There was a calm on the waters that day. I was overlooking Boston Harbor, looking at the Prydwen as its engines started to flare up. Ground personnel had been moved onto the ship and all their remaining vertibirds were in the air. The airship disconnected from the air traffic control tower and slowly started to rise and turn. As its ascent halted, its bow was pointed due south. It was to fly over the Castle and continue its journey south until it returned to the capitol wasteland.
That moment came after months of deliberation and hard work. I had regrets, yes. The Brotherhood of Steel and I had had to make compromises. My biggest one was strapped to the bottom of the Prydwen. A building sized killing machine that spouted propaganda against communism, Liberty Prime. The Brotherhood hadn't gotten the chance to take on the Institute with that thing. I had seen to that.
I had tried to work with my son. I had tried to reach compromises with his twisted morals. I had seen what the Institute was capable of, but if living through the war has taught me anything, it's that the ends don't justify the means. If all you care about is winning a war, you can end up destroying the world. I've committed myself to asking the question, "At what cost?" In a world gone mad, it is one of the few maxims that I have been able to hold onto. In the end, the Institute had to be stopped. An atrocity is an atrocity, even if my son was the one committing them. The crater north of downtown will serve as a reminder to that.
We've made great strides since then. The Minutemen and I have done real good in this world. A few months before the Prydwen left, I returned from Far Harbor. I had gone up the coast to Maine to follow one of Nick's leads. The Institute had been dealt with then so I thought a loose end was a loose end. I met several groups in Maine, each of them had their perspectives. It was all grey there, the sky, the fog, the morals, all of it was murky, and half true.
It left an uncomfortable haze in my mind when I returned. Many of the considerations I had left in the Commonwealth came crashing back when I stepped off that boat and back into Massachusetts.
Nick had a brother, or as close as synth's can have familial relations. DiMA, he called himself. It didn't take long for me to realize his morals were uneven. He made compromises where he shouldn't have. He sacrificed things he shouldn't have, and in his sacrifices he became what he fought against. It was a story I had heard before the war in books. I had seen it I suppose in the war itself. America fought to oppose the tyranny of communism, and yet in time they were rationing and distributing food at gunpoint. It was a powder keg of sorts in Maine too. Two sides, trying to exterminate the other, level heads refusing to shine through or speak up. DiMA believed he had found a path to peace, but his path was warped, his means distorted.
I chose in the end. I don't know if it was the right choice but it was mine. The ending was bloodier, and I don't know if that'll ever wash off. But the ending came by my means, by my accord, and on my terms. I revealed to DiMA what he had done, and he confessed his wrongdoing to his victims. In their retribution they demanded his life, and although it was a hard pill to swallow, they agreed to take peace. The harbormen accepted their peace with Acadia, and the synths of Acadia went into peace with an enthusiastic fervor. The two of them were able to clear the fog off their side of the island within a month and things went back to normal, as much as the wasteland can be considered 'normal'.
The cost was high, but I accept the price paid. Some individuals were not happy at the receding fog and they made their dissatisfaction known. The followers of Atom ended their residence on that Island, swiftly and through the gate of violence. I had killed so many of them before, in the wastes of the Commonwealth, in the Glowing Sea on my way to my son, and in each of those instances I felt myself justified. But to barge into a home, to empty it with lead and fire, that is a new business entirely. And yet, I did. I emptied that base. The children of Atom were murdered and the fog of Far Harbor lifted. An end by the means of violence.
I helped them build up new homes as the fog lifted. I turned the old saw mill back into a trading post. I recovered the abandoned homesteads and made them into farms. I built up walls around the old visitor's center and set up a Minutemen outpost there. I sent for a couple old dogs from the Commonwealth and they set about training the islanders in how to act like Minutemen. They had their own radio tower and they took care of each other. The lights started turning back on and I was satisfied the world was turning in the right direction again.
When me and Nick's missing girl wrapped up her issues we made our way back with her. She had gone on a strange journey. I could not tell if she was a synth or not but she decided it didn't matter. She resolved things with her family. It felt good to see a solid nugget of wholesome after all the bloody uncertainty in Maine. Seeing them reconnect reminded me of what it all meant, what I fought for.
I was helping to rebuild my home. I didn't have the "Old World Blues" like many had told me about. I had seen the old world. I had waited through ration lines. I had watched protesters gunned down when they asked for more food. My son thought he could bring back that world, no matter the cost. He didn't see the horrors that the old thinking brought. He could only see the shining lights of the past, forgetting how the generators turned and what we had to do to fuel them.
Maxson found me early after I came back from Maine. He berated me on the flight deck of the Prydwen, shouting about a synth refuge that needed to be wiped out. He took another opportunity to bring up his hatred of Nick and Hancock, of the Minutemen and all I had built. I had joined the Brotherhood in hopes of finding allies that might help me prop up the Commonwealth, that might help rebuild. All I found was fanatics with shiny guns that thought their shiny toys gave them the moral high ground. They were more like the Institute than they realized. There were a few good apples in the bunch. It didn't take long to figure out that Maxson was the source of their dogma.
Preston had been begging to knock their airship from the sky. I had to talk him down many a time. He disagreed with my waiting for cooler heads to prevail, but he couldn't argue against minimizing deaths. I had a plan to stabilize the Brotherhood, a plan to force the cooler heads into prevailing. Preston never liked Danse, but he prefered him to Maxson.
Danse had been living at Red Rocket ever since Maxson wanted him dead. The gas station was far from the Brotherhood's operations and helped Danse to keep a low profile. He played the part of farm hand and found that the work had value to it. He helped run the shops and fix up the junk that passed through on its way to some other settlement in the 'wealth. I even got to see him unwind on occasion over a bottle or a late-night bowl of noodles. He seemed happier, more himself than he had been.
But in all that, he still missed the Brotherhood. He believed in their ideals. Their true ideals, not the hogwash that Maxson was selling. He told me that caution and reconstruction were the core ideals of the Brotherhood. I didn't believe it but he wouldn't stop quoting their codex or guidebook or whatever they called their holy book. He thought the Brotherhood could do good, real good. "Give mankind a chance to rebuild by removing the temptation of superweapons and old world poison," he told me once. I asked him if he thought fire was dangerous, or irrigation. I asked him which technologies were bad for the 'common' people to have and why he thought so.
I wore him down and I changed his mind at a few points, but he did the same for me. I had been a lawyer in the old world. I had argued over justice and right. We agreed to disagree and I was confident that Danse was a good man, a man that should be leading the Brotherhood.
I came to him one night and tried to casually broach the subject of line of succession in the Brotherhood. He told me that if the Elder was found to be unfit, a Proctor would take command until a replacement was found, often from the ranks of the Paladins. One thing he mentioned in particular peaked my interest. A Paladin had the right to declare the Elder unfit and challenge them for command. I mentioned I might engage that old protocol. Danse didn't think much of it.
I waited a few days before I brought it up. I mentioned that he would make a better Elder than Maxson and he laughed it off. He said the Brotherhood would never take him back. I told him they would have to if he did it right. He caught onto my idea quickly. He got angry and told me he'd never go back. I prodded him and after a few days he relented and agreed to at least go back and see how it played out.
I alleviated his fears by letting him know I had stacked the deck. Deacon was onboard when we arrived, disguised as a flight deck pilot. The Castle was on high alert in case it all went south. Preston had all our artillery aimed and ready. I had Danse wear his helmet until we made it to the Prydwen. When we touched boots to the scaffold, he took it off. Most of the knights raised their guns but I stood in their way and told them I had business with the Elder. I outranked most of them so they agreed to let us walk.
Maxson erupted almost immediately. He reached for his sidearm right as he saw Danse's face. I had broken our deal. Danse was to stay far away and the Brotherhood was to consider him dead and a traitor. Ingram was on deck and steadied the Elder's hand to at least let Danse speak. Maxson only got angrier when he heard Danse's challenge to his right to rule. I supported Danse's claim and everyone on the flight deck heard it. We trapped Maxson, he had to respond to the challenge formally or risk his authority being undermined.
Maxson chose hand to hand. Danse obliged and exited his power armor. I'll admit I was tense before they started. If Danse lost, Maxson would call me a traitor and all my attempts to end this peacefully would fail. I would have to order the artillery to fire and then find someway off a burning blimp. If he won I would still have to wait and see if the rest of the Brotherhood accepted it. I had taken a big gamble.