At first, she didn't think she would ever be capable of loving again. It would have been bad enough to lose her husband, a man who, up until the day he died, expressed his love for her, but it was flat-out devastating when she was forced to helplessly watch him get shot right before her eyes just so they could pry their precious child from his lifeless arms. No, she didn't feel much like living, much less loving, when she staggered out of the vault. Only the flicker of hope that her son might still be out there kept her going, one teetering step after another into that harsh new world.
To be sure, love didn't happen in a moment, not like it had with Nate. It had been a different time when she'd met her future husband, one without the mad scramble for survival. They had been high school sweethearts, even if they didn't get married until she was finished with law school and he served his tour with the military. Nate had such an easy charm, a confident smirk, and no hesitation when he knew what he wanted. He had been the quintessential jock back in those days, and when he'd asked her out, she'd quickly accepted. Truth be told, she'd had her eye on him too. No, there was no way after everything that had happened that it could ever be so easy again.
If she were being honest, she'd admit that the man who opened her heart once more was probably successful by being so different than Nate, with his lop-sided grin and laid-back manner. The people she would have expected to fall for (if she was ever going to fall) could only ever be friends. How could they be more when seeing military attire and noble heroics painted his image in her mind? That wasn't to say the object of her interest lacked nobility; in fact, in his own fashion, there was no one kinder in all the Commonwealth. He wasn't going to pick up a gun and save the world; he was going to fix the world with a box full of tools and a package of duct tape.
It was hard to decide when exactly she realized that her closest confidant in all the Commonwealth (Dogmeat and Codsworth not included) had become something more. Was it when the radiation storm had blown in, the first one she'd ever seen, and she'd rushed to the comfort of his arms in her terror? Was it when she found him, fast asleep on the ratty couch of his living room, still holding a screwdriver and face still smudged with grease while his literal midnight oil had burned out in the lamp? Or maybe that conversation she overheard with Jun, where he checked in with the traumatized man and reassured him he would be there to help? Damn. In a world full of raiders and every other type of person out for themselves, he didn't seem to belong. She didn't belong. Perhaps they could both not belong together and change things.
First, she'd have to figure out how to get him away from his workbench and persuade him that leaving the friendzone would be a good idea. Maybe those fashionable glasses and the cream dress would help?