"Guys, we've got to fix this!"
Joe and Nicky both glance up at her with matching puzzled looks, their reactions so near-identical that Nile can almost forget for a moment that those expressions are on the wrong faces.
Neither man says anything, so Nile forges ahead. Her phone is in her hand, the one and only saved contact number already on screen. "I'm sure Copley can find something if we just—"
"Nah," Nicky—no Joe—says.
Almost at the same time, the real Nicky raises both of Joe's dark eyebrows. "Why bother?"
Nile's gaze bounces between the two, brain still trying to parse which reaction belongs to which man, although, ultimately, it doesn't seem to matter. She frowns. Their complete lack of concern strikes Nile as odd, when even she can see the obvious disadvantages.
"You have different skills, different fighting styles—"
"We will learn," Nicky cuts in. He raises Joe's hands in obvious apology for the interruption but doesn't stop speaking. "We have each other to learn from. And we have time. We were not always so skilled with our current weapons. We worked hard to learn these skills, and we will learn them again."
"And it doesn't bother you to not be yourselves?" Nile asks, when Nicky pauses, apparently having said his piece.
It's Joe who answers this time. "We are always ourselves, Nile. I know this body as well as I know the body that my Nicky now wears. This skin, these big hands, these strong arms have been mine for close to a millennium."
"But you are not the same people," Nile argues, despite the many times it may have seemed that way to her, especially in the beginning.
"No, we are not. But we are still ourselves, Nile," Nicky tells her patiently, and Nile is struck again by the strange, calm stillness in this body she still interprets as Joe's.
By his side, Joe is frowning down at his sketchbook, Nicky's broad, blunt fingers stained with charcoal and a frustrated scowl marring his face. It's a stronger expression than Nile has ever seen Nicky make so casually.
Nicky follows her eyes to Joe's furrowed brow and the corner of his mouth twitches up in a soft, almost-smile that Nile barely sees under his beard.
"It will come back to you, cuore mio. Just give it time."
The Italian is jarring. It's not that Nile hasn't heard Joe speaking Italian or Ligurian before, but something about this endearment from Joe's lips now reinforces the differences, the hint of a regional accent that Nicky retains even in English with Joe's voice.
Joe raises his gaze, and for the first time, he looks truly distraught.
"You know I love your fingers as dearly as my own, ya amar, but they are not made for..."
"Perhaps not," Nicky concedes, apparently unbothered by the implied insult, "but they will be if they are yours. Your talent will always be yours, Yusuf, and just because the implements have changed does not mean you cannot still create. It will simply take time."
I suppose time cures all ills, Nile thinks ruefully. This wasn't really the type of solution she'd have considered, but Joe and Nicky, with their centuries of knowledge, seem perfectly content.
Joe has gone back to grumbling at his sketchbook, but when Nile glances over, Nicky is still looking at her, his eyes dark and earnest.
"It will be okay," he promises. "Have a little faith, sorellina."
Nile takes a deep breath and then lets it out. "Okay," she agrees. She thumbs the power button on her phone and slides the device into her pocket. "Okay."
Nicky nods, apparently satisfied, and leans in to nuzzle at the mousy brown hair curling around Joe's ears.
Despite everything, Nile thinks she believes him.
