Chapter Text
"Quynh's alive."
No one believed Booker at first - why would they? He had barely been exiled half a year before he had tracked them down and threw that sudden revelation at them.
Holed up in Berlin, the team were still adapting to their new roster; Nile slowly coming to terms with her immortality and all that it entailed, as Andy pointedly ignored her mortality. They had laid low but stuck together instead of going their separate ways, learning from mistakes made before.
Not long after they had fled England with Copley covering their tracks, Andy had woken from the deepest sleep she had had in five centuries. The first night that the dreams of Quynh drowning abruptly stopped plaguing her. She had hoped that it meant that Quynh's torture was finally over - perhaps her time had come with Andy's - together as they always should have been, right until the end.
"She's alive," Booker insisted. He stood before them, blood stained with the smell of alcohol on his breath, imploring them to believe him. "She found me in Paris, in my apartment waiting for me--"
"Why should we believe you?" Joe cut him off. He was angry, hurt, and had most definitely not let go of the betrayal that had left him watching Nicky die over and over as Dr Kozak conducted her experiments. Forgiveness was hard won from Joe when it came to hurting Nicky, and maybe not even the 100 year exile would have been enough. Bitter rage twisted his features as he placed himself slightly front of Nicky protectively. Nicky huffed at the gesture, but made no attempt to move away. "After what you have done and the lies you have told?"
"Joe--" Nile tried, but there wasn't enough history there for her to understand the vitriol in Joe's voice. Her week of acquaintanceship versus two centuries of brotherhood not even a drop in the ocean.
"I'm telling the truth!" Booker shouted, a tremor running through him. "I am trying to warn you! Quynh is alive, she's back and she's... she's... she's fucking crazy!"
Andy flinched, hard.
Booker gave her a solemn look, apologetic. "Understandably," he muttered. 500 years at the bottom of the English Channel, locked in an iron maiden to suffer endlessly drowning over and over again would be enough scramble anyone's brains. None of them could even imagine that suffering and its consequences. "She knew where I lived, what had happened, that I had been exiled. She asked me if I was mad, angry at you for throwing me away. To have been abandoned like she was."
Andy stared stone faced at the kitchen table, barely even breathing. Nicky watched her worriedly as Nile subtly moved a little closer to her in support. Not touching, just there.
"How dare you," Joe hissed. "Throwing Quynh's name around like you can claim to know her and her suffering. She was taken from us in the worst way--"
"You were the first to give up," Booker said quietly, meeting Joe's furious gaze. The room fell utterly still, the immortals barely even breathing. "You left hngh--"
Joe had a hand wrapped around Booker's throat, squeezing. "We searched for decades. Half a century almost; drowning ourselves as we scoured the seabed."
"Until the s-storm," Booker gasped out. He hadn't even tried to break Joe's grip on his throat, but took a short breath when it loosened slightly. Joe's teeth were bared, daring him to continue. "When Nicky was cast adrift and it took two years to find him again. You gave up searching for her because you almost lost Nicky. She knows."
Joe slowly released Booker and looked back at Nicky who met his eyes with a guilty expression. The storm had been violent, rending the ship in two halves with the wild currents of the English Channel throwing wreckage in all directions. Joe vividly remembered the last look that he and Nicky had shared as they were torn away from each other; how he had screamed himself hoarse as he clung to part of the ship bobbing on giant waves, desperately trying to find Nicky in the darkness.
Currents had taken them to different shores, though neither had known this. Joe and Andy had washed up together on a beach in Great Yarmouth while Nicky had somehow ended up in Dunkirk. Joe had been single-minded in his search, Andy sticking with him even as her dreams were invaded by dull thuds of bloodied fists on metal and frantic wet gasps.
By the time that they found each other again the damage had been done. Joe was the first to say that it was time to quit, to let Quynh go. Nicky had protested at first; one of their only true fights as he had left with Andy for one more expedition. But then even Nicky had acquiesced and a decade after that, Andy too had come to them and said it was time to find the next mission. They left to fight in another war and tried so very hard to lay the ghost at their backs to rest.
They had never told Booker that part of the story. As with Nile, they had explained the dreams of the woman in the coffin as the one that was lost. They couldn't keep searching forever; but they never said why they had stopped.
"She's back, Joe," Booker broke the silence. He looked to Andy who was still frozen as a statue, though her eyes flicked up to meet his. "I swear to you, she's alive. She made it back to a world very different from the one that she left, but she has adapted. And she's pissed."
"Where is she?" Andy asked, voice cracking a little.
"England."
The building was old - not as old as Nicky and Joe, but perhaps a little older than Booker. Old enough to have had many lives; a fort, a school, a hospital, a sanatorium. Until recently it had been repurposed as a research station. Outside the walls were thick stone with thin barred windows, speaking of its history. Inside, however, its guts had been stripped back and replaced with modern partitions and glass windowed laboratories; winding corridors leading through a thick maze.
It seemed an unlikely place for Quynh to end up; but Booker was certain and Copley had backed him up. Six months ago; mere weeks after the literal fall of Steven Merrick, the deserted building had suddenly started drawing from the power grid again - a corporation buried in shell companies taking ownership. Copley had been watching it for a while, concerned by the mysterious research taking place there.
He had a surveillance photo of Quynh.
Andy had cajoled her contacts for the first flight to England, Nicky arranging supplies and weapons while Nile scanned through the dossier Copley had provided them. Joe protested when it was decided that Booker would come with them, but backed down at Nicky's reassurance and settled for glaring at Booker distrustfully. The flight was long and tense, the drive to the safehouse stifling, and the mission briefing volatile.
Nothing about any of it felt right. There were too many questions that couldn't be answered by Copley's dossier and Booker's run in with Quynh. How had she come back? Why was she here with some shadowy organisation with its own veritable army? Who were they? What did they want? What did Quynh want?
Booker described Quynh as the quiet sort of crazy. On first impression she was calm, put together - not the writhing ball of trauma one would expect. But the madness was there, thrumming through her body language and revealing itself in her hate-fuelled words and dark eyes. She had sought Booker out purposely - seeking a kindred that had been left behind and abandoned? Testing them and their loyalty? Using him as bait?
"I don't like it," Joe huffed, watching as Nicky headed around to the secondary breach point, Booker close behind him. He didn't like any of it, but as they disappeared into the darkness like shadows a terrible sense of dread pooled in Joe's gut. "Booker shouldn't be with Nicky--"
"Nicky is the only one that can work with him," Andy cut him off. She checked her pistol and tugged uncomfortably at her body armour. Even after a few missions she still couldn't get used to the weight and constriction - and the painful reminder that death was now a permanent offering. "You can't see past your anger and Nile's too green. Nicky will be fine, Joe. Now I need you to focus so that the rest of us will be."
Joe gritted his teeth, sending one last look after Nicky, before giving Andy a short nod. "I'm with you boss."
"Good." Andy grunted, then glanced at Nile who was tapping at a tablet computer. "We set?"
A few taps and a muffled beep sounded from the device. Nile grinned up at them "Doors' open boss."
Andy tapped her earpiece, waiting for Booker to confirm their position. "Breach."
They moved seamlessly; Joe taking point as he led them in to the labyrinth. Nile took the rear, keeping Andy sandwiched between them protectively, ignoring her irritated huffs as they would purposely move to keep her in the more sheltered position. The first few kills were silent, a blade to the throat from behind, but soon gunfire erupted and the element of surprise was lost.
Not that it was likely that they had it in the first place.
The blueprints showed a large lab on the ground floor which was to be Nicky and Bookers' target, and a central office/living space which Joe led the two woman towards. They came for Quynh, but Copley had rightfully pointed out that research taking place and its connection to her was important as well.
Andy took down four men with clean headshots as Joe drew his scimitar and artfully switched between cutting down soldiers and filling them with lead. Nile stuck with her M27 as she picked off any that strayed out of Joe and Andy's deadly range. They swiftly cleared rooms and corridors as they made their way through the building.
In under ten minutes they made it to target, the corridor opening up into a large space that may have once been a hall with a vaulted ceiling but had since been divided into living spaces. Modern couches and chrome furniture smartly filled the space but provided no cover as they came to a pause just inside the door frame.
The arrow was a surprise.
"Motherfucker," Nile hissed as she stared at the fletched bolt protruding from under her right collar bone. Andy blanched as she recognised the arrow, automatically turning to where it had come from.
Quynh stood fearlessly by the back wall; a flawless image of beauty and strength. She wore red, which had always been her favourite colour, dark hair spilling over her shoulders and painted lips quirked in an imitation of a smile. She slowly lowered her bow as Nile yanked the arrow shaft from her chest. "Huh," Quynh said. "You're new."
"Quynh," Andy breathed, her gun lowering almost without her consent.
Her smile almost became real as Quynh met Andy's eyes. "Andromache."
Cold eyes turned to Joe. "Yusuf."
"Nile," Nile muttered quietly.