Chapter Text
Nile and Jordan slept until they had to stop for gas somewhere close to the border of France. The sun was still in the sky, so it couldn’t have been more than a few hours since they were rescued. Nile could still feel exhaustion seeping into her bones, but there were too many important questions keeping her awake with anxiety. Before she could really relax, she had to have a debrief and a plan, so when they got back on the road, the others filled her in.
Finding out if her mother was okay was Nile’s main concern. Since Nicky was at the wheel, Joe pulled open a laptop to show what had tipped their kidnappers off at customs, but thankfully, there was no paper trail to lead back to her family. Slowly, she started to calm down. She wanted to call her mother, but they didn’t have a burner phone on them now, so it would have to wait.
Joe said a doctor who worked with Merrick was the mastermind behind this kidnapping attempt. Though Merrick was her main benefactor, she had plenty of seedy resources of her own. Thankfully, the doctor was working with unsophisticated security tech, and Copley gained access to it quickly. They had tracked the doctor down first, and Andy had gotten Nile’s location out of her.
Nile asked question after question, but the others were able to tie off the loose ends of almost all of them with an efficiency that only people who’d been doing this for hundreds of years had. They would regroup in Switzerland to get the rest of their supplies, then pack up and hightail it out of Europe. Copley – who had been thoroughly reamed out, if Nicky’s scoff from the front seat indicated anything – was still working on their route. Soon, Nile ran out of questions, and her hard focus started to give way to exhaustion.
The memories of her capture would linger a while longer, but the worst of them all was the fear of Jordan’s face when she told him to leave her. All this time, she thought he was just being stubborn, but she was wrong. She looked down at her daemon, now curled up on her lap, her guilt lingering.
“I’m sorry,” Nile admitted in a quiet voice. “I shouldn’t have pushed you so hard.”
Jordi’s eyelids lazily blinked open, and for the first time in a while, those amber eyes didn’t look distant when they gazed her way.
“It’s okay. I’m sorry, too,” he purred, and a wave of contentment washed over Nile; she hadn’t heard him purr in years. He placed his chin on Nile’s knee, and she knew that they were okay.
They reached the safehouse sometime after nightfall. After the engine turned off, they crawled out from the back of the jeep and into the crisp night air. Nicky offered her the first shower, but she waved him off and said she’d be in right behind him. Nile relished the chance to stretch her legs, and she wasn’t sure when she would get to relish in this kind of mountain quiet again.
She walked into the night, Jordan trailing at her side without a word. She only walked as far as a familiar tree, the same one Nicky and Joe had sat under what felt like centuries ago, back when this had all started. Back when Nile was sure that she had to force herself and her daemon into the right shape to fit into this new life. But they were enough. They were always enough.
Nile put a hand on the gnarled trunk. The night was still. She could hear the wind blow through the trees and the crickets in the fields. Mom would love this place, Nile thought. Maybe they could bring her here one day. They still had time.
Jordan’s eyes reflected in the moonlight. Nile had forgotten how beautiful he could look in the nighttime. She kneeled down and rubbed her hand under his chin, and a mutual warmth flowed between them.
“Let’s go home,” Jordi said, and she followed him up the footpath towards the lit house. As she walked, she thought of her mother and brother, and she thought of her old apartment in Chicago. But when she walked through the cabin and into the kitchen, she smelled the herbs from Nicky’s cooking and heard easy bickering between Andy and Joe in some language Nile couldn’t place. She thought about all the homes she was going to find with her new family, too.
By the time she took a shower and scarfed down some food, Nile decided she was ready to be done thinking for the day. She collapsed on the nearest flat and soft surface, which happened to be the mattress Andy and Joe were lounging on. Their presence wasn’t a deterrent; if anything, Nile wanted a good night’s sleep with all of them nearby. After flopping herself in between them with irreverent ease, she wasn’t surprised when she felt a heavy set of paws on her chest, putting enough pressure to make her gasp in annoyance but not actually crush her.
That initiated a proper pile-on, apparently, because humans and daemons both shifted in every which way to get themselves comfortable on the bed. Nile closed her eyes and pretended to groan, but she could feel a fond smile on her lips.
Joe must have gotten Nicky to join because, at some point, Nile felt feathers on her cheek, but apart from that, she had no idea who she was touching or who was touching her. It was a mess of limbs and hair and fur, and as absurd as it was, it felt right. Someone was elbowing her in the thigh and a daemon was already drooling on her arm, and Nile couldn’t remember the last time she felt this happy.
Then, a strange, foreign feeling bloomed in Nile’s chest. Something she had never felt before in her life. A glowing sensation that started right above her heart and gently flowed down through the rest of her body like a river spring.
For a split second, Nile saw the world through Jordan’s eyes, as he pressed his head into a warm, pliant hand that wasn’t Nile’s.
She opened her eyes, shocked at the sensation, but she didn’t move to get up. Her breath caught in her chest, she kept staring up at the ceiling. She decided that she wasn’t going to look. If Jordan wanted this, then she would trust him.
The warm glow eased into a sort of humming vibration under Nile’s skin. Some adrenaline from the surprise lingered, but Nile felt both she and Jordan relax and let go, trusting the touch completely. Nile had no idea who Jordi touched, but that didn’t unsettle her. If anything, she felt like she was right where she was supposed to be.
The idea came with the dawn.
Nile had been dreaming of her dad. He was playing “the floor is lava” with her, and her daddy’s bulldog daemon complained that Jordan had the upper hand because he could fly. Jordan had become a moth, an owl, a butterfly in the blink of an eye, and Nile hadn’t questioned it in the dream, just like when she was a kid.
The feeling of Jordan transforming was both foreign and familiar, and it lingered as she regained consciousness. She opened her eyes to the morning sunrise behind the blinds, and the idea began to solidify.
She tried to sit up, then remembered how utterly intertwined she was, bracketed by bodies of humans and daemons alike. Slowly Nile untangled herself from the bed, trying to keep from waking the rest of the group up.
Once upright, Nile turned around and took stock: they were all there. She realized that she’d never seen all of them asleep at the same time before. Seeing all of their faces this lax and open in sleep was a bit comical, considering that they had stormed a warehouse to save her less than twenty-four hours ago.
Jordan deftly slid from Nile’s lap to the floor, awake but looking at her sluggishly, his eyelids half-closed. As Nile finished twisting her way out of Andy’s arm and off of Neppi’s back, her elbow hit the bed frame slightly, causing a small tremor. It was enough to wake Cia from where she was perched, eyes instantly wide and alert.
Nile winced in apology. “It’s okay. Go back to sleep,” she whispered, rubbing a finger under the hawk’s beak. Cia acquiesced easily, and her eyes slid closed again as Nile tip-toed to the door, Jordan trailing lightly at her heels.
As they walked outside to the morning mountain scenery for what would be the last time in a while, Nile pulled her arms up in a lethargic stretch, feeling more confident than she had in a long time. She looked down at Jordan to see him doing the same, stretching from his front paws to his back.
“Getting lazy?” Nile teased.
“In your dreams,” replied Jordan easily, and Nile’s smile widened.
“Want to give it one more go?” Nile asked. They had spent many similar mornings trying to get Jordan to transform, but Nile was feeling hopeful. This time, they would do it the right way. They would do it together.
Jordan looked up at her, his body loose and relaxed, and he nodded.
Nile closed her eyes, and tried to remember what it felt like in her dream. Unlike the rest of her team, her memories of childhood were still in her grasp, and instead of continuing to move past them and outgrow them, she decided to use them.
She brought every memory of childhood to mind. Every time Jordan transformed not with any conscious effort, but with just a thought, a childish whim. Some memories still stung of grief or disappointment, but Nile didn’t shy away from them. She breathed in deep, calm and centered, and she remembered.
She had felt this way before, she’d felt this way hundreds of times, but she still gasped at the feather-light twitch she felt in her lungs.
Opening her eyes against the sunlight, Nile could make out an unfamiliar wingspan against the sky. Nile could feel the wind in Jordan’s feathers and, for the first time in years, his elation at flying flowed from him to Nile and back. Jordan squawked and Nile whooped, the sounds of their combined jubilation resonating, filling up the open space between them.
Out of seemingly nowhere, another winged figure flew up into the sky, flying at Jordan’s side and cawing in delight. Jordan answered in kind, and Cia followed Jordan’s path as they twisted and wound their way across the morning sky.
There was a howl from behind Nile, and Nile turned back and saw Neppi, head tilted back as she yipped in delight. Rex didn’t make a sound, but his eyes were bright.
The rest of the team arrived quickly after that, and Nile couldn’t help but blush a bit at the pride evident in their grinning faces. Joe clasped her shoulder and Nicky pulled her in for a side hug. Andy pushed them both away so she could hug Nile herself, and Nile practically glowed.
An insistent yawp barely warned Nile before she turned back around and was faced with the sight of Jordan barreling straight towards her. She caught Jordan as they tumbled backward in disarray, flipping over once until Nile landed flat on her back. The impact took the wind out of her, but she grinned anyway as she stared up at Jordan, back in his bobcat form and practically prancing on her chest.
“We did it,” Jordan gasped, their pride for each other blinding.
Nile pulled the bobcat in close and pressed her forehead to his, and put all the love she had for him in the simple gesture.
“We did it,” Nile agreed, and Jordan purred loudly and deeply.
Living forever didn’t feel so bad at that moment. They had their family and their team. And no matter what else happened, they would always have each other. As Nile ran his hands through Jordan’s thick, familiar fur, she knew that would be enough.