'Nathan...'

She wakes up cold from a dream. No not a dream. Harsh reality closes in and she reaches for the wine bottle. It's 200 years old and tastes like sour vinegar but its alcohol content is through the roof and with just a swig she's warm and fuzzy again. Nora tried to get to the old apartment she had before she met Nate. it was only a few blocks away from the Cambridge Police Station. She ran in to trouble though. Her Pip-Boy beeped quietly and she looked down at it. The green glow making her skin look sickly. She looks at it, 2:36 am. she needed to get a move on if she wanted to find that apartment. If it was even still there.

Nora hoped beyond hope that it was. she stumbled down the rubble of the building she was sleeping in and tried to make her way to the cracked and mangled asphalt of the street below.

"God I miss him." she said to herself wishing she had died that day. Selfish. She was acting very selfish here lately. Stealing, injuring others, even killing them if she needed to. She remembered the first one she had to kill. A raider. He was just a kid honestly, he couldn't have been more than 17, 18 at the most. He had a note in his pants from who Nora assumed was his mother.

"Johnathan, please come home. We need you Cassy needs you. Your father has been hurt. Please come home."

No signature. Just a note begging a young man to come home. Was Cassy his little sister? Nora didn't have time to dwell on this she had other things on her mind. Her next fix for one. Her lost son far in the back of her mind sitting there nagging at her like a migraine.

Nora strides down the crumbling road as quietly as she can her Pip-Boys light off and herself barely visible in the dark streets. She knows this place. She stops and looks as she realizes she can hear shooting in the distance.

'Shit.'

She notices that she can hear the unmistakable sound of power armor and laser pistols. Without thinking she draws her gun. A small 10mm and readies to fire.

'Thank God Nate taught me how to fire one of these.'

Nora cocks it and takes aim at a ghoul. Feral from the radiation all around it. Was that one of her neighbors? Maybe even a friend? She couldn't tell now the skin was leathery and burned. It was easier not to picture them as they once where.

Suddenly a man runs out and slams into a group of them. She shoots. He turns to her and yells something

"Help!" his voice is rough and gravely like a man fighting for his life. She runs over without thinking. Firing in to the crowd of ghouls taking them down efficiently with shots to the head. When they are all dead she goes closer. These are the first people since that Preston fellow and those settlers that she has really seen. Slowly approaching the man in power armor she puts her gun away to show she means no harm.

"State your business civilian." He says calmly. Then looks embarrassed."I-I mean thank you. For stepping in like that. I thought I was done for for a moment" He says shyly.

Nora looks up at him feeling the alcohol wearing off and reaching for the hip flask full of vodka and taking a generous pull.

"No problem. I wouldn't just let someone be overwhelmed like that."

"Well thank you. I am Paladin Danse of the Brotherhood Of Steel. It seems I am in debt to your sharp shooting skills and your kindness. Allow me to repay you, we have supplies and a medic in the buil-" He cut himself off seeing Nora sway and collapse. Her shirt falling open revealing her blue and yellow Vault suit.

'What on earth is a vault dweller doing all the way out here?He looks at her small frame and sees the number '111' on her right side. "111..." He then picks her up and carries her in to the old rotting police station. "Scribe Haylen! We have a woman in need of medical attention!"

He walks carrying the unconscious woman. feeling her weightlessness even after getting out of his Power Armor, she seems to weigh nothing. He can feel her hip bones dig in to his stomach even through all of the clothes.

'How is this woman alive?'

He looks at her, noticing her vault suit is undone at the neck showing just how slim she is. He lays her down on a mattress on a counter and motions for Scribe Haylen to come take a look. She looks over the skeleton of a woman and begins to undress her trying to see if she is bleeding somewhere or find a reason she had lost consciousness in the middle of speaking with her superior.

"Paladin you may want to leave the room. I need to undress her to check her for wounds."

"OH, UM, right..yes. I will go find something to drape over her..." Paladin Danse was suddenly very embarrassed not thinking she may need to be undressed.

Covering his eyes some and walking quickly from the room as he began to search for some kind of cloth to drape over her.

'You'd think he had never seen a woman nude before...' Scribe Haylen thought as she pulled the pack and clothes offoff of the woman who had effectively saved all of their asses. A mysterious stranger indeed. She pulled the shirt covering the odd blue jumpsuit off of her and laid it neatly on a table. She didn't appear to be bleeding but this jumpsuit was far too big on her. She unzips the front and gasps.

'Oh my... this woman is nearly a skeleton.'

She breathe a sigh of almost relief. Immediately knowing why the woman was out cold suddenly. She was probably starving. At least she hadn't been shot or mauled by a ghoul. Starvation she could fix easily, a gunshot wound though, not so much.

'Nathan... honey? Are you there?'

'I'm in here! With Shaun!'

'Home...? I'm back home? The bombs? Did they drop? Am I dead?' Nora walks through her pristine living room and down the hallway. Her gut screaming that something is wrong but what? She opens the door and cold washes over her. Her baby's room is in ruins and her husband lays dead in the cryopod that is somehow in her house. Nora begins to scream.

"Hey! Oww! Stop thrashing! Urghhh..."

Nora feels her foot connect to something soft and fleshy ... and warm? She looks down and realizes she is nearly naked but for her bra and panties. Then she sees a man doubled over and realizes what happened.

"Oh! I am so sorry!" she says panicking, hoping the man doesn't hurt her. She feels dizzy and nearly falls from the bed she's on.

"No, please miss don't get up! I'm fine I promise!" She sees a blurry man and looks around for her glasses.

that voice... the one calling for help... and then blackness...

*Authors Note*

Reuploaded and added to. I am writing on this again so hopefully it will be read.

~Rosemary Wildflower