remembrance

She remembered him.

She would never admit it, at least, not when they had first met... again. No, she'd wait. Not till years later when the Mojave was stable, and free, would she tell him.

They would be sitting on that ledge where he sat so often, overlooking the Divide with its raging storms and blinking red lights in the midst. In silence, for she wasn't here to talk about history. Not yet. No, she was here to sit, and think, and suffer.

She made herself suffer many times when she came here. She punished herself, for all she had done in her few years, by drinking a martini. That foul concoction of Cloud and alcohol from the Sierra Madre... it was disgusting. Painful, even. But she forced it down anyways.

He passed a glance sideways at her as she drank, and grimaced. She never told him why exactly she hurt herself so. She never would, and it was up to him to only guess; perhaps she had done things, back east, that she had never told him about? But she had been hardly more than a child then, what could a child do that was deserving of that drink. He'd tasted it once, wondered how it could be so bad. Later retching off the side of the cliff answered that question for him. He took a sip from his cola, much better than the Cloud drink, and leaned back.

'I remembered, you know.'

She didn't normally speak during these sorts of visits, and her words surprised him.

'I lied, when I said I didn't remember anything that had happened. Happened here, at the Divide.' She shook her head. 'Well, I lied a little. I remember the delivery order. I remember the package, and it's symbol. And I remember you.'

He didn't speak, and instead pulled his legs closer to his body and crossed his arms as the woman chucked the half-empty liquor bottle far, far down into the sandstorm below.

'Just barely. Didn't remember what you looked like entirely, just recognized the symbol on your back when I went to the Big Empty. Knew it from somewhere, couldn't place it. Didn't know it was from you. And... when I saw you. For the first time, again, in your temple. I realized. I knew you. We... had never spoken, as you said, so I dunno why I... remembered.' She pulled a face. 'Then again, you kinda really stand out. Don't think you could blend in if you tried; you're too fucking tall.'

'Don't think I could, either.' He remarked with she could almost call a hint of a laugh in his voice.

She sighed and laid back on the rough, dusty earth, staring up at the war torn sky.