Chapter Text
"Nick!" Sai's voice rang out from somewhere beyond the treeline. "Mate, Otis already found the ball! What are you doing?"
Nick ignored him.
His knees had seen better days, and he would probably regret traipsing through the underbrush when he woke tomorrow stiff and sore, but he had to find the source of that noise.
It was sort of… not a scream, exactly, or a cry, Nick thought as he fought past a tangle of briars. More of a…
Peep peep peep peep peep. And there she was. She, Nick decided immediately, even though he didn't have any logical reason to think that.
Staring back at him through a mess of leaves and branches, just visible in the fading twilight, was a tiny duckling.
She was striking- mostly tan, with dark streaks next to her eyes like she was wearing winged eyeliner, and small enough to fit in the palm of his hand. When she caught sight of him she hesitated for a moment, then started her rant again, even louder than before.
"Awful lot of fuss for little 'ol you," Nick said. He couldn't make sense of it, this itty bitty creature peeping her head off at him, refusing to budge.
He was about to chalk it all up to a strange chance encounter and head back to the pitch when the early summer breeze blew back the dead leaves gathered around her feet. Then Nick could finally see what the problem was, and his heart sank.
The tiny duckling was standing on an old storm grate with thick wrought iron bars as big around as his thumb and flaked with rust. No… not standing on. Her right foot was balanced across one of the bars, but her left was snagged on a shard of the metal, twisted into a sharp point from years of exposure and disuse. She carried on peeping as she struggled to get loose, flapping her wings in a desperate attempt to free herself.
"Ah, fuck." Suddenly, the tone of her voice made sense; not defensive, but pained. She was crying out, begging for help, with no one around to hear her.
No one but Nick.
His head buzzed with questions he didn't have answers to. Did ducks abandon their young? Could a duckling this small survive an injury like that? He'd heard about mother birds rejecting chicks that fell from the nest if humans touched them, but he couldn't remember if ducks nested in trees or on the ground. Had he ever known that? Were ducklings and chicks the same thing?
The breeze kicked up again, sweeping a wave of dusk-muted green and brown through the trees, stirring the scent of wet earth and something darkly sweet. In the distance, Sai’s voice carried on the wind, still calling his name.
Right here, right in front of him, the duckling’s pleas were smaller. Her voice sounded weak, used up, like she'd been crying for hours or even days and barely had the strength to carry on now that someone had found her.
As the sun continued its steady descent below the horizon, dappling hazy orange light through the dense foliage, Nick teetered on the edge of indecision. He had no idea what to do, or how to help, or if any attempt would just make the situation worse. Part of him wanted to turn around and jog back to his mates and forget about the whole thing.
But it would be dark soon. Who knew what kind of predators lurked in the shadows.
Gently easing toward her, Nick said, "It’s okay, I'm here now."
His next step brought his foot down on a twig with a loud snap, and the duckling reacted with a flurry of motion, peeping frantically as she made a renewed attempt at escape.
"It’s okay," he said again, using the tone of voice he normally reserved for year ones having temper tantrums. "My name is Nick. I'm not going to hurt you. I'm a friend." He was too amped up to worry about sounding foolish, talking to a duck.
He was almost close enough to touch her, when she went still, and absolutely silent, and somehow that was worse than her terror.
For one brief moment, Nick and the duckling stayed frozen in place, locked onto each other. She stared bravely up at him, and he stared right back, neither of them daring to move. Her eyes were clear and shining in the dim light, reflecting all the same trepidation he felt; but there was something else there, too. Some connection, some kind of understanding. For those few seconds, a strange new feeling sank straight through to his marrow, a kinship like nothing he’d ever known before. It left him breathless.
He couldn’t explain how, but suddenly everything had changed.
Nick was afraid to do anything that might break this strange spell, but she blinked up at him and gave a calm, solitary Peep. Permission, he thought nonsensically.
"Here," he said, reaching out to cup his fingers around her. His skin met downy feathers, soft and damp, and she didn’t struggle. Nick was surprised to discover that she was almost weightless; he wouldn’t have known there was anything in his hand at all if not for the barely perceptible rise and fall of her chest against his palm.
He tried to be gentle with the poor creature; already weak, and hurt, and so so small. He pulled her up in a single, smooth motion, like ripping off a plaster, and she didn’t cry when he wrenched her foot out of the grate. Nick imagined he could feel a tiny sigh of relief as he finally lifted her free.
And then Nick Nelson was just… holding a duck.
“Um,” he said, caught up in staring at her. Her eyes glittered as she stared back, dark and full of wonder. She opened and closed her beak a few times without making a sound.
This close up, Nick could properly see the extent of her injury– the webbing between her toes was torn and shredded away to nothing, and he couldn’t tell the flakes of rust from the specks of blood, some of it dry, some bright and wet.
“So…”
It was getting late. He hadn’t had dinner yet, he had to be at school early tomorrow for a staff meeting, and he was filthy from tackling Matty into the mud on his last try. He still owed his mum a call for missing their monthly Sunday dinner.
Nick bent down and set the duckling on a clear patch of dirt. It was time for her to go find her own mum. Time for this surreal experience to draw to a close so they could both go back to their real lives. He flicked his tongue out over his lips, tasting salt.
But even as he stood there, keeping his eyes on the little duck, mentally urging her to take that first step, she stayed stubbornly still with her hurt leg tucked up against her body, like she was afraid, or maybe unable, to put weight on it.
"Can you walk?" he asked. As if a bird could understand him.
Peep peep peep, she answered, puffing out her tiny chest. Not that he could understand her, either.
Without giving it a second thought, Nick slipped his jumper up over his head, charging static electricity through his hair. His mum had knitted it for him a few Christmases ago, and it was one of his favorites, but he was sure she would approve.
"Right then," he said to the little duckling as he fashioned the fabric into a makeshift nest. “Can’t just leave you here, now can I?” He could have sworn she stretched up to meet his hand when he picked her up the second time.
He emerged from the woods again a few minutes later, cradling his duckling-sweater-bundle to his chest, and the lads rushed over to meet him at the boundary between the park and the undeveloped land beyond.
"Are you alright?" Matty asked. "What the hell were you doing back there?"
Nick didn’t answer, just lifted the sleeve of his jumper, and the sight of the duckling's fuzzy head peeking out from under the fabric was met with a chorus of oohs and ahhs and mumbled surprise. Sai reached out and gently stroked the down feathers between her eyes; she didn’t flinch away.
“Mate, you can’t just take a duck,” Otis said, crossing his arms over his chest.
“I’m not taking her, I’m—” Nick frowned at the duckling. She looked back up at him with her head tipped to one side. What was he doing? He didn't have a plan beyond getting her out of the storm grate. He’d never even had a pet of his own as an adult, and now he was solely responsible for this little life. For a wild animal’s life.
By the time he got back to his car, Nick was starting to panic again.
“So, I guess I’m going to take you to my house now?” he told her, swallowing back a wave of anxiety as he tucked the makeshift sweater nest into the passenger seat. He carefully fastened the seatbelt over the entire bundle, duck and all.
Peep peep she answered drowsily.
“And, uh… I guess you’ve probably never been in a house before? It’s like a cave, if you’ve ever seen one of those. But with more furniture.”
She peeped a few times in answer, but didn’t open her eyes.
As he drove, dusk crept across the city, tailing right behind his car. Nick kept talking to the duckling the whole way, pretending he didn’t sound absolutely mental; without exactly knowing why, he had a bad feeling about letting her doze off.
“So I’m a human,” he babbled, “but you probably already knew that. We’re like monkeys, but without all the hair.”
She gave one small peep, her voice faint. When he snuck a glance at her at the next red light, she looked even smaller, like she was disappearing beneath the knit fabric. His stomach twisted.
“And you’re a duck,” he went on. “I’m not sure what kind. Are there different types of ducks? Ducks are a kind of bird—”
Peep peep peep peep, she interrupted, almost insistently. Nick breathed a sigh of relief at that sign of life.
Chuckling to himself, he teased, “Oh, I see, you only want to talk about yourself, huh?”
She peeped back at him, loud and clear and feisty. Thank goodness.
“Well, are there different kinds of ducks then?”
Peep peep peep. Her beak snapped open and closed, stubbornly.
“… No, I’ve no idea why I asked. I’ll look it up once I get you home, okay?”
When they got inside his flat, instead of immediately googling different species of ducks, Nick did what he always did in overwhelming situations: he called his mum.
“I knew you’d regret missing my pot roast,” Sarah said when she answered the facetime call, her camera lens foggy with steam. “Nora said it was the best I’ve made yet! We ate a little while ago, and I’m just getting the washing up done now.” She held up her sudsy hands to show them off before plunging them back into the sink.
Nick gave a weak laugh in response, slumping into a chair at his small kitchen table. “You’ve got to start instagramming all your meals, like Liam.” The duckling side-eyed him from where he'd set her nest on the table, and he shrugged at her.
Sarah wrinkled her nose, betraying her honest opinion of her grandson for a flash before plastering a smile back on her face. “It’s just kids these days. You and David had your own weird stuff. He’ll grow out of it.”
After a beat of silence, Nick said, “So… I didn’t actually call to talk about David, or his family.”
“Or my pot roast?” Sarah grinned into the camera, which was propped crookedly on the windowsill, only capturing her face from the nose down.
Nick sighed, wondering if he should let her be and try to figure things out on his own. It was getting late; he shouldn’t keep her. But even over the clinking dishes and running water, Sarah immediately caught the heaviness of that sigh.
“Nicky?” She turned the water off and dried her hands before switching to a voice call, bringing the phone up to her ear. “What’s wrong, baby?”
With tears gathering in his eyes and his fingers pinched over the bridge of his nose, Nick explained everything: his tiny, unplanned house guest, the damage to her foot, the worry gnawing at the pit of his stomach. He puttered around the house while he vented, transferring the duckling to an old cardboard box and fretting that he’d done the wrong thing by taking her away from the pond. He couldn’t shake the worry that her mother might come back looking for her.
“I just… I didn’t know what to do,” he said.
Sarah listened patiently while Nick told her what happened, then suggested that they sit down together to do a little internet sleuthing. He briefly heard her mumble an apology to Nora, something about recording a program to watch together tomorrow night.
As he got his laptop and brought it back to his kitchen table, Nick snuck a glance into the cardboard box, only to find the duckling watching him intently, tracking his movement across the room with her head. Well, he had promised her that he’d google ducks, almost an hour ago.
With Sarah’s help, Nick quickly reassured himself (and the duckling) that he'd done the right thing. In any other circumstance he should have left her there, but several websites indicated that a juvenile animal with an injury this severe needed to be brought into a wildlife rescue as soon as possible.
That part proved a bit more difficult. Sarah searched up wildlife rescues in Kent while Nick tried to find something nearer to him in Leeds. It was a long enough drive to and from his mum’s house when he made the trek during daylight hours, and he wasn’t keen to start the trip at nearly 10pm.
After calling the numbers of the hotlines they'd jotted down, they both quickly discovered that nothing within a reasonable driving distance could accept drop offs at this hour. One nice operator gave Nick the name of a wildlife center along his normal route to work, and told him that the doors opened at 8am. That seemed like his best option.
"It's alright,” his mum soothed when he called her back to set down some kind of plan. “You did the right thing. Now, you just have to keep an eye on her until you can get her somewhere safe. Do you have anything you can feed her? Has she had any water?"
"I mashed up some bananas in a coffee cup while I was on hold, and I’ve been trying to get her to eat those,” he said. “It was all I had; I don't normally do the shopping until Tuesday."
Sarah tutted. It was the most soothing noise he'd heard all day. "And what were you planning to eat for the next day and a half?" she asked.
Nick shrugged sheepishly. "Nandos?"
The little duck peeped at him from behind the cardboard barrier.
"No, I don't think you can have Nandos," he told her.
“Make sure to give her some water as well,” Sarah reminded him. “And one site said maybe oatmeal?”
“That would be great! …if I had any.”
She sighed. “You could make a quick run to the shops?”
“I don’t… think I feel comfortable leaving her.”
“Maybe Imogen could—”
“We’re not dating anymore, Mum. We haven’t been together for almost a year. Besides, it’s nearly 11. I’m sure she has patients to see in the morning.”
While they volleyed ideas back and forth, Nick could make out the familiar sounds of Sarah walking through her end-of-the-night checklist: setting the dishwasher, refilling the kettle for morning tea, and programming the security system. Soon, she would hang up and go to bed. The worry from earlier began to creep back, digging its claws in at the base of his neck.
"She’ll be alright. You both will. Now try to get some rest, and you can be at the rescue first thing tomorrow."
"Mum, do you think you could–?"
"—What?" Sarah's voice was softer, more distant, like she'd been about to set the phone down. "Nora has work early tomorrow," she reminded him, followed by the sound of a muffled yawn.
"Right, okay." He was an adult, and expected to be able to manage these things on his own. He needed to be reasonable. "Night then, Mum."
"...Nick?"
"Yeah?" He hadn't moved the phone from his ear. He was planning to cling to it until the line went fully dead, and then probably for a few minutes after that as well.
Sarah sighed. There was a rustling noise on the other end of the line and some mumbled conversation before she said, bright as ever, "Why don't we have a cup of tea, love?"
In the end she only missed another half hour of planned sleep while they Facetimed again, racing to see if his electric kettle could beat her ancient stovetop one.
He introduced her to the duckling, who seemed very intrigued by the phone screen and its tiny, shiny, reflective camera. She stubbornly tried to reach up and peck at it over and over again, and Nick swore she actually pouted at him when he kept it just out of her reach. Eventually, with Sarah cheering them on, he persuaded her to take a few sips of water, and he was surprised by the swell of pride that rose up in his chest.
Nick and his mum chatted while they drank their tea, like it was any other day at any normal hour. No more talk of finding a rescue or survival odds or what tomorrow would bring. He knew she was trying to distract him and keep him calm and, credit to her motherly instincts, it was working perfectly.
Around midnight, Nick caught her about to nod into her mug, and his first instinct was to reach out and gently shake her shoulder; when they talked like this, as close and connected as they'd always been, he sometimes forgot about the distance. "Mum," he said, trying to find a volume that would rouse her without startling his little companion.
Sarah's head snapped up and she blinked at him, trying to get her bearings. For a split second she looked just like a drowsy duckling, and Nick felt much older than his twenty-eight years. His mum looked— well she looked quite good for her age, somehow even younger in the past few years since she'd met Nora. But for the first time, Nick could actually see the years on her. He'd had an idea of her in his head for so long, as a default, the kind of image you never have to call up from memory because it's as much a part of you as your own eye color or the freckles on your cheeks.
But in the dim light of his childhood kitchen, fit into the width and height of the phone screen, his mum looked noticeably older, and completely exhausted.
"You should go to bed," he suggested gently, wishing he could get just one hug from her to steady his nerves before he had to tough out the rest of the night on his own. "Wouldn’t want to disturb Nora’s routine, yeah? I've kept you late enough."
Sarah smiled around another yawn as she stood from the table. "Please call tomorrow and let me know how things go with the little one. I love you, Nick."
"Love you too, Mum."
Then he was alone in the silence of his own tiny kitchen.
Well, almost alone.
"And then there were two," he said, turning back to the little duckling. "I don't suppose you know any good word games?"
She peeped at him softly. It might have been the middle of the night, and he might have been going a bit mad, but Nick was pretty sure he was starting to be able to tell the difference between her vocal tones. This peep was a question, not an answer.
Too tired to second guess the impulse, he reached into the box and held his hand outstretched in front of her with his palm facing up. Without hesitation, she awkwardly hobbled toward him, hoisted herself into his hand, and curled up in the center of his palm.
He watched her slowly drifting toward sleep, her head nodding like an animatronic puppet. For a moment, there in the quiet of his kitchen, Nick felt something beautiful and new, something he’d never felt before.
“Please hold on,” he whispered as a stubborn seed of hope rooted itself in his chest.