Hello again, everyone! Here's another new old story of mine; I've had this one lying around for ages, and thought it best that I finish it off and upload it. It's kinda based off of the way I played Fallout 3 (yes, I did listen to that tape over and over again), and my explanation for why my character would do so.

So, I must admit that probably half of the words are not mine own, and in fact come from the game. I hope you like it. Also, please point out any mistakes or bits I could improve upon! :)

Disclaimer: the Fallout series is - unfortunately - not my creation.

Reminiscence

Faith sat on a rusty sheet of scrap metal, staring sightlessly into the crackling fire in front of her. The flames cast perpetually flickering shadows over her face; they reflected in her unfocused eyes, which seemed to look through the blaze at something that only she could see.

To her left lay a mostly grey and black dog, his chin resting on his front paws, pointed ears upright. His mismatched eyes were pointed at the ground, though regularly his gaze flickered upward to regard his mistress, who was lost in her thoughts.

Dogmeat – as the dog was so imaginatively called – recognised the look on her face – that wistful, anguished, and slightly lost expression that now was all too often commonplace there.

It was how he knew what she was going to do, even before she fished the holotape out from underneath her armour and slid it into the Pip-Boy 3000 on her wrist. There was a brief pause, where she closed her eyes as if steeling herself, reopened them, and then she pressed a button.

There was a slight hiss and crackle of static, and then the recording began.

"Hold on Jonas, I need to record this first."

Faith closed her eyes, listening to her father saying words that she had heard possibly a hundred times.

"I— I don't really know how to tell you this. I hope you'll understand, but I know you might be angry."

I didn't really have a chance to be angry, dad; otherwise you can bet I would've been, she thought. She had been angry – at first – when Amata had awoken her, told her of how he had left the Vault, and of how her own father had gone mad and was looking for her.

"I thought about it for a long time, but in the end I decided it was best for you not to know. So many things could've gone wrong and there's really no telling how the Overseer will react when he finds out. It's best if he can blame everything on me."

Faith snorted, a little bitterly. "You should've known he wouldn't do that, dad," she murmured to herself, the corners of her mouth curling downwards, her eyelids flickering open. "After all, it wasn't just you he hated..."

"Obviously you already know that I'm gone. It was something I needed to do. You're an adult now. You're ready to be on your own."

Without thinking, she instinctively stretched her left hand down as the recording played on, rested it on Dogmeat's head, and started to scratch behind his ears absentmindedly, her gaze still directed at the fire.

Dogmeat didn't react; he knew that she wouldn't notice any move he made, and that she wasn't doing it for his own enjoyment and pleasure. No, rather it was for comfort, for some assurance – that he wouldn't leave her too.

She had had other companions – friends – along the road; she could hardly tune into the only decent radio frequency that there was, without hearing Three Dog singing her praises, talking about some settlement she had helped (not because she wanted fame or thanks or some such, but because it was the right thing to do), and calling her the 'Saviour of the Wasteland' or a 'Saint' or whatever convoluted, pretentious title he had newly come up with for her (the supposed 'Lone Wanderer') despite the fact that it was an extremely heavy burden to place on the shoulders of someone not even out of her teens; that wasn't the point.

Her companions had left when she had completed what she had set out to do: Project Purity, her father and mother's dream, had been activated, the G.E.C.K working perfectly; the Enclave had been more or less destroyed, thanks to her own efforts and that of the Brotherhood of Steel. And even when they had been around, it had grated on the nerves of more than a few when she would play the tape, purely because she played it quite often.

The image of her sitting with Dogmeat by a fire, just the two of them as she listened to her father, was not something new. Even when others had been with them, they would usually go off as soon as they saw her pull it out. They didn't understand, and she didn't try and make them understand.

She had never voiced the reason for her almost constant playing of the holodisk, but the truth of it was that (ever since her father had died) she was terrified that she would forget him: his face, his voice, every detail that had seemed unimportant and insignificant when he was still living.

"Maybe someday things will change and we can see each other again. I can't tell you why I left or where I'm going. I don't want you to follow me. God knows life in the vault isn't perfect, but at least you'll be safe. Just knowing that will be enough to keep me going."

"I'm sorry, dad, I really am. But I couldn't have done that – life there wasn't safe the moment you left. And yours and mum's dream wouldn't have come true if I hadn't had to leave the vault..."

Here another voice cut in – one that she recognised just as much as that of her father's. He sounded tense, worried, though he seemed to be trying to shrug it off and make light of the situation to dispel the feeling. Just like Jonas, she mused ruefully. It was a shame that no one would be able to laugh at the jokes he made ever again; she still couldn't understand why Officer Mack had shot him. Jonas couldn't have harmed a fly...

"Don't mean to rush you, Doc, but I'd feel better if we got this over with."

"Okay. Go ahead—" her father's voice was a touch fainter here and Faith guessed it was because he turned from the recorder to speak to Jonas "—Goodbye..."

Sharply she sucked in breath and screwed her eyes shut. Even having heard the line a thousand times, she could feel tears pricking at the back of her eyes. She bit down hard on her trembling bottom lip, trying to hold the tears back; an effort which proved to be in vain, as they slowly squeezed out and down her cheeks, quickly becoming a constant stream.

"I love you."

The recording ended there, but those three words just repeated over and over again in her head.

"I love you."

The way he said it – the emphasis on the word 'love' – and also the fact that he clearly had thought that this was the last thing he would get to say to her – if a little indirectly, and not face-to-face: all of that, and the emotion behind the words hit her hard, and it wasn't long before she was sobbing her heart out, just as she had the first time she had listened to the tape, after stepping out into a new, strange, and cruel world.

Sometimes Faith wondered what Three Dog and everyone else who idolised her would think if they saw her like this. It would be vastly different from the strong, virtuous woman they likely all imagined. But the truth of it – the reality was that she was just a nineteen year old girl who had lost the only family member she knew, the man who had been her rock, and had had to do the job of both a father and a mother, and who was also in a place that she still found terrifying and impossible to comprehend.

Dogmeat took his cue from her crying and sat up, shuffling over slightly to be within close reach. He nosed her side and Faith quickly wrapped her arms around him, burying her face into his neck. And though his fur got wet and it wasn't the most comfortable sensation, he stayed sitting there for her whilst she needed some comfort.

Because, though everyone else had left her, he would never abandon his master.