"Hey sorry about putting you through all that with Bobbi."
Rose looked up and meet Hancock's eyes as he spoke across the worn coffee table in the small one room apartment they had holed up in for the night. His eyes dark abysses so unnatural. It still makes me uneasy after these few weeks traveling with him but I'll be damned if I'm rude and let it show. He offered to help me around the Commonwealth and I refuse repay him in that way.
"What do you mean Hancock? It was my own fault. I needed the caps so I didn't question too deeply. That's on me." She fidgeted as she spoke; she still felt guilty.
"Hey now she fooled us both don't take all the blame sister. Feel bad you had to take care of her like that for me it's not usually my style. It's too dictatorial; shit like that is the whole reason I became Mayor of Goodneighbor. Although the way Fahrenheit tells it, you tried to talk Bobbi down before Bobbi went after her. Sounds like Bobbi didn't give you much of a choice." Hancock sighed leaning back in the wooden chair he occupied.
Heh her protecting Fahrenheit. She didn't need protecting, now Rose on the other hand. I told her it was to sharpen up the old killer instinct but there was more to it than that. She trusts too easily, hesitates when pulling the trigger first, she was still soft not hardened by the Commonwealth yet. There people who would take advantage of that. And I won't let shit like that happen to a mother out of time looking for her son.
"I wish she had listened." Rose said with a sigh closing her eyes rubbing her temples in thought. Bobbi lunges at Fahrenheit drawing her gun hoping to get close enough that Fahrenheit couldn't use her flamer effectively. Fahrenheit hadn't even pulled the trigger, she had given them a chance to leave. I wouldn't let Bobbi kill someone who has just shown us mercy.
"Me too sister." Hancock replied popping two mentats into his mouth. He then offered her the tin. Rose declined just shaking her head, she wanted a clear head when she took first watch.
The room was quiet for a maybe ten minutes until Rose's curiosity got the better of her. "Hey Hancock I have a question"
"You seem to ask a lot of them but sure go ahead" he answered with a chuckle. Just full of them ain't she.
"What was Goodneighbor like before you took over?' He mentioned 'dictatorial shit' how bad had it been for him to have felt the need to intervene.
"A mob boss named Vic ran the town with an iron fist." Hancock replied his voice filled with venom as his eyes glazed over not in the present anymore "Had a goon squad he used to keep the people nice and scared. He'd let them off the leash every so often to blow off steam. People with homes locked their doors but us drifters we had it bad" His voice faded out lost in a memory.
Rose felt her fists clench in anger as she listened to Hancock's story. People like that piss me off. Goodneighbor might be rough around the edges but it was filled with good people who deserved better than that. "What happened to the bastard?"
Hancock's eyes focused on Rose drawn out of the past by the harshness of her tone. "Oh I killed him. Got fed up after I watched his goons crack open a drifter's skull on the pavement for speaking up against them. At the time i just cowered with the other drifters and watched. Shoulda done something but I was a coward."
"It sounds like you couldn't have done much they would have just done the same to you Hancock" she interrupted her tone soft upon hearing the bitterness in his tone. I know that tone, heard it from Nate when he talked about the war. He had hated himself, the things he has done. Nobody should have to feel that pain for just trying to survive.
"True but it does not change the fact it was spineless. After that i felt worse than nothing, so I got high so fucked up I blacked out. I woke up in front of the clothes of John Hancock, first American hoodlum and defender of the people. I was probably still high but those clothes spoke to me and I knew what I had to do. Smashed the case and put them on and started a new life as Hancock. I swore I wouldn't stand by and watch ever again. I went clean for a while rounded up some drifters and went out into the ruins to train. We'd be ready for his goons next time I made sure of that."
"Well I'm glad you took him out the people of Goodneighbor deserve better than that" Rose looked at Hancock with a smile and then added her tone teasing "Even if old clothes told you to"
Hancock grinned "Hey crazy shit happens sometimes when you're high. Glad you agree with me but you've probably had enough of me running my mouth for tonight."