Chapter Text
At 8:00, Dutch put her son to sleep as she always did. He went down without a fuss, as usual, and she spent the next hour anxiously flitting around the apartment and getting ready for her guest.
“It’s stupid,” she told her reflection as she carefully touched up her makeup. “Why am I getting done up for him? I shouldn’t be. I’m not interested in him anymore, right? So it’s pointless.” Dutch set down the lip pencil she’d been using and made it two steps out of the bathroom before quickly turning around and picking the pencil up again. “I’m making him jealous of what he can’t have, that’s all” she justified as she continued her ministrations.
After she finished in the washroom she tidied up the living room, pulled a bottle of hokk out from the cupboard, changed into a pair of the black pants and one of the tight-fitting tops that she had kept but never worn since she’d stepped off of Lucy for good, and checked in on Kobee who, of course, was fast asleep.
Finally the clock chimed nine, and there was a soft knock. Dutch ran her fingers through her hair, tugged on her top, and opened the door.
D’avin stood on the landing in the same all-black outfit that he’d always worn when they’d worked together. In one hand he held a bottle of hokk; in the other a small stuffed toy.
“Hey. Um, I brought this for Kobee. I hope that’s okay” he said nervously, holding up the plushie as Dutch ushered him in. It was a fabric spaceship which, if one didn’t know Lucy very well, could almost be mistaken for the ship on which they’d once lived together.
“I’m sure he’ll love it” Dutch smiled. “And the hokk?”
“Is for us” D’avin finished. “I figure that there’s about a 98% chance of this getting super awkward at some point, so-”
“Brilliant” Dutch replied, a smile toying at the corners of her mouth. She took the bottle from him and brought it into the kitchen where she set it on the counter next to the bottle she’d already pulled out.
“Right, so Kobee’s room is this way” Dutch said as she came back out into the main room and began leading D’avin down the short hallway. When they got to the right door, Dutch first pressed her ear to the door to make sure that the baby was still asleep before holding a finger to her lips and then quietly opening the door. The room was illuminated by the projector in the corner, which cast stars on the walls and ceiling of the room. Using their years of training, the two were silent as they crept into the room and over to the crib. D’avin stood over it and gazed down on his child.
The boy had darker skin, like his mother, but his dad’s light brown hair. His little hands were curled up loosely in fists as he slept all curled up in a little ball. D’avin looked over at Dutch and held up the stuffed spaceship again and she nodded. He reached over the bars of the crib and carefully set the plushie down next to Kobee’s outstretched arm. The child stayed asleep, but the arm reached out and grabbed the toy and pulled it into the center of the ball that his tiny body was making, causing D’avin’s smile to grow even bigger. He stared at the child for a few more minutes, memorizing every feature, before Dutch gently laid a hand on his arm and they quietly left the room once more.
Once the door was shut behind them they went back out into the living room and D’avin sunk down onto the sofa. Dutch went into the kitchen and grabbed one of the bottles of hokk and two glasses before joining him. She poured them each a drink and they wordlessly tapped their glasses together before downing the amber liquid. Only once their glasses were empty did either of them speak.
“Dutch, I want to be in his life” D’avin told her seriously, trying to look her in the eye.
“But that would mean letting you be in mine too, D’av. I don’t know if I can handle that.”
“Look, Dutch. I know I fucked up. I know-”
“But you didn’t, D’avin! You didn’t do anything! And that’s what I’m having a hard time dealing with! When Jaegar flipped that switch, it wasn’t you. And I know that, but it was like the D’avin I knew was just suddenly erased. Everything we had gone through didn’t matter and everything we had just vanished. My friend, hell, my lover was suddenly gone! Just wiped away. And then we turned it off and the program stopped, but once something is erased you can’t just get it back with the flip of a switch, D’avin. So, to be honest, I think that’s the problem. I think that I don’t trust you because I don’t feel like I know you because in that moment every ounce of our history was erased. And I can’t ignore that.
“So to ask me to be in our lives, you’re asking me to trust what feels like a stranger, D’avin. And that’s a lot to ask.”
“Then I won’t ask that” D’avin answered after a moment. “Here’s what I’m asking instead. Just, get to know me again. Start from scratch. You said that all our history got erased, fine. We’ll make new history. Get to know the D’avin that hasn’t been erased from you. And then, then maybe you can let me in again.”
Dutch stared at him for what felt like an eternity before reaching over and pouring herself another glass of hokk. She drained the glass in seconds and then set it down firmly on the table next to her. Then she turned back to D’avin, tucked her legs up under her so that she was sitting cross-legged on the couch, and reached over and held out her hand.
“Hello, I’m Yelena. But everyone calls me Dutch.” she said, albeit somewhat stiffly.
D’avin smiled as he took her hand in his and shook it. “D’avin” he said with a grin. “Nice to meet you, Dutch.”