A/N: So, with Fallout 4 just around the corner, I have a lot of Fallout related energy built up, and I wanted to write a fanfic around my Fallout 3 character, Pantea, something to calm me down while I wait for Fallout 4. Please note that I have no ties with Bethesda or anything like that.

A lot of the inspiration for this story comes from Wasteland Sherriff, a now defunct Fallout fanfic which is worth a read, even though it's incomplete. The story will be overall rated M (to be on the safe side), but individual chapters (such as this one) will be significantly tamer on adult themes and violence than others (this is K+ to T depending on how badly you consider the violence). Just a general stipulation, sex, violence and expletives have prominence in these stories (especially violence), so if you don't like that sort of thing, well, you've been forewarned.

Final thing, if you have suggestions, I may take them on board. I do appreciate input from readers and if I see something I like, I will use it. With all that said, let's get down to brass tacks: the story starts a few hours after the start of the game (i.e. when you're born), and Knight Medic Willy Harper has been unable to save Catherine from her heart attack and haemorrhaging. Uplifting opening, I know.

'Patient deceased, severe cardiac arrest and internal bleeding due to complications from childbirth. Time 0543, 13th July 2258. This is Knight Medic Harper of the District of Columbia's Brotherhood of Steel, signing off. Well, who's going to deliver the bad news?'

'I will deliver it ma'am. As a highly sophisticated robotic doctor, unconcerned with trivial emotions that you humans suffer from, I would be the perfect person to candidly tell Mr. Burton that his wife has perished due to his overactive loins.'

'Uh…thanks for the offer Sawbones, but I think a little human nuance may be more…useful here. I'll tell James, you and Roger clean up in here.'

'Of course ma'am! Come on, you pansy nurse, get cleaning!'

'Sawbones, you can't speak to humans like that. We're your masters!'

'You are a Senior Squire, I am a Journeyman Doctor, and thus I outrank you. Now clean, subordinate! And salute me while you're at it!'

'Why I should-' Roger caught Harper's shaking head. He grunted 'Yes, sir,' and threw a salute up to the Mr. Gusty, who passed him a mop with his steel pincers. Harper walked out of the operating theatre and headed to the mainframe of the facility, where she found a haggard, hunched and puffy eyed man with a lab coat on his body and a baby in his arms. He was staring at the massive computer in the room with his back to the door, completely still while the child writhed in his arms for attention. Harper knocked on the wall with her bloodied hands and he turned to face her, with a resigned expression on his face.

'Wilhelmina…you're back. Is Catherine…is she?'

'I'm sorry James, we couldn't save her. The stress of the labour brought about a heart attack, and the childbirth itself made a severe haemorrhage. By the time we found out about the haemorrhage, she'd lost so much blood that all we could do was relieve her pain. So we gave her twelve doses of Med-X.'

'Did she…say anything before?'

'She was out cold for most of it, she woke up briefly while under the Med-X, but not properly.'

'I guess I already knew. It's just…well it's just not how I expected things to pan out.' She came forward and put her arm around James. The baby reached up to touch her, and she lowered herself so that the baby could grasp her bald head.'

'She's beautiful. Takes after you,' she said.

'Thank you.'

'What's her name?'

'Pantea.'

'Really? That's an interesting name,'

'She was a Persian general under Cyrus the Great's army, one of the finest strategists who had ever lived. She orchestrated the invasion of Babylon in 539 B.C. and handled the emancipation and resettlement of the Hebrew exiles…it was Catherine's idea, she wanted to scrabble at her Persian roots, which are hard to keep considering where we are in the world.'

'Well, Pantea is a beautiful name for a beautiful little girl. Can I hold her?'

'Of course, here you go.' James handed Pantea to her. She had dark, Iranian skin, and big blue eyes which pierced the places that she looked. Her face was round and fat, and her mouth was marked with dried saliva.

'Hello there little Pantea, I'm your aunt Willy. How are you today?' she said in a baby voice. 'Your daddy is a very important man, he's going to make everyone have clean water. That's a very important job, yes it is, yes it is!'

'Yes…the project. We need to finish the project. After we…we bury Catherine, we should do a whole rewiring of the internals, and reprogramme the computer systems in the Rotunda. That way, we may be able to identify where we are going wrong.'

'Well, if you need help, I may be able to rope in a few trainee scribes, they'd be very happy to do something practical. Rothchild just has them-' Harper was cut off by the Jefferson Memorial fire alarms and Knight Sergeant Cross' voice over the intercom.

'Contact, contact. Super Mutant raiding party incoming. All Brotherhood soldiers prepare to engage.'

'Well, that's me. I'll be back in a moment James,' said Harper. She handed Pantea back to him and headed to the gift shop, where her light recon armour and laser pistol were stored. Cross was already there, inserting a microfusion cell into her T-45d.

'Good, you're here, how's Catherine?' she asked. Harper just shook her head.

'Oh…well, at least the baby is healthy.'

'As healthy as a motherless child can be. What are we looking at?'

'About ten muties, they seem relatively fresh faced. Led by one of those ones in the metal armour, with a minigun.'

'Seems fairly simple. Why are we calling everyone up here?'

'Well, they have grenades and missile launchers again, we think they might be here to take out the pipes outside, and we can do without that happening again.'

'Do you have a spare energy cell or two?'

'Here,' she handed three of the small packs to her, 'They're bulk ammo I'm afraid, won't be nice to your reflectors.

'Rather have a broken pistol than a living mutant,' responded Harper, loading one of the packs into the receptor. The pistol bleeped and the wiring glowed a weak, flickering yellow. 'There, thirty shots. That will be enough. I'm ready when you are.' Cross clambered into her power armour and grabbed her laser rifle from the ground. She then led Harper through the hallway and out of the main door of the memorial, where they were greeted by a few Brotherhood soldiers firing upon a contingent of board wielding Super Mutants. The minigun wielding leader had hit one initiate in the leg, who had subsequently crawled behind some sandbags. They were spouting some violent nonsense about bone-breaking and skull crushing the 'metal men', in a typically Super Mutant style. Harper and Cross opened fire on the mutants, making short work of the lower ranked ones with nail boards.

After a brief firefight, all that stood was the minigun mutant, who had lost his left leg below the knee due to laser fire. He stopped firing for a brief moment and started begging for mercy.

'Please! Take me as your prisoner. Use me for research, torture, I don't care, just don't kill me!' Cross looked across at Harper, sharing faces of bewilderment.

'What do we do?'

'I don't know, this has never happened before. Never has a super mutant surrendered.'

'Maybe we should call Lyons.'

'Should we take the risk? If we kill it, there's no love lost, if we save it under Lyons' orders and it tries to kill us later, we'll get more injuries.'

'Maybe Lyons won't have it saved…'

'Come on Willy, we've saved every raider, slaver and child rapist from here to Chicago after they laid down their guns, and now we get a super mutant who has voluntarily laid down his arms, a member of a group who has been waging war since we got here, and you think Owen Lyons will happily sit here and say "Shoot him, he could be mildly dangerous"?'

'Fair enough. We should still call him, this is too rare a find to just kill.'

'Fine, I'll call him now.' Cross turned on her helmet radio and contacted the Citadel. 'Glendower, Glendower, this is Patriot 0-1, do you read? Over.'

'Patriot 0-1, this is Glendower, we read you loud and clear, go ahead Cross. Over.'

'Elder, we were engaged by a contingent of super mutants on the bridge to the memorial. We held them off with minimal casualties, but their leader, after his leg was torn off by a laser, dropped his gun and begged, and is currently begging, for mercy. He wants us to take him as our prisoner, over.'

'Really? Are you sure? Over.'

'That's what he's saying. How should we proceed? Over.'

'That's…wonderful news! Bind his hands and bring him back to the Citadel immediately. Out.'

'Understood, out. Dammit. Willy, you bring him in. Everyone else, keep your sights trained on that thing.'

Willy readied a length of rope and put down her pistol. As she walked forward past the defences, she heard the big stone door of the Jefferson Memorial swing open.

'Oh hey James. What'cha doing out here?'

'I heard the shooting, I wanted to make sure that everyone was okay.'

'Well, apart from a few minor wounds, we're all fine, actually, something really crazy just happened. A super mutant surrendered, completely. After he lost his leg, he begged for us to take him as our prisoner. He's just over there on the bridge.'

'That's…odd. What are you going to do with him?'

'Take him back to the Citadel and process him, I guess. To be honest, we never had planned for something like this…we never thought they had even the intelligence to surrender, let alone the regard for life. This could be a turning point.'

'I hope so. The mutant attacks are so frequent and debilitating…we won't be able to get this project running if they continue. Is there any way I can help?'

'Thanks but we'll be okay, James. I'll go cuff him and then I'll meet you inside, I want to get to know that baby a bit more.'

'Alright, I'll see you in five.' James turned to the stone entrance to the memorial, while Harper jogged past the sandbags to the kneeling super mutant, and pulled his arms behind his back.

'You, my friend, are going to make my boss very happy,' she said, as she tied the rope around his wrists.

'As are you, human,' responded the mutant, with an evil smile planted on his yellow face. Just then, with his one good leg, he turned and tripped Harper to the ground. She landed flat on her back. Before she or any of the other Brotherhood soldiers could react, the mutant pulled out a sawn-off shotgun and blasted each of Harper's knees. She went numb as the Brotherhood opened fire on the mutant, tearing his head off with laser fire. When his head fell unceremoniously onto the floor, the pain suddenly revealed itself to her. A blood curdling scream came from her mouth, and she scrabbled at the ground desperately trying to drag herself back across the bridge. Just then, a second attack wave of much more senior super mutants leapt from their hiding places and rushed across the bridge to the memorial. Their leader, with remarkable agility, bearing a Type 93 Chinese Assault Rifle, did a forward roll to where Harper was lying, and fired off three volleys of shots at the sand bags. He grabbed her by her chest, and called out to his supporting soldiers.

'Focus missile attacks on the pipes, I'll keep these metal men busy.' He then threw Harper over his shoulder, and opened fire on the Brotherhood's position, hitting a few initiates in their poorly armoured heads. The others lifted their missile launchers and fired them all at the central pipe coming from the Memorial, which had already been saturated by small arms and missile fire in the days and weeks previous. These final few shots were enough to destroy the support beams holding the already rusting pipe up, and, after a magnificent screech from the collapsing supports, it fell into the irradiated pools of the Potomac, irritating some mirelurks who had been resting on the riverbed. The lead mutant then pulled a smoke grenade out and tossed it a few feet ahead of him.

'Let's get back to the Vault. We've got a new recruit.'

James had been watching all of this from behind the Brotherhood's defences, completely horrified. All he could do was watch as Willy screamed for help as the huge mutant commander walked away with her. Unable to contain himself, he ran forward and grabbed a dead initiate's laser rifle. Charging toward the smoke cloud, Cross grabbed him from behind and held him back.

'James, no! They'll kill you. Get back inside.'

'I can't lose her too. Not my wife and my best friend, not on the same day. I have to help!'

'James, if you walk into that smoke, you aren't walking out. What will your kid do then? Let her go, James. There's nothing you can do.' James struggled in her arms but eventually stopped and fell on his knees. He then completely broke down and wept violently. Cross squatted down close to him and held him close. The Brotherhood troops stopped firing: the smoke completely hid the super mutants. They had escaped unharmed.

'I am at a loss. My beloved wife is gone, my best friend a super mutant captive. In their place is my daughter, small and helpless. As much as this place means to me... As much as it meant to Catherine, this is no place for an infant. Especially an infant without her mother.'

'James?'

'Huh? Oh, hi Florence,' said James, shutting off the holotape. 'I was just…I don't know, recording a journal I guess. What's up?'

'You're leaving, then?'

'I…I can't stay here. Without Catherine and that destroyed water pipe, the project is dead anyway. And now I have a child to take care of, which I can't do here, we don't have the supplies.'

'You can't just leave, James. This project is going to save the wasteland, and without you it will fall apart.'

'I'm sorry Florence, my mind is made up. All this project has done is cause suffering. I can't stop thinking about Willy…what happened to her, she's probably suffering unimaginable pain, all defending my…my vanity project.'

'You called her Willy, you never called her that, no matter how much she asked. You know that she would've given her life to see the project become a reality. If she were here now, she'd tell you to carry on.'

'Even if I were to stay, we'd be done in a month. Only Catherine had the know-how to fix up this place. With all the damage and no skilled engineers, this project is a mere forgone conclusion. It's over Florence.' James wiped his eyes of fresh tears, and Cross came and hugged him.

'I respect your decision, and I'll help you get out of here and find a place to stay with your kid.'

'Thank you, Florence. I really appreciate it. Well, I better go tell the others.'

The whole of the Jefferson Memorial was in a state of shock and misery. Two of the brightest and most loved people in the project, Harper and Catherine, had died within minutes of each other, and though the new arrival was adored by much of the staff, the majority of people were fighting tears and almost catatonic in their sadness. What came next was almost the exclamation mark for the worst day ever. James called everyone to amass in the Project Purity control room. There, holding his infant in his arms, and with Cross at his side, he announced that he would be leaving the project as soon as he had found a place to stay. The congregation looked as if they had been hit by a train, after having been told they had terminal lung cancer and seen their son hang themselves. They were so shocked, they couldn't even say anything, but merely watch as James walked away, leaving his life's work behind in the dust.

And that's a wrap. Tell me watch you think, fav, review etc. etc., and if you have any length concerns please tell me, I never know the appropriate length for these sorts of things.