A/N: As of December 2015, this is now officially rewritten to fit neatly into the established canon. Oh, and I might have fixed some of the writing-related issues of the previous iteration. No guarantees!
Still requires some cursory knowledge of Fallout 1 and 2.
End of the Road
The Courier paused, looking at his dust-covered boots with genuine surprise.
He wasn't really the one to pay much attention to what he looked like. Ladies like bad boys, he always told himself. A few years of living on the move were more than enough to change the wide-eyed youth into a rugged wasteland traveler. A full-fledged war many, many miles and gallons of alcohol later, the man who had finally returned to his hometown looked a lot older than expected from someone his age. This much was evident not from his face, which was hidden behind the intimidating visage of a riot helmet, but from the confidence in his gait, in his posture. The man seemingly radiated an aura of world-weariness, not without some merit – he had walked the world, and then some.
His worn boots matched the rest of his look well, but they weren't what caught his attention, actually. It was the grass.
A genuine, vibrant field of green - the likes of which he had seen only in books and two other places. One of which was a town not unlike his own, but with unbelievably arrogant and obnoxious inhabitants. The other was a pre-War Vault filled with nightmarish botanical experiments gone out of control. The only thing that immediately came to his mind when trying to remember that hellhole was the smell of flamethrower fuel.
The Courier laughed quietly at himself for coming up with these associations as he crossed the border of the town proper. He had to admit, his wanderlust had certainly taken him to his fair share of hellholes. Gears in his head turned as he tried to recall the bare strip of land cutting the grass in two – only a few moments later he realized it was all that was left of the sandstone wall that had still been in place when he left. This deep in the NCR territory, the locals had no more need for such crude protection. However, just to show the newcomer that the town wasn't easy pickings for any nut with a gun, a laser turret on a nearby watchtower focused its lens on him for a second, and a more careful look revealed that the rest of the perimeter turrets were still online as well.
A sensible precaution, the Courier thought. Who knows what the world might throw at them next, or whether another madman is already mustering an army or tinkering with technology that is best forgotten? No one said NCR had the only fleet of Vertibirds around, either. Hell, if the rumors about the East Coast were true, the Enclave was still alive and kicking, and the little robot floating behind the Courier could serve as proof to that. Although, he thought with a bit of pride, even the Enclave wouldn't have the guts to attack this little town, considering just who lived here.
At this point, the Courier noticed that he was drawing curious glances from the townspeople. This was to be expected, as his choice of attire could make one easily mistake him for a veteran ranger – only on a closer look did it become obvious that his dark green gear was a few notches above even NCR's finest. Still, on a hunch, he reached for his back, only to relax a moment later. No, it wasn't the gun. The carbine in question, proudly inscribed with an insignia of a long-forgotten unit of a non-existent army, still wasn't loaded. Neither was the big iron on his hip.
The Courier always kept his weapons at the ready, be it in Novac, Goodsprings, Hoover Dam, the Lucky 38 or even the Big MT. He never felt safe, except here. The only place in the entire world where he wouldn't keep his gun loaded. The only one he could truly call home.
Home. Such a weird thing. Five years ago he ran away from it, eager to leave the safety of its confines, to explore the wild, untamed world outside and to step out from under his father's shadow. Well, his dad certainly did not get a chance to get shot in the head and survive, so the Courier got that covered. And yet, all this time he was looking forward to the day when he would return.
Another courier had once told him that home is not where one was born, but where one had chosen to make one's mark. Even though this interpretation of the term was rather cryptic, the Courier thought it over nevertheless – and in a way, he had come to agree with it, albeit not in the way the other man intended. Throughout his journeys, the thought of an eventual homecoming had never truly left the Courier's mind. It was the thought of an eventual homecoming that kept him alive, willing and sane through ordeals that would destroy lesser men.
And now, as he finally approached the very home he had not seen for so much time, he replayed every event of the last five years in his mind. He knew that whatever he felt, it definitely wasn't regret. The things he had seen and done, the dangers he had braved and the challenges he had overcome – this sort of experience he would not exchange for all the riches of the world. The Wasteland had taught him bravery, conviction to stand for what he believed in – for the symbols he believed in. The Wasteland had made him stronger, enabling him to change the roads he walked just as they had changed him – most of the time, it was for the better, and the rest of those… well, he had tried to make amends. Finally, the Wasteland had made him wiser, teaching them the deeper meaning of the flag he had chosen to make his own, of the ideals that transcended man and time, and, most importantly, of letting go at the end of the road.
The small gate opened with a creak, and the Courier finally stopped to meet the eyes of the person sitting on the porch of a pre-fabricated house.
They studied each other for a few moments. The Courier was relieved to have noticed no drastic changes in the man once known as the Chosen One, aside from a few new wrinkles and gray hairs here and there.
From the opposite side, the old man in the chair was comparing the mental snapshot of an unruly youngster in his memory with the imposing figure clad from head to toe in highly advanced combat armor, with a strange floating robot for company. Despite the visitor wearing an enclosed helmet with an Old World star on it, the Chosen One still recognized his wayward offspring at a glance. A smile crept onto his face when he noticed that said offspring was armed to the teeth as well.
The staring contest finally ended when the Chosen One decided to speak first.
"Eh, nah. It's not really that impressive. You could do better," he shrugged as he set down the whiskey bottle on the table beside him.
The Courier expected anything but that. "Wow. This is the welcome I get for saving the fucking world?"
His father let out a hearty laugh in response. "You might be overselling yourself a bit with the 'world' part. Also, while that's a damn nice suit, let me remind you that I came back from my own heroic adventure in actual Enclave power armor. So, my homecoming was better than yours. No need to feel all jealous, kiddo."
The Courier simply shook his head as he came closer. "Why did I even bother coming back?"
Satisfied with his little tease, the Chosen One laughed once again as he stood up to enclose his son in a bone-crushing hug.
The son returned the gesture, albeit a bit awkwardly seeing how his father was obviously the stronger of the two. "If I came back in my own suit of Enclave power armor it would take me months to go through every military and police checkpoint, you know."
Having finally let go, the Chosen One sat back down, inviting the Courier to sit down in the chair next to him. "Oh, so you do have one? Well, in that case you can pride yourself on having spared your old man's ego. Don't think I'd survive being outdone by anyone in saving-the-world business. Or the looting, ah, I mean requisitioning everything that isn't nailed down to the floor part of it. Nice robot, by the way."
Both men laughed this time as the Courier started removing the arsenal on his back. First went the carbine, then the pistol along with its holster, then the combat knife on the belt. With all this gone, he finally slumped into the chair offered for him. After a brief struggle he removed the heavy helmet as well, squinting as his eyes weren't used to seeing the world from anywhere other than from behind a polarized visor. The sensation of finally being able to breathe without a constrictive gas mask in the way felt liberating, however.
He glanced at his father as the latter picked up his pistol.
".223? Well, glad I could pass my fine taste in weaponry on to you," the Chosen One voiced his approval.
The Courier smiled. "You should see the rest of it, that's just a small part. Had to take only what I could realistically carry on my back here. ED-E isn't large enough to handle that, and the Army trucks don't go all the way here."
He glanced at the other side of the yard. Sure enough, the Highwayman was still there, glinting with fresh gunmetal gray paint and being an envy of the entire NCR plus a tired man who had just finished trekking here all the way from New Vegas. Indigenous automobile industry wasn't very high on the Congress' priority list. What little the NCR could produce or rebuild served exclusively the needs of the military.
Therefore, it was either miraculously stumbling upon a pre-War relic that could be relatively easily restored to working condition or legging it. The Courier was, by all means, a very lucky person, but in this regard, he was firmly stuck with Shank's pony as his primary method of transportation.
"I was afraid you'd take it with you the night you left," the Chosen One said, having noticed the direction in which his son looked.
The Courier shook his head. "No. The very reason I left was to be myself. Taking something that reminded me of home – something I had not earned – would be going against that. Besides, I can't drive for shit."
The father laughed, satisfied at the answer. "That I know. Poor ol' Vic jumped every time he heard the engine start after that one time when you tried to drive it."
The Courier chuckled along, before realizing the significance of the words. "Vic… how is he?"
Suddenly, the positive demeanor was gone. "He died two years ago."
The Courier sighed. This wasn't surprising in the least. Few men last forever, and while long-lived, Vic was very old and fading away by the time the Courier had left New Arroyo. Still, the inevitability of the loss did not make its acceptance any easier.
He could only wonder what raced through the mind of his father. The Courier knew Vic only as an easy-going family friend who had taught him about repairing just about everything with anything, but to his father he was a loyal comrade, one of those brave enough to accompany the Chosen One to the Enclave oil rig.
After a few moments of solemn silence, the Chosen One spoke up again. "Sulik still comes to visit every now and then. And there's still no word of Cassidy."
Cassidy. The Courier never knew him, as he was born decades after the man in question vanished. Still, he had heard a lot from his father's tales of their exploits. Four decades had passed since his disappearance, but the Chosen One still hoped to hear some news of his old friend's fate.
"I ran into his daughter in the Mojave," the Courier said in a deliberately casual manner.
He grinned as his father nearly choked on his whiskey. It wasn't often that the Courier got to one-up him.
"You little… did she say anything about her pa?"
The Courier shook his head. "Not much more than you. Apparently, he went east of California and vanished back in the forties. Sorry."
His father sighed, the faint hope extinguished once again. However, a moment later, a devious smile crept onto his face as he asked, "What is she like?"
"Drinks gallons of booze and swears like a sailor."
"Just like her father then. How was she?"
"Eh?" The Courier honestly did not understand the question.
"Don't play dumb with me. I'd have a go at Cassidy's daughter if I were in your shoes," the Chosen One said, grinning all the while.
While not entirely impartial to the idea, the sheer audacity of the insinuation made the Courier shudder. "Ugh. You sick bastard!"
"Sick or not, I still get laid more than you do."
The Courier slumped in his chair and sighed deeply as he stared at the sky. "Sixty years old and you still think with your groin like you're in New Reno. Goddammit, Dad. Wait till I let Mom hear of this."
"The contents of my groin is one of the reasons she fell for me in the first place, young man," the Chosen one winked, to his son's continued disgust. "So, what else did you see in the Mojave? I fancied going there sometime, but eh, had two of your brothers and a sister to take care of. And the town, too."
"What else? Or who else?" The Courier asked, reaching for the whiskey bottle.
"If you ran into any familiar faces out there I'm all ears."
"I saw Marcus. And Doctor Henry," the Courier said, as he rummaged his memory for people his father could've cared about.
"Are they – are they safe?" This time his father sounded really concerned, and for a good reason. Doc Henry deserted from the Enclave decades ago and was far from being the Chosen One's favorite person in the world, but former Enclave personnel were routinely rounded up and imprisoned. Some clearly deserved it, but most were just victims of President Kimball's administration trying to find a scapegoat for everything, from the Legion's invasion to bad weather. As for the Super Mutants and their acceptance into human society, the less there was said, the better.
New Arroyo was one of the very few places safe from that. Being the Elder of the city, the Chosen One had repeatedly refused Kimball's demands to prosecute the squad of Enclave troopers that had helped him fight his way out of the oil rig.
Right now the Courier was positively sure that his father was blaming himself for letting this witch hunt happen. "Don't worry, they're both safe. Marcus has founded a new town for Super Mutants. Doc Henry is helping him. Hell, he even got to kick some ass at the Dam with his old Enclave squad."
The Chosen One raised an eyebrow. "Really?"
Beaming with pride, his son beamed nodded. "Yeah. Imagine General Wait-and-see Oliver's surprise when an Enclave vertibird landed in the middle of the battle and unloaded a full squad of power armor troopers. Poor bastard's ego must have been shredded just as well as the Legion was shredded by said troopers."
The father snorted at the mental picture. "And I was wondering why he and Kimball looked so annoyed on that press photo where they had awarded you the Golden Branch."
Proud of the mischief he had caused, the Courier continued. "I made the battle one huge embarrassment for him when I convinced the Brotherhood of Steel to ally with us. The Enclave folks were just a finishing touch."
"Serves him right. Goddamn hawks, the root of all of our problems. But even Oliver's skull is not as thick as those of the Brotherhood, how'd you get through to them?"
"I've become a Paladin," the Courier dropped the bomb, laughing at the disbelief on his father's face. "What? Great-grandpa was one too."
"Well, I guess that's one area you have surpassed me in," the Chosen One chortled along carefully before adding, "just be careful about talking openly about that. I heard about the Mojave truce, but officially we're still at war with them, and there's lots of bad blood stemming from it. I heard that the new High Elder doesn't have a stick up his ass as deep as Jeremy did though, and he seems to be just as tired of being holed up in Lost Hills as the NCR is of blockading it, so maybe there's some hope after all."
The Courier sighed. "I don't know, for a bunch of xenophobic and unbending shut-ins they're… well, xenophobic, unbending and shut in. The Elder who welcomed me was the third most progressive member I've ever met in the whole Brotherhood, and he was just plain afraid of making any sort of change."
"Who were the other two?"
"A renegade nutjob whom I just barely stopped from unleashing a chemical weapon from hell unto the Mojave and a Scribe who has been all but ostracized for having a little common sense."
"Figures," the Chosen One sighed. "Don't worry about it. Only the dead are too rigid for change, and it'd be folly to expect centuries of dogma to be overturned in a flash. You got the ball rolling – the Mojave truce has already shown that all it takes to get the Brotherhood to pull their power helmeted heads out of their power armored asses is to put someone whose last name isn't "Maxson" in charge. Now we just need to wait for them to accept the new order of things at their own pace. It's a glacial pace, I admit, but they'll get there."
"Preferably without blowing up the NCR gold reserves a second time in the process," the Courier noted, his expression still sour.
The father patted the son's shoulder reassuringly. "Even that bunch of dogmatic pricks knows violence isn't the best solution. There's the fresh example of the Legion and one not-so-fresh of the Enclave for them to consider. Both thought might makes right, and look where that got them."
"The Legion might not have the Enclave technology, but they make up for it with numbers. I've seen them, Dad. One man turned a bunch of tribals into a horde that nearly washed over the NCR. That's a terrifying thought."
"Yet you defeated them," the Chosen One pointed out, his voice tinged with fatherly pride. "You killed their leader, slaughtered his elite guard, and then proceeded to win the battle for the NCR by killing that Caesar's second-in-command, too. I'd say you are hell of a lot more terrifying than them."
"How did you know all that?" The Courier stared back in disbelief. "I mean, the battle was all over the news, but the rest-"
"I'm a government official, sonny. I know a lot of things before you do," the Chosen One chuckled as he refilled the emptied whiskey glasses. "Don't worry about the Legion. The man in charge never realized, or perhaps never found a way to address the fact that his army served him, not his professed ideals. Without him, the words ring hollow, and his Legion will fall apart just as quickly as he had gathered it."
The Courier took a careful sip. The warming sensation of the alcohol inside calmed him down somewhat. "Funny. Marcus said the same thing. Only in a far more eloquent manner. Yours is a little too wordy."
Letting the insult slide, the Chosen One agreed. "He was always a smart fellow. Broken Hills was a nice town under him… until the uranium mine ran out, that is."
A few minutes passed as the men stared into the distance. "What else happened here while I was gone?"
The Chosen One blinked as if surprised by the question. "Here? Nothing much. It's all the same. We get on with our lives, nice and quiet, just the way I like it."
"No effects of the war here?"
"Nope. One condition on which we joined the NCR was that they don't poke their nose into our internal business. Kimball doesn't seem to get the message though, I had to tell him to go fuck himself no less than five times this month alone. I had enough of the war, son. It's over. It's behind me. I've earned my place in the world, and I don't want anything to change it ever again. All these years I was just content to sit on the porch and wait for you to reach the end of your lonesome road."
"And the road turns out to have been a circle all along," the Courier spoke up quietly. "A changed man, back at the starting point."
"I'd question that analogy. A circle implies no end. An ouroboros, eating its own tail. A changed man would consider leaving well enough alone instead of endless repetition. You would consider it, if you are such a man."
"I would indeed," the Courier agreed, smiling. "If my time exploring every deathtrap from here to Utah has taught me anything, it's that the time comes when one should finally let go… and begin again, where I belonged all along."
"That's my boy," the Chosen One nodded, trying to conceal his immense relief. "You nearly gave me a heart attack five years ago, you know. Your wanderlust better not act up again."
The Courier merely shook his head, and even that was unnecessary. They both knew his journey was complete.
"Well then," the Chosen One laughed as he pulled another bottle of whiskey from under his chair. "Let's have another while we wait for your mother and the others. Then we can celebrate properly."
The two men sat there until dusk, basking in the setting sun, drinking, laughing and sharing stories.
War. War never changes. But there has to be an end to all things, and much like their roads, the wars of these two had finally come to an end, too.
Tomorrow would bring a new day, and fulfill the promise of a lasting peace.