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Quỳnh asks Andy, "Have you seen Nile? I wanted to show her this thrift shop find."
Andy smirks. "They'll be back in a few days. Booker said it's Date Night."
Booker doesn't drink anywhere near as much as he used to. He's still got PTSD and he still self-medicates when he's having a really bad day, but now he's got better options, much more effective options to cope with his brain. Somewhere along the way alcohol has returned to its original place in his life: part of a happy ritual. He doesn't really do Shabbat anymore, not beyond lighting candles when he happens to be at home on Friday night and remembers to do it. No, this ritual is new, and it came out of fucking nowhere.
Date night, of all things. With Nile fucking Freeman.
Nile had said that there wasn't one good thing about being immortal, and at the time, she'd meant it. Now she feels differently.
She's going to be grieving for her mortal family and the life she'd imagined for a long, long, long time. And somehow climate change is even scarier now that it can't kill her. But when she'd raged at Andy about the unfairness of it all, she hadn't had a chance yet to live her immortal life.
It's been almost three years now and she feels so damn alive. She's drawing a lot, she's learning to sew, she's trying so many things with her hair, she's gone snowboarding, she's burned her mouth on so many wonderful new foods and healed up in time for another delicious bite. She's gonna go to college — somewhere in Europe or South America or Africa, she hasn't decided where yet, but the decision is about what language she wants to work on and not about what she can afford.
Along the way she's found that one of her favorite things about immortality is these other immortals and their stories. Even an hour with Yusuf al Kaysani would be a dream for any kid who loved staying up way past their bedtime going down a Wikipedia rabbit hole, and Nile gets more hours of his stories than she can count.
Joe is full to bursting with fun facts and sweeping romances and teasing slow-burn mysteries with twist endings. Nicky can tell stories just fine on his own but he prefers to hang around and add to Joe's, and there's something Nile finds especially touching about it this way, that there's more than one person who remembers these events from so long ago.
Andy's forgotten so many more stories than she has time left to tell, and the way she accepts the blanks in her memory, just makes up something on the spot to supplement a half-forgotten story in progress, is a balm on the fresh wound to Nile's heart. Plus, Andy's stories swing wildly between sex and violence and the most heart-warming shit you could possibly imagine, no telling where it'll go until Andy gets there. A joy for any adrenaline junkie and Nile feels like the biggest one on the planet.
Quỳnh doesn't really tell linear stories. At first Nile assumed it was the trauma, but the longer they get to know each other, she comes to see in Quynh a reflection of her own rapid fire asides and subject changes and twists and turns. Once upon a time ADHD wasn't so disabling, it seems. Maybe there's a future for Nile like that.
Booker, though. Damn.
Of course she'd noticed. They only make hot immortals and he's no exception, but it wasn't just that. The way he tried not to stare at her around that first dinner table. The way Andy said "I lost a soldier" and clearly meant "I lost my wife." Nile noticed, and she wondered what this unspoken potential might mean for her future, but she tried not to do anything about it. Just see how things unfold.
In the end, things unfolded pretty quick once they got started.
Once the whole Quỳnh Returns saga shook out and Booker was back in the fold, Nile started seeking him out in the evenings just to have someone nearby while she moodily sipped whatever beverage was at hand and contemplated her bizarre new existence. She drank a whole pot of sludgy-thick coffee that first night while they both stared silently at the rocky Italian coastline. The next night she brought a few bottles of wine and they had what felt like part two of their conversation in the cave. The next, ginger beer so strong it felt like a punch in the face, a perfect pairing for unexpectedly happy memories.
Then one night she plunked down a bottle of real Kentucky bourbon.
He's smiling like an absolute fool and she can't stop looking.
"This is what I keep in my flask, you know. Whenever we're somewhere I can find it."
Nile grins at him. She wants to hear more about what's put that look on his face. "Yeah?" is all she manages to say, and it's enough.
"The name's ironic, but that's kind of the cherry on top of how I fell in love with bourbon. It was my first big mission with the team after, well, everything." He pauses to take a swig, and Nile watches as a shadow passes over Booker's face for only a moment, replaced so fast by that boyish smile. This must be a really good memory.
He clears his throat. "It was my first time in the Americas too, your Civil War. There was a lot to take in. Hiding our immortality from other soldiers, helping people get to the next stop on the Underground Railroad, practicing my English, teaching Nicky how to use a bayonet properly — I think he still resents that, by the way. Ask him about it sometime if you want to see him look really constipated."
Nile lets out a big laugh at that. She's delighted to hear Booker join her with a real laugh of his own.
"We were somewhere in Kentucky or Tennessee or Virginia, I think, the first time it happened, and it just kept getting more fun every time we did it."
What the hell he's about to say was so much fun is a mystery to Nile, but the memory is lighting him up from the inside. It's mesmerizing.
"It was with bourbon," he says, "that I learned liquor is at its most delicious when you've stolen it from enslavers whose plantation you've just burned to the ground."
"Ok that's fucking hot."
Then Nile blinks. She really just said that, huh.
"Um," she tries before biting her lip.
When she manages to look at him, she finds Booker's still lit up from inside, only his smile is softer now. He looks surprised, uncertain, and maybe... yeah. He looks hopeful.
Image description: a moodboard of five images, described clockwise from top left. 1: Two bottles of Madam, a bourbon-rye blend from Republic Restoratives, positioned side by side so both sides of the label are visible. The front of the label features a portrait of Madam Vice President (get it?) Kamala Harris and the back of the label reads "Outspoken. Disruptive. American." in large bold text followed by fine print too small to read. 2: Kiki Layne sitting on a windowsill, dramatically backlit and elegant. Her hair is pulled back in a puff at the nape of her neck and she's wearing a drapey cream blouse and textured light yellow skirt. She's looking down and to her left and the image is positioned in the moodboard so that it appears Nile is looking at Booker. 3: An old-fashioned cocktail in a tumbler glass with ice, garnished with a cocktail cherry and an orange wedge. In the background are an open bottle of bourbon, bitters, and a small cutting board with a large piece of orange. 4: An elegant black, blue, and chrome lighter and several lit tea lights. 5: Matthias Schoenaerts wearing a textured gray sweater and blue trousers, sitting casually and smiling off into the distance. He's looking up and to the right and the image is positioned in the moodboard so that it appears Booker is smiling up at Nile.
They've all been chilling in Haiti for about a month when Nile sees the headlines about the Mar a Lago raid. She turns her tablet to Booker, who only reads for a moment before he's looking at her with raised eyebrows. "When the time comes, date night?"
It's an unsettlingly balmy 60-degree February day — "Leave me and my Fahrenheit alone, old man," Nile answers Booker's scoff — when they land in DC for one of their most on-brand date nights yet. Their rental has a private balcony where Nile takes a nap in the sun while Booker goes shopping for their evening.
Nile wakes up to the magical smell of frying carbs and cheese, and after some nice long stretches she gets up to go kiss the cook. "Smells good, babe," she says between kisses to the back of Booker's neck. He's all dressed up for their date under that apron and very focused on his task, so she kisses on him a little more before tearing herself away to go get dressed up herself.
When she comes back out to the balcony she finds it aglow with tea lights. Booker's set out a platter of handmade pupusas with curtido and salsa and a generous pile of fried plantains, and a gleaming bottle of whiskey sits unopened next to two tumblers.
"You look beautiful," Booker says after a very flattering long moment of staring at her.
"So do you," she says. "And so does dinner. Thanks for this, Book."
That private little smile he gives her has her wanting to yank him inside and get him naked already, but he's got an even better idea. "Want to start with a drink?"
She smirks as she takes in the label. "I am, in fact, outspoken, disruptive, and American."
"I thought it would add a little something special for tomorrow."
That particular twinkle in his eye is one of her very favorite things about date night.
Nile revels in the lack of hangover the next morning, and the lazy morning sex, and the lazy cuddles while they soak in the quiet before whatever the fuck the rest of today will hold.
"Ok," she says eventually. "You ready?"
"When you are."
These dumbfucks published their "attack" routes, so by the time she and Booker have all their other equipment prepped and Nile's out on the balcony pouring some rail bourbon into the nice bottle from last night she's got a clear view of the sad little parade rolling in. More like a trickle, really. Mostly pickup trucks with gun racks and shitty bumper stickers.
If the others were here they might gasp about how the police aren't arresting any of these assholes. Not for harassing locals. Not for openly violating DC's gun laws. Not even for attempting armed insurrection against their democratically elected government. Of fucking course they're not. That's not what cops are for.
It took her by surprise at first, but now that they've gotten to know each other better, of course Booker's the only other immortal who knows in his bones what it feels like to be a patriot despite your citizenship carrying an asterisk. Terms and conditions may apply.
This country is such bullshit, but it's hers. It always will be hers. Even after it stops existing, which she knows will probably happen someday. She's prepared to accept that when someday comes. Just not today.
Nile knows full well that the United States of America will remain a democracy-with-an-asterisk after this latest white nationalist riot. Their presence here today isn't going to stop these Christofascists from spinning their conspiracy theories any more than it'll stop states from purging their voter rolls. She doesn't really know what purpose it'll serve. She just knows she needs to be here, to do something. Booker knows she needs this, and so he's here.
Does immortality break the warranty on once a Marine, always a Marine? Nile's not really sure what she wants the answer to be. Time will make the decision for her eventually. For today, it's enough that she's here. It's enough that she's proud of Kamala Harris just as much as she doesn't trust her. Madam Vice President is still a cop, after all, and it shows.
The goal here is to limit the violence not escalate it, but if by the end of today Nile has need of a molotov cocktail to fend off the white nationalists her government won't, it's only fitting to make her point with this bottle.
Image description: moodboard of 7 images, described left to right, top to bottom. 1: Booker wearing a black beanie and tactical gear in a still from The Old Guard. He's cutting open a chain-link fence. 2: Press photo of six antifascist protestors standing with linked arms during the Trump inauguration protests on January 20, 2017. All have their faces covered, several are wearing all black, and one is wearing a rainbow flag as a cape as well as a gas mask and goggles. 3: Close-up of a fabric patch that reads "Mazal tov cocktail. Goodnight, alt-right." 4: Stock photos of a small plastic bottle of Kentucky Gentleman bourbon, a metal funnel, and a white rag. 5: Paparazzi photo from the set of The Old Guard 2 showing Kiki Layne as Nile driving a boat. She's wearing chin-length locs pulled back from her face, a black long-sleeve shirt, black gloves, and olive green tac pants. 6: Press photo of rioters descending on the US Capitol on January 6, 2021. There's thick smoke in the air. Many protestors are waving or wearing flags including the Trump presidential campaign logo, the US flag, and white nationalist symbols. 7: Press photo of a large group of antifascist protestors during the Trump inauguration protests on January 20, 2017. Signs in the foreground read "No Nazi USA" and "refuse fascism". The photos are arranged such that it appears Booker and Nile's backs are nearly pressed up against each other. Get it? They have each other's backs :)