Author's Note:

1) Thanks to all of you so much for reading this story. please review this to tell me any errors you see, if you love it, if you hate it, if i should add anything, if you want to see anything happen...ANYthing just let me know

2) these first couple of chapters are slow, so bear with me. there will be more action and plot as i go on but these first couple are just going into the minds of our main characters and explaining who they are...i am warning you now because i dont want someone to read this and be ike "what! theres no shooting?" and just close out of this...you have been warned

3) just some info you should know about how this story is different from the game. The only major difference is the time. It is still in the future and everything, but instead of the nuclear war being 200 years ago and them being locked in the vault for that whole time...i shortened it to 7 years. i wanted the characters to remeber life before the vault (and if not my story would not work...like at all)...oh and the lone warrior (or wanderer, sorry i change the name a lot) has a sister! just for you fyi

Summary: So this story is basically about growing up, maturing, survival, love, finding yourself, refinding faith, trust, and balance. The story is basically that the lone wanderer and her sister live in Megaton. They start out as very different people and have thier share of fights. One day, the lone wanderer hears some people escaped a vault that she used to know...well they end up being people she does know. How does she cope with finding her new friends, because the Wastes has changed her dramatically. And will they survive this horrid Wasteland, or will the Wasteland consume them first? Read on to find out :)

ENJOY!

Sara's POV

I have always wondered how I ended up here. Life wasn't always this way, at least that's what they say. Kids used to go outside and play in the sun, they wanted to grow up and be cops or firemen, they even used to go to school. Life now isnt like that. It is constant worry, fear, and survival of the fittest. I slowly rolled over into my side and realesed a sigh of depression. I wish I could remember what life was like before the world went to hell. Instead I am laying on a dusty old couch waiting. Waiting for what you might ask? I think the same thing myself. Maybe it is for my sister to find the solution to our crappy life here, or maybe it is for my shift to start at the saloon I work at, or maybe it is for my life to magically fix itself….well the last part hasn't worked in the last two years we have lived in the Wastelands, and as the hailed Lone Warrior said, "Nothing in life comes by itself, you have to work for it."

Oh, my dearest sister. Hero of these barbaric Wastelands for saving our town from an atomic bomb, for creating peace between blood thursty vampires and the small town of Arefu, for defeating countless brutal raiders from futhur distruction, and for keeping me cooped up in this filthy house all day. I could hear her snores on the floor above me. Sometime at around three a.m. I heard her return back home from the mine fields. She quickly ran right up stairs and I heard the familiar crinkle of the bed springs as her body fell onto the bed, not even realizing I was up the whole time. Don't get me wrong, I love my sister, more than life itself, but at the same time she doesn't understand that I need to live a little. She had to go out on another stupid mission for Moira and left me worried sick! With all of the raiders , mole rats, and wild dogs running a muck what sister wouldn't be. No matter how much I begged she wouldn't let me accompny her outside of Megaton.

"The world is a dangerous place." She always reponds to me and leaves me in the 'saftey' of this house. Why she goes on these silly missions, I will never know.

"We could just stay here." I tell her. "This place is safe and we have all we need. You don't have to go on these silly missions."

"Nah, Sara." She responds to me. "I have to go. You have to stay here. You wanna know why I go out on these 'silly missions', it's all for you. We need protection, weponds, and caps. There are things I get from helping people outside that we couldn't get by sitting on our butts here…like friends who can do stuff for us. Take this house for instance, if I didn't stabilize the bomb then where would we be living? Plus, I have been asking everyone if they had seen Dad, now practically all of the Wastes is keeping an eye out for him."

She sounds well and good and all, but no matter what she doesn't understand me. Let's say this hero and her teeny sidekick don't think on the same wavelength…ever!...But I always think about him, Dad I mean. We havent seen or heard from him since we left the vault two years ago. A uprising in our vault caused our dad to leave, eventually we found our way out too but Dad's gone somewhere. My sister doesn't talk about it, even though I hae tried to bring it up mulitple times.

"We cant change the past, only the future." She tells me when I start to miss Dad. "Tears wont bring him back." I have never seen her cry, ever. It seems like as soon as we walked out of the vault and saw the world for the first time my sister became a completely different person. She used to have very close friends, now she trusts no one. She used to enjoy the little things, now she doesn't care at all. She used to tell me everything, now she tells me nothing. All emotion seems to be sucked out of her. Survival is the only thing of importance, other than finding Dad. In only two short years my life was completely turned upsidedown. Nothing is the same, nor will anything be the same.

So here's my life now: start with waking up every morning checking up on my dear sister first to see if she has returned or is stil out in the hell lands. Second, I get myself ready for the day and make sure I am well armed and dressed for anything…who knows, a group of raiders could evade and burn this place down any minute. Next, I repair armor or weaponds or what ever else needs repairing. Cant have us running on silly missions without guns in tip top shape and armor good to go. After all that is done I check up on Moira to see if any special items have been brought in, my whole life revoles around making sure our house is fully stocked and safe, making sure my sister has all needed equiptment and that it's functional, and making caps to fund the first two things. Yea, not too exciting. The only thing I remotly look forward to is working with Gob. That goul was kind enough to let me have a job at his saloon. I mean sure I only make minimal caps and sure I clean up after drunk people all day, but its enough to get us by. My sister is the one who brings in most of our caps. It is her caps that by us our equiptment, mine make sure we get food on the table. Sometimes Gob will let me have a left over draft or plate of food if I do a good job, which Is all the time. Does she know, um what she doesn't know wont hurt her! Its what she gets for leaving me on my own.

So, this is life in the wastelands. It can be a short one if you are not careful; but someday it will b better. Life here isnt too bad unless you are not willing to work towards your own survival, so it is just like that past. The world we are living in now is only a replica of how it was, the only difference is that we only have ourselves to depend on. There is no government hand outs here, no nonprofit organizations, no police force, no fire fighters. But if each one of us can over come that, if we can over come the mind set of 'just survive' maybe we can go back to hlpin each other. I miss the days when I would walk through the vault and people would say hello, or when we would thow surprise birthdays, or when we would play tag. We can go back to that. If we as humans can look within ourselves to see past these primal instincts to only look after ourselves, we can help each other out and become great again. It's only a matter of time.