Chapter Text
Of Monsters and Miracles
©
2020 La Reine
Du Lune
In the past tens or so years that Nile had been with Andy, Joe and Nicky, she had learned a great deal about herself as a person and the capacity of her heart. That was why shortly after their separation from Booker, she began messaging him. His betrayal of the team had ensnared her, but she’d not been part of his plan any more then the others had been part of hers. She couldn’t stop herself from reaching out, believing it down to her bones that turning your back on someone with such severe depression would only make their state worse. She may have been the youngest of the group, but she had a perspective the others didn’t. Her mother always told her to “Lead with love, baby.” So she did.
They spoke on occasion too, and given how technology continued to advance, she could ring him up anytime anywhere and see his face and know that the despair in his eyes was a little less dark as time went on. She knew the others knew about what she’d been doing but they never said anything and neither did she.
Therefore, late one night when they were on the outskirts of Athens having returned from a mission in Northern Africa, she didn’t hesitate to accept the incoming call.
“Hey Book,” she answered with a yawn. She invited him to engage a video call, but he declined it. “You there?”
“I need to talk to Joe,” came Booker’s sombre voice.
“Is everything ok?”
“Joe, please Nile. It’s an emergency.”
“Ok. Just hold on a second.” Frowning, Nile left her bedroom and descended the stairs, finding Joe and Nicky together on the sofa. Joe watched a soccer game on the television on mute while Nicky slept soundly with his head pillowed in his love’s lap. “Joe?”
He looked up at her with a fond smile. She held the phone out to him. Confused, he accepted it and put it to his ear. He heard the other man’s breathing and made a noise.
“Don’t hang up. It’s important,” came Booker’s pleading voice. “You know I wouldn’t have called you unless it was the most extreme circumstances. It is. It’s really fucking bad, Joe. I found Dr. Kozak, the one from Merrick’s lab.”
Joe felt his blood run cold. ““I remember. It’s not likely something I’ll forget. Ever.”
“I know, listen. I wasn’t looking for her. I was in Marseille, just minding my own business and I saw her. I started tailing her.”
“I’m listening.”
“She’s still working, at another research lab, for a company that’s a subsidiary of Merrick’s. You know I’ve always been up on technology, got in on the ground floor of just about anything?”
“Yes, you were always very good.”
“Their firewalls challenged even me, but once I was in I was able to back up all her data, but what I read was so out of this world that I had to get in and see for myself…” his voice trailed off and he sucked in a large, deep breath. “When Merrick had you and Nicky. When Dr. Kozak was working on you, did they… did they take semen samples?”
Joe was taken aback and felt some new emotion gnaw deep in his gut. “What?” he gasped.
“Joe, you have to see where I’m going with this.”
“I… I don’t know, we were in and out of it a lot. There were so many drugs in our system, we died many times. I have no specific memory, but maybe? I don’t know. She took a piece of everything else. Why? Why?”
“Because I have Nicky’s son with me,” Booker said after an eternally long pause.
Joe was rendered speechless and from her perch on the chair opposite them Nile saw the colour completely drain from Joe’s face and she knew something was deeply wrong.
“Can… can you say that again?” Joe looked down at the man in his lap and tried very hard not to scream into the void. The rage he felt could’ve triggered a volcanic eruption in that moment.
“As soon as I saw him, I knew. There’s no mistaking those eyes, is there? He’s just a baby Joe. They had him in a lab. He was so cold, there were tears in his eyes but he didn’t make a sound, but I could see how desperate and scared he was, and no one came to him, no one… Joe, they were…” Booker choked on a sob. It took a lot to unsettle Booker and conjure the level of emotion that was in his voice. “God, he’s just a baby, Joe. I’m taking care of him, good care of him. I promise. But I think he needs to be with you and Nicky.” There was a long stretch of silence and a lump sat in Joe’s throat and he lost his voice. “I destroyed the lab, Joe. I was thorough. There was a freezer full of embryos. I blew the damn place up. You didn’t see it on the news? She’s fucking sick, Joe, as bad as Dr. Mengele. Her notes, what she thought of these children, it was so cold. All she saw was specimens to experiment on. Those poor children.”
“Children? How many?”
“Four failed, she said, not genetically viable, she said. She let them die, or… or… she.” Booker took in a ragged breath and Joe didn’t press him further.
“Where is she?”
“I called in Copley. His people have her. I wanted to kill her, but I wasn’t my choice to make. I had her for 48 hours before I handed her off. Listening to her talk for an hour was enough. I didn’t let her speak again. Maybe I could’ve done more, got more information our of her, but I had to take care of the baby.”
“Where are you now?” Joe couldn’t properly process any rational thought, not when the magnitude of Booker’s words felt like a stake to the heart such as they did. He looked at Nile and down again at the oblivious man sleeping under his care.
“I’m outside Nice now. I packed my shit and got the hell out of town as soon as I met with Copley. He doesn’t know about the baby, I made sure of it. I told him the rest. About the experiments, the dead kids. Where are you? I can come?”
“No, Turin, meet us in Turin, at the house.”
“Ok, I’ll be there in a day. Did I do the right thing, Joe? I wanted to contact you right away, but when I saw the baby I had to act.”
Joe took a sobering breath. The implications of the whole situation were astronomical. He didn’t know what the right thing was, but he knew Booker’s heart was true when it came to children and there was no one else in the entire world Joe would’ve trusted besides the four of them in the house with Nicky’s son. “You did the right thing, Booker. I’m in your debt. We’ll see you in a day.”
Joe disengaged the call and looked directly at Nile. His face was dark and it made her nervous. “Nile, wake up Andy. We need to talk, and we need to get to Italy.” Nile nodded and moved quickly.
“Nicky?” Joe implored, giving his love a shake, “Nicolò, destati.”
***
Nicky cracked his knuckles again, testing the bones to see if they’d finally properly knit themselves back together. He knew it had been pointless to beat his hands against the stone wall outside the house in Athens, but he had no other outlet for his rage and despair other than on himself. His fists had been bloody, deformed pulps and his voice had been screamed hoarse.
Afterwards Joe had come to him, having given him space after telling him what Booker had discovered. It had been a decade since he and Joe had been in that laboratory being picked apart by the odious woman who thought they were little more than mice to be manipulated and abused for her inglorious ambitions. They’d moved on after, not giving her a second thought, not destroying Merrick’s building and everything in it. It was a grave mistake he regretted beyond measure, and now an innocent child had to bear the consequences.
He'd clutched at Joe and sobbed. He had never wanted to be a father, having discarded the notion when he’d joined the priesthood. He and Joe had cared for children over the years, when they’d found them in desperate and miserable conditions. They had helped them on to better lives, but had never kept them more than a few weeks at a time. They’d never grown attached, never formed a bond beyond being kind caretakers. He didn’t want to have to experience Booker’s insurmountable grief when they died. Now it had been thrust upon him against his will and he hadn’t any notion on how to cope with the reality of it. There was also a question that begged an answer. Who was his son’s mother?
The entire trip to Turin had been exceedingly tense and quiet. After they’d left Athens, Joe hadn’t been distant, but he’d also not touched Nicky as he usually did. He hadn’t held his hand, or leaned against him, and Nicky desperately wanted to ask him how he felt about the situation. They would talk in time, Nicky knew, but he worried this might be something that would test their millennium long bond like nothing else ever had before.
The safe house in a small village outside Turin was better than most of their hideouts. It had three bedrooms, a working kitchen and fruit trees on the property that was surrounded by a thick laurel hedge and a wrought iron fence. It was strategically perched at the top of a hill and most local folks thought it was a rich gentleman’s country escape. They paid someone in the village to be the caretaker and Joe had called ahead to ensure it was stocked up with food. As an afterthought he asked that there be supplies and food suitable for a baby. Booker hadn’t specified the child’s age, but there’d be formula and baby food and hopefully one or both would suit.
It was night when they arrived. There was already another car in the drive once they were through the gate. Booker had already arrived. Andy was out first, followed by Nile. They unloaded the trunk of the car and Joe and Nicky followed, Nicky trailing every further behind. The door opened a crack and a sliver of light escaped from within. The opened door fully as they approached. Booker put his hands to his lips indicating they should be quiet.
“He’s sleeping, finally got him down after his bath,” Booker yawned. To their eyes their errant family member looked drawn, gaunt and exhausted.
“He’s been crying up a storm, I bet,” Nile commented offhandedly.
Booker shook his head. “He doesn’t cry. I think he’s learned not to.”
Nicky’s jaw tensed. What would have had to have happened to a baby to get him to ignore his most basic instinct to cry out for food, warmth, comfort? He felt his stomach roil.
“I check on him every hour – to see if he needs changing, if he needs anything. He’s healthy, has a good weight on him. He shakes when I hold him though, like he’s scared. I don’t know what to say guys.”
“You don’t need to say anything, Book,” Andy offered as she bestowed a kiss on his cheek and moved past him into the house. Nile followed, giving his hand a squeeze as she passed and he was left looking at Joe and Nicky. A moment passed between all three and eventually Nicky broke the tension.
“Thank you,” he spoke, taking Joe’s hand in his, the first contact they’d had in hours. Joe’s face darted quickly up to Nicky’s. “I don’t know how I’ll be able to repay you for what you’ve done.”
Booker shook his head. “No need. I was a father once. You never forget it. The boy needed someone, and for whatever reason, it was me.”
Nicky hesitated to say what had transpired was destiny, but the thought crossed his mind. “You were the right man, Booker.”
“Do you want to see him? He’s sleeping, but you can see him. Or maybe not?”
“I would like to,” Joe said out of the blue, turning to Nicky bedside him. “If that’s ok with you?”
Nicky nodded. “Let’s go.”
The stopped short once they’d closed the door behind him. Nile was coming down the stairs with the boy in her arms. He was older than Nicky or Joe had expected. When Booker had said there was a baby, they expected a newborn, but held firm to Nile’s hip was a little one who looked as if he was ready to walk. He wasn’t more than a year old, but he wasn’t fragile and tiny. He’d been in Kozak’s lab for months. In the instant when Joe looked into a pair of blue-green eyes he knew as well as the moon and the stars, that the child was indeed his Nicolò’s . He couldn’t quite describe what emotions he was feeling in those first few seconds, but it was akin to love. The boy was of his Nicky, and as much as he wanted to snap Kozak’s neck, the baby was pure and innocent and deserved nothing but kindness from him.
“I couldn’t help myself,” Nile spoke. “I just wanted a peak but he was sitting up.”
“It’s ok, Nile,” Booker spoke. “He only sleeps for an hour at a time. I think she had him on some sort of schedule. He should almost be sleeping through the night at this age.”
“Motherfucker!” came Andy’s sudden curse as she returned from wherever she had been. “I fucking hate science! That lunatic!”
“Boss?” came Joe’s confused response.
She stared at the boy in Nile’s arms then levelled a dead, furious stare at the men. “Look at the shape of his ears, Nicky. Look at his nose. Hell, look at his hair!”
Until his name had been spoken, Nicky had been in a state of inertia. He had been staring at this child before him and seen himself reflected back at him from the same eyes. He felt his soul contort at the thought that they’d chosen his mother to so resemble Joe, to have given him the mop of black curly hair atop his head. It was cruel twist, but now at Andy’s words, he felt his heart nearly stop. He studied the baby, who looked at them with both curiosity and fear, and he connected Andy’s thoughts.
“No, it’s not possible,” he replied.
“Give an ambitious, immoral, malicious lady her own lab, enough money and free reign to play God, who knows what’s possible. She’s had ten years to get it right.”
“I don’t understand,” Joe spoke. He looked to Booker who was shaking his head in disbelief. “Boss?”
“Joe, he’s not just Nicky’s son. He’s yours too.”