Chapter 3: Genevieve
It's already ten at night by the time Genevieve leaves the Sensorium Children's Shelter, riding her bike back to her flat in the pouring rain. Gina had asked her to share her bed at the shelter instead of returning to her flat in the dark. But Genevieve couldn't stay with her. She knows Gina would rather be alone tonight, too. The grief is overwhelming enough without being in close proximity to the source of it all.
They'll turn twenty-five in two hours, and Gina's pain bleeds through the connection like a freshly-reopened wound.
The red walls of the Amsterdam Centraal come into view on her way back, three blocks away from her flat. She hops off her bike and scowls at the train station. Ghosts from her past glide by, unaware they were nothing more than memories in her mind.
In her mind's eye, the rain fades, leaving her standing under the sun by the front gate in a khaki green windbreaker and ripped jeans. She had drawn her hood up and pulled down the drawstrings to hide the tangle of red hair that could be spotted from a mile away. Even if no one knew it was her, the hair was still drawing unwanted attention.
Henrik had been the only one who had noticed her presence. He'd skimmed through her mind to see where she was, then tapped her on the shoulder from behind. She turned to see him winking at her, a large camping backpack slung over his shoulder and an overfilled duffle bag in hand. She was on her way to Paris—the other three members of her Cluster had already settled into the safe house—but she'd decided to buy a ticket to Amsterdam from Dublin so she could have a companion the rest of the way. Veracity had hacked all their records to say they were dead, but they could never be too careful. It was always easier to hide from the prying eyes of BPO when there were more minds and bodies at work.
"Train doesn't leave 'till five," he'd said to her. "Let's wait out here in the sun."
And now she sees Henrik in the present, standing by the racks where she'd parked her bike, rain dripping down the soft blond curls of his hair onto the white t-shirt that clings to his body. He wears a quizzical expression on his face. He looks real. Solid. Not like a ghost, but like he's here in real time, asking if she really knows what she's doing.
All Genevieve can think of, as she shrugs in response to his silent question and brushes past him, is that Henrik can't possibly be soaked from the rain.
He doesn't follow her as she makes her way into the station and stops in front of the big screen with the train schedules. She crosses her legs on the unoccupied bench and stares at the screen, at the changing times and blinking rows. Her eyes fixate on London – St. Pancras International. That train, the last of the night, leaves in half an hour.
She doesn't know what compels her to buy a ticket to London, but she knows she doesn't want to be alone tonight anymore, not when she's haunted by a memory.
The rain had caught up with her by the time she arrives in London. Jesus fucking Christ, she should have taken Gina up on that spare poncho offer. But in her defense, she'd thought she was riding home, and home was ten minutes away from the shelter by bike. Instead, she ends up in fucking England three-hours-and-forty-minutes later. She'd dried herself up at the Amsterdam Centraal by squatting underneath a hand dryer for a good five minutes while she waited for her train, but it was all for moot. As soon as she steps out into London in search for the Uber she'd called, she's soaking again.
Genevieve finds Leon's flat from memory and climbs up the stairs two steps at a time like she's trying to outrun something. Someone. She feels him watching through her eyes as she stops at the third-floor landing, knowing he'll open the door without her having to knock. He peeks out from the narrowly-opened door, the safety chain still fastened over it. She rolls her eyes; she can't blame him for the paranoia.
"Alright. Hot shower. Now," Leon insists, swinging the door fully open so she can step inside—no question about why she's there, whether she plans on a short stay or a long visit, and why the bloody hell she didn't bring an umbrella. The perks of being Cluster-mates is he'll know eventually, even if she can't find the right words to explain.
She feels his surprise. They hadn't seen each other in person for two years, after all, and. She'd spent the whole train ride blasting Hamilton soundtracks through her headphones, isolating her mind so no one could see where she was. He locks the door behind him and grumbles about her dripping rain-water all over the carpet, but when she sticks out her tongue and says, "Good to see you, too, knucklehead," his smile betrays him.
Leon's standing by the bathroom door when she gets out of the shower with a towel wrapped snugly around her body. His presence startles her, and for God knows what reason she feels herself blush.
Leon chuckles. "I've seen you in worse states, Gen."
Genevieve raises her chin high and walks swiftly past him into the living room, where (she notices) he'd already hung her rain-soaked clothes on a rack. She takes the robe hanging from the door of the walk-in closet. "Thought I told you not to call me that."
"I've literally seen you naked!" he calls after her as she steps inside to change.
"I know." She opens the door again when she's dressed, wringing her hair with the towel she'd used to cover herself. "I was there. Don't fucking remind me."
"So." He steps aside to let her pass into the living room, adding a dramatic flair to his voice. "What brings you here? On our birthday, no less?"
"It's past midnight?" She halts.
"It's two in the bloody morning. You're not running a fever again, are you?"
"You wish." She brushes him off and tries not to cringe at that memory.
It happened back in Paris two months after she and her Cluster had moved in together. She'd gone out to the farmer's market and gotten lost on her way home, and that was when it started to rain like hell. To make things worse, the transport system was a fucking mess. She'd probably taken the wrong bus, and she ended up walking five miles with the guidance of a paper map that was falling apart before she'd finally stumbled upon the neighborhood where their safe house was. By night time she was burning. Hospitals were out of the question, so Miki had prepared a lukewarm bath, and Leon had carried her in while Gina and Henrik labored away in the kitchen, making way too much chicken soup.
That was the time Leon had seen her naked. She remembers because he'd seen the usually-hidden tattoo on her side near her breast when he'd lowered her into the water. It's a tattoo of an aster with purple and lilac petals and a green stem that gradually fades into the color of her skin, a delicate drawing of hers that the tattoo artist had replicated, something only her past partners—and now Leon, too—had seen.
And he had the audacity to point it out. Or, at least, that's how she remembers it.
Or was it? To her, the memory was blurred, clouded over by a feverish haze. She doesn't realize she's seeing it through his mind that until she hears him chuckle.
"So what did you say?" she asks as she's pulled back into the present, curiosity taking over.
"I said it suits you." Leon puffs out his chest ever so smugly.
"And what did I say?" Genevieve imagined she wouldn't have been too happy no matter how incoherent her mind had rendered her.
"If I remember correctly—" he frowns, and she knows he's pretending to be in deep thought. "Oh, yes, you told me I smelled like lavender. Bloody lavender, of all things. We thought you'd lost it."
"I did not."
"You did." He let her glimpse that part of the memory again.
She groans. "Maybe it was my shampoo."
"Maybe." He laughs, shaking his head, and hands her a hairdryer.
"Is this my birthday present, then?" She looks at him, then at the contraption in her hands she never imagined Leon owning.
"It's Damien's."
"Oh, fuck," she lowers her voice to a whisper, "Damien—"
"He's a heavy sleeper, you're fine."
She sits on the floor right in front of the couch, plugging the hairdryer into the first outlet she sees. "What's he got a hairdryer for?"
"I call it his pre-pubescent exploration of identity." He joins her on the floor, never mind that the couch is right there. "He's got hair gel, a leather jacket, AXE body sprays…"
"Oh, God."
Leon nods sagely as she begins to blow her hair, ducking her head low. Her curls take form again as the water evaporates, sticking out at all angles, shielding her face from his living room. That's why she doesn't notice when he snatches the hairdryer from her hand and turns the wind on high, blasting her hair right into her face.
"Leon—" she sputters, puffing a ringlet out of her mouth—"Okechukwu—"she pushes herself up and kneels in front of him, grabbing his shoulder—"Tucker! Stop!"
The wind stops, and all she can see is his cheeky grin. "Yes, Merida?"
She flicks him hard on the forehead and snatches the hairdryer back, grumbling at the Disney Princess comparison she'd been unfortunately subject to since 2012.
"Don't call me Merida."
Leon stands up, bows, and retorts, "Yes, Your Highness," before lending her a hand.
"Hmm." Genevieve pulls herself up. "I can live with Your Highness."
He lends her one of his shirts to wear to bed, an old Beatles t-shirt. It smells like charcoal and acrylic paint and has a splatter of blue paint on the sleeve. She's pretty sure she'd worn this in the past. When their Cluster used to live together, they'd swapped clothes more times than they could count. They all used to fit so comfortably in each other's space. It's one of the things she misses most about living apart.
"Why'd you come?" he asks again when she's leaning against his doorframe to say goodnight.
"Dunno." She frowns. "I was bored. Wanted to see you." Didn't wanna be alone.
It's dark in the room, but she knows he's smiling.
"There's room for two, you know." He scoots over in his bed. "You don't have to sleep on the couch. Come on. Nothing we haven't done before."
She snorts. To any other Sapien, it might seem pretty indecent. But Sensates would understand—she's certain hers weren't the only Cluster who had shared a bed at some point. She remembers one night in Paris when Gina and Henrik had gotten a little too drunk from their late-night impromptu karaoke session and passed out on the couch using each other as a human pillow while she, Leon, and Miki had stumbled over to the master bedroom where the couple usually stayed and fell asleep there. Genevieve and Leon had woken up shivering; Miki was a blanket-hogger.
Still, Genevieve makes sure to take only the half of the blanket on her side and stay on said side as she climbs in. She turns to face him with a stern "don't say anything" glower. He winks but keeps his mouth shut.
"How've you been?" she whispers even though there's no one around to hear. Miki's stirring in bed somewhere in East Siberia as dawn sneaks up on her, and Gina certainly isn't asleep but is doing her best to keep her mind walled in from all intrusions tonight.
Thinking about Gina made Genevieve wonder if she should have insisted she stayed at the shelter, after all. What if—
"Gina can take care of herself," Leon says.
"Last year she didn't wanna be alone," Genevieve tells him.
Last year Gina didn't even pretend she'd be fine on her own. With their connection, it would have been too easy to see through her mask. So she and Genevieve had spent the night in silence, gazing mindlessly out the window of the children's shelter. They'd set out as soon as dawn broke to visit all the places in Amsterdam they'd seen in Henrik's memories, hunting for glimpses of him they refused to call ghosts.
Living in the past, it seemed, was a one-time remedy.
"I know." Leon pulls the blanket up so it covers her shoulder. "I never got to say thank you for staying with her."
"You don't have to thank me. It's what any of us would've done."
"But we didn't," he insists. "You did."
They all knew Genevieve was the best choice. Reminders of Henrik may have been necessary for Gina to come to terms with her loss, but Leon would have stayed in denial and immersed himself in his work so he wouldn't have time to grieve. Miki would have stayed angry. When they'd taken Henrik's body away to be cremated, Miki had tackled one of the nurses and demanded they leave him alone. Reminders of Henrik's death would only have made her worse.
And Damien needed a fresh start, someplace where he could be his own self without being constantly confronted by the past, and Leon was the only one capable of that.
"I stayed because I wanted to," Genevieve says.
She turns away from him then, because even as she says it, they both know it isn't true. She's always been the mirror of emotions, the one who'd cry in another person's place, the one who'd absorb half of someone's pain when they couldn't deal with it on their own, making it easier for them to let go. When Leon's granddad had passed away a few months before Gina nearly got caught, before they decided to all move to Paris, she was the one who grieved alongside him until it passed. And now she was doing it again.
No. Genevieve stayed because she was the only one who could.
So, like Leon's decision to take Damien home with him, Genevieve's decision to stay with Gina had been immediate. Gina wouldn't have wanted any of them to stay on her behalf, but Genevieve had insisted she needed to finish her photography degree anyway, so she may as well do it in Amsterdam. She'd told Gina it was so she could feel closer to Henrik, the same reason Gina herself had chosen this city.
"And?" Leon asks. He's tracing the Lupus constellation tattoo across her left shoulder blade like he'd do every time she wears something that reveals her shoulders. This normally would have annoyed her because it tickles, but this time she lets the sensation linger for a few seconds. "Did it help?"
"Can't say." She snuggles closer inside the blanket, and he moves his hand away. "I dunno—"she yawns—"I dunno what would've happened if I'd left, too."
"Do you want to try it now?" Leon asks, inching closer.
Genevieve doesn't realize how much she misses being his physical presence until she feels his heat. She closes her eyes and wishes he'll stay like this, their bodies touching. He does, and she's too tired to wonder if it's because he heard what she was thinking. "Try what?"
"Try staying in London for a bit."
It sounds like a tempting offer. Maybe a little time away is what she needs. But what about Gina? another voice in her mind asks. It sounds like Henrik's.
"Maybe. I… No." She shakes her head. "I can't."
A/N:
Yes, there is a shift in tense from past to present. Yes, it is intentional. Chapters 1 and 2 are reflective. The rest are as well, but they're more grounded in the... well, present. Hope you enjoyed :)