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The first time Shulk seeks him, his heart stops.
He looks so much like Fiora it’s jarring. His hair color, the shape of his eyes, the cut of his jaw; Shulk’s mouth runs dry and his stump aches and his chest feels like it’s about to burst, but there’s also Alvis—some form of Alvis, at least—and Matthew and two giant Ferronises right in front of him that need to be taken care of first. There’s so much happening. Shulk’s head hurts. The Ferronises charge up and Shulk watches as he runs in front of Glimmer and he feels like he’s going to die.
(He has to thank Rex for that one, later. Neither of them talk about the way he had scolded Glimmer afterwards; they both understand too much. Shulk talks to Nikol about his weapon and his heart aches.)
There’s so much he wants to say to Nikol: what term are you? Who are your friends? How has life been for you? Have you ever seen your own husk? Have you seen someone who looks like Fiora? He knows Nikol wouldn’t even know who he’s talking about with that last one, but there’s still a part of him out there that hopes that she might be around somewhere in this world. It would make things a hell of a lot less lonely. They had faced the end of the world together before; doing it once more would be easier with her by his side, even if he knows she’s safe—sort of—in Origin now, or in his Monado or in the Sword of Origin. If nothing else, maybe Fiora would be able to explain to Nikol that he’s their son, something Shulk can’t seem to find the words for.
He’s not even sure if he should explain to Nikol his parentage. There are so many ways in which it wouldn’t make sense for him; “Queen Melia” being a fake, the Cradles versus being born and the fact that he’s been both, the fact that he’s had an entire Homs lifespan stolen from him, given ten years when he should have a hundred.
Shulk tries not to think about how many years Nikol has left, but the gray lines tracing his shoulder bite into him every time he sees it.
There are so many things he would do with Nikol if he had the opportunity—sandwiches in Outlook Park, fixing up his mech together, talking about the old Colony 9 and the way things used to be. Talking about Reyn and Sharla and Dunban and Riki and Melia. Talking about Fiora. Talking so much about Fiora. Telling him about how much she loved him. How she would have given anything for Nikol to not be in this position, not constrained to a mere decade of life when he should have had so much more. Is it cruel to tell him in the last year or two of his life that he was meant to live ten times longer than that? That in another world, he got to be a child, and spent his time building toys instead of machines?
Nikol wouldn’t understand any of this. That is perhaps the most gutting part.
The distance, as he tells Rex later, is unbearable. Glimmer and Rex bicker, at least, but Nikol is so quiet, so shy; Shulk remembers when Nikol would hide behind his legs when meeting someone new. He had been like that even when he was young. The only person he hadn’t taken quite some time to warm up to was Uncle Dunban, who had swung by often enough in those early days of neither Shulk nor Fiora getting any sleep and Nikol and everything that came along with him being so new that Nikol had never really had a period of not knowing him. Reyn and Sharla had followed shortly afterwards. Shulk recalls that there had been so much pomp and circumstance surrounding their first visit to Alcamoth that getting Nikol comfortable around Melia had taken quite some time, but she hadn’t minded, more than content to spend a few days with them and their young son.
Actually, he had never been particularly shy with Riki either. Shulk is not sure that Nikol could tell the difference between a Nopon and a stuffed animal at that age, but regardless they had become fast friends. Shulk’s eyes trace Nikol’s weapon—currently actively equipped on Nikol’s back, being adjusted on the go as Nikol fixes some loose screws on the left arm—and he wonders if that somehow came through.
Still, the juxtaposition between him being the protecting figure Nikol used to hide behind and now being the stranger in the distance hurts.
He sees so much of himself in Nikol, too. Nikol seems to have inherited his own night owl tendencies. In less busy periods of time and between battles with Moebius, Shulk will sometimes catch him sneaking out of his tent in the middle of the night and heading off towards Dunban’s house—not that Nikol knows it as that—to make use of Riki’s workshop. The interest in mechanics and engineering speaks for itself, Shulk thinks, and remembers another world where he helped Nikol craft his first machine, a small trap for catching bunnits. When he was a little older—eight or so, maybe—Shulk had begun bringing him to the lab, and things had taken off from there. Seeing Nikol as he is now, in Colony 9 that is the one he grew up in but not, working in Dunban’s house is so close to being right and yet completely wrong at the same time.
There’s a night in which Shulk is awake, sitting outside by their campfire plotting designs for a more efficient ether furnace, when Nikol creeps out of his tent again and then stops dead in his tracks when he realizes someone else is actually awake and outside this time.
“O-oh—sorry for, um, disturbing you, Shulk—”
Something about Nikol calling him “Shulk” instead of “Dad” picks at a string somewhere inside, but Shulk tries his best to ignore it. He waves a hand. “No, no, it’s fine. I was up anyway. What are you doing awake?”
Nikol glances to the side and wrings his hands, an expression Shulk knew he would make. (He’s seen that expression too many times before, in almost this exact scenario, a world away.) “I...I couldn’t sleep. Sometimes it helps me to do work.”
Shulk’s expression softens a bit. He sets down the ether furnace blueprints. “I couldn’t sleep either, actually. Do you mind if I come with?”
Nikol briefly looks somewhere between surprised and bashful (also an expression Shulk is used to seeing for reasons he’ll never be able to actually express to him), but then nods, adjusting the hold of his weapon on his back.
Dunban’s house is something of a sore spot for Shulk. He’s glad it still stands, but the state it’s in is nothing like it was pre-Aionios, well lived-in and yet meticulously cared for by Dunban and Fiora. The top room, while accessible, is falling apart, the ceiling collapsing in on itself. All the furniture has long since been moved out—it feels empty without Dunban’s bed, without Fiora’s constantly-stocked kitchen. In some ways, though, it’s still easier to get around than many of the decaying buildings in Colony 9, having been adapted for Dunban’s lame right arm over time. The irony of Shulk having those same struggles years down the line is not lost on him. Nikol, as always, is unaware of this. To him Dunban’s house has only ever been Riki’s workshop, located in the former house of someone Shulk used to know, even though in another life this was the warm and welcoming home of his favorite Uncle Dunban.
Watching Nikol take a seat and start getting his supplies ready, Shulk bites his lip and decides to try his luck.
“So,” he says, taking a seat beside him, “how has life... been for you?”
“What do you mean?”
“Your experience as a soldier, I mean,” Shulk says. “Things weren’t... like this in the world I come from.”
“Um...” Nikol pauses, fidgeting with a bolt. “Not great? I don’t like it like Glimmer does—did, I guess.”
Glimmer is definitely feistier than Nikol is, that’s for sure. A had recounted to Shulk the story of them and Matthew leaving to find dinner, only to find Glimmer and Nikol fighting again. Shulk can believe it, especially considering Glimmer ratting them out to a Moebius under the belief it would let her return to Agnus and finally reach her Homecoming. Nikol doesn’t quite seem to have the drive to kill that Glimmer once had.
“I can see that. It seems like such a brutal way to live.”
“It is,” Nikol says quietly. “I hate fighting. I’m glad that I don’t have to do it anymore.”
“I’m also glad about that,” Shulk echoes. He sits back a little bit, closes his eyes. The big question of Nikol’s Homecoming still looms over them; he doesn’t want to bring it up, but knows he has to.
He eyes Nikol’s term mark, makes another guess at how long he’s got left—a year, maybe two. Far enough off that it’s something Nikol must have thought about before he was liberated from his Flame Clock. Shulk clears his throat, forces the rising feeling of desperation down, ignores the weight pressing heavier and heavier on his chest. “What about your Homecoming?”
For a moment, the silence is deafening. For a moment, Shulk thinks he must have touched a nerve, struck like lightning somewhere Nikol has been trying to avoid thinking about. For a moment, Shulk wonders if maybe Nikol is aware of all the years stolen from him after all, if he has questioned this ten year cycle of life and death he has been forced into. For a moment, Shulk is convinced Nikol must know that there’s more to life than this.
Then, Nikol shrugs. “I didn’t think I’d make it, honestly,” he says, and it’s so nonchalant it catches Shulk off guard.
“To Homecoming?” Shulk says slowly, processing the implications. He feels a bit like throwing up. Nikol is seemingly unbothered.
“Yeah,” Nikol responds, not even looking up. “I mean, I’m so weak. I can’t even summon a Blade. I got bullied all the time for it. I figured I would die eventually.” He turns to Shulk, about to ask a question regarding whatever he’s tweaking, and then immediately looks somewhere between shocked and guilty. “I-I’m sorry, sir. Did I say something wrong?”
Shulk’s hand makes its way up to his face, and when his fingers pull away from his cheek their tips are wet with tears. He hadn’t realized he’d started crying. He sniffs, tries to pull himself together.
“No, no, it’s okay. I asked.” It escapes from his mouth before he’s able to stop himself, before he’s able to reconsider that maybe this isn’t something Nikol needs to hear: “There’s more to life than this, you know.”
Nikol pauses, sets down his tools. It’s the first time all night Shulk has seen him this pensive, this hesitant in himself (not that Nikol isn’t like that a lot of the time). Tears line his eyes, but he doesn’t blink them away, so they spill down his cheeks; the fatherly urge to hold him and wipe his tears surges so hard in Shulk’s body he can taste it at the back of his throat, acrid and sweet and devastating all at once.
“I know,” Nikol says, his voice breaking. Shulk can hear the child he once knew, behind the newfound depth of his voice, within the lilting, awkward tones. His heart aches for him. “Colony 9 showed me that. I would give anything to be Linka or Panacea and have a whole life ahead of me. But I don’t have that.”
You could, Shulk wants to say. You should. In another world you do. In another world you have a loving mother and father and no need for weapons or violence. In another world you’re happy.
Instead, he says: “I know. I’m sorry.”
And with that, Nikol breaks. The tears rolling down his cheeks devolve into sobs, and he raises his hands to cover his face (something that guts Shulk even more—he’s so familiar with that action, something he’s seen Nikol do for as long as Nikol could process that he was crying, and he can never explain that), palming at his eyes, breath catching on itself. Shulk, heart breaking, hesitates for a moment and then, very cautiously, tries something: he leans over and wraps his arms around Nikol, running a hand gently between Nikol’s shoulderblades the way he used to when Nikol was young, a lifetime ago, a world ago. Nikol collapses into him, throwing his arms around Shulk’s shoulders, sobbing into the crook of his neck, and it pierces Shulk’s soul. How many times has he done this? How many times did Nikol cry on him like this? How many times did he and Fiora sit there to comfort him, let him get it all out, help him pick up the pieces afterwards? How long has it been?
“I know,” Shulk says again, voice softer. His hand moves up to the back of Nikol’s head, gently tousling Nikol’s hair, warm like Fiora’s. “I know. It’s not fair.” He feels Nikol’s chest heave a little bit. “I’m here,” he says. “I’m here.”
They sit like that for a moment, just until Nikol recomposes himself, but Shulk doesn’t mind—there are only so many fleeting moments like this, in this world.
“Sorry,” Nikol says when he finally pulls away, sniffling.
Shulk squeezes his shoulder affectionately. “It’s okay. Don’t worry about it.”
“No, really,” Nikol says, frowning a bit as he wipes at one of his eyes. “That was probably a bit weird. I’m sorry about that.”
“Nikol, I promise it’s alright,” Shulk says. “Really. Don’t worry about it.”
Nikol looks back up at him, eyes still tinged red with tears, and Shulk can feel a moment of understanding pass between the two of them. They’re still connected, through all this time and through another world. Nikol will always be his son, even if he doesn’t know it. They can still have moments like this. Things will be alright.
“...okay,” Nikol says after a moment of hesitation. He offers Shulk that small smile that looks so much like Fiora’s. “Thank you, Shulk.”
“Of course, Nikol.” With that, Shulk gets up and stretches, the tiredness setting in; Nikol blinks and yawns, and Shulk can tell that Nikol—his son—is feeling it as well. “The two of us should probably head off and get some rest. This calm isn’t going to last forever.”
“You’re right,” Nikol says, putting his tools away. Shulk helps him, and afterwards they walk back to their camp in a comfortable silence, the moonlight painting a convincing picture of what Shulk once knew across Colony 9. Like this, with Nikol, in the middle of the night, things seem almost normal.
“Goodnight, Nikol. Get some rest. Let me know if you need anything.”
“I will.” Nikol yawns again, but seems to be in a better mood than earlier. “Thank you again, Shulk.”
“Of course.” Shulk smiles at him and returns to his own tent, falling into a more peaceful sleep than he’s had in a long time.
If later, when Shulk and Rex and A give themselves up, become new avatars for Aionios, A and Rex can feel some modicum of comfort radiating off of him, they don’t say anything about it. Rex certainly knows, after all, and A knows enough to let them break the rules a little bit. If Nikol doesn’t understand, that’s alright. If Shulk has to wait for however long across the universe, waiting until someone can break open Origin and set things right to the way they’re supposed to be, that’s alright, too. Someone will do it. He’ll see Fiora again, he’ll see their friends again. He’ll see Nikol again. But before then, he’ll make sure that this Nikol—still his son, even through time and space—has the life he deserves, another many decades of life free of the burdens of the Flame Clock, free of the wretched cycle that Moebius has put them into.
“We’ll be waiting. At the far edge of time,” Shulk says, and he knows in his heart he will see Nikol again, a world away, in a better time and a better place, unbound by the cycles of Aionios, on the leg of the Bionis that they call home.