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Nicky smiled at Joe, who was clutching his first cup of coffee and gazing over the kitchen table in a soft, comfortable daze. Andy was back from a run and in the shower. Nile and Quynh were laughing over some video on YouTube. Booker strolled out and grabbed a croissant, filled his coffee mug, and sat across from Joe.
Nicky pulled a quiche out of the oven and drained bacon onto a towel. “It’s ready,” he called out. Before long everyone was gathered in the kitchen, dishing up their plates. The chatter settled down into a brief lull as Nicky sat next to Joe and gave the quiche a taste.
Booker put his mug down as the silence lingered, and took a breath. “Well. I’ve been mulling it over for a while, and I think it’s time for me to get back to it.”
“What d’you mean, Book?” Joe asked around a mouthful of quiche. “Back to what?”
“Exile.”
Nicky looked across the table, watching as Booker pulled apart his croissant into pieces on his plate. “Booker. We’ve gone over this before, many times. We don’t want you to be apart from us anymore.” He watched as Quynh’s mouth set in a thin line and leaned onto Booker’s shoulder. Booker put his arm around her and stroked her back and Nicky realized that Booker had already discussed this with her. Nile also didn’t look surprised.
Andy looked sad, but resigned. “How about we not call it exile, but more of an extended break, Book.”
Booker smiled wryly and kissed the top of Quynh’s head. “I didn’t phrase that right. I just mean I need some time alone. Doesn’t mean I won’t want to still see you sometimes, to keep in touch, to be included. And it isn’t forever. But I need some space.”
“One hundred years of space?” Joe asked. Nicky could hear how he was trying to hold back the hurt in his voice. It wasn’t fooling anybody.
“Maximum. Probably will end up being less.” Quynh sniffed, then rolled her eyes when Booker squeezed her shoulder. “I have a lot to mull over. Our shared misery” his eyes darted to Quynh, “took more of a toll on me than I’d realized until it was over.” He swallowed hard. “It’s been two centuries, but I think it’s stood in the way of a lot of things. I need to mourn my wife, my sons, without that interference, and without drowning myself in alcohol. And, I need to come to terms with what I did to you all.”
“Booker, you know we’ve told you that we understand…”
“Joe, it isn’t that.” Booker looked at him with a firm gaze. “Your forgiveness means everything, and I can’t thank you enough for it. But…” he looked down, fiddling with the handle of his coffee cup. “I need to reconcile myself to it. I was in a dark, fearful, profoundly angry place. When I look back at it now, I sometimes have a hard time recognizing myself. I need to get some distance from it.”
“You need to spend time with only yourself,” Andy murmured. “You need to remember who you are.”
Nicky thought back to the times Andy disappeared, sometimes for many decades, in the years after giving up the search for Quynh. For the first time he thought he truly understood the amount of pain and confusion she’d had to sift through, away from missions or the expectations of others.
Booker nodded. “Yes.” He paused. “I won’t go silent, I promise you. When I find a place to land for a while, I’ll let you know. You can text me, call me. Once I’m ready we can even visit each other. I have a feeling that won’t take too long.” Nicky watched as Booker gazed around the table with a gentle, sad smile. “We’ve all spent time apart before. This’ll just be longer than usual for me.”
There was a silence. Nicky clasped one of Joe’s hands that had turned into fists under the table, feeling Joe’s fingers unclench and wrap around his. “We’ll miss you, Book.”
Booker’s mouth worked a bit. “If you need me, just say the word, and I’ll come running.”
Andy got up abruptly and stood next to Booker’s chair. She huffed when he looked at her questioningly, motioning for him to stand up, and then gripped him in a solid embrace. “You stay silent for too long and we’re gonna hunt you down.”
***
He left a week or so after that, early in the morning as they were just getting up. Gave them each a hug. Clapped Nicky on the back, who then watched when Joe clasped Booker close. Saw him have a quick, whispered conversation with Nile as they parted, hugged Andy for a long moment. Almost toppled backwards when Quynh slammed into his embrace and then clutched at him.
They all watched as he murmured to her softly, catching wisps of promises in her ear that she’d hear from him soon, and something about her being ready, which didn’t make sense to Nicky—but that was ok. Booker, Quynh, and to a lesser extent, Nile, all had a bond that had formed over their shared dreams together.
After kissing her cheek and pulling away he said simply, “I’ll see you soon,” and walked out the door, with a backpack on his back and another duffel slung over his shoulder. They listened to his motorcycle rev away. Nicky tugged at Joe’s hand and they went off to make breakfast.
They didn’t have too much time to mope. Within three days Nile had word from Copley that they had a new job in Myanmar. One job led almost immediately to another, and then to a third. Texts and a few phone calls assured them that Booker was alright. Booker in turn was placated with stories of Nile darting in front of Andy to catch stray bullets, or Joe taking over some of Booker’s explosives detail, or memorably, one time Nicky got to fight an opponent who also had a sword (no contest there, but it made Nicky and Joe strangely nostalgic) to confirm that everyone was alive and not in dire straits. For the team, their minds were almost exclusively focused on strategies, firefights, monitoring, and covert ops activity, barely paced with carving out time to sleep and eat.
After several strenuous months they finally they found themselves in a safe house in Dubrovnik, able to do nothing but rest and stroll the streets of the old quarter of the city, which retained its medieval atmosphere in a way that felt somewhat real, and not a tourist reconstruction. They could smell the sea air, enjoy the landscape and the chatter of the people. Nicky spent hours wandering the streets with Nile, enjoying seeing the city through new eyes. He sat at cafes reading as Joe sketched passersby. He bought ingredients at the markets and cooked meals for them all.
A few days in a courier brought a tightly sealed box.
“It’s from Copley.” Andy puzzled over it for a moment before pulling a knife out of her boot and slicing it open. She scooped out letters, postcards, and another, smaller box, sifting through them into piles. A strange smile grew on her face. “They’re from Booker!”
Nile walked over and picked a note attached to the interior of the box written in unfamiliar blockish handwriting. “Booker has been sending all correspondence meant for the team to me, asking me to send it all to you when you took a break. So here it is. Hope you’re enjoying your time off. Copley”
Each of them had at least two letters. Quynh had four. There were postcards addressed to the team as a whole. Nile peeled open the brown paper and silently read the note enclosed with it, and smiled.
“What did he send you Nile?” Nicky asked, looking up.
She grinned. “Some patches. For the back of my jacket. I’ll show you later.”
Nicky smiled at her, and went back to reading his letter. Booker had sent him two. The first was when he stopped off for three days in Florence. “I walked to the Santa Maria Novella basilica, looking at the exterior of the church, and then slowly walked through the perimeter inside. I remembered reading Bocaccio’s Decameron, and imagined the five men and five women characters, talking in the wings, plotting their trip to the countryside to avoid the plague. Somehow I could imagine you and Yusuf, walking on the same marble floors I was walking, around the time that book was being written, looking up at the arches, and breathing in the air (hopefully when it wasn’t ridden with plague). You would have been only a little older then than I am now. I then went to the Farmacia a block away and was immediately hit with an intense, lush wave of fragrances. I think Quynh would love it most, but Joe must too. Have you ever been there?”
Nick huffed a soft laugh. It had been centuries since they’d been to that area of Florence. They should go back. He wondered if it still smelled at least somewhat the same.
“It’s a very sensual city, Florence. Smell, taste, fashion. Painting. History. So different from Paris in all those senses, but with a similar passion for them all in their own local character. I put my cycle aside for the most part and walked around on foot. I took a day trip to Sienna and said hello to St. Catherine’s head. I wondered if you and Joe were somewhere in the frescoes in the town hall. I’ll have to ask when I see you again.”
Nicky smiled. It was strangely sweet to imagine Booker holding them close as he enjoyed his own wanderings. It soothed his worried heart, just a bit.
Over dinner the others shared snippets of their correspondence. Booker spent over a week in Spain, had crossed through France with only a brief stop to visit the graves of his family before swiftly moving on. He rode northeast along the coastline through Belgium and the Netherlands, stopping for a few days in Amsterdam to wander through bookstores and museums, and staying away from the hash shops. “Only tourists go to those,” Joe scoffed.
Finally, seemingly on impulse, he’d found a way to send his bike on ahead and then caught up with it at JFK, and started a slow, meandering ride through the U.S. with copies of Lolita and On the Road in his bag to read at night.
“Lolita?” Nile asked skeptically. “Isn’t that kinda a weird book to read on a road trip?”
Joe made a face. “It is. But there’s several passages about the narrator driving through the American West. It’s beautifully written and pretty bizarre.”
Andy gave a contemptuous snort. “Yeah, Nabakov was pretty fucked up, but there’s no denying he knew how to write.”
The most recent letter was Nile’s last. He’d gone through Chicago, and confirmed that Nile’s mother and brother seemed to be doing as well as could be expected.
A silence fell over the table after Nile mentioned that. She looked down at her hands. Andy reached an arm around her shoulders. “I’m sorry, kid.”
Nile sniffed once, and wiped her eyes. “I know.”
Nicky’s heart clenched. There was only so much her new family could do to ease Nile’s loss. Sometimes you just had to bear it. But at least they could be there with her, see her through it in a way Booker had never been able to experience. “If anyone knows some of what you feel, Nile, it’s Booker,” he murmured.
Nile nodded. “I’m sure that’s why he checked up on them.”
“That, and that he cares about you,” Joe said.
Nicky watched Nile lift her head and look around the table. Her eyes shone with sorrow and love, and as he watched a smile appear on her face he was once again astonished at her resiliency and strength. Well done, Book, he thought. Very well done.
Several more months passed. Christmas and New Year came and went, with Andy and Quynh taking off for a couple weeks to carouse on their own. In the last month of January there were murmurs in the news of a disease that had put parts of the Asian continent on lockdown. By February ripples of it were being seen in Europe. After a couple more missions Copley once again suggested they lay low for a while. They settled down at one of Joe and Nicky’s more remote, and larger, safe houses on one of the western fiords in Norway. Booker was still making his way through the U.S, seemingly to the west coast, although he was taking a very indirect route. In March he texted Nile a selfie next to what purported to be the largest ball of twine in the world. Nile burst out laughing when Nicky gazed at the picture with befuddlement.
“What?” Nicky asked, amused in spite of himself at Nile’s laughter. “Over two hundred years he’s had of this life, a lot of it spent in the presence of some of the greatest wonders of the world, and he takes time out to look at a ball of string?”
“I’m sorry…it’s your face…” she laughed harder at Nicky’s offended look. “You just looked like the stuffiest grandpa ever.” She pushed her laughter down into chuckles, obviously trying to get herself under control, and paused to send a text, Nicky presumed, to Booker. There was a brief exchange back and forth, and suddenly Nile burst into even louder gales of laughter, head thrown back, smiling as broadly as he’d ever seen her. “Oh my God.”
“Dare I ask?” Nicky crossed his arms, trying to suppress his smile and sure he was failing.
Nile grinned and started playing a rather peppy song that quickly revealed itself to be a commemoration of the Biggest Ball of Twine in Minnesota by someone named Weird Al, which then led to a discussion of roadside attractions throughout the United States, which apparently included several large balls of twine. Soon she and Joe were looking through a website of weird U.S. attractions and arguing where they should send Booker to next.
Eventually Nicky pulled out his own phone and texted Booker. “I think you broke Nile. But she’s happy so thank you?”
A flurry of crying/laughing and heart emojis in response, and then “You’re welcome. Grandpa.”
Nicky huffed in amusement, sent back a middle finger emoji, and turned off his screen to sit down next on the other side of Nile, while Joe read about an attraction called Carhenge in Nebraska. Nile looked up gleefully at Nicky for his reaction. He rolled his eyes and put an arm around her shoulders, kissing the top of her head.
***
A couple weeks later Booker seemed to have settled down in a small corner of western Washington state. He was a little cagey about the details, but was sharing a house with someone he’d known for a while on a couple of message boards, someone who needed a roommate. “If everyone’s getting ready to go to ground for a while I might as well do it with a friend. If things get too bad I can always move on,” he texted Quynh.
I DON’T SEE WHY YOU CAN’T JUST COME BACK AND ISOLATE WITH US INSTEAD OF SOME NOBODY IN THE MIDDLE OF NOWHERE she sent back.
Booker texted that this wasn’t a nobody, he knew this person reasonably well and that he’d explained to them all what he needed before he left. After a couple more exchanges he replied I’LL TALK TO YOU LATER WHEN YOU UNLOCK YOUR CAPS LOCK. GOOD NIGHT.
Quynh grumbled intermittently over the next couple of days about this exchange, but her expression lightened immediately when another package came for them from outside of Seattle.
Nile opened it and pulled out a hard drive, another pile of letters, and an unsealed note.
“I’ve been binging on movies lately with my friend here. I put together some of them that I thought you might like, even if you’ve seen them already. And I know some of you haven’t seen them at all.” Quynh rolled her eyes.
Nile sorted through all the cords, hooked up the device to their cloud (which Nicky still had a hard time wrapping his brain around) and a list of movies appeared on the screen.
“The Princess Bride?” Andy scoffed. “Booker’s gone softer than I’d ever have thought.”
Nile froze, and turned to look at them. “You haven’t seen The Princess Bride?” Her expression became almost accusatory as she scanned their faces.
Nicky felt Joe shift almost guiltily beside him. “Um. That’s not the kind of title that usually jumps out for us?”
Nile shook her head and raised her eyes to the ceiling. “Oh my God. We have to watch this. Right now.”
***
They all enjoyed it, grudgingly in Andy’s case. Unsurprisingly in Joe and Nicky’s case, especially during the sword fighting scenes.
“He’s not left handed,” Nicky murmured to Joe as he snuggled closer.
Joe linked their fingers together and bit his earlobe gently as he answered, “I don’t think either of them are.”
Nicky savored the thrill that ran through him and squeezed Joe’s hand tighter, both of them nudging each other as their suspicions were confirmed. Nile glanced over at them, puzzled, and shrugged her shoulders as they grinned back at her.
Quynh attached to the dialogue rather quickly, and ended up watching the movie on repeat, quoting Miracle Max the most at the odd moment. Nile simply nodded at everyone else’s puzzled looks. “It’s a well known side affect, she’ll work through it.”
***
The next movie hit them all very differently. None of them had seen Blade Runner, and had no preconceptions going into it. Nicky could tell all of them were resonating hard with the replicants, so isolated, alone in their existence, even though the problem of their four year life span was the exact opposite of what their family was grappling with. It was fascinating how much of their existential conflict felt the same—to struggle with the nature of their lives, to find truth and meaning amidst the chaos.
When Roy Batty began his final speech, Nicky felt Joe’s arms curl around him as they sat on the couch. Nicky felt a lump in his throat, ruminating over the heavy handed metaphors of the nail in Roy’s one hand, the dove in the other, and almost choking on “I’ve seen things you people wouldn’t believe.” Couldn’t each of them say that?
Tears flowed silently down his cheeks as he heard Quynh gasp loudly on the floor, trying to keep quiet as Andy shook next to her. They held it together until Roy died, and then Nile paused the video.
“I think we all need a minute,” she choked out, sinking to the floor where Quynh and Andy were huddled, and Quynh proceeded to have a “good cry.” Nicky sank down next to them, Joe following, and they all took a while, holding each other in a huddle until the floor started to feel too hard.
Nicky nudged Quynh. “You ladies get on the couch. Joe and I’ll take the floor.” Quynh sniffed loudly, crawling up and urging a wet-faced Andy and Nile up with her, pulling Nicky between her legs, Andy grabbing Joe to do the same.
They watched the rest of the movie in silence.
“It’s too bad she won’t live. But then again who does?” Nicky heard Andy scoff behind him and shift a bit.
After the movie was over they all sat as the credits scrolled. “Fuck, Booker,” Nile murmured. “The next one better be a light one after that.”
***
A week or so later Copley called for a video conference. Strangely enough he didn’t have any new assignments. “Things have shut down. Given how much we’re trying to keep you off the radar and how much more visible all travelers are it’s not as feasible for you to be sent on missions, no matter how covert you try to make them.”
Andy shifted in her seat. She obviously didn’t like it, but it was hard to argue. “So what gives with the zoom chat then, Copley? I assume you’re not just setting this up to see our smiling faces.”
Copley sighed, looking at Andy’s typical deadpan stare. “It’s good to see you too. You do all look particularly rested.” He paused. “But you’re right, I did want to show you something.” He looked strangely amused. “One second.”
The chat screen morphed into security footage that showed a mellow town street. The camera pointed at a coffee house. People were seen going in and out, wearing face masks of course. “I came across this four days ago,” Copley’s said in the background. A man and a woman, wearing hoodies with the hoods up, walking a German shepherd dog, approached the entrance. Nicky sat up straighter. The man’s gait looked very familiar.
The couple stopped, and the man handed over the leash. Then they both lowered their masks, kissed each other, and the man’s hood fell down.
“Well look at that,” Nile said gleefully. “Booker you old rascal.”
Nicky’s heart clenched just a bit at the tenderness on Booker’s face as they smiled at each other, before replacing their masks. The woman stayed outside with the dog while Booker walked inside, presumably to get their coffees.
“That’s just the first part of it,” Copley said. “Give it a minute.”
Nicky started to suspect that Copley was a closet gossip. There was a bit of glee in the man’s voice that he hadn’t heard before. Or maybe quarantine just gave him too much time on his hands and he was bored.
The woman waited, scratching the dog behind the ears. A motorcycle pulled up and a very large man got off, removing his helmet and pulling up a scarf around his neck. The woman started, the dog began jumping up, pulling at the leash, and the motorcycle man came over to pet the dog. Nicky’s blood chilled as they both pulled down their masks and began to kiss each other, the man bending the woman in a dramatic clinch.
“Goddamnit,” Quynh grumbled with true vengeance in her voice.
“Wait for it,” Copley said.
“Copley, you really sound like a piece of shit right now,” Joe said sharply.
“Guys, I promise, you’ll want to see this. Just give it a few more moments.”
The big man had just brought the woman back to her feet and pulled up his scarf when Booker came out, coffees in his hands. He must have said something, because the man turned around, going into a fighting stance. The woman moved between them. Nicky thought it was to keep them apart, but it was only to get the coffees out of Booker’s hands before moving out of the way.
What the fuck, Nicky thought grimly.
The two began throwing punches. Nicky felt his jaw clench, but when none of them landed on any real targets it became clear pretty quickly that they were just goofing around. Soon they were hugging each other, and Nicky saw Joe’s jaw drop out of the corner of his eye as both men pulled down their masks and went into almost as dramatic a clinch as they’d just witnessed when Booker was inside.
The kiss went on for several moments until woman walked up, cuffed both men on the backs of their heads and handed Booker his coffee. The big guy leaned back, it looked like he was laughing.
Booker lowered his mask and said something, the broadest grin they’d ever seen on his face, and both the man and the woman kissed his cheeks. Booker’s expression became both embarrassed and unmistakably turned on as the man bent down to say something in his ear. And then the video froze.
There was a long silence.
“Huh.” Joe rubbed his chin, shaking his head thoughtfully.
“Well, damn,” Nile said, a broad smile on her face. “Booker looks great. I’ve never seen him so happy.”
“Right? Right?” Copley’s glee was infectious.
“Copley, you’re nothing but a gossip,” Nicky said, trying to sound scornful and mostly failing.
The still image disappeared and Copley’s face came on the screen. “Look, I deal in information. This just happens to be more fun that most of what I work with day to day. I’m stuck in my house. I can’t help enjoying this a little bit.”
Quynh put her phone on speaker and dialed a number. The phone rang through to an automated voice service that read out Booker’s number in a flat tone, and then a beep.
“BOOKER!” Quynh yelled. “Copley just showed us some very interesting footage and you have some EXPLAINING to do!” She paused. “You look very happy and I’m happy for you. But we need to know more and NOT from cameras!”
“You have interesting and appealing tastes, Book!” Joe yelled. Nicky whistled over him and Nile started to laugh.
Andy picked up the phone and said calmly, “Seriously, give us a call when you can. Well done, Book.” She ended the call.