Rose was quiet for much of the day's journey to Sanctuary, and Hancock couldn't blame her. He knew that she was distraught that she had neither found her son, nor uncovered any information about where he was physically hidden away. She had allowed herself to hope that her battle might be drawing to a close, and instead she was nearly back at square one. He hoped that she could at least take comfort from having killed that fucker Kellogg and getting vengeance for her husband's murder.
The road to Sanctuary was largely uneventful. It was a general rule in the Commonwealth that the northern bits were considerably less dangerous than the South, being less densely populated and home to fewer ravenous, post-apocalyptic monsters. It was a welcome reprieve from constantly having to run and duck through the streets of Boston and the surrounding areas.
Rose sighed in relief when she spotted the familiar rocket sign of the Red Rocket truck stop she now called home, and even Dogmeat seemed pleased, prancing ahead of their party with ears high and tail wagging. There was an individual standing at a guard post next to the road, watching them approach with caution; but he visibly relaxed when Rose waved in greeting.
"Hey, Sturgis!" Rose said when they were close enough to hear each other. "You on guard duty today?"
"Yep," the grease-stained man replied with a friendly smile. "Good to see you're still alive and well, Rose. And you too, Dogmeat!" He rubbed the canine's head, and Dogmeat whined happily when he scratched his ears.
"Hancock, this is Sturgis," Rose said, and internally winched when Sturgis did a double take as her friend approached. Ghouls were somewhat less common up north, and the prejudice against them was just as alive and well as it was further down south. Thankfully, though, Sturgis had the grace to recover quickly, and he reached out to shake Hancock's hand.
"Nice to meet ya, friend," he said with an affable smile. "Good to see that Rose has people watching her back."
Hancock nodded. "That and whatever other parts of her that attract bullets. Which is to say, pretty much all of her." Rose shoved him lightly and he chuckled.
"Sturgis is one of the settlers that Preston was helping, back in Concord," she explained. "He lives in Sanctuary just up the hill with the others, but they're kind enough to help keep an eye on my place here while I'm gone."
"Hey, it's the least we could do after you took out those raiders and got us up and running," Sturgis said. "I hope you don't mind… I've been tinkering a bit since you left, and I was able to get two turrets working up on your roof there. Old Codsworth is better with computers than I am, and he was able to connect them to that terminal you've got in the back so that they don't go shootin' anything you don't want them to."
"That's awesome, Sturgis, thanks!"
"So you two plannin' on sticking around for a while, or just stopping to gas up and go, so to speak?"
"We can't stay long. We've got just enough time to snag some supplies, that's about it."
Sturgis nodded. "Well, I'll head back over into Sanctuary and see what we can dig up for you. Why don't you two come along… Mama Murphy'd love to see you, and I'm betting you could use a real dinner too."
After storing their packs inside the truck stop, the trio followed Sturgis up the hill into Sanctuary. Seeing the little suburb always gave Rose an odd feeling in her stomach; even after the bombs and two hundred years of ruin and decay, there were so many hints of her old life left around. Old rusted toys and cars, plastic Halloween decorations that had somehow endured the nuclear bombs… sometimes she still expected to see her old neighbors standing out in the dead yards.
Still, there was happiness to be found in the new residents, who had taken the empty skeletons of her old home and turned them into something new. Several of the houses had been patched up and repaired, and it seemed that Sanctuary had acquired new faces in her absence. Everyone was busy with farming, construction, or even selling… a few trade stands had popped up. Sheltered by the creek, the local hills, and the support of the Minutemen, Sanctuary was thriving. It was good to see.
Dogmeat immediately ran and curled up at the feet of Mama Murphy, who was sitting in her chair underneath the awning of the house she had adopted. The old lady smiled to see the shepherd and beckoned to Rose, urging her to come over.
"My, kid, it's good to see you," she said, her slow, raspy voice comforting. "Some of the folks here, they were worried you might be dead, but I knew you'd be alright. I saw it."
"Guess they oughta listen to you more often," Rose replied, kneeling down to give her a quick hug.
"The Sight showed me a dark stranger too; I guess this must be him," Mama Murphy said, nodding her head at Hancock.
The ghoul looked confused. "The Sight?"
She nodded. "That's right. The chems, they help me to see things, always have." She turned to Rose. "Couple of weeks ago I got ahold of some jet, saw you walking with a stranger with a dark past. You pull people like that too you; always will, I think. You're gonna have trouble gettin' rid of him if this is the guy." She seized Hancock up appraisingly. "Eh, you could do worse, far as lovers go."
"Mama Murphy!"
"What, like you think you're hiding it?" the old lady asked, while Hancock laughed.
"I think I like her already," he said to Rose, who had her palm to her face.
Mama Murphy smiled. "I know you've got business to tend to, kid; I won't keep you. Bring me some jet before you leave and I'll see if the Sight doesn't bring me anything to help you on your journey."
"Sounds like a deal." Rose gave the old woman another quick hug before walking off. Dogmeat stayed behind, content to rest in the shade.
"That woman reminds me of a grandmother I never had," Hancock observed, walking in step with Rose as she set off for the backmost part of the settlement. "Right down to the chem use."
Rose rolled her eyes. "Preston would kill me if he knew I was giving her more jet, but she isn't crazy. That whole 'Sight' thing is the real deal. She saw the deathclaw attack back in Concord, and she says she can feel my son's energy here in the Commonwealth, whatever that means. And she helped me when I needed to save Nick from Skinny Malone."
"How so?"
"Told me to tell Skinny 'Remember the quarry and Lilly June on the rocks.' No idea what that was supposed to be mean, but damn if I didn't do it and Malone let Nick and me pass."
They had reached what she was looking for: a cellar, out back of one of the ruined houses. Rose knew it had been there back when it belonged to the Thompsons, who were wine enthusiasts. When she found it again after getting out of Vault 111, she discovered that all of the wine had been cleared out, and instead it had been transformed into an improvised bomb shelter. Now the residents of Sanctuary used it to store supplies, including ammunition and arms. She let herself in and helped herself to what they needed, careful not to take too much. She was barely able to make it back up the steps before nearly running into the hovering metal orb that was her robot butler, Codsworth.
"Oh, my most sincere apologies, mum!" Codsworth said, backpedaling so that she and Hancock could climb out of the cellar. "I had heard that you returned from your travels, and simply had to rush over to see if it was true."
"No worries, Codsworth. It's good to see you too," Rose replied.
The robot turned the gaze of one of his eyes to Hancock. "And who is this you've brought with you? No doubt another brave soul to help you combat the brutish denizens of this wasteland, hmm?"
Hancock glanced at Rose, brows raised; she shrugged. Codsworth was always one for the dramatic.
"The name's Hancock," he said, tipping his hat since Codsworth didn't have a hand to shake. "Mayor of Goodneighbor."
"A mayor!" Codsworth fluttered. "How delightful. An honor, sir, I assure you."
"Yeah, er… pleasure's all mine," Hancock replied haltingly, while Rose bit back an amused smile.
"Is there anything I can do for the two of you? I am certain you must be famished. Supper is certainly in order. And perhaps a bath and a change of clothes?"
"Later, Codsworth," Rose said. "Why don't you fill me in on what's happened since I've been gone?"
That sent the robot off on another tangent, and Rose listened patiently as they made their way back to the center of the settlement so that she could make her rounds with the rest of the residents. Hancock was content to hang back and watch her interact; it was almost like she was a mayor herself, the way these people looked to her. Each one brought their own concerns and successes to her, and wanted to hear about her experiences in the rest of the Commonwealth firsthand. Several of them called her General, the way the minutemen had back at the Castle. Rose fielded it all with the patience of a pro, tactfully breaking away when Sturgis came to offer them something to eat.
As late afternoon edged into twilight things finally quieted down. Hancock, fueled by a Mentats buzz, got into a friendly political debate with Codsworth about tactics supposedly used during the Great War; Rose used the distraction to slip out and walk over to her old home.
She stood at the open doorway for several minutes, working herself up to go inside. The house had suffered in the past two centuries, but what was left was guarded respectfully by the settlers of Sanctuary. Most of them knew her history, and agreed that salvaging in her old home (or fixing it up to live in it themselves) was callous.
Rose took a deep breath and stepped across the threshold. She ran her fingers across the dusty fabric of the couch that still stood in the living room, and ran her eyes over the shelves next to the door. Her diploma from law school sat there still, intact in its wooden frame. She could still see the marks in the dust from when she had last picked it up, searching for anything useful when she escaped the vault.
The appliances in her kitchen where mostly intact, if useless. The refrigerator had been brand-new the day the bombs dropped; she and Nate had it installed just a few days prior. She remembered how important getting exactly the right model had been when they shopped for it. She had researched features, capacity, temperatures, even color. She couldn't fathom caring about such trifling things now.
Almost without thinking, she turned to walk down the hallway. She looked into her and Nate's room first, regarding the rotting and shattered bedframe that they had once shared with sadness. She could always count on Nate's solid presence. He kept her steady through her final semester of law school, even when she thought she would crack under the stress; he was understanding and attentive during her pregnancy, when she alternately raged and sobbed at the whim of her crazy hormones. She wondered what he would have to say about all of the trauma she had been through, and all of the things she'd had to do to try and find their son. Nate had enlisted in the military at age 18 and was immediately sent to the front lines; he had a better understanding than most of what constant combat could do to a person. He hadn't often talked about it to her during their life together, but Rose saw the effects in his sometimes mercurial moods. She couldn't help but wonder if her journey would have been more difficult or easier if he had survived.
Just across the hall was the room Rose both anticipated and dreaded the most. It had been Shaun's room, and for whatever reason was the best preserved. She walked up to his crib and reached out a shaking hand to spin the mobile that still dangled over it. Nate had installed that just before the bombs, too. It didn't make noise anymore, but it used to play a gentle little lullaby that would put Shaun right to sleep.
"So this is your old place, huh?"
Rose jumped; she hadn't heard Hancock come in behind her.
"What's left of it." She crossed over to the corner of the room and sank into an old rocking chair that she knew would still bear her weight. She rubbed at her eyes, thankful for the growing darkness that helped hide the tears that threatened to spill over.
"I was wondering where you snuck off to."
"Not too hard to guess." Her eyes fixed absently on the threadbare rug on the floor. "I used to rock Shaun to sleep in this chair," she said softly. "He used to love to hang onto a lock of my hair while I rocked him. He didn't pull on it, you know, like most babies would. I think he liked the color." She bit her lip, lost in thought. "I wonder if he has my hair or Nate's."
Her eyes flickered up to his, and she seemed to shake herself out of a trance. She stood suddenly and strode out of the room, her movements rough, almost like she was angry.
"I need a drink. You coming?"