Author's Note: This takes place after the 'Trouble on the Homefront' sidequest.

The heavy vault door slid into place behind him with a pneumatic whine. He turned his head and gave one last look to the door.

"I'm sorry. You're a hero…and you have to leave."

When he had first left the Vault, it was out of the necessity to find his father. He hadn't wanted to leave, and he always imagined he would comeback. Throughout all the hardships and trials he had faced in the Capital Wasteland, no matter how much had changed he always thought of this as his home. Now, those hurtful words spoken by his best friend rang in his ears and he knew he could never come back. He had lost his father and now he had lost his best friend and his home.

He momentarily cast his gaze to the security camera hovering over the Vault and wondered if they were watching him, if she was watching him. He shook the thought out of his head and started forward to the end of the tunnel. He took his first step forward and his foot came down upon something and crushed it with a sick crunch. He looked down and saw the ancient blackened skeletons of those who had died trying to get into the Vault. He smiled a grim smile at the decayed bodies as memories of his first time out of the Vault struck him.

In his excitement he had stumbled through the Vault door and come face to face with the very same skeleton. It had scared him out of his wits. There he was, barely out the Vault door and already he had seen a dead body.

"What are you doing?" Amata had shouted at him. "You have to go!"

He had looked backed at her through the closing door and she urged him on with a look of worry. He had put the skeletons behind him, pushed himself off the floor and made for the light at the end of the tunnel.

Now, things were different. The sight of the skeletons didn't perturb him at all. In fact, they were a welcomed relief from what he usually saw in the Wasteland. He made his way to the door at the end of the tunnel, pushed it open with a nudge of his shoulder and stepped out into the Wasteland.

Twilight sky blanketed the Wastes as the sun hung low in the sky. The Wanderer pulled the brim of his Regulator cowboy hat down to protect his eyes against the light of the hanging sun. An excited bark caught his attention. He turned with a smile and saw his four-legged companion trotting towards him.

"Hey there, Dogmeat. Hope you didn't get to lonely out here waiting for me." He said, crouching down in front of the canine and scratching him behind his ear. Dogmeat let out a small growl to let his master know his displeasure with being left alone. Chuckling, the Wanderer tried to explain, "Sorry, boy, but I had business to attend to." Dogmeat wasn't satisfied; he pulled his head away from his master's affection scratching and refused to look at him. Rolling his eyes, the Wanderer reached into one of the pockets of his faded brown duster, pulled out a piece of jerky and dangled it before Dogmeat's face. The dog hesitated for only a second before snapping the meat up in his jaws. "There. Are we even now?" The Wanderer asked. His only answer was Dogmeat's ecstatic chewing. "Well, boy, I guess it's time to head h-"

He stopped. Was that it? Was Megaton his home now? Dogmeat regarded him with a curious tilt of his head. The Wanderer shook the thoughts out of his head. He quickly began the trek down the hill into Springvale. Unfortunately, the bombed out town did little to distract him from his thoughts. Luckily, a more viable distraction presented itself as Dogmeat let out a deep growl. The Wanderer instantly dropped to his knees and his grabbed his trusty hunting rifle from its position slung across his back. After scanning his surroundings he saw what had set Dogmeat on alert. Raiders, two of them; between them were three children each chained together by the neck.

The Wander dashed to his left and crouched behind the burnt out ruins of a house. Peaking through the ruins he confirmed that the raiders hadn't seen him. He cursed himself for putting himself in this position in the first place. He had gotten too caught up in his thoughts and hadn't been paying attention. In the Wasteland being carless like that usually got one killed. He didn't have time to chastise himself over it, though. The longer he waited the closer those kids came to a horrifying death.

He crawled along the ground and did his best to stay hidden behind the ruined house. He laid himself out in the open in the grass next to the house and took aim with his rifle. As soon as the first raider crossed into his sights he pulled the trigger and put a bullet in his head. He swung the barrel of his rifle around to the second raider who was wildly looking around for the origin of the first shot. The Wanderer pulled the trigger again and hit the second raider in the shoulder. The raider yelled and grasped his shoulder. He stumbled backwards and fell on his behind, letting go of the chain of the three slave children in the process.

Cursing himself for the lousy shot, the Wander expelled the cartridge of the rifle and shot again. This shot just missed the raider's head as he frantically pulled himself behind an abandoned car for cover. By the time the Wanderer expelled his last cartridge and fired again the raider was hidden, leaving the children-who had fallen to the ground and covered their heads when the exchange began-alone. A hand toting a pistol poked over the hood of the car and fired wildly. None of the shots came close.

Come on, you son of a bitch. The Wander thought to himself, finger poised over the trigger. Come on…

Slowly, the raider raised his head out of his cover and the Wanderer took his shot and it was true. With both raiders dead, he pushed himself off the ground and made his way towards the children, making sure to never lower his rifle lest more raiders popped out of the woodwork.

"Thank you so much!" One of the children cried as he approached. He ignored her as he jogged over to the first raider he had shot. He patted down the raider's body and found what he was looking for in one of his pockets. He pulled out a key and tossed it to the girl.

"Get yourselves out of those chains." He ordered, still keeping alert for any approaching raiders. He knew they had a base at Springvale elementary, he had been meaning to clean it out for a long time. He could easily take out a group of raiders, but the children would slow him down. He felt something encircle him from behind and immediately turned around to combat it before realizing what it was. The child had freed herself and hugged him from behind. "Thank you so much!" She said again, her voice muffled as it pressed into his back. "You're a hero!" He freed himself from her arms and looked down into her teary eyes, and for a minute he saw Amata.

"Do you know the way to Megaton?" He asked her softly. She shook her head. "Can you run?" She nodded and then turned to the other two children who nodded as well. "Then follow me. Keep close and I'll make sure nothing happens to you." He took off at a light jog and the children followed behind him with Dogmeat bringing up the rear.

Luckily, they managed to make the trip to Megaton with no incidents. He led the kids through the gate and was happy to find Lucas Simms nearby.

"What's that you got there, Jacob?" He asked with a friendly smile, "Went and adopted some kids, have you?"

"Rescued them from some raiders." The Wanderer explained grimly. The smile on Simms' face fell quickly. "You think you can take care of them?"

"You kids know your parents?" Lucas asked.

The girls shook her head, "They're dead."

Lucas frowned. He turned to the Wanderer and said, "I'll get them set up with some beds and food at the Commons. Not much else I can do."

"Thanks, Lucas." The Wanderer said, watching the Sheriff of Meagton lead the children away. Once they were out of sight, the Wanderer looked down to Dogmeat and said, "Well, let's get…home." He made his way up the clanky metal walkways to the house Lucas had provided him for disarming the bomb in Meagton. He made it to the door, pulled the key out of his pocket and then paused as he realized there was nothing in the house for him. Sure, there was a bed, a butler robot, a few 'trophies' he had collected out in his travels, but there was nothing special, nothing that made it his home. With a sigh, he pocketed his key and grabbed a nearby chair and sat down near the railings outside his house. With Dogmeat faithfully at his side he stared first at the goings on of Megaton as night fell, and then he gazed up to the sky and once again became lost in his thoughts.

"I'm sorry. You're a hero…and you have to leave."

She had called him a hero and banished him in the next sentence. But he knew she was right. The people of the Vault were scared of him, didn't trust him and they had a reason not to. It was Amata he was worried about. He was worried that she was afraid of him like the rest. Sure, she had seemed happy to see him when he showed up but there was no denying that she had noticed the changes in him. He had seen terrible things, done terrible things, and when she had asked him to solve the problem in the Vault he did it the Wastelander way, not the Vault dweller way. When the Oversee proved too stubborn to change, the Wanderer killed him. And when he told Amata that he had killed her father, she wasn't mad, or sad. She admitted it was what needed to be done. She called him a hero and then banished him. He had killed her father and she called him a hero for it. Is that what heroes did? Killed people to get the job done?

Maybe she hadn't meant it. Maybe she realized just how much the Wasteland had changed him when she found out he killed her father and she said whatever she could to get him to leave before he killed someone else. Was Amata afraid of him, did she hate him for what he'd done? The thought was eating him up inside.

"You look like you've got a lot on your mind, kid." The Wanderer turned quickly, startled out of his thoughts. It was Lucas Simms.

"Do you think I'm a hero, Lucas?" The Wanderer said quickly, regretting the words as soon as they left his mouth.

Lucas raised a questioning eyebrow, "A hero? Kid, if half the shit I hear about you is true then you're more than a hero, you're fucking Superman!"

"I kill people." The Wanderer stated.

"And? Who doesn't these days?" Lucas said with a chuckle, "If you hadn't put down those raiders then those kids you saved would've been torn to shreds."

"I could've bargained with them, tried to talk it out with them, at least give them the option of turning over the kids before I shot them." The Wandered argued.

"You know the number one rule of the Wasteland: Shoot first. You're being too hard on yourself, kid. So what, if you've put down few dozen raiders and scumbags? I bet you've saved more lives than you've taken." The Wanderer didn't respond. Lucas stepped closer to him and put his hand on his shoulder. "Don't beat yourself up over it." With that said, he left the Wander alone his thoughts.

Groaning, the Wanderer ran his hand through his hair. He turned to Dogmeat, who regarded him with a curious tilt of his head. "Why don't we listen to some music, boy? That ought to take my mind off of this crap." Dogmeat barked, leading the Wanderer to pull up his Pip-Boy and access the radio stations. "Let's see what Three-Dog has on…" He flipped over to Galaxy News and immediately heard:

"I don't want to set the world on fire."

Dogmeat whined and the Wanderer rolled his eyes. "I know, I know, boy. I hate that song too. Let's see what Agatha is playing." He began scrolling through the list of stations, and through the static and garbled sounds of each station he heard a distinct voice say:

"-ss You."

He stopped flipping through stations. The voice sounded so familiar, and he was sure it came from the Vault Emergency Broadcast System. Holding his breath, he scrolled back up to the Vault Emergency Broadcast System and listened.

"This is a broadcast of the Vault Emergency System for Vault 101: If you're listening to this…I miss you."

He slowly let out the breath he was holding and a smile stretched across his face. He leaned back in his chair and stared out the stars. "I'll never be able to see her again, Dogmeat." He said, "I'll miss her more than anything…but at least I know she feels the same way."