Hallelujah: Let it Snow (Nick)
The synth's memories fade over time; they become dimmer and more worn and when he tries to access them, and sometimes they're so dingy he can't make out more than a vague impression, a feeling or sensation. He wonders sometimes if this is how humans feel, if their memories do the same thing. He can't rely on his memories from Before for to decide this; Nick's memories are clear, simple. They're buried in his software and not the memory drives the synth uses, and so even now he can recall everything in a moment, as clearly as Nick Valentine could when he walked into that building and was scanned.
There's a hot summer day with a beer on the boardwalk, Jenny holding his hand; this one is so distinct and sharp that it hurts to remember the sun on his face, the way her hand felt in his. Her smile, guileless and free, and her skin pink from sunburn on her nose. There's the flavor of the beer on his tongue and the way she leaned into his shoulder, her arm entwined with his, both of them smelling of sweat. Knowing that later they would go back to his place and lie naked on damp sheets in a desperate bid to cope with the heat, both wanting the delicious extravagance of wrapping their bodies together, but too hot to touch in that sweltering summer.
Sitting in his car at a stakeout, waiting for Eddie Winter and his goons to come out of the Shamrock and take him to a cache of weapons or maybe chems - this one is cloudier, but the sensations are still there. He spent so many nights in a similar situation that it's hard to focus on just one, but the feelings are the same; there's tension, making sure he doesn't miss them, and the hard plastic of the steering wheel under his hand. The desire for a cigarette tempered with the reality that he doesn't dare light one and let the smoke alert someone to his presence, there in the car. The grungy yellow of the streetlamp that ends just a few feet before his car. An urgency in his bladder that means he needs to pee; regret over that last cup of coffee, the one cooling in the cupholder on the dash.
The ring that he bought her, just two days before she disappeared. Small enough even for her tiny fingers, white gold. A line of small diamonds glistening in the band, nestled in a black box on a velvet cushion. The weight of the box in his pocket that day - the last day - when he decided he would wait until Christmas, until he knew she was safe. Surely by then the investigation into Winter would be closed, and so he'd booked a trip to New York for them. A hotel room, and a show, and dinner reservations. He'd hoped it would snow; Jenny loved snow.
He wonders what happened to that ring. Did it go up in the fire when the bombs dropped, like everything else he'd loved? It'd be nice to think something of her lasted after the end of the world, even if she never got to hold it.
Other memories are not so pleasant; there's the moment he heard she'd been killed, and the way her body looked in the morgue, pale and a little bloated and unrecognizable on a steel drawer in the only cold room in Boston on that sweltering day. The way he'd gone back outside and vomited into a trashcan just outside the courthouse, the world swimming around him. Bile, yellow and sour, coating his shoes where he'd missed the bin.
These are Nick's memories, but they're also his; they're a part of him, even though he wasn't there. Some days it's an honor to carry them, to be the vessel of a dead man's life, a prophet of the pre-war days. Other days it's so heavy it's all he can do to keep putting one foot in front of the other; he's living in the shadow of a man dead for two centuries.
The snow falling outside his office glimmers, silvery and pink, in the glow of his neon sign. Inside, Ellie will be making what passes for coffee these days and humming Christmas carols; Travis has been playing them on the radio for days, since that gal from Vault 111 came tromping into town one day last week in her power armor, hauling a stack of old records.
It's the damn snow making him so pensive, or maybe it's the cascade of colorful lights in the marketplace. Diamond City is a different place this Christmas, with a tree standing by Power Noodles and the winking of the bright bulbs overhead. He doesn't want to remember happier times that he never really got to live, doesn't want to see Nick as a boy sledding down a big hill somewhere north of Cambridge, falling into a pile of children all bundled up against the cold. He doesn't want the memory of hot cocoa burning his tongue or his family around the tree, opening packages and grinning at each other, his brother Frank giddy about some toy or other.
He thinks about going in his office, but he can't face someone who loves him. She may deny it, but Ellie cares for him. She shows him in little ways, by cleaning out his ashtrays and rinsing the coffee mugs, but she also sent help when he needed it.
The present for her weighs down his jacket pocket. It's nothing much, but he wrapped it in an old issue of Publick Occurences with a red string tied around for a bow. He debates the merits of giving it to her - is this just Nick scratching desperately at him, trying to bring some part of the old world into the new?
But she'll like it, he thinks. No matter how he feels about it or what she thinks of the gift itself, she'll like the gesture.
So he turns on his heel and walks back to his office before he can talk himself out of it, fumbling with the doorknob as his skeletal fingers struggle to get a firm grip. The door finally opens and he walks in, kicking his feet against the door frame to knock the snow off his shoes. Ellie looks up from across the room, her eyes lighting up when she sees him. She's not brewing coffee, as he suspected, although the sensors in his nose register the smell of it. Instead she's hanging a red and green garland in the corner.
She is singing along to the radio, just as he thought. Dean Martin's Let it Snow. Appropriate
"Hey Nick," she greets him, puts a tack through one end of the garland, and climbs down from the desk straightening her skirt. "What do you think?"
"Looks nice," he tells her, though the office mostly looks the same. Files spilling everywhere, boxes of case files stacked haphazardly. The garland does look nice, though, and he wants her to know that.
"Thanks," Ellie's cheeks turn pink at that, and he's glad to have given her the compliment. The blush suits her.
"I, uh, I hope you don't mind, but I got you something." He pulls the wrapped package from his pocket and offers it to her. Her cheeks turn brighter red as she steps forward to take it from him.
"Oh, Nick…" she looks up at him, her eyes shining with tears. He's used to dames crying at him, but it's rarely because they're happy. It's a nice change.
"It's no big deal, but you deserve it, kitten."
She turns from him and walks out of the room with his package still in hand, and returns with a present of her own in her arms. Much like his, hers is also wrapped in an old copy of the local paper. Instead of a red string, Ellie has scavenged a green bow from something. The fabric is worn, trailing threads, but something about it makes him feel surge of something.
He reaches out and takes it from her as if in a dream, his hand moving on its own.
"I thought you deserved something this year," she says to him, her voice soft. In the background, Travis turns the song to a festive, comforting Bing Crosby number.
A gift. She got him a gift. No one has given Nick Valentine a Christmas present in...well, over two hundred years. Or ever, depending on how you gauge that sort of thing.
He's not built to display every human emotion, but there's the memory of tears prickling behind his eyes, and somehow there's still a hitch in his voice when he tells her, "Thank you, Ellie. That's real sweet of ya."
Another gratified smile from her. Outside, the snow is falling, covering the Commonwealth in a frozen white blanket. Inside there's warmth, and even a friend.
"Merry Christmas, Nick."
"Merry Christmas, Ellie."