Chapter Text
Life lately has been a series of waiting for Craig. Waiting for nightfall. Waiting for the next day. Waiting for an end. Waiting for the other shoe to drop. It is endless, droning, and exhausting. A neverending breath held before the squeeze of the trigger. The monotony would be boring if he wasn’t so high strung all the time. If he knew better, was smarter or sharper or cared more, he might have a name for it. The worst of it all is that he doesn’t care. He might have cared once. Caring would be better than this empty, stupid nothing that occupies his gut these days.
It doesn’t help that Novac is a big, blank slate of a town—every corner containing some hidden memory of just how much Carla hated being brought here. No-Bark’s lurking around, an errant sneer from Manny, the overbearing friendliness of Jeanie-May. Craig tries to put the memories somewhere else, packing them tight into the void that lives in his chest, in his memory. Sometimes the drink helps. Most times it doesn’t. He always did enjoy gambling.
It shocks then, when a newcomer appears in the dingy village one day. Craig notices her for the first time as she fiddles with the motel room lock the floor above his own. The sun is low in the sky, the moon still kissing the horizon in a pale blue and orange early morning. Tan skin, brown hair, slight stature. Too similar. Craig averts his eyes, doesn’t want to see the facsimile of Carla that’s here to torture him.
He drinks that morning. Enough that he doesn’t remember the rest of the day.
The woman’s name is Selma, and she’s a courier. For whatever reason, she’s decided to take shelter in Novac for a time, and Craig does his best to avoid her. It’s not until she opens Dinky’s door for the first time that they interact. When he reacts with shock she has the decency to look apologetic.
“I’m sorry,” Selma says to him. Her eyes are black, her features downturned and soft, not quite fitting right against her harsh surroundings. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”
“You didn’t,” Craig lies.
“I—my name is Selma,” she tells him, like he doesn’t already know from the gossip hound that is No-Bark. “I’m just curious if you’ve seen a man come through here recently. He would be wearing a black-and-white checkered suit.”
Craig curdles back through his own memories of everything he had seen from the dinosaur’s mouth in the past week or so. There had been any number of stray ghouls from Repconn, a few random Vipers, and the errant legionnaire. All silenced quickly by his or Manny’s efficient executions.
“Haven’t,” he tells her. “Sorry.”
If disappointment strikes her, she doesn’t show it. That same neutral gentleness marks her features. The soft slope of her eyes, the jut of her bottom lip. Not for this place. The only thing that slots her into this time and place is the pistol strapped against her thigh.
Selma nods. “The other sniper, Manny?”
Craig nods in affirmative.
“He wants me to clear out the ghouls in Repconn,” she says. “I don’t suppose I could enlist your help with that?”
Manny had been harping on about those ghouls to any soul that would listen, other than Craig, of course. It doesn’t shock that he would tell the newcomer about it, but it does shock that she would attempt to corral Craig into whatever his asinine request might actually be.
“You want my help?” Craig asks her incredulously.
She has the gall to look sheepish. “It’s not going to be easy. Having a sniper at my back might be very helpful.”
“Can’t leave my post.”
She mulls that over in her head. “Well, we could go during the day.”
It’s just not done, this kind of thing. She’s not joking, no hint of a smile on her warm features. Craig watches her from behind his glasses, tries to catch anything under the surface. She’s quiet. Comfortable in the still that sits between them.
“Don’t do that kind of work.” He tells her.
If she is dissatisfied with his response, her face doesn’t show it. This stranger, this Selma, just blinks at him. Then, gives him a resolute nod.
“Ok,” she says plainly. “Sorry again, for intruding.”
In ten years, in thirty, in a million years when the world has rebuilt itself and, in turn, destroyed itself again, Craig could not say why he is moved by this stranger. Why her measured gaze and quiet agreement fills him with such an overwhelming desire to do something, do anything, you can’t live like this anymore.
So, as she turns from him to leave the dinosaur’s mouth, he halts her with a word. “Wait.”
Slender fingers pause on the doorknob. She peers at him inquisitively over her shoulder at him, eyes expectant. Something is possessing him. Maybe the same outer force that makes him forget to lock the door at night, or makes him have just one more sip, one more drink. Something bad, most definitely.
Still. It’s not like he has anything else in this life. “If you can do me a favor, I can go with you.”
Selma’s hand drops from the doorknob as she turns to fully face him once more. There’s that same plain expression. She’d be good at the tables on the Strip.
“Name it.” She tells him.
Craig’s head is cold, ears tinged pink in the cool Mojave night air. He runs a hand against his scalp absentmindedly, scope balanced delicately between Dinky’s incisors. He shouldn’t have given her the beret. When he had handed it over, Selma had held it gently in both hands, a thumb rubbing against the fabric as she kept her eyes on him, absorbing his instructions.
She could just leave, he thinks. A courier and a hat thief. When he had told her about Carla, she had simply nodded, though her eyes were downcast, focusing on the wood floor beneath their feet. Maybe she felt bad. Maybe she just wanted him to get on with it so she knew what she had to do. Either way, Craig had given her as much detail as she needed. No more. No less.
The moon hangs high in the sky, full and bright. It’s been a full day now, but Craig isn’t expecting much. Tonight’s shift had been slower than last night’s, and the obvious distraction that is the new courier in town is now conducting her own investigation, leaving Craig to keep his scope on the horizon. Two geckos. Splatter on the highway now. Carcasses will sour in the morning sun.
Some of the kids might be out in the morning for the meat, if the coyotes haven’t gotten to the corpses first.
He is distracted from his thoughts by the crunch of boots on the dirt beneath Dinky, and he peers down through the scope to see two women walking. Strange. Recognition hits him as Selma peers up briefly at Dinky’s mouth, cheeks flushed red, before her gaze levels back to the old woman walking in front of her. Jeannie May.
Craig trundles through his memories here, tries to put Carla up against the old woman. Tries to remember their interactions. Was there something he missed? Something Jeannie May had said or…or had Carla let slip her disdain for Novac in front of her? His finger rests on the trigger guard, breath held high up in his lungs. He can’t hear them, but Jeannie May is saying something to Selma. Pleading for her life? He can’t tell. It doesn’t sound so desperate, but he can’t make out the words. It’s slow then, when Selma pulls out the beret and places it on her head.
There it is. Craig squeezes the trigger, hears the sputter. He peers through the scope to check on Selma. Black eyes meet him back, a little bit of blood splashed on her cheek. The beret still sits on her head, and he watches as she shifts to take it off. Jeannie May’s headless body heaps itself on the ground at her feet. Coyotes would have a field day with it tomorrow. The kids, hopefully not.
It’s a few minutes later when he hears the door behind him creak open and shut closed. He turns to see Selma standing there, blood cleaned from her cheek and the beret held in her outstretched hand. They don’t say anything as he grabs it from her and places it back on his head. It feels right again. Warm.
“Well, that’s that,” Craig says, feeling this unfamiliar twinge of needing to fill the silence. “How did you know it was her?”
Selma shuffles for something in her pocket, before holding out a crumpled sheet of paper to him. “You should see this,” she tells him, a grim look on her face.
He reads it over once, then twice, his mind attempting to cobble the words together into something coherent. Disgust roils in his stomach, at the thought of Jeannie May and some red-decked legionnaire negotiating the terms and conditions to his whole world. But even the anger feels tepid. He looks back up at Selma, whose gaze remains on the paper in his hands.
“It’s like them to keep paperwork,” is all he says. All he can say without letting it all pour out, like a stopper on a wine bottle.
“I’m sorry,” Selma says, eyes shifting to meet the lens of his sunglasses. She probably can’t tell he’s looking right at her now. “I know it doesn’t mean much, from a stranger, but…still.”
He thinks of Selma’s gaze down his scope, the splatter of blood on her cheek, dust motes clinging to thick eyelashes. He thinks of another time he had stared down his scope, another time a woman with dark hair and tan skin had been at the other end of it. It feels like a premonition. A ghost from the past here to warn him of his future.
Still. He owed her the favor.
“When do we leave for Repconn?” He asks her.
Selma blinks, then clears her throat. “I can meet you outside town around noon.” She pauses, then starts tentatively. “You should rest.”
His kneejerk to her assessment is anger. Anger at her overfamiliarity, anger at her doting, anger at her assumption. But, he swallows it back with a clench of his jaw, and shoots her a cordial, if-not-terse nod. “See you tomorrow.”
She doesn’t say goodbye, letting the open and shut of the door do it for her.
Craig doesn’t sleep for more than thirty minutes, dreams empty and mind full. He considers a drink, but he doesn’t want to be hungover trudging through a decrepit building full of ferals and whatever else. The morning sun paints his form in splotches of warm light, its intensity heating the room despite the boarded windows. He grabs a smoke, then two more, before he readies himself for the day and for his journey with Selma.
He’s not sure what to expect, really. It’s been so long since he’s traveled with a partner. He has no expectation of her acting as a spotter for him, especially since the only weapon she really seemed to carry was the 10mm pistol strapped to her thigh. But, he supposes, if it’s just for the facility then it doesn’t need to be some uncomfortable, prolonged conversation.
She seems smart, if nothing else. It hadn’t taken her more than a day to determine the person who had sold Carla and the baby. Plus, you had to have some semblance of skill to survive to adulthood out here.
The sun is high in the sky by the time he leaves the motel and heads toward the outskirts of town. Her silhouette dots the horizon, a slight form against a harsh blue sky. Craig doesn’t greet her, but she turns to offer him a polite smile in greeting. “Good morning.”
The most pathetic part is that he hasn’t heard that phrase in so long it actually makes him pause. He clears his throat to cover anything that might escape in that surprise. “Morning.”
“McBrides lost another brahmin last night.” She tells him as they begin to walk together, passing by the farmhouse in question. Craig peers over to see the rotting brahmin corpse before refocusing his gaze on the path ahead.
“Should hire a guard.” He replies, voice sounding out of place, out of step.
“I have a theory,” she says. “It might have something to do with what’s going on at Repconn.”
Craig shoots her a glance. She’s biting in her bottom lip, eyes narrowed on the winding road toward the facility. He shouldn’t ask. He doesn’t really care.
There’s that thing again, possessing him. He asks, “Ferals, you think?”
Selma shrugs, shoulders hitching up jerkily. “Something with a big gun. The brahmins all have 5mm gunshot wounds. Lots of them. I don’t think ferals carry miniguns. At least none that I’ve ever met.”
She knows guns. Craig nods. “Think you’re right.”
“I guess we’ll find out soon enough,” she says, shooting him a wary smile. “Right?”
He doesn’t need to affirm her. As they make their way up the road, they almost literally stumble on the corpse of a dead glowing feral, and the click clicking of her PipBoy’s Geiger counter accompanies their journey through the valley. Strange that she should have one. Craig hadn’t really pegged her as a vault dweller, and her attire—dark jeans, a white t-shirt, and a brown, brahmin leather jacket—seem sufficiently dirtied. Her form carries a hungriness that only fits the kind of person that lives in the Mojave.
He doesn’t ask about PipBoy. Doesn’t want to. Not his business. Won’t be his business after this whole thing is done.
She’s well enough in a firefight, he discovers, as they encounter ferals at the overpass leading to Repconn. Her aim could use work, but she’s calm, smooth in her movements. Trained. Craig and her dispense of the ferals with relative ease, and he stands watch as she loots the makeshift station that someone must have built here.
He’s staring down the road when he feels her presence closer, and he turns to find her standing right next to him. She’s quiet, too. Light on her feet. Selma holds out a little red and yellow box of ammo, offering it to him. “For you.”
Craig takes it from her and places it in his pack. His mind sticks for a second, before he realizes that it’s a kindness, after all. “Thanks,” he says with a nod.
“You’re welcome,” she responds. “I appreciate you coming out here with me today. I know it’s an odd request.”
It is, but he won’t say it. “It’s good to have backup.”
Selma nods, then scoffs out a sardonic laugh. “You don’t know how true that is.”
He’s sure he does, but spoiling the joke never did him any good, so he just nods again. Stupid.
Invisible super mutants. A cult of ghouls, all led by one that glows. A man who believes he’s a ghoul. It’s all so…well, he wouldn’t call it ridiculous with the way the world works now, but it sure is hard to swallow.
Selma is taking it stride though, though he’s not sure how. They traverse the halls carefully, eliminating threats as they come, with effort. One Nightkin—they’re called that, apparently—nearly takes her out with a swing of its massive sledgehammer, but is quickly halted by the bullet that Craig lodges in between its sunken eyes.
She had thanked him for that, as if it wasn’t what he was just supposed to do.
They’re in the bowels of the Repconn facility when it happens. A minigun, red hot and spinning, wielded in the hands of an angry Nightkin, tears through old barrels and flimsy metal. The both of them are able to duck in time, but the clock is ticking.
She turns to him, face close in their foxhole. At this distance, he can see that her eyes are brown, not black. “Boone,” she tells him. “Cover your ears.”
It’s not until she pulls the pin in her hand that he realizes why she’s given him this direction. It happens fast then, as grenades typically do. He watches her arc the little grenade over and press her hands tight against her ears as it clatters to the metal. He does the same, the explosion of it still loud enough to leave his ears ringing. There is a burst of heat that accompanies the noise, and a sudden sharp pain in his shoulder, but then there is silence and the smell of burning flesh.
He could yell. He could get angry. It wouldn’t do anything, but it would probably feel good. Feel good? When was the last time anything had felt like anything at all? He turns to look at her, and she has the good nature to look sheepish.
“More warning would be better,” Craig tells her. “In the future.”
Her eyes shift back and forth between his left and right lens. “Sorry I—shit. Your shoulder.”
The sharp pain had erupted from somewhere, after all, and he cranes his neck to look over at the source. Blood seeps through his white shirt, though he still has mobility. Probably shrapnel or just an errant bullet grazing from the minigun. He hisses, but rolls his shoulder just fine.
“It’s fine,” he says. “We’ll clean it later.”
Selma shakes her head. “No. Let me see it.”
No. She said no. Craig finds his brows furrowing. “We don’t have time.”
“We do,” she rebuts. “Please. I’m a medic.”
It explains the doting, he guesses. Craig takes a deep breath, inhaling slow through his nose then letting out a sharp exhale at the pain that accompanies the movement. She’s staring at him, still close, though the look in her eyes has turned to concern.
“Yeah alright.” He tells her.
“Ok.” Selma sits up on her legs, shifting through her haphazardly dropped pack for a small medkit. Craig watches as she shucks the little metal box open and begins rifling around. She doesn’t look at him as she speaks. “Turn around. Take your shirt off.”
He does as he’s told, tries not to think too much about the cold shock of air against the now-bare skin of his chest and back, and the way his shirt had stuck to the blood seeping on his shoulder. It’s uncomfortable, and strange, and fucking freezing here in this dark, dank basement.
“Think you got grazed,” Selma’s voice comes from behind him. “You’ll feel my hands here.”
True to her word, Craig feels a featherlight touch on his shoulder blade, right below where the wound must be. Still strange. Still odd. He tries not to think about the last time someone might have touched him.
“Gonna clean it now,” Selma says. “This will sting.”
The absence of her hands is quickly replaced by the sharp sting of alcohol, raw in his fresh wound. He lets out an involuntary hiss between clenched teeth, and tries not to think of it. Tries to push it out of his mind. Selma’s voice is soft when she says, “I know. I’m sorry.”
He thinks of Carla. He thinks of his time in First Recon, when it first started, before it soured. He thinks of the mutt his parents had let him keep for a few weeks when he turned ten. He thinks of poker with Manny. He thinks of the baby that never was.
This hard pain—this unending hurt gives him perspective. It grounds him. What is temporary physical pain in the face of all the horror he’s wrought?
As it begins to fade, he hears Selma’s voice once again. He must have been tuning her out. “I’ll wrap it now.”
She’s all business as she wraps the bandage around his armpit and shoulder, and Craig has to pretend like this doesn’t feel at odds with his life for the past year. She’s so close, and, though the wound necessitates it, so touchy. As she tightens it to put pressure on the wound, she bites in her bottom lip again.
Craig averts his gaze, stares at the dead Nightkin sitting across the room.
“Ok,” she says. “Quick Stimpak and you’ll be ready to go.”
He hears the plunge of the needle, but feels the hand on his shoulder, holding him steady. She has long fingers. Probably would be good for a rifle, though she seems to favor a pistol.
“Where’d you train?” He asks because…well he doesn’t know why really. He doesn’t need to know her. Better than the heavy silence, he supposes.
A wry smile creeps on her face. “Would you believe me if I told you the NCR?”
She doesn’t seem like a soldier. Too soft. NCR takes all types, he supposes.
“Sure,” he says. “You serve?”
She sighs then, smile leaving her face. “No.”
It’s all she volunteers, so he doesn’t pry. When she holds out his shirt to him, he takes it gently and puts it back on, feeling the stretch of bandage as he moves his arms. Selma watches him carefully, ensuring the wrapping stays in place. The two sit in silence for a moment, then another.
“Thank you.” He tells her simply.
She smiles again. “You’re welcome.”
The song combined with the rockets combined with the setting sun. It’s all just a little too much for Craig. He stands next to Selma on the observation deck, watching as Jason Bright’s ghoul brigade heads off to space or, more likely, crashing a couple miles out.
“That was…” Selma begins. He looks down at her to see her standing there with an incredulous smile on her face, eyes on the now empty port. “That was kind of stupid, right?”
Craig scoffs. “Yeah.”
“Well, I think we did the right thing.” She says, turning toward him. “Shall we head back to Novac? I have to see if there’s a spot at the motel for Chris.”
“Sure,” he tells her. “Let’s head home.”