Author's Note:
This piece is technically a crossover of BtVS and the game Fallout 3, but I feel that because the emphasis of the story is the characters it fits better here. The characters of this story belong to Joss Whedon et al, the plot elements belong to Bethesda Game Studio, and the words belong to me. I'm not getting any monetary benefit for the production of this story, and I hold the deepest of respects for both Mr. Whedon and Bethesda.
This is my first foray into fanfiction and I am always looking to improve my writing skills, so if you have a spare moment when you finish reading I would love to hear any criticism you have to offer. This will be a long story, and I will endeavor to update weekly.
The first section in italics is a quote from the introduction of Fallout 3.
Happy Reading.
Since the dawn of humankind, when our ancestors first discovered the killing power of rock and bone, blood has been spilled in the name of everything from God to justice to simple, psychotic rage.
In the year 2077, after millennia of armed conflicts, the destructive nature of man could sustain itself no longer. The world was plunged into an abyss of nuclear fire and radiation, but it was not, as some had predicted, the end of the world. Instead, the apocalypse was simply the prologue to another bloody chapter of human history. Man had succeeded in destroying the world – but war?
War never changes.
The cold stillness of the wasteland night was broken abruptly by the frantic crunch of boots on gravel. A lone man, shrouded in ruined clothes that barely held back the chill, limped quickly up a steep hill, panting harshly. He leaned heavily on an ancient, twisted guard rail, clutching a bundle of cloth to his chest.
At the top of the hill, he stumbled forward into a rock face. Turning to lean his back against the cliff, he looked up into the ink-black night and let out a single, exhausted sob. Sidling along the face, he reached out a hand to trace the way in front of him. He stopped when his hand slipped over the rotting frame of a wooden door.
With a little force the old door gave way, rusted hinges screaming under the long forgotten pressure. The tunnel beyond it was even darker than the night outside. The man lurched forward, sending up small puffs of dust and ash with every step. He winced at the sharp, dry cracking sounds that punctuated his journey forward, knowing the grim reality of debris that lined his path.
The tunnel ended at a huge steel door. Groping forward, the man sighed in relief when his hand landed on an ancient console, caked in dust and grime. Feeling blindly, he pressed a few buttons before one yielded with the hiss of static. He swallowed hard, then held the button down again.
"Snyder! Snyder, I know you've been watching since I entered the passageway. It's Rupert Giles." He released the button and waited. Seconds became minutes, the static hiss as dead as the air he breathed. He depressed the button again.
"Snyder," he started, panic bleeding into his voice, "Please. You know I wouldn't come here under anything less than dire circumstances. Please, just pick up the intercom." He swallowed hard. "I'm begging you."
The static hiss filled the tunnel once again for a long second, then clicked softly into silence. A new voice, harsh and distorted, at last returned the man's plea.
"Where's Joyce?"
Giles ground his teeth together, biting down against another wave of grief.
"She died. Something went wrong with the birth and I…I couldn't save her."
The static hissed again.
"Snyder, we ran out of water yesterday." He prayed the emphasis on 'we' carried over the decrepit loudspeaker.
The silence after the click was deafening.
"We need a doctor, not some mad scientist. You will raise the child as if you were both born in the Vault. Any funny business and I will make sure you both regret it."
Giles' knees buckled under the sheer force of relief, collapsing to the ground as the klaxon sounded. The bundle clutched to his chest began to stir, a weak wail rising from it. He pealed back the layers of stained cloth, letting the stale air hit the tiny body they were wrapped around. He smoothed his hand over the fine tuft of white-blonde hair on the child's head, shushing her softly and the alarm cut off and the mechanical whirring began. He felt tears run down his face as the steel door screeched backwards and rolled to the side and the guards started forward.
Picking absentmindedly at the grey, sludge-like lunch rations, Giles made another thoughtful mark on the medical records he was examining. A sound from the corner of the room drew his attention, and he took a moment of quiet happiness to contemplate his daughter.
Buffy had grown well in the last year. Her small body had taken quickly to proper nutrition; her hair had begun to thicken and grow in a light golden color and her clear blue eyes had darkened to a sharp, inquisitive hazel. She was currently engaged in an urgent conversation with a stuffed bear, speaking in that fast toddler's babble that would be words and questions almost before he could blink his eyes. Feeling his attention on her, she turned to Giles and gave him a brilliant smile. The joy was so intense that, for a moment, he forgot all the horrors of their lives before.
The door to their quarters hissed open without a knock. Overseer Snyder entered, boots clanking purposefully on the steel floor. He was towing someone small behind him, none to gently. Buffy's smile faded into a frown. His speech began without entreaty.
"Since you failed to save the Rosenbergs from their injuries last month and no one else in the Vault will take responsibility for their distastefully peculiar child, as the primary provider of medical care the task falls to you."
Giles set his pen down with a hard clack on the metal desk.
"I only 'failed to save them from their injuries' because you wouldn't allow them to leave their post until their shifts had ended, even though they had been bitten repeatedly by radroaches," he started, his voice rising in volume as he spoke.
Snyder rolled his eyes. "Spare me the melodramatics. The work is done and now there are fewer mouths to feed." He dragged the child in front of him roughly by the hand, a little girl barely months older than Buffy. She looked up at Giles with wide, scared eyes. "You'll receive another half measure of rations until the children reach the requisite age. Good day."
Giles heard Snyder's boots clang against the floor, heard the door hiss close behind him, but his attention was centered on the Rosenberg girl. She could not have been more than two, her red hair still hanging in curls around her face. Her eyes were a deep, expressive green, clearly communicating her fear and confusion.
"Are you my daddy now?" she asked in a small, disbelieving voice. He was taken aback that someone so young had already achieved coherence. He knelt down in front of her, reaching out a tentative hand to brush the hair back. "No, little one," he said softly, wincing as lonely grief flooded her eyes, "But I will do my very best to honor him by caring for you. What's your name, sweetheart?"
"Willow," she said quietly, uneasiness stealing over her features. An indignant gurgle rang out from behind the pair, and Giles looked over to see Buffy attempting to heave herself over the playpen barrier to investigate the situation for herself. She was far closer to achieving her goal than Giles was comfortable with, so he rose and retrieved her before she could once again muscle her way to freedom. Walking back over to where Willow remained rooted to the floor, he set his daughter down gently before her.
"Willow, this is Buffy," he started, watching the girls interact. Buffy sat looking up at Willow with curious eyes; Willow stood looking down with hesitancy. Without warning, Buffy grabbed Willow's hand and pulled herself to her feet, babbling excitedly as she tugged the other girl by the hand towards the toy chest in the playpen. Willow let out a surprised noise, a breathless, delighted little laugh. Giles felt tears of pride prick at his eyes as the daughter offered her favorite bear to his ward.
Giles staggered backwards a few steps, thinking once again that Buffy really was becoming much stronger than she looked. She had leapt into his arms upon discovering the surprise party he and Willow had planned for Buffy's tenth birthday, and was in the process of squeezing the air from his lungs in joy.
"You're the best, Dad," she said into his ear, kissing him soundly on the cheek before releasing him. She practically bounced over to Willow, who was grinning excitedly off to the side of the room. Coughing halfheartedly, he made his way over to lean against the mess hall bar and watch his daughter mill about happily amongst the handful of children that lived in the Vault.
Buffy had grown in to a bright-eyed, exuberant girl, eager to test the limits of everything she encountered. While this had done little to endear her to the Overseer, Giles could not help but be proud of her inquisitive nature and growing drive. He did find himself wishing she could apply it more seriously to her studies, though. He smiled softly as she led Willow over to the counter where the birthday cake was waiting.
Willow, on the other hand, was growing into a very different young woman. Alone, she was often timid, but gifted with the most massive intellectual potential Giles had ever encountered. Her mind worked so rapidly that her thoughts often spilled out into her speech as an endless stream of connections. With Buffy, however, she became an eager helper in the mischief of the day, applying her advanced knowledge to further the cause.
Raised voices drew him from his contemplation. Percy, the biggest among the children, was attempting to bully Buffy out of one of her presents. Giles' first instinct was to step in and prevent an altercation, but he knew that it was time that Buffy start learning how to manage her own interactions. He could see Buffy's temper rising, her fists clenching when Percy shoved a well meaning Willow to the side. Buffy had drawn her fist back to strike the boy when another boy spoke up.
His eyes tracked to the interrupting voice. He knew from the medical records that the boy was Alexander Harris, but he had heard the girls call him Xander. He was small for his age, scrawny with limp black hair falling into his eyes. The boy's father was an alcoholic, and was obviously not caring for him properly. Xander had caught Willow as she stumbled, holding on to her as he tried to diffuse the situation between Buffy and Percy. Giles felt a puzzling dread rise up from his stomach as he watched Willow look up at the boy like he had hung the stars.
Whatever had been said seemed to cool Buffy's ire enough to prevent a physical altercation, though not enough to prevent her from spitting pointedly on Percy's shoes. The gargantuan boy was enraged, but seemed to have shifted the focus of his anger from Buffy to Xander. Xander gently pushed Willow towards Buffy, then planted his feet and stared up defiantly at Percy. Giles stiffened, knowing now was the time to interrupt, but he was beaten to the scene by Officer Gomez. The kindly security guard placed a hand on each of the boy's shoulders, imparting a few calming words of disappointment. Percy huffed and turned on his heel to storm out of the room while Xander went almost limp with relief.
Giles leaned back on his elbows again, watching his girls interact with Xander. They stood close together now, all admiring Buffy's new PipBoy computer. While she was distracted, Giles saw Xander looked upon Buffy with the same expression of awe and admiration that Willow had given him. Giles sighed wearily, knowing that the next few years would be very difficult to watch, let alone live. The intercom trilled near his ear; Wesley had readied the surprise gift for Buffy down in the reactor room. Giles straightened out his back and walked over to the children, wondering if Buffy would enjoy bringing Willow and Xander along with them.
Standing in the shadows by the entrance of the make-shift range he and Wesley had built all those years ago, Giles took a moment to watch the three young people who all looked upon him as a father. He knew he should be admonishing them for skiving off, but he couldn't bring himself to break up the familiar, quietly happy scene he had seen so many times before. Willow was perched on top of a container with a book open in her lap, Xander leaning casually bellow her munching while thoughtfully on a bag of potato crisps while Buffy stood straight and confidently as she fired her BB gun at the worn out targets down the range.
Adolescence was never an easy journey, but the three of them had managed to weather the hormonal hurricane with minimal damage done to themselves or other, a fact that Giles found himself quite proud of. Buffy had turned away Xander's growing affections early on; crushing the boy's spirit until her finally took notice of the adoration in Willow's eyes. The two of them had danced around each other for years until they both realized the only attraction they felt was to the dance itself. All three of them had managed to remain thick as thieves and, under Giles' relentless tutoring, finished their studies with a moderate amount of success.
Willow had excelled in school, often to the point of growing bored with the available curriculum. Giles had tried his best to keep her engaged by informally apprenticing her in the med bay and teaching her everything he could about medicine. Xander, on the other hand, had slogged through the years with little to show for his difficulty. He may not have been gifted academically, but after two years with the maintenance department the boy could repair almost anything. Buffy did not turn out to be a scholar, either, Giles thought with a tinge of disappointment, but she had grown strong and confident and almost dangerously charismatic. She was now waiting for the guard to come to a decision on her readiness to begin training, and her anxiety was very apparent.
"Slow down, Buff-zilla," Xander swallowed, "if we have to go back to your place to get more ammo I'll be press ganged into an honest day's work again." Willow snorted, not looking up from her book as she turned the page. Buffy did not answer other than to let out a series of shots at a blistering speed, setting each of the targets to spinning wildly. She put the rifle down on the reloading bench with more force than was strictly necessary before leaning against a crate and sliding to the floor with an exasperated sigh. "This sucks," she groaned into her hands, "I hate waiting. What could they possibly still have to talk about after three days?"
"Maybe Cordelia drew your assignment as her first administrative test," Willow said, looking up from her book with a frown. A dark look crossed over Buffy's face. "That would be just like her, making me squirm for her own amusement. Bitch," Buffy growled.
"Don't kill Cordy. You know that would just annoy her father, the Overseer" Xander said in a mocking voice. "Plus I wouldn't have anyone to make out with if she were dead." Willow gasped dramatically and lightly whacked the top of Xander's head with her book. "Bad Xander! No smooches with arch-nemeses!"
Giles chuckled quietly in his alcove, delighting for a moment in the tribulations of youth. He felt darkness creep into his thoughts, realizing with a mix of pride and despair that they were almost adults now. Soon they would no longer need him, even Buffy. He watched Xander pick up the toy gun, loosing a few wild shots before he zeroed in on a target. Buffy easily leaped up next to Willow, lightly mocking the boy as she leaned against the girl she knew as well as a sister. Giles turned and exited the room silently, leaving the children to enjoy their fun while they still had the chance.
He stared hard at the floor as he walked, losing himself in planning. They would be ready soon, and he still had a promise he needed to keep.