Note: Hey guys, make sure to read the real ending too!

Unless... You want this to be the real ending :B

Cold metal bit at her exposed skin in the concourse building back at Camp Mccarran. Bleak screens surrounded her and a series of tubes invaded her veins and pumped sugar water and Med-X into her body, along with anti-biotics. She was human now, she wasn't rushing with an excess amount of chemicals from exertion anymore. Carla felt ordinary now- with a side of infected bullet wounds and speckling bruises.

'How long have I been asleep?' She cringed as she sat up, clenching her fists and digging her nails into her palms.

It was always quiet in the Mccarran concourse, most likely today especially. Anyone who wasn't wounded or dead was probably celebrating in Vegas and wrecking havoc all throughout Freeside. All of the NCR hospitals were probably chalk full of the wounded after the battle of Hoover Dam.

Carla pulled the IVs from her arms and tossed her legs over the side of the ratty bed. She could make out the silhouettes of soldiers on both sides of her screens and could hear their breathing faintly. The atmosphere was grey and sullen, so sterile that it wiped away all emotion that lingered.

It hurt to walk, it was as if she was possessed. None of her actions were by her own accord, she had something to settle before letting the doctor hook her back up to the machine.

The morgue was on the other side of the medical bay, beckoning to her, practically calling out her name.

Carla pulled out the drawers one by one, absently looking over the dead bodies of faceless NCR soldiers. They didn't matter, none of them mattered. She climbed on their bodies to reach the higher drawers because they were no longer people in her eyes, they were objects that just hindered her progress at completing her objective.

The last drawer she touched sent a shock that resonated through her fingers and rippled through her body, Tingles electrified her entire form and she tugged on the handle to release the corpse inside to the air.

His toes, his soles and his ankles came out and she already knew who it was.

His knees and thighs and waist became exposed and she lost her ability to breathe.

His shoulders and neck and head revealed a lifeless, grey and cold version of her greatest companion.

His dead body brought her deepest fears to life.

Courier pulled him down off the metal sheet into her arms, and since he was too heavy she stumbled and fell to the floor as she slipped on the bodies and drawers that she was defiling as footing. She hurt herself, but she didn't care. He was heavier than she remembered, he felt so clammy that she almost didn't want to touch him. She cradled his head against her chest and wept without making a sound.

From what she could tell he died from blood loss, judging by the wound the bleeding was internal.

She thought of his last moments and wondered if he appreciated being held by her as he died. The way he shuddered when she wrapped her arms around him could have been from pain, but it also could have come from wanting to be alone. Were his last thoughts full of regret, or was he glad that he died in the name of the NCR? Did he think about her or did he think about his wife? It didn't matter now, because Boone was dead.

She rubbed her hands on his buzzed hair and on his soft features. She traced her finger along the bridge of his nose and felt his eyelids and lips. Tears fell on his face and ran down his cheeks as if he was crying with her, giving her a general idea what he would look like if he was crying; his face looked less angry at the world and more lonesome and somber than it usually did.

She ignored the pitter patter of footsteps approaching the area. The tiny Doctor Kemp stood before the slovenly scene, appalled by the sight of NCR bodies pulled out of their drawers and laying in disarray. He was most shocked by the courier sitting on the floor cradling a corpse.

Instead of being mad, the doctor clasped his hands together and spoke to her with sympathy, "I was told that you would look for him, but I didn't think you would go so far..,"he walked up to her and motioned towards his desk, "would you like to have his belongings? I was told that you would appre-"

"I want them." She demanded. "Please."

"Well, when you're ready go back to bed and I'll give them to you."

Courier spent another little while with Boone before heading back to bed. She hooked the IVs back up to her arm by herself and waited for Doctor Kemp to give her Boone's belongings. The man brought her the anti-materiel rifle, his hat, his sunglasses, a handful of .50 rounds and his armour in a sack. It was then she realized that he left his hunting rifle back in her suite in Novac. She put the first recon beret beside her and the sunglasses underneath. The doctor left her side to treat other patients and eventually fix the morgue.

She dug through the bag over and over, convinced that something else would be inside other than the obvious things.

After rifling around multiple times, Carla felt a piece of paper brush against her fingers. She pulled it out of the bag, realizing it was a crumpled envelope.

On the back it said 'For Carla,'

Carla,

If yout be much but it should help you and the baby get by. Want you to remarry when you meet the right person...

She closed her eyes and only skimmed over the rest-

...Not sure the right way to say how I feel about you. Think you know already, though...

and she slowly came to realize something she never wanted to-

...Whatever you learn over time about my service in the NCR, hope you can forgive me...

something that she may have already knew, but denied it this whole time-

...Know its worth it.

Craig

She inhaled deeply then reread it in it's entire form, her body growing hotter and thoughts getting darker with each syllable she read. Carla crushed the paper in her hand, then tossed it on the floor after getting her fill.

Her realization?

'He never loved me. Our time together and all the things I did were in vain. I'm a fool. I'm a weakling. I wish I never returned to him on that day.'

A sadness overtook her and it contorted into hostility. She trembled in the bed from anger and humiliation, and knowing it in it's truest form, that was the end of something beautiful.