Prologue: Jesus! Girl, are you stupid?

The girl was alone, she wasn't carrying any weapons, and it seemed like she didn't have any supplies on her. And, she was wearing a vault uniform. A blood spattered vault uniform. A silver-clad figure watched her through the scope of an old yet still very powerful Barrett .50 caliber sniper rifle. She was at least a half mile away, yet the man could even read the vault number that was emblazoned on the back of her outfit.

38. Interesting, he thought, that means she's from a Mid-western vault probably out of Ohio or Indiana or some place like that.

As he was brooding over this fact, he spotted a very fast and very large thing racing towards the girl.

Shit! Shit! Shit! Deathclaw!

He was good and highly accurate with a sniper rifle, but at more than 1000 yards, it was really anyone's game. The slightest wind could send the bullet off course and away from the killer Deathclaw, or straight into the girl. Not that there was much wind in the Wasteland anyway, but one can never be sure what radiation induced anomalies could show up. The man considered all of this in about .5 seconds, then he fired.

The girl was defenseless, and she knew it. She'd just figured that traveling in such a wide open area, she'd be able to outrun anythnig that seemed alittle dangerous, after all she had been the fastest person in Vault 38. She had just gotten enough supplies from the Pitt to continue on to the capital Wasteland, and the evenutally south towards the Commonwealth. She was hoping for a job in engineering or science. If she even made it that far. She heard rapidly approaching footfall behind her. She quickly turned to see a very massive creature hurtling towards her at an absurd speed. She had nowhere to run or hide. In midstride it raised one massive claw and leapt towards her. A milisecond before its claw ripped her to shreds, the gigantic Deathclaw exploded, and it was knocked sideways with such force that it flew to the side of her and land in a pile on the ground. At that point she fainted.

The man was shocked at the size of the Deathclaw. At twenty-two years old, and being out in the Wasteland alone, for the past three years, he had seen almost everything under the sun. But, this was the first time that he had been west of the Pitt, and he had no idea that the Deathclaws were not only bigger, they had fur. The girl was finally coming around and she seemed to be okay, just shocked. She finally sat up and looked around, blinking and very much confused. She was extremely beautiful as well.

"Is this heaven," she asked, not believeing that she was still alive, "It looks like the same shithole where I died."

"It's not heaven and it is the same shithole and you're not dead."

"Oh, well I guess I've got to be going now, thanks." She was very ungrateful, even though he had just saved her life.

"Where are you headed?" He was curious what a teenage girl was doing out, alone, in the Wasteland.

"The Capital Wasteland, and then the Commonwealth." The man was confused, since she was out in the middle of the Mid-West and she was walking all the way to the East Coast.

"You do know you're in the middle of Indiana, don't you?"

"What?"

"This is the Mid-West, your over a thousand miles from the East Coast."

"No, I'm between the Pitt and D.C."

"No you're not."

"Yes I am."

"Okay fine, how long has it been since you left the Pitt?"

"I don't know, two weeks."

"Yeah, it doesn't take that long to get the Capital Wasteland."

"Cause you would know?"

"I would, that's where I'm from. In fact I can show you that your wrong. Look here." He showed her the Pip-Boy that his armor concealed. He pulled up the compass on the screen. "Look, this is the direction you were walking, see it says West, the other way, where I came from is East."

The knowledge that she had been going in the wrong direction for two weeks floored her, and abruptly she sat down on the ground and cried.

"Jesus! Girl, are you stupid? You can't travel alone in the Wasteland with no weapons and expect everything to work out ok. My best guess would be that you went to the Pitt, got some supplies and then took whatever damn directions they gave you. They were probably going to go out and capture you once you left the city, but something stopped them, maybe trogs or maybe something worse, who knows. It doesn't matter in any case, because you're here now and you're in my care. I'll get you to the Capital Wasteland, okay?"

During his entire monologue the girl had been quietly sobbing. Now she stopped. "Okay."

"Cool." He was silently bemoaning his kindness, she seemed like she was going to be a handful.

"Wait."

"What now?"

"Introductions. I'm Alexandra. And you are?"

He broke into a smile behind the armored faceplate, "I'm Nick, better known as the Lone Wanderer."

AN: Thanks to James who pointed out that the Vault number should actually be in the high thirties to forties.