Chapter Text
In hindsight, Nile is almost surprised by how little Andy, Nicky, and Joe hide from her. She shouldn’t be, she knows, because if the past month has proven anything to her, it’s that this group, this family, isn’t just a family in the general, objective sense of the word. They’re her family now, a group of people she didn’t know five weeks ago but who now hold everything she understands about the world in their six hands.
But she also knows, as well as she knows they do, that finding your place in a family isn’t something as simple as flipping a switch, as shutting off the life she knew and turning on the life she’s now living, and will live for a very, very long time.
And as terrifying as it is, she knows that she cares about them, is drawn to them in a manner happening much faster than she ever would have expected, which is why when she walks past their battered Norway safehouse’s kitchen one evening and hears worry in Andy and Nicky’s voices, she doesn’t quietly disappear back into her room. She stands instead in the doorway, listening.
“When was the last time he slept?” Andy asks, her knuckles pressed to the tabletop beside Nicky’s elbow. His head rests on his own fist, and Andy’s stance should seem commanding, but with Nicky, it doesn’t.
“Three nights ago,” Nicky answers as he runs his hand over his face, nearly muffling his words. He sounds tired himself, despite the fact that he’s gone to sleep before Nile for the past three nights in question. “I know that he slept at the hotel in Malmo and for a little while on the plane. That was the last time.”
Andy curses under her breath, low and quiet but reflective more of concern than anything else. “I thought he seemed off yesterday.”
“I had hoped this time it would not last more than a day or two,” Nicky shakes his head as Nile finally steps into the kitchen, her boots echoing on the cracked tile floor.
“Why isn’t Joe sleeping?”
Andy and Nicky both look up to meet her eyes. There’s something open in their gazes that tells her that had she waited any longer, she wouldn’t have even had to ask.
Nicky nods toward the empty chair on the other side of the table, and it creaks as Nile sits.
“There was a night,” Nicky starts, “many years ago. We were all killed while Joe was asleep.” He looks at Andy, but she’s looking at Nile, and Booker’s name sits uncomfortably between them, unspoken but known nonetheless.
“It wasn’t a targeted attack,” Andy says. “Just the wrong place, wrong time.”
“It didn’t matter, of course, that we died.” Nicky’s eyes locked on Nile’s are calm, but even after only a few weeks knowing him, she’s already able to see sadness hidden somewhere within them, no matter how quick the flashes are. “Joe found us before we woke, and it has stayed with him.”
“But that was so -”
“Long ago?” Andy asks. “It was. But some things, some deaths, they stick with you longer than others.”
“Some are harder to forget,” Nicky adds, finally looking down at the table and running his finger along a crack in the wood. “When this comes back to Joe, he has trouble sleeping. Refuses to. Sometimes for days.”
It’s something Nile hadn't thought about - not that it hadn’t crossed her mind, but it hadn’t taken precedence over any of the other earth-shattering concepts she’s had to grapple with since she woke up without even the ghost of a mark on her neck. A death is a death, and waking up from it, or watching the people you love wake up from it, doesn’t erase its impact. She thinks of Joe this morning, the way he had shied away from the sunlight when Andy opened the kitchen curtains, and something in her aches.
She’s about to ask what they do, how they handle something like this, when Joe appears in the doorway, his hair still wet and slightly tangled from his shower. Andy catches Nile’s eye with a look that says that she knew what her question was going to be, so Nile simply watches and waits.
“Is it something I said?” Joe chuckles as he walks to the sink and flips on the water. His voice is light, but the strain beneath it is so evident now that Nile doesn’t know how she didn’t notice it sooner.
“Just talking about how you better not have used up all the hot water,” Andy replies, and Joe shakes his head in amusement, “again.”
“I’m not the one you need to worry about.” Joe says as he opens the cabinet above his head. “Nicky is much more particular -”
There’s a harsh, shattering sound as the glass Joe was reaching for hits the ground, taking two others down with it that slip easily past his just-noticeably trembling fingers.
Nicky is on his feet in an instant as Joe stands still and silent, staring at the glass shards scattered across the floor. It’s impossible for Nile not to notice the harsh contrast between them. There’s a consistent steadiness to the way they balance each other out whether the moment is good or bad, and right now is no different.
“Joe?” Nicky’s voice is gentle as he steps over the wreckage and takes Joe’s elbow in his hand. “Why don’t we go sit down for a while and watch TV?”
“All of us,” Andy adds, and Nile nods in agreement.
She watches as Joe keeps his eyes on the ground and then raises them to meet Nicky’s. It’s like no one exists but the two of them, and the silence between them feels so intimate that the fact that she and Andy are there almost feels like an intrusion.
“I’ll make tea,” Nile says. “What kind do you like, Joe?”
“Lemon ginger,” Nicky answers for Joe, and Nile almost laughs at Joe’s raised eyebrows behind him. “The box is in there.” He points in the general direction of the still-full grocery bags in the corner of the room.
Andy gives Nile an appreciative look as she follows Nicky and Joe out of the kitchen and towards the couch and television in the next room. The water boils faster than Nile expects for such a decrepit-looking stove, and the sounds of a soccer game filter through the small space as she fills Joe’s mug and watches the tea bag float to the top.
“Did you know,” Nicky starts as Nile enters the living room a couple minutes later, handing Joe his mug and accepting the thank you he mouths at her with a soft smile, “that Joe used to be on a team like this?”
Nile raises her eyebrows as Joe lifts his mug to his mouth and knocks his shoulder into Nicky’s. “You flatter me,” Joe says, and then turns back to Nile, who has since settled herself into a worn-out armchair. “It wasn’t a team like that, per se.” He inclines his head in the direction of the TV. “It was a smaller team, years and years before there were widespread ways to document who was on a team and who wasn’t.”
“Things were much easier before the internet,” Andy chimes in from the floor.
“My hair was shorter back then, though, so I probably would have been safe.” Joe sips his tea, looking more visibly relaxed than he did a few moments ago. “Nicky wasn’t a fan.”
“That is a lie,” Nicky shakes his head. He turns to Joe, speaking softly in what sounds to Nile like Arabic, words she doesn’t yet understand but hopes she will in time. Joe nods twice, and then sets his mug down on the coffee table and moves onto his side, settling himself with his head in Nicky’s lap and the rest of his body stretched across the couch. Andy moves closer too, knocking the back of her head against Joe’s knees where they’re hovering just past the edge.
“I did like your short hair,” Nicky continues as if the conversation had never stopped. “I just prefer the curls.”
“I would love to see all the looks you’ve all had over the years,” Nile smiles from her armchair, watching as Nicky chuckles and gently runs a hand through Joe’s hair.
“Some were better than others,” Andy says, and there’s a story behind it that Nile resolves herself to get out of Andy sooner or later. “I would take a horsehair helmet over the acid-wash jeans of the 80s any day.” Nile watches as she turns to the side and rests her hand on Joe’s calf - she looks to Nicky then, and he nods before leaning slightly forward, his hand never leaving Joe’s hair.
“Will you sleep, Yusuf? For a little while, please?”
Joe sighs, deep enough that Nile sees his shoulders tremble with it. “I want to, Nicolò,” he mumbles into the top of Nicky’s thigh. “But-”
“You can sleep,” Nile cuts him off without even planning on it. The fleeting hope that she isn’t overstepping hums under her skin as she continues. “I’ll keep an eye on these two for once. I need more practice than you do.”
Nicky looks up at her. His soft expression isn’t something new, but there’s gratitude in his eyes that gives Nile the reassurance she was seeking. “See?” Nicky turns his attention back to Joe. “We are all safe here, my love. Please close your eyes.”
“I’d listen to him, Joe,” Andy adds. “My methods of getting you to sleep will not be as gentle as Nicky’s.”
“Mhm,” Joe hums. “I don’t doubt that.”
A team that Nile doesn’t know scores a goal on the screen in front of her, and commentators celebrate in a language she doesn’t recognize. It’s quiet now, aside from the stadium-wide chants on the screen and the snowy wind outside battering against the windows, and somehow, Nile would know it was dark without even opening the curtains. Nicky continues to brush through Joe’s hair, speaking softly to him every once in a while. The subtle sounds filling the small space are so peaceful that time slips away as Nile finds herself drifting closer and closer to sleep.
Andy’s voice eventually brings her back to the room. “Is he out?”
A question for Nicky, despite the fact that she’s looking at Joe.
“I think so,” Nicky whispers. His relief is nearly tangible as he tips his head back against the couch and lets out a slow breath. “You two should go get some rest too.”
“He’s like a cat,” Andy says as she stands, barely suppressing a laugh. She stretches her arms over her head, clearly feeling the effects of sitting on the floor for the past two hours. “I’m going to lie down now that he’s asleep. I’ll see you both in the morning.”
She pauses before she goes, though, running her fingertips over the side of Joe’s leg from where she stands beside the couch. When she steps around the back, she briefly rests her hand on Nicky’s shoulder, and he looks up at her with a quiet “goodnight, Andy.” She nods to Nile, and then disappears down the hall without making a sound.
“Is he going to be okay?” Nile asks over the arm of her chair.
Nicky doesn’t reply, at least not right away, and Nile notices then what has changed. Joe is lying on his back, still asleep in Nicky’s lap but with Nicky’s palm now flattened over his heart. Joe’s own arm is folded, his fingers curled loosely around Nicky’s wrist. Nicky leans forward to press his lips to Joe’s forehead and then lingers there, the two of them tangled together in such a way that the dim light from the TV makes them look like one being with two hearts that beat for each other.
Though in a way, Nile supposes, they are.
Nicky finally looks up, wincing a little as he stretches his shoulders back. “Yes,” he says. “Joe will be okay. He will sleep tomorrow night. It usually just takes one night, and then he is back to himself.”
Nile nods, watching them for a few more breaths before she flips over onto her side and pulls her knees up to her chest. “I’ll sleep here tonight too. This chair isn’t half bad, actually. And someone needs to make sure you get some sleep.”
“Thank you, Nile,” Nicky says before he’s almost cut off by a yawn. “I know that Joe appreciated you looking out for him. As did I.” He reaches for a pillow that he tucks between the back of his neck and the top of the couch, and smiles down at a noise Joe makes in his sleep. “It is difficult to see him haunted like this. But Joe knows that he is never alone. We all want you to know that it is the same for you.”
“I know,” Nile answers, “it means a lot.” The wind continues to batter the small house with gusts of snow, little wisps sneaking in between cracks in the wood here and there, but all Nile can feel is warmth. “Goodnight, Nicky.”
“Dormi bene,” Nicky whispers, his eyes already slipping closed.
With everyone else asleep, breathing steadily and softly, Nile sleeps too.