GO ON - bare your TEETH at me.
I'll PULL them o u t
one by one.
It's gone.
Her home, her future, her life - all gone, with one small flash and a time lapse.
She remembered waking up that morning, joining Nate for a shower, like he always wanted, and she had been ready to go to her former boss to ask for her job back since Nate was struggling to find work. She had put on her most modest wear, done her makeup, her hair, looked stunning if she did say so herself.
But that was gone too, smeared across the palms of her hands and the knees of her jumpsuit. The moon taunted her as she wept, curled in a ball in the back of a rusted out Vault-Tec van; she couldn't move when she came out, too weak and covered in what remained of the pests inside the Vault. She didn't know what she expected above ground, but she had expected better than a torn sky-line and the empty skeletons of her old neighborhood beneath her feet.
What was she going to do? How could anyone be alive out there? She had never even seen dirt on her dress, how could she possibly make it through a valley she no longer recognized? What could be waiting out there, if there was anything at all - she didn't want to know, she didn't want to be the last one, the last thing. This world couldn't possibly be alive anymore, everyone had to be gone, how could anyone live in this type of place?
She knows she will have to try and get up at some point, see what moves in the night, because what if her baby was out there? What if there was someone out there, holding her baby hostage? How long had she been under? When did they take her baby? Did they release her to taunt her? Having just snatched her life away, did they want to watch the housewife squirm? They were mean, with a big gun and a scary man - she had put away men like that before the bombs, she didn't know how she managed through a case having to look them in the eyes, but she had and. . .and this would be no different. Okay, it was a lot different, because back then she had her knowledge and the law on her side, there couldn't possibly be a law out here, a court to hear her argument.
No.
No, there was just her. . .and the gun beside her.
She looked up, staring at the gun lying in the bed of the van beside her, glimmering almost in the light of the moon, and she heard the howl of a lone wolf.
Codsworth is alive!
She had never felt such a wash of relief before, but seeing him hovering in front of their old home was. . .it was a piece of her old life coming back to her. Even in this washed out street that had been her home, he brought her back to her senses a little, reminding her that, perhaps, not all was lost and that she could make it in this world.
Maybe.
Maybe she was hoping too much.
But he said there were still people, in Concord past the Red Rocket station; granted, they had shot at him, but if there were people like that, then there were people like her still out there. She just had to find them, and finding her baby fueled her, made her feel strong, made her actually feel like mopping up the tears and getting to work.
"Mum, if I remember correctly, Sir had hidden away some of your valuables in the safe beneath the washer, yes?" Codsworth floated soothingly in front of her.
Her eyes lit up a little, tears at the edges, and she smiled. "You're right, Codsworth, he did. Thank you so much. . ." she gave him one more smile. "I think I'll go see if there's anything useful in there."
"And I shall guard the home so you are not interrupted, Mum," he gave his version of a salute and went back to manning the dried up bushes to the left of the door.
Her home was not what she remembered. Of course, she didn't expect it to be white linens and a meal on the dining room table, but she didn't expect this hollowed out shell. They had been living in a small apartment in the inner city, until she gave birth to Shaun, because they already needed more room to handle their sweet baby. So Nate had looked around, found this lovely home and they settled immediately; she had never been so happy in her life, with a beautiful house, a beautiful baby. . .
The washer hadn't been moved, but it had been abused over the year and the door was hardly hanging on, old towels crumbling to dust inside the old drum; she could still remember the exact noise the washer had been making that morning so long ago. It had been squeaking, and she had told Nate to check it, perhaps the load had been unbalanced.
"He must not have closed it when he checked," she chuckled weakly, hands clasped in front of her. She sighed after a moment, placing her pistol on the floor and rolling up the sleeves of her jumpsuit. "No sense in thinking of any of that, there must be something left. . ."
Nate was paranoid, even before he had went into the army. He had built in the safe himself, put in tiles above that so no one could just move the washer and see it, like they would ever think to look there. But she was so thankful for that now, because he always put something in there every morning. She didn't see much, but she knows he put little boxes in, sometimes big boxes, to keep everything from being just a cluttered mess.
"Codsworth?" she called out, standing to her feet.
"Yes, Mum?" he hovered in front the front yard, lenses flexing behind the glass of his optics.
"Do you think there's a sledgehammer somewhere around here?"
He jolted a little, and then hummed. "I can search, Mum!"
She arched an eyebrow. "I mean, I can he -"
"Nonsense," he waved a pincer in front of her face. "You are tired, Mum, let me search and I will be back in a jiffy!"
Before she could say anything, he was already hustling out the door, leaving her to sigh and grab her gun from the floor. She entered her bedroom, sighing when she examined the busted out windows, her crumbling frame, the papers scattered and stuck to the floor. She set her gun on top of one of the dressers and proceeded to comb through them, finding two dresses still intact, one of Nate's shirts. . .rolled up just how he liked it, to fit more in the drawer, but this was the only one left.
She pulled it out, letting it unroll as she did so, smiling at the floral pattern; his good time at a barbecue shirt. She hated it, but he loved it and she didn't put up a fuss when she would be wearing that violet dress he liked so much, with the pale dots across the hem. She held it close to her, closing her eyes because. . .if she tried hard enough. . .she could smell his cologne on the collar, the scent of detergent from a lost age. . .
There was a loud clatter in the hallway and she jumped, fingers tightening in the shirt in her hands. She set it on the top of the dresser and peered out the door, breathing a sigh of relief when she saw Codsworth and the promised sledgehammer.
"Mum, will this do?"
She picked it up and examined the handle, where it splintered off from wood rot. The rest of the handle was pretty sturdy, but after this. . .
"Yes, of course," she smiled, took a firm grip. "I don't want to hit you with this, so back up."
"Yes Mum!"
She nodded and raised it above her head, holding her breath, and swung it down. The tiles cracked, but didn't give yet, corroded at the edges, melted together. She sighed and raised the sledgehammer again, swinging it down once more and watching the tiles shatter and crumble around the knob of the safe. She smiled and dropped the sledgehammer, falling to her knees and beginning to brush away the debris.
"I can't believe that was actually tough," she shook her head. "It was so melted. . .was the blast that hot?"
Codsworth didn't say anything, just hovered behind her and she swallowed back her regret from not enforcing he join them. She just left him here, a robot that had become like family to her before she had to abandon him. But he hadn't moved that day. He had just sat there while they ran out, Shaun in Nate's arms, and he stared at the screen that had gone blank with cut news.
She put in the combination, one he used for everything, and when she opened it up, she could smell her perfume. Her favorite, a little stale, but still lilac and ginger. Her cheeks flushed a little and she started pulling out boxes, there were more than she expected, with other little things like money and documents that were totally worthless now; she doubted anyone would take dollar bills anymore, but she would keep them.
"Codsworth, grab some of the boxes and lets go to the couch," she shut the safe again, locking it and she bumped the washer back into place with her hip.
"But Mum, you did not get everything out," Codsworth complained as he plucked up a box; oh yeah, no hands.
"Some of it was just. . .birth certificates and ledger, notes from our parents. . ." why would I need those anymore? "Besides, some of those were labeled for my birth day, I can wait for a week to get to those," if I lasted a week.
Perfume.
The first box was her perfume, probably one of his random gifts. And she coated herself with it, spinning to make sure it got in her hair and all over her because she smelt like freezer burn and stale air and now, now she smelt more like herself again.
The second box, out of six, was a box of those chocolates from Belgium that she had been wanting since their honeymoon. The other boxes were trinkets, special for her and Shaun, like a silver rattle that was meant for his six month mark, earrings for her, a bracelet. The one Codsworth handed her was different, really small and marked with a date unlike the others. This was supposed to be open just days after the bombs fell, if things had gone how they were supposed to, just like normal.
She opened it and found a holotape inside, rattling around loosely. She took it out and rotated her arm with her Pip-Boy around it, finding a slot for the holotape and she plugged it in, issuing the prompts for her to play it.
"Oops, ha ha. . .Keep those little fingers away. . .Ah, there we go," she fell back into the couch, holding a hand over her mouth as tears weld up at the sound of her baby. "Just say it right there. . .right there. . .go ahead. . ." she hiccuped at the sound of Shaun giggling at the other end, her head back and hand covering her tear-soaked eyes. "Hi honey, listen. . ." she looked down at the speaker at his prompt. "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," she imagined him flinching, as she did, when Shaun screamed and then proceeded to giggle and talk in his baby language. "That's right, and patient. So patient, the patience of a saint as you mother used to say."
She hiccuped again, leaning forward onto her knees. She couldn't believe she got to hear his voice again, her baby, how life was before. Maybe it wasn't a good idea to listen to this, but she couldn't stop, couldn't stop thinking of. . .of that monster that took her baby. That took her husband.
"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, Gen?" Her name, he said her name; she tightened the fingers over her mouth. "We do it for our family. . .Now, say goodbye Shaun. . .Bye bye, say bye bye," There was a smack, like the holotape had been knocked to the floor, and she could hear Nate laughing while Shaun talked in the background. "Bye honey, we love you."
Gen stared down at the holotape as it was ejected, waiting to be pulled out, and she wiped at her tears. She couldn't believe it, she couldn't believe. . .she would get to hear his voice again, promising a normal life with their baby.
Her fists curled up on her knee and she looked up, eyes narrowed in anger. "I need my gun."
yeah, things seem a bit wonky, but next chapter it all evens out, i've never written for Fallout before and i've been just loving it so far and wanted to write something for Fallout 4 so here we are. let me know what you think!
no, i don't capitalize in my author's notes.
also, this is a part of a collection called Letters. the collection bounces between several fandoms, including Law and Order: SVU, Twilight, more Fallout stories and just whatever else can pop up. they all have a similar title like this ( Letters To My Mother, Letters To My Father, Letters To My Master, etc )