Fallout of the Heart

Chapter Twenty

Hancock was silent the whole way back, and before we entered the house he had stopped at the market to pick up a few things. As soon as we got inside, he started pulling out the stuff to make a stew since I'd made the last meal, then he immediately cracked open a bottle of liquor and took a massive swig. That made me a little worried, but then again being on that ship had been incredibly stressful for me. I could only imagine what it had been for him.

He drank more and more of that bottle as he cooked, though he seemed to finally slow down once it was empty. I was still worried about him since I'd rarely seen him drink more than one or two beers, or maybe one shot or a double at a time, but he was also a grown man and I'd shown him many things over our time together that could drive a man to drink. Dinner was a scarily silent affair, and immediately afterward he curled up on the couch with a book.

I got ready for bed and looked at him, before finally clearing my throat enough that he looked up at me. "I'm not tired right now, doll. I try to sleep without clearing my mind and I'm going to end up with nightmares, after earlier. You get some rest." He said, giving me the ghost of a smile. His voice was weirdly dead, though he worked to make it sound gentle and caring. Was it really just the ship and the things he saw and heard there? Or had I said something wrong? Those thoughts spiraled around as I laid down, suddenly having trouble falling asleep myself. Before long I was out of it, however, and I was thankful I didn't have any nightmares myself.

When I woke up he was gone, but he entered not long after I'd gotten out of bed and gotten ready for the day, Nick following behind him. "Uh, Hi." I said confusedly, causing Nick to look between us a couple times.

"Hancock said you had something you wanted to mention?" Nick said, almost hesitantly, and I frowned at Hancock a little bit. I hadn't said I was ready to talk to Nick just yet – what was he up to? I didn't get an answer, however, as he pulled a bottle of beer out of the stash and settled in on the couch with a book again. A completely different bad feeling was curling in the pit of my stomach, but I just smiled awkwardly and went over to where I'd been storing the Winters tapes and shit. After a moment, I sighed and turned, simply handing them to Nick.

He frowned, then read the labels, then his eyes went a little crazy for about a second before he finally sighed and looked at me. "Did you know Nick personally, back then?" He asked, and I shook my head.

"No, I knew of him, and I remember the story about Winters and Jenny's death. When I first heard your name, I wondered if it was a coincidence or not, but, here we are. I wasn't sure if this is something you might remember or if it would be something you'd even want to deal with, but giving you the option to decide on your own seemed like the best option, overall." I supplied, shrugging. Hancock spoke up from behind me, suddenly.

"If you're up for checking it out, Nora can help you out, of course – wouldn't have you out there tracking this shit down all by your lonesome, Nick. Could look at it as a vacation, after the Prydwen." He said, shuddering just a little before he took another pull of his beer. Nick looked at him, then at me, back at him, then back to me.

"Seriously?" He asked, and I shrugged with a bit of a nod.

"I mean hell, I'm sure you'll be wanting to probably get the rest of the holotapes to start with, and I feel like I've accidentally found at least half of them at random anyway. Probably won't take that long to pick up the rest, then we can lock them away and call it a day hunh?" I quipped, only a hint of my usual sarcasm in my voice.

"Uh... We might have one more step before that." He said, trepidatiously. I tilted my head in question, and he sighed. "Eddie Winters isn't dead. The memories were buried until I saw that name on these tapes, but I remember hearing about him paying for some pre-war immortality bullshit experiments, since he planned on living forever." Nick trailed off, looking pointedly at Hancock. I snorted.