"Beautiful day..." I coo pleasantly, leaning my head back on the park bench, feeling the balmy heat flush my skin. I'm not one for weather related commentary usually but this day felt like it deserved a little flattering. Nothing but rain and fog for weeks as more and more riots are breaking out, which doesn't really bode well for our plans with Nate's vacation days. Troubles are melting away with every breath of spring air I take however, a startling contrast to how I've been spending my evenings, sitting on my knees in front of the TV, my mind in a constant whirlwind thinking of the inevitable what ifs of nuclear war. Can't turn on the radio without hearing the latest from our apocalyptic think tanks, that and the reports of worldwide economical collapse and you have a raccoon staring back at you in the mirror every morning.

So it was nice. Nice to have some time away from it all. We moved to the most picketed, secluded neighborhood we could find in Boston, intent on riding it out, or living it out as the case may be.

I shake my hair out of my elastic noose and comb my fingers through it. The light cool breeze sends goosebumps through my skin as I raise my face against it; fluttering through my hair and clothes, my worries melting with every windy caress. Just as I decide to stop brooding I hear laughter from the kids dangling from the play structures nearby. Its an uplifting sight to say the least, not to mention the distinct lack of noise pollution in this place.

And having him back home, that had to help.

"Oh god don't start." I hear Nate chiding in the background.

"What?" I snap my head up and squint at him, sitting at a bizarre two feet from me."Nobody's forcing you to look buddy. Plenty of other things to ogle at around here." I retort flatly, letting myself fall back on the bench, observing our neighborly neighbors with scrutinizing eyes.

"Naw." He drawls out and inches closer. "You're a visual magnet. I've tried taking my eyes off believe me." Arched brow, cheeky grin. Ho boy, hes putting on the charms. "So I'm guessing this means you've got a new list of chores for me to do. " He lets out an exhausted groan, nodding theatrically. "I know your ways woman."

"Pffff." I roll my head to the side, looking for something else to stare at. Ever the chore-master, I was just thinking that the crib's mobile looked a little lopsided, but asking any more of him would probably qualify as enslavement. "You're making shit up now." I facetiously dismiss him.

"Am I?" He exclaims, recoiling back in mock outrage. "The mailbox?" He whispers in a muffled chortle. "That's five hours of my life I'll never get back."

I'm shaking my head, grinning like a starry-eyed idiot. "Angry mob. I told you. As soon as they marched through they stomped it into the ground. I couldn't stop them even if I wanted to."

He chuckles lightly, sliding across the bench."Mhm. So it wasn't because you hated it." He says in deadpan. "I'm to believe that in the middle of what was demonstrably a peaceful protest they dropped their signs and thought to themselves: 'Hey, lets leave everything in minty condition, 'cept for the one thing that would rightfully make for the most confusing political statement in history."

"Mmm... I don't know." I shift uncomfortably in my seat, a bit overcome by some very sobering thoughts. "I can think of at least a dozen."

Feeling his eyes dim at the mere sign of my overreaching, I shrug and take my sunglasses off, trying my best to push those thoughts out of my head. You said you'd try to relax, remember? I'm watching a smug housewife touring her prized beagle through the park, only stopping briefly to accept compliments from fellow hobbyists and admirers.

He's back home. I tell myself until I believe it. Focus on that.

I swing my legs under the bench and inch over to him, taking his hand and weaving my fingers between his. "Besides, can't blame people for having standards. They probably hated it more than I did."

He bounces back easily, smirking and resilient as ever. "And you're okay with that?" He leans in and my eyes automatically shoot up in reflex, bracing myself for one of his bits. "You're completely fine with having the same standards as a common rioter?"

"I'd never say it like that." I blow a pouty raspberry. My eyes could probably roll to the back of my head if they weren't firmly fixed in my sockets."Thing was bright red it needed to go." I wave dismissively, while shamelessly losing myself in the warmth of his closeness. He has his strong arms around me, his dusky eyes shrouding a brief spark of amusement.

"And the same happened to the shed right?" He attempts to guilt me one more time in his tone of honeyed conspiracy.

I click my tongue. If memory serves me that was one of the most satisfying demolitions I've performed recently. Had a bit of a dry spell for months up til then."What can I say, once you beat up a mailbox you'd probably want to move on to something more challenging."

He snorts. "Uh huh..."

His voice trails off. The looming shadow of a vault tech agent nears us with an imposing hand of pamphlets.

Nate exchanges looks with him and despite the stern, strange feel of this man he rolls with it and laughs. "I'll take it. I'll take it." He says very obligingly, thanking the man for his time before he moves on. "So where was I? Right." He wraps his sturdy hands around my manicured fingers, stroking my palm and conspiring in a lowered hush. "I played a little detective last week and poked around in the yard, just for old time's sake."

"Oh? And what did you find?" I ask, acting disinterested.

"A straw hat, a rumpled map, broken sunglasses and an empty martini glass." Damn. I swear I got Codsworth to clean up that mess before he got home. "Know anything about that?"

I take care not to laugh, and I'm blushing internally. Smashing things to a grinded pulp used to be an effortless thing with all the pent up anger I used to have, but to summon that attitude now takes something pretty substantial, or at least something very potent.

"Babe, I think-" He imitates the surprised accountant mildly reacting to his defaced car. "I think one of those beach hobos we saw moved into our yard."

I can't help but snicker. He pecks me gently on the cheek while I rest my head on his shoulder. Bless that man's heart. Hes seen the worst of my vandal tendencies since the very dawn of it, and hes always been keen to take advantage of the hilarity it brought to our lives.

He lets out a sharp whistle. "That must've been some evening."

I cross my arms defensively."Really? You really think that low of me?" I feign offense. "Don't turn into a grumpy cynic on me my yang simply couldn't take it."

He laughs, mumbling something unmentionable about my yang and I'm smiling uncontrollably.

We swap glances and chuckle quietly, my sleepy head nestled comfortably on his chest, my eyes swimming in a daylight teeming with fast-paced busybodies and stampeding parents lunging after their children. I notice the man with the pamphlets is no where to be seen and I feel at ease, hearing what sounds like my husband dozing off beside me.

My eyelids feel heavy with crisscrossing thoughts, the foggy daydreams of an alternate life and a patchwork of hazy memories shift and reveal themselves in my mind. I feel as though I'm finally seeing how much we've changed over the years, especially from the bitter flustered street kids we use to be.

And yet how very much the same we still are. We're still just as lost as we were. We still have no fucking clue how any of this will turn out.

We sigh in tandem with seemingly the same thoughts in mind, neither of us daring to unlock from our sweet, solacing embrace.

"I missed this you know." Nate's voice is thick with longing. He squeezes my hand and I reciprocate, peeking up at his grizzled chin.

"I missed you." I reply automatically, feeling defeated by my words. They don't seem to do us any justice anymore. His brows tense and knit together. He takes a deep escaping breath. Tree leaves rustle, kids count down and race each other, a pair of toy breeds bark, and Nate settles his head on mine; the picture of two people finding a moment of peace underneath the sharpening barb of nuclear chaos.

"Do you remember how simple things were when we were young?" He picks up where I failed. "Nothing too crazy or serious. Just..." He sighs deeply with a hint of melancholy. "...us."

"Yeah..." My words get carried off by the breeze as I feel myself drift. I'm pining for those days too, where our recklessness was excusable. We could blissfully ignore the world's problems, until one day we woke up and realized we lived in a very different world from the one in our imagination.

Everything we do now reflects the times we live in, and I never know when he'll be called back again, into the grinding gears of the resource wars.

I notice the vault tech pamphlet on the ground, already stamped with a muddy shoe print where the man with the cheery thumb should be. My head flips through images of the future, of us, and Shawn, with a rush of paranoia I usually reserve for my book binges. I look around and see nobody acting the same and I tell myself that I'm just overthinking it again, taking a reassuring breath.

We'll be fine, as long as we stick together.

And with that thought in mind I give my weary eyes some rest.

Some time passes by. Maybe a lot of time. I hear him stir beside me, and I'm pulled back to reality. I didn't realize that we had moved apart again. He seems unreachable to me. I massage the corners of my eyes and realize hes been staring and I can't help but wonder.

Knowing he wasn't going to break our silence, I raise the required eyebrow.

"That leaning thing." He says.

I tilt my head like a baffled school girl. "What?"

"The way you let your hair fall behind the bench and that relaxed, daydream-y face you make..." He acts out a shudder, grinning roguishly. I stifle a clumsy giggle.

"Uh... we're in a playground?" I announce to him, pointing my gaze towards the sheltered suburban kids still monkeying around the steel beams and colorful plastic slides.

He shrugs. "You say that like it matters somehow." A biting retort, accompanied with that stupid bashful grin of his.

"I've been a horrible influence on you-" I manage to get out before he closes the gap and puts his soft lips over mine. Hes slow but probing, gentle to a fault, grazing me with his sandblasted cheeks. Out of everything about him, I think I missed that the most. The improvised peaks and troughs of his skin, marking him with the countless battles only acts of human savagery could reap on a person.

The thought of him wading through the thick of war used to make me lurch and keep me up at night. After years of seeing him walk through our front door I realized I had every faith in him. Truly, the man could probably take a missile to his face and still walk out looking like the chiseled Greek god-king that he is.

I glide my hand over his cheek, and he stops for a moment, gradually opening his eyes. I hold his curious gaze with an intensity I've left buried for far too long since he left. He gives me his best smile yet and laughs in heartfelt surprise, entwining his fingers through mine.

"I missed you too." He whispers, his usually good-natured tone fraying and quietly shuddering. "Hon' you have no idea."

He clears his throat and takes a mournful moment, avoiding my direct gaze.

"Nate?"

"It's bad." He says hoarsely with a dark expression. "It's really bad out there." He dips his head, eyes shut and jaw twitching. "I can't go back. I think if I did I might get myself killed this time. My C.O. is a lunatic."

My eyes widen, heart shattering into thousands of mangled pieces. What the hell was I even worrying about when Nate has to struggle with his psychotic chain of command every fucking day? I'm pissed at myself, shaking my head vigorously in denial, feeling the sting of budding tears behind my eyes. "We'll figure it out. We'll get you out of that shithole." I hear my voice, throaty and strangled, and I swallow and steel myself for his sake. "You've earned this, and we're going to make damn sure we make the most of it."

His eyes grow with a faint but arresting hope. He lays his calloused hand over mine, smirking and returning to his old self.

"I like the sound of that."

I clutch at his hand fiercely, looking up to him smiling so warmly and so fully that I momentarily forget myself. Rays of unfiltered sunshine freely contour his face. He seems uncanny, like a dream. I lean in secretly and we're met halfway, our kiss deepening with the increasing wind.

Clouds roll over us, shadows cloaking him for a moment, softening his sharp angles. I tug on his sleeve and we take a much needed breather. My eyes wander over him, floating between scars and grooves on his face, surveying him as though I would find a change between looking at him five minutes ago and now.

I elbow him with a playful nudge and a goofy smile. He reads it as an invitation and pulls me closer, burying his face in my neck, nibbling and tickling and setting me off on a mindless chain of teenage giggles. I'm imagining half the neighborhood watching us acting like children in the usual picket fence disgust and it easily sets me off again.

Sure enough there were some people staring, but not all disapproving. A wistful old woman sitting across from us. A couple in their own happy marriage peering at us and then looking at each other in comparable bliss.

The swaying trees, the vibrant green grass, the fragrant smell of spring blooming, drenched bark and rainwater and... freedom.

They all add to the memory. The memory of what it once was.

The memory of what it can never be again.

That's right. Its over now. They're dead.

"They're all dead."

His eyes are distant. "What are you-"

"We're all dead." I murmur, streaks of grief veining down my cheeks.

I'm pulled back like a puppet on strings, anchored down by an unseen force deeper into murky waters, watching in horror as Nate fades and screams after me between ripples, his face slowly being obliterated. I'm somewhere else in a blink of time. Nate and I aren't the entangled couple sitting in the park anymore. Hes the panicking parent, holding our child with bloodshot eyes and clenching jaw, the cold of steel and advanced technology entombing us, uncertainty twisting the air through hasty murmurs from survivors nearby. A promise of safety brimming on the tongue of the vault tech man. I recognize him as the man from the park but he denies it. I'm putting on a suit. It's loose but the irate man tells me it will shape to my form and to stop fussing and in the same breath he somehow lulls me with another platitude.

Nate should be in crisis. He should be worried over himself, over our child hell anything else. He still asks me.

"Hey, are you okay?" In that stupid worried voice of his.

My heart swells. I hear him, but I'm not fully conscious of him. God forgive me. I choke out a dry, loathsome 'yeah' in reply. Why didn't I just-

He startles me with his sudden horrified face. I try to help him but everything I know is engulfed by darkness.

Fear grips me tightly, fear of what I know always comes next.

No. Plea-

No time. I'm pushed out of my cryo capsule, stricken by the cold metal floor. I'm greeted by the humming of a familiar tune. Big leather boots hung with gory chains fill my vision.

'Look up.'

He is a weathered combat veteran born in a valley of scars. Time is slowed to a crawl, a cavernous echo filling the room with every deliberate move he makes. He turns his head mechanically with a rigidly trained arm holding a gun to Nate's riddled head, smoke piping from it's muzzle.

I'm shivering. I'm cold. I'm cold. I'm cold. My teeth are chattering. I wrap my arms around myself. I know. I know what always comes next.

'This is how I killed him.' He mouths cruelly, his gravely voice resounding in deafening concert. Rust spreads on the metal walls like an infection, hollowed roots shape and strangle the surrounding pods.

He conveys himself in one latent look, tilting his head with a killer's certainty.

'The world you know is gone forever.'

His words taste true, like frozen metal, enveloping me in prophetic despair. I see him through the fog. Nothing about him is pretend, or exaggerated. He is utterly detached from humanity, and he thanks god for it every day.

The gun-slinging man hunches like hes speaking to a child, casually teaching a life lesson. 'And you'll die, just like he did.'

'Cold.'

'And alone.'

He taunts cruelly, and laughs all too easily. I heave sharply in denial, and he transforms in pleasured response.

"You don't have to do this." I plead futilely. He doesn't hear mercy. Sneering with the white eyes of someone who went half-mad long ago, he aims his weapon with precision. Reveling in the face of a sadist- hardening in violent fantasy.

I brace myself. I do what I always do. I take one last wistful look at Nate. His body broken and deformed, carelessly stuffed into the pod. His skin pale and brittle, a shrunken shade of his former self.

And yet I see him twitch with life, raising me with hope.

Nate?

His lips gnarl in a hideous grin.

No. No no no no no.

I drive myself backwards, slamming against the frozen wall. He did this to him. He corrupted him. I can't hold back any longer. Tears stream down my cheeks as I slump my shoulders and surrender to my executioner.

I'm sorry.

The killer grins from ear to ear.

'Not yet.'

His back breaks into a sickening thunderous clack, contorting unnaturally into a seeping pulsating mass of screeching mutations. He spins his gluttonous body around until limbs spurt out from his sides, maturing into the shape of writhing hands and long black spindly legs. All I see is gaping mouths, human masks and the wailing husks of the living. It drags itself across the floor, it's chest wheezing and gurgling like an animal faced with it's first meal, leaving a smear of tainted flesh and blood in it's wake.

It freezes, bulging eyes captivated by it's prey, raising it's spidery limbs from all sides, caging me in a darkened corner.

I curl into myself, quivering and sobbing and alone.

This isn't real.

They bolt like javelins towards me.

I'm not here. This isn't real.

I shut my eyes tight.

Cold metal object scratching against my skull. Then a flash. Then nothing.

My eyes flicker open. Haze and a dam of grief welcoming me to my new reality.

Something wet trickling down my cheek. My neck creeks like rusty door hinges as I wrestle my head up to look.

Drops of water and light leaking through the exposed rooftop. I guess somewhere in the night between the whimpering and the constant paranoia I must have finally passed out. I rub my knuckles against my forehead, going through the usual mental checklist. I'm stiff, sore, damp and dirty and above all my brain is hammering against my skull. It's then I remember that I voluntarily slept in a glorified body bag, and that in a stroke of masochistic genius I elected to sleep in our old house, in our old room.

It's as though I wanted to die of heartbreak.

What-

I wrinkle my nose. Definitely smells like something dead in here too. Those roaches Codsworth lit are probably still sizzling in the next room.

Memory creeps back in, flashes of when I left the vault a few days ago hunched over blubbering and shaking like a crumpled leaf, shielding my eyes from the sun glaring at me as I emerged. I hadn't mustered the courage to face it for what might've been days, when finally I couldn't suffer the hunger anymore and set out to do god knows what out here.

I try to slip out of my sleeping bag, but the mere notion sends a lightning of pain through my back and legs. I stiffen like a board, my hand bolting for the source, and I let out a guttural cry. God.. What the fuck did I do to myself? How long did I stay in that vault screaming in my damned corner? Time didn't even seem like a thing back then. Still doesn't.

I resolve to lay completely immobile for the time being. No need to move just yet. Time to sort out my thoughts, priorities and-

Oh. Right.

I guess the world ended. A little while ago according to Codsworth. The nuclear apocalypse.

Odd that it slipped my mind. The Nuclear apocalypse. Everything that ever mattered was destroyed, and I somehow forgot.

The thought invokes a slew of dissonant rationalizations and feelings, but I mostly land on one.

Guilt. Like a camel carrying a house on it's back is sitting on me. That kind of guilt.

I watch as one of the very few pin sized insects I've come across climbs over a half beaten plastic spoon. Spider. Huh. Guess they weren't wiped out after all, but they didn't exactly make it into the radiation shift like all the others did.

I rub my leathery eyelids into oblivion as the thought draws me a bath of cold apathy, and its just as well. I've cried enough. I've spent entirely too much time on thinking, not enough on adapting. Giant mutated insects? Simple, kill them. Hungry? Don't overthink it, cook a mammal. Thirsty? Find a stream. It wouldn't be easy, but I needed to move on. Find the basics. Food, water, shelter. I had one down to a certain extent, I'd have to do something before I wither away.

Nothing but the hollow droning tone of survival wringing me forward. How long could I last on that I wonder.

I have to survive. Nate would want me to survive. I then tell myself instead. God knows I knew it was true, of course it was. But the thought rang empty somehow, echoing back that it was a convenient lie even though I knew it wasn't.

I heave a shaky breath. Nate.

Nate.

Nate.

My thoughts churn into a cacophonous chorus.

Nate?

My chest whips in the air, breathing hitching sharply, the sensation of wintry sludge rapidly consuming my blood. A tidal wave approaching, the guilty vine fastening its hold draining my subconsciousness.

Frenzied thoughts scramble and jolt to the surface, an aura of something I can no longer suppress. My mouth goes dry, I'm floating on pins and needles hugging my quaking body in a vain comforting attempt but it doesn't stop.

God...why me? It always comes back to this. Why me? The perennial flood of existence, the collapse of my ill-gotten dam. Why not the soldier, the one who was made to survive a fucking nuclear apocalypse. God why. I can't help myself in the least. I hear a pained moan escape my lips as my face tightens like an angry fist. My thoughts spin out of control. I hold my head up in fevered anguish, tormented by the grainy image of his carefree smile and laugh in a park flooded with dreamy sunlight and I feel myself spasm, kicking the floor, screaming and howling like a child. Anything to take it away.

Why god why god why god why GOD WHY.

My nails dig into my palms, red uncontrollable rage piercing my heart rendering me limp and nauseous. My lungs are singed in clinging embers. I'm coughing and rolling out of my sleeping bag without realizing it.

I did something to deserve this, didn't I? Somewhere in my life I did something and now-

I steady myself on my back, moans and grunts escaping me until I feel the worst of it dissipate.

The pain comes in waves. Sometimes it's bearable. Sometimes I'm able to breathe, maybe think normally. But most of the time-

I'm a machine for grief. And unbearable regret. And loss.

It doesn't take much. Just one stray thought for him, and I slink back into it.

It takes me mere minutes to seal it all away, back in the darkest repressions of my mind. Wiping away my tears, mending from my tantrum, I feel the burning corners of my eyes simmer. My thoughts, my grief, they're traps. An infinite loop designed to keep me here. A cycle of blame and heartache which if I indulged any further I'd fade away like all the others, my story muted and forgotten.

It's the only thing that's kept me alive this long. The thought that my son could be out there, and the insufferable notion that I could die alone out here without anyone having known what happened to us.

Our story. People need to hear our story.

I'm lightheaded as all hell, re-surfacing from the demented grief cycle I forced myself through. I don't know how much time has passed, but it can't have been more than a few scant hours since the last time I was aware of things. I lay my hand on my forehead and stare through the square tiles missing from the roof. Enough. Enough grieving. I can act the bereaved wife if I want to, I can accept that my son is gone and that it's now my job to find him. I can even accept that I live in a world where people are capable of destroying themselves to the point of near extinction. But what I can't do anymore is lay around moping with the vague hope that the world will rebuild itself and that I will be rescued.

I wish you were here.

But you're not, and I need to help myself.

As long as I'm in our old house I'm being dragged down by him. I needed to leave.

After a few attempts I finally get my upper body to sit up on the partially collapsing wall behind me, but doing anything beyond that just sends me through a world of hurt, and I feel myself getting stuck again. It doesn't seem to matter what I tell myself. I'm still sitting here in the end without any real care mustered, watching that same spider skidding across the downtrodden floor, trying to imagine what that floor used to look like. There's nothing in it for me really. Something is keeping me from moving an inch, and not even the prospect of finding my son flips any switches within me.

At this point it feels like a toss up. Either I starve, or I suffocate under the memories of how it used to be. A pang of guilt hits me like a two ton punch as the thought occurs to me just now, but it passes quickly. It all did.

The running-

The red cloud-

The baby shrieking-

The vault closing-

̛̖The man with the scar.

The man with the scar. The man in my nightmares.

My eyes are wide open. An eerie calm sanitizes my mind, the wintry sludge turning into a cold steady current. Everything I had thought up until this moment seem like mere obstacles I had to go through to find my purpose.

The man with the scar.

I have to find him.

And do what? A question which irresistibly hung in the air.

I just have to find him.

The gear willfully put into place, an unfathomable zeal now driving me forward with a new singular obsession. Despite the nightmares still fresh in my mind, I push off the ground and wobble into something resembling standing on two legs. I still feel like a newborn bambi, but I manage to get on my feet long enough to tumble my way out of my shell of a house.

No wish has ever filled me like this one. Hand draped over my forehead, I gaze up into the sunlight I had once feared like a faint-hearted damsel and scowl at the person I was just a moment ago. An electric current runs through me and with it, the yet unfamiliar thrill of a coming change that I was certain I could make a reality with my own two hands.

He would pay. Whoever this man was, I would make him see what he took from me, then when he finally knew.

I'd end him. No doubt and no mercy. There wasn't a damn thing this new world could do to stop me.

I've never been more certain that something would happen in my life.

Slow down. I breathe in, trying to calm the morbid excitement I've gathered, the new purpose I've achieved. I can't get too ahead of myself... first thing's in order. The essentials. Food, water, shelter.

My mind clearer than its been in days, I search nearby for the sight of the big rotating Christmas ornament that was Codsworth. I struggle to gain footing and nearly crash into a moldy chair. Surely enough I spot him floating in front of the house pruning the bushes acting like a Mr. Handy ought to, though I'm pretty certain I did see one of his shiny eye baubles springing through the windows during my exorcism.

"Hey Codsworth." I croak out, kicking the dirt under my feet, feeling coming back to my legs again. Here in the relative safety of Sanctuary I felt confident enough to step out in the open now. I can't believe how much of a skittish little girl I was before about just coming out here.

"Mum! What a delight to see you this morning!" His metallic voice is oddly enough a comfort to hear. "With your return I thought a bit more effort on the gardening front couldn't hurt. I'm so very glad to see you out and about. You didn't look very... healthy last I saw you." He mentions tentatively while hovering towards me.

"Well I'm here now." I hear myself mumble. I can't summon the strength to look directly at him. His spinning aluminum body and rotating arms are making me dizzy is probably why. I need to eat something soon.

Almost like he sensed it, he abruptly stops spinning, and opens a dusty bread box from the ground."Well if you hadn't, I would have just popped in with a little surprise breakfa-"

I completely lost control. I positively tackled that plate of food before he could fully bring it out, before I could even ask what it was for that matter. Well whatever it was, it was tough, dry and a little scaly but apparently that wasn't really important.

"Steady there Miss, wouldn't want to start your day with being Heimlich'd, hardly the way to go around these parts. Or maybe it is come to think of it." He warns but his voice is drowned by the roaring drum of my rabid heartbeat. Guess I nearly starved then. Codsworth saved my life just now and it instantly gives me a flashback of how willingly we abandoned him for the vault.

Between the gnashing and the outright gulping of food items he gives me a brief excerpt of what he tried in vain to tell me yesterday before I passed out. I hear something about people in Concord and I feel myself perk up.

"People? Alive?" I don't know why I'm asking, I don't know why I'm even surprised. People are resilient, even in a world like this. People infiltrated my vault and kidnapped my son too, so its probably about time that I suspend my disbelief.

"Very much so! Alive and well as it were." I swallow the urge to blubber again, It felt too good to be true. I feel my strength slowly coming back, and it wasn't just the food. "Although I can't speak of their personal character, they only seemed very slightly buggered and they were only lightly armed."

I resist the urge to laugh, didn't feel very appropriate in my current surroundings. "What do you define as 'lightly', Codsworth."

"Uh, w-well there was a rather large group entering the museum, some of them looked like refugees. One among them seemed more eagle-eyed, more trained than the others. I'm fairly certain they were armed with guns but I couldn't get a decent look with all the later commotion. My word." My nerves bristle a bit at the mention of guns. "Oh yes! And then there was some sort of conflict and a couple of raiders sprang from cover and ran at me with sticks and knives!" Scoffing, he twirls his pincers midair. "Can you imagine? What was going through their heads."

I'm nodding, dazed but listening intently, my eyes roaming over the horizon beyond the Sanctuary bridge, envisioning a group of hardy but open-minded people surviving in Concord. I feel the first vestiges of hope spark within me and running wild, a twinge of good old nervousness also. Maybe these people were the sort who could help me make sense of all this.

I shake my head, pulling back on my reins yet again. They would help me if I found something they needed, if they knew I was capable. I look down on the small cuts and bruises of my shaking hands, thinking back on the years I spent at the shooting range with Nate. I wonder if I kept any of that training hidden beneath the cooking, cleaning and child rearing veneer.

I'm roused by a ghostly shiver. It was just a week ago that I was sitting in a rocking chair, reading books on how to raise Shawn, in a house that actually looked like it could stand on it's own.

I close my eyes and hug myself desperately, breathing in and out until the feeling fades. I don't know if I'm made to survive this world, I don't think anyone is. I can still feel the impending storm rumbling beneath the surface, but I can't fall into that trap anymore. I can't turn into my own worst enemy, not when I have so many in this world lining up for the part.

In any case, it was heaps better thinking I had a chance instead of the bleak nothingness I was ready to drown myself in.

"Its worth a shot then." I finally answer. There's no more room for doubt.

"I'm so very glad you think so! I was worried you'd let this opportunity pass." Codsworth exclaims rather loudly, his whirring metal limbs gesturing enthusiastically in the orange sunset. "There's nothing better than a walk through nature I always say."

I give him a great wide berth. "Really, Codsworth. Are you okay?"

He ceases all motion at once, coasting somewhat in my direction. "Again, mum? Everything is in working order, save for a few dinks and scrapes here and there, I'm perfectly functional." He spins one of his intimidating looking grapplers up in the air. "Although I'm certain I could have done without the bi-weekly raids these last few decades, I've managed to maintain my functionality by scavenging and trade. 'Success comes in cans, not cants.' my mum always said."

"I've never said that." I state blankly.

"You should!"

With my arms crossed I'm trying to think of what's different about him. He seems excitable but also unusually... elated maybe? I can't help but shift my attention completely on Codsworth, which can't be anything else but a blessing in disguise. He sounded as though he were concerned for a good long time just now. I never realized the range of emotions these Mr. Handies were equipped with.

"But yes, its good to see you moving. I never thought you'd leave the ol' nest for anything, least of all people." I can't keep my surprise as I'm reaching for my belt and pistol. Sighing and genuine as he was, he is reacting like a dotting parent. They're supposed to watch over you and take care of your general well being but beyond that I never thought of him as anything more than a flying tin can nanny.

"Well, I'll remain here and secure the homefront. You still know the way don't you?" One of his baubles zoom in on me and I feel myself getting uneasy.

"Yeah... Yeah I'm fine." Suddenly the idea of going out on my own strikes me as at the very least a bit reckless, but I'm still riding on the adrenaline from earlier. "So you're not coming with me?"

He hesitates before answering, the plated wheels inside his 'eyes' momentarily jerks before it rotates normally. I almost imagined it like it were him flinching for a second... were Mr Handies always so curiously human-like? We didn't have him long enough to notice, either that or I was a bit too reclusive to see it, what with the baby and all.

He seems a bit dismayed, his metal arms drooping and an unusual buzzing sound coming from his top half. I'd swear he was never this expressive before. "I'm afraid this place could be ransacked, or worst." I look around briefly before settling on that logic. "I couldn't live with myself if I left and some rampaging hooligan undid all of my hard work."

That raised an eyebrow. "Sure, Codsworth. You do that." I reply dryly, to which he seems satisfied with.

I'm shivering again, losing myself in the tired trenches of my dragging thoughts. My chest aches with the cold knowledge of just how alone I was. It was never possible to be this lonely before. There was always a husband, a friend, a well-to-do neighbor or a pamphlet wielding stranger lurking nearby; a person for every square inch of earth.

Now? All I'm left with is the crushing feeling that what I've seen so far doesn't even come close to being the worst of it.

But as much as I needed a set of human irises to lose myself in, a warm but calloused hand to hold, I needed to find the man from my nightmares. The one who took everything from me.

I quicken my pace towards the bridge, not realizing that I was already walking briskly in that direction. "I'll see you soon Codsworth." I wave him off, breaking into a jog, crossing through the washed out picket fences and deserted colorless playgrounds.

"Looking forward to it Miss!" He calls out after me. "Please come back safely! And in one piece mind you!"

I feel my brows merge in response and my heart skip a tense, awful beat. "I'll try." I mutter evenly to myself, keeping my eyes firmly ahead.

Would appreciate any feedback! Haven't written anything in a long long time and decided to write for a game I've probably spent at least 200 hours in so far.