Chapter Text
Five months post Railroad and Brotherhood Destruction
It didn’t get easier.
Not for Nate, not for MacCready.
They parted ways with a punch to the gut. Yeah Nate deserved it, he knew it and MacCready disappeared to the Capital to be with his son, and Nate thought he’d never see him again.
But here he was, standing before him. Same dirty rat face, same half snarl across his features. His mouth a streak across his face, mean, but Nate’s heart still skipped a beat as he recalled his mouth skirting Mac’s throat, sinking into him like a comforting cushion, crying into his shoulder. This time though, Duncan, his son, stood next to him. Small and wiry like his father. He had big brown eyes under a mop of dark unruly hair and lower on the boy’s grubby face he wore a crooked turtle mouth grin.
“I wouldn’t have come here. But I think you owe me,” MacCready said matter of fact.
“Yeah I guess I do,” Nate replied. He’d breached the man’s trust; Nate was good at that, good at setting people aside for his own selfish needs. He’d angered lovers in the past, but this was something else, a betrayal of trust, the one thing he’d fought to give Mac.
“I hear you’re in with the Brotherhood now.”
“Does it look like it?” Nate pointed to the white underneath his coat. “You heard wrong.” Mac meant his dalliance with a Brotherhood soldier, one he too had betrayed, different though – Vince had moved on after the fall of the Prydwen, he had nothing to say, nothing to do – and on the proviso, Nate would take his sister to the Institute and give her a synth body, a chance at a new life. But he couldn’t do that, he provided her with comforts of life in the Institute, but he wouldn’t make her a synth. Another broken promise, like the wings he once wore.
“You wear the Institute get up. What does that mean?”
“It means I can give you a life beyond this Wasteland, beyond starvation and harm. I can give this world something more than fighting and rebellion and I can give hope a voice. Not that of my son, whom I think was misguided. This is my voice and I am going to set things right.”
MacCready gave him a sceptical look and ran a hand of his son’s head. “I want to believe you,” he replied, shook his head and took a breath. “You broke my trust now you expect me to give it again?”
“No. But then why are you here? Caps? It’s not just that is it?”
MacCready looked down and away. “No.” He looked back up into Nate’s eyes.
Nate stared into the pools of Mac’s blue eyes. His pupils were dilated, his neck exposed but his mouth still held tight. Nate had missed him more than he realised.
“I don’t want Duncan to ever get sick again. And you’re part of the reason he’s still here. You made this happen, you helped me.” He closed his eyes. “You don’t owe me,” he conceded. “I came here for money, but– da– darn it. Why are you so– reasonable, so fu– calm?”
Nate shrugged and knelt. He came face to face with Duncan. “Hiya. I’m Nate. I have something for you.” He pulled out the wooden soldier that Mac had given him and held it out to him. “You know your Mom made this?”
Duncan looked up to his father then reluctantly back at Nate.
Nate wanted to see Mac’s reaction but he held off, keeping his gaze focussed on the boy.
“Go on, take it, I know she would have wanted you to have it. And your Pa too.” When Nate finally glanced up at MacCready, he could see his eyes glistening
A large smile broke across Duncan’s face.
MacCready clicked his tongue over his teeth. “You son of a bi–” he said and snorted back an incredulous laugh.
Nate stood and gave Mac a sorrowful look. “Let me show you. Let me earn your trust. And I promise I won’t break it again. I give you my word.”
It felt like an age before he replied, and when he did, he folded his arms across his chest. “We can stay here? In Sanctuary? Or–”
He gave MacCready and Duncan a weak smile and nodded. “It’s ‘bring a merc and son to work’ day tomorrow. Come and I’ll show you what I have planned.”
MacCready put his hand on Duncan’s shoulder and squeezed. “What do you say, buddy? Do we go with this guy?”
Duncan sniffed and gave a slow definite nod. “I think we do, and if he doesn’t keep his word, we take him for caps and blow this joint.” HIs voice was high-pitched and mischievous.
Nate gave an unwitting laugh at how much he sounded like MacCready and how comforting he found the sound.
The three walked side by side up the road and into Sanctuary’s heart.