Work Text:
I Couldn’t Forget You If I Tried
The Goodneighbor denizens congregated in the streets around large trashcan fires. Broken lawn chairs, dirty and moth-eaten sofas and ottomans, and wooden benches were scavenged from all over town to create a makeshift sitting area in Goodneighbor’s town square. This was part of the town’s annual Christmas tradition and it was a celebration that lasted from Christmas Eve until well after New Years Day. Or at least that’s what Dr. Amari had told him. Unfortunately for John Hancock, he was watching the events unfold for the first time.
Although it was only mid-day, most of the Goodneighbor citizens had managed to pull themselves together long enough to nurse their hangovers beneath a festive collection of half-broken Christmas lights. Since evergreen trees were in short supply, the town made due by decorating every available light pole, shop marquee, and deactivated electrical wire with Christmas decor.
Hancock watched himself, his past self, drink headily from a thick green bottle of unlabeled liquor and then take a long hit of Jet. He passed the bottle over to a ghoul dressed in a navy blue leisure suit with a dying hubflower pinned to the lapel.
“Drink up brother. Charlie broke out his finest for the holidays.” Hancock rasped and slapped the ghoul on his back.
He watched himself cross through the throngs of people. He nodded genially at the men and shot the women a few devilish smirks and winks which they returned with equal gusto. The crowd loved him. Hell, Goodneighbor loved him. Hancock never thought he’d be jealous of himself, but he was. He desperately wanted this life but instead he was forced to sit on the sidelines and watch as his past self got liquored up and high.
Fahrenheit leaned up against the stone wall near KL-E-O’s shop and watched past-Hancock with an expression that was equal parts annoyance and wry amusement. She was nursing a cigarette in between her thick fingers and took pulls straight from a bottle of whisky. Where she found an intact bottle of top shelf hooch was a mystery in and of itself, but Hancock knew that Fahrenheit could procure anything with enough time and with enough caps. Drifters and other chem addicts eyed the bottle greedily but they all knew better than to fuck with Fahrenheit and her liquor.
Hancock couldn’t bring himself to think about Fahrenheit. Not now. Not while he was deep into his own shit. Her death hurt him like with the same raw, burning pain of being shot himself, but he couldn’t let himself crumble. His town needed his strength. He survived being shot in the head, and if his townspeople saw him blubbering like a child, they’d start considering if backing him was the right move.
“John, you’re going to feel a bit of discomfort as I bring you out of the memory.” Dr. Amari’s disembodied voice said from above him.
He watched himself walk past Fahrenheit and he gave her a quick, polite flick of his finger across the brim of his tricorn hat. Apparently they were on one of their “breaks” as Fahrenheit didn’t bother to acknowledge Hancock’s gesture. In fact, she didn’t bother to make eye contact with him at all. Instead, he watched himself walk over to Daisy who was sitting outside her shop with a ceramic mug of something hot. He couldn’t hear what was said, but his reaction to Daisy’s refusal told him everything he needed to know.
The ghoul woman slapped him playfully and squealed “Put me down, John!” as he picked her up like she was his bride and he carried her out into the throng of people who were dancing to Magnolia’s Christmas crooning.
“Alright, John. You’re coming out of the memory. Brace yourself.” Dr. Amari said.
Hancock felt a sickening pull at his temples and then felt his body lift up into the ether like he was being pulled out of the universe like some puppet. He squeezed his eyes closed so he couldn’t watch the memory dematerialize, but his stomach churned nevertheless.
“You can open your eyes now.” Dr. Amari replied. Her voice had lost the echoey quality that it often had when he was lost in a memory. He could smell the assertive chemical cleaner that she used to sterilize her equipment and figured that he was indeed back to reality.
Although the lights in her office were dim, his brain still felt like someone had hit him upside the head with a crowbar. He groaned, climbed out of the memory lounger, and grabbed onto the back of a chair for support.
“How are you feeling? Any pain? Any nausea--”
As soon as she mentioned nausea it was like someone had flipped a switch in his mind which sent a punch to his gut. He scrambled for a metal bucket and collapsed onto his knees. He retched and heaved but nothing except bile and a small amount of water would come up. After his first excursion in the memory lounger (which resulted in him vomiting all over an antique ruffled shirt) Dr. Amari suggested that he not eat anything prior to these appointments.
“Here, have some water.” Dr. Amari said gently but he pushed the canister away.
“It ain’t gonna do any good. It’ll just come back up.” He growled and heaved some more. “If you would just let me have some fuckin’ Jet, or Mentats, then maybe I’d be able to hold it together through this fuckin’ experiment of yours.”
She shook her head. “You need to stay clean John. I cannot allow you to go through these memory retrievals if your mind is under the influence of chems.”
“If all I’m gonna do is puke my guts out every time we do this, then I don’t know if I want these memories.” He growled. “I mean, why the fuck would I want to be reminded of Vic, and my mouth-breathin’ brother, and all of the times that life has shit on me. I mean, I must’ve fucked myself up like this for a reason right?”
Dr. Amari sighed and helped the ghoul to his feet. He flinched when she touched him and he pulled his arm out of her grasp and pulled himself back to his feet.
“I know it’s hard. But the memory I gave you was a happy one, John. That was our Christmas celebration from three years ago.” Dr. Amari replied gently.
“It doesn’t matter! It could’ve been three minutes ago for all I fuckin’ remember. I told ya before. This is just a waste of time.” He growled.
“I promise you that this will be worthwhile. Your mind is like a vault, John. The memory lounger takes the memories that are the strongest in your subconscious and pulls them to the forefront. The fact that we’re starting to access memories that are less ... violent is a great sign. You’ve made amazing strides in such a short time.”
“Why is it so important that I remember shit?” Hancock complained and wiped his mouth with the inside of his wrist.
The rough, waxy texture of his skin felt like he was rubbing a half-melted candle across his face which almost made him reach for the metal bucket again. Hancock was still adjusting over the fact that he looked like a dried raisin in the sun -- or like a brahmin bull’s testicles. After he awoke, Vic’s takeover and his subsequent coup were the first memories that the memory lounger showed him. He understood why he took that radiation drug (although he was supremely disappointed that he couldn’t re-experience the high second-hand), but that didn’t help the fact that looking this ugly was a helluva adjustment.
Dr. Amari handed him a handkerchief to properly wipe his face which he snatched from her with a moody pout.
“Dealing with amnesia can be frightening as well as frustrating. You may not remember these memories organically, but knowing that these things did happen often helps people feel more in control of their lives. As the brain tissue heals, your memories may start coming back in flashes which can be disorienting, or they might not come back at all. In either case, I want to give you the best chance to get back to your normal life.”
“Is this what you tell Valentine when he gets all screwy?” Hancock grumbled.
“I’m doing this for your well-being John.” Dr. Amari snapped as she handed him his tricorn hat. “You could try being less of an ass about this.”
Hancock snatched the hat from Amari and perched it atop his head.
“Fine.” He resigned. “Same time tomorrow?”
“I will see you then. Remember to tell me if anything changes.” She replied, but noticing that he was only partially paying attention she reached up and gently grabbed his chin and made him look at her. “D’you hear me? If anything changes...if you start having dreams, or memories, or even hallucinations, you come to me immediately. Understand?”
“How can I have hallucinations? You took my chems.” He replied sardonically.
“I mean it, John.”
Hancock lit a cigarette and crushed the flaming match with the heel of his boot. Smoking was the only vice Amari let him have, but the nicotine did nothing to take the edge off the throbbing headache that often accompanied his appointments with her.
“Fine. Alright. But don’t count too much on it cuz I don’t dream.” He replied with a farewell tip of his hat. “I guess it’s another ghoul thing. I dunno.”
“Still, if you do. Please let me know.”
“Yeah. Yeah.” He grumbled as he made his way towards the wooden staircase.
Hancock would’ve rather taken another bullet to the head than told Dr. Amari what was really going on. The truth was that Hancock dreamed all the time. But unlike the broken and half lucid dreams that often accompanied his drug-induced binges and afternoon siestas, these dreams felt real. And they were all about the same topic.
As much as he tried, he couldn’t stop dreaming about a woman named Nora.
His dreams started out as flashes of feeling that left him wanting and hard. As he fell asleep, he’d catch a whiff of tobacco after his own cigarette had long been extinguished. But while he tried to fall back asleep, another scent -- this one floral and heady -- would waft into the room like an aerosol poison.
Like a whisper on the breeze, Hancock caught Nora’s name one night when he walked into his office and saw a woman looking like death warmed over lying in his bed, or so he thought. As soon as he moved closer to the bed, the woman was gone but the name in his mind resounded like the clang of a gong. Nora
He began seeing flashes of her all around his room. An empty bowl of stew sat on an end table next to an ashtray full of spiced clove cigarettes. She even came up in his mind when he went to the Third Rail to shoot the shit with Whitechapel Charlie He thought he saw her sitting on the barstool closest to the stage or dancing with a faceless man in the crowd, but then she’d disappear. To keep his sanity, he’d chalk it up to a trick of the lights or the contact high he was probably receiving from the other patrons lighting up on Jet, but somewhere in his mind, he knew that she was real. She had to be real.
Soon afterwards the dreams came, and they left him more wanting and sick than any withdrawal he had ever experienced.
He spent several sleepless nights tossing and turning in his bed. He thought he felt a hand ghost across his skin or thought he hurt the quiet murmur of someone talking, but nobody was there.
Hancock didn’t believe in ghosts, at least not in the supernatural sense, but he couldn’t dismiss this from his mind. Somehow, somewhere, he knew that he had met this woman before. He just didn’t know why she was haunting his thoughts.
Eventually, he abandoned his room altogether, and began sleeping on the State House rooftop. There was a small, flat surface tucked behind the crumbling whitewashed tower where he could lay out without fear of sliding off the roof to the cobblestone street below. Although sleeping outside took care of the aroma and the occasional visual hallucination, it brought up a completely different issue. Hancock began imagining ... no, feeling ... someone climbing inside his sleeping bag with him.
He tried to rationalize this as a way that his mind was putting together the pieces of his fractured past, but the sensation of a warm, feminine hand on his bicep felt so real that he knew this couldn’t be some sort of fantasy. And to top it off, the phantom touches became more insistent and the warm weight against his back included the soft mounds of breasts pressed against his skin.
He would’ve chalked up the sensation to a bad drug trip, but Dr. Amari had cut him off of every chem so his body could fully detox. And to keep him honest, she slipped him a Pre War cessation medication that made him violently ill whenever he tried to consume chems. That was a lesson that he had to learn only once.
No, Hancock both hated and loved the moment when his mind would concoct this phantom to visit him in the night and tonight was no different. So when he finally fell asleep, he welcomed the dream and let his fantasies play out in his mind.
Her hands were demanding. Thin, dexterous fingers undid the buttons of his ruffled shirt. Smooth, soft hands caressed across his chest and ran over his shoulders.
He couldn’t see her face, but he knew her smell. She smelled of spicy tobacco, flowers, and sweet cloves.
Her laugh was lovely and musical. She chuckled when he reached out to try to touch her and the sound of her voice reminded him of the Mistress of Mystery from the old Silver Shroud radio broadcasts that Kent obsessively listened to. Her words held a coy undertone; it was as though she knew exactly how Hancock would react to her but she was having a lot of fun testing out her theories.
“Turn onto your back for me John.” Her voice whispered in his ear. “I want to ride you.” His groan came out choked and half-asleep but he complied immediately. This dream woman was forward, wanton, and sexy. She was irresistible. She was Hancock’s drug of choice.
He felt the weight of her body on top of his. Her thighs locked around his bony hips like they were both made out of perfectly fitting puzzle pieces.
He was already so close. His hands clenched the sleeping bag fabric as her wet sex slipped along his cock. She was teasing him. She would always tease him. In all of their dreamland rendezvous, she would never take him inside of her. She let him smolder and simmer until he burned alive from the pure intensity of his passion.
“Tell me what you want.” She murmured in his ear.
“You.” Hancock groaned out. His word was slurred by sleep and sounded more like a incoherent mumble than an actual response, but she understood and kissed his ruined cheek.
Her ministrations picked up as she rubbed her sex across his in quick, deliberate motions. Hancock clawed at whatever he could get his hands on but it was no use. His hands couldn’t actually feel her body because she wasn’t really there.
He jerked out of the dream with a half-strangled moan as he spilled himself into his shorts.
“What the fuck!” He growled and threw the sleeping bag off him before the mess in his shorts spread.
He stripped off his shorts and caught the remains of his ejaculate with the soiled fabric and glared at his deflating manhood. After all, if he was a eunuch or if his damn cock had fallen off like his nose, then maybe he wouldn’t be in such a shitty predicament like this.
Resigned and embarrassed, Hancock grabbed his soiled clothes and his sleeping and climbed down the steep wooden steps that led back into The Old State House.
He’d have to pass by several people with his family jewels hanging out for all to see, but he learned a long time ago that having no shame about your body meant that nobody could shame you. Hell, if he so chose, there were several women and a couple men in the State House that would be willing to help him recover from his embarrassment.
Too bad that none of them could compare to the phantom woman who haunted his every moment.
Two weeks later, Christmas celebrations were upon them again and this time Hancock didn’t need the help of Amari and the Memory Den to participate in the festivities. She even gave him the clearance to drink alcohol (of course, chems were still off limits). Hancock didn’t care; he was on his way to get plastered off his ass when Nick Valentine walked into town.
His buzz died upon seeing that the detective’s face was set into a determined scowl.
“Hancock,” He grunted in greeting. The ever present wreath of smoke encircled his dirty grey fedora before rising up into the grey winter air.
After experiencing several memories where Nick had to drag his stoned ass back to Diamond City at his mother’s request, Hancock thought that the detective’s face would be the last one he’d want to see again, but Amari assured the ghoul that they had set aside their differences long ago.
According to her, Nick helped him out when one of Vic’s surviving men set a hit out on him. Nicky found the culprit and brought the man to Hancock to receive his justice; and receive justice he did, with a well-placed slug between his eyes.
So when Nick’s face was the first one he saw when he awoke in Amari’s office, Hancock couldn’t help but be relieved. Not only in recognizing the old synth’s face, but also for being at his side in such a confusing and trying time.
“So, what brings you to my town Nicky?” Hancock asked.
“Just another missing person’s case.” He replied and puffed on his cigarette. “You ever see a woman here? Blond, about five foot two, and last seen with a stickup guy by the name of Volt.”
Hancock made a cursory glance around the cobblestone town square. The day hadn’t dipped into evening yet which meant that most of the town was still milling around shooting the breeze and huddling around the large trashcan fires.
“Nope, none of that rings a bell. Although, you’re welcome to look around the Rail. The festivities will migrate down there once Charlie and Magnolia’s crew are done setting up.”
“Are you sure you haven’t seen anyone?” Nick pressed. “My client was pretty specific about Goodneighbor being the place to look.”
“Are you sure I’m the best person to be asking?” Hancock drawled. “I ain’t exactly working at max capacity considering the recent events, ya feel me?”
Nick sighed, cleared his throat, and flicked a bit of ash off his cigarette. Of course, Hancock was looking better each day thanks to Dr. Amari’s expert medical care and forced sobriety, but that didn’t help him get any closer to solving his case. For a town so small, Goodneighbor was awfully good at squirreling people away.
“Look, sorry about the third degree,” Nick replied. “I didn’t have high hopes anyways, but I’m at the end of my rope here so I figured it couldn’t hurt to try. Have a good evening, Mayor.”
The synth fastened the knot around his trenchcoat a little tighter and flipped the collar up to protect against the cool December weather.
“Nick wait!” Hancock called out before he could stop himself. “Although I don’t have any leads for your case, could I pick yer brain for a moment?”
“I guess...what’s up?”
Hancock looked around at his citizens. Although they all looked to be engrossed in their conversations, drinking, and not-so-light PDA, he couldn’t risk someone overhearing this next bit of information.
“Not here. Let’s talk in my office.”
Nick nodded and followed the ghoul to his office. Thankfully, the synth had the good sense to not ask any questions until they were both cloistered off from the festivities.
“So what’s eating you?” Nick asked.
Hancock sighed and flopped down onto the red velvet chaise. He took a pull from the scotch bottle that Daisy had given to him as a Christmas present and set it on his end table. “I’m lookin’ for a woman.”
“Aren’t we all.” Nick quipped dryly. But his wry humor masked a turbulent combination of hope and dread.
“The problem is that I don’t know if she’s real.” Hancock replied.
Nick sighed, “Hancock, I’m not chasing after your Jet-induced hallucinations. Not again.”
“This ain’t no Jet-induced anything.” He snapped. “You know that I haven’t touched the stuff since I woke up in Amari’s office. I mean, you know me better than most. Do I look strung out to you?”
“No. You don’t look strung out.” Nick agreed. “In fact, sobriety looks good on you.”
Hancock laughed, “I wish it felt a whole-fuckin-a lot better. If I had a little Jet or some Med-X and I’d be runnin’ around like my old self, but instead I have to stay sober so Dr. Amari can play Dr. Frankenstein with my brain.”
Nick grimaced in sympathy. He knew how the ghoul felt. He had been on the receiving end of Amari’s memory treatments before, and while they certainly helped him differentiate between Pre-War Nick’s life and his own, the confusion, the frustration, and the fear that you’re slowly going insane were often harder to deal with than the issue itself.
“So what’s going on? Who’s this woman you’re looking for?”
“Now this is gonna sound crazy, but I swear I’m not losing it” He began. “but ever since I woke up, I’ve been having dreams.”
“Dreams.” Nick repeated drolly.
“Well not exactly dreams because they happen all the time. I see her in this room or down in the Rail. I can smell her if the wind blows right or if I stay too long in this room, and when I sleep, I can feel her.”
“What d’you mean you can feel her?” Nick asked.
Hancock shot him a lopsided and knowing grin and Nick knew the answer to his question before the ghoul needed to elaborate.
“Ah ... I see.” He replied. “So what’s this ghost woman’s name?”
“Nora.”
Time froze in Nick’s mind. Hancock remembered Nora. He stared at the ghoul and he scrutinized every facet of his radiation-burned face. Although Hancock’s black eyes were without their usual drug-induced sheen, he looked tired and drawn. He looked even more weathered now while sober than he ever did after his hardest night of partying. Apparently Nora -- like Jenny -- was ever present and incessant.
“Nick? Commonwealth to Nick! Did I lose you?” Hancock asked.
The synth blinked dumbly a few times and then shook his head. “Uh -- I -- uh -- sorry. I think I hit a processing error there. What did you say?”
“Look,” Hancock replied impatiently, “I keep having dreams about some woman named Nora. I don’t know her from Adam, but I dream about her everywhere I go.”
“This seems more like a question for Dr. Amari.” Nick replied judicially.
“There ain’t nobody else in this world that knows what I’m going through besides you.” Hancock replied. “I read your files on Amari’s terminal. You started seeing her almost ten years ago for similar reasons.”
“Those files are confidential.” Nick glowered.
Hancock brushed him off with a wave of his hand, “In them she mentioned that you knew a woman named Jenny.” Hancock stopped talking when he saw the guilt-stricken look that crossed the synth’s face.
“Jenny was a long time ago.” Nick voice was hollow and dull. “I’ve spent a lot of time trying to forget her.”
“And now here I am tryin’ to remember someone who I must’ve known. Please? Just tell me the truth here, brother. Who is she? Who is she to me?”
Nick extinguished his cigarette in the ceramic ashtray on the nearby end table and sat in a chair. He knew the truth had to come out, but a part of him wanted to lie. A part of him wanted to keep Nora for himself and hope that Hancock’s amnesia had wiped her from his mind. But as much as he wanted to slip in the ace he had hidden up his sleeve, he knew that he could never live with himself if he did.
“It’s a long story Hancock.” He began. “But I’ll do my best to catch you up to speed...”
When New Years Eve arrived, the town went from a rambunctious den of revelry and morphed into a well-polished, albeit grungy and eclectic, place to call home. Citizens -- both ghouls and humans -- were working overtime to clean up the streets so they could throw one last giant bash to ring in another year in the Commonwealth.
Meanwhile, Hancock was elbows deep in paperwork, business ledgers, and chem delivery requests. A younger, more immature Hancock would’ve resented being forced to work while everyone else got to play, but now he was grateful for the distraction.
MacCready knocked once on the door. “Boss?”
“What?”
“There’s a girl out here who wants to talk to you. She says her name’s Nora.”
He swallowed. He pocketed his trembling fingers in his trousers and looked at the wood door that separated him from his destiny.
“Boss?” MacCready tried once more. “Boss, there’s a girl out here who wants to talk to you. She says her name’s Nora. She’s here from the Institute.”
There was a pregnant pause and Nora strained her ears but heard nothing except her steadily increasing heartbeat.
“Let her in.” She heard a quiet voice rasp out from behind the door.
MacCready opened the door and gestured to the dark room. “You heard him.”
Nora swallowed her anxiety, nodded politely at the kid, and walked into Hancock’s office. MacCready followed her into the room and shut the door behind them both.
“John?” She whispered.
The entire room was shut up like a tomb. The large colonial white-washed windows that once allowed light to flood into the room now had pieces of thick fabric nailed over it. She smelled more abraxo cleaner and the spicy and sweet smell of tobacco. One lone kerosene lamp sat on a broken dresser and it’s dim glow casted harsh shadows through the office. She spied a dark figure in the far corner of the room, but it looked hunched over and monstrous like a sleeping feral ghoul.
“John?” She called out a bit louder. The figure shifted and stood. His shadow climbed across the ceiling and loomed over her.
“It’s Nora.” She said. “Do you remember me?”
Another pregnant silence filled the room. The shadow moved across the ceiling and she heard the ancient floorboards shift and creek as he moved out from the corner and towards the light.
“John? Nobody ‘cept my friends and lovers call me John.” His rough voice rumbled out from the darkness. “The name is Mayor Hancock, ya feel me?”
Nora swallowed and she walked deeper into the room. Her own hands were trembling so she stuffed them into her pockets to gain some semblance of confidence and control over her quickly mounting guilt.
“I feel you.” She replied softly. “Um, how are you doing?”
“You came here from the Institute to ask me how I’m doing?” He rasped. The disbelief, bitterness, and frustration in his voice was palpable. “Is that what the egg heads are doin’ now? Checking to make sure their test subjects are in fighting form before they’re abducted and brought back for cloning?”
“No. I — I” She faltered. She didn’t know how much she should or could reveal without setting him off into some sort of spiral.
“Nick Valentine told me you were out of the coma. I just wanted to see how you were doing. That’s all. We sort of knew each other before…”
“Before I got a bullet placed in my skull by a low-life whore who tried to rub me out on the suspicion that I was a synth clone?” Hancock’s response dripped in sarcasm.
“Yes. Before all of that.”
‘“And did Nick tell you anything else?” He asked. His voice was rough and insistent.
“L—Like what?”
“Like what?” He echoed her question. “How ‘bout like why the fuck I dream about you every night, or why I sometimes see you in this very room sleeping in my bed lookin’ like you were beat to hell.”
Hancock coughed and Nora saw his dark form shift unsteadily in the shadows. “Or that I —” he faltered again, “— or that I -- I brought you up here when you overdosed on that Buffout. And that I had to taze you with a shock baton to get your heart started again.”
Nora swallowed. Hot tears stung her eyes and she bit her lip to keep them from spilling over.
“See that door with the hole in it?”
Nora glanced over her left shoulder and saw the vague outline of the door in the darkness. “Yes.”
“The good brain doc says I did that after Nick discovered that you had been raped at the Institute. I put a fuckin’ machete through the door,” he paused and took a shuddering breath, “and then I put that same machete through the guts of three raiders down at the Combat Zone.”
“That’s the story I’ve heard too.” Nora murmured. Her throat burned as tears pricked her eyes.
“So why don’t we start from the beginning.” He growled. His own voice had dropped an octave and his words came out garbled and broken. “Help me fill in the god damned blanks here.”
Now Hancock was standing slightly off to her left and was enshrouded in the darkness once more. She could smell the menthol from whatever salve or medication Dr. Amari used to treat his wounds and she could hear his raspy, labored breathing.
She spoke, her voice thick and low, as she recounted her life to the person who had brought her back from the brink of destruction.
“My name is Nora Pendleton. I’m the only survivor from Vault 111. A year and a half ago, I went searching for my infant son who was kidnapped from the Vault. Nick helped me track down the man who kidnapped him, and you ...” She faltered. “... You helped me track down a man hiding out in the Glowing Sea who had information on how to find my son.”
“And...”
“And after I found him, I ... I was taken by the Institute. I was coerced into working for them but then I escaped…or … at least I did escape once.” She finished. “I went back to them and now I’m here because I need your help. We need your help.”
MacCready snorted and muttered something under his breath that Nora didn’t catch.
“I have nothin’ good to say about the Institute.” Hancock growled, “Never have and never will. But I especially couldn’t give a rat’s ass about them after learning about what they did to my brother.”
“I’m sorry.” Nora murmured. “I truly am. But that’s —”
“I don’t need your fuckin’ condolences!” Hancock snarled. In the shadows, his sunken face looked especially ghoulish and macabre. He looked like a corpse that had come alive again. “And I don’t need your fuckin’ excuses either.”
Nora rose her hands up in surrender, “You’re right. Mayor Hancock, you’re right. What the Institute took from you is inexcusable. I can’t erase what they’ve done. They’ve robbed me of family too. They took my son and one of their agents murdered my husband. My son grew up there without me and, so help me God I still hate them for it, but I also know there are people there who aren’t bad. There are people looking for redemption. Hell, I’m looking for redemption. I fucked up.”
Hancock’s palm ran across his desk inching towards her. The movement was so slight, so minute that she could’ve chalked it up to a nervous tick or gesture.
“Sit down.”
Nora obeyed and sat in the wooden chair across from his desk. She shuddered and pushed down the emotions that bubbled in her gut.
“C’mon boss, are you really gonna believe her? She’s from the Institute. She said it herself. Let’s not take any chances here and —“
“Leave me alone kid.” Hancock snapped. “Send Dr. Amari in to see me. I need more Med-X.”
MacCready huffed but obeyed. He bounced his rifle stock on the doorway like a careless child and swaggered out of the room.
Hancock sat in the plush red chair on the other side of his desk and leaned forward. Nora saw his movement in the darkness but she still couldn’t see much of his face.
“Could I light a candle or something?” Nora asked. “I can’t see you very well.”
“You don’t need to see me. Besides, I ain’t much to look at.” He spat.
“That’s not true.”
Hancock noted the sincerity in her voice and shook his head in amazement, “Nicky said you were one-of-a-kind. He told me a bit about you, ya know?”
Nora’s nodded. “He mentioned something about that.”
“He’s told me a few details but I know he’s keeping stuff to himself.” Hancock leaned forward and propped his elbows on the heavy oak desk. “So why don’t you help me fill in more of the blanks.”
“What would you like to know?” Nora replied in a neutral, business-like tone.
“Have we had sex?”
“Excuse me?”
Although Nora couldn’t see his facial expressions in the darkness, she would’ve bet all the caps she had that he was grinning at her.
“I — um — well…”
“Yes or No, sunshine.” Hancock replied.
“Yes.”
Nora watched Hancock’s body language but he didn’t move an inch at her answer but she heard him exhale as though he had held his breath waiting for an answer.
“Did Nick tell you about … about our arrangement?” She asked.
“No.”
Nora found that hard to believe but she couldn’t exactly prove it either. She sighed, “After what had happened at the Institute, I — I was in a lot of pain. I hated myself. I was angry at a lot of different people. I needed both of you to help guide me back from the edge and he knew that I didn’t want to let either of you go, so Nick suggested that we have an open relationship of sorts.”
“And that’s when we had sex?” He asked. Now Nora knew he was grinning at her.
“Well not right away, but yes.” She replied. “I was intimate with both of you.”
“Nicky too?”
“Yes, Nick too.”
Hancock nodded, laced his fingers together beneath his chin, and sat back in his chair. “But I see you’re using the past tense there, sunshine. You were intimate with both of us.”
More guilt rose to the surface and Nora flushed under the implied indictment. “We got into an argument before you got shot. The nature of what was said is unimportant, but you didn’t want me to go back to the Institute. You thought I was being stupid.”
“And what did Nicky think?”
“The same thing actually, so he wanted to come with me instead. But I couldn’t put him or you into harm’s way. So I ran away in the middle of the night while all of you were distracted.”
Nora’s heart pounded so loudly that she could feel it thumping in her ears. Shame burned in her stomach as she thought back to that night. Nora thought she was being clever. She thought she was doing what was best for both of her men, but if she hadn’t left then Hancock would’ve never been outnumbered during the coup.
“I made a mistake.” She whispered as tears leaked down her face. “I’ve made a lot of mistakes.”
Hancock abruptly rose from his seat. Nora couldn’t see him well but she heard the heavy thud of his boots against the wooden floorboards and she smelled the sharp sting of old tobacco.
“Get up.”
“Why?”
Hancock chuckled, “Cuz I wanna get a better look at you and see if I can remember anything else.”
Nora rose to her feet. She pushed the wooden chair back and winced as the legs scraped loudly against the floor.
Hancock slowly approached her. His silhouette cut an imposing shadow. As he got closer, Nora saw his face in the dim golden lamplight. His head wasn’t sporting the white bandage anymore. Instead, black stitches etched across his mottled flesh. His right eye drooped slightly but his left eye bore into hers with unyielding concentration.
His hand rose and he ran it down her cheek where a shiny line of skin marked the remains of a burn from a laser pistol. She could almost feel the numb tingle from the medicine he used on her, and she did everything in her power to not lean into his touch.
“Your hair has grown out.” He remarked.
“Yeah…uh.” She nervously touched the length of hair that had once been shorn close to her scalp. “It grows quickly.”
His fingers swept up from her cheek to the pink scar that started at her temple and crossed into her hairline. “I remember this…the fucking robot parts they tacked to your head.”
Nora’s breath hitched. “Do you remember when you chased after me outside of the Mass Fusion building?”
The ghoul smiled but it didn’t meet his soulful, sad eyes, “You’re a fast one, sunshine. I thought you had disappeared into thin air.”
“I wish I could’ve.” Nora replied throatily. “The next time we met, I had to threaten you to keep up appearances.”
Hancock’s hand rubbed his jaw as he remembered that night. “You didn’t just threaten me, sunshine. You punched me.”
“I head butted you.” Nora corrected with a wry smile.
The ghoul shook his head and sighed. His features looked more relaxed than at the start of their conversation, and Nora hoped that the memories were returning to him. Hancock glanced down and then he took ahold of her hands in his.
“So why did ya do it?” He murmured.
“Do what?”
“Attempt to end it all?” His voice was small, almost fearful.
Nora’s trembled. “I don’t have a good answer for you.” After all, what could she say? Depression is a helluva thing.
“I’m not lookin’ for a good answer, just an answer.”
Nora chewed on her lip as she deliberated. “After Ayo had … I was afraid that you wouldn’t want me after what had happened.”
“What? Really?” There was an angry edge to Hancock’s voice.
“You don’t understand John,” Nora replied. “I grew up in a world where a woman was considered ruined if she had been raped. I thought — I just thought —“
Hancock shook his head. He lifted her with ease so she sat on the top of his desk and slid between her legs with practiced grace. “You just thought that a ghoul who has slept with half this damn city would think that you were ruined?”
Nora looked at him and the ghoul saw the indignant fire that burned in her eyes but she didn’t speak.
Hancock paused and glanced absent-mindedly over her shoulder. Those nights that followed flowed back into his mind like water from a broken dam. He remembered the holotape that the traveling doctor had given him, and in another flash of memory he remembered how the blood gurgled out of his mouth when he drove his knife deep into his gut. He remembered the taphouse, and how her kisses tasted like beer and lust, and how her face flushed when she climaxed with his name on her lips.
“John?”
“Holy shit, I’m — I’m remembering.” He whispered.
His eyes widened and he looked at Nora with sobering clarity. “Sunshine…I’m so fuckin’ sorry.”
Nora’s breath hitched and she half-laughed and half-sobbed. “Why are you sorry?”
He ignored her question and captured her smooth lips with his. He didn’t wait for her to respond. His tongue sought out hers; teeth clinked together and her hands pulled him in closer.
“God damn, I’ve missed you.” He growled into her neck as he took a few deep breaths before diving in again.
When they broke the kiss, both of them were clutching each other as though neither wanted to be parted from the other. Nora’s tears flowed freely down her cheeks, and Hancock had to wipe away his own with the back of his hand.
“I thought you had forgotten me.” Nora croaked.
“Sunshine. I couldn’t forget you if I tried.” He murmured into her hair before tilting her head up to kiss her, gently this time.
They both languished in the kiss until the door opened and Dr. Amari walked in with a black medical bag with Dr. Virgil close behind her.