Chapter Text
London, 2020
After long seconds he feels the horrible implement withdraw from his body. Whatever it is that powers the healing process is finally allowed to begin working, and he can almost feel his flesh racing to catch up with the tiny piece that is being drawn out as it knits together. The blonde woman brushes her gloved fingers over Nicky’s torso just as the wound closes, still holding a small piece of him with her tool.
“Remarkable.”
She turns to drop the bit of flesh into some container on a tray. Once his body stops shaking, once his heartbeat stabilizes and the infernal beeping of the machine slows down, he takes a few breaths to center himself again.
“You will not be able to give him what he wants.”
He thinks, but does not say aloud: I know, I’ve tried.
------------------------------------
Madrid, 1889
Nicky heard their voices changing as the argument escalated: Andy’s was pitched lower with her words clipped as Sébastien’s tone grew more desperate. He was trying the logical route. It wasn’t going to work, but of course Sébastien was still new and hadn’t fully realized that yet.
“No, absolutely not, we DO NOT go to the hospital. And we’re still leaving in two days.”
“But Andy, I’ve explained this so many times, it’s different now!”
“No. Bastien, I said no. I don’t care what new quasi-mystical shitty name they’re calling it-”
“Please, Andromache, it’s called germ theory-”
Nicky winced at Andy’s dismissive comment, and Joe shot him a quick look. They could both tell that Sébastien was now holding back tears of frustration; it was unclear whether Andy couldn’t tell or if she was just choosing to ignore it. The next sentence came out staccato with each word punctuated by a slam of a glass on the table.
“I. SAID. NO.”
Nicky sighed, stood up from the couch and walked into the kitchen. Sébastien was hurriedly wiping up brandy that had splattered across a map. Andy was seated, resting her elbows on her knees with her head in her hands, her muscles wound tight. Anyone who hadn’t known her for centuries might have mistaken her hunched-over posture for defeat. Sébastien was learning though; he looked somewhat cowed by Andy’s outburst.
Nicky hated seeing them like this. He knew it was only a matter of time before their frustration dissipated and the four of them could return to a more peaceful coexistence, but he also knew that Andy’s leadership style tended towards more directives and fewer explanations, and Sébastien did not have the advantages he and Joe had shared by joining at the same time. Thinking of how he met Joe reminded Nicky again of how much harder the transition was going for their newest addition. When Andy gave Nicky or Joe a rule they didn’t understand, they could rely on Quynh for more explanation or work out the why by talking with each other. But Quynh was gone, and Sébastien both revered and craved Andy’s expertise over Nicky and Joe’s.
The Frenchman ran his fingers through sandy hair, tipping his face up to the ceiling and stretching his back and neck after spending the better part of an hour of leaning over the table. Andy certainly has a way of making men bend to her will, Nicky observed wryly. Glancing down at the small wood table, he recognized on the map a byzantine pattern of streets and alleys and lanes that could only be London. He took a deep breath and blew it out through his nose, hands on hips as he took in the rest of the papers on top of and next to the map.
“Sébastien, this is London, yes? But what are these little marks, here and here?” As he spoke, Joe came in with cups of water for both of them and took away the brandy bottle.
At Nicky’s gentle prompting, Sébastien’s face softened. He could see what Nicky was doing; he’d watched his oldest Étienne do the same with Jean-Pierre and Claude in what he thought of as the before time . But where Jean-Pierre and Claude had felt patronized or coddled by their brother, Sébastien felt only care and genuine concern from the other two men. He allowed himself to be turned from his frustrations.
“So ici , look at the whole set of dashes. Not any one alone, but the whole of them.” He swept a broad hand through the air just above the map from one edge to another.
“Where does the center appear to be to you Nicoló? Of the dashes I mean, not of the map.” He looked intently at Nicky while Nicky looked intently at the map. Nicky pursed his lips in thought as he considered the distribution.
“Somewhere here, I’d guess.” he said as he pointed at a place on the map where the dashes were stacked five or ten deep. Peering closer at the small lettering, he was able to read the words “Broad Street” and noticed that one spot which he had originally taken to be a splash of brandy was in fact a set of about 20 dashes marked at one place. It hit Nicky suddenly what it was he was looking at.
“Bastien, these are deaths. These marks are where people died. Of what?”
“These were cholera.” The words came out softly. Nicky’s heart ached at the pain in Booker’s voice, still raw whenever he spoke of illness or disease even four decades after the death of his last son.
“The doctor in this paper thinks they all drank water from the same pump, here.” Sébastien continued as he pointed at a circle Nicky hadn’t noticed before, less than an inch from the point Nicky had guessed to be the center of the deaths. “But it’s not as simple as saying the water was tainted. The question is, tainted with what? These doctors are looking for incredibly tiny animeaux, ou organismes comment ils les appellant. ” Nicky followed the transition into French relatively easily, and continued to nod as Sébastien took him through the horrible conjectures of how these people had died: from a disease carried by creatures too small to see, creatures that lived in the feces of people who’d fallen ill, feces which had somehow gotten into the water that this pump drew from. Nicky had seen what cholera did to a person, and part of Nicky’s mind tried to push against his efforts to comprehend the whole awful chain of reasoning. That other part reminded him of how he and Joe would slip back into Italian during a tense mission, and how they would beg Quynh to slow down when she and Andy would start joking around in Viet-Muong. It took an effort to pull himself away from reminiscing and back to Sébastien’s argument.
“... so what if these organismes cannot live in us? Or what if they can, but without making us fall ill? I’ve been reading about these new theories of disease,” he said as he gestured at the other stacks of books underneath and around the map, “how the seeds of illness may be given from one man to another by the sharing of these organismes. Or by being eaten or drunk. Now, the doctors here are saying they can move through the air as well, on our own breath.” Sébastien glanced out the dark kitchen windows as if he could see the breeze that wafted through the room. “They think that might be happening here.” He turned back to face Nicky. “If we cannot get sick, shouldn’t we at least care for those who are, Nicoló? You and Joe and Andromache, you say that we do not know why we are here, but that we choose to help. Why are we now hiding?”
Nicky sat down slowly in the chair closest to the map. Poking out from underneath he saw the spine of a thin book titled “The Lancet.” How appropriate, Nicky thought. A weapon of battle repurposed to fight sickness. He shook his head slowly, then looked up at Sébastien.
“You have to understand Bastien, that Andy has probably lived through ten times the number of plagues that I have and I’ve lived through quite a few. I know what it’s like when a pestilence descends. There’s two things that happen, always, that make it dangerous for us to be seen. One, there are suddenly fewer people once the deaths begin. Two, everyone who is left is scared and looking for a reason to blame something they can touch. And the worse the disease, the more deadly it is, the more we stand out. Everyone remembers who got sick and died, who just got a little sick, and who never got sick at all. In a hospital it’s even worse, they don’t just remember, they write it down as well.”
Nicky glanced around before continuing. He did not want to bring up Quynh in front of Andy, and he could tell that Sébastien needed more reasons. Seeing that Andy had slipped out of the room at some point, he went on: “Remember we told you what happened to Quynh?”
“Yes,” Sébastien replied, “of course. Locked up and tossed in the sea.”
“That is what happens when people find out what we are. How they find out does not make a difference. They try to take it or they try to destroy us in spite of what they see our bodies do. It never ends well. So we stay low, we don’t take jobs where the illness is worst, and most importantly we remain free so that we can continue our work even after the plague passes.”
Sébastien slowly nodded his head, although his eyebrows were furrowed and he still did not look completely convinced. He gave the table one last wipe with the rag and started gathering up his papers slowly. After carrying one armful back to his bedroom, he returned for the water cup and the map.
“ Merci , Nicoló. ”
Nicky clapped him on the shoulder. “ Prego, Libro. And when will you start calling me Nicky, eh?”
Booker let out a roughly Gallic laugh and replied “Well Nicky, I suppose I’ll start now. Bon soir. ”