Note: Convoluted, I mentioned that, right?

Charlie muffled a short shriek as she injected herself with her last stimpak, sitting on the access roof to the Bison Steve's derelict roller-coaster. She could hear the last convict out on the rails, yelling at her to show her face, as she huddled against the side of the building and tried to calm herself down.

Really... she had been okay with coming in and taking them down. Until she ran into that ridiculous deputy. Beagle had hightailed it out of the hotel shortly after she told him there were no more convicts on the first floor. An asshole and a coward, she thought. Here she was, frightened half to death by simply being around the convicts. He couldn't be bothered to do the job assigned to him, and help her get rid of the rest of them.

Never mind that it was her way of solving a problem she might have caused. She still... still dealt with that problem. It was probably her problem. She was mostly convinced of that, now. Wasn't sure if she'd made it so the Powder Gangers could take on the guards―so that they could break out, and she could get him free―

She winced at herself. She hoped she hadn't been a part of the jailbreak. Meant more deaths on her conscience, more than possibly her mother and the terrible heartbreak that her death had brought to Charlie's possible father. She didn't even want to imagine that she were a more horrible person, more than destroying her own family.

Didn't know how she might live with herself, if she was that person.

Charlie lifted herself up and eyed the distance to the convict up on the rails, and brought up 86 to aim it. Would be a tricky shot... maybe. Her aim was far better than she'd expected, the way her hands shook. And she was surprisingly competent with explosives―alarmingly so, considering the Powder Ganger's primary weapon was dynamite―

Her hand twitched against the trigger. And here she was, using that weapon still. A soft thunk and a second or two passed, and Charlie watched the man flying up into the air. If the grenade impact hadn't killed him, the fall to the ground did. She grimaced as the body hit the dirt with a wet crunch.

At least... these asses certainly deserved wasteland justice. Not the pandering cushy jail sentence they had received in the NCRCF, but a swift cold rebuttal of fire and steel. It made her feel a little better to have the convicts out of Primm.

The convicts all dealt with, she went to the Mojave Express. Johnson Nash, the man in charge, gave her the rundown. Her order, her route, why she'd gone south. Told her about the other who gave up the job for her to have.

"Another Courier?" she thought out loud. Someone who had given up the job, on purpose. Why? It made her extremely nervous. Why had this person declined, let her take the job, and where was he, now? Was he... was he someone she knew, or had been involved with, in the past?

She didn't know, still. She didn't even feel anything about it, other than anxious. Probably should chalk this one up to pure fright, she told herself. I bet he didn't even see my name, just the thing I was delivering. She'd... trusted her intuition, up to this point. And it hadn't given her a reason not to; reminding her she knew Joe Cobb, and how horrible a person he'd been.

The delivery, though, she thought about that. Wasn't sure yet, why she was a courier. It seemed convenient for her, if she'd wanted to stay in the area of the NCRCF, and the Express was designed for short-range deliveries. Nothing too far north or south, and she wouldn't have gone very far east―

Her head spiked with pain, at the bullet site. East was, what? Ugh, she wished she could understand why she hurt.

She thought about the delivery. That chip. She had to get it back. She talked to Nash, asked him about the lay of the land. He told her there were Deathclaws up in Sloan, after the blasting stopped. The blasting that stopped because the Gangers were out of their cells and free, because they stole the explosives―

Charlie covered her face and curled herself up into a ball after she got outside. Pushed herself into a corner where she could hide, and cried. Everything was all her fault, God, she was so stupid!

Everything she'd done―had made the lives of people she didn't know, people she should know, and people she definitely knew, but hated―she'd made their lives end, by her actions. Everything was so fucked up, right now!

Charlie let the tears come, because she knew it was better to let them out. If she kept them inside, they would ferment and make her worse. And she knew it wasn't going to be the last time she cried―

It was all her fault! God, she didn't know if she was strong enough to take advantage of the clean slate she'd been given!

She cried herself into exhaustion, curled up into a crumbling brick corner near the Mojave Express, passing out on the debris.

Eight grenades left.

Charlie cracked open her rifle and examined it, her journey south stopped at a campsite near the Mojave Outpost. She'd been eyeing the statues towering above her, nervously, thinking about what she remembered. Trying to jog more memories into coming forth.

The... eggs, that they had been paid to mule, had been left in a small cave to the southeast of the Outpost. She remembered feeling the warmth in sewn pockets, a skirt modified to hold them. She felt the weight of the things against her legs as she walked slowly up the hill to the Outpost. The smile on his face as he told her to take her time, and promised her it would be okay.

She...

She remembered almost getting caught. Charlie stared blankly at the statues and felt the memories sliding back into her head, dialing up her anxiety as they locked into place. Her breaths came a little faster, her head rang with pain. But she remembered.

He had been talking to the NCR soldier at the desk while she waited nervously, behind him. Some woman with a loud mouth and red hair had bumped into her as she came through the door, causing Charlie to fall and land on her knees―and break a few eggs―and the sticky mess had made her panic. She'd... thrown off the skirt, and bolted out the door, crying apologies.

And he'd―oh, God, his face as she fled out the door, his arm held tightly by the NCR soldier―

Charlie blinked back tears, her vision swimming. He was just a teenager, like her. They were so, so stupid to do that. Why had she thought it would be okay? She loved him, but she―she ought to have convinced him otherwise. How―how long had it been since she'd done that, and why did she not know it was wrong?

Charlie snapped 86's barrel back into position and laid it across her lap, staring at the dead campfire. She did know that she became a courier because she... wanted to stay near the prison. She'd found out he went to the NCRCF after a few weeks of hiding in the hills, and she couldn't visit him. Not because it was an all-male prison, but because she was terrified that the NCR would find out it was her who helped him smuggle those eggs.

But she did stick around, and pass notes to the convicts working the explosives up in the quarry, at Sloan. She had made every effort to make sure he was alive, and then she had tried to get him a message and tell him she was sorry.

She'd bribed the one worker to let her see him, when he worked there. He... hadn't wanted to forgive her, right away, but he'd come around when the others started talking about escaping. He'd―she wiped her eyes. He'd used her? No, that didn't feel right.

Maybe he might have been used, himself. By that Cooke person, the one that was the one behind the escape plan. Because of Cooke, she'd helped him get those explosives―

Charlie curled herself up into a ball again. She had been the reason behind everything. She was why they'd escaped. Why! Why was she so unbelievably stupid!

And she'd... definitely caused more death. Deaths that ought to be on her conscience.

Her chest ached almost as badly as her head did.

Charlie dragged herself along the road, heading east. Avoided the Outpost. Headed toward the fires she saw burning in Nipton.

If she died... maybe it might right the wrongs she'd caused. Maybe karma would fix revenge on her for the people who she'd damned to death through her stupid actions. She didn't even want to try, anymore. She was a bad person. She remembered, and if she couldn't keep the memories hidden, she would have to live with them... as punishment. Punishment until she died.

It was more pain to imagine, her having to live with the memories, rather than dying swiftly. Knowing that she'd earned such pain―

Charlie's feet stopped before she walked into the men lined up in Nipton. She'd seen the Gangers up on the crosses, but paid them no mind. They were no longer as scary as the memories in her head. She saw the dogs growling before her, yellowed teeth bared at a stranger. Saw the formation of the men. The... red uniforms...

Charlie blinked in surprise and looked up into the face of a coyote-headed man, staring down at her with a curious expression. Her eyes widened, at that awful "familiar" feeling again, at the way her heart thudded sickly against her chest.

Oh, if there is a God, please let me die here, she thought. Just open the sky and strike me down and let me go to Hell, already.

"You may pass," the man said, softly. "But do tell whoever you come across, of the power of the Legion. We can handle the rest."

She was confused. "What?" she asked, screwing up her face. Her heartbeat was a sharp drumming against her ribs, now. A painful song to have, and playback was a bitch.

"Passage for couriers is allowed," he said, in the same weirdly soft voice. "Especially those who have been of such use to the mighty Caesar, before. A shame that your companion is not alive, to be granted such privilege."

Charlie's sack hit the ground, her arms sliding down as she fell to her knees. "He―he's dead?" she asked, not sure what to believe.

"Of course. He betrayed Caesar. The only punishment for that... is death." The man in the coyote hat stared at her, curiously. "You do not recall? The reason that you still live?"

"...He was Legion?" she asked, her voice nearly gone from her throat. "I was?"

"Curious," the man said. "You have no memory."

"I..." she felt the sob catch in her throat. "I don't remember," she said, blinking away tears and hoping her voice wasn't as strained as she heard. "I was shot in the head―"

The man nodded at her. "Of course. Apologies. I am Vulpes Inculta. And you..." He tilted his head at her gently. "You were to deliver more than just those creatures into NCR territory."

Charlie wanted to jam her fingers into her ears and press them so far in that she could stab her brain. No more! No more―I am not this―I am not this horrible person that everyone is telling me I am―

No more! her brain screamed. She could barely breathe, the panic was so tight in her chest―

"Would you like to know, courier?" Vulpes asked, moving a hand to stroke his chin lightly. "About your past?"

"No!" she breathed, before she toppled onto the sand.

Charlie passed out again, but this time she was pretty sure it was from being unable to breathe―