A/N: Sorry for the short chapter but I just wanted to get this scene out and it's time for me to hit the sack. Let me know if you think the Courier/Veronica relation is moving too fast. Thanks and enjoy the story!

"Wow," Veronica stared, "It's so…"

"Wrecked?" The Courier asked dryly.

The two were at the top of a hill staring down at the ruins of Vegas. People had said the bombs from long ago hadn't touched this city. Either way, it still looked like a warzone. Cracked buildings centuries old crowded side by side with ramshackle huts of rusted metal plates. The roads were fissured into mosaics of concrete and scraggly weeds. Blood and bullet holes, some old, most new riddled the structures and rusted rebar protruded from rubble like ancient spears. In the middle of all the wreckage rose a tower untouched by guns or bombs, glittering with a thousand lights as the setting sun struck the contours of the structure.

"The Lucky 38 Casino," The Courier mused, "Nothing says I'm-better-than-you like a huge tower right in the middle of a ruined city."

"Well I think it's pretty." The Scribe defended, "All those lights, it's like a Christmas tree."

He blinked "A what tree?"

"A Christmas tree, it was a big tree that people cut down and put in their homes. Then they decorated it with lights and stuff. People would go out and have snow ball fights, build snowmen, go door-to-door singing songs, have hot chocolate…it was nice."

Courier raised an eyebrow, "Ah, I get it. All this happened back when cows had one head, scorpions could be squashed under a boot, and wasps weren't the size of men-"

"Do me a favor; go back to being Mr. Cryptic."

"You can't please anyone these days."


Two-Shot wasn't his real name. His real name was Jerry, and that was a closely guarded secret. He'd been killing, raping, and looting for over ten years now, and in those ten years he had realized that only the boss got rich. So Jerry had staged a coup and overthrown the older boss. In other words, he emptied both barrels of a shotgun into his sleeping boss's back, hence the name Two-Shot. He'd even changed the name of the gang now they were Two-Shot's Raiders, although everyone just called them Two-Shot's Rejects.

Now there's little good that can be said of Two-Shot, but what brains he had, he used. With the NCR on one side and the Fiends on the other, Two-Shot's raiders were always on the move, ransacking a target and moving on while the bodies were still warm. They'd set up ambushes in the Vegas ruins on a good day, they got at least one or two scores.

This wasn't a good day.

Two-Shot peered through the blown out window of an apartment. "Anything?" He asked.

Twitch grunted and shook his head.

The Raider boss scowled and slapped away a stinging fly. They'd been camped in the apartment complex for most of the day with little to show for it. Two caravans, loaded with weapons, had come by, but both times they'd been heavily guarded by Van Graff thugs and as much as the thought of getting some high-powered ordinance made Two-Shot's mouth water, he knew better than to go up against psychos with energy weapons.

"Boss, I could really use a fix." Twitch whispered.

Two-Shot glanced at him cautiously. Twitch was an ex-Fiend and heavily addicted chem. user but he had his own sniper rifle, a real one, not some hunting rifle crap, so Two-Shot had let him stay. As long as the Jet was flowing, Twitch could shoot the wings off a horsefly. Unfortunately, once the drugs wore off, Twitch had a nasty habit of…twitching. Apparently one time during an ambush, he'd twitched and instead of blowing the brains out of a caravan guard, he'd shot the Fiend boss leading the ambush.

"I told you, we're all out." Two-Shot hissed.

"Two-Shot!" Their spotter lifted his head and passed the Raider a pair of binoculars, "Southeast, by the burned out gas station."

Two-Shot raised the binoculars and the distant structure suddenly zoomed in. There were two travelers trudging down the street, the man had on some sort of heavy coat and the woman was wearing a robe of all things. It wasn't the same as knocking over a Crimson Caravan but the woman looked young and Two-Shot hadn't had any action for weeks.

"Okay, Twitch, wait until they come closer and then we'll jump them-"

Twitch twitched.

The boom of the sniper rifle cracked across the ruins.

And the woman fell to the ground.


One second he'd been talking to the Scribe. The next, there'd been a gunshot and Veronica was on the road and an ugly red stain was growing on her side. The Courier reacted instinctively, grabbing Veronica and hauling the lighter woman off the road and into a ditch. A second gunshot and the pavement by his hand exploded in lumps. Two thoughts leaped out in the blurring rush of adrenaline and fear.

Sniper, northwest corner.

She's bleeding.

The adrenaline still pounded but the fear had melted away, replaced by an almost total Zen of complete emptiness, no emotions, no worries.

As calmly as if he was taking a stroll in the park, the Courier grabbed Veronica and hauled her into the gas station. He didn't flinch when a third round shattered the glass by his head, he didn't react when a fourth and fifth slammed into the wooden door he'd just swung shut.

The Zen faded away a little when he finally looked down and saw Veronica, but the Courier stubbornly pushed aside all emotion.

"Santangelo," he said briskly, "talk to me."

"It hurts…" she mumbled. He took out a pair of scissors and cut the robe and shirt she was wearing underneath. Veronica could hear him exhale quietly.

The cool tiles pressed against her back, Veronica stared at the ceiling and in a very small voice asked, "Well Doc? What's your professional opinion?"

Courier gave her a reassuring smile, or rather his lips twitched in what could be called a smile. "I've seen worse bug bites."

"You're not just lying to make me feel better?"

"I never lie about life or death." He said solemnly, "Now be quite while I slap a band aid on you."

The wound wasn't bad, a clean shot that had missed the stomach and any other internal organs. He quickly pulled out a stimpack and slid the needle into the wound. Courier thumbed the plunger on the end of the stimpack sending a cocktail of medicines into the wound. The stimpack would make the blood clot faster and kill whatever bacteria was floating around inside her. Veronica sighed and her body untensed a little as the mild anathestic in the stimpack took effect, "That feels nice." She murmured.

"Don't get too used to it. I'm not going to waste a stimpack on your lazy butt every time you get a scratch." Courier grunted as he bandaged her wound.

"You're all bark, Mr. Cryptic…no bite."

"That's just the morphine talking now." But he took off his heavy coat and tucked it around her. He felt her hand on his arm and she looked up at him with soft brown eyes, "You're a nice man."

And he looked at her with his pale blue eyes and ice ran down her spine.

"No I'm not," he said and kindly patted her on the arm. Then he pulled out his nine millimeter side arm and handed it to her, handle first. "Stay put and if anyone comes in, shoot first and apologize later."

She grinned weakly at him, "And while I'm playing damsel in distress, what are you doing?"

He unslung a small caliber rifle with a stubby silencer on the end. He flipped the cap off the low-light scope and glanced at the sky. Twilight had fallen, it was time to hunt.

"I'm going to go kill our new friends."