The Capitol Wasteland was still a wasteland.

But it was healing.

That was a start, Liam O'Ryan supposed, standing before the entrance to the Vault he once called home and looking off over the barren landscape before him. They hadn't let him back into the Vault yet. They likely never would. It was still worth a try every time he came, worth hoping that maybe this time, Amata had forgiven him. It wasn't the childish obsession with whisking her away from the Vault it had once been. Now, it was more an obligation to a friend. She had given him the means to escape her father's grasp, to chase after his own father and his dream, and to bring the Wasteland into the new dawn it was experiencing now.

Amata at least deserved a thank you, though Liam somehow doubted she'd ever want to hear it from him.

As he idly popped the slightly irradiated gum bubble he'd been nursing for the better part of a minute, a welcome distraction came in the form of his favorite radio DJ.

"Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, children of all ages, this is Three Dooooooog, bow-wow! And you're listening to Galaxy News Radio, the voice of the Capitol Wasteland, bringing you the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the ass-ugly, irradiated truth. Now, y'all out there are probably wondering just what's been going on since the Brotherhood of Steel went on a little expedition to beat all kinds of Enclave ass, well, I'll give you the low-down. With our resident defenders firmly back on the home field, things are still looking pretty sunny to say we're living in the depths of post-apocalyptia. The water's flowin' free, the caps are jingling, and the Capitol Wasteland? Hell, it ain't that bad a place to live after all."

"Damn straight," Liam muttered with a grin, hoisting his bat onto his shoulder and blowing another bubble as he slowly walked down the path from Vault 101 down to the ruined neighborhood at its entrance. Megaton was a little ways away, but that wasn't his destination. The plan was to hitch a ride on a little something more… exotic than his boots, and as proud as he was of his new digs, he wanted to keep them on the down low. The last thing he needed was to be more famous than he already was.

"Now, now, now, hold on, children, I know what you're asking," Three Dog continued, "'But Three Dog! What about that crazy kid from Vault 101? Well, children, don't you worry a hair on your pretty little heads, because I have it on good authority that of all the damn things, our last, best hope for humanity was recently rated with the full rank of Paladin by our own Brotherhood of Steel!" A long, loud howl, Three Dog's old trademark, followed, trailing off into a barking laugh. "Ha! How's that for the hometown heroes, huh? How many caps you think that kid's gonna ask for an interview. Don't you worry, Three Dog'll keep you updated. Besides our friend abroad, we've got some other interesting news coming from up north, where of all the damn things, trees are growing! Real trees! With leaves and flowers and actual goddamn roots! It's a Christmas miracle and it ain't even fuckin' July, children! It took hundreds of years, but it looks like finally, FINALLY, the world's starting to heal from the brush with near-total atomic annihilation. Maybe by the time Three Dog's got him some puppies we'll be having clean food to go with our purified, non-irradiated water. Anyhow, I don't intend to gush too much, now, let's get you some fresh tracks on. This one's a gift from, who else, our friend from the Vault, who happened to be so kind as to give Three Dog a hand with collecting some new material from the ruins around the old station. Share the love, children- heeeeeeere's Sam Cooke, with 'What A Wonderful World'."

Liam grinned, swaying in time with the beat as he made his way down the hill, the dulcet tones of long-gone crooners singing him through the world that he'd somehow managed to save. He wasn't much of a singer, especially when other people were around, but he did have some privacy out here.

"Don't know much about history," Liam began, very much not in tune but also not giving a singular damn, "don't know much biology. Don't know much about a science book, don't know much about the French I took-"

"Paladin."

Liam had been in the middle of a, much to his own surprise, rather slick pirouette and preparing to move on to the next line of the song when the transmission from the Citadel came through, the sheer surprise leading him to trip over his own feet and nearly stumble face-first into the worn-down pavement, only barely catching himself before he could fall.

"Shit, shit, shit, what!? What is it? Did I miss something?" Liam asked, frantic. "Who? What?"

"It's Glade, Paladin. Relax. Just letting you know you're on comms."

A peal of laughter from the rest of the Lyons' Pride followed Paladin Glade's statement, and Liam groaned for lack of any other way to express his frustration. He wasn't gonna hear the end of this for a couple of weeks, now.

"Bloody hell, Glade…" Liam muttered. "Thanks."

"See you back at base, Liam."

Liam sighed as the music returned to the forefront, his positive mood all but gone and replaced with an embarrassed melancholy. The one thing he hated about being the savior of the Wasteland was that he didn't have a single minute to himself anymore. He couldn't go to Rivet City or Megaton without being mobbed, the smaller communities weren't exactly much better, especially considering they were getting a lot bigger without an Enclave to menace them, and no matter how desperate he was for some peace and quiet, Big Town was never going to be an option. Liam thought he was a decent man, but Sticky could test the patience of Christ himself, by Liam's reckoning.

No matter. He had some business to take care of on the itinerary today, and he didn't really have time to faff about listening to music, as much as he'd like to. He'd been intending to walk to the Jefferson Memorial again and check on the status of the purifier, maybe do some light maintenance if it was required. Then, he'd be headed to Rivet City to re-up on supplies for his inevitable return trip to Point Lookout. He'd floated the idea by Elder Lyons of deploying a Brotherhood forward base there, but there would be plenty of tribals and Swamp Folk to clear out if he even wanted to make an attempt at such a thing, so he needed to be well armed and armored. The Outcasts, as much as his fellow Brotherhood members would have balked at the idea, had access to quite a bit of technology that the Brotherhood itself didn't, mainly being Gauss Rifles, so Liam pretty much had to stop by. A part of him wanted to try and get them back on board with the Lyons faction, but he somehow doubted even his silver tongue would be able to win them over. Finally, with all that said and done, he'd need to head up to the alien mothership—he still had trouble believing that one—to scrounge up some alien epoxy to do some quick repairs on his more… exotic gear. It was rare to have anyone out in these parts who could fix up Enclave Hellfire Armor.

Anyone left alive, anyhow.

The more Liam thought about it, though, the more he figured he ought to go ahead and get the trip out to the mothership done first. It was arguably the shortest leg of the journey- the teleportation matrix that connected him to the ship was extremely fast and efficient, and there'd be no issue getting back down once he got the epoxy he needed.

With that in mind, he dug out the teleporter activator from his jeans and turned on his Pip-Boy's radio again, tuning to the ship's frequency. "Oi, Sohma!"

"The hell, scab, I'm tryna sleep…" the former slaver groaned. "Better be fuckin' good."

"Gonna be swinging by the ship in just a moment, need to pick up some supplies. Just lettin' you know."

"Hold off on that, Tercorien and I wanted to look at the teleporter array. We got hit by debris last night and we had some errors on the command console."

"It's probably fine, don't worry about it," Liam assured her, "I'll be up there in just a minute."

"Liam, did you not listen to a word I said? The Tele-"

Liam was already pressing the button to activate the teleporter by the time she'd started again. He could fix the thing when he got up there, anyhow. Repairing things wasn't his strongest suit, but he certainly wasn't bad at it.

The teleportation sequence wasn't very fun. Liam wasn't sure about the logistics of it, but it was an uncomfortable process- it was like the universe was crunching and stretching around you like a piece of stale bubble gum, and you were stuck right in the middle of it, crunching and stretching along. Thankfully, the process was over quickly, and he found himself in the air.

Wait a minute.

"Why am I-"

Before Liam could answer his own question, he felt himself falling, and he wasn't quite sure how far he had to fall, but he sure as hell hoped it wasn't very far. After a solid second, he found himself on his back, having landed hard on what felt like concrete, a rod of pain flying from his neck down to his toes and drawing an agonized yell from the pit of his stomach. His eyes wrenched shut and his teeth ground down, all he could think about was pain.

"Oh, fuck me!" he shouted through gritted teeth. "Fuuuuuck!"

"Brothers above, what the hell!?" someone shouted near him.

"Oh, my goodness, what happened?" another person asked.

"Mommy, mommy, that man just fell out of the sky!" a child shouted excitedly. Indeed, from what it sounded like, Liam had fallen out of the sky from a fair distance, was having a fair spot of trouble feeling his legs. Thankfully, a stimpack would fix that. Probably. Most likely.

Liam reached with an aching, unsteady arm into the small medical bag he kept under his jacket, and pulled out a stimpack, which he jammed into his leg as best he could. Sure enough, it did some good, enough for him to get up to his feet and survey his surroundings. He was… definitely not on Zeta. The people surrounding him were all dressed in odd clothes, and he was on what appeared to be some kind of street, filled with moving cars and buses and a sky filled with aircraft.

"What the…" Liam muttered, only to be interrupted by the child's excited stammering.

"Mister, mister, mister! Are you an angel?" the child asked and Liam turned to give them a once over. It looked like a little girl, couldn't be older than three, but she had… horns. Little deer horns, by the look of it. The child's mother, evidently, stood behind her, pulling her away from Liam at a brisk pace with a look of fear on her features.

Liam offered her a smile, and a stiff, painful wave. "Sorry 'bout that, miss. Appear to have ended up at the wrong place."

The woman's expression softened, now more confused than concerned, but she still shooed her child along and left him without any direction.

"Damn it all, where the bloody hell am I?" Liam asked no one in particular, pulling up his Pip-Boy radio again. "Somah, can you hear me? Somah?"

Nothing. No response. His Pip-Boy hadn't taken a bump when he landed, by the look of it, so apparently he just had no signal. A quick flick of the tabs to the map showed him that was the least of his problems- he didn't even have a GPS signal. As far as his Pip-Boy was concerned, he was in the middle of fucking nowhere. Hell, he wasn't even sure he had the right time. It was midday here, judging by the sun, and back in the Capitol it hadn't even been lunch hour yet.

"Damn it, all, come on." Liam's frustrations mounted as he switched back to the radio tab, attempting to get a signal from the Brotherhood or the Outcasts. Still nothing. The Pitt, nothing. Old Enclave signals, nothing. As far as he knew, now, he was completely isolated. "Come on!"

"Hey, kid, is somethin' wrong?" A man asked, placing a hand on Liam's shoulder and drawing his attention. It was an older gentleman, one who seemed to have not caught Liam's graceful landing like the crowd that Liam had just now realized was staring at him like a prize cut of Brahmin steak. "You kinda fell from the sky, apparently. Beacon shenanigans, I bet."

Liam cocked a brow. "Beacon shenanigans?"

"Guess not, then," the old man replied, shrugging his shoulders. "Ya got a name, kid?"

"Liam."

"You doin' alright, Liam? You look a bit stiff."

Liam rolled his shoulders and attempted to pop out his back, only succeeding in making things hurt worse. He'd put his bat in the makeshift holster he'd made for it on his jacket, and the old block of maple wood had dug deep into his back, deep enough to probably leave an impression. "Yeah," he half-groaned, "I think I'll be fine. Just need to figure out where I am."

"You're in the city of Vale, kid. I dunno what kinda business involved you fallin' from the sky, but I think you should head by Beacon anyhow. You look young, and judgin' by the bat and the gun I'm guessin' you're a wannabe Huntsman. Go ahead and run by there when you get the chance."

Huntsman? Liam wasn't sure what that was supposed to mean, nor was he sure where the city of Vale was. He most certainly wasn't in the Wasteland anymore. There wasn't a sign of war or destruction anywhere. He seemed to genuinely be the only interesting thing going on anywhere around here.

"Where exactly is Vale?" Liam asked.

"You don't know your geography, kid?" the man asked, incredulous. "Continent of Sanus, out on the west coast. We're one of the farthest cities to the east 'a the continent."

Liam was… confused was an understatement. This was surreal. He must have bashed his head on the concrete something fierce, which is funny considering his head didn't hurt one bit. He knew his geography pretty well, all things considered. Unless there'd been some radical restructuring in the post-War (which, to be fair, there probably was), Vale was something completely new.

Liam felt just about naked, despite his clothes and weaponry. He felt rather noticeably out of place.

"You know what, mate, I think I get it," Liam lied, pulling his bat off his back and placing it on his shoulder. "Still, I think I got a few questions. Which way's Beacon?"

The old man motioned behind him to a sign that said 'bus stop.' "You got a few Lien, you can take the bus down there. Hell of a walk from here if you don't. Head east down the main drag for a few miles then follow the signs. Shouldn't be too hard."

"I think I could use the exercise," Liam replied, turning about and checking his Pip-Boy's compass. At least that still worked, he appeared to be facing east. "Thanks for the tip."

With that, the old man bid him a rushed goodbye, and Liam started walking. He wasn't sure where the hell he was or what was going on, but now he had an objective. Get to Beacon, get some answers. Still, he did have one more option, as much as he doubted it would do him any good.

Reaching into his jacket pocket, he found the teleporter control and hit it. There was a loud whirring, and the very start of that crunch, but it quickly faded to nothing. All that happened was, of all the things, a single microfusion cell landing on the ground in front of him.

Liam rolled his eyes, and couldn't help but chuckle at his absurd luck. This was going to be a very, very long day.