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“I had a nightmare.”
Nile Freeman is standing in his doorway. She looks hunted, like a panicked rabbit scurrying for a kind of safety her military training can’t provide.
In some of his shittier moments he’s imagined his family breaking the exile to visit him. Nicky would probably claim he needed help with something. Joe would knock on his door with tears in his eyes and ask if he wants to watch the game. Andy would mysteriously appear next to him at a bar.
He hates himself the most for what he’s imagined of Nile. He could have kept her out of this, but he was going to hand her over to Merrick just like the others, and the only reason they’re not all still in that lab is Nile picked the perfect moment to ditch them for her mortal family. How dare he think for even a fraction of a second that immortals might come in pairs. Soulmate math, his imagining of her had said the last time he’d had a dream that— well, it doesn’t bear thinking about. Not ever, but especially not just this minute, when Nile is still waiting at his doorstep.
He waves her inside.
He doesn’t know what he expects to see when he turns around from securing the deadbolt, but it isn’t Nile standing right there in front of him, staring dead center at his chest but focused right through him and a thousand miles away, lip wobbling like—
Nile throws her arms around him and mashes her face into his chest and it’s all he can do to gently lay his hands across her back as she starts to sob.
It’s maybe an hour later and she’s curled up on one end of his couch, nestled in his one decent blanket, sipping at a third cup of the chamomile tea he’d bought last year on a whim and never touched.
She’s telling him about her nightmare in graphic detail. It’s devastating, it’s hell on par with their shared nightmares of Quynh drowning over and over, but the worst part is how detached she sounds. He doesn’t ask why she’s here, why she’s telling him and not any of the three people who are actually capable of being good friends to her. He doesn’t ask her if she’s ok or how she feels or what she needs. He just listens. He makes more tea.
When she’s all talked out, she finishes her tea and sets the mug down on the floor with the finality of the STOP at the end of a telegram. Or a “this user has logged out” dialog box. Or—
She’s unwound herself from the blanket enough to scoot over to his end of the couch and lay her head on his shoulder. It throws him a little to realize he doesn’t freeze up at the contact. He tucks the blanket neatly around them both and curls his arms around her.
They sit like that for he doesn’t know how long.
“I’m going to go see my mom.”
He processes that they’re both still awake, and then that Nile has spoken, and finally, what Nile has said.
“She’s seen enough scifi to maybe believe me, but if it goes badly, my plan is to go to Vegas and drink myself to death a few times.”
Nile has laid a hand on his forearm. He didn’t notice when it happened, but between then and now her grip has tightened, and if he weren’t immortal he’d probably have a hell of a bruise.
“Will you come with me?”
He could ask why him. Why not the others, or even Copley. Why now.
He could say no. He owes her, but he could say no. She can’t force him to bear witness to her losing her family just like he did.
Or worse. Would it be worse, to witness Nile’s family embracing her where his had rejected him? Does Nile’s mother love her more than Mélanie and the boys loved him?
Yes. She does.
Of course she does. Because that’s what it means to be a parent.
That’s why him and not the others.
“When you get bored of Vegas, I’ll take you to Mazatlán. Drinking ourselves to death will be more relaxing by the ocean with fish tacos.”
Nile laughs. It’s warm, then it’s high-pitched, sharp, like knives. And then once again he finds himself holding her while she cries.
Three days later, he’s taking two duffel bags from Indy and carrying them out to Mrs. Freeman’s champagne-colored Ford Fusion. Indy goes back inside to help Nile pack up food for the trip. Copley has arranged a private flight to take the four of them to Mazatlán.
An impromptu family reunion, safe from the prying eyes of friends and neighbors and the Chicago PD, isn’t what either of them expected when Booker offered Nile the use of this safehouse. He fully expected this to be just another in a long string of benders in this city that reminds him so strongly of his hometown. The sea air, the tang of the food, the sounds of a local dialect they don’t teach on Duolingo. Everything except the ghosts of his family.
He closes the sedan’s trunk firmly in the hopes that soulmate math can be stowed away with the luggage. No such luck. Nile’s mother has returned from telling a neighbor she trusts that they’re taking a trip and not to worry.
This woman didn’t blink when Nile asked her to do that in person and not over text or a phone call. She’s not blinking now. He can feel her sizing him up, measuring his worth, sussing out his intentions.
“Call me Dorothy.”
She’s extended her hand, and he’s not surprised to find it’s warm, or that she gives a firm handshake. It does surprise him to find she’s giving him an encouraging smile.
He blinks. Takes a deep breath. One step at a time.
“Pleasure to meet you, Dorothy. I’m Sébastien.”