valentine | the old guard

viii. safehouse

Goussainville, Paris    2020

"Welcome to one of our finest safehouses," I announce, opening my arms wide as we emerge from the forest, gesturing to the church up ahead in the vast clearing. 

Andy turns back to me from her spot further down the path and gives me a smile. She knows that this is my favorite safehouse, the interior arranged and assembled by my own fair hands. 

Freeman breaks through the trees behind me. "I thought you said we were going to Paris."

"We're just outside of Paris," Andy explains as she continues to trudge on, passing various derelict gravestones. "This is Goussainville. This place has been abandoned for fifty years."

"Why?" she asks, eyebrows furrowed. 

Andy looks up as a plane passes overhead. Nile looks to me, still as confused as before she first asked, and I respond by pointing at it, a knowing smile passing from Andy's face to mine. 

Nicky, Joe, Booker and I invite Freeman to join us at the old, circular dinner table. Andy is walking around in the kitchen across the room as we eat the macaroni and cheese Booker has prepared for us. It tastes nice, the same comforting recipe that he's been making for around two hundred years now. 

We eat in silence, Nile looking around suspiciously at everyone. Every once and a while, I catch other members of the team sneaking glances at her in return. Eventually, she speaks. 

"So are you bad guys or good guys?" she asks, her eyes finding Joe's. He folds his arms beside me, his posture stiffening as he casts a glance to Nicky.

"Depends on the century," Joe replies.

Nicky rolls his eyes at his partner, explaining, "We fight for what we think is right."

Freeman pauses for a minute. "How are you all in my dreams?"

I take a sip from my glass of water. "It's happened to all of us. We dream of each other. They stop when we meet."

"Why?"

Joe begins to speak, eyes looking from me to Nicky as he wraps an arm around my side. 

Nicky cuts him off before he can even start. "I believe it's because we... we're meant to find each other." Joe winks at him and he grins, turning back to Freeman. "It's like destiny."

"No, more like misery loves company," Booker growls. 

Joe chuckles and I lean into his side, looking across the table to Nile. "Pay that man no attention. He's just permanently grumpy."

"What she said," Andy chimes in, taking a bite of her pasta as she leans across the kitchen counter.

Nicky continues, "It used to take years to track a new one. Booker was the last."

"1812," I sigh fondly, remembering that year well. 

Nile turns to Booker as he lifts up his glass of red wine. "No way."

Booker nods sarcastically, staring down at the bottom of his cup. "Yeah, I died fighting with Napoleon."

"So... you're even older than him?"

Freeman stares around the table again, eyes even wider as the truth finally settles in. 

"As far as I know, I'm the second oldest," I say, smiling at Andy as she joins us at the table. "I'm around two thousand years old. I was alone and then one day I stumbled through the Crusades... the rest was history."