't dare to deviate from the path of broken cement that demarcated their current direction.

Juli sensed that Boone was on edge, which made her alert as well. His eyes panned the horizon constantly, even more so than before, and his jaw was tight on his face. His back muscles ticked constantly to attention, stiffening at the slightest movement on the skyline. She wished, as she so often did, that he would take off those sunglasses so that she could see his face, his glorious eyes, trained so seriously on everybody but - towards her - so inherently expressive and ultimately telling. They would tell her what to really feel, and she'd take comfort in knowing she had a partner at her back. Instead, she just caught her own moniker on the mirror of the shades, which didn't improve her mood. She felt what she saw reflected there: an anxious jawline, set in stone and hard as a rock as her teeth gritted against each other in the rising tension that came with the afternoon desert sun.

It had been a long time since they'd even heard a gunshot. An animal. The wind. All was still, and all was never still.

"We're getting close to Nelson," Boone eventually commented into the silence.

Juli jumped, but otherwise said nothing.

"Any closer, I'm shooting any legionary I see," Boone continued with a tone she rarely heard him use. A bitter, angry tone that didn't sound at all like him, frightening in its eagerness to lunge head-forward into battle, uncaring of any of the consequences thereafter. "Hope that's not a problem."

The warning was endearing to Juli, but her chest still tightened at the implications of his statement.

This was, after all, what he'd signed on for. Why he came with her. What he was here for. He wanted to go out with a glorious death, taking out as many of those disgusting bastards with him as he went. The reminder sickened Juli a little, made her stomach actually hurt, as she glanced sidelong at him and noticed that his jaw was shakily set into a line of determination.

The hatred that was poison, that would probably never, ever go away, made those who felt it lust after the deaths of all who opposed, even if that violence led to what could be seen as an inevitable suicide. She'd agreed to it at the beginning, but things felt different now, especially now that she was starting to like having him around. And was it just her shrouded perception or did he seem more uneasy about this mission than he had been before?

At the beginning, Boone would have had no reservations at all, but now it seemed like the prospect of hunting was less of a sure thing now. Was it because she was with him? Was it because he didn't want her to get hurt in the process?

Or was that just her own misguided vanity talking?

In any event, Boone wanted a response, and this was made clear when he turned to look at her after what felt like an eternity. Boone's body language made it seem as if he was uneasy. His shoulders shrugged, his hands were white against his gun, he licked his lips and cleared his throat.

Again, she saw herself in those glasses, so little and so wanting in so many ways, as her small figure limped along beside him with the slowness of their death march. As Juli took real note of how she looked in the distorted mirror of his shades, she was reminded, suddenly and inconveniently, of that picture of Carla that she knew he still looked at from time to time. His wife was so voluptuous and beautiful, just the total opposite of what Juli had ever been, and the notion that Boone's glasses revealed to her how he really saw her made Juli feel as small as she looked there in that visage.

Bizarrely, Juli felt an abrupt sense of inadequacy to address what he was now saying, was suddenly unsure of how to comfort him when what she wanted for him - to feel better - was clearly in conflict with what his mind was set on doing - to revenge kill as many legionaries as he could find to make up for the death of the woman he wanted.

The woman he wanted, not the woman he was with.

That was most inconvenient because Juli realized that she didn't want Boone to go away.

But what was more, Juli didn't want Boone to want to go away.

She felt nauseous with thinking that he'd literally rather be dead than with her, on this Earth, and while her mind told her not to take it personally, her heart hurt with being reminded that these were the terrible, sickening issues that lingered underneath the broken persona of the friend who traveled beside her. It was so easy to forget that the two of them had so many issues with how little they talked about them to the other, but that determination not to work through them only made the reminders, like the one Boone was giving her right then, all that much harder.

It also left her with a little parasitic worm of jealousy in her stomach that knotted and uncoiled in waves of increasingly problematic pain. But it wasn't Boone she was jealous of right then. No, it was Carla.

Carla, who'd had everything and yet somehow was "too good for it," as Manny had said. Carla, who hadn't seem satisfied with anything Boone had done, at least according to Novac, Carla who had Boone wrapped around her little finger like he was one of many little trinkets she used to make herself look prettier. Carla, the beautiful dancer from the Strip.

It wasn't that Juli desired to be Boone's anything. Not really. He was a handsome man, sure, but it wasn't that. Juli would probably die alone without ever having a lover again, and that was fine with her, given her tumultuous past. No, Juli was jealous that Carla still had Boone's loyalty, his respect, his love. Even after death. She was envious of the way he must surely have looked at her. At the way he must surely have worshiped the places where she walked. The woman was dead and Boone carried this poisonous hatred of anyone who'd once threatened her, of anyone who may have even indirectly stood for the things her murderers had stood for.

Juli respected Boone, she realized then. In a moving revelation, she realized that she respected him a great deal. As suicidal as his mission obviously was, it was a course of action that was tempered with determination and skill that made it just plausible enough to be dangerous. And, because she respected Boone, she wasn't going to allow Boone to be a danger to himself, even if that was what he was determined to be.

This choice was most inconvenient, because Juli knew - just knew - that sticking by someone like this was probably going to kill what little was left inside of her, that this was going to hurt. Like a terrible turning point, Juli recognized that there were really two options here, one staying and one going. And the staying was easily going to be the pivotal choice that would determine who she was going to become in the months and years that were to follow.

It was now or never.

Decision time.

All of this emotion flowed through her as the seconds dragged by, and the complicated inner workings of her emotional soul became too cumbersome to bear. She began to overwhelm even herself with the depth of these feelings, but, with a rush of determination, she automatically felt her fingers in her right hand reach up to clasp onto the necklace around her neck as her weapon slung lazily over her shoulders.

And in that moment, a rare moment of clarity, Juli thought that there would be no greater death than to sacrifice one's self in the service of helping a friend. Whether Boone knew it or not, he'd drawn her out of her little cave, and that was a service she'd never be able to repay.

She'd just do what she could in the meantime, and hopefully that meant that someday, in some capacity, Boone would feel even a fraction of the devotion towards their friendship that he must surely have felt in an intimate way towards his wife. No, in the meantime, she'd just have to play along and hope to keep him alive until he was finally free of the hatred that she knew secretly plagued them both, keep him alive and not get in his way.

"That's not a problem," she finally agreed, trying to emulate the cavalier harshness in his tone. "That's a solution."

This answer pleased Boone. One of his rare smiles, tainted by the impure righteousness behind the meaning, made Juli's insides squirm a little with guilt at playing along.

"Damn right," Boone said to her, nodding.

He hoisted his gun up higher.

"You and me," he said. "We're just a couple of problem solvers."

A few days had passed since the two of them had decided to become a couple of problem solvers when a group of men came in from three directions, one on either side and one head on. Juli and Boone were both surprised enough to react violently.

"Hey, hey, hey!" Juli began angrily, drawing her weapon, which had been slung over her shoulder. "Go away! I mean it!"

"She mean's fuck off, pal!" Boone called too, raising his gun to his eyes as the two proceeded onward in a kind of stand-off march.

But as the figures grew closer, and didn't stop, Juli's heart began to pound. She knew who it was. The only real authority in this desert, and one she'd only heard stories about, really.

The NCR.

They wore ridiculous hats, Juli thought, but she knew the color and the faded green of their velcro badges. On top of that, she recognized the ridiculous aura of righteous authority that permeated off of these men, the indignation at being challenged so evident in the long-nosed glares she received from the clear leader, the man up front.

The gun that had found its way to her hand slackened somewhat, but that didn't keep the frontrunner's eyes from flitting to it anxiously.

"Expecting trouble, civilian?" the man asked, narrowing his eyes.

His beard was rugged, weathered, and it was clear by the worn nature of the rest of his uniform that he'd been on tour for a very long time. The man's brown, beady eyes looked tired, and his dark eyebrows, stern as they already appeared to be, made the man looked more than a little intimidating, Juli thought.

But his tone got to her.

"You should know that it's illegal to draw weapons against a military officer in the NCR," the man snapped.

"And you should know better than to ambush a pair of armed strangers," Boone shot back with his harshest tone that Juli hated so much.

"We're in NCR territory now, civilian," the man harped back. "It is your responsibility to be knowledgeable of, and to follow, the law."

"And that's worked out pretty well for everybody so far, I imagine," was Boone's quick reply.

The man's eyes now turned to survey Boone. Peculiarly, the man's eyes lightened with familiarity towards the man, and the unconscious facial cue made Juli angry.

It was because she was Chinese, wasn't it?

Or better yet, because she was a woman?

No, Juli reprimanded herself, it isn't. Don't be like that. Its because Boone is NCR. And, she thought, because of Boone's hat. A beret, he called it? Somehow, the new man, the NCR pig, knew the hat, like they all seemed to, and, almost like Boone was royalty, they'd back away, bowing their heads in a way that almost indicated some semblance of respect.

Juli wondered at the subliminal messages the two of them were broadcasting between them. It was more than just recognition of his hat this time. Was it the glare in Boone's eyes? She wouldn't know. All she saw out of Boone's eyes was her own profile, stark against the impossibly shined aviator glasses he never took off. Was it the twitchiness of his hands? Juli didn't think so. How could that be it? She was twitchy too, just not trained to be that way. Maybe it was the haircut. Juli glanced clandestinely between the two men and took stock of the haircuts between them.

Very similar. Cropped off the top, probably (hard to tell underneath all those hats,) nearly flat on top, shorter on the sides.

An awfully handsome haircut, Juli allowed herself to think.

A tacit, unspoken conversation passed between the two men, and it frustrated her.

This new man seemed to recognize more about Boone than Boone had ever allowed her to see. How was that right or fair? Why did he prefer a stranger to know of him and not her? Was she really that terrible?

The insecurity of Boone's feelings was new and uncomfortable, but since she'd decided to stay in earnest those few days ago she'd been feeling awfully vulnerable about their relationship, if that was what it was. Friends aside, he'd stayed by her, and nobody did that anymore. She'd stayed by him too.

So why now was her lack of knowledge about Boone's past, about his feelings, who he really was, being thrown back in her face by this stranger, some pretender, who didn't even know Boone's name but still clearly had the look about him that suggested he understood more about the man than she ever had?

These thoughts churned unpleasantly in her head, and she still wasn't feeling entirely healthy since her fever all those weeks back. She knew she'd need real medicine eventually, and that until she got them, and allowed herself a good rest, she couldn't and wouldn't be 100%. But until then, she'd just have to suck it up and deal with it, as she always did, and hope that the rest of the tests she ran on her body to test for normalization weren't affected.

In any event, the casual, relaxed posture of this new man as he stood tall, a half smile lingering on his face, angered Juli. He had no right to understand Boone better than she did, and the fact that he did made a strangely possessive, jealous beast clutch onto her good bearings.

Especially when the man turned back to her, a glare transforming his face distastefully.

"Identify yourself," he ordered, a southern drawl - Juli thought - lilting his deep voice.

The "r"s were so distinct.

Having finally reached the two of them, the man squared his shoulders to her, a clear intimidation tactic. Pointedly, Juli would not be fooled. She'd faced twice his size and lived, and she didn't think Boone would allow any harm to come to her, especially because his precious hat prevented anybody from making a move on him. Plus, from what she heard, the NCR didn't murder civilians for insubordination. They weren't raiders, or lawless.

Juli took a step forward, cocked her hips forward, and addressed the man as she saw fit.

"No," Juli stated, not relinquishing her gun to its place on her back.

"Excuse me?" the man asked.

"What authority do you have over me out here?" Juli replied. "Don't run up to me and order me to divulge my name. I'll do it if I want to."

The man sneered.

"Fine, you wanna play that crap, be my guest. I know your buddy's NCR, so if she's with you..." the man turned to Boone, "then she's your fucking problem, got me?"

Boone grunted in affirmation, and for some reason the affirmation pissed her off, like he was acquiescing to her even being a problem. Like Juli was somebody's problem being passed around between white people.

Juli felt her temper rising, but tried to keep it in check. For now.

"What do you want?" she asked the man, who glared at her every time she spoke.

"It's my duty to inform you good citizens that this area is locked down by the NCR military."

"That's illegal," Boone shot back. "Unless -"

"Some Legion scumbags have holed up in Nelson."

Boone and Juli glanced at each other. They'd hoped to resupply there before heading northwards to follow Benny.

But now...

"What's the trouble with the Legion?" Juli asked, relaxing a little as the three of them all seemed to murmur in agreement that the Legion's presence was a bad thing.

"What ain't the trouble with the Legion?"

A dark silence passed over the three of them as the man's lackeys made their way forward.

"This time, they jumped the camp in Nelson while the troopers were setting up."

The man ran a hand over his face tiredly.

"What did you lose?" Boone asked sympathetically.

"A bunch of gear, and they've taken the town by force."

"Casualities?"

"Couple of troopers..."

The two newcomers flashed the whites of their eyes, and she looked up around at all of them, feeling a terrible foreboding emanate from her stomach.

"Got 'em crucified down near the center of town," the nameless newcomer mumbled.

Boone's back ticked upwards, and hers did too. They glanced at each other, and Juli noticed just how old he looked, how terrible this responsibility was of knowing what crucifixion even was. The moment lingered for longer than Juli was comfortable with, and she cleared her throat firmly.

"Is anything being done to recover them?"

The man rolled his eyes - disrespectfully, Juli thought.

"Back at Ranger School, they taught us not to run headlong into a battle when you're outnumbered ten to one."

"Really?" she countered. "Because I thought they taught you not to run in at all."

"Look, you think I like this?" he asked, raising his voice.

He took a step forward, and it must have been more aggressive than Boone liked because he sidestepped a little in front of her, raising his hands as if to coax a raging predator. She heard Boone say,

"Easy..."

But the man wouldn't be deterred. He advanced, his voice growing in volume by the second. His buddies seemed on edge too, and the entire confrontation suddenly seemed a lot more physical than it just had.

"You think I like losing boys like this to this crap? I got my hands tied behind my back, but for those three boys they got down there I've got twenty of 'em, less than twenty five years old, each of 'em, that'd go down with that firefight!"

"So you will just do nothing?" Juli shouted back indignantly.

"I can't lose this entire squadron for three guys! They knew the risks!"

"They were kids!" Juli shot back indignantly.

She looked around at them all and realized all of them were, except for the man with the ridiculous hat who was speaking to her. The moment granted her some clarity.

Juli took a step forward.

"Fine! Then I will go!"

Simultaneously, Boone's head snapped back to her, and once more she saw the harsh lines of her face illuminated perfectly in his shiny glasses. At the same time, the man threw his head back and laughed derisively.

"You want to go down there and try to haul those crippled boys off those poles, you're dumber than you look, Chinese."

Boone had stepped back a few paces now, but Juli didn't pay him any mind anymore. She could protect herself, whether he liked to admit it or not, and she looked appealingly around at all the soldiers, none of whom seemed willing to meet her eyes.

She could be a symbol.

Boone would probably give her crap about it, but what else was new? At least if he didn't agree with her, he went along with her anyway.

"Let me go," she repeated harder, looking back at the leader she spoke with.

"I can't allow you to jeopardize my men on some fool's errand to save those boys. Now, I don't like it either, but they're gone! Gone - do you hear me? Now if you still want to help us out, do the good ole NCR this favor, me and my men'd be awfully grateful! If not, then shut the fuck up and get the fuck off my road. Got it?"

Juli stared at the man and saw that he'd already submitted to the crucifixion. It had broken him, and that broke her a little bit too because she knew what it was when the person in charge had given up. Still, she wasn't about to leave those poor people to die, nor was she about to just walk away like nothing had happened.

"Fine!" she shouted eventually. "Where's your stupid camp?"

"Up that hill a ways," the man said. "Just follow the road. Once you're there, I think we'll have enough men to make an indirect assault of the bases that surround the town. That'll buy you enough time to end those boys' lives. If we can't get 'em out, we need to ease their passing."

He glanced at his boys, whom he nodded to grimly. They'd talked about it amongst themselves, wondered what they could do.

Juli hated that about the Legion, how powerless they could make everybody else feel. It wasn't right. Wasn't right at all.

For the first time since Nipton, she felt the same sense of mounting rage Boone likely felt all the time, and as with the coming of the storm, the electricity that drove her made her feel singlemindedly determined to the point of recklessness.

"Now you better settle your affairs with your maker now, Chinese. You and your boy here. Because once we go into this, there might not be any coming back."

Juli nodded at the man before turning to face Boone, and the man and his friends seemed to take that as their cue to leave. One last time, the man turned back to her, the last in the long, despondent line.

"We'll be waiting for you up at the top of the hill if you decide you have stomach enough to go through with this."

With that, they were gone, but Juli hardly noticed. She already knew what she was going to do, whether that man and his Rangers agreed with her or not. She was going to save those young men, and they were going to be recovering in a medical tent that was likely established in the NCR camp by nightfall.

The disgust and rage that had been building underneath her insecurity in the last few days was starting to bubble up now. Sighing angrily, Juli began to walk forward when she felt an unusual, surprising tug on her wrist. Her forward motion had been too quick, and the hand slid down to intertwine, almost instinctively, with her free fingers.

Juli turned back to Boone, who, she was surprised to see, didn't immediately let go.

"Did you mean it?" he asked her seriously.

He was using yet another tone she hadn't heard from him. Awe? He almost sounded like he was marveling her.

But, again, that could have been vanity also.

"Mean what?" she asked uncomfortably.

"Going in there? Getting them down?"

Oh, here we go, Juli thought derisively.

She was expecting to be read the riot act, but the rage in her wouldn't allow him to talk her out of it.

"Look, Craig, you don't have to come with me, but I -"

"No, I..." Boone trailed off uncharacteristically, seeming unsure, before he turned his head back to glance up at her. "I just wanted to make sure."

"I'm not kidding around," she affirmed, her tone as angry as she felt.

Her reassurance seemed to give him some confidence that he clearly couldn't have without it.

"Good," he said, "because I say to hell with mercy killing. Let's get those boys outta there. Today."

Boone would never forget that afternoon in Nelson. Tears came to his eyes as he noticed how hard she was pulling the boys down, as he saw how much effort she put into bringing them down to the ground. He was moved by the intensity of her glares around at the horizon, daring it to challenge her, as she dragged each boy, one by one, up that hill back into camp. He would always remember the way she cooed over them, but more than that he would always remember the way the young men pined for her, wept with gratitude and relief, how they reached for her with hysterical thanks, how their hands reached out to touch her hands in worship.

Something shifted inside of him that day. Something big. And, even though he wasn't sure what it was, he knew that Juli really was somebody special, and he was grateful - and moved by her willingness to let him - to be a part of it.