Christine seemed to get even smaller - if that was possible - once they were on the Strip. The crowds of people, laughing and yelling, music spilling out of the casino doors, and the securitrons trying to somehow keep order were overwhelming. She walked close behind Veronica as the Courier steered them through the crowds.

She left a message at reception to contact Cass and ask her to meet them, then shepherded everyone into the elevator of the Lucky 38 and hit the button for the top floor.

"What the goddamn hell was that?" asked Christine.

The Courier grinned. "Vegas. You get used to it. I'm just glad people are coming back."

"Is it always like this?" Christine asked, subdued.

"When everything's running properly, yes," she said. "Which, fortunately, seems to be the case. At the moment."

The elevator stopped at the penthouse suite. "So what I figured," said the Courier. "Is we get all dressed up here, and then head out. Sound good?"

"Dress up?" Christine sounded hesitant.

"It's fun!" said Veronica.

The Courier had thrown open her wardrobe and was tossing clothes over the back of the sofa next to it. "You don't have to," she said. "But I will be. I assume Ronnie will be, because when does she ever avoid an opportunity to dress up?"

Veronica laughed.

Christine picked up a faded brocade dress with a rose print on it. "This?" she asked, dubiously.

The Courier looked up briefly. "Go for it," she said. Christine went to the bathrooms to get changed.

"Did you take this off Vera's actual skeleton?" Veronica asked, holding up the dress from Vera's hotel room.

The Courier backed out of the closet. "It's washed," she said defensively. "You thought I'd just leave something like that there?"

"It just seems... odd. I don't know. Kind of like it still belongs to her." Veronica touched the silk rose at the hip gently.

"Why don't you wear it?" The Courier asked. "Pretty sure you'd look amazing."

"You don't want to?" Veronica held the dress a little closer.

"It's a statement dress," she replied, holding up a long white dress from the Ultra-Luxe. "I don't feel like making a statement tonight. You wear it. But if you try to take that shit back to the bunker I'll throw you in jail. Once I build one."

She poured three glasses of wine, handed one to Veronica, and put the last one on the table.

Christine walked back out, still wearing her combat boots.

"If anyone can pull off 'bald, pretty dress, and big black boots, it's you," said Veronica.

"It does actually kind of all fall together quite well," said the Courier. "Your turn, Ronnie."

Veronica seemed to take forever, but finally emerged from the bathroom nervously, wearing Vera's dress. Her shoulders were hunched protectively, but the dress looked stunning.

"You need to take that damn hood off," said Christine. "It looks ridiculous."

"She's kind of right," agreed the Courier. "I've got a feathery hat thing you can wear instead, if you want. It pins to your hair."

Veronica looked at it dubiously.

"Go on," said Christine. "You look so pretty with your hair out."

Veronica smiled nervously and took the offered hat, removing the hood and fixing it to her hair.

"I have some makeup in a box in the drawer," she said, taking her own dress to the bathroom to change. "Some charcoal thing for your eyes and red waxy shit to put on your lips, I don't know. Use what you like."

Having changed, the Courier looked into the mirror. She almost didn't recognise herself. Her hair was getting long again, which was irritating, but she was past the point of being able to hack at her own hair with any sharp thing she could find in order to stop it getting in her eyes. She examined her features in the reflection. Was that what they'd always looked like? Would she even notice if anything changed? She turned away, disturbed, and headed back out to the main room.

Boone came in while the three of them were crowded around the mirror. He took a step back, warily, then nodded at Christine.

"Hey!" the Courier turned, half-finished, one eye smudged with black and the other bare. "We're going dancing! Wanna come out?"

"No," he said carefully.

"It'll be fun?"

"Mm-hmm," he said. "Still no. You have fun."

"Fine," she said. "You know, I remember the days when you used to follow me everywhere without even asking where we were going."

He laughed quietly. "Different priorities."

"Your loss," she shrugged, and turned back to the mirror.

They met Cass at the casino floor. "Shit," she said. "If I'd known you were all going to dress right up I'd have made an effort at least."

The walls of the reception area of Flaming Star were completely covered in mirrors, which the Courier was grateful for, because the four of them made a goddamn fantastic-looking group. They passed the casino floor and headed to the back room.

One of the Kings was on stage, crooning into the microphone. Behind him was the band. There an elaborate machine that the Courier finally recognised as a drumset she'd seen in old pictures; a huge double bass, and a bass guitar. She stared. Where had they managed to find those?

They sat at a table near the corner and waved a waitress over, dressed in a sweater, poodle skirt, and white socks, to take their drinks orders.

"This is insane!" Christine said, raising her voice over the sound of the band. "I've only seen stuff like this in holotapes."

"It's the greatest place on earth," said the Courier. "Anything you want, you can get it here."

"That a good thing?" she asked.

"Better than most everywhere else, I hear."

By the time the waitress had brought the fourth round of drinks the table was getting rowdier.

"Did you know Mr. New Vegas isn't an actual person at all?" the Courier asked.

"Wait, what?" Cass stared. "What do you mean isn't an actual person?"

"I mean that he's like..." she searched for the right way to put it. "Like a robot without the body. Just a computer program. Doesn't exist."

Christine looked at them blankly. "Who are you even talking about?"

The Courier took another swallow of her drink. "He's the voice you hear on the radio. House had a really complex system where the program would write its own news stories based on voice snippets that got picked up by the securitrons. Emily's working on that, but... there are more important things that need to be done first."

Veronica was staring at her incredulously. "I don't even believe you."

"Tell me about it. That voice got me through some lonely nights, if you know what I mean," the Courier said. Cass almost choked with laughter.

"I'm not sure I want to," she said. "But I'll assume it's dirty."

"Always a good assumption." The Courier finished her drink.

Christine touched Veronica gently on the arm. "Let's go dance!"

Veronica half-stood, then turned back to the Courier. "You coming?"

The Courier was about to stand up, but a firm hand under the table around her wrist held her down.

"Nah, we'll sit this one out," said Cass. "There's drinking to be done. You kids go on."

They watched as they walked to the floor.

"They're adorable," said Cass. "Dear god."

"I know, right? I can't figure out what's going to happen, though. Christine broke up with Ronnie originally because of Elijah," the Courier explained. "Now he's dead, I'm not sure which way Christine's going to go."

Cass snorted. "Yeah. Brotherhood's into forced gender stereotypes, right? Bet you can't break brainwashing like that too easily."

They watched the pair dancing. There was a familiarity to their movements, a sense of comfortableness with each other. A hand on the other's back, a brief touching of fingertips.

"So cute," hissed Cass.

"Hey."

Startled, they both turned their heads to see a King standing at the table next to her. He looked familiar, but then again, they all kind of looked like each other.

"Hello," she said, slowly, trying to place him.

"It's Tommy," he said.

"Oh yeah!" she exclaimed. "You helped out with the fires back when we took the power out. Hey, good job, why don't you sit down?"

He shook his head. "Listen to me," he said. "Quickly. There's been some trouble about you pressuring the King, okay? Not everyone is happy with it. This isn't a good place for you to be right now."

The Courier felt the hair on the back of her neck start to rise. No gun. No bodyguards. Wearing the flimsiest of dresses.

"Fuck," she growled. "Are my friends safe?"

"Yeah. Probably a good idea if you left, though."

"Got it." She stood up. Cass did too.

"You don't have to leave," the Courier said. "Stay. Have fun."

"Like fuck," Cass said. "I don't wanna be looking over my shoulder all night. Or sitting at this table drinking alone. Jesus. We're getting you out of here, then I'll come back for the girls."

Tommy walked close behind her as they headed to the exit. He paused under the archway.

"The King sent me to get you out safely," he said. "He wants to deal with this in-house."

"Well okay," she said. "But I-"

She was cut off by a loud crack, and then Tommy fell into her. She stumbled, teetering on her heels, before Cass grabbed her arm and yanked her behind the cover of a wall.

She could hear Tommy groaning, a bright red bloodstain spreading over his shoulder. She kicked her heels off, hiked up her dress, and leaned out into the open towards him, grasping the pistol tucked into the back of his trousers.

"You armed?" she asked Cass.

"Of course I'm fucking armed," she snapped. "Why the fuck you ever give anyone all your weapons is beyond me."

The Courier rolled her eyes, tying the fabric of her dress into a knot high on her hip to keep it from tangling her legs. "Shot came from the balcony," she said. "So that's where we're going."

"Wouldn't it be easier to just fucking leave?" Cass said, incredulously. "We're right here. Send someone else in to sort this shit out."

The Courier shook her head. "Nah. If someone takes a shot at me, we hit him hard, we hit him fast. I gotta show I can take care of it, or else everyone will be doing it. Now, come on."

She ran out of cover and ducked behind a pillar carpeted in red velvet. No one shot at her, so she started moving again, low to the ground, past casino tables and nervous punters and even crawled under the baby grand piano near the corner.

The Kings hadn't made any structural changes to the casino, and she knew the old layout of Gomorrah well. She rounded the corner back into the room with the stage, gun outstretched, and came face-to-face with the King. She stood there a moment, breathing heavily, before raising the pistol.

"I can take it from here, ma'am," he said.

"Bullshit," she said, with a little less conviction than she was really feeling. "I can't just let this go." She was acutely aware that her dress was tied up not only messily, but verging on indecently high. She bit her lip viciously, trying to fight a mortifying blush.

"I know," he said. "It's inexcusable. He will be punished."

Cass had caught up, and was eyeing the King with a lot less patience than the Courier. Veronica and Christine were standing next to her.

"Come on," said Cass. "Let's get him."

"Punished how?" the Courier asked.

The King sighed. "We've been talking about a jailhouse. When it's all fixed up, he can be the first resident. I can't let this happen in my house, ma'am, any more than you can let it happen in yours."

She straightened up. "Fine," she said, and handed him the pistol. She turned on her heel, and walked with as much dignity as she could muster back towards the exit.

"Okay, what?" Cass was nearly running to keep up. "You just said-"

"I can't challenge him in his place. Too many Kings," she said, but her heart wasn't in it. She picked her shoes up. Tommy was sitting in the corner, the receptionist attempting to take the bullet out with a pair of tweezers. She waved at him half-heartedly. "Just take the girls to the Tops, okay? I'm going home."

The elevator rose in silence. When the door opened, the Courier threw her shoes off the balcony towards the wardrobe. Boone looked up.

"You're back early," he said, standing up. His rifle was in pieces on the table in front of him. He took a step towards her. "Is that blood?"

The Courier looked down to see a red smear down one side of the dress. "Not mine," she said bitterly.

"What's wrong?"

"Nothing. Trouble with the Kings. Doesn't matter. Kiss me."

He did.

The next morning, she woke up with one of Boone's arms under her neck and the other curled across her stomach. She blinked at him in the early morning light, and just for a moment, her heart felt so full it seemed like it might burst.

This chapter actually physically hurt to write. I can only hope it wasn't as painful to read. New direction next chapter!