Well, I finally found myself with enough free time that I could hammer out all the boring, tedious, mind-numbing minutiae that is turning a regular NPC into a companion.
Lacie (pictured above and subject to facial tweaks and edits at my discretion) now functions on that base level. She'll follow you, switch from guns to melee, all that good stuff. Hooray.
So, where does that leave the project? Well, right now, writing. Just because Lacie functions doesn't mean she has any dialogue, so that's the next step. My plan is to periodically hammer a few lines out whenever I get a break between work gigs.