Chapter Text
Another shitty sunset over Sanctuary. Hancock pops the top off and beer and chugs it down as he watches the sky change colors. Below the multi-tiered shack, the residents of the town are getting ready to go home.
He smirks a bit thinking about how loyal these people are to her, their leader. He couldn't blame them. He'd been smitten from the start. He'd followed her to, to hell and back, to destroy the Institute, and to find her son.
But as loyal as her Minutemen and other various rejects are, they're oblivious to the pain their savior is enduring.
It didn't hit her at first. Her reaction seemed to be delayed, though truth be told he should've saw it coming. The dead look in her eyes when she told him that Sean was dead.
He glances back at their room and to the bed. She'd slept most of the day through. She's awake now and he can hear her quiet sobs.
"John he was my baby!" she had said. Her quest for her son was over. And now a new life would begin for her whether she wanted it or not.
Hancock takes a drag off of his cigarette. He's not sure how to comfort her. He sighs trying to figure out something to say.Oh baby it's gonna be okay! Yeah fuckin' right.
It's like an angel fell from heaven into hell and he knows it. He's seen the books about the World Before, how clean and tidy and shiny and just how plain fucking easy everything was. And what is left?
A dead world. A dead husband. A dead son.
It makes him sick.
"She deserves more than this," he says under his breath.
She deserves more than me, he thought.
He couldn't be everything she needed. But he would damn well try.
He tosses the bottle into the thrash can and walks over to the bed.
"Hey sunshine," he says.
She doesn't look up.
"Hey," came her muffled reply. She pushes her dark tangled hair away from her face and stares at the wall with no expression.
She's so goddamn beautiful it hurts to look at her sometimes, even with swollen eyes and a reddened face.
He lays down on the bed next to her and breathes in her scent. Another tear rolls down her cheek. He wipes it away with his rough finger.
"Nora," he says gently to her. He just lets her cry and hopes that she won’t be too broken when she’s done. But he knows that even if she is, he will be here right next to her.
Two broken halves that will just have to find their whole together.