Summary: Kozak has been hunting them for a long time.
Warnings: Canon-typical violence, language, and gay angst. Ya'll been warned.
Disclaimer: I own nothing.
Nicky has always hated hospitals. An odd observation, to be certain, from someone who has no need of them. He should amend that to say, he's always hated the modern concept of a hospital. Sterile walls surrounding sterile beds where clinical men (and women) treat death with sterile hands. He's fully aware of how unfair the assessment is, how far medicine has come in the over nine-hundred years he's walked the Earth. He just mourns a time when the spirit was administered to in conjunction with the body. He's also aware that most modern day doctors are saints compared to the woman standing before him.
"Dr. Kozak," he coolly names her, the ideal of captured civility. "We were under the belief you had been arrested. A mistake, or so it would appear."
She returns his politeness with a brittle smile all her own. He notes that she's thinned considerably in the last year, most noticeably around her face. There's a hollowness present in her cheeks he doesn't remember from before. It makes her look hungrier, more feral. Desperate.
"Oh, I was," she informs him. "Your Mr. Copley is very good at his job."
Not good enough, Nicky thinks. I'll have to scold Yusuf about that when I next see him.
Thinking of Yusuf hurts him, of course; but not nearly as much as it would if his love was laid out on the bed next him. One round of being (how was it that Nile phrased it?) medical pin-cushions together was enough for one lifetime. Still, he thinks as his eyes wander about the room, twice in a lifetime for just one of them may be asking too much. He can't see much difference between this lab and Merrick's. Well, the walls are yellower and the bed he's on is not nearly as comfortable. The equipment all appears to be the same, though Nile might have a better grasps on the specifics. And there's no Yusuf. He closes his eyes, draws in a breath, and finds his peace in that.
This is, without a doubt, the worst moment in Joe's life.
"You need to enhance the image- no, enhance. Just let me do it!" Booker finds his laptop summarily seized from his grasp, caught up in a whirlwind of frustration, and carted off towards the far corner of their safe house living room. He stares, slack-jawed, after the thief as if expecting the man to grow another head.
"Since when do you know so much about technology?"
"Since you betrayed us to the bastard whose lap dog currently has Nicky."
Booker scowls but can hardly argue with him on that point. Instead he stands and walks toward the kitchen, muttering curse words under his breath. Nile's certain she can translate about half of them before she needs to use Google as a refresher. She glances over her shoulder at Joe, now sitting cross-legged on the ugliest orange couch she's ever laid eyes on, his attention laser-locked on the screen in front of him, and sighs. Turning back around, she runs her hand tiredly down her face and goes back to watching Andy clean the last of their weapons supply.
"How are you so calm about this?" She finally asks the older woman aloud. She remembers the Andy from before. Was as it really only a year ago? Remembers the walking coil of tightly wound determination desperately trying to keep what was left of her world solidly together. Andy looks up at her question, hands not even slowing the familiar steps of their work, and the corner of her mouth quirks upward into a wry smile.
"What makes you think I'm calm?"
Nile glances done at the handgun and handgun parts arrayed in tidy arc across Andy's quarter of the table. She nods her head to the side, acknowledging the ancient warrior's point. Andy's smile tightens as she snaps a full clip into the newest, fully cleaned weapon and loads the chamber. Picking up a Glock from the pile on her right, she hands it over to Nile.
"First rule of battle, little one." She says as the younger woman takes it.
"Don't every let them know where you are?"
Andy laughs, softly. "Well, that's one approach. I was gonna say: when you have the time to prepare, use it."
"Not as poetic," Nile comments as she begins to disassemble the gun.
"How are you feeling?" Kozak has the gall to ask him as she settles the needle back down on the medical tray behind her. He swears to himself, if it's the last thing he does, he will be the one to snap her neck.
In the interim, he chooses to remain silent, ride out the effects of the poison coursing its way rapidly through his veins. It's his second dose in as many minutes, and he isn't sure (yet) what purpose its suppose to serve. He understands in a broad sense what it's meant to be doing. The intent to divine secrets known only to the Almighty through the sacred rituals of science. This particular ritual is only at its beginning. In a moment, he is certain, he will begin to feel the drug's effects; and then the butcher will begin to slice. To cut away at him in an effort to 'document the full physiological response'. They've done this for so long now.
"Does it ever tire you?" He asks, surprising himself as much as her. Kozak looks back at him warily.
"Does what tire me?" She returns her attention to the tools on her tray, inspects the label of a small bottle, and takes down a quick note.
He studies her with a particularly maudlin expression. "This. All of this. The ritual of it."
She ignores him. Dampens a cotton ball in ethanol and begins to clean the unsterilized probe. Moves the scalpels closer for easier access. Prepares a third injection, on consideration, in case another increment in dosage is required. She surmises that most likely will not be the case. His sudden candor speaks, if the pun could be excused, to the treatment's effectiveness. A loss of inhibition was a well documented side effect of the cocktail. She considers humoring him for a moment.
"You view this as ritual?" She asks, swiveling to face him. She sounds genuinely curious, watching him with an air of detached inquiry. He almost misses the days when a captor was certain to be one of three things: angry, bored, or (on rare occasions) lustful. Almost. The infectious cynicism of the the 21st century is still taking him some getting used to. He almost misses her addendum. "-And to who, do you think, are we praying?"
"Certainly no god of mine," he replies. His stomach cramps uncomfortably, but he forces himself to meet her eyes. This time, she's the one to blink first.
"I think we should raise the dosage to 30 CCs."
Their search for Nicky has last almost a month and Nile is starting to worry. The others don't say much about it, act as if things are...well, certainly not normal, but expected. She's fully aware a month isn't even close to the longest internment any of them have ever experienced, alone or together. Knows they still have plenty of options when it comes to leads. They're not giving up by a long shot, but the frantic immediacy that the search began with is starting to ebb. They're moving into the long game now and, as they've learned recently, it's a state with the potential to last for centuries. She's beginning to worry how this is effecting Joe.
"I'm not hungry," he tells her as she places the bowl of Kraft Mac & Cheese on the side table beside him. It's not Nicky's cooking, to be sure, but Joe hasn't moved from the couch in the last twelve hours. Not since they returned empty handed from a lead concerning a cargo container and some very, very unhappy Germans. He's holding Nicky's sword at the moment, fingers gently brushing across the fine details of the saber, and Nile finds she just needs reassurance he's going to be alright. She glances over his head at the others, but Book and Andy aren't paying attention at the moment. That, or pointedly ignoring her. Either way, help isn't coming.
"Didn't expect you be." At this point, she knows direct confrontation is a non-starter, so she opts for the concession instead. It earns her an apologetic look and she takes advantage of the victory. Stepping around him, she moves to take a seat at the couch's other end, pulling her feet up onto the furniture so she can rest her arm comfortably on top of her knees. The message is clear. She's not going anywhere.
Joe chuckles in spite of himself. Nile is stubborn (willful, he hears Nicky say), intrusive (concerned), bossy (determined), and young (young). She also has a better heart than any of them really deserve. She smiles, softly, back at him, waiting patiently for his lead. For him to tell her what it is she can do for him. It's the one trait, besides immortality, that they all seem to possess. An inability, or rather, disinterest in sitting on their hands even if busy-work is all that's available to them. Setting the sword aside carefully, he picks up the cooling bowl from off the table in a token peace offering. "Thanks."
"We'll get him back, Joe." She says finally as she watches him eat, aware as he is it's an empty promise. He remembers making a similar to Andy once over five-hundred years ago. The feeling of mutual appreciation and sadness strikes him as he muses over her innocence.
The truth is Kozak could be keeping Nicolo anywhere in the world. There is no shortage in the number of governments, mercenary, or pharmaceutical entities she could convince into willing backing the operation which allowed her to steal away his heart. Copley may have tarnished her reputation, to be sure, but he couldn't erase her intelligence or talent. Which means there's equally no shortage in the number of hiding place he could possibly be. Even her eventual death provided no security in Nicolo's release. Not when there would be proteges trained and able to take up her cause. He doesn't even want to think about what she could be doing to him at this very moment. Can't think about it, because if he does, he knows he'll be of absolutely no use to Nicolo, or Andy, or even Booker and Nile. He needs to stay focused because whatever bunker, or container, or tent they will find him in, Joe swears if it takes his last breath, they will all be walking out of it together.
But, for now, his attention turns to a young woman in desperate need of reassurance.
"In nomine Patri. Et Filii, Et Spiritus Sancti. A-" He dissolves into another fit of harsh coughing as his bodily fluids rapidly continue to fill his lungs. "A-men"
Kozak is watching him with a look of passionless fascination. He wonders if this is the first time she's seen one of her -lab mice- in prayer before. Normally, he wouldn't have even bothered to speak the words aloud, but this particular death is excruciatingly agonizing and he needs to say it because he fears this time might actually be his last. All things die, he knows, and in a more rational frame of mind would consider the assumption to be utterly ridiculous. He just doesn't want to die here.
"You still believe in God." The statement is framed more as a question. For a moment, Nicky reflects on the journey the pair have been on together. From dissections, to drugs, ending in continuous psychological assessment, Kozak has made good on Merrick's threat to slice away at every piece of Nicky.
He spares her a withering glance. "Why- cough -why shouldn't I?"
In truth, his faith is meaningless to her. Nothing but an additional factor to note in her final profile of him. Yet, she takes a small thrill in the feeling of vindication as she remembers his earlier admonishment. The incompetence of the faithful to grasp the necessity of action will never cease to surprise her. "After all you've seen? All you've experienced?"
He doesn't have the strength to debate her. It's not like it's the first time he's had a discussion like this with someone, after all. Andy, for instance, maybe once or twice a century, delights in reminding him that she was once worshiped as a goddess. Yusuf's belief comes and goes like a tide without pattern. Sometimes so strong Nicky can't help but ruminate over the inferiority of his own. Other times so fragile it's all Nicky can do to pray enough for the both of them. Nile is still putting her faith in the context of the world opening up around her. He's looking forward to the discussions they will have in the decades to come. Booker, he realizes with a pang of regret, is the only one of the four with whom he's never actually broached the topic. The Frenchman never seemed particularly interested in sharing that aspect of himself, and Nicky was loathe to force him. He wishes now that he'd been more insistent.
Laying his head back tiredly against the table's headrest, he waits to die.
"Two," Booker mouths from across the doorway, holding the subsequent fingers up to his chest. Andy nods, tightening the grip on her assault rifle, and signals to Joe and Nile behind her. She goes first.
The guards don't even know what it is that hits them as the ancient warrior storms past their corpses with Booker and Nile flanking her tightly on either side. Ready to step in front of a bullet for her at a second's notice. Joe covers the rear and they all try to ignore the absent presence meant to be pivoting easily between one battle front and another. They march down an empty, branching corridor in underground Turkey, of all places, focused on the single target ahead of them.
Dr. Kozak, it seemed, had learned one lesson from Nile's one-man rescue attempt at her former employer's. Two more men now stand guard behind the lab door, ready to fire in case of breach. She watches in horror as they're cut down in front of her with ruthless efficiency. It's Joe who approaches, numb to her protest and pleas for forgiveness as she backs uselessly away from him. He snaps her neck with his bare hands.
"Nicky? Nicky, are you still with us?" He hears the others behind him. Andy and Nile are in the process of ripping apart the last remnants of Kozak's hubris. Wires, tubes, and needles are peeled as gently as they can be away from too-pale looking skin on grotesque display for the world to see. Booker stands warily at the lab's entrance, prepared in case their rescue signals more trouble, but legitimately looking as though he's about to be sick.
Joe hears the panic in Andy's voice and his world constricts down to just him and Nicolo. He collapses the distance between them. Caresses the other man's face, one hand sliding down to his shoulder while the other to rest over his chest. The body feels cold and he can't reconcile the sensation with any memory he has of his beloved Nicolo. He presses his forehead against that of his love's and prays to Allah that they are not too late.
"Nicolo."
Blue eyes open beneath his and he nearly faints as a ragged breath briefly expands the form beneath him. Nicky's lips spread upwards into a tired smile
"It's good to finally see you, Yusuf."