So a friend of mine got me Fallout 3 as a gift recently and needless to say, I'm hooked and have decided to write a fanfic that has been cooking up in my head since my character was born and heard Liam Neeson's voice. I'm always a person who likes to think about what happens after the game is over and that's what this story is going to be about. Set a year after the events of Fallout 3, these characters I created will be experiencing a journey of self-healing and new beginnings.

I hope you all enjoy this story. Rating may change later on, but for now, just sit back and enjoy the ride.

Don't forget to Fave/Follow/Review!

Chapter One

"Mommy, where's daddy?" Heather asked her mother, her voice barely audible over the sound of guns being fired. She hid her tear streaked face behind her tattered teddy bear and let out a fear filled scream as a grenade when off just outside their small shack of a house. "I want daddy!"

Her mother's hand immediately covered her mouth and she was pulled close. "Honey, please be quiet or they'll find us!"

Heather tried to do as her mother said and stay quiet, but the constant gunfire and the occasional explosion kept her whimpering and crying in fear. Not even her mother's embrace was enough to comfort her, not when she knew that her father was outside in the thick of the fight. The sounds of battle just kept going for who knows how long, before finally everything went quiet and her mother went stock still beside her. The silence after a fight was always the worst. You didn't know who had won until the door opened and the victor made themselves known.

But when the panicked shrieks of Mary, their neighbor next door, reached them, they knew it was a battle their small community had lost. Next thing Heather knew, the door was being kicked in and strange men in leather armor grabbed her and her mother, dragging them outside roughly and shoving them into the town square with Mary, the three other women that lived in their community, and Josh, the only other child in their small town. Heather didn't know what was going on, but her mother looked terrified of the bad men and she made sure to stick close to her. At least, that was her plan until a body on the ground a few feet away caught her attention.

"Daddy!" she cried, dashing away from the group and running over to her father.

"Grab the kid!" one of the bad men shouted.

She managed to reach her fathers body before one of the bad men grabbed her hair and yanked her back painfully. "Not so fast you little brat."

"Leave her alone!" Heather heard her mother plead.

Heather witnessed on of the bad men slap her mother roughly across the face, before grabbing her long chestnut colored hair and forcing her to look at him. "This one's pretty. I think I might just keep her for myself."

"Please, don't hurt my daughter."

The bad man looked at Heather and grinned at her before looking at the body of her father. "Was that your husband, pretty lady? Sorry, but I'm afraid I had to put a bullet in her brains." Looking back at Heather, he said, "Hear that little girl? Your daddy is dead."

Overwhelming sadness and pain filled her as she was dragged by her hair back to the group and thrown back into her sobbing mother's arms. The laughter of the bad men surrounded her, driving her mad and making her cry more than she already was. They were chanting her name, tormenting her with their sneers.

"Heather! Heather! Heather!"

oOo

Heather's eyes flew open with a gasp and she sat up, her hands immediately lifting the sniper rifle that she kept by her side every night and pointing it at nothing. The nightmare was still fresh in her mind and she got up from the dirty mattress she had slept on during the night so she could check the rest of her shelter for signs of danger. But as she walked through the tiny shack of a house that she had been staying in the past few days, she found no signs of danger at all. All the windows were still boarded shut and the moldy sofa was still blocking the front door, just like she set it up every night since she arrived. Lowering her rifle, she finally managed to let out a sigh of relief and walked back over to the small bed to sit down. The bed springs creaked as she put her weight on it, the noise sounding unusually loud in the quiet space.

"Seriously, Heather, you need to start getting a hold of yourself," she muttered, grabbing her backpack off the ground and unzipping it.

She pulled out one of her five water bottles, each one filled with some of the purest water she had been lucky enough to find and took the smallest sip she could manage that would also quench her thirst. It wasn't as if she wasn't used to waking up from some sort of nightmare; her entire life for the past ten years had been a living one. But it was only recently that she had to start dealing with them all alone. She didn't have anyone to comfort her when she woke up screaming and in tears and tell her it was going to be all right. Not anymore.

"At least the living nightmare is over," she told herself softly, putting her bottle back in her pack and tying her honey colored hair into two messy braids.

Are you kidding yourself? Her mind scoffed dryly while she dressed. She pulled on her torn black leggings before slipping on her denim shirt and then her blue button down blouse. It was missing a button so a bit of her cleavage and bra showed, nothing that really bothered her much. A belt around her waist finished the ensemble. You live in the wastelands! Every day you have to set foot out there is a nightmare!

"Can't argue with that," she sighed as she slipped on her black combat boots and grabbed her rifle, getting off the bed and heading towards the barricaded door of her shack.

It was true. When you're living in the wild territory known as the Capital Wastelands, you're either fucked or you're really fucked. Until recently, she was one of the unfortunate people that had been very fucked, due to the nasty situation she had been living in, but thanks to the interference of an man who hadn't given his name, she had managed to escape the life fate had condemned her to and was living day to day as a scavenger.

It was an odd change of pace, living all by herself in the middle of nowhere, but she just couldn't allow herself to trust anyone on the off chance that they were trying to screw her over and help themselves. Heather would just have to learn how to adapt to the idea of being alone and get by as she had been for the past couple of months. She'd hole up in a suitable shelter for a few days and exhaust all the resources in the surrounding area before she moved on and started all over again. Once she had enough caps to get herself by, she'd try and find herself a safe place to live and spend the rest of her days working on forgetting and moving forward.

Just be strong and be brave, her mother would say right up until the day she died, overdosing on Med-X with the needle still in her arm. All people have to suffer in life before God finally rewards them for persevering through their struggle.

"I'm not going to wait for God to help me," she said to no one as she pushed the couch out of the way from the door and opened the front door. "I'll create my own happiness and to hell with everyone else."

Stepping outside her small shack, she blinked several times against the brightness and made sure to get a good look at her surroundings before venturing out even further. Last thing she wanted was to get too far from her temporary home and get ambushed by a bunch of raiders. Once she felt that it was safe enough to venture out, she took exactly five steps normal steps and then one big step forward, moving over the frag mine she had buried under a light layer of dirt. She had exactly six mines buried in spots all around the entrance of her shack and memorized where each one was so she wouldn't accidentally set one off. They were her secret weapon in case anyone managed to sneak past her strung up bottles without causing them to ring and alert her of oncoming danger.

Once she was past her small maze of booby traps, Heather set out at a normal pace and headed toward a street of houses she had come across yesterday when scavenging. Normally, she would have cleaned the area out right when she found it, but she had spotted an Enclave robot roaming around the homes and thought it best to wait until today to scavenge. Clearing out the neighborhood meant she'd finish exhausting the last of the small sector she designated and could move on. She knew the city of Megaton was a couple of days away, so she could stop there and sell some of the things she had collected and possibly consider settling down there for a while.

"It's no Tinpenny Tower, but it's got walls and a lot of people guarding it," she said to herself as she walked.

It's also got a bomb smack dead in the center of town, waiting to blow up, her mind commented.

"Why do you always have to be so negative? It beats living out in the wild wastes where no one is safe."

I have to be negative so that we can survive longer. If you want to be the optimist, why the hell do you keep me around?

"Well . . . because, I need you around to keep me sharp. That doesn't mean you have to shit on any idea I have for a place we can settle down. Besides, we'd never be able to afford Tinpenny Tower. Only the swankiest of people live there."

And we aren't swanky?

This time Heather scoffed out loud. "As if. We're the furthest thing from swanky. If one of them Tower tenants saw us, they wouldn't hesitate to turn us right around and go elsewhere."

That's not our fault. We can't help it that we were dealt a shitty hand and lived ten years of our life as–

"Don't say it!" Heather snapped, glaring down at the ground. "I don't want to fucking hear it. Now just shut up and let me walk in peace. I want to get all this done quickly so we can fucking move on."

Her mind obeyed her for once and she walked in silence for a couple of hours, stopping only to rummage through abandoned cars and piles of junk to see if she could find anything useful. She mainly found ammo shells scattered here and there that could be melted down for other purposes, but got lucky and found a dead raider who seemed to have passed away from an infected wound he had on his side. He had a pack with some food stuffs inside of it, as well as chems she could sell to a doctor in Megaton. But the best thing she found on his body was a radio that looked a little worse for wear, but worked fine despite it.

Smiling to herself, she tuned the radio to Galaxy News Radio and kept the volume on low, listening to the Jack Shaindlin number, Let's Go Sunning, as she walked toward her destination. The song put her in a better mood and she made it to the town as it finished and the voice of Three Dog came through the airwaves.

"Hey there, listeners, it's your old pal, Three Dog, here, AWOO!" he howled and caused Heather to laugh like she always did whenever the radio host bayed like one of the four legged creatures. "In recent news, slavery seems to have died down here in the Capital Wastelands ever since the kid from Vault 101 decided enough was enough."

Heather's smile fell as Three Dog began to speak about that topic and listened carefully, even though her stomach was already starting to churn and make her feel nauseous.

"It's been six months since our boy invaded the settlement of Paradise Falls with a shotgun and his trusted canine companion and put a bullet in Eulogy Jones' head. The bullet that started the slave rebellions! Ever since dear old Eulogy died, other slavers have been fighting among themselves to try and claim his seat as the slaver lord of the Capital Wastelands. Meanwhile, our very own Lone Wanderer has been taking out their slave strongholds one by one, freeing the captive slaves and taking out their so-called masters.

"Sadly, a lot of slavers tend to get away when the Lone Wanderer attacks a stronghold and they try and pick up the pieces, starting with tracking down their runaway property. So if any of you former slaves are listening, make sure to sleep with a knife under your pillow."

Heather turned off the radio after that and pulled out a flask she kept hidden in her boot. She didn't make it a habit to drink her troubles away, especially since alcohol was an expensive commodity she intended to save, but she'd make an exception right now. The idea of slavers wandering around the wastelands, hunting down runaway slaves was extremely unsettling for women, especially a woman like her who traveled alone.

"It'll be okay," she reassured herself, taking a sip of the whiskey in her flask, grimacing at the burning sensation it left behind as she swallowed. "Anyone gets near me, I'll just shoot them."

So Heather kept her rifle at the ready as she started searching through the small neighborhood of houses, grabbing up anything that could be of use to her. She placed food stuffs right into the empty duffel bag she had brought with her first, and after that she started adding miscellaneous items she thought could be valuable. Things like cartons of cigarettes and books that always sold for plenty of caps.

By the time she finally finished searching all of the houses, it was mid-afternoon and she had scrounged up a pretty decent hall to add to what she already had back at the shack. It wouldn't be fun to haul around two duffel bags full of supplies over to Megaton, but maybe she'd continue to get lucky and come across a brahmin caravan she could trade with. She could use some parts to fix up her rifle a bit more and she'd never say no to more ammo and frag mines.

She turned the radio back on and listened idly to the music streaming through as she made the two hour walk back to her shack, only having to stop once to deal with a pair of radroaches that attempted to bother her. As she neared her shack, she slowed down to make sure no one had followed her and the surrounding area was secure before continuing on. But the moment her shack came into sight, she stopped dead in her tracks and her hands shook slightly.

Why is the door open? Her mind demanded.

"I don't know," Heather whispered softly, dropping to a crouch and hiding behind some large rocks. She scanned the ground and saw that her six frag mines had been dug up. "The disarmed my frags too."

It was right then she heard the sound of something falling within the shack and raised her rifle, the shaking in her hands stilling immediately. The bastard was inside her shack and he was more than likely robbing her!

Good! Her mind snapped. We can put a bullet between the thiefs eyes and take his stuff!

"Is that such a good idea?" she asked quietly. "What if he's not alone?"

We didn't see anyone else coming in and it's not like a lot of people can fit inside that shack. Just hide here and put a bullet in his brain once he comes out!

"If I'm going to kill someone, I'm going to at least going to look them in the eye before I end them."

Ignoring her minds talk back, she took a deep breath and started to quietly creep closer to her shack. She was only a couple of yards away from the door and the sound of rummaging within was louder than ever when she spoke up to alert the thief.

"All right, whoever is in there, I want you to come on out with your hands up," she announced. "I have a rifle ready to fire if you try anything funny."

"Damn it," she heard a masculine voice curse from within the shack. "All right, don't shoot, I'm coming out."

She heard the footsteps and watched a man, half a foot taller than her, step out of her shack, his hands raised high in the air like he asked. He wore black leather armor, with one sleeve missing from his left arm, where a Pipboy was strapped and a tattoo was nearly visible on his muscular bicep, a number it looked like. His whole body seemed to be packed with muscle, which wasn't odd when you were living in the wastelands. It may be a shitty life, but you got a hell of a body out of it. A black military cap covered his dark brown hair and his eyes were hidden behind a pair of dark sunglasses. Just from a quick look over, Heather could tell he was a handsome guy, but also got the nagging feeling that he seemed familiar in a way.

Suddenly the stranger whistled and covered his mouth with a fingerless gloved hand. "Holy shit, I know you! I've met you before!"

Heather arched a brow and aimed her rifle right at his head. "That's very unlikely, since I've spent a good amount of my life tucked away in my own little corner of hell."

He shook his head and smiled. "No, I remember your face cause it's been haunting my dreams ever since I took that collar off your neck."

Heather nearly dropped her gun in shock as she realized who it was she was looking at. It all made perfect sense to her now, but just to be sure, her eyes drifted to the tattoo on his arm. "Show me your arm."

The not-so-stranger sighed, but did as he asked and flashed his tattoo. And there it was, as plain as day. Three simple digits that made all the fear go away.

"One Oh One," she read outloud, lowering her rifle and breathing out a sigh of relief. "You're the Lone Wanderer."

The Lone Wanderer flashed her the same charming smile he gave her two months ago and nodded. "That's right, and you're that girl I saved from that slave stronghold."

Okay, we've got our main characters ready and now it really begins.

Hope you liked the chapter. Don't forget to Fave/Follow/Review!

Love,

Mirage