Wandering around with a courier that should, by all rights, have been dead in the ground months ago can get pretty exciting. There were the raiders, the legionary assassins, the endless waves of fiends or powder gangers or whoever the boss lady pissed off that day, not to mention the occasional swarm of cazadors (they always came in swarms) and, if they were very lucky, deathclaws. But, if Raul were honest, at least she was a better cook than any of the super mutants up on Black Mountain. So between the two jobs, both with a high threat of danger, dismemberment and possible death, he was usually pretty alright with the fact he'd got stuck with the courier.

Usually, anyways.

Today was one of the less good days. His knees had been creaking since they'd woken up, and in trying to sneak past a pair of heavily armed toughs the courier had tripped over a tin can and knocked over a carefully stacked pile of metal crates. Needless to say they'd drawn the attention of the very people they'd been trying to avoid. It had gone relatively quick – they were both good shots, and Rex was always happy to bound past both of them and rip into tasty raider flesh – but Raul had still gotten gouged when one of the raiders ran out of bullets and started working with a knife.

It wasn't a terribly bad cut (which was good, because if the boss lady had to try and sew him up he might just wander into the wastes to die, since that prolonged and agonizing death would be less painful) but it was on his ribs and he felt it with every move. The med-x wasn't helping to dull the pain enough, and Rex had popped a gasket so the boss lady was cursing up a storm, trying to fit it back on while the dog kept wiggling in her grasp. It had been three, maybe four days since any of them had even had a chance to pat down the sweaty spots on their armor and Raul was pretty sure he was wearing a coat of wasteland dust like a second skin. And – and – the dead guys were starting to smell already.

Fortunately, she seemed to realize he wasn't exactly in the best of moods. After fixing Rex – or juryrigging the poor damn dog's leg back into commission – she left him the rest of the mex-X and a couple stimpaks. Then she slipped away, and Raul didn't ask why. She was a big girl. She could take care of herself.

He popped a stimpak and sat for a while, letting his old bones rest. At least, he did, until Rex started to whine. He shushed the dog, but the silence only lasted for ten minutes before Rex started whining again. With a tired groan, Raul stood up. He grabbed his vaquero hat and the spare stimpaks, and Rex scrabbled after him as he went looking for their courier.

He found her not too long after he started looking. When he did he couldn't believe his ears – he thought they'd been playing tricks on him. Music; not the radio, because he hadn't heard this song a million times before. It was different. It was new.

He didn't believe it, but there she was, sitting in front of a broken terminal with her Pip-Boy casting greenish light on her face. She was watching something play out on the wrist screen readout, transfixed; Raul already knew what it was, just from the sound.

She glanced up when he came in the room, and she slammed a hand down on her Pip-Boy. The melody streaming from her wrist went silent. "I'm busy, Raul."

He didn't grin, though he wanted to; those had been her first words to him when they'd met – I'm Bizzy, Raul. He didn't get it was her name until she wrote it out later; he wasn't privy to the fact that it was short for Bismuth until she'd been out of her mind on mentats and rambling. She hated it, and he had no idea why anyone would name their kid after a metal, so he usually just called her boss.

"Can I see, boss?" he asked, gesturing to her pip-boy. It was hard to tell in the soft light of her Pip-Boy, but if he were a betting man he'd put money on her blushing. His boss lady didn't blush often.

She hesitated for a moment, a conflicted twist of her lips speaking to her reluctance. After a moment she shrugged, affecting like she didn't care. "Sure. It's just an old holodisk file. I found in the desk in the corner."

She held out her wrist and he stepped over, Rex interposing himself between their legs. She played the video, and Raul watched, transfixed as she'd been a moment earlier.

He didn't recognize the song, but he recognized the beat. It was more than a little familiar, and it made him ache like only remembering the past could. He recognized the video, too; not the people in it or the background, but the steps. It showed a couple, grainy on the Pip-Boy screen, and they stood close together – so close, but with the tight control that truly good dancers displayed. It's a dance he knows, one that he remembers from when he was young enough to dance with pretty girls. Before the bombs dropped.

"It's called the tango," Raul said, watching as the couple move on the screen of her Pip-Boy. They stepped so gracefully, leading and following, push and pull.

"A pre-war dance?" She asked, eyes fixed on the screen. "Was this the sort of thing people did a lot back then?"

"Well, boss, before the bombs fell we didn't have the luxury of spending our days shooting at each other," Raul said. "We had to find other ways of entertaining ourselves."

She gave him a sidelong look, halfway between amused and annoyed. "I don't understand how you managed to keep sane back then. It sounds so boring." Her sarcasm was biting and affectionate. Her gaze trailed back over to the screen of her Pip-Boy, and she stares for a moment longer. "Did you ever dance like that?"

"Yeah," Raul said. "I did. I was okay. Not as good as they are, though." The way the figures on the screen are moving, they had to be professionals, and it had to be a choreographed dance. Too many complicated tricks to be done at the drop of a hat.

"Mm," she said. She let the conversation die, and Raul didn't bother forcing it forward. They stood, shoulder to shoulder, until the video ended.

Rex was the one who broke the silence, letting out a whine and shoving his nose in Bizzy's crotch. She yipped, shoving Rex's head away. "Stupid mutt," she grumbled; she scratched the cyberdog's ears anyways. "Lucky I'm not a guy. I'd be a lot more pissed if I had been."

Raul snorted. Bizzy glanced up at him when he did, a question in her eyes. "You okay to keep going, or should we camp here?"

Raul shrugged. It made the cut on his side twinge. "Up to you, boss. You know me, I live to please."

This time it was her that snorted, a grin flashing across her face. Just like that, the video was a thing of the past. There was a part of him, the oldest part, that wanted to watch it again - an old man reaching for a little shred of the past, of a better time. But he didn't mention it, and it wasn't like he was going to get the thing off her Pip-Boy any time soon.

They gathered up their things and they moved on. Looking for some semblance of safety in the wasteland. Like they always did.