#christopher rembandt

[birdiethebibliophile]

{fic} That Old Sweet Feeling (part 31)

Fandom:  The Adventure Zone:  Commitment Rating:  M Chapter Warnings:  None Relationship:  Nadiya Jones/Mary Word Count:  1,237

Here on AO3. Read the rest: Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 8 Part 9 Part 10 Part 11 Part 12 Part 13 Part 14 Part 15 Part 16 Part 17 Part 18 Part 19 Part 20 Part 21 Part 22 Part 23 Part 24 Part 25 Part 26 Part 27 Part 28 Part 29 Part 30

Tagging @someone-called-f1nch, @voidfishkid, @mellowstarscape, and @jumpboy-rembrandt!

Holy shit, I can’t believe we’re finally here. It’s been eight months - almost exactly - in the making. The longest thing I’ve ever written, and the thing I’m (so far) most proud of. Thank you everyone for sticking with me, especially everybody from the TAZ Commitment Discord.

I love you all.

Chapter Summary:   A soft epilogue.

__________________

“No, Mom, I’m fine. I’m talking  to you. I couldn’t do that if I wasn’t fine.”

Nadiya glanced up at a soft tap on her door. There was Mary Sage, wearing a t-shirt and worn jean shorts and holding a potted plant. She waved.

Nadiya smiled and motioned her in. “I mean, yeah, you can fly out if you want. Aren’t England to California, like, literally as far from each other as physically possible, though?” She paused to give Mary Sage a careful, one-armed hug. “Okay, okay! Call me when you get in, okay? I can give you the hospital address.

“No, Dad isn’t coming. Yeah. He emailed me yesterday, you know how he doesn’t like to talk on the phone. Said he was in the middle of something, but if I needed him, he could – yeah, no. Mom, it’s fine. My friends are taking good care of me. I’ll see you tomorrow.” She smiled. “Yeah. Looking forward to seeing you. Love you too.”

Nadiya hung up and set the cell phone on the table by her hospital bed, next to where Mary Sage had put the plant. “Hey, Space Cadet.”

“Hey, Reed Richards.” Mary Sage kissed her on the cheek. “How ya feelin’?”

“Less like shit than I did yesterday,” Nadiya said. “Or the day before. So that’s progress. That plant’s not going to last a week – I’ve killed every plant I’ve ever had.”

“It’s the thought that counts,” Mary Sage said brightly, settling on the hospital bed with a slight bounce. “That was your mom?”

“Yeah. Apparently she saw the news and decided to fly halfway across the world to make sure I was all right. Good to know that something  will make that happen, even if it had to be a life-threatening situation.” Nadiya rolled her eyes, but couldn’t help smiling again.

It wasn’t perfect. It wasn’t going to be perfect, between them, but her mom was making an effort, and maybe that was step one.

“Surprised it took this long,” Mary Sage commented.

“It didn’t make international news until this morning, I think.”

Martine may have shot the screens at the press conference, but Jonesy’s camera had still been up and working throughout their entire confrontation in the back room. She and Grace had retrieved the footage and disseminated it to every news outlet they could. As it turned out, it didn’t reflect well on Martine that she ordered the cold-blooded murder of multiple people on camera. Every security officer in the place had been on her as soon as they could get past her guards, anyways.

Because Martine wasn’t dead. What Mary Sage had done – whatever she had done – had ruptured the connections Martine had had with the former members of the Do-Good Fellowship, as well as the people who’d received stimplants since then. According to the news, she was suffering “unexpected neurological side effects” from what had happened.

“Oh, cry me a river,” Mary Sage had said when she heard. “I didn’t have a choice when she fucked up my brain. I’m not sorry.”

Now, Mary Sage flopped back with Nadiya, carefully avoiding her arm with the IV in it. “We heard from Jamie this morning,” she told Nadiya. “She wanted to know whether it was all true. We said yeah, an’ told her about the whole victim of war crimes protection thing or whatever. Sounds like she’s goin’ back to Eureka.”

“I’m glad,” Nadiya said, and was surprised to realize she meant it. “What about the others?”

“I think Irene’s been talkin’ to Flanagan, but Kardala’s been real cagey about it,” Mary Sage said, snickering. “She did say they were good, though, Addison an’ Flanagan. Figurin’ stuff out. Pridmore an’ Abbey are still hangin’ around. I think Grace got ahold of Joe this morning?”

Nadiya made a sound that she hoped adequately conveyed her utter contempt for and disregard for one Joe Carbinner.

“Aw, shut up,” Mary Sage said, giggling. “I know you hate him, but he got screwed over by the Fellowship as much as any of us.”

“Sure.” Nadiya smiled as Mary Sage’s absent fingers found the bracelet she was still wearing and started fiddling with it. “Has, uh… How’s Remy doing?”

“Not great,” Mary Sage said frankly. “Kinda the same as you. Today was better than yesterday was better than the day before. Somebody called him last night – his brother? He cried a lot an’ when he got off the phone he gave everybody a big hug, an’ he’s seemed a little better since then.”

“And you told him I want to see him?”

“Yeah. Might be a couple days, still. I think he knows it wasn’t his fault, but he’s still pretty messed up about it.”

Nadiya sighed. “I guess I don’t blame him. He probably got the worst of this, and that’s counting that I literally got stabbed.” She settled back further into her pillows. “You ever feel like… you can’t quite believe it’s over?”

“Every second,” Mary Sage said without hesitation. “Shit, Nad, this all started for us way before we even knew it had. I know it’s not, like, over  over, with Martine’s trial we gotta testify at an’ everything, and figurin’ out what the hell we’re gonna do now, but… I talked to a lawyer this morning, Nad. A lawyer. He said he’s gonna help me get my parents out of jail, and he only had to look at the case file for like, a second before he said there was more hinky stuff goin’ on than it even seemed like at first. Bribes an’ shit. Didja know that forbidding contact with family members in prison without due cause is a crime?”

“No, but it makes sense. Have they found Richard yet?”

“Yeah, as soon as they raided Martine’s place. He’s under arrest too – aiding an’ abetting. And treason,” Mary Sage added. “Sylvane’d be under arrest too, but he’s in the hospital right now, an’ he’s sayin’ he was controlled like Remy. I call BS, but I guess the feds can figure that one out.”

“God, I want to get out of here,” Nadiya grumbled. “I hate having to hear everything secondhand.”

“Hey, Nad, guess what I realized?” Mary Sage, sitting up and grinning.

“What?”

“Now that we’re not on the run, we can actually go on dates  an’ shit if we want,” Mary Sage said. “There’s a bunch of real great places in San Francisco. I’ve been checkin’ ‘em out so we can go when you get out of the hospital. Bookstores an’ ice cream places an’ coffeeshops an’ whatever. I dunno, that’s what you do for dates, right? I’ve only been on, like, one, an’ we went to Olive Garden, an’ I left early.”

“That’s one more than I’ve been on,” Nadiya admitted. “But that sounds… really good. And then I guess we’ll have to start apartment shopping, huh?”

“Yeah, eventually, once we know where we wanna live,” Mary Sage agreed. “Plus finding jobs, I guess. But we don’t have to worry about that yet, right?”

“Nah,” Nadiya said. “Let’s get through this first. Let everything reset and settle down. And in the meantime, yeah, let’s go on a bunch of dates.”

“Sounds good to me,” Mary Sage said, and kissed the corner of Nadiya’s mouth. “There’s that old sweet feeling again,” she whispered. “You feel it too?”

“Yeah,” Nadiya said. “I do.”

-----

(Tomorrow will take care of itself.)