"There is no peace here, war is never cheap dear." -Richard Been

He sat upon the hill, Sanctuary Settlement sprawling out below him in all its ramshackle glory.

It looked peaceful from up high. 'A new age' as Jun had put it. The boogeyman of the Commonwealth reduced to an absurdly large irradiated pothole. No one fearing being taken in the middle of the night or worse. An age of paranoia and distrust shattered all on his crusade to reclaim his son. He scowled at the reminder of how poorly it had gone.

"You've done good, hon," Nora commented, taking a seat beside him. Her legs swinging in the empty air besides his. "Look at what you've built. How happy they are."

He watched as a few settlers, the size of Vault-Tec bobbleheads at this distance, shuffle towards a long day of tending the Eastern fields. A few of the market stands in the cul-de-sac were already being attended to. The night watch was marching off the palisades, and the morning shift was taking their place. Even the flag, a simple navy blue with a white lightning bolt, adhered to the lazy morning with a few languid curls.

She was right; she always had that annoying tendency to be.

"You know I'm right."

He sighed, trying to keep a smile from his face. "I know," he conceded. It was peaceful now, but there was a long way to go. "Raider outfits are still holding strong near Salem. Mutants got a vice on the South, despite our few footholds. The Brotherhood is antsy about the mortars we've been constructing, and them and the Railroad are going at each other's throats." He shook his head. "It's a damn mess," he spat.

She patted his hand, her skin soft. "You've got your work cut out for you, then."

He sighed, deflating like a balloon. He shook his head. "I can't," he whispered. He hated how broken that fragile voice sounded. He sounded like when he had first defrosted. Weak and pathetic, half crazed in desperation. "I'm- I'm too tired, Nora."

The silence stretched on for a minute or two. Her tracing circles around his knuckles, and him watching as the settlement below slowly woke up. Finally, Nora broke the silence. "I know, sweetie, I know," she crooned. "But people still need you. They" -he saw her hand gesture towards Sanctuary out of the corner of his eye- "still need you."

He frowned. Preston did more than him with the actual day-to-day of the Minutemen. He was pretty sure the Brotherhood was going excommunicate him, with the Railroad right behind them.

"I don't think so," he stated. He carded a hand through his hair. He needed to find another hat. "Even if I stick around. It's just... Just more fighting. More killing." He shivered. "I thought Anchorage was bad, but this?" He gave a morbid chuckle. "This-this is just wading, waist deep, in the absolute worst of people." He scoffed. "Shit, and I fit right in."

"Nothing good comes without cost. They do need you. They need someone who's lived better days, not just read about them." She gripped his hand. He turned his head, giving her a skeptical look. He wouldn't say that they had been better, but certainly a lot safer. He frowned at that, after all, in their day the world ended. He watched her tuck a stray piece of hair behind her ear, mesmerized by even the simplest of gestures.

"I can only do so much," he said. He gave her hand an answering squeeze, studying her face. Cheeks pinked from the chill, and the wind playing with her hair. She was just as beautiful as when he had first met her. It felt like decades ago, and it was kind of funny because it was decades ago.

"You can do anything you set your mind to, Tiger," she grinned at him, the kind that made lightbulbs dimmer by comparison. He felt himself grinning at the dorky old pet name. The muscles in his cheeks uncomfortable with the unfamiliar expression. He felt like he had just won a million bucks, and his heart stuttered like a dying lawn mower as those peach lips curled upwards just for him. "I know you can do it," she continued.

Guilt killed the butterflies in his stomach. He couldn't look at her smiling at him like he was still a good man; like he was still worth saving. This harsh world had swallowed him up, chewed him, and then shitted out a killer. He turned his head away from her.

"I couldn't bring Shaun back," he muttered. "Couldn't keep my promise to you." He looked over at one of the recently dug graves in Sanctuary's cemetery. He couldn't read the epitaph from here, but it didn't matter. The words were etched in his heart. Shaun Jones, beloved son.

He felt her smile falter more than he saw it.

"But you made sure nothing like that would happen to another family again," she responded finally. "And you did bring him back in the end." She paused. "I don't blame you," she said to him.

He snorted, his voice miserable as he spoke. "Well, that makes one of us."

She sighed, and he pictured her rolling her eyes in accompaniment. He turned his head to see if he could prove his own theory, only just missing it. "You need to learn to forgive yourself, Nathanial Bernard Jones," she admonished.

He sighed, a frown slipping onto his face. "I don't know if I should." Their son was dead. So many people were dead. He looked down, watching his legs dangle from the platform. His fingers played with a hole in his sleeve. For a second, he could've sworn his hands were stained a dark crimson, the blood of raiders, scientists, and anyone else marking him a murderer like how God had marked Cain.

Even with all that blood on his hands, nothing would change. He had failed his family. They weren't coming back to him.

"I'm all alone now."

Nora laughed, shocking him. The high-pitched, full stomached, bubbly kind that made his insides gooey. He scowled at her, lacking any menace in the gesture.

"Thank God," she said between bouts of giggles. "I didn't love you for your brains. You're not alone, hon. The only one keeping you alone is you."

He sighed. She was right, because she always was. Always better at understanding these sorts of things. Give him a car, and he'll fix it, but give him a person and he'll fuck it up and break a good thing. Hell, he was lucky Nora stuck around so long, or else-

Nora. Images of a blue vault suit stained with crimson jumped through his mind's eye. A gun shot went off in his mind, making him jump. Nora's voice, begging and pleading.

It fell on him like a weight.

"I'll still love you if you start a new family."

She was dead. How could he have- She was buried right next to their son. He opened his mouth, gaping at his wife. He had to be dreaming, or maybe he had finally lost his mind completely.

She gave him a sad smile. Yes, that was it. He had finally lost whatever marbles he had left. "So, promise me you won't give up?"

"Nate!" A voice broke through the shock, his head whipping towards the source, his hand dipping towards his revolver.

A trio crested the hill. Piper, Nick, and Ellie marched up the hill. "Who were you talking to there, partner?" Nick asked as they drew close.

Nate blinked, putting a hand to his temple as he turned. He found the ground next to him empty. He shook his head. Maybe it was just the jet, he reasoned, ignoring the fact that he's been sober for a week. Or maybe he just wasn't the first person to have full blown hallucinations of his dead wife. He stood up, his vision exploding into blues and reds for a second and he blinked his vision clear.

He turned his head back towards the three, and he made out two figures behind Nick's shoulders. Nora, in that tight number of a vault suit holding onto the arm of a silver-haired man besides her. He stared, as both gave him small smiles. Nora raised her hand, giving a wave.

"I promise," he breathed.

"Nate?" Hands appeared on his shoulders, Nick on his right and Piper on his left. Both beginning to guide him back to the path towards Sanctuary, Ellie keeping pace with them as she shot him concerned glances. They lead him down the path like he was mentally handicapped.

I probably am, he mused, it's not exactly normal to hear dead people. He chuckled at his own joke. Maybe one too many hits to the head had caught up to him.

"You okay, gumshoe?" Ellie asked, trying her best to sound nonchalant but Nate could see right past it. Ellie wore her heart on her sleeve, despite her best attempts to hide it. Her concern was well placed if he was to speak on the matter. Even he thought he was a little crazy.

"I-I'm fine." He slipped out of Nick and Piper's grips. "I'm fine," he huffed. "What did you guys need me for?" He ignored the sting in his chest at the question. It was an ugly reality, he was always needed, not wanted. I'll still love you if you start a new family, the words repeated in his head. His stomach rolled with the thought.

"Well, when Preston said you didn't follow to the rally point, he sent us to look around for you," Nick replied. He adjusted that stupid hat he always wore and dug around the inside of his coat for something. A cigarette, if Nate was a betting man.

"We figured you'd go home, I guess," Piper added. "I mean-" she shook her head, grinning. "You did it. No more sleepless nights, terrified that your neighbor is plotting against you, no more kidnappings." She looked over at Nate, and he squirmed under her attention. "No more fear. Thanks to you."

"A bonafide hero," Ellie chuckled.

Nate shook his head, staring at his shoes as they walked. "I'm no fuckin' hero. Don't call me that." He was no one's hero. Even if he was, letting his family die made for a real shitty hero. He frowned. Maybe they would be better off if he just disappeared. He'd have to give that more thought.

Nick sighed, plugging a cigarette between artificial teeth. "Took a lotta guts to do what you did." Nick moved on to searching for a lighter. "It couldn't have been easy."

Nate balled his fists, scowling. "That's putting it lightly." He shook his head, trying to muzzle the monster in his head. "So besides checking if I'd kicked the bucket or not, what else did you need?" They crossed the small bridge. Nate's stomach rolled again, the words of his dead wife rolling in his head.

Nick told him.

A/N: Okay, here's the second chapter. My apologies for it taking as long as it did. This is still just setting the scene. I'll get the third up soon. I'll probably be changing the synopsis soon, and possibly even the title.

Thanks for reading,

Gromp