A/N: I like this chapter. It's a huge contrast from the last, because nothing bad really happens here, just some of Duncan's angst over the old world. For those who think he's getting off too easy with the killing people, stress from almost dying several times, and all that? Well... it's coming. Duncan's a tough guy, but even tough guys break sooner or later. It's just taking him a while because it hasn't all sunk in yet.

However... this is probably the happiest chapter of the first act (of three planned) up until the last chapter, which ends on a very happy note (for the Wastes).
But you don't want to hear me ramble.

Enjoy!

Chap. 5 Big Town Blowout

Duncan frowned at the smell surrounding the semi trailer as he passed. A quick, furtive glance showed that there was no threat. No matter how many years had passed since he'd been put into the coma in Vault 100, he'd grown up in a metropolis. He knew a drug den when he saw one.
The listless people sprawled over the old, tatty mattresses, many half-clothed or less, and the paraphernalia laying around were a big clue.

Ignoring the pain in his feet in favor of wincing at the smell, which made his head hurt even more, Duncan trudged by without sparing them another glance.
The ramshackle houses that had surrounded the broken overpass on which Arefu was built were here, as well, but far more of them. He estimated, as well he could while peering through a huge black eye and a concussion, that Big Town was about twice the former settlement's size. The funny part? He knew this place.

Shady Oak, the town just north of where his cousin Ozzie- Oswald to his parents- had lived. They'd come to Shady Oak for the food and movies more than once, since both were within biking distance of Ozzie's house on the north end of Great Falls. In fact, unless he missed his geography by a lot, that part of the two towns, Shady Oak and Great Falls, was the part spared most of the devastation surrounding them. The sparse houses appeared to have been far enough apart to mostly survive what must have been devastating fires during and after the nuclear strikes. Maybe Ozzie's house was still there?

That hope kept Duncan moving, even helped him move faster He shrugged, wondering why he was excited, wincing at the way it made the welts on his stomach pull, and kept walking. He'd passed a few people in the streets already, but none had spared him more than a passing glance. Apparently, people limping into town wounded was not that uncommon.

He walked for nearly a mile before reaching the ancient homes in the very subdivision where his cousin had lived. And just there. Right there.

His cousin's house still stood.

But it doesn't matter, does it? It's been a long-ass time since the war. I should really find out what year it is. If anyone even keeps track any more. They're gone... but maybe I got relatives. Or something.

It took Duncan almost fifteen minutes to pass the three houses on the short block, pass an ancient playground that actually had kids playing on it, to reach the mailbox he'd once climbed up to stand atop before jumping on his cousin like Grognak did whenever he had the chance. A leaping overhead swing was the barbarian's signature move, after all, and Duncan had wanted to be just like him, once.

That was a long time ago, though.

Way too long.

The name, Wallace, was still there in faded stickers on the mailbox, though it now read Wall e. The numbers were mostly gone too.

Duncan looked, then, up from the mailbox to the front step. The house was boarded up from the outside. That made sense, Ozzie's family had wanted to flee what they were sure would be a deathtrap should the worst happen. They might have even made it to a Vault.

Without any conscious decision, without a plan at all, Duncan began stripping the boards from the doorway with his bare hands.

It wasn't like he had a tool. He never noticed that the boards were, while not new, too newly applied to have been put up by his family.

He noticed- heard- a small crowd gathering a fair distance back to watch while he worked, but no one stopped him, no one offered to help, so Duncan ignored them.

It wasn't until he'd ripped the last plank off with bleeding fingers that a deep voice called, "Hold on there, kid. That house is Big Town property. Don't think you can just loot it."

Duncan, shoulders slumped, exhausted, forced himself to stand up straight as he turned.

He was quite surprised to see what looked like a police officer in full riot gear, including a scratched, weathered, and burned plexiglass shield, halfway between himself and the crowd. Duncan gestured over his shoulder with a thumb, "'s my cousin's house. I gotta find out if... well, if they're around."

Several of the crowd tittered, but the officer glared instead. "I've been here longer than anyone else right now, and I can tell you no one's lived in that house for at least fifteen years. That's why we boarded it up."

Duncan shrugged, "I figured that. My cousin lived here a long time ago. I don't expect to find him, I just... I just want to know what happened."

The officer started moving toward him, one hand on the grip of his pistol, "Come on, man, don't make me do anything hasty. Just back up from the door, we can sit down somewhere and talk, and you can let whatever chems you're on wear off. How's that sound?

Duncan's eyes narrowed. Was this going to be Arefu all over again? Would no one believe him? "Look, cop, I ain't a liar. I've been in a damned Vault for a long time. I donno how long, but it's been a long time. My cousin lived here before the war."

"What war, man?" the officer asked. He'd stopped, but hadn't removed the hand from his gun, "Hasn't been a big war around here for almost ten years, since the Brotherhood and the Wanderer drove off the Enclave bastards."

Part of Duncan's mind filed away the word 'Enclave', and assumed the Wanderer was the same person who'd fixed the purifier at the cost of her life. The Brotherhood he knew. "I'm talking about a nuclear war, the one that apparently destroyed D.C."

A few members of the crowd burst into raucous laughter. Some hissed in surprise or fear. Most only looked at him as they had been, with neutral, guarded eyes.
The officer actually smiled, but started walking again, "Come on, come get something to eat, maybe a little something to drink with me. We'll let you tell us all about how you survived a war two hundred years ago to now."

Duncan staggered.

He'd known it had been a long time, but two hu- two- two hundred years?

He slumped against the door frame. "Two hundred? It's really been two hundred? What... what year is it?"

As the cop reached him and gently pulled him to his feet- Duncan was not so stunned to notice that the officer had deliberately tried not to aggravate his injuries- he answered, "It's Twenty-two-eighty-eight. December... uh... seventeenth I think."

A low, strong female voice on Duncan's other side corrected, "It's the eighteenth, Dusty."

"Oh, right. Sorry, the eighteenth. Yeah."

The name jarred something loose in Duncan's head, brought him back from the near-hysteria he was doubtless entering. "Dusty? Dusty in Big Town?"

The officer nodded, "That's me."

"MacReady... he said to tell you something. Uh... food, water. Treat me right."

The woman on his left snaked a hand under Duncan's arms a moment before sticking a needle in in left and depressing the trigger. "If MacReady sent you, we'll do just that, kid. Relax... I'm a doctor. I'm trying to help. Don't fight..."

But whatever the black woman was saying faded into the mists as Duncan finally got some good sleep- whether he wanted it or not.

(O)(O)(O)

Duncan heard voices. They were fuzzy, indistinct. But they were familiar. For a time, he thought he was back in bed at his parent's home, nursing a high-grade fever when he'd had pneumonia as a kid. But no... as time passed, he became more aware, remembered more, thought more.

His parents had been dead for more than two hundred years. Likely, Taylor had been for just as long. His friends were all gone, except his new friend- if he dared call her that- Amber.

The male of the pair talking said, "Think it's safe to wake him?"

That was the more familiar voice. It was deep, hard, but not cruel. It sounded almost like his uncle, Ozzie's dad, who'd been a vet.
The softer voice, just as low and a lot closer, said quietly, "No need, he's already waking up. That fever really did a number on him; I've never seen someone come back from Radsickness like that. Only heard of it once or twice, and those people all got Ghoulified. But he's coming around, should be okay to talk in a few-"

"M'fine," Duncan mumbled.

Only, even to his own voice, it sounded more like "Mine".

"See?" That was the woman. She almost sounded like his mom, but... not. Her accent was strange, but she still sounded educated.

"You alive yet, kid? I'd hate to see you die after the stunt you pulled in Arefu."

Arefu? Where was that?

What a crazy name. No one would name a city...

But wait.

Images flashed through Duncan's brain; many weapons leveled at him. His own pointing between the eyes of a stocky, shortish man with steel gray eyes and a hard look.
"Macncheese?"
At least, that's what it sounded like. Duncan was pretty sure that wasn't the man's name.

The woman, and another who hadn't spoken, snorted with laughter while the man grumbled under his breath, then said, "Yeah, yeah, laugh it up... it's me, kid. You kicking around in there, or still feelin' like you had too much fungus?"

Duncan blinked, and in doing so, realized he could open his eyes. At once, he jerked upright, only to find that a strap around his waist kept him from rising too far- just to a sitting position- atop the medical gurney.

MacReady, looking just as he had the last time Duncan had seen him, was leaning against the wall near a door. In the corner a few feet away was a pretty woman with a strong jaw. Princess. Only the one next to him, who was saying, "Whoah, calm down, buddy. Nobody's gonna hurt you," was new. She was dressed in the remains of a red RobCo jumpsuit that had been designed for a person much smaller than she was. Not that she was large, but she was tall. Taller than he by at least a few inches.
"I'm Red. Big Town's doctor. I'm the one that patched you up. Sorry we had to strap you down, your fever was pretty bad and you were having seizures."

Duncan nodded, pressing a hand to his forehead. "Feel okay."

The black woman nodded, "Yeah, your fever dropped yesterday, I just hadn't taken the strap off in case it came back. But if you're up, you're gonna be fine. You're gonna have the runs for about a week, but..."

Princess snickered while MacReady groaned in sympathy.

"The runs?"

Red nodded, briskly undoing the strap and offering a hand to help Duncan off the table, "The shits? Runs? Riverpants?"

Duncan shook his head for several seconds as she continued to list slang terms, before finally getting around to a medical term he actually knew- Diarrhea. He flushed, and Red smiled.

"Educated, huh? Finally, someone I can talk to! I had to use nine doses of Rad-Away to flush your system clean. You must've been drinking river water a long time. You should be dead. That's why you've got the case, though, with it pulling all the irradiated water out of your system. Of course, the concussion didn't help, or the broken skull, or the three cracked ribs, or-"

Princess whistled, apparently impressed. MacReady smiled knowingly, "Told you the kid had balls."

The woman shot her- boyfriend?- a glare, but said nothing else, continuing to appraise Duncan, though with a more critical eye.

Red, having lost her train of thought for a moment at the interruption, picked back up. "You also had several lacerations on your abdomen, twelve in total, with twenty-nine more cutaneous lacerations that didn't break the surface, and-"

Duncan shook his head, "Whoah, whoah. Hold on, Doc. I just... what? Plain English?"

The doctor froze mid-word, sighed with a defeated air, and moved one finger around as she spoke, pointing to various spots on Duncan's body. "You head broken. I fix. You keep bandaid on owie. You many bone break. I fix. You have many owies. I fix. You okay now."

This time, both MacReady and Princess laughed, while Duncan scowled at the suddenly sarcastic doctor, "Hey, I'm not a moron. I just couldn't process it all that fast. I'm not a doctor."

Red rolled her eyes, "Well, with the way you were going on about having a cousin living in old Rimshot's place... you don't look anything like her. You had to have been hallucinating, so-"

MacReady made to interrupt, but Duncan had already hopped off the gurney and stuck a finger in Red's face. Princess immediately put a hand on her shotgun grip, but didn't draw.
"Listen up, Doc. I'm thankful for patching me up and all, but I'm not crazy, and I'm not hallucinating. I've never done chems in my whole life. Never even had booze. That house was my cousin's, no matter who lived there since they did. His name was Ozzie Wallace, had a little sister named Mattie- Matilda, his real name was Oswald. They moved right before the war started."

MacReady nodded, "Yeah, Dusty said you'd talked about that. So what happened in that Vault, then?"

Duncan immediately clammed up, took a step back from Red, and sat down on the gurney again, staring pointedly away from all three of them.

There was silence for several minutes, until Red put a soft hand- despite being bigger than he was- on his shoulder. "I'm sorry... for your loss, I mean. But we still need to know. If there's more people we can help..."

Duncan shook his head, "They're dead. All but... all but three others."

Even Princess the hard-ass looked sympathetic, but it was again Red who spoke. "Vault-tec again, no doubt."

At his questioning look, she and MacReady shared a glance. The man nodded.

Red turned and hopped up on the gurney next to him. It creaked, but held, and she took his hand hesitantly in her own, wrapping them up in what he supposed was a gesture of support.
"Vault-tec, the company that made the Vaults? They... well, this only came to light recently, at least around here, with the Lone Wanderer discovering it. They had an... agenda. The Vaults weren't really designed to work, because they didn't think the Great War would actually happen. So... so they did an experiment."

Duncan didn't quite follow, but listened anyway, as Red explained, with occasional assistance from MacReady, how Vault-tec had designed some to be control vaults, but most of them to fail, often in catastrophic ways. Such as one woman in a Vault with nine hundred and ninety-nine men. Or with improperly-sealing doors. Or that conducted FEV- Forced Evolutionary Virus- experiments on the populace, turning them into monsters. Each of the three shared a pointed look at that one.
"So," Red concluded, "it's possible your Vault was designed with improper support, was designed to fail. I don't know. But it's possible it just couldn't handle the earthquakes. Our records say they were pretty bad, and our ancestors- at least our precursors- were safe on a fault-line, where the movement is weakest."

Duncan nodded. He'd known that little tidbit from science class. A memory came to him then of the surprise he'd felt when he'd found out his 'Medi-Lounger' would actually be putting him into a coma rather than performing a physical. "No... that's not it."

Princess smirked, "Hey, kid, just 'cause you don't want to believe it-"
Duncan shook his head, "No, no... I get that. I can believe Vault-tec wanted to screw with people like that. They were a huge company, and... and huge companies didn't always follow the rules. I was just a kid, and I knew that.

"But that's not what Vault-tec had planned. We were put into Medi-Loungers. Those are like... well, this gurney, but really advanced. We were told they were just going to do a physical before we entered the main part of the vault, but instead they put us into comas. I climbed in as the bombs were falling, with bright lights and sirens, crowds of people and my sister climbing into the one next to mine... and then woke up when my life support was running out. About... uh, how long have I been asleep?"

Red ticked off her fingers, "Little less than four days."

"Then I left Vault One Hundred with Amber and Rob on... the fifth of December, I guess? If it's the twenty-second?"

The medic nodded, glad her patient still seemed to have his memory. She'd seen fevers as bad as his do strange things to a person's mind, and memory loss was one of the more common things.

"So... I was fourteen when I went under, and woke up with this body. All the muscle and callouses I had were gone. I wasn't real strong or anything, but I was kinda tough, tougher than my friends, anyway. But I guess those're coming back, with the new blisters I got walking around. I've been doing a lot of that."

MacReady nodded, "Yeah, only way to get around now. You'll get used to it, or you'll die."

Red glared, but the man only shrugged, "What? It's true."

Duncan agreed with him. He didn't need sympathy and coddling. "I think they already have. They popped before I got to town and started healing over. Hey, Doc- uh, Red- Do I have any scars on my head?"

She nodded, "Yes, you have several. I assumed they were related to whatever caused your skull fracture, although the pattern is a little inconsistent-"

"Fucking Deathclaw... I knew I shouldn't have let it live."

All three gasped.
"Y- you saw a Deathclaw? Around here?" Princess whispered.
It was now his turn to be impressed by her. Despite the low volume, she didn't sound afraid, only determined.
"Just a baby. The only adult one I saw was before I came into Arefu. I actually dumped the eggs in the river, but this one hatched before I was coming by, and it was stuck in the water. I couldn't just leave it."

"We gotta go hunt it down," Princess said, "before it gets bigger."

MacReady nodded. "Take Dusty, Flash, and Timebomb. I'll watch the place with Pappy. Don't let it escape."

Duncan frowned, "Hold on. I didn't save it from the river just so you guys could hunt it down. It's just a baby."

Red, standing from the gurney now that Duncan's 'emotional crisis' had passed, put a hand on his arm. "But babies get bigger. You said you saw an adult. They reach maturity very quickly, in just a few years, but they're dangerous from the start. You did a good thing, but it's better to be safe and kill it now before it tries to make a nest and start breeding."

He could see their point, so he didn't argue. He had, after all, almost been killed by one that shouldn't even have been able to move. But still...

Whatever. If the baby gets killed it gets killed. Survival of the fittest, right? I gave it the chance I took away before. It's all down to it, now.
"All right," MacReady said, clapping his hands together, "we gotta head out and get ready for the party. See you in a couple days if not tomorrow, Red."

"See you, MacReady, Princess."

The other woman only nodded to them both. Duncan was surprised to see respect not just for the doctor, but for him, too, in her eyes.

"Okay," Red said, turning toward him, "let's do a check-up and see if my diagnosis was right... if it was, you'll be able to leave in time for the party!"

"Party?"

Red nodded, smiling. She had very white teeth, that stood out in stark contrast to her gold-framed glasses and dark skin. "It's Fat Man Day in a couple days."

Fat Man? In December? Do they mean Christmas?

(O)(O)(O)

Two days later, Red allowed Duncan to walk out the door of her clinic in time to see a procession of people carrying a brightly-painted piece of wood that looked just like a Christmas tree- including multi-colored circles for ornaments and lights- on their shoulders past the building.
"Come on," the doctor gestured him to follow.
He was quite confused by the singing- he couldn't understand what Christmas had to do with explosions or fat people aside from Santa Claus. He doubted the people even knew what sleigh bells and snow were, if it was this warm in December.

But when he and Red reached Ozzie's house, they found Dusty standing by the ancient mailbox. "Here," he said, passing a small object to Red. She palmed it, ignoring Duncan's questioning look, as Dusty fell in behind them in the crowd.

They walked completely out of town, with a small group including Princess continuing past where they stopped at the playground with the 'tree'.

"What're they doing?"

It was MacReady, rather than the two he'd been walking with, that answered from just behind him. "They're putting up the Fat Man Tree so we can shoot it up!"

More than a little confused, but wanting to set the tradition right- at least as he knew it- Duncan turned to correct the town mayor, before being brought up short.

Not five feet away from him, MacReady was on one knee with a half-pipe style rail launcher on his shoulder. He seemed to be tweaking the sights, ignoring Duncan's look of shock.

Duncan was, although he'd deny it, a bit of a military buff. Guns, explosions, tanks, he liked them all. If it was armored or could kill something, even better.

So it was that he recognized what had only just been cleared for field use after extensive trials a month before the bombs had fallen- a Field Assault Tactical Micro-Atomic Nuke Launcher, more commonly known by the acronym F. A. T. M. A. N. That nuclear warhead he had stashed in his backpack? It was launched from one of those very devices. And MacReady was loading one right now.
"Whoah! What the fuck, man? Are you trying to blow us all to hell?"

The cheering, singing crowd around them fell silent, but MacReady only glanced at him like he was an idiot.
"No one's blowing anyone to hell. We'll wait 'till they get back. Why'd I want my girl to fry? I mean, I know she's a bitch, but she spreads 'em when I want, you know?"

Duncan blinked. The crowd, including Red and Dusty, seemed rather surprised by his own shock. "I... I don't know what the hell's going on, but I don't want to be anywhere near where you're firing that thing."

This time, MacReady actually looked up from the sites, "I'm not firing it. You are."

"Oh, hell no!"

One of the mayor's eyebrows lifted up past the brim of his bush hat. "You carry around a rocket launcher, killed a Deathclaw, and you're afraid of a little Nuka-bomb?"

Duncan shuddered, but stood his ground. "Those things blew up the fuckin' world, man. I never want to see one again."

To his credit, MacReady blinked, then relaxed. "I get that, I guess. If you were really alive to see that, I can see why you wouldn't want to. But this is strictly small-yield. I mean, it'll drop a Behemoth in one shot, but it doesn't even leave lasting rads. You'll be fine. 's long as you don't miss, anyway, and fire at our feet or something."

Several of the crowd backed further away at this last, which was delivered under MacReady's breath.

Duncan started to panic. These people were crazy. They almost made the three Raider sisters look sane! Firing off a nuke for a holiday?

MacReady, satisfied with the sites, stood up just as whispered word from the crowd that Princess and her party had returned without the tree. "Look, man, don't chickenshit out on me now. I voted to let you stay here. You'd be one of us, man. I know you lost everything when the bombs fell. I get that. We- almost every one of us here- lost everything more than once. You'll hear about it tonight, probably more than you want to. But like I said, you got balls. You belong here, with us. This? It's a bit of an initiation ritual. A rite of passage. You point, you fire, the tree gets blown to shit, and we party. Then... then you get your own Name."

"I have a name."

Nothing MacReady was saying made any sense.
Right?

The mayor shook his head, "No... not the crap your parents gave you. I mean a real name. Like MacReady. Or Princess. Or Red. Or Timebomb, Flash, Eclair, Zip, Knick, Knack, Paddy. A name that means shit."

For several minutes as the crowd waited as quietly as a crowd could, Duncan wondered.

What did his name mean? Sure, it was his family's name. That meant something to him. So did Duncan, which was... well, it was his name. But he could see what MacReady was saying, kind of. The name his parents had given him was just that, a name. But it wasn't who he was. It wasn't... a Name.

Grimly, Duncan grabbed the heavy weapon and sat the padded rest on his shoulder.
Smiling now, MacReady directed him to crouch as he'd been doing, facing him in the direction of the hillside he'd walked down half-way between Arefu and Big Town a few days before. "Right," he instructed, "Now just pick out the tree- it's at the top of the hill if your eyes are crap- and put it right there in the crosshairs. The targeting computer will do the rest, you just have to pull the trigger, and Fat Man Day officially starts. Even more, you'll be one of us."
Duncan gulped.

They were definitely crazy, no doubt about that.

But so was he. Wasn't he? He'd be surprised to find out he wasn't.

So maybe he'd fit in? After all, his family was two centuries dead. Why not start a new one here?

He pulled the trigger.

And about a second after the canister-like ordnance disappeared into the sky, a huge portion of the horizon lit up like a Christmas tree for a few seconds.

The small mushroom-shaped cloud may not have been quite right for the season, but hey... it was Christmas, and Christmas is all about family.

Even if he'd just joined this one.

(O)(O)(O)

The entire town was gathered in the center of the village, the crossroads between Red's clinic, the "Clubhouse" where many of the newer or single residents shacked up until they found someone else to live with or built their own places, the "store" (which he was forbidden to enter for some reason), and the Mayor's House, where MacReady and Princess lived, along with their daughter, a two-year-old terror named Beans. He didn't want to know how the gassy menace had earned that name, but thought he might already when he'd held her the first time and she'd farted several times in the space of a few minutes, laughing the whole time.

They'd been telling stories around a large bonfire, educating Duncan and reminding each other of where they'd come from.

Duncan now knew MacReady had been right. Most of them had names before they'd arrived at Little Lamplight, the place most had come from. But those names meant nothing to the kids who'd become the leaders and citizens of Big Town. Most of them couldn't even remember those names. MacReady didn't. Princess did, but she flat-out refused to tell anyone what it was, and elbowed MacReady hard enough to knock him over when he said "Angela" to the crowd at large.

He learned that each of them, except those who'd moved to Big Town in the last ten years or been born there, like Beans, had lost their families for one reason or another, and then lost their second family in Little Lamplight when they turned sixteen. But this family, he learned, was as permanent as any they'd ever known, even if it hadn't lasted as long as Lamplight's for some. The Big Towners had fought, hard, for their security, alongside the Lone Wanderer, and they weren't going to give it up now.

Duncan understood.

If he'd had even a measure of that stability, he wouldn't want to give it up either. At least tonight he could pretend he had it.

So he listened, even took a turn when MacReady pointed at him, to tell them all his story. They listed raptly as he skimmed over what life had been like before the Bombs, some even cried when he talked about waking up and seeing the concrete where his sister had once been.

When he sat down, Duncan was stony-faced and numb.

He didn't notice, then, MacReady standing up solemnly. "When I got here right after I turned sixteen, Big Town was already doing pretty good. The Wanderer and many of you fought against the Muties, something us Lamplighters didn't even really ever think of doing. Since then, we've added a lot to our numbers. And it wasn't all me and Princess, either. You all worked hard to make Big Town the paradise we were told it was in Little Lamplight. And now it is. Today, our family grew again. Duncan Maddox, the crazy bastard, did the Fat Man ceremony today. He's like a newborn kid who don't know anything about the Wastes. He's got more guts than a Mutie, but twice as much brains. Not that that's saying much."

The crowd laughed, Duncan frowned. If these mutants were as stupid as people kept joking about, that wasn't saying much for his intelligence at all, which explained the laughter.

"But I think he belongs here. He's come a long way, longer than any of us ever did to get here. What do you guys think? Does he get to stay?"

Duncan's frown deepened. I knew they weren't serious. Still, it was nice for a while to pretend.

Lots of hands flew into the air. Duncan, lost in returning despair, didn't notice.

At least, until MacReady heaved him to his feet without apparent strain. "All right, man. Way I see it you, got two choices to make. You can stay, or you can go. If you stay, you can stay forever. You'll be one of us, free to do your own thing, and we'll be your new family. If you go... well, some people like the Wastes. The second choice only matters if you stay."

Duncan's eyes swiveled around the crowd, scanning eyes in the darkness. Everyone was watching him, waiting for him to say something.

Red. Dusty. Princess. Timebomb. MacReady. They were all watching him, wondering what he'd say.

"I... I guess I can stay?"

No one seemed put off by his hesitant voice. Instead, they all began to cheer at once. Red, beaming, came up behind MacReady and slapped something small into his hand, closing his fingers around it. "That's from us all. A welcome to the family gift."

Duncan opened his hand. His eyes widened. He knew the number on the key very well. Even the name, which wasn't as scratched out as the one on the mailbox. Wallace, 385 Wiltshire St. Ozzie's house.

But MacReady didn't give him long to ponder that. Still with a hold on one of Duncan's shoulders, he spun him around to face the crowd, "What do you guys think? I got two names for this crazy Mungo here! He can be Ballsy, 'cause I don't know anyone better'n him for that name, or-"

Duncan shook his head, and said in a low voice, "I can't stay. I've... got someone I have to find. I have to keep walking."

Silence fell over the crowd.

And then a voice in the back whispered, "Walker."

Slowly at first, then with gathering speed, the crowd all picked up the chant, repeating it over and over.

MacReady shrugged, "Well, I guess that works. Walker it is. Welcome to Big Town, Walker."

Duncan nodded, not willing to argue it. He couldn't stay, he had to find Amber. Before something bad happened. Something like the three Raider sisters.

But at least for tonight, he could afford to celebrate, right? Besides... maybe he could bring Amber back here when he found her.

Providing he didn't piss off the locals by blowing off their party, anyway.

A/N2: Hope you enjoyed the warm fuzzies. :) And Happy Horridays, whatever those mean to you. :)

They won't last forever- not even through the next chapter- but Duncan's starting to find his place in the new world, starting with a group of people who actually give a damn about him. Isn't that a rare thing even in this day and age? I imagine it'd be harder in the post-war world of Fallout. But then again, that's why Big Town does it this way. Strength in numbers applies to more than just numerical superiority- having a support structure makes a huge difference in countless ways, and MacReady, despite his relative youth (he's 23, 4ish years older than Duncan's body), gets that instinctively, so he's brought the community together in ways they never were before, even in Little Lamplight.

Anyway...

Questions? Comments? Concerns? Hate me for writing these events? Let me know! Reviewing is good for your soul. +Karma -Karma!