Breaking Point: Part Two
"She's gone."
Danse's growl cut through the buzzing high Hancock was riding (a homebrewed cocktail of mentats, jet and whisky that had taken years to perfect), blowing apart the carefully crafted feel good glow like a grenade tossed into a pack of feral ghouls.
Hancock looked up at the pissed off Brotherhood Paladin scowling down at him, unimpressed by the by the shining power armor filling most of his half-lidded vision. He waved the hand that was more or less in one piece at Danse and said, "No shit. Of course she is."
"You were supposed to keep watch while I slept," Danse said, grinding the words out between his clenched teeth.
"And I did. I watched her waltz right out that fucking door," Hancock said as he pointed a shriveled finger at the cobbled together commander's office door that looked like it might collapse off its hinges at any moment, "about six hours ago."
Hancock tipped his head to the side, curious to see if the Paladin was going to finally snap and try to kick his bony ass, his other hand on the .45 he'd stashed in between the couch's cracked vinyl cushions just in case. But Danse didn't fuck with him by grabbing the lapels of his red coat and slamming him against the wall, although his gauntleted hands flexed like he really, really wanted to. He didn't even cuss Hancock out which was really disappointing. All the pompous tool did was curl his lip and growl down at him. "You let her go?"
"Yeah I let her go. What the hell was I supposed to do? Tie her to the bed?" Hancock asked as he swung a leg up over the armrest. "I mean, don't get me wrong. I'm a freak on the outside and a freak in the sack, but that's not what she's looking for right now."
It was dick move to bait the paladin that way, especially since Danse already looked like shit with dark circles under his eyes and the scruff on his jaw in danger of becoming a full grown beard. But Hancock couldn't stop the smug grin when he saw the in the jealous glint that lit the paladin's brown eyes and the way the man clenched his teeth.
Danse shook his head like he was trying to shake the mental image. "You're high and an idiot."
It was weird. Danse's usual bigoted slurs were no skin off of his rotting ass, but Hancock couldn't stand being dismissed as just another mindless junkie.
Hancock sat up on the couch and jerked his chin high. "Or maybe I'm the smart one here."
"Yes. Letting a woman drowning in grief go off on her own into the commonwealth was a brilliant tactical maneuver. With that kind of strategic thinking, I can see how you became mayor of that town full of freaks."
Danse must have been more rattled than he let on to unwedge the stick up his ass and get sarcastic. At any other time, Hancock would have found the cheap shot amusing.
"Look, it was only a matter of time before she bugged out on us. Trust me. I know when someone's about to run. I've done it enough myself," he added with a mutter, unable to keep the self-loathing out of his voice.
The signs had been there for the last two days despite her almost catatonic state. The tightness at the corner of her full lips, the way her long fingers twitched, how she stared at the door as though she wanted to do nothing more than lock everyone and everything she knew on the other side of it forever.
"Then you should have warned us," Danse growled. And by "us" he meant "him" since Hancock was pretty sure that Preston was just barely above himself in the paladin's eyes.
"You would have tried to stop her and she would have shut down again. At least she's up and moving now instead of lying on the bed and staring at the wall all day."
"And walking into the middle of a hot zone. Do you know how bad it is in the Commonwealth right now? Or are you too high to see that it's raining hell out there?" Danse said as he jerked a thumb at the door.
As much as Hancock hated to admit it, the asshole almost had a point. The reports coming in from both Minutemen scouts and Brotherhood recon units reported that something had crawled up the collective ass of the local supermutant and raider populations. The fighting in the city had gotten so bad over the last two days that even well armored caravan units couldn't make it through. They hadn't even needed official reports to tell them that. The non-stop pop of gunfire in the distance and the lit up night sky told Hancock how bad things had gotten.
It also meant that Cait and Deacon hadn't returned with Valentine yet. Danse hadn't even been able to call in his favor and bring Macready and Piper back since all Brotherhood air units were on high alert until further notice.
Still, Hancock jerked his chin up. "Nora doesn't need you to be her big armored nanny. This is the woman who woke up from a two hundred year nap and still and managed to hike to Diamond City with just a rusty rifle and a dog. She can handle herself just fine."
"Normally, I'd agree," Danse said as he put his hands on his hips. "But she's not in top form right now is she?"
"Right. That's why..." Hancock said as he shoved himself off of the couch and stood with only a slight wobble, "...we're going after her."
Danse's eyes narrowed, from confusion or suspicion Hancock couldn't tell, but he figured it was probably a little of both. "You let her go, but now you want to go track her down?"
"Hell yeah," Hancock said as he shoved the pistol he'd been hiding into the flag that he used as his belt. "She's had enough time get her shit together, so I say it's time to time to find out if our girl is coming home. You feel me?"
"Let's get something straight, ghoul. Under no circumstances will I ever 'feel' you," Danse said, his face twisting in disgust like he'd just drank some of the piss that passed for beer in Diamond City. But then he gestured towards the door. "But I take your point. Do you have any idea where she went?"
Hancock shrugged. "Not a clue. But I know who can track her down," he said as he walked over to the black trench coat and silver scarf she'd left hanging on a hook. Hancock picked up the scarf, letting the soft fabric slide through his hands for a moment before striding out of the room and over to the doghouse that sat in the corner of the courtyard. Danse broke away for a moment to talk to Garvey for a minute, probably to let the Minuteman know that they were going after Nora, while Hancock crouched down next to the dog.
Dogmeat looked up at him, panting in the morning sun, leaning into his hand while Hancock took a moment to scratch behind the dog's pointed ear. Then he held out the scarf in front of the dog's nose. "Think you can find her, boy?"
The dog leapt up and barked as if to ask Hancock what had taken him so damned long, then pressed his nose to the ground and began to search for her trail. By the time Danse had caught up with them, the dog was already out of the fort and halfway down the beach.
Danse's brows rose as he watched the dog. Then nodded and said, "Outstanding."
It was the last word spoken between them for hours as they followed the trail south more or less along the coastline which was just fine with Hancock. While he'd never admit it to the power armored asshole, Hancock was happy that she that she wasn't suicidal enough to go into the city.
Other than the occasional raider too high to have enough brains left to leave them alone, they didn't run into much trouble. Still, it was well into the night by the time Dogmeat led them to a long stretch of beach east of Quincy, past the massive hulk of a wrecked ship. They followed a trail of freshly dead mirelurk carcasses to where the beach ended in front of a sinking lighthouse that leaned to one side. When the dog stopped and barked before the radioactive water, Hancock knew that they'd finally caught up with her.
As tired as Danse looked after hours and hours of tracking her with almost no rest, the man waded into the shallow water with no hesitation, ready to barrel up the stairs. Hancock sloshed through the cold radiated water, barely making it to the doorframe before the paladin got there.
"Woah. Slow down." Hancock said as he spread his hands wide. "Stay here and let me handle this, alright?"
"I didn't walk all this way to wait at the bottom of this lighthouse, ghoul, while you take point. She's my soldier and my responsibility."
"This isn't an assault, man. It's going to take some finesse. Do you really think you're any good at that kind of shit?" Hancock didn't actually expect to see the flicker of doubt cross Danse's face that was lit by the harsh light on his power armor, but he sure as fuck was going to push the advantage while he had it. "Look you've been keeping watch for days, which was good 'cause she needed it. But Nora ran for a reason, probably to get some space from you."
There was a long silence, then a tired sigh that that made Hancock actually feel pity for the guy. "You're saying that I drove her away."
"Naw, man. That's not on you. It's just time to switch up tactics, is all."
Danse's jaw locked, his frustration clear in the hard line of his jaw, but then he said. "Alright. You get first shot. I'll keep guard down here."
As much of a dick as Danse could be, Hancock had to respect the guy for not letting his bullshit hangups get in the way of what needed to be done.
"You do that," Hancock said as he started to climb the circular stairs.
Without Danse's light, it was so dark inside the lighthouse that Hancock had to make his way to the top almost by feel, the cool rusted metal under his hand spiraling upward until it finally opened up on a landing. And there she was, sitting a few steps down from the room at the top, staring north towards Boston. In the starlight, he couldn't make out the expression on her face, she was basically just a shadow against a deeper darkness, but then, he didn't need to. He could tell her mood from the fact that she didn't say a word to him even when he sat down on the step below her.
For all of his posturing to Danse below, now that he was up here, Hancock didn't have the first clue what to say. It occurred to him that he probably wasn't high enough to deal with this, but Nora hated it when he got fucked up in front of her, so he fished a pack of smokes out of his jacket pocket and lit one for himself instead.
"You going to offer me one of those?" she asked. Her voice was quiet and low in the darkness, but it still shocked the hell out of him.
He handed her one, then lit it with his flip lighter. The flickering flame revealed flawless red skin and full red lips for a few seconds. The way she took a deep drag without coughing her lungs out, then closed her eyes and sighed in satisfaction told him that it wasn't her first cigarette.
"Since when do you smoke?" he asked he flipped the lighter shut and left them in darkness again.
"Since I no longer have to worry about raising a kid," she said.
Her voice wasn't weepy and it didn't crack from grief. It was just matter-of-fact, like she was talking about the weather or what kind of gun she was carrying that day, which made it so much worse.
Hancock was glad that she couldn't see him wince in the darkness. He hadn't planned on poking her wounds this early, but hell, at least she was talking now. "Did you smoked before Shaun was born?"
"Yeah. When I was in law school. I stopped when I found out I was pregnant. That was a hell of a lot harder than passing the bar exam, actually."
"The bar exam? That sounds like something I'd be good at."
She made a sound that wasn't quite a laugh, then said, "It's not what it sounds like." There was a pause and then she added, "But yes, you would have made a damned fine lawyer."
Since she couldn't bring herself to laugh, he did it for her. "Even with all of the drugs and booze that I do?"
"Especially with all of the drugs and booze that you do. You would have fit right in with some of my colleagues," she said with a sigh. Silence stretched between them again as he waited. Then she asked, "Why are you here, John?"
Nora was the only one who called him by his first name anymore, who saw past the red coat and drugs and bullshit speeches and still thought the fucked up guy underneath was worth something. "You're my friend, probably the only one I've got. Why the hell wouldn't I be here?"
"Because more than anyone, I thought you'd understand why I needed to go."
"Yeah I get it. I do," he admitted, before pausing to take a drag of his smoke and exhaling through the hole where his nose used to be. "And I'd actually let you leave without giving you shit about it, if I thought you were actually a runner. But you're not."
For the first time he heard her frustration and anger leak into her voice. "Is that right?"
"Yeah, that's right. And I can fucking prove it."
"Really?"
"Yup," he declared as he flicked his ash on the metal steps. "Tell me, Nora, how did you get to be such a good shot with that rifle? I've read enough half charred books and busted museum exhibits to know that being a lawyer didn't have shit to do with sharpshooting. According to Preston, you were dropping raiders at a hundred yards when you'd been thawed out for less than a week. So tell me, how'd you get so good?"
It was a question he already knew the answer to, one that had been asked so many times that the answer was practically legend in the ranks of the Minutemen now, but Hancock wanted to hear it from her. For a moment, he thought that she was going to shut down completely and tell him to fuck off, but she didn't.
"One time Nate took me out shooting with some of his Infantry friends. It was just for fun. A warm afternoon of shooting holes in tin cans to blow off some steam, you know? When they let me have a turn, I was absolutely terrible. They were really kind about it, no one really expected me to know how to shoot. I mean, how could I? It was the first time I'd fired a gun and they were all experienced soldiers, but I couldn't stand it. It made me so angry that for the next year while he was deployed, I joined a gun club, took classes, and practiced almost every single day. And the next time they took me shooting, I kicked all of their asses."
Hancock laughed. "I bet that surprised the hell out of them."
"It did. Nate thought it was amazing. He was so damned proud." There was a pause before she added. "I was proud of myself too."
"See? That, right there, is why you're not going to run away. You're an arrogant shit, Nora."
Even in the darkness he could tell that he'd grabbed her attention by the way the shadow next to him stiffened. She was pissed, he could tell from the tone of her voice, and that was a good sign. "Really. And how do you figure that?"
"Only an arrogant shit would look at an alley sandwiched between supermutants and raiders and turn it into a refuge for settlers. Only an arrogant shit would put on a trench coat and a fedora and take out assholes with a minigun because some slob asked her to. Only an arrogant shit would take a bunch of scrabbling farmers and turn them into a freaking militia. And only an arrogant shit would teleport into an enemy stronghold and demand to know what happened to her kid."
He took a long drag before he continued, his gaze landing on the muted glow the Boston ruins in the distance. "You look at the commonwealth and don't see a hellhole. You see something that can be fixed, even when everyone who tried has fallen on their ass and landed in the gutter. If that isn't arrogant and stubborn and crazy as fuck, I don't know what is."
"I was trying to build a refuge for my son," she snapped.
"I know that was part of it. And that part of you, the part that hoarded toys for her boy and then smashed them all when it didn't work out, is sitting right here. But don't kid yourself. If Shaun had never been born, you'd have done it anyway. You'd do it because the thought of failing pisses you off so hard that you can't see straight. You'd do it because once you start something, you can't let it go until you've won. You'd do it because you love every god damned second of the struggle to put shit right. And that's why you ain't gonna run, even though you want to. You can't, because you don't know any other way to be."
That was why she was stronger and better than him, why he'd follow her anywhere she wanted to go, and why he loved her so fucking much that it sometimes scared the shit out of him.
"So," he said as he stood, flicked the butt of his smoke over the side of the railing, and straightened his red coat, "sit up here. Take as long as you need to pull your shit together. I'll be waiting down there with Danse when you're ready to come home."
Even though he couldn't see her face, he knew she hated him at that moment. But Hancock loved her too much to do anything but walk down that spiral staircase and let her stew.
When he reached the bottom, he waded through the cold water to where Danse and Dogmeat were waiting on the sandbar.
"Well? Where is she?" Danse demanded.
"Stewing."
"And you expect me to just leave her up there."
"For now, yeah. You go up there, and you screw up everything I just did. Give it a few minutes. Alright? She's gotta come down her own or there's no fucking point."
Hancock lit himself another smoke, expecting an argument, but Danse merely looked up at the top of the tower even though it was impossible to see her in the moonless night. Time seemed to stretch and drag. Hancock smoked three more cigarettes, wondering if maybe he'd gotten it all wrong, that maybe karma would finally bite him in the ass and the one thing in the world that he didn't want to run from would decide to turn tail and leave him in the dust, when he finally heard the splashing in the water behind him.
Danse turned his light on, and the two men watched her wade out of the water in silence. She didn't stop until she was face to face with Hancock. The look on her face wasn't blank, but it wasn't quite readable either.
Nora arched an ebony eyebrow. "I'm an arrogant shit, huh?"
"That's right."
"It takes one to know one," she said, and then she walked past right him, heading towards the Boston city lights. Danse looked over at him and gave him a curt, but grateful, nod and Hancock grinned and shoved his hands into his trouser pockets as both men fell into step behind her.
