A/N & Disclaimer: As always, I own absolutely nothing, except Faith and even then, that's questionable. Bethesda and WWE owns it all, greedy wretches. Fallout 3 has been out for *quite* some time now but I love the game so much I can't stop playing (that and I had to have *something* to do whilst waiting on Bioshock 2 and now on Dragon Age Awakening and Fallout: New Vegas) and then I started *writing* and of course, my 'Taker muse butted in so... Here's the result, or the beginning of it anyway. Anyone who recognizes the title from the song of the same name... have you SEEN the music video? In a very... very... odd way, it fits.

For those of you who have no idea what Fallout 3 is... no worries, this fic actually can stand alone without all that knowledge, it just helps on occasion.

Year 2277

"Girl, this is the most retarded thing ever." Calaway spat, his tone casual though his grey-green eyes were scanning the dilapidated supermarket for signs of danger.

Sadly, the mercenary was right; Faith had to concede, at least in her mind. At the time, it had seemed like a good idea: do some 'research' for Moira and her damn survival book to earn caps and supplies.

"Investigate the Super Duper mart," Moira had said excitedly, twisting a strand of her red hair eagerly around a dirty finger. "See if there's any food or medicine left, you can just keep it of course, I just want to know."

Moira had promised payment on delivery of her precious information. Payment Faith was going to have to split with Calaway.

Mark Calaway, now there was a man who might've scared the living Hell out of her, providing Walter hadn't reassured her that the merc was "good people."

"Shit, we ain't going in tonight; we're just going to have to rough it out till morning." Calaway grunted, lowering his sniper rifle -having been using the scope to survey the surrounding area. "Get some sleep kid; we're safe enough up here."

Up here happened to be the ledge of an old water tower they had scaled to get a view of the now occupied with raiders store. A ledge that was maybe three feet broad was all that separated them from the ground; which was a lot of feet down.

Yet Calaway was leaning back against the tower without a care in the world, his feet dangling over the ledge.

Of course they would dangle, Faith thought with a snort, the man stood over six foot five, he was a goddamn giant.

Sighing, she tried to get comfortable as well, folding her arms over her chest and lowered her head, her eyes closing.

Mark popped one eye to look at his companion, smirking. "Try not to fall, kid."

The fucking smartass.

Faith had been born underground in Vault 101. Her mother had died during childbirth, leaving her infant daughter and husband with nobody but each other. Life in the Vault hadn't been perfect by any means but after spending a month above-ground, Faith was occasionally nostalgic for her old bed and warm blanket. Other than that (and the bathing facilities) Faith missed nothing and nobody from the Vault. Except maybe Amata, her best friend from as long as she could remember, and Jonas.

Jonas who was now dead.

She vividly remembered her first step out into the world, the world above-ground. The bright, harsh sunlight had damn near blinded her. The first breath of open air, not filtered; stale underground air, had been... an experience of itself. It was bittersweet. She had been able to smell the lingering radiation from the Great War of 2077 -a war that had lasted only two hours but damn near destroyed the planet- but the air had also been... fresh, in an odd way.

The combination of the sun and air had overloaded her already fragile senses after a harrowing escape from the Vault and its recently turned psychotic Overseer.

Faith had had to sit for an hour just adjusting to the new environment.

After that had been the trek to 'civilization', which was a laugh and a half as 'civilization' consisted of small villages clumped together trying to survive or bands of raiders. Megaton had been quite the experience. When she had first glimpsed the massive, rusted dome structure, she had almost thought the files she had read on the Overseer's computer (which she had had to hack out of necessity) were either wrong or very, very old.

Those files had told her everything she knew was a lie, not that her father suddenly taking off hadn't done that either. Supposedly, the Vault had been sealed for about two hundred years, nobody came in and nobody went out. The files about Megaton, about large; mutated ants told her that wasn't true.

In all honestly, nothing could have prepared Faith for the outside world. The bugs that were wider than she was, the arid; dry heat that parched her throat. The landscape itself...

Her father had once shown her a book, a very old book, of when the world had been green. Trees had actually had leaves and flowers once existed.

Whatever she had been expecting, this wasn't it. The land was barren, the ground just as dry and baked as her throat. The wars, the nuclear bombs and subsequent radiation had done a number on the world. She supposed this sight was normal to top siders, to her it was just sad.

The wars had been over two hundred years ago and yet the aftermath still haunted what remained of humanity so many decades later.

Once in Megaton, Faith had felt... so alone. Even if she hadn't been well liked by the few in the Vault, they had at least been familiar faces. Everyone in Megaton looked... different. Weathered perhaps, from the elements as well as the harshness of day-to-day living. She had learned quickly that in Megaton you just didn't become a citizen. You either earned your spot or paid for it.

Besides her dull blue, standard issue Vault 101 jumpsuit and boots, all Faith had brought with her was a baseball bat, a bottle of purified water, two stimpacks and a folded picture of herself with her father, taken the day of her tenth birthday. It went without say that her Pip-Boy went with her; the small computer never left her left arm, not since she had gotten it, also on her tenth birthday.

The first person she had met in Megaton had been Lucas Simms, the 'sheriff' and occasional 'mayor' of the town. He had given her a 'welcome' complete with a list of rules. Then she had been directed towards the common house, which was where the folks who weren't lucky enough to be citizens could stay for free. Free because they had crammed a lot of beds in the two story shack with no blankets or pillows. If you wanted THOSE luxuries, you went and stayed at Moriety's saloon, with or without the working girl, for 120 caps.

The caps was another thing Faith didn't understand. Money had no value in the Vault, you earned your keep and for special items, you did special jobs to earn credits. She had seen pre-war money in history class, one and ten dollar bills that used to be the currency. Now the coin of the realm was... bottle caps.

And without those caps, you had nothing. That had been a harsh lesson in reality for her.

So for her first two nights in Megaton, Faith had slept in the common house, badly. After sharing a two-room apartment with her father, that had been Hell. There had been five other women and seven men. Sleep was hard to come by not only because of the inevitable night noises and smells a body made, or the stench of piss and booze, but because several of the men where lewd and quite vocal about their disgusting thoughts.

The third day Faith had discovered a friend of sorts.

Walter was the man responsible for Megaton having pure water. He was an older man in his late fifties and cantankerous to boot. With skin as dark as soot and a full head of hair, and matching beard the color of the dreary grey mattress she had slept on in the common house.

He was so busy in the water plant that he rarely had the time to go out and check that pipes that ran throughout the town. A drop in water pressure had told Walter that there were leaks in those pipes.

That's where Faith had come in.

Gob, a nice if not terrifying looking Ghoul, who worked at Moriety's, had idly told her about Walter's problem. Immediately, Faith had sought out Walter and found herself a job. Walter didn't pay in caps, he couldn't afford too, but he did give her a clean bed with a blanket; clean water to drink and a meal a day.

Walter had informed her that her odd appearance would eventually work itself out or people would just get used to it. Which had, in an odd way, hurt her feelings.

She had never considered herself a classic beauty but she hadn't thought she was ugly either. She was tall like her father and had her mother's build, she was shaped like a pear, meaning her torso was narrow and her hips were round.

Butch, another cretin from the Vault with whom she had shared a mutual dislike, had called her a 'curvy bird'.

Well fuck Butch, he was dead. The 'curvy bird' had split open his skull like a ripe melon for trying to stop her escape.

She had a full head of black hair -just like her father's- that had been cut to her shoulders and then swept back with a dirty bandana as she had quickly discovered that long hair was nothing but a hindrance in the outside world. Her mud brown eyes were identical to her mother's, as was her full, cheerful mouth.

Living underground without sunlight all her life had left her with pale skin, an unhealthy, wan look. A month in Megaton had changed that, now she was simply pale though no longer unhealthy looking. She figured in six months, she would look weathered and tired just like everyone else.

A month in Megaton had changed several things about her. Doing hard work and being around these people had changed her both physically and mentally. Which was probably a good thing in the long run as she wouldn't have survived without adapting.

If anyone had told Mark Calaway that he would be teaming up with Walter's new apprentice, he would be teaming up with Walter's new apprentice, he would have asked Moriety just what the Hell he was putting in people's booze.

As it was, when Walter had informed him that Faith had accepted Moira's outrageous proposition (no one else in Megaton was fool enough to bother), Mark had laughed so hard he almost broken a rib.

Then when Walter had informed him that he would be accompanying Faith... well, Mark hadn't found that quite as funny.

Walter wouldn't give a reason why or explain just what was going through the idiot girl's head, much to Mark's eternal annoyance.

As Mark also owed Walter a great deal, he had grudgingly agreed to do it. But he had demanded that Faith learn how to use a gun and that he receive half of her payment from Moira, he wasn't doing this shit for free.

At least Faith had known how to use a gun and her aim wasn't half bad either.

Maybe... just maybe... they could live through this.