peace_inthe_violence

He stretched out his arm to make sure Andy didn't go tumbling into the water. She'd be fine if she did but they were having a conversation right now. There would be plenty of time to dump her in later.

"How could I not enjoy such a gift? It's too much." But he was happy. There was a certain look in his eyes when he got a new book. "I'll never be able to give you something as good in return."

But he would try. Booker would do his best to find something that could equal a first edition of Don Quixote.

"If the others want to hear me read it."

"It's not too much," she said, shaking her head with a hidden smile, leaning into his arm and brushing her thumb over Booker's cheekbone. "I wanted to buy it for you. I wanted to see you happy," Andy explained with a little laugh.

"And you've already given me something as good in return. You're here with us and you're letting us help you." He was helping them too, bringing them all around the same orbits with each other. "I want to hear you read it. Does that count?"

It feels like too much but it always did when the others did something unexpectedly nice for him. Booker was never very good at accepting gifts. He had gotten so few in his life before taking up with them.

"I'll read to you each night then until you fall asleep." If the others wanted to hear they could come join them. Booker really couldn't wrap his mind around the idea the others might want to hear him read out loud something that wasn't one of the trashy historical romances he picked up at airports sometimes.

There would still be something as a gift in return. Booker wouldn't let it sit like this.

Andy let her grin break into an actual smile at that: she loved hearing Booker read. She was equally proficient at it herself: there wasn't a language yet invented she couldn't learn, couldn't puzzle out with a day in a local market, but she liked his voice, the way it soothed and rolled along, just rough enough around the edges.

"I'd like that. It's been too long since we read to each other." It used to be a far more common occurrence, before radio, when they'd had long, long hours to fill and nothing else to do.

"Until Nicky suggested this... we hadn't really taken a break." How could they when there were still so many fights out there that needed them? It wasn't quite constant but it had come close.

The exhaustion of it had really pulled at Booker. It got down to his soul and torn him up. This was better, honestly. The peace and rest and trust it helped soothe him. Kind of like the cool water he floated in.

"I hope you didn't buy me a book just to read to you. You could have asked without it." Booker had plenty of books lying around the various safe houses they had. He could have and would have read to her at any time.

"No, I bought you the book because I knew you wanted it," she reasoned. "We should do this more often. Take time for us."

She had yet to let the time off sink in for herself, really: Andy was always moving, always working on something, even if it was only walking around, checking the perimeter of the land that surrounded the house. The other three, Booker especially, had needed the respite. It was just that while Andy could relax, could unwind for a week or three, or a month, she didn't know what else to be without the fight. It was more than what she did, it was who she'd become.

Centuries, millennia, of doing this all the time had simply shaped her that way. So she smiled at Booker, relieved and glad that he was feeling more himself again and less utterly spent. "So you don't turn out like me."

"Turning out like you wouldn't be the worst thing," he said as he gently trailed a finger down her cheek. "You're an incredible woman, Andy."

Strong, fierce, and loyal. What more could anyone want to be? Booker was proud to know her and he loved her, fiercely.

"Nicky won't be content being still for long and where he goes Joe follows." While he might enjoy the life of leisure more than the others if they wanted work he would find it for them. "I've been thinking... I might go for a week. Maybe more. To Marseille. And alone."

Which he knew she wouldn't like but Booker wasn't sure he wanted the others along for the trip he was thinking of.

"Are you sure, alone?" she asked, lifting her head at last at that. She knew what lay in Marseille for him, and while she wouldn't intrude she would worry. It was what she did when any of them went off alone. Andy wouldn't question his desire to go, merely to do it by himself.

But as sudden as Booker saying he wanted to leave felt, they'd all known this sort of idyllic break wouldn't last forever. The world outside turned, wars were fought, politics changed, people died. She knew that better than anyone.

"I'm not sure yet but... when I do go it'll be alone." Booker hadn't gathered the courage to go back but he thought about his family more and more. He thought stopping at their graves might help. Might honestly hurt him too but if that was the case he could come back here. "But I'll have a phone and be careful."

Booker knew how to travel without being noticed. He could disappear in the modern world a little better than the rest of them with his familiarity with technology.

"Don't worry, I'll come back here." Booker might drink himself stupid once or twice while away from the others and dealing with this but he wouldn't leave her to worry for long. He couldn't do that to her or the others.

"You better," she said, to the objectives of phone, being careful, and most importantly coming back to them. He was family, she loved him. It was that simple. Andy didn't want to lose him or be halfway around them world when his immortality ran out.

"You know you can always have us if you need us," Andy murmured. "Wherever you need."

Even here in the Maltese sunlight, six inches away from each other, though closer to zero inches when Andy reached out a hand and brushed her fingertips over his cheekbone, tilting to draw him in close and kiss Booker. It wasn't needy, wasn't drowned in want for him to do anything right now, just...a soft, reassuring kiss that tasted like bourbon, peaches, and the pool.

Booker wouldn't forget the lessons he had learned over the years. There was still a heavy grief in his chest and an ache in his heart but it wasn't like the night she found him drinking. He hadn't gone stupid with it.

He cupped the back of her neck in a hand as they kissed and squeezed gently to convey some reassurance. He started to feel alone when they first came here but this time had closed that distance.

"If I can't handle it I'll make sure to call you for back up." If the grief got to be too much while he was away or his heart hurt too much they would be his first call. He might also drink but that was his usual solution.

The kiss was lovely, comforting as he squeezed at her neck, and she hummed against Booker's mouth gently, letting him take the lead as Andy only did with him. The relationships were subtly different with each member of their family, though Andy held all of them jealously close.

"Good," she murmured, intending to let him do what he needed, even if she'd worry over it all the while he was gone. "So am I getting in, or are you getting out?" she asked, setting aside her drink, nearly empty but for some of the peach bits in the ice.

"Do you want me to get out?" He was content like this but Booker was fairly content just lounging around with her all the time. There was a subtle joy in sitting around with any of them in peace and quiet. "Or do you want to come in here and cool down?"

He wouldn't leave without telling them all what his plan was and making sure there was some plan for if he didn't communicate with them or come back. The chances of that were slim, very slim.

"I'm here for you, you know that." He kissed the corner of her mouth. "Like always, boss."

Andy hummed thoughtfully, and shook her head at the idea of him getting out. "Swim back a bit, I'll get in," she said, levering herself up to where she could sit up and slide into the water.

"I know," she sighed gently, surfacing again in the water and kicking to keep her head above water. "You keep me steady, Book. More than anyone else."

He finished his drink in two big swallows before he pushed away from the pool edge so that she could slide into the water. Booker understood why people worshiped her as a goddess as she got in. She was beautiful.

"You did the same for me after Jean-Pierre." That was when Booker actually joined them instead of trying to live his life like nothing had changed. He had come to them a wreck of guilt and grief and they helped rebuild him.

He swam over to her and caught her around the waist. He could keep them both up in the water easily. "I enjoy being your right hand. Your friend. Lover. Whatever you need."

"He hit you hard," Andy murmured, looping her arms around his shoulders and trusting her weight to him, gentle as it was in the water. "You're everything," she whispered, unafraid of pressing up against him and nuzzling into his neck.

He knew what it felt like, more intimately than the others, to lose everything, to feel ungrounded after everything was gone. "All of it."

"He was the same age I was when I died." Booker pressed his face against her hair as he leaned back using just a little strength to keep them afloat. After all these years he still wished he could save him. All that on top already watching his wife age and die, then his other sons...

They both understood grief on a very deep, ugly level. Booker trusted she wouldn't flinch from his darkness.

"Well, you know me, I live to serve." He drew back and smiled at her. He didn't need to bring them down with talk of his family again.

"The hell you do," Andy chuckled, only momentarily startled when he leaned them back, leaving them floating with her half laid on top of him.

"This is nice," she said idly, carefully moving her head to rest it on his chest. "You make a good pool float." Better than a unicorn, anyway.

Booker did think sometimes he lived to serve. He found most of the jobs and did a lot of the planning. He made sure they had money and supplies. They could all operate alone but together he tried his best to make sure everyone had what they needed.

"Thanks boss. It's good to know I've got a backup if this mercenary thing stops being profitable." It didn't take much extra effort to stay up if he kept his arms out. The only real downside was he couldn't quite touch her.

He did glance down at her. "You are ruining my tan though."

That only got one amused hum, and Andy smiled, hidden against Booker's skin. He'd feel it, but not see it without letting them sink in the water. "I'll make it up to you later," she said lightly. "Just be with me right now, hm?"

She wanted to spend time with them all, time to relax and unwind and just breathe in the same spaces. And that included Booker, where there was no pressure to do or say anything much; they could both snooze in the sun, floating in the cool water as far as they cared right then. "I was worried we'd lose you," she confessed quietly, imagining almost sinking her weight into him, though she didn't move. "Before we came here. You were so low, and I didn't know how to get to you."

"No where else I'd rather be, boss." He turned his head and kissed her temple and let his lips linger there for a moment. While he didn't always want to be stuck immortal he couldn't deny that sometimes he thought himself lucky to have all of them and to love all of them and be loved in return.

"Without you I would have kept sinking." Booker paused a moment as he thought back to where he was when they first arrived in Malta. Hell, the years before that fight after fight, failure on top of failure even though they tried to do good. "Nicky fighting so hard to keep us together after the last job I have to wonder if he saw the same thing you did. How low I was. How bad I'd get on my own."

Misery loves company was a good joke but he did get pretty miserable on his own. "You don't have to save me on your own, at least. You've got backup."

Andy sighed gently against him, trying to find the words she needed; the sun was warm and spoporific, as was laying on Booker, and she didn't want to drag him down touching on any of the topics again. "We both saw it," she answered. "He and Joe watched what happened when we lost Quynh, and...we didn't want you to fall that far. Not without us there to catch you," she murmured.

She'd rarely talked about how bad it got once Quynh had been lost, but Booker had known them all this time. He could guess.

It had been a very close thing. Booker hadn't felt that... bad in a long time. Bad was a cheap way to put it but he didn't know how to put into words the wet blanket of grief that clouded his mind and dragged down his heart.

"I think that's why I need to see them. I have to put it to rest in myself or I'll end up consumed by it." Booker had thought about it more and more as he dreamed of Jean-Pierre. The hurt just kept killing him again and again.

He was quiet for a moment. "Do you want to see if we could find her? With modern technology and perhaps new information discovered by some historian?"

The ocean was still so unknown Booker wasn't hopeful but there were better methods now than before. Maybe they could help Andy bury her grief as well.

"I understand," she murmured, quiet and still once he mentioned looking for Quynh again; Andy had looked for fifty years, getting more and more desperate to find her, and nothing had come of it.

"Did Nicky and Joe ever tell you how long we looked for her?" Andy asked, voice soft. It wasn't a conversation she had often, because even after five hundred years it was still painful. Quynh had been her lodestone, her lover, her everything: she'd dreamed of her for near a thousand years before ever meeting her, and she was like an angel to Andy, the closest she'd ever come to believing in the divine. "Fifty years, and we--I had to stop. I couldn't... All I could see when I closed my eyes was her being dragged into that coffin. She screamed for me the whole time, and I couldn't get to her."

Booker slowly directed them towards the shallow end of the pool. As nice as it was to float around he needed his arms which meant his feet had to hit the bottom. Luckily, he was tall enough to that comfortably once they were in the five foot depth.

He touched down with his arms wrapped around her tightly. They understood grief on a level that might be hard for Joe and Nicky who still had the great love of their life. Their pains were different was all.

"They told me a little bit." Those times Booker's nightmares had woken them and he was a babbling mess over it. He turned his head and kissed her hair as if he could pour comfort into her. "We don't have to. I never want to put you through that pain again."

The last thing Booker wanted was to hurt her.

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