Time passes. It moves through the hours like sand passing through glass, and eventually, eventually, his mind sharpens. The world inside brightens in color, tightening its focus. In the last minute stretch of that long sleep, Neil dreams.
They unravel like knotted strings. He is stepping toward a place he's called home for the past few years, a settlement in the guise of a fortified junkyard, guarded well by a Protectron, a sniper, and a self-proclaimed sheriff. People pass him as he navigates the downward path, as he looks at the broken signs and rusted metal.
This is where he's supposed to be. With them. These people.
But there's a place across the way, across a bottomless cliff spanning hundreds of miles. There's a stretch of desert against the orange sun, teeming with life and lights and sounds. There's a man who lives there, he thinks, and beyond it lies the Pacific Ocean. He had wanted to go there someday. Wanted to see that stretch of water. That clear and blue and sparkling sea as the old picture books made it out to be.
Alex says they're going to see the ocean. That this will just be a memory. Neil will watch the radiated Pacific, its waves crashing against the shore, with a friend and their companions by his side.
But he belongs here, right? Megaton, D.C., the entire East Coast-- It all reeks of death and rot, but this is where he was born. This is where Dad died, where Neil was meant to die, overdosed on radiation on the floor before Thomas Jefferson himself. This is his home.
Right?
Neil opens his eyes, the dredges of sleep and fever still clinging to him. He recognizes Alex resting against him, feels the man's form without reticence, before he goes through the motions of self-inspection. Neil thinks he's doing better, despite the sickness and the heat, and he thinks he might stay awake for a spell this time. Watch the metal ceiling for a bit. Try not to break up about the dream for a bit. Little things like that.
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They unravel like knotted strings. He is stepping toward a place he's called home for the past few years, a settlement in the guise of a fortified junkyard, guarded well by a Protectron, a sniper, and a self-proclaimed sheriff. People pass him as he navigates the downward path, as he looks at the broken signs and rusted metal.
This is where he's supposed to be. With them. These people.
But there's a place across the way, across a bottomless cliff spanning hundreds of miles. There's a stretch of desert against the orange sun, teeming with life and lights and sounds. There's a man who lives there, he thinks, and beyond it lies the Pacific Ocean. He had wanted to go there someday. Wanted to see that stretch of water. That clear and blue and sparkling sea as the old picture books made it out to be.
Alex says they're going to see the ocean. That this will just be a memory. Neil will watch the radiated Pacific, its waves crashing against the shore, with a friend and their companions by his side.
But he belongs here, right? Megaton, D.C., the entire East Coast-- It all reeks of death and rot, but this is where he was born. This is where Dad died, where Neil was meant to die, overdosed on radiation on the floor before Thomas Jefferson himself. This is his home.
Right?
Neil opens his eyes, the dredges of sleep and fever still clinging to him. He recognizes Alex resting against him, feels the man's form without reticence, before he goes through the motions of self-inspection. Neil thinks he's doing better, despite the sickness and the heat, and he thinks he might stay awake for a spell this time. Watch the metal ceiling for a bit. Try not to break up about the dream for a bit. Little things like that.