Veronica hummed to herself as she hit the elevator button for the presidential suite. She had a new technical manual to go through and a Nuka-Cola Quartz under her arm. She'd also found a trashy romance novel that was juuust thin enough to hide in the other book. All she had to do was threaten everyone against drinking her Nuke while it chilled in the fridge.

She was just at the point where she could look at a Quartz and not get angry; right after House had died, she'd ordered two dozen from the room service terminal in the Presidential Suite. Usually securitrons would deliver whatever was ordered within an hour, but it never came. Layla hadn't found the exact reason, but eventually declared it to be one of the other many systems of House's that had stopped working when they'd taken him offline.

Not getting the Nukes wasn't a problem, it was that the money had already been deposited in the terminal and couldn't be refunded. She'd come damn close to punching the machine in.

Shaking the thought away, she decided to let it go. It was going to be a nice, quiet evening, and she wasn't going to let House ruin it from the grave. As the elevator door opened, she got the feeling she was mistaken about her evening.

Boone, Cass and Arcade stood in the hallway, all looking worried. Veronica was about to ask what was wrong when she heard a loud thud from Layla's room.

"What was that?" she cried. The others turned her way, and she noticed they had all adopted a similar awkward look.

"What?" she asked again. Arcade cleared his throat.

"I think Layla should tell you," he answered.

"Oh that's real mature," Cass grumbled.

"I don't want her to hit me," he said defensively, glancing at Veronica's powerfist. "Layla asked to see you when you got in anyway."

There was another loud thud and what sounded like crashing in the master bedroom, and Veronica paused. She looked Boone's way.

"Uh, wanna come with?"

"No thanks," he answered.

"Oh come on," the scribe cried, grabbing the sniper by the wrist and dragging him to the bedroom door. She knocked gingerly.

"Layla?" Her voice was drowned out by another crash, and Veronica opened the door.

"Sic semper tyrannosaurus!" Layla cried as she threw her dinky toy at the wall. Veronica looked around the room. It didn't look trashed at all, but the scribe noticed a dent in the wall roughly at fist-level.

The Courier turned their way and stopped. Veronica had never seen Layla this angry before, ever. She was clearly livid, but her expression softened as she saw them, and she looked embarrassed.

"What happened?" the scribe asked. Layla glanced up to Boone.

"Did anyone tell her anything?" she asked.

"No," he answered.

She nodded, then looked to Veronica. The Courier took a deep breath, then started speaking rapidly.

"We went for our next assignment from Colonel Moore."

"And?" the scribe prompted.

"She asked that we blow up the Hidden Valley and destroy the Mojave chapter of the Brotherhood of Steel."

Veronica stared at her. "… What?"

Layla sighed again and sat on her bed. She started rubbing her right hand, which Veronica noticed was reddened.

"Moore wants all potential problems dealt with before the war comes to a head. She's got half an idea of where the Brotherhood is, and I guess a ranger went missing in the area. So she wants me to find them and 'kill them to the last man.'"

Veronica felt her stomach start churning. "What are you going to do?" she sputtered.

"I don't know," Layla groaned. "Fucking hell. God damn fucking hell." she searched around the floor for a moment and found the dino toy again. "This is why I killed House, remember?" She threw the toy at the wall again. It bounced off with a thud.

"If you don't do something-" Boone started before Layla interrupted.

"I know, I know, she'll get someone else. This is sounding way too familiar and I don't like it." she put her head in her hands for a moment.

"Okay," she finally looked up, "I'm not doing anything about it for now. I've got to think, get out of here for a while." she stood, "I might go talk with Colonel Hsu…"

"Do you think he can come up with something?" Veronica asked.

"No." Layla frowned. "I don't think this something we'll be able to just skirt around, but I need to talk to a NCR officer I actually like." She shook her head, and stood, "I won't do anything about the Brotherhood without letting you know."

"Why don't I go with you now?"

"I'm going alone," the Courier answered, throwing her backpack over her shoulder. "I need to think." Veronica noticed Boone give her a concerned look, and Layla turned his way before he could speak.

"I'll be okay, just going to ride the monorail over and back," she said.

"Layla…"

"Don't 'Layla' me. I'll be fine," she growled, then left the room before anyone could stop her. Veronica and Boone followed and found Raul blocking the Courier's way to the elevator.

"Where are you going at this hour?" he asked.

"Out." Layla frowned. "Please get out of the way."

"Boss, you're upset. And you're not so good at defending yourself when you are."

"Raul…" There was that 'leader' tone. It was normally very effective, but the ghoul looked unimpressed.

"Listen," he started, appropriating his own stern tone. "You're not thinking clearly. And that's a perfect time for anyone to come along and snatch you up or take you out."

"I can take care of myself." Layla was starting to sound angry.

"Normally, I'd agree," the Raul answered, "but you don't even have a gun in your holster."

Layla looked down at her hip, then back up a the ghoul.

"… Fine, you can come."

"I'm going too," Boone said, and Layla groaned.

*.*.*

"I can't help but think you're upset about something," Colonel Hsu said as Layla glowered at his desk. She'd come into his office on the pretense of checking up on the camp, but she couldn't get Moore out of her head. Now she was just trying not to take it out on any random person wearing a NCR uniform.

Looking up at him, she sighed as she caught sight of his expression. If Layla had to describe Colonel Hsu in one word, it would be 'understanding.' He merely gave her a slight smile, and she got the feeling he knew at least some of her problem already.

"Things going well at Hoover Dam?" he asked, confirming that suspicion.

"Just wonderful," Layla grumbled. "Let's just say I'm taking a break from helping Moore while I figure out how to not commit treason around her."

Hsu laughed at that. "I hear that's a hard charge to avoid with her."

"So how are things around here?" she asked, deciding to change the subject. "Calm without the Fiends running rampant?"

"Definitely a lot better. I suspect a lot of our troubles came from Curtis as well." Layla nodded. The frumentarius had been working unopposed for quite a while before she and Boone had stepped in.

"The current hot button is the ranger stations," he continued.

"Oh?" Layla asked, then bit her lip. "Oh no, not like Charlie…"

"No, nothing that bad yet," Hsu said, grimacing. The Ranger station near Novac had been overrun by Legionaries months ago. Layla had gone to check on it, only to find it torn apart and the only survivor captured.

"They've been facing a lot of trouble, and supplies haven't been getting to them like they should. I've asked Sergeant Reyes at Forlorn Hope to look into it. Something about the whole situation isn't right."

Layla frowned. She'd delivered the updated comm frequencies for Sergeant Reyes earlier when she'd first detected trouble with the intel getting passed to the Rangers. The soldier had hoped the change would improve communications, but clearly it hadn't. She didn't like the sound of any of this. Standing, she adjusted her straps on her armor.

"I'll go take a look," she said, and Hsu smiled.

"Thought you might. Just be careful."

"Oh, I'm always careful."

*.*.*

"No, there weren't any god damned Legionary Super Mutants. The Legion doesn't have any mutants!" Ranger Pason all but shouted at Layla. The Courier smiled despite his outburst.

"We didn't really think that sounded right, either." The Ranger looked irritated, and she continued. "Do you have any clue how this report could have come up? Something that could have been misconstrued as mutants?"

"If there was, it wasn't from our end. That squad got taken out because of stupidity. They were goofing around with grenades and blew themselves to hell. No mutants, nothing that even sounded like mutants was mentioned."

The Courier bit her lip. That was more troubling than relieving. They'd agreed to check up on the weird reports Sergeant Reyes had been getting from Camp Golf about the ranger stations. They'd been as tame as too much ammo going to Bravo and as ridiculous as the Great Khans using trained Deathclaws at Foxtrot.

Shaking her head, Layla looked back to Pason. "Thanks for the help. Hopefully we'll get to the bottom of this."

"Just make sure no one thinks I'm spreading these stories about super mutant Legionaries," the man grumbled back.

*.*.*

"Well, that was interesting," Layla mused as she, Raul and Boone started back down Mt. Charleston later that day. "We definitely need to talk with Reyes again."

"What? Just because someone from Ranger HQ is sending fake, ridiculous reports, doesn't mean trouble." Raul replied.

"I can't understand why someone's doing this," the Courier continued. "It's too bizarre to be Legion." Glancing at Boone and Raul, she saw them both shrug in response.

"Gotta use the little ghoul's room," Raul said a moment later, ducking behind a rock while Layla and Boone came to a stop.

There was something very wrong about all this, the Courier mused while waiting. Reyes had shown her the reports, they'd come from Golf, but so many had been inaccurate. They were either misleading or insane. They were going to have to figure out what was going on-

She jumped when Boone snapped of a few shots, taking out a giant mantis she hadn't seen. Layla watched as Boone slung his rifle. He caught her looking and stared back for a moment.

"What?" he eventually asked, sounding suspicious.

"Let me fire your rifle." She'd been curious about the huge rifle she'd gotten Boone for Christmas ever since she'd laid eyes on it. As for the sniper, whatever he'd been expecting her to say, it hadn't been that. Now he stared at her, long enough for her to put her hands on her hips.

"Come on! Please?" She stuck out her lower lip and batted her eyelashes at him. She'd done it overly exaggerated, but she knew it'd work. He sighed, pulling the anti-materiel rifle from his back. Looking around, he pointed further down the path.

"There's another mantis…" He handed her the gun, and she nearly tipped over when he let go of its weight. She let out a nervous laugh and raised the gun awkwardly to eye level, looking through the scope. The huge insect was scuttling near a set of boulders several yards away from them. The Courier tried to track it, but found moving the rifle made her unsteady on her feet.

"You're going to kill yourself," she heard Boone say and looked up from the scope to find him moving closer. "Here, hold it up again."

Raising the rifle again in the mantis's direction, she peeked through the scope. As she did, Boone stepped behind her and moved her hands to a more natural position, which pressed her shoulder into the butt of the gun. The sniper then put his arms around her, hands moving to hold the rifle next to hers.

"Give yourself enough room from the scope, or you'll knock your eye out." She immediately moved her head back. "Good. Now you've got to track your target smoothly."

"Okay." With his hands keeping the rifle steady, she aimed at the huge bug and moved the rifle as it skittered about.

"Breathe in, and midway through your exhale, pull the trigger."

"Okay." She felt him brace his arms for the shot and she tracked the mantis again. As she breathed out, she fired. The resulting boom was deafening, and the recoil knocked her back into Boone's chest, but the mantis exploded into green mist. She let out a whoop in response, giggling.

She then suddenly realized she was pressed into Boone with his arms tightly around her. She got the feeling he realized it too by the way he'd stiffened just marginally. It was at about that moment she caught sight of Raul coming back.

The ghoul merely looked at the pair, slowly shaking his head as they hastily untangled from each other.

"Don't worry on my account. You two can go back to whatever that was…" he said to Layla, who was blushing pretty badly. Boone was trying to look busy giving the area a careful scan for hostiles.

"I, we were… you know," Layla stuttered. "There was no-"

"Get down!" Boone barked suddenly, grabbing the Courier and pulled her to one of the nearby boulders. Just as she was about to ask what was wrong, she heard gunfire from further down the path. Peeking around the rock, she saw a pack of Legionaries. Raul, who was on the other side of he road behind his own boulder, started returning fire.

Layla had to duck down as she saw what she was pretty sure was a centurion spot her and start firing in her direction.

"Hey! They're shooting at us…" Layla said, perplexed.

"I noticed, boss," Raul grumbled, leaning over his rock and firing again.

"But… the bounty-" A legionary appeared above her and Boone, standing on top of the boulder they were pressed against.

"The Legate has marked you for death!" he announced. Layla gaped at the proclamation. The man started to bring his gun to bear, but Boone swung his machete, cutting his foot off at the ankle. Screaming, the man toppled over the other side of the rock.

Before she could recover, there was the sound of gunfire from behind their position and a grunt of pain from Boone.

Turning, she found two other assassins had come up from behind. Layla quickly pulled a grenade from her bag and threw it their way, then shot her .45 in their direction, hoping to distract them until the explosive detonated. The resulting boom threw dirt at them and had pulped the Legionaries.

Hearing Boone groan, she finally looked his way and gasped. There were two bullet wounds in his side. Ducking back down behind their boulder, she took a closer look. One looked like it had hit muscle and gone clean through his side. The other one may have hit his intestines. That was something she couldn't operate on by herself and definitely couldn't be addressed while they were still getting shot at.

"Shit shit shit," she grumbled, then called over the rock, "Raul, keep them busy."

"That was the plan, boss," came from the other side of the road as Layla pressed Boone's hands against his wounds, then hunkered down and frantically rooted through her bag. The sniper leaned heavily against the boulder as she did, looking pale.

"You still with me, Boone?" she asked as he started sliding down the rock.

"Yeah," came his hazy reply. He was sitting on the ground now. Layla pulled the NCR emergency radio from her bag and flipped it on. She wasn't entirely sure where the signal was going, but she seemed to remember it was a general frequency. Hopefully the rangers up the mountain had the code as well as their specific frequencies.

"Hello? Station Foxtrot, this is Layla. We've been ambushed by Legionaries at the bottom of the mountain. Please send help. We've got wounded."

"Do they usually answer?" Raul called over as he reloaded. Looking ahead of their position again, the Courier frowned at the remaining five Legionaries.

"Most of the time…" She ducked down as more gunfire peppered her rock. "I hope this time too."

She heard Raul swear after another round of fire and found him clutching his left arm. He caught her looking his way and shrugged.

"Just a flesh wound… 'Course I've got no skin…"

"How bad is it bleeding?" Layla called to him as she threw her last grenade. She cursed her spotty aim with explosives as the grenade went off and the Legionaries kept firing.

"It's not good," came a strained reply.

"Well that's just great." She thought she heard something behind her and turned, hoping the rangers at Foxtrot had come for them. Instead, she found a super sledge swinging for her head.

"Gah!" Barely dodging out of the way, she fired at the assassin. The shot went wide, and he swung again. Layla didn't move fast enough and the weapon glanced off her leg. Some part of her mind was thankful it had only been a minor hit, but it still managed to knock her down.

Her attacker lifted the hammer to swing again, but a shot from Boone's direction knocked him off his feet. Before he could get up, a bumper sword nearly cleaved him in two.

"Lily!" Layla cried, relieved as she saw the super mutant pull her blade free and rush for the remaining Legionaries. Behind her were Kudlow and the rest of the rangers from Foxtrot. Layla caught Raul's relieved expression as he ducked down and let the others take out the remaining assassins.

"Stay down, dear," Lily bellowed to her, and Layla could hear surprised screams coming from the assassins.

Layla hobbled back over to Boone, who was definitely unconscious now. Blood poured from his side, and the Courier quickly pressed her hands against the wounds. She wasn't exactly sure how he'd managed to fire at the Legionary attacking her, but didn't dwell on it.

"Are you guys done yet?" she called to the rangers and Lily over the sounds of screams. They needed to get Boone help. He wouldn't last much longer if he kept bleeding this badly.

"Yeah," Kudlow said, appearing at her side a moment later. "Is he still alive?"

"Yes," Layla snapped, a little harsher than she'd meant to, "but he's lost a lot of blood."

"We'll get him to Doctor Henry," Lily said as she made her way to them. Moving past the ranger, she bent down and scooped Boone up, and spoke in a calm, commanding tone to Kudlow, "Cover our backs, they may have left traps."

"We've got to hurry," Layla said as she picked up his rifle and slung it over her back.

The super mutant nodded and started running up the mountain, the others following close behind.

*.*.*

Boone was acutely aware of pain lancing down his side as he felt the world coming back to him. Opening his eyes, he found a group of people looking over him. He recognized the rangers from Foxtrot. A moment later, Layla's grinning face came into view.

"Well, Boone, that's a new record for you," she said. "You shot a Legionary while unconscious."

"Huhn?" He tried to sit up, but Doc Henry appeared and put a hand on his shoulder, stopping him. He finally recognized where he was, the ski lodge in Jacobstown.

"Lie still, son, you've lost a lot of blood. We're about to give you another transfusion."

"I'm looking forward to 'peppy Boone' personally." Layla grinned at Henry, then looked back down at the sniper. "Transfusions usually add a little jump in your step."

"Raul?" Boone asked, figuring the ghoul was okay by Layla's demeanor.

"Right here." The ghoul's face appeared over him now. "That was real impressive back there. Of course, you nearly hit Layla…"

"Don't take away his shining moment in oblivion," Layla said, then smiled back down at him. "The most I ever do while I'm out cold is drool."

"How is he, dear?" Boone heard Lily call from somewhere further away.

"He's awake," Layla answered, and a moment later the super mutant was now in his crowded view.

"Oh good. We were worried," she said. "You got blood everywhere."

"She and Kudlow saved our bacon," Layla explained. "I guess that emergency radio signal goes just about everywhere."

"Thanks," Boone croaked at the super mutant and the rangers. He swallowed; it felt like he'd eaten sandpaper before passing out.

"Think nothing of it, dear," Lily answered. "I'll go put some soup on," she said as she disappeared from his view. Boone noticed Layla watch her go and caught the exhausted look that flashed across her face for a moment.

"You okay?" he asked, and the Courier smiled down at him.

"I'm not the one who got a few new holes punched in them recently. It was pretty touch and go for a few minutes there…"

"Still alive," he answered, and she gave him a wry grin. "You look worn-out too," he continued.

"You're a real smooth talker with the ladies," Raul said to that, and Layla laughed.

"At least he didn't say I look like a jet whore. I'll get some sleep once we've got you settled."

"He's in the clear, but none of you are going anywhere tonight," Doc Henry admonished.

"We'll start up again in the morning," Layla said, holding her hands up placatingly, "Everyone just needs a good night's sleep. Some of us need two bags of blood. But mostly just sleep."

"I think we're going to have to be more careful when we move out," Raul said thoughtfully. "Looks like Lanius isn't shopping for a bride anymore."

"They're definitely trying to kill us now…" Boone rasped.

"Yeah, I'm afraid the good times are over," Layla responded while putting on the sniper's sunglasses and hat. "You go ahead and sleep, I'm gonna go impersonate you while you're recuperating."

Boone thought about demanding his beret back, but found himself too tired to care.

"Let me aim that for you next time," he heard Layla say to Raul in a gruff voice as he closed his eyes.

Hope you enjoyed the new chapter! As for the questions posed by two of my reviewers: Atlan, it will be very apparent as to which of the stories coming will cover Lonesome Road. And Black Muse, there isn't going to be any stories that just cover Gun Runners Arsonel or Courier's Stash, but some of the items will show up here and there. In fact (as I've always had the Classic Pack) I wrote in an item for a later story months ago.

10/17/11 - Sorry kids, looks like I'm going to have to postpone the next update until Saturday. I'm really busy with work this week and falling asleep at the keyboard doesn't make for a good chapter. :s