Vicks

My babies Theodora and Charlotte for the keychain challenge by Pelmenga & for Arina’s women

My dearest friend @ptyshachka gifted me the prettiest edit from serpentsonia_rc (tg) to my fic.

Pairing: Vesper/Nova Tags: date, fluff, found family, dinner, Paris Word count: 2860. Little warning: I'm not a native English speaker & translate my fics by myself without the use of GenAI, so please bear with me if there are some errors here and there, I really do my best <3

“Can I look already?”

Nova and Vesper arrived in France the day before yesterday in the evening, and yet Vesper has been busy the whole days long. She’s got some very difficult project and a meticulous customer. Nova was keeping herself entertained with reading, learning some new magic and walking around the suburb area of Paris where they were staying.

“No one promised it would be much fun”. And yet she really just wanted to spend some time in France as a tourist with her wife. Especially considering it is their first trip together since honeymoon.

But during lunch Vesper finds a moment to call her and ask her out for a date at 6 PM. No further explaining, just some mysterious silence in response when Nova tries to ask questions. Vesper is not the one to keep secrets since the moment the war was over. Since the moment she finally believed that Nova is never going away and betraying her again.

Well, maybe Ves just booked a hilariously expensive dinner at the Eiffel Tower and now thinks that Nova will rebel against such money waste. Nova doesn’t think she’ll ever get used to absurdly expensive gifts.

Vesper arrives at the hotel exactly at 6 PM. Nova is going through some jewellery when she notices her coming in. She turns around and is completely stunned. She’ll never get used to it. The admiration is clearly readable in her eyes, as Ves smiles — in a way only she can — and teasingly turns around.

“You like it?”

Nova needs a couple of seconds to come to her senses and nod.

“Are you sure we are going somewhere?”

Vesper smiles and reaches out to her neck, helping her to fix the sun-shaped pendant.

“Absolutely. You don’t wanna miss it,” she says and then leans towards Nova’s ear, giving it a burning sensation and whispers. “But I’d also not object to staying at home together.”

They definitely go towards the centre of Paris. Vesper is still secretive about the place they go to. Nova really wants to throw suggestions at her and try to read the answer on her face. She’s quite sure about the Eiffel Tower theory when Ves asks is she can cover her eyes and let her lead her from here on. Nova bites her lip and lets a little laugh out: Vesper is in fact a hopeless romantic. Yet she lowers her head and allows a cold eye cover to cover her face.

They get out of the car and walk the street for a short while — and then walk the stairs for a long while.

“That’s not the Eiffel Tower,” understands Nova. “Vesper would definitely pay for the elevator”. The stairs seem old — so old they would be scary to walk on with open eyes and a less fancy dress. Nova isn’t scared. A strong hand supports her elbow, doesn’t allow her to fall.

The stairs seemed endless — and yet are finally done. They take a few more steps and then stop.

“Can I look already?”

Vesper helps her unbind the knot on her eye cover and Nova blinks a couple of times to adjust to a dim lighting.

They have been here before.

“The Medici column,” she exhales, spellbound. “Here…”

“Here I tried to finish things between us.” Vesper nods. “And you didn’t let me make the biggest mistake in my life”.

“We started to date here. You gave me this pendant and called me your woman for the very first time”.

“I did find it a little funny to see it on your neck today knowing where we are going”.

Nova takes a few steps and stops at the tiny, decorated table.

“It is indeed stunningly beautiful here.”

“I told you it was a good place for a date three years ago.”

“And now you’re finishing the unfinished business?”

“We are.” Vesper lays her hand on Nova’s.

Nova feels the electricity tingling in her fingers. They aren’t schoolgirls, damn, they have even been married for more than a couple of days — but she is confident: she’ll never get enough of Vesper’s (even the most innocent!) touch.

“We can’t stand this way forever.” Vesper chuckles releasing Nova from her sudden trance. “Our food will be cold.”

“You’re the strongest witch I know. Do you really want to say you can’t keep it warm if you want to?” Nova teases her a bit but sits down. “Did you really prepare all of this by yourself?”

Vesper smiles playfully.

“Having you believe I can do anything is extremely pleasant but no. For starters, it would be difficult to get into a famous building that is not supposed to be visited without attracting unwanted attention of local police. Especially doing so a couple of times.”

“Shen was here?”

“Not just him.”

Nova nods. She’s got to say thank you later. It is obvious Ves has said thank you herself, probably it was even a material thank you. But you can’t say it too much.

Nova lifts the lid that keeps the food warm and after seeing Vesper doing the same, she looks inside. The smell makes her heart beat faster.

“You remembered.” The attention she got makes her feel unexpectedly pleasant.

“Nova,” Vesper sounds as if she is trying not to sigh. “Of course I remembered. We are married. I do actually listen to you”.

“It’s just…” Nova starts to speak but does not finish the sentence. They both get it anyway. She always tells Vesper herself that it is okay to ask for help, it shouldn’t be scary to be vulnerable, and it is absolutely normal that a loved one is attentive to the things you hold dear, it is not that easy for her as well. The angry thought that she is just a tool still hurts, still doesn’t want to leave her for good even after all the pushing away she has tried.

And yet Vesper proves her over and over again that she does actually care. Just like she does now.

“I did actually play on your weaknesses,” Vesper confessed the day when Nova came to her after they stole the Conduit.

“…And I will spend the rest of my days proving to you that everything that arose from that playing, is real. That we are real.” Vesper cleared her throat before she was able to finish her wedding vow.

And yet Vesper proves Nova over and over again that everything is real.

“Nova?” Vesper’s voice leads her away from her both happy and hurtful memories. “You’re weirdly absent today.”

“Sorry.” Nova smiles somewhat guiltily. “I was thinking about the way we got here.”

She takes the cutlery and tries the food. Her taste buds seem to go nuts. Nova feels like she’s never eaten anything more delicious in her life — and yet the taste is exactly the same as that one.

“How did you do it?” She looks at her wife with amazement. “It does really taste the same way as in that restaurant where dad and I were when I was fifteen.”

Just once in her life when she started to rebel as a teenager, Cardinal took a risk to be seen with his Other daughter. She wasn’t allowed to call him dad, they took Marie-Louise with them to cover for them, but Nova was incredibly happy. This was an undoubtedly happy memory for Nova even when her father’s manipulations became obvious to her. It was that day when she tried that shrimp pasta. People said the restaurant’s chef was half French, half Italian and learned something from both cultures.

Nova told Vesper about it long ago but didn’t even consider that she gave it a second thought. Though, if one would think a bit about it, she did ask a couple of extra questions about where the restaurant was and what else was in the dish…

“Do you really wish to learn the Master’s secret?” Vesper says boldly, leans to Nova over the table and whispers. “Alright then. I had to kill the chef for it.”

Nova’s eyes widen.

“I’m kidding, Nova. I just stole his family recipe.”

“Vesper,” Nova nearly growls.

“Fine, fine. I just came to the restaurant, told him a sob story and he agreed to have a small not-entirely-vacation in France for a small reward.”

Nova nearly lets a sigh out. She thought before that a lift to the Eiffel Tower and a dinner there would be expensive, and Vesper brought a couple of people to France just to fulfil her teenage dream. An expensive gesture. And yet Nova doesn’t have neither the strength nor the desire to rebel against such waste of money. The strength is taken by the long walk on the stairs and the desire by a weird warm feeling that spreads firstly across her chest, then her whole body. Vesper does care.

“Actually, there is a second reason we’re here,” Vesper says while moving the dessert closer to Nova. She scoops chocolate mousse with a spoon and listens.

“Remember, last time we were here… In France, not on the Medici column,” Vesper specifies. “I told you that when everything ends, we could move away from Italy?”

Nova nods. Their life in France when they were on their mission seems so far away and the plans they made back then so unrealistic. Back then it seemed that the life after their victory will be — well, not easy — but normal. Like normal people have. But they couldn’t just leave. Vesper had her duties and Nova… Nova had her Vesper.

“I know I have told you all this time that it is not yet time to live for ourselves, that we have to finish what we started. But yet I promised you we could leave Italy. Be free. Be together, just the two of us. And I realised I can’t keep sacrificing both of our freedoms for the freedom of others.” Vesper exhales. The words don’t come out easily. “That’s why I wasn’t just busy with a client but also did my research on selling the business. We could get quite some money for it, effortlessly start a life wherever we would go. Even here.

Nova remains silent while processing what she just heard.

“What do you say?” Vesper asks. “It’s your decision. You went wherever I led you for quite a long time. It is time for me to follow you even to the edge of the world.”

Nova thinks. She doesn’t really remember what she told Vesper the last time. She was probably glad. Rome was linked to a lot of pain for her, to her inability to accept who she was, to the memories of treachery, to the childhood she never had. But their mission gave her something she never thought she could have. It is not just Vesper. She had Onyx — her Onyx who showed her how important the connection between a witch and her familiar can be. She had her magic lessons with Nazima — with whom they became best friends when the mission was over. Then there was Shen’s and Bea’s boy whom they adopted soon after the war. He became Nova’s magical godson — she didn’t even know such things existed. She had her Friday coffee with Lucien — the only person in the world who could discuss literature and art with her until they were out of breath (well, only Nova was).

“You don’t want to.” Vesper doesn’t ask, she states.

“Does it make you sad?” Nova gently clarifies.

“I had a plan for this, so no.”

“It’s just… I understood that we accidently got ourselves a family. It is not just our duties anymore. We can’t leave everyone behind.” Nova shrugs slightly and licks chocolate mousse from her spoon.

“Maybe all of it was for this.” Vesper smiles with the corner of her lip. “Now I think that even if we didn’t succeed, if we continued to live in the harsh and unfair world, if no one would be held responsible for my loneliness, I could still live with that. Because I would have had you. Because I would have had all of you.”

Nova barely restrains herself from asking her about her favourite game and whether she’s not been cloned by a polymorph again.

“You wouldn’t think so.”

“I wouldn’t.” Vesper nods in agreement. “But the world we got… I am willing to bare it the way it is now. I want to focus on ourselves and live our peaceful, normal lives.”

“In this case, senora Supreme Witch.” Nova stands up from her chair, smiles cunningly and licks the chocolate from her upper lip. “I’d like to start by inviting you to a dance.”

Vesper’s eyes light up. Nova makes a difficult magical move — the one she learned just yesterday while she was awaiting Vesper’s return from work — and the first waltz notes sound. She gives her wife a hand and gently puts the second one on her waist. For a moment she worries if Vesper took care of hiding their presence before the date — they wouldn’t want to be interrupted by the local police in the worst moment possible — but relaxes after the first turn allowing Vesper to lead.

Nova found out that Ves is just as good in dancing as she is in all the other things she does at some banquet where they are invited to as the Others’ ambassadors.

“Where did you learn that? I beg you not to say you had ballroom dances class at the home for Others.” Nova asked admiringly after she was able to catch a breath.

“Well, I needed an ordinary hobby for my cover,” Vesper chuckled, clearly amused with herself. “I took a couple of dance lessons.”

“Couple of lessons,” Nova laughs to herself thinking back about this conversation. Vesper twirls her in a dance so easily as if she doesn’t weigh a single gram. Nova now is able to catch up with her quite easily and doesn’t mess up the footwork anymore. Vesper tries to say no every single time — which makes this evening an exception! — but dances with her every time correcting her mistakes, starting over and over again during the rare evenings she has some spare time for it. And yet Nova is still not half as good as Vesper is after her “couple of lessons”.

“You know I think it’s time for me to meet your godson like a normal person.” Vesper says suddenly in the middle of another turn.

“He’ll be happy. And so will I. And Shen and Bea probably too,” Nova responds haltingly and swallows up the joke about “well, even if you don’t always see it with them”. “I thought you were avoiding him.”

It is hard to say for sure with all the darkness on the column, but it seems to Nova that Vesper’s cheeks become somewhat red and she gazes away.

“It might be so,” she answers honestly. “Maybe I’m just running from it.”

“From a kid?” Nova looks at her perplexedly.

“From the fact we could also settle down somewhere…”

Vesper doesn’t finish the sentence, but Nova knows what she means regardless. They could also — just hypothetically! — have a kid. Nova doesn’t know what she thinks of it yet, but she understands what it means for Ves. They could really choose for themselves, not for the whole world.

The last notes sound. Nova takes a step back, but Vesper slightly presses her fingers together, keeping Nova’s hand in hers.

“I’ve seen my worth in the changes I brought to the Others for such a long time. I’ve seen the Alliance as the allies in this difficult battle. It is because of you we finally became family.”

Nova takes a step forward and Nova feels herself covered by the mint smell that becomes a part of her.

“I’ve told you this when we married already, but I want to be with you. Just with you, with no mission, no world saving. We did so much for the others, we did enough, and we deserve to just…” Vesper stops as if she needs to make an effort to realise what do normal people do in their normal lives. “Go on some picknicks, play with our godchildren, talk about ordinary things.”

“And to dance in the evenings?” Nova asks with a little laugh. Get her wife’s promise while she is all lyrical — can it get any better?

Vesper rolls her eyes a bit.

“And to dance in the evenings if it makes you happier.”

A wide smile shows on Nova’s face. It doesn’t make her happier — it makes her the happiest woman in the entire universe.

“Then we will try. Over and over again,” Vesper promises.

“Over and over again,” Nova repeats like an echo.

In the end this is the most honest promise they can make to one another. It might be not now, not on the first try, but they will walk away from their endless struggle, and they will learn to live their completely normal lives. And they will go on some picknicks, play with their godchildren and talk about ordinary things.

✨Pairing: Jaynie/Chloe ✨Tags: date, aquarium, fluff, support, fish ✨Word count: 1367. Little warning: I am not a native English speaker & I don't particularly like to use GenAI to translate my writing, so please cut me some slack if you find any translation errors🙏🏻 (I've reeeeeally done my best with it.)

“I’d like us to go on a date somewhere,” says Jainey while rolling around with a book on Chloe’s bed. It sounds like it comes out of nowhere.

“Where to?”

That’s just how Chloe is — honest, always speaking her mind, without tiptoeing. When anyone else would have have shrugged, said “sure” and would have forgotten the discussion for another week or so, she goes straight into planning mode. That’s just how Chloe is — and Jaynie is madly in love with her.

She starts to understand Chloe more and more, even though there were times it wasn’t always evident for her. During her second year she even takes a course on neurodivergence — a freshly baked course for Kearney. She’s the first one to get into the program. When Chloe finds out, she is out of words — and yet Jaynie gets it without a single word spoken.

“I thought about going to an aquarium,” she says. “There is a flyer here that says they have a ticket discount for couples this weekend.”

Chloe frowns a little.

“I already told you that you don’t have to constantly spare money. I can take you on whatever date you want to go. Any day.”

Jaynie shakes her head. She gets up from the bed and approaches Chloe reaching for a hug. Chloe reaches out back, falling into her arms easily.

“You’re spoiling me.” Jainey laughs with her face hidden in Chloe’s shoulder. “But I do wanna take my very best journalist in the world on a date myself.”

They go to the aquarium on Saturday after lunch, just after Jaynie honestly finishes half of her assignments and essays. After their chaotic and difficult first university year, Chloe makes sure Jaynie doesn’t sacrifice studying neither for dates and for visiting Gran and Carter nor for some weird investigations of her own. Chloe makes a planning for her — she’s definitely great at it! — that makes her life significantly easier. She does it without Jainey even having to ask. In the end, no sacrifices even have to be made (if one, of course, doesn’t consider the fact that Chloe absolutely could not be convinced that brushing teeth does not necessarily have to take place at 8:28 AM, a sacrifice).

After they show tickets at the entrance, Jaynie notices Chloe staring around slightly nervously.

“They don’t do the animal shows.” She slightly squeezes her girlfriend’s palm. “I looked it up. I knew it would be important to you.”

“I… I…” Chloe smiles awkwardly. “Thank you.”

“Why didn’t you say something though?”

“You wanted to be here. I did not want to disappoint you.”

Jaynie is not the one to cry easily. She probably has already cried out her whole tear storage a long time ago, while worrying abound Carter. But Chloe caring this much to let go of her principles even for a little bit gives her a stinging feeling in her eyes.

“We both prioritized one another’s feelings,” Chloe says outloud what Jaynie has been thinking. “I love you”.

These words leave her lips so effortlessly, like they don’t carry any weight at all. And yet there were times when Jaynie was afraid of using them, afraid of scaring away their fragile happiness, their tiny source of stability in this scary, cruel world.

“Love you too. Let’s go.”

They enter the first room. Jaynie freezes for a moment.

“It’s beautiful,” Chloe states the evident after letting her girlfriend adjust for a moment. “What fish do you want to see first?”

In fact, Jaynie came prepared. She’s read some really smart book about fish and found a dozen articles about fun fish facts. And yet, every possible thought leaves her head when she sees Chloe nearly sticking her nose into the glass.

“You’re the prettiest fish in this room,” Jaynie says while smiling temptingly.

“No, you are.” Chloe laughs. “But if we are serious about it, then I would pick mandarinfish, they are so beautiful. So colourful!”

“Yeah, I remember.” Jaynie nods and teases her a bit. “Multi-coloured is the prettiest colour on Earth, Jaynie.”

“Yes, it is,” Chloe confirms very seriously. “But to be fair, they might not have mandarinfish in this room and then you are still the prettiest fish here.”

Jaynie could have said that — to be completely fair! — she is definitely not a fish. However, then she remembers that they already had a similar conversation about the most beautiful frog on Earth. Jaynie had a nerve to tell Chloe she is absolutely not an amphibian and was lectured by her that from the evolutionary point of view, they’re both fish and amphibians. It is absolutely impossible to outwit Chloe. Sometimes Jaynie thinks her girlfriend knows every single thing on Earth. Except for, maybe, social interaction rules, but even then, she studied them from an academical perspective, dissected them like a biologist.

Even now, Chloe walks around hand in hand with Jaynie, from one exposition room to another and says the name of each fish outloud, has a weird fact to share about many of them — and this without even prying into the explanatory cards.

“Oceanology also was my special interest for a while,” she explains when Jaynie shows surprise. “It was not for a long time and it was quite a while ago, so I don’t remember a lot. My dad made sure I was taken to aquariums, like, every week.”

Chloe’s shoulders go down a bit, like always when she talks about her childhood and especially her dad. Jaynie gives her a gentle hug. She wants to tell her so many things. “You’re allowed to be sad.” “You did the right thing.” “No matter how hard it is, I’ll always be there for you.” Yet, she knows that Chloe knows every single thing she can tell her. That’s why she just squeezes her shoulder a little harder.

“Sometimes I’m really surprised you didn’t become a biologist with all those special interests of yours.”

“Didn’t I tell you?” Chloe becomes more vivid in an instance. She is obviously grateful for the fact that Jaynie hasn’t drawn too much attention to a difficult moment.

“You did. But I’m still surprised.”

“Hey, look, the seahorses.” Chloe’s eyes light up.

“They’re fish too though.” Jaynie sees it as an opportunity to use the knowledge she obtained from that very smart book.

“Yes! I used to kin them.”

“You used to what?” asks Jaynie while trying to remember where could she have heard this word — has she even ever heard this word?

“Kin. I mean I thought we were pretty much alike. Mainly due to the fact we were both weird. They were weird fish. I was a weird human being.”

“Not at all, you’re not…” Jaynie tries to object but Chloe slightly presses her finger on her lips.

“I do not think being weird is all that bad anymore. Surely, for a while it did hurt a bit. Last year it did hurt a lot. But I am who I am and I found my place in the world. At Kearney. Together with you. And I am happy, Jaynie. You get it, don’t you?”

Jaynie gets it. She is also the way she is after everything that happened to her. She is also happy — being at Kearney and with Chloe.

Meanwhile, her girlfriend is already pulling her to another room, to a huge aquarium with medusas. Chloe watches them with big eyes, standing on her tiptoes and clapping her hands in excitement. Still on tiptoes, she walks around the aquarium. Chloe watches the medusas — and Jaynie watches Chloe. She watches her and she can’t get enough of her. Even on the distorted image Jaynie sees through the glass and the thick layer of water, she is still so incredibly pretty.

When Chloe comes back, Jaynie takes her by hand, facing her.

“You know, I gave it a thought and I also “kin” seahorses.”

“Because you are weird too?”

“I’m sure it wouldn’t take anyone by surprise,” Jaynie says. “But no.”

She bows slightly, leaning towards Chloe’s ear.

“Because many of their subspecies mate for life. And you know what?” Jaynie stops for a second, allowing Chloe to process her words. “I think I do too.”