Chapter Text
The first time Andy assumed she was simply seeing things.
Her sudden mortality had done nothing but narrow her focus. The weeks at sea whittled it down even further. Add in her proximity to Nile’s dreams, Nile’s ready and open honesty about them, and Andy’s thoughts were on endless rotation: Quynh and Quynh and Quynh.
The first time she was sitting at an outdoor table at a café on a grey English afternoon, drinking a glass of wine with Nile and Nicky and Joe, just before Nicky and Joe left England for the second time in less than six months. They’d cut their thousandth honeymoon trip short and returned from Malta, returned to Andy’s side. They met Andy and Nile on the docks in Plymouth.
“Congratulations on staying dry,” Joe said as he pulled Andy into a tight hug. Once released, he shoved his hands into his pockets, shrugged beneath the thick fabric of his sweatshirt. “So she’s out?”
“She’s out,” Andy agreed, and though Quynh hadn’t been found, though she was still out there somewhere, still suffering, still drowning, she couldn’t help but smile at this new promise. Eventually Quynh would reach some shore, and then Quynh would dream. She would see Andy through Nile’s eyes. She would see Andy waiting here, in the very place where they were once torn apart.
Andy sipped her wine, pressed her fingers into the condensation that had gathered on outside of the glass.
Joe was saying something, something about Copley, about Malta, maybe something about finding a new mission, something to get Andy’s mind onto other things while they waited. Truth be told, no one wanted her on a mission with them now. Truth be told, they wanted her in an office with Copley, running things behind the scenes. She was too fragile, too temporary. She should hang up her labrys, stay out of danger. She should concentrate on this theoretical mission from afar instead of thinking about other things. That was the answer Joe had for her, that was his answer to a heart that had been broken for centuries.
None of it mattered.
One second the conversation was there, skimming at her thoughts, just barely registering, the next it was erased entirely from Andy’s memory. She remembered she smiled at something Nile said, something supportive and biting and very Nile. Andy smiled, she looked up, and the world stopped.
Quynh was there. She was there, not far, just at the end of this narrow cobblestone street. She was there, at the corner, leaning against a building and looking at a fold-out map. She was exactly as Andy remembered her and somehow, entirely new. She was breathtaking, and Andy realized that, in fact, she was holding hers. She gasped, and jolted forward. Her wine glass tipped, spilled, shattered against the cobblestones at their feet. Down the street the breeze blew strands of Quynh’s hair across her face and Andy remembered how that hair felt brushing against her skin, slipping through her fingers. She remembered how it smelled like home when she pressed her face into it.
Andy ignored the commotion at the table, the waitress rushing to gather the sharp shards of glass. She watched, rapt, as Quynh turned the map in her hand, her mouth twisted into a deliciously focused little frown. She didn’t notice Andy. When she finally looked up, it was out toward the water, out toward the sea.
“Andy?” Nile asked--shouted--a hand on her arm. Andy looked down at Nile’s hand, fingers careful on Andy’s skin. She reached up to cover Nile’s fingers with her own.
Quynh started to walk away, toward Sutton Harbor, and Andy shook Nile off, started down the street after her.
“What is it?” Nicky asked, behind her. He was following close on her heels. When Andy reached the corner she stopped, searched for Quynh’s back, for the map in her hand. Which way had she gone? Andy rushed to the next corner, looked in every direction. No Quynh.
“Andy!” Nicky said, catching her with hands on both arms, stopping her in the street. “Talk to me. What did you see?”
She ran a hand through her hair, shook her head. She laughed.
“It’s nothing,” she said. “I didn’t see anything.”
It was nothing.
She was gone.
**
This was how it went.
A fishing boat went missing in the North Atlantic.
A month later it turned up grounded off the island of Cézembre. There was no sign of the fishermen. The boat was empty of people and fish.
That night Nile dreamt of Quynh walking the narrow streets of a European city. They assumed it had to be Saint-Malo. A mermaid taking those first steps on land, careful wondrous steps on unsteady legs, in rubber boots too large for her feet. Andy held Nile’s head in her hands, pressed her forehead to Nile’s, pressed her lips to Nile’s hairline.
“My messenger,” she said with reverence. “My oracle.”
“Oh God, stop,” Nile protested. She pushed Andy away, shrugged Andy off, but she was smiling, glowing.
She was using Quynh to distract from her own ghosts, her own yearnings, just as Joe tried to find something to distract Andy from hers. In the long afternoon hours, while Andy stared at maps, as she traced the lines of their history in an attempt to guess their future, Nile stared at the photos on her phone -- at the photos of her mother, her brother, her friends, all lost to her, all gone.
Cézembre.
Joe and Nicky left for Saint-Malo before sunrise. Before they left, Joe held her tight, kissed her cheeks. He held her out, hands firm on her shoulders.
“We’ll bring her back,” he promised, and she understood it for what it was. An apology, an understanding.
Nile paced the room, occasionally shot sharp glances toward Andy. She looked like she might rush after Joe and Nicky at any moment.
She didn’t. She stayed, but she wasn’t happy about it.
“Why aren’t we going with them?” Nile asked, incredulous. She was impatient, eager. She still didn’t understand how this worked. “Why aren’t you going after her.”
“We stay put,” Andy said. They’d learned this the hard way, back when the world was still unfamiliar, largely unmapped, when they’d had no choice but to keep moving. There was no way of knowing if you were moving toward one another or away. This, at least, was so much easier now. Now, at least, they understood how it worked.
It was nearly impossible to disappear in the world today. Andy was counting on that.
Quynh wouldn’t be able to track Andy, not directly, but if Nile was seeing Quynh in her dreams, then Quynh would soon be seeing Nile. There was no one else, no one new except Nile and Booker and --
Did they know where Booker went? Had he mentioned any plans before they’d parted ways?
“Did Booker give you his number?” Andy asked. Nile’s brow furrowed and Andy held up her hands. “I won’t tell the others if he did. She’ll dream of you and Booker. It’d help to know where he is, in case that’s the direction she goes.”
Nile shook her head, still upset at being left behind, her arms drawn tight across her chest. “No. One hundred years, like we decided.”
Shit. Okay, well, it wouldn’t matter. Quynh would look for Nile. She would look for Nile and she’d find Andy.
“You and I stay put,” Andy reiterated. “You stick to me like glue. We spend our time at identifiable landmarks. Visible landmarks.”
Nile turned this information over in her mouth, felt it with her tongue. “Is anything in Plymouth that identifiable? It’s not like--she’s been down there five hundred years, Andy. She’s not computer savvy.”
“She’s smart,” Andy countered. Smart and dangerous. Absolutely irresistible to Andy. “She’ll figure it out faster than you think. And while she does that, we keep Joe and Nicky informed on your dreams, and they’ll follow in her wake.”
“Okay,” Nile said. “Yeah, okay. I get it. Now it’s your turn to be found.”
**
The second time it happened they were on their way to the Royal Citadel. The Citadel wasn’t giving guided tours at the moment, but Copley was still trying to impress, to make sure they knew he wasn’t expendable. He pulled some strings.
It happened as they passed through a crowd of tourists waiting for a bus on the Hoe Road. Suddenly, she was there. Quynh, walking through the crowd in the opposite direction. They locked eyes and Andy’s heart stopped. She froze and turned. Those around her didn’t expect it. Someone walked right into her back. A man shoved her, cursed.
Andy ignored them all. She called out, pushed through the crowd after Quynh. Quynh didn’t stop, didn’t even slow her pace. It didn’t matter. Andy had always been faster.
She caught up with the Quynh quickly, a hand on her shoulder to stop her, to turn her around. She held her breath, her heart a hammer in her chest, a reverberation in her throat.
It wasn’t Quynh.
Frightened blue eyes stared back at her for just a moment before the woman screamed. Fuck, shit, she thought she was being mugged. On instinct, Andy threw up the hood of her jacket, tried to shield herself from the inevitable cameras. This made it worse. The woman shoved her, screamed in her face. Spit splattered onto Andy’s cheek. She held up her hands. “Sorry,” she said. “Sorry.”
Nile had made it back through the crowd and was running toward them. The woman shrieked again at the sight of the oncoming woman. She took off across the Hoe, stumbling across the grass, wobbling in her heels.
Andy pressed her fingers to her forehead until it hurt. Fuck, she was losing it. Thousands of years and now she was fucking losing it.
Nile caught her, looped her arm in Andy’s, started walking at a brisk pace.
“Let’s get out of here before someone gets a clear photo,” Nile said, admonishment thick in her voice. “How am I supposed to take you out if you’re going to accost women who don’t even look like her? Fuck, Andy.”
“I know,” Andy agreed. She adjusted her sunglasses, pushed tight over her eyes. “I know. Let’s go.”
**
She walked the perimeter of the Citadel, walked Madeira Road and stared out at the sea. She walked the streets of Plymouth well into the night, long after Nile had begged off, asleep on her feet and past ready to turn in. When Andy finally stumbled home it was on aching legs, the taste of saltwater thick on her tongue.
In the dark, everything was worse. Everyone looked like Quynh. Add a few drinks to the mix, far less than she ever used to need, and Quynh was absolutely everywhere.
She thought of little else. She slept in short bursts, awoke to thoughts of Quynh, shook Nile awake.
“Did you dream?” she asked each time Nile so much as moved, each time she twitched or rolled over in an attempt to get more comfortable. “Did you dream?”
**
They loiter on a bench near Smeaton’s Tower. Andy lost herself in the usual, the all-consuming. She stared out at the sea and remembered how it felt to drown. Nile sat beside her, one knee bouncing. She stared down at her phone, consumed by her own loss. This wasn’t the same phone that Nile had on her when Andy found her. Copley had set Nile up with a new one, with all of the old information removed except the photographs, transferred over at Nile’s request.
Occasionally Nile looked up and squinted at Andy, made sure to get a good look at her, sitting there, the lighthouse framed, big and bold, just over her shoulder. Occasionally Nile stared out at the water, toward Mount Batten.
In all honesty, Andy was not sure this would work. Nile could stare at Andy and this lighthouse all day long. Perhaps it didn’t matter. Perhaps Nile’s dreams flashed nothing but family instead, nothing but long lost friends, a life ended and a new one just begun. Andy wanted to ask her to focus but didn’t dare. Nile already did so much. Nile was allowed to mourn her losses too.
“You know, they turned on me?” Nile asked, eventually. Her back curled, head bowed over the glow of the phone screen. Her thumb swiped over the faces of two women in uniform, Nile smiling between them. “I loved those girls, I trusted them with my life. And -- look, my throat was slashed, deep,, and when I didn’t die, they went cold, turned their backs like it was nothing, like it was my fault.”
“It’s too much for most people to grasp,” Andy agreed and hoped she’d infused it with the right amount of sympathy. It was easy to sound cold, to sound like she had seen it all. Nile was still too new to understand.
Beside her Nile nodded. “When I want to punch my mom’s number into this phone, that’s what I remind myself. I remind myself of Dizzy’s cold face and Jordan’s stiff shoulders. I don’t know what I’d do if that was my mother’s face, my brother’s stiffness, if they turned their backs on me like that.”
Andy rubbed a hand across Nile’s back. She turned toward the lighthouse and watched a woman with Quynh’s dark hair and gait walk through its door.. She closed her eyes. It wasn’t her. There was no way it could be Quynh. Quynh was in France. She would find Andy when she was ready.
**
Nile dreamt of Paris. She woke up swearing, scrambled for her phone, knocked it off the table and cursed as it slid across the floor. Andy intercepted it and punched in the numbers as Nile relayed the details of her dream to a bleary Nicky on the other end. They left from Saint-Malo in pursuit.
Nile dreamt of Booker and Andy hoped they were good for each other in this moment, that they could help each other to heal. She tried to understand why Quynh made the choice to go to him instead of to her. She tried not to think about what that meant. She took Nile to the Mayflower Steps, to the Barbican, to the Plymouth Synagogue.
**
Notre-Dame de Paris was burning. They first heard the news on the Hoe in the early evening hours, people hunched over their phones, gasping and tutting at the footage. A man with a half moon of unkempt hair wiped his eyes, perhaps especially debout, moved to tears by the loss. Catholics loved their churches. The cathedral would survive. This wasn’t the first time she’d come back from the brink.
Nile pulled out her phone and found the footage immediately, the smoke rising from the cathedral’s roof. When the sun sets, they start back to their flat, Nile walking a few steps behind Andy, her nose still in her phone.
“They think it was electrical,” Nile noted. “Or maybe a cigarette, something with the renovations.”
“Maybe.” It wasn’t electrical. It might have been a cigarette. A cigarette was easy to write off.
There were echoes of Quynh all over this damn world. Plymouth was full of them. This was the spot where Andy knew the boat departed, the hill where they shared their last free kiss. This was where they hung, where they were left swinging for a full day and long into the night. That was where they huddled together, locked in the dark. They’ve been in this damn world for thousands of years. Thousands of years, together. For the last five hundred, by far the longest period of separation since finding each other, the world has been one constant reminder after another of what Andy lost, of how she’d far she’d fallen, how badly she’d failed.
Notre Dame was not the first time that small men tried to cut them down. It was not the first time and it certainly would be the last. They’d heard rumors of children living in attics, then rumors of children being kept against their will. Orphans, maybe homeless. They’d simply intended to investigate. If it turned out to be true, well, then--
There were things that hurt, even after lifetimes. There were sore spots that ached when touched. They all had bruises that didn’t go away, bruises that they ignored until pressed. At Notre Dame, several of Quynh’s bruises were pressed. Everything went wrong. They’d split up on purpose, but Andromache was caught up, flanked by priests and barred from the steps. She was escorted away and held for hours. She should have fought. She shouldn’t have tried to spare a scene, to spare their lives. In Andromache’s absence, Quynh was cornered and she fell.
And the children were all right. The children were fine, had been fine before they arrived. Andromache had millions of reasons to believe that all rumors spread were real on first introduction; they so often were. When they weren’t, it should be a relief. It usually was.
They pieced together the report of events from those congregated on the parvise. By the time they tracked her down, Quynh was buried beneath a heap of dead and awaiting burial. When the damage was extensive--a large gut wound, a missing limb, numerous broken bones, a smashed skull--it took time to come back. It took time to come back from a fall off Notre Dame.
Andromache tore her throat raw on Quynh’s name as she pushed the bodies aside. Don’t let this end like Lykon. Don’t let this be the end. She sobbed in relief when she heard Quynh shout in return. Nicky prayed aloud beside her, dumped bodies unceremoniously to the ground as he fought his way to Quynh.
“What happened to you?” Quynh gasped once she was free of the pile. “You left me, you left and I--” The smell of death clung to her skin. Andromache ignored it, pressed her lips to Quynh’s forehead, her mouth, her neck, to every inch of exposed, renewed skin.
“Never,” she said. “Leaving you would be the end of me. Never, I couldn’t.”
Quynh clung tight to Andromache, laughed at Andy’s response, her face turned away. She’d always held the belief that she needed Andromache more than Andromache needed her. When Andy first found her, Andy was standing on both feet and Quynh had surrendered to the sand. Quynh was the one perpetually lost, Andy the one who always found.
Andy could not remember the face of her mother or the sound of her sister’s voices. She could not forget the pure fear, the horror on Quynh’s face as she was pulled away from her in that cell in Plymouth. She remembered the snap of her wrists as they broke against her cuffs, as they healed and broke again, until she pulled hard enough that her hands shattered and slipped through the rings. If she closed her eyes she could still taste the blood of the men she’d murdered as she rushed to the dock. She was too late. Too fucking late.
That night Nile dreamt of bright red fire and white hot rage.
**
The third time, they were walking home after dark. There were no crowds on the street outside their flat, no milling tourists. There was no mistaking her, but Andy still doubted she was real. She reached out, her hand on Nile’s arm.
“Do you--”
“I see her,” Nile confirmed.
This time she was on Andy in seconds, fast and brutal. She shoved Nile back and Nile fell, her hands at her throat, blood on her fingers. Quynh had slit her throat and Andy still hadn’t seen the knife. Quyhn pushed Andy into the shadows of an alley, up against a wall, her forearm pressed tight to Andy’s chest. In the shadows, Quynh’s eyes were dark, her face obscured.
“Andromache,” Quynh breathed. Andy had waited centuries to hear that voice again and her heart shuddered and stopped at the sound of her name on those lips. Quynh’s hair fell forward, a curtain cutting them off from the rest of the world. It smelled sweet with soap and sharp like the ocean. She held like that for a moment, so close that Andy could taste her in the air, and then Quynh made a noise low in her throat. She kissed Andy, her body a wave crashing against the shore, her mouth all salt and bite. Andy had searched for so long, had waited so fucking long. Her legs buckled beneath Quynh’s kiss and her back slid down the wall. The cement render caught on her shirt and scraped the skin of her back. She ignored it. Her hands found Quynh, pulled Quynh down with her. Quynh folded at the knees, her arm still pressed to Andy’s chest, her mouth a miracle.
Movement to their right and Andy saw someone helping Nile to her feet, recognized his voice. Booker. She never planned to see him again and his presence rushed through her, a cascade of relief.
“My Quynh,” she said. Her mouth pressed kisses to Quynh’s salt skin with each word. “My soul, my heart, my heartbreak. I knew you’d find me.”
They were the wrong words. Quynh reared back and--Ah, there was that knife, visible in a flash of reflected streetlight and then pressed sharp against Andy’s chest. Andy pulled her hands away from Quynh, held them back up against the wall. Her chest heaved against the point of the blade and she felt its sting beneath her breast with each inhale.
“How many times should I kill you to make up for what I’ve suffered?” Quynh asked, her voice a slow scratch against Andy’s heart. “How many times should you die before you can understand?”
“I understand,” Andy said. She knew what she was now. She knew she was temporary and she knew she should be terrified. This didn’t terrify her. It felt an awful lot like coming home.
“Let’s start then,” Quynh suggested. Her voice sounded wet, like her lungs were still full of the sea, like her words could only gurgle up, bubble up through her throat.
Andy relaxed beneath Quynh’s hand. “Do it, Quynh. Do it, love.”
Behind her Nile screamed. Behind her Booker shouted. In front of her, Quynh pressed the knife to her skin.
“Ignore them. You and me.”