AN: This book originated as a oneshot compilation, because that's the only way to get Wattpad to read a book. I've converted it into more of a unified narrative, but it's still somewhere between the two. So it's a bit disjointed and nonlinear - we'll call it a feature, not a bug. To help with that, I'm going to put synopses before every chapter so you can skip one and have a vague idea of what you've missed, and future chapters will have a timeline so you don't have to waste brainpower on what year it is.
To Have and To Hold
Synopsis: Boone and the Courier venture deep into the heart of the Legion to recover Boone's wedding ring. (T)
The Lucky 38, February 2283.
Sage strummed lightly on her guitar. Why did there have to be so many chords? The holotapes always made this seem easy, but her mind couldn't quite grip the patterns long enough to be able to call the end result music. She blamed Benny.
A familiar quiet presence entered the master bedroom. Sage, relieved at an excuse to stop practicing, laid the guitar across her bed.
"Need to talk with you," Boone began without greeting. He was direct in a way that might come across as rude. But not to Sage.
She stretched out, propping her chin in her hands. "That sounds not-so-good."
Boone frowned blankly. "Depends, I guess."
"On?"
He shifted. "Depends."
"Oh."
He sat on the bed. Seconds ticked by. She lay next to him, waiting. He sat on the bed some more.
"So," Sage pressed. "We gonna talk?"
He looked down at his hands in his lap. "Yeah. We are." Sage expected another long silence, but he plunged one hand into a pocket and excavated a ring. "This is my wedding ring."
"I've heard of those," Sage interrupted him. "Isn't that a pre-war marriage thing?"
"Yeah. Some people still do it. In Vegas, mostly."
She quirked an eyebrow. "Am I being proposed to?"
"What?" Boone blurted, perplexed. A wide grin broke out on her face, and he relaxed to see he hadn't been so badly misinterpreted. Humor entered his voice. "No. Don't think you need my pension that bad."
"Well, someone's gotta marry me! I still don't have a last name. I'm starting to feel left out."
Boone chuckled under his breath. "'Sage Boone.' Sounds bad."
"I'd take it. But if you're gonna be selfish, tell me about the ring."
He shook his head, smiling. "Not much to say. We went out and bought them the day before our wedding." Some of the tension had released from his shoulders; apparently he found the thought of marrying the Courier darkly comical. Truth be told, she'd have said yes. Even though there'd never been anything between them, she enjoyed the thought of being legally bound to stay best friends for life.
"That's sweet." Sage smiled, but Boone's eyes were transfixed on the ring. "Her idea, I assume."
"Her mother's." Boone sighed gently, the tension seeping back into voice. "This is a lot to ask."
"Ask it."
He frowned.
"I can't answer until you ask, Boone."
Finally, he relented. "I want the other one back."
Ah. A tangible goal, and bad odds. "Sounds like a good time." Sage rolled over onto her back and grinned up at him. "Better than chords, anyway."
"Gotta find it first," he added, heartened.
"Any ideas?"
"No. I went back to Cottonwood Cove to check. Wasn't there." So that was where he'd been. She wished he'd brought her along.
"At least we know where not to look." Sage finally sat up and turned back around to face him. "I know who to ask. C'mon." She hopped out of bed, donned her longcoat and helmet, grabbed the Dinner Bell, and pressed the elevator call button. "Come on, ED-E!"
Gusts of sand blew sharply through the canyon wreckage, hissing off broken bits of machinery. Boone, tired of holding his beret on with one hand, tore it off and put it in his pocket, safe beside the ring.
A sympathetic noise buzzed through Sage's riot helmet. "Sorry 'bout the wind. Luckily we don't have far to go once we're in the Divide."
Boone nodded once and pulled the collar of his survival armor up over his nose. "Should be fine. If we don't drown in sand by then."
Sage hopped onto the rusty hood of a dilapidated car, then back to the ground on the other side. Boone hoisted himself after her with somewhat less enthusiasm, ED-E buzzing in his wake.
"Just up here," she called over her shoulder. The mouth of the canyon opened ahead, into sickly-colored nothingness. Sage shoved aside an old baby carriage. (No bones in this one. Good.) "Ahead."
The place was destroyed. Truly. Stone and cliff stretched for miles, a whole lot of nothing. It smelled like tar. The wind had lessened absent the canyon walls, but it brought with it gales of grit, making Sage's Geiger counter click lazily. Boone dumped the sand out of his shades and followed his spotter onward.
She picked her way through to a small camp off the side of the road. There sat a dark man with darker hair, a lot of it. A breathing mask covered the lower half of his face. He slept, his head resting motionlessly against a rock. Sage wasn't daunted by this fact, or by any known standards of politeness, so she shook him gently awake.
He snapped alert, assessed the lack of a threat, and rolled his neck and shoulders. "Back home, Courier. Been some time."
"Sorry. Turns out, committing a hostile takeover of an entire region brings all these consequences and responsibilities." She gave her head an exaggerated shake and faux-sighed. "I haven't had much time for anything."
"But here you are. And not alone. Reason for it." The strange figure crossed his muscular arms.
"Yeah." Sage sat herself down next to him, and motioned for Boone to do the same. "What I'm asking for is a stretch, but you're the best lead I've got. I know three ex-Legion — One of them is a dog, the other is a million miles north of here. That leaves you."
Boone wrinkled his nose at that. Rex he could deal with, but he had never heard of Sage's other Legion contacts, and didn't like being in one's presence now.
"Boone, this is Ulysses. He's... a friend. Coworker. I dunno."
Ulysses seemed content to stare at the desolation in silence rather than acknowledge them.
"Weird guy," Boone remarked.
Ulysses leveled his gaze on him. "Worlds die. Flags fall. Without them, we are but the purest of ourselves. No more... context, for what we do, not here. Perhaps we have a kinship in that."
"...What?"
Ulysses continued, as if thinking out loud. "Bear fled the Mojave, yet you remain with the Courier. Man without a nation. Or perhaps... there's more for you in Vegas than anywhere else."
"Stop talking." Boone looked to Sage for rescue, but she was busy attempting to coax ED-E out of the shadows of the cliffside. The eyebot beeped in agitation.
"Come on, ED-E. I know Ulysses and I had a rough patch last year, but we're all friends now," she crooned, extending a hand toward the eyebot. He inched forward and allowed her to stroke some sand off the top of his hull.
"Your eyebot. How did you manage that?" Ulysses asked her, tone interested but no less esoteric.
"Oh yeah," Sage replied. "This ED-E is the original. I found him defunct in Nash's office and fixed him up. Somehow the other ED-E did some sort of memory transfer, before he... when he was canceling the launch. So he remembers the nukes, and the tunnelers, and the Marked Men, and he kinda hates you." ED-E whirred in distrust.
"Hm," Ulysses grunted, unconcerned.
"Hey!" Boone called, interrupting her incomprehensible anecdote. He was more-or-less used to not knowing what was going on, and he trusted Sage. She'd never given him a good reason not to. But this was too bizarre. "You going to get on with it, or you want to freak me out some more?" ED-E clicked in agreement. "...yeah."
Sage moved to apologize, eyes wide, but he waved her away. She cared too much, thought she could fix everything. And she was overprotective of the people she considered hers, especially when it came to Boone. But at least she got that this mission was important to him.
"Right. Back to business," Sage decided. "Ulysses, when the Legion takes captives, how do they handle valuables?"
Ulysses tore his eyes away from the still-angry ED-E. "Depends on the valuable. Melts them down for coin, usually. Bull hasn't much more use for shiny things."
Boone drew back smoothly into impassivity. "That's all I needed to hear. Let's get out of here."
"Lose something?" asked Ulysses, creepily calm.
"A ring. Boutta year and a half ago," added Sage. Boone scowled. Too much information.
"Hm. Where?" asked Ulysses. He sounded genuinely interested, Boone realized unpleasantly.
"Sage. Let's go." Boone didn't like Ulysses, and he especially didn't like this conversation. If those savages had melted down Carla's wedding ring and stamped Caesar's face on it, he could deal with that. Eventually. As long as it wasn't hanging off some soldier's finger.
Sage ignored him. "Cottonwood Cove. This side of the Colorado."
"Mm. Long travel," said Ulysses.
"Sage, we've got to get out of here."
Ulysses ignored him too. "Bull's been busy. Possible there hasn't been time to make new coin. Ring might still be in Flagstaff. The blacksmiths're all out fighting."
Sage looked to Boone, smiling faintly at the news. "What do you think? Worth a shot?"
"Up to you," Boone said softly. "Can't ask you to risk this on a maybe."
"And I can't ask you to let this go on a maybe not."
ED-E, interested, released a string of beeps, boinks, and random musical notes, with a quick little shake in Ulysses's direction.
"Well... he's got a point," Sage nodded with finality. She started back down the path east as if a decision had just been reached.
Boone and Ulysses met each other's eyes, bewildered.
"And to your northeast, you'll see scenic Flagstaff, Arizona, home of Humphreys Peak and everyone's favorite gang of brainwashed cosplayers. No flash photography; they spook easily."
Boone could hear Arcade smiling through his helmet as he spoke from the copilot's seat. He'd seemed happier in general since rejoining the Enclave. Their last hurrah at the Dam had turned into a series of hurrahs, which the NCR was definitely unhappy about. But Sage and Gannon both vouched for them, which was good enough for Boone. Plus, it was nice not having to hike all the way to Flagstaff.
"I hate this Legion armor. It wasn't built for girls," Sage complained. She wasn't built much like a girl herself, scrappy and narrow, with skin the color of the desert and eyes sharp and intuitive. She tugged on the armor's chestplate.
Boone was uncomfortable in his armor for entirely different reasons, but he could swallow his disgust for the moment. The fact that they'd taken them off of dead legionaries helped a little.
"We'll be landing soon," called Daisy. "Gonna be a bit of a walk into the city, but it's better than getting my vertibird shot down by that howitzer you said they'd got."
"Thanks, Daisy," said Sage. "We'll be on our guard — we've handled the Legion before."
"This is a lot of risk to go through for a ring," worried Arcade. "I get that it's important to you, Boone, but this is Flagstaff we're talking about. Neither of you will be shot at dawn for cowardice if you back out, you know."
Sage scoffed. "If anyone messes with us, we'll have an excuse to kill 'em."
"Yeah. Foolproof."
Boone frowned. Arcade was right, and everyone knew it. If he got her killed over this... but they were here, and getting her to back down after coming this far would be impossible. He grit his teeth. "Bring us down."
"Alea iacta est."
Sage knew how to infiltrate somewhere she wasn't wanted. If she kept her ski mask on and kept silent, her small frame could be chalked up as a pubescent recruit, safely indoctrinated and beneath notice. She could walk the walk. She had Boone to talk the talk.
(She was acutely aware, of course, that they'd never had to rely on Boone's acting skills before.)
A Legion encampment was just about the worst place in the world in terms of human depravity. Flagstaff was the capital city, the mother of all Legion encampments, and it was appalling.
The smell of human and Brahmin waste blew through the streets. Sage would have sided with the NCR for their interior plumbing alone. This was a city, not a war camp, so its barbarity wasn't as prevalent as the Fort's. It was more shocking, though, for its sheer size; the city was huge, and it proved that for all the fighting, the Legion lived on. The soldiers still trained, the dogs still tore at unidentifiable pieces of flesh littering the road, the slaves still went silent and avoided eye contact as they passed. Some had insignia sewn into the center of the red X on their chests, marking them as privately-owned; others had nasty brands seared into their cheeks or chests. Their numbers made the Fort seem benign by comparison.
Sage watched them shrink into their labor and wished for a way to help. She knew Boone felt the same bystander's guilt, but they had come here on a different mission, one which was barely feasible in itself.
The problem was — how does one find a single ring, which may or may not exist anymore, within a city of thousands of people, stretching dozens of square miles? Their best bet was some sort of storeroom, like Ulysses had said, which meant asking for directions to the foundry.
The problem with that was that Boone had to do the talking. Assuming he could even keep himself from flying into a violent rage, he had to be convincing, and charisma just wasn't in his wheelhouse. Sage coached him as they walked, her voice low.
"Think testosterone, Boone. They greet each other with ave — ah-way. And 'goodbye' is vale — wa-lay. Or something like that. Wish Arcade was here."
"I'm not saying that."
"And why the heck not?" Sage asked, her voice up an octave. She glanced around for listening ears.
"I'll ask the question and get an answer," he grumbled. "They're not expecting visitors."
"Sounds to me like you're just hoping they'll start a fight," she argued. The woman had a serious problem with being undermined, even by friends.
But Boone was more strategic than he let on. He focused on a girl, about fifteen or sixteen, and moved to approach her. Sage had to admit, she hadn't thought to ask a slave. A soldier could make trouble — the girl wouldn't.
Well, it was mostly thought-out. The slave twisted in place as they approached, as if searching for some form of escape. It occurred to Sage that under no circumstances would a slave be comfortable being approached by two legionaries. She put up her un-Pipped hand in a placating gesture, but it would be up to Boone to do the talking.
"Hey," he said, with surprising gentleness. "We need some help."
The teenager drew back, anxious. "I don't think I... am the best person for that."
"We just got transferred. Looking for where they make the coins. Do you know?"
The girl seemed relieved, and a little emboldened by the patience in the man's tone. "Aren't all the soldiers trained in Flagstaff?" she ventured. Sage panicked internally. Apparently that was something they should have known.
"No," Boone said.
The girl took him at his word. Evidently there was something to be said for simplicity. Sage vowed to remember that. "Denarii are minted... half a mile south of the Temple," the girl answered. "You know where the Temple is... right?"
Her question seemed almost like bait, but Boone didn't think to lie this time. "No. New here."
"I'll show you..." she looked around, nervous, "...iiif you help me carry this load of manure across town." She held Boone's look, verging on defiant.
"Awful sure we won't just ask someone else?" Boone asked, amused.
"Showing you around town will take awhile. I have a quota, alright?"
The snipers glanced at each other. Sage wore an easy smirk under the mask, but Boone was about as impassive as always.
"Sounds good," he said at last.
The girl spoke little as they lugged their sacks of manure. Extorting their labor had been bold, but Boone supposed she was more afraid of her overseer than of them.
She rounded a corner, but stopped short with an uncomfortable "Mm." In front of them, standing at attention, was an entourage of Praetorians, surrounding... no way.
"What's Lucius doing here?" Sage hissed into his ear. Boone didn't actually know who Lucius was, but he recognized the sunken-eyed spy by his side, and he didn't like it.
"We should've shot 'em in the heads," Boone remarked under his breath.
"Well, that's not a 100% effective strategy," Sage quipped back. "I thought Vulpes disappeared awfully fast after we killed him."
"The other guy's wearing that stupid necklace. Guess they made him Caesar now."
Sage shrugged a shoulder. "Makes sense, he was in line after Lanius."
The girl didn't seem to have heard them talking. She was staring at the officers, anxious of their looming proximity.
Suddenly, Sage took off, passing right in front of the parade of officers without a word of acknowledgement. Boone and the girl hung back uncertainly.
"Legionary?" challenged the guy on Lucius's left. He wore a power fist and dreadlocks pulled into a ponytail. He and Lucius were bumping broad shoulders — maybe they were comrades-arm-in-arm or something.
Sage turned on her heel. She froze for a few seconds, caught in her lack of acknowledgement of the king. She genuflected low to one knee, head inclined absurdly low. Lucius nodded, so Sage stood and continued on, probably saved the fact that she looked like a clueless teenaged boy.
The girl scurried after her, head low, apparently unworthy to even bow. Out of the men's line of sight, Sage jerked her head for Boone to continue.
No. No way he was bowing before this Lucius guy, and no way he was bowing before that animal Vulpes Inculta. What would Carla care about recovering her ring if Boone had to prostrate himself before the people who got her killed to get it? Sage's pleading stare was visible through the mask.
Boone marched past the entourage, swinging his bag of manure back and forth.
They deposited the manure in the rancid-smelling community stores near the center of town. Not the center itself; that was Caesar's palace, and it wouldn't do to stink the area up.
Sage kept shooting irate glances at Boone, but they couldn't discuss what had just happened, not here.
The girl brought them to the storeroom, an unkempt and nondescript little building attached to a much larger foundry. No one was around, but they couldn't count on that for long.
"Thank you," said Boone. He wished he could do more for the poor kid, but at least they'd made her work easier for one day.
"No... thank you," the girl smiled unabashedly. The two waited awkwardly for her to leave so Sage could pick the lock, but she didn't seem to be very motivated to move.
"All good here. You can go," Boone prompted.
The girl's smile faltered minutely, but she propped it up again. "I know you're not legionaries."
Boone frowned and half-crouched to look her in the face. "Yeah we are. Scram."
That seemed to assure her completely. "You don't know your way around the city, but all legionaries make their beginnings here. And your companion hasn't spoken a word."
Boone tried to get out of it anyway. "I don't think that's—"
"You're wearing the Burned Man's gun," declared the girl boldly, pointing to the .45 auto strapped to Sage's hip.
"What? No she's not," Boone exclaimed, taken aback.
Sage finally broke her silence and cackled. "What makes you say that?"
"Every slave knows that gun."
She chuckled. "Well, shoot. You could have told me sooner." She pulled the hem of her undershirt down over the handgun. "Alright, the jig is up. Now what do you want? Planning to blackmail us?"
"To — what?"
"Blackmail. Threaten us with the information so we'll do something for you," Sage defined the term. Boone didn't see how this was helping.
"What are you here to do?" the slave blurted suddenly, enthusiasm lighting her shadowy face.
"We're gonna steal a wedding ring back from the Legion," Sage answered quickly, just happy to have her voice back.
"Oh... that's really nice." The girl flashed her teeth in an awkward smile that failed to hide her disappointment.
Sage looked at her kindly. "What did you have in mind?"
"Well. I assumed... you were here on behalf of the Burned Man."
Sage took off her mask and shades so they could talk face-to-face. Boone glanced around anxiously, but the area was as empty as Ulysses had expected it to be. "I haven't seen the Burned Man in a year, kiddo—" Boone scoffed in disbelief. They really did know each other, or was she bluffing? She shot him a swift glare and continued. "And I think he's kind of hanging up the old vengeance hat. Bad for the blood pressure at that age," she added in a conspiratorial whisper.
"Oh," the girl said simply.
"How friendly are you with this guy?" Boone asked, concerned. He almost wanted to attribute this to one of her head injuries, but she had the gun to prove it.
"Oh, pretty well. He's a nice guy. Gave me a book," she added conversationally, as if that had anything to do with the topic whatsoever.
"Well. Sorry to disappoint you, kid," Boone muttered.
"I'm not," she lied. She spoke untruth with a survivor's ease. "Can I help you find your ring?"
"Sure," Sage answered, "as long as it won't get you in trouble." She started on the lock.
There was no rhyme or reason inside the storeroom, lit only by the open door and holes in the sagging ceiling. Mostly tribal jewelry, some NCR dogtags, strewn about with only haphazard walking paths cut through the wreckage. Sage clicked her Pip-Boy light on and pocketed a few holotapes it illuminated, always hungry for history.
"We should split up. This is too much to dig through at once," Boone commented.
"Too dark," countered Sage.
Boone found some torches at the front of the storeroom. He handed one to the girl and lit them with his lighter. By the flickering firelight, he showed the girls his ring.
"Looks like this, more or less." The ring was simple and battered, probably a hand-me-down made before the war. Luckily, there was enough ornamentation for it to be distinct from any other silver band littering the storeroom floor. The three set to searching.
"So," Sage filled the silence, "have things in the Legion looked up since Lucius took office?"
The girl hesitated a beat. "In many ways, yes."
"Better than Lanius'd've been, anyway."
"Yes. And," she lowered her voice a bit, as if she feared the walls could hear her. "Better than Caesar was. But the Legion's army was depleted in the war. Lucius's agenda is to restore its numbers as soon as possible."
Sage and Boone caught each other's eye. "...ugh."
"Less killing. But the women are expected to be... productive." She took a deep breath and continued. "I am now fifteen, officially an adult. That makes me, em, eligible."
"You aren't an adult," Boone snapped. "Even if you were. Makes me sick."
"Don't feel bad. That Courier Six did us all a favor. Lucius is a leader worthy of respect, at least."
Sage swung her Pip-Boy light towards her. "And how about your new legate?"
Boone straightened suddenly.
"Vulpes Inculta?" the girl hesitated. "He is extremely, well..." She paused uncomfortably.
"Finish that sentence, child."
The voice from the doorway was smooth and cold. They spun to see the frumentarius-turned-legate himself, sneering at them in the sunlit doorway. The young girl was frozen in fear.
Sage, lips quirking more confidently than she felt, strode toward him. "I think our friend was hoping to tell us what a nice face you have, pretty boy."
"Laugh, Courier Six. Relish it. You won't leave this building ali-"
Sage served him a sturdy right cross before he could finish. "Take off, guys!"
The others launched themselves after her, Boone driving a much heavier fist into the fox's gut as he passed. Vulpes stumbled, which would have bought them a few seconds, if only he'd come alone.
They found themselves pursued down the winding streets by a number of foot soldiers. More joined the chase as the three fired blindly behind them. Sage was fast, and Boone faster, but all legionaries were in excellent physical condition, and the young girl had no such training. Only creative maneuvering and luck could get them out of this one.
Bullets sang by their heads. Slaves turned to watch, but did little to stop them. Sage thought she heard an apple crate conveniently overturn behind them once they'd passed, though, and suspected they had such brief delays to thank for their continued existence. The Legion's loyal hounds poured from all directions into the fray, but Sage wasn't worried about them. Animals were her friends; if anything, they'd be helpful.
"Split up?" she tried to wheeze out, but if any sound escaped her, it was lost to the pounding of blood and shouting of their pursuers. Separating would have given the girl an opportunity to hide among the unspeaking masses and be forgotten. But with men rounding through side streets to head them off, and plenty more to spare from the main assault, maybe she was better off staying with them.
She heard Boone's breath stutter as a bullet buried itself in his armor with a thwap. He kept step with her, though, the slave running in front to set the pace and stay out of the line of fire. Most legionaries used low-caliber guns that didn't penetrate, but that wouldn't help them if they took one in the leg or head.
Finally, they turned the right corner, and precise plasma bolts flew in from up ahead to pick off their attackers. Daisy must have intercepted radio broadcasts from within the city to track their location, and arrived just in time. Arcade hung out of the vertibird, reaching down to help them in.
Boone lifted the girl with a grunt, and she scrambled up to make room. He jerked his head for Sage to follow, but she ignored him and continued laying down cover fire. The Vertibird's blades were too loud for an argument, so he accepted Arcade's hand and climbed in, wincing. Sage boarded last, as she felt any respectable leader should.
Daisy lifted off almost the moment her feet left the ground. Bullets plunked pathetically off the craft's hull, but the legionaries shrank back at a shot from the Vertibird's guns.
"Well!" Arcade exclaimed breathlessly from the gunner's seat. "Making friends?"
"Yeah!" piped Sage, who was beaming from the exhilaration. "This is—" She turned to the teen expectantly.
The girl was watching Flagstaff grow smaller through the cockpit window. After a moment, she turned her head. "Molly. The Legion never gave me a name. But before that... I was Molly."
"Welcome aboard, Molly!" Daisy called from the cockpit.
"And... thanks," said Boone. Together in his open palm sat two silver rings, safe and sound and home.