Chapter Text
It is a bloody, awful mess of a fight. There’s hardly any light and they lose each other easily in the dark. The room is large and more than once Nicky has had to pull back before putting a bullet in Nile, or Andy, or Quynh. He can feel Joe’s presence like a brand, his body thrumming in harmony, but he doesn’t think about it when Joe goes down.
“Everybody still with me?” The same call as always when it is done, and four voices answer. Only four.
Their flashlights flick on and illuminate the room. Joe isn’t far. He’s bleeding still, a puddle of it seeping out from under his body. Nicky doesn’t even realize his knees have given out until he feels Booker’s arm loop across his chest, tight like a band of iron. Booker lowers them both down and Nicky drags himself to Joe ( Joe’s body ). The knees of his pants are soaked in seconds and Nicky can’t bring himself to admit what’s made them wet. Andy is in front of him, her hands in his hair, forcing him to look at her. There’s a low keening noise and it takes Nicky a long time to realize it’s him.
The bullet in his shoulder clatters to the floor and his keening raises in pitch. He’s still healing. He’s healing and Joe is not. Joe is still lying on the floor, his eyes open and staring at nothing. His wounds aren’t closing, and the blood just keeps coming, keeps coming . Nicky is healing and Joe is not.
“Nicky, look at me. Nicky, Nicky , look at me,” Andy is saying, is pleading , and Nicky is looking at her but he can’t see anything except Joe’s eyes open and staring at nothing.
“Clear the rest of the compound,” Andy says. Booker withdraws and then Quynh is there, arms around his waist and her face tucked into his neck.
“Nicky we gotta go,” Andy says to him. Her hands are still on his face, she won’t let him turn to look. Nicky scrapes at her fingers but she doesn’t let go. “We gotta go, now.” Her voice is hoarse and urgent and the rational part of Nicky’s brain knows she’s right, but every fiber of his being is still straining toward Joe on the floor. Toward Joe’s body on the floor. Because Nicky is healing and Joe is not.
He’s dimly aware that he’s stopped making noise, he’s managed to cut off whatever horrible sound was being torn from his throat. He can feel Quynh and Andy pulling him up. He knows when Booker and Nile return because Booker takes over without a word, more able to heft Nicky’s frame. Andy takes the lead but Nile is there in her place, walking backward, trusting Booker to guide her if she’s going to hit something. She keeps her hands on his face and Nicky can see she’s crying. But she won’t let him look. None of them let him look.
He will be angry, later, he thinks. When he can, when he has the energy, he will rage and scream and tear their world apart for leaving Joe ( Joe’s body ) in this place to be taken with the rest of them. But they will still stay with him. They will perform this sick ritual, keep him facing forward and moving even as he fights them. And he will keep facing forward, he will keep moving, because Joe would never forgive him if he tried to follow. And besides, he can’t. Because Nicky is still healing ( and Joe is not ).
He is cold and numb the entire trip back. He drifts in and out, he must, because he doesn’t remember getting on the helicopter and he doesn’t remember arriving at the safe house. He looks immediately for Joe, forgetting for just a moment that he’s not there. (That Nicky healed and Joe did not and this was the end and he didn’t even have time to prepare.) Nile’s got her hands on his face again before he can fully turn his head, though. Her eyes are still red-rimmed and Nicky wants to reach out, wants to offer her some sort of comfort because she’s lost her birth family but this is the first time she’s lost one of them and it’s different . It’s different when they’re supposed to live for so much longer and it’s cruel that she got so little time with Joe. Joe, who held her through the nightmares and coaxed her to sleep against him in long car rides and spoke endlessly about art and history with her and taught her to draw when she asked and gave her watercolors when she showed a proficiency and loved her, loved her, loved her so very deeply. But he can’t do that. He can’t make himself do anything right now (and Nile knows this).
“Quynh is going to turn on the shower,” Nile says softly. “You need to clean up.” Booker is still holding him up and they move together to the bathroom. Nicky is vaguely aware of Andy already sitting at the kitchen table, a drink in her hand.
Quynh takes over on her own. Booker and Nile leave him in her hands at the bathroom door and Nicky can stand on his own again though he’s not sure how. She guides him in and begins to remove his gear. She lays his sword gently on the counter and Nicky can see Joe’s laid out beside it. He lets out a small, hurt sound and Quynh catches him before he falls again.
“I thought you might want it,” she says. “I can take it away.” Nicky shakes his head desperately and she soothes him, stroking a hand over his hair. “Okay, okay. I will leave it here. We can clean it together.” Nicky’s breathing slows again as she speaks, he hadn’t realized it had sped at all.
Their swords have been with them since the beginning. They have had them reforged, repaired, releathered, but the bones have always been the same. At its core, that is the first weapon Joe ever used to strike him down and Nicky will never let it go. Not when he can remember the feel of the blade between his ribs, across his neck, in his gut, and under his hands that last time, as Joe offered it to him to show that he was done with the killing. Quynh was right to take it and Nicky is more glad than ever that they have her back. She touches his cheek as he’s thinking this and her fingers come away dry. This only has her face twisting more grimly, but she doesn’t comment.
“Can you stand?” she asks instead. Nicky makes his legs work. He is so heavy, everything is so heavy. She helps him strip and gets him under the spray of the shower. He can hardly do more than rub his hands through his own hair. He hears her speaking to someone at the door, but he tunes it out. The shower rushes down around him and he focuses on that to drown out his own thoughts. (He feels the ghost of Joe’s fingers in his hair and he reaches up to grab at them. Of course there is nothing.)
He gets out eventually. Quynh is still there, holding a towel. She helps him dry and together they get him into fresh clothes. His tac vest and guns are gone, but the swords still lie on the counter. Quynh waits while Nicky decides which one to take. He wraps his hand reverently around Joe’s and she takes up his own and they leave together. They stop in the hallway, Quynh waiting him out again.
“Andy has left out the cleaning kit,” she offers, “or you may want to sleep.” Nicky’s grip tightens on Joe’s scimitar. He turns toward their ( his ) bedroom. Quynh follows.
They lay the swords on the rickety desk in the corner. Nicky doesn’t let himself linger there. He knows the drawers are full of old drawings, charcoal stubs, and books with faded lettering and missing pages that Joe doesn’t need because he’s memorized every poem but keeps anyway to pull out when he’s feeling particularly strongly about the lack of proper Arabic calligraphy being taught these days. ( Didn’t need, had memorized, kept anyway. What will Nicky do with them now?) He falls on the bed and hates how cold it is. Even when he went to bed before Joe, he was warm enough with the knowledge that Joe would join him at some point. Now, their twin bed, barely big enough for two grown men but all that would fit in the room at this particular safe house, is too large. Quynh perches on the edge and pushes some hair off his forehead. She has always been more suited to comfort than Andy and Nicky can only be fiercely grateful that this happened now. There are very few he has ever been this raw with; one is Joe, one is Quynh, one was his mother, and one was his God. (One was Joe.)
“I’ll stay until you fall asleep,” she murmurs. Nicky doesn’t say he’s not sure he can sleep properly. Quynh runs her fingers through his hair again and something in Nicky shuts off.