Friends

A similar light blinks then fades. A sight of her mother is shown her in rags and she speaks. "You take your time in gambling and lust...instead of rescuing me? Daughter...why…" her mother's green, pain-filled eyes and face fade and soon she sees a similar flame floating and she takes it to her hands again and she whispers to it. "Protect me from this guilt...I only wanted to forget...I only wanted to forget…my guilt, my loneliness, please." a hushing whisper comes from the flame and it forms back to a dark hand reaching to her to pick her up. Its voice is caring, understanding, and familiar. "You only thought of what was good for you. You felt alone...and had to replace that feeling. You will be forgiven, child of God...stand with me now and you shall never be alone again. Wake up now, Susan." it grows silent and she walks along a lightened path of tear-filled waters and flames at its edges.

"Wake up, Susan. We should get moving." Joshua says through and breaks her dream to the coming morning.

She wakes to him kneeling near her and gently nudging her to wake up. A soft chill comes to her cheeks, something wet. She had been crying in her dream and quickly sat up to wipe off her cheeks.

"I'm up, sorry...so early…" she groans with small laughter and she stands along with him. Now gathering her things he grabs a dark blue duffle bag as well filled with ammo and a few other things she does not see within it.

A moment was used to gather things. The last sight Joshua was to see before the journey is her soft wave goodbye to Daniel. Just for she would leave she would kindly share a Sunset Sarsaparilla with Follows-Chalk.

"Nice to meet you again. Keep your people safe, they are all you have out here in the cruel world." she smiles worriedly yet full with kindness and hope for him and the Tribals. She flicks out the sunglasses and pushes up to the bridge of her nose aimed to keep her daily headache at bay.

With the loosening grip from the glass bottle, she turned on her heels to Joshua and followed close behind resting her hands to her satchel strap and back along the leading clear clean water. Both then silently walk through the canyon once again heading back south for some hours to the afternoon.

Coming back to where she had seen the new land of Zion she sees the wagon still arched against the curve in the rock and she shifts it off and away from her bike.

"I am surprised it is still here. Hum…" she smiles and kicks up the stand and pushes it back closer to the wall then pushes it out to full view and kicks back the stand down to reorganize her satchel and release some of the weight to it.

Putting her blanket and bedroll to the left saddlebag she comes back to the bag and places back some water and canned food. Then exchanges some sodas and more medical bandages to be placed into her satchel.

"Rare to see such innovation of a relic of the past let alone to have an individual of such education do so. Took time to do so I'm sure." Joshua says while stepping around the bike and stopping to her right side.

"Five years and tons of old books, yes." she snickers and hears him laugh under a breath. She keeps a smile and opens up the last gasoline can and pours the rest of it into her bike and slips the can back to the right saddlebag. She then walks to the right of the bike and places a foot to the kickstarter and pushes down hard with her weight starting it up once more the vibrations rumble through both of their chests.

"I suggest we continue on through the night. Beasts are the only thing lingering along the paths and are scared of foreign noises," he says closely and eyes the throttle which she twists back and adjusts more things making sure the gauges are correct.

"Sure thing. It should be fine." She smiles as she overlooks the bike and sits to its seat now with a clever then relaxing smile.

"I would also like to know how to drive it. If you would be my teacher," he asks low and hesitates to get on clinging tightly to his bag resting over his left shoulder.

"Sure not too hard the motor is what keeps you balanced on it when you get going and keeps you in a straight line. This is just a kickstart engine that beats the other models; they are harder since you have to deal with gears and shifting them. This is an automatic." she says clearly showing off her knowledge of her dug up research and reading. "Cars are much harder to fix and have more components and this is made up of less. It is smaller and takes up less room. Rare indeed." she says low now looking along the tank as she makes sure the gas cap is tightened. "Would you want to try, now? Just keep your feet down and kick up the stand like so." She stomps her feet evenly at the sides of the bike and lines up the bike to a straight path by walking it to point at the opening of the tunnel after kicking the stand up.

"I wouldn't mind, yes. Simple enough it seems," he says sternly and confidently eyeing her movement as he finishes strapping his bag to the top of the right saddlebag.

She nods and twists off of the bike and holds her hands out for him to sit to it. He does so and sits to the seat and eyes down the sides to the pegs where his feet would belong. For a moment he takes a breath and looks to Susan and tilts his head.

"Get on," he says low and waits with his eyes looking at her and hoping she trusts him. For a moment she crosses her arms and huffs her breath.

"Well, if we die, we die together and from something stupid, so let's hope the Lord welcomes us." she laughs and she hears his rasped deepened chuckle follow. He kicks up the stand and walks them forward for a moment and revs the throttle.

"So now since we are going through some tunnels, click down on the left switch so the headlight will be on," she tells him as she slips her leg over the back seat and comes close to his back keeping a tight hand to the seat's hand strap and rests her feet to the back pegs.

Doing so he keeps silent and turns the wheel a bit and soon uses the throttle smoothly and then pulls back more hitting twenty-five miles per hour going through the tunnel. While going through she howls through it happy to see he catches on quickly. The headlight catching the smooth and chipped edges of rock within the tunnel has her eyes glimmer.

"Now for stopping you pull back on the lever behind the left handle and the other lever behind the throttle just make sure your hand is not turning the throttle. The right one is for the back brakes and the front is the left's," she says loudly through the tunnel.

For some instances, he uses the brake levers softly when coming to small bumps and turns on the narrow paths. Feeling glad for her to have a break from driving she looks at the sights around her through shaded color. Rushing by greens and tans of grass and rocks of the canyon. She sees the potential setups of lookout places and natural carvings of where water had once roared through from years in the past. She never thought to look around but had only kept to what had to be done.

"I should have fixed up a camera too...instead of drawing," she mutters low near his right ear.

"It would have been great to keep some memories, but it is always great to share them with others. That is a meaningful and better way to do so," he says a bit loudly for her to hear.

She smiles and agrees "Yeah!" just before they enter a tunnel. The journey keeps on straight along the longer path coming to the fork off she had once turned down the wrong way.

Onto the setting sun she becomes a bit too relaxed and before she dozes off Joshua looks back behind him to her. "We are at the passage. I am afraid you may fall off once I move." She snaps up from her nap and sleepily answers while pushing back up her glasses.

"Yeah, yeah I got it. You can keep it on or cut it off whichever you prefer. I will open the doorway for you." she mutters and slides off, stumbling a bit he catches her with his right arm.

She slowly looks at him and smiles for a moment. He ignores the pain it had brought him and waits for her to find balance. Once she has she walked to the door and opened it's latch the tunnel is revealed to them. He then walks it through the mellow lit tunnel with electric lanterns lighting the way for them. Having now entered, he climbs off and cuts off the engine of the bike using the switch near the throttle. He pushes it along as Susan follows at his side groggily. For five minutes they make it to the Mojave and open the other door to the familiar lands. She sucks in a deep breath and stretches her arms ahead of her. Seeing the darkening land she sighs with relief and slips away her glasses to her chest to hang onto.

"Finally...homelands here I return." she smiles and he listens looking to her he stops the bike and stands it up.

"When all the walls come crumbling down, would you still call it home?" He asks curiously about her definition of home. Her answer is what made him respect her the most.

"Yes and no, rebuilding is something you can do but without my family there is nothing. That is why I am trying to find them because they rely on me and I rely on them. So I need to find out what happened to them before I choose to move on whether it be by myself is something I am not sure of. I will then need to prepare if that is the case." she groans with the chore of the thought but claps her hands together to bring what may. Joshua kept silent and looked ahead and immediately drew out his pistol.

"State your business Recon," Joshua demands as they both then look to the red beret tilted to one side as the owner rests against a rock side.

"Boone? What are you doing here? You are supposed to be back at Novac." she asks seeing him step out from behind the hollowed-out rock.

"Waiting, I said I will be right there with you. Now did you change your mind or what?" he says with crossed arms and eyes Joshua's gun, both unafraid. Susan keeps her gaze to him and places her hands to Joshua's gun and lowers it feeling his strong grip.

"You have balls to be direct…" she says seriously recalling the headache of her emotions but cocks a smile in happiness to see him waiting for her at the least likely of places.

"Just saying." he shrugs to her statement and smiles back with a relief of not being attacked with resentment. "So who's the mummy?"

Susan snickers a bit and shifts her hand away from Joshua's pistol. "The Burning Man, Joshua Graham himself and it's hard to believe it, too. I thought I was going to have to track my way for three weeks or more to Ogden. Resource gathering at that time would be difficult for me because I never had much experience in the wildlands. Jesus blessed me with finding him soon before he departed Zion." she sighs and looks to Joshua as he slips his gun back to his hip keeping silent.

"Ah, the ex-Legionnaire. Gotcha, just have some space between us and it should be okay, but who is going to get on the bike?" Boone asks resting his arms to his sides and one to his machete to his hip.

"That shouldn't be hard. I just need to look for cartwheels, some...hum...Primm. I could use some of the coasters for a side cart for the bike. I also need more gas." she says and hesitantly looks to them. "I suspect for either of you to choose to walk there since I know you won't like each other's company. It would take you like...huh...oof." she stops herself from saying several hours.

"I don't mind the walk. I know the land and should cut the time in half. Godspeed." Joshua says confidently with a blank gaze to her and steps away from the two and starts his path heading west to the oncoming night.

Leaving Susan and Boone to look to his back, Susan has her brows raised in the fast decision and Boone scoffs with crossed arms.

"How can you trust him? A stranger no less...of the Legion." he looks to Susan with a blank glare.

Fiddling with the sunglasses, with worry, on the collar of her shirt she looks to Boone. "Look...I will need your trust in this. Also, why would he go back to the Legion, like ever? He is being hunted by them, Boone. Get your head out of your ass and come on." She huffs and kickstarts her bike and waits for the now silent Boone to climb on.