Smokin' Hearts and Broken Guns

Chapter One:
Ghost

Disclaimer: I don't own anything of the Fallout franchise. That is all © to Bethesda. Me, I just own the slightly fleshed out humdrum backstory and writing contents of this story. Any vague mentioning to any shows/ books/ video games/ songs that are mentioned in this story are all © to their respective owners, I do not own them either.

Note: I'm Fallout trash, y'all. Here, enjoy a story. I have no clue what direction I'm taking, other than a wild ride and stupid blurb adventures of my Sole Survivor shenanigans. I also noticed a lot of stories that I've stumbled across take place in the middle of the Sole Survivor kicking ass and taking names. I decided to start at the beginning. May or may not choose a pairing later on. Still debating. (Although I do love me some Hancock and Valentine, oh yes I do.)

OoOoOoOoOoO

I been feeling like a ghost
And it's what I hate the most
Guess I'm giving up again
This time I might just disappear
-"Ghost" by Mystery Skull

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Everything ached. That was her first impression of the world after waking. Aches and coldness still etched deep in her bones, her muscles, her very core. The world was a fuzz-tinted kaleidoscope blur, with a side helping of dizziness, nausea, and disorientation. In contrast, her lungs were on fire, struggling to pull breath in and to keep her body functioning. She remembered hearing from somewhere, although the exact source was eluding her, that it wasn't her lungs screaming for air, but it was her brain. A dying, frantic organ desperate for just one more second of life, taking a mile from an inch, if it can.

A voice was sounding off from somewhere, mechanical and stiff, droning like bees in her ears. She didn't comprehend it at first, but as the static cleared and her lungs stopped burning, her limbs stopped shaking and her eyes were clearing up, it was slowly coming back.

The newscaster's broadcast, the overwhelming panic, the running from home, the explosion rocking the very earth, the descent into the Vault—

And Shaun. Shaun was missing—taken—and Nate…

She was on her knees, and couldn't remember getting out of the pod. When she looked up, all she could see was Nate in the pod across from her. His face was visible on the other side of the viewing glass, with frozen blood and white frost speckling him. She lurched forward on unsteady legs and pulled herself up to her feet until she was face-to-face with the glass. She remembered the strangers that had unfrozen Nate, took Shaun, shot her husband when he protested, tried to stop them. And she could only watch and beat on the glass of her own pod in useless futility as they took her baby away, froze her up again.

Murphy could make out the fatal wound inflicted on her husband. He had been shot, point-blank to the head, his blood spattering the head rest behind him like a macabre red halo. Nate had never stood a chance, not in such a fugue state. If he had been alert, at full capacity, they never would have stood a chance against him. But he hadn't had a chance, they still killed him, still took Shaun away from them both.

If I had had Shaun—this would be me. It should have been me.

The words she wanted to say, the tears she wanted to cry, they all got choked up in her throat like a jagged piece of bone, and she swallowed them down as best she could, wincing at the pain.

When Murphy could breathe again, she felt a resolution harden inside her, an iron will that could not and would not be swayed: she'd find the bastard who stole her child and killed her husband, and she'd make them pay.

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Empty corridors and lifeless hallways; it was the only thing she first came across in her short venture through the Vault. The main hallway in which she had just come through was blocked—or it felt like she had just come through it. Judging by the amount of dust collecting on the floor, she was sure quite some time had passed. The giant roaches she eventually happened upon had certainly been a shock.

The scattered remains of the Vault technicians and security team, even more so. She had to turn away for a moment, gather her wits and steel her resolve to continue forward. They were all dead. There wasn't anything she could do for them at this point.

It looked like a revolt of some sort had happened, she began to realize as she delved deeper into the Vault, into the living quarters and a rec room. Evidence of a desperate power struggle were scattered about, like bullet holes decorating the walls or doors. In spite of all that, Murphy came to the conclusion that the Vault technicians were never going to release her and her neighbors. There had only been enough living space and supplies for the Vault-Tec people, and only for a limited time at that. The terminals within the compound revealed as much. The Overseer's personal terminal revealed even more. Vault-Tec was behind all of this, had authorized it all. They were the ones that had them frozen, and god knows what else they've done.

They had been experimenting on people. There were literally hundreds of these Vaults scattered throughout the States. Were they all like this? Had they frozen people in other parts of the country or worse? Were they any luckier than her and her family?

And we signed our lives away without even realizing it. We let them do this to us. We let Vault-Tec freeze us, she thought with a bitter taste invading her mouth. She wondered if it would have been better if she and Nate hadn't given in so easily to Vault-Tec's representative, if she had chased him off. If she and Nate and Shaun had been wiped out with everyone else when the bombs fell. At the very least, they would have all been together. Their deaths would have been painless.

So many questions, and they were all too distracting, too depressing. She swatted them away from her mind and decided to focus instead on getting out of the Vault.

Hacking the Overseer's terminal had been nominally easy. Just a click of a button and the emergency tunnel opened back into the main entrance chamber, where she and Nate and a few of their neighbors had narrowly missed being killed by the bomb's blast. And they all ended up dying down here. How ironic.

A Pip-Boy was in the hands of one of the skeletal remains near the entrance. She was familiar, to an extent, with the device. She used it back in her own military days when she had served, way back before getting out, before her dusting off her law degree, before marrying Nate and having Shaun…

Booting it up and getting it going was like riding a bicycle; hard to forget and the muscle memory was still there. She was mildly surprised that it was still functioning, but it died away just as quickly as it had sprung up. Pip-Boys could last for forever.

As soon as Murphy booted up the Pip-Boy, and uploaded the uplink to the lift console, the Vault door began unlocking with a series of thunderous metal clanks and a cacophony of pressurized hisses gushing out at the seams. The walkway inched forward toward the lift, and the lift doors opened at last. Jittery energy shot through her limbs like adrenaline. She wanted out of this tomb.

Murphy stepped out onto the platform, ignoring the chill running down her spine, the guilt that made her stomach churn until it felt like she was going to hurl. She was leaving Nate behind. Her neighbors, her friends.

I'll come back, she told herself with silent conviction. I'll come back. I'll bury them. I'll give them a proper send off. It's the very least they all deserve.

It was another promise she intended to keep before this was all over.

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It felt like a sharp gut punch to her diaphragm as she took in a shuddering breath while the Vault lurched up and up and up and the world came into focus. Everything was dreary, brittle, dead. The trees were bare, the flowering plants were all but deceased, and colour itself seemed to have been drained of all its vitality around her. Rusted metal, scores of charred skeletal remains of those left behind, parched earth stained by the bomb's scorched blemish after it had dropped…

Murphy searched the trailers, trying to ignore and overlook the bodies that had lain for god-knows-how long, untouched and undisturbed, where they had fallen down to die. She wondered if these people had had any idea of what Vault-Tec had truly intended for her and her family, her neighbors and friends. If they had known, like the technicians down in the Vault. The Overseer—she vaguely recalled the man's face as it came to mind: skinny, average height, glasses, a smiling face—had to be the worst of them all. That goddamned smile of his that had hidden the true extent of Vault-Tec's plans, deceptively sweet and reassuring…

She was almost surprised that the consoles in the Vault had still been operating. Almost. But the entries had survived, and their contents belied Vault-Tec's true intentions with her, her family, and her neighbors. Everyone who had signed over their lives to Vault-Tec. Murphy shook the thoughts away. Whatever had happened to the Vault-Tec security detail and the scientists was history. They clearly hadn't been around to put up much of a fight against the man who stole her child and murdered her beloved husband. If they had been, they would still be alive.

She could remember the way down the hill to Sanctuary Hills like it was only yesterday. Judging by the last entries in the computers back at the Vault, it was clear quite some time had passed. Months, even. Maybe even a year or two.

But if that were true, then shouldn't the radiation been sizzling away at her, eating her alive from the outside in? True, the air was electrified, tense, rough even. But it felt breathable. Her lungs didn't hurt. She wasn't coughing up blood or breaking out into radiation burns. She wasn't showing signs of intense radiation poisoning at all, if she recollected the symptoms correctly.

Yet.

There was some Rad-Away stashed somewhere in her home, or at least her neighborhood. Someone had to have it. She was sure the neighbors wouldn't mind, with them being dead and all.

The babbling brook that fed into a lazy looping river near her home hadn't changed much. The waters were clear and still running. It was one of the reasons she had fallen in love with the suburban area when she and Nate had moved in, shortly before Shaun was born. The serene scenery had stolen her heart: the clear river, the lively greenery, the good schools in the area, the safe neighborhood environment that was perfect for raising her son—and perhaps even more children down the line, if fate hadn't been a fickle bitch.

Murphy stepped onto cracked pavement, unkempt weeds, and the deserted row of houses in Sanctuary after passing the little bridge. Overgrown hedges grew rampant in the backyards, white picket fences were blown down and in disarray, cars were rusted hunks of metal wasting space, and there were plenty of homes that had collapsed completely in on themselves. It was the movement to her left that caught her eye and her heart nearly skipped a beat the sight of familiarity.

Codsworth.

The Mr. Handy robot was trimming away at the hedges in front of the heap that used to be her home. When she approached, his optics swiveled in her direction and he whirled on her with a delighted cry to see her. It was a welcome relief for her as well, to see the Mr. Handy, to see even a sliver of familiarity in this foreign new world she's awoken to. And yet, the closer she came to the robot, the clearer it became what the ravages of time and weather had made upon his once-immaculate chrome finish. She could see specks of rust, obvious dents, and a faint hairline crack in one optic lens.

When he spoke, the more disjointed she felt from her loyal Mr. Handy. There was a strain in his mechanical voice, a thinly veiled strangeness masked behind his jovial disposition. He broke down after she prodded him a few times, admitting that two hundred years alone with no one to speak with, care for, or clean up after had taken a toll on his machine-driven psyche. As he confessed this, she felt her breath hitch, her heart seemingly stop and she wanted nothing more than to break down and she nearly did herself. He seemed ready to accept denial rather the truth of things of what had happened to their family, to Nate's demise, and Shaun's abduction.

When Codsworth recovered from bemoaning his decadent living and suggested in an eerily cheerful voice to look for Nate and for Shaun in a dilapidated, abandoned neighborhood, she felt detached to her present situation. Like none of this was really happening. Like it was all just a dream, a bad dream she was eventually going to wake up from, find herself in bed with Nate and hear Shaun fussing in the room over. Her life would be intact, the bombs never fell, and she never had to go to the Vault or climb into that cryogenic pod. Any minute now, she was hoping to feel herself wake up.

Murphy almost wanted to believe it. She wished she could slip into the same state of denial, to forget it all happened—but it had happened. She could taste it in the air, see it with her own eyes, feel it between the pads of her fingers. This was all real. The world she had once known was gone. Nate was dead, and Shaun had been taken. Instead of ranting and raving at Codsworth, she decided to humour him for the time being. It wouldn't help to try and force it on him. He needed to accept it on his own.

After searching through the empty homes, finding nothing but giant roaches like the ones in the Vault, only then did Codsworth admit defeat and was more accepting of her story. Recalling it had brought up the unpleasantness of the memories all over again. She could still see that man's face in her mind, scarred over one eye, balding…and that hungry gleam in his eyes, a thirst for blood that hadn't been slaked by Nate's death. And his chilling words when he looked at her before it all went dark and cold again…

"Backup," he'd called her.

She needed to find him. She needed to find that man, and make him give Shaun back. She didn't care what it took.

"A suggestion, if I may, mum," he offered before she left, although for where, she wasn't sure. "I would try for Concord, just down the road past the Red Rocket Station and the north footbridge; there may still be people there yet."

It was a direction, and she took to it, readily even. It was something to look forward to. Something to keep her going. She stopped by her old home, however, hoping to find her wallet—would cash even be a thing in this future?—but found that her home had been more or less looted, ransacked and otherwise destroyed by the ravages of time. Even the pictures of her, Nate, and Shaun…they were gone. It just about broke her heart.

Poor Codsworth. He had sounded so distressed about polishing rust out of metal; she wondered if he had given up tidying her home and couldn't bear to come inside anymore, given the state of things. She found Shaun's crib still inside his bedroom. It was a little worn down and broken, but it was still there. Another welling of emotion formed a painful knot in her throat. She promised to its empty bedding and the broken mobile Nate had only seemingly fixed the other day that she'd find him again.

The bridge, thankfully, was still intact, if a little damaged. She carefully traipsed over the wooden boards and left Sanctuary. She could remember driving over it many times, whether it was to go to the store, to get gas, or go out in town with Nate and Shaun.

She passed by a dead man on the road, a fresh-looking corpse that hadn't yet begun to stink—but it would in the next few hours. Close by, a furless mongrel was lying beside its human counterpart. It was an ugly thing, all sharp points, bony contours, and hellish features. Murphy couldn't move the animal, it was much too heavy—but she could at least move the man. She took his coat, though, just in case. It was chilly out, and her Vault jumpsuit wasn't insulated very well.

The parched and deadened landscape continued, and it wasn't uncommon to find the odd spare tire or two lying on the ground. A few cars were left on the road too; abandoned, rusting husks of their former selves. What was odd, however, was finding another living soul right around the corner at the Red Rocket. If Codsworth was right, then there were people still alive, sure—how they were still surviving, she wasn't so sure about.

But finding a furry mutt sniffing about after the shock of stumbling across a furless one? Those odds were, well…odd.

Warm, liquid brown eyes and a doggy smile were what greeted her as she approached, along with a wagging tail as the mutt barked after noticing her as well. She didn't even think about drawing the gun she'd taken from the Overseer's office down in the Vault. There was no malice in the animal's movements. Claws clicked on pavement, and the dog whined in greeting as she offered a tentative hand and a smile to the furry animal.

"Hey there, buddy," she cajoled gently, earning a sniff and gentle lick for her troubles. "You wanna come with me?"

The dog barked in response, wagged his tail, and hopped back up on all fours, looking ready to go. Murphy found herself smiling in spite of herself. "Then let's go."

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The Red Rocket was sadly bare of any supplies. The only things Murphy found was a damaged ham radio, a rack full of outdated magazines by about two hundred years, an old office with a smashed computer terminal and locked filing cabinet, and old maintenance equipment in the repair garage meant for cars along with a few spare tools lying on a workbench.

Concord seemed to have fared no better, when she arrived later that day. Most, if not all, of the structures were boarded up and uninviting. Murphy had the gun from the Vault, but she didn't feel it was necessary or worth her time shooting out a few boards just to get inside. Maybe they were trying to keep something in, rather than just keeping people out.

Gunshots rang like staccato bursts of thunder, echoing with sharp reports across the previously silent streets and alleyways. Her companion bristled indignantly and growled, slinking low to the ground with purpose in his step. The warm and coddling face she had first met melted away into pure wild malice, a dangerous snarl pulling at the dog's muzzle. Murphy was glad that her new friend's snarling intent wasn't directed at her. She didn't fancy having those long teeth sinking into her flesh anytime soon. The gunshots continued as they slunk closer. Her heart pounded loudly, as though trying to compete. Her palms grew sweaty and slick and her hands shook.

She remembered her training in short bursts, but that all seemed to be from an entire lifetime ago. The irony of that thought nearly made her burst out laughing at how ridiculous that sounded, but she managed to swallow the urge down. Now wasn't the time.

Murphy hadn't had the pleasure or opportunity to shoot anyone before. Nate was the real soldier of the family, tried and true. She had been a commissioned officer, working logistics in the rear while simultaneously getting schooling out of the way to earn her law degree. She had never deployed. He had.

Not the first time, and she didn't count on it being the last time either, she truly believed that it should have been him in her spot right then and there. Murphy rounded the corner of a street and stared down its length, seeing a pair of rough-looking men firing away at the Museum of Freedom. They were shooting at someone, who was firing back at them out of a window on the second deck. Red beams of light showered down while bullets whizzed by the museum-dweller above.

One of the men clad in weather-worn leather noticed her, whether they sensed they weren't alone or by accidental coincidence, and started shooting at her.

She didn't recall diving forward to scramble behind cover. She just knew that she was running toward the danger, not away from it. She did remember hearing her new canine companion rushing forward with a series of barks and snarls and vicious growls, accompanied by the angered, pained cries of one of the men.

"Get the fuck off of me! Somebody fucking help me!"

Murphy poked her head up, just in time to see the other party leveling a gun at the dog. Something in her snapped. A white-hot rage she didn't know she could ever possess rose up and she leveled her gun, firing three times. The first sailed harmlessly away. The second struck a shoulder. The third hit home in the assailant's skull. His head snapped back, and she saw a quick spurt of red. Then he crumpled with the grace of a boneless sack of meat.

She realized in that moment, she should have felt something. Regret. Guilt. Sick to her stomach, even, for taking someone else's life.

All Murphy felt was a hollow anger, and all she could see was that bastard's face, shooting Nate, letting that woman in the hazmat suit take her child away. That man had been garbed more or less the same as these men in the here and now.

Her dog made quick work of the other and was trotting back to her, muzzle red and gleaming in the feeble sunlight. He was back to his jovial self again.

"Hey, you! Grab that musket and help us! Please!"

She looked up, saw the figure briefly wave her on before they disappeared back into the museum's confines. She glanced back at the dog. "What do you say, huh boy? Wanna help out?"

He woofed at her in response, wheeled around with a spring in his step, and charged towards the entrance of the museum. She followed without hesitation.

She remembered the museum when it had been functioning. There had been a place for everything and everything had been in its place. It was a decent sized establishment, with a gift shop and many displays that recorded history, back to the American Revolution when the original Thirteen Colonies fought off the British. But now, due to years of disuse, the hardwood flooring no longer gleamed, bright and polished. The displays that once greeted newcomers were gone. The gift shop was no longer where it used to be, part of the flooring of the second deck having collapsed in on it. It took her a moment to adjust to the sight and the dim lighting. She acclimated quickly enough when a bullet zinged past her and struck the heavy wooden door behind her. A shower of splinters rained against the back of her neck and she quickly dove for an overturned display table near the front. A series of shots followed closely on her heels.

"C'mon, you little bitch! Make my day!"

The voice called somewhere above and to her right. She peeped around the corner, caught a glimpse of the guy hiding behind a wooden stanchion and ducked back down. Her furry companion was crouched beside her, whining softly. She patted his head, stole another glance and saw an opportunity. She took it.

Two rounds warned him and he ducked with a loud, "Oh shit!"

Third time was the charm. She clocked out another headshot when he poked his head out, and he went down without a fuss.

The quick spray of telltale blood didn't bother her this time around either.

She ran for the gate that led deeper into the museum proper, found it to be locked. She took a bobby-pin from her hair—still up and pinned back, she remembered she and Nate had been preparing to go out later that night and she wanted to look nice—and carefully picked away at the lock. She nearly snapped it in half twice before the triumphant click of it unlocking greeted her ears and she stole away from the gated door. She ended up diving through yet another hailstorm of bullets raining down on her for her troubles. She didn't know if it was pure dumb luck or perhaps even grand intervention—but she didn't catch even one stray shot, and neither did her dog.

"Ya feel that?" One of them taunted, somewhere on the second deck. Female, from the pitch of the voice, and somewhere off to Murphy's left. "It's called fear!"

"Stay low and go take her out," she found herself immediately telling her dog. He snorted and once again, his pretty face scrunched into an ugly, dangerous snarl as he turned and bounded away.

She went the other way.

If a dog like him could survive to adulthood, in this new and harsh world, she trusted he'd be okay. She hoped.

Time seemed like a frozen concept. There wasn't such a thing as a minute, let alone an hour. There was only the here, the now, between herself and these people trying to kill her, and her new canine companion. A few times, she caught sight of red blasts lighting up the air, perhaps from the man in the window, but otherwise, it was just her and this group of killers. Only after the last trigger-happy asshole was down and out for the count did the bubble of timelessness pop and the pressure of the world came flooding back in, and she remembered why she had dove headfirst into a firefight. An office on the second deck swung open just as her companion rejoined her.

A dark-skinned man stood in the door's place, wearing a heavy trench coat, and clothes that shouted "Colonial Times" more than anything. Even his hat was reminiscent of a bygone era, even farther beyond her own time period. It was as if he had stepped off one of the display racks in this very museum, minus a few details here and there.

Christ, just thinking that made her feel old, like one of those elderly men shouting at children to get off their lawn.

Murphy shook the thoughts away when the man, with a home-made looking musket in hand, spotted her. It glowed with unspent charges, giving his face an eerie afterglow. He dropped the barrel of the musket, looking more relieved than alarmed as he assessed her, the dog, and the bodies lying along the walkway between them. He nodded in thanks to her and motioned her to come inside the office with a grateful gleam in his eyes. Murphy carefully tucked her pistol away into the confines of her coat and moved closer at his behest.

"We appreciate the help. We would have been goners if you hadn't shown up and lent us a hand," he told her as she approached with a weary smile. "But I'm afraid we're only halfway done. This town is full of Raiders—we didn't know it until it was too late and we had to hole up in this place."

Raiders. So that's what those people were called. She wondered if the man who had stolen away into the Vault had been a Raider. Something deep down in her gut told her no almost immediately. He was too…professional. These Raiders she just took out…they were barely that. They had appeared to her as a ragtag, motley bunch. They didn't seem to have any fine-tuned precision of a hired hand. That's what he seemed like to her. A hired professional, with a hidden lust for bloodshed. She could remember that much, it was clear in his eyes, the way he had looked at her…like a piece of meat he was eyeballing at the store.

Murphy took a look around, seeing there were others in the office. The man with the musket and out-of-times clothes introduced himself as Preston Garvey, a Minuteman of the Commonwealth, and the others were a part of his group. There were two women, and two more men tucked away in the office space. One of the men was curled on the floor by a run-down desk, donning a threadbare shirt and worn pair of jeans and boots, his shoulders shaking between quiet sobs. The younger of the two women was pacing around like a caged tiger close by, throwing Murphy a nasty look for good measure. Murphy didn't know what to make of the animosity, other than to ignore it entirely. Now wasn't the time to pick fights. The older woman was seated on a worn out sofa that's seen better days, looking as haggard and exhausted as the room they were holed up in, but she offered Murphy a smile nonetheless. She was dressed in a getup that reminded Murphy of a fortune-teller. Murphy returned a tight-lipped smile back and nodded.

"We're surrounded and we'll need help, but I don't think what we've got is going to cut it," the musket-bearer continued. He glanced over his shoulder toward the third man in the room, who was hunched over an old terminal, clattering away at the keyboard. "But I think ole Sturges here might have an idea that could help us out. Sturges?"

The appointed man called Sturges turned from the terminal as if on cue. He was wearing garb fit for a mechanic, and it showed. He had leather gloves tucked in a utility belt around his waist, oil and grime stains on his coveralls and even on his hands. He clearly worked with them, if their rough appearance was anything to go by. His dark hair was mopped back into a coiffed pompadour, out of the way, but stylish. Not that far out of place if he were to have been alive in Murphy's time, she noted.

Sturges pointed toward the ceiling with a small amount of flair and a sly, satisfied grin.

"Right. We are in luck. I'm sure you unnoticed the old Vertibird on the roof…"

OoOoOoOoOoO

She hadn't been in one these suits in years. Nate had had more hands-on experience, she remembered. He always spoke about these old T-45 power armour suits. It took time to get used to, he always told her.

Time was a luxury she didn't have to spend dedicated to acclimating to this piece of equipment. Once she slipped it on, she was dusting off old memories, faded with age, on how to operate the hunkering piece of equipment and to scoop up the minigun from the Vertibird.

The audio receptors were picking up on her dog's boastful growls down below in the streets, already diving head first into the fray. She remembered the old woman upstairs, dressed in her little fortune-teller getup, and the words she gave Murphy were a brand, sizzling across her thoughts.

"Something dark and angry is coming this way, kid. It's drawn to the noise and chaos we've made here. Be careful out there," she had warned Murphy, after giving the dog she had dotingly called Dogmeat a few pats on the head.

Bullets pinged against the power armour, ricocheting harmlessly away as they struck. Murphy took a plunging leap off the Museum of Freedom's rooftop and landed heavily on the ground, three decks below She leveled the minigun at the group of Raiders and fired it up. The barrel spun with a soft whir that grew to a hungry roar as it spat out rounds faster than her pistol could. Raiders dove left and right for cover, shouting obscenities of surprise and pain when the bullets found them.

Nate had once told her that everyone dies, and that someone somewhere was carrying a bullet for someone else, and sometimes they didn't even know it. The trick was to die of old age before that bullet found them. She was carrying all the bullets for the Raiders on that street that night, and then some. She just hoped that she would be carrying the bullet for that bastard who had broken into the Vault, too.

When the last Raider went down and the clicking, humming whir of the minigun in her hands died down, it was quiet. Peacefully so, she'd even tentatively say.

The peace was short-lived. The ground began to tremble and down the block, bits of asphalt and a metal grate went flying high into the air as some…thing came rising out of the ground like some kind of nightmare come to life. It was a huge, reptilian monster, with horns and a row of high-rising spikes lining its backside. The monster roared when it spotted her and charged. She pulled the trigger on the minigun and shouted at Dogmeat to find shelter moments before bullets began spraying the charging behemoth.

Despite its huge size, the creature juked left and dodged right. It was blindingly fast, faster than she would have thought possible. Bullets clipped its sides, and didn't seem to leave any damage as it came closer. The monster ducked low as it came closer, its powerfully muscled forearms drawn back and she caught a glimpse of the huge talons it sported. Murphy sidestepped at the last moment, and she hated how sluggish the power armour made her. She felt the pressure of the creature's passing as its claws scraped along the chest plate of her power armour. This thing was pure muscle and heavy bone and absolute power. She could see that this thing, this monster, was at the top of the food chain and she was next on the menu if she didn't take it out. She aimed the red hot barrel at the monster again and continued firing.

Everything went topsy-turvy when it hit her full-on this time, sending her flying and crashing hard into the asphalt. It crunched beneath her weakly with a muffled protest. Dogmeat barked and as she rolled to her side, trying to right herself, she caught a glimpse of the mutt darting around the behemoth's legs, taking snaps at its heels.

She almost shouted for the dog to get out of there, but realized Dogmeat wasn't attacking. He was distracting, trying to give her time to get back on her feet. She lumbered back upright, picking up the minigun and started spraying bullets again when Dogmeat hightailed out of the way. The monster, properly and gorgeously distracted by the dog's antics, howled in surprise and pain as bullets ripped up and down its sides and belly. Murphy took quick note of that: its backside was heavily protected, but its belly was soft and vulnerable.

No wonder it had charged so low to the ground and hunched over like it had.

The barrel was smoking and glowing red when the creature finally toppled over, dead. Blood seeped and pooled underneath the behemoth and a long hiss of breath escaped the monster's maw. Dogmeat came trotting out into view, pausing long enough to sniff the creature. He sneezed in the thing's face and galloped over to her, tongue lolling happily out the side of his mouth as he did.

Her audio receptors picked up on the scuffle of footsteps and the creak of doors opening. She turned in time to see the little group led by Preston filing out onto the street. Mama Murphy stared at the creature with a grim look in her eyes. The Longs, Marcy and Jun as they had been introduced as, kept a wide berth of the dead animal, as though they were expecting it to spontaneously come back to life. Sturges whistled long and low, looking impressed.

"Not many people in the Commonwealth can take out a Deathclaw and walk away to live and tell about it! I'm telling you, those things are nasty,"

Murphy hummed softly to herself under her breath, tucking that bit of information away. Deathclaw. So that's what that monster was called. It was a very apt name. She could still feel the ghostly pressure of those raking talons scraping along the chest plate of the power armour, heavy bone screaming across metal. And that roar—it had seeped heavily into her bones, rattled her core. It was definitely something she did not look forward to fighting against ever again.

Preston looked the most relieved out of the entire group. He was exhausted, Murphy could see that much, even if he was still trying to not look as such. Despite his fatigue, however, he offered her a plaintively earnest smile.

"Man…that's gotta be the craziest thing I've seen in a long time."

Another smile pulled faintly at Murphy's lips, only for her to realize nobody could see it behind the helmet she wore.

"Well, glad I'm glad somebody got a kick out of the fight," she drawled back. Dogmeat whined at her side, jittery with impatient energy. Preston made a motion for them to start moving out. Now wasn't the time to linger, and even she recognized that. Murphy trudged along beside him while the others fell into step behind them. Dogmeat trotted along ahead, sniffing at abandoned vehicles or the remains of the Raiders Murphy had dispatched of.

"So what now?"

"Now? We're heading out of Concord. Mama Murphy told us of a place called Sanctuary, just north of here."

"I used to live there, back before the war," Murphy said without realizing, only to stop herself from continuing on. Preston looked at her and gave her a quizzical look, brows shooting up.

"Before the war?"

Murphy hesitated. If I can't trust these people, then I won't ever be able to trust anyone.

"I was in a Vault. Cryogenically frozen, in fact. I only just woke up," she explained, choosing her words with care. A light of understanding came on in Preston's dark eyes, his lips forming an 'O' for a split moment.

"That makes a lot more sense," he offered, understanding flashing across his face. "You kind of had that 'new world' shocked look when we first met and I was wondering about that."

Of course. Perhaps survivors of this world have stumbled across other Vaults. If her son's abductor had gone to the trouble of finding Vault 111, it wasn't that farfetched others had heard of them. But did that mean other Vault-dwellers were alive and well? Or had they died like those in hers? She wasn't sure she'd ever know the truth. Not now, anyways.

When Preston looked back at her, he smiled, and Murphy felt it was a little more genuine this time around. "So, that means you know what it was like over two hundred years ago, before the bombs dropped, huh?"

"Just about," she answered back, but her words caught in her throat again. "Except, I'm not exactly here for vacation time off from the pod I hopped out of. My baby, Shaun…he was stolen. I'm looking for the people who took him and murdered my husband."

A pitying look crossed Preston's face and he dropped his gaze as they trudged up an incline in the road. So far, they hadn't been attacked by anyone or anything else on the road. Concord was beginning to fade behind them one step at a time and the outskirts of town coming up on them.

"This world is nothing but harsh, and having your kid stolen…man. What a way to wake up. I…I can't even imagine. I'm sorry to hear that happened to you."

They lapsed into silence for a short while. They ran into some mild troubles on the road, attacked by a pair of grossly enlarged mosquitoes that the others called Blood Bugs. Dispatching them was a little harder than swatting them away. They whizzed around, unpredictable and fast, but down they went all the same, thankfully enough. The rest of the journey was relatively quiet and peaceful. When they passed the Red Rocket fuel station, Sturges let out an appreciative laugh, reminiscing how it was just the perfect little setup he could imagine holing up in.

Murphy fell back, taking up the rear of the group. Partly, she wanted to ensure that if anyone got hit from the back, it would be her. She could take a few hits with the power armour on. Mostly though, she wanted time to herself and her thoughts. She was unsure of where to continue on from here. She had gone to Concord, found people, and she was heading back to the faded afterimage of what used to be her home. The ghosts of all those who had been lost still lingered like a bitter aftertaste on the tongue. Further down the road they went, until they came upon the last bend before the bridge that led into Sanctuary Hills. Preston paused in front of the statue that was erected just off the road before the start of the bridge.

He smiled appreciatively, commenting on the statue's dedication to the first Minutemen in America. The bridge loomed before them, and beyond, Murphy could make out the brightly coloured exteriors of the neighborhood in the distance—or the faded remnants of what they used to be. This dull and dreary landscape sucked the life out of colours.

Dogmeat bounded ahead, barking excitedly. Murphy felt a little apprehensive when the mutt disappeared from sight, but she could still hear him making a ruckus as they traipsed across the bridge. Murmurs of relief began to rise with a buzz in the air.

"It could definitely use a little love and a lot of elbow grease, but this place seems like a good spot to settle down," Sturges said appraisingly, eying the homes that once belonged to Murphy's neighbors. Some had collapsed completely, but the foundations were still sound. All they'd need to do is remove the detritus and repurpose the raw materials.

While the others cautiously wandered about, Preston approached her, his posture relaxed for the first time since Murphy had met him.

"Look…I never got to thank you properly for helping us out. You had your own problems to deal with and you didn't have to, but you did it anyway. I'm grateful for the helping hand you provided us. And for seeing us all the way to Sanctuary. I really think this might be it. The place we can actually call home." His warm smile faded slightly. "But now I have a proposition to offer. The Minutemen…well, there aren't any left, except for me. I'm actually the last one. And the people of the Commonwealth are afraid, always getting hit by Raiders and wondering if they're next. They need the Minutemen, now more than ever."

Preston gave pause as Dogmeat came barreling over, and the man patted the dog on the head. Dogmeat looked appropriately pleased at the gesture.

"Ever since the Quincy Massacre, the people have lost all hope in the Minutemen. If we could show the Commonwealth that we're trying to make a comeback, we could start fighting back. Pushing out the Raiders and taking back the Commonwealth, one piece at a time. But we need to show them that we have their backs and that we're willing to come out and help."

"Where do I come in, Preston?" Murphy pressed.

"To the point. I can respect that. All right, here it is. We need support. We also need people to know we're still here to support them. In our time out there on the road, I've heard of different settlements asking for help. Being that I'm the only one and I can only be in so many places, I couldn't get out to them. I had these people to take care of first," he said, nodding over his shoulder vaguely toward the others. "I'm asking if you could help out, just a little while longer. Maybe you could find more clues as to where your son was taken and who took him while you're out on the road. People tend to talk and they also tend hear rumours from caravans and traveling traders. Word of mouth spreads fast out here in the Commonwealth. Trust me. News of the Quincy Massacre was in the next town over long before we ever were."

Murphy considered his proposal. There was some logic to his words. She had next to nothing to go on, since Concord had been somewhat of a bust. If the town was Raider territory, chances were those people would shoot first, loot second, and ask questions never.

"All right, Preston," she answered at last with a nod. "I'll take you up on that. I'll help out these people. Where are they?"

"I'll mark it on your map, but you shouldn't head out just yet. Night's coming and from the looks of the sky, I'm betting there's going to be a radiation storm to boot."

He nodded up to the sky and Murphy turned to look back behind her. Over the mountains, the sky was taking on a sickening greenish tinge. The back of her throat tasted sour at the sight.

"You've got that power armour for now, but the fusion core only lasts for so long. If you broke down overnight while that thing was on top of you, you're not gonna have a great morning after. Good thing about this, though, most Raiders aren't crazy enough to go skulking around, not unless they all had on power armour or a ton of Rad-Away. We should hunker down for the night and the storm should be cleared out by morning."

Murphy almost wanted to argue; but taking a second look at the sky made her swallow back down any protests she might have had. She followed after him toward one of the more intact homes as he called out to rally the others. Tonight, Murphy would take his advice and rest to wait out the storm.

In the morning, she would resume her manhunt and search for her son.

OoOoOoOoOoO

Additional Note: Song credits go to "Ghost" by Mystery Skull.