Before the escape

"You saved me"

There didn't seem to be any signs of recognition or surprise in her voice. Those three words sounded more like a simple statment that maybe would have been more incisive if she had added another detail: again.

The man didn't answer; he simply looked at her, from his chair, pacing back and forth in the room with a thoughtful look. Who knew what she was thinking? The suffered humiliations, the courage and the shrewdness to make it out alive, the project of the imminent escape, the love for her children and for that nation she was leaving behind… Nostradamus could try to guess all of this meeting her fleeting eyes, but he would have never known where the truth was and after all his gift had never been the one to read other people's mind.

The signs of the psychological torture of these days – and maybe of an entire life – were not too much hidden in her tired face and in the still so regal aspect of the queen; those of the physical torture instead were all on her most loyal friend. That mysterious man, considered by most people as a devil, would have done anything for his country and possibly more than that for his lady; the fact that those two entities represented two coincident realities and at the same time lately almost antithetic, was his ruin.

"Will I succeed in my mission?"

Catherine stopped suddenly and that look on her face turned into an almost pleading one, was staring at him waiting for an answer. But the seer didn't have an answer. He didn't see her travel in his visions, he didn't see any signs that could suggest an Italian setting, but yet he didn't see her decapitation: he couldn't see anything of all of this big matter and if that was good or bad he couldn't tell with certainty. Certainty, that was exactly what he couldn't give to her, this time more than ever and he would have not even tried, because he knew that he wasn't good at lying, she had been the one to tell him that. He sighed subtly and silently invited her to come closer, an invitation that she took immediately, letting her little hands slip into his bigger and stronger ones.

"Do you trust me?" he asked with that harsh and deep voice of him.

The shadow of a cursory and bitter smile appeared on the woman's lips at that question; she never trusted anyone, she learnt not to. And yet, it wasn't long before she replied and the reply was so sincere that it almost sounded disarming to her own ears.

"Of course I do"

Nostradamus looked slightly amazed by her belief, but just nodded and closed his eyes for a moment, letting the memories of his prophecies surface again. Blood, a lot of blood, destructions, dead, dead kings… But among these events, she was there, beautiful and determined as always and with a certain crown on her head.

"I don't see the future clearly… But I know you will be fine"

That confession had quite little of a revelation but it had the effect of a balm to her. If she had normally used the sharp weapon of a cruel irony to underline the uselessness of his vagueness, now she was silent to appreciate its echo, because she didn't need the seer now, she wanted the friend.

"Thank you" she murmured with a sincere smile.

And Catherine De Medici never thanked, she never smiled – at least not like that.

Slowly, she untied her hands from that grip and place them with slight hesitation on the man's face, making their dark eyes meet again, this time closer. It was the moment of goodbye, they both knew that and suddenly the pain of leaving her loved ones was becoming also the pain of leaving him. In all those years, he never abandoned her and no subject ever revealed more loyal or valiant than him: a privilege that maybe only a few Queen could have been proud of.

"Goodbye, dear old friend"

A sweet caress, symptom of an unexpected sweetness, accompanied that formula of farewell and more unexpected appeared the kiss, long and tender, that put a last seam to the endless thin thread that linked them since ever and that would have continued on linking them even at kilometers and kilometers of distance. Nostradamus simply held her in that short space of time and at the contact with those lips, undeniably so long desired, an image formed in his mind.

He didn't see anything, but he felt that the future – his at least – was about to change radically.

And finally in that thin border between visions and imagination, he perceived something of Italy. An Italy that Catherine would have reached safe and sound… With him.

Hi! This is the first story I write for Reign. I started watching it very recently and I fell in love with this pairing (Nostrine? Cathamus?) since their first scene together... I noticed that there are no fanfictions about them yet, so here I am :) I hope there is out there someone who ships them too LoL

I really would like to know what you think! ;)