The fires burned low. Smoke curled above the shattered barricade, carrying the stench of blood and charred flesh into the night. The settlement was still standing, but silence pressed over it like a shroud. The kind of silence that came after death had passed through.
Ash holstered his revolvers. The cylinders glowed faintly, recharging with a steady hum. Around him, the defenders shifted in disbelief, staring at the fallen mutants as though expecting them to rise again.
A guard stumbled over, face smeared with soot and blood. His rifle dangled useless at his side.
"You… you saved us," he said, voice raw. "By God, kid, we'd all be—"
"Alive's enough," Ash cut in, his voice low, even.
The guard swallowed, nodding too fast, like a man clinging to anything steady.
Others came. A woman with a gash across her brow tried to press a necklace into his hand. He closed her fingers around it and pushed her hand back. A boy no older than himself stared at him wide-eyed, lips trembling. "You weren't afraid," the boy whispered. Ash said nothing, only rested a hand briefly on the boy's shoulder before moving on.
At the merchant's wagon, the caravan master waited with a sack of caps, hands shaking. "Worth every damn cap," he muttered, shoving it forward. Ash took it without counting, tucking it into his coat.
No more words. No lingering. He turned from the wreckage and began the long walk back west.
The road was quiet but heavy. Stars wheeled overhead, indifferent. Ash's boots crunched over gravel and broken glass, each step carrying him further from the smoke, from the wide eyes and trembling thanks. His revolvers were silent at his hips, the faint glow fading to steady red.
By dawn, Megaton's rusted gates loomed ahead. Familiar. Solid. Home, for now.
Inside, the market was just waking. Traders haggled, brahmin lowed. Life, unchanged. No one here knew what had happened hours before, what had been stopped by two revolvers and a boy who wouldn't break.
Ash made for his house. He lit the old radio, the one he'd scavenged and tuned a hundred times before. Static hissed, then the warm voice of Galaxy News Radio cut through.
"…and this one's hot off the wire, children. Word out east says a settlement was on the ropes—Super Mutant warband, whole place about to go belly-up. But they didn't. They're still breathing, thanks to someone stepping up when nobody else could. They're calling him 'the Drifter.' Young, fast, with fire in both hands. Walked into hell and didn't flinch. So if you're out there, Drifter—keep walking. The wastes need more like you."
Music swelled, carrying the words away.
Ash sat back in the chair, the faintest crease at the corner of his mouth. Not a smile, not really. Just a flicker of thought, here and gone.
He turned the radio down, leaned back, and let silence take the room again.