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Sarah gave a sharp nod. Preston sighed, heavy as a man laying down his doubts for the night. And though none of them said it aloud, they all felt the same thing pressing in on them: the knowledge that in choosing their champions, they might just be choosing the fate of the Commonwealth itself.
The next morning broke in Sanctuary with a pale, silver light that slipped through the clouds. The settlement was quieter than usual at dawn; the hammering of nails and the barking of dogs hadn't yet begun, and the air carried only the faint sounds of wind brushing through the half-mended houses. Sico walked the main path, his boots crunching against gravel. He carried himself as he always did—with a certain weight in his stride, like a man who knew the ground beneath him was never quite steady.
His destination wasn't the command post, nor the workshop, nor even the armory. Today, it was Nora's home.
Even before he reached the small, refurbished house at the bend of the road, he heard it: laughter. Not the strained, brittle laughter that sometimes rang out in Sanctuary when folks tried to convince themselves the world wasn't still broken, but real laughter—warm, alive, whole. Shaun's young giggle was unmistakable, high and bright, a child's joy untouched by the harshness beyond the settlement's walls. Codsworth's mechanical chuckle overlapped with him, tinny but genuine in its own way. And then there was Nora's laughter, softer, carrying the kind of note that came only from a woman who—for a rare moment—wasn't grieving, wasn't fighting, but simply living.
It caught Sico off guard. He stopped just short of the front path, letting the sound wash over him. For a heartbeat, he thought about turning back—about leaving her this sliver of peace undisturbed. But the matters weighing on his mind weren't the sort that could wait.
He stepped forward. His knuckles rapped gently against the front door.
The laughter quieted, though a murmur of voices still drifted through the wood. A moment later, the door creaked open. Nora stood there, framed by the morning light. She wore a simple blue blouse, sleeves rolled up, her hair loosely tied back. There were faint lines of tiredness around her eyes, but they didn't dim the brightness in them when she saw him.
"Sico," she said, her voice carrying both surprise and warmth. "Good morning."
"Morning," he returned, dipping his head slightly. He paused a beat, then added, "I don't mean to intrude. I just wanted to talk, if you've got time."
Nora glanced back over her shoulder, where Shaun's voice rang out again—something about Codsworth cheating at whatever game they were playing. She smiled, then turned back to Sico. "Of course. Come in."
She stepped aside, holding the door open. Sico entered, the smell of fresh-brewed coffee and wood polish meeting him. The house was modest but alive, the kind of place that looked lived in rather than fortified. Shaun sat cross-legged on the rug in the living room, wooden blocks scattered around him like a tiny fortress under construction. Codsworth hovered nearby, his eye-lens swiveling in greeting.
"Commander!" Codsworth chimed in his cheerful, stately accent. "What a delight to see you! Shall I prepare some refreshment?"
"Coffee, if you've got it," Sico said.
"Already ahead of you, sir," Codsworth replied, bobbing happily toward the kitchen.
Nora motioned for Sico to sit. He lowered himself onto the sofa, the springs creaking softly under his weight. She settled across from him, tucking one leg beneath her, her hands folding neatly in her lap. For a moment, the air between them carried the faint hum of domestic life—the clink of mugs from the kitchen, the patter of Shaun's blocks, the distant whistle of wind.
Nora broke the silence first. "So," she said, her voice light but curious, "what's on your mind?"
Sico leaned forward slightly, resting his forearms on his knees. "The Institute," he said simply.
Her expression shifted—still open, but sharper now, the way it always did when matters of duty crept in. "Everything's under control," she replied. "Allie, Clayton, and Evan are working quite well under the Freemasons Republic's management now. They've adjusted quicker than I expected, honestly. At least outwardly."
"And inwardly?" Sico pressed.
Nora's lips curved faintly, though it wasn't exactly a smile. "That's where the real work lies. You can't change the heart of the Institute overnight. But I've begun something—something slower, steadier. I've been turning them, little by little. Not just the Directorate, but the scientists, the staff, even their families. They're not just working under the Republic anymore. They're beginning to believe in it. To see themselves as part of something beyond those sterile white walls."
Sico sat back slightly, absorbing her words. He'd seen many leaders try to bend people by force, to wring loyalty from fear or greed. It never lasted. What Nora was describing—patience, persuasion, trust—that was a different kind of strength.
"And how are you managing that?" he asked.
She exhaled softly, brushing a stray lock of hair from her forehead. "By showing them they have a future with us. Allie responds well to responsibility—give her a project that matters, and she thrives. Clayton… he's stubborn, but he cares about his BioScience staff more than he lets on. When I show him that their work will protect—not enslave—our people, he listens. And Evan—" she paused, choosing her words carefully, "—Evan needs to be reminded that his brilliance doesn't have to serve control. It can serve hope. It's a slow process. But families help. Children especially. They soften people. They make them think of tomorrow. And that's where loyalty takes root."
Codsworth returned then, carrying two steaming mugs with careful precision. "Two cups of the Commonwealth's finest," he announced, setting them on the small table between them. The aroma filled the room—rich, bitter, grounding.
"Thank you, Codsworth," Nora said warmly.
"Always a pleasure, mum," he replied, retreating slightly toward Shaun again.
Sico lifted his mug, inhaling the scent before taking a cautious sip. It was hot, strong—exactly what the morning needed. He set it down slowly, his gaze never leaving Nora.
"You're playing a long game," he said.
She nodded. "It's the only game that works. The Republic can win battles, Sico, but if we want to win the Institute—really win it—we have to win hearts. And hearts don't bend under orders. They bend under trust. Under care. Under the belief that tomorrow will be better than yesterday."
Sico studied her quietly, the flicker of admiration clear in his eyes, though he didn't voice it outright. He saw in her not just the survivor, not just the mother, but the leader—the woman who could turn enemies into allies without firing a shot.
After a moment, he said, "You're doing more than I could have asked for."
Nora shook her head lightly, a smile tugging at her lips. "I'm just doing what has to be done."
From the rug, Shaun's voice piped up suddenly. "Mom! Look! I made a tower!"
Both Sico and Nora glanced over. The boy stood proudly beside a lopsided but surprisingly tall stack of blocks, his face beaming with accomplishment.
"That's wonderful, sweetheart," Nora called back, her tone softening instantly.
Sico's eyes lingered on the boy for a moment. There was something both grounding and haunting about him. A child, innocent in laughter and games, and yet—at his core—a living reminder of all the secrets and lies the Institute had built.
He looked back at Nora. "And you? How are you holding up through all this?"
Her expression softened, though her eyes carried that familiar shadow of grief. "Some days are easier than others. But with Shaun here, with Codsworth, with Sanctuary alive around us—it's more than I thought I'd ever have again. That keeps me going. And this—" she gestured vaguely toward the window, toward the settlement beyond, "—this Republic we're building. It gives me purpose. And purpose is what I need."
Sico nodded slowly. "Purpose is what we all need."
They both sipped their coffee in silence then, the sounds of Shaun's play filling the space between them. Outside, the morning grew brighter, the settlement stirring slowly to life.
Sico set his mug down on the low table, steam still curling from its rim. For a moment, his eyes followed the wisps as though they might carry the shape of the question pressing at the back of his mind. Finally, he leaned forward, elbows resting on his knees again. His voice dropped, steady but heavy with intent.
"How's the Institute holding up against the Brotherhood?"
The question carried a different weight than the small talk before. Nora straightened slightly in her chair, her expression sharpening again. She let a beat pass before answering, her gaze flicking briefly toward the window as if she could see through the walls, through Sanctuary's quiet streets, all the way down into the dark tunnels of the Institute and beyond, where battles were waged.
"They push, we push back," she said finally, her tone calm but edged. "Sometimes we advance. Sometimes we have to pull back. The field's caught in a kind of… stalemate. No ground gained without ground lost somewhere else."
Sico gave a small nod, not surprised but not pleased either. "That tracks."
Nora went on, her voice quieter but more deliberate now, as though she'd been waiting to share this. "But I've been incorporating some of the Freemasons' tactics—your soldiers' patterns—into the synth programming. Hit-and-run. Flank maneuvers. Feints. It's not perfect, not yet, but they're beginning to attack more like people, not machines. Less predictable. More dangerous."
She paused, her eyes narrowing just a little. "It unsettles the Brotherhood. You can see it. They're used to fighting synths that march in lines or charge straight in, not ones that peel off, regroup, draw them into traps. They don't trust it."
Sico's mouth curved into the faintest smile, though there was no humor in it. "Good. The less they trust the ground they stand on, the better."
Nora nodded once, though the smile didn't reach her. "Even so, they still hold. Power Armor, vertibirds—those give them a staying edge. Doesn't matter how clever a flank is if the soldier on the other side is a walking tank. And in the sky…" she shook her head, "those machines keep them supplied, keep them mobile. The synths can harry them, but they can't yet break them."
Sico leaned back slowly, his eyes narrowing in thought. He let her words settle, his silence deliberate, like a man chewing on iron.
Shaun giggled again from the rug, knocking his tower over with a crash and sending blocks scattering across the floor. Codsworth chirped something about "perhaps a sturdier foundation, young sir!" and Nora's eyes softened, just for a flicker, before her gaze found Sico again.
He caught that look—the way her mother's heart fought against the commander's mind. He respected it, even envied it sometimes, but he didn't let it soften his question.
"Tell me straight," he said quietly. "Do you think the Institute can outlast them? With what we've got now?"
Nora studied him, her fingers tightening slightly around her mug. She didn't answer right away, and when she did, her honesty came sharp as glass.
"Not as we are. Not without more change. The synths are learning, yes, but the Brotherhood isn't blind. They'll adapt too. They'll adjust their tactics against ours, and when they do, their armor and firepower will tip the balance again. It's a matter of time. The stalemate can't hold forever."
Sico exhaled slowly, his jaw tightening. He rubbed a hand across his beard, nodding once, more to himself than her.
"And if they break through?" he asked.
"Then the Commonwealth burns," Nora said flatly, though her eyes flicked again to Shaun, softening in their corners. "And everything we've built here with it."
The silence after that was thick, pressing down like a storm waiting to break. Even Shaun seemed to sense it, his play quieter now, the clatter of blocks subdued.
Sico leaned forward again, voice low but carrying the weight of command. "Then we don't let it get that far. We can't."
Nora tilted her head, studying him carefully. "What are you thinking?"
He hesitated, just a fraction, before answering. "We need to bleed them where they're strong. Power Armor. Vertibirds. Break those, and their line cracks. All the training in the world can't save a soldier when his machine's nothing but scrap."
Nora arched a brow, a faint, almost grim smile touching her lips. "And how do you propose we do that, Commander? Send your men with hammers and prayers?"
Sico's smile was just as grim. "Something like that. Except with plasma grenades instead of prayers."
Nora let out a soft huff—half laugh, half sigh. She shook her head slightly, but her gaze stayed locked on him. "Always the blunt edge."
"Blunt edges get the job done," he replied, though there was a flicker of amusement in his tone.
But then, more serious: "I'll talk with Sarah. See if we can coordinate better raids. Hit their supply lines. Harass their transport. Make them waste fuel, waste time, waste parts they can't easily replace. They've got resources, but not infinite ones. And if we keep them bleeding…"
"They'll falter," Nora finished for him, her eyes narrowing. "And the synths can press harder."
"Exactly."
They both fell quiet again, the gears in their minds turning in tandem.
It was Nora who broke it, her voice softer this time, though no less weighted. "Do you ever wonder, Sico, if we'll survive our own victories?"
His gaze snapped to hers, steady, searching. "Explain."
She gestured faintly with one hand, her fingers tracing an absent circle in the air. "Every time we take a step forward, it's on the back of something bigger, riskier. The Institute itself—what we've done with it, what we're planning. Virgil's work with FEV. The synths learning like men. These aren't small things. They're… tectonic. They shift the ground we're standing on. And every shift carries its own danger."
Her voice dropped lower, almost a whisper. "What if we do beat the Brotherhood? What if we break them, drive them out? What will we have made of ourselves in the process? What will the Commonwealth see when they look at us?"
The question hung there, raw and unflinching.
Sico didn't answer right away. He sat back, his arms crossing over his chest, eyes narrowing in thought. When he did speak, his voice was quiet, but it carried that same iron core.
"Then it's our job to make sure they see more than weapons. They see people. They see a Republic that fights because it must, not because it hungers for war. And that's where you come in, Nora. You're doing more than any of us—turning the Institute, one family at a time. Making them human again. If we lose that, then you're right—it won't matter if we win. Because we'll have already become what we swore to destroy."
Nora's gaze lingered on him, long and steady. There was something unspoken in her eyes—respect, maybe, or trust, or perhaps the faintest glimmer of fear. But she nodded, just once, and that was enough.
Shaun, oblivious to the weight of the room, crawled across the rug to tug at Nora's sleeve. "Mom, can Commander Sico play blocks with us?"
The sudden innocence of it nearly broke the tension. Nora blinked, startled, then laughed softly, brushing her son's hair back. "Maybe another time, sweetheart. Commander's busy keeping us all safe."
Shaun looked up at Sico then, eyes wide, unclouded by the world's ugliness. "You promise?"
Sico's lips twitched into something rare—a small, genuine smile. He leaned forward, meeting the boy's gaze with the same gravity he gave his soldiers. "I promise."
Shaun beamed, satisfied, and returned to his fortress of blocks.
Sico's promise to Shaun still lingered in the room, like a fragile thread of warmth, when his expression shifted back toward the iron weight of command. He leaned forward, resting his forearms on his knees again, and spoke in that steady, deliberate tone that left little room for misunderstanding.
"Then, Nora… you have to keep pushing this fight. As long as you can. As long as the Institute can stand."
She blinked at him, caught between surprise and inevitability, her fingers tightening around the mug in her hands.
Sico didn't soften the words. "Every day you hold them, every raid you run, every line you keep them stuck on—" he gestured broadly, as though sketching out a map in the air, "—it buys the Freemasons Republic time. Time to build, to train, to gather strength. If we go too early, it'll just be blood on the dirt. But if you hold them long enough for us to grow into the weight we need…"
His eyes sharpened, his voice lowering but gaining force with every syllable. "Then we don't fight a hundred little skirmishes. We fight one war. One war we can win. And when it ends, it ends for good."
The words struck the air like steel on stone.
Nora let them sit, her gaze on him unwavering. She wasn't the kind of woman to flinch at hard truths anymore—not after everything she'd endured, not after crawling through hell itself to find her son. Still, she drew a long breath through her nose, steadying herself before she answered.
"You're asking me to keep the Brotherhood locked in a cage," she said slowly, testing the shape of the thought out loud. "Not break them. Not try to finish them. Just hold them… bleed them… stall them."
Sico gave a single nod. "Exactly."
"And all the while," she pressed, "you build up. You train, you arm, you grow. Until you're ready to put a knife through their heart."
Another nod. "Until the Republic is strong enough to make it stick."
Nora leaned back in her chair, her eyes narrowing slightly. It wasn't doubt she felt—no, doubt had no place here—but the weight of calculation, of balancing scales she couldn't afford to misjudge. She glanced out the window again, past the quiet street of Sanctuary, past the children's laughter she sometimes still heard drifting from the neighborhood.
"You're not wrong," she admitted at last. "The Institute can keep them pinned. Our synths can fight, adapt, harry. And with the Freemasons' patterns in their heads, they're learning faster than the Brotherhood expects."
She hesitated, her voice quieter now. "But Sico… do you understand what you're asking? This won't be a clean holding pattern. Every day we bleed them, we'll bleed too. Synths will fall. Families down there—scientists, engineers—they'll feel the weight of it. We're not building farms or communities like you are up here. We're fighting a war underground with no sunlight, no fresh air, no sanctuary like this."
Her hand drifted absently toward Shaun, who was still stacking blocks, oblivious to the storm around him. "And the longer we fight, the greater the chance the Brotherhood decides to burn the Commonwealth just to starve us out."
Sico didn't move for a long moment, his eyes fixed on her, unblinking. Then he leaned forward, voice rougher now. "I know what I'm asking. I know what it'll cost you. But this is the only way. If we rush now, we lose. If we wait too long, they'll regroup and crush us piece by piece. We need a middle ground—where you hold them just long enough for us to gather the hammer. And then, when the time comes…"
He clenched his fist, knuckles whitening, and brought it down softly onto his knee. "We bring it down hard. Once. Final."
The silence between them stretched taut, as though the whole room balanced on the edge of that promise.
Codsworth, ever the well-meaning observer, gave a soft whirr before breaking in with a chirping tone: "If I may, Mum, sir—though the young Master Shaun's towers are terribly important—this talk of war does seem to rather darken the room."
Shaun giggled again, holding up a crooked block tower as though to prove Codsworth's point.
The tension cracked just slightly, but Nora's eyes stayed fixed on Sico. She studied him the way one commander studies another, not with suspicion, but with the deep, unspoken question of trust.
Finally, she gave a slow nod. "Alright. I'll keep them locked. I'll keep them bleeding. But when the time comes, when you say you're ready—" her voice hardened now, a steel edge cutting through the quiet, "—you'd better be ready. Because I won't let my people fight forever. I won't let Shaun grow up in the shadow of a war that never ends."
Sico's gaze met hers, unflinching. "You have my word. When the hammer's ready, I'll be the one to swing it."
Nora let out a breath, long and measured, before leaning back and setting her mug down. The faintest trace of a weary smile touched her lips. "Then it looks like we're in this together. Stalemate or not."
Sico allowed himself a small nod, a faint mirror of her smile. "Together."
The hours that followed weren't about strategy alone—they were about stitching together the fragile fabric of trust between two leaders who knew the world could be lost in the space of a bad decision.
Nora spoke of the latest skirmishes—synth squads intercepting Brotherhood patrols near the ruins of Quincy, vertibirds strafing Cambridge, the shifting front lines like scars across the Commonwealth map. She told him of the fear she sometimes saw in the Institute's younger scientists, the ones who had never seen the sun, never held a rifle, but who now worked double shifts reprogramming synths for combat instead of tending to hydroponic farms.
Sico listened, his jaw tight, his eyes narrowing at the mention of Brotherhood victories, softening only when she spoke of the human toll. He shared what the Freemasons were building—training camps near the Charles, outposts fortified with walls of steel and old-world concrete, the forging of weapons in hidden workshops. He told her of Sarah's scouts pushing farther afield, carving quiet routes of supply and whispers of alliances.
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• Name: Sico
• Stats :
S: 8,44
P: 7,44
E: 8,44
C: 8,44
I: 9,44
A: 7,45
L: 7
• Skills: advance Mechanic, Science, and Shooting skills, intermediate Medical, Hand to Hand Combat, Lockpicking, Hacking, Persuasion, and Drawing Skills
• Inventory: 53.280 caps, 10mm Pistol, 1500 10mm rounds, 22 mole rats meat, 17 mole rats teeth, 1 fragmentation grenade, 6 stimpak, 1 rad x, 6 fusion core, computer blueprint, modern TV blueprint, camera recorder blueprint, 1 set of combat armor, Automatic Assault Rifle, 1.500 5.56mm rounds, power armor T51 blueprint, Electric Motorcycle blueprint, T-45 power armor, Minigun, 1.000 5mm rounds, Cryolator, 200 cryo cell, Machine Gun Turret Mk1 blueprint, electric car blueprint, Kellogg gun, Righteous Authority, Ashmaker, Furious Power Fist, Full set combat armor blueprint, M240 7.62mm machine guns blueprint, Automatic Assault Rifle blueprint, and Humvee blueprint.
• Active Quest:-