Boone didn't sleep the entire night knowing that Lucky was up to her ankles in the blood of the innocent. He refused to go in and see the scene. Refugees and soldiers all of differing ages and stories poured in for her work. It left her little time to think and made the swearing she screamed all the more poignant when she found something hadn't worked the way she'd wanted.
"You didn't sleep did you?" Arcade asked, coming up from behind him.
Boone shook his head and frowned intensely. ED-E weaved between the broken cars down the hill as if he was patrolling for a second attack. His gut didn't egg him on about it. It had been the first time in the last several hours that he hadn't noticed the knot there.
"Kinda hard to, you know," Boone replied.
He leaned against the red rocks of the canyon and glanced back towards the hospital tent. He saw Lucky emerge from the tent. She was pulling off her medical gloves and untying the bandana from her face. She was a mess. Her dingy white shirt had been dyed a deep sanguine from all the blood. Lieutenant Markland came up to her and the two shook hands. She even smiled through the exhaustion and placed a cigarette to her lips. She lit it and she glanced down the hill at the two men. Her smile widened slightly as she trudged down the blood caked steps.
"Helluva night, right?" she questioned. She inhaled the smoke and pointed at Boone with a look of satisfaction. "You didn't sleep at all."
"How bad were the casualties?" Boone queried to change the subject.
Lucky's smile faded. She began to pace and ran her fingers through her hair in thought. Her eyes went to the ground as if counting off the various injuries until she stopped. She never directly addressed him, just continued to stare in front of her.
"Various. One fatality. Broken bones, abrasions, some sprangs, dog bites," she finally muttered. "All in all: not too bad given the circumstances." She tried to smile again, but held it back. "It could have been a lot worse with all the gun fire. One guy had to go back under for springing a leak."
"You ready to go?" Arcade asked.
Before she could answer an ear piercing shriek shook the camp awake. The three of them ran in the direction of the raucous and saw a woman running through the camp with a small limp body in her arms. She begged for help and Lucky came up to her first. Boone's eyes fell on the pale face of the little girl from yesterday. He couldn't see any obvious injuries from where he was. Lucky didn't hesitate at all. She grabbed the lifeless body from the wailing woman and ran back for the tent.
She didn't even give herself time to prep, she was assessing her patient along with the other surgeon in silence. Arcade, Boone and the woman stood in the open flap of the tent. Boone felt like he had the day of Carla.
"She's going to save her, right?" the woman squeaked. "She's going to save my Clara?! She's all I have left!"
He wanted to console her, tell her it would be alright, but he just didn't want to give her that hope. Even the possibility seemed minute given the circumstances the "doctors" were facing. He could only shrug remorsefully. Arcade scowled and led the woman from the tent. They all knew there was nothing they could do. It was in their hands now. He didn't know if they were capable hands, but it was better than letting some hack do it. At least they had an understanding about what they were doing.
Hours passed and again, he hadn't seen Lucky or Markland come from the tent. He watched the girl's mother pace around camp. In her arms, she held the little ratty teddy bear that Lucky had given Clara the day before. She was nearly squeezing the stuffing from it as she walked.
The girl wasn't among the injured in the tent the day before so the sudden onset of symptoms hadn't made sense to him. Maybe it was because he didn't understand the whole doctoring thing and it was well beyond the scope of his knowledge, but he hoped that the people in the tent knew what the hell they were doing about the situation.
Arcade couldn't take it anymore, either. He got up from the boulder he was sitting on and made his way to the tent. Lucky came to the door and mouthed something to him. She shook her head and then nodded slowly. Arcade's shoulders fell and he gave a sullen glance to Boone and he knew then and there what had happened. Arcade began walking towards the two waiting people. The woman shook with anticipation while Boone watched Lucky go back into the tent.
When Arcade finally had addressed the waiting mother, he was pale, his face drawn. He huffed softly and let out a sigh.
"I'm sorry," he uttered.
The woman adamantly shook her head in denial. He could only watch her crumble to the ground at his feet. She damned God, damned the Legion; anyone who had ever wronged them and gave them the hand they had been dealt. He knew exactly how she felt. There was no solace to be given no matter the intent. Killing Legionaries was supposed to right the wrongs, avenge the fallen, etc., but all it did was make the world that much more hollow and cynical. Monochromatic.
He looked to where Lucky had been and wondered how she was dealing with what happened. It wasn't long before he saw her darting from the tent and going toward the soldiers standing guard of the prisoner. He just about got up when she walked away and disappeared into the far tent. He turned back to the grieving woman and slowly placed his hand on her back.
"I'm sorry for your loss, ma'am," he said.
"You don't know anything," she hissed. "You don't get it. She was all I had left. The Legion took my son and husband before, and now my daughter is gone because of them, too."
It was a story he'd heard before from the radio and from other people who'd managed to get into Freeside. He wanted to protest that she wasn't the only one who had lost someone to them, but he ceased the train of thought. It wasn't going to help matters any. She needed to grieve, to come to terms.
Her eyes finally lifted from the teddy bear to the tents up the hill. She sniffed and let out a shuddering sigh. She squinted her eyes briefly and cocked her head. Boone followed her gaze and saw Lucky again.
"Ah, hell, what now?" he muttered.
Before he could say any more he heard guards yelling and Lucky dragging the Legionary across the camp. She was being told to stop by the soldiers, but she didn't oblidge them. He hurried to her, breaking into a full sprint when he saw her gun lodged tightly in her fist. He had to stop her before she did something stupid and got herself killed.
NCR troopers had zeroed in on her with their weapons drawn. She was speaking to the Legionary in Latin. The tone was tense, but the prisoner seemed more amused than his friend seemed. He tried to wave them down. He'd resolve the issue. At least that's what he'd hoped. There had already been enough spilled blood to last them awhile and it didn't need to be hers as the footnote on a hellish couple of days.
"You're a fucking coward," Lucky growled. She held the barrel of her pistol mere inches from the man's face. "Too stupid to do what you were supposed to. Probably couldn't do it right to begin with."
"Insults, Baby? Come now, what's one child? I figured you'd be used to the life of the young being snuffed out," he sneered with a sinister grin; it only widened when he glanced at Boone standing to her side. "Did your profligate friend come to take a stab at being childish as well?"
"Lucky?" Boone asked. "What's going on?"
"Leave him out of this," she spat back, ignoring Boone's question.
"How personal do you think she's going to take this? It's like looking in a mirror of what could have been," the Legionary asked Boone now. "Look at her. She loses her mind over one kid. Not the others and maybe not even the one laying on the slab in there."
"Shut up!" Lucky yelled.
"It's not my business," Boone retorted.
The POW snorted disapprovingly and shook his head in bitter amusement. He swung his arms in front of him, taunting Lucky to say something.
"It's irrelevant," she interjected. She pulled the hammer back. Her jaw clenched in a rage.
"Still wearing the gloves? Are you ashamed of what you did? I heard you did good work... for a mattress," he prodded.
"Lucky -," Boone pleaded.
"Stay out of this goddammit," she warned. Her eyes were hollow, her face expressionless.
"You know Lanius is coming?" the Legionary asked as if to change the already deranged conversation into something worse.
"I've heard the reports," she replied sharply.
The prisoner let out an ominous chuckle and glanced to the heavens above.
"Papa's coming home. You remember that don't you? He's coming for what is rightfully his, now. It won't be long before he's baptized the Mojave with the Bear's blood. Maybe he'll finish what he started with you when you failed him."
"He can try," Lucky retorted.
"Brave words." He leaned closer to her. The barrel of her gun was almost completely pressed against his forehead. "You probably won't be thinking that when you stare him down. He'll just see you as the failure and will do away with you. You were inadequate then, just as you are now. Barren womb. No life to be given. The silly little sinner, the progeny of our enemy, couldn't keep baby alive."
Lucky looked at Boone out of the corner of her eye. "It's nothing. Don't listen to him. Walk away."
Boone put his hand on her gun hand and lightly pressed to make her stop. He looked in her eyes and saw the beginnings of tears trembling to release.
"It wasn't my fault. You were there that night. You know what he did," she murmured. "What he allowed you to do. Sloppy seconds and all. Weren't good enough to get your own. What were you fifteen then? Probably had more pieces of ass than you care to remember. Never with a woman though, right? Desperate enough to take your time as a part of me was dying? No. You coveted. You didn't care. Just like I don't care what I do to you now."
Boone felt her finger twitch and her hand drop from his. She aimed it at the prisoner and fired a single shot. The man screamed and grabbed at his inner thigh.
"You stupid bitch! You couldn't even kill me!? I hope I'm there when your captured again and put up for auction. No lucky hero is going to put you out of the misery that will be inflicted upon you," he yelped. Lucky turned from him and holstered her weapon. "You wouldn't go for as much as some of the other women, like that knocked up whore that was killed." Lucky stopped, but said nothing. Boone's blood was boiling, now. Carla. Clara. Lucky. Every woman, every child that had been destroyed in Caesar's image screamed for retribution. "She was rightfully mine and I would love to get my hands on the asshole that owes me the denarii."
Boone pulled his rifle in front of him and slammed the butt of his rifle into the man's face. He whimpered and brought his hands through the flowing blood to his face.
"Grab him. I've got to get his injuries taken care of," Lucky ordered, walking back to the tent.