John was a man too good for a bad world. It can corrupt you. Twist you. That is why John never said anything when the Brotherhood Knights filled a crying Institute scientist with bullet holes. He shouldn't have expected any more of Maxson, the man who forced John to kill his mentor. But John was following orders. And that got him the rank of 'Sentinel'. He didn't deserve it. Not with what he has done.
Danse. The Railroad. The Institute. It was a boulder he was forced to carry. All of the people John could've saved. His son. The baby he held over 200 years ago, burned up in the nuclear explosion that erased the Institute. John didn't get his happy ending.
John sat on the Prydwen, sitting with Danse's power armor, the defeaning explosion almost still ringing in his ears. He sat on the cold, steel floor, pulling a bottle of Vodka off of the counter. It could make him forget what he had just seen. Make him remember those short days, where he wasn't killing someone, or trying to play a hero.
He ignored Li when she called him a liar, and mocked him. She didn't understand. It was the soldier who bore the deepest wounds of war. But John was a soldier for a war that he never needed to fight. And now he's ended it. And he was supposed to be a hero now. A Sentinel. He was a hero for the determination of getting rid of the synth abominations. To them, that's who he was. But that wasn't why he had killed all those people in the Institute.
John thought he would walk into the Institute, and find his baby. It was silly. His baby was grown. His baby was evil. And dead. John had killed countless people for his son, and walked out empty handed. He had lost everything. And not a single one of these people knew. John would always be the Lone Wanderer who appeared from no where looking for a missing person.
John wandered. He talked to Haylen. She hated him. He hated himself more. They would never know that. John would always be the happy guy that always offered a hand. But he had blood on his hands, and everyone knew it.
The Great Green Jewel of The Commonwealth. Diamond City. He was here for Piper, and he found her trying to kick down the door to Mayor Mcdonough's office. He didn't say anything when he kicked the door down, and proceeded the bash in the brain of the Synth with his bat. Ironic.
They looked at him like he was a monster. Maybe he was. These people didn't know anything about him. They didn't know he was a vault dweller, or that his family was dead, or that this stranger was looking for his missing child. Not even the Brotherhood knew who he was. Just some waste lander with a hidden end goal. He couldn't stay in Diamond City. They didn't understand. John was a trained killer. He had killed more people than he had saved. And these people let their children say 'Hi' to the town hero who saved the people from the evil Synth mayor.
John left Diamond city. He gave his house away, and everything in it. He didn't need it. He went back to Prydwen. He was praised for being a killer at every turn, but at least he wasn't the only killer. And he was a killer. But when war wages, every one is a killer. And war...
War never changes.