"War… War never changes," I muttered the beginning of my speech while wiping the mist off the mirror.

"You'll knock em dead tonight, hun," Nora, my beautiful wife, said as she entered the bathroom, looking me up and down as I dressed.

"Yeah, just nervous. Been awhile since I had to give a speech, ya know?"

Nora laughed light heartedly and wrapped her arms around my neck. She was all but hanging from my back, and planted a kiss at the base of my neck making me shiver. She studied me with a small smile for a moment while I was brushing my teeth.

"So… you can jump out of a perfectly good airplane but giving a speech makes you nervous?"

"Well, I was nervous then too," I mumbled out, tooth paste making it hard to articulate my words.

"But you survived. I'm also pretty sure there won't be any Chinese invisatroops or whatever you called them at the veterans hall today, so I don't think you have a reason to be too nervous," She said with a little grin on her face.

She let go of me and I turned around to embrace her. He slender body was warm and soft under the fabric of her pajamas. We stood there for awhile, swaying back and forth, her head tucked under my chin. We were a perfect fit, no questioning that in my mind. I planted a soft kiss on her forehead and she squeezed me a bit tighter before letting go. It was one of those simple memories that stick out in your mind as perfection. As her warmth comforted me, I couldn't help myself from reminiscing briefly over how id gotten to so lucky.

We had met when I was on leave in a bar in downtown Boston. We were both home for Christmas and she had just escaped her parents house to get a drink with friends. When I walked into that little corner bar and saw her at the counter, lazily sipping her crown and nuka, it was like the whole world dimmed so she could shine brighter. Her friends were gabbing about something but she seemed disinterested in the conversation. My friends finally forced me to introduce myself after I'd spent half an hour staring at her. At first she wanted nothing to do with me, she just waved me off like every other guy in the bar that had approached her that night. I must have bought her at least three different drinks before she let me finish my first sentence and I managed to get her to agree on a date. We ended up in a little diner for brunch the next day, we never tired of each other and spent the rest of the day flirting and wandering the streets stopping at Boston square and watching the ducks. After that we had a second one and I had to go back to the war.

It wasn't a secret, I was in love but she wasn't there just yet so I asked her the only thing I could. "Can I write to you?" her answer was yes. I was deployed to Anchorage, Alaska one month after we met. I was in the Airborne Rangers and my unit had made a habit of coming back alive from suicide missions. My whole life I had been breed for this. My father, my grandfather, and all the way back as far as we have records, my family has been in the military. I was told it was my duty to be the best I could and it landed me here on the frontline. I always did my duty with excellence but I'd be lying if I said I enjoyed it.

Alaska was a nightmare, my company parachuted in to capture a facility in the mountains that had been shelling the shit out of the boys in the trenches but all but two of us were blown off course by strong winds. My whole company died, except me and Gunnery Sergeant Benjamin Montgomery who was injured badly during the operation. I don't really want to talk about it much. After the operation I was reassigned to a marine unit that was holding the trenches.

A piece of me died in those damn trenches. The once pure white snow was stained bloody red from the bodies that had been left to freeze to the earth. After an attack, the trenches would give off steam and almost seem to hiss from the snow melting under the napalm and blood. It was hell and it was burned into my memory. I wrote to Nora every damn day during that time until I came home. Once I was home I couldn't sleep. Everything brought me back to Anchorage, everything from the thud of a door to a child crying out would send me into a panic. The only time I felt at peace was when I was with Nora. I'm sure she noticed, my hands would quiver when I was anxious. Every time I was with her and that would happen she'd take my hand and squeeze it tight. I was only back for a few weeks but we spent every waking moment together until I had to leave again. This time I went to china but it didn't last long. I got wounded and when I came home, she was waiting at the air port with a baby boy. I didn't have a ring, just my dog tags but she said yes.

We put the wedding off so she could finish her final year of school. I was getting enough disability from the military for my injuries that I could stay home with Shaun and pay for our little apartment. We got married in the summer by a creek. It was a beautiful and small affair seeing we both didn't have many friends. She wore this knee high dress with pearls that shined in the sunlight when she walked, she was so gorgeous. We bought a house in a new suburb of Boston soon after so we could be near our families.

For awhile things were great. She got a job at a law firm and I stayed home with the baby. Then the war started ramping up even more and tensions were at an all time high. The government froze the payout for all veterans benefits and various other social services to pay for the research and development of more power armor to defeat the Chinese. There was even discussion for drafting veterans back into active duty. It was this time that I started to think about our safety in case of the possibility of nuclear war. At the time Vault Tec was running a special for war veterans and we secured a spot for almost free. I started doing odd jobs for various construction crews and Nora changed her hours at the law firm so she could watch Shaun. Her parents were over quite a bit also to help us when neither of us could stay home since we couldn't afford a day care.

Today though, was like any other day except we both had the day off. I had a speech that afternoon at the veterans hall to commemorate a statue in honor of those lost in Operation Anchorage. Nora had been cooking since yesterday to prepare for the potluck after the event. We had most everything ready except to calm my nerves a little and get dressed. Nothing a little puff puff pass couldn't handle and my loving, supportive, and beautiful wife.

"Mum! Coffees ready!"

"Be right there Codsworth!" Nora called from the bedroom.

I grabbed a mug of fresh coffee off the counter and began flipping through last week's issue of Grognak the barbarian. Nora sipped her coffee loudly and glanced over at me, wiggling her eyebrows suggestively, I returned the gesture and we both tried our hardest not to laugh while drinking. I eventually lost and almost spat coffee on my lap. She got up and pinched me a little and I tried to retaliate but she skipped away. She flipped on the TV and settled on the couch.

I could hear Shaun, our son, start fussing and saying the one of the only two words he knew, "dadda," in the back bedroom. Me and Nora locked eyes and waited to see what would happen, knowing Codsworth, our Mister handy robot, was probably trying to dress him or something. He did great with Shaun normally but I could understand if Shaun thought the big guy was a little scary sometimes.

"Mr. Davis, Shaun is needing some of that paternal instinct."

"He's all yours, husband!" Nora shot me a smile that said, 'Haha! I get to be lazy!'

"Gee, Thanks, mom," I said as I got up.

She huffed a bit in annoyance at my jeer. She was turning thirty this year and was rather annoyed by it.

I hoped over the couch and walked behind Nora, gently running my hand across her shoulders as I headed towards the hall earning a smile form her. I came into the room and picked up my son. He had been standing in the middle of his room half dressed and wearing his shoes on the wrong feet. I bounced him a bit and spun around several times before blowing a little raspberry on his cheek earning a giggle that made everything seem right in the world, if only for a moment.

I gently sat him back down and took his shoes off and put them back on the right feet. I repeated the nursery rhyme my father taught me when I was little about tying your shoes. I knew Shaun wouldn't understand it yet but I figured it wasn't too early to start saying it. He was getting so big already that the thought crossed my mind that one day ill pick him up for the last time and he'll be a big boy after that. No, don't think about that, just live for today. I thought to myself as I listened to Shaun say, "Dadda," over and over.

"There's my two favorite men," Nora was leaning up against the doorway.

"You know I was thinking we should take Shaun to the park after the potluck," She came closer and leaned against me, watching Shaun rolling a wooden car back and forth. He still needed a shirt to match his little khakis.

"Will it be like that one night in the park a year ago?"I asked in a husky voice, burying my face in her long black hair. She snorted a bit when she laughed and playfully hit my shoulder.

"Maybe, if you play your cards right, big guy."

"Mr. Davis! You should come see this!" Codsworth shouted, sounding panicked.

"Codsworth, what's wrong?" Nora quickly found a random shirt for Shaun and we rushed into the living room, fearing what Codsworth could be talking about. Whatever it was, it sounded urgent.

"-ushroom clouds have been sighted in New York and Pennsylvania… we have confirmed reports of… nuclear detenation… god have mercy on us all." The news anchor held his head with his hands and began to weep. He looked like a broken man, it was a look I'd seen before, the look of a man who believes there's no hope.

"Oh god…" Nora whispered from behind me.

I leapt over the couch and threw open the door. My heart was already pounding in my ears.

"We have to get to the vault!" I yelled from the sidewalk while sirens sounded behind me

"But," she seemed to hesitate as if she was worried about our possessions.

"Nora! We need to go now!" I nearly shouted while I ran up to her and wrapped an arm around her waist pushing her forward. She seemed to snap out of it and her hazel eyes locked with mine.

Our whole neighborhood was in chaos. People were running out to their cars with suitcases, screaming, yelling, and running for whatever direction that they thought might hold salvation. That meant most of them were running for the nearby vault. I slipped a hand into the small of Nora's back and pressed her forward. We ran almost side by side, I kept it at a jog so as to not lose her in the madness. We crossed the bridge and ran up the trail to find a crowd of people begging the soldiers to let them pass. A man in T-45b power armor whirled up a mini gun to scar the crowd off.

"Let us through were on the list! Gunnery Sergeant Sawyer Davis," I shouted above the chaos.

"You're good! Go! Go! Go!" The lieutenant with the clipboard shouted back.

A man in a blue jumpsuit and a Kevlar vest pointed at us and shouted something incoherent but I knew he wanted us to follow him.

"STEP ON THE PLATFORM!" he screamed at the crowd of people around us. We all gathered on the platform, I looked to Nora and saw her crying. I gently put my hands on her shoulders and turned her towards me, Shaun was wailing loudly.

"Baby, look at me. We're gonna be ok, you hear me?" She looked at me like I was speaking a different language so I pulled her into a gentle hug.

"Were gonna be fine baby, it's gonna be ok, its gonna be ok," I mumbled into her hair and tried to focus on her scent.

"Sawyer, I'm scared," She whispered.

A bright flash, brighter then the sun, illuminated my world in a blinding white light for an eternity. I could feel the heat on my arms and I pulled Nora closer and flipped us around so the blast would hit my back. She may have screamed, I'm not sure, moments later a loud pop thundered around us and made the world shake.

"LOWER IT! LOWER IT NOW!" A man screamed out above chaos.

The floor lurched downwards and I could feel her scream something. I looked behind me for a moment and saw the mushroom cloud. It loomed over us like a god of death, taking up the whole horizon and standing infinitely tall. This is it. I hugged Nora even tighter as the floor sank just enough that the shockwave went over us. A ear splitting howl filled the narrow shaft as a torrent of wind decimated the surface above us.