Chapter Text
Stella was flat on her back, a rock poking between her shoulders and a plant of some kind under her thigh. From what she could tell, Stella would guess Nevada Agave, but that didn’t really matter. She’d slept on worse.
The fire had all but disappeared at this point. There was little save for a few warm coals in the red dust. Boone hated fires at night. Always said it would get them caught and killed now that the Legion was on their tail. But if the Legion were looking for them that night, they would find them for sure.
The moon over the Mojave was full and brilliant in its soft blue glow. It bathed everything over the land and everything was made different because of it. Even Boone. She could just barely see him from under her eyelashes. The hazy outline of his slumped back and broad shoulders. If he knew she was awake, he’d make her take the first watch.
His characteristic beret was almost violet in the moonlight. If she concentrated, she could just barely make out the barrel of his rifle sitting in his lap.
“If you’re going to keep staring, take the first watch.” Boone’s deep rumbly voice broke the silence. Stella fought to keep the smile off her face. For some reason, the fact she could predict what he would say was comforting with its familiarity.
“I’m going, I’m going.” She laughed from the otherside of the small camp. She was quiet again, but found her eyes drawn back to the form of her companion surveying the desert. He was so still. It was fascinating. If she were an artist, she’d draw him.
Stella rolled, facing Boone so she could see him without getting a crick in her neck, despite the fact it left her back exposed to the elements. The hairs on the back of her neck stood tall and then she was sleeping on her back again for fear of choking on her sudden rush of anxiety.
“Will you tell me a story, Boone?”
The moonlight quivers on his back for a moment as he heaves in an unexpected breath.
“No.”
Stella laughed again. She turned her face to the moon and let its strange alien light bathe her. She could feel Boone’s gaze on her this time. In the barest corner of her eye, she could see his head turned slightly towards her. It made her skin itch in a way that wasn’t unpleasant. Even with his shaded eyes, he had the most intense stare that could stagger an army.
“Boone, do you believe in aliens?”
“Go to sleep.”
“I’m just making conversation.” She was slightly defensive, hearing how he ordered her around. Boone sighed.
“If you’re making conversation, you’re not going to sleep. If you’re going to be awake, you can take the first watch. Is that what you want?”
Stella grumbled to herself before she rolled over, facing her back towards Boone and the campfire. It didn’t ease her anxiety of sleeping in the open desert. So many eyes could be watching them, legion, radscorpions, raiders. The desert was teeming with all sorts of life, evident even from the howling of the coyotes on the wind. Her stomach was in her throat like bad heartburn.
She sat up, sighing to herself. “I’ll take the first watch. Hate sleeping in the open like this anyway.”Stella didn’t turn towards Boone, yet she couldn’t hear him move. There was no rustle of clothing, so when she chanced a look over her shoulder Stella wasn’t exactly surprised to see Boone still staring out into the desert.
“Did you hear me? I said I’d take the first watch.” She tossed a small pebble in his direction.
“Yeah I heard.” He didn’t move.
“Are you... Are you going to sleep then?”
He was strangely silent. He opened the bolt on his rifle and checked his magazine.
“Don’t like the open desert either?” Boone didn’t respond, but he turned his head just slightly to look over his shoulder at her. She couldn’t tell what he was seeing, but she thought she understood what the sniper was saying.
It was hard to describe, since it was only a fleeting feeling, and putting it into words, all that Boone was saying, was no easy task. It was something along the lines of, “yes, “ and “none of your business,” and maybe a hint of “don’t talk to me about it”. The middle of which Stella got all the time from him.
Wisely, she didn’t say anything, only fingered the rough edges of her scavenged 10 mm pistol. There was an assortment of nicks and divots in the brutalized metal. Each one a story, but stories the Courier was unfamiliar with. This wasn’t her gun. Just a gun.
The moon dropped low in the sky, and Stella’s eyes burned with sleep, but every time she closed her eyes, something dark and hideous loomed in the darkness of her eyelids.
Getting shot in the head was definitely a pitfall, for more than the obvious reason. It had scrambled her memories, and she was left with faint images, soft impressions of things in her waking mind that haunted her sleeping mind with the viciousness of a deathclaw but left her with no memory upon waking. All she knew was that something frightened her once but she couldn’t remember for the life of her what.
“Boone?” She broke the silence that hovered over the two companions.
“What is it?”
“Is there anywhere in the Mojave with lots of trees?”
Boone was silent a moment before he responded. “Trees?”
“Yeah, tall ones. Pine, I think.” Stella’s gaze was distant, her tired eyes tracing the mountain line in the far west. Between here and there was a scattering of old farmsteads and windmills creaking restlessly in the warm desert air. Something about the dust and the creosote was familiar.
“Jacobstown, maybe. I remember hearing it was a resort of somesort, Prewar. Snow and trees.” Boone shifted slightly to speak, turning his body towards Stella. “Why?”
She shrugged. “I think I remember coming from somewhere with lots of trees. Smelled like the desert does right now, except a little more earthy.”
“You think you remember?” He questioned her after another moment of silence. It was like Boone needed a moment to decide what he was going to say and maybe if he really wanted to say anything at all. There were always gaps when making small talk with the man.
“Yeah,” Stella started, uncertainly. One hand came up to touch the still pink and purple scar on her forehead, the one that looked like a paint splatter and cut her right eyebrow into two parts. The gunshot scar. “My memories from before are so faint, I can't really remember. The bullet really did a number on who I was.”
Her fingers pressed into the remnant wound, sparking some dull pain behind her eyes with the feeling. “Part of me remembers the fear of sleeping outside, and a newer part of me fears sleeping indoors or underground. So tell me Boone, when exactly am I supposed to sleep?”
Boone didn’t say anything. And Stella didn’t think he was going to, until he said, “Sleep when you’re tired. I’ve got your back.”
Stella turned to look at Boone and found him already watching her. His face was shadowed weirdly with the moonlight. His brow cast a deep shadow over his eyes, but she shivered anyways. Damn, a man like that making a statement like that. She refrained from reading too much into it, but boy did she want to.
They shared that look for a matter of moments, a number Stella wouldn’t have minded stretching out into eternity, until at last Boone turned away and Stella was left feeling cold in the November desert air.
He didn’t say anything again until she repositioned herself against his back, spine to spine.
“What are you doing?”
“You’ve got my back, and I’ve got yours. Always.”
