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i. she’s eddies girl, they think. and scrambler smirks a bit when he sees her sitting at his arm, brushing away some auburn hair that slipped away from the firmly waxed hair, placing a kiss on eddie’s cheek.
she’s eddie's girl, they think. but really, they have no idea. they have no idea about what they do to each other when they get the chance (once, they went to shake down a merchant for eddie and he looked in suspicion at her ruffled hair and smeared lipstick and thought he knew something was up (but despite her being damn insensitive and a really bad liar (like hell, she’s really bad with people) (her words come out all harsh (honestly scrambler doesn’t know how they’ve been able to keep this up with her being like that))) but they managed to make him think that she used her womanly ways to persuade the merchant (doesn’t eddie know that she doesn’t have the charm to do that?) and that was really close, but eddie doesn’t seem to have a hunch), and he can’t stop thinking about the moans that he can make escape from her lips, sweeter than the ones eddie causes her (scrambler knows because that’s all he can do every night, sit and listen (he’s ashamed)), and she messes him up so badly that when they’re finished he isn’t sure which part goes where anymore. and he loves that about her.
he loves eddie’s girl.
ii. sometimes he wonders, though. why keep up this facade? isn’t he alone good enough? (are her feelings for him as good and real as she says they are?)
once he asks her, when they both have a night off running an errand for eddie (she’s his top girl, she is, and it never ceases to fill scrambler with pride).
and he takes her hand as they lay under the wasteland moon on moth-eaten mattresses that conveniently happened to cross their way, he takes her small hand (more delicate than you could ever believe for someone wielding a rifle of the size of hers) and he asks her why she keeps doing this to him (but he doesn’t even know why he is doing this to his buddy eddie, who he’s supposed to keep and eye at and all) and her answer leaves him wallowing in self-doubt (sex. he’s real good in bed, she answers and lits the last cigarette. better than i?)
iii. they never talk about before (about goodsprings). and he tried to ask her once before when they went to check on cobb together, right after, and their bodies still lay on the ground and she said she couldn’t stand the smell (but he knew all she could think of was why anyone would leave them here to rot (he knew it because he’d seen the way she looked at them before)).
and she washed their bodies with her own hands (even the dog) and although the townsfolk offered to dig their graves there was a determination in her, a need to do it herself.
and he couldn’t understand that. it was she who had killed them after all, hadn’t she?
and sometimes she visits their graveyard, remorse in her eyes when she kneels at a grave.
and this was sunny smiles, she tells him. and he recognises xander’s root and broc flowers planted at her grave.
iv. eddie would let her leave that day. her sources told her that the ncr were planning an attack on them but at the time they knew, it was too late, and they could hear troopers blowing up a hole on the northwest side of the correctional facility.
there's no reason for you to stick around and help us, he had told her, no affection in his voice, like she hadn’t been his girl after all. and she just nodded, her expression as stern as his, and he thought this was it. he thought they could leave together. leave it all behind (maybe this life wasn’t really suited for him maybe scourging the wastes with her would give him a greater purpose).
and they stormed to the yard, side by side, the two of them, he and eddie’s girl. they blasted their way further down and before he could notice her absence, a bullet pierced his side, and after the fight had to be hauled up to doc hannigan. and all he could think of was that mop of dark dark hair vanishing into a sea of killers.
she didn’t even turn around to tell him goodbye.
v. they share a beer on top of one of the watchtowers when he’s gotten better, eddie and him. and it feels almost like the old days when they soared through the wastes together, brothers in arms. and the wasteland sun sets, and he feels really old, like he's been thought it all already (old enough to die?).
but there is one question still unresolved on his tongue, (eddie, was she really your girl at all?)
and his buddy sighs and gazes further into the fading sun, with a look of what seemed to be uneasiness and relief all at once in his eyes, and takes a sip of the beer.
no, scrambler. i don’t think she really was anyone’s girl after all.