Chapter Text
Andy knew how she wanted to spend the time she had left.
She put Copley in charge of acquiring the ship. She liquidated assets and scrutinized each list; the tech, the sonar, the captain and the crew.
“You can have all the technology in the world,” Copley pointed out. “It’s still a needle in a haystack.”
As though this was something she had not lived, as though she might not know. She felt her hand tighten, ready to lash out, ready to strike him down. But that wouldn’t solve anything. It wouldn’t help. She stretched out her fingers, watched the tremor shake through. How they ached, how they protested, how they trembled with this new mortality.
“If it all goes well, we can be on the water next year,” Copley said, leaning over a stack of papers on his desk. He’d brought in cleaners. It hadn’t helped. Andy could still see the faded stains of her blood on his carpet.
“We’ll be on the water next month,” Nile said, her voice direct, firm. An order. Andy smiled. Nile was going to turn out just fine.
Andy looked up from her fingers to find Nile watching her. Her arms were crossed tight over her chest, but her eyes were warm, a comfort. She didn’t seem comforted by the fact that Andy was smiling.
“Next month,” Copley repeated, mouth tight on the words. He wiped sweat from his brow, pulled his cellphone from his pocket and got to work.
**
It was not what time stole. It was what it left behind. It was the things she couldn’t forget.
She’d tried. She really did try.
What else could she do?
She tried so hard to forget after the first time she failed. Decades of searching, decades spent on the unforgiving sea, each morning dawning bright with hope that this day would be the day. This day would be the day they found her, that Andromache wrenched open the coffin and pulled Quynh out of the sea and into her arms. Decades, until finally, finally, she reached the end of her meticulously curated guest list. They found every sailor on that boat, listened to every account of the coffin being pushed overboard, every report of Quynh disappearing beneath the waves.
Andy killed the ones that wouldn’t talk. The ones that spilled promises were dragged out to sea, and when the search came up empty, again and again and again, she could not find mercy in her heart. She cut them down, tossed them into the sea, hoped that Quynh would feel the change in the water and know that it was Andromache’s gift to her, know that it was vengeance paid in blood, know that it was not enough.
Day after day, Andromache failed. Day after day, the sun set and her arms were empty, her hands bare, until finally, another morning and Andromache could not go on. There was no hope to be had there.
She remembered the sky that morning, a thick mat of grey clouds that rolled toward the horizon, toward the edge of the earth. The air felt thick with salt that burned her nose and dried her throat.
Yusuf and Nicolo stood before her, the chain in their hands, the hook and the weights. Andromache turned her backs to them, stared down into the black water, not a hint of blue to be found that day. She stared until Nicolo placed a hand on her shoulder and then she pushed him back, watched him fall, watched Yusuf rush to his aid. She collapsed to her knees on the deck. Her mouth opened on a great wail that tore at her throat and yanked at her chest, a tearing hook through the heart. She punched the wood with all of her strength. She threw her ax at the mast and watched it stick with a satisfying thwunk.
“We’ll find her,” Yusuf promised, his hands still on Nicolo, pretty lies on that pretty tongue. “Time is on our side and the ocean is not growing wider.”
The hopeless romantic even then.
It was the first battle that Andromache ever truly lost, the most painful of her many million deaths.
**
Andy sat beside Nile’s bed, watched the rise and fall of Nile’s chest as she slept. She drained the rest of her whiskey, set the empty glass down carefully, quietly. She didn’t want to wake Niles. Her expression was soft, innocent, so young. Andy studied the fan of Nile’s eyelashes against her cheeks, the slack heaviness of her mouth, the gentle curl of her fingers against the pillow. She watched for every movement, every twitch, her fingers pulling at the cord around her neck as she stared in anticipation.
It had been at least a century since she’d done this, since she searched for Quyhn in their dreams.
By the time they found Booker, Quynh had been lost for two hundred and fifty years. The first time Booker mentioned his dreams, it shook Andromache to her core, left her curled in her cave for six months, her fingers clutching, twisting the pendant around her neck, tightening it hard enough to choke herself, hard enough to leave a mark. When she found the strength to stand, the resolve to try again, she ignored the helpless set of Joe’s face, the weary resignation in Nicky’s sagging shoulders.
They spent the next year back at sea, relying on Booker’s dreams to lead them to Quynh. Andy sat up nights listening to the creaking of the ship, watching Booker’s face for signs of the dreams. She studied his face, learned every detail of every expression, learned the pattern of every hair on his chin, every spot left by the sun. When his lip twitched she saw Quynh’s face. When his teeth clenched, she heard Quynh’s screams.
Nile opened her eyes, shouted when she saw Andy leaning over her. Her hand went for her gun, but Andy was smarter than that. She moved it as soon as she sat down. She couldn’t take chances. Not anymore.
“Fuck, Andy,” Nile breathed, her hand pressed to her chest, the beating of her heart almost audible in he room.
“Do you still have the dreams?” Andy asked. Nile’s brow furrowed and Andy knew how she must look. She could hear the intensity in her own voice. She knew what came next: Nicky and Joe making Nile promise never to mention the dreams again. She knew that was how it went with Booker, knew that was why the dreams suddenly stopped. There was no other reason. Booker never found Quynh. Did he still feel her drown, feel the water flooding his lungs as he slept?
“The dreams?” Nile asked, fingers rubbing at her eyes. She pulled back the covers, patted the mattress. Andy ignored the gesture. A cuddle wasn’t going to douse the fire in her gut, the rushing in her head.
“The woman in the coffin,” Andy said. She spit the words fast, unable to handle the weight of them otherwise. “Quyhn.”
“Yes,” Nile said, eyebrows low, forehead tight. “Sometimes.”
Andy sagged, her arms on the edge of the bed, her head in her hands.
Nile reached for her immediately, pulled her forward until Andy gave in, climbed into Nile’s bed without taking off her shoes.
“You need to sleep,” Nile said.
“They say insomnia can kill you."
“Not you,” Nile countered. “Not on my watch.”
Andy let herself be held, listened to the sound of Nile’s breath against the shell of her ear.
“Promise you’ll tell me if the dreams stop,” Andy said into the dark.
Nile was quiet behind her.
Andy started to twist, needed to see Nile’s face, needed to know that Nile wouldn’t hold back like Booker. Nile held her tight, pressed her chin to Andy’s shoulder.
“Promise,” Andy said again.
“I promise,” Nile whispered. “Get some rest.”