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After—because there is an after, and that's the one thing Booker didn't anticipate. When he launched in front of the arc of Nile's blade and had her slice him open, carve through flesh and tendon, when he jumped in front of Andy and closed the door behind, he didn't anticipate an after. He laid on the floor staring up at the fluorescent white lights of the nuclear facility and swore—fucking swore—he could hear his son's voice calling him home. But then, the next thing he knew, he was waking up in a facility strapped down to a table and painfully, torturously alive, and his only thought was, Ah. I've been here before.
So.
After.
After, Nile can't speak to him. She punches him in the face when she learns what he did, right in his jaw like she's trying to punch through his teeth. But after that, she won't even look at him. Andy saves the day, she kills Discord. There are hugs and tears and laughter and handshakes all around and Nile—
Nile treats him like a fucking ghost.
He should be happy, he supposes. If his plan had succeeded, his team, his family, would have had to live and move around his absence anyway. But it's… unnerving. It's unnerving how quickly she takes to pretending he doesn't exist. She looks past him, through him. Would rather go around a room and grab a book that's on the end table beside him than ask him to pass it to her. It's like he's not even there. The funny thing is, he thought the cold shoulder he got from the guys was frosty, but at least that in itself was an acknowledgement.
This is, well.
This is something else entirely.
The smell of fresh air, wildflowers, and grass hangs in the air. They drive all night through the winding back roads of rural Austria, himself at the wheel with Nile in the front seat beside him.
It's been six months since Discord.
Nile hasn't spoken to him since. Sometimes, when he can't sleep, he reaches up and touches his face where she punched him and just… feels the area. His beard is coarse beneath his fingertips, nothing at all like the soft smoothness of her skin, and the first time he touches his cheek and only finds more of himself beneath his fingers, he shaves it off.
He's been clean-shaven ever since.
There's a tarpaulin that's settled over them all, it feels like.
For weeks, it seemed like everyone, Nicky and Joe most of all, were waiting around with something like amusement, something like ah, it's your turn to be mad at him, huh, for Nile to break. But she never did. Amusement became uncertainty became awkwardness became pity became normalcy.
Now, no one expects her to talk to him.
He doesn't know why he still does.
Andy rouses when they reach the safe house. She's groggy, her eyes gummy with fatigue. She tugs Quynh out of the car with a hand on her shoulder and they shuffle inside the small cottage.
Booker makes to follow them when he realizes Nile hasn't moved.
He closes the driver side door, heart slamming in the confines of his ribcage as he waits. As far as he can tell, this is the first time she's wanted to be in his presence in four-thousand-four-hundred-eighty-nine hours. Not like he's counting.
The air is pregnant with something, as Nile sits, one hand clenched tightly into a fist in her lap, the other wrapped tightly around the oh shit handle on the door. He swallows, his throat suddenly dry.
There's a funny thing that happens when you go from being a ghost to being a human again. He imagines it's quite like coming back to life after drowning. It's all choking breath and clammy hands and desperation, painful, painful desperation, to be seen and known and acknowledged and loved and held.
He clears his throat. He can't bear the silence any longer.
"Nile—"
She holds up a hand.
He closes his mouth with a snap.
"If you ever, and I mean ever, use me to hurt yourself again, I will kill you myself." She turns to him and meets his gaze for the first time, and she's so serious about it too, her eyes like fucking fire. But all he can think is that it's been cold. He's been so cold without it. She says, "And I mean that," and the warmth of her breath feels like embers from a flame.
He says, "I know."
"Good."
She reaches for the door handle, but he's quicker. His hand clamps around her wrist. She looks back at him over a shoulder, a small, tight and irritated pout on her lips like she's not sure whether or not she wants to shake him off. Her eyebrow goes up with impatience as she waits him out.
He licks his bottom lip.
"Stop being mad at me."
It comes out sounding like a question, and he feels so extraordinarily small and vulnerable that he's almost embarrassed by it. But Nile doesn't give him an inch, doesn't soften herself or her voice, and he loves her for it, he thinks. No, he knows. He loves her for it.
"Stop being stupid and maybe I'll think about it."
He can't help it. His mouth curves up into a smile at the corner. Without his permission, his thumb strokes over the jut of her wrist, the thin skin covering her pulse.
"You don't know what it's like yet." He turns toward the windshield, toward the fireflies and moths dancing in the headlights. "I wish you won't have to learn, but. You will. And then you'll get it."
Nile slams the door shut.
"I don't care that you want to die. I care that you use me to do it. That's fucked up. You don't do that to people you love."
Booker says nothing.
They've never used that word before. The rules are convoluted in their little family. With Andy, Nicky, and Joe, the love is so real, so palpable they've never had to say it. It's been there from the first moment they fought together, died together. But it's different with Nile. All told, they've only known each other for upwards of a year, and half of that time, he was in exile. What is love between them? How is it measured?
He doesn't know. He couldn't even begin to say. But she's not wrong.
There is love there, and that's not how you treat people you love.
His throat, inexplicably, feels tight. "I'm sorry."
"You should be."
But her voice has lost some of that hard, serrated edged. Impossibly, his thumb is still stroking over her pulse. Impossibly, she hasn't pulled away.
He opens his mouth to speak but she beats him to it.
"I don't ever want to feel that again, to hear that again. That I was responsible for…" She looks at him. "I get that we're all going to die. I get it. Welcome to reality. But not because of me, and not you. Not yet. You hear me?"
His hand slides up her wrist, up the slope of her arm, the edge of her shoulder, to the curve of her neck. He feels like he's playing a game of chicken, waiting to see how far he can push before she remembers she hates him and snaps at his knuckles. But she only leans into his touch.
He realizes, suddenly, how very foolish he was.
Very fucking foolish indeed.
He clears his throat. "I hear you." It comes out as a whisper. He clears his throat again. "I hear you."
"Good."
Nile turns her head and kisses his palm. Then, she's swinging the door open, extracting herself from his grip, and leaving him behind. He stares down at his hand, certain he'll see charred flesh where her mouth used to be. But there's only skin, only his palm, pink and warm. He stares for a long time. Then he gets out of the car, and joins her in the safe house.