Juli's mood had only improved as marginally as her stubbornness would allow, which was to say, of course, not very much at all. She was known by her friends to take long walks only to return well into the night, and the others rarely noticed - or cared - as long as when she returned she stoked the fire or made herself known to whoever stood watch. The routine of her absences often brought her has close to calm as she had been since her baby died simply because there was nothing left but exhaustion when her head hit the mound she called a pillow.
The group at large was generally unprepared for the winter. After all, when Juli had asked Boone to join her, their group's inception, it was just barely mid spring and quite hot. Now, even the fire was sometimes not enough to warm up their brittle bones, and it was in those days that the group was particularly slow, quiet, and disjointed, as if shuffling about in a dream.
Arcade and Veronica seemed to huddle closer to each other, which, more than anything, revealed just how well-adjusted the two appeared to be. Juli and Boone would remain as onlookers, and sometimes out of the corner of her gaze, Juli let herself believe that she noticed envy in Boone's eyes as he ogled silently the scene that played out across the fire between furtive glances at herself.
Eventually, though, she chided herself for giving in to such fantasies. She had, after all, no such proof that Craig Boone even cared about her in the slightest, save for few - very few - occasions in which he'd shouted it over to her with as much grace as a ghoul descending into madness. On the contrary, she no longer had any doubt of his true regard for her, low as it may have been. She told herself that it was likely the truth that he sought her companionship out of desperation, less so that he genuinely desired her company for his own twisted pleasures.
This was often the role she filled, being so lenient, quiet, and stern, and Juli was alright knowing that, though he never really knew the real her, she could offer him up some comfort, regardless. She did not need to be known to live, and she did not need to live to survive. In fact, she was often thankful for his standoffishness because it did much to quell the fluttering that she suppressed daily at a mere glance or a grunted word.
There were days, though, as bitter as the frigid gales that swirled around them, in which she preferred to feel nothing than to feel the piercing ache of grief knowing that none among her group wanted to know her.
Not really. Not beyond pragmatism. Juli remembered often the harsh, disdainful tone of Boone's voice back in Nipton as he mocked her for her value of the deaths of those strangers, and how he'd insisted he cared about her tears only as far as it protected himself.
There were days when the grief ambushed her and split her into many parts, fragmenting who she was now to protect her from its whole intensity. When she let her guard down, it would take her, and those were the days in which she bitterly ruminated over the emotions she'd let run wild since traveling in the company of others again. Had she known that it would be so intense, Juli would have put a stop to her investment in her so-called friends long ago if for no other reason than to protect herself.
She looked on the other three who trailed her with menacing objectivity, feeling near them and at the same time apart, as if across a great chasm veiled by fog and dust. Not for the first time, she wished she was not who she was, that she had never come to meet them. Juli wished, sometimes, that she could go back to not knowing the comfort happiness afforded. Like a drug, she'd given in to the reprieve from her solitude, her numbness, and now she only knew grief at the fear of its loss and rage at herself for having been foolish enough to expose herself to it.
No one seemed to notice that she was gone. No one seemed to notice when she returned. Part of her hoped that Boone noticed behind those sunglasses, but she also suppressed such thoughts, as all too often they revealed a far deeper affection than she was prepared to admit to herself.
On her walks, though, alone and away from the world, she could admit to herself and her baba and her cousins anything. If only they were alive. They would know what to do. What to say. They would see Juli and know that her idiosyncrasies were wonderful. They would see her and know her and not turn away because she was good and wholesome and it was okay to be wanted, and to want.
In these days, she told her mother of Boone in her mind. She often spoke of how cruel he could be, how clearly he hurt, funny quips he made, how talented he was.
She told her of her lover who'd spurned her, of the mistake that was their shared child.
Juli often asked her mother if she'd given in to her passions because she was young, or if it was because he had, at one time, been a man deserving of her love. Or if she was lonely and broken, and he was strength and companionship, and it was what she'd needed to get through the day at the time.
Every day then felt like a thousand years, trapped in a prison of infinite fear, anxiety, and sadness.
It struck her with anguish to receive no answers from her mother, and what was worse was that she craved them like people craved air. Juli remembered her mother as particularly critical and it was only when she heard silence in the face of those questions did she really feel powerless to stand up to her grief.
One time, she found herself in that same numb place, having found a particularly warm cave to doze off mid-way through her walk. Juli shot off the rock, but instantly regretted the impulse. The rock itself had grown warm. It had sapped her heat from her core, and now the air around her served as a bitter reminder that she was still cold, wretchedly alone, and ugly with wanting something else.
Her eyes listed around the cave dully until she realized that the light of the sky, dampened by white clouds, had changed much.
She'd been gone for the better part of half a day.
At once, she felt anxiety. This was a long "walk," even for one of her long walks.
She began to wander back, dwelling on this, knowing she'd find no onlookers to notice her return, when she heard raucous laughter emanating from the cave in which they'd taken shelter. They'd all agreed to wait it out until they saw or heard a passing trader who had more suitable clothing, but the few they'd encountered seemed to have nothing but rags and scraps.
Winters in the Mojave were tough.
"Hey, check this out!" she heard Veronica's voice, the strange tinny quality of her voice a result of the cave's fixture.
Her mirth struck Juli in the gut like a hammer. How could she be so warm in this temperature? How could she take comfort from strangers she didn't know she could trust?
Gannon's voice called out in reply, the tone of his voice equally jarring.
"Are you kidding?" he called to her, a slight slur in his speech. "They've been holding out on us, haven't they?"
And there was a rustling as she turned the corner.
Veronica and Gannon knelt, hands on the ground, surveying some of the contents of Boone's bag, which appeared to have toppled over. A dead radroach twitched and bled in the corner of the mouth of the cave having nearly earned its freedom, but a singed mark on its side, in conjunction with a holstered energy pistol on Veronica's hip, told Juli that Veronica had likely shot it down where it scurried.
Strewn around beyond where the bug had obviously surfaced were Boone's now-toppled belongings: loose papers, a variety of stimpaks, a change of shirt that looked closer to a rag now and, closest to Veronica, a canteen she'd only seen him drink out of once a few months back right after Nipton.
She wouldn't have remembered it at all if it hadn't been for the reverence with which he had handled the flask. The sleek sheen of its clean side remained as polished now as it was then, and the black, curly letters and numbers scratched in at the bottom made Juli wish now as she had then that she knew how to read.
Perhaps, that way, she could learn the flask's significance.
Juli also noticed near his bag her own, also toppled over. A bottle of alcohol on top of it that had an almost purplish quality had been popped open and partially consumed. Anger flared in her at this, but she trained her features to remain even and passive as she took note that Boone, for his part, had not yet returned.
More unusual.
"What has happened here?" Juli asked, schooling her voice to remain neutral despite the anger that flared up in her gut at their invasion of privacy.
"Well," Gannon began conspiratorially, "we found this drink in your bag. It looked radioactive, so of course we had to take a sip."
"Or two!" Veronica chimed in before giggling.
"For your safety, of course," Gannon elaborated, a smirk on his face.
"I bought that for someone," Juli responded coolly.
"Oh, what? For Boone - forgive me for saying so, but I don't think our supersoldier is really the daquiri type."
She felt a blush creep up her cheeks.
"It doesn't matter," Juli replied coolly. "It wasn't yours."
Gannon noticed her blush.
"Look," he said, "we're sorry - but we're bored and we're freezing. We had to do something to warm up, and you were gone. Again."
A recrimination?
Means he noticed, she heard her father remind her.
Juli's mouth tightened into a line.
"If you asked, I would give," she told him, making a concerted effort to soften her voice.
Gannon sighed.
"Look, we'll buy you another one when we get...anywhere that isn't here in this cave. Okay?"
"You could have just asked," Juli replied, voice still placid.
"Not if you aren't here."
Gannon stumbled over to her, and Veronica giggled as he tripped into her. She caught him, resisting the recoiling. He pretended not to notice, but she saw the lidded shadow pass over his gaze before he shoved it down in favor of drunken mirth. Juli pushed him back slightly, and he seemed to pick up on the fact that she was awaiting an explanation.
"Look," Gannon explained, squeezing her forearms, "that bug over there seems to have unearthed some of our NCR friend's belongings, so we've decided to slowly, carefully, and methodically return them to his bag."
"During which we would survey and catalog all of its contents," Veronica chimed in.
Juli wanted Gannon to release her arms, but the contact was as unsettling as it was comforting. So rare was physical human contact these days that it almost made her feel like a battered animal when she was approached with gentleness.
A whistle of particularly nasty, cold wind shot past her, tearing up her hair, but she spit it out of her mouth and shook it from her face. Gannon's beautiful mouth parted, and she felt warmth flood up her cheeks.
"It's not as bad as you think, you know," he mumbled to her. "Having a little fun."
"You laugh at me."
The shadow passed over the man's eyes again, and he squeezed near her elbows again, their lingering contact becoming uncomfortable now.
"I would never," Gannon whispered back, his voice even quieter than hers.
Juli furrowed her brow, opening her mouth to respond, when a loud heaving of breath nearly caused her to jump out of her skin. She let out a little yelp.
Boone's figure emerged into the opening, seemingly breathless, like he was returning from a run. His eyes flitted to them all, face neutral, until he noticed Gannon's hands on her arms. A shadow of...something passed over his features, causing her to yank from Gannon's grip, before he looked up to meet her gaze, eyes dark and full of reproach that didn't need to be spoken to be understood. His usually shrouded eyes were free of his glasses today, and the breathtakingly brilliant jade-colored eyes locked with hers for an extended pause, crinkling at the sight of her, like it pained him.
She hung her head, feeling shame she couldn't place, and then felt more than saw him notice the scene before them.
She remembered herself, looking back up at him as his breathing changed. It was like watching a predator catch the scent of a bleeding radstag - she didn't have to smell it to know what it was that was happening in his blood. It was being set on fire as rage coursed through him, his nostrils flaring. It caused him to sniff once, a side-effect of a long run in the cold, she suspected, and his eyes blackened as they locked firmly upon the quarry he sensed was so near and so out of place.
Juli followed his gaze and realized all too late.
The canteen.
Veronica had picked it up and now it hung loosely in her hand.
Shit.
"Where did you get that?" he growled loudly, advancing a step.
"Veronica, give that back," Juli ordered, nodding over to Boone.
But Veronica had been sour with Juli ever since Juli had decided to withdraw, and Veronica only shot her female friend a withering look.
"Or what?" she asked, eyeing Boone up and down.
Boone took a step forward and Juli stepped to the side. His eyes, just once, flitted into hers but his expressions, normally so hidden, were startlingly expression, she found. Too hard to read. Too distracting.
She decided instead to look at the fluctuations in his cheeks, more familiar to her, as she saw him clench his jaw. The way his eyes wandered over her face made her blood run cold.
She wouldn't be getting in his way, so said his eyes.
Not this time.
His was a plea and a warning, one she heeded.
Juli turned towards Veronica, lifting her hands up slightly.
"Veronica..." Juli warned. "This isn't right, and you know why."
Gannon, at least, seemed to have the sense to interpret Boone's rising temper for what it was - hot, volatile, and deadly - so he took a step back. Veronica probably saw it too, but she chose to ignore it. Her eyes had hardened in challenge, Juli saw, even if just slightly, and the smirk on her lips and joke in her voice was a show she put on for them both.
"Bug knocked your bag over," she announced, holding it up, shrugging. "Why? This thing isn't important, is it?"
"Give it back," he ordered, holding out his hand.
Veronica surveyed it instead, turning it this way and that.
"Awfully clean little thing, isn't it? Doesn't exactly scream you."
"I won't ask again, traitor," Boone glowered, gesturing emphatically with his open hand. "Give it back to me now. I mean it."
Veronica seemed to notice on the bottom what Juli already knew to be there.
"Oh, there's writing here!" Veronica called out.
Juli's stomach tightened.
"Veronica!" Juli hissed, hoping Veronica didn't have the audacity to read the words aloud.
"Ah, come on, but this is a woman's handwriting, Boone."
The pain searing in her gut amplified, this time for him instead of because of him, and she sidestepped again as he took another step forward, still careful not to directly intercept him.
Even she wasn't that foolish.
Not after the incident with Manny.
"Got a secret lover we need to know about, NCR?"
She heard his breath hitch, and his free hand, a ball of steel she knew could inflict massive amounts of pain, was clenched so tightly she saw the whites of his knuckles. Juli's heart pounded as she felt the air in the room thin, and his upper lip twitched.
"If you don't give that to me right now," he growled to her, "I swear to fucking God I am going to make you regret it."
"Who's Carla, Boone?" Veronica asked, a hint of malice in her voice. "Why's there a date on it? Date's coming up in a day or two, you know. December 15th. What's that mean?"
Boone lowered his hand, chest still heaving a bit from his run, but she saw him fight it with everything he had.
He glanced at her once, and the look of restraint in her eyes made Juli feel sick to her stomach.
For her.
He restrained himself for her.
Veronica popped off the top to smell it, an insult of the highest order and an action reserved exclusively for himself. His was a silent ritual that was rote in times of loneliness, which, before Veronica and Gannon came along, seemed to be all the time. When open, the canteen offered up a strawberry mix of something, Juli already knew. She'd smelled it many times when he thought she wouldn't notice, leaning over to steal a whiff here or there when he'd fallen asleep with its top open near his nose, his beret tilted just so over his eyes and forehead.
Well, it took some doing to find out what the drink was called. They had stopped at stalls set up by traders along various roads, in bars, near NCR re-supply stations. She'd smelled it in one of those by chance, and she thought she heard a bartender serving it to someone next to her call it a stawberry dakri? Dak-uh-ree?
The second word was a mystery. Utter nonsense.
But its meaning must have been well known, for she'd repeated it awkwardly to a trader a few months back and he'd seemed to understand her meaning well enough. The man had rifled through his finer goods as Boone carried on with the guard further up the road to produce a tiny bottle he called a "nip," and he'd popped it open to show her that the smell was, indeed, that of strawberries.
When she'd bought the bottle of dakri remembering only that it was the same smell, she thought that the word probably meant something that had to do with sweet things.
Juli figured she didn't need to know it, or understand it, or taste it, to buy it in Carla's honor.
This was, of course, before her meltdown, their separation, that awful business up in that tower. The action had been so benign and thoughtless, so on a whim that if someone had reversed time to ask her what she would buy the morning she made her fateful purchase, she would never in a million years have admitted to buying a dakri.
Boone's shoulders tensed, yanking her back to the present, as Veronica brought the canteen closer to her lips. He took a single step forward, and Juli knew the man well enough - knew that look, knew him so much in that moment that it scared her.
He had reached his limit, and so had she.
"Enough!" Juli shouted.
Boone stopped at her sounds, lingering so close to her shoulder that she felt his heaving breath upon her bare neck, but his eyes never wavered from Veronica.
Veronica, for her part, finally seemed to snap out of her pissy mood.
"Do not joke about things you do not understand!" Juli shouted further.
She yanked the bottle out of Veronica's loose hands at that. A splatter echoed in the cave as the canteen's contents evacuated through the clean lid, and from its weight alone Juli could feel that the precious contents held within were nearly all gone. Their eyes all widened as the air was finally sucked out of the room. She watched with a heavy heart the reddish mix trickle past her fingers.
Something about how little there was left filled Juli with so much rage she felt her vision begin to black out. She cursed in her native tongue as her glowering eyes shot back to Veronica.
"The lid!" Juli simmered.
Mutely, Veronica returned it to Juli. Juli, for her part, bottled it back up reverently and, with regretful eyes, turned back to face her friend. The two were closer than they had been since the hospital, but the look in his eyes was so strange, so gentle, so...borderline warm that Juli could have actually thrown up.
Juli thrust the sticky canteen into his hands, not wanting to give him the chance to speak.
"Here," was all Juli said. "Go, I'll come get you in a minute, okay?"
He just stared at her for an extended moment, his face flushed, before retreating out of the cave again, flask in hand.
There was an extended period of silence in which Gannon and Veronica stared after him before turning their gazes on Juli.
"Who is Carla, Juli?" Gannon mumbled, at least seemingly abashed.
"Ask Veronica!" Juli snapped back.
Veronica opened her mouth, her face red, as Gannon glanced between them, still looking bemused.
"Look, Juli," Veronica began, "I was just-"
"No!" Juli shot back. "Now clean this shit up and give me back my bottle! I'm going to go talk to him. Dinner better be going when we get back. And if you ever pull shit like this again he and I are gone!"
By the time she found him, it was nearly dark. The clouds had cleared and the moon shone across his back, but she knew it was him by his stance alone. He stood with a firm, quiet presence, broad shoulders and hips squared to his gaze, his hands fidgeting at the object in his hand, always in motion or totally still. She wondered if that was a contrast to the animus of his nightmares to the still quiet she knew he yearned for in his best moments.
His back was to her, but she made sure he heard her approach by scraping her feet along the dirt and cement beneath their feet. He looked out, the wind whipping at them, and his gaze, as inscrutable as ever, remained fixed on some faraway point in the distance. She no longer wondered what he looked at in his own eyes. She suspected he looked at the same difficult things from her memories that he did, even if their difficulties were different.
She didn't touch him but was close enough to, maybe six inches apart, and that made her heart race. Her mind went back to Gannon's overfamiliarity and Boone's reaction to it, wondering if perhaps that was a result of his feeling something more.
No, she insisted to herself, clamping down firmly on the notion.
She wouldn't allow herself to wonder.
She felt the bottle in her hands Gannon had stolen chill against the cool air and her fingers, and she tucked it closer to her, wondering why she'd thought to bring it to him now, of all times, feeling foolish, ready for it to be rejected.
She'd bought it so long ago and had lost her nerve, not wanting him to see it or her, not wanting him to realize that she'd looked on him long enough to notice these things and embrace them. She'd contemplated not even giving it to him at all more than once. Maybe just slipping it into his bag when he wasn't looking so it would be a nice surprise. Maybe just drinking it herself. It didn't smell like the worst thing she would ever have had to drink. Maybe leaving it behind one day. It wasn't like he knew she had it.
She considered turning about and tossing it as hard as she could now in any direction. It was dark enough that he would never find it, and he would likely only look at her like the idiot she was, bemused and bewildered at the frenzied flurry of motion that had just gone on behind his back.
Oh, he'd ask about it, but she would never tell, and he'd never press.
Shit, she thought to herself all over again.
She'd bought the damn thing on a whim off a damn brahmin-traveller, for God's sake - what were all the nerves for? It wasn't that big of a deal - was it? He wouldn't mind having it now, especially if the date on the bottom was as close as Veronica had said and if the two had consumed nearly half of it. Juli had spilled the rest in her fervor to get it back to him, and, she could tell by the residue on her hands, the substance would dry sticky and red.
The blood of his memories, coating her hands.
The symbolism haunted her and she couldn't allow the slight to go without compensation.
This would be her way of giving it back to him. Sure, she'd never given him a gift before, but he didn't seem like the type to balk at gifts he didn't like.
No, he'd just humiliate her by lying to her face about it.
Juli's brow furrowed as she followed his eyes to the canteen where she just barely saw the edge of the bottom and its markings. She'd known there was writing, but hadn't seen enough English to know whether it was a woman's or man's, nor whether or not the letters and dates had any particular significance.
She knew the only real reason people kept dates anymore was to mark the deaths of the people they loved.
Her little bottle was nothing more than a sip compared to his entire bottle, but it was something tiny that reminded her of him.
It didn't have to mean anything. Not if she didn't let it. It could just be a sign of respect among comrades.
Juli resisted shivering as she leaned up there against the railing, feeling small against the railings as he towered over her, wondering what it would be like to lean against him.
He radiated warmth, even in this chill, and Juli missed what it felt like to be warm.
"You okay?" she asked him against the wind.
He glanced at her, his face unmoving, but she had the common courtesy - the decency - not to notice the redness of his eyes and the harsh sniff that came next.
"I'm fine," was all he said, his voice ragged.
She didn't say anything.
He leaned down onto the railing too and sighed, fumbling with the shining bottle in his hands. His hand slowly reached up to the beret on his head, pliable with frequent use, and he wiped at the liquid on it, which was still evaporating. The movement was gentle and reverent, as it always was, which made Juli's abdomen clench with anxiety as she averted her eyes more adamantly.
This was a ritual she wasn't meant to see.
Still, it brought pricks of tears to the corners of her eyes.
Boone's beret was also treated with reverence. If even it was reduced to a mere cleaning cloth at the presence of those little letters there on the bottom, the flask must have remained important to him through all these months.
Which meant so too did everything it - meaning she - represented.
It cut something inside of her that had been healing, which wasn't fair.
"I'm sorry for what I did," Juli whispered to him.
He looked over at her quickly at that and held his gaze until she returned it, if just for a moment. He looked confused, so she nodded with her chin.
"The drink," she elaborated, voice shaking. "I - I shouldn't have spilled it. I know it's important."
He offered her one of his rare smiles, smaller and sadder this time, even if he stared down at the canteen again to give it.
"Why do you think that?" he wondered, sounding bemused.
"Well…" she offered up, "it's the cleanest thing you own and the only alcohol in your possession that you don't drink."
He thought, then, surprisingly, he laughed a little.
"Surprised you noticed," he mumbled, half to himself, half to her.
"Why?"
"You didn't say anything about it."
She just shrugged.
"Not my business."
He held his gaze on her face again until she grew warm with it.
"Her name is there?" Juli probed, training her voice to remain light.
Boone sighed and flipped the canteen over, revealing the maddeningly incomprehensible language to her. She looked over at it mildly, ashamed to admit that she didn't actually know how to read or write English, not well, not well enough, anyway. She knew how to read Latin okay, knew how to read bills and receipts and interpret words over an embarrassingly long period of study, she was ashamed to admit. Juli even knew many of the letters were the same, but handwriting was a completely different story.
Still, she recognized numbers.
And now that it had been revealed that the letters were, indeed, that of his former wife's name, in conjunction with an impending date and a female's handwriting, Juli knew enough to realize just how much the canteen must mean to him.
Reluctantly, she respected him for his diligence and felt the ring hung about her neck, which was often forgotten in those days, grow heavy and thick on her chest.
"I'm sorry I spilled her drink, Craig," Juli repeated earnestly.
He shook his head down at it, sniffled again.
"Thanks, but...it's alright," he finally dismissed with a quick shake of his head. "Not a big deal. This shit is swill."
He let out a chuff of air, offering her a reassuring smile. She smiled back at him encouragingly, and their gaze lingered.
Until it didn't.
"You don't like it?" she doubted, her voice hitching up, feeling as if the small bottle between her fingers swell.
"It was her favorite," he said, shrugging. "She was always into some nasty, girly shit."
He actually laughed, but it was a sad sound.
"Daquiris, they're called."
"It smells of strawberries," Juli remarked.
He laughed under his breath, and it looked tired and wistful.
"Yeah, it does," he replied, smiling still. "She liked strawberries."
The smile faded. The silence lingered.
"Probably think I'm an idiot," he said, looking back at it, "holding on to a little thing like this."
He glanced at her again. The flush in his cheeks hadn't gone down, not that it could in the wind, but the way half of his mouth went up suggested to Juli that he might be feeling a little embarrassed. He looked almost boyish like that, and her breathing hitched at how handsome he was when he smiled.
"I don't," Juli forced herself to reply, quelling the uproar inside of her viciously.
He laughed under his breath again, looked away.
"Maybe you should."
"Why?"
"Because stupid sentimental shit like this is corny and...and it's not going to bring her back."
"But it will keep her with you no matter where you go," Juli provided.
His gaze shot up at her, as if she'd said something that had a layer Juli hadn't anticipated.
"What?" she asked, feeling unsure. "Isn't that what you want?"
"You don't think that's stupid? Keeping her with me?"
"You're asking me?"
"Why not? You've lost people. You don't think it's stupid?"
Juli's limbs shook and her heartbeat felt weak and flighty beneath her rib cage.
"No," Juli eventually answered, her voice tightening just slightly, "why would I?"
His gaze remained on her now.
For some reason, Juli felt a rush of vulnerability and refused to look at him, as if his gaze held in it a lifetime of challenge and hurt she couldn't see.
"If you want to be reminded of death, bad, mistakes, everywhere you go, you keep this with you. I get it."
That expression on his face lingered, she saw, causing her to grimace.
"When you put it that way," he said, but not unkindly, "it does sound sort of stupid."
"Not stupid," she insisted.
"It is though."
"Then maybe I'm just stupid," she dismissed, shrugging, feeling her annoyance flare up at how close he was and how nonchalantly he was correcting her when she felt like she was on the precipice of a high cliff.
Didn't he get she was trying to comfort him? Why did he have to be an obstinate jerk now of all times?
He glanced up at the sky at her words, shaking his head again.
"You're not stupid," he told the cloudless stars above.
"You don't know that," Juli tried to joke. "Maybe I am."
"Nah, I'm pretty sure this time," he replied back, that reluctant smile playing at the edges of his lips.
He let out a heavy breath of air.
"You're not stupid either," Juli reassured again.
"I don't know," he whispered, unconvinced.
"Nah, I'm pretty sure this time," she joked, bringing her voice down to mimic him, and he actually smirked at her.
And again, for the first time in their relationship, the silence lingered.
And did not stagnate.
She would capitalize.
"It's not stupid to hold on to things that remind us of people we love," she nearly whispered to him.
He looked at her again, his mouth set in a line she hadn't seen before. She decided to be bold, even if she was still upset, albeit just-so, even if she'd withdrawn from him. He needed a friend now, and she wanted to try because he had tried for her.
How many times had they shouted at one another simply for asking a simple question?
She wanted to count more times the amount of times she could make him smile - or laugh.
"Do you know the wooden people I have?" she asked.
"The four guys?"
"Yes. Though some are women."
He paused for a moment, as if remembering something, and cleared his throat loudly, looking down at the canteen again.
"You said it was your family, once," he mentioned, a strange tone in his throat.
She didn't want to think on it too much. Whatever it was he was remembering would have taken them to a harsh place.
She'd try again.
For him, she'd try. Push herself, a little. Because she could. He had.
"Lares," she told him, nodding.
"Lares?"
"Those are the house gods."
"Gods?" he asked her, an unusual smirk on his face. "But I thought you were a regular old God-fearing woman, Juli? Don't tell me you worship the cactus and the brahmin now."
"Is that a joke I hear?" she asked, a light smile at the corners near her teeth. "Who are you and what have you done with my scowling soldier?"
"Badasses need vacations too," he gave back to her, that same smile tugging at his mouth.
And she could have beamed.
She realized this was probably the first time they'd ever talked like this.
Maybe this wouldn't be so bad after all.
"Vacations where it is hot and sunny with pretty girls in swimming clothes, I bet," she joked again.
He actually tilted his head back and laughed harder, and even if an ever-diminishing sliver of jealousy quivered inside of her, unearthing some unpleasantness, she still felt like she won because of how rarely he did this.
It clicked that the last time she'd seen him do that he was laughing at her outside the trading post near the border.
Boy, did that feel like a long time ago.
"Yeah," he sighed, smiling to himself, "that'd be the perfect vacation, wouldn't it?"
"For you, yes."
"Oh? And where would you like to go, boss?"
She flushed a little, thinking of women in swimming clothes, not knowing what his last word meant, wondering if it was an endearment or as bad as the word Warden.
"I don't know. Somewhere warm."
"So what's wrong with what I said?"
The problem was she'd always wanted to wear bathing suits, but she'd never had the chance, and she imagined she'd feel half naked exposing herself so deliberately. That was what suits were for, after all. They just screamed:
"Look at me, look how sexy my breasts are, aren't my hips so lovely?"
She'd been naked plenty of times, but being so close to almost naked on purpose in front of people she loved had always made her feel so scandalous.
She'd loved to flip through old magazines hidden away in dark drawers that hadn't yet deteriorated, and she'd marveled at those women's bodies, how sexy and wonderful they looked just being womanly in all their glory.
Her mother would have been scandalized, she supposed, but hey.
She was a woman now.
Maybe things would be different. After all, the last time she'd looked at a suit in a magazine in the drawer of a desk in a factory in some darkened hellscape she would have been much too young to really consider sexual partners or consider the ramifications of being seen naked.
Moot point now.
It made Juli smirk.
"I think I would prefer not to go to look at pretty girls in swimming clothes," she forced herself to say. "Not unless I got to wear some too."
He made a mild noise, but his jaw and face seemed tense when she side-eyed him.
"Where would you go then?" he asked. "Somewhere cold?"
"No, I like to swim," she told him. "I might just go somewhere a thousand miles from anybody else and swim there."
He perked up at this, as if to say, "Really?"
"Or maybe I'd go to a place with a bed," she told him. "I like to sleep in a bed with a blanket, you know?"
He seemed to think about it.
"Been a long time since we've had a mattress," he conceded. "Not since the-"
But he stopped abruptly, and she knew it was because he was bringing up the hospital. A taboo.
She changed the subject.
"Also a place with a bath," she told him, huddling into herself closer. "It is a nice thing to be clean and warm."
They stood in companionable silence, and Juli leaned forward onto the rail, proud of them, feeling some weight that was there before lift.
He seemed to be thinking the same thing.
"This is weird, right?" he mumbled to her, glancing her way.
She laughed manically, feeling the flush creep up her cheeks.
All at once, she felt on the edge of a cliff again.
"What?"
"I don't know. This. Talking like this."
"Why? You don't like it?"
"No, that's not what I meant. It's just...strange. Isn't it?"
"This is how normal people talk," she half-defended.
"Hey, if it weren't for the NCR, I might just be a normal guy, and I'd agree with you."
"If it weren't for the NCR, I might never have been a normal girl, and I'd be dead," she offered back.
But, as per usual, this was the wrong thing to say, and she saw his Adam's apple bob as he swallowed.
"So the Lares…" he prodded gently.
And she smiled, relieved.
"Oh yes. The house gods."
"And what do these house gods do?"
"They look over us. Protect us."
"Us?"
"Yes, you too!"
"Me?"
"Yes, I ask them to."
They both winced. That was a little too far.
He picked up on it, quickly asking next:
"And do they hear you?"
"I don't know," she said back, looking over the ravine. "I used to hope so."
"And now?"
"And now I think...they make me feel close to my parents. My cousins. Holding on to them used to get me through the day, and now I keep them to honor what they did for me then. Make me feel...strong. You know? Like I owe them. Does that make sense?"
He nodded but didn't speak.
His face had darkened when she glanced at it next.
"I've heard the Legion practices something like that," he prodded gently, though his voice was stern.
She cleared her throat.
"Yes, well…"
She'd done so well. She might as well admit the rest.
"That is where I got it from," she told him, looking away. "I did not do this before I was with them."
"In the Legion?" he repeated, standing tall, a harsh anger gathering at the edges of his tone.
"Yes," she told him. Then, finally, out loud: "When I was a slave."
He stood taller and cleared his throat, putting one of his hands onto the railing. She noticed in the wonderful moonlight his knuckles were growing white, but she couldn't look up at his face.
"Don't be upset for me," she tried to joke, "there will be none left for you."
He scoffed ruefully at that.
"I didn't know it was the Legion," he admitted. "I mean, you mentioned it - danced around it's more like it - but I always just…"
He trailed off.
"I didn't tell you," Juli responded simply with a shrug.
He glanced at her. She wouldn't look back. Not this time.
She felt like every inch of her skin had been doused in gasoline and lit on fire.
"Why not?" he eventually asked.
"Because I was ashamed," she admitted. "I don't need to tell you what women are in the Legion."
He hung his head before shaking it a little. He didn't look at her.
Couldn't, probably.
She shrugged again, feeling her heart beat against her ribcage.
"It wasn't so bad for me as others," she explained. "Not for a long time. Not until the end."
"When he left you?" Boone murmured questioning.
There was a part of her that almost deflected, the way she usually did. That wanted to. That ached to push it away and let him continue to guess, as he had for about a year now.
But his openness was like a salve to her bitter wounds, and she decided to be open again tonight.
"Yes," she told him, clearing her throat as it hitched.
"What was his name?" Boone growled next, tone indiscernible.
She cleared her throat, swallowed to wet her mouth, felt the saliva warm her tongue and throat even as it went dry and parted her mouth to form the word that had been uttered as a curse for so many months:
"Felix," she said, shuddering.
Another silence, this one staler and harsher than the last.
"He must have been a real fuckbag," Boone offered mildly.
"Actually, he was really great until he wasn't," she said sadly.
Boone watched her now like a hawk.
"He was smart," she said. "He knew Chinese, but he was not Chinese."
"He wasn't?" Boone breathed, surprised.
"No, he was a trader with blonde hair and white skin," she said. "My son had his..."
Her voice caught.
He offered a murmur of acknowledgement, and she saw the dance of hatred behind his eyes tainting their otherwise pure conversation.
She could salvage.
She had to.
"Anyway," Juli said, louder, "I didn't realize it was coming so soon."
"What was?"
"Carla's...anniversary?" Juli guessed.
Originally, she'd thought it was the day of her death, but if she'd written it, as Veronica had guessed, it must have at one point been a gift exchanged between them that required Carla herself to inscribe on the bottom.
He looked back at the canteen, sighing.
"Her birthday," he admitted, eyes unmoving as they peered down at the words.
"I'm sorry," Juli told him.
"Thanks," he said.
She felt him gearing up to say something, let him take his time. He eventually said,
"Surprised you didn't ask before."
Well, I can't read, she wanted to say, but her face was flush now, her throat tight.
Juli supposed Carla could probably read, and Carla was a stripper.
"I noticed it," Juli insisted, shaking her head, "I just didn't understand it. I saw the date."
"Not her name?"
Damn that Boone and his perceptive, imperceptible eyes.
The flush had crept up from her neck into her eyes. Juli was sure it was probably so obvious she should be bleeding from her eyeballs it was so intense.
"Well, no, I - I actually can't read," she finally admitted.
He looked at her a little more full on and she couldn't take it. She hung her head, laughed a little, intense discomfort so palpable that her eyes began to water. The look on his face was like a knife to the gut.
Pity.
He'd never looked at her like that before.
"What?" he whispered.
He reached for her and she winced, withdrawing a step beyond his grasp.
"I don't know how to read or write English," Juli admitted. "Not well, anyway. Just speak it. Badly. Ha. Ha. I know. Dumb Chinese girl can't read or write. It was a good guess."
It was a jab she'd taken personally so many times. His face looked even more flushed now too. Juli knew that if he had known how close to home his jabs had been he would never have made those jokes, but that didn't stop them from reverberating against her skull every time she saw herself peering up at him from within those terrible glasses.
"Is this a joke?" he asked her, his tone serious.
His proximity was suffocating now, and she felt like such a fool that it hurt her inside. She couldn't look at him.
"No, it's not a joke," she replied, an edge forming in her voice that for once she couldn't stop or pretend wasn't there or hide behind. "Why would it be a joke? What's your problem?"
He opened his mouth, closed it.
"You think it's funny I can't read?" she asked, voice pitching upwards.
"Obviously not," he told her, the corners of his lips tugging with an impatient twitch now.
He put Carla's canteen on the railing between them. It freed up his hands and she saw them clench.
"Why are you mad?" she asked, feeling like a mewling lamb, glancing up at him and seeing the disappointment in his eyes that may or may not have been there.
"I'm not mad," he said, sounding mad. "I just - I had no idea that you didn't -"
"Can you not make a big deal out of this?"
"But I was...you've just done so many -"
"So many what?"
"I mean…" He laughed uncomfortably, shifted his weight from one foot to the other. "It's a little hard to believe, isn't it?"
Her face was hot with shame and she nearly snarled.
"So I'm a liar?" she almost shouted.
The twitch of his mouth again.
"No, what I meant was that it doesn't seem -"
"I don't need to prove it to you - okay? I can't read! Chinese, just fine, but you can't read, Chinese, can you?"
"Well, no, but I-"
"What if I made you feel stupid for not knowing my language and my writing, hm?"
He seemed to realize something.
"Wait, no, Ren, I didn't mean to-"
"You didn't!" Juli interrupted too fast. "You don't make me feel bad. I don't feel bad - do you feel bad?"
He let out a breath. When he spoke next, he sounded so sad that it hurt.
"I just...don't understand."
"What's there to understand?" she lashed out, feeling humiliated. "I'm too stupid to understand English letters! So what? What's the big deal?"
"It is a big deal."
"Why?"
"You can't get into Camp McCarran without passing a written test, for one."
She stared at him, doubt and panic settling into her stomach at the words.
"You're making that up," she accused.
He shrugged, shaking his head.
"I'm not," he said.
"Look, just stop!" she cried out, too much supplication in her voice. "I'm sorry I told you."
"I'm not."
He was ready to say something else and she recoiled.
"No, really. I shouldn't have told you. I'm sorry. So just - just take this. I'll go."
She finally withdrew the little bottle she'd purchased from her clothing, placing it against the rail between them. He looked at it, then back at her, his expression changing a thousand times. When his eyes settled on her, his expression was so novel that she almost felt disturbed by how soft his gaze was.
"What's this?" he whispered.
"I smelled it once," she offered. "I can read numbers, so there's - there's that. Not a complete idiot."
"I don't think you're an-"
"So I saw the day and I think, maybe this her day. Or day she died. Or something. I smelled her drink before, then smelled this again, then I remembered the day and it was strange between us, so I just thought I'd buy it for you so that we could pour it out for her. Maybe. My village did that to honor-"
She cut herself off from babbling, tears suddenly hitching in her voice at the expression on his face. For the first time ever - ever really - she felt the intensity and desperation of this realization overtaking her, and she wondered at the fact that, even without his sunglasses, her small, wilted visage in his eyes still shone brightly against his beautiful blues irises.
"Just forget it," she said abruptly. "I have to go."
And she scurried off, blinking away tears feeling like all that progress they'd just made wash quickly and quietly down the drain.
She didn't know what was worse: the fact that he didn't follow her, or the fact that she wanted him to.