Work Text:
Watson had been there one minute with Nick, gathering Nick’s hands away from his paperwork and into his own, pressing soft kisses to each of his fingers, and gone the next, with the thick sea fog enveloping any traces left of him, as if he’d never existed at all. What was supposed to be a quick 30 minute walk checking on the Castle’s water purification system turned into an hour, and then two. Dogmeat had started whining and pawing at his legs, so they’d walked the old crumbling Castle walls, Nick shouting his name once or twice. The mist that embraced his surroundings was deep, and though he’d always liked the calm overcast pre-War days that sunk the whole world into a milky haze, the fog that surrounded him now seemed foreboding. Dogmeat was jittery, running from one end of the wall to the next, occasionally to look at Nick as if he knew where his master had gone. He didn’t. He ended up talking to Ada, who was on her usual night patrol. They searched the surrounding area together, not wanting to wake their human friends just yet.
Preston came to him at dawn, looking for Watson. He chided him for not waking him, and all Nick could do was shrug apologetically. Preston was a genuinely good man and a hard worker. Nick couldn’t bother him just to quell his own paranoia. They searched a bit farther now, and Nick’s alarm grew and grew. They couldn’t turn up anything. Ada hadn’t heard anything on her patrol over the sound of the sea. No gunshots, no swearing, no signs of struggle whatsoever. The mist had been too deep to see the ground below from the Castle’s walls. There was the possibility that Watson had simply gone to work on some Railroad business in a hurry, and that was all Nick hoped for at this point. Dogmeat whined by his side, pushing his wet nose into Nick’s palm, then turning to sniff Preston, earning an apologetic scratch behind his ear.
They almost didn’t hear Danse joining them. Nick and Watson had found him by luck, shivering in his torn Brotherhood clothes with power armor nowhere in sight, a gun wielded by Elder Maxson pointed in his face. A loyal Brotherhood soldier, who was exactly the same as what he’d been wiping off the face of the earth. A synth. Nick felt sorry for him, even as the man eyed him with hate. Watson, persuasive as always, managed to shoo Maxson away with the help of his trusty 10mm pistol. He’d wrapped Danse in a blanket even as the man cussed him out, begging to be left for dead. He was still clutching the blanket Watson had given him 2 weeks ago around his shoulders.
MacCready and Cait joined them next, stumbling out of their rooms with matching hangovers, the result of a bet, 2 bottles of cheap whisky, and 28 shots combined. Sometimes Nick was glad he couldn’t drink. He tugged his fedora down to hide his smile, remembering Watson loudly and sarcastically egging them on, unlit cigarette between his teeth, just barely avoiding a wooden crate Cait hoisted in his direction that shattered into a puff of smoke and mold, waking a napping Preston with a start. Sometimes the Castle felt more like a set of a pre-war sitcom than the HQ of the Minutemen. It didn’t help that the Castle’s doors were open to all of Watson’s colourful traveling companions, who often didn’t have any other place to stay at all.
MacCready and Cait heard out the problem of their missing leader with identical grimaces, Cait muttering something about “getting stuck in the shitter” as she linked arms with Curie and dragged her along on their wild goose chase. Nick sighed and lit another cigarette, already feeling Danse’s grey eyes burning into his back. Whether that was to observe his reaction to Cait’s crass comment or to mentally chastise him for smoking, he didn’t know or care to know.
They continued the search, and the severity of the situation became more tangible with each second. Every time Nick raised his eyes, he hoped to see Watsons thin silhouette in the distance, ash black hair glinting in the sun, those dark, perpetually sad, glassy eyes of his creased in an apologetic smile. He was met with nothing besides the sharp gleam of a few lucky rays of sun and the occasional glances from the group ahead of him. He trailed behind them as a smoker’s courtesy, when suddenly his feet hit something hard stuck in the mud. He dropped a loud expletive aimed at the rock at his feet, the water purification system and the blinding fog all around him. Just as he adjusted his hat and grimaced at MacCreadys thumbs up aimed in his direction, he spotted a faint green glow emanating from the rock, which wasn’t a rock at all. The cigarette dropped from his mouth and went out in the murky radiated seawater at his feet.
Watson’s unclasped Pip-Boy was at his feet, one corner adorned with a pattern of cracks that weren’t there last evening.
---
They sat in the Castle’s dining room turned makeshift meeting room, Watson’s Pip-Boy laid out on the table in front of them. It still worked, the glow emanating from it lighting the room in disturbing, radioactive green. Nick felt the weight of all the eyes in the room. It wasn’t nearly as subtle as they hoped. Dogmeat whined beside him and licked his metal hand. He rose with a sigh and met the eyes peering at him, picking up a piece of chalk and moving to the ancient blackboard sitting unused in one of the musty corners of the room.
“Here’s what we know,” he said, and startled at the sound of his own voice so tired and raspy. He forced himself to outside calm. He was the detective. He found missing people all the damn time. What would one more person be - the most wonderful person he’d met since the war, maybe ever -
An image of Jenny suddenly stabbed into his memory, her long, blonde hair streaked with blood, her motionless body struck down cold, surrounded by police tape, the nape of her neck exposed to reveal two bullet holes. He remembered the old Nick being held back by several of his old friends, their faces now blurry and obscured by time, all dead.
“Nick,” Preston started, interrupting the stabbing pain building behind his eyes and the flash of Jenny being wheeled away from him - but he waved at Preston to quiet down. He felt several pairs of eyes - concerned eyes - peering into his back. When had he earned those? Since when had the concern in human eyes turned into concern for his well being and not whether the talking toaster would blow up with a single command from the Institute? He could almost laugh, feeling some sickly manic amusement coiling up from deep within.
“Monsieur Nick, please,” he heard Curie say with barely withheld tears trickling in the corners of her eyes. He imagined Cait curling her fingers around her own. “Nobody expects you to-” He heard her sniffle, and the sound damn near broke his mechanical heart. He felt his internal chronometer tick as Curie collected herself. She straightened in her chair and he felt the tone of a veteran doctor creep into her voice, one he recognized having heard at several autopsies before. Funny, how some things are universal, no matter the time period. “You simply must rest!” she said, and stared at him accusingly.
An image of Jenny lying in her coffin cut out the sight in front of him. Her funeral was mere days before the war started. He remembered standing there, the October fog covering the ground around him, hiding the few yellow leaves that had already fallen. Her blonde straight hair was curled, something she only did for formal occasions. Her cold, thin, lifeless hands, once so elegant, clasped a simple bouquet of daisies. Familiar and unfamiliar at once, and he couldn’t help but be happy that he didn’t have to look into her grey eyes. It was the last memory Nick had before the war, before he woke up in a dumpster, forever changed.
“Nick?”
You okay there, buddy?” MacCready’s voice cut into the scene, and he was standing in front of him, arms outstretched like he was afraid Nick would fall. “Your eyes keep going out and- well, I think Curie’s right, you really should-”
“It’s not like I sleep,” he cut back, far more aggressive than he’d intended to. He turned his back for the last time, already regretting the hurt he’d sown in the eyes watching him. He could have sworn that even Danse’s steely eyes had softened from where he was leaning against the doorframe.
“So.” he said, and sucked in a breath he didn’t need. “Where were we?”
The mist had been a bad omen. The sea and the fog had covered all traces of Watson’s scent. Dogmeat was helpless. There were no clues, no hints, no perps. This had been a cold case from the start. He’d taken to wearing Watson’s Pip-Boy on his wrist, wandering around the castle like a forlorn damsel from a cheap murder mystery. He didn’t know what he was looking for anymore. There wasn’t anything to look for. He missed Watson. He was made from metal and wires, and yet it felt as though rot was spreading through his gut, turning his insides ripe and fermented.
Deacon had arrived on the same day they’d sent a message out and confirmed what they all knew: the Railroad knew nothing of Watson’s whereabouts. Piper and Hancock had shown up a day later, both cursing revenge.
Nick sat at the base of one of the artillery cannons that Watson had built, and stared at the sunset’s orange, pink, and red rays of light sketching the moving sea into a van Gogh painting, absently thumbing at Watson’s Pip-Boy on his wrist.