Author's notes:
This story follows mostly the Brotherhood of Steel storyline, with some adjustments made to it. I like to believe that what we see and hear in the game are only fractions of what is happening, so I'm taking creative liberties when filling out the gaps and fleshing out the story. If you wanted to see an identical copy of what happened in the game, you would probably be playing that anyway.
The background story of the Sole Survivor is also changed. It never made sense for me to have her as a lawyer, so in my head she pursued a completely different profession. Nate was still a soldier and they had their suburban dream house and baby Shaun.
1. Lost Boston
The light hit her eyes in an almost painful way. Fox shielded her face with a raised arm, blinded for a moment. Able to see again, she gasped at the sight of the field of waste that used to be Boston. Destroyed buildings clashed horribly with the amount of lush greenery around them, as if humankind had been gone for a long time and nature had started to reclaim what was rightfully hers.
Fox unwillingly relived the moment she had emerged from Vault 111 in her head once more. It had been a few weeks since that horrid day and it finally started to sink in that the Commonwealth Wasteland was her reality now. Even after she had stumbled upon Abernathy Farm and spent over a week helping the family with farming in return for food and shelter, she had refused to believe any of this was real.
Some part of her must have believed it though, judging by her reluctance to share her real name with the family. Surprisingly, nobody had even raised an eyebrow when she claimed her name to be Fox. Did foxes even exist anymore? Could it be that they were wiped out with most normal fauna? Or she just hadn't encountered a horrid mutated version of the animal yet.
The first time Fox saw the abomination the naked mole rat had become, she had surely been grateful to have found the 10mm pistol from the Vault and to have had at least some training with guns. The first bullets had obviously missed and she ended up bashing the skull of the last critter with the back of her pistol, but she had survived. After that, she made sure to get some target practise every day, walking a bit further from the farm as not to scare the brahmin. Even while she still believed everything to be a horrid nightmare she couldn't wake up from, she still had enough self-preservation instincts to prepare for anything. And in this world, it meant you had to prepare for everything. Even eating a tato straight from the field was dangerous, as everything had to be cooked in order to not get cooked by radiation yourself.
Fox wasn't entirely sure how cooking removed irradiation residue or whether anything around her made sense anymore. Her university education and the brief introduction to working life had not prepared her for this. She hated looking stupid, but as the Abernathys already knew she was a Vault dweller (it was kind of difficult to hide that glaring blue Vault-Tec jumpsuit), she had claimed she was a computer technician in her Vault and had no prior contact to anything outside that shelter. The lie appeared to work well enough and the Abernathys didn't seem to be overly talkative people anyway.
Somewhere in the middle of pondering post-apocalyptic cooking techniques the truth finally hit her. It felt like being punched in the gut and having someone claw at her heart at the same time. She was alone again. Nate was… Nate was dead. He was gone. She had barely even looked at him in the Vault before escaping, not wanting to have that image burnt into her head after waking from the nightmare. And Shaun!
Fox crumpled to the ground, clutching at her chest as she felt waves of insane grief ripple over her. The pistol hit the patch of ragged grass next to her with a sad thump. Her breathing came in short bursts, interrupted by hysterical crying. Alone. And even worse, she had failed her baby. She had failed her only child. She had done the one thing she swore to never do. She was supposed to be there for Shaun, supposed to let him have the kind of childhood she never had.
The panicky crying lasted for at least an hour. It seemed like even the Wasteland realised she needed that time for herself as there were no mole rats digging their way to where she was and not even any scared radstags hopping past. No Abernathy had come to search for her, since it had become customary for Fox to take a few hours to herself every day, taking a walk to stretch her legs and get some target practice done.
When Fox returned, Connie took a quizzical look at her shredded hands, but helped to patch them up even without knowing what had happened. Fox felt too embarrassed to admit she had started a boxing match with the nearest tree in sheer rage after she had stopped crying. The rage had helped though. It had filled Fox with fiery determination. If this all was real and Nate was dead, she was the only person left in this world to take care of Shaun. She did not know who had taken her son or why, but she would find them and make them suffer. Shaun had better be alive and well when she found him or the captors would be wishing they were already dead.
Connie knew better than to ask why when Fox offered to trade the Vault jumpsuit for any pieces of armour and ammo she could spare. Even though she had offered shelter to this young woman, she knew close to nothing about her. With that new look in her eyes that Connie could only describe as a combination of despair and hatred, Fox did not appear to be someone who would take kindly to unnecessary questions. Not that she had been willing to part with information about herself before, but this was different.
Seeing the Vault dweller dressed up in a mismatched array of old trousers that were only held together thanks to liberal usage of tape, a tattered long-sleeved shirt and worn-out pieces of various leather armour sets, Connie asked just one question. "Where will you be going?" Fox slowly shook her head, throwing an old backpack over her shoulder to finish the outfit. "Wherever I need to. Someone was taken from me and I need to get them back." She extended her hand to Connie and shook it with a firm grip.
"Thank you for everything, I would not have survived out here without your help and guidance. I hope to be able to return the favour one day." Giving Connie a final nod goodbye, Fox squared her shoulders and started her journey. The farmer sighed at the sight of the ragdoll adventurer growing smaller in the distance. "One pair of hands less again." Grabbing the bucket of tatos she had harvested that day, she set back to her duties. In the Commonwealth, work never ended.
Walking away from the farm, Fox stretched her fingers carefully to relieve the itching caused by the bandages. That had been stupid. It provided some release of anger at that point, but stupid nevertheless. She was a grown woman now, with a child to take care of. Wherever he was, Fox would rescue Shaun from those monsters and get a chance to be the mother she wanted to be.
Her knowledge of pre-war Boston seemed to be virtually useless at this point. With no landmarks in sight, Fox decided to follow the power lines heading out from the high voltage tower serving as the base for the farm building. If there was nothing else she could trust, she could feel safe in the knowledge that such lines should lead her to an area with high energy usage. Some of the buildings in that area must have survived the blast. And in those buildings she would find people who might have answers to the questions burning her brain right now.
Making her way downhill, a settlement of mostly preserved houses caught her interest a bit further to her left. It seemed like a very tempting location, until she heard distant gunfire from that direction. "Nope," she muttered to herself, aligning her feet with the power lines above her head again. "That is way too much gunfire for one person to handle."
After an uneventful hike through wasteland nature, she claimed a lone abandoned house as her shelter for the night. It was scantily furbished, with a bare mattress on the ground, a desk, a chair that was lying on its side and a… chemistry station? "Seems like I found the home of the witch of the woods," chuckled Fox to herself. "Or a drug dealer. In any case, I'm glad the owner isn't here." It felt odd to talk to herself, but even Fox needed to hear a human voice every now and then. It made her feel just a tiny bit less lonely.
"So that's why elderly people start muttering to themselves," she guessed mid-yawn as she tried to make herself comfortable on the mattress. "Your own company is better than no company." With that, she positioned the pistol next to the mattress so she could grab it easily, closed her eyes and waited for dreams to take her away.
As she was woken from her slumber by sun shining straight into her eyes (what idiot would place the mattress there?), Fox felt like she had barely slept at all. That was probably true, she had always been bad at that. Nate had kept telling her to get some sleeping pills, but Fox was vehemently against any meds she could avoid. Also, the pills were completely out of question once she had gotten pregnant with Shaun. What if she'd sleep through something that could harm the baby? Like she'd have insane cramps in her sleep and not wake up? And after Shaun was born, it was even worse. Fox couldn't accept the chance that she might not wake up when he needed her.
She forced herself to get up, groggily rubbing at her eyes. Apparently she had missed something when she arrived in the dark. There was a hatch that probably lead to the cellar. That would also explain the weird positioning of the mattress – it was hauled out of the way to go down. Which meant whoever did that, might still be in the cellar. So not worth it. If you don't know anything about a person, assume they have no good intentions. That strategy had rarely failed Fox and she did not intend to abandon it any time soon.
Quickly gathering her few belongings, she made her way out of the shack. She decided to lose no more time in that area, so she fished out some hastily packaged mole rat chunks from the backpack to satiate her rumbling stomach and made her way along the power lines once more, chewing on the dry meat. The Abernathys were more used to vegetable meals, so she didn't expect them to make anything magical out of the mole rats she hunted, but the texture never failed to disappoint her. Ah, what she would give for proper food. Even a tin of Pork n' Beans would taste like a gourmet meal by now.
The day proved to be rather uneventful. Fox had mostly feared coming upon new horrifying versions of pre-war creatures, but the worst animal she met that day was a drug dealer. It took her a moment to realise that Jet and other chems that this man was talking about were drugs. Figures, even in a post-apocalyptic world people would rather come up with new ways to trash their bodies instead of trying to make things better for themselves and others around them.
Was it her power of persuasion or the glint of madness in her eyes as she was waving her pistol around, but the dealer and his friend left the diner they had been staking out. Fox had little sympathy for the young man rocking back and forth on the floor of the diner, clearly under the influence of drugs or rather suffering from rather violent symptoms of withdrawal. She felt more sorry for Trudy – the mother had been threatened with being shot over her son's drug addiction and was now left taking care of that wreck of a human being.
Feeling a wave of uncomfortable memories coming back, she barely listened to Trudy thanking her and promising to get her son clean of that garbage. She felt borderline rude as she muttered it was nothing and backed out of the small diner building. She did agree to take some ammo as payment for her help though, as that really came in handy. Her stash had been almost depleted as she found the diner; Connie hadn't had too many 10mm bullets in her stockpile.
To her great dismay, the path laid out by the power lines had to be abandoned that day. It had led her to some bigger buildings indeed, but the amount of gunfire coming from there was way higher than she found comfortable to deal with. "If only I had an army behind me," she mused bitterly. The railroad she had almost crossed made for a nice guide though, helping her get to a bigger road. That one would definitely take her to a settlement somewhere. Then the only questions would be what hostility levels does that place have and whether she could find shelter and help there.
She spent the night curled up on the partially rotten floors of a building that had been mostly blown away by the nuclear blast. Fox felt exposed, shuffling her back as close to the scrap of wall as she could. She had a few bleeding wounds on her arms and legs from squashing the giant radroaches that had been inhabiting the ruins. Her gun was of little use against such a swarm – while you try to shoot one, three others try to bite you from behind. Nasty critters. Fox shuddered as she drifted away into restless sleep.
She hadn't gotten far next morning before the Pip-Boy on her arm started making a weird noise. "What's up, boy?" she quizzed the device, a familiar tinge of excitement going through her body. This was something she knew she could fix. Sure, the ones she had handled had been slightly older models, but the basics stayed the same. Ah, this one had been set up to notify the user in case a new radio station came in range. Quite handy. "Or should I call it quite arm-y?" she chuckled quietly, jabbing her finger at the Pip-Boy. God, she needs some proper human company with actual conversations, pronto.
Fox tuned in to the right wavelength and froze as she heard the transmission. Soldiers in need of help. That didn't sound good. If a team of soldiers couldn't handle whatever they were dealing with, was it really a good idea to get involved? Still, she couldn't help herself from moving in the direction of Cambridge Police Station, cursing herself the entire way. "This is not a good idea, Fox," she chided herself. The image of Nate in her head did not allow her to stop though. "What if the people who helped Nate during his last tour had thought the same? He would not have survived."
She felt a pang of pain as she realised Nate was dead anyway, but tried to brush the thoughts away. She could maybe help buy some more time for that squad. Besides, there was a personal stake in that as well. The world may have changed, but Fox was certain that even in this wasteland, the high-ups in the military would have access to information way beyond what any civilian could get.
The sound of gunshots and shouting was guiding her in the right direction as she approached the police station. Holding her pistol at the ready, Fox carefully eased herself around the last corner, trying not to draw attention to her presence. For a moment, she froze in place. A man in power armour was fighting off a horde of… what the hell were these? The human-like creatures moved in a fast shuffle, dragging their bony legs over the asphalt and making the most horrid guttural noise Fox had ever heard. Their bodies were partially covered by rags that probably had been of some other colour than dirty grey at some point in their lives. But the faces… the bone structure bore a close resemblance to that of human faces, but the skin was melted together into a horrid mess.
Fox's free hand flew to her mouth as she fought the urge to throw up. These were humans. Or had been humans. And she was about to walk in there? Hell no. She was already turning around, ready to flee, when she heard a scream of pain that snapped her head back to the action. In her panic, she had not noticed there were two other people present. Next to the hulking form in the power armour she hadn't even seen the woman who was now dragging away a badly wounded man who had apparently been run over by these zombie creatures. The armoured one did his best to shield his partners, but they were getting overwhelmed.
"Fuck everything," muttered Fox, hating herself as she scampered up the stairs near the corner, placing herself on a higher bridge-like construction. "Fuck-fuck-fuck!" she repeated in her head, extending her shaking arms and shooting at the abominations below, doing her best to avoid the soldiers. Some bullets missed, but some found their intended targets, crippling the creatures and slowing their advance. That seemed to buy the others the time they needed. The woman dragged her wounded companion up the entrance stairs and propped him against the wall.
Fox was glad to see the woman re-joining the battle as she was developing a small battlefront of her own – some of the disfigured humans had spotted her shooting from the bridge and were now making their way up the stairs. Fox found herself scampering backwards as she frantically emptied her pistol at the nearest creatures while trying to remain unseen to the ones below. Fortunately, the others seemed to be making short work of their share of these zombies as the onslaught was slowly coming to its end.
The last living abomination that had been clawing at her slumped to the ground as a laser beam from below sliced through its head. Fox collapsed with her back against the railing, trying to control her breathing as she attempted to assess the gashes on her arms and legs. A shout cut through her cloud of panic. "Civilian!" She slowly turned herself around to look down at the soldier who had called out. Boy, he seemed angry. Thick brows knitted together in a scowl, he stared her down. Even from her higher vantage point, she felt tiny under that furious glance. "State your business!"
"Can you at least lower your gun?" Fox was amazed she was even able to say anything, but her adrenaline kick seemed to win over anxiety. Making sure she wasn't moving in any way that could be perceived as a threat, she slowly made her way down the stairs. Her right hand was slightly extended to the side with the gun to show she was not going to do anything with it. Hell, she was out of bullets anyway.
The soldier had lowered his weapon, but his stance remained cautious. "State your business," he repeated. "I'm a pest exterminator. Saw you had a bit of a zombie problem," Fox tried to lighten the atmosphere. That did not seem to do the trick as the response was an even deeper scowl. Damn, did this man's eyebrows have their own life or something? And would they start curling towards the inside of his face if he frowned even harder?
"Evading my questions is a sure-fire way of getting yourself ejected from the compound." Why did it feel like being scrutinised by a teacher at school? Fox raised her left arm to show the Pip-Boy. "I caught your transmission. Figured you could use some help." That did not seem to help much either, since the soldier still looked angry. Fox pondered whether he had issues with accepting help.
"You could have gotten yourself killed, civilian!" Ah, that would explain. "Sneaking in like that, you're lucky you did not get shot on sight!" Fox raised her eyebrows at the display of rage. "Oh I'm sorry, did not realise I should have walked up and stated my presence before shooting the creatures down."
The woman had stepped next to the soldier in power armour. "Give her a break, Danse, she was just trying to help." So the tin man was named Danse. "He doesn't mean to be so grumpy," the woman continued. "It's just… It's been a rough day and we didn't see you joining the fight. Could have easily shot you if we had seen sudden movement on the bridge." She chuckled. "I guess you're lucky to be good at hiding."
Danse gave her a stare similar to the one Fox had just received. "You are out of line, Scribe Haylen. This is no laughing matter." He returned his gaze to Fox, pausing for a moment. "Since the moment we arrived in the Commonwealth, we've been constantly under fire. The feral ghoul attack was just the latest of our problems." He seemed to be calming down, which was a huge relief for Fox. She could handle angry people, but it was definitely not her favourite pastime. Those situations often brought out the bitterly sarcastic side of her that would probably be best kept stashed away in this particular company.
"So, these things are called feral ghouls?" she asked before realising she had even spoken. Danse's forehead reacquired the "furiously furrowed" formation. "Where have you been living, civilian, a vault?" Shit. Don't freeze, come up with something. Damnit, Fox! Anything! "Uh, no idea." Shit, not that!
"What do you mean no idea?" Does his face sometimes get stuck like this? Would make sense, considering how much he scowls. Damn, he's still waiting for an answer. Think-think-think! "Uh, I probably got into a bad fight. Woke up one day with no idea where I was, must have been a hard knock on the head. So you could say I am relearning how to handle the Commonwealth. Still missing quite a lot of pieces of the puzzle, including the correct names of most things."
Fox was holding her breath, expecting to be ejected from the compound as Danse had threatened before. To her great surprise, even if he did not quite buy the lie, he at least did not question it out loud. "Well, whoever you are, we are grateful for the help." Fox breathed out, relaxing her shoulders as the man continued. "I am Paladin Danse of the Brotherhood of Steel." Indicating his companions, he introduced them as Scribe Haylen and Knight Rhys. Fox thought to herself that the men of this squad were probably picked for their grumpy looks as Rhys seemed to be a slightly smaller version of Danse in that regard. Haylen on the other hand appeared to be glad to have someone new around.
For an uncomfortable moment, Fox felt scrutinised by Danse as he seemed to be taking in her tattered appearance. The tape that was holding her trousers together had become partially undone on her left leg, revealing her shin that was scattered in bug bites and dried blood from her battle with radroaches. Fox slid her hands behind her back to hide the bloodied knuckles. Her bandages were probably somewhere on the bridge. Or in the mouth of one of those ghouls, since she was pretty sure someone had bitten her left hand. Fox nearly gagged at the thought.
The next thing out of Danse's mouth came as a surprise to her. "If you would like to continue pitching in, we could use an extra gun on our side." Fox could have sworn Rhys growled at that proposition. "I'm fine," he snapped, pushing himself off the ground and falling back the next moment, cursing under his breath. "Come on, I'll patch you up," offered Haylen, helping the disgruntled knight up. "See you inside!" That could have been directed at either Danse or Fox, but that was the last thing on the wanderer's mind at that point. She was more intrigued by why Danse suddenly wanted her help after nearly biting her head off earlier. Figuratively, of course.
"I don't join up with people I don't know." She assumed an almost military stance with her hands clasped behind her back without even realising it. For a moment she thought Danse was suppressing a smile. "Fair enough. As stated earlier, I am from the Brotherhood of Steel. My squad is here on recon duty, but I'm down a man and our supplies are running low."
She smirked. "Not sure how I could help with that, not being a man and all." Danse did not seem amused, so Fox forced the corners of her mouth downwards in a serious expression, motioning him to continue. "I've been trying to send a distress call to my superiors, but the signal is too weak to reach them. Scribe Haylen has modified the radio tower of this compound, but it still isn't enough. We were about to head to ArcJet Systems to get their Deep Range Transmitter for boosting the signal when we got overwhelmed by ghouls."
Fox's eyes widened in excitement. Now that was something she could get behind. After that day's horrors it would be great to get some tinkering done. She had to force herself to focus on Danse's voice instead of her inner monologue. "The plan is to infiltrate the facility, secure the transmitter and bring it back here." He looked at her expectantly. "So, what do you say? Ready to lend the Brotherhood of Steel a hand?"
Trying to suppress her curiosity over a potential new piece of technology, Fox reminded herself that she still had no idea about the mysterious organisation she was about to get involved with. That was not the army after all and she needed to make sure they would be able to help if she helped them out. "What exactly is the Brotherhood of Steel?"
"Our order seeks to understand the nature of technology, its power," the metal chest of his power armour almost seemed to puff with pride, "Its meaning to us as humans. And we fight to secure that power from those who would abuse it." She didn't manage to hold her tongue after hearing that. "Oh, so you loot everything you see and keep it to yourself? Noble." If Danse had felt insulted, he did a very good job not showing it. "Looting implies that we're attempting to benefit ourselves. That couldn't be further from the truth." Well, you sure look cosy in your power armour. This time she managed to not say it out loud.
"So what do you say? Will you help us?" At that question, Fox pointedly measured Danse with her eyes and then looked down at her own equipment. "Seems a rather unfair distribution of weapons and armour." She clicked her pistol, pointing it at the ground. "Also, I seem to have a bad case of no damn ammo." For the first time, Danse almost offered her a smile. "That can be fixed. I do not have a spare suit of power armour and in any case, those are reserved for members of Brotherhood of Steel. You can however stock up on ammo in the police station and we should be able to find you something slightly less open to wear."
Fox lifted and shook her leg, the torn remains of her trousers flapping around. "Anything would be an upgrade at this point," she responded, suppressing a grunt of pain. Note to self: don't shake limbs that have recently made a closer acquaintance with zom- …ghouls. Fuck, that hurt. Pretending to be fine, she jerked her head towards the doors. "So, let's get going."
This time Danse did actually smile. "Outstanding."