Disclaimer: All characters and settings belong to Bethesda.

The Railroad is on its last legs after the attack on Switchboard. After hearing some rumors about the Institute's activities around an abandon vault, Deacon goes there to investigate. What he finds there sparks his curiosity – a woman two centuries out of time.

Project Wanderer

Chapter One: Ghost of Yesterday

The sun was shining from the clear blue sky. No rain, no radiation storm, not even a cloud in sight. The gentle wind was a nice touch, cooling the sunburnt skin on his arms as a man with sunglasses leaned back on the chair with his hands laced behind his head. All in all, it was a perfect day for outdoor activities. And what he was doing certainly counted as one.

Stakeout.

Sitting under a tree on top of a gentle hill, Deacon lazily reached for a pair of binoculars and scanned the area below. Nothing. No signs of any movements, except for a few birds landed on the dirt patch, pecking at the dead grass to find some worms or nuts, or whatever the hell they ate.

Things were quiet, as they should be. After all, the ruin below had been long abandoned. Two centuries, to be exact. Nothing left but two empty trailers, rusty cars, skeletons of those who'd perished when the big one dropped. The center piece, of course, was a giant, circular concrete pad on the ground – the entrance of Vault 111. That was his target.

Putting down the binoculars, Deacon opened the cooler on the small table and grabbed a certain content from within. Fancy Lads Snack Cakes. No, he didn't have sweet tooth, nor did he find a big delight in every bite like their billboards would suggest. But it'd become a habit to have one every once in a while. Because it reminded him of Barbara.

His wife. The woman he loved the most. The most beautiful and amazing woman... who had been murdered because of him.

Barbara used to love these cakes.

Deacon took a bite. It tasted as stale as he remembered. Perhaps these junk foods used to be as good as it'd been advertised two centuries ago. Perhaps everything was simply much better before the bomb dropped. The old world, with its books and magazines, musics and gadgets, fancy outfits and beautiful women. Unlike some aspects of his life, his love for all things pre-war was not exactly a secret. Those antiques reminded him there was once a better time, a better place. Sometimes, he wished he were born two centuries earlier. Then, maybe Barbara would still be alive...

Deacon shoved the remaining cake into his mouth in one big bite, and swallowed his daydream along with the sickeningly sweet lump of sugary flour. Forcing himself back to his duty, Deacon stood and stretched, reaching for the binoculars once more to do his duty. No activities whatsoever. Even the birds were gone.

There had been sightings of synths activities near this vault ruin. Hard to miss, really. Chrome domes didn't exactly come with camo paint job. Having a bunch of metallic skeletons charging up the hill would alarm even the most oblivious wastelander. Deacon was curious, to say the least. What the hell was the Institute doing in the vault?

For a long while, there was not a single movement down below. So far, he hadn't seen one single synth. Hell, he hadn't seen anything but birds. Doubts began to set in as the shadows on the ground grew longer. This stakeout could be a giant waste of time. Still, years of chasing this elusive ghost called the Institute had honed his senses. The Institute was here; he could smell them.

Under normal circumstances, he would do a quick recon. Sneaking in and out, quiet as a shadow. But it's not even remotely an option today. As good as he was, there was no way he could operate the elevator without waking up half of the Commonwealth.

And so, Deacon settled back onto the chair and waited.

Waiting was part of his job as a spy – or he preferred to call it intel gathering. But sometimes, boredom would get the better of him. His mind would wander, and he wasn't careful, he'd find himself lost in in the past he'd rather forget.

Even the best damned liar couldn't lie to himself 24/7. At some point, he would slip, and the ghosts of yesterday would catch up with him.

And so he ran, nonstop for two decades. Running mission after mission, changing one face after another. But no matter how much he'd changed, what face he's wearing, he still hated what he saw in the mirror. For he knew the truth, the fraud that he was-

Then, a thunderous noise broke the peaceful silence and halted his dangerous train of thought. The center of the circular pad began to descend. Someone had called for the elevator from within. With bated breath, Deacon watched like a hawk through the binoculars. Moments later, the pad once again ascended back to the surface. But this time, it wasn't empty. Right in the center of the pad stood a figure in blue. A woman.

A grin slowly spread on Deacon's face. Bingo.


Her body shivered uncontrollably, her teeth clicked within locked jaws, her breaths coarse, shallow. But she was breathing. She was breathing while her husband was not.

The elevator slowly brought Nora closer and closer to the surface, away from the tomb where Nate permanently laid to rest. Blue, frozen, and dead. This same, goddamned elevator had brought Nora and her family down to the vault not long ago, perhaps an hour tops. And within sixty minutes, her entire life had changed. She was frozen, her husband was killed, and her son... kidnapped.

Whoever took Shaun could not have gone too far. She would find her baby, and kill that son of a bitch who murdered Nate.

The sun began to shine on her face. Raising up a shaky arm, Nora blocked the blinding light. The warmth of the sun burned her frozen skin. When her eyes finally adjusted to the daylight, what she saw was complete, utter horror.

The cars, the fences, the trailer, everything that had been there an hour ago was now abandoned and rusted. Bodies littered the ground, no flesh, no blood, but only skeletons. Skeletons with torn outfits she could recognize. The guards, the soldiers, and a few civilians. They'd been here not long ago. But now...

Her eyes looked up. All the trees were dead. The giant brand new billboard Vault-tec had put up there last week, was now falling apart. Colorful paints somehow had chipped and faded in less than an afternoon.

What the hell was going on?

Nora stumbled out of the platform, feeling as though she was walking into twilight zone. This had to be a dream, a nightmare. When she woke up, Nate would be snoring softly next to her, and Shaun would be sleeping in his crib.

Yes. This was just a nightmare.

Wake up, Nora. Goddamn it! Wake up!


A/N: Confession: I never planned on getting addicted to a character in Fallout/Elder Scroll. Those two are my favorite series, but I was always in for the loots, the environment, the sandbox playground. Until I met Deacon.

So here's another story with the best liar in the Commonwealth.

Also, I don't have a beta reader, so please excuse the typos and mistakes.

More to come. I'm posting all my stories on both and AO3 (currently in a process of moving stories to AO3, it'll be a while until they are all there), as well as putting updates on tumblr. Thanks for reading!

Contact info: gmail – pinoko19, tumblr – pinoko-k.