*Boone*

I watched skeptically as Jeannie May Crawford strutted in front of the dinosaur. She looked pretty much like her normal self, a slightly pensive look in her eyes. Truthfully, she reminded me vaguely of my own mother. It had been a long time since she'd died, but I could still identify her features with my mom. Jeannie May frowned, examining the area.

"Dammit," I mumbled. Serves me right for hiring some wastelander to do my work. Was she serious? An old lady with maternal tendencies? Come on.

A few minutes of watching Ms. Crawford awkwardly look around later, Leah followed after her. With an expectant glance at me, she put my beret on.

I had half a mind to shoot the angry blonde. Why the hell hadn't she sent Vargas out here? Painful as it was to think of my old best friend as being as cold as to do something like that, I could at least believe it. But Jeannie May?

Looking at her under a metaphorical new light, she didn't look quite as innocent as she had before. She seemed to be avoiding my gaze a little bit too viciously, knowing full well that I was on duty. Did she seem to be shifting uncomfortably? Maybe I was making something into nothing. But, if she was guilty, I wouldn't get this chance again.

But if I did shoot her, and she turned out to be the victim of some psycho blonde's framing, that would be another innocent life to my name. Another strike on the slate. More bad karma aimed directly at me. Haunting me day and night. I didn't know if it was worth risking.

I could just barely make out the voices just below the dinosaur.

"I don't see anything, child."

"I do. I see an old lady with a killer mean streak." I watched as Leah paced a wide circle around the innkeeper. "Literally, and metaphorically."

There was a pause as Leah brought her foot to Jeannie May's shin. A cry of pain reached me as she doubled over, rubbing her sore leg. "What the hell-"

Another screech. "Tell us who you sold Boone's wife to." She let her hand connect with Crawford's jaw.

Jeannie May looked up at me, apology and remorse in her gaze. She turned back to Leah. "Keep your voice down, child,"

That was all the proof I needed. I didn't hesitate again as I glared down my scope.

*Leah*

There was a lot of blood for such a clean shot. I wiped a drop of it off my chin, chanting softly to myself, "Ew, ew, ew…"

I wondered what thoughts were going through the haunted sniper's mind. What had made him take the shot then? I hadn't even forced a confession out of her yet. Not that it mattered. I had the bill of sale that condemned the woman who'd sold a woman and her unborn child to a bunch of crazy sexist pigs in skirts. Not that anyone asked me for my opinion.

As I climbed the stairs to Dinky's mouth, I took slid Boone's beret off my head. Idly, I wondered what outfit he had served with. I didn't know much about this government, but judging by the fact that he and Manny both used snipers and both had the same beret, I assumed that it was a sniper battalion.

I checked my pip-boy for the time. It was a useful little device, as confusing as it was. Had I come from a vault, or stolen this weird computer off a dead body? It was strange, having all these remnants of my past and not having a clue as to how I had obtained them. Same with this tattoo on my chest, just below my collarbone. Three cogs with a sword through the middle. Simple, but it was significant to who I was, I was sure.

I pushed the door open, pausing to let ED-E through the dinosaur's throat. Without turning around, Boone said, "So that's it then. How'd you know?"

I bit my lip. I hated delivering bad news. Even though he already knew of his wife's fate, it was tedious.

Realizing how my silence could be interpreted, I thrust the thin and crumpled paper at him. He took it and skimmed over the words written on the surface. After a moment, he seemed to be looking through it, focusing on some painful edge in his mind. He crumbled the abused paper even more as he tossed it down. "Figures they'd keep a record. Gotta keep their slave ledgers in order." He said bitterly.

Without ever consciously deciding to speak, I found myself asking him, "What will you do now?"

He blew out all the air I suspected he'd been holding in his lungs for a while in one hard breath. "I don't know. I can't stay here anymore, obviously." He looked over at the desert. "Maybe I'll wander, like you."

My heart reached out to him. I'd been there before. I knew the pain of loss, somehow. He was well on his way to acceptance, I could infer, but his attitude seemed to have been permanently altered.

Could I help him heal? Only I would bother to try.

"You could always come with me."

He didn't even appear to have considered it. "You don't want to do that."

I rose an eyebrow. "Don't snipers work in pairs?"

He seemed surprised for a second, then snickered lightly. "Yeah. I guess that's what they always told us. But you know how things turned out with my old spotter."

I grinned. "I'm willing to take the chance."

He studied me for another few seconds, gauging my level of seriousness. "Fine. Let's get out of here." And with that, he snatched his expertly carved hunting rifle from the gums of Dinky and gestured for me to head out first.

Before following me out the door, he replaced his beret on his military shaved head.

We nodded at each other, entering the Mojave as a wandering pair of NCR heroes.

Much fun will most assuredly entail.

Yay! The tedious-been-told-a-million-times part is over! The possibilities are ENDLESS. Stay tuned for the next installment of HDEIUYGS. That's a stupid acronym…

~I have decided that the first 54 pages I have written down will be the first book, and the sequel will actually be in the Capitol like I promised in the summary and first chapter. Sorry, I just had to have background. :3 Still best friends?

~My updates are quite hectic at the moment, I must admit. I spend all day writing this in my journals, so by the time I get home I'm so burnt out that typing for anything other than facebook is like a bullet to the brain. Sorry. I will make them regular eventually!

~I'm not so good at fluff, but since Boone isn't either I figured I'd make it a trend and make Leah all shy too when it comes to romantic affairs. ^_^

~I guess that's it. R&R if you want to assure a speedy update. Or not. I don't really care. It's you that has to wait. I already know what's going to happen beforehand. I am the administrator, after all.

-Kirki