Author's Note: Behold, an update you didn't have to wait years for. :) Thanks for reading!

Boone made it to the 188 Trading Post shortly before noon. He had his rifle with him, a canteen, and Riley's backpack. It was lighter than his, which is what he usually told everyone when they asked why he had it. The truth was he wanted anything of hers with him after she died, and now he was reluctant to break the habit until Riley demanded the bag back herself.

Veronica was supposed to meet him there, but the picnic table she usually haunted was bare, with the scribe nowhere in sight. He made his way to the bridge, looking around as he went. It didn't take long to hear her voice coming from below.

"I'm sorry I haven't visited much. I brought you some pine nuts. And a few bottles of water. How's your head been?"

"The usual. You don't have to visit. I can see you whenever I want, you know."

Boone frowned. A child's voice. Adjusting his rifle strap, he turned to make his way down to the road below, listening as he went.

"Your parents have been around?"

"They come and go. My medicine and migraines go hand-in-hand with seeing them."

"Of course." He could hear the smile in Veronica's voice. "I just wanted to make sure you're taken care of."

"So long as I have work, and people are always curious about my thinking."

Boone had no idea what kind of conversation this was, but they needed to get going. He rounded the corner to the cool darkness of the bridge's underbelly and found Veronica crouched before a child no more than ten years old, sitting in front of a pile of junk. A metal contraption sat atop his head.

Veronica looked up as he approached, and she stood with her big smile and her hands out in helpless apology. "Sorry, I know you said the usual place, but I had to say hi."

Boone nodded absently before looking down at the child. "Isn't that uncomfortable?"

The child shook his head. "The migraines are worse. But if you want me to take it off, I could do some thinking for you."

He raised one brow. "Thinking?"

"This is Clay," Veronica explained. "He's clairvoyant. If you want a reading, just pay him a hundred caps." Her expression locked onto his, eyes urging him to please pay the hundred caps. He'd heard of clairvoyants—some kind of mutation that allowed for mental powers he didn't really understand. He wasn't sure if he believed it or not, but if the kid was living on his own, then caps would definitely help. If Riley were here, he knew she'd do it in a heartbeat just to please her friend. Sighing, Boone dug around in Riley's bag.

"What kind of thinking do you do?" he asked as he counted out the caps. Clay smiled.

"All kinds. I can think about you, here, or everywhere."

"That's it?"

Veronica elbowed him in the ribs and he cleared his throat, holding his hand out. "Can you think about someone else besides me?"

The boy took the caps and tucked them away, not bothering to count them. "Do you have something that belongs to them? It contains their thoughts," he added when Boone looked confused.

Hesitating only a moment, he reached into Riley's bag and pulled out the heart-shaped sunglasses. Riley hadn't realised he had taken them yet. If she did, she didn't say anything. He glanced at Veronica, but the Scribe only pursed her lips and inclined her head. She kept quiet as he handed them over, no doubt plotting to rat him out to Riley the moment they got back to Camp Golf. Clay took them reverently, setting them on the ground in front of him before reaching up to remove the metal contraption around his head.

Boone waited.

"Two to the skull, yet one gets up," Clay frowned, speaking quietly. "Odds are against her… but they're just numbers after the two-to-one. She's playing the hand she's been dealt, but never rests. Shuffle and stack, and a gamble… a gamble that may pay off? But how? Forecast: Rapidly changing conditions."

Boone and Veronica stared.

"I can do another," Clay offered when their silence dragged on. "On the house."

Hesitating, Boone could only nod. Clay closed his eyes.

"Clashing, a beginning of understanding. Always in tune, never at the right time. Tempo changing. Always moving, but you can never catch your footing. Two truths and a lie, but which is which? Forecast: Stormy."

"Well," said Veronica. "That's…" she cleared her throat, rubbed the back of her neck, and then reached out and grabbed Boone's arm, smiling back at Clay even as she pulled him down the street. "We have to go! I'll come visit again soon!" She ushered him away from Clay as if the child was a ticking time bomb.

Boone snatched his arm away, rushing back to pick up the sunglasses. He regarded Clay with a furrowed brow, unsettled, but the child simply smiled knowingly, as if their reaction to his gift wasn't uncommon.

"I thought he was your friend," Boone snapped to Veronica, rejoining her as he tucked the glasses safely away. She was keeping a brutal pace, speedwalking down the road.

"He is, but we have things to do and I'm cooking dinner tonight, so let's get going."

"I get it. But—" He wanted to argue that she was the one to insist he pay the hundred caps. Her reaction to his thoughts was strange, but she also was persistent as he struggled to keep up.

"Things to do, Boone!"

The day was what Mojave citizens would call brisk, in only that there was something resembling a breeze and the temperature wasn't absolutely scalding. Riley sat on a rock by the water, watching as a young corporal attempted to get her squad to do drills. One young woman leading four young men. Riley had been under the command of a woman for her entire time in Bravo, but Captain Daisy Lin was a no-bullshit type of woman despite her stature. She'd been years in the army before working her way up to leading her own squad. This woman was younger than Riley, and didn't look like she'd seen much—if any—action. For the last half-hour, her instructions had been lamely attempted or outright ignored, each soldier opting to put the most basic of effort in to say they had tried. Riley had seen the type before in Basic. Usually, they washed out, so for them to actually make it to the Mojave in a squadron was telling. Either the NCR was desperate or these were very able conmen.

They were the only soldiers at Camp Golf besides the sentries—and now Riley. She had gone stir-crazy within a matter of days of being trapped in her corpse tent, and her only way out was to allow Veronica to dye her blonde hair a dark brown and wear an NCR uniform before moving to a different empty tent on the other side of the encampment. To any onlooker who didn't know any better, she was now simply an injured soldier coalescing who happened to be brunette.

The corporal leading the squad was a blonde, and right now Riley was definitely not sulking about it.

Raul had wandered over at some point and stood next to her. They watched the squadron for a few minutes in silence, with Riley grimacing every few seconds at what she was seeing.

"You looking to scalp her or scold her about her technique, boss?"

"You're not supposed to call me that," said Riley, sighing. "Spies, blah blah."

Raul chuckled.

"I'm not really feeling the paranoia, boss. Are you sure you and the kid have been talking? It really rubs off on you after a while."

She grimaced, because talking to Boone was difficult when he refused to be seen anywhere near her. Now that she was supposed to be a random soldier, Boone stopped visiting after dark. He didn't want to be seen going into her tent, and Riley couldn't argue with him when he disappeared during the day with Veronica to scout the hills for Legion spies.

She definitely wasn't sulking about that either.

Raul was watching her knowingly, and she cleared her throat and forced herself to refocus on the attempted drills. The squad was currently attempting some poor excuses for push-ups and Riley turned back away because it was too painful to watch.

"Is that what he did while you guys went to hunt down the sniper? Talk your ear off?"

"Nope," he said. "I don't think you want to talk about that, boss."

"Why not?"

"Because you'd just been declared dead when he left. He wasn't talking nobody's ear off in that mood."

She grimaced again, and Raul gave her a helpless shrug. "You asked."

"Thank you, by the way," she said quietly. "For going with him."

"You don't gotta thank me. I knew the look in his eye. Seen it plenty over the years. Had to make sure he wasn't gonna do nothing stupid."

Was that the plan? Kill the sniper and go out in a blaze of glory? That was very Boone.

"You been up to the main house yet?" she asked, changing the topic. "They won't let me go up there, but it's pretty neat. All that old world glamour."

"Won't let you go up because of the boss man?" he guessed, referring to Chief Hanlon. "He knew your mother, no?"

"No," she smiled. "Mom knew him, but I doubt he knew her from any other Ranger. But that doesn't mean the other Rangers didn't know her."

"I take it you look like her."

She shrugged. "Her hair was darker, well," she plucked at her new colour. "Darker still. She had this gorgeous raven-black hair. Dad was the blonde. But I favour her, yeah."

"Both parents passed?"

"Yeah. Earthquake or something out west. I tried to get to the city they were in. Give them a burial, you know? But it was—" she trailed off as she recalled the sand storms laid over the area. How they ravaged for days upon endless days until her supplies ran thin and she was forced to leave. She rubbed her hands against her pant legs. "It was impossible to get through. I had to turn back. I haven't tried again since."

The soldiers were now outright ignoring their corporal and were laid out in some shade. The young woman sat on a chair near a dead fire a good distance away, looking defeated. Riley sighed. "She's having a hell of a time with them."

"Gonna go down there?" Raul suggested. "Whip them into shape?"

"I'm no drill instructor," she said with a smile, rubbing at her injured leg. "And I can barely walk as it is. You can go down there, show them what's what."

"They don't need no old man telling them what to do."

"That's the whole point of the army—old men telling you what to do," she laughed. When he didn't laugh with her, her smile froze. "Just because you're old doesn't mean you can't help. You know that, right?"

"It's almost dinner. You want company to walk back to your tent?"

Aha. The old brush off. She'd hit a nerve.

"Raul—"

"It's a long walk," he reminded her. She forced herself to let it go.

"You go on, I'm gonna take forever and a day with these," she said, tapping the crutches next to her. She'd walked around without them as long as she could until exhaustion set in. She wasn't really relishing the idea of making the walk back when her fatigued muscles were already screaming at her. Raul said something about what Veronica planned for dinner before walking off. Riley watched him go.

The corporal and her cruddy crew sat on Riley's mind throughout dinner. Boone sat at the other end of the tent with a handful of sentries and disappeared quietly after the plates were cleared away before she could try and approach him. She wasn't sure what she wanted to do other than to help. Maybe offer some encouragement. Maybe just talk. But the corporal and her forlorn look of despair after her squad made it clear that listening to her wasn't a priority bothered her immensely, and she couldn't really place why.

She made her way back down to the water after dinner. She was hoping to catch Boone somewhere along the way, but his beret was predictably nowhere to be found and she knew he wouldn't risk being seen near her anyway. Instead, she took up her usual post and noticed that the corporal was by the still-dead fire, and her squad was all off individually doing God-knew-what.

She debated for all of twenty seconds before she picked up her crutches and made her way over. For fuck's sake, the woman needed a pep talk.

The young soldier watched her approach and forced a smile. A brave face in front of a stranger.

"Not very often we see a new face around here."

"Been here that long?"

The woman's smile faltered, and Riley realised she'd probably struck a nerve. Before she could apologize, the woman seemed to shore herself up.

"Hell. It's no secret that the washouts get sent here. My squad just happens to have been here longer than most." She looked down at Riley's crutches. "You don't look like a washout."

She had the good form to look abashed.

"I'm not. I got shot in the field—Golf was closest. I think the doctor said something about moving me out of here once I can make the trip." Well. It wasn't a complete lie. "Did you want any help? Name's Ryan."

"Mags." She stuck her hand out and the two women shook hands. "Where were you before this?"

Checking credentials. Riley could have pointed out that any help at this point would have been an improvement, but you couldn't kick someone when they were down. So she did her best to stick to the truth.

"Out east a ways. Trying to deal with a sniper with my partner and got caught up in a surprise ambush by the Legion."

"Partner?"

"First Recon, Bravo squad."

Mags' eyebrows shot up. "A sniper. No shit?"

Some shit. A little bit of shit. Shit. Shit shit shit.

Riley gave her an easy smile, a bit unnerved at how easy it was to spout her non-truths now. "None."

"Well hell, I can't say no to help like that."

"Instructional only. I can only demonstrate so much with these," she said, gesturing at her crutches.

The other woman held up her hands, shaking her head as she spoke. "I'm not gonna complain at this point. Though I think our biggest problem will be getting them to listen at all. I saw you watching today. You know what I'm dealing with."

She had a feeling she only had the slightest inkling of the true depth of their apparent disinterest in staying the fuck alive in the Mojave. But she nodded all the same.

"I don't know if talking to them will help, but I can try," she offered.

Mags agreed, and they began plotting.

When Riley entered her tent that night, she was surprised to find both Boone and Veronica waiting for her. Cards were laid out on a chair between them, and Riley recognised the layout of Caravan.

"Hey. I hope you weren't waiting long—"

"A couple of hours," said Boone, looking up at her. Veronica did her best to focus on the cards in her hand.

"You could have come found me," Riley frowned. "I was over—"

"We know. We saw you. And no, we couldn't," said Veronica, laying a card down. "Because you're supposed to be dead and we're supposed to be waiting around to transport your corpse, not harassing convalescing soldiers."

"Raul came and found me today."

"Raul isn't us," Boone sighed, laying down the rest of his cards. "Caesar knows— I'm not explaining this again."

Riley glanced between the two of them, gauging just how angry they were. But they didn't seem angry. Just frustrated. And that was just as bad.

Veronica seemed to sense Riley's growing unease and stood, heading for the exit.

"We'll worry about it tomorrow," she said, giving Riley a sympathetic look as she passed. "Don't stay up too late."

She left before Riley could even formulate a response, leaving her alone with Boone. He swung his legs around so that he was facing her. He leaned his arms against them, letting his hands hang helplessly while he tried to figure out what to say.

"What are you doing?" he asked her finally. She winced.

"Helping?"

He cast his gaze upwards as if to ask for patience. "This couldn't wait?"

She thought about it. "I don't know. Maybe. Maybe not."

He sighed. "Okay. Did you tell them anything?"

"Mostly half-truths. I'm a sniper. I was shot on a mission. I was brought here because it was closest."

He reached for her, one hand held out until she set her crutches aside and took the few steps towards him. She took a seat on the bed and placed her hand in his, expression solemn.

"They don't suspect anything," she assured him. "I only spoke to them a little, to get them to agree to train seriously with me and Mags."

"Mags."

"Their squadron leader. She's a corporal."

"Like you."

His words made her pause. Was she seeing herself in Mags? Was that why it bothered her so much to see how she was treated? To see the disrespect?

Best not to think about it.

"And?" Boone pressed. "Did they agree?"

"Um. Eventually."

She'd had to talk about losing Noah for it to sink in. To point out that her current injury was due to her not paying attention out in the wild. That if they wanted to end up the same, with a dead partner or a bullet in the leg, the head, to keep on doing what they're doing. She hated it, but it got results.

He leaned back in his chair and looked at her, her hand still in his, as if he was wondering what he was going to do with her.

"You said I was gonna do what I want," she pointed out. "You knew that going in."

"I did."

"I'm sorry. I just—"

"You don't have to apologize. I just wish this was easier."

"What was?"

He frowned. "Everything. You—"

"If you wanted easy, I was absolutely the wrong choice."

"There is no choice," he said, frustrated. "You don't get it, Riley. You're it. You're all I got. And watching you put yourself in danger every damn day isn't easy."

She quieted. She understood, and there was something to be said about being 'it' for a man like Boone. Just like he was it for her. She'd never had an 'it' before. Still, it wasn't as if she was revealing who she was to anyone, and there weren't enough people at Camp Golf for spies to take notice. If there were spies here, she reasoned, they'd be in with the Rangers up in the mansion. Not down below in the main camp with the rejects.

"Can we agree," she said. "That teaching three soldiers how to hold a gun properly isn't putting myself in danger?"

He sighed. "Yeah. Yeah, I suppose we can agree on that."

"Good," she said, pleased. She looked down at her hand in his, then back up at him. He raised a brow.

"What?"

In response, she stood, taking one step forward so that he was forced to spread his legs to allow her in, and lifted her arms so that they draped around his neck. His hands lifted to rest on her hips, steadying her. But that was all he did.

He waited for her to speak, one brown slowly raised. She huffed a breath.

"Were you gonna finish what you started at Camp Guardian?"

She didn't mean the argument. He knew that.

He cocked his head slightly, looking up at her. "You're injured."

"So kiss it better."

Amusement filtered into his eyes, but still, he shook his head. "No. I'll hurt you."

"You wouldn't."

"I could."

"But you wouldn't."

"Gannon, tell her."

Her head whipped around to find Arcade standing awkwardly in the tent entrance. She hadn't heard him come in. She thought she saw a faint blush tint his cheeks, but that could have just been the crappy lighting.

"Um. Well. Actually, she's cleared for… that." He cleared his throat, looking like he'd rather be anywhere else at the moment. "Did you want that muscle massage or does Boone have that handled?"

Right. Arcade's regimen included daily massages for her leg and shoulder. It was to keep them from knotting from her sudden daily use after a month of almost atrophying. Usually, he did them after dinner, but today she got sidetracked.

"I got it," Boone said, and earned a smile from Riley. Arcade left in no short of a hurry.

"He's going to—"

"He's not going to say anything," Boone assured her. His hands drifted to her belt buckle and her eyebrows winged up.

"Wh—uh. Changed your mind?"

"Pants off, I need to see your legs for this massage."

He did not. Arcade had no problem doing this with her fully clothed. But she wasn't about to tell Boone that.

"You could at least pretend to be in a hurry to get my pants off for other reasons," she teased.

He spared her a dark look as he pulled at her zipper. "Behave."

She smiled. He was being serious so she bit back her teasing and decided to do as he said. She plopped herself back down onto the bed and allowed him to finish removing her pants so her thighs and the wound were exposed. It was such a small thing, really, if you looked at it now. The wound had already scarred, a small bit of pink flesh already smoothed over thanks to the power of stimpaks and three weeks of healing. She ran a hand over it self-consciously as Boone tugged her pants off the rest of the way.

"While I'm behaving," she said as he placed his hands on her. "Did you want to tell me when we get to leave?"

He kept his eyes on her leg and began using his thumbs. "That was actually what Veronica and I came to talk about tonight."

"Oh?"

"We did some scouting in the hills. Found signs of someone up there. Pretty sure they're alone, but someone is watching this place."

That got her attention. Her muscles tensed under his hands and she saw him frown. She took a steadying breath. "And… that bothers you."

"Of course it bothers me," he sighed. He worked on her leg a little longer before he finally lifted his gaze to her. "How long do you think you can walk without crutches?"

"I walked most of today without them. I only used them to come to dinner." She shrugged. "I don't know. I haven't tried walking with a pack yet, or my rifle. Maybe an hour or two at a time if I really push myself."

"Half a day's walk back to the Strip."

"Med-X might help."

"Gannon said no more of that shit."

"I know. I'm just saying it's an option."

He looked back down at her leg, frowning.

"Is walking with crutches really going to give me away?" she asked. "I'm in uniform. My hair is different. I'm not even wearing my Pip-Boy. Give me a different weapon so I'm not seen with a sniper rifle. If—"

"If we travel with you that's going to be the giveaway."

She closed her eyes, trying for patience. "Then travel without me and let me travel with some soldiers going back to McCarran."

"Who?" he demanded. "There's no one here besides Rangers and we can't trust that they're not compromised either."

She frowned. That wasn't true.

"Well," she said, drawing the word out. "There's Mags."

Boone's hands stilled; his eyes rounded like she'd suggested they bring back Fantastic back from the dead to personally escort her.

"Riley, no."

"If they got trained properly, they'll be sent to McCarran to go into active duty," she pointed out.

"That could take weeks. Months."

"It's not a far walk. It could take one, two weeks tops to get them up to par to manage that. They don't have to storm Fortification Hill. They have to walk down the road and by then I should be able to manage the walk without crutches."

She hoped, anyway.

His jaw was working overtime while he thought about it. She knew he might want a hand in overseeing the training if he was going to leave her life in their hands, but if he was intent on keeping his distance from her that wasn't going to happen. Instead, they'd simply have to plan in advance. After all, Riley was no drill sergeant herself. She had no experience leading soldiers. She could teach what she knew, but what she knew compared to what Boone knew was likely a vast difference.

Boone looked at her grimly, and she knew she had won. "What's your plan?"

The Misfits—which is what Mags had said Sergeant McCredie had dubbed her sad little squad—had agreed to work with Riley and Mags, but that didn't mean they were suddenly going to be good at anything. Riley realised very quickly that even when putting in the effort they lacked the basic knowledge of even a fresh soldier just entering Basic. They couldn't aim, they couldn't throw grenades, and they didn't know how to communicate. Mags, who knew these things but lacked the knowledge of how to teach them, had resorted to sometimes yelling—sometimes pleading—with them during their training sessions. Riley was at a loss.

"Don't hold your gun that way unless you want to break your collarbone," Riley found herself saying the next day. When O'Hanrahan didn't listen and consequently also didn't hold his rifle properly, the weapon flung backwards after he pulled the trigger and whacked him in the face. His fellow squadmates burst into laughter and Riley could see Mags already losing faith. Sighing, Riley leaned her crutches against a pile of tires and moved forward, careful with each step so she wouldn't fall flat on her face.

She was aware, distinctly, that Boone was also watching from a distance. He'd taken up her spot by the lake and was monitoring this whole fiasco.

"Give me your rifle," she told the soldier, now nursing what would likely be a lovely black eye come morning. A shame. He had a handsome face.

He held it out to her and she moved to where he had just been standing.

"You hold your rifle like this," she said, lifting the weapon and demonstrating. "Here." She lifted the rifle away and then held it back in the proper position, pushing the butt of the weapon against the crook of her shoulder. "Stance, like this. Square shoulders, don't hunch. Feet and legs, shoulder width apart. You need to move into your weapon, don't stand straight up like an idiot gecko. You're going to want to be fully adaptable to your environment." She repeated each motion twice for effect. She noted they were watching her with some interest, so she took the opportunity to line up a few shots at the targets down range and nodded confidently when all her shots hit their targets.

"I hope you're all taking notes," Mags called out. There were some murmurs amongst them, and one—the one in glasses—actually was taking notes in a small notebook.

She handed the rifle back to O'Hanrahan and moved back to her crutches. She hadn't overexerted herself, thankfully, so she wasn't feeling fatigued yet. But if this was any indication of how the rest of the day was going to go, she had a feeling that wouldn't last. She let the soldiers take a moment to talk and practice what they had just seen. Riley glanced over in Boone's direction briefly, but at this distance, she couldn't make out his expression.

"Line up," she ordered, turning back. "Let me see your stance."