[ After their escape from Merrick Pharmaceuticals, they need to find a secure location to lay low and for Andy to get patched up again, her stitches torn open and gunshot bleeding anew. As they drive away from the wailing sirens converging on the building in central London, Nile gets Copley on the phone and demands his assistance: the man, to his credit, delivers. He gives them the address of a recently abandoned CIA safe house in the city and meets them there to unlock the door — a sparsely furnished second floor apartment with blackout curtains and empty kitchen cupboards, it's the nicest hideout they've had in days. They wash the blood from their skin and hair; Joe and Nicky change into the spare clothes Copley brought from his own wardrobe and duck out for supplies; Nile and Booker remain behind with Andy the younger woman tasked with keeping an eye on the older man, although they all seem to have reached the unspoken understanding that it isn't necessary.
God, Andy is exhausted. She thought she knew what it felt like, but with her immortality gone, the ache settles deep. Nile had warned her barely hours ago: Wait 'til tomorrow. It isn't tomorrow yet, but when it comes, she'll be grateful for the painkillers taking the edge off. But whatever physical pain she's in is no match for the twisting in her gut; and as there's no dulling the feeling of betrayal, there's no dulling whatever Booker must be consumed by now. Shame, perhaps. Guilt. Andy can only imagine.
Although the drive had been mostly in silence, Joe's anger in the lab had only smouldered rather than been diminished entirely and he'd been the first to demand satisfaction the moment they were behind closed doors. And just like before, Nicky had tempered his steel. Not the time. Not the place. Andy first. So they went. But the silence from the car sits heavy in the air, and when Copley leaves to surveil the aftermath of what transpired at Merrick and the two men return, it's still there. Nicky tends to Andy's unhealed injuries, Joe cooks and Nile helps, restless but more certain of her place on their team now. Over dinner, Andy lays all their thoughts to rest with a firm decision on the matter of Booker: Tomorrow. We'll discuss it tomorrow.
Later that night, they try to get some rest. Nicky, Joe, and Nile in one bedroom and Booker with Andy in the other — her choice, and one made freely. It may be complicated but after living for millennia, one learns to leave behind pettiness. But despite how battered she feels inside and out, she only manages a few scant hours of sleep, either from force of habit or a mind too restless for unconsciousness. She drifts awake in the middle of the night with her muscles throbbing, her mouth dry. She's thirsty.
But when she tries to get up for the kitchen, her body screams in protest. Mortality and the fragility that comes with it are easy to forget after so long. Sitting up in bed, something so simple, is an action she never realised she'd taken for granted; but with a gunshot to the gut flaring white-hot, the effort to do so is almost herculean. ]
Fuck, [ she groans through grit teeth, the expletive a reflex as she sags back against the bare mattress. Guess she has to relearn what living, really living, feels like. Every bit of it. She glances to see if she's woken Booker; or, in fact, if was even asleep at all. ]
[ With the adrenaline of the fight passed, the temporary truce they'd all silently agreed upon at the lab begins to dissolve almost immediately. By the time they all make it through the doors of the CIA safehouse, the weight of what Booker had done, what could have happened had Nile really gone home to her family, settles over the group like a dark cloud and like an impossibly sharp and heavy blade in Booker's gut. So he keeps to himself as much as possible, doesn't say a word, obeys an order, answers a question when asked, but doesn't volunteer much else.
If it hadn't been painfully clear what his betrayal had cost them all before, it's clear now. He hates the feeling of it, of what he'd done to his family, but most of all he hates himself for thinking, for considering that it had been the right thing to do at all.
We fight for what we think is right, Nicky had said. But was that really what Booker had thinking when he gave themselves up to Copley and Merrick? He should have trusted Andy, he should have trusted what he'd seen of Merrick, he should have known the second that goddamned grenade hit him square in the chest, that this had been a bad plan. But Copley had been so genuine, and he liked the man despite his betrayal of them. His grief, so raw and honest, was a reflection of Booker's own, and no amount of time had dulled the pain of it. If anything, it only spurred him on like sharp pinpricks, driving him to do what he thought was right. But at what cost?
In the quiet of the evening, once they've all retired for the night, Booker settles into his side of the room shared with Andy, and doesn't sleep. Tomorrow, Andy had said. Tomorrow they would decide his fate and it roils something awful and afraid in his chest. They couldn't kill him, sure, but there are some things worse than death and for a team of trained immortal assassins, they knew those things like old friends. He keeps his eyes closed, but he's always been something of a light sleeper and most of his dreams had never been comforting to cling to anyway. So when Andy shifts in her sleep, Booker is already conscious, and when she swears into the darkness, he's fully awake.
The word 'boss' lingers on his tongue, but he says instead, ] Andy — [ and straightens out of his huddled position on the makeshift mattress on the floor made up of a couple loose rolls of foam and a bedsheet to look in her direction. ] — are you all right?
[ Good intentions die slow deaths, isn't that the saying? But in their line of work, death is often quick and brutal, and betrayal can gut a man as well as any blade. Copley and Booker might have meant well, or at the very least believed what they were doing was right — but belief is powerful and underestimating it, or its sway, is a risky game. Andy knows what it feels like to have belief torn from you, to lose that driving force and to wander aimlessly in search for something like it, desperate to fill the void with whatever burns like it. (For her, she hadn't even realised the fire had burnt down to embers over the decades, stoked back to life once in a while by Joe or Nicky, reignited now by Nile, although the flame still burns low in the wake of so much pain.) Can she blame Booker for chasing — whatever it was he was chasing?
She doesn't know. And perhaps between now and tomorrow's discussion, she'll find some kind of answer. It won't satisfy them all. That would be impossible. But her life is no longer what it was, so perhaps she's the only one who may need that kind of closure. Perhaps that's why she couldn't sleep deeply or for very long. Questions toss and turn where she physically cannot.
Booker's voice cuts through the haze of pain, no longer dulled by the pills she took after dinner. Her watering eyes turn towards the ceiling in lieu of the laugh caught in her chest (she knows she'll regret it if she lets it loose). Are you all right? Are any of them all right after everything? ]
I'm fine, [ she grunts instead, draping the back of her hand against her forehead and curling it into a fist, like she can focus everything she's feeling into that one point. Her eyes close, she takes a careful, steadying breath. Waits for the pain to abate. With more ease: ] Just thirsty. [ That's the simplest answer, isn't it? ] Got up too fast.
[ Booker is up anyway, spine cracking with the movement as he pushes himself to sit atop the thin piece of foam. Immortal or not, the body does what the body does and it feels good to unbend for a moment anyway.
He peers over to the other mattress, studying Andy in the dark, only the barest outline of her silhouette visible with the street lights outside filtering a dim glow through the blinds. He can make out the movement, can hear the way the mattress slowly sags and shifts when she hitches her breath from the pain. Something in his chest stings too, almost as though he could take her pain and absorb it into himself. But it does nothing. It doesn't take away what she feels and how badly she feels it. He hates that she can feel it all and that it isn't healing. He hates that these hours with her in this dark, shitty room might be their last together depending on what the group decides later today. That part, the mortality ... it isn't his fault and he knows that. But he can't help but blame himself, somehow, for it anyway. ]
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God, Andy is exhausted. She thought she knew what it felt like, but with her immortality gone, the ache settles deep. Nile had warned her barely hours ago: Wait 'til tomorrow. It isn't tomorrow yet, but when it comes, she'll be grateful for the painkillers taking the edge off. But whatever physical pain she's in is no match for the twisting in her gut; and as there's no dulling the feeling of betrayal, there's no dulling whatever Booker must be consumed by now. Shame, perhaps. Guilt. Andy can only imagine.
Although the drive had been mostly in silence, Joe's anger in the lab had only smouldered rather than been diminished entirely and he'd been the first to demand satisfaction the moment they were behind closed doors. And just like before, Nicky had tempered his steel. Not the time. Not the place. Andy first. So they went. But the silence from the car sits heavy in the air, and when Copley leaves to surveil the aftermath of what transpired at Merrick and the two men return, it's still there. Nicky tends to Andy's unhealed injuries, Joe cooks and Nile helps, restless but more certain of her place on their team now. Over dinner, Andy lays all their thoughts to rest with a firm decision on the matter of Booker: Tomorrow. We'll discuss it tomorrow.
Later that night, they try to get some rest. Nicky, Joe, and Nile in one bedroom and Booker with Andy in the other — her choice, and one made freely. It may be complicated but after living for millennia, one learns to leave behind pettiness. But despite how battered she feels inside and out, she only manages a few scant hours of sleep, either from force of habit or a mind too restless for unconsciousness. She drifts awake in the middle of the night with her muscles throbbing, her mouth dry. She's thirsty.
But when she tries to get up for the kitchen, her body screams in protest. Mortality and the fragility that comes with it are easy to forget after so long. Sitting up in bed, something so simple, is an action she never realised she'd taken for granted; but with a gunshot to the gut flaring white-hot, the effort to do so is almost herculean. ]
Fuck, [ she groans through grit teeth, the expletive a reflex as she sags back against the bare mattress. Guess she has to relearn what living, really living, feels like. Every bit of it. She glances to see if she's woken Booker; or, in fact, if was even asleep at all. ]
god i love this so much
If it hadn't been painfully clear what his betrayal had cost them all before, it's clear now. He hates the feeling of it, of what he'd done to his family, but most of all he hates himself for thinking, for considering that it had been the right thing to do at all.
We fight for what we think is right, Nicky had said. But was that really what Booker had thinking when he gave themselves up to Copley and Merrick? He should have trusted Andy, he should have trusted what he'd seen of Merrick, he should have known the second that goddamned grenade hit him square in the chest, that this had been a bad plan. But Copley had been so genuine, and he liked the man despite his betrayal of them. His grief, so raw and honest, was a reflection of Booker's own, and no amount of time had dulled the pain of it. If anything, it only spurred him on like sharp pinpricks, driving him to do what he thought was right. But at what cost?
In the quiet of the evening, once they've all retired for the night, Booker settles into his side of the room shared with Andy, and doesn't sleep. Tomorrow, Andy had said. Tomorrow they would decide his fate and it roils something awful and afraid in his chest. They couldn't kill him, sure, but there are some things worse than death and for a team of trained immortal assassins, they knew those things like old friends. He keeps his eyes closed, but he's always been something of a light sleeper and most of his dreams had never been comforting to cling to anyway. So when Andy shifts in her sleep, Booker is already conscious, and when she swears into the darkness, he's fully awake.
The word 'boss' lingers on his tongue, but he says instead, ] Andy — [ and straightens out of his huddled position on the makeshift mattress on the floor made up of a couple loose rolls of foam and a bedsheet to look in her direction. ] — are you all right?
crawls back in years later
She doesn't know. And perhaps between now and tomorrow's discussion, she'll find some kind of answer. It won't satisfy them all. That would be impossible. But her life is no longer what it was, so perhaps she's the only one who may need that kind of closure. Perhaps that's why she couldn't sleep deeply or for very long. Questions toss and turn where she physically cannot.
Booker's voice cuts through the haze of pain, no longer dulled by the pills she took after dinner. Her watering eyes turn towards the ceiling in lieu of the laugh caught in her chest (she knows she'll regret it if she lets it loose). Are you all right? Are any of them all right after everything? ]
I'm fine, [ she grunts instead, draping the back of her hand against her forehead and curling it into a fist, like she can focus everything she's feeling into that one point. Her eyes close, she takes a careful, steadying breath. Waits for the pain to abate. With more ease: ] Just thirsty. [ That's the simplest answer, isn't it? ] Got up too fast.
lmao same hat tho
He peers over to the other mattress, studying Andy in the dark, only the barest outline of her silhouette visible with the street lights outside filtering a dim glow through the blinds. He can make out the movement, can hear the way the mattress slowly sags and shifts when she hitches her breath from the pain. Something in his chest stings too, almost as though he could take her pain and absorb it into himself. But it does nothing. It doesn't take away what she feels and how badly she feels it. He hates that she can feel it all and that it isn't healing. He hates that these hours with her in this dark, shitty room might be their last together depending on what the group decides later today. That part, the mortality ... it isn't his fault and he knows that. But he can't help but blame himself, somehow, for it anyway. ]
Let me grab some water for you.
[ Honestly, it's the least he can do. ]