Danse shouldn't have seen this. None of this was for him to see, and he knows it now, when before he might have believed himself qualified to offer some comment (condemnation or absolution, he doesn't even know, but it doesn't feel like it matters anymore.)
He hasn't knowingly killed many of his fellow Gen 3s. He's never done it in such a way as to expose the hardware in their brains. This is the first time he's ever gotten a good look at a synth component--ironic, when he's the only person in the convoy who has one--but he recognizes it without either of them having to say a word, and the implication of it lands square on his head like a hammer blow. Even if he doesn't know everything Deacon feels such a compulsion to atone for, doesn't yet have enough pieces to assemble all of that in the background, this, at least, explains the depths of his devotion to the Railroad's cause, when Danse had until now found it inexplicable to the point of offense.
He wonders if she'd known what she was. He wonders if either of them could have known. He doesn't have the context to give him the answer, but he doesn't need it now. He turns his back on the image of those people who no longer exist, the man he'll accept that Deacon isn't anymore and the woman who could have been (was, in a strange way) his own distant cousin, and walks away, further down the hall.
He hopes Deacon will understand that it's only because Danse wants to leave him in privacy with his grief. He'd done the same thing, the one and only time he'd ever set foot in Vault 111 and turned a corner to lay eyes on the frost-burned face of Nora's husband. Take as long as you need, soldier, he'd told her then, and he means the same thing now even if he doesn't say it aloud.
no subject
He hasn't knowingly killed many of his fellow Gen 3s. He's never done it in such a way as to expose the hardware in their brains. This is the first time he's ever gotten a good look at a synth component--ironic, when he's the only person in the convoy who has one--but he recognizes it without either of them having to say a word, and the implication of it lands square on his head like a hammer blow. Even if he doesn't know everything Deacon feels such a compulsion to atone for, doesn't yet have enough pieces to assemble all of that in the background, this, at least, explains the depths of his devotion to the Railroad's cause, when Danse had until now found it inexplicable to the point of offense.
He wonders if she'd known what she was. He wonders if either of them could have known. He doesn't have the context to give him the answer, but he doesn't need it now. He turns his back on the image of those people who no longer exist, the man he'll accept that Deacon isn't anymore and the woman who could have been (was, in a strange way) his own distant cousin, and walks away, further down the hall.
He hopes Deacon will understand that it's only because Danse wants to leave him in privacy with his grief. He'd done the same thing, the one and only time he'd ever set foot in Vault 111 and turned a corner to lay eyes on the frost-burned face of Nora's husband. Take as long as you need, soldier, he'd told her then, and he means the same thing now even if he doesn't say it aloud.