Chapter Text
There aren't any rules and regulations in Sanctuary just yet. I keep my thoughts to myself, but I know for a fact that this is why the Minutemen were run over to begin with.
They didn't have the organization that they needed, and there were always people like Preston, sending his people running this way and that to help whoever needed help. It was noble, sure, but it was also foolish.
Organization was the way to go... and a tight leash on control.
I had a feeling that Nora Fortune was going to seize all of those things if she had her way with the Minutemen for very long. The thought of having some kind of peace brokered with them under her control was enough to make my chest trill with delight. I really did want the Gunners to be an organized faction, a unit that could --yes, take what we wanted-- but mostly barter for it. Supply protection details. Give the Brotherhood of Steel a run for their caps when it came to being an army faction.
I knew we had such great potential... and I also knew that I'd probably done the entire group a little dirty when I'd gotten distracted chasing one Robert MacCready halfway across the Commonwealth to Goodneighbor.
I knew that he was safe, and I'd set up the two assholes who'd hurt him for failure, and then I'd tracked my way down to the Capital Wasteland to see about a cure for a kid... and that was going to be good enough for me for now. It didn't stop me from wandering off every now and then to check that he was still where I'd left him. Hancock was a good man -- a good ghoul. I knew he'd take care of him.
In that time, I'd allowed myself to be... distracted. That distraction had cost the Gunners more of their reputation than I would have liked. Fucking Wes and his fucking power hungry bullshit. He was letting in raiders and reneging on deals that he made with people who could have been our allies -- and all and all, he was giving my group a bad name, and it took everything that I had not to go and gut him myself.
But it would make more of a statement if I led Misfortune to him.
It would gain me more ground to cleaning up all of the shit that he'd smeared everywhere.
"I can tell you everything you want to know."
And I did -- everything that she needed to know.
And I kept with my story, that Wes had to be usurped to put someone in charge who could actually lead the Gunners without leading them into destruction and greed. I would personally make sure that any and all members of our ranks who followed Wes was dealt with swiftly.
I had already wandered in and out a few times to take out groups that got near, to give orders to the rest of the Gunners. It took a lot to lead an entire faction of men and women. Especially from the shadows.
Especially when you were pretending that you weren't a leader at all.
Nora Fortune never looked at me like a follower -- she addressed me with the rank that I was pinning on Wes.
She spoke like she knew that I was feeding her information on a foundation of bullshit... and I couldn't help but to be intrigued with that, too.
No one saw through my lies.
No one.
Fortune did.
It was a good thing, then, that they were mostly truths.
If they weren't, I wondered if she would have let me come and go as freely as I pleased.
I didn't think so.