Kait had left her an engraved baseball bat, covered in curses and encouraging words that urged her to use the gift on the raiders that did this to her. Preston left her a bouquet of wilted flowers. Nick had been bringing her noodles every night. MacCready started a sizable collection of battered teddy bears at the base of her cot. Piper was hastily scribbling down everything that was happening in the Commonwealth without her and leaving stacks of them on her bedside table.

He'd showed up a week after she'd first came here, nothing but his hat in his hand.

He was scared. He really was. Scared of what she'd say to him, of the blame she'd pin on him. He'd spent the entire week trying to think of how best to end things with her, because he sure as fucking hell wasn't letting this happen to her again. Next time, they might…

"Shit," he snaps to himself, looking through the gas mask to the sky. The stars were glimmering through the light pollution, and he remembers laying with her on the roofs of blown apart buildings and asking about constellations. She'd pointed out the ones she remembered, telling their stories with such vigor that, when the chems kicked in, he'd feel himself drift up with her into the moon and lounge in their bounty.

Now, he was painfully aware of her absence in his life as he slowly opened the clinic door, descending the stairs at an even more painful pace. The lights were low, the smell of antibiotics and Stimpaks hung in the air. And there, in a halo of gifts and blood bags, she lay.

She was asleep, he noted as he unstrapped the mask from his head. Part of him was relieved, but most of him was busy packing up the guilt if he awoke her for the purpose of never seeing her again.

He sat down in a chair that had been brought in for guests, and unsurprisingly, there had been a lot: when you devote most of your time to helping people, what do ya expect?

Her face was unbandage, exposing all of her skin, her scarred, shriveled skin, to his view. His legs gave out as he reached the chair.

What had he done to her?

He rolls closer to the bed, reaching out for her hand but hesitating. He didn't really deserve to be here, but he was greedy. His fingers slipped into hers. He placed the back of her hand to his lips.

She stirred, her good eye opening before the other, latching onto him through a tired stretch. Her face lights up, her nose crinkling despite the burn marks, and his heart shatters.

"I'm so sorry." He begins to cry, his shoulders shaking under his shirt. She pulls on his arm, and he stands and crawls into the bed beside her, burying his face in her neck. She smelled like sweat, but there was that same, far away dusting of vanilla and he broke.

He'd missed her so much. Had been able to think of little else besides: How many guns do we need? Is she okay? How many people are we going to need? Will she forgive me? Deacon better come through with the brotherhood, and I hope I can make this up to her somehow.

"You don't have to be sorry," she whispers into in head, but he shakes against her.

"This w-wouldn't have happened i-if-"

"No, maybe not. But it would have happened eventually." He looks up as she says this, charred cheeks wet with his tears. She wipes them away with her thumb and a patient smile. "You don't make a living fucking up raiders and expect this to never happen."

"But… your face is…"

"All fucked up? I know, right?" she laughs, looking… excited? "I saw the marks. They're pretty sweet, aren't they? I look like a badass."

He's entirely unsure how to react. He catches himself staring at her, mouth slightly open, unable to form words. He searches her face for something, anything, that would suggest she was putting up a wall to keep him out, but he finds none.

"I spent all week trying to find the right words to apologize, to try and get you to realize that you're only gonna get hurt if you stick with me," his voice shakes as he sits upright, looking down at her.

"John, list-"

"No, I need to… Look at your fucking face!" he exclaims, motioning to the aforementioned area. She recoils slightly at his tone, but doesn't back down in her stance. "Look at what they did to you, because of me. I can't… I won't let this happen again. Not to someone like you."

"So let's go kill them and it won't happen again," she offers, reaching for his hand but he avoids the contact, instead taking to pacing around the room.

"That won't stop more from trying. I've made a lot of enemies in my day, a lot of people want me dead, a lot of people will use you to get to me. I couldn't live with myself if they…" His fingers dig into his scalp as he paces.

"John, that's not a reason to… to stop seeing each other. We've been shot at, kicked off of cliffs. One time, we walked into a deathclaw nest. Just because this one time actually hurt a little, doesn't mean we should-"

"I don't understand what you aren't getting!" he snaps, and she closes her mouth, looking up at him with hurt and a slight hint of fear. "I can't have you getting hurt like this again. I don't want you to be with me if this is the consequence."

"With all due respect, Hancock," he winces at how formal his last name sounded from her, "you can fuck off. If that's the best reason you have, I simply won't accept it. So, it's a scar. I can still see; I can still fight. And it had nothing to do with you."

He growls, kicking over the pile of stuffed bears on her floor. "I can't let someone else down like this again. I won't be powerless to defend someone I love again. I can't… let that happen to you."

"I can take care of mys-"

"No, you clearly cannot!" He regrets his words as soon as they leave his lips. Her wince will follow him for the rest of his life. But she finally stopped arguing, and in his pained and panicked state, the words won't stop. "You clearly cannot take care of yourself. Your face is ruined and you're only going to slow me down. I can't keep carrying your ass across the Commonwealth."

"Like you ever carried me!" she snaps, flinging the blanket from her bed with force. She slams to her feet and crosses the room to stand directly in front of him. He can see the tears in her eyes. He knows he's close, too. "What's the real reason? Don't you stand here and lie to me. What, is there someone else? Someone who dopes up on chems every night and lets you hate yourself? Is that it?"

She shoves him. Hard enough to send him stumbling back into the clinic wall where he pins her with hurt and angry eyes.

"You're accusing me of cheating on you? Man, and I thought you knew me," he snarls.

"Oh, don't you even start with that!" she laughs, but her voice was shaking, "I know you. I know all too well. Do you know how hard it was for me to love someone after my husband? But I did, because I love you, so don't you throw that shit in my face."

"Oh, boo, hoo," he mocks, raising his voice to crudely imitate hers. "We've all got dead people, sister! You think your husband would have waited to shag a waister if he'd walked and you hadn't?"

He'd crossed the line. He saw it in her face, saw the tears break through her eyes, saw the sloppy windup to the fist that connected to his jaw. He didn't defend against it, took it as it slammed his skull into the wall. He was woozy, staggered into the stairs. She'd hit him with full force.

"Don't you ever talk about my husband," her voice was stone. Just as he was about to push her away further, the door opened, and light poured through.

"What the hell are you doing?" Nick asks, two noodle cups in his hands, peering with golden eyes down to the two. Hancock stands, forgetting his hat and mask on the floor.

"I was leaving," he growls, pushing past the synth.

"And he wasn't coming back," is hurled after him, and Nick gives him a snapping glare before closing the door.

He's alone.

He slumps against the door of the clinic, everything inside of him clinging to her memory. He can hear her crying through the walls, hear Valentine trying to comfort her as best as he could.

Why was he like this, he asks himself as he finally lets the tears fall. His face was still numb, still stinging from her hit. Good, he thought, he deserved much more than that. What had he ever been thinking, falling for someone like that? Someone so good-hearted, so funny and intelligent, and beautiful. How fucking stupid was he to think he deserved her. He was just a-

"Hey, no ghouls in the city," a passing guard grunts down at him, kicking him in the shin. Hancock looks up at him through soaking eyes, not possessing enough energy to retaliate.

He pulls himself off of the ground and leaves.