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All the Roads We've Walked	By : Nevara_Alyss Category: +A through F > Fallout (Series) > Fallout (Series) Views: 2895 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Fallout: New Vegas, nor the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
- 4
- 5
They walked for several hours; the sun had reached its apex before starting another gradual descent across azure skies. Peggy Lee’s velvety voice sang along the open road from the Pip-Boy. Winnie walked a few feet ahead, small plumes of smoke floating over head as she smoked her cigarette. Boone thought he could hear her humming softly to herself. She seemed wholly unaware that he was there.
They had barely spoken since leaving Novac – which was something he was thankful for. He wasn’t one for profound conversation or any conversation really. He knew where they were going, didn’t care why, just that he was glad to be out in the world again. He glanced at Winnie, her black locks flitting carelessly in the post-rain breeze.
Winnie stopped and turned to him, “Do you want to stop for a little bit?”
Boone let out a gruff, “No.”
The young woman let out a heavy sigh and returned to walking without another word. He scowled at himself for the harsh tone and went to apologize to her, but stopped when he saw movement coming toward them. Winnie had seen it too and she pulled her pistol and gave him a strange look. He couldn’t tell if it was anticipation or fear that had set upon her face.
The first set of bullets ricocheting off the ground gave way to his companion returning a volley of gunfire before crouching behind a k-rail. Boone slid beside her as Ed-E trilled angrily. It fired wildly at their aggressors. He stuck his head up briefly to see who it was that was attacking and saw the familiar crimson armor of the Legion.
“I think they’re after me,” Boone warned, trying to hide his emotions.
Winnie crooked her eyebrow while sliding another magazine into her 9mm. A strange little smile crossed her face and uttered, “I doubt it. They’ve been after me since I killed one of their people in Nipton.”
She fired back rapidly, hitting one of troopers in the thigh. He lurched forward to grab the wound as it poured dark red down his leg. Legionnaires yelled that one had gone down. It only bolstered their resolve and the three man group staving off the six was only waiting before they were goners.
“Which one did you get,” Boone questioned, lining up his shot and nailing a distant soldier in the chest.
“I don’t know,” she stammered out of breath.
“Which?!” Boone yelled, taking his place beside her again.
“I didn’t stop to ask his name. Jesus! Why does it matter?” she argued angrily. It was then that he noticed the hole in her jacket, rimmed in red. He didn’t know what to think in the moment. He knew hesitation would get them both killed. Ed-E was starting to spark from all the fire it’d taken. Its chirps turned to warbles and its firing became more chaotic. His body became automatic, almost reckless. “I don’t have time for this.”
The sniper fired off his remaining shots and slid down to reload. He saw out of the corner of his eye, Winnie toss something over the railing in their opponents’ direction. She covered her ears almost instinctively and a large burst of dirt and smoke covered the field. He heard her coughing. He could barely see her with all the particulate in the air.
“Are you alright?” he asked, staying as business like as possible.
He knew his face betrayed his emotions. He was genuinely worried for the girl, even if he barely knew her. His mind raced that he was right and she was going to die in front of him. She gave him a pained look and waved that she was fine.
“How many?” she choked out between violent coughs.
He glanced over the rail again, but couldn’t see movement. All he heard was the sound of feet and the occasional bullet thudding against concrete. He shook his head; the air was just too heavy with dirt that he couldn’t get a count. Winnie groaned in frustration.
“I’ve had it with this bullshit!” she yelped. She opened up her pack and frantically began rummaging through it. She pulled a small device out and put it on. “There are better uses for these things. It’s a shame I have to waste it on them.”
“What the hell are you doing?” Boone fired off. He heard footsteps drawing closer to their position.
“I’m not letting these wanna-be Romans stop me from getting to Boulder City,” she snapped.
Before he could stop her, she was gone. She just blinked out of existence before his eyes. He saw the smoke swirl in awkward patterns. He could hear scuffling nearby and the footfalls that were drawing closer had come to a stop and turned in the opposite direction. He could hear her breathing, the soft wheeze of pain and adrenaline coming closer. He heard a man’s grunt and the whistle of breath that couldn’t be hers. He stood up and saw a body fall over the railing, dead.
“Winnie!” he yelled, fearing that she’d succumbed to her injuries.
Only silence replied to his call. Ed-E let out an excited slew of tweets. Its left panel rattled as it jerked and shook in the direction of a nearby gas station. Boone grabbed the pack. The night arose as he walked. He saw the small splashes of blood on the torn asphalt grow closer together as he reached his destination. The chalky, brown dust held perfect impressions of her boots on the road side, leading towards the door of the building. A small handprint stained the wood, seeping red down the grooves.
Boone pressed open the door and saw Winnie sitting on a stack of crates. A large knife stood, stabbed in to the lid beside her. The light of her Pip-Boy cast her in a shade of green. Thick glasses adorned her distressed face, with her eyes fixated on the bullet wound in her shoulder. The stoic sniper sighed, his relief obvious to the only other entity in the room.
“Goddamn it, what the hell were you thinking?” he questioned, his tone coming out as more of a scold than concern. He hurried to her side and saw the burned edges of flesh oozing sanguine down her tank top. “Are you trying to get yourself killed?”
Winnie, finally looked up at him, the glassy gaze of shock stared back at him. It was an eerie blank stare as if she wasn’t registering what he was saying. The deep-ingrained frown on her face tore the split in her lip open, dripping blood down her chin. Boone sat her pack on the counter and pulled a stimpak out. She shook her head in disagreement and snapped her fingers harshly. With a violent point towards her stuff, he handed it to her. She rustled through it and pulled out a set of hemostats, rubber gloves, antiseptic, gauze, a pair of stimpaks and a small vial with a syringe.
“I can still feel it in there,” she explained, pulling the gloves on. Her eyes never left his. “The collarbone is broken. I’ll have to sling my arm, until the meds kick in. Until then, my arm is shot.” Ed-E jabbered frantically causing the woman to look past Boone. Her eyes glistened in the dim light as she looked him over. “I see I’ll have to attend to your injuries, as well.”
“Do you know what you are doing?” Boone asked.
She nodded taking a bottle of alcohol out and holding up the jagged clamps, “I need you to pour this on them.”
Boone looked at them. The crude instrument looked more like a torture device than an instrument used in the medical field. He looked to her; her eyes pleading with him to hurry up and do as she asked. He let out a sigh and doused the steel in the noxious smelling fluid. She pulled them back, satisfied that they were clean and gave him a weak smile.
“Do you want me to do it?” Boone queried, his brows furrowing at her pain.
“No. This isn’t my first rodeo with extracting bullets,” she responded chuckling weakly.
She let out a sigh and returned her focus to her injury. The smile turned into a grimace as the first inches of cold metal pierced the hole. She bit her lower lip and let out a loud whimper. Tears streamed down her cheeks as the instrument delved deeper. He could only watch helplessly, taking a step back and pacing in front of her. She let out several forced breaths and heard the sound of ratcheting as the teeth closed shut. Her hand shook as the first millimeters of blood coated steel slid out.
A few seconds later – which felt like an eternity - the bulbous head of a bullet unsheathed itself from her body. She let out a gasp and dropped the contraption to the floor. Her forehead beaded with sweat as she began the next step in her wound care. She looked to Boone now, a strange sense of anticipation flooding her. She waved him over and gave him a glass bottle. “Pour it.”
His mouth went dry as he uncorked the container and silently emptied it into the gaping hole. She let out a yelp and slammed her fist into the wall, causing him to stop. He measured her distress and realized how unprepared he was for her reaction.
“Are you going to tell me whom you killed?” he uttered, watching white and pink foam drip from her wound.
“I told you. We weren’t on a first name basis. I shot the son of a bitch and left it at that,” she growled through clenched teeth. She looked down at the wound and put her hand up to stop him. She gave Boone a peculiar look and cleared her throat. She pulled from her belt a small canteen and sipped it before handing it to him. He held it to his nose and sniffed curiously at the liquid. He took a small drink, the refreshing wash of water hit his parched throat. He set the flask on the counter and she held out a pair of gloves and the gauze. The strap of her shirt was shifted to the side.
“They were in Nipton. I saw what they did,” she continued. Boone donned the gloves and began wrapping the wound as she pointed the directions he should go. “The town is dead now. Only one survivor got out. The rest: dead, crucified or taken.” With each utterance her voice softened, almost breathy. She nodded when she was satisfied and thanked him.
“You made the right decision, then,” Boone told her as he leaned against the counter and folded his arms across his chest.
She looked up at him a lost, vacant expression on her face. “I killed those that were near death, instead of letting them linger.” Her eyes welled with tears as she spoke. “I couldn’t do anything to help them.”
Boone let out a snort and closed his eyes. He knew exactly what she was talking about. There was a certain amount of helplessness when it came to the victims of the Legion. He’d experienced it many times while he was in the military and then Carla. It was a double-edged sword. You knew you were ending their suffering but at the cost of your own morality and sanity.
He heard scuffling and then her feet hit the floor. His eyes shot open and saw her standing in front of him, her arm in a sling. She had a slight sway to her that after a couple of passes he thought she was going to lose consciousness. He put his arms out to catch her as she stumbled backwards. She hit the crates and swore under her breath.
“Where do you think you are going?” he asked, his lips thinning into a line. He saw the vial and the used syringe in her hand.
“I told you: I’m going to Boulder City,” She let out a drugged giggle and several snorts of amusement.
“No. Not like this, you aren’t,” he snapped. He snatched the narcotics from her and threw them in her pack. “We’re going to wait until you come down from the initial kick.”
The child-like glee turned to one of concern as she fixated on him. She glanced over her shoulder and he followed, seeing the stimpak teetering on the edge by the knife. Again, she returned to his arm almost perplexed by what she was seeing. Her head cocked inquisitively through the stupor.
“The other one was for you,” she stated as she peered up through the fine fringe of bangs. “I’m sorry, I got you hurt.”
He looked at his arm, saw the tear in his flesh from a graze and picked up the stimpak. She pulled the knife out of the box and sheathed it. As he injected it she started for the door, slinging the pack over her shoulder. He hurried after her and caught the door before it closed.
“I told you to wait,” he snapped.
“And I told you I wasn’t,” she fired back. “Besides, the side effects of the narcotics are brief and I can feel the stims kicking in.” She glanced at her Pip-Boy and then to him before walking on. “If we hurry, we can be at Boulder City by ten o’clock.”
Ed-E zoomed passed him, his left panel flapping in the breeze. Boone ran after them; his mind racing with thoughts about Winnie, what she had done before they met and how she acted afterward. There was a certain determination; a drive he thought was untouchable in her. He had his death wishes for past due crimes, that’s why he left Novac in the first place. Meeting her for the first time made him examine those moments. He knew that recompense was going to come harshly and she was the key to making it so.
He thought he was owed that much. But whatever her burden is, he thought as he walked by her side, seems on par with the inevitable cross to bear when the Legion is involved. Maybe, he pondered while looking out his peripheral at her, she saw an out in me, as well.
- 4
- 5
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All the Roads We've Walked