Chapter Text
His eyes burned as he rode down the empty streets toward the airport, fingers itching, wishing he could drive himself instead… a new, impossible fantasy of slowly merging off the shoulder, into the woods, clipping tree limbs, disappearing in a cloak of suffocating darkness. He wore it already, though it sat on his shoulders like a lead weight, compressing his bones, squeezing the edges of his soul.
At the airport checkpoint, they were greeted by a skeleton crew, a scared young man scanning their IDs before wordlessly ushering them through to drive across the tarmac toward the only lit hangar.
Nick’s stomach lurched, a familiar feeling lately, nausea only eased by a shot of whisky or the frigid night air wafting across his face through an open window. And Rose’s words about June now echoed inside his mind as well, infinitely compounding the feeling. He knew Gilead had wanted her dead before, and he’d spent a laughably meager night in a jail cell as a result of this discovery. But now, it was viral, June’s face plastered to the wall at the Eyes compound like a surreal representation of a Western film’s wanted posters.
D.C. was strategic, though he’d never take credit for the miraculous coinciding of two goals in a moment of sheer panic. Rose had asked him to go. And leaving meant a face to face with every High Commander brought in to handle the resulting crisis from the attack on Boston.
MacKenzie would be there - he was sure of it.
God, he wished he could take credit for something, for handing over intel or opening a damn gate at the right time. But no. He’d taken his own cynical escape hatch the moment he’d felt the weight of innocent lives on his shoulders again, a neverending atonement for the first time, the way hell must be shaped for him, a desolate space where every move he made cut another life short.
Maybe Mark had never lied to him, but it still felt like a betrayal - an inference to something possible, solid, real - another government he would have never trusted had he not been blinded by desperation. But all he could do after signing the contract he’d never bothered to read was gather microscopic particles of hope into action.
The letdown was sickening, an excavation of the final shred of naivety he’d reluctantly extended toward someone who had never earned it. Why was he still there, still breathing? The only answer he could guess was that perhaps this was some kind of abstract punishment, the prolonging of his days just to sit in hollow silence, a tethered heart he’d never call back from her, no matter what she finally saw in him.
Too soon, the plane came grotesquely into view, and he managed to exhale with relief that at least no one else was still outside. Flood lights sharply glared through his car’s windows as his driver parked and climbed out to open the door for him.
To say his arrival was a gut punch would be far too simplistic. As his memorized figure stepped out of the car and moved up the stairs toward the plane, her body went cold and rigid, a flash of agony and regret merging with wild fear.
She’d misjudged before - horribly - even if the people she’d made assumptions about hadn’t earned discernment. But was rage enough to condemn the person she had once begged to stay alive… for her? There was no word for this, no blueprint, but also no excuse. If she didn’t save him, could she live with herself? Would she ever want to? No. He would always be a blinding light, her daughter’s father, a beautiful tether she’d self-created, even in uncertainty.
Even if he never spoke to her again, she held his life in her hands, and she would never let go.
The decision was nearly instantaneous, a quick calculation of her unguarded surroundings barely registering as a factor.
She scuffed her shoe on the pavement and inhaled sharply as she stared at his profile, watching his dark eyes turn toward her in slow motion, his body language shifting as if she was the last person he’d expected to ever see again. The heartbreak of that was too catastrophic to even land, and he just gazed at her like he was seeing a ghost as she tilted her head to signal him closer.
Each step of his descent off the stairs thumped madly inside her heart, an approaching figment, the man she used to know so completely and trust with her life. But God, she still did.
This reality settled, the knife twisted, and she really saw him again.
He crossed the tarmac in near-silence, dark clothes hugging his body, his silhouette crouching quickly behind the car with her.
“What are you doing here?” he whispered with the deepest tremor she had ever heard in his voice.
“I can’t tell you,” she mouthed back, gaining awareness of how close his body heat was to hers, faces almost touching, a necessity to remain nearly inaudible. “Just please… don’t get on the plane.”
His warm and devastating eyes searched her face.
“June,” he said pointedly, almost stopping her heart before she stamped out the impulse.
“Shut up,” she whispered too harshly. “Just stay here.”
He glanced through the car’s windows toward the plane he’d just abandoned, and she could feel his mind racing. Could he actually value a single person on this flight enough to sabotage her plan?
“Are they expecting you?” she asked coldly, and he shook his head.
“This is Lawrence’s car,” he realized. “So he’s on the plane.”
He looked at her again, and their history flowed between them like a curse, his beautiful gaze reading her somber silence for exactly what it was.
“Is he gonna die?” Nick asked seriously, but she couldn’t speak.
Did he deserve an answer? Had every second of her icing out been too raw, colored by too many other voices to be truthful? How had she let anyone else convince her that she didn’t really know him, that a single mistake in distress could be the end of them? She knew that flavor of fear all the way down to her bones. She’d lived within it for so long, even let it own her. She’d been crushed beneath it, irrevocably altered into someone she barely recognized. And still… somehow… Nick loved her entirely, effortlessly… detrimentally.
And she knew just then, like a rushing wind. He had not betrayed her. He had been caught between impossible choices and taken the only path that protected them both. His only mistake had been misjudging the consequences, and his shame had proven to her just how much he regretted it, even though she’d refused to acknowledge it for far too long.
Fuck. How many times would she let Gilead win?
“You’re here to kill those Commanders somehow, right?” Nick wisely deduced when she remained speechless.
But she could sense in every molecule of his face that he didn’t actually expect her to answer him.
“Okay,” he answered himself, a resigned expression materializing. “They won’t be armed.”
She stared at his profile, immovable, deep thought etched in the creases between his eyes. He gave a single nod, and his whole body sighed - heavy, eerily steady, and committed.
He stood up.
“Nick!” she warned severely, but he ignored her, striding confidently back toward the plane.
Panic rapidly unfolded, stretching between them with every step he took, solidifying his choice. She wanted to scream his name, to tell him the truth, to destroy the whole plan, damn the consequences. But if anyone saw her, connecting him with her, they’d both be dead anyway.
Her eyes filled with angry tears, but no longer solely directed at him - at herself for walking away on that road while core truth engulfed them both… that once she’d asked him to stop, he would never take another step in her direction unless she changed her mind and asked him to.
He paused at the top of the stairs, feeling her horrified gaze on his profile, but he couldn’t tell her what he was doing… just like she hadn’t told him what he’d fortunately been able to guess.
This time had to be different, not like his hesitation at the waterpark to shoot the Guardian again as he’d anxiously focused on rushing away, fighting to maintain control as he’d locked eyes with June, her fear and concern for him aching inside his chest even then. No, this time he had to be completely sure, to do the job precisely and swiftly.
He reached inside his coat, right hand gripping his handgun where no one would be able to see it. And he stepped inside the plane.
He spotted Lawrence first, then a greeting rang out from his father-in-law, a man who could now freeze his bloodstream with a single glance. It was going to be so much easier than he’d like to admit to do what came next.
In one confidently fluid motion, he raised his gun and aimed accurately, dropping Wharton with a shot between the eyes, the whisky glass he’d been holding slipping to the carpeted floor with a thud.
The other Commanders were momentarily paralyzed with wide-eyed shock… just long enough for him to rapidly take them out. As blood splattered across the seats and tray tables around the falling men, he heard a clatter behind him, and he whipped his face around to see Lawrence holding a briefcase and staggering backward.
“Get off the plane,” Nick instructed in a deep monotone. “Now.”
With a nod, Lawrence obeyed, his loudly descending footsteps fading into the distance as the cockpit door opened. But Nick was ready, aiming at the pilot and co-pilot before they’d fully emerged with their own weapons. Two popped off shots, and they collapsed to the floor like dominos, their blood coating the walls and soaking thickly into the carpet.
Remaining tightly numb, he made his rounds, inspecting each man’s body for signs of life. But the only Commander still breathing quickly choked as Nick crouched beside him, a blooming chest wound dyeing his shirt a mesmerizing deep red as his last gurgling exhale escaped from his suddenly useless lungs.
Slowly, Nick stood again, surrounded by the damage he’d done, hardly registering the blood dotting his own wrist, another wet streak on his cheek, slowly dripping down the side of his neck. He couldn’t be sure whose blood it even was, and he didn’t need to know. He holstered his gun, and the weight of his actions took root inside his bones to cohabitate with every other grave he’d dug.
On the counter to his right was an abandoned whisky glass, resting atop a cocktail napkin, an inch of amber liquid leftover from whomever had poured it before their demise… by his hand. He picked up the glass, downed the drink in one long swallow, and walked back down the aisle to sit on the floor, his back resting against the wall across from the exit door, the flood lights from outside cutting harshly across his face.
June was still crouched on the ground, violently shivering, hardly aware of the tears coating her face as Lawrence stepped around the car to join her.
“Your boyfriend’s insane,” he said too smoothly, and June blinked up at him, out of breath.
“What?” she choked out. “What the fuck’s going on?”
“He killed them all. Eight Commanders, already halfway pissed on expensive scotch,” Lawrence recounted, his casual tone in opposition to how shaken she could see he actually was by what had just taken place. “My ears will be ringing for a week.”
The wave of emotions she instantly felt could hardly be quantified - whiplash from the sudden alteration of their plan, an echo of guilt from when Nick had taken the same brand of impact for her by killing those Guardians… and utter relief that he was still alive.
“Where is he?” she asked uselessly as she gripped the side of the car to stand up on her shaking legs.
“Well, unless he can teleport, he’s still on the plane,” Lawrence quipped with a shrug.
“He just saved your life,” she reminded Lawrence angrily, exhausted by his nonchalant act and quickly resurfacing selfishness.
“I’ll thank him later. We gotta get out of here.”
But she ignored him, rushing over to the stairs.
“You have my car keys!” Lawrence shouted after her, but she kept moving, his voice as insignificant as a gnat passing briefly by her ear.
The moment she reached the top of the stairs, she saw Nick, her own shadow shielding him from the light behind her. He was sitting on the floor straight ahead, ominously calm, his body bent forward, forearms resting across his knees.
“Nick…” she called out softly, watching as he barely looked up at her.
“You should get out of here,” he said simply yet dryly, confusing her.
“What?” she asked as she stepped slowly closer, the bodies of the Commanders and pilots he had killed coming into her peripheral vision. “Come get in the car.”
He looked directly up at her then, and she noticed the blood splatter on the side of his face just before she registered his morphing expression. He was surprised, almost disbelieving. And it crushed her heart yet again. But he didn’t move.
“You can’t stay here,” she said logically as she gently crouched in front of him. “They’ll be sending someone to check when the plane doesn’t take off, right? They’ll find you and see what you did.”
“I know,” he answered easily, his voice oddly strong, even as hopelessness radiated from his aura like never before.
“Nick, what are you doing?” she demanded, growing frustrated with herself so much more than with him - for not seeing it sooner, for not taking care of him the way he had always taken care of her.
“What I should have done when Wharton threatened me at my house,” he answered in that same, dark monotone.
She swallowed both the pain of this statement and her own part in causing it to fester, focusing on urgency instead. “What the fuck are you talking about? They’ll kill you.”
His eyes, formerly glassy and distant, locked onto hers then with breathtaking intensity.
“I’m not a good person, June,” he said. “You were right. Good people can’t do what I just did.”
“Then we’re the same,” she countered so easily, shocking herself with how smoothly the truth had finally risen. “You were right. And I was already here to watch them die, wasn’t I. I just don’t face it like you do. I dress it up and make excuses for it… even if they deserved it.”
For a moment, she thought she’d gotten through to him, that he was letting her words settle to loosen his grip. But then he almost smiled, and her eyes softened with all the complications of their love and the shameful bitterness she’d shown him when he’d needed her the most.
“It’s okay,” he said softly. “You’re okay. Go.”
“No,” she answered firmly, shaking her head.
“What?”
“No! I didn’t stop you from getting on this damn plane just to let you die for no reason!”
“No reason?” He looked definitively around at the corpses and carnage surrounding them, but his halfhearted argument was pointless to her.
“Not when you can leave with us right now!”
He shook his head, staring into her eyes again. “Why would you want me to do that?”
She scoffed, but only to avoid the reality that she’d given him this, that her unwillingness to hear him and make her own decisions had severed the last threads of humanity they’d had. Yes, they, she realized, because they’d built their own island together out of the ashes. And it was the only place she felt awake, alive… liberated.
“Because I love you,” she said, the words soaring free and filling the space between them with a warmth she hadn’t felt in months… all while enshrouded in darkness, by the terrible reality of fighting back, in a blood soaked room with a broken man on the floor in front of her.
But his expression changed again, and she thought maybe… just maybe he was allowing himself to believe her.
“Okay,” he sighed out, almost inaudible.