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As the helicopter flew away, Andy stayed on her knees, feeling like she could’ve stayed right there for years, now that her immortality was back. Only one voice in the entire world was capable of pulling her out of that state.
“Andromache.”
When Quynh called her name, Andy reacted with pure instinct. Following Quynh’s voice still came to her as easily as breathing, even after such a painfully long separation.
“Quynh,” Andy said her name, jumped to her feet, and ran toward her.
For some time, Andy had stopped speaking Quynh’s name. Voluntarily, for some time. Because it brought her too much pain. Then, because she simply didn’t get enough chances to talk about her. She had worked hard to encourage the legends about her around the world, to remember her with Joe and Nicky, to tell Booker about her, but it was never enough, and no one wanted to listen for as long as Andy wanted to talk about her. Now that Quynh was back, Andy was delighted to get to say her name so often, even if her own voice carried it with many different conflicting emotions.
Quynh was waiting for her by the door that led back inside the building. She looked pale, her clothes were drenched in blood, and she clutched her abdomen carefully. Andy’s heart broke with the sight. But even Andy, in the most pessimistic corners of her heart, refused to believe that such bad luck and cruel fate existed to take Quynh away from her so soon after just getting her back. Quynh could be mortal, but there was no way in hell that Andy would let her die any time soon.
“I’m sorry,” Quynh said, much softer now.
She wasn’t looking at Andy, though. Her eyes were still focused on the now-empty sky above them, the horizon where their family disappeared. The full meaning of her words was crystal clear. Whatever her intentions had been, guilt was rapidly taking over.
“No,” Andy said as soon as she was standing in front of her. “You have nothing to apologize for.”
Andy’s iron conviction when saying those words made Quynh’s features soften. But that didn’t stop her from flinching away as soon as Andy tried to reach out for her, breaking Andy’s heart all over again.
“Please,” Andy sighed.
She put her axe away in its place on her back. Tentatively, she stepped closer to Quynh. But any additional attempt to offer her help, died on her lips when she noticed Quynh starting to lose consciousness.
“Quynh,” Andy called her name desperately. “Quynh!”
But Quynh’s eyes were closing, and her body, losing all its strength, started to slide down the wall. She would’ve ended up on the floor if Andy hadn’t reacted quickly enough to pick her up in her arms.
It was a testament to Quynh’s anger and resentment that even on the very edge of slipping out of consciousness, her body still put up a fight against Andy’s gentle hold. However, it was also a sign of all the deeper emotions hiding under the surface of all her hurt, that as soon as she passed out, her limp body somehow seemed to nestle closer to Andy. Comfortable. Finally at home.
For a second, Andy didn’t move. She stood there, the wind still blowing wildly all around them. She held Quynh in her arms and felt assaulted by a very distant memory, from the very first day they met, when Quynh was weak and given up on life in the desert. Back then, Andy had carried her back to safety, shade, and water. This time, Andy had to carry her home.
“Please,” Andy whispered, looking down at Quynh’s sleeping face. “Don’t leave me again.”
Andy crossed the empty building as fast as she could without harming Quynh. She made it all the way to Copley’s abandoned vehicle before Quynh woke up. Andy laid her down on the back of the car, and thanked her luck that Quynh wasn’t putting up a fight again.
Because Andy was still mortal when they started that mission, they were lucky to be well equipped with medical supplies for this exact kind of emergency. Andy went to lift Quynh’s shirt, but she was stopped by a first grip on her wrist.
So, Quynh was definitely awake again.
“ Please , let me help you,” Andy said. She couldn’t remember the last time she had begged as much in such a short period of time.
Quynh quietly let go of her wrist, but her silence continued to torture Andy.
The good news was that when Andy lifted Quynh’s shirt, she was surprised to see it had already been ripped, and a piece of it was wrapped tightly around Quynh’s stomach, slowing down the bleeding. Andy’s surprise must have shown on her face, because it was immediately met with a scoff from Quynh.
“I might have been dying for five hundred years,” Quynh said through gritted teeth, “But I remember how to take care of wounds.”
Andy merely nodded. Carefully, she undid the makeshift bandage. She cursed her fingers for trembling, but there was Quynh's exposed skin, the open wound, the feeling of Quynh’s piercing eyes on her… It had been centuries since Andy felt so many things at once, and to say it was overwhelming would’ve been an understatement.
“You might need a hospital,” Andy said.
She hated herself for saying it. She knew that she’d blurted those words out of fear, but she was terrified of being too emotional now, too weak to do a good enough job. The last thing she wanted was to risk Quynh’s life.
“No,” Quynh’s stern voice swiftly pulled Andy out of her moment of panic and demanded all her attention. “You’re going to do this, Andromache. You can do it.” She didn’t say that as encouragement, it was a demand.
“ Can I? ” Andy asked her.
Both of them knew Andy’s skills well enough. She could do it. The question had nothing to do with her ability to stitch up Quynh’s wound. Andy was asking for permission.
Quynh’s silence, for the time being, had to be answer enough.
Andy started working immediately. Her fingers moved more and more steadily as the seconds passed. She had been taking care of other people’s wounds during her entire and impossibly long life, but she never predicted she would ever have to do this for Quynh. Andy knew that she had to do this better and faster than she ever had before. This was, without a doubt, the most important wound she had treated in thousands and thousands of years.
Knowing herself, Andy knew that she would never be satisfied with the work she did. As she placed a final bandage over Quynh’s wound, she told herself the stitches were imperfect, she let her bleed too much, she should’ve been more gentle and saved Quynh more pain. But many times Andy had looked up at Quynh’s face, eyes closed and expression icy cold, but still awake. She hadn’t complained once throughout the whole thing. Barely a groan escaped her.
When Andy was done, though, Quynh was asleep once again. Andy could hear sirens finally approaching the place. They had to get out of there and go somewhere safe. But there was only one place in the world where Andy hoped to find some answers. She would need to call some old friends to get them from Indonesia back to South Korea, but they had nowhere else to go.
Andy carried Quynh to the passenger seat of the car, put the seatbelt on her and, after the necessary calls, started driving toward a private airport. The drive there was long, quiet, and not exactly easy, considering that Andy sincerely struggled to keep her eyes on the road instead of spending the entire time staring at Quynh. Just during a moment of rare concentration on the road ahead, she was startled by Quynh’s drowsy voice.
“How do cars work?” Quynh asked, looking and sounding still half asleep.
Hard as she tried, Andy couldn’t repress the smile on her face. It would always be painful, any reminder of everything Quynh had missed. But hearing her question was so endearing that Andy felt her chest aching.
“Honestly? I’m not entirely sure I know,” Andy answered.
Quynh hummed thoughtfully, closed her eyes again, and shifted on the seat, searching for comfort. She winced when the wound on her side made itself known, and Andy was tempted to park the car in the middle of the road just to check on her. But Quynh stayed so still and quiet that Andy thought she was already asleep again.
“Will you teach me how to drive?” Quynh asked.
Andy knew, just from a slight change in Quynh’s breathing, that she fell asleep almost immediately after asking her that question. She also knew, from the way her heart skipped a beat, that she didn’t stand a chance at coming up with an appropriate response in a timely manner. How could she? How could she be expected to put her thoughts into words when the love of her life just offered the first suggestion that she might stay by Andy’s side now?
It was such a simple question, it could’ve passed by as something trivial in any other context, and yet it took Andy’s breath away. Quynh’s question suggested they would have time together in the future. They still had time and life to enjoy together. In a flash, Andy thought of all the things she could show Quynh, all the new things she wanted to explain to her, even the ones she might have missed the opportunity to in these months since she came back. It was the most exciting thought Andy had felt in a long time, and it brought tears to her eyes.
“Of course,” she eventually replied, knowing well that Quynh was already asleep. “Anything you want.”
The rest of the drive went by without any other incidents. When Andy reached the airport, there was already a private plane waiting to take the two of them to Seoul.
Andy felt unsettingly nervous just getting out of the car and walking around to Quynh’s side to wake her up. There was a part of her that was truly terrified of opening the passenger’s door and finding the seat empty, and the memory of Quynh there to be just a cruel trick of her mind. But then again, she didn’t think that uneasy feeling had left her at all since she heard the fateful words from Booker: “ She’s out .”
So, maybe Andy wasn’t as sharp and focused as she could’ve been, but all things considered, she thought it was reasonable for her to be thoroughly shocked when she opened the passenger side’s door and was met with a knife pointing at her throat.
“Quynh!” she exclaimed, breathless due to the surprise, the thrill, and the joy of just seeing her awake.
“Oh, Andromache,” Quynh answered, and put down the knife, a gesture that Andy wasn’t taking for granted.
Andy tried, and failed, not to read too much into Quynh’s tone and decide that she sounded more relieved than disappointed.
“You had a knife?” Andy asked, not knowing where it could’ve been hidden since she had personally lifted Quynh’s shirt to treat her wound not too long ago.
“You know I always do,” Quynh answered.
And just for that sentence, she used a different language. Something so ancient that it was likely only the two of them in the whole world remembered it. Minus Discord, Andy guessed, but she also didn’t want to think about her at the moment, not when Quynh was looking at her with the closest thing to a smile that she had offered since her return.
After noticing that she had stunned Andy into silence, Quynh asked her, “Where are we?”
“Some airport,” Andy answered, and felt her confidence wavering with each sentence she added. “I thought of going back to Tuah’s house. It’s safe, it’s… There might be some answers there. We can… We can stay there, if you want.”
Of all the emotions Andy expected from Quynh at that moment, she wasn’t sure confusion was at the top of her list.
“Where else would I go?” Quynh wondered. “I told you, I am alone.” Her words, naturally, made Andy try to protest. She opened her mouth and stepped forward, but Quynh didn’t give her a chance. “Let’s just go,” she added, getting down from the car with certain difficulty due to her still aching side, and walked past Andy with her head held high.
There was one brief moment, when Andy was tempted to do something harsh. She wanted to chase after Quynh, reach out and grab her wrist, pull her back to her, and cry out, “You are not alone. You’ll never be alone again. I’m with you and I’m yours, until the end.”
But Andy stopped herself. Her shame kept her feet nailed to the ground and her hands tied to her sides. She didn’t feel like she had a right to even give herself over to Quynh. She should be so lucky to have Quynh accept her like that. But that wasn’t the case.
Something interesting happened, though, while Andy watched, brokenhearted, as Quynh walked toward the plane. Quynh walked slowly and, after a few steps, she faltered. She looked over her shoulder at Andy, and once again appeared puzzled by something.
Andy herself would have been confused by Quynh’s reaction, if they didn’t know each other so well. It took a second for her to realize it. After all, she was out of practice. But it made complete sense, that every impulse Andy felt, especially something as powerful as reaching out for Quynh, was something that Quynh, more than anyone else, could effortlessly predict from her. It was a little frightening, to realize that even her most private thoughts were suddenly not so private. But that used to be the norm for her, and damn if Andy hadn’t missed it.
Quynh turned away quickly, when she also realized what she was doing, double-checking on why Andy wasn’t doing exactly what she wanted to do, something that Quynh guessed as naturally as if it were second nature to her.
When Andy followed her, she did so with just a little bit more hope in her heart.
They entered the plane, and Andy did notice that Quynh didn’t look half as unsettled or weirded out as she expected her to be. She remembered personally taking more than a few months to get used to even the idea of flying.
Quynh was probably used to flying in Discord’s private planes. This time, the flight was a favor from a questionable friend of Andy that Nile would’ve sincerely judged as if they were back to the day they met. But Nile wasn’t with them, she was captured with the rest of their family, and the pain of that loss had Andy feeling unsteady on her feet.
The good news was that beggars couldn’t be choosers, so they were forced to sit side by side. Andy wouldn’t have called it “forced”, but Quynh’s tense and uncomfortable state told a completely different story.
Andy was desperate to find a way to make things better, to ease the tension somehow. That frantic desire only increased when take off started, and Andy was able to tell that up until that point, Quynh had been just hiding her true feelings about their means of transportation. With every passing second, she looked more scared than angry, but more nervous because of the plane than uncomfortable with Andy’s presence next to her.
“What do you think about planes?” Andy asked her softly, barely making it sound like a question.
Until that moment, Quynh had kept her face stubbornly turned away from Andy. But now that her frown was more worried than spiteful, she sighed, defeated, and accepted the offer of a distraction.
“They’re fascinating,” Quynh answered, reverting to another dead language for comfort. “And ridiculous.”
The judgmental tone pulled a fond chuckle out of Andy. It was so familiar, and she’d missed it for so long that the laughter coming out of her was excruciating. And worse than that was the coldness that followed. If the ghost of a smile briefly passed over Quynh’s lips it was promptly replaced by the coldest glare she could have possibly offered.
“Quynh,” Andy whispered.
Against her better judgment, her hand traveled to the armrest between them. She hadn’t forgotten the instinct to reach out for Quynh, but she had never known the feeling of being rejected as it happened, with Quynh flinching as if Andy’s touch burned her.
“Leave me be, Andromache,” Quynh hissed, and turned away from her, toward the window of the plane, even if it was much harder to face the dread of being so far away from the ground while actively turning her back to the only possible source of comfort and familiarity that existed to her.
Andy stayed quiet, and accepted defeat. She was devastated, but a part of her, the part of her that knew she hadn’t known joy like hearing Quynh say her name in five hundred years, stubbornly wanted to believe maybe Quynh did it on purpose then. Maybe it was a small mercy, a kind gesture, to be breaking Andy’s heart, but giving her the gift of just saying her name in Quynh’s voice.
The rest of the plane trip went by quietly and without any disturbances. For most of it, Andy was tortured by the discovery that there could even be such a thing as an uncomfortable silence between her and Quynh. But, as they neared their destination, she started to doubt, she started to wonder just how uncomfortable it was, just how much they had said in that silence, in the extremely fleeting and few but meaningful glances they exchanged every other hour.
Just a few months ago, Andy had lost her faith in everything, from humanity to her place in this world. But just as she started to regain that sense of purpose, Quynh returned to her life. Now, Andy found it impossible not to hope. To hope for forgiveness, to hope for something better, hope to find her family, and hope to never be separated from Quynh ever again. She felt like a fool, and she couldn’t avoid it. She also couldn’t help but believe it wasn’t a coincidence, the resurgence in her faith and the return of her lover.