Whoops long time no chapter. I got on A3 and was writing for another fandom. I'm actually waiting on some Valentine inspiration.

Turns out, after some serious mapping, this won't be too much longer anyway.

"Jesus, what ever happened to that little bitch?" Melina scoffed, referring to Princess; then taking a long sip of her drink before lighting up a cigarette.

"Heard she went far out East. I don't know, I ended up leaving Lamplight early. Itchy feet and all that." MacCready shrugged, feeling nothing lost over Princess.

"God, you make me feel so old. I'm thirty-one, but looking at you making me feel decades older," The Lone Wanderer sighed, a soft smile gracing her lips ", you know. You're the first person I've seen… from back then, I mean."

"You've aged well, mungo. You wear over a decade of scorching sun look like a spa treatment."

Melina and MacCready continued to joke while Sweetpea bounced her gaze back and forth. She wasn't sure of what to do or what to say. MacCready liked to talk, but this was on a level she had never seen… she had never heard him be so open about anything during their time together.

"Well, I'm burning daylight," Melina stood, shrugging her regulator duster onto her shoulders ", should our paths cross before I hike out of here, I'll buy you a few drinks and we can catch up some more." MacCready stood as well, giving the woman a kiss on each cheek.

"Where are you headed?" Sweetpea asked, collecting her pack.

"I heard rumors of a detective, I'm headed straight to him."

"Oh, Nick Valentine. He's back at my settlement, I'll walk you."

Melina looked to MacCready, who gave a reassuring nod. Trusting her old friend, she nodded at Sweetpea. The toughest mayor Little Lamplight ever saw headed to sit at the bar, Melina blew a kiss to Mongolia, and the estranged pair left the bar swiftly.

They walked a few minutes outside of Goodneighbour in complete silence. Sweetpea didn't mind; staying vigilant for the local mutties that liked to roam the boarders of the city. Melina, however, didn't like it so much.

"So," Melina started with a sing-song tone ", I've heard rumors of a woman named dubbed the Sole Survivor. You wouldn't happen to be her, hmm?"

"Yeah… yeah, people call me that." Sweetpea wasn't a fan of the tone she took; a tone that displayed she knew more than she was letting on.

"And why do they call you that?"

"Long story."

"We got time."

Sweetpea sighed, waiting until they were safely across the bridge, up into the safer parts of the 'Wealth, before speaking.

"Long story short, I was the only survivor of one of the Vaults here in Boston. When news traveled of a sole woman in a Vault one-eleven vault suit emerging from the area, Diamond City Radio… the guy who runs it, Travis, started calling me that. It sort of stuck."

"What kind of vault was Vault one-eleven?" Melina didn't even give Sweetpea time to breathe before hurling another question.

"Uh… to test the effects of prolonged cryogenic stasis on the human body. You know all the vaults were made as human experiments, right?" Sweetpea eyed her companion; she simply waved her outdated PipBoy in the air with a smug smile.

"Oh, I know more than you think I know."

"What does that mean?" Sweetpea haulted her tracks, staring at the back of Melina's head. Melina turned, raising an eyebrow at the woman.

"Well. Vault one-oh-one, my vault, were told they were never allowed to open the doors; resulting in complete extinction or incest... but good thing that didn't pan out, or I might not be here. Vault twelve was made so the door would never seal. Vault nineteen separated family and friends into two groups, resulting in a bloodbath. Vault eighty-seven, the birthplace of super mutants. And a slew of others… Vault zero was the base of operations for all the other vaults. Pretty sure that one wasn't an experiment." Melina scoffed, walking on down the road, leaving Sweetpea to play catch-up.

"How do you know-"

"Travel and a whole lot of it."

A moment of silence fell between the pair, but Sweetpea's cogs were turning.

"Mac called you The Wanderer."

"Indeed he did. But the correct name is The Lone Wanderer."

"And why-"

"Dad left the vault, I followed suit. Traveled on my own for weeks until I met someone tolerable. Three Dog of Galaxy News Radio dubbed me The Lone Wanderer. Sort of stuck. Kind of like it." She shrugged, indifferent to her story now. She had been telling it practically once a day for ten years; what was one more time?

"Wait… wait. You came from a vault too? In search of family? Are you kidding, that's so-"

"Wild? Coincidental? Uncanny?" Melina shrugged once more.

"Yes, all of those things." Sweetpea mused, keeping a safe difference from the stranger. She didn't understand…

"I know how confusing it is. I was confused to when I settled into a little town just above the boarder. Met someone kind of just like me. I went from being alone to having someone I could relate to… it's strange."

"There's more?"

Melina looked over at Sweetpea, laughing a hearty laugh.

"Oh boy, how long have you been outside? We practically have a support group. Meet up once a year to trade war stories." Melina snorted, glancing at her PipBoy to see their location before raising her eyes back to the road.

"I don't understand."

"Alright, let me take a few stabs. I know you left a vault. You look like a family woman… I mean, cryogenic storage. So you're from the before times and they don't just let anyone into a vault. You had a family, and they probably didn't make it… but something has kept you out here, you didn't shoot yourself the moment you found a gun. I assume there's a family member keeping your brain together, someone you're looking for, or maybe you've found and are working with them; same difference."

Sweetpea knew the Wanderer was right in her assumptions, but said nothing.

"So you walk out into this brave new world, looking for your loved one or whatever, and you stumble across some people who need your help. And you help them, for personal gain or because you're nice, doesn't matter to the story. And then those people send you out to help other people, who send you to other people, who lead you to the person how has knowledge on your missing loved one who will help you if you help them, yadda yadda yadda," Melina exhausted her breath, taking in a deep gust of air before continuing ", and before you fucking know it, everyone wants a piece of you. Everyone's asking you to do shit; get me some water, help me get my daughter back from the slavers, bring us food, help me get from here to there. And then you're this messiah walking the wastes with at least half the area bowing at your feet and the other are cowering in the shadows."

"Oh," Melina continued ", and everything you do is under a microscope. You gotta deal with the radio broadcasting your affairs twenty four-seven, you have to make some big ass choices that end up affecting the entire surrounding area. Every fraction is pulling you every which way. Shit's enough to make you go pretty damn crazy."

Sweetpea kept walking in silence; how painfully accurate. Thoughts and feelings flooded her mind. Not only had this woman hit the nail on the head, but she treated it with such disinterest. She had heard the stories all before, at least in variations, leaving her to wonder just what happened outside of her isolated part of this vast wasteland.

"But hey. At some point, you do your final deed. Then, you're free. People stop asking you to do shit because you've done it all. That's when you're free… aside from the occasional boat sending you to some mutated backwoods or getting kidnapped to a crazy casino cloaked in poison…"

"No rest for the wicked." Sweetpea quoted a pre-war song, earning a strange look from the older woman.

"What?" Melina scoffed, earning a 'forget about it' wave from the Sole Survivor.

"Anyway. We got The Lone Wanderer, Courier Six, The Prophet, Majesty, The Whisperer, Harold… he counts by default," she counted on her fingers, looking to the sky ", oh, and the late but beloved Vault Dweller and The Chosen One... only heard rumors about those last two."

"That's… I don't even know what to say."

"Blow your mind? Yeah, that sort of just happens to me." Melina grinned, able to see the statues of Sanctuary just up ahead.

"It's done more than blow my mind. It's a literal phenomenon… six people who have all experienced similar lives?"

"Not similar, really. I mean, only a handful of us came from a vault. Courier Six was born and raised in Nevada, The Prophet was a Canadian scientist who developed a serum to keep him alive for literal centuries because he calculated exactly when the war was going to happen about five years before the first bomb. Majesty was… well, she was on some next level shit. I don't like to talk about that crazy bitch." Melina laughed, waving her hand about. Sweetpea had to remind herself to get this woman drunk; make her spill those secrets.

"So… if you're a living legend back in… wherever-"

"D.C."

"… back in D.C… then what are you doing out here?"

"I'm looking for a woman, who went missing off the face of the earth just after my own… final deed. I'm hoping to reconnect."

Sweetpea furrowed her brow, but kept the rest of her questions to herself. Instead, she led the woman straight to her home where she knew Nick Valentine would be smoking and reading.