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It’s been only ten minutes when he hears the door open behind him. Too quick, surely, to condemn a man, though he suspects the votes are there. He hopes Nile will bend them toward mercy. He knows Andy will be the one to deliver the verdict when it comes.
But it’s Nicky coming to his side now, resting his forearms on the railing and looking outward. His drink is still mostly full; wordlessly Booker tips his empty glass and Nicky pours half of his beer into it. Share and share alike, that’s Nicky, drinks and food and weapons, books and blankets, love and laughter and sorrow. All things save one, one shining exception in all of God’s creation, and Booker thinks that Nicky would share that, too, instantly, open-handed, if such a thing were within his power.
“Why are you out here?” He won’t like any answer he gets. He wants to hear Nicky’s voice. “You can’t have decided already.”
“I’m not sure my presence in there is helpful.” Nicky gives a minute shrug. “I don’t think I can be—”
“Objective?” Booker snorts, when Nicky pauses. “I don’t think you’re supposed to be.”
“Reasonable,” Nicky says. He’s still looking out over the water, and does not turn to meet Booker’s miserable glance.
He rests an uncertain hand on the railing, an inch from Nicky’s arm. “I’m sorry, Nicky. I didn’t expect it to go that way.” He doesn’t think it will matter, but it might be his last chance to say it. “I didn’t think anyone else would get hurt.”
When Booker had said the same thing to Andy, to Nile, they had nodded, angry but sorrowful, wary but sympathetic. Joe had hit him square in the mouth; Joe had been crying.
Nicky says, evenly, “I don’t believe you.”
The railing creaks under Booker’s hand.
“You brought the wolf into our home,” Nicky says, “and it did what wolves do. I believe you regret it. But don’t ask me to listen as you plead ignorance.”
He bows his head after saying this, flushed as if he’d been shouting, and takes in a steadying breath. Booker can feel it; his hand has moved, without his volition, and he’s gripping Nicky’s jacket tightly in his fist. He feels Nicky’s ribs against his knuckles, expanding and contracting on a slow count.
At the sensation, a memory surfaces. In a northern country, a century ago, in a winter storm that makes Booker’s bones shake even in memory, he’d been too slow to find shelter. He’d gotten lost in the blinding snow; he’d stumbled over his frozen feet, been unable to push himself back up with his frozen hands. He’d died face-up, staring at the sky until the world seemed to flip and his soul dropped down, down, into a glittering abyss. He’d woken twice, alone, dying again when his body had no answer to the cold.
The third time, he’d woken in darkness to Nicky’s low voice, Nicky’s arms gentle around him even when Booker’s hands clawed at his, Nicky’s breathing deep and even in counterpoint to Booker’s own choking gasps. You’re safe, Nicky had said. We can’t go back yet, but we’re safe here. He had slept, then, comforted, warm, and when he woke again he understood that Nicky had dug a space under the snow for them to wait out the weather. They’d dozed most of the rest of the day, drifting safely through the storm in a vessel built for two.
It was only when they’d reached the cabin that night, less than an hour’s walk away in clear weather, that Booker realized Nicky had been here, safe, with Joe and Andy, and had gone out into the storm to find him. Obvious, in retrospect. Equally, idiotic. Storms pass. He would have been strong enough, eventually, to get up.
Joe had stood from the small table, wrapping Booker first in a tight hug, rubbing his hands up and down Booker’s back as if to warm him, then leaned back with his eyes twinkling. “I believed in you, Book. I said you must have found shelter.”
“I didn’t,” he’d replied dumbly, and Joe had laughed, moving toward Nicky, helping him with his pack.
Andy, not getting up: “I said we should just wait for you to thaw out come spring.” But she had winked as she said it, her eyes warm with welcome as she pushed another chair out with her foot and slid a shot glass across the table.
He’d taken both the seat and the shot. Still he hadn’t understood. “But why—?”
Andy had scoffed, and refilled both their glasses, and said, “Never get between Nicky and a rescue mission.”
He’d looked over then at Nicky and Joe.
They hadn’t been doing anything, really. Just standing side by side, speaking quietly as they unfolded the damp blankets from Nicky’s pack and Joe hung them across the line he’d set for the purpose. Their fingers had brushed thoughtlessly over one another’s as they worked. Their shoulders had bumped together in a gentle domestic rhythm, uneven and unnoticed. Nicky had said something in their lilting private language, and Joe had cackled, and retorted smartly, making Nicky laugh.
And Booker had felt it then, as he felt it sometimes, that huge and bright and unconquerable thing, flashing like gold in the dim space, expanding outward and upward and onward, infinitely, until he was gasping under the pressure of it, shocked it hadn’t blown the walls out of the cabin. It wasn’t that he wanted it. It was that he’d had it. He’d had it, he’d had it, he had lived with his love in the shining city, and he’d lost it, he’d lost her, he’d lost them all, there was nothing left, there was nothing…
The feeling rushes through him in the present, bitter as poison, no less painful than it had been on that distant day. He blinks away tears, focusing on Nicky’s breathing when his own threatens to run away from him. He hasn’t let go of Nicky’s jacket. Nicky hasn’t objected. “I’m sorry,” he says, again, helplessly. The words feel different; he doesn’t know why. Maybe he means them more. Maybe he’s apologizing for something else entirely. “Nicky. I’m sorry.”
“You’re in agony, brother,” Nicky says, the finest of tremors finally entering his voice. “I’m sorry I didn’t see the depth of it. I’m sorry I didn’t help. You deserved better from me.”
Booker has to turn away then, has to force himself to let go, before he throws himself howling to his knees. Nicky’s willingness to share in this, too, to set his shoulder under the weight of Booker’s sins—There’s nothing Booker can say, in the face of it. He is at the end of speech.
He tilts his gaze up and stares into the sky until it feels like he’s falling. What had he deserved, after all, from any of them, that had not been given in abundance? Oh, how he’d wept for the lack of love, while love had been searching for him, waiting for him, ready always to welcome him home.
He drags a hand across his burning eyes. God. He wants to sleep. He wants to die. He wants Joe to come out and drown him in the river. He wants someone to dive in after him. He hears the door open behind him. He recognizes Andy’s step. He wants to go home.