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Nile didn’t get back up.
She dove out that window, killed Merrick in the fall, and crashed into that car, and she didn’t get back up.
Oh, she was alive, for sure. Her injuries were healing up fine during their mad dash away from Merrick’s building. Her eyes were tracking the conversation, the changes in scenery. But she wasn’t talking, she wasn’t moving.
She was like a living doll.
The plan had initially been to find a small hotel and clean up. Instead, Andy drove them back to Copley’s residence, as it was the most remote location they could think of.
For three days, the Guard waited and paced. Joe and Nicky split their time between the bedroom they’d been given and Nile’s bedside, taking the time to heal together but also to wait for their new little sister to come back to them. Once her various wounds had been treated by a very nervous Copley (only because of the gun that was aimed precariously close to his head while he helped, otherwise he would have done so without question), Andy took up post in the corner, a decently comfy chair for her to rest in and received “room service” in the form of penance brought to her diligently by Booker.
As for the Frenchman, he was all but banned from Nile’s room unless he was delivering a requested item. It was deemed that his actions had caused her injury, and thus he wasn’t allowed near her but for a moment until she could actually say something about it herself.
Which didn’t seem like it was happening.
For his part, Copley spent hours in his office, researching all the different things that could have caused Nile’s coma, the diagnoses growing more and more outlandish with every hour. He didn’t bring but a few up to the immortals, partially because he just wasn’t sure, and partially because he didn’t want to destroy any hope they may already be clinging to.
Nile continued her frozen sleep.
Over those three days, they discovered a few things. Certain musical songs seemed to make her eyes twitch behind her now closed lids. Arguing would make her freezing more pronounced, adding a new sense of sadness and darkness to her presence. The more people in the room, the better, even if they were just talking about nothing.
And then…
She blinked.
Once, twice, again. Eyes focused on Joe, who had taken over Andy’s chair for a few minutes, and was reading allowed love poems he’d written in the 1500s.
When he paused for a split second, she shifted. Just a twitch, really, but it was the most movement she’d had in three days. A wave of pain hit her from her limbs due to their lack of movement, and she flinched.
Nicky, ever the eagle eyed sniper, noticed from the door. He crossed the room in two strides and settled on the edge of the bed, taking one of her hands into his. Her eyes held his when they locked, and he gave her a gentle smile, the smile he saved for only his family, and now her as well.
After a silent conversation that they’d profected over the last 900 years, Joe moved to the door to call out to the others. Quickly, they were joined by Andy, while Copley hovered by the door, waiting for some subtle permission that he was allowed to enter. After a raised eyebrow from the patient, he was allowed to enter, and with him trailed Booker, looking as though he were a naughty dog with his tail between his legs.
Nile still welcomed with open arms.
In the days that followed, they slowly figured out what had happened to cause Nile’s waking coma, as most of the Guard had called it.
Shock.
Nile had her entire existence uprooted over the course of three traumatic days, and only after that she took her swan dive. Her brain and body desperately needed the break. She needed a reset. And so she was trapped, listening but unable to communicate, present but incapable of moving.
She had likened it to locked-in syndrome, something that she’d seen on an old episode of CSI: New York . She remembered everything that had happened around her while she was awake, and silently dozed at other points.
It had frightened her to the core. Nile had accepted that she was now different, that she wasn’t going to die anytime soon, that she wouldn’t see her family again. But being stuck had been more terrifying than anything she’d seen in the military, or anything in Merrick’s tower.
But she also spent that time listening and thinking. She used what she knew to make sure that Booker wasn’t punished with the babishment that Andy and Joe wanted, or the straight up locked in a cell for an undetermined amount of time that Nicky had been pushing for. Instead, he had a better argument. Keep him close, keep him with them, and use his talents. Supervised, but together. They could do more as a team together rather than apart. She used the same argument for Copley, and won that argument too.
A week after her swan dive, days after waking up, Nile walked out of Copley’s house with her head held high, ready to take part in her first mission with her new family.