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hyperesthesias · 6 months ago

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Ramblin' Man and Other Sob Stories: The Tale of a Ghoul's Doomed Love Life.

RATING: MATURE words: 15,141. warnings: canon-typical violence, drug-use and addiction, language, mild sexual content, death of a partner, terminal illness, canon-compliant.

SUMMARY: A private conversation with Goodneighbor's Mayor John Hancock, in which he details how he found and lost the love of his life, and how he became a Ghoul.

author's notes: for the sake of this story, this piece utilizes the scrapped plot-point of Fahrenheit being Hancock's daughter.

song recommendations: Whiskey Sunrise by Chris Stapleton; Too Sweet by Hozier; Just Pretend by Bad Omens; Cleopatra by The Lumineers; Ramblin' Man by Allman Brothers Band.

AO3 LINK

I’m not known as a quiet kind of guy. I have the tendency to run my mouth. Ballsy, maybe. Impulsive, sure. I’d like to consider myself intuitive. People who know me – or who used to know me – wouldn’t exactly consider me smart, either. Hell, that’s what piqued my interest in Mentats in the first place. When I get an idea, I don’t easily let it go – something that can be a benefit, or a detriment, depending on how pessimistic you are. I consider myself a realist. Not something that’s often tied to intuition. Most realists I know are just pessimists in disguise. I prefer to see things the way they are: fucked, but not beyond recognition. Everything except for my face, maybe. But I only have myself to blame, there.

I wasn’t always this good looking. I was, actually, by all accounts, good looking at one point in time. At least, I liked to think so. Couldn’t seem to get many ladies to agree with me – they all seemed to focus on my brother. Never understood what they saw in the guy. But then again, we all have different faces we present to different people. Different people can bring out different aspects of ourselves, sometimes even things we didn’t know what we were capable of. That’s not always a good thing. But it’s not always a bad thing, either. Sometimes we can be pleasantly surprised with ourselves.

I know what you might be thinking – a guy like me, that’s not too hard, right? All jokes aside, sometimes it’s nice to know you’re still capable of something good. Especially when all else around you seems to be sinking into depravity and injustice by the minute.

I felt good once. Not high – not ecstatic. Not altered. I felt good. The feeling was organic, it came from within me. Not manufactured. I felt…like a decent person. Which isn’t easy in a place like this. It’s a feeling I’ll never be able to replicate. Doesn’t matter how many chems I get my hands on, I would never even try to replicate it – it was a feeling unto itself. Something that could never come from a bottle of Jet. Trying to recreate it with drugs, feels like a sin of some kind.

I’m not opposed to a bit of transgression, but even writing about it – about that woman…I can’t do it justice. Can’t do her any justice. Even though I’ve tried. It’s all I’ve wanted to do.

The only way I can describe it? The picture on a postcard. Something so idyllic, something so far out of reach – so idealized. It sounds kitschy, it feels kitschy. You know it’s a painting, you know it’s not really as pretty in real life, you know all that beauty only exists somewhere in an idealized past. But you can’t look away. You can’t look away. And you’re holding the stupid thing with as much care as you can – making sure the edges don’t fray, that the painting doesn’t fade. It represents something better, bigger than yourself: the way the sunset ought to be, the way it was all those hundreds of years ago. You don’t want to look away. And in the action of preservation, of preserving something beautiful, you find you’ve become a better person.

I know that doesn’t really make sense.

No one’s ever described me as pithy.

I tried to keep things good, I tried to preserve what I could. But nothing stays clean in this wasteland for long.

Wren was a breath of fresh air in a town where chems were the cleanest thing to inhale. She owned a well in the furthest corner of Goodneighbor – it was the cleanest water you could get for miles. It was only advertised through word of mouth, and Wren didn’t run her mouth to many people. Anyone who knew about the well, knew about Wren – but not everyone who knew Wren knew about the well. She was there before Vic and his boys, she was there after. She didn’t age – not in the same way as a Ghoul, but like something else entirely. She was a Smooth-Skin, and by all accounts she looked human. As the years went by, I thought maybe she was a Synth, and I finally found the courage to ask her as much. She only laughed, and asked if I was implying she was stiff in bed. I never did find out what she was, exactly. Or if she knew of some drug that kept her looking fine – and if I could take a hit off her, as if maybe it would fix me. I figured it must’ve been something in the water. It was the sweetest water I’ve ever tasted.

People used to say water doesn’t have a taste – but, really, it’s the pollution that socks you right in the mouth. That metallic twinge, that thick feeling of oil and rust, the tingle of radiation. But after enough chem use, you start to lose your sense of taste. Really, I think it’s for the better.

I met Wren before I became what I am now. She knew me since I was a wild and reckless youth – now I’m a wild and reckless wrong-side-of-forty. There were loads of roads into Goodneighbor, the home of good medicinals, if you knew where to look, and if you didn’t mind taking the back alleys. I wandered into a waterway system one night, that’s how I found the well. The passageway I entered was part of a water filtration system Wren came up with herself; I wound up wading runoff water, looking for the other end of the tunnel. Couldn’t find the light.

Instead, I found myself at the long end of a double barreled shotgun, staring at a bleak and brainless future if I didn’t come up with a good reason for trespassing, as she said. I fell head over heels for her the minute I laid eyes on her – both literally and figuratively. I was scrambling on the wet ground, pleading for my life. I must’ve looked as pathetic as I felt, because she had mercy on me. She put away the sawed-off and took me round to her cabin on her patch of land. Later, she told me she let me off the hook because she recognized me from her club – The Bird’s Nest; she said she knew me as the scrawny baby-faced kid trying to live his best life, one Mentat after the next. All I picked up from that later exchange was that she thought I was cute.

The Bird’s Nest club was on the outskirts of Goodneighbor. It was a classy joint, almost as exclusive as Wren’s well. The only way in was through private invitation. I got in in the first place by piggy backing off another acquaintance’s invitation, something that wasn’t exactly looked well upon. She told me she didn’t take kindly to intruders – at her well, or at her club, and as punishment for my intrusions, she said she’d find a use for me. She indentured me to servitude; I had more fun things in mind, but I worked off my crimes with janitorial service. I was instructed to clean the waste waterway, the very one she found me in; it took several days, but I scrubbed it top to bottom. After that, she had me clean The Bird’s Nest – ceiling to floor. I preferred the waterway. You don’t wanna know what kind of shit you can find on the floors of a nightclub.

Wren was as shrewd as she was beautiful. I eventually learned she distilled her own spirits with the water from her well. It made for a dedicated clientele, who couldn’t go back to any other sludge after tasting her whiskey – pure and crisp. Burned in all the right ways. Her competitors in the area all thought she was dealing something on the side; she was poaching customers left and right with the quality of her handiwork. They figured she had to be into something else to keep her retention numbers up so high. But it wasn’t drugs. Not at first, anyway. It was just…her. It wasn’t just her water that made people want to stay. It was her. She made you feel like you were the most important person on Earth, like you two had known each other since the beginning of Time. Like when you walked through her doors, you were coming home. Friendliness isn’t exactly common in the Commonwealth. Or anywhere around here, for that matter. I think people just wanted to feel…wanted. That’s how you felt with Wren.

I was there one day, mopping the floors, when three men came to her club, uninvited. Wren was behind the bar, with a shotgun under the counter. She greeted them as she would have anyone else: she was calm, quiet, she had this unassuming smile – could be used to disarm anyone, but it just as easily hid her own intentions. They demanded she pay them protection money.

“Why?” she asked. “I can protect myself just fine.”

They all looked at each other like grinning idiots. They stood there laughing at her. But Wren didn’t budge. She was leaned on the bar, with a rag in one hand, glancing at each of them – just waiting for them to make the first move.

“You want to keep this place in operation,” they said, “you’ll keep the boss happy.”

“I don’t answer to your boss,” she said. “I’m an…independent contractor. I take care of myself.”

I stayed a healthy distance away from the impending conflict. The air was rife with that frenetic energy, that electric charge you can feel right before a fight. I wasn’t always so keen to shoot first and ask questions later. That was a skill I learned over time.

“We’ll take care of you and this shack of yours if you don’t hand over the money.” The three men all drew their weapons and started squaring their shoulders.

I can still remember the way her face looked as she stared them down: almost serene, unmoving. Like she wasn’t bothered by these brutes coming into her place, threatening to kill her and burn her place to the ground. She took the rifle out from underneath the bar and set it in front of her. “One of you will make it out of here alive. I’ll let you decide amongst yourselves who you would like it to be.”

I took that as my cue to duck behind something sturdy.

All I remember after that is the sound of bullets flying and landing in soft flesh. Bodies hit the wood floors, and I could feel their weight reverberate through the planks from my hiding spot, behind a wall at the far corner of the club. Glass shattered, and I heard running footsteps – and for a minute I was worried Wren left me behind with those thugs; but, what did I matter to her anyway? She wouldn’t put her life on the line for me, a thief and a trespasser.

When the gunfire sounded like it died down, I risked looking over the wall and saw the last man standing giving Wren a beat down. Her rifle wound up across the room, it was closer to me than it was to her. He had one hand around her throat, and the other pulling on her hair. She had one arm trying to loosen his grip around her throat, and her other hand shoved into his face, digging her nails into his ugly mug. I panicked – didn’t know what to do. The worst thing I could do was get myself got in the process of trying to help. The smartest thing I could think of was tossing the shotgun back to her.

She kicked the butt of the rifle upwards with a flick of her foot, and caught it – whacking the guy over the head. It left a mark – he stumbled just enough for her to pry free from his grip. The minute she got her footing back, she shot the bastard square in the shoulder. Blood spattered onto her as he was blasted back at the force of the shotgun pellets. He scrambled as quick as he could, and flew out the door before she could fire off another shot.

The minute he was gone, Wren collapsed to the floor, shotgun at her side, her hand around her throat. I took the chance and came out of my hiding place, not sure if the woman was going to keel on the spot. She was covered in blood, could barely breathe. I offered to patch her up, but she told me, as best she could with a hoarse voice, that none of the blood was hers. All she asked me for was a cup of water. It was the least I could do, I figured.

I did as she said: grabbed a glass from behind the bar, and filled it with that crisp, clean water. I knelt beside her and helped her drink it, she had trouble moving her neck – but I noticed, there wasn’t a single bruise on it, where that thug’s hand would’ve been.

After she finished every last drop in the glass, she turned to me, and told me my debt was paid.

“I spared your life,” she said, “and you saved mine. Consider us even.” Her voice still wasn’t quite what it was before the attack, but her breath was coming back to her, and she looked and sounded as though she’d only been involved in a minor scuffle. “Thank you,” she said, and she tried looking me in the eye, but I couldn’t hold it.

I looked around at the two remaining bodies of those attackers, and felt more of a coward than I did when I first landed in Goodneighbor for good, after Diamond City. The guilt was worse than the crash after a bottle of Jet. That was my first up-close and personal encounter with Vic’s boys. “Don’t thank me. I didn’t do jack shit,” I scoffed. “I coulda done more.”

“You have no loyalty to me,” she said. “The fact that you felt obligated to help, someone to whom you owed a debt, says more about your character than what you might or might not have done in the idealized version of yourself.” She swallowed, her hand massaging her neck, but still I couldn’t see even the trace of a bruise left behind.

I didn’t allow myself to feel the weight of her words – the guilt of Diamond City, of all those Ghouls, displaced, dead, or worse, was still too fresh in my mind. And at that time of day, I was still too sober to let myself feel anything at all. She stood, and I sat there, suddenly realizing I would have to mop the floor all over again.

She told me I didn’t have to stay there anymore, my debt was paid, I no longer had any obligation to her or to The Bird’s Nest. I told her I didn’t have anywhere else to go – which was the truth as a drifter, of course, but it was also my own way of sticking around as long as I could. The Bird’s Nest was the first place where I felt like I had a place. Wren bartered my services as a janitor for room and board. I slept in a repurposed broom closet in the back of the building, and even with living there, Wren was somehow always up and at ‘em earlier than me.

There was a separate, locked room on the opposite side of the building where I stayed. I could hear her tinkering away in there from sun-up to the second the club doors opened. Whenever she left the room, even for a moment, she locked the door behind her. The only key was on her person at all times; she kept it inside her…unmentionables. What? A guy like me, I’m allowed a look at a rack like that. On occasion.

I began to wonder if the rumors were true, if Wren was selling something other than spirits to keep her clients happy. Something harder, something that lasted longer than whiskey, and that was maybe purer than Jet. It was part of my own selfish reason I was interested in staying as long as I did. That, and, I…I started to feel things for Wren. Things I’d never felt with anyone else. She was everything I wasn’t: beautiful, smart, brave. Being close to her made me feel that maybe I could be those things, too, by osmosis. But I figured a woman like that, she’d never give me a second look. I was used to it – being passed over, mostly invisible. It was my brother who got most of the love, the attention, the good shit in life. Maybe that’s why I like talking so much: I’m an attention seeker at heart.

But I didn’t seek out her attention, I knew there wasn’t a shot between us. I knew what I was, besides a coward: a junkie. She knew it, too. But she never treated me any different. She knew the kind of shit that went down on the club floor – the chems that passed hands, the laced smokes, the patrons huddled in the corners, looking for something extra to take the edge off. Wren was never a fool. Which is exactly why I knew nothing could happen between us.

Vic visited her personally a week later. I wasn’t on the floor when he came by; I was doing something I wasn’t supposed to, around Wren’s secret backroom, when I heard the commotion. She was laughing at him. She had this beautiful laugh, elegant, like something out of an old film. But this laugh was different, it wasn’t something I’d heard from her before, it was sardonic, callous. Like she was making fun of him. Didn’t exactly seem like the smartest move from my vantage point – but who was I to point fingers? I didn’t have the stones enough to help her, either way.

I still remember the sound of his palm hitting her cheek. Her head whipped with the force of his slap. She held a hand to her face for only a second, before she brushed her hair away, and set her eyes on him again. She still had that laugh on her, though, even when he told her to wipe that smile off her face.

“Even if I was in the business of recreational remedies, I wouldn’t give you a dime, Vic. I wouldn’t let you anywhere near my operation.”

“Then you won’t be surprised when accidents start to happen,” he said. “But if I were to have the funding, I might be able to prevent these so-said accidents before they happen..”

“Don’t try to extort me, Vic. It’s not a language you speak well. You wanna know what I hear instead? Cowardice. I hear a man who gets off on watching others suffer. I hear a child’s tantrum – a child who has never felt in-control a day in his life. I’ve been here longer than you’ve been alive, Vic. I’ll be here long after you’re dead. I’ve seen men like you come and go. It’s never pretty. If I were you, I’d be more concerned about your own accidents.”

“You threatening me?”

“I don’t need to. I’ve seen enough to know men like you never last long.”

First time I heard her say that, I couldn’t help but wonder who’d be stupid enough to go up against a guy like Vic. Well, we all know how that turned out. Guess ‘stupid’ wasn’t far off.

She let him live. He walked out of The Bird’s Nest without a scratch. Same couldn’t be said for Wren, she was still rubbing the side of her face. From where I stood around the backroom, I couldn’t see a mark on her, though. But that being said, I was too preoccupied with the guilt of trying to catch a glimpse of what was behind that secret door of hers while she wasn’t looking. I went behind her back, literally, trying to see what I could see through the cracks of the door, trying to see if she was hiding anything interesting – interesting to me, anyway, in the way of chems. All I could make out were these silver pots and glass vials. Looked enough like a chem lab to me, though there wasn’t much to go on. Could have just as easily been part of her distillery.

I decided to get away from the backroom door before she found me, and I’d have to half-ass explain myself. I walked onto the floor, instead, and inquired about her encounter.

“He won’t give up,” she said. She was wringing her hands through her bar rag, she looked nervous. I’d never seen Wren nervous up ‘til then.

“What’re you gonna do?” It’s not like I had any heroic ideas at that point.

“Do what I’ve always done. Keep my head down. I won’t be picking any fights with Vic,” she said. “But I’ll finish them if he sends them my way.”

“Sounds like he isn’t giving you much of a choice.”

“That’s what he wants you to think.” She looked at me as she said it. Like she wanted me to really hear it. “That’s what he thrives on.” She threw the towel over her shoulder, and placed a finger along my jaw, guiding me to meet her eyes. “You always have a choice, John.”

That was part of the problem, really. I always had a choice. A choice for good, a choice for evil – evil’s a little dramatic, but no one would call a Jet addiction rational, either. My parents didn’t expect much out of me. Not that there was much to aspire to around here. My brother was always the rising star. The Golden Child. It was my choice to leave them. It was my choice to pick up a bottle of Jet for the first time. It was my choice to spy on Wren, even after all she’d done for me.

It was my choice to shoot up one night at The Bird’s Nest. All I wanted was to forget – just for a minute, just for a second. Forget the guilt. Forget the fear. Forget the man I was, who I wanted to be – who I knew I could never be. Just forget it all. Just for a minute.

It was a minute too long. I overdosed. Flat on the floor, fresh out of dignity.

It’s ironic, really. I used to do anything and everything I could to forget. Now I’m a regular card holder at the Memory Den. Doing anything and everything I can to remember. To relive. Wren, and everything about her.

She found me on the floor, I guess. That’s what she told me. The next thing I remember is waking up in my bed, still unsure what planet I was on. I think I might’ve thrown up on her. But if I did, she never said anything about it.

I just remember the sound of her voice as she said my name: “John…” It was a sigh, it was familiar. It was disappointment. Or, at least, that’s what I thought.

She was wiping my face with a wet towel, I pushed her hand away. “I don’t want your pity.”

“If I pitied you, you wouldn’t be here. Pity is passive. It does nothing.” She dipped the cloth into a basin of her water and passed it along my face again. “I’m worried, John. There is a difference.”

“I don’t need anyone else’s disappointment. I got enough of it back home.”

“I never said I was disappointed in you. In fact, I’m rather impressed by you.”

I scoffed, and almost pushed her away again, but my arms barely had any strength left in ‘em. “You got the wrong guy.”

“You’re John McDonough, aren’t you? Brother of the Diamond City mayor. I heard what you did for those who were displaced. The children among them. I don’t imagine it was easy to go against the word of your own brother. Although, I’m curious as to why it was he who pursued a career in politics, and not you. You graduated at the top of your class – beating out your brother’s own academic records.”

“If this is a polite way of asking what the hell happened to me, consider me still insulted.”

She only smiled and shook her head; she pressed the bowl of water to my mouth and helped me drink from it. “Not at all. I mean only to say I am impressed. Both by your compassion and discernment.”

“Yeah, well. No one’s ever accused me of being a genius. That’s what the Mentats are for.”

She thought it was funny. “Mentats enhance what’s already there. It doesn’t come from nothing.”

No one ever gave a fuck enough about me to listen, to appreciate, to just…let me be me. I swear, it was a better high than anything I could find in a bottle. “How’d you know who I am, anyhow?”

“It’s my job to know who I let into my establishment. With whom I work. It’s how I’ve survived this long. Knowing who’s who.”

“That why you’re so confident you can wait out Vic and his boys?”

“Partly,” she shrugged, and poured a tablespoon of something white and powdered into the rest of the water in the bowl. She had me drink it; it was bitter and fizzy, but it settled my stomach. “That, and I know men like him never operate long without making enemies. If it isn’t one of his own men who turns on him, it will be someone else he shouldn’t have crossed.”

“You have a lot of faith in other people.”

“I have faith in what I see.” She looked at me as she said it. Like she wanted to know I heard it.

That time I didn’t look away. That time I heard it. I felt it.

After that, she had me working more closely with her, like a personal assistant. She didn’t demand I get clean. She didn’t expect me to be anything other than what I was, who I was. She treated me with respect, like I was an intelligent creature, like I had a brain. It wasn’t something I was used to. But it was good exercise intellectually. A part of me felt like I was living up to whatever potential I might’ve left behind in Diamond City. The only two rules she laid down: don’t get shitfaced on the clock, and don’t go into the locked backroom. Easy enough.

But we always want things we can’t have, don’t we?

She trusted me. She didn’t have to say it. But she did anyway.

She was in her office, tired, more tired than a night’s sleep could fix. A hand on her head, her eyes fixed on nothing in particular; I came in through the door to tell her I’d finished restocking the bar, when I saw her. I didn’t say anything, I just stood there, wondering if she even noticed me.

I called out to her, but she didn’t hear me, so I took the chance of walking in without permission. The towel over my shoulder, I came beside her, hoping she’d see me out of the corner of her eye. I wasn’t exactly keen on being on the wrong side of her sawed off again.

“Wren?” I said again.

That time, she jumped, and lucky for me, she realized who was talking to her before she pulled the gun strapped to the underside of her desk. “John…” She exhaled and rubbed her face. “I didn’t hear you, forgive me.”

“It’s alright,” I tried not to sound as worried as I was. “Got something on your mind? You look preoccupied.”

She looked at me with this fatigued smile, and shook her head. “Trying not to think of my failures. Seems to be all I can think about when I close my eyes.”

“You’re talking to the expert of failure,” I said, hoping to see her laugh. “Though I don’t imagine you’d be partial to my preferred coping mechanisms.”

“Maybe you’d be surprised,” she raised a brow.

I leaned my hip on her desk, arms crossed. “Oh yeah?”

“You’re not the first person in the Commonwealth to use a crutch – to deal with all the shit we see day to day.” She sat back in her chair as she looked at me. “You won’t be the last. All we can do is make sure people don’t suffer needlessly.”

The way she said it, it was like she knew something I didn’t. I got to thinking maybe it had something to do with that secret room of hers. Maybe she was cooking up a drug capable of keeping its user sane. A seemingly impossible feat, but by that point, I was convinced Wren was capable of anything – anything good especially. “You got an idea on how?”

She took a deep breath in and shook her head once. “Making sure people know they have somewhere they can go. That they have a friend. If they need it.” She paused, her eyes looking at nothing in particular again. She looked washed out, like something was eating her from the inside. Like the air passed right through her, leaving her a ghost. It was terrible. Then something crossed her face, like she thought of something that unsettled her, and she turned to me: “You know I’m your friend, don’t you, John?” She asked as though she were afraid I would say no.

I knelt down. “I know. I know that. Hell, you’re the only real friend I think I’ve ever had. You’ve never had an unkind word to say about me, and everyday I work to earn that.” She looked at me, and there was a sadness in her that I don’t think I’ve seen in anyone else – a grief that was too cruel for someone like her. “You know…You know that I’m a friend, too, right? Friends are hard to come by. I want to be your friend. Despite myself.”

She put her hand on my face, and ran it through my hair. There wasn’t an ounce of harm in her. She just smiled at me and nodded. “I know.”

I wanted to tell her then and there that there wasn’t a damn thing I wouldn’t do for her – but both of us would’ve known it was a lie. The best I could do was steal a kiss on her hand. Her skin was soft, and while mine wasn’t exactly as good-looking as it is now, at that time I only had a few scorch marks; I was still weathered from the harsh winds and Sun. Her skin felt as if it’d never been touched by the radiation. Like a feather – Like I could kiss it all over, and it would never leave a mark. I wanted to do all that and more, but I settled for a stolen kiss, instead.

Wren was supposedly older than Vic, himself, which would’ve made her older than me, and any of my family and friends – save for the Ghouls who were around since before the War. I couldn’t make sense of it, she was beautiful, youthful, and not a day over gorgeous. But I learned a long time ago, the less you know, the less you’re liable for, so I didn’t ask questions that I thought were above my paygrade: my pay being room and board. I enjoyed not being homeless, and besides it’s impolite to ask a woman her age, you know.

She recruited my help on something important, she said, it was something no one else was supposed to know about. At first I thought I might finally get a look inside that secret room, but regardless of how curious I was about those vats and vials, nothing could have prepared me for what she showed me, instead. There was a room behind the The Bird’s Nest that was dug into the ground; it was covered in tarps and mud walls, with a crooked skylight window built into the dirt. Turns out it was a greenhouse. Wren had a garden of bright flowers – they were all kinds of pink, yellow, white, some all of those colors at once, with big green leaves, and long pollen-y things in the flowers. It was like something out of a picture book. I’d never seen anything like it, especially up close, in person.

She needed me to help prune and harvest some of the green shoots. I told her I didn’t want to fuck it up, that she shouldn’t have let me in her greenhouse, I was bad luck. All she said was that I wasn’t getting out of work that easy. She put a pair of scissors and gloves in my hand, told me where to snip, and to get to work.

Wren went around the greenhouse collecting what she could, picking the shoots she wanted, and putting them into her apron. The whole thing was surreal. I had to check to make sure I wasn’t seeing things. But sure enough, it was real – all of it. She had this white ribbon in her hair, it was pulled back, out of her face. The way the sunlight came in through the skylight, it made her look like some kind of saint. I was damn near ready to believe it, too.

We worked til my shirt was soaked from sweat. It was fucking hot in that greenhouse, the air was thick, and it felt like I was drowning in the humidity. I never thought I’d be ungrateful for water, in any form, but I guess too much of anything ought to kill you. She led me back inside The Bird’s Nest and told me to leave whatever I’d collected by her locked room.

I did as she said, and waited, out of sight, hoping to see into the room when she went in to work. When she dragged the baskets of plants inside, I could see a better set up of what looked to be a laboratory of some sort, and little empty vials waiting to be filled. I was sure that she was brewing something good – something better than anything you could find on the street. Between the plant crop, and her admitting to her own using habits, paired with the fresh needle marks on her arms, I was convinced she was going to flood the market with something sweet. Maybe even push Vic out of Goodneighbor with the profits. It seemed like a good plan, in my mind. But I knew better than to ask. I didn’t want to spook her, I didn’t want to ruin my chances of having first taste of whatever she was cooking. I decided to wait it out, see if she would offer me any as a reward for good behavior.

It wasn’t all selfish, though. And it wasn’t all one-sided. That’s what scared me the most. As the months went by, she would call me for errands that didn’t need doing, for advice she already thought of. She told me, really, it was just because she needed an excuse to talk to me.

“You don’t need to make an excuse, baby. I know I’m easy to talk to.”

She just laughed. I liked making her laugh. It was the one thing I was good at.

(Farrah, skip to page thirteen.) When she first kissed me I thought I’d taken too much the night before, that I was still dealing with the hallucinogenic consequences. I thought maybe I’d imagined her – that the past eight months were actually a dream that’d gone by in the blink of an eye, that I’d wake up in the gutter of some back alley where I belonged. Then she kissed me again. And I knew my mind couldn’t make up anything that good. It had to be real.

I was worried I’d contaminate her. I was worried all my bad luck, all my failures, my past – all of it, would somehow change her for the worse. I didn’t want that. She deserved better than that. Than me.

Didn’t stop me from sleeping with her, though.

That’s how Farrah happened. Fahrenheit, she calls herself now. But her mother named her Farrah.

Wren made the first move. I wouldn’t have dared. She was classy about it, she was always the romantic type. She didn’t use other people for her own advantage. When she asked something, she meant it – especially in private matters. She needed to know I wasn’t inebriated, that I wasn’t acting out of clouded judgment, that she wasn’t taking advantage of me. Hell, I wouldn’t have minded if she did, but she wasn’t that kind of person.

I did everything I could to show her just how grateful I was. How much she meant to me. Night and day, anytime she called, I was there when she needed me – for anything at all. I wasn’t her commodity, but I was just that eager. Didn’t matter who knew, wasn’t anything they could do about it. I was hers, and I wore it like a badge.

She was gentle with me. She didn’t need to be, but she was. It wasn’t just sex. It was something else entirely. A kind of high I can never chase down again. Vulnerable – my purest, realest self. That kind of elevation you can’t get anywhere else other than with the person you’re meant to be with. I think those months might’ve been the happiest I’ve ever been, and probably will ever be.

Of course, I have a knack for ruining good things.

Wren got us something special one night – a little butterfly shaped pill, meant to be shared by two; you broke it in half down the middle, and held one wing under your tongue. It was meant to incite an erotic experience, capable of bringing people together in a way they’d never been before.

Goddamn, did it work. Best sex of my life.

It was like a piece of myself fused with her. I could almost feel it, somewhere in my chest. The deeper I kissed her, the deeper I was inside her, the more I felt myself tethered to her. The world changed, and everything seemed brighter – it was pitch black, middle of the night, but the room felt as bright as day. Every scrape of her nails into my back felt hot, like sunlight. I couldn’t feel an ounce of pain if I wanted to.

She was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen, full of ecstasy. She glowed, bright colors – like the flowers in her greenhouse. She was all the colors of a sunset, as sweet as fruit, and made up of all the sounds a goddess would make. She had her legs wrapped around me all night long, barely let me breathe. I loved the way she looked when she enjoyed herself – especially when I was causin’ it.

(It’s safe now, Farrah. Mostly.) I woke up earlier than her, the Sun wasn’t even up yet. I laid there in her bed, still coming down from the night before. I could feel the heaviness of a crash coming on, and I wasn’t keen on being her downer in the morning. I had the mind to dip into my own supply of whatever was in my stash; I knew I had some MedX in my other room, and I figured I could slip away while she slept, and come back before she woke up for another few hours’ sleep.

I managed to get out of bed without waking her, and I was almost out the door. I was almost out the door. I should have…just walked out the door. I should have just…

You ever have a memory, and remembering it is like watching it happen in slow motion all over again? And all you want to do is yell at yourself to do the opposite of whatever it was you did?

Her clothes were on the floor. But the key to that room…it was just sitting there on her night stand. It was too easy. She was out, completely — I’d worn her out good. It was like I was watching myself from the third-person while I did it. I couldn’t stop myself. There wasn’t really any reason, other than morbid curiosity and the not-so-subtle hopefulness that I’d find something worth doping up on. I’d be in and out of there without her knowing, no harm, no foul.

The key fit perfectly, and the door opened with a shove. There were silver, pressurized vats, and some kind of glass distillation process set up. All of it was working, going, even though she wasn’t there to supervise it. I began to think maybe I had been wrong, that it wasn’t some new kind of chem, but that the plants were add-ins to her whiskey. But at the end of the distillery, the glass tubes were collecting droplets of something dark red – almost a rust color — into a vial. It wasn’t a quarter full.

There was a small refrigerator next to this whole set up, and I looked inside thinking maybe she had a bottle of something good I could nip. Turned out, it was only more vials – three of ‘em – and two bags with dates written on them, three months apart, the earliest one being only a couple weeks ago. I grabbed one of the vials and twisted it open; she already had three, and more were on the way, supposedly. It was worth at least a taste. The smell was…odd. Pungent – like iron and compost. Wasn’t exactly appetizing. But wasn’t exactly a deterrent, either. I’d had worse.

The taste was just as bad – it almost had a soft grainy-ness to it, like soft silt. It left a tang in the mouth, and it went down harsh. Whatever it was supposed to do, just the act of drinking it was starting to kill my vibe. It was only then I started to realize maybe I shouldn’t have been doing what I was doing. The shame was setting in, and I was starting to panic, realizing I didn’t know what to do with the empty vial. I didn’t know how to get rid of it without Wren finding out it was me who took it.

I had to get back to the room. Return the key, lie back down, and hope that whatever I’d just swallowed wasn’t going to kill me in the next twenty minutes.

But it was already too late.

I turned around, and Wren was standing there.

I’ll never forget the look on her face. I knew, in that moment, everything everyone had ever said about me was true: worthless, stupid, selfish junkie.

“What have you done?” The sound of her voice, the betrayal in it, the horror – I can’t get it out of my head.

There was nothing I could say, there was nothing in my head other than regret. “Wren…”

She was starting to cry. I’d never seen her cry before. She grabbed the vial out of my hand, and checked the refrigerator. “It takes me a whole year to make just one – one of these vials! I give my life to make them! I give of my own body – my own blood!” She lifted the sleeve of her robe and showed me the needle marks. “Do you know what you’ve done?” she cried. “You’ve just drank my own blood!” She threw the vial at me and it shattered on a wall behind me. She grabbed the bags from the refrigerator and held them up to me. “My blood!” She sobbed, and checked the distillery, making sure I hadn’t fucked anything else up.

I was starting to feel sick. I couldn’t tell if it was from whatever it was I’d just taken, or if it was because I couldn’t handle the idea that I’d vaporized the greatest relationship I’d ever had, and would ever have. I couldn’t hold it down, and I started to heave, my body wanted to spit it back out.

“Out! Get out!” she yelled at me, and pushed me out the door just as I threw it up. “It wasn’t meant for you anyway! All it will make you is sick and ill. A year of my life, in one bottle – to give to others who need it. Who need it more than me!” She pounded her fist on her chest, on her heart. “People who rely on me, John! Men, women. Children! The very ones you saved – they rely on me. On what you’ve just wasted,” she was practically shaking with anger as she looked at me and the vomit on the floor. “The only hope Ghouls might have for normalcy.”

I was trying to get back on my feet, still not sure if anything else was going to come back up – my head was spinning and my throat burned. At that point, I wasn’t completely comprehending what she was saying, and at first I thought she meant I was going to turn into a Ghoul. Turns out that didn’t happen until later. What she meant, instead, was something impossible: a cure for ghoulification. I didn’t understand at the time.

I didn’t understand a lot of things.

“I’ll work it off,” I said, trying to keep my stomach from flipping. “I’ll work – A year, a year you said?” I spit something on the floor as I finally got to my knees. “I’ll work…–”

The way she looked at me…with anger and disgust. I deserved it. And more. But nothing hurt more than when she turned her face away from me. “There is nothing you can do to fix this.”

I begged her, on my knees, practically grasping the hem of her robe for her mercy. “Please – I’ll work – I’ll work it off. I’ll work the seasons. I’ll do anything. I’ll do…”

She still didn’t look at me. But I could tell her anger had turned into something else: heartbreak. “I don’t want you to.” She cried. “I want you to leave.”

I sat there, begging whatever higher power there was out in the universe for all of this to be a dream. A nightmare. That I would wake up next to her, in her bed; that it’d be morning, that I’d get to hold her, that it’d be us and nothing else. So many times before, I’d been the one to leave when things got rough. The one time I wanted to stay, the one time I wanted to make it right, instead…I couldn’t.

I didn’t know at the time that she was in the family way, otherwise there would have been nothing she could have said, nothing she could have done to get rid of me. I would have found a way to stay. At least, that’s what I like to tell myself. Who knows the reality of things. Promises we make to ourselves tend to be the flimsiest. But I like to think even I couldn’t stoop that low.

Again, I was a drifter. I began to wonder if that was all there was for me. I started to believe it. That there was nothing else – just alleyways and gutter beds. Vic’s boys were becoming bolder, terrorizing the population every chance they could get, trying to keep them in line: target practice in their own personal games of lethal darts. The only thing that kept me going was the hope of feeling okay again. The next high, the next score – those moments, ephemeral, transient, where I felt like a person again. I thought I was at my lowest. I didn’t think there was any way for me to feel any worse than I did.

With every high, the lows got worse. The crashes, the lulls – they were mind numbing, and not in the fun way. I felt like a living, breathing sack of shit. Even the reflections of myself in the gutter puddles were too much to look at. The thought of myself made my skin crawl, and every waking moment was a struggle to get to the next waking moment.

That’s when I came across a chem-maker at the border of Goodneighbor, he had a laboratory on the outskirts of a travel route towards Diamond City. He was a Ghoul, made shit for the hell of it, because he liked to. He used to be a chemist, apparently, but I was too strung out to listen to his life story. He offered me his cheap shit, but the usual orders of Jet and Mentats weren’t doing it for me anymore. I needed something else – something that would change…me. Who I was. If I could find that, then maybe things wouldn’t be so bad from there on out. Famous last words.

He offered me a bottle of Day Tripper, and my face must’ve done the talking on how annoyed I was because the old guy got offended.

“You don’t get it,” I said. “I don’t want to just see a different world. I want to be different. In the world.”

He looked at me, like he pitied me, and he shook his head. “I don’t got anything that can help you there, kid. Ain’t nothing that can change you, but you. But I got things that can make life a little more worthwhile in the meantime.” He tried to push the Day Tripper on me again.

He went on and on, and my mind started to wander. I noticed a bottle on a shelf behind him that looked similar to Wren’s stuff: it was a little glass vial, filled with a rust colored liquid. “What’s that?” I pointed.

He immediately shut me down. “No – you don’t want that. That’ll change you in all the wrong ways. Not the kind you’re looking for.”

“Where’d you get it?” I thought maybe Wren sold some of her stuff to dealers around Goodneighbor, hoping it would get to the right hands. Didn’t sound like her style, though.

He told me it was a relic from some old time religion that wasn’t around anymore. It was meant to turn people into Ghouls, on purpose. It was used as some kind of transformation ritual, rumored to have hallucinogenic properties. I looked at the guy talking to me, a Ghoul himself, and thought it didn’t sound so bad. He looked pretty much as bad as I felt. It was just more visible. He kept talking, but I was wondering what I would look like – what it would be like to look in a puddle and see someone else for a change. Someone with a different face. Someone who I deserved to see.

“I’ll take it.”

“I’m not selling it to you, kid,” he scoffed.

I wasn’t exactly flush with caps, but there was one thing I had – it was the only thing that meant anything to me. I thought it might help the chemist, too. Inside my jacket’s inner pocket was a plastic bag, filled with a pressed flower. It was a flower from Wren’s garden, a closed blossom. I took it, before I shot everything to hell, half because I was fascinated with the thing, and half because I wanted a piece of her close to me. But looking at it, debating whether or not to barter it for the vial, I decided I wanted to put the past behind me. I wanted to let her go. For her sake, really. That maybe, on some level, if I was still holding onto her, I was still bringing her down – even from a distance.

I gave him the flower, and he gave me the vial. I didn’t say anything else.

The liquid had a similar texture – silty, left a residue on the tongue. The taste was way worse, though. I almost threw that up, too. But I managed to keep it down, managed to ride out the first few minutes of discomfort until the high kicked in.

It was the weirdest, most incredible thing I’d ever experienced: It felt like dying in slow motion. Saying it that way sounds bad, but it was beautiful. I felt invincible – like I was transcendent of any plane of existence. Like nothing could hurt me – Like I had a purpose, a meaning. The world felt like it should, how I imagined it might’ve in its most perfect form: lush, green, sublime. Nothing could bring me down. It lasted longer than anything else I’d ever taken: three days. One hit. And on the third day, I woke up a different person.

The ghoulification didn’t happen overnight. It was subtle. It started with the color of my skin – marbley and patchy; then like spoiled Cram. Wounds opened, skin split, things sagged on me that I didn’t think could sag. By the first week, I was in a lot of pain. I managed to get my hands on some MedX and it helped keep me sane enough to get through to the second week. By that time, things on me were breaking down; my eyes were the first things to change. That was weird. I’d had blue eyes before. Seeing them turn black all over – that was a trip.

Week three came around, and I was starting to have regrets. I got what I wanted: looking in the mirror was an experience in itself. I was a completely different person. But one wrong move and my nose dislodged. I had to rip the rest off, myself. You’d have thought I’d lost a fight to a leprotic armadillo. This was no longer the solution I thought it was.

It’d been six months since I’d left Wren, and I was praying to any and every god I could think of that she would have mercy on me again. Just one more time. That maybe this time I could take one of her vials for the right reason. The cosmic irony wasn’t lost on me that the very thing of hers I’d squandered, was what I needed. I didn’t care what I’d have to do to make things right with her. I set out to The Bird’s Nest, hoping to grovel. Hoping to ask for forgiveness. Hoping, maybe, she still loved me. The way I still loved her.

It was gone. All of it.

The only thing left of The Bird’s Nest was its still smoldering wood skeleton. I ran into the wreckage, terrified I’d find Wren’s body, or what might’ve been left of her. I didn’t find anyone, there were no remains of anyone in the debris, as far as I could tell. All that was left in her bedroom was a half-burnt photograph, it’d only survived from being tucked under her mattress. It was a photograph of us, taken by some hot-shot from her club; we were in the background, talking. It was a passing moment, made immortal. I’ve kept it ever since. The next thing I did was look for that locked room of hers, hoping to find a vial of Ghoul-cure that might’ve survived. I managed to find one, but it’d been broken, probably exploded in the fire. I licked whatever droplets I could from it, though. The rest of her equipment was totaled. Nothing survived.

Her greenhouse was torched, too. Every plant razed to the ground, burnt to a crisp.

I walked to the well, hoping to at least slake some thirst. But the drink I scooped into my mouth was bitter – sour. Tasted like chemical. The water’d been tainted.

It was Vic. I knew it in my bones.

I’d never felt more powerless.

There was no way of finding where she went, where she escaped to. If she had another hide-out somewhere, I didn’t know about it. If Vic took her, there was no way I would’ve been able to get her back – at that point. The one thing in my life that I loved, and that loved me back…was gone.

I was back on the street after that. There wasn’t much left for me. Other than survive. And watch my transformation progress.

It was a couple months after that when Vic’s boys went on a particularly bad tirade. People were getting sick of the bullshit Vic was letting loose on the streets. People were broke, and the broker they were, the fewer places they had to go – especially when Vic started to try his hand at buying real estate from already destitute homeowners. People were dying. They were getting tired of being hunted for sport.

Vic’s boys liked the thrill of the hunt – The Most Dangerous Game, as it were. They were goons, sure, but they were sick. Twisted. With how many people were displaced, hiding places were getting scarce. I knew of a utility access point with room enough for two, maybe three people tops, if you all squeezed together.

A group of drifters were looking for a place to hide as Vic’s boys were approaching. I was already in the access point, about to close the door when I saw them frantically looking for a place to hide. They didn’t see me, but I was about to wave them over, when I saw the tyrants’ shadows around the corner. I froze. I debated what to do – I could call them over, and risk them exposing my hiding spot. Or I could just stay still. Close the door.

There were three slits in the metal door that I could see out of when I closed it. That’s when I saw one of the drifters try and take a stand against Vic’s boys. He was done for the minute he opened his mouth. But he told it straight – that people were fed up with their terror tactics. He was dead the second they slammed his head into the ground, blood and brain matter everywhere. But they just kept going. They just kept going…

…And I just sat there, inside that little closet, praying they didn’t hear me crying, praying I wouldn’t be next, all until the beating stopped. His blood was on the access door when I finally opened it.

Everyone has their breaking point. That was mine. I went on a bender, trying to erase everything I’d witnessed from my memory – trying to get the stink of the catastrophic fire at The Bird’s Nest out of my nonexistent nose. Whatever it was, however much of whatever it was, it didn’t matter, it went down the hatch or up the vein. I just wanted the pain to stop. Tale as old as time.

I’m sure you’ve heard the legend from there. I’m a legendary kind of guy. I like to think I make a statement. Woke up in front of Hancock’s duds, and suddenly realized there was a way out – there was a way to be that different person. All it would take was a little bloodshed, and a whole lot of charisma.

I might’ve still been high as hell, because I don’t know where I got the confidence, but I started organizing the revolution right away. The weapons, the people – it was all on the down-low, but it was getting done. I felt like a different person, especially with the clothes, especially not being able to recognize a shred of myself in the mirror. I think it helped. But the Ghoul-chemist was right, all that change had to come from within; it was just given a good drug-induced push.

Even when I wanted to back out, I realized I was in too deep already. I had the weapons, I had the people looking to me for guidance. I thought of Wren’s words: ‘Making sure people know they have somewhere they can go. That they have a friend. If they need it.’ Those people were relying on me, like people were relying on Wren. And I thought maybe, just maybe, by leading these people, by following through with them, I would be able right my wrongs with her on some cosmic level.

And as I wrapped that rope around his neck, as I threw Vic off the balcony – as I listened to his neck snap, and the cheering of the people gathered there, I hoped maybe she could feel those amends made from wherever she was.

One of the first private matters I attended to as newly appointed mayor was trying to find Wren. I knew about Nick Valentine’s reputation from Diamond City, and I recruited his help. I told him it was a passive thing, not to dedicate loads of time and effort into it, though he’d still be compensated handsomely. I figured I was one of the last people she wanted to see – if she was still alive. I wanted to give her as much space as possible, but I was still hoping he’d come across her at some point.

Four years went by, and every update from Nick was the same: not a thing on the radar. Eventually, I asked him to consider expanding his search to possible grave sites. I didn’t want to be a pessimist, but like I said before – I’m a realist. And the reality was, Wren’s chances weren’t looking good. She had a talent for keeping her head down, but she also had a knack for making friends. If she was out there, if she was doing alright, she was still helping people. It’s who she was. The fact that Nick couldn’t come across a single person who owed her a favor was a singular sign pointing to the worst possible outcome.

Then, one day, Nick came to my office with news. He looked rattled – and that isn’t a pun.

He said there was a girl who needed to see me. I didn’t think much of it at first. I’m the mayor, plenty of people say they need to see me on a daily basis.

But he said this was different.

“She came to my office, looking to hire me,” he said. “She’s a kid, John. I don’t know a whole lot about human development, but she’s about yea high,” he motioned to just below his chest. “Didn’t have the caps to hire me if she wanted to, but I asked her what the job was, and if I agreed, it’d be on the house.”

I shrugged, legs up on my desk, most of my attention paid to the pen in my hand. “So you got a heart a’ gold, what’s this got to do with me?”

“She said she was looking for a McDonough. That’s why she was in Diamond City. She thought she was looking for the Mayor McDonough. Turns out she got the wrong mayor. She was looking for John McDonough.”

I was surprised to say the least, but still confused. “Did she say what she wanted?”

His face may be plastic, but you hang around him long enough you can tell when he’s nervous. “She said she had a message for you. It’s all she said for a while – she’s a real tight lipped kid. Was determined to only talk to you. But I told her without knowing what the message was about, and from whom, I wasn’t going to hand her over to my friend that easy.”

“Aw, that’s cute – You call me your friend to your clients.”

“She said the message is from Wren Huichol. She said she wants to see you.”

“What?” I sat up straight and stood, every other thought left my head. “Way to bury the lead, Nick.”

“I don’t think that could be considered the lead. Comparatively, at least. And there’s a reason I’m burying it.”

“Spit it out, rust bucket – what’s the matter with you?”

“John, the girl is her daughter.”

My whole body went numb, my ears were deaf and ringing at the same time. I shook my head. “That’s not right. Wren didn’t have kids.” The height that Nick pointed to would’ve made her at least ten years old. “She didn’t have kids.”

“She told me to give you this, as proof.” He pulled something from his coat and handed it to me.

It was a flower. It was dried and pressed, all pretty – well taken care of. It was the kind Wren grew in her greenhouse. It felt like the heaviest thing in the world sitting in my hand. I didn’t know what to believe about the kid, but I knew that if Wren went out of her way to find me, to give me proof – then whatever was going on with her was serious. “Where’s the kid?”

“She’s outside.��

Nick brought the girl into my office, then waited for me outside the Old State House.

The girl looked around ten years old. She had hair like her mother’s, and that same immovable and unreadable expression. Except the kid looked more stern than her mother. Whoever she was, and whatever she’d seen, it couldn’t have been easy, I thought. She looked like she’d been through hell, and she was still so young.

She didn’t waste any time, got right to the point: “Are you John McDonough?”

But there was something about her eyes, something about the way they looked. I knew them anywhere. I’d tried so hard to forget ‘em. They were mine. “Who’s asking?”

“I’m Farrah,” she said. “My mother sent me to find you.”

“She sent you…” It didn’t make sense. “Why? Why send a kid? Why not come herself?”

“She can’t. She’s sick. She sent me to find John McDonough, she said that I would be safe with him. With you. She says she trusted you. That she trusted you to do the right thing.”

The words hit like a rock, and I leaned my back on the edge of the desk to steady myself. “Did she…say anything else?” I knew this girl was my kid, I knew it in my bones. But none of it made sense. Wren and I met only five years ago; any child of mine should have been no older than that.

“She told me that John McDonough is my father. Is that you?”

I managed a nervous laugh, everything in me wanting to bolt. But I stayed put, even if my head was turned away from her. “I – I don’t know, kid, I think you got the wrong guy.”

“I don’t think so.” She kept looking at me, and I couldn’t say I blamed her. I wouldn’t be too calm if I found out my old man was a Ghoul. But she didn’t exactly seem fazed, either. If anything, she just looked tired. Exhausted. Poor kid seemed numb.

I took a deep breath, and got my head together before I crouched down to her level. Those eyes were mine, alright. I recognized the apathy. “How old are you?”

“Five.”

“You’re tall for your age. Well spoken. Why aren’t you like other five year olds? You go through a lot of growth spurts?”

“Mama says it’s because we’re different. That we’re special. But without the water she says she doesn’t know if I’ll be special anymore. She’s sick because she doesn’t have the water.”

“Are you sick, too?”

She shook her head.

“Alright,” my hands went down my face. I was barely keeping it together, but I didn’t want to flip out in front of the kid. “Alright, Farrah. Let’s get you cleaned up, let’s get you something to eat.”

That was the first time she looked her age. Her eyes got all big and watery, and she shook her head again. “I don’t want to leave Mama there by herself.”

I felt the same way she looked: devastated. “Me neither, kid. We’re not gonna leave her there. But I’m guessing you haven’t gotten a lot of food, or a lot of sleep, am I right? She’d want you to get all fuelled up before we go back for her. C’mon,” I stood up and gave her my hand. “You ain’t gonna be alone anymore.”

We headed out the next day – me, Farrah, and Nick. He didn’t have to come, but after I told him the rest of the story, he said he wanted to be moral support. The guy’s too soft for his own gears. It took us a few days to get to Wren’s place: a hideout somewhere between Goodneighbor and Diamond City, the kind of place that isn’t on a map. After Vic’s attack on The Bird’s Nest that’s where she must’ve gone, where she must’ve had Farrah, too. I was kicking myself for not trying harder to find her at the time. But at the very least, Vic was gone now.

Then again, so was her well.

Farrah led us inside the house, it was dug into the ground, like her greenhouse. It made the whole thing much cooler, which was a welcome relief from the Sun. I was half expecting to be met with the untimely smell of a body, or some other horror – and I was trying to get Farrah to let me scout the place first, but she’s always been as stubborn as her mother.

It was only right then, right at that moment, when I stepped inside, when Farrah called out for her mother, that I panicked. I didn’t know what to say to her, I didn’t know how to face her – I looked different than the last time we saw each other. I thought maybe she’d take one look at me and say ‘Nope! Sorry. I’ll get Farrah to someone else who isn’t such a volatile freak.’

But I should’ve known Wren better than that.

I walked into her room just as Farrah told her she’d found me. They were hugging so tight, I thought they’d squeeze the life out of each other.

“I missed you so much,” I heard Wren tell her, “but I didn’t mean for you to come back – you were supposed to stay there when you found him.”

“I’m a bad influence,” I said. Stupid way to introduce myself, especially after all those years. But it definitely wasn’t wrong.

She looked at me, and it was like all those years apart had just been minutes. She was just as beautiful as I remembered, but she looked sick. She looked like I had been right to be worried. She was thinner. Her cheeks were hollow, and she had dark circles around her eyes. She looked weak, which was never a word I’d used to describe Wren.

“John…” The way she said my name, it was the same. Like she knew me better than I knew myself.

I took that as my cue to approach her, and she told Farrah to wait in the living room; Nick was there preoccupying himself, he volunteered himself to keep an eye on her while we talked.

Wren tried to stand, but I told her not to. I sat on the edge of her bed, and kept to myself. I couldn’t look her in the eye. After everything, after all that time of thinking what I might say to her if I ever saw her again, dreaming of her, of holding her again. All I could do was sit there, waiting. Like a dog at her feet.

“You got a new look,” she said.

Took me a minute to realize she was teasing me. But eventually we both scoffed out a laugh. “You like it? I think it gives me a nice vintage feel.”

She laughed, and she sounded the same. Just tired. Made me worried.

“How are you holding up?” I asked. I reached for her without thinking. I gravitated towards her, my hand against her face.

And she didn’t pull away. She stayed there, in my hand. “I don’t think I’m gonna make it, John.”

I tried to brush it away, tried to pretend all those fears weren’t real. “You’re gonna be alright. We’re gonna get you back to the city. You’ll be alright there.”

She just shook her head. “I’m not gonna make it.” She looked up at me, and her eyes were wet, but her body was too tired to cry.

She told me without the water from her well, she was on a one-way track to the ultimate final destination. There was nothing that could stop it, nothing except for that well water. She’d had an emergency supply at her hide-out, about three years’ worth; she managed to stretch it as far as she possibly could between both her and Farrah. But she ran out last year, giving the last of it to the kid. She didn’t know why Farrah seemed fine, by all accounts her fate should’ve been the same. But she figured it was because of whatever wasteland genes I might’ve passed on. Gave her resistance to the radiation, or just made her more…normal. Wren was different, I didn’t fully understand how.

“Promise me you’ll take care of her,” she begged me, squeezing my hand. “Promise me you won’t let anything happen to her.”

“That was never a question.”

We sat there in silence for a while. Between life and death, there wasn’t much that felt significant enough to talk about. But I didn’t let her go. I kept holding her hand as long as she let me.

“I tried…I tried to find you,” I said.

“I looked for you, too.”

“If only I’d tried harder, sooner –”

She shook her head against the pillow behind her. “There was nothing you could’ve done, John. Vic came armed to the teeth. It was all I could do to get everyone out. To get myself out, with Farrah. She was just an infant then.”

Imagining Wren alone, with an infant – my infant – having to escape a warzone, it made me want to kill Vic all over again. This time, drawn and quartered through the city. “You don’t ever have to worry about Vic again. He’s gone.”

“I heard,” she smiled, weaker than before. “Took me a long time to figure out it was you.”

“Wasn’t exactly my usual M.O. of hiding my tail between my legs, I know. I just got so sick of it, Wren. So sick of it.”

“You’re a hero.”

“I wouldn’t say that. I’m barely a mayor. I like the hands-off technique of letting people do what they want.”

“After everything this town went through with Vic, I think that’s just what the people need.”

“You’ve always had faith in me.” The thought occurred to me of governing Goodneighbor without her. I’d been doing it for three years, there wasn’t any reason to think it’d be difficult otherwise. But it suddenly felt like too much. “You’ve gotta come back with me, Wren,” I said again. “I got a doctor there, I’ve got people there. I’ve got people now, Wren. They’ll fix you up. Hell, they can check Farrah – make sure she’s right.” She just shook her head, trying to let me down easy. “C’mon – don’t give up on me now.”

“I’m not giving up, John. I just know when I’ve lost.”

I felt powerless. As powerless as I did when thought I lost her before. “I just got you back.”

She touched my face. I looked different than when she touched me all those years ago. But it still felt just as good. Like home. “You’ll have me again. Someday.” She shook her head again, and tried to look better than she felt: “But I don’t want to think about ‘someday’ right now. I only want to think about right now. About you. About Farrah. Let me, John. Let me.”

I couldn’t tell her no. I asked her to tell me about the kid, instead. Tell me everything I needed to know – everything about her, about the memories that made them both laugh. About what I could do best for her as a father. She didn’t ask me to be anyone other than who I was. She never did. All she asked me was to think of Farrah first, before I did anything stupid. She was a smart kid, she said, she wouldn’t tolerate any of my bullshit. With her as her mother, I told her, I didn’t expect anything less.

She got tired, and I left the room to let her rest. Farrah was still in the living room with Nick, playing chess with him at the table. She was hustling people even then. I’ve always been proud of her. When I walked out of her mother’s room, she got up and took my place by her side. She never left her alone. I sat with Nick, feeling more vulnerable that I was willing to admit.

I told him mostly everything. I told him that Wren wasn’t coming back with us. I told him I didn’t know what I’d do without her. I told him if he wanted to leave, I wouldn’t blame him.

He wasn’t going anywhere, he said. He was going to see this through with me.

“Because I’m your client?” I scoffed.

“Because you’re my friend.”

I realized right then that people liked me. I went from being a nothing and a nobody – a radroach in the gutter — to someone people wanted to like. I was consciously aware of it, of course, but I don’t think it really hit me until then. I had friends, just like I told Wren. People who actually cared. It was weird.

Nick was going to offer me the couch to sleep on, but Wren said she wanted both me and Farrah next to her while she slept. I think a part of her was worried she’d go sometime during the night. No one wants to be alone when it happens. I didn’t blame her. I was just surprised she wanted me so close to her. I think a part of me came up with this whole story in my head about how she felt about what happened between us, that I forgot it might not have been completely accurate. I’d used it to self-flagellate for so long, I was learning on the fly how to accept that she still wanted me.

We stayed there for a little over a week. Farrah, her mother, and I got to talk. For once in my life, I felt something like normalcy. None of us talked about what was coming, we just enjoyed the ‘right now’, like Wren wanted. She and I enjoyed it together a whole hell of a lot more when we were alone, though. A couple times, in fact. Who was I to deny a dying woman’s request?

A part of me thought that she was going to stand up one day and agree to come with me to Goodneighbor. That suddenly she wouldn’t be so sick anymore. That it was just a bad case of exhaustion, and that I was just what the doctor ordered. That me being there would somehow cure all her ails. She looked like she was getting better, anyway. She even made it to the living room, ate dinner with us at the table.

Then the next morning, she could barely sit up, barely talk.

She asked me for some MedX. “I know you have some,” she said; I could barely hear her. “I saw it in your coat.”

“I have trouble sleeping.”

“John…please.”

I didn’t say anything for a while. Neither did she. There wasn’t anything left to say. She was ready. I had to be.

I made sure Farrah wasn’t around when I gave her the first hit. She started to look like she got some relief. I thought maybe that’s all she needed. Something to even her out. I thought maybe she’d sleep it off for a bit, and then be ready to get up and at ‘em in a few hours. Denial is always a double-edged sword. Gives you some relief for a while, but you always wind up paying for it later.

After a few minutes, she looked at me, and I knew it wasn’t enough. I never was.

“Just a little more…please.”

We both knew what would happen. I didn’t fight her on it.

I grabbed a second syringe, and ripped the cap off with my teeth, trying to keep my thoughts busy on finding a good vein. I tried not to think about what I was actually doing. I was doing what she asked. That’s all I ever wanted to do.

She trusted me. More than I deserved. I’ve always tried to live up to it.

Wren started to get more relief after the second hit. Her face relaxed, and her breathing started to slow, it wasn’t anxious anymore.

I put a kiss on her forehead. “I love you, baby.”

She whispered to me she wanted Farrah with her, with me. I called in the kid, and she crawled into her mother’s arms. They both fell asleep. I was on the other side of her, watching them. I guess all things considered, I’ve gotten pretty lucky. I didn’t get a lot of time with Wren, but then again, some people never find someone to love in the first place. If there is some big, grand scheme of things, I’m glad it put us together. At least for a little while.

Nick dug the grave while I wasn’t looking. I actually don’t know what I would’ve done without him there. I’m used to being alone. As much as I’ve skipped out on everyone in my life, I’m just as used to people skipping out on me. But he was there. The whole time. I owe that guy a lot.

We stayed as long as Farrah needed to after we buried Wren.

The trip back to Goodneighbor was a long one. I had never been more exhausted in my life when we finally got back to the State House. I didn’t have a place set up for Farrah yet, so I let her take my bed. I couldn’t sleep anyway. I spent the night looking out at the sky.

The following week, I tried to get back into the swing of things. Putting the past behind me – running. It wasn’t doing me much good, but I liked to pretend it did. I was in my office, trying to split my attention between balancing my ledger and consoling Farrah. I started to get frustrated, and the last thing I wanted to do was lash out at the kid. So I came up with a compromise: I taught her how to cook the books.

I pulled her onto my lap, and went over money math with her. Wren was right, she was a sharp kid – sharper than most at that age. But like all kids, she started to get bored. She was more interested in the way I looked. I started to think maybe she hadn’t seen many Ghouls while hiding out with her mom.

She touched my face, trying to make sense of it. “Why do you look different?” Kids have such a way with words.

“I’m a Ghoul,” I said.

“How come I don’t look like you, too?”

“You do,” I said. “I didn’t always look like this, y’know. No one’s born a Ghoul. You gotta turn into one.”

“How?”

“Lots of radiation. That’s not gonna happen to you anytime soon, kid. Don’t worry.”

She was still touching my face. She had this stern, careful way of looking at things, like she was thinking. Always thinking. I guess she was trying to imagine what I used to look like.

“Here,” I said, and put her down. “I’m pretty sure I got a picture around here somewhere.” I rifled through my desk for a few minutes. There weren’t many personal effects, besides the occasional smoke box and bullet cartridge, but in the false bottom of the very last drawer, I’d put the old photograph of Wren and me for safe keeping. “Here,” I handed it to her, and pointed. “That’s your mom – and that’s me.”

She looked at the photo, then at me – real scpetical. Like I was pulling one over on her. All I could do was laugh.

“That’s me, kid. A long time ago.” I pointed again. “See, you and I got the same color eyes. My eyes used to be blue.”

She stared at it for a long time, and sat down on the floor.

“You can keep it.”

She looked up at me – she suddenly looked her age again: small, fragile.

I put a hand on her head, and let her lean on my leg. I kept working. Still running.

Despite everything – despite myself, really – I think Farrah, or Fahrenheit as she calls herself, turned out alright. No one could know who she was, how we were related, how she was different. It’d make her an easy target, and it would give me an exploitable weakness. I may not be the best politician, but I do know one thing about politics: no one is safe, and no one is off-limits. As far as anyone knew, she was just some orphan kid who was the mayor’s runner. It kept her out of trouble for the most part. But kids are curious critters, they get into things and places they shouldn’t.

A few years after her mother’s death, Farrah got reckless. She got in with a dangerous crowd. She was the youngest among them, and they were always trying to get her to prove herself. I’m not saying I don’t understand the impulse – I, of all people, have no room to talk – but I made her mother a promise: that I’d look out for her.

Imagine my panic when I couldn’t find her all day, and into the night. I was sweating my head off, trying to figure out where she could’ve gone. I didn’t think she and I got along that terribly, that she’d wanna run away. But all I could imagine was the worst. I had half the mind to call up Nick and ask him to track her down, when I saw her so-called ‘friends’ wandering around the streets without her.

I don’t like to wield my diplomatic power, but when it comes to making sure my people are safe, my kid is safe, it’s personal. Whether they know she’s my blood, or not. I was open to the idea that maybe they weren’t involved at all, that maybe Farrah went off on her own. That is, until I talked with the head of this little crew, myself. I saw Vic in his eyes, and my hands itched to strangle the life out of him. I knew he was responsible for whatever happened to her, wherever she was.

I dragged him into the Old State House, and laid down the law personally. Busted a kneecap, broke a few fingers, until he gave up their sick plan. These goons lured her out to a guarded junkyard and left her there. I threw him out of the State House and out of the city completely. Him and his whole crew.

I got to the junkyard after sunset, and was held up by the owner, until he saw it was the mayor at the other end of his shotgun. I told him I was looking for a kid who’d come by earlier; she might’ve been with a group, she might’ve been alone. He knew who I was talking about. He pointed to the sign at the gate:

‘Trespassers will be shot.’

I bolted into the yard, barely thinking, looking for her. There was a clearing in the distance, and that’s where I found her: gaping hole straight through the chest.

It was the worst moment of my life. There were no thoughts in my head, just…blinding white pain. I held her there for I don’t know how long. It was like the world had ended. Nothing else existed. I’d failed. I’d failed Farrah, I’d failed Wren, myself.

Then she gasped in my arms, and I nearly dropped her in shock – now I may be a user, but I’ve never used that much Jet, enough to bring back the dead. But it wasn’t a hallucination. Farrah was alive, the hole in her chest was mending itself somehow. I didn’t question it, all I did was get her home. By all accounts, she was fine. Got the wind knocked out of her, and felt sick for a few days while things healed up, but she was alright. She’s got the scars to prove she survived.

Kid’s got nine lives. Every damn day I’m worried she’s gonna lose ‘em all. She’s had a few close calls since then, but always comes back kickin’. I half wanted her to be my bodyguard so that I can keep an eye on her. But I know it’s the other way around, too. She looks out for me. Not all fathers can say that about their kids.

I don’t know how long Farrah’s gonna live. A century and a half, like her mother, or a few decades short of a hundred, like any other human. All I know is, I got a long life ahead of me. I don’t mind it. If I live half as long as Wren, I hope to do half as much good as she did. That’s all I want, really: to do good, and have a good time doing it. Sounds more simple than it is, but it’s worth the effort.

I’m still waiting for that ‘someday’ that Wren talked about. But I figure I oughtta fill the time before then, give her a good story when the day comes. Nothing beats a good story. I’m sure she’s got loads for me, too. I’m lookin’ forward to hearing ‘em.

For now, my time is filled with taking care of the people who need most: the misfits and underdogs of the Commonwealth. That, and making sure Fahrenheit doesn’t get herself killed too often — or losing my own head in the process. Not until I go feral, anyway. But that’s a story for another time. A long while from now. Hopefully.

I have a purpose again. It’s what everyone wants: to matter, to be seen, and to be important to people who give a shit. If I had to do it all over again, I would – I’d fix a few mistakes, I’d do a few things I should’ve done, avoid a few things I shouldn’t have done, and made more room for better things. But if I had to do it all again, if I could meet Wren all over again, if we could’ve had the time we did and more – hell yeah, I would. All of it. In a heartbeat.

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