Why had he trusted her? The betrayal came as a shock, enough to make him roll over in his life giving pod. "There will be nowhere for you to hide, Courier." He had said. She had simply smiled.

All he could do now was watch. Wait for Vegas to fall, and him to die himself. But he wasn't going to hurt her.

He watched as more than two hundred years of work burned, cleansed from the wasted with flame, as his army fell before the courier. She was the only person he had felt attached to, (he spat that bit now,) since the war. He longed for more conversation than was given, he longed for more than his shriveled limb to hold her pale and soft looking hand in.

But alas, that could never be. Not now, not ever. So perhaps he would be better off, putting out his eternal pain and longing.

When she arrived in the Lucky 38, he knew.

"The beginning of the end." He had sighed to himself. No securitrons were on alert, all greeting her as a guest. "I suppose the house cannot always win."

He had written her a letter, weeks ago, for this very day. "Remorse. A feeling I have never wanted anyone to feel until now. Strange, how someone can change in their final moments of living."

She had strode in proudly, very unlike the first time he had ever seen her. Then, she had looked at the floor shyly and had spoken so softly he couldn't hear a word. "At least I've taught her something." He thought, looking at her one last time before she saw what he truly was. "Walk with confidence or you will be doubted."

When his eyes opened- his true eyes- he saw the courier for the first time.

And she saw him. The real him, not the projection he had been for so long.

After that glorious moment of seeing her, he saw the look which she gave him. He supposed he had suspected no less, being whom -what- he was. But still he could not stand to see her looking at him in that way. As if he weren't truly human. So he closed his eyes.

He wasn't sure he agreed with an independent Vegas. It could never work, the strip would crumble under her direction. "Why can she not see?" He mumbled angrily. But the time for fixing things was long since past, and House had come to terms with his demise.

His works destruction.

His love's betrayal.

The moment she pulled her pistol, he opened his eyes once again, and looked her up and down, head to toe, savoring the last time he would see her wide hips, he auburn hair that fell around her ears just so, the light dusting of freckles she had gained from the Mojave sun. In his eyes, she was perfect.

But also she was also manipulative and a scary shade of smart.

"Do it." He snarled as best he could. "Kill me, you will gain noting."

She never replied, and shot the withered body of Robert Edwin House. It was almost shocking how little she thought of it, until she reached the large screen that used to show House.

Now, instead of projecting him, it held letters. She turned away, feeling just a sliver of guilt run through her. The letter was much too hard to avoid. It showed up on each securitron an screen, finally she decided to read it.

"My dearest girl," it had read, so that she knew it was for her.

"In the brief time I have know you, I have grown….attached. More so than I should I should be, I suppose. Long, long ago, before you we're born, I was not just a corpse hooked to wires and robots. I was human, as we all once were.

"I had supporters and fans, though now I see how different they were from friends. And even through the darkest of times, I have had my robots. Never anyone I have felt more than admiration for.

"Until a girl, a mail carrier walked timidly into my home, escorted by one of my own securitrons.

"I was captivated, a feeling I have never felt pressed itself into my barely beating heart. But of course this perfection could not last. The courier betrayed me, leaving me where I am now.

"My dearest girl,

"Remember me as who I was. Remember that I have loved and lost, just as you have. Remember that I loved you, and only you."

The courier walked awauye, and for the first time in almost two hundred and ten years, the Lucky 38 was completely devoid of life.