Misunderstanding

Keeping her body crunched into an uncomfortable ball she slowly wakes. "Errr..." She groans and slowly sits up to her left hip and her other half sitting up. Lifting her left hand to the left-back of her head she feels a small cold spot. She lifts her hand back to her eyes and her eyesight narrows in on her fingers. The blood she sees is not too much but enough to have her growl with irritation and anger.

"Oh, that bastard of a henchman is going to get it..." Her eyes narrow to the door handle and her vision focuses on it. Giving herself a moment she stands up and examines the room. She comes to her coat laying across a chair and slips it over her. "I am sure the door is locked let me see..." She heads to the bathroom to see if she could find anything of use. While glancing around and in every crevice of the bathroom she finds a bobby pin shimmering just between a floor crack at the base of the sink's cupboard. She digs it out with her nail and happily grins.

"Finally luck is back on my side...I just need to get out of here and I will be good to..." As she kneels, her mind jitters to the thought of her weapons. 'Fuck...my gear...how the hell am I going to get my shit back if Benny knows my face...' she thinks as she then sighs and comes to the room's locked door.

She sucks in a deep breath and kneels to the door, then lets go of the nervous breath. "Been a while bobby...let's see if I still have that golden touch..." She smiles and bends the pin in the appropriate angles and slowly she hears a click of it locking in and it unlocks with a glorifying sound of freedom.

"Oh! Yes!" She pulls free the bobby pin and slips it to her hair. Quickly opening the door she peers down each side of the hallway. She thinks upon her decisions suddenly as she heads to the elevator. She soon pauses in fear seeing a familiar suit whitening her view.

Stopped just a few feet from the now closing elevator he lifts his head from eyeing his feet. Now making contact with her golden eyes he slowly smiles. Shifting his weight to one side and having both of his hands to his pockets as he too smiles. "So you got out? Hum...skillful little doll. Mind telling me how then I may consider that you weren't lying."

"You are an unbelievable wishy-washy son of a bitch..." She says snappily. "I got out with a damn bobby pin, how else?" She clings her coat shut with an angered fist. "As for that henchman..."

"Oh don't worry about that, he felt that I was threatened. He was doing his job." He walked closer, keeping a sway with his hands in his pockets. He stands closer to her now, in front of her, keeping a calm breath. "Do I need to paint you a picture? Your time out is out, toots now get a move on. Don't come back either unless it is for gambling or Benny boy." He winks a bit and leans to whisper. "That I wouldn't mind birdy..." He swiftly kisses her cheek and back away, soon waving and turning on his heel to head back into the elevator and heads up to his room.

She lifts one side of her lip in disgust and lifts her right hand to her cheek and whips it roughly off and she proceeds then to the stairs instead.

She looks at the greeting chairman once she makes it to the front desk. "Hey I am back, I will like my babies now." She chuckles as she leans to the desk.

"Sure thing beautiful. .44 Magnum, Gauss Rifle, Combat Knife, right?" He looks back before hesitantly reaching to her stack of weapons.

"Yeah, those. Thanks." She stands straight now and unfolds out her arms to them. Swaying her knife toward her thigh and into its sheath, retightening the gun belt around her hip, and waving the rifle strap over her head and across her chest she then eyes her helmet hanging her belt loop. "Toodles." She smiles and waves bye as she passes a pale brown suited man eyeing her just pass his black hat. She enters the streets of the Strip and heaves out a relieved stressed sigh. She keeps a hand to the back of her head and wipes away some blood.

"Ugh…" she soon spots Boone's beret and she waves her bloodied hand. She quickly lowered it to keep it to a minimum.

"Got the information you needed. They had pointed out that you should head to Camp Golf for any major information. Especially on anything with Legion slave trades. If the rangers out there find something, they send it to Camp Golf. Here, I can mark it on your- Hey you alright?" he suddenly asks, as he reaches out his hand as he is ready to accept her worn yet still visible laminated map.

"Huh? Oh, nothing I can't handle really," she says low and smiles keeping her right hand hidden at her side. Boone does not buy her easy to notice lies. The twist of her right leg gave it away instantly.

"I won't accept that. You got roughed up by someone in there," he mentions quickly and grips her wrist roughly and twists it to eye the drying blood on her fingers.

"It was nothing honestly, just a mistake trust me, but that henchman of the chairman is a real piece of work." She was always kind but she knew when to be rough and cold toward someone. She wanted to be angry but knew it would stir up trouble along the whole Strip and she did not want bigger enemies.

"If you say so but get it taken care of so we can hurry up and ask more about finding your mother and get me back to killing more Legion, to wherever you are heading," he says deeply and notices her wince at his grip and he lets go. Somehow he knew not to further concern himself; to keep from giving her the wrong idea, or perhaps giving him the wrong idea.

"Sure, go ahead, I just need a minute," she says low and watches him turn his back to her once more. She looks to her right seeing a familiar black hat emerge from the casino. A dead grating voice emerges from under its rim and he eyes her from under it.

"I would stop asking questions if I were you...shame to see if something happens while you are out there. Shame indeed. Be careful out there...it is a dangerous and vast world, mercenary." His voice clear as a warning, the snake keeps her on her toes and he goes away as fast as he came. She watches him walk away then looks back to the Tops where he had been seen. For that moment she then looks back to the street to attempt to locate him again but to end up seeing no signs of him.

She is spooked and unnerved, it causes her to sprint back through the streets and entrances leading into the next street near the Lucky 38. She takes a breath and processes what must have happened. "A Legate or such...they are everywhere nowadays? I need to tell Boone to keep an eye out on this trip. Damn it…" she says as her eyes adjust a bit to the now setting sun. She groans to how long she must have been out to see yet another sunset reminding her of the time she had unintentionally wasted. She takes up her speed and reaches to her satchel to tug out some bandage wrapping. She keeps it folded in her hand and places a cotton pad to the back of her head and wraps it tightly around.

Now in Freeside, she has her magnum out as a warning as she makes her way back to the gate; she kept her mind on how fast Boone had left. Perhaps to clear his mind, she did not know. Coming to the gate, she glances back over her shoulder leaving New Vegas behind her and she feels some tears warmly roll down her cheeks and stop at the corners of her nose. She was glad to have taken this short trip despite the misfortune of her injury. 'I am glad, I am glad I made the trip mom. For now, I only hope you are somewhere out there or in the skies looking down to me.' she thinks to herself as she clears away her eyes and face. Turning back to the gate she grips the side and pulls to the right hard to open it back to the sandy wastes. The sudden night breeze drags her back from the sin city and to her cruel reality.

"I knew it wasn't an escape, but I can see why so many can and want to get lost in there." she sniffs her nostrils and looks to her right at Boone who had already moved the barrels and pushed out her motorcycle.

"Yeah, those are the ones who won't see the reality or accept the reality of their problems. We seem to so happen to be part of that world and have our own problems to solve," he says coldly as if it was always part of a routine.

"Well someone has to wish them luck and I know it won't be you," she says low and reaches to the handlebars and waves a hand for him to back away.

She roughly kickstarts it as he ignores her words. Once the bike roars she leans back to grab a drink. Popping open the bottle she glances at Boone to tell him she is ready. As she gulps back a drink he lifts a leg up and sits behind her giving just an inch of space from her back. Now heading back on the road she occasionally sips her Sunset Sarsaparilla which makes Boone nervous so he grips the bottle from her lips and talks to her ear in the rushing wind.

"Both hands please!" he yells and she glances back with a smirk. She laughs but nods her head to his request hoping he does not toss the drink.

After a few hours of detouring around rubble buildings and roaming Fiends, they come to higher up land before the sunset to keep her headlight from being noticed at night. Only a mile away from Camp Golf they set up camp and a small campfire from a found tire, wooden planks, and dried grass with a bit of help from some gasoline. The two sit silently in their area on each side of the fire. She had taken off her duster to serve as a blanket as her thick blanket acted as a bedroll. Leaned against a rock, she had a book opened and its cover and title flickered with the movement of the fire; yet her eyes kept the unlit words in her book to where she saw them clear as it would be in the day. Boone kept near a shrub as cover to keep a safe eye out among the open sandy and grassy land. All the while feeling alert and nervous, he was relieved that Susan was smart enough to cut the engine of her motorcycle and pushed it quite a way to mask their determined direction from any enemies. Keeping his arms crossed over his rifle he suddenly hears a small giggle from her and he turns suddenly to notice the cover of her book flickering in the only light. The Robot Who Could, he would read quickly before looking back over the edge and keep scouting.

"What is it about?" he asks low without turning his head an inch, having a surprising thought of how some books could still be intact after all the years they have lived through.

"Hum?" she asks from her nose as it was kept to the words of the book. The part of the robot's creator teaching the butler robot was so far her favorite and her eyes would never leave it.

"The book. What is it about?" he attempts the small talk as he keeps his eyes out to distances.

"Oh. Well, a scientist creates a robot butler, basically a Mr.Handy I guess. It doesn't clearly say. But he teaches it to do things but it struggles at times. The part I read, is when it is taught to serve tea to his family, it instead malfunctions and twirls it about like a pinwheel." she chuckles more and covers her mouth at once, feeling a louder laugh come at the image in her head.

"Funny…" he says but never expresses it plainly as she does.

This irritates her and she closes her book. "Look, Boone, I know you are human over there. Whatever is eating away at you let it go for now. It may not be simple, but just, I don't know loosen up a bit?" she says keeping her voice soft instead of assertive as she would have said it.

"It is easier said than done. You haven't seen the things I've seen. You haven't done the things I've done." he says low gripping the forestock of his rifle tightly.

"But I do understand and being in the NCR does that. War is war and sometimes you have to do something you don't like. Don't blame yourself. It takes a lot to take orders and I just never wanted to put up with that. Figures why I never followed my father's footsteps." she stuffs her book away to her satchel and scuffles her boots to sit up and peels back open a can of food.

He looks back to her wanting to say more. "You can tell me your war stories and I will keep mine. Don't ask anything of me," he says in a warning but his voice wanes at the end.

She notices it and frowns a bit and eyes the fire as she rubs her fingers to her pants and eats her Salisbury steak sucking at the gravy from her fingers. With a stuffed cheek she takes a breath.

"No worries. Since we are traveling together I won't mind telling you more of me. It isn't something I get a chance to talk about to someone who cares to listen."

"That's not what I meant. I never said that I-" he pauses as she interrupts him with her story of what led her to here. He feels worried a moment that he may see her cry instead of seeing the remnants of tears, as he saw at the east gate.

"Four years ago my father fought at the dam as you know. Since then he has been MIA. For the last two years of him missing my mother goes missing. It has been till now, that I decided to look for her. I had a bad feeling a year ago yet now I have a finished motorcycle to cut my trips short and hopefully save her or find out something. I am not one to give up." she glances up from the fire to Boone who watches her body emotions. She felt ashamed she had waited that long but having only the transport of walking would cut down her supplies and wear on her. She carried out the thought that everything was alright for her mother. "I felt hopeless, so here I am, but for the four years, I had been back and forth working for engine parts as a mercenary or scavenging for them. I had also been taking jobs for the NCR saving money for the bike and supplies and so it happened I had missed her by a few days. She left a note that she had gone back to her trading route with some company she had worked for I don't remember. I had ruined the note by spilling some shit on it." she says frustratingly. "But I will find out where she is and find the Burned Man. I have heard all the stories. I believe them and will ask him to help me. I will persuade him somehow...whatever it takes."

"Why look for some Legion myth? He was just some hotshot and he is dead. Caesar sought that out." Boone grows curious as to why she, as a grown woman, would jump to believe a story that would haunt children.

"My mother said she had once seen him and couldn't believe it when he had helped some people up north. She told me if there was ever a chance she would go find him to get him to find my father and I am sure that is what got her in danger or got killed on her 'trading route' trip." she says as she had pieced it together years after she found out her mother was missing. For that time she had thought nothing of it until after her mother's normal time of traveling, which varied to months and sometimes a year but never two.

"So you found out something you didn't want to believe, but it was no doubt to your mother that it was true," he says low. He had felt something of the same feeling. He acted out accordingly rather than in blind anger when on a trail to find out who sold his wife. Now he tries his hardest to kill all Legionnaires insight.

"Correct," she says and slowly opens back up her book to sit back against the rock. "If you need rest let me know. I can keep watch, easy," she mentions as she dives into the shadowed words that were in her book.

"No, I am fine. I don't sleep well anyway." he says and gathers the courage to ask "Where did you get those claw marks on your shoulders?"

"Deathclaw…" she mentions quickly and she hears him rattle his rifle in a sudden movement of surprise. With her eyes now on him he asks another question having never heard a woman or anyone survive an attack from a mutated beast such as a deathclaw.

"What? You were by yourself, right? No, there is no way someone like you would have survived. Not by yourself." he says quickly and gulps down how rude it must have sounded.

"I was. I thought I was dead but some shadow helped me. My memory was foggy. I was in a lot of pain then, it slowed my progress on my repairs of the motorcycle. I returned home though, safely and the sounds are all I remembered. I just know that some man saved me and my shoulders were bandaged. I was kind of angered that someone had undressed me but it saved my life." she clears her throat and glances to Boone then back to her book.

"I didn't think it would have been because of that. Damn," he says low and glances at her.

"Goodnight then Boone…" she mutters softly.

"Shhh somethings there eyes and ears," Boone whispers harshly yet in return their safety. She sat up suddenly from her comfort and eyes the land below where he eyes a small group of geckos coming close by and heading up the slope. He takes aim and kills off one before they start charging and she quickly snatches up her rifle and it echos out its shots into the silent night echoing out a warning to other beasts and enemies. The last golden gecko was blasted away at the neck making quick mincemeat of its head.

"Done...now to get some sleep for me." she slyly smiles popping loose the used cell and cranking in another. Powering it down she soon and urgently returns to her makeshift bed to read and calm back down.

For a moment he debated to tell her of his story as well but minutes after he was to speak he looked to her fast asleep with her book tumbled over her chest. He stands up quickly trying not to shift any rocks. He gathers sand into the fire quietly with afoot to put it out and walks about. He pauses at one moment in the night to cover her better with her coat and keeps watch as she sleeps. During the night he had only spotted occasional rangers.