#noah caen

For Danse it was a little differently. He was deeper into his sorrows by that point - at the point where Preston was hitting to, already at the ‘not caring about oneself’ point. He felt it was easier to stop caring about himself or worrying about his own health and safety, that it would help him be a better commanding officer if he didn’t let things effect him, but he took it to an extreme and neglected himself. A few months after the truth of his identity was revealed he went back to Noah and admitted he felt like he didn’t deserve to be with him and Preston, saying that he felt like he’d deceived them somehow. He wanted to break it off because he felt they deserved better than what he could offer them because he could only really offer himself at that point, and what he was wasn’t worth anything.

That’s when Noah sat him down and told him the truth about himself. He told Danse he was worth more than he would ever know to both of them, that he would never stop fighting to help him realize that or to keep him safe. It wasn’t an instant fix, but it helped a lot. It was a start.

As for how Preston and Danse act to each other... once he’s been away from Brotherhood indoctrination long enough, Danse feels more comfortable admitting he admires Preston. He feels comforted, too, when Preston admits to him that he felt close to being how Danse was, that had Noah not shown up he would’ve become like that. Danse sees Preston as being invincible and immune to those sorts of things, like the bad in the world can’t touch or hurt him. Knowing someone as strong as Preston could feel as weak and powerless as he did makes him feel less guilty about his depression and his ptsd.

Preston also helps Danse work through the trauma of losing so many people and his identity. Encourages him to help out around the castle - as Noah is overprotective, he won’t let Danse leave till he secures some form of immunity for him against the brotherhood, fearing he’ll be killed due to so many of them crawling the city ruins. He wants Danse safe and that’s what matters. Preston agrees that’s better but tells Danse that by no means implies he’s useless or a burden to them or anyone else and helps him get through it all.

Danse in kind is VERY protective of, if not them, their legacies. He thinks the world of them both and especially of Preston; he won’t listen to people trash talking him and when his anger and worry gets the best of him, he’s gotten into fights with people. He just wants them safe, too, and he’s always there to offer his shoulder even if he has nothing by way of comfort for them. He takes care of them in his own way from the Castle.

Noah Caen was born in 2041 in Barrow, Alaska. By that year, in this verse, Barrow had become a thriving scientific community; Noah’s mother was a scientist originally from Detroit who was working on developing alternatives to the quickly depleting fuels of the world. Noah wasn’t as scientifically inclined as his mother and father, who spoiled their only child to bits; he enjoyed fighting and hunting and woodworking, that sort of stuff. He was handy when it came to building parts and machines but not doing experimentation himself.

So he found a better calling in Sitka, which had a thriving tourist trap by giving people ‘the real hunting experience’. A camping trip, hunting animals specifically bred for these things, and Noah loved it. His boyfriend at the time, Ken, the love of his life, opened a bar that Noah would often direct them to when they were heading out or if they needed a place to grab a drink. They lived pretty happily.

Then the invasion came. Sitka wasn’t a primary target; Noah managed to keep the town safe (with some of his coworkers) by showing the occupying soldiers through the cave systems in the mountains and continuing their businesses like nothing happened. Noah picked up a good deal of Chinese this way, helped protect the town til the liberation, and earned a good chunk of change.

Well, when that did come, things weren’t perfect. He was out on the outskirts of town while Ken was in town, and was taken to an American army camp a few miles away to wait out the fighting. It took a week before he was allowed to return and he desperately searched for Ken only to learn he’d been killed - he was told outwardly that he was a victim of the fighting, accidentally killed, but a surviving coworker spilled the truth that soldiers had tortured him to death mistaking him (due to his appearance, as Ken was half-Chinese, and his last name which was Wu) for one of the invaders. It was a difficult mistake to make and Noah held a grudge for that, hating the army and any soldiers he met pretty much without question.

Well, a few more years passed and he met Nate. Nate was a soldier but they hit it off based on the fact they closely resembled each other appearance wise. They became good friends and Nate offered to take Noah back to Boston with him when he was discharged. Noah accepted.

Well, one evening Nate asked Noah for his help navigating the tunnels and passes through the mountains to reach an allied French camp on the other side. Noah agreed. At some point, Noah’s jacket became damaged and Nate lent him his, which held his IDs; this became an issue when they were attacked by enemy soldiers on the other side and Noah was the only survivor, having watched Nate and the rest be killed. He stumbled down to the camp on his own where through a series of mistakes became identified as Nate, and was sent home having accidentally taken Nate’s identity.

By that point he was intending to just disappear, done with everything and angry at the loss of his best friend and yet another loved one. This is where he met Nate’s ex, Nora, who came to see ‘Nate’ and check on him. They had broken up because the real Nate’s personality grated with hers, but she ended up falling for the ‘new’ Nate. He fell in love with her and ended up continuing the theft, telling himself he’d tell her and that it was just a rough patch and he wasn’t really in love.

Except that he was, and he repeatedly attempted to confess to her only to break down into a deep depression. He continued to be as good a husband to her, continued to love her and dote upon her and war with himself. When she asked for a child he agreed, tho unlike in canonverse this version of Shaun was conceived by artificial insemination - Noah couldn’t ever bring himself to sleep with Nora even though he loved her and wanted to, telling her that ‘something had happened’ during the war that made it impossible for him to have sex comfortably. She respected that, researched her alternatives, brought this up to him and they agreed to it.

He kept waiting for ‘the right time’, finally deciding on Oct. 21st that he would tell her after Halloween. He obtained divorce papers just in case, wanting to give her the choice - he didn't want to lose her or their son, but he wouldn’t force her to remain with him after his deception, and would take whatever she chose to charge him with for it. Only the bombs came not long after, and the rest played out as it does in game.

He still feels awful about it, especially wrt how many people survived where he died - Ken, his parents, Nate, other friends of his, likely everyone he knew in Sitka, Nora... when he first left the vault, the only reason he didn’t off himself immediately was because of Codsworth.