"The centuries were not kind," Nora slurred, the Gwinnett bottle hanging between two fingers as she pressed her elbows on top of the bar. Her cheeks were rosy and she smiled as she spoke. It had been a while since she had seen the inside of the Shamrock Taphouse. There was a bartender back then and a significant less amount of holes in the ceiling. "I came here on a date once. A while ago. A...oh wow, a couple hundred years ago..." Her green eyes surveyed the bar, a mix of emotions registering on her sun-kissed features. At first, it was usually just disbelief. After five beers how ever, she had headed straight for nostalgia. Hancock's favorite.

"Is that so? You dog..." The ghoul began, his beer from his scarred lips to speak in a lazy tone. His brow raised in interest, smiling himself as he turned to look at the woman beside him. The soft blue light from her pip-boy illuminated them both in the dark bar, humming the same dated songs that it always did on these nights. Hancock enjoyed the moments they could decompress together. It had been three months that they had been traveling together and as far as he was concerned, these kinds of nights were too few and far between each other. He rested his empty drink on the bar, pushing it out of reach with the other tapped bottles they had killed that night. The glasses rattled together before he leaned towards her to continue, "And how'd that turn out, if ya don't mind measkin'?"

"Oh, swell," she mused, her pink lips curling upwards at each end. It was a joke. The date had gone horrible from what she remembered. Nora had just graduated college at the time and the man was horribly persistent even after their classes were over. "Just a keeper. He kept..." she paused, fiddling with her fingers to begin snapping, "- doing this shit to get the bartender's attention. And just spoke over me the whole time. Ordered me a glass of white wine because it's what paired well with the salad he thought I should have."

Hancock laughed. "So you killed him?"

"No," her voice was low, her head tilting to the side as the features on her face contorted into something discernible. She turned to look at him, studying the smile on his gaunt features for a moment or two before speaking again, "Kellog did."

Hancock nodded, giving a gruff noise from his throat in acknowledgement. It was a delicate subject – one that he knew was both important and relevant to Nora with every step she took. Up until a year ago (in her time), her husband had been a part of her life...and he had been murdered. He expected her to talk about him. It was how people coped. He just didn't expect the feeling it caused in the pit of his stomach when she did. His hands slid off of the bar, disappearing into his pocket to retrieve a tin of Mentats. In the moment, he was the only one that had stopped smiling.

Nora took a sip and and continued to grin. The bar might have been destroyed, but the concept of a "friday night" wasn't. They had had a long week trying to get The Slog running as an outpost. A lot of killing, a lot of looting, and a lot of stress. She closed her eyes in comfort while silence fell between them. These past few months with Hancock had presented her with a lifestyle that she had never known. Too many drinks had transpired in the moment for her to contemplate why, but she had never been more satisfied in her life.

A few minutes passed before either of them spoke. Hancock's dark eyes found Nora once more. Even in dim lighting, he could spot the freckles that had developed on her cheeks since they started traveling. The wasteland was slowly crafting her into something new. Shifting on his barstool, he leaned towards her and plucked the beer from her hands. "C'mon sister, you're slackin." The beer was nearly empty, yet her eyes opened to glare at him like it was still of value. He finished the last of it with a long pull, then threw it by the rest. "How am I gonna convince you to keep travelin' with me, if you're still sober enough to see this ugly mug?"

"Oh, get the fuck outta here with that," Nora's laugh echoed through out the empty bar. She swatted at Hancock's hat, knocking it down over his eyes before she rose from her seat. In all honesty, she had spent quite a bit of time thinking about that 'mug' of his and how it must have felt. How it smirked at her sarcastic remarks and how contagious it was when it laughed. She walked passed him to round the other side of the bar, retrieving her bag from the empty sink to grab more drinks. Producing two beers, she offered them to Hancock as he adjusted his hat and narrowed his eyes at her. She grinned childishly, "You know it's your personality I have a problem with."

"Listen here, Sunshine," he muttered, a smirk forming on his lips as he snatched bottles from her. He placed them on the bar and grabbed a lighter from his red coat to break them open as he spoke, "You knew -crack- damn well -crack- what you were gettin' with me the day you walked into Goodneighbor."

Hancock slid an open beer towards Nora before grabbing the other. Picking it up, she shook her head then locked eyes with the ghoul. The two of them had come far since that first day, but it always stayed with her. In that moment, she was a nobody; in that moment, he was a just a killer. Such a thought felt foreign to her as she watched the smile develop on his scarred features. She smiled too. They clinked their bottles together and drank.

He was wrong. She had no idea what she was getting into when she met him.