Nicky and Joe come with her, because Joe won’t let her go alone, and Nicolo would never let Yusuf go into the deep sea without him.
Nile stays on their ship, making sure to stay at (or, at least, close to) their coordinates- she didn’t exactly have a lot of practice captaining this big a ship, but she makes do.
They have all kinds of modern diving equipment they could find on such short notice.
Everything apart from a submarine, basically. They could have gotten one if they waited a month or so, but Andromache would not let Quynh drown one time more often than necessary, even if it meant making their journey safer.
She’s immortal again, after all (probably, at least- she hasn’t told the others that, while her wounds close again much quicker than on a mortal body, she has yet to actually die again to prove she will, once more, wake up from it)- even if their equipment can fail, they can make it out.
Andromache has done it before. Not in such great depth, but still- the one breath a new life brings is enough for one, two, swimming strokes. It might take a while, but they would get to the surface.
Anything to get Quynh out, away from all that suffering.
If she drowns a hundred times in this rescue, it will not be enough penance for all the time she left her beloved to drown, over and over again, without looking for her.
If she dies without waking up- maybe that is the only reason her true death had been delayed again.
To save her.
Andromach does not pretend to herself that Quynh will not hate her for what she has done to her. Maybe it is better to die. Even if it is a selfish way out, not to face her beloved's hatred…
Maybe Quynh would be glad to hear that she is gone.
After all, she has broken her promise.
At first, everything goes well.
They have a rope connected to the ship, with blinking lights every hundred metres or so.
Their diving equipment and oxygen tanks hold out, both Andromache's military grade one and the ones they got at a diving supply store for Joe and Nicolo.
They can still see the outline of the ship against the morning sun.
Andromache is diving ahead, deeper and deeper into the ocean. Joe and Nicky are behind her, on either side of the rope.
The lights on the rope start to flicker.
The first bulbs shatter under the pressure of the ocean.
Andy can’t see the light of the sun anymore.
As they get deeper- she has no idea how deep, doesn’t know whether they are halfway there, a tenth of the way, almost to the ground- the world around them changes.
Animals, fish and creatures of the dark that barely look like something from planet earth at all come closer to them, unafraid of the humans or unable to notice them.
Their diving lamps are still bright, but sometimes they wish they couldn’t see at all.
The pressure is getting worse.
Andy feels her eardrums burst despite all their protective gear.
And that is another terrible thought, isn’t it?
That the pressure of the deep sea might be even worse than the drowning.
Andromache tries not to think about which death would be more or less painful, but it is no use.
Nicky’s oxygen tank malfunctions.
They don’t know what’s wrong with it- the pressure, the water, anything else - but Joe has the same kind of tank as Nicky, and now they are sharing it.
Andy lets them wait where they are, no arguments allowed, before disappearing further into the depth.
Arms, legs, breathe.
Arms, legs, breathe.
Repeat.
Deeper and deeper.
Is this a nightmare, will it ever come to an end?
The moment the thought crosses her mind, she flinches at how much worse it must be for Quynh.
She can see the ground.
Endless.
Sand, plants, fish, all more alien than nature.
No Quynh.
She doesn’t know how far they drifted away from their initial coordinates.
Nor how accurate they had been in the first place.
Looking up, she sees the small, unmoving lights of what must be- hopefully- her friends and not another angry anglerfish.
They seem to be a little to the left of her.
If they swam in a right drift all the way down, she has to search on her left.
Sand.
Water.
Currents.
Cold.
The first time she sees bubbles coming out of the deep, she’s so excited, but it’s just a strange-looking fish staring at her.
The second time it comes from under the sand, and Andromache is somehow even more terrified than before at Quynh’s fate- but when she digs through the ground, all she finds is a venomous- something- that stings absolutely nastily (and afterwards, Andromache can’t say whether she died there and came back or whether the venom wasn’t that bad after all).
There is no way to measure the time down there, to see whether enough minuted passed to get rid of a deadly venom or no time passed at all.
Time.
This is getting problematic, the length of the search. Her oxygen supply is going to come to an end.
Nicky and Joe’s must be, too, sharing one- although bigger and less sturdy- tank between the two of them, and even though there are two of them, one can’t go up to get more as it would leave one of them to drown.
She spares half a thought to hope that they just both went back up without her, without Quynh.
She starts breathing as shallowly as possible.
Some time later- minutes? Hours? Days? No, she still has oxygen, it can’t have been that long- she sees air bubbles rising up again in the distance.
And this time, there is a burst of them followed by nothing, followed by another burst-
Andromache hurries.
When she sees the metal contraception on the ocean ground, she wants to throw up or kill every person who had a hand in this a thousand times.
Instead, she swims even faster.
The light of her lamp must be visible now, but there are no air bubbels right now, so Quynh must be literally too dead to notice.
There's no lock to break open- the witch hunters had literally welded Quynh into her coffin.
Andromache takes the bolt cutter from the strap on her neck and, without daring to look at her, starts killing the metal that keeps her oldest immortal companion trapped.
One, two, the third is thicker, it takes a while-
Then there are air bubbles again, and Andy is at the face of the metal coffin in a heartbeat, her oxygen tube out of her mouth and in Quynh’s instead.
She’s not sure whether or not she cried when she first lays eyes on her again.
It’s all wet, anyhow, and despite protective goggles her eyes stopped working properly a while ago.
She’s not sure what Quynh is thinking, either- whether she recognised her, whether she’s sane enough to even think anything.
Diving back to the side of the coffin, Andromache keeps cutting at the metal, all the while holding her breath.
Soon, she knows that she will run out of oxygen, and while she is at peace with her own death, she has to free Quynh, first.
As she swims back to her, Quynh spits the tube in her face, and Andy doesn’t know whether it’s because she wants to spit at her in general or because she understands the need for oxygen. Either way, she seems sane enough to think, and Andromache’s heart feels lighter for it.
Taking a deep breath, then another, she notices how low the oxygen level in the thing is.
If the display is even correct down here
Shuddering, she gives the nozzle back to Quynh.
Four, five, six metal straps.
The bottom one, the top.
The hinges on the other side don’t budge when she tries to open the door, so she cuts through those, too.
Quynh is free.
It’s obvious that she can barely believe it, laying on the bottom of the ocean as if paralysed.
Andromache gives her the oxygen again. That pulls her from her stupor.
Slowly, they make their way through the water in the direction Andy remembers having last seen Nicolo and Yusuf.
She doesn’t touch Quynh, although she wishes she would dare to.
She’s glad the other is able to swim for herself. The one time their skin brushed when passing along the oxygen tube, it felt as if her skin burned despite all that cold.
The fear of Quynh despising her, leaving her forever, really reaches her now that she does not have to worry about her being dead, imprisoned or (entirely) insane anymore.
The rope is hanging dark and abandoned in the water.
They would have almost missed it.
Now it goes up, up, steadily closer to the surface.
Their oxygen won’t last much longer.
Andy hopes Quynh will find the others either way.
There is a light further above them- Nicky and Joe!
They did move further up, but have not abandoned them entirely.
Holding her hand over and away from the lamp in turns, Andy sends up: O.K., hoping they understand, hoping they make it up before they, too, run out of air to breathe.
Legs, arms, check for Quynh, Legs, Arms, breathe.
Repeat.
Repeat.
Quynh draws a breath, then another, and then the oxygen tank does not give her what she is looking for.
Terrified, she looks at Andy. Terrified of feeling again what she felt so many times in the past years.
Andy sees, grimaces. Now she knows that there are tears in her eyes despite the masses of salt water around them.
Motioning for Quynh to keep going, to keep swimming, to get out of here as quickly as possible, she tries to memorise every millimeter of the other’s face.
If this is to be her last moment on earth, she will die happily.
(Although she really, really wishes she could live, live with Quynh again, no matter her wrath.)
When she can feel her lungs constrict, protest, her hand moves on its own volition.
Reaches out, touches her beloved’s face one final moment long.
She doesn’t have time to register Quynh’s surprise.
She comes to in darkness, with Quynh’s hand around her wrist, stopping her from drifting away.
Gasping, she remembers their situation too late, and precious air escapes into the sea.
Then, however, she takes stock of the situation in a single heartbeat.
She is alive.
Immortal again.
Quynh is free, and still seems to like her well enough to keep them together.
Quynh is currently drowning, her grip on the rope and on Andromache’s wrist getting weaker.
Without thinking about what she is doing, Andromache is in front of her, pressing her lips to Quynh’s, sharing her final breath and dying in her stead.
It’s a terrible feeling, drowning.
Somehow, coming to and having to remember not to breathe is even worse.
Quynh is staring at her as if she has gone insane.
Andromache smiles at her weakly, moving closer to her again- Quynh draws back, but Andy shakes her head, doesn’t let her make this decision for her as she breathes out into Quynh’s mouth yet again.
If she dies a thousand deaths in her stead, it will not be enough.
Die, wake, save Quynh, repeat.
Quynh is holding her close now, one hand on the rope, one around her waist.
Die.
Wake.
Remember not to breathe.
Breathe out for Quynh.
Drown.
Repeat.
After a while, Andromache notices that she can’t remember any swimming in all of that. She hopes Quynh is doing it for the both of them.
The next time she comes alive, she doesn’t remember to check, and neither the time after that, but then, after a while, she sees Quynh’s legs beating the water, her arm pulling them along the rope.
Relief.
Drown, breathe out, repeat.
Is it getting brighter in the distance?
The next time she dies and comes back to life, her eardrums don’t burst again.
After that- not immediately after, but the one after that or after that or after that, there is a light above them again, getting closer.
When she wakes again, Quynh is pressing an oxygen tube to her face, beaming at Nile above them, who grins.
Arms, legs, check that Quynh is still beside her.
Remember to breathe- in, out.
Repeat.