An End
With light steps, the Sole Survivor crossed the bridge. The gates opened well before he arrived, and the settlers-turned-guardsmen waved him in heartily. Laden with scavenged goods from the nearby settlements which had been left empty and untouched since his first rampage across the commonwealth, he gratefully unloaded his burden on the waiting men and women.
"That's a lot of stuff, General. Good work, now we just need to find a use for it." Preston, after the influx of settlers following the Institute's downfall, had abandoned his Minutemen clothes and duties, and instead began farming. Wearing the same salvaged old-world clothes as most of the settlers, he approached the Sole Survivor with a tension-free face, at last.
"I'm sure we'll find a use for it somewhere." Wanderer looked around at the place, at the safe haven they'd built. A thriving farm had been planted in the old playground behind the houses, and each of those houses was filled with families, there were even children, and more on the way. Next to the workshop, Mama Murphy had set up a canteen, though she did little of the cooking. Instead, children would congregate there each night, as she told wildly fascinating and suspicious stories about her journeys across the commonwealth, as well as what few the Sole Survivor had told her. Sturges, in what spare time he had between building homes and purifiers and defenses, had even built a bar at the end of the cul-de-sac, that was quickly becoming brighter and louder with each night. The place not at all as it had once been, but it was safe, it was warm, and it was home.
"What's the matter, General?" Preston asked. "Feeling a little old world blues?"
"A little, I suppose," Wanderer said, taking off his armor and putting his weapons away in the barracks, just beside the gate. "Look, I'm tired, I'm going to go rest, alright?"
"Of course, General, sorry to keep you. I'm sure Shaun is waiting for you."
"I'm sure he is." He looked down the road at his home, with the lights shining through the newly made windows, and didn't like the tension he felt. They hadn't needed any salvage, and he knew it. He just wanted to get away for a few days. He'd told Shaun that they were father and son, but… had he really felt that way?
He wiped the sweat off of his face, taking his time walking through the town. People greeted him, asked how he did, and he lingered with each of them, his steps slow in between. Synths were people. Nick had proven that, as had Curie, and all the other Synths he'd met. Still, was Shaun really his son? After meeting… Father, seeing what became of the child he'd lost, he knew his son was dead, and was glad for it. But then Shaun showed up. Father had programmed him to think they were father and son, but that was all. They were flesh and blood, in some way, and Shaun thought it was true, but was that enough?
He'd spent the week since the Institute had been destroyed living with Shaun, spending time with him, getting to know him, despite how it pained him. Now, standing at the front door of their home, there wasn't anywhere else for him to go. Yet still he hesitated, and shivered. He didn't know what to do.
Shaun opened the door before he could. "Dad!" The young boy ran into his father, hugging him tightly. "You were gone for ages. Did you see anything cool?" The boy's enthusiastic chattering was infectious, and brightened Wanderer's sour mood, but the question remained in his mind.
"Not this time, I barely saw anything."
"Huh. Maybe you and the Minutemen got them all already. Or scared them off." The Sole Survivor stepped past his son and into their home. The windows had glass, the walls were patched up, and some of them even had paint on them. The whole place was lit healthily from the inside with the power they'd worked so hard to set up. Even Codsworth was there, busy humming in the kitchen over the afternoon meal.
"Maybe." It was almost like before, but those times would never come back. Nora was gone, so were his neighbors, their bodies strewn about the place, or underground still. The skies would never look as bright as they did, nor would the world ever look unburnt by the fires of nuclear war. His son, the baby that he'd played with on that last day, was dead. The boy in that house wasn't his son, not really, and they would never stop fighting to hold on to everything they had. The world was dead, and only ghosts of humanity remained.
But, Shaun was smiling, smiling at him, and that seemed to defy everything. Nora would have wanted this, and maybe this wasn't the Shaun the Sole Survivor had hoped, or even expected to find, but this child was still human, was still calling himself Shaun. Was it enough?
"Dad?" Shaun asked, the smile sliding from his face. "Is everything alright? Why are you looking at me like that?"
"Oh, sure it is," Wanderer said, shaking his head. "I just, uh…" He could see Nora in Shaun's features. "Yeah, sorry. Just real tired, is all. Let's go eat."