Obligatory Author's Note: First of all, I blame all this on you. You know who you are.

Second, I've been out of commission for a long, long time. I'm rusty and have absolutely no plot planned for this thing as of right now. Inspiration struck and I went with it, so bare with me for the time being~

Aaaand thirdly, the title is subject to change...whenever I think of a better one.

Obligatory disclaimer stuff: I have no affiliation with any of the Fallout games. I'm just a bored 20-year-old girl with nothing better to do than use fictional characters for my own amusement. Dance, puppets, DANCE!

…so without further ado…

When you travel alone with a person, odds are you're going to grow close. You get to know each other, divulge all your dirty little secrets, eventually drag the allegorical skeletons out of the closet. One way or another, you're going to end up caring about each other. It's almost inevitable.

So if this happens with somebody you find even a little bit attractive, there's going to be tension thrown into the mix, and lots of it. It just so happened that Norah thought Boone was downright bangable.

There was plenty of tension between Norah and Boone, and it had been hanging over them like a storm cloud for weeks. Deep down they both knew that, eventually, it was going to have to rain.

Cottonwood Cove had been a massacre. Dead legionnaires were scattered everywhere, some riddled with bullets, some in pieces. There was blood everywhere and the dry ground soaked it up, leaving nothing but dark red stains and an unsettling silence as the barking, screaming and gunfire all came to an almost simultaneous stop.

They freed the slaves and boarded the raft to The Fort.

Boone was not a stable man. It wasn't something she'd ever tried to kid herself about. Getting a glimpse of his eyes without those sunglasses hiding them made her feel like she was peeking through the windows of an old house that had only had its exterior refurbished. It looked fine on the outside. Normal, sturdy, nothing out of place, but one glance at the interior told a different story entirely; it was dark, gloomy, crumbling, barely able to support its own foundation, slowly but surely falling apart.

The Fort…had been tricky. She wasn't entirely sure they'd both make it out alive as the legionnaires kept coming and coming, seemingly without end. Every passing second brought on a new wound and they were growing exhausted as they pushed forward, toward Caesar's tent.

And then…it was over. That unsettling silence overtook them once again as they stood over the body of the man himself. The leader of the most ruthless faction in the Mojave .The man largely responsible for so much suffering, so much death, taken down along with dozens upon dozens of his finest men by a no-name courier and a sniper with a death wish.

And they were alive.

Exhausted, yes. Bleeding, definitely. They were bruised and cut and battered six ways from Sunday and Norah would have a limp for the next couple days, but they were alive. She'd never felt quite this exhilarated. She could do anything; have anything if she wanted it enough.

And Boone was looking pretty fucking good about now.

It wasn't hard to see how much he still loved her. There was something about his voice when he talked about her, a certain look in his eyes, maybe even a sad little smile now and then. Carla Boone had been a lucky woman to have a guy so devoted to her, and if she was being honest…Norah was just a little bit jealous of her.

Jealous of a dead woman. It was almost funny, in a pathetic, insensitive sort of way.

Fueled by adrenaline and feeling amazing and powerful and downright fucking invincible, she acted on impulse, standing on her toes, throwing her arms around his neck and kissing him right on the lips. By the time she came to her senses he'd grabbed her by the waist and pulled her close and he was kissing back.

If it feels good, do it. It was a motto she tried to live by.

She didn't pull away.

The trip back to Cottonwood Cove consisted of one big awkward silence.

Norah insisted on looting what they could of the camp before heading back to The Strip. By the time they made it to their last stop, Aurelius of Phoenix's office, she could still feel his lips on hers. She'd caught her breath over an hour ago but her heart was still pounding. And Boone was telling her that they needed to get back.

She saw her window of opportunity, so she did what any self respecting Vegas girl would do. She rolled the dice.

"Or we could…stay…for a while." She crossed her arms over her chest and shifted uncomfortably. Boone turned away from the door.

"What?"

"We could stay. For a bit longer. You and me?"

He squinted at her behind his sunglasses, looking tired. "Look, I don't know what you're on-"

"I'm not on anything!" She huffed out a frustrated breath of air and tried again.

"We," she gestured to the two of them, "could stay for a while." She made sure to emphasize her words and pointed to Aurelius of Phoenix's bed. Boone furrowed his brow.

"I don't-"

"Damn it, Boone!"

She pulled her shirt over her head with perhaps a little more force than was absolutely necessary, threw it on the ground and was in the process of unzipping her shorts when logic caught up to her, making her stop, widen her eyes and wonder if she could sink into the floorboards and disappear forever if she tried hard enough.

She risked a glance toward Boone. He was almost gaping. Almost.

"Uh…" her mind raced, trying to think of something to say to diffuse the situation so he wouldn't get mad, tell her to fuck off, leave her there and never want to see her again, when she found herself thrown over his shoulder.

He started moving toward the bed.

He was devoted, yes, but he was also a warm-blooded male. Every once in a while she'd catch him throwing covert little glances her way, and Norah would admit that she didn't wear skimpy outfits just because of the perpetually hot weather in the Mojave.

Gradually, the innocent looks and not quite innocent but still harmless flaunting turned into walking a bit closer together, "accidentally" brushing against each other whenever they found themselves in close proximity to one another, letting their hands linger a bit longer than usual when she helped him tend to his wounds from whatever scuffle they'd been in, or when he tried to teach her the finer points of cleaning a gun. It had been building up. Granted, it had been building up very slowly and would have probably continued to build up for several months yet, at the very least, but progress was being made regardless.

It had been hasty and unceremonious and fucking fantastic, and after they'd finished she couldn't help but grin. They made a pretty ridiculous picture, covered in scratches and cuts and bruises, lying naked and disheveled in a dead legionnaire's bed, Boone still wearing the fucking beret.

He grabbed his discarded pants from the foot of the bed and started rifling around in the pockets for his cigarettes, then lit up. Norah's eyes followed the smoke as it rose steadily towards the ceiling, thinning out and expanding and eventually blending into the air as she tried to decide whether this whole situation would be less uncomfortable later if she tried to discuss it or just avoided speaking of it entirely.

Surprisingly, it was Boone who broke the silence. He kept his head tilted back and his eyes trained on the ceiling as he spoke, more smoke escaping with his words, and she almost missed what he said entirely, oddly mesmerized by the way it spiraled and danced as it defied gravity.

"Can't say this is how I expected today to turn out."

She knew exactly what he was implying. The Fort had been a huge undertaking and, even though it had remained largely unspoken, Boone had very few expectations of making it out alive. She imagined him lying dead among a sea of legionnaires and pushed that thought, along with the crushing feeling in her chest that came with it, out of her head with as much force as she could muster.

"Disappointed?"

She almost instantly regretted asking. She didn't think her ego could take a 'yes' right now.

"That's not what I meant."

She waited for him to elaborate. Instead, he stubbed the cigarette out on the nightstand and stood up to dress.

The walk back from Cottonwood Cove was uncomfortably quiet and initiating any sort of conversation with Boone for the next couple days was a bit like pulling teeth, but before too long Norah bit the bullet and went for another kiss, and another shortly after that. As she gained more and more confidence, the displays of affection got more and more frequent. They gained momentum and within a couple weeks even sex was starting to be almost commonplace with them. She even got the beret off him. Eventually.

It wasn't perfect-Boone still had the conversational capacity of a brahmin, not to mention enough emotional baggage to keep a good shrink busy for decades—but they were improving, bit by bit.

Norah could be patient, if she really wanted to be.