Sarah’s eyes slowly opened and she found herself leaning into Luna’s surprisingly soft chest fur. It shouldn’t have been soft now that Sarah thought about it. After two or so weeks in the Wasteland with minimal showers Luna’s fur should have been ratty or stiff and uncomfortable. Yet here she was, wishing that she’d simply used Luna as a bed because one of the bed springs beneath her were pressing painfully into her side. Doing her best to avoid waking Luna, Sarah moved slightly to the left, pressing herself closer against Luna.

The blue alicorn weight shifted slightly to accommodate her and the feathery wing clutched at her even tighter, as if afraid that if it let go it’d never get her back.

It was odd for Sarah to think about.

Here she was out in the Wasteland, more happy then she’d ever been in the Vault wrapped in the embrace of someone who was alien in every way from anyone else in the Wasteland. If Amata could see her now Sarah wasn’t sure if she’d be disbelieving or maybe disgusted.

Amata... that was a name that held quite a few feelings for Sarah... and even she didn’t fully understand them.

Amata had always been Sarah’s friend, no that wasn’t right, she’d always been Sarah’s best friend. They’d done practically everything together. From just hanging out to coming up with ways to get back at Butch and his Tunnel Snakes... they’d been inseparable. Hell, if it weren’t for her Sarah would have probably been murdered in her bed by the Overseer’s thug- her friends and colleagues.

It was at that moment Sarah realized something deeply disturbing. Yes, they’d tried to kill her... but they were still her friends... weren’t they? Didn’t they deserve better than to be thought of as mere ‘thugs’ and bully boys for the Overseer? She’d spent years of her life training beside and getting to know them after all... they’d eaten, practiced, and slept alongside one another long enough for her to know each and every one of their quirks.

John Kendall for example had loved his job. To him, the Overseer’s words were the words of God himself and Kendall was his Angel. He was the Law of the Vault and everything it represented. However, that had never made him unlikable. In fact it had only made it harder for Sarah to pull the trigger on him after helping him kill a group of radroaches. He’d just been following orders after all.

Sarah buried her head further in Luna’s fur as she attempted to banish further images of that day, but now that she’d unearthed them...

Officer Gomez, the ever likable and quintessential good cop had been the only friendly face to Sarah as she’d run near blindly away from Kendall’s cold corpse and if it wasn’t for him she’d probably have run straight into O’Brian and Richards’ bullets out of sheer shock.

Speaking of O’Brian and Richards. They had been the ones guarding the main exit of the Vault from Sarah’s initial approach route. Sarah had tried talking to them from around the corner, but all she’d gotten in return were bullets flying past her head. The woman had gunned them down, they’d both been standing in the middle of the corridor after all, they were hardly difficult targets... and then once they’d fallen she’d discovered that the way she’d been planning on using was blocked and their deaths were pointless.

The woman’s eyes began to burn as she thought of what had come next.

She’d burst into her friend’s room, intent on saving her from her father and Stevie Mack. It had all happened too fast... The Overseer had yelled at her... and then he’d hit Amata... and Sarah had fired. His blood had stained the floor and before Stevie had time to fire, his blood stained it as well.

Then Amata had screamed at her and Sarah had run.

Sarah was weeping quietly into Luna’s chest now and she felt the alicorn mold herself around her, obscuring Sarah from the world with her wings and her bulk. The woman looked up to see Luna looking down at her with concern filled blue eyes. Luna didn’t say anything. Instead she just bent down to nuzzle Sarah gently with the side of her snout, lending as much comfort to the woman as she could.

The woman gripped Luna’s fur with her fingers and simply poured her grief into her companion. Luna took it all without comment, continuing to nuzzle Sarah and murmur meaningless calming noises.

When Sarah’s sadness finally left her she felt drained and looked up at Luna.

“Thank you,” she muttered before looking away, not wanting to look at those beautiful eyes. What right did she have to them?

Every, Nim stated quietly in her head.

“Sarah, look at me,” Luna commanded softly.

Sarah continued to look away.

“Sarah, look at me,” Luna said again.

Sarah refused to look, feeling utterly worthless.

“Sarah. Look. At. Me.”

The words were said in such a commanding tone that Sarah almost did it out of reflex but it was Luna’s faint magical touch that finally brought the woman’s eyes up to stare at Luna. Luna looked at her, shockingly old eyes full of equal parts anger and grief.

“Sarah... there is nothing that you could ever do which would weigh more than my own sins,” Luna told her, the mare’s voice coming out in a quiet yet passionate tone which brooked no argument. “I tell you that so you know that while what you have done is most certainly bad ... it was not without reason and more than that, you have no reason to feel guilt for it.” She paused for a moment before she bent down slightly and kissed Sarah on the forehead. “And even if you did, it would not change how I feel about you.”

Sarah stared at her for a moment longer before hiding her eyes in Luna’s fur as the alicorn hugged her tighter.

Thank goodness we woke up later then the Rangers, Nim muttered to herself within Sarah’s head, very happy that their moment of weakness hadn’t been observed by any of their new allies.

Sarah hugged Luna for a bit longer before slowly relaxing her grip on the mare and giving her a tentative smile. “Thank you Luna...”

“You’re very welcome,” Luna replied with a small chuckle. “Now if you don’t mind... I’m rather famished and I think it would be time that we ‘woke up’ don’t you?”

Sarah let out a dry chuckle and pushed the ragged blanket off of them before she rolled over to the edge of the bed so that she could begin to pull on her armoured jumpsuit. It was in the process of getting dressed that Sarah and Luna had realized that the Rangers had a shower room built into the side of the barracks and after shouting for and receiving permission to, the pair had eagerly thrown themselves beneath the waters.

It was... lukewarm! Gloriously so and both Sarah and Luna stayed within the welcoming water for several moments longer then they should have before exiting and toweling off with towels from Sarah’s duffle bag.

Once that process was done, Sarah noticed something that she hadn’t noticed before. Both herself and Luna had smelled awful before their shower. And their clothing was in equally bad condition as far as scent went.

“You know... I’ve never been the type to complain about how ‘fresh’ my clothing is... but this is terrible,” Sarah stated as she eyed practically every article of clothing she owned. The only thing that didn’t smell rancid was her pajamas... which she didn’t think she’d even packed.

“You believe you have it bad?” Luna asked, glancing at Sarah as she levitated her armour up into the air. “I have been wearing this barding for so long that I begin to feel that I smell like it and not the other way around.”

Nim snickered. Perhaps you have always smelled that way and simply not realized it, she put in.

Luna snorted at the rude comment and shook her mane. “I highly doubt that,” she stated before looking to Sarah. “Is there perhaps a laundry here as well as a shower?”

“We’ll have to ask,” Sarah replied as she walked towards the door. She pushed it open and found herself in a narrowish hallway that she dimly remembered from her sleep addled mind. Luna followed along directly behind her, not wanting to take up too much of the hallway which was barely large enough for someone to walk beside her.

The pair continued down the hallway until they arrived in a medium sized room. Against one wall was a working refrigerator along with several clearly hand made cabinets/cutting boards. In the middle of the room was a largish wooden table along with several chairs. Sitting at said table was Reilly herself who glanced up at the pair, one of her eyebrows rising at Sarah’s current attire.

“I guess you really made yourself at home hmm?” she asked with a wry grin.

“I... didn’t have anything that didn’t smell like I’d bled in it,” Sarah replied, suddenly getting a sense of just how surreal her life had become.

“I know how that feels,” Reilly replied as she nodded towards the fridge. “You two can get yourselves some breakfast and then I’ll show you how to use our laundry.”

“... just like that?” Sarah asked, caught a bit off guard and suddenly feeling a bit overwhelmed by the sentiment. “I mean... we’ve already wasted your water and taken one of your beds. You don’t really have to give u-”

“Sarah, shut up and just get yourself something to eat,” Reilly said, cutting her off in a tone that was that of someone used to being obeyed.

It can’t be that simple, Nim stated within Sarah’s mind, not buying the other woman’s words.

Sarah paused for a moment, considering Nim’s words before giving into her instincts and walking over to the fridge. She opened it and began to look through it while Luna walked over to the table and sat down beside it.

“You are being exceedingly kind,” the mare said as she looked at Reilly. “Why?”

“Because you saved my family,” Reilly replied with a shrug before her tone turned deadly serious. “Without you I’d be the only Ranger left alive... and that’s not something I want to think about.”

Luna considered that for a moment and then nodded. “I understand.”

Reilly glanced at her and looked into Luna’s eyes before a small frown appeared on her face. “Yeah, I guess you do.”

The two sat in silence for a few seconds before Sarah returned from the fridge and passed Luna a plate with a trio of muttfruits and a snack cake on it. She herself had a piece of brahmin meat on her plate and mutfruit of her own.

Sarah looked at Reilly and opened her mouth but Reilly just waved her off. “Just eat Sarah, we can talk afterwards.”

Sarah nodded gratefully and dove into her meal headfirst as Luna did the same. They cleared their plates in a matter of minutes, surprising both of them.

“It seems that we were hungrier than we thought...” Luna said as she glanced at her now bare plate.

“Getting shot at and almost dying will do that to you,” Reilly agreed smiling. “Speaking of which, you two probably need to go see Carl after we get your normal clothes cleaned up.”

“Carl?” Sarah asked with a confused expression.

“Carl, he goes by Butcher in the field,” Reilly answered, hiding a smile behind a hand. “He thinks it makes him sound more manly.”

“Oh yes, the competent medic,” Luna said with a nod. “He is quite good at his task if the way he treated Sarah’s injuries were any indication,” she added before she leaned over to nuzzle Sarah lightly. “I was most worried about her after the fall but he managed to patch her up quite handily.”

“Yeah he did,” Sarah agreed with a quick nod as she tenderly touched her fully healed ribs. “I was feeling like death warmed over for a while there.”

A fond smile touched Reilly’s lips. “Yes, he’s the best around,” she said before pushing her chair away from the table. “Right then, want to do laundry?”

“Do you remember to look at your rad meter often?” Butcher asked Sarah as he scrolled across her Pip-Boy screen with several fast clicks.

“... not as often as I should I guess,” Sarah said, her eyes widening at the level of rads she’d racked up in her travels. They weren’t life threatening but...

We shall take to reminding you, Nim told her within her head. The last thing we need is you falling over in mid-step because you have neglected something like this.

“You need to remember to do it,” Butcher stated flatly before he looked at Luna. “I’m going to assume that you’re going to need a bigger dose of Radaway.”

“I suppose that makes sense,” Luna said before saying. “I wanted to thank you by the way.”

“For?” Butcher asked as he turned his back on the pair and began to rummage around through a medical box and came out with four containers of Radaway.

“For helping Sarah without comment or naming a price,” Luna said as she cast a sidelong glance at Sarah who nodded. “You are one of the first we have encountered here in the Wasteland who has done so.”

Butcher just shrugged slightly as he passed them the Radaway. “I’m a medic and you two had come to save our sorry asses. It wasn’t like I had much of a choice about getting you back on your feet did I?” he asked rhetorically while looking at Sarah. “Besides, I don’t like watching hurt people bleed to death.” A small smile had appeared on his face. “Anyways, take these and it should wash away your rads.”

“Thank you very much,” Sarah said with a nod. “By the way, do you think you can get those bullets she picked up out of Luna?”

Butcher frowned and glanced at Luna whose fur was marred by several notable places where bullets had penetrated her armour and dug into her flesh beneath. He looked up at Luna.

“I can get them out, but we don’t have anything to knock you out, only dull the pain,” he told her.

“This will hardly be the first occasion where I have had something dug out of me,” Luna stated with a small shrug. “Do it as quickly as you can and I will be happy enough.”

Butcher nodded and reached back to grab a syringe of Med-X and inserted it into Luna’s neck before turning his back on her again and grabbing a pair of medical tweezers and a scalpel. Sarah watched as he went to work.

He is lucky that we trust him so, Nim stated within her head. Else we would be worried that he had some nefarious intent.

Yeah... Sarah agreed as she watched Butcher cut open Luna. Then she stepped around the man and grabbed a clean, or as clean as you can get in the Wasteland, cloth and began to clean around the wounds Butcher had opened up. The man simply kept up his work and ignored Sarah, apparently trusting her not to either get in his way or do something stupid.

It took twenty minutes of off and on cutting to retrieve all of the bullets from Luna’s chest and cover the wounds before injecting her with a pair of stimpaks. When they’d finished Butcher had a metal plate full of metal fragments next to him on the hospital bed. He rubbed his hands together in a ‘finished’ gesture and glanced up at Luna who had stood through the entire ‘operation’ without comment.

“You’re good,” he told her. “Anything that I left in there is non-life threatening and unimportant.”

“Thank you,” Luna said with a smile as she shook herself for the first time in the last twenty minutes. “We feel as if you have removed several pounds worth of metal.”

“Not even one,” the man told her before glancing at Sarah. “And good job with the cloth. You managed not to get in the way.”

“I do my best,” Sarah replied before walking closer to Luna and giving her a kiss on the cheek. “Besides we couldn’t have you getting blood on your infirmary room floor eh?”

“Guess not,” he agreed before glancing at the door. “Anyways, I’ve kept you both here for too long, Reilly has something she wanted to talk to you about.”

“Really?” Sarah asked with a frown. “What is it?”

“Ask her yourself,” Butcher replied, though he couldn’t hide a small smile from his face. It was strange, he’d only known the pair for all of twelve hours but he strangely liked them.

Why is he smiling? Nim asked with a mental frown. There must be some plot against us! That is a plotting smile!

I rather doubt it, Sarah replied as she shrugged at Butcher. “Thanks for patching us up Carl, we’ll see you around.”

Butcher just raised an eyebrow at her for using his actual name before shrugging and getting back to the task of cleaning up his infirmary.

Luna led the way from the infirmary as they retraced their steps. “What do you think Reilly wished to discuss with us?” she asked Sarah who was wearing one of her newly cleaned jumpsuits.

"Maybe a reward for saving the Rangers?” Sarah asked.

“I believe we have already been rewarded in full for that task,” Luna replied with a small frown.

Never complain about how much people are willing to reward you, Nim commented. You know what they say about gift swords. Luna frowned for a second before nodding.

“I suppose you are right,” she stated.

“Gift swords?” Sarah asked with a small frown.

“Indeed, tis an old tradition of Equestria,” Luna replied. “Leaders of nations will give each other fine swords when meeting. It is considered bad form to question the strength of the blade.”

“Ah...” Sarah said, nodding and deciding to keep the saying about ‘gift horses’ to herself. “We have something similar.”

Now that is an unusual saying, Nim commented as she scanned the thought.

“Interesting,” Luna replied before they entered the main room which was located between the infirmary and the kitchen. To her surprise, Reilly, Donovan, and Brick were already there.

“About time you two got here,” Brick said as she looked between them. “If you took any longer then I was going to have to go make sure Butcher hadn’t lived up to his name,” she added with a joking smile.

“That would be tragic,” Donovan agreed, chuckling. “Anyways, now that you’re finally here, Reilly has something to say.”

“I’d like you both to be official members of Reilly’s Rangers,” Reilly said without further ado as she stepped up to the pair.

“What?” Sarah asked in befuddlement.

“I want you both to be members of our group,” Reilly repeated.

“But... why?” Luna asked, just as caught off guard as Sarah was.

“Because you’ve proved yourselves worthy of it,” Reilly said with a smile.

“That and being able to boast that you’ve got members who fly into battle out of the setting sun with a lever action rifle and a giant fucking sword is bad ass as all hell,” Brick added. “All you need is a pair of sunglasses.”

Hmm... they would go nicely with our attire... Nim agreed, the only one unphased by the turn of events.

“I um... I have no idea what to say,” Sarah said still recovering from the shock.

“Then say yes,” Reilly replied plainly, a wry smile appearing on her face. “You two earned it.”

“But... we hadn’t planned on staying here,” Luna said with a frown. “I do not want to sound ungrateful for this opportunity Reilly... but Sarah and I have our own business to attend to. Such as tracking down that andriod.”

“Yeah... that is a problem,” Sarah agreed. “We shouldn’t be members of the Rangers if we’re never with the Rangers.”

Reilly frowned for a moment and then shrugged. “Don’t worry about it. You’ll both be official Rangers regardless of whether you’re around or not,” she stated. “All you need is the armour.”

Sarah watched as Donovan stepped forwards with a bundle of drab green armour and the woman wordlessly accepted it.

“Now don’t you dare cut this one apart and attach it to jumpsuit,” the man told her with narrowed eyes. “You might be able to do it with that Talon shit, but I’ll be very annoyed if I ever see that done to my armour design.”

Sarah nodded hurriedly. “I’ll keep that in mind,” she stated with a slight smile before looking at Reilly. “May I... spray paint the letters 101 on the back?” she asked.

Reilly raised an eyebrow. “Sure. So does that mean you said yes?”

“I... yes, yes I have!” Sarah replied with a wide smile.

“Then welcome to the family,” Reilly told her, grinning.

“Do I get a suit of armour as well?” Luna asked with a curious expression though she didn’t want to sound needy.

Donovan look at her for a moment and shook his head. “Sorry, but we don’t have enough spares to cobble together something big enough to wear,” he told her, causing Luna’s expression to sink into a frown of unhappiness.

You didn’t want a suit of their functionless armour anyways, Nim said in Luna’s mind, comforting the mare as best she could.

“But” Donovan continued breaking through any of Luna’s sadness. “I did manage to shore up the gaps in that armour of yours and reinforce it with our own stuff.”

Luna’s frown turned into a smile. “Thank you very much!”

“You’re welcome,” the man replied with a chuckle at her expression.

Sarah smiled as well, happy to see Luna look so overjoyed at being included. Then Reilly spoke again and her own sense of elation skyrocketed.

“By the way, one of the perks of being a recognized Ranger is that those Talon Company asshats will finally leave you alone,” the other woman said.

“Really?!” Sarah asked, her smile widening.

“Yep, they’re not as stupid enough to try anything knowing that we’ll have your back,” Reilly said with a grin.

“And if they do, we’ll take care of them for you,” Brick added with a grin of her own, though it was sinister in appearance.

Sarah didn’t know what to do, she hadn’t been this relieved about something for a long time, so instead of doing anything she just stood there smiling like an idiot.

We really need to work on your reactions... Nim commented. You make us look so very foolish.