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Looking back on it now, Booker guessed it started about three weeks before Quynh showed up.
He woke up one day feeling…lighter. Like twin forces that had been pressing on his chest and between his shoulder blades for centuries had faded into ghosts. A presence he felt should still be there, but now only remembered, didn’t actually feel. Of course at the time he didn’t know that was what was going on. He just woke up feeling weird. And decided, as per usual, to start the day with a shot of whiskey alongside his fried eggs and the last of the bacon sitting in the back of the fridge.
But he still felt off. For days he wandered around Paris, squinting at the strangely bright sunshine. He strolled aimlessly through parks, noticing children chasing each other around, and smiled about it instead of being plunged into despair and painful memories. He bought a sandwich at a bakery, tasting the fresh aioli and the perfect crunch on the crust of the baguette. He bought a nicer bottle of wine than usual to have with dinner in his shit little apartment and tasted its earthy fruitiness in a way he hadn’t noticed in…ages.
On the morning of the day she found him he’d circled around the Louvre three times before going inside and spending six hours staring at the artwork. Gazing at Nike’s stride hewn out of stone, with the wind ruffling her hemline, musing on the fluidity of the sculpture for at least 20 minutes. He missed Joe with a sharpness of emotion he hadn’t felt in years, as he looked at paintings and wondered at what Joe would marvel at, or criticize, or simply shake his head over.
He was feeling things differently, like they were right in front of him. And once it started it began to burgeon up inside him like a wave.
Booker strode out of the museum, his hands shaking. He walked home, grabbing a large bottle of cheap port on the way, taking gulps and willing himself back into the haze he knew, one that still didn’t feel the same no matter how much he drank.
And then, after stumbling into his apartment, he saw her.
“Booker. It’s nice to finally meet you.”
Things went to shit pretty quickly after that.
For two months, Quynh kept him locked in his apartment, trying to extract information she hadn’t gained from their connection. Apparently she saw more through her insight into his dreamstate than he had since he became immortal. Not enough to know where they were now, of course, since he currently had no idea.
“Took some time,” she said calmly while he gasped back to life. She’d started a sentence, then paused mid thought to kick his legs out from under him and slit his throat—and waited to for him to come back before continuing. “Drowning, recovering, over and over again doesn’t leave much time for sleep. When I finally broke out of that corroded coffin and got out of the sea I crawled under some brush and slept for two weeks.”
“Doesn’t sound so bad.” He spat out some blood, turning his head to the side so it landed on the floor instead of back in his face. “I haven’t slept for more than 5 hours at a time since I’ve been on my own.” He winced as she kicked him in the side. “What the fuck, Quynh?”
“WHY ARE YOU DEFENDING THEM?!” Her lovely face contorted in a rictus of rage. “You’re alone, you've been miserable and alone. There’s a reason they aren’t with you now.”
“There is. And it’s a good one.” When he wouldn’t elaborate further she slashed him ear to ear again, snarling. Well, I guess she goes with the classics, he thought as he blacked out again.
It wasn’t all bloodletting and vindictiveness, though. 500 years away from Earth’s surface left Quynh with a lot of questions.
“So this sorcerer, Edison. How did he harness the energy that lights up the world?”
“Where did they find giants that are big enough to hurl the airplanes into the sky to start their journey? And what do they FEED them?”
“You mean the franc, the lira, the mark, and the guilder are gone, and all they have is a Euro? What a stupid name.”
Booker figured the longer he kept her amused, the longer she would be focused on him and not running rampant throughout the world wreaking God knew what kind of havoc. She was an expert at tying him down and keeping the knots tight, so he wasn’t going anywhere. When she wasn’t finding creative new ways to cut him up a lot of her questions were amusing. And after finding his latest credit card she’d often give him a break to run out and get food.
Food and sleep were two things she indulged heavily in. Some days he got a good eight hours of sleep tied to the chair while she snored away in his bed. And it was always interesting to see what she’d come back with from a grocery run or from whichever takeout places she decided to hit that day.
Eventually though, it always came back to the family. Booker finally cracked on a couple crucial details. Quynh wasn’t surprised that Nicky and Joe were still together, took that in with hardly a blink.
Hearing about Andy’s mortality though, that was a different story.
She sat in eerie silence for a good two hours before overturning the table they sat in front of, tearing off one of the legs and beating him to death with it. And then did it again for good measure when he came back to life, screaming with rage and anguish.
If there was anything Booker had learned to do in his sorry immortal existence, it was to live through abuse and suffering—even though the worst of that had been self-created. Naturally Quynh also had a talent for living through that, and dishing it out, too—500 years of constant torture through drowning and 200 plus years of connection to him on some primal level gave her some insight into how to make him pretty fucking miserable as she tried to extract intel.
Still. All things being equal, it wasn’t the worst time of Booker’s life. As the days progressed beatings were interspersed more frequently with being fed crab rangoon, gelato, and whatever flavor of crisp or cheese puff had caught Quynh’s attention that day. On good days they spent hours in front of the TV watching Big Brother, football, sitcoms, and commercials, which she found almost disturbingly fascinating, while he answered hosts of questions. It was the least lonely Booker had felt in ages.
Unbeknownst to both of them Copley had been following Booker’s movements more closely than any of them realized—and was able to show the rest of the team footage of Booker wandering into his building and not leaving again, while another mysterious form was seen going in and out with multiple grocery bags.
Eventually Nicky and Nile crept their way into his unit to find Quynh in the middle of dismembering him for the fifth time while he was tied to a chair, bleeding out again (he’d actually gotten used to it, in a way, once his body went into shock it wasn’t the worst thing in the world, although it was becoming hell on the hardwood floors). The screaming match that ensued between Nicky, Nile, and Quynh was chaotic enough for his arm to grow back and allow him to quietly untie his ankles and other wrist without anyone noticing.
Before he could stop her, Nile shot Quynh in the head when she started to lunge at Nicky. Goddamn it. It did make it easier to tie her up, although who knew how long he’d be able to keep her that way.
“Nile, help me out.” He dragged Quynh into the chair he’d recently slid out of and got a new length of rope to tie her hands behind her and her ankles to the chair legs. She’d hit a hardware store before he was first confined, and he was infinitely grateful she’d stuck to ropes of varying sizes and relied on her tried and true weaponry instead of investigating the possibilities of rubber tubing and chain saws. Maybe he could make a quick run to get some duct tape if she started to really struggle. He wrapped her middle in several loops, binding her to the chair and immobilizing her arms behind her.
By the time she was completely conscious again she took in her new state with a small smile. “Very good, Booker. You were paying attention.”
“Hard not to when you’re being worked over by a master. Especially since I barely shifted when you’d knock me to the floor in that chair.” He shook his head when she started to rock back and forth. “No no, we don’t want that.” He nodded to Nile, and between them they lifted her in the chair and pushed it against a wall to prevent further leverage. It was easier to hold her in place that way anyway.
Booker looked up to see Nicky put his phone back in his pocket. He had gone silent once Quynh was shot, and now his eyes were bouncing between Booker’s dingy body, covered in dried blood, grime, and smeared ice cream on his shirt, the dark stains on the floor, the broken table, the multiple bags of crisps strewn by the couch, and Quynh’s inscrutable gaze.
“Hello, Nicolo,” she said casually. “Miss me at all?”
Nicky’s face spasmed for a moment before becoming mostly impassive, although it looked like it was taking some effort for him to maintain his composure. “Yes.” he opened his mouth as if to elaborate, then went silent, tears gathering in his eyes, looking as if he was staring back over the centuries of her absence. “Yes, we did. So much.”
“How long did it take before you stopped looking?”
Nicky went stock still. “We looked for you for years. Until after anyone who knew anything about what had happened was dead.”
“That’s not very long.”
He took a breath, looking at the floor. “I know.” He paused, and Booker could see him shaking lightly all over. “We had nowhere else to look. No more records, no one with any new information, nothing.”
“They kept killing me in that coffin while they took the boat out to throw me over.” Quynh looked at him with a stony expression, but Booker could see the rage building again in her face. “They stabbed me in the eyes, shot me, crushed my skull through the openings in the box. It was days on that fucking boat before they threw me over. And that was nothing compared to the pressure, the suffocation I felt when I finally hit bottom.”
Nicky bent over, covering his face with both hands.
“And that was nothing, Nothing, compared to what I felt when I finally saw him, dreamed of him,” her voice broke as she looked at Booker, “And I realized that you weren’t looking for me, anymore. I was completely alone.”
Nicky gasped, still trying to hold himself in check.
“And you know what, Nicolo? The only thing that ensured I didn’t hate him like I hated all of you,” her voice started to waver, “Was that it was obvious, that in his way he was as buried in sorrow as I was. Because although eventually he was with you three, he was still alone.”
Booker closed his eyes. “Don’t, Quynh. Stop. There was nothing they could have done. For me…or for you.”
“You’re wrong. I saw how devastated you were. I watched your wife turn from you before she died, saw all your children die before you. I finally figured out how close off my dreams so we could both get some peace from each other. But I still heard the echoes of your sorrow.”
Booker stared at her. “Jesus. So did I, I think. It was like a pressure, a weight on my back. I thought that was mourning my family. Was that you?”
“Probably. Maybe. Partly? I don’t know. I think so.”
Nicky looked at him with a kind of dazed horror. Nile stood near Quynh but out of her eyeshot, hand over her mouth, glancing between the three of them.
Before he knew what he was doing Booker walked over to Quynh, knelt at her chair on one knee and embraced her. He felt her body stiffen, then go slack against the ropes, lean her head into his shoulder, quivering all over, and start sobbing. She cried and moaned in his ear. Booker stroked her hair and whispered nonsense, kissing her cheek, leaning into her shoulder, tipping the chair to get closer. He didn’t know how long they stayed that way, embracing while she wept, yelled, and groaned in her sorrow. Eventually Nile handed him a wet washcloth and a dry towel. He looked up to take them from her, noting her streaming eyes, and then look back at Nicky, standing at a distance, now with Joe and Andy next to him, who must have arrived during all this, all watching, visibly heartbroken and amazed.
Booker maneuvered the chair back up, gently stroking Quynh’s wet face with the washcloth as she bent her head down, murmuring to her. “It’s ok, Quynh. It’s going to be ok. I promise. We’ll all be here for you, in every way we can.” He heard what sounded like Andy choking on a gasp. He glanced over briefly and then focused on Quynh as she slowly calmed. Finally he dried her face and murmured, “Joe and Andy are here. Do you want to see them?”
Quynh gasped and looked over his shoulder. “Andy?”
Andy moved almost dreamily, tears streaming silently down her face. “Do you want me here, Quynh?”
“Yes,” Quynh choked out, and Booker moved quickly out of the way so Andy could kneel down in his place. The weeping started again, a bit more quietly, and this time it was both of them.
Booker let out a long, shaky sigh and walked over to Joe and Nicky. He saw Joe taking in his bloodstained body before grabbing him in a massive hug that only Joe could give. He placed a hand on the crown of Booker’s head, bringing him in tightly, kissing his temple. “Fuck, Booker. Fuck.”
Booker chuckled. “I know.”
“It looks like a fucking bloodbath in here. How many times did she kill you?”
“What day is it?”
Joe told him, and he did a quick tally. “I’d say I averaged a couple deaths a day so….120 or so? Give or take a few. She did a lot of work on me that didn’t involve dying.”
“Jesus Christ,” Nicky murmured.
“I’m alright. Really. It wasn’t all mayhem. We talked a lot. She wanted to know…about you. I tried to keep quiet about that…where I could. But she also had a lot of other questions. We…hung out.”
“You hung out?” Nile looked at him, incredulous. “What, did you watch football matches?”
Booker laughed in spite of himself. “We did, yeah. And a lot of other things. Talked about some of the stuff she’s missed. Ate a lot.” Nicky let out an incredulous huff of laughter. “And she sleeps a fair amount. Between beating the shit out of me and wrapping her brain around 500 years of missed history and technology, she’s burning a lot of energy.”
He jerked slightly as Nicky put a gentle arm around his shoulders and pulled him in. Booker felt his lips tremble, his breath hitch, and suddenly Nicky was hugging him, so gently. “God, Nicky. I’m sorry. I’m so goddamn sorry.”
“Shhhh, Booker. Shhhh shh shh shh. You carried the weight of your shared griefs without knowing what pushed you down, and were more alone and scared than you’d ever been in your entire life. I’m sorry, Booker. I’m so sorry.”
“That’s no excuse.” His voice started to break.”I should never have done what I did to you.”
“No you’re right, it’s not an excuse.” Nicky pulled back slightly to look him in the eye. “But it explains so much. It describes your state of mind for over 200 years.” He kissed Booker’s forehead repeatedly and stroked his tear-streaked cheeks. “We had no idea what you were suffering with. We didn’t know.” Booker choked on a sob and Nicky pulled him in again. He felt Joe joining the hug from behind and was surrounded with warmth.
“Let me in on this,” Nile muttered, joining in on one side, and Booker chuckled even as he continued to weep, and felt her arms wrap around them all. He couldn't remember the last time he felt so held. So real. So alive.