CHAPTER 2

Oh the angst. The good times are coming. I promise.

-UM

Sole is a strong woman. Too strong if you ask me, she's been through some messed up stuff, she watched her husband get shot in the head and her baby stolen, powerless to stop it. If this would've happened to most people the 10mm pistol found down there would've been pressed against their temple, only one shot necessary. Many can't find the strength to move on from something like that, but she not only found the strength for her, she found it for everyone else too. She found it for Codsworth, helping him search the neighborhood looking for the rest of her half dead family. She found it for Dogmeat, giving him a home when it would've been easier to let the wasteland have him. She found it for Cait as she sat in the chair that would change her. She found the strength for every one of her new friends, giving them the courage to look into a mirror when the last thing they wanted to see was their reflection. Hell she even helped me bring back the minutemen, building it from the ground up, when I couldn't hold the hammer. We all owe her more than there are words to express it, and we all took it for granted. To all of us she was a bottomless pit of warmth, friendship, kindness, and most of all strength. The only one that didn't really need her was Hancock, most people here in Sanctuary hated him. He was the self-righteous, self-appointed, chem-addict mayor from the "Good town" of Goodneighbor. We all knew that Sole took chems occasionally, nobody liked it, but nobody tried to stop it. I guess we all figured that with her problems, a hit of Jet or Med-X wasn't all that bad. It wasn't until Hancock came around did we realize how much chems she consumed, we thought it was his bad influence, apparently she just hid it from us that well. Oh yeah we all hated him, hated him for the real smiles she'd throw his way, the way that when we were all huddled around the fire for dinner she always sat closest to him. We hated how she took him with her everywhere, and that in the first two weeks of knowing him she told him everything, her past was an open book to him, but we only had a few chapters. Most of all we hated that he didn't need her, but she sure needed him. And right now, less than two weeks after the Institute went up in smoke, we all hate that he is the only one that can get her to consume anything other than the Med-X that dulls her pain. Only a few of us were huddled around our cooking spit eating our meal in relative silence. We found ourselves glancing at the door to the old half standing house that was hers before the war, hoping that she'd walk out of it with a smile on her face like she'd done so many times before. Although we couldn't make out any words, we could hear Hancock's raspy voice, probably trying to coax her into being human again.

His deep growl pierced the otherwise quiet night causing us to jump, our hands reaching for our respective weapons.

"Dammit Sole! Look at me! Not with those dead eyes! Really look at me," his outburst turned into plea, "I cannot watch you wither away!"

She must have told him to fuck off because what came next was nothing I ever thought to hear coming out of his mouth, well not directed towards Sole anyway.

"Fuck me?! Really? Well fuck you Sole! Fuck you for being the only friend I have! Fuck you for wanting to die after all the good you've done. Fuck you for staring at that crib and that fucking silver wedding band! Fuck you for making me love you and then making me watch as you slowly kill yourself! Is that what you want? Do you want to join them? I'll carry you right now to that fucking hole in the ground, is that what I need to do? Put you right back in that fucking tube, because if that's what you want maybe It should have been you that got shot in the head, and not your fucking husband."

We all sat stunned, Deacon's mouth was hanging open, Cait put her knees to her chest, holding herself tight, and I just stared at the door, mentally preparing myself for what was coming next. None of us realizing at the time that Hancock let a confession slip out with his anger.

Her voice was the second one that night to pierce the silence, and like Hancock's it was deep, raspy, and fueled by rage.

"Get the Fuck out!" she screeched at him, her voice cracking from disuse. "I hate you, I fucking hate you John Hancock! Get out of my fucking house!"

And the door that we hoped would open did and it wasn't Sole that came out all smiles and laughter, it was Hancock. Standing on the faded welcome mat outside her house he lit a cigarette, taking a long drag before he talked to her one last time through the door, raising his voice slightly so he knew she heard,

"Hate me all you want Sunshine, as long as it keeps you from hating yourself."

It was at that moment that I knew John Hancock just saved her life. I saw what he's been doing for her all these months, he kept her going, he was her rock, her anchor in this screwed up wasteland, he gave up his own strength to keep her from falling apart, leaving none for his self. She needed him because she needed his strength, her own strength depleted by the rest of us. So when he looked over to us, telling us he'd be in Goodneighbor if we needed him, I saw the real John Hancock for the first time, not the charismatic junkie mayor from a town barely on the map, I saw what he really was, a broken man ready to do anything to keep the women he loved from drowning, even if it meant drowning himself.

BTW

This was Preston's view if you didn't guess. :D