"Lead poisoning, vitamin deficiencies, and dehydration are what I suspect are making almost everyone so sick." Six sat about a foot away from him in the shallow pool and twisted her head to look at Capable. "So. We three want to form... some kind of bond, beyond friendship? Correct me if I'm wrong in that assumption." She felt her fingers twitch for a cigarette, no matter how long ago she'd quit and why. Instead, she started trying to rub the dirt out of her hair where it hung in the water.

"That sounds about right." Capable sat on the other side of Nux, and watched as he became fascinated with the way her hair curled and moved along her skin while the Courier submerged her entire self in the water, scrubbing at her scalp as she came up to rinse the dirt away. "Better?"

"Yes." She looked around for a moment and climbed out of the pool to fetch a rag to rub at her skin. She knew they both saw the scars where they'd taken her spine, and the other for her heart when Capable sucked in a breath. "It's a long story, all these scars. None of them hurt to touch, and they're all long healed." Six sat back down in the water and turned to Nux. "And you? What do you want out of this?"

He hesitated, then spoke slowly as he tried to put words to what he wanted. "I... I don't know? I want to be with you, both of you." He sounded very sure of himself in that moment, and hesitant as he continued. "But not... uh..." he made a grasping motion with his hand. "But not have you. You're not... things. I'd..." His eyes darted around the room. "I'd like to spend time together. And sleep together." He looked toward the bedroom area, then awkwardly at the women in front of him. "I understand if you don't want... as much."

Six and Capable shared a long look, and Six finally spoke. "When you say 'sleep together', what does that mean to you, Nux?"

He squinted at her. "Sleeping? In the same place? Why? What else can it mean? And what did you mean about women and blood, back in the Vault?"

"I was talking about moon cycles." He looked at her with a blank stare. "Right. Patriarchal culture. A healthy woman who can have children has a cycle. an egg is released from her ovaries, and if there is a man's... sperm there to meet it, that's how she becomes pregnant. at the same time, her uterus, where the baby would live, creates a lining of blood and tissue for the possible baby. if there isn't sperm to meet the egg, in another couple of weeks or so the lining will slough off and out of her vagina. She'll cramp up, maybe have mood swings, and then the cycle repeats itself."

He blinked at her and turned to Capable. "This happens to you?"

She nodded. "It does."

"And to you?"

Six shook her head. "Not in a long time, nearly twelve moons now. That could be a for a few different reasons. I was heavier before, and they came every twenty-eight days exactly, but when I started my life outside my own Vault, I lost a lot of weight and they became irregular, then stopped altogether. I think if maybe I was eating regularly again, it could come back."

"And it only lasts a day?"

"Oh, no. somewhere between three and seven days."

Something in his eyes had changed, and he looked at them in wonder. "You bleed for seven days and don't die?"

"It's not all blood. Some of it's tissue. But yes."

"That is so... chrome." Nux reached out to touch the very edge of a forming bruise near the Courier's knee with his fingertip. "You'll be all black and blue tomorrow, with the way you fell. Have you got anything in that bag for yourself?"

"I'll be fine. Your people need it-"

"Angharad made a rub for bruises. I know where she kept it." Capable got up out of the water and started toward the door.

"You may want to put on some clothes, Capable." Six called with a smile in her voice.

Nux watched from the pool as Capable dressed and Six came back to sit with him and rub at her skin with the cloth. He finally saw the reddish brown of her skin under all the grit and the shiny black of her hair once she felt clean enough to stop scrubbing at herself and turn her attentions on him. "What?" He'd brought his knees to his chest and locked his arms around himself as he'd watched her, unsure what to make of the way his blood was rushing alternately to his face and his groin.

She smiled and rubbed her fingers against his arm. "Is it okay for me to wash you down? Or do you want to do it?"

He hesitated for a long moment. "You wouldn't mind?"

"Not at all."

"Then would you?" He un-clenched his arms from around his knees as she slipped behind him and got up on her knees to start at the top of his head and work her way down. The cloth was rough without being painful, and her hands were rough against his body without putting pressure anywhere that hurt. "You don't 'ave to be so careful. I won't fall apart."

She kissed the back of his head, then behind one ear. "Oh, I know you're not made of glass. I'd just like to take my time getting to know your body as you'll get to know mine. You are not fragile, but we all need to rest before we get too carried away with each other. And I won't know much about your friends here until I can get some sunlight to use my microscope."

He sighed. "I know. D'you think I'll be able to keep usin' my arm if you 'ave to... take them?"

"Of course. I've done surgery before, and they're all running around the wasteland, moving just fine. It's going to take a little time, though, so you'll have to sit out for a little while while you heal up. I'm going to try and fix everyone in shifts, just in case someone wants to test our defenses."

"You've got it all figured out on your end, don't you?"

"Oh, I'm sure I'll hit a few bumps along the way, but once I have Cheedo trained on what to look for and maybe find a few more people willing to learn how to do what I do, I think we'll be okay." She smiled and kissed his shoulder again. "Do you want to take over below the waist? Or do you want me to keep going?"

"I... I'll..." He took the cloth from her to scrub down his lower half. He expected her to withdraw her hands, and leaned back into her body when she didn't stop touching him.

Capable came back with a cake of soap and an Old- World glass jar full of some herb-heavy concoction and disrobed again to get back into the water. "You can put the rub on after you wash." She handed Six the soap.

Six held her hand out to Nux for the cloth and lathered it up to wash her whole self again as they looked on. "You know, if you're going to stare, you could at least wash my back." She grinned over her shoulder as Capable tapped Nux forward. "Seems only fair, since I got yours."

Nux took the cloth from her and hesitated when she leaned forward to rub the soap into her hair. "Is... is there a certain way..."

"Like this." Capable stood behind him and reached one arm around his waist and the other to lace her fingers with his as they held the cloth. "You want to scrub her back without pushing her over, yeah? Small circles, like she was doing on her front." Capable didn't sit back down, and kept her arm around his torso.

When the soap had finally been rinsed from her body, they saw that her skin was a medium reddish brown, darker on her arms and face than her legs and torso, and her hair was so black it almost shined blue. There were scars on her spine, and a few had been visible on her hairline, but the most noticeable were the set on her chest and collar bones. The surgical scar was only narrowly avoided by the Deathclaw scar.

She turned with the soap and cloth held out. "Who's next?"

Nux gestured Capable forward and stepped out of their way as Capable turned her back to Six. He could see the bruise's edges already turning a sickly yellow-green, radiating all the way up her side. Six washed Capable's back and took a step backward, allowing the redhead to cleanse the rest of her body and rinse.

It was Capable that offered the soap and cloth to Nux, and he hesitantly stood and turned around, giving her his back to wash. Six relaxed in the cool water, and watched as the dirt from their scrubbing ran off the top of the water.

Once everyone was out of the pool, Capable found towels for them to dry with, and found shift-dresses for herself and Six, and a pair of linen pants with a drawstring for Nux to wear while they slept. The three of them faced the bed, looking at it and alternately each other. "So... who gets the middle?" Capable asked.

"Do you want it?" asked Six as she worked her hair into a french braid.

"Not really." The other woman shook her head. "Nux?"

"I don't want to be sick on one of you."

Six nodded. "I can sleep anywhere. And we should all sleep. Nux, the other half of the vitamin." She pressed it into his hand, and he swallowed it down with the last of the bland broth. "You think you can sleep?"

"Yeah, think so."

Their night was quiet, broken only by sleepy mumbling between Six and Nux, whom Capable found both tended to talk in their sleep.

Six turned over with a sigh and flung her arm around Capable's middle. "Tell Arcade to stop re-arranging my books," she mumbled with her nose in Capable's hair. "He's got them all wrong."

A moment later and Nux had curled himself around Six with a sleepy groan. "No, Slit, keep your hands off the fucking engine. You're a Lancer for a reason."

"The Deathclaws are blind, Veronica, calm down. And stop antagonizing Cass." She twisted around so her back was flush against Capable's, and Nux grumbled and re-arranged himself to tuck his head under her chin.

"I wasn't," Nux mumbled against her skin. "You dunno sparring when ya see it."

"Lucky she didn't kick your ass," Six mumbled back.

"Yeah, I'm faster," Nux answered.

Capable pressed her lips together to keep from laughing outright as their separate conversations merged into one very strange one. Six turned onto her back, and Nux kept his head on her chest as she settled her arms around him. "The fuck did I tell you about the Books, Gannon? They're in the order I want them to be."

Nux's hand opened and closed on Capable's stomach, bunching the fabric of her shift. "I know, I tried to tell him," Nux muttered.

Capable couldn't keep herself from giggling any longer. Six groaned and cracked one eye open in the moonlight. "What's funny?"

Nux looked up at them both with bleary eyes. "Is is morning?" He rubbed at his eyes before resting his head on Six's chest again.

"No, Capable's laughing at us, I think." Six kissed the top of his head. "Are you going to be okay, Capable?"

She giggled a little longer before trying to explain herself. "You were talking in your sleep, and at first you were having two separate conversations, you know? And then," she giggled and touched Nux's hand, picking it up to clasp in her own, "It kind of became one conversation that you were both having. I dunno, I guess you had to be there."

"Slit used to whine about me talking in my sleep all the time," Nux offered. "Said he was surprised my jaw didn't hurt, with how much I used it."

Six shrugged and pressed her lips to his shaved scalp again. "Sorry we kept you up."

"I don't mind. I think it's sweet." Capable couldn't keep the smile off her face as she drifted off for the second time.