I wrote something very, very mean. I'm sorry.
Canon-divergent MCD, all hurt no comfort.
Somehow, Andy knows before Booker makes a single sound. There's some change to his face, his posture, a weakness to his hand on the keyboard of his laptop, and she knows.
He makes a noise like a wounded animal, small and piteous and full of pain, and Andy shuts her eyes. For the first time in her life, she prays. Prays that it was quick. That they didn't suffer.
That they went together.
Nile says something. Does something. Andy can hear her right at the edge of her perception, moving around the fire. Reaching for Booker maybe, who sobs like the world is crashing down around him; the way he sobbed when the first of his children died.
His tears got quieter with each one, until there was nothing left. No children, no sound.
'Andy,' Nile barks, grabbing her by the shoulders. Her hands are shaking. 'Help me!'
It's a wonder how much grief a person can bear. How different the limits are. Andy can't remember her youth. Not really. She carries her mother's axe but not the memory of her mother's face. She carries the knowledge that she grieved a sibling, but not their gender or their face.
She can't remember grief at all until Lykon left them. And then, like an unwelcome guest, grief made a home in her life. It lives in her now, filling every corner of her soul.
'Just the one?' Andy asks, opening her eyes to Nile's terrified face. Booker chokes on a sob, and then Nile knows too. Andy sees the knowledge bloom in her wide eyes.
'Both,' Booker grinds out eventually, through teeth clenched so hard around his tears that the words end up mangled and chewed. 'It's—They're—Both.'
Nile sits heavily, dropping with a thump from where she'd been crouched on her toes in front of Andy.
Her hands are still shaking. Andy watches them for a moment, and the way Nile can't seem to decide what to do with them, before she looks over the fire at Booker.
The laptop lies beside him, upside down with its screen on the cave floor and its keyboard sticking upright. Its screen is dull, but bright enough to illuminate Booker slumped beside it, collapsed in grief, hands over his face like he can hide from the whole world.
There will be time for tears later. There are things that must be done first.
'Where are they, Booker?'
'Andy—' Nile starts, looking at her in surprise. She isn't quite crying, but then again, she'd only known the boys a single night. Enough to like them, maybe. Not enough to love them.
She closes her eyes when Booker answers. Clutches at her cross and looks so terribly, awfully young that Andy's heart bleeds for her.
'London,' Booker says, his breath heavy, but mercifully free of sobs. 'They—Their—' he swallows heavily, throat jumping like he's about to vomit. 'They're in London.'
Andy has been many things in her long life, but she has never been stupid.
'Since Marrakech?'
Booker doesn't even flinch.
'Since Almaty.'
It feels like every single one of her years weighs her down as she gets to her feet. A chain so long and heavy it could circle the world wrapped around her neck; crushing her shoulders, hobbling her legs. She cuts the palm of her hand on a rough edge of the cave wall as she levers herself up, and feels it heal before she's even let go.
Maybe if pain could learn to linger in her skin it would leave her heart alone.
There are things to be done. Andy is always, always the one to do them.
'Tell me,' she says as she moves around the cave, collecting what she needs. Booker gasps wetly, but doesn't make her ask again.
'Joe—he,' there's that heavy swallow again. Andy knows it well. Joe used to jokingly duck and cover when Booker made that sound, hiding behind whoever happened to be closest to avoid what might follow a noise like that. 'He was. First.'
Andy pauses with her hands deep in the belly of a barrel, closing her eyes against the swell of grief that rises in the wake of Booker's words.
'How long?' she rasps, forcing herself to keep reaching for the money she stashed the last time she passed through this way. It doesn't really matter what his answer is. Any time was too long.
'An hour,' Booker whispers, so thick with shame it colours the air around him. 'Only an hour.'
Andy's at his side before she truly registers she's moved, her fingers twisted tight in the collar of his shirt. Booker looks at her, his eyes wet and completely clear. They heal too fast for red to build up in the white. Nicky used to kiss the tears from Joe's cheeks and claim it only made him more beautiful.
'Say that again,' she says softly, holding him up at his full seated height. 'Look at me and say that again.'
'I'm sorry,' whispers Booker through trembling lips.
'Only an hour,' Andy repeats, slowly. 'Only an hour, without him.'
When the next tear falls from Booker's eye, Andy strikes it from his face, dropping him as she does.
'Pack your shit,' she orders, leaving him where he fell. 'We're leaving in five minutes.'
There will be time enough to deal with him after.
Nile is crying now, Andy notices. Silent tears tracing heavy tracks down her cheeks.
'I can get you transport to Alaska,' Andy says, crouching beside her. 'And money to get you the rest of the way. I'll come find you when it's done.'
Nile nods, watching the fire.
In the best years of Andy's life, Quynh and Nicky used to take turns teasing and scolding her for being so quick to distrust people. So ready to see the worst in them. Joe stood up for her, singing her praises and writing odes to her heroism. Her kind heart. Her indomitable spirit.
Her kind heart lies in London, broken by an hour of grief beyond measure.
Her indomitable spirit lies at the bottom of the sea, crushed under its inescapable weight.
Her heroism did nothing for the people she loved most.
Andy helps Nile to her feet, and tucks her grief away behind her heart.
Grief is a polite squatter in her soul. It will wait patiently for her to do what needs to be done.
It has all the time in the world.
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