A/N: You can bet they'll be back. :D

I might be horribly insensitive, but I think there's something hilarious about a brutal dictator like Fallout: New Vegas' Caesar getting cancer. Karma?

The Fort

"…Arcade, is anyone looking over here?" Meda asked as they walked away from Fortification Hill.

"You mean aside from the dozens of Legionaries and their dogs and the slaves?" the Followers doctor asked sarcastically. "No."

"Obviously, they're jealous of the fact that you're taller than any of them." Veronica cut in brightly. "Anyway, we're due to go Fiend hunting in a bit, so hurry up."

As to what, exactly, they were supposed to be hurrying for…

In the week since dealing with Mortimer and the White Glove Society, the courier had mostly been going on solo missions. Well, in the sense that she generally was running around Freeside with only ED-E or Rex as an escort. It was kind of worrying to have her gone—mostly because her companions were (rightly) convinced that she wouldn't survive without them for too long—but she inevitably returned after helping the Freeside addicts or running errands for the King, or something similar.

So when she came back and announced that she was going to head out east, Arcade was convinced that it was just an overdue return to her insanity. But, as it turned out, she was more than making up for lost time.

Visiting Fortification Hill? He'd given her an earful about that once he realized where they were going (granted, only once they arrived under escort from Legionaries, Jesus Christ), but she'd said something about listening to what the man had to say and then leaving as fast as possible. Which…he supposed he could understand, if what he knew about Meda was true. She was weirdly inquisitive even about things and people she was going to kill in the near future.

Or maybe that was where it came from…

Veronica seemed to find it all kind of funny, once the initial shock wore off. And after Meda emerged from Caesar's tend unharmed.

And after Meda, for some reason she didn't bother to explain, decided to upgrade all of the Securitrons instead of blowing them up like the knife-wielding maniacs outside wanted them to. But she seemed to think it wouldn't matter, and it didn't.

After presumably lying through her teeth and telling Caesar that the bunker of Securitrons was indeed in little bits instead of equipped with shiny new rocket launchers, they left. Aside from the trip back to Cottonwood Cove, where no one talked because the Legion boatman happened to be there, it seemed almost as though the meeting with Caesar didn't happen at all.

But when they were far enough away from Cottonwood Cove (and therefore all the psychopaths that lived there), Meda started giggling.

"What's so funny?" Arcade asked irritably—because, seriously, they'd just barely avoided being doused in tar and set on fire or crucified or any number of other horrible deaths. Which might have been why she was laughing, actually—anxiety did funny things to people's heads.

"Did it really take you this long to get something Caesar said?" Veronica quipped.

Meda blinked, looking at each of them in turn. "Actually, no. More like something that concerns Caesar that he hasn't got yet but I can't make fun of him to his face for."

…Explanation imminently necessary. He was not going to try and decipher the courier's haphazard approach to syntax before lunch. Particularly if she wanted to make all her words run together because she was just that excited. "I hope you're planning on slowing down and explaining that to those of us who happen not to have holes in our heads."

Meda frowned briefly, but it was gone when she shrugged right afterward. "Actually, it's pretty simple. You know how the Legion banned most medical technology?"

"Yeah," Veronica said, "though pretty much everyone thinks it's a pretty stupid move—that perfectly suits a bunch of slaving jerkwads like them."

"But yes, we do know about the ban. I doubt there are many people who don't." Arcade cut in, hoping that Veronica wouldn't drive the conversation too far off-topic. "What about it?"

"Well…" Meda paused. "Okay, you know how I was born NCR and help out the Followers a lot?"

"Yes." Arcade replied, wondering where this was going.

"I used to be a member of the Followers. Only for about three years, though." Meda scratched the back of her head. "And my dad died of lung cancer when I was twenty." She paused again. "But before that, I took him to the Followers and we all tried to help him out using the pre-War methods. You know, chemotherapy?"

The phrase "not good" had been bouncing around enthusiastically in Arcade's head for a few seconds—mostly because father issues were one area he didn't want to touch, ever—but he was also curious. Still, he dutifully rattled off, "I know that it worked for some pre-War cancers if the mutation wasn't particularly stubborn, and that it was heavily based on the idea that enough radiation could kill even cancer cells while sparing the rest. And that before the bombs fell, it wasn't quite as common, though there were carcinogens everywhere. And one of the side effects...was…" He stopped. "Oh, you're joking."

"Nope." Meda's grin was, again, a thing of evil.

"I'm missing something." Veronica said, looking slightly put out that she didn't get it immediately.

Arcade almost couldn't believe it. "Caesar has cancer. You're sure about this?"

"Pretty damn sure. Though I don't know what type—wait, maybe…" Meda stopped, clearly thinking something over.

"So the guy who won't let any of his followers use medicine tried using medicine anyway? See, this is what I was saying about them being a bunch of jerkwads with no good points. At all." Veronica summed up. "But how do you know he has cancer?"

"He's completely bald." Meda replied. "I know it doesn't seem like much, but Caesar should at least have eyebrows if it was normal." She grinned. "Combine that with what Silus said about delaying their plans because of 'headaches' and the broken Auto-Doc I saw in his tent…"

"…Oh, that's beautiful." Veronica said gleefully.

Arcade decided to be the one to inject some sense into the conversation. "But whether he has a type of brain tumor or not, it won't change the timetable for the Legion attacking the Dam. And while I imagine the NCR higher-ups would find it amazingly ironic and probably rather funny, it also doesn't mean they get any relief from Legion attacks in the meantime."

"Oh, I know." Meda said, still smirking at the thought of Caesar's misery. "But I think…we could send a message."

When she got that look on her face… "How many tons of dynamite are we talking about?" Arcade asked.

"Oh, we might not even need any. I'm making this up as I go along."

Veronica sighed, but not like she was annoyed, and said, "Just like old times, then? We'd better go grab Boone. He won't want to miss this."

"I'd think he'd think the Caesar thing was funny, if his sense of humor wasn't totally nonexistent." Meda replied.

Arcade made a mental note to start packing extra stimpaks as soon as they got back to the Strip. Whatever the courier planned, it was probably going to involve at least someone ending up dead.