Chapter one

"It's cold...Why?.. is it so cold? Where am I? Nate? Where are you?... Shuan?!"

Jack's eyes shoot open as she lunges forward "where?!" She looks around focusing on the dirt walls and ceiling, the root cellar?, she realizes, remembering awakening in vault 111 days earlier. Or was it weeks, she couldn't keep track anymore. She'd been hiding here ever since she stumbled out of her frozen prison, where she watched her husband murdered and her son stolen. Scared and alone, her vault suit and 9mm hand gun her only protection, her memories her only comfort. Although, eventually those too became nothing more then a hindrance on her mind, reminding her of how she failed to protect her only child; to save her best friend. Nate, she wondered what would he think of her now. Hiding like a cowered in their neighbors old root cellar? Drinking whatever alcohol she could find.

It was because of Nate and his military knowledge that she even managed to make it out of the vault in the first place. He had spent years taking Jack to the shooting range, teaching her how to find food, water, shelter; everything he could in case of nuclear armageddon. His years of military training made him if anything smart. Not like the crazy doomsday preppers, namely Jahani, their neighbor and owner of her current hiding spot, sure it was ok now but the root cellar wasn't near deep enough to survive an atom bomb. She assumed Jahani had perished like everyone else from sanctuary.

All the knowledge Nate passed on to her and she's just hiding drinking it all away, dreaming of better days as she cries on the floor. She sits up, her back agents the makeshift bed, she realizes she's running out of food, water... booze. She knows she cant stay here anymore, not if she wants to live... but does she want to live? What's the point? Nates' gone. Shuans' gone. She's all alone... but she has a loaded gun taking her own life would be pretty simple. She looks down at the gun in her hand. What's the alternative go out in this wasteland, this hell of what her world was. Where the radiation has poisoned everything and the raiders take whatevers left. She sighs and opens the holotape player on her pipboy, Nate's holotape... it still sits in there ready for its voice to be heard but she hasn't listened to it, not yet, she hasn't been strong enough. But she's sober, more so then she has been in days anyway. She closes it, her finger over the play button... finally she gathers her courage and presses it; the tape springs to life her heart burns as she hears his voice...

"Oops, haha. Keep those little fingers away... Ah, there we go. Just say it, right there, right there, go ahead. Ah, yay!" She hears Shuan's little giggle in the background and tears well up in her eyes

"Hi honey, listen...

I don't think Shaun and I need to tell you how great of a mother you are. But, we're going to anyway. You are kind, and loving, and funny, that's right, and patient. So patient, patience of a saint as your mother used to say.

Look, with Shaun and us all being home together it's been an amazing year but even so I know our best days are yet to come. There will be changes sure, things we'll need to adjust to. I'll rejoin the civilian workforce, you'll shake the dust off your law degree.

But everything we do no matter how hard, we do it for our family.

Now say goodbye Shaun. Bye bye, say bye bye.

Bye honey, we love you" with the last bye she stands up and walks to a small foot locker at the end of the makeshift bed. Inside was ammo and a few old scraps of leather, it's not much to work with but she grabs it all and starts to work.

" first things first scan the area for anything that might be useful. Even an old can of beans can be made into something to help you survive. So look around for anything that could serve as protection." Nate's voice echos in her head

She stitches the leather into some makeshift armor and gathers any other supplies she can find in to an old military back pack.

"Nate's gone, but Shuan... Shaun might still be alive. I have to find him, I have to survive not just for Nate's sake, not just for my own, but for Shaun..."

She runs her fingers through her short albern hair "I have to find my son. I'll do whatever it takes to bring him home." She cocks her gun and heads up the ladder