Meet me at the Dinosaur.

Boone awoke with a start.  A scream echoed in his ears, carrying him out of his dream and into the present.  The present was the Courier's motel room in Novac, where darkness lay around him like a sheet, the ever-present neon sign outside glowing eerily into the room.  He'd fallen asleep? Boone hadn't intended to, taking up watch in the same sooty chair he'd raised a pistol to himself in, mulling over thoughts of this town he had a severe love-hate relationship with.  

The scream echoed again, faintly, and Boone pressed his fingers to his temple.  Get out of my head, he willed the memory of Bitter Springs, closing his eyes.  But his senses were telling him something was dead wrong.  With eyes that could adjust to the blackness quicker than most, the sniper stood, realizing that the Courier's bed was empty.  A jolt of fear went through him--it was after midnight, where could she have gone? and he pivoted to the left, realizing the motel room door was slightly ajar.  

"Shit," Boone said, his eyes widening.  Whenever he'd slept, the Courier was awake, and vice versa.  Had she gone out for a walk? Visiting the Garrets or some other family? It was too late for that.  So then where?  Boone bolted out the door, taking the stairs three at a time.  The scream sounded again, a faint cry on the desert wind, and he dashed east, bypassing the goofy dinosaur which now, since his absence, sat empty.  Why would the courier leave his side? What part of her leaving Boone in Novac made sense?  

Though not his strongest sense, Boone's hearing was nonetheless more than competent, and the cries had emanated from an area to the northeast of the dinosaur, probably a hundred yards away.  From sitting up in the nest so many nights, he had this territory memorized like the back of his hand.  The area where the female was located was right in the middle of a sunken-in, irradiated toxic waste dump.   He was a sprinter, not a distance runner, and it took him no time to cover the rocky ground, even in the darkness.

A hill separated the sniper from the dip, and now he crested it, skidding to a stop.   There she was, up to her ankles in irradiated sludge, a Cazador fluttering around madly.  Boone realized in his one-second scope that the Courier was unarmed.  She threw her hands up in front of her face, the mutated wasp opting to sting her in the chest.  It was instantaneous; the Courier fell back into the sludge pile just as Boone's perfectly aimed bullet brought down the disgusting creature.  He took the hill in a jump; anyone with less balance would have toppled over headfirst into radiation mud, but Boone skidded to a stop, landing on one knee by his downed friend.

He called her name there in the moonlight, turning her over to the side.  She was unconscious.  A red, angry scratch on her cheek told Boone that the Cazador had stung more than once.  No, this couldn't be happening.  Left untreated, the venom was deadly, especially multiple stings.  Why had she left the safety of the motel room?  Normally tall, strong, she now looked weak and pathetic there in the muck.  Boone pressed two fingers to her pale neck.  A pulse, but an irregular one.  Gingerly, he stooped and cupped the Courier's neck with the back of his hand.  She stirred, barely, and Boone got momentarily excited by the fact that she was moving.  

With no regard for his own clean uniform, Boone scooped the girl up into his arms, the same as he'd done with Rex earlier today.  She was limp, unmoving, barely breathing, and though his face was a mask, alarm brimmed underneath the brown eyes.  He stood, backing out of the slimy mud, and took off at a run back towards Novac.  



___________________________________________________________________________



"Well?" He was not a patient man, but as the doctor exited her tent, Boone almost rounded on her with a ferocity that would've made a less spunky woman tremble.  Ada, however, was a hard-stomached doctor, and brushed off Boone's impatience.  In all reality, she was one of the few people Boone liked: she hadn't even lived in Novac until after Carla was already gone, and was always friendly in her sarcastic way.   Right now, Boone was far too concerned to give a shit about being friendly.

"She's got a lot of poison to work out of her system, that's for sure." The doctor shrugged.  "She got stung four times. Twice in the chest, once in the arm, and once was in the face.  I can only imagine how good that must've felt."

"Is she awake?"

"Barely.  Don't go rushing in there, Knight in Shining Armor," Ada replied, never losing her withering tone.  "She needs to rest, and she's coming down off the fever pretty rapidly."

"She say what the hell she was doing out there?"

Ada's eyes moved to the left, and she suddenly took Boone by the arm, leading him away from the group of mercenaries that seemed to follow her around.   "Just between you and me?  I'm going to be blunt with you.  The woman had a bullet in her head, and she's a walking time bomb as far as mental patients go. She was sleepwalking.  I assume you've not noticed it before?"

"No....."  The Courier was a fitful sleeper, once even punching him in the mouth in her sleep, or singing or talking or laughing, but...

"I'm not a head doctor, and so I'm not the person to talk to you about this. But she's a victim of severe trauma plus god-knows-what kind of scrambley eggs she's got going on up in there.  Sleepwalking isn't uncommon with mentally unstable people, especially for ones who have spent a lot of time in a vault.  Something about the confined quarters just seems to make people want to get up and walk around.  Anyway.... you'd better keep an eye on her, this could happen again.  And you might not be lucky enough to find her next time."

"Thank you for your help," Boone said, preparing to withdraw caps from his uniform's pocket.  Ada waved him away.

"That girl's saved all our asses several times since coming here.  She's someone I don't mind keeping alive.  Just be aware. Time bomb.  Also, the venom is going to make her nauseated for another few days, so take it slow.  I pumped her full of antivenom, but didn't have enough time to prevent the blindness."

"The WHAT?"

"Relax, champ. It's temporary. Happens with most Cazador stings, if only for a minute or two.  As much venom went in that kid, may be a day or two at most. She'll be able to see light and shades, everything will just be a big blur.  On top of that, due to an increased heart rate, expect her to be a little on edge.  Not like someone who got shot in the face is ever NOT going to be a little on edge, but there you go."

"Can I at least take her back to our room?"

"Boy, you don't waste any time, do you?" Ada said with a smirk.  Boone frowned, wilting any flowers that had thought of springing up nearby.

"Her room is a much better place for her to sleep than on a filthy mat outside," Boone said through his teeth.

Ada shrugged.  "She's your gal."  Turning back to the tent, Ada opened the flap, motioning to the Courier.  "Your valet has arrived.  Can you walk?"

There was a stirring from inside, and a mumbled "yes", before Ada disappeared inside the tent to help the other woman up.  Nervously, Boone stood outside.  Temporary blindness......he wasn't sure how to feel at that.  Thankful, perhaps, that it wasn't more severe.  Stunned that she had came so close to death.  Even more stunned that he, someone who had caused more death than he'd care to admit, …...saved her life.

Ada exited, leading the Courier by the arm.  The latter made Boone look away momentarily; her hoodie was off. To better clean the wounds, she was topless except for a series of bandages that wrapped tightly around her torso, ending just before her naval.  Her left arm was in a sling, also wrapped in a bandage.  Her right arm was extended, held at the elbow and the wrist by Ada.
"Here he is, our hero of the day," the latter quipped, and Boone stepped forward.

The Courier reached out unsteadily, found his shoulder, and leaned to him.  
"You okay, bombshell? Nauseated? Sit down if you start feeling too dizzy," Ada snapped, and the Courier nodded, smiling. "Thank you."
Then she turned to Boone, still clinging to him.  "I'm sorry--"
"Don't worry about it," he stopped her.  "Let's get you to bed."
"I'm not sle--"
"Come on."

Ada winked at him, then turned away from the couple.  

Boone could now stare at his companion without fear that she would look back, annoyed.  It made him feel even more awkward that she was barely dressed from the waist up, but the unnerving part of it all was her face.  Being blind, she didn't move her eyes or head at all, instead kept her chin pointing upward, her eyes wide, as though at any minute she was going to see something wondrous.  And she clung to the ex-NCR in a way she never had before.  

Boone slowly walked her back to the motel, where she rather defeatedly argued that she wasn't tired at all.  Watching her barely make her way around the room without bumping into the bed or nightstand would've been funny to Boone any other day, as the girl thought she was more hardass than anyone on earth, but knowing that she couldn't see only made him feel sorry for her.  After several minutes of digging through her bags, looking for something to wear, and doing it one-handed, the Courier gave up.  

"Dammit. I don't want to be cooped up here anymore.  It's making me crazy.  Manny told me earlier that I could wake him up if I wanted to come chat after you were asleep."  Not being able to see Boone's glare, the girl explained anyway while blindly picking up strewn clothes and stuffing them back into her bag, "He knew you wouldn't want to see him.  But he was on duty when I went up to say hello."

"You're telling me you want to go visit Manny, at one in the morning, without a shirt, while being blinded?"

"I'm an opportunist, unlike you," she shot back.  

Manny's room, directly under theirs, was the place Boone had avoided all day.  Wrestling with himself for a moment, he finally spat, "Well, if you go down there, I'm not coming with you."

"I think I can manage a flight of stairs blinded, it's not like it requires any effort.  There's a rail and everything."

"Fine.  Have fun."

"Oh, I will.  Manny's a riot, you should see him dance."

Deciding to forget the shirt, the Courier half stormed, half-bumped into things out of the room.  The door-slam was very effective, and Boone sat down forcefully on the couch, listening to her footfalls outside on the metal rungs.  The walls were thin, and as he sat stony-eyed in the darkness, Boone heard the door open, and Manny's laugh as he greeted the girl.  Her voice picked up immediately, her tone entirely different than it was with Boone.  

As they chatted, their voices rising upward to Boone, he suddenly got very sad.  Usually anger was the emotion that overwhelmed him, or regret, but being back in Novac really fucked with his emotional wiring.   He considered going back to his house, the home he shared with Carla.   Her things were there, her clothes, her keepsakes.  Once she was taken, Boone immediately got a room from Jeannie May, the thought of spending time alone in there too hard for him to bear.  
But then, what was the use of going back in there?  He was already extremely upset, and seeing his dead wife's little niche of the desert was just going to make him more distraught.  He was attached to her....the memory of her.

Suddenly the Courier seemed right.  This room was suffocating.  The laughing voice of Manny and the fact that his radio was turned high, filtering through the floorboards, didn't help.  He was probably down there dancing like an idiot with the blond.  Boone stood, almost stomping out of the room, slamming the door just as the Courier had done, and descended the stairs.  He couldn't go to his house, wouldn't even set foot in it.  Instead, he headed for the one secluded place where he'd always had plenty of time to think before: Dinky.  


________________________________________________________________________


Hours later and Boone still stood, looking out on the wasteland through the eyes of a T-Rex victim.  Though lost entirely in thought, one part of him still listened and watched for any sign of the Courier.  If she left the sanctity of the sleeping town again, he would know.  But, as the doctor had pointed out, due to her increased heart rate she had been nothing but awake.  This left the headstrong courier to be merry, and Boone to keep his distance even more so than normal.  

Coming back to Novac reminded him how glad he was to be rid of it.  How his burden had lifted, at least somewhat, when the golden-haired fighter swept him up and carried him away.  How he and the Courier both felt that there was something more to life while they networked their way to Vegas, shared plans of helping the NCR, intended to help defend Hoover Dam when the time came.  How just hours earlier, he had actually played in the snow with her (and the lunatic Nightkin.)  There was a spot of hope somewhere, somewhere deep in this story for Boone, but he just couldn't shake off everything and grasp onto that tiny spot of hope.  It was like drowning, only far more slowly.  

He didn't want to die, not anymore.  He knew he would, and he could only hope that when he did, it would be amid a sea of red that he would hopefully mow down considerably before they took him.  Boone had by no means found his purpose for living yet.  It was more like, he had realized that some things were better than death.  That's why he stuck by the sometimes difficult girl, dubbed a "time-bomb" by Ada.  If he was drowning, then she was the one making him gasp for air, making him want to breathe again, regardless of the fact that he couldn't.

It was getting close to 3am.  He was tired.  But he couldn't sleep until he was sure that the Courier was safe in bed, in a LOCKED motel room.  Maybe he wouldn't even sleep then.  Boone would've rather swam in an irradiated swimming pool and risk ghoulishness than knock on Manny's door and try to get the woman to come to bed.  Still....he did feel respon--

Someone was ascending the stairs in the dinosaur.  Boone abruptly turned, looking into the darkness, and his honed ears picked up the unsteady steps.  Whoever was coming up was walking slowly, stumbling, and not bothering to be quiet. It was either a drunk Manny or a blind Courier, and he faced the door as it slowly swung open.  The latter entered, awkwardly and sadly reaching her hands out in front of her in a sweep to find the wall, and close the door behind her.  Once she'd done that, she leaned against the door, looking not at Boone and into that faraway place only the blind have access to.  

Boone didn't speak; truth to tell, he was startled to see her here, still without a shirt on, and while wrapped up in his own misery, thinking of her, it was difficult to know what to say.  He never knew what to say, had never known what to say.   She wasn't aware he was even in here; Boone had tensed up at seeing her, and now not even a breath could be heard inside the dinosaur's mouth.

Standing near the edge of the platform, where he used to snipe, Boone didn't move as the Courier stepped forward as though on the edge of a great precipice.  Her hand, the one that wasn't in a sling, was held out in front of her.  Jerkily, she moved toward him, entirely helpless, and the outstretched hand touched Boone's shoulder.  

He still didn't move, a wretched look on his his face, one she couldn't see, but now her worried face lighted up slightly.  "......Boone?..."  The hand moved from his shoulder, to his neck, and finally to his cheek, where she used her fingertips to brush his cheekbone, the edge of his beret, his eyebrow.  Boone closed his eyes, feeling blinded himself.  So long in torment without the slightest physical interaction, the harmless touch-to-identify was almost more than he could bear.  He opened his eyes to study her again.

Apparently she recognized something in his taught brow and her eyebrows raised hopefully.  "It is you.  I thought I might find you up here."  Her hand wasn't straying from his face, and without the sight to indicate to her that she was closer than she ever had been before, the Courier stepped up to Boone.  "You're sad," she said in a very heartbroken voice.  "I never saw it this much before, but you're  .....sad."

Boone still had no idea what to say.  He stood rigid as steel, hoping she would talk more.

Instead, she moved even closer, her mouth parting slightly at apparently realizing whatever it was she realized.  One-handedly, her thumb rose over his eyebrow, then back down the side of his face, over his lips.  Perhaps the blindness made her produce tears, or perhaps Boone's face, whatever part of it made her so sad, was causing her to become so misty-eyed.  Either way, the girl's greens brimmed with water and widened impossibly farther.  Boone closed his eyes again, this time holding them shut.  

Now the Courier's hand slid from Boone's face to the back of his neck, pulling him closer to her.  She lowered her head, not that she could stare at him, or he her as his eyes were closed, but the blond brought her own forehead to Boone's collarbone even as she pushed him by the back of the neck to her.  Through the thin fabric of his shirt, Boone felt her breath, as well as the splash of a tear, and she whispered, "I'm sorry about everything."

Now his eyes popped open, and Boone lowered his own head, so that his cheek touched her hair.  Slowly he extended his arms, in the motion that would leave him in an embrace with her.  Mid-movement though, the sniper froze in place, his fingers curling into fists, then flexing again.  Although she was pressed to him, he couldn't hug her.  He tried, moving his arms toward her, but stopped short.  

She didn't appear to notice Boone wrestling with his own inability to embrace her, but after a few moments she did step back, removing her hand from the back of his neck and turning away, once again struggling to find the door. He was still frozen in place. But for once, Boone didn't turn away as well, watching after the Courier even as she exited, as her uncertain footsteps sounded faintly outside the nest.