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They don’t make a plan after all. They never get to.
They spend a few days reintroducing Quynh to society, and it almost feels like the honeymoon phase of a relationship all condensed beyond measure. He takes her to expensive French restaurants in the evenings, cheap hole in the wall kebab places in the middle of the night, and fast food chains during the day. He takes her to museums, and to the cinema, and on long walks, and to Disneyland, where she discovers two of her least favorite modern inventions: motion sickness and rampant capitalism.
The manic pace at which she’s jumping from thing to thing asking him “What’s next?” before they’ve even left the last attraction, doesn’t exactly feel healthy, and it certainly is exhausting but what does he know about healthy coping habits? Gorging herself on life is probably exactly what she needs right now and more or less what he needs too, so he’s not gonna stop her, not that he could even if he wanted to.
He wonders sometimes why she hasn’t asked about the others yet, feels guilty about keeping her too busy to go see Andy, but he’s too much of a coward to bring it up himself. Each night, or usually early morning, in the quiet time before they pass out drunk or high but mostly just tired he tries not to think about what will happen when she finally reunites with the rest, how nothing’s really changed, how maybe the reason Quynh is in no hurry to find them is she pities him, and wants to give him a last meal of sorts before leaving him to deal with his sentence alone. All the while he’s barely keeping up as she pulls him from place to place, waiting to see what else he can show her with bright and curious eyes each time she runs out of ideas.
So they do everything he enjoys in this city, then everything he used to enjoy before he stopped really enjoying anything. Then everything he wished he could enjoy but felt too old now, when he watched people dancing at clubs while sulking in a corner with his glass, the loud music and flashing lights perfect for removing any coherent thoughts from his mind.
Now when he brings Quynh to one such club he doesn’t feel jealous anymore. They walk up to the bar, and right in front of them a person with ridiculous blue hair is paying for two even more ridiculously blue drinks, and Quynh grins at him before ordering the same thing. He wants to argue, stick with his usual cognac but somehow he knows exactly how the conversation will go. Because that’s apparently something he can do now. Not exactly read her mind, but approximate it. He’s never noticed it before, but he’s never had the chance to see her reacting to actual situations, thinking about anything but pain and cold.
“Come on, try it,” she’d say.
“It’s blue.”
“Exactly!”
“It looks fucking toxic.” And it really does, like something that would bubble ominously in the background of a cheap sci-fi movie.
“But it isn’t. Look at her, she’s fine.”
“No she’s not, she’s turned all blue from it.”
And then she’d fix him with that disarming stare, just as ancient as Andy’s, (but where Andy is a statue, immovable stone, Quynh is like a tree, life rushing endless and loud right under her skin) and say “I know enough about the modern world to know that’s not true, but also if it was it would only make me want to try it more.”
He’d stay silent.
“Fine, don’t! Two hundred years and nothing but cognac, no wonder you’re suicidal.”
And he’d end up trying it anyway. He doesn’t want to hold up the queue so he just takes the drink. It’s not that bad.
No, actually it’s horrendous, the bittersweet aftertaste hits him like a kick to the teeth, and by the time he recovers he’s already feeling a pleasant buzz, the drink deceptively strong beneath all the froufrou. He doesn’t get a chance to dwell on it, or to slip away towards his usual dark corner table because she drags him towards the dance floor, downing her drink on the way and setting the glass on a table on the way. She plucks the umbrella out from it, tucks it into his hair and starts dancing. And doesn’t stop for hours, until even their metabolism is barely keeping up with the drinks and they stumble home and they fall tangled into bed, almost, but not quite too tired to wake up shaking from nightmares.
They barely talk, at least not out loud. He carries out long conversations with the Quynh that lives in his head, the part of her that she left there after the two hundred years, and he assumes she does the same because they usually reach the same conclusions.
He was beginning to think she’d never tire herself out when, three days after she arrived she suggests they stay in. She’s been curious about technology so he shows her a game he’s been hearing a lot about, simple and strategic, one that doesn’t really require her to know much about how machines work, similar to things children have played for millenia. She’s completely engrossed, and surprisingly good at it, quickly gathering a group that wants to play with her over and over. She does that, he’s noticed it before. People are drawn to her the same way they avoid him, or Andy. People can generally tell when someone is wrong, out of place, out of time, but when combined with her natural charm, infectious enthusiasm for the mundane and melodic voice what makes him despicable only makes her irresistible. She’s done it to him too, he’s been staring at her for almost an hour, pretending to read, when he hears a knock on the door.
He goes to open it thinking it’s the pizza they ordered.
“What the FUCK Booker,” says Nile.
It’s not the pizza.
“Why didn’t you call us?” She continues, outraged.
Andy is right behind her, some kind of indecipherable emotion on her face, looking at Quynh, who still hasn’t noticed, engrossed in the game, her face illuminated from below by the blue light of the laptop, the brightest point of the room in the late afternoon.
When she finally looks up Andy lets out a sob and pushes past Nile and Booker to run and throw herself at her.
Nile seems to realise she won’t get any answer from Booker, walks into the flat and promptly turns towards the kitchen to give Andy and Quynh some space. Which leaves Booker alone with Joe, who’s glaring at him, and Nicky. The two of them are engaged in a strange silent and motionless fight, arguing with nothing but body language. Joe looks like he wants to push Nicky behind him to protect him, Nicky on the other hand wants to step in between him and Booker to prevent the imminent violence.
That's the moment the pizza finally arrives, and Booker is grateful for that because it means none of his neighbors will stumble upon an impossible fight between two immortals right there in the staircase. Not that he’d rather have the fight inside, but.
He pays for the pizza and goes back inside, very aware that he’s running away.
He sets it down in the kitchen where Nile is pretending to be extremely busy making coffee just to avoid looking towards the horrifyingly private spectacle taking part on his couch. Andy, emotionless, severe Andy has crumpled into a ball at Quynhs feet, and is, he’d love to say gently sobbing, or some other Joe-like poetic bullshit, but the truth is she’s fully ugly crying into Quynh's lap. Meanwhile Quynh looks torn between trying to pull her up to look into her eyes, and wrapping her body completely around Andy’s,
He catches out of the corner of his eye as they start tumbling down to the floor with a geological slowness, and turns away to get out plates, endlessly thankful when he realises he doesn’t have six clean ones and he can delay doing whatever the fuck he’s supposed to do by washing them.
Nicky and Joe don’t have any mindless activity to busy themselves with in order to avoid looking at Quynh and Andy, and so for the first time since Booker’s met them they’re getting a taste of their own medicine when it comes to being the third wheel to two people who share a love deeper and stronger than almost any other in history, and judging from their faces they’re not exactly handling it well.
They’re stuck near the door, which they thankfully thought to close. He hopes Quynh had the same presence of mind and disconnected from the chat because if Andy realises that several preeteens have been listening in to her reunion with her long lost love she will definitely shoot his laptop. She knows it doesn’t change anything if the device was transmitting, he’s explained that to her repeatedly. He knows that she enjoys doing it too much to stop though.
The quiet in the room is suffocating. The rare clatters of the dishes in his hands sound like gunshots in the stillness, and yet do nothing to drown out the shaky breathing from the couch that’s slowly transforming from sobbing into wet, hysterical laughter and unintelligible whispers, probably in a long-dead language.
Then, suddenly, finally, the coffeemaker begins to rattle on the stove and the spell is broken. Nile pours the coffee, Nicky approaches to help him with the pizza and by the time someone turns the lights on, (and when had it gotten so dark?) Andy and Quynh have gotten up from where they were tangled on the floor and are sitting down on the couch, turned to face each other, clutching each other’s hands. Nicky gathers the courage to approach first, Nile following closely, both holding two plates each.
When there's food they eat, you can argue later if you still need to. It’s one of the few hard rules they have, never spoken, but lifesaving on more than one occasion.
Booker quickly grabs a slice for himself and goes to join the rest, before he’s left alone with Joe who, in his mind at least, has become judge, jury and executioner for all of his failures.
“Hello Nile, thank you for coming here,” says Quynh, finally turning away from Andy to look at her.
“Of course! I’m glad you’re here.” And the magic has taken hold, she’s clearly awestruck already.
They eat in silence, Andy and Quynh just breathing each other in, Nile clearly happy to see him being at least somewhat functional. Joe is very pointedly not looking at him. Nicky is staring, which is almost worse.
They finish eating and after a moment of awkward silence Nicky gets up to hug Quynh, Joe joining them.
“I can’t even begin to say how glad we are to have you back,” he says, and it’s rare to see him speechless, but he’d known Quynh longer than Booker’s been alive, and he can’t imagine how losing her must have felt.
Apparently they do still need to argue, and when Quynh, without any warning, just mentions the unmentionable there’s nowhere to run. The flat is too small for all of them, there’s a reason they usually choose dark and sprawling places as safe houses. As much as they like to sleep in a pile they all need to hide sometimes, but this isn’t an abandoned church or medieval mine. It's a tiny one bedroom apartment in a building full of people, that they can hear through the cracked window smoking in the courtyard, laughing on their balconies, and there’s more of them than ever before, and he’s painfully aware of all of that when she steps back and replies.
“I know Joe, but I’m not. Not for you at least, not unless you change your mind.“
“We all made a decision,” he answers, knowing exactly what she’s talking about. Nicky quickly sits back down, leaving the two of them in the middle, like they’re all gathered to watch a play. Or a duel.
“I didn’t. I’m staying with him. And Andromache will stay with me,” she says it like a truth, not a question or an order, just a fundamental rule of the universe. And Booker is frankly shocked because the Andy he knows would never just let that go, no matter how true it might be. Someone speaking for her is never tolerated, but here she is just sitting back on the couch, no change to the fond expression on her face.
Joe looks like he’s about to argue, out of principle if nothing else, but Quynh apparently just isn’t fucking holding back.
“One hundred years?” She continues, “do you have any idea what a hundred years alone means Joe? Cause I do.”
“That’s different,” Joe says, but his voice is quiet, almost shameful.
“Yes! It is! Because with me you fought it. You looked for me, and now you’re just willing to give up so easily on one of us.”
“He betrayed us!”
“I know!” She’s almost shouting now, the playful melody behind her voice changing to a terrifying chant, “That’s my point. He’s so lonely he betrayed all of you for a chance at dying and your solution is to banish him for a hundred fucking years, because that will surely solve the problem.”
He’s feeling a bit patronised, but he has a feeling this will all go smoother if he just pretends he doesn’t exist for a while, so he doesn’t interject.
“Andy almost died, how aren’t you angry about that?” Asks Joe, and now it’s Andy’s turn to sink further into the couch, like this doesn’t concern her at all, an almost smirk playing on the edges of her mouth.
“BECAUSE ITS MY FAULT!” She cries, like a tidal wave crashing on shore, “He’s my fault,” and the storm is gone just as quick as it came, now she just sounds tired, “Do you have any idea what it was like? Trapped down there? Because he does.”
“It’s not your fault,” Joe says, sounding even smaller and more tired than her.
“Well it's not entirely his either.”
Booker is itching to get his fingers on a bottle, can see the wine they’d been drinking earlier on the kitchen counter, but he can’t just get up. They’re all squeezed in a circle around Joe and Quynh, all witnessing this with no way to even look away without looking right at someone else.
“Fine. Go if you want to. But remember, I knew you were coming, I saw you, and I saw what happened then.”
So that’s why she wasn’t in a hurry to find them, he should have guessed. And now he’s seen what she really thinks of him, and what he’s done, it all makes sense. He can imagine this going a lot worse for him if they weren’t all literally stuck in his flat.
“I know Nile wasn’t happy about it and I think she’ll stay too. So Joe, if you’re so intent on your petty revenge, and you,” she turns to look at Nicolo who had, like the rest of them, been pretending that he wasn’t involved at all, despite the fact that he was very involved, and part of the reason he’d been banished at all, “with your catholic,” she spits the word, but it doesn’t come out mean, more like an inside joke that she’d forgotten, “ideas of penance, you can just fuck right off, but as I haven’t seen you in a while I’d really rather you just stayed.”
And just like that he’s back on the team. There isn’t really anything left to say once she’s pulled that card. He doesn’t deserve it, really, but he wants it so bad he could scream. Just them all working together again, without the lies, the quiet unspoken pain, not watching each other rot with Andy, seething with jealousy at how lucky Joe and Nicky were. Maybe training Nile could be like it was at the very beginning when they’d first met, when the others had taught him. When she’d turned up he’d almost tried to call the whole thing off, but it was too late, too far gone, he knew he couldn’t live with the lie either way so he saw it through, regretting it before it was even done.
And nothing’s fixed yet, not really. Joe still doesn’t trust him, and Nile only knows the worst of him, and Nicky loves him as deeply as he loves the world, could never hate him, so he’s disappointed instead, and that’s much worse. But all they need now is time, and they've got nothing but time. That’s always been the problem, but maybe just this once it could be the solution as well.