Happy One Year Anniversary.

Winter in the desert was no less biting, no less bone-chilling than winter anywhere else,and especially in this tall mountain range existing alongside what was left of the once-great city of Las Vegas, the Courier quaked in her boots.  She had traded in her button-up Victorian style pair for Nightstalker hide cowboy boots--styled after a pair worn by her long-dead father, the Burned Man.  She was not stupid; traveling up the treacherous mountains alone could be deadly, and she donned a thick, pre-War fur coat and several layers of pants.  



It had started snowing hours ago, and she was not anywhere near where she needed to be.  The snow hampered her journey, but it was all the better, Andy supposed.  No stars were to be seen; nothing but sheets of white, beating against her scarf-wrapped face where glassy green eyes the shade of peridot peered out.  She was effectively blinded, but she still had every intention of making it to Griffith Peak tonight.  As she walked, keeping her eyes on the too-white ground, mentally mapping her direction, the Courier thought back to earlier.



She'd been in a strange mood for awhile now.  Years and years take their toll on the human psyche, but those with such pride and courage as she lived differently as well as died differently.  A bullet in the head hadn't stopped her, a near burning at a stake, countless gunshots and mental traumas had not caused her journey to end.  She often contemplated the end anyway, and somewhere along the years of raising her children and the young generation of Vegas, she had a rather unnerving talk with the King of Freeside.  He sympathized with Mr. House, stating he understood why someone so publicly admired would want to revert into reclusiveness in their later years.  



"It ain't perty to watch the heroes fade out.  Now, I ain't a hero, I don't ever see myself as that.  But I've come to accept that the people here find me decently important."  Years past their youth, both he and the Courier grinned at his unnecessary modesty.  "Some of us live so slow we get years an' years an' years.  An' some of us live so fast, it's like poof.  Up in flames, an' there ain't nothin' left at the end of the big bang except some scrap layin'around.  Nobody wants to be thought of as the scrap layin' around."


Boone, dear sweet Boone who grew older without ever aging, was asleep in the large penthouse bed when Andy had slipped out and gotten dressed.  That would of course be the hardest part, leaving him, and the Courier had never cried so much as when she pulled out the meager bag of supplies from where she'd hidden it in the closet.  So many years together, and he still slept that same damn way, even after rising to his own rank of Colonel and heading First Recon in what the NCR appraised as a "thorough, fair manner".  Elbows out, hands laced together behind his head, beret on.  She kissed him and he didn't stir, didn't even flare his nostrils or grumble as he would've years ago, and the Courier had reluctantly made her way down to the other suites, silently getting one last look at her other children.  Except the two oldest; Dolly and Benjamin.




Dolly had no intention of staying in a pre-War casino for the rest of her days, and the headstrong young woman had long since set out on her own path.  That didn't stop her from writing almost religiously and sending Boone some gruesome and morbidly comical gifts and parcels along the way.  Ben ran the Tops casino down the Strip and was mostly busy these days with business, even though he frequently stopped by the Lucky 38 for dinner.  He still had a room in House's old casino, but Andy didn't even open the door as she walked down the desolate hallway, making her way toward the elevator.  

She didn't know that she was not the only one awake at this ungodly hour, insomnia an inherited plague after all, and as the too-tall female crossed the darkened threshold of the Lucky 38's ground floor--converted into a museum many years ago--a dark head appeared from an office doorway.  The man slid into the ghostly red light and Andy saw the shadow; she spun on her heel, pistol drawn in an instant, and paused at what surely was an illusion.

Silhouetted in the doorframe, the man jerked his hands up in forfeit and alarm at thev pistol, but then he chuckled, shaking his smoothed-back jet black hair.  Cautiously, he lowered his broad hands and adjusted the checkered jacket.  Andy, still distraught over her current path and jaw dropped at the figure, was silent even after the man stepped forward with another head shake.  "Take it easy, Ma," the son chided, then a look of concern caused his brow to furrow.  "Where you goin'?"
"What are you doing here?"
Mini-Benny, mini no longer and in fact taller than his mother, his height rivaling that of Joshua Graham himself, nonetheless had the sheepish look of a child with his hand in the cookie jar.
"Readin' through some of dad and House's old bank notes.  Business is pickin' up and I ain't sure what to do about it.  Ma, get to bed."
Andy had smiled despite herself, and holstered the weapon at her hip, where it had sat for the past twenty-seven years.  Her son was still staring at her as though she were an alien, at the red beret on her head, the red-tipped axe on her back, the coat concealing other weapons and her traveling pack.  "Boy, you do mean to take a walk tonight, don't you," he said with a hint of admiration in his voice.  
No matter how old he got, or how much taller than his mother he got, Benjamin knew one thing well and that was to stay out of the Courier's way when she decided to go off on an adventure.  Sometimes he'd tagged along as a child, either willingly or unwillingly, but in either case he knew she was capable of taking care of herself, and any insinuations otherwise were not proactive to one's health and well-being.

"I do," she answered simply, and then she turned, too pained to say anymore.  However, the blond had a second thought, and turned back to her son, who stood looking confused, the spitting image of Benny from so long ago.  The Courier narrowed her eyes, still deep in thought, and suddenly shrugged out of the axe. She handed it over; her son shook his head at first, then gingerly took the melee weapon.
"I want you to give this to your sister."
"Dolly or--"
"Not Dolly.  Boone ingrained it into her head from the time she was six that if you can't kill it from twenty miles away with a goddamn scope, it's not worth the energy it takes to kill it.  Your younger sister."
"Sure, Ma.  But what--"
"And you take this."  In what was possibly the hardest decision she'd ever made, but one she felt completely right about after seeing the silhouette of Benny in the doorway, Andy unbuckled the drop holster that held Maria and handed the well-worn pistol over.  
"What on earth--"
"Don't argue with me, just take it."
"But what in the goddamn--"
"Watch your language, dammit.  I'm your mother."
"Yes ma'am.  But....how...why..." 

The child had his eyes on the shiny pistol ever since he was a boy; one of the NCR craftsmen in Boone's unit had made him a toy version which he carried around until it broke into pieces, which he'd glued back together again and again, but until now Andy had never actually let him hold it, much less let him shoot it.


"It's yours now.  I'm an old woman, Benjamin.  I don't need to walk around like the Legion's at my back every step of the way.  I've got other guns.  This one was always meant to be yours.  Who knows son, maybe one day you'll shoot a pretty little Courier in the head and --"


"Ma, what on earth do you think I'm going to do with this gun!" Now he sounded annoyed, something that actually took a lot of prodding, especially where his mother was concerned.  He'd always been a mama's boy through and through, but his sharp glare was a mixture of confusion and hurt as he reluctantly continued to hold the pistol and axe.

Andy paused at the harsh tone of his voice, and her eyes wandered over his face for a moment before she gave a mischievous smile, one that took years off her own features.  


"I know someone you can put fear into."


"Yeah?"  his black eyebrows were raised, and he looked skeptical.  

"Go north.  Black Mountain area, I hear."

"Are you talkin' about--"

"Only if you want to."

"Jesus Goddamn Chri---sorry Ma, Jesus Christ, why didn't you tell me where the fuck he---I mean, oh.....fuck it.....why didn't you tell me where the fuck that bastard was sooner?"

"Because I'm a mean, protective mother who shelters those she loves to the point of suffocation."

Benjamin rolled his eyes. She continued.

"And you better end up that way, too, or I'm going to kick your ass."

"How come you get to use the language?"

"Because I'm the adult."

"That may have worked twenty years ago, Ma.  But I--"

She had suddenly grabbed her son by the torso and hugged him fiercely.  The young man was caught off guard, and couldn't hug her back because he still toted her weapons, but when she pulled away he said earnestly,  "You sure you don't wanna come up to Black Mountain with me, help me settle--"

"No, dear.  You know what to look for."

The calm and handsome face was pulled into an ironic, dark look.  "Yeah.  I know."

"Then I guess I'm not the only one sneaking out tonight."  She winked, but her eyes were full of tears.  "Let Boone know where you're going though."

"Yes ma'am."

She turned again to leave, crossed the short steps and adjusted her coat and hat.  When Andy turned back to look again at mini-Benny, he was still examining the long-coveted pistol, eyeing it as though he couldn't believe his luck.  Maria glinted in the reddish light of the Lucky 38, and a dazed smile was on the young man's face. He glancedup, realizing his mother was staring at him, and he grinned and chuckled as though embarrassed.

"You've always been a good boy," she said, putting her hand on the door handle but not turning away.  "You always have made me happy."

"Well hopefully no reason to stop now, Ma," he said with a tone of sympathy, as though willing her obvious sadness away.  "It ain't like I'm goin' to disappear or somethin'."

"You're right," she agreed, opening the door to the windy Vegas night where the sounds of the city greeted them both.  "No matter what happens, you'll always make me proud."

As though he did it several times a day and was a pronounced expert with the gun, Benjamin slipped Maria into the folds of his checkered jacket.  

"G'nite, Ma."

"Goodnight."

Some instinct deep in the son's heart seemed to settle in when the door clicked shut, and he said as though he already knew he'd never see her again, in the most somber voice he'd ever used, "Miss you, ma."








G'nite, Ma.  It echoed in her ears even as the howling wind and blinding snow took away all of her senses, and the Courier realized that part of the sharp pain on her cheeks was due to her own frozen tears sticking to her face, cascading down to her chin.  She rubbed her eyes on the thick fabric of her scarf, blinking, and then it was that the Courier's instincts took over for several moments.

She had no idea where she was, only knew where she was going.  Griffith Peak, hours and hours still away from this stretch of mountain road, but through the blinding night, a single light shone as though a welcoming beacon from a cottage, or cabin.  The woman wrapped in fur stared at the yellow, almost liquid light for a long, long time.  It was pointless to stop, she knew, and she had no intention of prolonging what she set out to destroy in the first place.  But still, something urged her not to immediately bypass this hole in the dark wood, this lonely place.


While she stared, something stirred--a sentinel, still faraway, but no doubt detecting her as she detected it.  Something large, brutish, shivering in the cold.  A snort was heard in the night air, and the Courier looked from the shadows and snowflakes settling on her eyelashes to the little yellow light that sat possibly a half a mile away, luminescent even through her thick, foggy exhaled breath.



__________________________




The bright lamp from outside was not the most desirable of light sources, but his eyes were tired anyway, and most if not all he was getting done this night was thoughts.  Figures, theories.  Not really much that needed writing down.  Still he sat at the desk, chewing on one end of his for the moment taken-off glasses, when suddenly the shrewd, logical scientist was pulled away from his research-ful thoughts and toward the window.

Countless years had passed with nights such as this one; every winter seemed like another cycle of death, and he hadn't aged.  Just like the supermutants both outside and in, he stayed the same, watching seasons tick by.  Winter was a blessing and a curse though; it seemed to make everything even more sheltered and forgotten, and for that he was thankful.


Not now though.  Now, he had sudden, strange thoughts that his friend was very near...but what did that mean? What friend? The closest thing he had to a friend now was Marcus, and that was only if you were generous with the term 'friend' which Arcade most certainly was not.He actually stood, taking his chewed-up glasses and sliding them back over his face, and with his hands in his pockets he looked out the window into the storm beyond.  He wast hinking of her....he wouldn't think the name, because that would put too much memory, too much feeling into this sensation.  


Nonetheless, he remembered those waves of long blond hair, the sparkling eyes, the bold voice and almost insane instinct paired with ferocious intellect.  It was far longer ago than he wanted to admit, that they'd traveled together past this very town to Griffith Peak, uncovering her past in the process.  The howling wind, the unforgiving storm outside, must have been the reason for his sudden reminder of her.  She was much like a winter storm, with a harsh side, Nature's true daughter.  Her dark secrets, her troubled heart, just as full of venom and solemnity as these gale force waves of snow.  But at the same time, serene, quiet, in her own tall and strange way delicate the way only a woman can be.  

For awhile longer, Arcade stared out mesmerized, under the the window where the orb of yellow light fell onto his straw-colored hair, and he saw nothing in the storm, but he felt for Andy.  Her losses as well as her triumphs.  In all of the coming years, he would never feel as close to her as he did in that moment, staring into a literal black hole of a winter storm where the snow fell around the shivering supermutants, and farther on the mountain, around someone else.



__________________________________________








He didn't understand.  He had spies, he had ways of knowing things, he was an expert at covertness...and no one had heard hide nor hair of her for over two weeks.  She had simply vanished from the Vegas scene.  This wouldn't do, as he'd planned for even more heartache.  It had been so for decades now.  Sometimes he showed pity, other times he reverted to his most barbaric of selves, sending her gruesome notes, presents, or other reminders of his cruel intent.  


Through four children he'd done it, one of them being that disgusting Fiend child, who grew up to be quite the formidable beauty.  The others were kept safe and sound in the ever-guarded walls of New Vegas, where he had absolutely no sway, even with his informants and sources.  She sometimes knew where he set up camp, she sometimes was clueless, but she hadn't come looking for him.  She never had, in the decades this private war was waged between them.  Perhaps she did it to spite him, knew he wanted to see her hurt and aching, and would never give him the satisfaction.  

At least, that's all he could deduce from it.  


She still wore his Mark around her neck, he knew, and she never questioned his location or sent anyone for him.  The unusual nature of her disappearance made him uneasy though...that was a long time.  They were all getting older, slower, but with children and a loving family that he couldn't touch to keep her company, she had no reason to seek him out.

At the moment, he was staring out over the frost-covered Wasteland, safe in the confines of the abandoned Black Mountain.  The sun was rising and its golden buttery hue was reflected in his too-blue eyes, eyes marked with age but still colder than any mountaintop snow.  His hair, like hers, was a light frail blond, but it was now streaked with white.  As all dogs and wolves do, he had only increased in ferocity with old age.   Become more dangerous.  

He heard the soft crunch of boots on snow around him, and Vulpes turned, expecting to see one of the rather beaten-up looking merchants that sometimes unwisely approached him while he was deep in thought.  His look of malice fell when he saw what was something entirely supernatural.  

Never, never, never, in all of his years of mass killings, of hangings and crucifixions, torture and slave-trading, had he seen any of his victims rendered as ghosts.  It was not a thought that had ever worried him, despite his being a very superstitious man.  His jaw was slack as the image of one very familiar dead man walked slowly, almost victoriously, toward him.

The man's dark hair was perfectly brushed and oiled back, his darker brow furrowed as though the sight of snow confused him.  His skin was dark, his shoulders were wide and he seemed to have grown in death, now standing taller than Vulpes, who turned and put his back fully against the dilapidated wooden fence.

The dead man, who bore no signs of death and in fact looked healthier for all his years of rotting underground, now raised his oval face upwards and with a scanning glance over Vulpes's features, he smiled.  His teeth were equally as white as the clear whites of his eyes, which stood out against the dark skin.

"Finally," he said knowingly, sighing with relief, as though he'd been bored from looking at snow and Vulpes was a welcoming distraction.  He shook his head just as he had done that day so many years ago, and Vulpes remembered the smoke, and ash.  They were in hell that day, but now, this man surrounded by white snow, a pink morning sky, the thin mountain air around him...this man was a destroying angel.

And when he pulled the pistol from his pocket, somehow Vulpes knew that the cold metal would be laced with flecks of silver and gold, and that those flecks would play off the pastel glow of the rising star in the east, and glint like fire in the black-haired man's hand.

"It can't be."

"Oh, dog boy, it can."