Note: This is a sequel to No Guarantees. I've probably written close to fifty thousand words trying to figure out No Contest, without luck. This is the first time it was less awful, and the story started to work out. Ya'll keep an eye out on out of character stuff for me please?

Second note: This is still a reimagined version of the New Vegas storyline, so if something in one of the quest lines doesn't mesh well, free free to let me know. Been dealing with the Bonnie/Craig drama for so long I'm ascared to get onto F:NV and check it out (Gamepedia works just fine.)

Enjoy Bonnie scooting about the wasteland and acting like a horrible bitch. Her inner voice just won't shut up!

McCrae woke up. Felt like she'd died again. Had she died?

God, she hoped she hadn't. If she had, hell was a lot like Camp McCarran.

McCrae stared at the crumbling ceiling in the darkened room as her eyes focused and head began to clear. She recognized the place after she turned her head and saw a pillar in the center of the enormous room. She was in McCarran. Well, that was okay; it meant no psychos out to get her or having to deal with a crazy situation. NCR had picked her up off the desert floor and brought her in for treatment. Probably suffered dehydration and some scrapes.

She looked around her. No one and nothing in sight, but a couple of bottles of water sitting next to her head and a note. She pushed herself up and felt dizzy.

It was really, really stupid of her to just walk away like she had. How could she think that just giving up was an option? She'd handled cazadores and Legionaries and dogs and... and dying, twice, but she couldn't handle him leaving? Her chest tightened painfully.

For a moment she sat in the bed and stared at her hands. Remembered what had happened, how good it had been to feel like someone had her back. Remembered how good things had been between them, when she gave in to everything. ...How bad things had been on the road to Vegas, before she'd found him. Before they'd teamed up and she'd promised him dead Legionaries, but gave him betrayal instead.

She knew it was too good to be true. McCrae sighed to herself. Back to square one, I guess. Serves me right for thinking I could let myself fall in love. She had a bad history for love, she knew it. Falling in love was probably a good deal more stupid than walking off into a desert without water and weapons, too.

Wouldn't be the first dumb thing Bonnie McCrae ever did. Wouldn't be the last, either.

She picked up and squinted at the note. Colonel Hsu. Oh, yeah. The, uh, numbers thing, he wanted information about the camp. She hadn't been paying much attention in the Fort, really. Had to deal with Benny―was too worried about Boone's reaction, to think straight.

The old wound on her face started going off again. No! Goddammit―just put him out of your head! Just stop thinking about it. She closed her eyes and breathed out, cleared her mind.

With a quick motion, she pulled her hair back and looped it around into a bun, securing it with a hairpin. Ignoring the thoughts running through her head, she located a bathroom and washed her face. Her legs were still a little wobbly. She wondered how long she'd been out of it, this time. The Pip-Boy said about a day and a half.

Okay, McCrae. Let's do this.

"Colonel?" she called, as she entered the office, on the lower level of the lobby area. Hsu made a questioning noise and turned to face her. McCrae nodded at him. "Thanks for saving my ass," she said, awkwardly.

"Miss McCrae." He smiled. "Actually, it was O'Hanrahan at Camp Golf." He shrugged. "Said something about doing him a niceness, in the past. Found you near one of the pipes and carried you all the way over here."

McCrae frowned. She didn't recall meeting anyone named O'Hanrahan, but... that had been after Bitter Springs, and she wasn't paying attention. Crap, it seemed like the past few months had been one long string of her not paying attention to what was going on around her.

"That's a long way out of the way for a soldier in Camp Golf," she muttered. Gotta keep my ears and eyes open for myself, now, she thought.

"O'Hanrahan's got heart," Hsu said. "He's a good man."

"I'll have to thank him, later," she said, noncommittally. "You wanted to talk?"

Colonel Hsu motioned for her to sit. In the absence of another chair, she plopped herself down on the bed. He smiled wider, and she crossed her legs self-consciously. Yeah, stop that, he's not smiling like that, you idiot. He's being inviting, so you'll talk to him.

"Well," he asked, "you made it to the Fort?"

"Yes," she answered, nervously waving a palm out. "I'm, uh, not really familiar with how you want your information, so..."

"That's alright. Make an educated guess for me. Possible number of enemy troops?"

She thought about the camp and the inhabitants. "There were about eight or ten beds per tent," she recalled. "Assuming they are hotbunking, that's twenty Legionaries, and..." She screwed up her face. "Maybe four hundred? I might not have seen the entire camp, you know."

"I wouldn't expect Caesar to give you free reign over his little kingdom," Hsu said. He picked up a pencil and held it over a paper on the desk he was sitting at. "Armament?"

"There was a howitzer up there," she said, thoughtfully.

The look on Hsu's face was almost funny. If McCrae wasn't on his side about the goddamn Legion, she might have laughed. He turned and made a note, then wiggled the pencil back and forth in his fingers. "I hadn't expected them to have access to such heavy firepower," he muttered, darkly.

"I don't think it was in working condition," she added, as a consolation. "There was a lot of equipment stripped from it, laying about. Probably they were trying to fix it, but weren't able to."

"We can hope." Hsu turned and faced her again, leaning forward onto the desk. He looked very tired. McCrae wondered if he ever slept, with those black bags under his eyes. "How did you come to be passed out near Camp Golf anyway, Miss McCrae?"

She looked up and away from him, stilling her nervous hands on her knees.

"I only ask because you've become such an important figure around New Vegas," he added. "It wouldn't do for you to die out there, when we've only just met you."

She scoffed. "I'm not that important."

"Miss McCrae―"

"Drop the Miss, already," she groaned. "My name's McCrae. If I like you, it's Bonnie. Making it sound all polite just makes me feel... old." You are old, why bother arguing―shut up, inner Bonnie, or I'll kick your ass. Her cheek started up again. She forced a smile at Hsu, hoping he wouldn't notice.

Hsu's eyebrows went up and he smiled, hesitating. "Which would you prefer I call you? Please tell me it's the latter." He sounded hopeful.

It felt silly to have to think about that, to wonder if she honestly liked the man. He was a good guy, NCR and proud, trying to help people. Making sure the people in Vegas got power and water. And he was polite, which was more than she could say about herself. McCrae chuckled and rolled her eyes. "Yeah, alright. You can call me Bonnie. Don't spread it around though. I need my street cred."

"As you wish, Bonnie," Hsu replied. The way he said it was weird, and she screwed up her face again. "Whatever happened to your friend, Craig Boone?"

Her stomach dropped. She scowled at herself for reacting so stupidly. "We've parted ways," she told the colonel, her voice strained. Bonnie, ignore it. He's gone. We've got better things to do... like get up to Vegas and find out what the hell House was talking about, with his betterment of Mankind and all that.

Yeah. That was gonna be a hell of a lot more "distracting" than some moderately handsome man in a nice uniform, asking her to report her spying effort. She grimaced and rubbed her cheek, still twanging like a guitar string.

"Ah." He was quiet for a moment. "I hope you come to see me again, in the future," he said. "The NCR could certainly use your help with the Dam, and seeing as you are the only liaison we have to House..."

She snorted. Felt like old times, being all by herself and having to rely on her wits alone to get her out of a jam. "I see how it is," she huffed, mockingly. "You just want me for my contacts."

Hsu sputtered, and dropped the pencil onto the desk. "Miss―" he stopped himself. "Bonnie. I assure you, while I am required to form a rapport with the local who's-who, I am also genuinely interested in seeing you do well." He tapped the desk with a finger. "You recall, I did come to see you at Usanagi's clinic when you... suffered." He sounded concerned, but McCrae wasn't really hearing it. "I do feel terrible that you underwent such a horrible event."

"Hmm." Don't need a reminder about that mess. She stood up. "You need anything else?"

Hsu shook his head. "Thank you for the information," he said. "And don't be a stranger. We can always use some help around here."

McCrae shrugged. "I'll see what I can do," she said, in a low voice, before turning to the door.

"Oh, and Bonnie!" Hsu stood, to see her out. She glanced back at him. "Try to see Ambassador Crocker before too long, please?"

She vaguely remembered a note being thrust into her hand and filing it away under the heading "I'll read it later". She nodded at the colonel. "Alright, I guess I can go down and see him."

"Be safe," Hsu said, as she left the airport.

Once again, she found herself back at the Lucky 38. Once again, she went into the suite and ignored Victor's reminder that she had an appointment to keep with House. McCrae threw off the leather armor and plunged into a bath, then dug out the note from Crocker as she brushed out her hair.

"I wish to speak with you immediately in regards to important matters." Well. Colonel Hsu must have meant it when he said she was important, if the NCR's diplomats were wanting to see her. She guessed that House's efforts to keep Vegas free of any outside influence―her employment as the courier of the chip, and subsequent involvement with House in place of Benny―were a thorn in the side of the NCR.

Could House really think he trusted her, some random person off the desert floor, to pull off this grand scheme of his? Hell, she was halfway dead when she arrived in Vegas, and all the way dead since. He didn't seem to want to give anyone else the opportunity to do these things; he could easily pay someone to take her out and install them as his new errand boy.

And shit. She'd done the job, she didn't need to stick around anymore. Getting the hell of out the desert had been her plan to begin with, until she met Boone.

McCrae's heart lurched and she put the paper down onto the desk, running her hands through wet hair and ignoring the pain. The plan had been to delay the inevitable for as long as possible, get the chip back and get out of the Mojave. Then, when she died again, it had been, what? To make herself stronger, to prove to him that she wasn't a selfish bitch? To impress him. She remembered that.

She was a bitch, though. She hadn't impressed him at all.

Bonnie yelled in frustration and shoved the computer console off the desk. It landed with a rattle and the screen flickered a tiny bit, showing some gibberish. She swore, reminding herself that she didn't actually own anything beyond her equipment in the suite.

Well, the sensible thing would be to go and talk to House, then tell him she was quitting. No, wait. No, the sensible thing would be to sell everything she didn't need―and clean out everything downstairs in the casino, House certainly didn't need it. He had plenty of caps, he could afford to foot her travel bill.

He hadn't paid her for the delivery yet. Probably wouldn't. House was probably counting her job payment for the caps it had cost to keep her alive after the torture. She gritted her teeth and closed her eyes. Yeah, she was fucked if she didn't get some caps, somehow.

Bonnie laid her hands on the desk and exhaled slowly, calming herself down. It was incredibly nice to live in the Lucky 38. Too nice for her. She was used to roughing it in metal shacks and crumbling buildings away from everything, out in the wastes. Used to sleeping in holes in the ground, or finding a lucky cave without critters. Before she was here, she'd sometimes delivered mail to the Mojave Outpost, which was where she picked up the order for House's delivery.

If she did leave... that would be where she should go. Sounded like a plan. McCrae stood up and grabbed an outfit out of the wardrobe, stuffing her arms into the shoulder-holes. Her leather needed to be cleaned, badly. She'd deal with that one, later.

She fluffed up her hair in the elevator, and stepped out of the Lucky 38, looking like any other tourist on the street. Except this one had a sack full of cigarettes, Pre-War money, and booze to sell, and was definitely going to make a profit tonight.