When he woke again, he felt much better. Not back to normal, but at least within what Boone would call "visual range." He was still weak, and his leg was a dull, muttering ache-as if someone were sawing inside it with a blunt knife-but he felt like a reasonable facsimile of a human being again.
He pushed himself to a sitting position and was pleased to find that his arms did not collapse under him. His first priority was to check on his leg. When he examined it, he was even more pleased by what he found: the swelling had decreased dramatically and the wound had faded from angry red to a pale pink and silver. Might not even leave a scar, he thought as he probed it with his fingers. Some residual tenderness remained but nothing compared to what it had been.
He straightened, and took in his surroundings. The rock wall that had sealed the mouth of the cave was now gone, nothing left but piles of rubble. That was the rumbling I felt, Arcade realized. Samara must have blown it up somehow...but how?
A chill passed down his spine as he reflected that doing so could very easily have caused another cave-in-one that could have killed him, or her, or both-and that he'd been extremely lucky.
He couldn't see the sky from his position, but reflected light on the cave wall showed him that it was daylight outside. A quick scan of his surroundings showed him that Samara was not in residence, but when he glanced down, he saw that right by his location and easily within arm's reach lay several bottles of purified water and a few hypos of Med-X-clear evidence of Samara's presence. Arcade mused on where she was, his eyes drawn back to the mounds of rock and dust at the cave mouth, when the scrape of a footstep preceded the arrival of Samara herself. She was carrying an armful of wood chunks from what appeared to have been pieces of furniture.
"Samara," he greeted her.
Her face brightened and she almost dropped her burden.
"You're awake!" She hurried to set the firewood down near the fire circle, coming to kneel beside him. "How do you feel? Better? You look better."
"How do I feel? Like a Deathclaw mauled me," he said with a half-laugh, half-groan, "but compared to how I was before, I'll take it. Where were you?"
She shrugged, though the bright happiness did not leave her face. "Looking around. I wanted to see if there were any enemies in the area, but it didn't look like it."
"Maybe the Deathclaws drove them all away."
"Maybe." Samara looked dubious, then dismissed the subject. "How are you doing? Do you think you can stand up? Here," she said with a solicitous look in her eyes, extending one armored arm. "Let me help you."
Arcade gripped Samara's pauldron and together they tried to get him to his feet; he fell back as the dull muttering in his leg intensified. His limbs felt like melting butter, and he exhaled in frustration.
"I guess I'm still pretty weak right now," he admitted.
"Do you want some Buff-out? Would that help?" Samara asked, reaching into her armor almost instantly.
He pushed her hand away. "That would be like taking Med-X to walk on a broken leg. When it wore off, I'd be worse than ever. It's possible to kill yourself that way. Something to keep in mind," he told her, meeting her eyes; Samara's reckless chem usage had often raised the hairs on the back of his neck, though she seemed to be pretty good about keeping any addictions under control. She's not on track to become another Dixon, at least. "I don't think I'll be in any shape to travel until at least tomorrow." He bit his lip. Cold fear filled his heart, as Ulysses's last communication came back to him. "Samara-"
"Then we'll stay here until you are," she said at once. "No matter how long it takes. I promise."
"No, Samara, listen. " Arcade gripped her vambrace. "You have to go on without me. You have to-"
A mulish stubbornness came over her face. "I'm not leaving you, Arcade." She put her hand over his own in a grip hard enough to hurt.
"No, Samara, you have to," he insisted. "Didn't you hear what Ulysses threatened when he took-ED-E-away?" Her face tightened, and he cursed internally, wondering if he had made a tactical error. "He said-He said he was going to launch missiles at the NCR. He-" A chill ran through Arcade. "Christ, he may already have done it by now. Samara, you have to get there to stop him. It's the only way." She stared at him without changing expression. Arcade offered a reassuring smile that he didn't feel. "Don't-Don't worry about me. Just leave me some food, water, and chems, and I'll be fine. Samara-"
"No. I'm not leaving you and that's final." She squeezed his hand. "Don't worry about Ulysses and what he said he'd do. He won't launch the missiles until I get there." That stony coldness slipped back into her face and her eyes went distant. "He wants me to see it."
Goddamn it- "Samara, you don't know that-"
"I know." The absolute certainty with which she spoke forestalled further debate. Then she looked back at him and her face relaxed. "Take as long as you need, Arcade. We've got time."
[*]
Samara went to sit by the fire, piling wood into the fire ring and lighting it with a box of pre-war matches taken from within her armor. Matches. Where did she even find those? He watched her in a mix of exasperation and small, petty, shameful gladness: at least I won't be alone now. She raised her hands to the latches of her armor and began undoing the connectors, opening the suit so that she could extricate herself from it.
"Do you really think that's a good idea right now?" Arcade asked.
Samara gestured toward her PIP-Boy 3000. "No enemies around here. It's safe. For now, anyway. Besides-" She shrugged. "My armor's taken a beating. I need to do some repair work."
She climbed out of the pile of armor, laying her LAER rifle to the side, and began picking away at it with a set of tools she took from a compartment on her leg. Arcade watched her moodily. His leg was still throbbing and he was unsure that she was right when she claimed that Ulysses would wait until she reached him before launching the missiles. But what else can I do?
He studied Samara, kneeling in her underarmor jumpsuit, picking away at the heap of metal parts before her. As always, he was surprised at how much more normal-how much more human-she looked out of her hulking armor. She looks...almost approachable. Even those terrifying eyes were down, fixed on her work. His eyes went from her to the gap in the cave wall and the sobering implications came to him: Samara clawed through ten feet of solid rock to get to me.
He didn't know whether he found that reassuring or frightening.
"How did you know I was back here? That rockslide looked pretty impressive; I'm surprised you could tell-or that you could even get in here to get to me."
She glanced up. "Huh? Oh, that," she said dismissively. "Well, my PIP-Boy 3000 showed me a friendly lifesign behind the wall, and I figured it was you. When I saw the cave-in, I tried to get through it with grenades, but it didn't work. I figured I needed something bigger, so I looked around until I found one of those warheads and dragged it down here. Stuck it in the rockslide and triggered it. That did it."
"Oh." Found one of those warheads and dragged it down here. She makes it sound as simple as moving furniture, he thought. Do I even want to know how....
No, he decided. No, he did not. "You know, if you had caused another cave-in that could easily have killed either of us."
"I know," Samara nodded; he was somewhat uncharitably surprised to hear that she had even considered that possibility. "But I figured if I didn't, you were going to die anyway." Her face darkened and she dropped her eyes to her armor. "You looked...pretty bad when I got in here," she said. "Like, really, really bad. I thought I was too late."
"Any longer, you probably would have been," Arcade murmured. "How long was I trapped back there?"
"Not long. Maybe a day and a half. I'm sorry I wasn't faster, Arcade," she said humbly. "It just took me a while to find a warhead and get it back down here. Even in Powered Armor those things are heavy."
"Samara..." He was taken aback by the sincere regret he saw in her eyes. "You don't need to apologize to me. You saved my life." A flush stained her tan cheeks, and she dropped her eyes to her armor again. He bit his lip. "I ... I was surprised," he admitted. "I honestly expected you to cut your losses and go after Ulysses instead. I didn't think you'd come for me."
The flush deepened. Samara didn't say anything but continued to pick at her armor. Curiosity piqued, Arcade prodded, "Not that I'm not grateful, you understand, but why did you come back for me?"
She shifted awkwardly, as if the conversation were making her uncomfortable. "You're my friend," she muttered, her eyes on the pile of metal before her. "I don't have enough friends that I can afford to lose any of them."
Friend. Arcade was silent, chewing on that for a moment. He had the impression that "friend" wasn't a word Samara used often, or lightly. After a time he said, "Well...thank you, Samara."
"Don't mention it." She gave that awkward shrug and began to work with redoubled intensity on her armor.
Over the course of the day, shadows crept across the cave wall as the hours passed; Arcade could see them from where he rested against the side of the cave, rubbing his still-aching leg occasionally. Samara spoke little, continuing to work on her armor or other weapons. No one would ever mistake her for a sparkling conversationalist, he mused. From time to time she would leave the cave to look for more fuel, but she was never gone long; Arcade's chronometer was broken so he could not tell the exact time, but he guessed less than half an hour. A few times he had to request Samara's assistance to help him outside so that he could relieve himself, a hideously awkward and embarrassing experience for both of them. Arcade used the slow, laborious trips to evaluate his strength and his ability to use his leg; it was improving, slowly, over the course of the day, but he could feel the muscles were still weak and that it would be very easy to overstrain himself. Hopefully by tomorrow it will be better. He still wasn't sure he trusted Samara's intuition that Ulysses would delay launching until she got there so that she could see it.
The hours wore on, tediously. Now, as the last of the light drained from the sky outside, Samara set down her sniper rifle and moved to the fire ring, to add another chunk of furniture. The flames flared up, light dancing on the walls. As she moved back to her place, Arcade drummed his fingers restlessly. The enforced rest and helplessness of the whole day was starting to grate on him. He picked up a ruined book left in the duffle bag and tried to look through it, but had to put it aside after a few moments as trying to make out the blurred and faded print was giving him a headache. His eyes rested moodily on Samara. Half-glimpsed, half-formulated thoughts were churning in his mind. Pain muttered in his leg.
"Hey, Samara," he said presently. "Got any whiskey?"
She seemed startled, looking at him, apparently jolted out of her own thoughts. "Sure," she said. "Here." She tossed him a bottle from within her armor, taking one for herself before settling back down again. Arcade uncapped it and took a sip, waiting for the burn to spread through him. Silence hung between them, broken only by the crackling of the fire and the clicks and popping sounds of Samara working on her sniper rifle. The light outside had dimmed; only the fire continued to throw shadows on the walls. Arcade took another swallow, gulping it down, feeling the dim restlessness in his leg fade. He knew he was using it to fortify his courage, but couldn't find a reason to care. Another swallow. He drew a breath, steeling his nerves.
"Hey, Samara," he said again.
She looked up, startled again. "What?"
"How about we play a game?"
Her brows drew together over pale eyes. "A game?"
"Sure." He leaned back against the cave wall, stretching his legs out before him. "We've got nothing else to do. We're stuck here until tomorrow at least," he said, nodding to the mouth of the cave, where the sun had set. "How about it?"
She frowned. "What game?" she asked with a trace of wariness, then added, "You mean like Caravan? Because I think I left my deck back in the Mojave-"
He took another swallow from the bottle. "I was thinking more along the lines of something like...oh, let's say, Truth or Dare."
Now puzzlement crept into her face. "I've never heard of that game."
He shrugged. "It's a pre-war game. Pretty simple, really. We each take turns asking the other questions which you have to answer truthfully. If you don't want to answer, you have to perform a forfeit-do a dare," he clarified at her blank expression.
Her brows contracted still further. "That sounds like a really dumb game."
"Come on. It'll be fun," he needled her.
That wariness had not left her face. "What kind of questions?"
"Anything. Usually people ask about personal things-the first time you had sex, whether you've ever done chems, things like that-but the questions can be about anything you want."
Samara's face closed. "No. I don't want to play."
"Why not? It'll pass the time at least."
Her mouth tightened. "I said I don't want to."
She shifted restlessly. Arcade could see her growing irritation, but pressed on regardless, helped by another swallow from the bottle. "Why not?" he demanded again. "Come on, Samara. It's not like you have anything to hide, right?" Unbidden, the thought came for the first time that he didn't have anything to hide, either. It felt freeing.
"Arcade..." He could hear the clear warning in her tone. "Even if we did play, you're not well enough to do any kind of a dare."
Arcade, briefly thrown, considered that for a moment. "Dares to be performed upon return to the Mojave. How about that?"
Her face darkened. "I said no. It sounds stupid. Leave me alone."
"It'll be fun. Tell you what, I'll even let you go first," he urged her. As she glowered at him thunderously, he raised one eyebrow. "Unless, of course, you're afraid..."
Samara looked up at him. Her eyes glinted dangerously, and Arcade felt a moment of doubt, wondering if he'd gone too far. Uh oh... "I get to go first?"
"Sure."
"And I can ask anything I want?"
"Those are the rules," he affirmed, though he felt a touch of unease.
"All right then. I'll play."
Samara flung herself back against the wall behind her, taking a swallow from her whiskey bottle; she cast her eyes down as if in thought. Arcade felt a chill, realizing belatedly just how vulnerable he had made himself to her. When she looked up, that cold glint was in her eyes. She's going to cut me, he realized, and suddenly wondered what on earth had made this game seem like a good idea.
"Tell me about your first time."
"My-" Arcade stared at her, taken aback; a series of memories that were not particularly pleasant intruded on him. "Samara-"
"You said." She swallowed some more whiskey. "You said yourself, it's the kind of thing people ask. There it is. That's my question. Tell me about your first time."
"That's...private," he protested weakly, all too aware that after basically arm-twisting her into this game he didn't have a lot of ground to stand on.
"You wanted to play," Samara pointed out, almost smugly. "Answer. Or if you want, I can come up with a dare instead."
Arcade's first impulse was to blow her off-to say, You know what, just forget the whole damn thing. Yet something stopped him-the same impulse that had led him to propose the game in the first place, perhaps. He studied her, weighing potentialities...and what he might be able to extract from her in return.
"You really want to hear this?"
She nodded. "Start talking."
Arcade heaved a sigh. "All right, fine. My first…."
He leaned back against the wall, stretching his leg out in front of him. He took another pull at the bottle she'd given him, reaching back in time, dredging up scraps of memory he'd been content to leave long buried.
"It was my first posting with the Followers, right after I'd completed the initial training; I was maybe twenty-one, twenty-two at the time. He was ... fifteen, twenty years older and, ah, 'devastatingly handsome' I believe is the correct terminology." Devastatingly handsome, indeed …. Even now, the memory of those rugged features, those dark, melting eyes made his heart contract a bit. Samara watched him, the shadows of the firelight leaping across her face.
"He was my direct superior and the chief of the whole outpost. He was ... " Arcade paused in thought. "A brilliant man; an incredibly talented organizer, an extremely gifted physician, tremendously charismatic - the sort of man that when he walked into a room, everyone sat up and took notice. When he spoke, everyone listened."
I listened. He took another swallow of the whiskey and rubbed at his mouth with the back of his hand.
"Everyone wanted him," he mused, letting his head roll back against the wall behind him and closing his eyes. "Men, women, didn't matter. I didn't think I had a prayer - who was I, after all? Just some dumb kid fresh out of training, just like a dozen others. When he … when he started paying attention to me, I - I couldn't believe it. I couldn't believe that I could be so lucky, that someone like him would even look twice at someone like me…."
"Hm." He heard Samara shift across from him, and then a clink as she took a drink from her own bottle. "And?"
Arcade gave a short laugh. "And, well, you know how it goes," he said with a rather stiff shrug, opening his eyes again. "Or actually, maybe you don't, given that you can't remember anything. We were alone one night, it was late, there was whiskey involved, et cetera, et cetera …. " He trailed off, gesturing vaguely. We should never have been drinking on duty; that should have been my first warning. "That's how the whole thing started, anyway."
"Started?"
"Yeah. It … " He sighed heavily. "It lasted about six months … just until the time the new graduates arrived at the outpost, strangely enough. He, um…." Arcade drew a steadying breath. "He took me aside one day and told me that we'd had a good thing - that's exactly what he said, 'a good thing' - but that it was…." He paused to clear his throat. "It was time that we both moved on."
Those pale eyes blinked. "Wow," Samara said only, taking a swallow from her own bottle. "Just like that, huh?"
"Just like that, yes." Arcade rubbed at his temples.
"What did you say?"
"What could I say?" he asked, his mouth twisting. "I was just a dumb kid, I didn't know any better. I said something, I don't remember what, and he nodded at me and said, 'Good kid. I knew you weren't going to be difficult about this.' He patted me on the shoulder and walked off." Arcade had stood there, rooted to the spot, staring after him for what seemed like eternity. His eyes were burning; the white of his own sleeves had blurred and gone misty. Everything had seemed broken around him. It had hurt to breathe; it had felt like bands of iron were compressing his chest. "I saw him with one of the new trainees a week later. Eventually I learned that he did this with every new rotation that passed through his outpost. I guess I was just the lucky one in my class."
"Did you tell anyone?"
He gave another short laugh. "Hell, no. What was there to tell? There was no rape, no assault; he never threatened me." He didn't have to. "I was of age, and everything that happened was consensual. And everyone knew he did it too; it was an open secret." He shook his head. "Besides, who was I going to complain to? He was the head of my outpost. If I'd said anything, all that would have happened was he would have made me out to be a jilted lover trying to cause trouble for him … which, to be perfectly honest, I would have been."
Samara nodded thoughtfully. "What happened after that?"
Arcade shrugged. "We went our separate ways. I requested a transfer, which he approved; he was promoted to district coordinator a short time later. Everyone knew that it was going to happen; he was too dynamic to remain at some backwater outpost for long." He exhaled. "That man is now extremely high up in the Followers hierarchy, which is one reason why I haven't told you his name, and from what I've heard, I wasn't his last conquest, not by a long shot." He wrapped his arms around himself, rubbing slowly at his shoulders.
Samara only nodded, but her face darkened. There was quiet for a while, broken only by the crackling of the small fire in the fire circle, and the wind keening through the ruins outside.
"He told me he loved me," Arcade said after a time. He watched the fire because it was easier than watching Samara. "That I was special to him. I believed him. I came close to telling him … things I've never told anyone else." So close it scared him, in fact; there had been moments when he'd faced the other man with the secret of his Enclave background trembling on his lips, and it had only been the habits of a lifetime that had held him back. Thinking back on it now, it sent a chill down his spine. His arms tightened fractionally. "And it was all just…." He swallowed a bit and gave another, forced shrug.
Samara cast her eyes down, considering. Arcade was silent too, nursing old wounds. At length, she looked back up at him.
"If I ever run across that guy," she said, her pale eyes ice, "I'll bash his face in."
Arcade was startled into a genuine laugh. "Probably not a good idea, but I appreciate the sentiment."There was another pause, broken only by the crackling of the fire; each of them were lost in their own thoughts. Finally collecting himself, Arcade returned to the present.
"My turn."
Samara tensed, seeming to draw in on herself. She looks like she's about to have a root canal done, Arcade mused with mild fascination. Her hands clenched on the piece of armor she was repairing and her face hardened. "Ask."
Arcade debated with himself for a moment, deciding how far he was prepared to go; then with a mental shrug, dove in. Quid pro quo, he thought.
And after all, he admitted to himself, wasn't this the real reason he had proposed this game?
"Tell me about Boone," he challenged. "I suppose he counts as your first, since you can't remember."
"Boone." Samara glanced away. Her jaw tightened. "I don't want to talk about Boone."
"Well, I do," Arcade needled her, perhaps somewhat unwisely. "What about you and Boone, Samara?"
"Let it rest, Arcade." She shifted in warning.
"Come on,Samara," he pressed. "I told you mine." She looked at him coldly but he pressed, undeterred. "You agreed to this, remember? Or would you rather take the dare?"
She glowered at him, but settled back. "What do you want to know?"
"What do you feel for him?"
"What?"
"It's a simple question," he said, raising an eyebrow. "What do you feel for him?" Because you honestly don't act like you care very much at all, he thought.
Those pale eyes glinted, and for a moment he wondered if he'd gone too far, but she exhaled slowly and cast her eyes down, waited as the fire crackled in the fire ring, watching the play of the yellowish light over her features.
At last she flung herself back against the wall. "I don't know," she said, sighing in frustration. "Honestly. I mean... At first we were fine together. I don't know...it seemed right. We seemed to fit, somehow. We had some good times..."
Killing Legion together, Arcade thought.
"It seemed like we really understood each other. He really got me," she repeated. "We understood where each of us was coming from and we...what did he say..." She frowned, as if trying to remember. "We met in the middle," she said at last. "It really seemed to work." Her eyes went distant.
Arcade took a sip of his whiskey. "But?" he prompted.
Samara exhaled again. "He started to change." She shifted restlessly. "Suddenly, it was like, nothing I could do was right for him. He wanted to know where I was all the time, it was like-like I couldn't go anywhere without having to check in with him. 'Where are you going?' 'How long will you be gone?' 'Are you taking anyone with you?' 'You're not going anywhere dangerous, are you?' 'Why can't you bring me along?'" She hissed in exasperation. "He just got too controlling."
"Did he?" Arcade swallowed some more whiskey, musing sardonically that Samara's complaints were likely even true-for a certain value of "control," at least. If "controlling" means requesting that your loved one stop simply disappearing off the face of the earth for weeks at a time without any warning whatsoever and without telling anyone where they're going.
"Yeah." Samara hissed again. "It was like... He started thinking he had the right to...to tell me what to do. To put limits on me, or something. I won't stand for that." The words were cold, clipped. Her pale eyes glinted and her face set, hard; Arcade drew back a bit, unsettled, though her anger was not directed at him. "Not from Boone, not from anyone."
"You realize he really cares about you, right?" Arcade murmured, watching her. Samara grimaced.
"Bullshit. If he did, he would back the hell off."
"Samara..." Arcade sighed, rubbing his temples with one hand and reflecting briefly on how weird the whole situation was-serving as Samara's relationship counselor for her relationship with a man he wanted for himself. "Have you ever, even once, ever tried to see anything from his point of view? Look, the man had to shoot his own wife because he failed to protect her." Something flickered on her face. "Can you-can you try to imagine, for just one moment, how that might make him feel? How that maybe might play out with the two of you?"
Again, that flicker; her eyes dropped briefly, but then her jaw firmed. "I'll see things from his point of view after he sees things from mine."
Arcade resisted the urge to thud the heel of his hand against his forehead. "And what's yours, exactly?" he asked her instead.
"None of your damn business."
None of my damn business. Right. Arcade heaved a sigh. "You know, Samara, have you ever considered that maybe the reason you don't have more friends is because you treat the friends you do have abominably?"
She glowered at him. "Don't start with me, Arcade."
"Why not?" Arcade challenged recklessly. "Look-ah, hell, I'm not going to deny it. I have a thing for Boone," he admitted, the whiskey loosening his tongue. "You know it, he knows it, hell, I suspect the whole suite knows it by now." He took another gulp from the bottle. "I know I don't have a chance with him. He's made that very, very clear." Arcade swallowed a little, remembering Boone's kiss, hard and hurting, contemptuous. "But you-you've got him. And-and you treat him like this?" He hissed through his teeth in anger. "Christ, Samara! Do you even realize what you have there? If you don't take care, you're going to lose him-not just him, but the rest of the suite too! The rest of them won't stand being treated like this forever, you know. Eventually they're going to get fed up and leave, and when it happens, I won't say I didn't see it coming, either!"
He searched her face for some sign that he was getting through to her. Those pale eyes studied him.
"If you want Boone, you can have him." She returned her attention to the pile of armor in front of her.
Arcade practically choked on a swallow of whiskey. What the hell- It took him a moment to pull his thoughts together. "Jesus, Samara, what the hell is wrong with you? You can't just - just hand Boone over like some kind of package!" Intriguing as the possibility might be, his traitor mind whispered, beginning to spin scenarios before Arcade ruthlessly squashed them. Samara made no answer, tinkering with her armor. "Seriously, that was what you got out of everything I said?" Still no answer. "Samara, do you care about him at all?"
That got her attention, he thought glumly. Samara put down the tools with which she was working on her armor and stopped. She raised her eyes, looking not at Arcade, but off into the distance.
"I don't know," she said quietly.
Arcade drew in his breath. "Samara-"
"Do you remember," she said, turning to him suddenly. "I told you once, how I don't know if I've ever loved anyone? Really loved them, like they show in the holotapes, with birds singing and the earth moving and all that. I don't know if - if I even can love anyone like that." Her brow furrowed in distress. "Whatever that kind of love is...I'm pretty sure I don't feel it for Boone."
The admission hung there between them, almost visible in the air. Arcade bit his lip. A strange coldness surrounded his heart. Don't ask, he thought to himself. Don't ask, don't ask...
"What about...about the rest of us?"
A line appeared between her brows. "You already had your question. Now it's my turn again."
Arcade hissed in anger. "Forget the damned game, Samara. I want to know. I deserve to know. After all we've given you- Do you even care about any of us at all?"
The air seemed to crackle with tension. Arcade leaned forward, hanging on every change in her face; he was scarcely breathing. Samara lowered her eyes. The firelight flickered over her face. She did not answer. Unwilling, perhaps to say no, and unable to say yes.
A powerful anger suddenly snatched Arcade up in its grip. Later, he could never have told where it came from; it was simply there, sweeping through him like a flame. He felt his brows draw together. "Goddamn it, Samara!" Some distant part of his mind that hadn't surrendered to the furor brevis was surprised to realize he was actually shouting. She tensed, raising her head, her eyes pale. "See, that is your goddamn problem! We're supposed to be friends-"
"We're not friends." The words were a growl. She had drawn in on herself, a compact ball of quivering tension-like a cornered radscorpion, claws at the ready and tail raised to strike.
"Yes, we goddamned are!" Arcade shouted back at her, angrier with her than he had ever been. In that moment it seemed as if months of tension and frustration with her were coming to a head. He wanted to cut her, to draw from her some acknowledgement of the pain she had caused them all-of the pain she had caused him. Underneath that welcome rage was a cold fear: What are we to her?
What am I to her?
"You even said!" he shouted, digging for something, he didn't know what. "You said I was your friend, you said-"
"I said you were my friend," she snarled. "I didn't say a damn thing about me being yours."
The distant, rational part of Arcade's mind noted the nuance and wondered at it, but that was far off; the anger was right there. "How do you even expect to keep your suite together, let alone fight the Legion like this?! You don't act like you care about us, you don't even say you care about us, not even Boone- Why should we stay with you, Samara? Why should anybody stay with you? Can you tell me? Can you even give me one reason?!"
If possible, she drew further in on herself, her shoulders tense and rigid. Her pale eyes were stone white and her fingers clenched on the piece of armor she was holding. The radscorpion's upraised tail quivered in warning; she seemed to press herself back into the wall behind her as if she wanted to merge with it. "I never asked any of you to stay with me," she growled, bristling. "Stay or go, I don't care. I'll fight the Legion by myself if I have to, and the rest of you can go to hell. I don't need you."
The words seemed to roll from the back of her throat. If possible, Arcade's rage flashed even higher, and that chill in his gut deepened. She doesn't care...she really doesn't...
"Yes, you fucking do need us!" he raged at her. "We guard your fucking back, Samara! God damn it-"
"No, Arcade!" Samara slammed one fist on the ground beside her. The air inside the cave rang with echoes; the sound of her voice, loud after the low, bristling rumble, startled him into silence. "Nobody guards my back but me! Nobody ever has! Nobody-" Her voice cracked, and she swallowed, startling him further. "Nobody was ever watching out for me, but me. Even if I don't remember anything else, I can remember that. Nobody ever protected me, nobody ever guarded me - there was never anyone but myself that I could count on. There-there is..."
That stony light in her eyes dimmed. She looked away quickly. Her hands were shaking; then they gripped each other so tightly her knuckles showed bone-white. Arcade's breath caught in his throat. His anger was gone as quickly as it had come; it seemed a small, petty thing before the desolation in her eyes. He ached for her in that moment: a sharp, hot pain in his chest and throat that felt like if he indulged it for too long, it might turn to tears.
"Samara..." You can count on me, he might have said, but did not. Despite the way he hurt for her, he was honest enough to admit to himself that that was a promise he could not keep, and perhaps was not willing to make. And in any case, what could I do to protect her? He raised one hand, intending to reach out to her; then thought better of it. His hand hung there awkwardly for a moment, before he drew it back. Samara didn't seem to notice.
"That's just-that's just the way it is, Arcade," she said after a time, stumbling a little over the words. "Yes, I look out for myself first. Most other people do the same. And they should," she said with a shrug that seemed only a bit forced. "They're right to do that. It's just-the way the world is. You can't change it, you've just got to deal with it."
A question trembled on the tip of Arcade's tongue-If you only look out for yourself, then why did you come back for me? He bit it back, hard; he had no practice in saying such things without sarcasm. Instead, he gave a long sigh. "That's a really...bleak...outlook on life."
Samara shrugged. "Am I wrong?"
He bit his lip and cast his eyes down, turning her question over in his mind. Thinking back on things he'd seen, both during his time with the Followers, and traveling with her. His Enclave background weighed on his thoughts. After a long moment, he sighed again. "No, I'd have to say that's pretty accurate most of the time," he admitted glumly. "With one caveat-"
"One what?"
"Just because it is that way doesn't mean it has to be," he told her quietly. "Things can change." They can. They have to. Because if they can't...then I've been wasting my life.
Samara studied him for a long moment. A strange expression crept over her face; it looked almost like a mixture of incomprehension and respect, maybe even awe. "You...You really believe that, don't you." It was not a question.
"I have to," he admitted wryly, rubbing his sore leg. "If I didn't, I think I'd lose my mind."
"Heh." Samara actually laughed a bit at that, and Arcade spared a moment to realize how rarely it was he'd ever heard her laugh. "You're not me."
"No." Arcade shook his head. He exhaled, running his hands through his hair, and taking another swallow of whiskey to settle his nerves. Samara dropped her eyes to her armor again, busying herself with it.
There was silence for a while, a silence that hung heavily over the two of them, growing more and more awkward. It felt like a weight, pressing down on Arcade's shoulders. Samara seemed uncomfortable too, judging by the way she fiddled with her armor. At length, Arcade sighed.
"I'm sorry, Samara." He wasn't sure why he was apologizing except it seemed like the right thing to do.
She glanced up at him and gave one of those small, brief smiles, there and then gone. "Nothing to be sorry for," she said, pushing her armor away from her. She studied him, frowning slightly. "You look really tired. Why don't you get some sleep? You probably need it."
"Might not be a bad idea." Arcade suddenly realized that he felt completely and utterly exhausted-shaky and wrung out. "I'll take a watch though, Samara. Wake me up when you're ready."
"Okay." Samara nodded. Arcade slid down and arranged himself on the rock floor, trying to get comfortable, resting his head on his helmet. Fatigue was dragging at him almost from the moment he closed his eyes, despite the crackling of the fire and the clicks and pops of Samara still working on her armor and weapons. He hadn't thought he was this tired.
His drowsy mind roamed back through the events of the last two days, his wounding, the despair of the caverns, Samara's rescue...and her tears. The memory of her tears on her face recurred to him. She cried...over me... He still couldn't believe he'd seen that. He wondered... and without stopping to think, he asked, "Has Boone ever seen you cry?"
The moment the words were out of his mouth, Arcade was horrified; he couldn't believe what he had said. He held his breath, waiting for Samara to explode.
But no explosion came. Samara looked up at him, her brows drawing together; she seemed to register his dismay. At length, she replied, "Once. Get some rest, I'll wake you in a few hours."
She dropped her eyes again to her armor. Arcade exhaled, feeling relief steal over him like a blanket. Once... I wonder when... He closed his eyes again. Across from him, Samara sat up, working intently on her armor in the ruddy light from the fire.