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It’s not that he hadn’t seen this coming. Oh no, of course he had. Who could go through what she did and come out perfectly sane?… This was the expected result- just not the one they had been hoping for. Despite that, Nick slowly learned to look at things from a brighter side.
Sole seemed to be a mere fragment of her former self. She practically locked herself inside her home in Sanctuary, hyperventilated anytime she stayed outside too long, and vehemently denied that the War (and everything that had followed) had ever happened. All she wanted was to live out a pre-war fantasy, and have her family be whole again.
Normally that wouldn’t be possible… and normally Nick wouldn’t even consider playing along with Sole’s trauma-induced delusions. But after she accidentally greeted him like her long-gone husband?… Well, that certainly piqued his interest. It wasn’t much later that he came up with a brilliant idea- one that would not only make Sole as happy as a radioactive clam, but also ensure that Nick could finally show her just how he felt.
For the most part, it started out simple. As always, Nick was a patient man, and he knew damn well that right now he needed to be. One wrong move could shatter the growing illusion. So he stuck with little things: calling Sole by sweet nicknames every once in a while, making a habit of hanging his hat and coat by the door, and treating the young “Shaun” with extra care. Anything to present himself as a warm, familiar figure in Sole’s life.
To his surprise, it only took a couple of weeks for things to start moving forward. Sole kept calling him Nate, and slowly started correcting herself less and less, then seemed to accept the idea that maybe, just maybe, her husband’s name was Nick. When he only encouraged it, she couldn’t help but embrace the idea. The only bump in the road ended up being Codsworth- and even that issue was easily remedied.
(To think two hundred years of memories could be erased with a simple “reset” button…)
From there, it wasn’t hard for Nick to really settle into the faux “pre-war” life. With Sole by his side, he was perfectly content, to put it mildly. There was nothing he wouldn’t do to maintain the life he had created. No matter what the future had planned for him, he was going to make sure that Sole got to live out her wondrous, blessed fantasy… as long as he was right next to her through it all.