James couldn't hold his tears and deny it any longer. For a second he went back, nineteen years ago, and recalled himself saying to his newborn baby son Edward what a bright future laid ahead of him. But Edward had always been so troublesome his entire life. It started out small enough, with Edward always being destructive when he was a toddler. James laughed and thought back to when he destroyed his mounted collectible Nuka Cola truck. Of course back then he considered it a stage of growing up and that hopefully Edward would become a good behaved and mature child.
He was wrong. Edward's behavior quickly deteriorated over the years. He would always pick on Amata with Bush, but then end up getting in a fist fight with him. He simply couldn't get along with anyone including James, and developed a permanent nasty attitude. On his tenth birthday, James had tried giving Edward a Red Ryder BB gun to take his uncontrollable aggression out on targets. This proved to be a huge mistake, as Edward immediately shot Jame's good friend Jonas right in the eye, and ran off to shoot Bush many times in the face.
Six years later, with the upcoming G.O.A.T. (Generalized Occupational Aptitude Test), James was actually forced to advise his son against answering honestly. He knew that he would get stuck with a very poor job, and didn't desire the extra stress of knowing that his defiant son ruined his own career as well. Whatever Edward had written down (which was undoubtedly bad), it had earned him the position of a tattoo artist.
But a month ago, Edward ran away from the Vault. He had been threatening to kill himself if James hadn't talked to the Overseer to let Edward leave the Vault, but James knew doing so would get them both a spot in a holding cell for "plotting". Plus he feared what the freedom would do to Edward. But instead Edward had escaped the Vault one midnight and purposely left the seal open overnight for the radroaches to rush inside. Even a roaming protectron happened to stumble into the vault and had to be shot down by the security, but not before blasting Jonas to his death. The radroaches had, also, done their part and eaten Bush's mother's leg.
But yesterday, Edward had returned. He didn't enter the Vault, but he walked up to the entrance camera and explained that he had been on a campaign to conquer every settlement in the Wasteland, and had done so successfully. He had obliterated Megaton, set Oasis ablaze, knocked Tenpenny Tower off its foundations, slaughtered the citizens of Rivet City, and even assassinated Three Dog, the founder of Galaxy News Radio. James had visited all of those places and people. Edward was now planning to lay siege to Vault 101 with his new set of powerful, deadly weapons from his murder spree.
James had been trying to convince himself since Edward was born that his behavior would one day pass, and that he could still be raised into a responsible young man. He no longer tried to lie to himself. His son was a runaway freight train, a plague. His son was a psychopath. A psychopath who needed to be stopped.
Now James wiped away his tears and searched through his drawers until he found what he was looking for. The shotgun was dusty, but in the same good condition it was in 20 years ago. James made sure the magazine was loaded before shoving it inside the shotgun, but then found his old .41, a revolver he used as defense against Yao Guai. It was built for bears, and would probably be overkill on a person but it still counted.
He holstered his revolver and kept the shotgun on his lap. It was only a matter of time now, the inevitable face-off between James and his demented son. But he could wait. He simply sat in his quarters, drank a bit of coffee, and awaited Edward's appearance at his doorstep. "I'm so sorry, Catherine" James whispered to himself.