every_blossom_blooming | Don't you see that lonesome dove sitting on an ivy tree

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Don't you see that lonesome dove sitting on an ivy tree

Nina sat at a booth near the back of the bar, staring at the bottle of liquor on the table. A glass sat next to it, though she hadn't touched either just yet. She wasn't even sure how long she'd been sitting there anymore.

It had been a day or two since Geralt disappeared. Maybe two, now, she thought. She'd spent the first day on the floor of Kaz and Inej's apartment, and she'd managed to leave, but she wasn't sure where to go or what to do with herself. And that was probably how she found herself in a bar, sitting in front of a bottle that she'd like very much to drown in. Her eyes were still red-rimmed from crying, her hair limp from the lack of a shower in the last few days.

She pulled out her phone and scrolled through her contacts, barely focused as the tears threatened to overflow again.

Come sit with me? I'm at Tintern.

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He wants to say she was wrong, that she was just being an asshole, but he remembers what it was like, training soldiers. Preparing them for war. Nina has said enough about her life and this woman for him to make that assumption and he could be wrong, but he's got a feeling he's not.

Sometimes, with soldiers, you have to be fucking hard.

"None of that shit matters here," he says with a shrug. "Bein' memorable is a good fuckin' thing around these parts. At least, far as I'm concerned, it is. You can be as fuckin' foolish as you want. Not that I think any of that shit is foolish."

Nina smiled and bumped her shoulder against Sweeney's. In some ways, she knew Zoya was right: being memorable, as a spy, was not necessarily a good trait. But her cover was always so good, her manner so open, that no one ever suspected her as anything more than a tourist or someone from another part of the country.

"You're sweet," she said to Sweeney, and she meant it, whether the leprechaun would appreciate the sentiment or not. "And you're right, I'm not a soldier here. And I have it on good authority that Zoya Nazyalensky likes to take long baths with lavender bubbles whenever she gets the chance."

Nina refilled the glass and lifted it. "To impossible babies being born in impossible places."

She took barely a taste and then promptly passed it to Sweeney. She gave him a fond look. "And to impossibly tall friends that are willing to risk life and liver."

"Yeah, I'm a fuckin' darling," he answers, a snort of laughter slipping out. Whether he believes it about himself or not, he doesn't particularly mind the sentiment from someone he likes. For all Nina might really mean it, he also thinks she's not the sort to get taken in by his bullshit.

He watches as she takes a sip of the drink -- barely that, so he doesn't say a word -- then takes the glass from her and lifts it in response to her toast.

"Were my liver in any danger, I think I'd've died a long time ago," he says with a faint smile, then takes a sip of the drink. "Let's drink to the impossible baby. Rather, I'll drink to the impossible baby and to the fucking over of anyone who says a word against you or it."

Nina grinned at the promise to fuck up anyone that troubled her or the baby. "Well, I'm glad to have you in our corner. I'd almost dare someone at this point to say something rotten to me about having a baby without a father. I'd love the excuse to break someone's leg or to make them vomit on the sidewalk..."

She sighed wistfully. "I couldn't even participate in fight club. Too pregnant, and to do it any other way would be cheating," she said with a pout. "If you ever happen to find someone that really deserves a bad day, let me know? I get so bored."

Mad Sweeney hasn't needed anyone to fight his battles at any point in his life, not at his size, not at the status he'd had before he'd fled from his death, but it's a sweet offer. One made sweeter by the fact that he knows she could do it, too. She could kill a man easier and with less effort than he'd have to put out to do the same.

"Wouldn't want you to get bored," he says. "I'll keep an eye out for people who need to be taught a lesson that can't be taught with my fists."

They have to exist. He's probably one of them. Getting into a fight has never once put a damper on Mad Sweeney's day.

"I'm getting better at using my power from a distance. A friend's been helping me practice with a scope. And Geralt let me track him through the woods, following the sound of his heart."

It was easy because Geralt's heart sounded so... different. She realized, again, that she was going to miss it. Nina tucked her hair back.

"Do you think you can hide that bottle? I paid for it but I don't know how they'd feel about me walking out with it," she mused. "I think my couch is more comfortable than this booth."

He could drink it all in under a minute, but that's not what Nina is asking of him, so Mad Sweeney caps the thing and tucks it under his jacket. He makes no attempt to really hide it, trusting his luck to carry them out the door and wherever she wants to go.

"Lead the way, darlin'," he tells her. "I'll get the bottle out safe and sound, don't you worry about that."

He's fucking terrible at this. He feels like a goddamn idiot, toting around a bottle when she's so clearly in pain, but there's shit he can actually do about that. Nothing brings back her man. Nothing he says eases the pain. Someone else might be able to, but he's not the right man for that job. Too rough. Too damn old.

But Nina wanted his roughness, his age. Sweeney was old, much older than Geralt, but there is something familiar in his manner that was comforting just then. It made her feel like she could survive this, because Sweeney had survived saints-knew-what.

Nina wrapped herself in her shawl as they stepped outside, the chilly air doing a bit to clear her head. She focused on keeping herself warm, though she was careful these days with how she used her power on herself.

"Don't feel so down on yourself," she said as she looked up at him. She grasped Sweeney's hand and she shared her warmth, whether he needed it or not. She could see the look on his face. "If I have one more person telling me that it's going to be alright, and that I'll be fine, I'll scream. I just need someone that can keep up with me."

"Not gonna say any of that shit," he answers easily. Because while it might all be the truth, it's a truth she already knows and she doesn't need to keep hearing it, as if that's going to somehow make it true now. That sure as fuck isn't how grief works and Sweeney, for all his bullshit and bluster, isn't ever going to force someone to feel a way they don't feel.

"Dunno if I can keep up with you either," he adds a moment later, looking down at her with a faint, fond smile. "You get this whole bottle in me and I may just pass out face first on your floor and then what'll you do? Seven foot leprechaun snoring away all bloody night."

Nina grinned and rolled her eyes at him. "I'll be sure to roll you over to make sure you stop snoring," she said fondly.

She bit her lip, considering what she wanted to ask next. "Will you stay the night? It's not-- It's just been some time."

For over a year Geralt had been a steady presence, either staying in her apartment or she out in his cabin. It was a sudden, lonely feeling that she was still getting over, and she felt silly for asking in the first place.

"Yeah," he answers easily. There's nowhere else he's expected and even if he were, it's nothing a quick text wouldn't solve. There's no one waiting for him. He and Spike aren't exactly the sort to make plans, they sort of just fall into the same places at the right times.

It's better that they're not the kind to make plans. He doesn't want investigate that or dwell on what he wants or all the pointless shit he's been thinking lately. None of it's the sort of stuff he can allow to matter.

"Yeah, I can stay," he says. "You think you got a space big enough for me?"

"The bed might just work if you don't mind propping up on pillows or if you have the tendency to curl your legs when you sleep," she said with a little smile. It's a king bed, but Sweeney's just a little too tall for it's length, she's certain of that.

She found her keys as they neared the building and she looked up at him.

"You really don't mind?" she asked, a bit quieter.

"I really don't mind," he answers and leaves it at that. There's no sense in qualifying that, in telling her there's nowhere else he has to be and no one else expecting him. Even if there were, he'd stay with her. She needs him and he's not always good at being needed, but he'll be damned if he leaves her at a time like this.

"Long as you don't," he adds. "You might change your mind after havin' to spend just a single night with me."

He doesn't have the slightest fucking clue how it is Spike puts up with him. They have weird, differing schedules, and still manage to spend some of their nights together.

"You might change your mind," she said airily. "I might kick. Or what if I say unladylike things in my sleep? What if I bite?"

There had been a time that Nina took the stairs on a whim. Now, she headed straight for the elevator. With a soft sigh she leaned against the back wall and rested her arm across her belly.

"Did you see the way people were looking at me?" she asked with a grin, her eyes closed for a moment. "In the bar? Saints, I'm impressed no one tried to say something. The bar tender looked ready to call the police or something when I asked for the whole bottle."

"As if you're not already used to people starin' at you all the bloody time," Sweeney replies, following her onto the elevator. "You're an eyeful, darlin'."

And she knows it, too, he knows she knows it and the way he looks at her says as much. Maybe it's a different sort of state, but he's sure she'd endured worse than that, too.

"And if you bite in your sleep, it still won't be the sharpest bite I've had this week," he adds. "Bet you won't even draw blood."

Nina rolled her eyes but a smirk tugged at her mouth. Sweeney wasn't wrong, after all: she was used to people looking at her, especially when she wanted them to.

"You don't know. Maybe all grisha are secretly demons." But she bared her quite human teeth at him and she knew he was right. She'd have to bite hard and mean it to draw blood on anyone. "You'll be a husk by the end of the night. Grrr."

Sweeney is pretty sure if the vampire doesn't drain him down to nothing, then Nina won't be able to do it either, but he only grins and rolls his big shoulders in a shrug. "At least I already know I'd die happy," he teases.

It's not far off. Nina's something else, something special, even if he'll not say it, and that's not to say Spike's not special, just that it started somewhere else. And it'll end somewhere else, too. But what he knows of himself from Spike is that being drained of blood isn't such a terrible thing.

"You know, I've not really asked how you've been since your coin's come back. I just sort of assumed everything's been ducky."

She heard someone say that - ducky - and she'd picked it up. Nina let them into her apartment, grateful that Inej had been by to help her clean recently, and to quietly put away Geralt's things in a closet, until she was ready to deal with them. It was cozy as ever, plush and homey. It was easier to nest here in the winter, and if she was honest with herself, she wasn't sure she could bring herself to sleep in the cabin alone. She didn't know what she'd do with it now.

"Which, knowing you, maybe isn't the best assumption to make," she said with a coy little smile.

"Luck's back with a vengeance," he says and that counts for a hell of a lot. Most days, he coasts through, no longer having to worry about even the smallest things. If something bad is coming in his direction, it's diverted somehow, and good things tend to find him instead. They tend to find the people who leave offerings for him, too, at least for the time being. Until he gets bored of that.

"You ever want to play a round of roulette and take home a hefty prize, you just call me," he answers.

That's not really the question she asked, but he doesn't know how else to properly answer. Trying to explain the ways in which Darrow is proving a hell of a lot more interesting than what he'd come from feels like an especially shitty thing to do in a moment like this.

Nina rolled her eyes and gave Sweeney a little push. "I know a stupid boy that would do anything for a promise like that." She combed her fingers through her hair and started to work it into a loose braid. She needed to wash it.

"I wouldn't mind a little luck in a few months," she said with a wry smile. "I'm getting to the point where the end is sort of in sight, and I realize that worrying about carrying the baby is over and worrying about having the baby is starting."

"Go," he says, nodding toward the couch when she starts to braid her hair. "Sit your ass down and let me."

One of the many, many things he's learned over the years, although where he learned it, he's not sure he remembers. Maybe it was even in Ireland, before he was a bird, when his mother was still alive. There's a faint, blurred memory of his hands, still small, working through waves of thick red hair, pulling it back and away from a strong featured face. Or one of the women in the years that followed, maybe even Bast. It's been too long. He can never be sure.

"You'll manage it," he says. "The havin' it part. He may not be here anymore, but there's someone to come in the room with you. Doctors and nurses and all the safe shit they've got these days. You'll hurt, but you'll manage even without my luck."

Which isn't the say he won't still give it.

Nina stuck her tongue out at him, but did as he asked. She ran her fingers through her hair one more time before she stayed still to let Sweeney have at it.

"Watch yourself or you'll find yourself recruited to hold my hand," she warned. "Do you have strong feelings about that kind of thing? Men being present when babies are born, I mean. Not with me, just in general."

She was curious. She'd met men that looked like they'd faint the moment their woman's water broke, and others yet that thought it was taboo or just bad luck, or that it was a woman's thing. It made her wonder.

He begins to braid, pulling Nina's thick hair over her shoulder, separating the strands before he starts to work with it.

"Thoughts have changed so much over the years," he says. "About nearly everything, men being present for childbirth included. Gone one way and then back again more times than I can count. When my parents were king and queen, I don't think anyone really gave a shit. He was there when I was born, far as I was ever told."

He's not bothered by it himself. He's seen too much to be offended by the nature of it all.

Nina smiled faintly as she listened. It felt rather nice to have someone taking care of her hair. "We'll see how I feel when the time comes, I suppose."

She knew she didn't want to be alone, but that was the extent of it.

"Part of me thought about doing a home birth, but-- I don't know. Maybe I'd feel better if there are doctors nearby."

She wrinkled her nose a bit and resisted the urge to lean back into Sweeney - not yet, not while he was still working.

"Doctors aren't far away, if you want the best of both worlds," Sweeney answers with a shrug. "And you're young anyway, it'll be simpler for you now than it would be even five years from now. Doctors told you there's anything to worry about?"

He probably doesn't need to say it, but he's not a big fan of hospitals. They ask too many questions about men like him and it's just best to avoid doctors as often as he can. If Nina wants a home birth, he thinks she ought to do it.

He finishes the braid and ties it off, laying her hair against her back and giving her shoulder a gentle squeeze to indicate he's done.

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