Chapter Text
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Nick takes a drink of the cocktail Lawrence handed him earlier. He is miserable. This wedding is ridiculous. Wharton and Serena are such a weird pair… Nick feels they are each using the other. Serena only has power though her husband, so why not go for the top guy? And Wharton never liked Fred Waterford, so this is just some posthumous dick move, OR his way of reigning in the only woman who could even potentially be more powerful than him.
Whatever. He hates all these people. Lawrence is a tool who kisses up to Wharton at every opportunity. Rose is barely speaking to him, still. Everyone put on a good face today, but that’s all it is.
Nick is aware that he’s been drinking more. It’s all he can think to do; he has lost the only two people he loves. Since June walked away from him on that road, he has fallen further and further into the depths of his own despair. He doesn’t eat. He doesn’t sleep. He doesn’t trust anyone but the one person who no longer trusts him.
Nick wonders if he can muster some anticipation for the baby that’s coming. That should be something to look forward to. He thinks about the night before he and Rose got married, when she confided in him that she was pregnant. He was glad she was honest and that was when he decided to tell her about June. It had actually been a very nice moment for them, sharing secrets. They were both in love with someone else, they knew what they were getting into together. He had agreed to be willing to go to DC when her father inevitably asked. She would be close to the father of her baby, and Nick could facilitate them being in each other's lives. Being near June wasn’t really an option, so at least being in DC would give him access to better intel for Mark Tuello and Mayday. Maybe an excuse to see June sometime.
But then came all the New Bethlehem stuff, and Lawrence just claimed Nick as his right hand. Wharton didn’t fight it, and so Nick and Rose had ended up there, both unhappy.
How much longer do we have to stay at this wedding?
People keep telling him they loved his speech. Nick hated his speech. Serena wrote it, slipped it in his hand the day before. It didn’t seem optional.
The worst part is these rows of Handmaids. Why Serena thought this was a good idea, Nick does not know. What a weird spectacle, or show of power, or both?
Maybe we can leave soon.
Someone walks behind him, and he suddenly feels his stomach drop. What was that?
Nick looks but just sees the back of a Handmaid who has walked by him. He squints as he watches her walk away. Why can’t he take his eyes off her? It’s her stature, her walk, it couldn’t be… no way.
She stops to let someone pass. She bows her head as expected, then turns her head just enough for him to see a blonde wisp of hair and just a sliver of a profile he would know anywhere.
What is she doing here?
His head is on a swivel now seeing if anyone else has seen her. Lawrence looks bored. Rita is chatting with someone.
His heart is pounding. He doesn’t know if she will talk to him, but he knows he’ll regret it if he doesn’t try.
He tells Rose he will be back, and he gets up to follow her. She is still weaving though tables to get back to where the Handmaids are sitting. He walks quickly to get a table over from her path and tries to get ahead of her. Once he is just a step or two ahead, he glances back, and she is looking right at him.
Their eyes meet, and they both stop walking. Someone bumps into Nick, and he has to turn to apologize. When he looks back, she is still locked on him, though she’s also trying to keep her head down the way she’s expected to. She meets his eyes one more time, then she walks toward a hallway off the main room. He follows.
He sees her duck into a coat closet. He moves quickly down the hall and stops at the doorway to the closet. He listens. Nothing.
“June,” he says as quietly as possible. She clears her throat, and now he knows she has hidden behind a huge coat rack.
He finds his way in. They are standing pretty close, but he doesn’t dare touch her. He has a million questions: about this, about her, about them. But he doesn’t know what to say.
“What do you want?” she says.
So this isn’t a friendly meeting.
He reminds himself quickly that he has nothing to lose here. At this moment, she hates him, and he will never see her or their daughter again. So things cannot get worse. He decides to be honest.
“I want you with Holly. Safe and together,” he says.
“Well too bad,” she says. “I’m not leaving until this is done.”
“What does ‘done’ look like, June? You, on the wall? They won’t stop until then.”
“Their luck might run out sooner than you think. But God knows I won’t be sharing any of those details with you.”
There it is.
Nick decides there is nothing he can say to that. So he doesn’t. He just looks at her, willing her to see him, the man she loved, the man she trusted.
She holds his gaze. She clearly doesn’t know what to say either.
“I fucked up, I know that,” he says. “I wish we could talk about it.”
“You do?” she says quietly but dramatically. “Oh my God! Nick Blaine WANTS to talk about it? With ME?”
“Hey, you’re the one who walked away from me.”
She is staring daggers at him.
Someone is coming into the coat closet. Without any thought, he grabs her white wings off her head and presses her up against the wall with his body, pulling an extra long coat in front of them. Luckily, they find their coat quickly and move along.
“Sorry,” he says, stepping away from her.
June straightens her dress and bonnet. He hands her the white wings and she looks down at them before looking back up at him.
“Can we talk sometime, please?” he asks.
June lets out a sigh. He can tell that she is still angry at him. He doesn’t know what made her more mad; thinking he told Wharton the plans or what he said to her about not minding his role as Commander and Eye when it suited her. Either one of those could send her right over the edge, and the combination, well, he is looking directly at the result of that.
“Fine,” she says, surprising him. “Later tonight.”
“Give me an hour. At the kitchen’s back door?”
“Bring me a change of clothes,” she demands as she squeezes past him. But just before she disappears, she turns back to him, looks him in the eye, and whispers seriously, “Do NOT eat the cake.”
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