Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters from the Uncharted series.
The man who stands at a strange threshold,
Should be cautious before he cross it,
Glance this way and that:
Who knows beforehand what foes may sit
Awaiting him in the hall?
-The Hávamál
Chapter one.
The café wouldn´t have been his choice of a good place to meet. It was modern in the way it pretended to be old, with worn furniture from the 60s and mist-matching cups and cutlery. The entire room was filled with strollers and stay-at-home mom´s tending to their fussy children while sipping their latté and talking loudly to their friends in a language he had given up trying to decipher.
He had tried to get the waitress´ attention for several minutes, but she did not abandon her spot at the counter where she was lazily flipping away on her phone. At least she was giving him a first-class view of her cleavage. He shifted uneasily on his tiny respatex chair. Everything in this country was tiny, from his chair, the dinner servings, to his over-priced hotel room.
He was about to decide that she would never come, even though she had begged him all the way across the Atlantic for a "talk." But then a little bell above the door announced her presences. She walked with purpose through the crowd of mothers, her blonde ponytail swinging along her slender shoulders. She paused by the counter, glancing about the room until she saw him and smiled. He returned the smile and raised his hand in a silent salute and she sauntered over to his table and fell down into a chair, her purse sliding carelessly down her shoulders to floor. She took more care with her camera, as she always did, carefully putting it on the table.
"Hello Sully," she said, wiping away an errant lock of hair.
"Hello Elena," he replied.
"Thanks for coming"
"Any time, any place."
He said nothing after that, allowing Elena time to fickle with the straps on the camera bag and getting to the point. It wasn´t like her to be hesitant, but then again it wasn´t like her to call him up in the middle of the night and ask him to fly all the way to all the way to a little town in little country in Scandinavia. When the silence became unbearable, he fished up a cigar and was about to light it when he saw the vicious glare from the waitress and her painted finger pointing to the no-smoking sign.
"Damned country, there´s no place you can smoke here, " he grumbled and tucked the cigar away again with a scowl.
He was rewarded with a small smile and Elena finally finished her fumbling and folded her hands on the table.
"It´s about Nate…:" she said slowly, and Sullivan nodded along with her words.
"I guessed as much. Is he in some sort of trouble? Kidnapped? In jail? Held hostage-"
"No, no" Elena shook her head. "None of the sort, he´s…..chasing a lead."
Sullivan raised a grey eyebrow.
"I thought he had retired from treasure hunting."
From the look Elena gave him, Sullivan guessed that she had thought the same.
"So, what is it that what you two are doing here?" he said with a sweeping gesture to the café.
"Silly me", Elena said, the tiniest trace of bitterness in her voice "I thought we here for the sights and the fjords."
"Ah-ha," Sullivan said. He could already see where this conversation was going. It was one he had heard a few years before Nate and he had meet up with Talbot in London. He had always suspected he had only heard that one side of the argument that split them up, and that he was about to hear Elena´s side of the story.
"It´s just…." she said with a weary sigh and Sullivan saw that she really was tired. There were circles under her eyes were there never had been before.
"Where is Nate?" Sullivan interrupted.
"He left."
"He just left you here? In the middle of nowhere?"
Elena laughed softly.
"Oslo is hardly the middle of nowhere, Sully."
Sullivan grunted, he wasn´t quite able to agree with her assessment.
"So, where is he?"
Elena fished up her purse from the floor and dug out a yellow envelope.
"He left this" she said
Sullivan shook out the letter and slowly read it, his brows creasing with each passing line. Finally, he returned it to the envelope and slid it over the table to Elena who tucked it away without a second glance.
"I´m not sure what I can do," he said with a sigh "he´s not likely to listen to me."
"Just-try, Sully. Please" she pleaded.
Sully laughed mirthlessly "You know I can´t resist you."
Elena reached over and grabbed his hand. She gave it a soft squeeze and smiled briefly.
"Thank you."