Author's Note: This was written as a microfill for the Fallout Kink Meme. What happens when an essential character says "Fuck you" to the plot, or rejects the role that's been scripted for them? In this case, James has to face up to what his daughter has become. Rated M for violence.

Forgive me.

It's the only thought in his mind as he quietly draws his .32-caliber pistol, the steel warm to the touch after their long walk in midday sun. Ahead, not too distant anymore, Rivet City towers over the river.

He can't bear to even think his daughter's name, much less speak it. A few paces ahead, she tosses her strawberry blond curls, oblivious to him, the swing of her soft hair and slender hips almost innocent.

Almost.

A not-inconsequential portion of himself tells him to put the gun away, just keep walking, for the love of God. For the love of Catherine. For the love of everything. For his baby girl. Jesus, he can't be thinking this.

But when he closes his eyes for a moment in an attempt to clear his head, all he can see is the little crater city erupting in a mushroom cloud, eradicated in a burst of fire and radiation -

"Megaton? I blew up that shithole. We're going to Tenpenny - "

- with everyone in it. Colin. Moira. Lucas. Manya.

Ashes to ashes -

He tries to halt the parade of names - he knows too many, even with the short time he spent there. Maggie. Harden. Children, for the love of God.

Dust to dust -

And for no good reason.

He's made his mistakes, he knows. Careless, even cruel errors in judgment. Abandoning Madison and the Project - that was his worst. Quite possible the worst thing he's ever done, in hindsight, and he knows this isn't going to make it right. If he's learned one thing in his life, it's that mistakes aren't equations. You can't even things out. Nothing makes up for what's been done.

You can only do the right thing now.

If she's allowed to continue cutting this swath of suffering and death across the wasteland, no amount of clean water will matter. And he knows by now there will be no reasoning with her. He saw her in the sim, cooperating with Braun. Terrorizing those helpless people trapped at the whims of a madman for two hundred years.

She did it deliberately, without hesitation.

She did it gleefully, without remorse.

And she left them there to suffer more.

It must be his fault, somehow. He raised her. It's that, he realizes, for which he begs forgiveness - for what's been done and cannot be undone - not for what he's about to do. The blood of her victims is on his hands. More of them if he does not stop her.

It ends here.

"Forgive me, Catherine." He says it out loud this time. At the sound of his voice, his daughter's head starts to turn. Before he can see her eyes, three quick shots echo off the ruined buildings and ring out over the river and the long road.

James kneels on the broken pavement, tears spilling down his unshaven face as he takes her head in his hands, bloodying them and his jumpsuit.

"God forgive me. Forgive me."