I didn't ask for this. That's all I can think over and over as I sit on a raft floating towards a fort that promises death. I didn't ask for this.

I was a courier. Well I wasn't even really that. I delivered one package once a very long time ago when I was only 12 years old. My father was supposed to go but he was sick and I took his place. Not long after I left, my father died. When I returned my mother told me our courier days were over, no more trekking the wasteland contracting god knows what or getting shot at by god knows who. We would get by.

And we did get by, for 6 years I lived out my teenage years with my Mother in relative peace and quiet. But this is California and nothing stays quiet for long and we were lucky to get 6 years of it. Our little town was attacked in the night by Ceasars Legion who were looking to push into New Vegas after their defeat at the dam. My mother and I fled and found refuge in a hut out in the desert, dangerously close to New Vegas. We had no choice, I had to take a courier job once more. I completed two and got us decent money before I took the job that changed everything. I was given a casino chip and remember thinking this job was paying way too much for delivery of a simple chip. We found these things in the desert sometimes, scattered around after the casinos had claimed another schmuck. Why would someone pay so much for this one?

I was passing by Goodsprings in the dead of night when it happened, I was knocked unconscious and dragged to the towns graveyard. When I came to the first thing I realised was that they'd taken the chip. Everything else I owned was still with me, my small gun, my clothes, my money. All they were after was that stupid little chip and now here I knelt, over a roughly dug grave while some suave git pointed a gun at my head. He was talking and I knew he was trying to appear nonchalant like all this was nothing to him but his hand was shaking as he pointed the gun. I huffed. Guess he hadn't bet on an 18 year old girl being the one he had to ambush. Or maybe he never wanted this. Either way he was clearly going to shoot me and if this was the way it was going to end, I'd go out staring into the eyes of my killer. I'd give him no easy way out, he'd have to face this through.

Which he did. Apparently. I don't remember anything except his mouth forming what looked like the word "sorry" as the gun went off. Except that can't have been right because up to that point he'd been spouting off about the game being rigged and kept calling me "baby".

I had woken in a bed with all kinds of medical equipment around me and one hell of a headache. A doctor came over, pulled me upright and told me all about what happened. That a robot had dug me up, that the doc had patched me up and that I was going to be ok. He had a funny look on his face when he finished, and I knew there was too much good news. After some probing, the doc admitted my mother had got to me before the robot had. She'd been halving the courier money to hire a bodyguard to follow me around and check no-one took me out. The bodyguard, it turns out, was one of my charming assassins guys. He'd sent a note back to my mother before my death, informing her he'd been unable to save me. The robot had watched as my mother sobbed over my (seemingly) lifeless body and then placed me gently in my makeshift grave, promising to return and do it properly. It was on her return journey she'd been killed.

My mothers death combined with my near fatal head wound was enough to finish me off the day. I passed out once more and spent the next week in and out of consciousness. When I finally came to properly, the Doc was out. I padded around his house in a haze, all the time thinking about my mother, the bastards that shot me and overwhelming feelings of revenge. By the time the Doc came back I was dressed and had sneaked every bit of ammo out of his house. If he noticed, he didn't say, but told me to talk some of the folk in town before I left, and wished me luck. As I essentially owed him (and this mysterious robot) my life I gave him a quick hug and promised I'd come back one day.

Back to now. I didn't ask for this, and now I probably won't be able to keep my promise to the Doc. And I so wanted to, I wanted to go back to that town and thank him properly and tell him I'd got my revenge and that I was going to be ok. We're still floating towards the fort, Boone and I. He's watching me, like he does nowadays, when he thinks I'm not looking. Watching me with that expression on his face that suggests he's fighting his curiosity and curiosity is winning.