Work Text:
Saint-Malo
1610
He finds her on the beach, lying in the rising tide.
Again.
Again, they woke in the early hours of the morning to her absence. Again, they knew where she would be. Again, Yusuf sat on the edge of the bed and hid his head in his hands, disguising tears, and again, Nico pulled on a cloak and braved the perpetual rain to go to her. To bring her back and hopefully warm her up before the cold took her, if she wasn’t drowned already.
A year without Quỳnh, and Andromache is trying to die. They have done all the easy things. Spent months on a boat, searching. Tracked down every sailor from the ship that took her and questioned them and killed them when they had no information. Stalked up and down coastlines, hoping for the improbability of a heavy coffin washed ashore.
A year without Quỳnh, and now it is obvious that she is gone. They will not stop looking because there is nothing else to do, but Nico knows it in his bones. She is lost, and all they can hope for is that she dies soon, and stays dead. That she already has. A year has never felt so long as this one has.
The rain is pouring and the sea is furious, crashing against the sea wall like an invading army battering at a city. Andromache is small, dwarfed by the walls and the sea and the waves. She looks so far from the fierce, unyielding woman Nico first met. Before all of this, he wouldn’t have been surprised if the seas would part at her glare, push Quỳnh up from their depths at her command and apologize, retreating from the shame of crossing her.
He supposes he’s always seen her and Quỳnh as something slightly more . More than human. So ancient, so many millennia of experience. They always seemed just the slightest bit above everyone else, floating through the mortal world like they could see through its veil.
Now, though, now the illusion is shattered. Andromache is painfully, exhaustedly human and always has been. Painfully human in every way except for the way she wants — mortality. She, of course, still cannot die, no matter how many times she drowns herself on purpose, or refuses to eat or drink, or refuses to sleep until she collapses from exhaustion. She barely talks anymore, nothing beyond what she absolutely must say to communicate with them, which is not much. After five hundred years, they don’t need many words between them. She is like a ghost, and privately Nico worries she might have lost her mind. Wonders if they can heal from that.
He crouches beside her and puts a hand on her shoulder — still warm. The sea swirls around her legs and she makes no indication that she notices it, or him, at all. Her face stays still, turned away from him, empty eyes gazing towards the horizon where the pewter-grey clouds meet the waves.
“Andromache,” he says softly. Still no response, not a twitch, not a blink. “Andromache, you are freezing.”
A silly thing to say. She does not care that she is freezing.
He hooks his hands under her shoulders and forces her into a sitting position, propping her against him so he can wind an arm around her and cover her in the spare cloak he brought. She does not look at him, but at least she holds her head up, still staring into nothingness. After a moment, her hand comes up mechanically and holds the cloak closed at her breast.
“Good,” he says softly, relieved at the sign of life. “Come, come back with me.” He tries to pull her to her feet, but she is still dead weight. He crouches back down and strokes her soaking hair out of her face.
“Andromache, please,” he says, his heart in pieces. “We cannot lose you too. We cannot.”
She turns ever so slightly, eyes flicking to him, focusing on his face for a split second before darting away. She still does not speak, but she lets him hoist her to her feet, moves legs that must be completely numb mechanically, staggering up the beach and back towards town. He tries to shield her from the rain, but he doesn’t know why he does—she seems completely unaware of her surroundings, and is already soaked. He wonders how long she was out there, this time. Long enough for the tides to come in. Most of the night, in all likelihood. He’s surprised, and angry with himself, that he didn’t wake when she slipped out — but then, she’s always been one of the only people who could sneak by his watch, and he, too is exhausted from their endless searches, slipping into sleep and staying there far easier than he ever has before.
Yusuf, wonderful Yusuf, already has bathwater heated when they make it back to their rented rooms. He’s pouring a last basin of steaming water into the tin tub they use for washing when Nico and Andromache stumble back into the room. Looking up, he immediately crosses to support Andromache while Nico peels off both their soaked cloaks. His clothing is wet through, too, and he’s shivering — though that is better than Andromache, who is far too pale and clammy-cold to the touch. Yusuf ushers her towards the tub, pulling wet clothing off her as they go, and Nico follows, draping his own shirt and trousers over a chair near the fire.
They are far from shy over their bodies after so long, nakedness means nothing to them. The tub is too small for two, but Andromache needs body heat as much as warm water now, so Nico steps in first and holds his arms out for Andromache. Yusuf helps her into the tub to settle against Nico, then goes to his knees next to them.
“Where was she?” he murmurs to Nico. He sighs and starts rubbing his hands up and down her cold arms.
“Where she always is.”
“How long, do you think?”
He shakes his head. “Too long.”
“This cannot continue,” Yusuf whispers, hopeless in his ear.
“I know,” he replies helplessly, and lifts a hand from Andromache for a moment to cup the back of Yusuf’s neck. “I know.”
Yusuf shakes his head, turns away, passes a sliver of soap and a cloth to Nico and moves over to a pot of broth left simmering over the fire. Nico smiles, despite himself. It is painfully optimistic for Yusuf to expect that Andromache will accept any food at all, but he has prepared a meal for her anyway.
He turns back to Andromache, setting aside the soap and cloth for the moment, concentrating on running his hands up and down her cold arms and legs quickly, trying to build the heat back. The water splashes around them and she shudders.
“It’s alright,” he coos to her softly, like he would to a child. “It’s alright, you’re alright. We’re back home.”
He thinks, none of us will ever be home again. Not now that she’s gone. Out loud he says, “You’re safe, you’re back with us.” And she never will be.
Yusuf crosses back to them, crouches down, starts soaping up and rinsing Andromache’s filthy legs as Nico runs his fingers through her hair, just reaching her shoulders from when she chopped off the tangles right after they freed her from the dungeon. She shivers again and turns her face into his shoulder, which is more of a reaction than she’s displayed for days.
“Andromache?” he asks softly, and she shakes again. He lifts a hand to her face and realizes there are tears there, mixed with the rain and saltwater. “Andromache .” His heart is breaking. She never cries. How are they meant to bear this? Mortals, when they lose loved ones, at least do not have to carry the weight of their grief for centuries.
Andromache lifts her head slightly and finally, finally meets his eyes.
“We will not find her,” she says hoarsely.
“We will!” Yusuf says, squeezing her knee. He is passionate, assured, and yet Nico hears — and is sure Andromache does, too — the note of falsehood in his voice.
“We will keep looking,” he says, quieter, in her ear, and she just shakes her head. They are tired. They are all so tired now.
“It will not make a difference,” she murmurs, and drops her head back down to his shoulder, closing her eyes. He has nothing in him to counter her, because she is almost certainly right. Instead, he cups water in his hand and lets it flow down her back, warm and soothing. Yusuf returns to her legs, lifting her feet gently and cleaning the grime from between her toes. He remembers, so distant it’s faded and distorted in his memory, kneeling before the parishioners on Giovedì Santo, washing their feet. Something so holy, passing between them when it happened. Gradually, she relaxes against him — a true relaxation, not catatonia — and he wonders if maybe, just maybe, she might actually sleep.
When the bathwater starts to cool, he stands and supports Andromache with him. She grumbles slightly at the cool air on her wet skin, and he takes heart in the noise. Yusuf wraps her in his dry cloak and leaves it up to Nico to support her over to the bed. He follows them with a bowl of steaming broth.
“A little broth, Andromache?” he offers, holding it out to her. She grimaces and turns away and Yusuf sits heavily on the edge of the bed. “Please,” he says, his voice cracking ever so slightly, “for us.”
She rolls her head to look at him, at the steaming bowl in his hands. Then she sighs and worms an arm out from beneath Yusuf’s cloak to grasp the bowl and bring it to her lips. He meets Yusuf’s eyes and sees relief there, and a long-absent glimmer of hope. He quirks his lips up and Yusuf beams back at him.
Andromache’s arm starts shaking after a few minutes of holding the bowl and she sinks deeper against him in the pile of quilts and cloaks, so he takes the bowl from her and sets it, half empty, on the side table. Yusuf climbs into the other side of the bed and curls up at Andromache’s side, draping an arm around her middle and tucking his face into the back of her neck. She slumps down, head in Nico’s lap, and he continues running his fingers through her damp hair, over and over again until her eyes are closed and her expression is something close to peace, though the lines between her brows and the unhappy curve of her lips don’t fade.
Outside, the light builds, dawn creeping higher over the sea. The candles Yusuf lit on the table when Nico went out gutter, melting wax onto the table, and the fire burns low. Yusuf breathes deep, asleep again. Andromache’s eyes flick open when Nico sighs deeply.
“Thank you,” she says softly, almost too quiet for him to hear at all.
“Always,” he replies, and it is a promise.