Work Text:
"Grazie,“ Nicky said and smiled at the young woman behind the counter that had just placed the three cups he had ordered onto the wooden surface. All of the paper cups were standing in a cardboard cup holder so Nicky would be able to carry them all at once.
The woman returned his smile, before turning around to prepare the next order.
It was still early in the morning and only a handful people had found their way into the small Starbucks coffee shop in the north of Rome yet. Nicky only spotted one couple that looked like they were tourists.
Nile had already added sugar to her latte macchiato on a counter a couple of feet away and was now turning around, waiting for Nicky. Spotting the cup holder in Nicky’s hands, her gaze fell on the transparent plastic cup containing a light brown liquid with a big helping of cream which was richly covered in caramel sauce. Her brows furrowed once again just like they had done earlier when Nicky had ordered the Double Dirty Chai Crème Caramel Frappuccino with extra caramel. In answer to her skeptical look, Nicky had just shrugged and replied that Joe has a sweet tooth and that he was a sucker for caramel and the spicey taste of chai tea. Upon first discovering that Starbucks offered a Frappuccino containing Chai Latte mixed with espresso, cream and caramel sauce on top Joe had declared that he was undyingly in love - only rivaled by his love for Nicky of course.
The other two cups contained Nicky’s tall café latte and Andy’s venti Dark Roast coffee. Andy hadn’t been awake yet when Nicky and Nile had set out on their way to visit a small church not far from the apartment that was currently functioning as their safehouse. They were laying low at the moment, waiting for Copley to arrange for a new job and courtesy to one of Copley’s old friends from the CIA, they had found themselves in a small flat in Rome. Nicky guessed that Andy would probably be awake by the time they came back - either that or she had died of alcohol poisoning. She was mortal now and considering the amounts of alcohol she had drank last night, dying of alcohol poisoning was a real possibility in Nicky’s opinion.
Nicky just wanted to tell Nile that they were ready to go, because neither he nor Andy needed sugar in their drinks and Joe’s Frappuccino certainly contained enough sugar already. It was then that he heard words spoken behind him and the voice caught his attention.
“My name is John.”
Nicky frowned, before turning around a moment later. A man in his late thirties with dark brown hair smiled at the Starbucks employee that had previously served Nicky and Nile. The man turned around to walk down the counter in order to wait for his drink that was being prepared, but after he had taken only two steps, his gaze met Nicky’s and he halted.
Nicky could see recognition and disbelief in the man’s dark eyes, and he knew that the look on his own face was very similar. They had met each other before and they were both starting to remember even though neither of them had thought that they would actually see each other ever again. Taking into account that their meeting had happened more than 400 years ago that had been a viable assumption.
The man looked at Nicky in surprise for another long moment, before a smile appeared on his lips. “It’s you.”
“Yes, it is,” Nicky answered trying to wrap his head around the fact that everything John had said back then had actually been true.
“I saw you on the central train station in Brussels in 1859, but you vanished in the crowd and I thought I had imagined it,” John said in a hushed voice.
Nicky actually remembered the job in Brussels that year and he shook his head. “You didn’t imagine it. I was in Brussels in 1859.”
At that moment the Starbucks employee called John’s name and placed his order on the counter. Nicky stepped aside to let John pass and the other man smiled, before coming over and taking the white paper cup from the counter.
It was then that Nicky noticed Nile appearing next to him and John’s gaze flickered towards her, a guarded expression appearing on his face.
“It’s alright,” Nicky said. “She’s like me.”
John’s eyes widened for a moment and he stared at Nile, before forcing himself to smile and giving a small nod.
Nile didn’t say anything either, but she turned around to face Nicky with a completely baffled look.
“Why don’t we go outside?” Nicky proposed. Continuing this conversation in a coffee shop with other people around probably wasn’t the best idea.
John seemed to think the same thing, because he nodded. A moment later he made a small grimace though, before smiling sheepishly. “You go ahead, I still need sugar for my coffee.”
Nicky nodded, appreciating that this would give him the time to fill Nile in on what was going on here. She followed Nicky outside the store and onto the cobblestone alley between the row of historical houses. As soon as Nicky had stopped to wait for John, Nile focused him with a look on her face that demanded an explanation.
“Who was that?” she asked and even though they were alone in the alley she lowered her voice to a whisper.
“He’s a friend, at least I think he is,” Nicky answered, his voice equally quiet. “I met him in Lisbon in 1625. We talked for two days and he told me he was like me, but we couldn’t be sure the other was actually telling the truth. We promised to stay in touch, but Joe, Andy and I left soon after still searching for Quynh and I never heard from him again.”
Nile raised an eyebrow and shook her head in confusion. “So he is another immortal? I’ve never dreamt of him.”
“I didn’t either. And neither of the others did,” Nicky answered. “And don’t know how it is possible. Until just now I have always thought he had been lying to me back then.”
Before Nile could say anything else however, John came out of the Starbucks with his coffee cup in his hand. He stopped next to them, noticing that he had interrupted their conversation and smiled apologetically.
“I go by John Stone these days,” he offered after a moment.
“Nicky Smith and that’s Nile,” Nicky replied.
John smiled again and nodded. “It’s nice to meet you, Nile.”
Nile returned his smile, but Nicky could see that she was still wary of John.
There was a long awkward moment between them until John addressed Nicky again. “Do you have a place where we can talk privately? I’m just here on vacation so I only have a rather small hotel room at my disposal.”
Nicky hesitated. He hadn’t told John about the others during their conversation in Lisbon, being cautious in case John had been lying to him. As it had turned out John had been telling the truth no matter how unlikely it had appeared at that time and now he was standing in front of Nicky looking exactly like he had in 1625. He had already met Nile anyway so Nicky thought it was time to introduce John to the others as well.
“We have a place not far from here,” he said. “But I have to make a call first.”
John looked at him surprised, but nodded nonetheless. “Of course.”
Nicky threw a quick glance at Nile, but she seemed alright with taking John to their safe house, so Nicky took out his mobile phone and went a few steps down the alley to call Joe.
***
Joe looked up from reading the Italian morning paper – more out of boredom than actually being interested in the news – when Andy entered the common room that was only furnished with a small battered couch in front of a TV, a row of kitchen counters and a dining table with mismatched chairs.
Andy looked horrible and Joe winced as he imagined how Andy’s head must feel after the amounts of alcohol she had been drinking last night. Not that Nicky, Joe or even Nile had been drinking anything less, but their bodies had been able to heal the damage during their sleep. Andy didn’t have that luxury anymore, but after just four months she still forgot that she was no longer immortal. Just like Nicky and Joe still forgot and every time they were reminded of the fact that Andy was now mortal and would leave them in no more than half a century – if no one managed to land a lucky blow until then that was - they still had trouble actually believing it. Andy had always been a constant in their lives for as long as Joe could remember.
Joe watched Andy slowly walking over to the table and sitting down on the chair half across from Joe on his right side, the kitchen counters in her back. One elbow on the table, supporting her head in her hand, she closed her eyes for a moment. When she opened them again she glared at Joe daring him to comment on her state, but Joe was wise enough to keep his mouth shut.
After a moment Andy closed her eyes again and took a deep breath, before looking up again.
“Where are Nicky and Nile?”
“They went to church,“ Joe answered.
Andy lifted one eyebrow, but Joe just shrugged and Andy rolled her eyes at that. Nicky occasionally going to church was nothing new - even though Andy hadn’t been able to understand why even after all this time - but Nile accompanying Nicky was new, but albeit not surprising.
“Nicky promised to bring coffee from Starbucks though,” Joe added with a giddy smile and Andy rolled her eyes once again.
At that moment Joe’s mobile phone rang and he took it from the table. Seeing Nicky’s number on the screen he answered before the second ring could go off.
“Hey, is everything alright?”
“Yes, everything is fine,” Nicky answered and Joe could hear the fond smile in Nicky’s voice. “Is the boss up already?”
“Yeah, she’s sitting right next to me.”
“Put me on speaker,” Nicky instructed and Joe frowned, but did as he had been asked. A moment later Nicky continued. “Do you remember the man I told you about in Lisbon in 1625 who claimed to be like us and whom I had talked to while you had been chasing a lead?”
Andy simply nodded and Joe answered for both of them. “Yes.”
“Well imagine that, I just met him again when Nile and I were getting coffee from Starbucks.”
Joe’s eyes widened and he needed a moment before he could answer. “Are you serious?”
“Yes,” Nicky confirmed. “He is willing to come over to talk. What do you say?”
Joe immediately looked to Andy, but Andy shook her head and made a noncommittal gesture with her hands. “That’s your decision now guys.”
She was right, it was now only Joe’s, Nicky’s and Nile’s secret they were protecting, not hers anymore. It was only fair that the three of them would make the decision. Joe thought about it for a moment. Nicky seemed certain that it was the same guy and Nile was apparently alright with bringing this man to their safe house as well. None of them had ever dreamed about this man though and it was risky bringing him here, but if he actually was another immortal being…
“You can bring him,” Joe finally said.
“Alright. See you soon,” Nicky replied, ending the call a moment later.
Joe put his mobile phone back onto the table, before looking at Andy once again. He could see that she had been thinking the exact same thing he had and she looked at Joe for a long moment, before taking another deep breath and leaning back on her chair to wait for Nicky and Nile to appear with this mystery man.
***
While they were walking through the cobblestone alleys of Rome, Nile followed Nicky without really taking notice where they were going. Nicky was probably leading them in a circle or some sort of complicated maze anyway, so Nile was pretty sure she would have lost track eventually.
Their conversation was postponed until they reached the safe house so no one spoke. Nile suited that just fine, because she was still trying to wrap her head around all of this. The concept of being immortal was still very new to her, but she had started to get used to it during the last four months. Now there suddenly seemed to be another immortal being except that everything the others had told her about the rules of being immortal, apparently didn’t apply to this guy.
Nile absent mindedly took a sip from her Latte Macchiato. The day had started so good with Nicky offering to take her to a small church he wanted to visit. Nile had struggled with her faith a bit at first, but after seeing the wall in Copley’s house, holding pictures and notes of some of the people that Andy, Nicky, Joe and Booker had saved over the years and reading about what those people or their descendants had done for humanity, Nile was more convinced that there had to be a god following an ineffable plan than ever before in her life. That was the reason she had continued wearing the small golden cross around her neck. It had been a gift from her grandmother for her tenth birthday and for her it symbolized her faith in God.
When they reached the building their safe house was located in, Nile and John followed Nicky up the stairs to the second floor. Nicky balanced the container holding the three coffee cups on one hand while opening the door with the other.
They entered the main room of the small apartment and Nile could see Andy and Joe sitting at the dining table. Andy looked horrible but no matter the state she was in, her eyes were alert and immediately focused on John. She watched him with a wary expression on her face, that she didn’t try to conceal in the slightest.
“John, this is Andy and Joe,” Nicky said and Nile closed the door behind her.
John didn’t seem fazed by Andy’s watchful gaze and smiled at her and Joe. “John Stone. Nice to meet you.”
Nicky meanwhile placed the cardboard container on the table and handed Joe his Frappuccino. Joe grinned like a kid in a candy store as he took it and then used one hand across Nicky’s neck to pull him down and show his appreciation with a quick kiss.
Andy helped herself to her cup of coffee – expecting the biggest cup to be hers - and took a few long sips without leaving John out of her sight though.
Finally Nicky took the chair opposite of Andy and on Joe’s left side, while indicating for John to take a seat on the other empty chair on the long side of the table left of him. That left the last chair opposite of Joe for Nile and she went to it and sat down.
After a moment Joe lifted his arms, crossing his fingers behind his head and leaning back on his chair, while looking at John with a friendly but curious expression. It would have looked genuine to Nile, but she knew by now that Joe appearing especially carefree was actually an act.
“So,” Joe said. “You are the mystery man my Nicky has told me about all those years ago. To be honest I thought you were either a crazy person or a very cunning conman.”
“Well there was the possibility that he was either of those things as well as far as I was concerned,” John replied, easy-going. “None of us could have been sure that the other was telling the truth.”
Nile folded her arms in front of her, shaking her head. “But how can you be immortal? That doesn’t make sense.” She looked at Andy and then at Joe. “I’ve never dreamt of him and Nicky said neither of you had, too.”
“That’s right,” Joe confirmed with a meaningful expression. “And that’s the reason we didn’t believe Nicky when he told us back then.”
“But how can that be possible?” Nile asked persistently, looking at Andy. “If he is not like us, how can he be immortal?”
Andy snorted, shaking her head. “How the hell should I know, kid? I don’t have any more answers than you do,” she said, before taking another sip from her coffee. After setting the cup down again she frowned at it, but then raised it again to drink from it again.
“Forgive us for not taking your story completely at face value, even though Nicky says you are the man he talked to all those years ago,” Joes said to John in good humor. “So how about you give us a few details about that encounter?”
The smile Joe offered to John was not a real one, but either John didn’t notice the underlying animosity or he decided not to notice, because he nodded obligingly.
“Of course. It was in Lisbon 1625. I had been Juan García Álvarez, a carpenter at that time. I met Nicolas while doing work on the Igreja de São Domingos, a church that was still being rebuilt after the earthquake in 1531. We talked a couple of times out on the street and one day I invited him to my flat on a hunch and told him my story. I remember that it started raining at some point and one of the window shutters below my flat was squeaking every time the wind moved it.”
Joe looked at Nicky questioningly and Nicky nodded. “I remember that squeaking window shutter as well. I’m not sure anymore if it had started raining but the rest matches.”
That seemed to be enough for Joe, because he nodded, taking his arms down and his posture visibly relaxed. He took his Frappuccino from the container and took a couple of sips with a blissful expression in his face.
Nile meanwhile wondered how Nicky and John could remember details like that after four hundred years, but the others had told her once that remembering was very selective. Some moments in time remained crystal clear while others faded quickly. Nile assumed that meeting someone else who claimed to be immortal was something that would stick in your mind for a long time.
“So how old are you?” Nile asked after a moment, looking at John intrigued.
John smiled sadly. “I can’t be entirely sure, but I was born during the Stone Age, so approximately 14,000 years.”
Nile’s eyes widened and her head turned towards Andy. “That’s older than you isn’t it?”
Andy had never told her how old she was, and Nile had no idea how old “too old” was actually supposed to be, but gathering from the look that crossed Andy’s face it was not that old.
After a moment Andy nodded, her eyes not leaving John. “Yeah, by more than double.”
Nile’s eyes widened and she shook her head in astonishment. “Man, 14,000 years! I can’t even begin to wrap my head around that. You must have died countless times.”
“No, actually I didn’t,” John answered. “I got injured, but I healed and I never get scars. I got sick quite a few times as well, but I always got better.”
Now Nile outright stared at him. “You’ve never died?”
That question and her tone of voice seemed to take John by surprise. “No,” he answered haltingly, before noticing the looks the others on the table were sharing and his expression became confused. He finally looked at Nicky.
Nicky shrugged. „I kept several things to myself back then, as I’m sure you did as well. All of us became immortal after dying for the first time. Our wounds just heal almost instantly and we wake up again.“
Nicky then took an army knife from some pocket of his pants and opened it, before cutting a small line on the inside of his left forearm. He didn’t even wince as the vicious looking black blade cut into his flesh and left a red line where blood immediately welled up. A second later the cut began closing again and the only thing that remained a moment later was a few droplets of blood on Nicky’s skin.
John stared at Nicky’s arm before he huffed an incredulous laugh and shook his head. “I can understand why you didn’t show me that. It had been dangerous times and you couldn’t have been too careful. They were pretty quick with burning you at a stake or putting you in iron chains and drowning you in the sea back then.”
Nile’s gaze immediately wandered towards Andy and she could see her gritting her teeth, before she stood up in a jerky motion. Turning around to the kitchen counter Andy grabbed the half empty bottle of vodka that was still standing there from last night and took a long swig.
“I’m sorry,” John said quietly after witnessing Andy’s reaction and noticing the mood in the room dropping.
Andy shook her head though. “Not your fault,“ she said before taking the bottle with her and sitting back down again.
A heavy silence hung in the room after that.
“Are there more of you?” John asked finally and Nile suspected that he had thought their reaction had been due to having been victims during the witch hunts themselves. He couldn’t have known that they had lost someone back then – how could he, for all he knew they were immortal and couldn’t die.
Andy lifted the bottle of vodka without saying anything and drank again.
John didn’t quite understand the reaction and looked towards the other questioningly. It was Nicky who answered eventually.
“There have been others. Yes. Three of them.”
John didn’t ask any more questions after that and Nile was grateful for it. It was clear from the look on his face however that he didn’t quite understand.
Andy finally put the bottle of vodka back onto the table, but she was still holding onto it. Nile looked at her pointedly, with one eyebrow raised. When Andy noticed her look she glared at Nile, but then she sighed and put the bottle in the middle of the table and out of her immediate reach, before grabbing her cup of coffee again. Nile smiled at Andy, pleased that she had won that particular argument once again. Alcohol was not the solution especially with Andy being mortal now.
“If you’ve never died before, then you are not one of us,” Nile finally outlined.
John shrugged and smiled. “Apparently not.”
Nile couldn’t understand how John could be so indifferent about it. “But how is that possible?” she asked, still wanting to find an answer.
“I don’t know,” John replied, still unconcerned. “I just never died. In what I call my first lifetime, I aged to about thirty-five years. And that’s the way I have been since then. At first I thought there was something wrong with me – maybe I was cursed and everyone else was allowed to die except me. Then I began to wonder if I was blessed. Then I thought maybe I had a mission.” He shrugged again. “I guess if you don’t have an answer for something for so long, you just stop questioning it.”
He looked at Andy then, having realized apparently that she was the oldest of them. They shared a look of understanding and Nile saw that Andy was tempted to make a grab for the bottle again, but she didn’t.
“What about religion?” Nile asked next. “Do you believe in God?”
John took a deep breath and contemplated the question for a moment before answering. “I don’t believe in a specific god, no. There have just been so many over the millennia. But I think there has to be something. Something that is bigger than us. Even if I can’t explain it. Nearly every religion claims to provide the one true answer though and that turned out to be a very dangerous claim. I’ve met a lot of people in my life that have done terrible things in the name of their gods - no offence” John added, making a placating gesture in Nicky’s direction. Apparently Nicky had told him back then that he had fought in the Crusades.
Nicky just shook his head however and smiled. “None taken.”
John returned the smile before a thoughtful look appeared in his eyes. He was silent for a moment, deep in thoughts, before he continued. “I met a man in India a long time ago. He taught me things I'd never thought about before. Kindness, tolerance, brotherhood and love, the realism acknowledging in that the Kingdom of God, meaning goodness, is right here, where it should be. I thought about that for a long time and when I reached the near East I tried sharing what I had learned. I...I did some teaching on a hill one day. It didn’t go so well in the end though.”
John grimaced and Nile just wanted to ask why, but softly spoken words prevented her from doing that.
“That was you.”
Nile turned her head to Andy who had spoken and to her surprise Andy was staring at John.
“I heard your speech on that hill,” Andy added after a long moment and her eyes had grown big.
John looked at her sheepishly. “I don’t remember you, even though there hadn’t been many people left towards the end. At first no one was really interested in what I had to say. That changed rather quickly though.”
Andy snorted, but she kept staring at him with clear recognition in her eyes. Nile shot a quick glance towards Nicky and Joe, but it was clear from their expressions that neither of them knew what Andy and John were talking about.
“I’m not quite following, and neither are Joe and Nicky, so do you mind filling us in?” Nile finally asked.
John dropped his gaze on the table, his expression troubled and it was Andy who answered a moment later, still looking at John.
“He was the man the Bible calls Jesus.”
Nile’s brows furrowed and she looked from Andy to John and back again, waiting for one of them to tell her that this had been a joke, but they didn’t. Out of the corner of her eyes Nile saw Nicky straightening up in his chair, staring at John.
“What?” Nile finally asked into the silence of the room.
John scowled and he was still looking at the surface of the table. “I never said I was the son of god. I only ever said that I had a master that was greater than myself. I never claimed to be king of the Jews, I never walked on water, I never raised the dead. I never spoke of divine except in the sense of human goodness on earth. I just wanted to share what I had learned. But I guess the people weren’t ready for it. After that everything escalated very quickly and before I could even comprehend what had happened I had been arrested and bound to a cross. I slowed down my body function as I had learned in India and they thought I was dead and put me in a cave. When I woke up again and tried to sneak out I was caught by a few devotees standing watch. They were ecstatic. Thus, I was resurrected, and I went to central Europe to get away as far as possible.”
Nile stared at John, completely baffled. Because surely that couldn’t be true, could it? “You were Jesus?” she finally asked.
John looked up, smiling tightly. “I always called myself John. But somewhere along the way the name was confused with the Hebrew "Yochanan", meaning "God is gracious". My stay on earth was seen as divine proof of immortality. That led to "God is salvation", or Hebrew "Yahshua" changing to late Greek, "Iesous", then to late Latin, "Iesus", and finally medieval Latin, "Jesus".”
Nile tried to wrap her head around all of this, having a really hard time doing so and unconsciously lifted her fingers to touch the small gold cross around her neck.
John saw it and looked at her apologetically. “I’m sorry. That has to be a lot.” Then he looked at Nicky with the same expression. “And that’s the reason I didn’t tell you, after you had told me that you had been fighting in the Crusades.”
To Nile’s surprise however and obviously to John’s surprise as well, Nicky just smiled and shook his head.
“It’s alright,” he said gently. “People hear what they want to hear without actually listening. I’ve seen it many times. And I have long since made peace with the fact that I went to war for reasons that had nothing to do with the will of God.”
Nicky then looked at Joe and took his hand that was resting on the table. They shared a loving smile that said more than words ever could.
Finally Nicky looked at John again. “And I have seen what remains from historic events and ultimately makes it into the history books. The records have become more accurate over the years, but the fact remains that the winners are the ones that write history the way it suits them and they have no qualms about manipulating facts in order to increase their power. The Catholic Church has done quite a remarkable job with that over the past millennia.”
“And with that we are back to our previous topic of burning people on stakes,” Joe said, taking his Frappuccino and raising the cup in a mock toast, before taking a sip through the big plastic straw.
Andy snorted and Nicky rolled his eyes, but it was a fond gesture.
John looked at all of them curiously. “You’re taking this far better than the last couple of people I told,” he said and Nile could hear a bitter tone in his voice. Then he shrugged and smiled wistfully. “But then they have been humans and not immortals. I guess you have a very different point of view.”
When John looked at Nile, she grimaced and averted her gaze. “Well they have,” she admitted. “I’m still having a hard time wrapping my head around what you just told me.”
Even though her family had always been religious, Nile had never really believed in all the things that were written in the Bible. She knew that most of the stories were just symbols and parables but she had always been convinced that there must have been someone who had actually claimed to be the son of God. But an immortal dying on the cross and being discovered while trying to sneak out of his grave after coming back to life had apparently been enough to have everyone believe that this man who had spoken of goodness and kindness on earth had to be God’s son risen from death to ascend to heaven.
When Nile looked up again she saw John smiling at her sympathetically, as did the others.
“It gets easier over the centuries,” Joe said gently and Nicky nodded affirmatively.
Nile tried to smile, but she assumed it didn’t look very convincing. She could only take their word for it right now, and even though their assurance made things easier somehow, it was only a small comfort.
“How old are you then?” John asked after a moment and Nile turned her head towards him.
Suddenly she felt very small. Joe and Nicky were a thousand years old, and Andy and John were even older than that and sitting next to them on the table made her feel like the child Andy always said she was.
“I’m new,” she finally answered. “It was just four months ago that I became immortal. I only dreamed of the others once, before Andy found me.”
John nodded. “I envy you, you know,” he said after a moment. “All of you. Dreaming about each other and ultimately finding one another. That must be a great comfort.”
He tried to smile, but it was a sad smile and Nile felt sorry for him.
“You can stay with us if you want,” she offered, but the moment she said it, she realized that this wasn’t her offer to make.
Before one of the others could say anything though, John was already shaking his head. “No. Thanks for the offer, but no. I can’t. You are obviously leading a very different life than I do. I’ve always been a craftsman or a scholar. I have various degrees in various fields and I’ve always liked working with my hands and studying new things. I’m not a fighter and I don’t want to be one. For the last fifty years I have been making due as a college professor teaching history in America. It’s getting harder to go unnoticed though. Moving on every ten years like I usually did was a lot easier before every college started uploading a picture of your face onto their website.”
Joe snorted. “Yeah believe me, we know exactly what that’s like.”
John answered with a pinched smile. “I’m kind of laying low at the moment. I haven’t decided yet where I want to go next. I’ll probably be travelling through Europe for a while, heading further north I guess.”
“We could help you with that - going unnoticed I mean,” Nile said and tried sounding non-committal. “We have a guy. He is very good with technology and erasing traces. I’m sure he would be willing to help you as well. Am I right?”
She looked at Joe and Nicky and finally at Andy, but Andy just smiled tightly, crossing her arms in front of her chest and shaking her head. “That’s your decision now guys. I’m out.”
Nile felt a stab at being reminded that Andy would leave them eventually and Nile, Joe and Nicky would have to go on alone. John of course didn’t understand what Andy was talking about and looked at her in confusion.
Andy just shrugged. “I’m not immortal any longer. My wounds have stopped healing instantly. It has happened to one of us once before. Nothing that lives, lives forever. I guess one day our time is just up.”
John didn’t say that he was sorry this time, he just looked at Andy, and Nile thought she saw something like envy in his eyes. A moment later it was gone though and his gaze wandered to Nile again.
“I would be very grateful if you could put me in touch with your friend,” he said and smiled.
Nile looked at the others for conformation and Joe shrugged. “Sure why not. I’m sure Copley won’t mind the extra work.” He smirked and Nile could see Nicky rolling his eyes.
“So we are going to stay in touch then?” she asked just to be sure and John nodded.
“Sure I’d like that. I have never thought that I would see Nicky again after losing sight of him on that train station in Brussels.” John smiled at Nicky and Nicky returned his smile.
Nile was waiting for Joe to make a comment that Nicky was his, but nothing like that happened. Instead Joe only lifted his Frappuccino, taking the straw in his mouth and looking at Nile with a knowing expression and a wink. Nile immediately felt stupid. Joe and Nicky had been in love for a millennia, there was no room left for jealousy.
Nile looked away sheepishly and then focused on John again. “Alright then you best give me your mobile number. I can relate it to Copley and he can contact you.”
John pulled an iPhone from the back pocket of his jeans and Nile took out her own iPhone – or more accurately a clone made by Copley, apparently completely secure and untraceable. John told her his number and Nile saved it before sending him a WhatsApp message so he would have her number as well. A moment later John smiled and thanked her, before taking his phone away again.
The rest of the morning passed quickly while they continued talking and exchanging stories. When it was noon, Nicky and Joe offered to cook and John stayed for lunch and eventually for dinner as well.
It was fascinating for Nile to listen to John, because he had been just a normal person throughout history – except for being Jesus – and while Nicky, Joe and Andy had fought in multiple wars, one after another, John had been living as a teacher, a carpenter and even as a pig farmer. Sometimes a sad expression would cross his face when he remembered someone he had to leave behind, but apart from that he was incredibly normal and he didn’t have the haunted look that Andy, Joe and Nicky had in their eyes. Nile was a fighter like them, she always had been, and she would continue being a soldier, but talking to John, she promised herself that she would take time away from the battlefields to live something resembling a normal life every once in a while to reconnect with humanity, even if that meant letting others close and losing them eventually. But that was what it meant to be human and Nile realized that she never wanted to lose that.
***
One week had passed since he had met Nicky and Nile in that Starbucks coffee shop, when John was making his way to the train station. He was only carrying a single bag slung over his shoulder, because he had always been one for travelling lightly.
The phone in the back pocket of his jeans vibrated and John took it out, seeing that he had received a text message from Nile. She, Nicky, Joe and Andy had left Rome three days ago to take a new job from Copley. Soon after that John had decided that it was time for him to leave the city as well.
The message from Nile contained an address in Paris and below that she had written:
"If you find yourself in France, a friend of ours could use a friend for the next hundred years. He might not be the best company at the moment, but he is a good guy."
John looked at the message for a long moment. He hadn’t decided where he wanted to go next yet. It had been a long time since he had last been to Paris though and he remembered that the city was quite nice during the summer months.
With a smile on his lips John continued his way to the train station.
End