Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Nick came back to consciousness to find himself sitting at his desk, slouched over a casefile he never wanted to see again and a dirty ashtray. The cigarette, burnt down to the filter, was still clasped between his fingers. An unusual mistake for him to make, and one that made him swear quietly to himself. He didn’t need to add scorch marks to the catalogue of cracks and dents across his body.

It was later than he usually rose; he could hear Moe’s shop talk in full flow in the distance, muffled slightly by the bustling of farmers and merchants and the other sounds of city life. Even so, it had barely been five hours since he’d finally slunk back into Diamond City after a case had gone spectacularly wrong.

It hadn’t started any worse than normal, but it had taken a turn the evening before, and there’d been a dead kid and parents to inform. That never got easier, no matter how often he did it. He opened a desk drawer without looking and slid the cursed casefile into it before shutting it firmly. Ellie would find it later. She had a nose for these things.

His coat was still damp from the pouring rain of the night and even though he wasn’t chilled, not really, the feeling of it through his shirt sleeves still evoked such vivid memories of the sensation, that he was finally forced to stand up and remove it. After that it seemed foolish to slouch back to his former position, but with an unusually empty in-tray there wasn’t much else to distract him. He compromised and stretched out on his bed, idly checking the integrity of the joins on his claw-like, reed-thin right hand, and humming along to the Diamond City Radio. He almost felt human again when he heard the front door open.

‘Nick?’

He poked his head around the partition wall and found himself looking at the anxious face of one of the itinerant traders he’d bought metal and plastic from many times. It was amazing how quickly you could become acquainted with every traveller with deep pockets and a need for caps when Diamond City Surplus shut its doors to people like you.

‘Matilda?’

‘Oh good, I was worried you were out on a case.’ Her face was drawn, and her shoulders visibly tight.

‘Are you alright? Has something happened to your brahmin?’ He said, gesturing vaguely to a chair as he pulled a dry shirt on; her pack animal was the only thing in the world he’d ever heard her express a positive feeling for.

‘Janus’s fine, thanks. And me. I’m just delivering a message.’

She held out a dirty scrap of paper.

‘I’ve come from Goodneighbor.’ She said by way of explanation. ‘There’s been a murder.’

Nick couldn’t help but raise an eyebrow at her; if deaths in Goodneighbor all got this treatment, he’d have enough caps to sleep in a pile of them like a hibernating molerat. It made no sense. Unless it was someone really important, of course.

He released an anxious breath he hadn’t meant to hold when he unfolded the paper scrap and found himself reading Hancock’s semi-legible scrawl.

Trouble in Paradise. Something really bad’s gone down and we could do with a professional eye. Come as soon as you get this, rates to be discussed. Hancock. P.S. I offered Matty 20 caps to deliver this. I’ll pay you back.

He sighed with a mixture of equal parts annoyance and relief and fished around in the sodden pocket of his trench coat for the caps.

‘Do you have any more information?’ He asked as he counted them out into her palm.

She shook her head. ‘Not really. I got there not long after dawn. I happened on a jet stash out at a truck stop during the night, and of course the mayor was a sure thing to get rid of it fast.’

‘Of course.’

‘But by the time I got there, it was already impossible to get in the front gate. There were a lot of people just inside it, and they were mad as hell, Nick. Then Hancock spotted me and wrote that,’ she said, pointing at his hand, ‘and now here we are.’

‘Well, thanks for your help.’

‘Thanks for the caps.’

‘There’s more where they came from if you can find me some aluminum soon, I’m running low.’

‘I’ll keep a look out for some. If you can hold on, I’ll be heading out to the old cannery in a couple of weeks.’ She said, shutting the door behind her and leaving him alone, save the note that was still clutched in his hand. He smoothed it out on the desk and read it a couple more times. For the famously feckless mayor of a town whose unofficial motto was ‘do it yourself’ to send this, something really awful must have happened. And he was probably good for the money. It wasn’t like Nick had anything else pressing to do. Nevertheless, he stood with his palms planted firmly on the desk, staring hard at the note as if it might suddenly explode if he so much as took his eye off it.

Finally, after what felt like hours, he grabbed his hat and gun, got back into his damp coat, and started heading out of the city. The route east through old Boston was far safer these days than it had been, for which he and the rest of the Commonwealth had Nora to thank. Normally he appreciated this as much as the next (relatively) innocent citizen, but today he’d have welcomed a distraction from his thoughts in almost any form. Out here in the bright sunshine, with no walls either great or small hemming him in, it was somehow easier to be frank with himself. Or perhaps harder not to be. With each step towards Goodneighbor his unease grew, and it had nothing to do with whatever terrible crime had been committed.

He’d seen Hancock many times over the past few years since he’d walked out on Diamond City, leading his small exodus of ghouls as the fresh-faced John McDonough, hurling insults at Nick himself, the citizen body at large, and the whole of humanity. It would have been odd not to, with his line of work often passing through Hancock’s (semi) lawless town, and more recently when he’d tagged along on Nora’s little Silver Shroud escapades. Not to mention their shared appreciation, at times, of the Memory Den. They’d ignored each other most times, and at others exchanged pleasantries without eye contact. What they hadn’t done is actually talked to one another, and Nick was half sure he’d rather fight off a razorclaw with a plastic spoon than do that. Sadly, that wasn’t a viable alternative.

There was no point delaying the inevitable. He picked up the pace.

Chapter Text

He heard the commotion Matty had mentioned even before he turned the corner to the front gate of Goodneighbor; raised, angry voices and what sounded like weeping. Fahrenheit had apparently been posted up to look out for him, but he caught sight of her first. It was the first time he’d ever seen her not slouching arrogantly in a doorway. She was standing straight, shifting occasionally from foot to foot and staring ahead, and while this was probably good for her back, it wasn’t good for his nerves.

‘Fahrenheit.’ He called out, and her eyes shot over to him.

‘You took your time.’ She snapped, and as he got closer he could see her skin was unusually blotchy, pink in some spots, white in another, which he took to be a mixture of anger and frustration.

‘Well I’m here now. What’s the problem?’

‘This problem’s better seen than heard about.’ She said tersely, stepping aside to let him enter the gate, before shutting it behind them both.

It didn’t seem much had changed since Matty had left. The entire town appeared to be packed into this small area in front of the two stores that thrived here. There were huddled groups, some weeping and hugging their arms around themselves, others red-faced and ready to draw on anything. A few already had pipe pistols out, peering into the faces of old friends with new suspicion. In the middle of them stood the mayor himself. His hands appeared to be placating, his face reassuring; reckless he certainly was with his own safety, but he was a shrewd leader when he had to be. They were his people, but they were also a powder keg at the best of times, and now more so than usual. Nick could see he was trying to calm down as much as he was to buoy up.

He could see through it in an instant. The emotion he could instantly read into the tension visible in Hancock’s shoulders and neck was fury and fear.

After all, Nick would know just what that looked like.

Hancock sensed himself being watched and turned around, his expression not changing, though he practically lunged through the crowd towards the detective.

‘And here’s the great man himself.’ He said, having pulled Nick awkwardly back to the center of what threatened to soon become a mob. ‘If anyone can help us get to the bottom of this, it’s him. He’s gonna take a look now, and we’ll go from there.’

His fingers remained tightly closed around Nick’s shoulders, and whether he was trapping him or clinging on for life, Nick wasn’t quite sure. In either case, his presence had the desired effect and the crowd visibly relaxed, allowing space for Hancock to drag the detective into the doorway of the general store.

Nick’s heart leapt into his mouth and his stomach dropped through the floor.

‘No. Not Daisy.’ He said as Hancock began to push him towards the stairs to the upper floor of her store.

‘Yeah.’ He rasped more harshly than usual. ‘She’s a goddamn mess Nick.’

Nick realized he’d subconsciously put a hand on the wall to halt his progress, and unwillingly removed it. His legs moved like lead up the stairs.

She was, quite literally, a mess. Her torso was a patchwork of flesh, seamed by jagged wounds. One of her legs was at a strange angle, and it took Nick a moment to register that it had been completely severed. They’d even stabbed her in the face.

‘Jesus.’ He whispered, as his head began to spin.

‘I don’t think any god, old world or new, had much to do with it.’ Hancock said tersely.

Nick opened his mouth to reply in kind but caught himself. This wasn’t the time. He heard a strange ringing in his ears, he felt his teeth set on edge, in what he recognized was his synth body’s approximation of physical shock. It had been a while since he’d seen such a violent case. And even longer since he’d known the victim so well.

‘Well?’ Hancock said, a little impatiently. Nick wondered how long he’d stood there staring at her leg.

He stepped back and began to look around the room. While he could hardly believe what he was seeing, his distant training at the police academy carried the parts of his mind still given over to shock. He finally noticed the message daubed on the wall above the mattress.

‘They Betrayed Us.’ He said, reading the words aloud. ‘Does it mean anything to you?’

Hancock shook his head. ‘None of this means anything to me. Or any of us. I mean, it’s Daisy.’

Nick understood. Like a fair few Goodneighbor residents, he remembered daisies from before the war. Delicate, pretty little things. He remembered Jennifer making crowns of them and putting them on Nick’s (the real Nick’s) head, forcing a scowl into a grin after a hard week. If there was anyone in the Commonwealth the name suited, it was the woman now lying at his feet.  Daisy, who’d always had a kind word and a smile, who poked fun only at herself. Who’d even given him a circuit board free of charge once just because he reminded her of a pre-war book she’d loved. He shook his head. She’d remained a good person when the world had made that difficult for everyone.

‘Who could do this. Why.’ He murmured as he looked down at her ruined face.

‘Well, that’s why you’re here.’ Hancock said, making for the hole in the wall that overlooked the crowd and sticking his face out of it to shout. ‘Everyone who has useful information, stay where you are. Everyone else, go about your business. No point standing around here. As soon as I know something you will.’

There was a moment’s pause before Nick heard footfalls in all directions and general unhappy murmurs.

‘Oh, and one last thing. KLEO’s in charge of Daisy’s stock for now. If you need anything, go through her.’ Hancock rasped loudly at their retreating backs, his tone pointed. Nick had to smile a little despairingly at that; this was still Goodneighbor after all, and anything not nailed down was fair game to some, even in circumstances like this. Hancock moved away from the window and lowered his voice.

‘Still some people down there, detective. Better get asking.’

He nodded and headed downstairs, taking in the splintering floorboards and missing sections of roof in as if they were something strange. As if he still lived in an orderly world and a living city.

He recognized the onset of a wave of of pre-war nostalgia, cruelly bittersweet and never welcome. He wasn’t sure why. Perhaps because it was Daisy, who talked - had talked - to him endlessly about the past, eagerly ferreting out shared experiences or interests. Or perhaps it was the sense of community anger at play, when violent death these days rarely earned so much as a glance from people who weren’t close family. Or maybe, he thought, glancing across the square at the Memory Den’s once familiar doors, it was just the location. Whatever the cause, it was a feeling he always tried to avoid, as being too maudlin, too uncomfortable to sit with. He pushed it down as he fumbled for his notebook and stepped out into the bright mid-morning. Only two people had stuck around, which took him by surprise. The murder must have happened in the very early hours of the morning for so few residents to have heard anything.

One of them, a vaguely familiar drifter, immediately pressed forward and began to speak to him.

‘It wasn’t just something they decided to do. This- they planned-‘ She babbled, until Hancock put up a hand for silence.

‘Tell us from the beginning, Madge. Take your time.’ Nick said gently. She took a deep breath and started again.

‘Well, I got to thinking about that message they left up there.’ She said, pointing up at the lettering, some of which was visible from where they stood.

‘Do you know what it means?’

‘No. It’s the paint I’m talking about. See, I tried to buy some from her last night. She was out, hadn’t had any in a few days. So whoever the bastard was, they brought their own damn paint.’

‘You didn’t mention that before.’ Hancock said angrily.

‘I didn’t think about it till just now. Sorry, mayor.’

‘Don’t worry. That’s very helpful.’ Nick said, stepping forward slightly and blocking Hancock before he could start scolding her again. This wasn’t a situation that needed any more volatile emotions. She nodded and headed back towards the heart of the town muttering about getting the bastards. This left only KLEO.

‘She hasn’t got much to say about it either.’ Hancock said, glaring up at the scene of the crime as if trying to spot some as-yet ignored clue himself.

‘Oh, why’s that?’ Nick asked the assaultron, with no small amount of surprise; KLEO prided herself in being able to operate a 24-hour store. And one that sold ‘toys’ far more interesting than that stupid, uptight robot’s wares in Diamond City. Now he thought about it, he couldn’t understand how all of this had happened just a few feet away from her.

‘They’ve got some skills, the bastards who did it.’ KLEO said in her usual cool tone, although he could swear it had some anger to it, as impossible as that was. ‘I had my back turned, I was fixing a missile launcher a scavver brought in last week. Then all of a sudden, Dr Amari was turning me back on.’

‘They hacked you?’ Nick asked, with a whistle of surprise.

‘So it would seem.’

‘I guess we should all just be grateful they didn’t set you to self-destruct.’ Hancock mused. The other two stared at him with mute annoyance. ‘What? I’m just saying.’

She walked back to her shop and Nick sat on the bench to make a few notes.

They betrayed us. ?

Organised, brought supplies. Skilled and quiet - hacked KLEO. No other witnesses. Premeditated. But why?

MOTIVE?

He felt Hancock sit down next to him.

‘So, what’ve you got?’ Hancock asked, craning over to look at his notes, short as they were.

‘Not much yet. They cased the place, that I’m sure of.’ Nick began confidently. ‘They had to, if even for a short while. After all, they hit at the perfect time, and they took out the best defense and star witness.’

‘But that tells us nothing. People come and go all the time, almost all of them suspicious.’ Hancock replied, sounding exasperated. He perked up a little as he realized something. ‘So you do think they were outsiders?’ Hancock asked.

‘I don’t think it was one of your own. If it were a robbery gone bad, then sure, I could believe that, just about.’

Hancock shrugged as if to admit that this was reasonable.

‘But no. This was a hit. Against the whole town, going by that graffiti. But I can’t think of anyone that Goodneighbor can be said to have cumulatively betrayed. Unless there’s something you’re not telling me.’ Nick continued, thinking out loud.

‘An open book as always, I swear.’

The detective was inclined to believe this.

‘They betrayed us.’ Nick repeated the words slowly, trying to imbue them with meaning, but they remained elusive. There was no ‘they’ that Daisy belonged to except the town she’d lived in since its foundation.

He stared down at his notebook some more, wracking his brains for anything that might link to that slogan, but he came up with nothing.

‘I need to take a more thorough look through her belongings.’

‘Knock yourself out. I’ll be back in a bit.’ Hancock said, striding purposefully towards the state house, presumably, Nick decided, to begin to put the word about subtly that the detective had decided that the murderer wasn’t a local resident, and allow the tensions to deflate.

He climbed back up the stairs to the hideous scene. It was no less shocking for seeing it a second time. If anything, the sheer violence of it, and the hatred that implied, unsettled him even more when it wasn’t filtered through numbing shock. He crouched down and had a thorough look.

He couldn’t be sure, with no forensic investigator to turn to, but his memory of blood splatter analysis suggested that she had been alive when her throat had been cut, judging by the high spray of blood on the wall. As no one had heard any cries of pain or terror, he surmised that this had been done first, and that all the other injuries were post-mortem.

‘A small mercy, at least.’ He muttered to himself, although it was probably a matter of expediency instead.

The other wounds were also remarkable for their sheer range - some were deep slashes, others stabs, some very shallow cuts too, to say nothing of the dismembered leg. It suggested that multiple people were involved. That perhaps explained the ‘us’ part of the slogan.

He covered her in a sheet and turned to the rest of the room. Although it was sparse, it was by no means uninformative. Her desk was a small trove of bits and pieces of the old world, not materially valuable - Daisy was no fool when it came to parting with such things downstairs - but nostalgic. He chuckled a little at a torn-out bit of newspaper from the last few months before the bombs, which contained an ad for a short lived, local Nuka-Cola variant - Nuka Cola Junior with added milk for growing tots, which had been both absolutely disgusting and a now-forgotten in-joke for Bostonians of the time. One particularly famous bar in the Financial District had even made a tongue in cheek variation on a white Russian based on it, until they’d been sued into oblivion by Bradberton and forced to close down for good. Neither of them had ever tried it.

Next to that was a broken piece of a clock that he half-remembered had been part of the standard decor in one or other of the chain coffee places that the real Nick had spent so much time in. There were other curios of a more personal kind - a scrap of ribbon carefully folded up, a couple of book jackets, a crudely made little wooden figurine, that were beyond any understanding, now that Daisy was dead.

He sat down heavily on her ramshackle bed, turning the small figurine over in his hands, feeling very apart from the world around him. The cruel, half-broken world. If he were the real Nick, if this were pre-war, he’d have a whole team here now. There would be shocked neighbors, who would say they’d never seen anything like this before. Who wouldn’t have to be subtly dissuaded from robbing their friend before she was even cold.  He’d have case files and a database to turn to.

It didn’t do to dwell on the past like this, but today, it was impossible to stop apparently.

‘You deserved better.’ He said to the figure beneath the sheet. ‘I’m gonna find the bastards.’

There was no response to this promise, only silence. He wallowed in it as he sat, still turning the figure over and over, his mind half in the past and half on the case, and all of it bewildered.

‘Nick, you still up there?’ He heard Hancock rasp up the stairs.

‘Yea.’ He said, suddenly aware that he had been sitting there a long while, and that the sunny morning appeared to have become a cloudy afternoon.

‘Find much else out?’

Nick shook his head. ‘More questions, and a couple of hunches. Nothing too useful. It was a group of them though.’

‘I guessed as much already.’ Hancock said, taking a seat next to him, dipping the camp bed nearly to the floor, staring at the body in front of them both. Her blood was starting to dry on the floorboards.

‘Y’know, if this was anyone else, I could take a guess why this happened. There aren’t many clean hands here. Mine sure as hell aren’t. But hers were.’

‘If it was against the whole town, maybe she just got unlucky. Maybe it’s just because her house is the first one inside the gate.’ Nick said, uncertainly. The Commonwealth was certainly cruel enough for this to be enough of a reason, but his instincts told him this wasn’t the case.

‘It’s a popular enough theory round here already.’ Hancock said, voice harsher than usual. Nick realized, now, that many of the usual sounds of the city, the chatting on street corners, the sounds of people cooking, brawling, or laughing, were missing. It seemed that everyone had gone to ground. For now, at least, the man sitting next to him was mayor only to a ghost town.

‘I should be heading back to the city.’ Nick said; the eerie silence had focused him back to the task at hand.

Hancock turned sharply to look at him. ‘So that’s it? You’re just leaving?’ There was something unpleasant in his tone, a smugness under his surprise, as if to say he wasn’t surprised Nick was giving up and leaving.

Nick sighed with annoyance. ‘I need to check my files. And ask around there, too. There’s no better place round here to get a lead on a bunch of righteous, murderous nutjobs, than the largest city. They may have passed through.’

Hancock relaxed slightly. ‘Oh. Well, you can’t right now. There’s a bunch of super mutants hanging around outside the gate. They’ve got one of those damn suiciders with them. They’ve started a fire too, I think they’re planning on sticking around till at least nightfall.’

Nick swore. He wasn’t foolish enough to take one of those on without a damn good reason, but the thought of being stuck in Goodneighbor overnight seemed like a pretty damn good one.

‘Sorry you’ll have to spend a night away from fascist central. I know how much you love it there.’ Hancock said flatly.

This was going to be a very long afternoon. On the other hand, it was a minor miracle they’d made it this far through the day without the topic coming up.

‘I’m sure there’s a spare crate somewhere in the State House you can crash on. Or in.’ Hancock continued.

‘I can make my own arrangements just fine.’ Nick said coldly, intending to pay for a room at the Rexford. Immediately after saying this, he realized he didn’t have the caps on him after paying Matilda that morning, but he’d rather have taken on a feral in power armor than admit it and relent.

‘Come and see me before you leave tomorrow. We have a few final details to work out.’ Hancock said, not waiting for a reply before he strode off, presumably to the Third Rail, although Nick watched him get intercepted by a couple of local residents, who called out his name, seemingly to arbitrate a disagreement about a sleeping bag arrangement.

It was still a little strange to hear people call him Hancock, even after several years. Nick considered this for a moment, wondering how this man who had shed his name, his home and even what had once been his face, had remained in all essence the same man he had always been. Nick felt a strange, sour feeling that he was surprised to realize was envy. He stood up hastily, as if to leave this emotion, and any examination of it, behind him. He took a few steps towards the body, determined to keep his mind on the case.

There was nothing more to be learned from it, though, and so he took the sheet from the bed and wrapped her carefully in it, before going to look for Fahrenheit. To his surprise, he found her standing outside Daisy’s shop. He wondered how long she’d been stood there, although he didn’t have to guess at who she was waiting for. The moment she saw him, she hurried over.

‘I don’t know what you do as far as body disposal goes.’ Nick asked; he’d never noticed a graveyard of any sort in the small town. Fahrenheit stopped to consider this.

‘Well normally we just throw them over the wall.’ She said bluntly. ‘Doesn’t seem right to do that with her though.’

Nick nodded in agreement.

‘I’ll ask the boss. Just leave her where she is for now. She’s not going anywhere.’

Although Fahrenheit’s tone remained as callous as usual, she couldn’t keep a trace of sadness from her expression.

‘What did you want to talk about anyway?’ He asked, and this restored her face to its usual, impenetrable mask.

‘I need you to sort this out as fast as you can.’

‘You can rest assured I will. Daisy was my friend-’

Fahrenheit made a noise of irritation. ‘And that’s a problem. That that’s how you’re seeing this, is a problem. Half the town is still ready to draw on each other, despite what you’ve said, and the other half is ready to draw on anyone who walks through the front door. The former of which isn’t great, but the latter of which is much worse for a town like this one.’

A town that relied on travelers of all kinds - those lying low, those looking to trade, and those just looking for a good time. A town that, without said travelers, would wither away to nothing before long.

‘This isn’t about Daisy anymore. It’s about Goodneighbor. If we don’t sort this out soon, we could lose everything. I’m not going to let you let that happen.’

He had to admit to himself then that there was an element of truth to what she said, however bluntly she put it. He silently reprimanded himself again for wallowing in the nostalgia the case was bringing up.

‘Understood.’ He said, and she relaxed slightly.

‘C’mon Nick. I need you to, you know.’ She said, clicking her fingers to indicate that she needed him to keep his head in the game. To stop wallowing on the past and his own frustrations when so many were relying on him. Inwardly he swore at himself.

‘I will do everything I can.’ He promised. ‘As soon as I can get out of here tomorrow.’

‘Those fucking mutants.’ She muttered. ‘If they weren’t just outside the gate, I’d set that suicider off and take them all out, but as it is…’

‘It’s alright. I’ll leave as soon as they’ve taken off.’

She nodded and walked away briskly back into the State House, and he went next door to KLEO’s shop, deciding to take advantage and prepare for as quick a departure as possible the next morning.

‘Looking for something fun?’ She asked him.

‘Just a bit of ammo. I’m running low. You’ll have to get Hancock to pay, but he owes me.’

‘I suppose I can work with that.’

‘How’re you feeling?’ He asked, and in the several seconds before she answered, he wondered if she understood his question fully. Although she was a remarkable assaultron, she was still an assaultron.

‘I don’t like this.’ She replied finally, her voice as cool as ever. ‘I don’t like this at all.’

She had nothing else to say on the matter, and he spent the rest of their conversation fielding her usual shop talk as she rummaged around under the counter and then wrote an IOU for him to take to Hancock the next morning.

‘Please remind him that I am still capable of levelling this entire town using only my face, should he attempt to resist payment.’ She said, as she handed it over.

‘I’m sure nothing is further from his mind.’ Nick said, quite untruthfully.

By now it was growing dark, and he steeled himself. With the Rexford beyond unlikely to accept a similar IOU, and the State House less tempting than sleeping in a deathclaw’s nest, he was left with only one viable alternative. He felt his palms tingling, a remembered response of flesh and nerves that his current body lacked, as he approached the Memory Den and walked inside.

Irma was sitting in state on her chaise longue as usual (he wondered when he’d last seen her out of it, if ever), and looked entirely unsurprised to see him.

The room looked unchanged from when he had last seen it, even the patrons plugged in to their pods were suspiciously familiar. He always tried to avoid the place, and it had been nearly a year since he’d last had to set foot inside looking for a husband who’d run off with the family cap stash for a good time. The itching intensified as the memories of the dozens of times he’d slunk in here, too weak and foolish to walk away, came back to him all at once, even more gut-wrenching than normal given his current sentimentality.

‘Nick.’ She said, sadly. ‘I heard you’d been hired. I’m relieved. If anyone can get to the bottom of this, it’s you.’

‘I’ll do what I can. I need a favor. I’m a little light at the moment. Do you mind if I…’ He said, pointing vaguely at one of the couches on the side of the room.

‘Of course. I’ll do you one better, even. My lodger is off on some foolish adventure looking for more Silver Shroud merchandise. I’m sure he wouldn’t mind you using his room. You did help save his life, after all.’

‘You’re too good to me.’ He said, his relief at being able to spend the night in a different room from the pods allowing him to slide back into their usual banter. Even now - especially now, after the day he’d had - the possibility of revisiting old memories was as alluring as it was horrifying.

‘I know I am.’ She said with a smile. ‘The door’s unlocked. I’m sure you’ll be wanting to get in there now. You must have a lot to mull over.’

She was right, although not in the way she meant, nor was he prepared to do any such thing right now. Instead he excused himself, lay down on the announcer’s bed, and immediately turned himself off, grateful, as he so often was, for the fact that synths can’t dream.

Chapter Text

He had set his internal alarm to wake him up at 6.30 in the morning, and so he was surprised to find himself awoken, suddenly and rudely, even earlier than that. By the scent and the pace of his breathing he could tell it was Hancock. 

‘Come back at a more decent time, for god’s sake, John.’ He hissed, with a familiarity that, in his half-sleeping reboot phase, he forgot he hadn’t been entitled to for a long time.

‘You’ve had enough beauty sleep, you look as stunning as ever.’ Hancock replied with a laugh, a sound made jittery by what he assumed was a recent hit of jet, but Nick was distracted by the realization that someone else was there. He sat up and turned on a light.

‘Nora? What are you doing here?’

She looked very tired, more weary and worn down than an early morning start would explain.

‘I went looking for you in Diamond City, and I heard you were here.’ She said quietly.

‘What is it?’

‘A case. But when I got here, it turned out you might already be on it.’

Now fully awake, he drew the notebook out of his coat pocket and turned to the next blank page to begin taking notes.

‘Go on.’

She summarized for them briefly, and Nick became more concerned with every word. She had been in Goodneighbor a couple of weeks before, and had run into someone she knew pre-war, strangely enough, the very same employee of Vault Tec who had assigned her family to Vault 111, and who’d survived as a ghoul. Nick had seen him around over the years, a sad, unobtrusive man, entirely unmemorable but for the fact he’d lived so long and survived so much – and barely memorable even then. Nora had persuaded him to move to Sanctuary and make a place for himself at the small, but growing, community she had founded there.

He hadn’t turned up over a week later, when Nora had gone to check how he was settling in, despite planning to leave Goodneighbor that very same day. She’d scoured all the roads he could have feasibly taken to get up north, and found no sign of him - no body, no notes, no abandoned luggage. It was as if he’d been swallowed up by the earth.

‘I checked at the Rexford. They confirmed he paid up and left the same day. Wouldn’t shut up about how excited he was to be heading up there, apparently.’ John butted in.

‘It’s a dangerous route in parts. Anything could have happened to him.’ Nick said, with some sympathy. Nora looked incredibly guilty, he supposed because it was she who had convinced him to leave Goodneighbor and set out towards Sanctuary by himself.

‘I know that, Nick. But to not even find a body - what would raiders do with his body? They’d just shoot him, take his stuff, and leave him on the road. Even if he got killed by animals, I’d have found something. You don’t know how thoroughly I’ve searched.’

‘And he was one of us. Sort of.’ Hancock went on. ‘If someone is targeting the town, maybe they got him too.’

Nick couldn’t deny that this was a possibility. ‘I’m heading to Diamond City soon to make further enquiries. Why don’t you come with me? Two pairs of eyes are better than one.’ He asked her, subtly turning to block Hancock from the discussion, to make it clear the invitation was not to him.

‘I can’t, I’ve… we’re at a sensitive point in…the project…’ She tailed off, gesturing vaguely. Hancock pried no further; her business was her own as far as he was concerned. Nick too asked no further, not needing to. Her project, which had always seemed unwise to him, made him even more uneasy now.

Because her project was Nate. Nate, who still sat frozen, an eternally fresh corpse, in their Vault. Nora had rescued some scientists from the Institute, just before its destruction, who were pioneering cloning technology for Father in secret. She’d told Nick about this one night after one too many Gwinnett Stouts. He wondered if she even remembered.

‘I’ve got to try. It should be possible, they say. How could I not? I know you’d understand. You do understand, right?’ She’d slurred. And he did, to a point. Jennifer had deserved more time. But would he want that time to be here and now? Absolutely not, and gently, he’d told Nora as much at the time. But now another thought, strange, and intrusive, and bordering on treacherous, crept in. That perhaps he wouldn’t want Jennifer here for his own sake. That perhaps he would rather let her lie with the past. His mind threatened to wander down this strange path again, the path it had been drawn to so much of late, but Nora continued.

‘But I figure you’ll still have two pairs if you both look into this without me.’ She said.

‘Both?’ Nick said.

‘Yeah. I’m coming with you.’ Hancock said, tone confident and airy as if this weren’t a crazy suggestion.

‘No.’ Nick said, just as firmly.

‘I’d better get going. I’ll leave you two to work out the details.’ Nora said. She paused for a moment, clearly mulling over some delicate phrasing. ‘I know you two have had your… disagreements. But there’s a lot resting on this. For all of us. Please don’t forget that.’

She excused herself and left to head back on the road. As soon as she’d gone, before Nick could continue objecting, Hancock had dragged the chair over and plopped himself onto it.

‘I have a theory.’ He said.

‘Go on.’ Nick replied, wrong-footed by the segue.

‘Maybe this person is just hunting ghouls. That’s the only thing Daisy and that Vault-Tec guy had in common. Before we blew them out of the sky, the Brotherhood had lots of time to spread their toxic bullshit round the Commonwealth. Maybe this is some former Aspirant or something, just continuing their work.’

This wasn’t the most outlandish idea Nick had heard, and a similar thought had been forming in his mind. While the Brotherhood had left, they had also left behind a certain puritanical fervor among some inhabitants that left a bad taste in Nick’s mouth whenever he encountered it. He himself had been called an abomination more frequently since their recruitment drive started, and even after it had ended. 

‘Where’s the betrayal, though?’ He said, recalling the message from the wall.

‘Good point. Maybe betrayal just for being ghouls? Betrayal of their humanity?’

‘That’d be quite an extreme interpretation.’ Nick said, and realized just then that he’d walked into a trap, at just the moment Hancock realized he’d set it.

‘That interpretation was good enough for Diamond City when they threw them all out on their ear.’ The mayor said curtly.

‘It’s not the same thing.’ Nick said, wishing Nora had stuck around for a little longer to remind Hancock of her parting words.

‘It amounted to the same thing for some people. They’re still dead.’

They weren’t going to have this discussion now. Or ever, if Nick got his way.

‘Super mutants gone then? They must be, if Nora arrived.’ He said, not looking at Hancock’s face.

‘They’re gone in a manner of speaking. I’d watch your step through the bodies though.’ Hancock spat out.

‘Then I’ll be gone in a minute or two. I don’t know when I’ll be back, but it will be as soon as possible.’

He rose and pushed past Hancock towards the door, keeping his eyes averted from the pods, but Hancock followed doggedly; the conversation wasn’t over.

‘What was that you were saying about two pairs of eyes? What are these?’ Hancock said, pointing at his face as he scurried after, and in front of, Nick, who was heading, with as much determination and speed as he could muster, towards the front gate. It was still dark outside, and there was no one else around to overhear them.

‘I did.’ Nick admitted. ‘But shouldn’t you stay here? At the helm?’ It was the first thing he grasped at that had any chance of deflating the growing tension, and that didn’t stray too close to the truth.

‘Real kind of you think of me.’ Hancock said sarcastically. ‘But this is a town of doers. My town of doers. So I need to go do. Fahrenheit can keep things in check for a couple of days.’

Nick considered this a moment. ‘But what if something else happens around here? And you’re gone?’

Hancock peered at him suspiciously. ‘That sounds real sensible. But you’re not telling me the truth.’

Nick, not for the first time, wondered how John hadn’t ended up becoming an investigator himself; he was far too good at reading Nick’s face, as inhuman as it was.

‘You’re nervous.’ He continued. Nick was nervous. ‘You’re nervous - because you’re going to Diamond City. And you don’t have the balls to ask them to let me come in with you. Nora did a couple of times. So it can be done. By her at least. So why not you?’

There was no point continuing his attempts at evasion. But Nick didn’t think that it would help his case much that what might be allowed for Nora, a human, was not necessarily allowed by a synth. He even found himself growing irritated with Nora for not considering this when she suggested they go together. But of course, the limitations the city put on him as a synth weren’t at the forefront of her mind. And really, Nick could understand the limitations. The Broken Mask incident had been traumatic for the city, and their mistrust of synths couldn’t really be held against them. But even as he quickly rehearsed the argument in his own head, it stung a little.

‘Come on, John, how could I bring you in there? Not only are you a ghoul, but you’re the brother of the synth who tried to destroy the city from the inside! People are still settling down from that bombshell. It’d be the opposite of helpful. It’d be pandemonium.’

‘Well maybe a bit of pandemonium is what that place deserves!’

If he’d been less flustered, he’d have pointed out that pandemonium didn’t go hand in hand with helpful and reasoned investigation, that pandemonium in Diamond City did nothing to help Goodneighbor right now, but he was too angry; angry at himself for being baited like this, angry at Hancock for not being willing to just let this lie when there was an important job to do. An important job that benefited the people Hancock purported to care so much about. And angry at Diamond City, at Nora, at that bigot who ran Diamond City Supplies. At everyone.  

‘Most of them are good people!’ He retorted, despite his anger, pushing past the mayor aggressively, but Hancock encircled his arm in a firm grip and held him still.   

‘Good people? They committed genocide. Do you know what happened to the ghoul families they threw out?’

‘Damnit, you know I do!’

Most were, in fact, still alive. But not all, and that was one of the reasons Nick was grateful not to dream.

‘And you still choose to live there. You chose them. You betrayed us!’ Hancock jabbed his chest with each word for emphasis, shouting words that he had clearly held in for a long time, before finally gesturing up at the daubed message in Daisy’s rooms. ‘If anyone’s a traitor, it’s you.’

There it was. It had taken a whole, impressive eighteen hours together for their final argument at the front gate of Diamond City, all those years earlier, to pick right back up again.

‘I know you’ve never been good at understanding this,’ Nick flung back, pushing his hand away forcefully, feeling something structural in his arm bend in the process, ‘but sometimes, things are complicated! Sometimes, you’ve got to work with what you have, even if-’

‘-even if you know it’s wrong? That it’s evil?’

‘Not all of us can run away to Goodneighbor to live our lives in a drugged-up stupor.’ The words felt cruel even as they came out, but somehow he couldn’t stop. ‘Some of us are actually trying to do things, help people! Most of us are just trying to get by - Diamond City included! We don’t all have the luxuries you did, before you threw it all away.’

For half a second, Nick was sure that Hancock was going to pull a shotgun on him. From his expression, he was certainly considering it.

‘Well, you just keep telling yourself that. Whatever helps you sleep at night. But before you start looking down your nose at me, let me remind you that you once spent two weeks straight in the Memory Den, and that Irma had to throw you out when you ran out of caps. And if I remember correctly, you sat on the ground outside it and cried for hours. So don’t pretend you’re better than me.’

It was one of the lowest points of Nick’s life. It was, in fact, so shameful it had been the turning point he’d used to stop going there.  

‘You say I’ve got my head in the sand?’ Hancock continued. ‘At least I’m living in the present.’

For half a second, Nick was sure that he was going to pull a gun on the ghoul in front of him, but he couldn’t have even if he’d really wanted to, rooted to the spot by the white-hot anger mixed with shame that coursed through him. And the frustration that even now, after all these years, they were still incapable of having a conversation about what had happened that didn’t end like this.

‘Go on then, get the fuck out of here. Come back when you have answers.’ Hancock said, not waiting for a response before he pushed Nick through the front gate and slammed it hard behind him. It took him several minutes to calm down enough to leave, and he was still so angry he tripped over a mutant (luckily already dead).

The walk back to Diamond City was entirely uneventful, which, he reflected as soon as he reached the front gate, was very fortunate. He was so distracted that he probably wouldn’t have heard a sentry bot trundling behind him at full pelt.

He stood outside the front gate for a few moments, trying to shake off Goodneighbor, its inhabitants, and his own guilt, something he always had to do before heading back into the city after a trip to its smaller, rowdier neighbor.

‘How’re you doing, Nicky?’ One of the guards asked as he walked by on patrol.

‘Oh, just fine.’

‘Matty said you were looking into some trouble in Goodneighbor?’

Nick nodded, and the guard laughed heartily.

‘That’s like looking for brahmin shit under a farmer’s fingernails.’

‘This time it was different.’ Nick replied, finding himself angry at the guard’s casual mockery of a place Diamond City had helped make so dangerous by forcing vulnerable ghouls into it.

‘If you say so.’ The guard said mildly, with a condescending look on his face that said he found that hard to believe.

‘I’d best be going.’ Nick said, nodding his goodbye curtly and walking through the gate fast before the guard could respond.

He walked up the steps and took in the sight of the market, already bustling despite the early hour. Soon it would be full of the familiar cacophony of haggling, arguing, caps being counted out, workbenches being used, laughter, arguments, the general bustle of life. It all felt, as it often did after he’d been to Goodneighbor, very distant from himself, even as he stood in the middle of it.

He wished Piper were around the place. She was always ready with good advice buried in an acid quip. But since the unmasking and destruction of the Institute, her work had taken a different route, to that of roving reporter. Something’s got to get Diamond City interested in the outside world again, she’d argued, and since then had sent back reports of the wonders and oddities she’d found around the Commonwealth for Nat to print in the paper. He couldn’t fault the plan, and he’d greatly enjoyed reading her work – and enjoyed seeing other people read it even more. But he would have given a cap or two for her advice right now.

He hurried back to the agency, not stopping to do more than nod familiarly to people who greeted him, and closed the door firmly behind him.

‘Oh, really, Nick. You might have left a note!’ Ellie said, poking her head around to the entrance way, huffing with irritation mixed with relief.

‘You’d be bored if I did.’

‘I’d have fewer lines.’ She retorted, pointing at the fine crows feet that had appeared at the corners of her eyes in the past few months, although there was no real heat to her words.

‘I didn’t think I’d be gone more than a couple of hours.’

‘You always say that.’

He always did, although this time it had actually been true, which he felt deserved some recognition.

‘If I might borrow your formidable powers of memory for something other than chastising me, as deserved as that is, does this jog anything?’

He briefly outlined the events of the previous day, sparing her the worst of the details, although tears still brimmed from her eyes. She had met Daisy a few times over the years and the ghoul had left as good an impression on Ellie as on anyone else.

‘Those monsters.’ She said, and her ability to remain so strongly outraged by malice and cruelty, despite their line of work and the world she had grown up, was something Nick had always greatly admired in her. ‘I hope they rot.’

She set to looking through her files, flicking from one to the other and tutting with frustration, until she suddenly stopped and turned back to him. ‘Actually, there is something.’

She turned and rummaged around in a different filing cabinet, pulling a single piece of paper from near the top triumphantly.

‘Yes, this is it. It wasn’t a case, it was just a bit of news.’

Nick looked at her quizzically. ‘Planning to start a gossip rag?’

‘Nothing like that. Piper wouldn’t approve. Only, it was so strange that I made a note of it for our general files. Just in case.’ Ellie went on.

‘What would I do without you.’ He said, only half joking.

‘Not a whole lot.’

After reading only the first sentence, it clicked into place for Nick too, and he was sure that a vague memory of the event she’d noted, rather than an actual case, was what had been playing on his mind earlier, back in Goodneighbor, when he’d felt determined to come back home to check the files.

‘She’s still here, isn’t she?’ He asked.

Ellie nodded. ‘Farming, for now, although Professor Scara’s been sniffing around to apprentice her. She’s bunking one of the beds by the field, she’s probably around now if you need to talk to her.’

Chapter Text

Nick headed out straight away; time was still of the essence. He found Natalia, the woman in question, sitting on her bed and reading a comic in the early morning light.

‘Miss?’ He said to her, trying to ignore the way she flinched when she looked up and saw that she was being greeted by a synth. Her face broke out into an overly wide smile to compensate, which did little to make him feel better.

‘Detective! Sorry, you startled me.’

‘My apologies, not my intention, to be sure. I just wanted to ask you about your attack the other week, if that’s alright.’

Her smile dimmed a bit. ‘I don’t have any money to look into it. Sorry.’ She mumbled, drawing her leg protectively up to her chest, and he recalled now that a terrible gash across her stomach was one of the wounds she had suffered.

‘I’m not looking to charge you. This is in connection with another case.’

Her smile vanished entirely. ‘Oh no, did they attack someone else as well?’

Even now, several weeks, a drastic haircut, and a wardrobe change later, you could mark the lady out as a vault dweller; no one born and bred in the Commonwealth proper would have cared quite so much about an attack on a stranger, not even Ellie. He sincerely hoped Natalia wasn’t planning on leaving; he didn’t rate her chances outside of Diamond City.

Not that she’d have to leave. He recalled now that she had been an assistant to the scientist in Vault 88, and he could now see strange grafts on a couple of the mutfruit plants, presumably her doing, already beginning to take. If they improved production or quality, she’d have more than earned the right to stay. Being a human helped too, of course, a small voice in his head, that sounded oddly like Hancock, added.

‘Maybe.’ He said, in answer to her question.

‘Well, ask away. However I can help, I will.’

He hoped fervently again that she never tried to strike out and leave the walls of Diamond City.

‘Can you tell me the whole story from the beginning? All the details, no matter how small they seem.’

She nodded and launched into a confused, repetitious but chilling account of events. She had left Vault 81 several weeks ago, determined to escape the tedium of vault life and find adventure herself, as some others had done before. Only a short way out of the place, she’d been ambushed.

‘I don’t think, that is to say, they didn’t - it was a bit weird.’ She stuttered out as she got to the worst of it.

‘Weird?’ Nick asked. It wasn’t how he’d describe the terrible attack she’d just been describing.

‘It’s only now, that I get less scared thinking about it, that I’ve realized that it was weird. You see, it wasn’t entirely random. They followed me from the vault, I think. It seemed that way from how they talked - and that was really weird too. What they said.’

‘What did they say?’

‘Something about betrayal? Treachery? One of them, their leader, he was so angry. Touched in the head. He called me a… a handmaiden of Vault-Tec. I don’t know what that meant.’ She shivered. ‘He seemed to hate me. Like, really, truly hate me, like I’d killed his family or something. I still see that look on his face sometimes. At night.’

‘I’m so sorry.’ He said, and though he meant it, his mind was racing with the thrill of a lead, and the certainty that this was the same group of people who got Daisy. It was too big a coincidence otherwise. He looked down as something surprising caught his eye.

‘You still have your pip-boy.’ He said.

She nodded emphatically, even as she pulled her sleeve down to try and hide its unconcealable bulk. ‘Yeah, that was the other part that was weird. They didn’t take it. They didn’t take anything, not that, not my caps, or my food. It made no sense.’

‘Very strange.’ Nick murmured in agreement. ‘Please go on.’

‘Well, then they…’ She gestured with vague stabbing motions at her chest, shuddering slightly at the memory. ‘I was down near Hubris Comics when it happened. They got too rowdy, and something scared them off. They headed down towards the common, and I started crawling in the opposite direction. By sheer luck, I made it to the walls, and one of the guards found me and brought me in here. I’m never leaving again.’

‘The Commonwealth is a dangerous place.’

‘This is the only decent place in it. The rest seems full of animals.’ She replied fervently.

The conversation was straying into dangerous territory, and he could almost hear Hancock laughing at him. He hurriedly moved it along.

‘What did they look like?’

She shrugged. ‘There were four of them. They were all pretty young. Very young, actually. Almost kids. They were dressed like raiders even though, like I said, I don’t think they were, given they didn’t take anything. They were all… well, you know, normal.’

‘Normal?’ Nick asked; he was determined to make her say it even though he knew what she meant. He was still feeling that same defensiveness he’d felt at the gate, and it made his hackles rise at everything.

‘All proper humans. No ghouls or… others.’ She replied, shifting in her seat, having the decency to look a little awkward as she remembered what her audience was.

‘Is there anything else I should know?’

She paused to mull this over. ‘Not really. Sorry, detective. It happened so fast, and I’ve tried to put it out of my mind as much as I can.’

‘Naturally.’

‘But I will say, I don’t think I’ve gotten across to you how angry they were.’ She shuddered slightly. ‘I think, if they’d had the opportunity, they would have torn me apart.’

Nick didn’t feel the need to confirm this suspicion for her. ‘Well, it’s behind you now. And you’re behind the strongest walls in the Commonwealth.’

She relaxed. ‘There’s good people here. When the people in the vault used to warn me about outside, they can’t have meant such a warm and welcoming place as this. Even Vault 88 could learn a thing or two from it.’

He got out of the conversation as fast as he could, scurrying fast, head down, back to the agency as if he could shut its door against the bitter ghoulish smirk he couldn’t help but picture.

He’d expected - hoped - to be gone for several days, but he knew that he had to go back to Goodneighbor as soon as possible. Despite the argument he was having with Hancock (and apparently himself), this lead, though none too fresh, was clearly a good one. Time was still of the essence, and this was vital information to capitalize on. Perhaps now he had a vague description, it would jog some memories in Goodneighbor. He allowed himself the time only to write a note to Ellie, then a second note to point out he’d remembered to leave a note this time, before he swept back out of the city and began to head eastwards again.

He had learned a lot from Natalia, but the bigger picture made no more sense than they had that morning.

One thing was sure. Vault-Tec seemed too strong a coincidence between what Natalie had said, and the former occupation of the rep who had gone missing. He still wore his official coat and carried a damned Vault-Tec briefcase even now, as if it meant something.

But that made no sense to Nick. Vault-Tec was a dead company from the distant past, Natalie nothing more than a descendant of some lucky sap who’d been randomly selected to go into one of their vaults. And as far as he was aware, Vault-Tec had nothing to do with Daisy. He vaguely remembered she’d once told him that before the war she’d worked at a Slocum Joe’s.

It wasn’t adding up yet. But he’d done a lot based on less. Perhaps someone in Goodneighbor would be able to make something of it. He’d begin a second round of questioning as soon as he got back. After he told Hancock what he’d learned.

That was, of course, if they were able to have a civil conversation at all after that had happened that morning. He cursed quietly; regretting that he’d allowed it to get so out of hand. Fahrenheit’s warning about the town’s precariousness was at the forefront of his mind now, making him feel guilty. But admittedly, it was just as likely that they’d have an even worse fight when he got back. After all, the powder keg they’d started lighting up this morning was one they’d both been sitting on for quite some years, and not one that either of them could easily smother.

Finally, he was exasperated that Hancock could so easily alienate him from his home with just a few choice remarks. Because Diamond City was his home, a place he was largely accepted, respected even. A place where good people could thrive. Or at least some of them. The mayor could go to hell if he thought otherwise.

He was so caught up in this train of thought, he never heard the footsteps growing faster and louder behind him.

Chapter Text

Nick came back to consciousness yelling and thrashing, his panic immediately intensifying as he realized he was thrashing with only half an arm. The lower part had been torn off. He didn’t feel pain, not like a real person - but the receptors that told him about damage made him want to scream nonetheless. He held up his hand and stared into the stump where it had been, feeling a wave of nausea at all the exposed wiring and plastic innards that snaked and coiled through hard plastic, like some disgusting parody of arteries and bone.

‘You’re alright, Nick.’ He heard Irma say quietly, from somewhere behind him. He could see now that he was in Amari’s rooms and quietened, although every fiber of his being remained taut with panic.

‘You were attacked.’ She continued.

‘My arm.’ He said weakly; as he looked down now at his unclothed body, he could see that it was even worse than that; half of his left arm was indeed gone, but so was the casing on the front of his right thigh, leaving an exposed mass of wires and filaments poking out dangerously. His chest piece, meanwhile, had been neatly put back together, undoubtedly by Amari, but had clearly been in two separate halves not long before. He thought of a ladybug’s insectoid carapace and somehow felt worse. He became aware of an elusive but undeniably wrong sensation in his neck, and put his remaining hand up to it, letting go instantly and gasping.

‘We reattached your head.’ Amari said softly, eyes full of apology, as if she hoped to cushion him from the ghoulishness of what she was saying.

He leaned over the side of the chair to retch involuntarily, although nothing came out of his patchwork body. And nothing would have, except bolts and wires, and whatever chips made up his fake brain, with its fake memories.

It was too much. He started beating his remaining hand as hard as he could on the arm of the chair, his legs thrashing wildly, as he willed himself out of this body and back to flesh. It was an impulse that always rose dangerously close to the surface when he was injured even slightly, and he’d been torn apart this time. He screamed so widely he thought his lower jaw might detach.

‘We need to stop him before he-’ He heard Amari say, before he heard and felt nothing more.

When he woke up next, he was in Hancock’s rooms at the State House, and he was restrained. An understandable precaution, he thought to himself now he’d calmed down. He sighed and craned his neck to see what he could of the room. His body felt fine; he had no muscles to feel the strain of his earlier exertions, but his mind felt heavy as if to compensate for this. To his right, Hancock in a snoring pile on one of the sofas, his back turned to Nick. It’d been many years since he’d seen Hancock doing something so peaceful as just sleeping, and the realization rested with an odd heaviness on him.

‘He’s as bad as you.’ He heard Amari say somewhere behind him, jumping slightly, feeling a little embarrassed to have been caught staring.

‘He’s worse.’ Nick whispered back, not wanting to disturb Hancock.

‘There’s no need to be quiet.’ Amari said loudly. ‘He’s coming down off psycho and he hasn’t slept for three days. I don’t think a yao guai walking across a minefield would wake him up.’ She said, as she walked over and untied him, judging him no longer to be a danger to himself.

‘I’m sorry, doc, about how I went ape on you before.’

‘On yourself, really. And it was understandable, given the circumstances.’

‘You’ve fixed my leg.’ He said, suddenly noticing that a new panel covered the wiring of his thigh.

‘Yes. We managed to repurpose an old synth KLEO had lying around. I’m still working on the arm, but it’s nearly ready.’ She explained, as if he were an old car. He was ashamed to find himself wondering, a little viciously, how she’d feel if she woke up and he said he’d grafted someone else’s arm onto her body. He ought to be grateful, and he was deep down. Or rather, he knew he would be later.

‘What’s the matter?’ She went on; evidently, he hadn’t been able to keep his expression neutral.

‘Oh, just, remembering what happened.’ He lied, although as he said this, he made it true, gripping the arm rest as it came back to him.

‘When?’ He asked.

‘Three days ago.’ She said, and he remembered now what she’d said about Hancock not sleeping for that length of time. He looked over at the ghoul quizzically.

‘Someone dragged you in here. To sell you for scrap, most likely. Luckily KLEO recognized you. Or at least the coat. Your arm was still in a sleeve. The mayor - he went mad when he saw. He grabbed all the psycho he had and his shotgun and went out to kill every raider he could find, cause he’d be bound to get the one who did this to you. That’s how he put it anyway. He’d left before we realized you weren’t dead. It was an awkward three days, I can tell you. Things were very tense around here until he got back last night. I think Fahrenheit might kill him if he ever wakes up again.’

The tightness in his chest tightened some more, but there was no time to dwell on this or the growing guilt at being the cause of more uncertainty in Goodneighbor. More and more details were coming back to him.

‘This wasn’t raiders.’ He explained. ‘Get me a bucket of water to throw at him. We need him awake, now.’

‘Water doesn’t work. I’ve got a trick.’ Amari said wearily. She pointed a finger and jabbed it once, very deliberately, into the hollow of Hancock’s throat until he choked a little, deftly dodging his body as it crashed to the floor. Nick could see now that his shirt was covered in dried blood, seemingly not his own.

He grumbled incoherently from the floor.

‘Valentine’s awake. He needs to speak to you.’ Amari said.

At that, Hancock lurched uncertainly to his feet, tripping slightly and ending up on a chair in a nearly upright position. Nick supposed the chair may have been placed there for just such occurrences. He slumped in Nick’s general direction and fixed him with bloodshot eyes.

‘God, Nick, I thought-’

‘-It wasn’t raiders.’ Nick repeated, cutting across him. This was too important, too urgent, to become just a prelude to a rerun of their argument which, even now, seemed like a distinct possibility. Hancock seemed to understand this, as he came to a halt and sat back quietly, with a little shake of his head, like a dog shaking off rain.

‘Tell us what happened.’ He said, sobering with remarkable speed. Nick took a deep breath and recounted his story.

By the time he’d heard the footsteps, they’d been on him, and had him down on the ground before he could even get his hand into his coat pocket for his gun. They’d held him, one on each arm while another, their leader had stood apart, orchestrating the whole thing.

It was instantly clear that this was the same group that had attacked Natalia and, presumably Daisy and the Vault-Tec Rep. However, it was missing a member if Natalia had remembered their numbers correctly. They were as young as she’d said, and their leader nearly burned with a vicious hatred. A hatred that had been focused, laser-like, onto Nick.

After they’d pinned him down, there had been a stretch of silence, and Nick would normally have filled it with a sarcastic remark, but the strength of that hatred had been so overwhelming, he’d remained completely silent.

‘We know who you are.’ The leader had spat at him, finally. ‘What you are.’

‘Well that’s not hard, the plastic skin does somewhat give me away.’ Nick had replied, finding his voice, although it had sounded reedy and uncertain. His mind raced. What would a synth, two ghouls, and a vault dweller have in common to this bigot? It sounded like the set up to a bad joke. And more importantly, what did this have to do with Vault-Tec? After all, it was well known he’d been made in the Institute.

The leader kicked him hard, apparently as much out of frustration as anger.

‘Not that.’ He continued. ‘You’re what remains of Nick Valentine. The pre-war law man.’ The leader spat out.

He had been attacked many times simply for being Nick. For being a dogged detective, for interfering in people’s business, for killing their relatives or friends, for snooping into affairs. Many had found a reason to hate him that had nothing to do with his synthetic nature, but with his profession. But that clearly wasn’t what this boy meant.

The leader continued his spiel. ‘You’re what remains of Nick Valentine, one of the dregs of the old world. And paid lackey of its evil overlords.’

Nick’s mind was racing, and he tried to play for time. ‘You really like fancy words, don’t you? Sounds like you’ve been reading too many comics. Overlords, handmaidens-’

He hadn’t gotten the chance to finish, before blows started to rain down on him, and he could only dimly make out, through the clattering, hollow sounds of his own body being battered, their leader repeatedly screaming half-formed thoughts about the old world and its betrayal of the future. About how his generation, and the Commonwealth in general, deserved vengeance against dregs like him and the others for what they’d done and for the world they’d made.

‘But I’m not- I didn’t do-’ He managed to force out, although he’d gone very quiet after someone had brought out an axe and presented it to their leader.

He didn’t care to remember anything after that.

‘Those bastards.’ Hancock said, voice quiet and dangerous, after he’d finished telling them the whole sorry tale. ‘I’m gonna do to them what they did to you. And there won’t be any fixes for them afterwards.’

‘You may get the chance pretty soon. I think I know where they went.’ Nick replied, getting gingerly to his feet.

Chapter Text

‘I’m coming with you.’ Hancock said, and this time there was no argument from Nick, whose left arm was still detached from his body, and whose need for backup was indisputable until Amari could finish working her magic. And as they weren’t going to Diamond City, Nick had no good reason to refuse Hancock’s company. Hancock had even been gracious enough not to point this out while making his case.

As he’d been about to lose consciousness, Nick had heard one of his attackers, not the leader, saying something about wanting to head back to the vault. They’d spoken quite freely in front of him; they’d had no reason not to, assuming that he was dead. He’d been too panicked at the time to do anything more than hold onto that phrase, but almost immediately upon waking up in the State House he’d made the connection from that, to the fact Natalia had described them running to the Common, to the fact that since Skinny Malone’s death, Vault 114 had been empty.

Although he was still not back in one piece, they both agreed that time was of the essence. Amari had to help him into his battered trench coat, patched together as hastily as he himself was, as he was still short half an arm. He was beginning to look like a ragdoll, he murmured to the doctor as she pinned up his empty sleeve. She didn’t laugh.   

The urgency was not, however, enough to prevent Hancock from giving a speech before they left.

‘Besides, we should wait for it to get completely dark before we go. There’s been a lot of Gunner patrols round here lately and I don’t rate our chances if they spot us. Got about an hour till then.’ He’d argued, and while Nick wasn’t keen on delay, given they’d already had a three day head start, he could see the sense in waiting for nightfall.

He stayed in the statehouse, refusing Hancock’s invitation to join him on the balcony, although the sound travelled through the door too well for him to ignore. It was a powerful speech, rousing too, if the faint baying noises were anything to judge by. There was one word that kept coming up, kept being spat from the mayor’s mouth as if it were dirty: they. They did this to us. They attacked us. And now Hancock and the detective were going to make them pay, the citizens could count on that. It was only at the very end of this speech that Nick realized what this reminded him of, when his thoughts wandered back to the campaign speeches Hancock’s brother had made in Diamond City all those years back. They might attack us. They can’t live amongst us. We’ll get rid of them, you can count on that.

By the time Hancock came back in, it was to a backdrop of raucous applause and jeers that had Nick shifting uncomfortably.

‘That’s better.’ Hancock said, flopping onto the sofa to wait out the remaining minutes until nightfall. ‘I was worried for a while there. But we’re opening up again for business tomorrow morning. By which time I hope we have some heads for the front gate.’

Nick arched an eyebrow.

‘Metaphorically, of course. Although they could do with a bit of decoration.’

He looked down at Nick’s pinned right sleeve. ‘You sure you don’t want me to bring more back up? Not a citizen here who wouldn’t happily join us for justice.’

Back up meant a mob of angry Goodneighbor residents. Nick couldn’t imagine anything more likely to make the situation worse.

‘I think we’ll be fine.’

‘Can you even shoot? They took your right hand after all.’

Nick sighed. ‘The left works just as well. My preference for the right is just nostalgia.’

Hancock tutted at himself. ‘Right, I guess it would be foolish to put limitations like that on a synth out of choice.’

‘I suppose.’ He replied, drumming his remaining fingers on the arm of the sofa.

‘What’s the matter Nicky?’ Hancock said, and Nick wondered if he was even aware he’d used this once familiar nickname.

‘Strange to hear you whip up a crowd, that’s all.’ He was still troubled. Things seemed to be blurring in his mind – man and machine, man and ghoul, one McDonough brother and another. He needed to take some time to straighten himself out once this was over, he decided.

‘I’ve gotta keep the people together. And remind them that this pain and fear they’re feeling, it wasn’t caused by the man next to them. And it can’t be solved by drawing on him either.’

Nick gathered from this that tensions were still running high, even now. 

‘Sometimes, for there to be an us, there must be a them.’ Nick murmured, and Hancock nodded for a few moments before he sharply turned to look at Nick, suddenly wondering if he’d been baited into another argument about the past, but Nick merely looked reflective.

‘Sometimes yes.’ Hancock said firmly. ‘And sometimes, it’s a filthy lie.’

Nick looked him squarely in the face, remembering not Diamond City, but some Canadians he’d known during the old war, good and upstanding people no matter what the government said. The last he’d ever heard of them, they had been taken away. He’d never asked where to.

‘Sometimes.’ He said. Hancock looked thoughtfully at him, although he didn’t notice.  

They sat in silence until it was time to leave, and stole out of the front gate as quietly as possible. The super mutants had cleared out, and the Gunners were, mercifully, occupied by what sounded like a radscorpion attack on their base near the town’s gate, which left them a relatively clear run at the vault so long as they were quiet about it. For all his bombast, Hancock could be as quiet as a cat when he chose to be, and they made it to the station entrance with no more than a couple of mole rats to fend off. They slipped in the front door and let their eyes adjust to the darkness for a few long moments.

Not just darkness, Nick realized, but funereal silence, a quiet so profound he could hear a radroach some way down the tunnels skittering around.

‘No one’s home.’ Hancock said loudly and, although Nick agreed, the mayor’s lack of caution irritated him nonetheless.

‘No harm in being careful.’ He responded with pointed softness. ‘You never know what’s around the corner.’

‘And you never will know until you step around it.’ Hancock replied, striding towards the stairs to go further into the station. Nick watched as he rounded the corner and, without looking, stepped downwards and directly onto the radroach, which burst wetly, spraying Hancock’s boot with innards.

‘And just what if that had been a tripwire?’ Nick asked, as Hancock swore and wiped the remains off on a nearby mattress.

‘I would have noticed.’ He replied, with unshakeable confidence.

Nick sighed.

Even so, Hancock became more cautious as they approached the entrance of the vault itself. As he’d suspected, there were clear signs of habitation; a rickety wooden palisade was tacked onto the vault door, which was still wide open from Nora’s rescue mission. At the base of the palisade were some bits of scrap metal and wiring.

‘Looks like they’ve cleared out.’ Nick said.

‘Looks like one of them was pretty nifty with turrets.’ Hancock said, inspecting the remains at the base, no doubt with KLE0’s sabotage on his mind as well.

‘Goddamnit.’ The mayor, peering up through the door and, seemingly, confirming for himself that the two of them were entirely alone in the vault. ‘I was so sure we had those bastards.’

He kicked the stairs hard. ‘We can’t go back until this is sorted out.’

Nick could see that; Hancock had made promises about heads on spikes after all, metaphorical or not. As much as the town loved their mayor, their adoration would only temper the blow of failure so much.

‘I’m sure we’ll find some sort of clue in there.’ Nick said, resting a hand on his shoulder reassuringly and felt him relax. ‘I am a professional after all.’

This had a soothing effect, although Hancock grumbled as they climbed up the stairs and into the metal structure.

The air was thick with dust, so much so that it forced Nick to seriously consider if Malone had made his triggermen routinely dust the place. His crew had only been about 20 strong, hardly enough to keep the cobwebs at bay just through the bustle of living there, and the vault seemed so profoundly abandoned even a few short months later. Only one thing, in one of the rooms near the front, stood out; a terminal. Its screen had messily wiped clean at some point in the more recent past, as there was only a relatively thin layer of grime on it. It was as good a place to start as any.

It took Nick several minutes and attempts to crack into it - he felt certain from this fact alone that it was locked by the very same person who had built the turrets, although he wasn’t yet sure what to make of that. He only had a few moments to scan the contents before Hancock started craning over his shoulder impatiently.

‘What’s on there?’

‘Recent entries. I don’t think any of Skinny’s triggermen were the sort to be interested in either technology, aside from weapons, or wordsmithing. It must be one of those kids instead.’

‘Well then, let's see what we can find.’

They were indeed journal entries. He found the oldest one, dated to mere days after Nora had swept through the place and freed him, killing Skinny, Darla, and the entire gang in the process. He was still cut up that it had come to that, but in the end they’d had no other choice.

He opened the first entry.

[03-14-2288]

Hey! Not sure who I’m saying hey to exactly, since you’re a terminal. My terminal now, since I’m the one that cracked you open. We just moved in here a couple of days ago, Me, and Jenna, and the guys. I don’t know how we got so lucky. It’s amazing here (well, it is now that we’ve dragged all those bodies out. Hopefully they don’t have any friends that’ll be coming back, but I’m rigging a turret just in case…). I can’t believe we finally have somewhere to call our own. And a vault! Never been in one. Never been diving into many pre-war ruins at all, but this one should be fun. All that technology to study. I’ll keep you updated.’

[03-29-2288]

Amazingly, no friends have come back to kill us or kick us out. This place really is safe, and it’s ours. Can’t believe our luck. The walls are so solid. So different from the shack at mom and dad’s farm. It stays so warm here all the time! I could get used to this. The only issue is food, but Jimmy is looking into starting a glowing fungus farm, there’s a lot of open dirt by the door. That’d keep us going well. And we could sell the stuff, make useful crap out of it too. I can’t believe our wondering is at an end. Now that we’re properly set up, time to start checking out those terminals!’

A bit of a gap in dates, and Nick paused before he went to the next one.

‘What a wholesome kid. Tooth-rottingly sweet, really.’ Hancock said, having read the stuff while peering over his shoulder.

‘It’s very hard to believe this could be any of those boys who attacked me.’ Nick said, troubled to his core at the distinction between the rage-fueled violence of the other evening, and the saccharine note of these terminals. He almost didn’t want to continue, there was a part of him that feared reading on, although he knew it was necessary.

[04-04-2288]

Wow… I don’t know what else to say. I finally started reading the terminals in this place. It’s so...  hecked up, as my mom would say. They were doing experiments on the people who lived here. Not like cutting them open, but mind games. They were playing with them like toys. Really f*****d up stuff (sorry mom). Kinda wish I hadn’t read that.’

Nick’s heart began to sink. Here was the start of it. The next entry was the same day.

[04-04-2288]

Then again, the people they experimented on (as well as them too of course), they caused the Great War. So maybe they… no. It’s too mean even to write down here, where no one else will see it. I feel bad even thinking like that. What would dad say?’

[04-10-2288]

I’ve been sharing my interests with the others. In our down time. Since we found some glowing fungus and started propagating them in the entranceway, everyone’s been getting really excited. We’ve found some work benches here - we could really make some useful stuff with these! But it’s given us a lot of free time while we wait. There’s water here, and we still have food stores enough to last us a while, although Frank has been heading out to Diamond City and Goodneighbor to supplement as necessary. Helpfully we found some caps here too, alongside what the bodies had on them. We’ve really landed on our feet here. They all seem quite interested in these pre-war experiments too. We’re even talking about actively trying to learn more.’

Nick sat down in the chair, not realising he’d done so until Hancock spun him around in it slightly to look at his face with concern. ‘You good to continue?’ Hancock asked him.

‘I’ve got to be.’ Nick said, and turned back to the screen.

[04-21-2288]

We’re going on an adventure! I know it sounds silly, but I’m really excited. We found an old tourist information guide in a store room here, and it looks like one of the buildings round the corner, called Hallucigen, was a big player pre-war. I bet there’s lots to learn there. It had Gunners there till recently, but they seem to be gone. So we’re going to go check it out! The others are just curious. But now, after everything I’ve read, I have a goal in mind. I want to understand how these people let the Great War happen. How they let their world end, and most of them die.  Why they left us such a g*d d**n mess.  I’ve got to find answers there, right?’

Nick had to laugh darkly here. ‘We’d better not tell Nora what a favor she did for them when she cleared that place out.’

To his surprise Hancock was frowning.

‘Have you ever been there?’ He asked.

Nick shook his head. ‘Neither pre or post war. Never had a reason to. Why?’

I don’t know what Nora found in there, but she said it was grim. Really grim.’ Hancock said thoughtfully.

That didn’t bode well.

‘Well, he went from sunshine and rainbows to wishing Vault-Tec experiments on innocent people pretty fast. It’s a shame he never found Covenant, he’d have had a great time there.’ Nick said.

‘Does that bother you, Nick?’

‘Doesn’t it bother you?’ Nick asked a little incredulously. 

‘It’s different. They’re talking about you. Not directly you, I know. But the group of people you belong to. Or belonged to perhaps.’

Nick considered this a moment. ‘I don’t enjoy it, that’s for sure. I was a part of that society but - I don’t think it’s easy to explain to you. And by you, I mean the people who only know after. It didn’t feel like we had any choice. We didn’t make these decisions.’

‘Someone did.’

‘I sure as hell didn’t. Nor did Daisy, or the Rep. There was no option but to go along with things.’ Nick snapped.

‘You were a free man, a man of the law no less. And you were armed.’ Hancock said, unable to comprehend how little it had meant to be a ‘free’ man back then.

He felt the gulf between them in a way he rarely did now. There was no way to make someone like Hancock, who had known only Diamond City and Goodneighbor, understand how things had been before. How big society had been, how far-reaching and over-bearing, and how constrained everyone was.

‘So do you think that boy had a point?’ Nick dared to continue. ‘Do you think he was justified?’

‘What? Of course not. I might not understand the old world. But if you say you were stuck in something, you were stuck in something. If you say you didn’t have other options, I’m willing to go along with that.’

Nick nearly asked himself if that logic applied to Diamond City, but didn’t dare. But Hancock had moved on, returning to the terminal entries and shaking his head.

‘So much rage.’ Hancock said with a whistle. ‘I know he was just at the start of things here, but you can see right where he was gonna end up.’

Nick made a noise of agreement, still mulling the terminal entries over.

‘And you on the receiving end. That can’t be fun.’ Hancock said, a statement more than a question, and startling Nick with his directness.

‘Oh, me? Always loved being the focus of a madman’s murderous attention, myself.’ Nick said, but once again, with his unerring instinct, Hancock had hit upon a sore point. As Nick had been lying there, as he’d been facing his certain death, one thought pushed its way through the panic, the regret, even the blind terror, and up to the forefront of his mind: that the man they wanted wasn’t him. That they were angry at someone else, a man who’d been dead for centuries.

At the time he’d meant it. He even seemed to mean it now – but what did that mean? After all, he’d spent many years desperately chasing that man’s life and memories, seeking their comfort and familiarity - could he honestly say they weren’t his to wallow in? Or at least that he didn’t want them to be? He was still so confused, and that was somehow even more unsettling now than it had been in the immediate aftermath of waking up, when there’d been reattached heads and scavenged body parts to distract him. He both was and was not Nick Valentine. And now he was beginning to discover he wasn’t sure if he even wanted to be.

‘Me too.’ Hancock said with total seriousness, taking little note of Nick’s tone. ‘I spent a wild few days with that artist over near the riverfront once. Talented hands.’

‘I’m not sure I need details.’ Nick said, recalling a ghoulish trip to Pickman’s house he’d once made with Nora.

‘Jealous?’

‘Well,’ Nick said, pursing his lips nervously, ‘A little.’ He paused to let Hancock’s interest pique. ‘Nora said he had beautiful eyes, even if they had a manic glint to them.’

Hancock punched him lightly on the arm, laughing, and Nick grinned back at him, and suddenly he found himself in a nostalgia of a more recent, and far less painful, sort; of bantering like this at the Dugout Inn, at the agency, in the center of the marketplace. Of all the time they’d spent together before McDonough’s election and the fight that had torn them and so many other people apart. He willed himself back to that time, as fiercely as he’d once willed himself back into the memories he wallowed in at the Memory Den. He tried not to dwell on it for too long; they had far more pressing matters.

‘So, they went to Hallucigen. This writer, Jenna, and the boys.’ He said, bringing them back on course. ‘We should head over there. Although I dread to think what we’ll find. After all, that place probably tipped him over the edge.’

Chapter Text

The journey to Hallucigen was quiet. It might even have been peaceful, if not for the task at hand. Nick couldn’t help noting the irony of the fact that, for all the killers’ rage about the evils of the old world and all its people, it was Nora who had made the present so much safer for all of them. And that it was also Nora who had unwittingly gifted them the vault. Although, he thought to himself, she didn’t need to know that part of things when they told her the story later. If they made it out alive, that was.

Before long they were at the front of the building. There were no signs of violence except for a couple of empty helmets on the ground. But they were so close to the river that mirelurks had probably dragged any remains off into the depths. He shuddered at the idea.

‘We should be prepared for anything.’ Hancock said, stopping Nick just outside the door. Nick nodded, drawing a pistol in his remaining hand, and waited for Hancock to let them in.

The ghoul slid open the door to reveal only a fetid tomb. They picked their way cautiously through the building, but nothing stirred except the pools of foul liquid they tried to avoid stepping in. From the entrance hall onwards, they were assaulted by the smell and sight of dead gunners, raiders, and ferals. Here and there acrid smells hung around which Hancock said burned where his nose had once been, and which complemented the stench of rot and dried blood horribly. Neither of them said a word, partly to listen for danger and partly because opening their mouths, particularly in the lower floor of the building, seemed like an unnecessary hazard.

Once it became clear that no one else was there, and once they were out of the strangely acidic layer below, they began to speak more freely, but neither’s voice rose above a whisper. Although it was silly, they hardly dared to disturb the bodies that littered the corridors. Confronted by this still silence, they were no longer sure of what they were looking for, and decided to do a full sweep of the place before looking at any terminals. Even though they were clearly gone, surely the group they were tracking had left traces somewhere in the building.

They had. A terrible trace just inside the back door where a corpse, a little fresher than the others, lay huddled to the wall and decaying. She was not dressed in raider gear or Gunner armor, but instead in simple jeans and a shirt. They had afforded her no protection against the flurry of stabs that had taken her life. Nick turned her over and swore.

‘Jenna?’ Hancock asked, recalling a name from the terminal entries they’d read, and Nick nodded.

‘Must be.’ He answered, certain of this even though he wasn’t able to confirm it. His own attackers had all been male. She was already dead by then.

‘Fuck, I had no idea they were so young. I bet her parents are wondering about her.’ Hancock said, sounding quietly horrified, a tone he rarely used but seemed fitting for the occasion.

Nick patted down her pockets as respectfully as he could, looking for anything they could use. He found a notebook, a small reporter one of the sort Piper favored, in her back pocket.

‘Another diary. The old school kind.’

A lot of it was blood stained, but the last few entries were close to the center of the book and had escaped the worst of it, although they were difficult to peel apart.

[03-23-2288]

Don’t get me wrong, I thank Atom every day that we found this place. It’s safe, it’s dry and it’s warm and after spending all that time on the coast with the Children, I’m grateful for all of that. Not least because they won’t look for me and Frank here. Or so I hope. But it’s Quinn I’m worried about. Quinn, our ray of sunshine, who found this place, who took us two in when he found us on the road wandering around waiting to be robbed or worse. We just wanted to set up a nice little trading hub, sell our fungus, that stuff can be quite valuable to the right people, and this is the perfect place for it. But ever since he started reading those fucking terminals… I suddenly feel so apart from all of them. Even dear Frank. He’s so angry. Angry at the past, and its evil experiments, and the people who let it happen. I just want to live in the here and now, and they all glare at me when I say it. But this anger isn’t helpful. Fungus is helpful. Caps are helpful. Why can’t they see it like that?’

Shame she didn’t come to Goodneighbor.’ Hancock said gravely. ‘We could always do with good sense like hers.’

Nick read on.

[4-24-2288]

Now he’s dragged us to Hallucigen. Well, he’s dragged me. The others are happy to go. Hanging on his every word now. To be honest, what he found is awful. Worse than anything a raider would do. They used to trap their own people in these creepy little rooms, pump them full of drugs to make them kill people. This place was to show it off for their leaders. They were going to use this on their own soldiers, before the bombs fell and put a halt to everything. Disgusting. Sub human. I understand his hatred, I really do. But that was two hundred years ago, and they’re all dead. Well, mostly dead. He keeps reminding me of that: Mostly.’

‘Shit is that true?’ Hancock asked. Nick shrugged, and he had the uncomfortable realization that Hancock was horrified by his response.

‘Probably.’  He explained. ‘They did so many awful things then. We were all guinea pigs whether we knew it or not. And most often we didn’t. The picket fences and all that stuff Nora talks about? That was real. It just wasn’t the whole story.’

‘They were going to do that to Nora’s husband. Pump him full of drugs and make him kill. And she was ok with it?’ Hancock said with genuine, protective outrage. He and Nora had talked a lot about Nate, and he almost felt as if he knew the man. Hancock tried to reconcile who she was now, the one woman crusade against tyranny, with the Nora who would have passively let that happen. He found he couldn’t.

‘It was a different time.’ Nick said patiently. ‘You couldn’t just do things then. We couldn’t all be who we are now.’

Hancock looked at him skeptically but said nothing. They turned back to the bloodied pages.

[04-30-2288]

We’ve been here for days, and now I’m getting scared. He keeps screaming about how everyone back then was a monster, and clearly mad. That they need to be stopped. I keep saying they have been. I keep pointing out we’re tripping over their bones. That just makes them all so angry. Not all of them, he says. Not. All. Of. Them. He gets up in my face and screams that. Screams they are evil and deserve punishment for what they did to all of us. I almost wonder if some of that evil gas was still in here when we entered, if it’s infected the lot of them; they’re so angry now. But I’m not. Why am I not? I wish I were. Instead, I’m just worried about our little farm, and our little home, which we’ve left entirely alone and undefended. And now Quinn is talking about going to the Vault Tec HQ next. It’s not far from here, he says. Well, I’m not doing it. I won’t. I’m going to talk to him tonight. Convince him we need to go home and just live our damn lives and leave the past alone. I hope he won’t get too angry. I’d hate for him to kick me out or something.’

It was the last entry.

‘I think he got too angry.’ Hancock said, but there was no humor in his words. ‘She shoulda just left. Slipped out. Poor kid.’

It didn’t seem right to leave her here on the floor, but there was nowhere else to put her, and they had things to discuss.  

‘Do you think she was right about the gas?’ Hancock said, as if he were considering holding his breath for the next few hours.

‘You read Quinn’s terminal entries from the Vault. He didn’t need any gas.’ Nick said.

Hancock nodded in agreement and breathed freely again. He took up the book once more and examined the entries.

‘This last one was only a few days ago.’ He said.

‘They stayed here long enough, I bet they’re still in Vault Tec HQ now. As far as I remember, there’s a lot of terminals in there to get hopping mad about.’ Nick replied, and doing some quick mental arithmetic, he realized how startlingly recent and sudden their whole spree had been after Jenna’s death. Perhaps she had been holding them back from it in some way, or perhaps it had simply pushed the group past any dislike of violence they might have had. No matter what the explanation, Quinn was clearly escalating fast, Nick thought to himself, using a term he dredged from a distant memory of being sat in a criminal profiling class. ‘I’m not clear on when exactly they got the Vault Tec Rep. But I bet they’ve got him there with them, unless they’ve moved on already.’

‘Or what’s left of him.’ Hancock replied grimly, and Nick couldn’t deny the strong possibility that he was huddled in a corner of a room there much like Jenna was here. Only in a far worse state.

This was as good an opportunity to catch them as any they were likely to get. They couldn’t keep playing catch up, eventually they would run out of clues. They had to follow this one as soon as they could.

‘We wait for the middle of the night. They might be asleep then, or some of them at least. I don’t want to take on a whole group like that awake.’ Hancock said. He’d done something similar with Nora not long ago and taken out an entire raider gang silently.

Nick agreed it was the most sensible tactic, although he felt guilty for every extra hour they left the Rep at their mercy. If he was even still alive. But until then, they were safest waiting here.

‘We should check out the terminals ourselves. We might learn something useful.’ Nick suggested, but they learned little except more horrifying detail of Jenna’s diary entry after reading it. Hancock’s total silence as they read through it weighed heavily on Nick’s conscience and he was already agitated by the time they settled down in the upper observation area overlooking the ghoulish test pods, waiting for nightfall.

They sat in silence a while, Nick ruminating on the diary entries of both Jenna and Quinn unhappily, and it seemed that Hancock too must have been thinking about something, as eventually he spoke.

‘It’s so hard to understand why you didn’t just leave.’ He said, and Nick winced, wondering if he meant Boston or Diamond City, until Hancock’s gesture around the test pits indicated he meant the former.

‘You can’t leave society. You couldn’t. It was everywhere. Your best bet would be to take a boat into the middle of the ocean, even then you’d probably be bothered by a submarine before you starved to death.’

‘Why?’ Hancock said, aware he sounded like a child when they first learn to speak. Nick paused a moment.

‘Because we needed society like that to survive. Don’t ask why. We just did.’ 

Hancock was beginning to understand why Nick stayed in Diamond City; to a man like that, it must be natural to gravitate towards the largest and most controlling government he could find. Even if that government were a bunch of monsters.

Nick, meanwhile, was quietly horrified, unable to move past Hancock’s own horror at the past, and how he himself had merely shrugged it off. Nick had lived through it all. He remembered the rumors about Hallucigen and its experiments at the time, although nothing was ever proved. It had been part of the background noise of his life, much like talk of alien invasions, of further expected rationing, of the torture of Chinese prisoners; it was just words in a newspaper he used to distract himself from his own caseload. It might as well have been a novel for all it felt relevant to his own life. But now, with the lens of the present time, he was disgusted with himself. He wondered, as ridiculous as it was even to think like this, if he were transported back now, would he do anything different? Would he have tried to make things better? Or would he put up and shut up, as the other Nick had?

He realized then that he had called that version of himself the other Nick and had truly meant it. He turned his mind back to the case to rid himself of the thought.

‘He really could have been someone, that boy. A leader, like you.’ He blurted out.

‘Like me?’ Hancock said, seeming a little rattled.

‘Well, nicer than you. And more charming, no doubt.’ Nick joked.

This didn’t seem to make Hancock any happier about the comparison.

‘It’s just… if he hadn’t read those terminals, who might he have been? If they hadn’t changed him? He was kind and resilient once. He helped some young, naïve strangers when they needed it.’ Nick explained.

‘Very philosophical of you.’ Hancock said. ‘But from where I stand, the boy had a screw loose. He went off the deep end reading that - but something would have tipped him eventually if he hadn’t ever opened the terminal. Most people wouldn’t read that and then do what he’s done. I mean, think about it, how many other people dive into pre-war ruins, and they haven’t all gone berserk.’

‘True. But I can’t help but see… not his point. Not really. I can’t think of what he did to Daisy and see the point in that. But we’re not innocent, the pre-war survivors. We came from that time, and we did nothing to stop it.’

‘From what you say, you couldn’t have done much.’

‘But I didn’t even try.’

‘You were a detective. Like you are now. You tried to help. That sounds like doing plenty to me.’

‘Not like now. I’m a free agent here. But I was federal employee back then. I’m far more directly responsible for this mess than Daisy ever was.’

‘Oh, stop with the directly responsible.’

‘You were just saying five minutes ago I coulda made a difference!’

Hancock paused to consider this. ‘It’s only ok if I say it. I won’t hear you blame yourself.’

This made no sense, but it made even less sense to argue about it. Instead, he made his way over to the closest window; beyond the grime and the moss of centuries he could see night almost beginning to set outside. He turned to see Hancock staring at him with his dark, shining eyes.

‘What?’ Nick said, his good arm moving to his chest in an involuntary protective gesture. He’d been subject to that piercing look too often not to be wary.

‘I’m not sure yet. It’s just something about the way you talked about that boy. Who he might have been, what he could have become, et cetera, et cetera.’ Hancock said, adopting a melodramatic voice and pose for the last half, quite unlike Nick’s own actual way of speaking. ‘And it makes me wonder.’

Nick deliberately didn’t ask what it made him wonder, but he continued regardless.

‘Are you alright, Nicky?’ He looked completely serious. ‘You’ve been unsettled from the start. I thought it was this case, at first. What with it being Daisy.’ His voice cracked a little at her name, and he saw Nick’s eyes become even more downcast. ‘Or even just with it being about the past. Daisy used to mention sometimes how much she loved talking to you about the good old days.’

He waited to see if Nick would interject, but he hardly made any indication he’d heard.

‘Then I thought, well, it’s understandable if you’re unsettled, given…’ Hancock gestured vaguely between the two of them, and watched as Nick’s shoulders set into a tense line. The detective still said nothing.

‘And while I’m sure that was part of it, this seems to be more…’ He groped around for a word Pastor Clements had once explained to him when he was still a boy in Diamond City. ‘Existential.’

Nick arched an eyebrow. ‘Have we added philosopher to revolutionary mayor? You’re wearing so many hats these days.’

The deflection merely told Hancock he was on the right lines.

‘I mean it. Even when you first got to Goodneighbor you seemed….’

‘Stressed out? In need of a cigarette and a break?’ Nick continued a little desperately, clearly hoping to bat the entire conversation away if he made enough wry comments.

‘You seemed so sad. You seem lost. Not how I remembered you.’

That last comment got to him, zeroing in, however innocently, on it. The problem he wasn’t willing to discuss or even to fully form in his own mind. The issue of who he was. What he was.

Something in him snapped.

‘I’ve been lost ever since I woke up in that damned dumpster as neither one thing nor the other.’ He said more sharply than he meant to, gesturing his inhuman hand wildly for emphasis. He pointed at his face, his torn open neck, his plastic chest. ‘Who wouldn’t be sad about this? Who wouldn’t be lost?’ He said, thumping the stump of his arm to the chest, which reverberated like a hollow log.

Hancock stared at him, lost for words.

‘I’ve been feeling like this for a while. At odds with myself. Apart from myself. I don’t know what I am any more. Who I am. I feel like I don’t belong in my own skin - if you can even call it that.’ He admitted; now he’d started speaking about it, it was strangely difficult to stop.

‘Well I know who you are. You’re Nick Valentine, PI Extraordinaire.’

‘That’s just swell for you!’ Nick shouted, frustrated, as he so often was, by the easy confidence and surety Hancock had. ‘That’s just great. If you’re sure, I can just stop worrying about it, can’t I?’

With remarkable self-restraint, Hancock said nothing and let the detective continue.

‘Nick is dead, he’s gone, he could be any one of the piles of bones we step over every day.’ He kicked one such pile on the floor for emphasis. ‘That’s Nick Valentine. We can’t both be him, not really. Not in a way that matters.’

‘I’m sure he mattered to someone.’ Hancock said dismissively, with a shrug, and the Nick of his memories, the Nick who felt that shrug directed at Jennifer, at his parents, his partner on the beat, his friends, felt a surge of loyalty and anger, even though all these people would have shot Nick the synth on sight if they’d met him. 

‘You matter to the here and now. To people still living and dying and being wronged, not to piles of bones. You do stuff, it matters, you exist.’ Hancock said, with another shrug, as if it were as straightforward as that.

‘I can’t talk to you about this.’ Nick said, turning on his heel and walking to the far side of the room; as far as he dared go in these surroundings, although it wasn’t nearly far enough - he could jump in the sea and swim straight out until he rusted to pieces and that wouldn’t be far enough.

‘It’s because I’m right.’

While there was an element of truth to that, it would have been Hancock’s response regardless, and therefore just made Nick angrier. He sat on a desk chair in the far corner, resisting the urge to turn it to face the wall, and instead just stared down at the floor silently until he relented some time later.

‘Look John, I’m sorry.’ Nick said.

Hancock smirked. ‘Hey, I get it. You don’t need a lesson in self-knowledge from a ghoul who wears another man’s name and clothes.’

And Nick didn’t really – although something amused him bitterly as he now considered the comparison between himself and Hancock. Between the ghoul who had so bombastically taken over another man’s whole identity, right down to his clothes, and his own tattered ensemble, cobbled together from street trash to be as close to the human Nick’s attire as possible. It was by no means a perfect match.

Hancock watched the tension drain out of Nick with a huff of laughter, but he still looked sad and weary; it was amazing how expressive Nick, and seemingly only Nick, could make the smooth, synthetic face the Institute had once favored.

‘All I’ll say is, the past is the past. It’s done. You should leave it where it is.’ Hancock said softly, and not unsympathetically.

‘Is it done? When I left the Memory Den for good, it was done. Except it wasn’t. The memories are always there, whether I choose to draw them out. And then I killed Winter. I thought for sure that that was the closure I needed. And it was, for about a week. And now, I’m just as stuck with it all as I ever was. More so, really, because now it doesn’t even feel like mine.’

Hancock said nothing, gesturing for him to continue.

‘It’s just… When will it be enough? When will I feel alright?’

‘What would the old Nick have answered to that?’

Nick smiled bitterly. ‘The old Nick never had this sort of problem. An existential one, if you will. His were all external - corrupt officers, murders to investigate, even the ever-present threat of nuclear annihilation. None of these were his problem. They just happened in front of him, or to him. But this? I can’t shoot it, I can’t solve it, and damnit, it seems I can’t run away from it either.’

‘Maybe you can interrogate it.’ Hancock suggested.

‘Interrogate what?’

He shrugged. ‘I don’t know, yourself, I guess? I have some handcuffs you can borrow and everything.’

Nick’s surprise at this forced a laugh out of him. ‘A tempting offer, to be sure.’ He’d missed their closeness so much, and this nostalgia, unlike the pre-war variety, was less bitter and more sweet.

He regarded Hancock with new eyes, taking in the blackened eyes, withered flesh, missing nose, and considered a question he never really had before.

‘Don’t you feel it? The difference between who you were, and who you are?’ He asked the ghoul.

He remembered the old John McDonough now vividly, notable not only for his reckless anger, his intelligence, and his hope, but for a delicate beauty that made too many ignore these other qualities. He was still handsome now, somehow, despite the changes. He found himself wondering if Jennifer would have thought the same of this Nick, and decided wholeheartedly against it.

‘The difference? I don’t bother with those. I’m still the sexiest man in the whole Commonwealth.’ He replied with a shrug, as if nothing else could possibly matter. Perhaps to him, it didn’t. Nick couldn’t help but envy him then. He went on.

‘And yet even as I can’t accept Nick’s name, I feel so guilty on his behalf. After all, we did let that final, terrible war happen.’ Nick said. Or rather, the other Nick did. That last bit he didn’t say aloud.

‘That’s bullshit.’ Hancock said. ‘Even if the old world was fucked in the head, that’s not your fault.’

Nick felt his eyebrow arch. ‘So I am the real Nick, but I’m not responsible for his crimes? You can’t have it both ways.’ The air threatened to leave the room, reminding Nick how tenuous their current camaraderie was, and Nick regretted his words and steeled himself for an argument.

Hancock stopped to consider this a moment. ‘I can have it any way I want.’ He said, plainly but with no anger. His voice softened further. ‘And so can you if you stop beating yourself up. There’s plenty of others who’ll want to do that for whatever reason. Don’t give ‘em a hand.’

‘I hardly have a complete one left to give them.’ Nick murmured.

‘Just for now. Amari will fix you up.’ 

‘Then I’ll be sure to lend it to them when I have it again.’

They lapsed into silence for a little while.

‘I’m sorry, by the way.’ Hancock tossed out casually, as if this weren’t the first time he’d ever said this to Nick. Nick wondered if this was the first time he’d ever said it at all.

‘Huh?’

‘For the words we had before you left. For my part, at least.’ He said. ‘I’m just real tense about this. It doesn’t take much for a city to fall apart. What starts in whispers can end in- well. I don’t exactly have to tell you. You watched us all leave on that shitty, rainy night.’ Hancock said, and for once his tone wasn’t accusatory. He sounded tired and he looked it too, shoulders hunched and head in his hands.

‘I’m sorry too.’ Nick said, and Hancock nodded in acknowledgement; an apology from Nick was hardly as earth-shattering, and garnered less attention.

‘I hate fighting with you.’ Hancock mumbled, as if they’d just gotten over a day-long tiff, rather than a years-long argument. ‘I hate it more than most things.’

‘I hate it too. I have hated it, this whole time. But I didn’t think you did.’ Nick said, quite honestly; he’d often felt like righteous anger energized Hancock. He was still sure it did, and that no matter what other feelings had been at play, Hancock had enjoyed trying to make him squirm with guilt in the years since their fight. He couldn't imagine what had made Hancock feel like he owed an apology. ‘What’s brought all this on, John?’

‘I thought you were dead.’ Hancock replied plainly, his voice a little tight. ‘And it ruined me.’

Nick waited for him to expand on that. Hancock merely stared him down, his expression defiant, as if waiting for a rebuttal, but Nick had none. The detective picked his next words carefully.

‘If that fight had been the last time we’d talked, it would have been an awful shame.’

‘Yeah.’ Hancock replied, a little more relaxed. ‘It would have been.’

It was by no means a resolution, or an admission by either side that they had been wrong those years earlier – that was never likely to happen. But it was something, and that would have to do for now.

Nick craned his head towards the window again, and it was nearly pitch black.

‘It’s time. The walk won’t take long.’

Chapter Text

They slipped out of the back entrance to the building, past the poor girl’s body. Nick made a mental note to return for it afterwards if he was able. She deserved a better resting spot.

They walked through the streets of the Financial District, changing their route once to avoid a ghoul that was glowing ominously in the distance, although it added no more than five minutes to their journey time. They were at the front door of Vault Tec within fifteen minutes of having left Hallucigen. It was a small world, these days. For the first time in decades, Nick chafed at the restriction compared to the vastness of the world as it had once been, although back then he’d barely ever left Boston.

‘It’s unlocked.’ Hancock whispered, gently pushing on it a little to allow them both to poke their heads inside. Mercifully the thing didn’t creak. Ostensibly, it was silent, but they were both experienced enough to sense from the air that it was not as empty as it appeared. After some silent gesturing, they both entered the building. They’d discussed a plan on the way over and, despite grumbling from Hancock, were aiming to try to talk their way through the situation rather than go in gun’s blazing. Somewhere in there, Nick still thought their leader could listen to sense. Or so he was telling himself; Hancock had put it to him that he merely wanted to get his own side of things across, and Nick wasn’t entirely sure he could refute that.

They had made it quite a way up the corridor before someone’s good hearing or senses got wind of them. From up the stairs, where there was a torch burning somewhere, they could hear hushed voices, that eventually raised.

‘There’s something coming! Hopefully just another of those stupid rats.’ Nick heard a man, presumably Quinn, say. ‘Go check it out.’

Nick and Hancock braced themselves on the stairs, waiting for an assault. But instead, they found themselves face to face with two shaky young men awkwardly clutching lead pipes, one of whom, he now realized, looked like Jenna, and like he hadn’t slept in a week. In the shadowy half-light they couldn’t see him properly; a blessing really, or they would have attacked on instinct for the sake of self-preservation if nothing else. After all, they’d last seen him with his head rolling in the dust.

Despite the details of their last encounter, Nick didn’t feel panic, or anger, or a need for revenge. He felt nothing but a dull ache of sadness looking at them. They were just two lost, grieving young men who’d followed their leader to a place they wouldn’t easily forget. Who could be sitting in their farm with Jenna now, making a tidy profit and living a good little life, but for Quinn and his terminals and his bottomless rage. He wished that they could go back there now. He wished that he too could go back, although he didn’t know where it was he yearned for any more. The detective acted on instinct.

‘Frank?’ Nick said quietly, keeping his voice as neutral and casual as possible in the circumstances. He couldn’t see the young man’s face, but he heard the sharp intake of breath that let him know he’d been recognized.

‘We’ve been to Hallucigen, Frank. We’ve seen Jenna. We know what he did.’ He whispered. The torch was drawn back, allowing Nick to see his face properly. The young man’s expression turned from confusion to pain and despair. ‘It wasn’t right. It didn’t have to happen.’ Nick continued softly.

Frank turned to the other young man beside him, and they exchanged a look for just a moment. He turned back to Nick.

‘To hell with this. To hell with that fucker.’ He said hoarsely, jabbing a finger up the stairs. Nick thought again of Jenna. Of how little it had taken to talk her brother down just now. Of how pointless her death had been. And Daisy’s. And perhaps the Vault Tec Rep’s. That last thought focused him back onto the current situation.

Frank and his companion pushed past the detective and began running towards the front door.

‘Sorry.’ The other one mumbled as he went past. He didn’t look at Nick.

‘What’s going on out there!’ Quinn shouted from inside the room. They heard a low groan which indicated that the Rep was, thankfully, still alive, followed by a sickening sound of bone crunching and cracking, and the angry hissing of a young man.

‘No time to waste.’ Hancock said in a low, tight voice. Nick didn’t need to be told twice. They rounded the corner into a stinking room, the acrid smells of old and new blood – the Rep’s blood – mingling in the air. He was handcuffed to a pipe in the middle of the room. Quinn was behind him, using him for cover while pointing into his side with a vicious-looking, bayoneted pipe pistol. His face was tato red, his veins popping out of his forehead.

He was so young, younger even than his companions, hardly out of his teens; the arms holding the Rep and the gun were thin, the hands shaky, but Hancock was under no illusion that he could tackle the boy before a shot went off. It took him precisely one look at the young man’s eyes to conclude that he could not be reasoned with. He knew it would take Nick a little longer to reach that inevitable conclusion. He hoped they had time for that.  

The Rep struggled as soon as he saw them, pulling away at the arm clamped around his neck so he could speak.

‘Help.’ He forced out, and Nick clenched his jaw, knowing from bitter experience that this was going to make Quinn even more angry, if that were even possible.

‘A monster like you doesn’t deserve help!’ His captor shrieked. ‘Look at everything you’ve done!’

He gestured with the knife, and Nick wasn’t sure if he gestured at the decaying mess of the room they were in, or the presence of his two rescuers.

‘What have I done?’ The Rep sobbed.

‘You know!’ Quinn replied, poking the bayonet a little harder into his side.

‘I don’t’

‘You do! Stop lying.’

The Rep shook his head as much as he could from his headlock.

‘You were an aider and abettor of those monsters. You benefited directly!’ The young man screamed into his bloodied ear.  

‘I was a damn travelling salesman.’ He choked out, but Nick’s heart sank, knowing that the meaning of this was entirely lost on Quinn, who knew travelling salesmen only as people like Lucas Miller, as people with wealth and hired mercenaries who weren’t too afraid to throw their weight around.

The arm clamped tighter. It was time for Nick to step in.

‘Just think about this.’ Nick said as calmly as possible, although all he could focus on was the tightening arm, the crimson color pooling in the Rep’s face as he struggled for air. ‘Just think, I know you’re a smart man.’

Quinn’s eyes bulged even larger for a moment, only now noticing that the rescuer standing before him was the dead synth he’d left at the common. But his confusion barely registered before he returned to his angry fixation on the ghoul clamped in his arm.

‘I’m smart enough to understand what you took from us. The possibilities you stole by doing what you did!’

‘Smart enough to know that the man you have in a chokehold didn’t press those buttons, or give those orders. And besides, is he even really the same man?’

The last bit came out of Nick’s mouth unbidden. He continued quickly.  

‘Two hundred years have passed. Many lifetimes. Are you the same person you were five years ago? Or ten? Or even one? If he were to go back now - if I were to go back now, if Vault Tec had some tech that allowed us to travel through time, neither of us would act the same as we did. We’re not the same.’

It was true. He saw this now. Not only saw it, but he felt it too. He appreciated the truth of the words that were pouring out. The Rep had changed. On the outside this was clear as day, but it would be just as true inside. And the same held for himself. He had been one version of Nick Valentine, he was now another. Of course they would be different, after everything that had happened, and after everything that he’d seen, and been, and done. It was not a case of one thing or the other. Nick Valentine had changed, and outgrown one version of himself to become another. It was not real or false; it was former and latter.

He was brought crashing back down to earth from this realization by the angry young man before him.

‘I believe in the past, there was no statute of limitations on a crime.’ Quinn said, and Nick winced as he recognized this to be a rehash of a line from an old world comic series about a public prosecutor. Quinn must have had an issue or two as a kid. His expression was set, his mouth a hard line, and Nick could see that they had passed the point of reasoning with him. Perhaps it had never been possible.  

A plan came together quickly in his mind. With his hand slightly behind himself, he pointed his thumb at his own pocket subtly, praying that Hancock was looking at his back rather than past it, and that he would understand what was in Nick’s mind as easily as he once had.

He moved forward slowly.

‘You’re out-gunned, kid. And you’ve got a lousy hostage. He’s barely standing.’

‘Then I’ll take another.’ Quinn said, picking up the train of thought Nick had helpfully laid down. He let go of the Rep, who fell with a crash as far to the ground as his handcuffs permitted. Nick could now see the terrible extent of his injuries; small cuts peppered his leathery flesh, while his chest was covered in cigarette burns. One of his fingers had also been removed and, although he couldn’t be sure, from the sunken depression in his left cheek so had some of his teeth.

Quinn gestured for Nick to take his place, and it was only now that he could see Hancock’s face, a wild, angry expression full of panic, which would convince anyone except the detective.

‘Nick, you fool!’ Hancock said, a little dramatically.

Nick allowed himself a small eyebrow raise at Hancock’s over-egging, knowing Quinn could not see it.

‘You’d best be careful!’ The mayor shouted, gesturing wildly but without real purpose to the pair of them with his shotgun. ‘If anything happens to him, you’ll have me to answer to!’

He was shouting and huffing, pointing and waving, as much as was plausible in the situation. He was, in short, providing a good distraction, and Nick could feel Quinn’s attention grabbed by the mayor’s antics like a dog with a ball being waved before its face.

‘Answer to you? Easily.’ Quinn hissed. ‘I’d gladly take on you and your whole fucking town of old worlders. In fact I plan to.’

Nick could feel Quinn’s pulse through the grip he had around the detective’s shoulders, rising higher and higher, as if he might explode. Nick hoped the young man had steam coming out of his ears so he couldn’t hear the faint rustling as Nick reached his remaining hand into his own pocket for his revolver. Nora had modified it for him several months ago to give it a more powerful kick. He’d laughed at the time, told her he wasn’t planning on going after a yao guai or behemoth any time soon. But now he was grateful.

He snaked the thing out of his pocket and pointed it upwards. He’d only have one chance at this.

‘You wouldn’t get that far. I’d tear you apart right here!’ Hancock snarled, and Nick could tell this at least was true as much as it was part of the distraction.

‘Really? For that thing?’ Quinn said. ‘He’s not even a man anymore. He’s just a robot.’ Nick could not help but note a little bitterly that even now, with this madman, in these circumstances, his status as synth or man seemed highly changeable depending on how it suited others.

But as a matter of plain fact, Nick wasn’t human. And for once, he was grateful for it, or what he was planning wouldn’t work.

As quick as a flash, he raised his revolved and shot upwards through his own neck, cutting Quinn off as he spoke. The young man’s grip had been so tight that he pulled Nick over onto him as he fell dead, and with mild revulsion Nick could feel his blood and brain seeping through Nick’s own battered fedora.

‘Are you ok?’ Hancock said, suddenly hovering over him.

Nick pointed his eyes towards the Rep, still collapsed in a heap next to them; he was finding it hard to make his body speak or even move. Perhaps he’d damaged something important with his stunt. Somewhere in the back of his mind he knew he ought to be worried, but whatever risk assessing processors he had in him were struggling to keep up. He saw Hancock reluctantly move over away from him and to the Rep, who was weeping.

‘We’ve got you. You’re gonna be alright.’ Hancock said. The Rep did not respond. ‘We’re gonna get you to Sanctuary.’ He continued, and this got the ghoul’s attention. 

‘Sanctuary?’

‘Yeah. It’s peaceful up there. They’ve been doing some nice work, building up the farm and some trading posts. I’m sure Nora would love you to work one of those. You’d be good at that. You’ve always been good at that’

‘Haven’t done it in a while. But I’m sure it’s like riding a bicycle.’ He tried to stand up and failed, keeling back onto the gore-covered floor.

Nick had managed to pull himself together enough to turn onto his side and watched the Rep raise himself gingerly into a sitting position, a huddled, wounded creature shaking gently, his face blank, with Hancock’s help.

It had only been minutes since the attack had ended, but Nick knew the look on his face. He knew it wouldn’t go any time soon. He remembered the Rep as he had been in Goodneighbor: polite, retiring, only wishing not to get in anyone’s way. Always smiling a restrained, professional smile. He would never be that man again. His smile was gone. Daisy’s smile was gone. Both of them had been victimized beyond recognition. But victimized by whom? The madman who had attacked them, of course. But they were victimized by the old world, long before Quinn had found them. The old world which had withered their flesh and sent them unthinking into an apocalypse.

Good riddance to that world. It wasn’t his.

‘I don’t think we’re going anywhere right now.’ Hancock said to him in a low voice, gesturing to the fetal ghoul, and to Nick himself, who had only just made it into an upright position.

‘We’ve got time.’ Nick replied. ‘Thanks, by the way. I was worried you wouldn’t even understand what I was getting at.’

Hancock just shrugged, as if to say ‘Of course I would. It’s you and me.’

‘A beautiful performance, too.’ Nick went on.

‘Performance? I meant every word. Especially the bit about you being a fool.’

‘Naturally.’ Nick said, and Hancock opened his mouth to reply, but a small groan from the Rep drew Hancock away to help him change position and drink some water. It was no matter; they had time to continue the conversation later.

They stayed in the room overnight as the Rep slept and Nick talked Hancock through a couple of rudimentary patches to the hole in his neck, and the wiring he’d shot through, until Amari could fix them properly. They set off as soon as the Rep was able to stand again. They went via Hallucigen; Jenna’s body was already gone and a scraggly hubflower left in its place.

‘Those two will fetch up in Goodneighbor sooner or later, to be sure.’ Hancock said as they left the building.

‘And will you rat them out to everyone?’

Hancock shrugged. ‘Probably. I’ll see what feels right on the day.’

They shut the door again and left, hopefully for the last time.

They would all get a warm reception in Goodneighbor, the Rep included, perhaps the warmest reception he’d ever had anywhere. Nick hoped it would help.

Chapter Text

Nick was a man of contradictions. Some he’d been born with, like any other man. Some were developed across two lifetimes pounding the pavements of two Bostons, each ravaged by conflict and in desperate need of justice. And, finally, some were put on him by the duality that Nick Valentine had become. The just, mild-mannered detective with an ocean of blood on his hands. The man with a synthetic body, the plastic synth with a truly human mind. A futuristic throwback. The Institute’s trash. Diamond City’s treasure.

Hancock could accept all these contradictions. Did accept them, without question or concern. For all his flaws, for all his anger and righteous hatred, Hancock could accept more than most. Maybe one day, Nick could accept them for himself too. It was starting to feel more and more possible.

He stood on the State House balcony looking out onto the deserted streets of Goodneighbor. Overhead, the rad-filled clouds were glowing green, muffling the world around him and driving almost everyone inside as they tried to avoid the deadly radiation the storm brought. Not him, though. He breathed the air in deeply simply because he could, impervious to the danger despite the protesting ticks from his Geiger counter. This was part of what it meant to be Nick Valentine in the here and now.

He heard the door to the State House balcony open behind him and Hancock slip in by his side, equally untroubled by the storm. Nick turned his face to look skywards, finding the gentle sounds of the ghoul’s breathing a welcome addition to the quiet, distant thunder.

‘I’m leaving the Commonwealth. Just for a little while.’ He heard himself say, not an intention he’d been aware of until the moment it left his lips. ‘Do you want to tag along?’ He went on, asking just because he wanted to. He realized he was curious to see who he would be away from the old Nick’s territory. Curious to test the boundaries between who he had been, and who he might become. It was as exhilarating as it was terrifying.

‘Might do.’ Hancock asked, but Nick already knew from his tone that his answer was yes. ‘Where are you headed?’

He shrugged. He was due a visit back to Far Harbor, but that place, and his brother, wouldn’t answer the questions he had right now.

‘The Capital Wasteland, maybe? I hear it’s not bad there these days, but they’ve got to have at least a few cases in need of a private dick.’

‘They sure won’t have anyone quite like you on their cases.’ Hancock said with a chuckle. ‘What about Diamond City? Won’t they be missing you?’

Nick paused to consider his reply to this. ‘It wasn’t at the forefront of my mind.’ He admitted. ‘I’m sure they will. Some of them, at least. But they don’t own me.’

Hancock slapped him on the back approvingly. ‘They sure don’t. It’ll do ‘em good to miss you anyway. Maybe they’ll stop and think about everything you’ve done for them, human or not.’

Nick nodded. He understood what Hancock was getting at perfectly. Most likely, they wouldn’t stop and think about anything. Most likely, they’d keep on telling themselves that Nick was different from other synths, or from ghouls, or any of the other strange flotsam of the Great War. Most likely, they’d keep justifying why he deserved a place behind their wall when the others didn’t. But there was a chance Hancock was right. A slim but definite hope for change. And maybe that mattered to him more than he’d ever let it before.

‘I just need to speak with Fahrenheit, then I’m all yours.’ Hancock said with a grin, which Nick returned.

‘That’s fine, I need to write a note for Ellie and have it sent over there.’

They’d be gone within the hour. They didn’t need to wait for the storm to clear.

‘When did you get so impulsive?’ Hancock asked, his tone approving.

‘I’m trying out something new. Do you like it?’

‘I like the new.’ Hancock replied, his voice suddenly serious. ‘And I liked the old. I like you, Nick.’

Not for the first time, Nick wondered if he would ever inhabit these labels, Nick, or Valentine, or even you with the same ease with which others said them. The answer to that wouldn’t be found on the balcony to the State House.

‘Let’s go.’ He said, and opened the door to head back inside.