They spent years searching for Quynh. Decades. As long as they were looking, Andy held it together. She held out hope. She didn't give up. But that didn't last forever. There came a point when they had nothing but a vast area of ocean floor they couldn't physically search and no further leads that would narrow it down.
When the grief finally came for Andromache, it was total. She rent her clothing. She tore at her hair. She hacked off what was left when that was insufficient. She cut herself with the knife after she was done with her hair and her garments. She mutilated her face.
At that point, Nicolo and Yusuf tried to take the blade from her. She stabbed Joe repeatedly in the arms and slashed wildly at Nicolo's face. He stumbled out of the way partly by his own attempt at dodging and partly from Joe yanking him back. There might have been a little of Andy not trying too hard to hit him, as well.
She threw the knife instead. It missed, which was an even bigger statement about how insincere she was about hurting them. She took up a longer-bladed dagger from the pile of their gear in the corner of the room. Nicky tilted his head in misgiving, as though asking if they were really going to do this and fight one another so pointlessly. His hands were empty. He turned them to her palms out. "Andromache?" She turned the point of the blade to her breast and rammed it into her own heart.
She collapsed, but did not die immediately. Instead, she sobbed while still impaled. Nicolo tried to pull the blade out, needing Yusuf's help to do it. Yusuf had to hold her steady while Nicolo yanked. It was a mystery how she'd managed to heal around the knife so quickly that they needed to use force. She died then, with a gout of blood from the wound and a coughing fit that swiftly turned into a death rattle.
She was restored a few seconds later and resumed sobbing as though there had been no interruption. Nicolo and Yusuf gathered her into their arms and held her between them. They, too, had loved Quynh. They'd known her for centuries, only a handful of decades off from how long they'd known each other. She'd been immortal, fearless, savage, and indomitable. They'd often clashed with her in passionate arguments or simmering disagreements, but they always made up later. Family was more important. Their family. And now she was as gone from their lives as she was from Andy's.
Nicolo and Yusuf grieved with Andromache even if their expression of it wasn't as violent or self-destructive. Neither of them had had close relationships with normal family, conditions that had led (or driven) them to the war where they'd met one another. Losing relatives to age had been a disappointment and a difficulty, but nothing compared to losing Quynh. Quynh was the first time for the two men that the loss felt like something that time could never heal.
She and Nicolo stood atop a high cliff, watching for the movements of a bandit group operating in the area. It was make-work – just something Joe had brought up in an attempt to turn Andy's mind to something outside herself. It wasn't working.
It was Nicolo who yanked her back from the edge, literally. Her body had shifted past the point where she could, unassisted, regain her balance. It would be a long fall, definitely lethal, but she would, of course, come back from it. She just didn't have the energy to stop the inevitable. Nicolo did, though.
He grabbed the back of her shirt. Buttons popped, ties unraveled, seams creaked, and the whole garment rucked up into her armpits, but he stopped her from falling. He pulled her back so hard she staggered. He embraced her before she had her balance, lifting her in place a few inches and then setting her back down with himself between her and the edge. His arms enveloped her securely as though to prevent any secondary attempt.
"Andromache, Andromache," he murmured into her ear. "Andy … Do not do this. I need you."
Sullenly, she said, "No, you don't."
"Like you do not need Quynh?"
She pushed him back roughly so he wasn't holding her anymore, but he stayed close, his hands still on her arms. That was a low blow and a hint of how he was feeling that he was willing to say something like that. Anger simmered in her eyes, which was at least an emotion other than helpless grief and hopelessness.
He spoke. "I loved her as I love you. But you are still here with me. Would you wound me with losing you as well?" His eyes watered. His voice quavered just slightly. "I need you. Yusuf and I, need you."
She sighed and let the anger fade.
He raised his hands to her face, holding it gently. He leaned in and kissed one cheek, then the other, then her forehead, before pressing his own forehead to hers and breathing out. "You are my elder sister just as you were for Quynh. I would fight for her. I will fight for you. Whatever form the battle takes."
"It is not a battle you can win."
"If the cause is right, then the battle will never be lost." Softer, he said, "I will keep you from falling, if that power is granted to me."
Andy was crying. She stared off into the distance, a vacant stare as tears silently streaked her cheeks. Nicolo, who had just finished arranging himself on the bed, gave her a serious, intent look. Yusuf turned from putting away his journal on the other side of the stylish inn room they were staying at. Nicolo caught his eye and directed it to Andromache.
Yusuf's face pinched with worry, then smoothed. He sat next to her on the lounge chair, throwing an arm over her shoulder and drawing them together. She didn't startle, quite, but she was still surprised. She sniffed loudly and wiped at her face. "What?"
"Don't sleep on this couch again," Yusuf said. "Come to bed with us."
She stared at him uncomprehendingly. "What?"
"In all the time I have known you," he said soberly, "you have never slept alone for as long as you have now. Sleep with us."
She looked past him to Nicolo, who shrugged amenably. Her expression turned skeptical. She looked back to Yusuf. "'Sleep' with you?"
Yusuf's expression turned equally puzzled and amused. "Unless you had something else in mind?" He sounded willing to be genuinely surprised if she seriously thought he was inviting her to have sex with them.
She hesitated. Nicolo said, "We are not meant to be alone. None of us. That is why … we have this pain. Why we reach out to one another at this time."
"Come," Yusuf said, his tone back to respectful and sober. He touched a tear on her face. She flinched and wiped at her cheeks hastily. Yusuf said, "It is only for a little while. Until we fear not so much for you."
She snorted softly, then sniffed. "He told you."
"About the cliff? Yes. Of course. Come to bed."
She rolled her eyes, sighed, and complied. The bed was large with posts and a ridiculous canopy. The mattress was down and large enough for four to sleep abreast, should they so desire. But there were only three of them. Joe put her between him and Nicolo. She did not miss the flicker of annoyance in the Genoese's face.
Somehow that made it worth it. She chuckled to herself and occupied the space between them, if only to see if the two men would survive a night parted from one another. No more had she thought that then she realized the parallel to how she had been parted from Quynh these few, long years. Nicolo took her hand as soon as she was settled, holding it gently in his own.
She said, "I can hardly escape and kill myself with you two on either side. You don't have to hold me as well."
"I hold your hand because you are here for me to hold it. And I wish to," he hesitated, before intentionally using the biblical sense of the next word, "know you and your touch as long as I can."
"I thought this was about sleeping."
"It is about fighting on the same side against a common enemy, no matter what form the battle takes."
She swallowed and nodded, feeling hot tears at the edges of her eyes again. Quynh was gone. She'd never know Quynh's touch again and neither would he. She rubbed her thumb back and forth on Nicolo's hand. "Quynh was cruel and arrogant. Lykon was empty-headed. And then there's me. But you two? You're such good people. How did that happen? You balance out all the rest of the bullshit."
Yusuf chuckled. "I will not speak ill of those who are not here to defend themselves."
She turned her head to him. "I'm here."
"I will not speak ill of you. You might defend yourself." They both laughed. Nicolo smiled and gave her hand a squeeze. She let go of him after that and shut her eyes for sleep. His hand drifted away slowly, cautiously. She wondered how long it would be before she stopped wanting the embrace of death to end her thoughts of her lost Quynh. Until then, she would have to settle for the smaller oblivion of sleep.