Jack opened his eyes and he was back on Reach staring at the large mountains in the distance. He then heard the sound of gunfire coming from behind him when suddenly he felt a hand on his shoulder, and when he spun around to see who it was he froze. In front on him was one of his squad mates that had died on Reach before he was brought here, however there was something very wrong with him, his visor had a large chunk of it missing and Jack could see the man's bloodied face with some of his skull peeking out from the skin.
Jack stood frozen by the image of his brother in arms standing in front of him in such a state. "Why didn't you do anything to save all of us?" the man asked Jack, "Why are you still alive and not us?" another voice asked from nearby. Jack then turned his head and saw the rest of his squad standing around him in similar forms like the man directly in front of him.
He then looked at all of them and could feel some of the emotions he had tried so hard to kill over his years over training and being in the spartan program coming up to the surface as he looked at his now fallen squad. "I'm sorry," was the only thing he could say without breaking down at the sight of them. "You shouldn't be alive," "Why can't we be alive too?" the questions continued just seeming to torture Jack more and more as they continued to ask them.
It was then that he noticed the other spartans had been making their way closer to him and they now all had their knives in their hands. Jack let his reflexes kick in and he quickly took a couple steps back before he felt the back of his feet reach a cliff he hadn't noticed there before. He then lowered himself a little and prepared to fight his old squad, he could feel the tug at his heart at having to even think about truly fighting them and not just sparring but he knew what he had to do to survive.
It was at this moment he could hear a voice far off in the distance that seemed to be calling either to him or saying something to him, he wasn't fully sure. He then tried to focus more on the voice as it continued to call out towards his direction and when it began to clear up some he thought it sounded a small bit like a woman's voice. 'Nora?' he thought, 'No there's no way she's here, but where even is here exactly, I can't be on Reach,' he thought to himself still watching as his old squad very slowly hobbled their way towards him still.
Jack turned his attention towards his still approaching dead squadmates and made a decision that he has to survive and this is no longer his squad. He then kicks the closest one in the chest and quickly moves to disarm the next and take it down with its own weapon, but as he was disarming the second 'thing' he suddenly felt a sharp pain in his shoulder. He looked at his shoulder and saw the third 'thing' had stabbed him in the shoulder as he was disarming the second.
'They must still have most of their spartan enhancements,' he thought figuring that would be the only way the third one would have been able to stab him as he was moving. Jack kicked the second one in the back finishing disarming it and taking the knife in hand he whipped around and stabbed the third one in the neck before it could react.
This seemed to do very little to it though as the 'thing' continued to hobble towards him now reaching up to take the knife out of its neck. Jack reached up and pulled the knife out of his own shoulder feeling the pain come back to him for a second before becoming a dull ache again. He was getting himself ready for another wave of attacks when he again heard a woman's voice but this time when he looked around for it he was suddenly thrust into darkness.
Jack came to and saw the white light of the ceiling light from inside of the Red Rocket he and Nora had been staying at. He shot up in an instant still feeling adrenaline pumping through him, but as he looked around and could see where he was he began to calm himself down.
During Jack's very quick wake up he had caused Nora to wake up as well as he wasn't being very quiet about being woke up from his nightmare. "What's goin on?" she asked as she sat up and rubbed her eyes quickly trying to see what the large spartan was doing to cause a commotion.
Jack turned and looked at her somewhat confused, 'I thought she was the one talking to me in my dream, maybe she still was but I'm not sure at this point,' he thought as he continued to ponder on the strangeness of his dream. 'if it wasn't Nora could it have been her?' he thought as he looked down at the floor and away from Nora, 'No it couldn't have been, there's no way,'. "Uh hello?" Nora said waving her hand at Jack, "You wanna tell me why you woke me up from my sleep jumping around the room and maybe causing a building nearby to collapse?" she said throwing in the slight jab as she was kind of upset at being woke up so early.
After Jack gave a small explanation of his dream he was fully calm and was ready to begin whatever it was they were going to do today. "I'm sorry about your dream," Nora said as she looked at Jack with sad eyes, "No one should have to go through things like nightmares," she said. Jack hadn't told her about his team or any true details he had just basically told her it was a nightmare with some other small insignificant details.
Jack merely shrugged at her comment as he knew what was to come when he fell asleep, this wasn't his first time having nightmares from PTSD and he knew it wasn't going to be the last. "What are we doing today?" he asked trying to get her off of the subject of himself. Nora seemed to pick up on him wanting to drop the subject and started to gather the things she would need for the day.
"I figured maybe we could go back up to Preston and those others and see if they might need some help and if not then we could go out to town and find some more stuff to build up our base," she said with a smile as she threw her backpack on. "Base?" Jack questioned as he wondered if she could possibly be talking about the Red Rocket they were currently in.
"Yeah we need somewhere to keep our stuff, so I figured why not somewhere small but close to some friends," she said beginning to walk out the door happy with her explanation. Jack still didn't trust the small group but he knew that he wasn't going to have an easy time of convincing her of the risks, 'I mean I still shouldn't fully trust her but I do,' he thought to himself. 'She would've tried to kill me already or betray me,' he reasoned with himself just trying to give himself some sort of reason as to why he trusted her.
Jack never answered her after her short explanation and simply followed behind her as they walked up the road and back to Sanctuary. 'I can't trust these people but I will trust her, at least until they show me some of these good deeds they say that they do,' Jack thought just trying to keep himself busy at the moment and not think about his nightmare that he just woke up from.
When the pair arrived at Sanctuary and Nora sought out Preston they found him making some rounds guarding the perimeter while most all of the other settlers were either working on fixing the main house that seemed to have the two different workshop tables or they were behind the house working in a small farm area.
Nora had asked if they could help and of course there was something they could do and so Jack was set to work using his inhuman strength to pull wood off of the collapsed houses and bringing it to the main house to be repaired or moving some of the heavier objects that were laying in the roads or in yards.
They did this for about four hours before Jack had completely dismantled one of the collapsed houses, after he finished this all of settlers and even Nora were dead tired trying to keep up with how fast Jack could work and move. So they all decided to take a break and make some lunch for everyone, Jack didn't need a break and he wasn't very hungry at the moment as his Mjolnir armor was still currently keeping him alive and well.
Since he didn't need either the break or food he decided that he would just busy himself and continue to tear apart the next house and stack up the wood. As he did this he noticed a few of the settlers were glancing at him from time to time but he was fully used to being stared at or looked at weird by now, so he just ignored the looks.
After the group had finished their lunch and had rehydrated they set back to work on finishing the first house. Which after another two hours work they had 'fixed' the house to the point where there weren't giant holes in it's walls and roof or ceiling anymore and it somewhat resembled a normal home.
When they finished repairing the first house the small group of survivors spread out and began taking mattresses and beds from the other houses and putting them into the newly fixed home. Since this wasn't a large group everyone could currently sleep inside as they had taken out all of the couches and cabinets and even the fridge to be sure they had room for everyone.
Jack and Nora stood in front of the house looking over the house before Preston walked up to them with a smile, "Thank you two so much, I know we wouldn't have been able to do this without you," the man said as he motioned over his shoulder. "Don't worry about it we're friends now right and we're supposed to help each other in times of need," Nora said smiling back at Preston.
"Well I'm so glad to have friends like you two," he said, "So what's yall's next project?" Nora asked looking down both directions of the road. "Well I thought maybe we should be getting a better water system set up than boiling water from the river but then I'm not sure there's still a lot to do," "That there is Preston," Nora said before she turned her attention back to the man, "But I just have one quick suggestion if you'd like," she asked. Preston nodded a yes answer to her question, "Well I just thought that maybe ya'll should build a wall around this settlement so that way you wouldn't have to worry as much about sneak attacks on your group and it would make everyone feel safer,".
Preston thought about this suggestion for a minute, "That's definitely a good idea, after we get our water situation we'll get to doing that," he said taking her suggestion to heart. Nora smiled glad that her suggestion seemed to be a good one and she turned and looked over her shoulder at Jack for some sort of reaction but as usual she got none but the large Spartan simply looking down at her.
After they finished helping with some smaller things like some cleanup the pair began to leave as Nora told the other group goodbye. When they made it to the bridge Nora began to ask the large man next to her some questions she had been wondering ever since lunch. "So do you just not have to eat or drink anything or what?" she asked as she looked up at the spartan as they walked back down the road towards their apparent 'base'.
Jack thought about how to answer her question without giving up much about his armor, "I have to eat I am just able to go longer without food than you," he said satisfied with how he answered. "But it's been three days and I haven't seen you eat once," "You haven't seen me do it," he answered as he knew it was a lie but it would give him and explanation to go with for now. Nora gave him a strange look before shrugging her shoulders, "That's true," Jack was slightly relieved as she just took his explanation without any questions.
The two made it back into the parking lot of the Red Rocket when Dogmeat came running out to meet them from inside the station. "Hi bud," Nora said as she kneeled down and hugged the dog, "You haven't made any messes in the house have you?" she said to the dog as she smiled at him. Jack just continued to walk past the two after stopping for a second to watch them, he went inside and he could begin to feel the beginning of his hunger coming to him. He hasn't eaten anything for almost five days as him and his team were sent out on the mission without many supplies as they had thought they wouldn't need them.
Jack knew he would need to eat sometime soon and that meant he would have to take his helmet off but he still didn't want to reveal himself to Nora yet but she was the one who had everything in her backpack. 'I could ask for some food and then eat it later but she might not leave me alone until I do eat,' he thought as he stood in the hallway trying to figure this situation out.
"Whatcha doin?" he heard Nora ask behind him as she walked through the door of the station staring at the large spartan. Jack turned to her, "Do you have any extra food?" he asked, "Yes why, I thought you said you don't need food often," Nora replied with sarcasm very evident in her voice.
"I don't need it I just want to keep it stored in the room so I can have it for when I do need it," he said making sure to keep his voice monotone. Nora stared at him suspiciously before she took her backpack off and handed him a few cans of random food that they had found in the abandoned buildings throughout the town.
"Ok whatever I trust you," she said after she finished giving him the extra cans and other foods, "Thank you," was all he said in response before gathering up the food and taking it back to the room and putting it on 'his' side of the room. Nora waited on him to come back out of the room and began to unpack some of the extra materials they found in Sanctuary.
When Jack walked back into the now enclosed garage, as Nora had shut the door, he saw she had taken out some of the extra things they had brought with them back here. "Oh hey I thought you were gonna eat?" Nora asked as he came into the garage much sooner than she expected. The large spartan merely shrugged his shoulders before crossing his arms and just watching Nora organize her things.
"Ya know we ought to go back to town and get materials to fix up this place just like we did today in Sanctuary," Nora said as she looked up at the very large man. "Like what?" Jack asked as he stood unmoving, "Like fixing that big window and putting boards over it so something can't just climb in here with us," she said motioning to the large rectangular shaped window behind Jack.
Jack looked over his shoulder at the window silently agreeing with her as he turned back and looked at her. "But it is getting late, so we probably should wait and fix this place up tomorrow," Nora said as she gave out a yawn. Jack wasn't tired as he had gotten some sleep last night even through the nightmares he had and he knew he could stay awake for another day before he would truly need rest.
"You go I'll sleep in a little while," Jack said knowing full well he was lying to Nora. "Ok if you say so," she said too tired to argue with the spartan; Jack watched as she left the garage and disappeared into the room. The spartan then turned and walked out the door before staring off into the sky, he wasn't sure what he was looking at or looking for but it was something.
After he stared up at the sky for almost half an hour just trying to kill time before he could do what he truly wanted. Jack then walked back into the station being as quiet as he possibly could be before going into the room and grabbing a few cans of the food he got from Nora and bringing them with him to the garage.
When he made it back into the garage he sat down against the wall and listened making sure he couldn't hear Nora trying to sneak up on him but he could still hear her breaths coming from the other room. Jack then reached up and took off his helmet for the first time in almost a month.
His hair had definitely grown out of regulation length but it was still very short compared to civilians hair styles. He opened one of the cans making sure to be as quiet as he could be before he reached into the can and took out what looked like small slabs of ham or some type of meat.
After Jack had finished off the can of the ham, which wasn't very large, he then opened one more and decided these two cans would be plenty for the next few days. As he was just finishing up the second can of food he heard very light footsteps coming from out in the hall.
Jack carefully set the now empty can down and picked up his helmet before sliding it back in place over his head. Jack watched the door out of the corner of his eye as he could see Nora trying to be sneaky and peak into the garage from the darkness. "I can see you," Jack said after a few seconds of her not moving from the shadows, "How?" Nora said as she came out of the darkness, "Also how did you get into the room and out of it without me hearing you?".
Jack just shrugged his shoulders at her question before standing up and picking up his two empty cans and setting them on one of the work benches in the garage. He then walked towards the room before he sat down where he had slept the night before and waited on Nora to come back into the room. "I don't get how you do some things but I'll get you to tell me," she said as she looked at the large man with a small smirk on her face before laying back in bed and rolling over facing away from Jack. The spartan knew tonight would be another sleepless night for him as he didn't want a repeat of last night's nightmares, so he put his head back against the wall and just let his thoughts roam free.