She was getting out of here.
The sun, at his top, blinded her for a few moments. When her sight returned, her breath stopped in her throat. Everything... Everything was a mess. Not only a mess but also old: the metal walls of the control caravan and the big containers surrounding the platform were covered in rust, a tipped crane bent in the middle was inches away from tumbling down and a car wreck was turned upside down on what was once a pristine asphalt road leading uphill. The wire fences circling the vault entrance were barely hanging to their post, skeletons were laying here and there and she could hear crows croaking in the sky. In her mind, she spent 48 hours in this underground facility, tops. In front of her eyes laid the proof that her estimation of the time past in there, even given the information she found on the terminals, was greatly underrated.
Also, the trees... Not only them but also the grass, the bushes, they all looked dull, the leaves and strands hesitating between pale green and dusty brown. Slowly turning on her spot, she let out a shaking breath, on the verge of tears.
"Where... Where is everyone?"
The silence answered her question. She took a few steps to go sit on the access ramp of the caravan. Getting out of the vault seemed to have taken away her strength, and she felt tears in her eyes, again.
" Don't cry. Don't cry. It's gonna be fine. Go home, sleep a bit, eat something... It's gonna be fine." she admonished herself.
She glanced in the caravan and took what she could from it - not much, a can of water and another Stimpack-, then she began to head home. When she reached the fence gates, she forced herself to ignore the mass of bones piled up there, on the other side. She walked past them trying not to recognize her neighbors' clothes in the pile of human remains and tattered cloth. Crossing the bridge at the bottom of the hill, El stepped reluctantly in her dear suburb.
The walls of the houses had holes in them, some roofs had crumbled inside the houses: out of the couple dozens of house here, half were still deserving the title of 'house'. The concrete of the sidewalk let the sick looking grass grow out of its cracks, as did the asphalt of the road. Branches were left where they fell from the trees, a few of the street lights were knocked over, and not a single mailbox or road sign was rust free.
"What did you expect, huh? That the nuclear apocalypse would have spared your little suburban life just to be nice to you? You stupid girl..."
El turned left and walked to her house, carefully glancing around her. She would not be happy to crossroads again with the giant insects from the vault. A metallic glint in the distance caught her eye: she raised her head, discovering a familiar silhouette in front of her doorstep.
"Codsworth?"
She began to trot towards the robot, before actually running to her old butler.
"Codsworth!"
He was pruning the flower bed under the living room windows as if it was another normal day in her normal life. She could almost have believed it if her carefully chosen hydrangea hadn't turned into a pitiful bunch of dry twigs and yellow leaves. He seemed to hear her arrive because he turned his three vision sensors in her direction.
"As I live and breathe... It's... It's REALLY you!"
"Oh, Codsworth, you're still here!" she said in a strangled voice. "What... What happened here? I mean... everywhere? Everything is... Dead."
"Don't worry Mum, your flowers are still making others pale in comparison at Sanctuary Hills. Apart from that, I'm afraid that things have been quite dull around here, I must say." replied the robot, apparently truly concerned about what she thought of his gardening skills. "But now that you and Sir are coming back, I expect life to get much more exciting! Where is he by the by? I'm afraid I have some bad news about the car for him..."
"Nathan is... He's not coming back, Codsworth. He has been killed in this damned Vault." she let out.
"Oh, Mum, these terrible thoughts you entertain... Let's distract you from these. I know! Charades! It will please little Shaun at the same time, the young lad loves them! Do you happen to have him with you?" the eagerness in his voice sounded almost forced.
" Shaun is... Oh, my poor boy, they took him, they killed his father and they took him! "
She clasped her arms around herself, unable to contain her tears. Codsworth came next to her and gently stroked her shoulder with his flamer.
"There there Mum, don't you worry. You are probably suffering from hunger-induced paranoia and emotional liability. After all, you are two hundred years late for dinner!"
"Two hundred years? What? You mean..."
"A tad bit over 210 years, actually Mum. Give or take for the rotations of Earth and some inaccuracies in my old chronometer."
She faltered, the realization slowly sinking in. No wonder that everything was so rusty, so dilapidated, so... so not what she knew. She thought about the people she knew, they had to all be dead now, long forgotten and returned to dust. Everyone...
"No..." the young woman protested against her own thoughts. "Shaun is still out there, somewhere, I can find him!"
"Come on Mum, are you sure you are not interested in a little breakfast? I am sure it would do good, food is always good to fight against dire mood."
"Codsworth, are you okay?" she asked, trying to contain her irritation at her robot's obliviousness of what she said. "You honestly sound off-the-wall right no... Did you rust on the inside also?"
The robot seemed to hesitate for a bit, scratching a bit of rusted metal off his saw arm with his pliers, then let it all out:
"I'm sorry Mum, but it has been all so terrible, two centuries without anyone to serve, anyone to talk to. I tried my best to maintain the house for you to return, but do you know how hard it is to clean radioactive dust out of crackled linoleum? And could we talk about how watering the garden is a nightmare when running water is out of the equation? Let me say that the weather has not been very comprehensive of my needs in terms of grass hydration..."
"Codsworth, I'm sorry, but focus a bit there. Do you have an idea of where Shaun could be?"
She had little hope, and when he told her to follow him around the neighborhood to see if 'the little lad and his dad' were somewhere near, she was convinced the metallic butler didn't get what she said, and also almost sure he had fried a few fuses up there. Either way, she obliged, maybe he would regain his senses after realizing Nathan and Shaun were not here.
After the second house, she came to regret the giant cockroaches from the vault. The houses had giant flies as hosts, with bloated abdomens and wings that seemed too small for their size. And worst of all, they spew the content of said abdomen on her to attack. And worst worst of all, the content of their abdomen was their larvae along with some venom. Very nice. She was glad to see Codsworth's flamer put to good use here, and felt a weird satisfaction at the sight of the bugs turning into piles of ashes on the ground.
When the tour of the neighborhood ended, all the bloated flies were dealt with, but Éléanore was feeling dizzy and weak. Not only the larvae had made holes into her jumpsuit -in fact, three little holes forming the triangle of their fangs -, but she had received a good amount of venom on the left side of her jaw and neck and it had dripped inside her jumpsuit, provoking a red burning rash on her soft skin.
Resisting the urge to scratch herself, which may just make things worse, she headed towards the river running under the bridge leading to Sanctuary Hills. On her way, she couldn't help but remember when Nathan and her first arrived here to move in. The bridge was sturdy and clean back then, not partially collapsed; the trees were healthy and the river clear, without all these branches, tires, old furniture in it. Furthermore, Sanctuary was then buzzing with activity, some people having a BBQ night, others walking next to the river, children giggling in the playground.
El felt her heart clench one more time, and despair started to gnaw on her: all the humans she saw since she left her underground prison were remains. Where there anyone who could help her find her son? Would anyone even care? She knelt on the bank, are went to splash her face with water, before hearing her Pip-Boy emit ticking some. Perplexed, she pressed it again her hear, and the ticking stopped immediately.
"Et merde..." she whispered. "Hey, Codsworth! Is that water radioactive? It seems there's a Geiger counter in that watch-thing, and it's ticking."
"Well, Mum, I must say that given the state of our dear Commonwealth today, I'd be quite surprised if you were to find a river carrying radiation-free water..."
"Great. I was starting to think that this apocalypse stuff was too easy for someone of my caliber" she muttered, her hand pressed against her neck.
"Do not worry, Mrs. Éléanore! Dare I say, I'm the robot of the situation. If you could lend me a minute..."
Codsworth started to rumble quietly, a different sound than his habitual propulsor. Before his owner could ask what was wrong, he exclaimed joyfully:
"And here you are, Mum! If you please, just put your hands under this little evacuation canal, and I should provide you with freshly condensed morning dew!"
And indeed, the robot started leaking warm water out of his shell, and she was able to splash her face and neck, reducing the itching. She sighed with relief:
"You're a gift from the gods, Cods'"
"Ah, Mum, my genius designers at General Atomics would be very pleased to hear you hold them in such high regard. If they were still alive, of course..."
The sigh she let out this time was painful.
"Mum, I must ask you... Those things you said about Sir and the little Shaun... It is true, isn't it?" seeing her nod, he continued. "Well, I must immediately give you this. Sir made it for you the day before... Before you left."
Opening a storage compartment, he handed her a holotape. The recognizable handwriting on it, reading 'Hi honey', put a lump in her throat. After she loaded it in the tape reader of her Pip-Boy, the voice of her husband and the babbling of her son broke her heart.
"Oops, haha. Keep those little fingers away... Ah, there we go. Just say it, right there, right there, go ahead... Ah, yay! Hi honey, listen... I don't think Shaune and I need to tell you how great of a mother you are. But, we're going to anyway. You are kind, and loving, and funny, that's right, and patient. So patient, patience of a saint as your mother used to say. Look, with Shaun and us all being home together it's been an amazing year but even so I know our best days are yet to come."
She let out a strangled sob at those words.
"There will be changes sure, things we'll need to adjust too. I'll rejoin the civilian workforce, you'll finally get to truly show the world how much of a great lawyer you are. But everything we do no matter how hard, we do it for our family. Now say goodbye Shaun. Bye-bye, say bye-bye? Bye honey, we love you."
The day was quietly coming to an end. The wind was blowing softly in the trees and grass, creating a soft rustle. Sitting against the huge centenary oak in the middle of the place she used to live in, Éléanore was done wiping tears out of her face. Her eyes were puffed, her nose red, and she felt hollow inside. She exited Vault 111 early in the middle of the morning, and it was now almost 8 PM. She hadn't eaten anything, as her entire afternoon had been spent listening over and over to the holotape Nate had left her three days ago. Two hundred years ago.
As a breeze colder than the others blew, she shivered. It was October after all, the sun wasn't warming her anymore as it was on the horizon, she wore nothing under her jumpsuit and her silly shower curtain harness wasn't a proper way to contain body heat.
"Mum..." politely approached Codsworth, who had been waiting patiently for her all this time. "If I may, it would certainly be useful that you find a place to rest tonight. You could certainly benefit from a good night of sleep, and probably something to eat..."
"You're right Cods." her voice was emotionless. "Do you know what I could take as food?"
"It depends on what you're looking for Mum, but I personally can bring you some Sugar Bombs, if you want. Some of your neighbors were stocking them like in unhealthy amounts."
"Sure. It would be great"
"On my way then!"
As he left to rummage in one of the still-standing house -the Ables' she realized, she never thought Mrs. Able's obsession over cereal would serve her someday- she stood up and felt how tired she was. A few moments later, her butler came back with a faded box of Sugar Bombs. El took it with a thanks and told him that she had an idea as were to sleep.
"Mr. Jahani had a cellar built under his house a few months before... Well before he had the occasion to put it to good use. He was so secretive about it, yet everyone in the neighborhood knew... Either way, it may have survived all this, and I'd prefer not to sleep alone in a house full of holes."
"What a sensible idea Mum! I shall keep watch over the entrance, so no one will disturb you during a well deserved night of rest."
She wondered if anyone was even present in a five miles radius, but didn't contradict him. She was too exhausted to argue anyway.
The cellar was small and smelled like it hadn't seen fresh air in about two centuries, but it was warm and it luckily contained some useful stuff - old preserved food, a few cans of water, a radio, a first aid kit with a Stimpack in it-. More importantly, a mattress was lying on a pallet bed base, against one of the bare cinder block walls. The blanket on it had been white in another life and had a quite moldy smell, and there was no pillow to be seen, but she didn't care. She barely took time to take off the knots of her curtain and munch on a handful of cereals before lying down in the dark.
El felt empty and was sure that she would never fell asleep. She just felt... nothing, not even sadness anymore. Turning to her side, she winded the blanket around her, wondering if it wouldn't be better to wait for death on this mattress.
And, on this dark thought, she fell asleep.