Story crawl out through the fallout | fallout fanfic

[esbees]

a quick note.

this story follows the plotline of fallout 4 with some strong canon divergence.

If one were to peer into Eleanor’s life it would seem perfect from the inside out.
After the bombs were dropped on Boston her world was turned upside down,
the dreams for she had for her future smothered in the fallout. There would be
no house in a little culdesac, no career that she'd studied so hard for, no doting
husband to love her, and no newborn to cherish and adore. Gone was her life
and everything she knew. All she could do for herself was survive.




sole survivor / hancock | sole survivor & kent connolly | kent connolly & dogmeat
dogmeat's the bestest boy | slow burn asf | timeline jumps


tw list - domestic abuse ment, drug use, kidnapping, violence, death​

 

[esbees]

PROLOGUE.​

If one were to peer into Eleanor’s life it would seem perfect from the inside out. She had it all; a large house in a cozy little culdesac, a steady career at an uptown firm, a doting husband who loved her dearly, and a perfect and healthy little newborn son. It was everything she had ever hoped for growing up and then some. It had taken endless hard work and relentless dedication but she had built her dream up into a reality almost entirely on her own.

Meeting Nate had been a moment made by fate, she’d recall to others. The story of how they met was sweet and simple but the way she told it always left people in awe. Eleanor had never really been much of a partier, or a drinker, often too caught up in her studies and homework to go out. It was after the first set of exams were finally done that her friends finally managed to get her to join them at a cocktail lounge. It was here where she and Nate saw each other for the first time across that smokey room.

It was not the last time they would see each other there. After her third visit, Nate had finally found the courage to come over and speak with her. It was the fifth visit a few months later that she paid him any mind and agreed to a date. Slowly she found time for him in her busy schedule between her classes and studying, opening up to the idea of a relationship.

Issues with Nate began to pop up at random as she entered her final years of school, little things that were easy to dismiss. She had known from the beginning that he was enlisted and would soon likely be on the front lines as tensions increased. Still, whenever he used this excuse for his clipped words or brutish moods, she would brush it off. They moved in together and shared an apartment, bringing them closer yet separating them even more. Nate would often be out into the late hours of the morning and come home reeking of dank alleys with whiskey on his breath.

In the back of her mind, Eleanor considered breaking things off with Nate on more than one occasion. While she rarely entertained the thought of him cheating on her due to his horrendous jealousy streak, his new behaviors were suspect at best. When they’d met he had only touched a cigar once in a blue moon. Now his breath reeked of cigarettes on the daily, woody notes of whiskey hidden beneath the tarry scent. Whenever she brought this up and fought with him on it he’d clean up for a week or so before returning to his pattern. Still, she loved the man despite the habits. They could work through it.

One positive pregnancy test was all it took for the two to fully solidify their somewhat rocky relationship. A courthouse wedding was the last thing Eleanor had expected for herself, but it meant that Nate could apply for housing for them. It was during her second month into the pregnancy that the sweet doting husband she knew began to disappear, forcing her to mask their perfect relationship. To her new neighbors they were truly meant for each other, clinging to the other’s words with an unmatched devotion. At their little dinner parties and neighborhood barbeques, Nate would always be seen catering to his quiet and gentle wife. Eleanor was always seen as the perfect hostess, keeping people’s drinks and plates filled despite how far along she progressed in her pregnancy.

What her neighbors didn’t see was that when Nate went to help steady Eleanor, his grasp was tight on her arm or how she stiffened when he whispered in her ear. Her long sleeves hid old and fresh bruises dotting her skin, but sometimes when he was especially drunk he was angrier and less careful. Her slip into depression hit hard and quick after one night he extinguished a cigarette on the inside of her wrist. She’d covered it with a bandage and excused it for a curling iron burn despite using curlers in her sleep each night. People began to comment on the size of her belly as the third trimester came around, not realizing she was showing so prominently because she’d stopped eating regularly.

Keeping quiet about everything she endured seemed smarter the closer to her due date she came, hopeful that Nate’s excitement over having a son would keep her safe while he was home on parental leave with her. It would be short lived, luckily, especially with the war beginning to ramp up. Until then, she just had to endure. Having to shove aside her career in favor of her child had ruffled her feathers at the beginning of her pregnancy, but now with him in her arms she saw her time home alone with the babe as a new haven to look forward to.

Nearly two months after Shaun was born and brought home, the bombs dropped.

wc. 848​

 

[esbees]

𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐏𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝐎𝐍𝐄.
​

This was a nightmare and one she was desperate to wake up from.

The first time Eleanor had been standing on the vault platform she had been surrounded by her neighbors with Nate holding Shaun on his hip. They’d sunk into the earth inch by inch as they watched the world around them erupt in violent explosions, knowing they would never see topside again. Now as she rose back up it felt as though the world was rushing to meet her all too quickly, the blinding light of the sun setting her heart into a racing beat. When the platform came to a grinding halt her every sense was assaulted with new information of the world she’d left behind.

If not for the familiar albeit broken skyline on the horizon she might not have recognized the scenery around her. The barren trees swayed in the humid breeze, no birds or animals to be heard or seen. An acrid taste coated the back of her throat with every panicked breath she took, eyes searching wildly for any sign of life. The world had changed so much since she had disappeared - but how long? How much time had passed since she had gone down there, how long had it been since Nate and Shaun- how was she going to survive?

She could feel the panic attack settling in, ready to consume and drown her. With a frustrated sob that tore from her throat the blonde ground her teeth, fists clenched at her sides. I can do this. I can get through this. It will be okay. Gone was the world she had known, replaced by this desolate hellscape seemingly void of any life. She walked off with no real direction, her head too full to focus on where she was going.

Were it not for the skeletons that littered the fenced in vault access point, Eleanor might not have realized where she was going for quite some time. Her steps slowed as she passed them, the memory of the panic and the sirens and those bombs, those horrible, horrible bombs swept through her mind. How many hadn’t made it? Whatever happened to the vault salesman? What of her neighbors, did anyone else make it in after her family had made it down?

Every step down the hill and across the bridge to Sanctuary Hills was heavy, leadened by the weight of her trauma. So many people she knew had gone into that vault, ready to live out the remainders of their lives in confined safety. No one, not a single person had come back up with her. Not even her own family. She was the Sole Survivor of Vault 111. All she could hope was that somehow, somewhere, her baby boy was safe despite everything she had witnessed and knew, deep down.

Each detail Eleanor took in seemed to hardly register, blue eyes seeing everything and yet nothing. What was there to see, anyways? The world was decaying and broken, a perfect mirror to how she felt. Houses were worn down, some having fully collapsed upon themselves. The pavement road was cracked and broken, some chunks completely missing. It looked empty, abandoned. The thought of being the only one relaxed her, calming her nerves a tad before the flash and reflection of the sun bouncing off of shiny metal caught her attention. Her fingers tightened around the pistol she’d found in the vault with her right hand, ready to shoot as she rounded the bush to take on the potential assailant.

“As I live and breathe! It’s you! It’s really you!?”

Relief flooded her system at the familiarity of that voice, causing her to nearly drop her weapon as the two weary souls rushed to meet halfway. A smile planted itself firmly on her lips, tears tracking down her cheeks as the adrenaline wore off.

“It’s me, Codsworth. It’s really me.”

----​

Finding Codsworth had felt like a blessing after everything she had been through in what seemed like just one day. They spoke in hushed tones, the excitement of their meeting eventually fading away as they talked. She learned it had been nearly 210 years since the bombs had dropped and her family had been tricked and lured into the ‘safety’ of the vault. When he’d asked about the whereabouts of her family she’d broken down into hysterics. Through her sobs she was able to tell him what she’d seen and what she knew.

His initial disbelief of their fates she could understand, who does that? How does that even happen? Who knew they were there? His insistence on searching the culdesac for Shaun clawed at her heartstrings. He didn’t seem to understand the full picture. Strange people had murdered her husband point blank to kidnap her baby. These strangers had come into the vault with purpose. She didn’t know what they wanted with her son, why they were doing what they did, nor what they were capable of. Were they even worth going after?

Codsworth’s determination should have sparked hope in her, but Eleanor followed numbly as he led them through each house. They took my baby and I don’t know why. They took my child and I don’t even know when. Those two thoughts played again and again as she sunk into that numb and cavernous pit within herself, dispatching of the oversized bugs and rodents they crossed with a detached sort of effort.

When the offer to look into Concord was brought up the blonde merely shook her head, exhaustion etching her every feature. We’ll look there soon, Codsworth, she promised the robot. Without saying much else she made her way back through the little neighborhood, each step bringing her closer and closer to her old home. With one last deep breath before the front door and one last glance to her metal companion, Eleanor let herself in and shut the door behind her.

-----​

For nearly a week Eleanor did not leave Sanctuary Hills. That first night Codsworth had stayed away, giving her some clearly needed space. His audio sensors picked up on her cries but he ignored the programming instilled in him to fix it. Some cries were good cries. Some cries were necessary. He would leave her be.

Day two she emerged once more, still clad in her bright blue vault suit. Her blonde hair had been pulled up into a severe ponytail, a few short strands framing her face. On her left arm she still wore her stolen Pip-Boy, but she had prepared herself. The pistol she’d found in the vault was strapped to her right thigh and on the left a gray pouch the robot recognized as Nate’s. Both were attached to a belt secured at her waist, highlighting the curves of her features all the more.

At her request the two searched the houses that still stood for any surviving medical supplies and food, nabbing any tools she saw potential in along the way. Everything was compiled in the driveway of the central house, “It use to be Rosa’s. I don’t think she’d mind,” and he was inclined to agree. Not long after his installation and right before little Shaun’s birth, the plump woman had come over with two baking dishes filled to the brim with casseroles for the expecting couple. After the birth she’d continued to provide food and advice for the first month. No, she surely wouldn’t have minded.

The next day they had begun taking care of the trash around Sanctuary Hills, removing as much of it as they could. Eleanor would make the occasional remark as the habits and secrets of her neighbors came to light, finding a chem station and a homemade underground bunker much to her surprise.

Day three and four were much of the same, the only difference being instead of holing up in her house once the work of the day was done she stayed in Rosa’s drive by a small fire, feeding Codsworth random thoughts and bits of memory. Instead of returning to her old house like he expected, Eleanor unfolded a cot she had found in a neighbor’s home and turned in for the night just inside the yellow house’s living room.

It was on day five, a crisp and cool Thursday morning that Codsworth asked if she wanted to try searching Concord. Silence sat between them over the rest of her breakfast but finally when she rose to her feet, the woman gave him a nod and the two headed out.

wc. 1419