If anything served as Nora's personal hell then it was this massive ascending vault platform she was standing on. Nora fought an urge to run herself into the metal walls so she didn't have to hear its roar any longer or remember all the events that led to this moment. She slumped to her knees, pressed her palms to her ears and screamed at the top of her lungs to drown out the sound of grinding gears and the screeching of metal moving against metal.

All of it appeared wrong. Wrong and surreal. It wasn't happening to her. No way in hell was it all real. Nate and Shaun were alive and well. They had to be. It was all a bad dream. A nightmare. A very bad nightmare. Soon she would wake up at 2 am to a cry of her son, fumble out of her cozy bed but return to it without even leaving the room because the family robot butler performed his magic on the baby and the world would fall into its mundane normality once again.

The platform came to a halt but Nora didn't wake up. Instead sunlight embraced her body and slipped past her squeezed eyelids. Her screams dissipated and she tried to look around but as soon as she opened her eyes, she forced them to close again. After unfreezing from cryogenic pod, the sun's warmth set her skin ablaze and it took several tries to adjust her vision.

As soon as she could see again, Nora bolted off the platform before she could stop to think. Few feet away from her original position, her legs tangled and the woman fell face first into the dirt. Her tense, pulsating eyeballs watered up but not enough liquid generated to cascade down the face so only a small cry blew out of her when her chest made a contact with the ground.

The woman stayed still. She rested her forehead on the uneven surface so her mouth didn't touch the soil and took in a deep breath. Her eyes had gone dry and stung but she glanced to her right, and then to her left. She didn't see or hear anything dangerous so her body relaxed. Bad idea.

She pictured a woodpecker getting at her nostrils with a dedication of a starved vulture when a throbbing sensation covered her nose area and thick fluid dripped over her mouth and onto the ground. Nora pushed her tongue up her upper lip and it tasted like metal drenched in salt.

"Ugh."

Lead that filled her bones pulled her to the ground but Nora placed her hands under her chest and pushed herself up until her rear greeted her heels. The woman's head turned to the side, catching sight of the platform. She furrowed her eyebrows. "Wonder if you would taste of blood and pain if I licked you, you metallic son of a b…" Nora coughed. Her vocals cords had shriveled up and turned to dust.

Nora chanted nonsense under her breath as she pulled on her hair at the roots. It took a good moment before she stood and approached the platform again where she had dropped a Pip-Boy, a pistol with a full magazine and her husband's wedding ring during her fit. Balancing herself turned out to be quite the task because everything ached, starved and pleaded for a drop of water but slow and steady no way won the race when a sight of platform alone made her retch.

She jumped onto the platform as if it was a nuke itching to set off, grabbed all the items that she collected on the way out of the cursed Vault 111 and dashed straight to Sanctuary Hills.

Sanctuary Hills stood desolate. Half collapsed houses stretched across its streets and human belongings from wrecked cars to children toys littered the destroyed roads. Decay and wilted vegetation colored the once lush suburb a bleak brown.

Nora's palms moistened and her heart raced a mile per second. Her face turned sallow and her legs resembled rubber but she continued to navigate through the ruins until she noticed a figure in the distance. She picked up the pace but cogwheels in her brain kicked off to full power and she ducked behind a deformed Corvega brand car before it noticed her. The shape of the figure didn't belong to a human but a robot.

Nora peeked through bashed out windows to observe the figure in the short distance but a little red toy car sitting on the front seat caught her attention. She recognized it, which meant that the vehicle belonged to the neighboring Ms. Rosa who tried to repair it with her prepubescent kid before the bombs fell. This also meant that Nora found her home.

The longer her eyes lingered on the toy the worse the tugging in her chest became. Ms. Rosa's son used to carry it everywhere and she wished that she could eventually see her neighbors again. Nora flumped on her backside and hid her face in her shaking hands, digging nails into the skin.

"As I live and breathe! Mum!" The voice made Nora shoot off like a bottle cork.

"Codsworth! What the hell is going on?"

"Besides our geraniums still being the envy of Sanctuary Hills, I'm afraid things have been dreadfully dull around here. But everything ought to get exciting once again for the sake of the good old times as you are back and well! Well, your nose needs some fixing but otherwise well. So where is your better half, mum?"

Better half. That's right. Her better half. Nate. Nora gasped as if his words hit her in the solar plexus. "There… there were people in the vault. Have you seen them? A man dressed in leather, I think? And someone else. A woman. They had guns."

He gave her a negative and instead complained about Ms. Rosa's boy running around in his Halloween costume days too early and praised Nora's parenting abilities, which further reinforced alarm inside her. She looked at the toy car and bit her bottom lip. Codsworth pressed on about Nate once more after not receiving any answers.

"They killed him."

Instead of the reaction Nora expected, Mister Handy chattered on about checkers and charades and the distraction those games would bring like she was delusional and needed help. Nora's hands formed into fists and if Codsworth didn't ask about Shaun, she would swing at him with no hesitation.

"Shaun is not with me but you bet soon enough he will. I am going to get my baby boy back." Flames flickered in Nora's blood. She believed it despite no clue where to even start. Who knew what had happened to police stations after the bombs fell. So far she saw no signs of life at all. The worst thought crept into her mind that her son might have met his father's fate. Shivers that rushed up and down her spine forced her to sit on the sidewalk.

"200 years with no proper nutrition might have done you harm. Ah, hunger induced paranoia is a nasty business I must say but not unusual these days!"

"Wait. How long you said?" Nora flat out gaped.

"200 years. A bit over 210 actually, give or take. That means you are two centuries late for dinner!" His chuckle echoed in Nora's ears. "Would you mind a snack, perhaps? Your paleness is most disconcerting, mum. I must inform that our stock of vitamin supplements is past the expiration date unlike that hazardous stash of sir's favorite Fancy Lads Snack Cakes. Bah!"

Nora slapped her forehead. She couldn't figure out what angered her more – Codsworth's obliviousness or the absurdity of the situation. But Codsworth's complex programming didn't allow him to act like a dim-witted piece of wired junk unless something had gone affray. He lacked the usual shiny, polished surface but instead rust and a bleak shade of light grey that called for a new paint job covered his entire frame. Was he defective? "Codsworth, are you alright?"

His voice turned to a sob. "Mum, it's been just horrible. Two centuries with no one to talk to, no one to serve…"

Nora's stomach fell. She was frozen for over 200 years? For real? Her body went still and she extended her wooden arm to pat one of Mister Handy's limbs as he lamented his inability to wax floors or polish rust. Codsworth needed polishing himself and she decided to do the job herself although tinkering with robotics was Nate's favorite pastime whenever he found the time. After her husband retired from the army he had all the time in the world but none of it for her. Neither did she for him. The distance gnawed both of them yet they carried with their lives for the sake of avoiding the truth.

She sincerely believed a child would save their marriage but Nora never admitted that to him. In retrospect it was a terrible idea. They lived their lives in the middle of a seemingly endless war with communist China, food shortages and disease outbreaks razed good old USA and they dealt with other general government ridiculousness. Nora of all people would know. She worked for the military and making regular people lives miserable was a part of standard procedure.

Nora met Nate on the job although they didn't make it official until years later. His fellow soldier and a good friend messed up during an assignment and hurt a bunch of civilians. She got his case (cases really) and like a good lawyer won them all. Nate's friend was a cocky bastard but she was paid to benefit the military and apparently a status of a good soldier outweighed human decency.

Nora's and Nate's military connections brought them wealth. They had enough funds to last a lifetime while so many fellow countrymen suffered everyday consequences of war. She prided herself in that.

Little Shaun was less than a year old when the world hit the nukes and not like people didn't saw it coming. Nora should have seen it coming. But she be damned if longing for a child didn't win out. That far-fetched longing to feel human again.

"There there, Cods, nuclear fallout is a bitch but focus."

"Unfortunately I don't know much of anything, mum. After all these years I was certain all of you were… dead. But, Miss Nora, I could not let that foul language go unnoticed. Use of such obscenity would teach your son bad manners."

"I apologize." Profanities had filled her mind since she emerged on the surface but she wasn't the type to voice them. Right now she had to and the more she vocalized them the better it felt. She had to find that asshole that put a fucking bullet into her husband's head and stole her only hope to attain humanity.

"Mum, I did find this holotape. I thought you might like to have it so I kept it safe in case of your return. I believe it was sir's present to you."

Her hand trembled as she held out to receive the holotape but reconsidered and shook her head. "Keep it for now. I am not ready. So… is there any danger around?"

"Just us." A voice next to them emerged.