“Alright Leon, I know you’re the fighter of this group, and I know its most likely going to be dangerous up there, so I’m gonna do something totally out of character. I’m giving you my pistol and the two clips I have. It’s in good condition, and it’s only been fired once in ten years and I think you know when that was. Here you go.”
Leon takes the gun and looks at it with silence for awhile and then speaks. You think this is the first time you’ve actually heard him speak at all!
“Y’know, I never did apologize for that shit ten years ago. I dunno what the hell I was thinking following Elliot; none of us who did do. You and Nina have done a better job of keeping this place running than anyone. Anyway, this is really generous of you, but I can’t shoot worth shit, but I know someone who’s going with us who used to practice regularly before the bombs dropped. Hey Brenda! I got something for ya!”
Brenda comes over and her eyes widen when Leon hands her your pistol.
“Aw yeah! This is what I’m talkin’ about! I just hope I’m still a good shot; I’ve only been able to practice my aim by throwing this scalpel at a human diagram chart.”
“Yeah well don’t practice too much with it, save your bullets for an emergency. I didn’t know you were a gun person Brenda.” You say.
“You really need to get out of that computer room and socialize more!”
“Shit, he barely socializes when he’s in there with me and Charles.” Todd adds.
“But yeah I used to practice with my own when I had one. I was too afraid to try to sneak mine in here though…you know we’ve all always wondered about that, how DID you sneak this in?” Brenda asks.
You just smile.
“Hey I think you guys better get going.” You say almost laughing
“Oh come on! What a gyp! Alright, but we want to know when we come back!” Brenda says and then her, Leon and Todd enter the elevator wave goodbye to everyone and go up.
You and everyone else go about your usual business. Nina mentions what you did.
“Wow, that was really surprising for you, you’ve practically been walking around with that thing on you for ten years.”
“Yeah, well I can only hope I don’t need it within the time that they come back…if they come back.”
“You just gave them an edge I’d say they’ve got more of a chance now. Don’t be so pessimistic. They’ll come back.”
“Yeah I hope. Bring Jack by the computer room later; I know you got some sort of meeting to go to.”
“Oh I can cancel that, it’s not vital.”
“No its fine, bring him by. I’ve been indoctrinating him on the basics of the shelter computer. Someone’s gotta run this thing when I’m gone.”
“Well alright then, hey don’t worry. Everything will be alright.”
Nina kisses you and you exchange remarks about how you love each other before you make your way back to the computer room. You know its silly to think about it, but you can’t help thinking about some worst possible scenario.
You think about those three getting captured, tortured, and killed by a large group of psychotic bandits or something and then those same scum coming here because they found out the location after torturing them. You wouldn’t have anything proper to defend your family with and the surface scum would probably have all kinds of weapons to kill everyone with. They’d start by killing everyone in immediate area of the entrance, then they’d come down in small groups with automatic weapons they undoubtedly have and start killing down here and worse…
“HEY! Stop spacing!” Charles suddenly says to you.
“Huh? Oh! Okay.” You say snapping out your horrible daydream.
“Man, what’s wrong with you? You’ve been doing that the whole time you got here.”
“Nothing, just a little pre-occupied.”
You still don’t really relax until Jack gets there, which allows you to think about less terrible things like teaching him about the computer system.
When you’re finished with your duties, you go back to your room, and Nina’s there waiting for you looking as lovely as usual. You came in this place ten years ago with nothing except a bad attitude, now you got a lot more…
You’re not losing this. No way in hell.
The next day you start visiting the community gym area. You know other people like Leon use it. Nina uses it to keep in shape, but you’ve never stepped foot in the place, you never really saw any reason to, its not like you were fat or anything, but you realize if some shit goes down you’re going to have to be in better physical condition. You might not have a gun, but MAYBE you’ll be quick and strong enough to take one away from somebody! You need a fucking edge. You begin training regularly. Nina’s a little confused about this sudden change, but she’s not at all displeased with it.
You do this for the next six months with the constant theme running in your mind of how you’ll be able to take out the first miscreant that steps through the elevator, grab his gun and…
“Hey everyone, they’re back! And they’re in a fuckin’ car with a shitload of stuff!” someone shouts while you’re training.
You immediately stop and head for the surface. When you arrive you see Leon unloading some stuff out of a beat up, but functioning car, he’s got a patch on his eye now and his face is scarred, but otherwise looks okay. Brenda comes up to you and tosses you your pistol back, along with three clips!
“Came in handy, but I think I’ll be using THIS from now on!” Brenda pats an automatic rifle slung over her shoulder. “Hey, you look different, you been working out?”
“Um, something like that. So where did you get all this stuff?”
“Most of it we got from this small place called Ashtown that’s agreed to trade with us, we’d found it after about a week of wandering around, we were there negotiating with them and they wouldn’t trust us at first until the place suddenly got attack by a bunch of raiders. We helped defend the place from a one month siege! We also stuck around to help heal the wound. After that, they decided we were okay…that was at sort of a high cost though. Todd didn’t make it. He got killed in the fight. Tried to save him, but it was already too late by the time I got there.” Brenda explains.
“Damn...he was an alright guy…so is this fight where Leon got all scarred up?” you say as he approaches.
“No, that happened after we left Ashtown, we went exploring some more, we found another place a lot less friendly called The Combine. Trust me; we want to AVOID that place. We barely got out of there; we were basically prisoners. That’s why we were gone for so long. However, that’s where we got this car. We stopped back at Ashtown to pick up some supplies and came back here.” Leon answers, then he looks at you with his remaining eye. “Damn, you been working out?”
You nearly start laughing at your situation, here you were training and thinking up every possible worst case scenario that was going to befall the shelter, while Brenda and Leon were actually engaged in some worst case scenarios. You’re just glad that nothing did happen to the shelter, but you certainly feel less naked now that you have your “equalizer” back!
Life in the shelter continues.
Ten more years pass…
You’ve been here twenty years and as always there are more changes.
More people have moved to the surface, pieces of the shelter have been dismantled and started to be used to build a real town along with supplies from Ashtown, and scavenging from other places. Still, the shelter is needed to ensure at least a clean water supply so you’re still running it. Nina’s position has changed though. Since the shelter doesn’t contain a majority of the population anymore, her position is more of a community council person and her title is no longer “shelter leader”. The place has been given a name now; New Haven
One current problem is to keep the place together, but with the younger population, they’re less likely to want to stay. Ever since Leon came back with a giant mutant wolf head on one of his exploration trips, they all want to be “explorers” too. Your son Jack being one of those young people.
Nina of course doesn’t want him to go anywhere (You’re reminded of when she didn’t want you to go to the surface) and you can’t say you’re too fond of the idea either, but what can you do?
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