Chapter Text
Nobody had heard from Nico Minoru in three years.
She had spent that time tucked away from the outside world in a remote location that only two other people knew of. One of those people was the man tasked with being her mentor in the mystic arts. Her mother was the other.
Which meant her friends—could she still call them her friends?—had no idea where she was.
(They knew she was alive, at least. She made sure Tina told them that much.)
She had left them in the dark (literally—she had snuck out at night) about her departure, knowing that if she had said anything, she would’ve backed out and stayed. She wouldn’t have been able to look at the others as their already broken and bleeding hearts broke and bled a little more. She didn’t know how she would’ve explained herself to Molly, Alex, Chase, and Karolina.
Karolina.
Nico hadn’t seen her in three years, hadn’t heard her voice, hadn’t kissed her.
Three years. Three years of the moon without her sun.
Leaving Karolina and the others was one of the hardest things Nico had ever done, but she thought it best at the time, blinded by the grief of losing Amy, her father, and Gert.
She had left thinking she was doing it to protect everyone, that somehow her simply being away would keep them safe, that loving them from a distance was more bearable than staying and running the risk of losing them.
(She wasn’t so sure now.)
She had sworn to herself that she could only return once she was stronger and had mastered her magic. This unspoken promise is what had kept her going even on the days and nights when she had felt hopeless, burdened with too much regret, seemingly making no progress despite her mentor’s assurances that she was doing well.
It wasn’t easy, but she had managed to do it, her mentor telling her one day that he had nothing left to teach her, impressed at how quickly she had caught on to everything.
Nico had mastered her magic. She was stronger now, meaning she could go back. And this was how she ended up standing in the middle of a barely-moved-into apartment in Los Angeles.
She pulled one of the many unemptied boxes from against the wall, sitting down and tossing the lid to the side to figure out what to do with the box’s contents. After moving aside some of her meditation candles that were on top, she was met with stacks upon stacks of envelopes, never mailed, almost all addressed to the same person: Karolina Dean.
The letters had started a year into Nico’s training. Every night, she would sit in her quarters and write, sometimes about her day, sometimes about her feelings, but each time she would imagine herself back in the treehouse of the hostel, Karolina’s head against her chest, talking about anything and everything like they used to.
She always thought about sending what she wrote (using magic, of course—there wasn’t a post office nearby and she couldn’t exactly mail it to the hostel anyway), but she never did. It wouldn’t have been fair, she thought, to send letters to someone she left without warning. So she just let them pile up in her room.
(Nico had expected her mentor to notice and advise her to stop, to tell her that it was serving as a distraction, but he never did.)
Picking up one of the letters, Nico traced her own sloppy handwriting with her fingers, spelling out Karolina over and over, letting her mind wander.
Then a thought hit her.
She took out her phone and began to draft a group text, but quickly realized she didn’t know what to say. She wasn’t ready.
Nico closed out of her messages and went to her contacts, calling the first name, hoping that it was still the right number. To her surprise, it only rang once before the other line picked up.
“Nico?”
“Hey, Alex.”
“Is… is it really you? Where are you? Are you okay?”
Nico could sense the hesitance in his voice, almost like he was afraid he was dreaming. (Had he dreamed of her return before?) She took a deep breath. “Yeah, it’s me. I’m okay. I moved back to LA a couple days ago.”
“Wait, you’re back? Do the others know?”
“No, you’re the first one I’ve talked to,” Nico paused, staring at the letters in front of her. “That’s kind of why I called, though.”
“Hang on,” Alex replied. Nico heard shuffling and muffled voices for a few moments before he continued. “Okay, sorry, I’m currently at work so I had to find a quieter place. What’s up?”
“Oh, where do you work?”
“Wilder Innovators. It’s sorta in the name, Nico,” he teased.
“Of course. I should’ve known you’d take over a tech company, with your nerd brain and all.” This got a laugh out of Alex, making her smile. She had missed him more than she realized. “So… how’s everyone else?”
“Well, Molly is back at Atlas, a senior this year. She lives with Chase and Old Lace at the hostel, still. Chase literally never leaves the lab he’s made, and Karolina is taking classes at UCLA and lives with her, uh,“ Alex seems to hesitate, “roommate in an apartment just off campus.”
Nico hummed an acknowledgement, falling into silence for a few moments before asking, “Do you… do you think they’d want to see me?”
“You know they would, Nico, although…” Alex trailed off. Nico already knew what he was going to say before he spoke back up. “You probably owe someone a bigger apology than the rest of us first.”
Nico sighed, “I know. Actually, could you do me a favor?”
“Of course.”
“Could you give me her address? I think… I think it’d be better if I do it in person.”
“Oh, uh, sure. I’ll text it to you.”
“Thanks. I’ll talk to you later, then?”
“Yeah, but Nico…” Alex sighed. “Just… be mindful of the time that has passed. How it’s affected everyone.”
Nico could tell he wasn’t telling her something, but she decided not to push. Not now. “Yeah, I will. Later, Wilder.”
—————
Nico found herself walking back and forth along the sidewalk across from the apartment that Alex had directed her to. Cursing under her breath, she warred over whether or not she was making a mistake. What if Karolina had forgotten her? What if she never wanted to see her again? What if this wasn’t even the right place? What if what if what if —
Nico paused her pacing to check the address on her phone for what seemed like the millionth time when she noticed movement across the street.
It was her.
Nico felt her phone slip from her hand, clattering to the ground, but she couldn’t be bothered to pick it up. She was too busy staring .
The first thing Nico noticed was how she carried herself, reminiscent of how she had been during high school: seemingly happy on the surface, but anyone who knew her could tell she was hiding something behind the smile.
Appearance-wise, her hair was shorter, her clothes duller in color than Nico remembered. It was clear that she had grown and changed, just as Nico had—it had been years, after all—but it was still undeniably Karolina.
(Was she still her Karolina, though?)
She had finally broken herself out of her trance and was about to make her move when another girl walked up the sidewalk to where Karolina had sat down on the steps in front of the building, pulling her into a hug. Nico’s mind raced as she watched Karolina sink into it. Was she the roommate Alex mentioned? How close were they?
They stayed that way for a few moments before the other girl pulled back and pressed a quick kiss to Karolina’s lips before parting and moving towards the door.
Oh. Oh. Oh no.
It was selfish of her to be upset. Nico knew that. She knew that it wasn’t fair to expect Karolina to have waited for her, not when she had been the one to leave without warning. Not when Karolina had so much love left to give.
But part of her had hoped—hoped that, despite everything, Karolina would be happy to see her and they would embrace and she would apologize and Karolina would forgive her and they would go back to how they were before. Except they could never truly go back to that, could they?
Selfish. Selfish. Selfish.
Nico hastily wiped at her eyes (when had she started crying?), taking longer than necessary to find her phone and retrieve it. She hadn’t prepared for this. She hadn’t even stopped to consider what she would do if Karolina had moved on. This was what Alex had left out, wasn’t it?
(Part of her wished Alex had just told her—ripped the band-aid off sooner. But maybe she deserved this, to have her heart broken just like she was sure she had broken Karolina’s.)
When she finally stood back up, phone in hand, she glanced across the street again, only to realize that Karolina was looking right at her.
Shit.