General Moore was going to be ill. She didn't even know what was worse; the goddamn Legionary run-off nearly steam-rolling straight for Shady Sands, or that Layla Granville had been the one to stop them.

The woman gave the report in her hand a sour look. Each word was like a dagger in her side; Chief Hanlon had written it himself: Granville never knew she was wanted for treason; otherwise she would have turned herself in. Granville wasn't on the Strip when the takeover occurred, which took away her opportunity to commit the act. Granville 'saved countless thousands of lives through her actions,' which was disgusting.

Moore had nearly had a set of shackles engraved for Granville. Now that fucking courier was probably going to get another medal. Disgusting.

Even her idiot boyfriend had managed to dodge trouble; Major Dahtri and Colonel freaking Hsu both vouched for him. He'd been with his unit, who'd never made it to Shady Sands because they'd helped defend the Outpost from getting overrun.

All there was left to do was sign all the reports and have them sent to Shady Sands and the rest of the brass. There had been an utterly tempting notion to give a differing account of what had happened, one that didn't paint Granville in such a rosy light. But she had no evidence; anything that could have been recovered that might have made her look bad was either destroyed or dead.

The pen in her hand made an irritating scratching noise as she dragged it across the paper. She noted with muted satisfaction that the person sitting across from her winced at the noise. Moore felt a sneer pull at her lip, then looked up.

"Get the hell out of here, Granville; I've got no use for you."

The courier gave her a steady, even look. Moore could sense the other woman struggling to keep a comment at bay. She almost wished Granville would say it; give her another excuse to deck the brat.

Instead, Granville rose to her feet, noticeably lacking the grace she'd moved with earlier. Moore could see signs of wear on the other woman; circles under her eyes, that weary look that only came from seeing too much action too quickly. And her business suit couldn't hide the weight she'd lost. The general could have felt bad for her, maybe even grateful for what she'd done for the Mojave and the NCR. Instead she hoped the courier fell into the Colorado River and never came out.

"Until the next mess," Granville said, with no trace of that irritating sweetness that was usually caked on to her tone. Moore just stared her down until she turned to leave.

What a fucking piece of shit this turned out to be.

*.*.*

"I don't want anymore," Veronica moaned as Raul stood over her. The ghoul shook his head, then set the Nuka-Quartz back in its crate. The scribe had spent the first hour back in the suite drinking her recovered soda. Inculta and his men had only taken three.

"You'll be back into them in five minutes," Cass said, shaking her head at the other woman.

"Shut up," the scribe grumbled, waving a hand tiredly at her. When the group had reunited, there had been a nearly frantic retelling of recent events. As soon as they'd finished, everyone had trudged back to the Lucky 38.

Layla had surveyed the damage to her home and found herself surprised at how little the Legionaries had taken; some of the ammo and a good amount of caps were missing, but not much else. Veronica proclaimed loudly that someone had gone through her underwear drawer, but that was… probably not the case. Probably.

The desk in the master bedroom had definitely been rifled through. Layla hoped Vulpes had been very frustrated when all he found were old notes splashed with doodles, pre-war bridal magazines and several empty sarsaparilla bottles. The courier looked at her terminal, which also had clearly been used and left on, but nothing seemed to be amiss. She hoped. There had been plenty of sensitive information on the computer, but fortunately she'd kept it behind passwords. Vulpes must not have taken the time to crack the codes before he'd left.

The Strip had been sorted out quickly enough; Jane's messing with the securitrons had interfered with the orders Vulpes had given them. And with no one to reinforce them, the machines stopped keeping people trapped in the casinos. Victor had managed to get them in line for now, but they'd have to work on the controls in House's penthouse to get things back to normal.

Well, back to normal with some upgraded security, Layla thought, frowning. This had been a disaster, she wouldn't allow it to happen again. Oddly enough, that made her think of Benny, whom they'd sent on his way with a pocket full of caps for his trouble. Layla hadn't said he was forbidden from coming back to the Strip… maybe she should have.

The thought was broken up as a pair of hands closed over her shoulders. Layla let out an embarrassingly loud yelp and looked up. Boone was looking down at her with that hard-to-read expression again. Layla had noticed it on him a few times lately; she hadn't seen the look since they first traveled together.

Before she could think more on it, the sniper dropped to his knees at her side and wrapped his arms around her hard enough to steal the breath from her lungs. The courier sputtered, utterly unprepared for this.

Boone said nothing as he continued holding her. With some difficultly, Layla worked an arm out of his, only to wrap it around him. They stayed that way for a long time, until a small smile made its way onto Layla's face.

"We're okay," she murmured. "We made it."

The sniper let out a light snort of a laugh at that. "Yeah. Until you get into trouble again."

Layla scoffed and gave him a shove, but he was still holding tightly to her, so it didn't do much. Giving up on her assault, she rested her head on his shoulder.

"I'm going back to California… just to visit. My parents are going to kill me once all this gets out." She rolled her head to the side so she could look at the side of Boone's face. "Wanna come with?"

The sniper's eyes opened and turned her way. There was a pause, then a nod. Layla smiled and kissed him.

"I love you," she murmured against his lips.

"I love you too," he whispered.

The End

Thank you all for reading. I spent a lot of time and effort on this series, and one of the reasons I did so was for people to enjoy it. I hope it brought a little enjoyment to your lives.

As for what happens now, I plan to go back and edit the whole series over again. Once it's done, I'll probably be posting it elsewhere, and converting it to an ebook download for those who want it. I won't be focusing on that effort for another month, however. There are talks of further stories concerning Layla and her group, and a few short stories about other couriers. At this point, I can't make promises, so we'll just have to see how things go.

For now, thank you again. It took nearly three years, but here we are. I hope you all enjoyed it as much as Richard and I did.