Chapter Text
Chapter One
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“Nervous about tonight?” In the mirror behind him, Nora stood in the doorway to the bathroom, watching. They were both getting ready for the awards ceremony they would be attending tonight at the city hall, and she looked gorgeous in the afternoon sunlight with her hair freshly curled and wearing the brand new dress they had gone shopping for earlier that week. She was smiling, a teasing smirk that made her eyes sparkle with mischief and a dimple show on one side of her face.
His lips lifted at the corners on their own, and he started talking to her through the mirror's reflection. “You know, no matter how many times I do it I’m always nervous about public speaking. I’ve faced getting shot at and stared death in the face multiple times, yet a room full of people listening to me speak is what gets me.” He turned to her and Nora lifted her hand, hid her face, and snorted. Her eyes crinkled with crow’s feet at the corners.
She pushed herself off the wall. “Sometimes that's just how it goes.” He moved out of her way as she went to stand in front of the mirror and playfully bumped him with her hip. “Now scram, you're hogging the mirror and I still need to get ready. Makeup doesn’t do itself you know.” She shot him a smirk and Nate raised his hands in mock defence.
“Alright alright, I’ll make myself scarce-.” A jingle rang through the house, cutting off his sentence and a synthetic voice came from the kitchen.
“Master Nate, there’s someone at the door. Should I answer it?”
Nate shook his head and called back, “No no, Codsworth. That won’t be necessary, I’ll get it.”
“Very good, Sir.” The clanking of various kitchen items resumed before the robot was done responding.
Nate turned back to Nora and gave her a side hug before he turned towards the door and stepped down the hall towards the main room. A Mr. Handyman whom they had purchased and named Codsworth when they bought the house two years ago was putting the finishing touches to their morning coffee.
Pivoting towards the front door Nate peered through its window and saw a man standing there in the midmorning light, a fedora on his head. When he opened the door the man looked up from his clipboard, visibly startled.
The man visibly rallied and started his sales pitch with a strained customer service smile. “Good morning! Vault-Tec calling! Do you have a moment? I have a matter of utmost urgency to discuss with you.” He chuckled, his shoulders hunched and eyes darting as he shuffled his feet.
Nodding, Nate crossed his arms, leaning on the wooden doorframe. He looked the man up and down with a neutral expression. “Yeah, I have the time. What can I do for you?”
The fall breeze rustled through the salesman's coat, and the man coughed before continuing. “Well, I was sent here because thanks to your service, your family has been pre-selected for entry to the local vault! Vault, one eleven! Before you answer, really take a moment to think and consider it fully! With the state of the world and our country as it is right now, the big kaboom is.. inevitable, I'm afraid. If you catch my meaning? I just need some information for the records, and you’ll be all signed up for residence in case of uhm, Total Atomic Annihilation , haha.” The man smiled awkwardly and rubbed the back of his neck. “So, whaddaya say? You're already cleared for entry, it's just a matter of verifying some information.”
Nate could feel his face involuntarily express surprise as he pushed away from where he had been leaning and uncrossed his arms. “It’s definitely the smart thing to do. Just to be prepared.” His face was serious and whatever remaining mirth he had been feeling from the recent interaction with Nora had completely faded in that moment. The salesman relaxed and smiled in relief before he handed him the clipboard. The questionnaire was efficiently filled, and after signing the dotted line Nate handed it back to the man. “Will that be all?”
The salesman nodded quickly and shoved the clipboard under his arm. “Splendid! Have a great day and thank you for deciding to be prepared for the future !”
Nate smiled politely. “Have a nice day.” The man turned to walk back down to the sidewalk and the door clicked shut. Resting his forehead on the polished wood, Nate closed his eyes and stood there for a moment.
“What was that about?” Nora came from the bathroom and sat on the couch. He explained what the salesman wanted and Nora agreed that it was a good decision to sign the paperwork. They sat on the couch facing each other, the TV murmuring quietly on the other side of the living room. There was a rerun of an older Silver Shroud episode playing, released when the show had just started airing.
The cackle of static snatched their attention, their conversation about the upcoming holidays cut short. “We interrupt this broadcast with an emergency message. Seconds ago we received information that bombs have dropped in...” The two froze while the TV anchor continued to list more cities before the broadcast got cut to show a standby screen. The wail of sirens blaring outside jolted them to their feet as adrenaline kicked in.
“We have to get to the vault!” Nate turned and grabbed Nora's arm, fingers clenched around her wrist. If it hurts she doesn't say anything, and Codsworth tells them to hurry as they rush out the door. The usually quiet streets are filled with panicked people rushing about and yelling in terror, packing their cars or rushing to the vault as well. A man carrying a suitcase and his wife rushed past them, shoving Nate in the shoulder during their haste to get somewhere safe. Dirt and gravel rocks dug into his hands, his elbows and knees throbbed from the harsh impact.
Nora spun towards him with a shout, dress flairing. “Nate!”
“I’m fine!” He stood and pushed her forward. “Keep going!” A crowd of people were pushing each other at a fence guarded by soldiers in power armour, one of them were in army fatigues holding a clipboard and blocked the way of the Vault-Tec representative Nate had talked to earlier. He was yelling at the soldier and went to shove him out of the way only for the soldiers in power armour to take a step closer and brandish their weapons in the air, sunlight glinting off their guns. The salesman cowed at the show of force, yelled something unintelligible over the crowd's cries and turned to run away.
When the two managed to shove their way through the throng of terrified neighbors Nate could feel sweat dripping down the back of his neck, the moisture quickly cooling in the evening air and left a sticky residue on his skin. “Let us in, we’re on the list!” he gasped at the soldier, eyes blown wide and chest heaving in short, shallow breaths. The soldier frowned and stared at the two in suspicion, eyes narrowed. After taking a quick look at the clipboard his eyes darted back up and he barked at them to hurry and get on the platform.
The crowd's hysteria swelled as they watched, screaming to be let in and questions of “why are they able to go? Let me in!” and a desperate mother was wailing, “take my baby at least, please!” The cacophony of noise was soon overtaken by helicopters and machinery running, with soldiers shouting to each other. They directed the two onto a platform and Nate had a second to register a flash of light in the sky before he whirled to grab Nora and pushed her down to the metal, covering her head and eyes, then smash his own eyelids shut. Hot blasts of wind washed over them and the ground shook in an earth shattering roar, the platform descending into the dirt and plunging everyone in darkness.
After images from the light danced in the darkness, false ringing drowned out doctors and soldiers directing civilians where to go in the bunker. Nate and Nora stood, helping each other up. Now Nora's hair was a mess, debris stuck to her windswept curls, all of her exposed skin covered in smudges of dirt, and the dress torn at the hem. Nate was sure he was in a similar state, and felt pieces of his hair fall out of its gelled back style and into his eyes. Employees directed them to two decontamination pods, the doctor helping them by explaining that after changing and decontamination they would be ready to start their new life in the vault. All he could do was nod mutely, the adrenaline crash kicking in and making his eyes droop in exhaustion. If they had been even a second later they would have become burnt shadows on the ground. Nora pressed herself into his arms, shaking and shivering like they had been in the middle of a blizzard, eyes blown wide and glassy, fingers twisted in his sleeves as if he would disappear the moment she let go.
He pulled her into a crushing hug, his arms wrapped around her back and pulled her head forwards so that her forehead rested against his, their faces inches away and breath intermingling in the chilled air. “We’ll be okay, we’re safe now.” He whispered, so quietly it was barely audible. He didn’t know which of them he was trying to reassure.
A huff broke the moment, and Nora turned to throw a dagger filled sneer at the doctor, the man looked less than pleased as he turned to look at the controls on a nearby pod.
Nate squeezed her hand and let go, turning to get dressed in one of the vault suits that the scientists had been giving out at the front desk. The blue cloth was uncomfortable and itchy, the padding stiff. Once the zipper on the front was pulled up all the way Nate grabbed the handle to his pod and swung inside, settling down in the surprisingly comfortable chair. He barely had enough time to make eye contact with Nora before the door shut, and vapor streamed into his pod with a hiss of compressing air.
The temperature started to plummet, and the last thing he saw before succumbing to darkness was the ice that crawled across the glass window. The next thing he was aware of was shivering, his eyes peeling open and lungs heaving. His shaking fist lifted to the metal door, and Nate banged it on the door sluggishly, voice croaking silently to be let out. A scream made him jolt and he wiped clumsily at the melting frost that blocked his view.
When his eyes finally focused he barely had time to register what he was seeing before he started trying to yell through the glass, throat aching like he hadn’t had a sip of water in years. “Nora!” His voice broke and he hacked, barely getting out the rest of his sentence through his fit. “What are you doing to her, leave her alone!” There was a man at Nora's open pod, a person in a white hazmat suit standing off to the side and looking through a folder filled with papers. The man struggled with her, trying to grapple her arms behind her back. Nora struggled with everything she had, throwing herself around frantically and Nate watched as the man trying to kidnap her threw her back into the pod, a sickening crack ringing out from her skull as it hit something. Her body immediately slumped over like a ragdoll and the man went to pick her up. The one in what looked like a white hazmat suit stopped him.
“Wait, her medical records say she’s a medical deviant. We’ll have to find a different one, the council wants someone from Before that'll be a blank slate. Same with the one in the pod across from her. Everyone else’s pod malfunctioned.”
The man scowled and clicked his tongue with a sigh. “Shit. I better be paid what was agreed on still.” The man turned and frowned at the one in white. “Will she live?” He acted like his question was out of a clinical curiosity rather than actual concern for her wellbeing.
White hazmat shook their head apathetically. “With that head wound? Not without the institute's help and we won’t be taking her in. Best thing for her would be to put her down.” The man nodded and turned to Nora's slumped over body, a shot rang into the silence of the bunker without hesitation. Turning and closing her pod he walked over to stare into Nate's. Nate felt the murderer's gaze on him and the hair on the back of his neck raised, only going back to normal when the man turned away in disinterest, like a kid that got bored of watching one of the animals at the zoo going to find something more mentally stimulating.
“Those pre-war doctors were something else, I wouldn’t have known if I wasn’t told.” Hazmat and Murderer continued to talk, their voices trailing away down the hall as the cold of artificial sleep crept back in. His brain was sluggish and before he knew it his movements still.
The next time he woke it was with a scream. The air was still. No noise except his breathing entered his ears and he felt them get shallower with each inhale, heart beating like warhammers against his eardrums. His body pressed on the door. It opened with a hissing groan, fog spilling to the floor before it dissipated into water and vapor across the concrete. Finding himself on it, he laid there on the cold floor and waited for his legs to stop feeling like jelly. Good God, his head throbbed and he felt like he had swallowed a mouthful of sand, his throat was raw and mouth sticky with dried saliva. When he was able, he dragged himself up until he could stare at Nora's pod. An unknown amount of time passed, but eventually he moved away and staggered to the pneumatic door that led to the rest of the vault. Somehow he managed to make his way onto the platform entrance of the vault. Staring over the treetops and at the sky, a 10mm pistol in one hand and a stun baton shoved through a belt loop.
Looking out over the hill he could see that Sanctuary was ruined, the houses blasted out and the landscape butchered from the nuclear fallout. A punched out gasp left his chapped lips, and his legs stumbled down the path he had previously run up with Nora. When he had finally trudged into the neighborhood there were Halloween decorations still present that dotted the neighbors houses. They were worn down with time, radiation, and dirt. A robotic whirring picked up from his left and he turned to the sound only to see a Mr. Handyman tidying the front garden of a house that looked oddly familiar. It took a couple seconds but as he drew closer he realized the house used to be Nora and his. It looked like something warped by a funhouse mirror, barely recognizable as what it originally was. The roof (if it can even be called that anymore) was all but gone, windows blasted out and glass long vanished. The sidewalk leading up to the front door was cracked and uneven, more dirt than concrete. Dead grass filled some of the space.
The Mr. Handyman gasped when it caught sight of Nate, and its saws spun to life. Nate was just about to shoot the thing when it halted and gasped. “Master Nate?”
“Codsworth?”