A/N: This chapter has some overlap with the previous one.

V: Rage Against Fortune

Royally pissing people off isn't something Lilka likes to do. That's why she's a courier. She only has one job: deliver the package. Travel to the address, drop off the package, and leave without so much as looking anyone in the eye. It's quick, simple, and easy. She doesn't go on making people mad. That's bad for business and will get her fired. Lilka doesn't want to get fired. She loves her job. It brings opportunities that plowing at dead soil will never grant her. She can wander, take her pick of the men, and see what's left of this gloomy world. The caps are decent too.

Getting shot in the head ruined that perfectly good job. Worse, she can argue, she gets tossed into a world of confusion the moment she wakes up, a world where she's no longer Lilka. She finds that she can't return to being the scrappy little punk shaking the dust of her boots after a long day of trekking, because she isn't just a delivery girl anymore. She is the Courier, with forces pulling her from every direction, dragging her to a role she didn't ask for.

Still, she carries on. She pushes to clear other people's problems in place of her own. Her eagerness can almost turn away the nightmares that fill her sleep. It can almost banish the fear that this is all a crazy dream, that she might wake up back at Goodsprings, buried under the cold desert sands. Her increasing reputation and the perks that follow can almost make her forget that her life is barely hers anymore.

The Vipers are just another day, 's made a lot of enemies. Somebody, or in her particular case, a lot of somebodies want her to stay dead. She supposes it comes with the territory of her influence.

Then he comes, the lottery man as she's come to know him. Fondly, she admits. He comes and kicks her ass, is what he does. He is definitely not just another day, and if there's one problem she can't solve, he would be it. She accepts that her silly infatuation with him could be nothing more than that, and it's not for lack of trying. She's long given up on why she's drawn to him, but she can still enjoy the way he straddles her, at least if he didn't have his hand locked around her neck.

"Why didn't you kill Benny?" he asks. Of course, she tells him nothing.

In reality, she didn't kill Benny because there's still much to know about those securitrons hidden in the Fort, but she wasn't about to tell him that. She knows the Mojave is on the brink of war, and it's the people who suffer. If every faction of New Vegas wants her to decide their entire fate for them, so be it. She can make a future for the people, and she can do it without the strings of the NCR or the Legion.

As for revenge, Lilka learns she simply doesn't have the stomach for it.

Death in the Mojave is a simple fact. This cruel wasteland doesn't choose who dies. You can be cashing in your thousand Gomorrah chips one day and feeding the geckos with your corpse the next. And when it comes for you, you'd best be ready. Mercy will not be your friend.

And then there's Benny. Bloody, beaten Benny. It's so easy to end him. Just pull the trigger on her pistol and send that fucker where he belongs, and yet she doesn't — she can't — do it. Killing him won't change anything. He would be just another number on her count, another man that would keep her up at night, wondering if his death is worth what she's fighting for.

But death is a simple fact. He kills her, she kills him. Then she won't be any different from him, and that thought makes her sick. There's a reason she didn't die that night. There has to be. For all her screw-ups in the past, she was given another chance at life. Who was she to deny that same chance to anyone else? The only thing that keeps her going now is the hope that when all this is over, everything will be different. No more pain, no more loss, no more blood on her hands. A new Vegas means a new life, not just for her, but for anyone who wants it.

"Everyone deserves another chance." Everyone.

Even this man.

His hand explores her, and she lets him. His stroke sends a flush to her face. She can't remember the last time she's been touched like this. She can almost convince herself that there could be something between them, a hint of connection, a little hope that this man too can turn, just as she is, as the rest of the Mojave is.

Then he pulls away just as quickly as he draws close, and Lilka's heart sinks. He could be yet another one she's put on the outs, another she might lose in this mess called war.

"Don't insult me," he sneers. He rises, stiff and unsure, and she doesn't miss the way he avoids looking at her. She props herself up, rubbing her neck. He turns to leave, but he doesn't seem to be a man who leaves a job unfinished.

"You're not gonna kill me?" she asks.

The lottery man doesn't answer. He only runs until he disappears into the desert haze, and she can do nothing but watch him leave her to her own doubts.

She starts pulling herself together too, ignoring the throbbing sting of her right wrist, where his hand has burned her.

Novac isn't far off. It's well into the night when she arrives, Boone already stationed at his post. Without a word, she climbs up the stairs of the gift shop and takes what little space there is left inside Dinky the Dino's mouth. She doesn't hesitate to sit on the ledge of its mouth, legs swinging out of its teeth, and breathe in the crisp evening.

"That's a bruise you got there," Boone said before turning his eyes back on the road to Nelson.

She lifts her arm against the stars. "Just a little scrap."

The bruise pains for days, but he buys her lie and so does everyone else. Another trivial row, they think, but she knows better. She can see it in the man who marked her, in his eyes, his face, his walk. She's getting through to him.

Lilka needs to piss people off more often.

A/N: So this took way longer than it had to. x_x I found myself struggling to get back on the groove after the whole moving debacle.

I'm not completely happy with this chapter, so if any of you have constructive criticisms in mind, I would love to hear them. As always, thank you so much for reading and leaving reviews! The next chapter is mostly written out so that should be up more quickly. :)