Note: Just a one-time thing that popped into my head. Enjoy!

A blueberry. That's what it looked like: a blueberry, Command Module Pilot Neil Collins thought to himself as he looked out of the window Virgo III lunar lander, perched securely on the moon's surface. After the great success of the Virgo II, they just had to get a third one up there as fast as they could.

Before him was the vast blue expanse of the Pacific Ocean, the physical barrier between Communist China and the United States. Great white clouds washed over the surface, partially obscuring the patches of brown and green earth beneath them. Somewhere down there, his son George and his wife Ashley would be waiting for him, ready to pick up the phone if it rang, hoping to God that it wasn't the ground control crew to tell them "something has happened".

Neil had told her not to worry, but she wouldn't have it. At least he'd be home in less than a week, after they planted another damned flag and got some more moon rocks for the eggheads back in the states.

He was just starting to think about his last night with Ashley before he left, when his earpiece crackled and Commander Armstrong's voice cut in, "Hey, Collins, we're done out here. Let us in."

"Mission Accomplished, huh?"

"Yeah, if you can call this grocery run a mission. Now open the door."

Neil pressed the blinking orange button on the console in front of him. On the viewing screen he watched his comrades shuffle into the pressurized chamber and strip out of their bulky suits. One might think he'd want to be out there 'making history', but frankly he liked the downtime that being the Module Pilot offered. While Commander Michael Armstrong and compatriots Jim Schmitt and Harrison Lovell were out picking up rocks and trying to shove a steel pole into the rock hard surface, he was back inside the craft, maintaining equipment and left to his thoughts.

As the commander settled back into his chair in the cramped single-room lander, he put on his headset and opened up a communication link with ground control.

"Ground this is Virgo III, come in, over."

"Roger, Virgo III this is control. What is your status, over?"

"We have a mission accomplished at 1500 hours ground time, October 23 2077. Ready to return to base, over."

"Copy that, Virgo, we just need you to run a final check on your navigation data and we'll let you go."

"Copy, control. And you better like these new rocks, 'cause I'm done with this for a while."

"Well you make about ten times the money I do, so we'll send you back as many times as we need to, Commander."

"Ha-ha, yes sir!"

"Oh, and Collins, your wife is here with us. She brought George. If you want we can patch her through."

A wide grin broke on Neil's face as he heard the news and said, "Yes sir! Absolutely!"

"Neil? Honey are you there?"

"Y-yes, I'm here... Are you and George alright?"

"Oh, darling we're just fine. And George would like to say something."

Amongst the giggles and static, Neil could faintly hear, "Daddy! Hi daddy!", followed by Ashley's voice returning and saying, "See? He talks now, isn't that amazing?"

Wow, my boy's talking already... The pride he felt at that moment was immeasurable.

"Yeah, sweetie, that's unbelievable. Now listen, I'll be back soon, alright?"

...But there was no answer. Only static could be heard on the other end. Collins felt a pit in his stomach.

"Schmitt, what happened?"

"Don't know, I guess there's interference coming in from somewhere. I'll try to reconnect the link."

As Neil was about to reply, something made him look out the window and at the great big blueberry that met his gaze. They were just now passing over California, and as he looked down, he saw little puffs of white smoke dotting the landscape, with more popping up every second. He saw little streaks appearing in the sky, shooting out into the Pacific, and others were criss-crossing and heading in from the West, only to erupt into more little puffs of smoke.

No... No, no no! This can't be happening! There was no warning, nothing! What the hell is going on?

By now, the other crew members had noticed what had stopped Collins in his tracks. They, too, were angry and confused. They, too, silently mourned the certain loss of loved ones. But they could do nothing. Not out here, a hundred thousand miles away from Earth.

All they could do was sit and watch. Sit and watch as the world they once knew became enveloped in nuclear fire, utterly destroyed in mere hours. They watched as the seas boiled and the atmosphere turned sickly yellow and brown. They could do nothing.

And they said nothing when Collins boosted the craft back towards Earth, set on a crash course leading into the plains of the Midwest. And they felt nothing as they re-entered the burning atmosphere, knowing their craft was flying apart.

Collins glanced at his compatriots, saw that they were as emotionless as he was, closed his eyes, and accepted his fate.

Pretty Good, I liked it. I like the perspective with the astronauts, it was unique. It would have been better if you would had planned to continue cause it would had been interesting but still good.

I just checked in after you posted in my fic. Great story. Really want to see what happens, to bad I don't think you could continue it from there...it's so soon after the nukes that he'd die just from the radiation. Oh well. Great read.

Thanks for the feedback, all of you. I've got some ideas in my head and I'll either revise this one or make a new one. Haven't decided. But whatever I do I'll try and make it a continuous thing.

And this one's still open for criticism. I'm all ears.

Nice- short and sweet and fits with the overall depressing mood of Fallout. I like stories that evolve out of some small detail in the Fallout universe.