Quaranteam Ch. 28

As Phil had promised, things moved incredibly quickly from there. The next morning, Andy got a call from Xander, informing Andy that Xander was being relocated to New Eden, and that he would see him in just a few short days. He also told Andy that he'd heard Andy had lined up some kind of welcoming present for him, and that he hoped he'd enjoy unwrapping it. It was clear that Xander didn't actually know what was waiting for him, but Phil had already sent word that Brooke, Piper's friend, had accepted the offer for her to be paired up with Xander, all without Xander's knowledge. It would make for a hell of a surprise when Xander showed up. Andy intended to make sure he was there to greet his friend upon his arrival, and it was nice to help his best friend out.

Andy was quickly learning how to trade in on favors, so having Xander owe him a few was bound to pay off sooner or later, even if he wasn't sure quite how. But it also just felt good improving his friend's life.

Later that day, Andy also found out which of his offers had been accepted and which had been rejected. He was surprised to find that he'd been rejected not twice, but three times, which Niko teased him not to take personally.

The first to decline his offer to join the family was Dr. Morgan Fitch, Katie's friend and ex-girlfriend. Dr. Fitch had said in the video message she'd sent back that she appreciated Katie thinking of her, but that living in a house with one of her exes simply did not appeal to her, and that she had sworn off men regardless.

Katie seemed more bothered by it than Andy did, but Andy assured her that if Dr. Fitch had been having reservations about it, it was best for her to decide that now than after she was locked in, to which Katie reluctantly agreed.

The second to pass was Larissa Cotton, which came as no real surprise to Andy. As it turned out, Larissa *had* in fact gotten married years ago, and she and her husband were doing well in lockdown. The complaint she'd had to Sarah about not having gotten laid recently months ago had stemmed from an accident that Larissa's husband had endured, which left him temporarily impotent, but which he had thankfully recovered from since then. She also mentioned that she didn't always think to put on her wedding ring, so she admitted she might not have been wearing it the last time she'd video chatted with Sarah, so she could see where the misconceptions might have sprung from. Larissa also offered Andy her sincerest congratulations on his partnership with Sarah (as well as all the others) and insisted he call her up some time so that they could gossip as only colleagues could. Finally, she promised to be more thankful if he would give her another first edit pass in the future.

His final rejection of the day came from Hannah's former cheerleading instructor Tabitha Jefferson. She had also declined to take the Rook family up on their offer, not because she wasn't intrigued by the idea, but because in the past two weeks, she had relocated up to Portland, where she had moved in with her former lovers Dom and Mike. With her mother no longer around, Tabby had simply decided California no longer held any sway over her, and she reached out to her previous partners, who had welcomed her back with open arms. The two men had been living in virtual isolation, and had taken their quarantine deathly serious, so they'd both remained completely uninfected. Tabby also sent along a message just for Hannah, encouraging her to make the most of her new situation, and giving her a contact number so they could remain friends moving forward.

Hannah had been a little saddened at first, but after hearing that the reason was that Tabby was now reunited with her throuple and extremely happy once more, she brightened immensely and skipped out of the room to go and call Tabby so the two could catch up.

There had also been one more call for the day, a complication that only intrigued Andy even further.

Late in the afternoon, Phil called to inform Andy that the women who had accepted (which included Jade) would be arriving in a few waves, with those who were already local being delivered to his house tomorrow, and those who lived further out coming in one or two more separate waves. But that hadn't been why Phil had been calling.

The videoscreen suddenly split into two, with Phil on the left, and the still achingly beautiful Fiona on the right.

"Hey Andy," she said, that sly, lazy smile he was all too familiar with on her face, the smile he knew could hold a thousand different meanings in its subtext.

"Hey Fi." He stopped there, because for once in his life, Andy was at a complete loss for words.

"So, about this offer of yours," she said, trailing off a little. She didn't just look good; she looked fucking *great*. Despite the fact that it had been fifteen years since they'd been a couple, she had shrugged off the signs of aging far better than he had, only a few scant wrinkles around her distractingly deep green eyes, the shade of newly clipped summer grass. Her brown hair still had reddish highlights in it, as it had when they'd been dating what felt like lifetimes ago. It currently hung down to her shoulders, like it might have been a bob when the pandemic started and she'd just let it grow out. She'd grown up in Georgia, and while she'd lost almost all of that southern accent, Andy could still hear very faint hints of it, just around the edges, like she'd never quite been able to shake it fully. It was certainly less prominent than it was back in college. "I have a couple of questions, and that'll determine my answer, if that's alright."

"Yeah, sure, go ahead."

"Hi Fiona!" Niko chimed in, poking her head into the camera's view, giving an enthusiastic wave. "I'm one of Andy's partners, well, one of his fiances, actually, so you can ask me anything as well."

Andy wasn't sure, but he felt like he saw Fi try and stifle a slight smile, but whether that was at Niko's interjection or Andy's blushing in response to it, he couldn't tell.

Fiona didn't choose to acknowledge Niko's comment, and instead focused intently on Andy. "Alright, first, why haven't you reached out to me before now Andy?"

He sighed and shrugged, a sheepish smile on his face. "I wasn't sure what to say, or even how to start, Fi. When you sent me that friend request a couple of years back, I assumed there was something you wanted to talk to me about, so I accepted it, and then... nothing."

"Did it ever occur to you that maybe I wanted you to make the first move?"

"You know me pretty well, Fi, or at least you did," he laughed, arching one of his bushy blonde eyebrows at her. "Did you honestly think I'd come to that conclusion on my own?"

She openly smiled that time, nodding. "Alright, you've got me there. I suppose that's fair. Second, why didn't you ask me to come with you when you moved out to California, all those years ago when we graduated from college together?"

"I did ask, Fi. You know I did."

She scowled at him, shaking her head a little. "You gave it one half-assed try at best, Andrew," she said, the use of his full name definitely feeling like it was meant to belittle him a bit, or at the very least scold him. "You asked just the one time, I said no, and you never brought it up again, which isn't like you at all. Why didn't you really try and convince me to come out west with you?"

He bit his bottom lip for half a second, but decided too much had gone unspoken between him and Fiona for too long now, so he came to the conclusion that he should just be upfront and direct. "Because I was afraid I would've gotten you to say yes." She started to speak, frustration plain on her face, Andy could see, so he raised a hand to silence her for a moment longer and continued. "And that would've made me the happiest man in the world, Fi, I promise you, it really and truly would have. But I knew that it would come with dire consequences you couldn't see yet, things that I could. I knew, I mean really knew, that if you moved out to California with me, it would've been preventing you from chasing your dreams, the ones you'd had since you were a little girl. I would've always been worried that you resented me for keeping you from that life, even just a little bit. It probably would've eventually led to us breaking up over it, and you wouldn't have known why, and I wouldn't have been able to fix it, no matter how hard I tried. You wanted so desperately to work in the White House; I didn't want to give you any excuse at all not to go chasing after that dream. I felt like you were trying to use me as an excuse not to go and do the thing you really wanted."

"I wouldn't have resented you, Andy," she sighed. "I wanted you to talk me out of it. I did. I really, really did. DC has been nothing but a decade and a half of frustration and disappointment."

"Sure, but you only know that now, Fi. You couldn't have known that back then. There's no way you could've know that then. You needed to see it through for yourself, to have the experiences needed to make that decision. And if you really wanted me to talk you out of it, you should've said something back then. If you thought you were hinting at it, you were far too subtle for me to pick up on it. I'm not a mind reader. Wasn't then, and I'm still not now. I can't just guess that you're looking for me to help sway you one way or another."

Fiona looked like she wanted to object further, but then nodded once more, as if coming to grips with all of that in her head, like a million puzzle pieces were suddenly falling into place, and she could see the entire picture for the first time. "Okay then. I have one more thing, though. A condition. I have a condition for me coming to join your household. Well, two conditions, actually."

"Sure," Andy said, "fire away."

"The first is that you have to actually marry me. I know you said in your message said that you're marrying some of your partners and not others, but I absolutely insist I be one of the people that you do marry, if we're going to do this. You know that I'm Catholic. I also know you're an atheist, and that's fine, but my religion still means something to me, and you've always respected that, so I need you to respect that now. Because I'm going to want to get pregnant, if we do go through with this, so I have to be married before that happens. We lived together for two years, so you know we're both compatible in sharing a home and a bed together. So that's the first thing. Are you okay with that?"

Andy smiled a little bit shyly. "More than okay, but I think you knew that already, as long as you're still alright with me not going into church every week with you. I imagine you're going to have a harder time convincing the Catholic church that polygamy's okay, though."

"Are you kidding?" she snorted. "When word gets out how many American men are dead, they're going to be desperate to get every good Catholic boy and girl out there to be doing as much being fruitful and multiplying as they can get."

Niko began to quietly hum Monty Python's "Every Sperm Is Sacred" until Andy swatted her on the thigh and she stopped, although her grin had only widened.

"Hey, it's your religion, not mine," he said to Fi. "If they're cool with it, so am I. What's the other thing?"

"The other thing is that you need to agree to something, one specific thing, not knowing what it is or anything about it."

He blinked in confusion. "Er, what?" This was uncharacteristic for Fiona, being deliberately vague, and Andy wondered what was behind it.

"I have another condition but you need to agree to it without knowing anything about it. You just have to trust me and either agree to it, or I'll have to pass."

Andy paused and considered for a moment, perhaps even a moment longer than Fiona had expected him to. He could give Fiona an almost complete blank check, almost, but he decided he needed to clarify one thing. "Assure me that this condition that I can't know anything about won't harm or injure anyone. Since arriving here in New Eden, I've learned first hand that people can be capable of some truly terrible things, and while I don't think that you are, Fi, I just want to make sure I'm not getting anyone else hurt because of this. I couldn't live with myself if it was."

"The only thing that might be injured is your pride, that's all," she said, a playful smirk resting on her face. "I might bust your balls a bit for ditching me, but I'm not going to do anything you'd always regret over the long term. So what's it gonna be, Chuckles?" The fact that she still remembered her old nickname for him told him everything he needed to know. Of course he was in. He was all in.

"Fine, you got yourself a deal, Peaches," he replied, using his old nickname for her, which made her smile widen a little more on the other end of the video call.

"Great," she said. "I'll start packing and we'll see you in a few days. Later skater." She tapped the button and ended her portion of the call, leaving just him and Phil on the line.

Phil had been quietly watching the entire conversation with a bemused look on his face, like he was supposed to be doing or saying something, but couldn't tear himself away from the drama. "You're an idiot, you know that, right?" he said, rolling his eyes a little at Andy's naivety. "Based on just a few minutes worth of watching you two talk, I don't think either of you ever fell out of love with the other."

"As much a surprise to me as it was to you, Phil," Andy chuckled. "It's been a long time."

"You did hear what she said though, right Andy?" Niko said to him, poking him lightly.

"Wait. What did I miss?"

"She said we'll see you in a few days," Niko giggled. "I somehow don't think she was talking about the royal we."

"Ah hell. Well, I did agree to anything, so we'll burn that bridge when we come to it."

"Pretty sure that's not how that line goes," Phil joked. "Anyway, I'll be by tomorrow to drop off your locals. Jade, Tala and Whitney are on their way here to the base, and will get their injections tonight so they'll be ready to meet you tomorrow. You know what they're like when they're newly injected, so be prepared to take care of them for their initial imprinting within a few days. Also, you can tell Taylor her friend Natalie will be in New Eden tomorrow as well, just over at my house."

"Decided you just couldn't pass her up, huh? I thought you were going to ship her over to Eric."

"Audrey's always wanted to take pole dancing lessons, so I figured why not have an in-house teacher?"

"Having an overly flexible eager teenage stripper in your bed is just a bonus, huh?"

Phil's grin spread from ear to ear. "Oh, sure, sure. I mean, I'll learn to live with it, I guess. If I have to." He rolled his eyes in mock exasperation. "We all make sacrifices. Anyway, I'll see you tomorrow, okay?"

"You got it, man. Stay safe."

"You know it, brother."

"So that's the girl who took your virginity, huh? Your first true love? She didn't look at all like I expected her to look like, Andy," Niko said to him, as he stood up from the couch, stretching his arms over his head.

"What did you expect her to look like?"

"I dunno, but under possible things this mythical mysterious ex of yours might look like, I don't think I ever considered 'a lot like a young Gina Davis' to be anywhere in the vicinity."

Andy smirked a little bit. He'd heard the comparison more than a couple of times back when they were dating, what felt like a lifetime ago. "I take it that she meets with your approval then?"

"Hell, she called you Chuckles. For that alone, the woman immediately earned a place in my heart. I'm sure there's a story behind that."

"There is," Andy said, not elaborating further.

"You gonna tell me what it is?"

"I am not," he said, smugly. "You can dig it out of Fiona yourself when she arrives." He rolled his eyes with anticipated dread. "She probably still even has the photo, knowing her..."

"Did you keep up on her coverage of politics after you two split up?"

He shrugged. His emotional state after they'd split from one another had been messy at best, and his mind had been a whirlwind of emotions. "I mean, I'd see her name on a byline from time to time, but I didn't go out of my way to find her work. After we'd split up, I figured she wouldn't ever want to talk to me again. Ending a relationship sometimes does mean things to a person, and despite the fact that I thought we broke up pretty gracefully, one day about fourteen years ago, we ended a phone conversation and she said she'd call me in a week, and she never called again."

"And you didn't call *her*?"

"After about a month, sure. But by then, her phone number had been disconnected, as she'd apparently moved, so I figured it was a none too subtle way of telling me to fuck off."

"Or a test to see if she still mattered enough to you for you to track her down."

"God," Andy groaned. "Maybe. Probably? Maybe. Fuck, I don't know. But that's a shitty thing to do to a guy, especially one who's always dealt with low self-esteem. It's like I told you, like I've told each and every one of you who've decided to stick out your lives with me -- sometimes you're just going to have to come right out and say what it is that's on your mind, because if you're expecting me to guess it, I'm probably gonna make a few giant mistakes here and there."

Niko giggled a little, nodding. "We women can be needlessly cruel from time to time, but you have to realize, we don't even know we're doing it sometimes. It's just something we've been indoctrinated into making second nature. At least you can see that it might have been a mistake now, though."

"Yep. And then she went and complicated things further by adding me and Xander on Facebook as friends a couple of years ago, which we both accepted. But neither of us felt comfortable messaging her first, and she never messaged us either, so it's just been one long detente."

Niko shook her head in mock disappointment at him. "You can definitely be an idiot some times, you know that, Chuckles?"

"Hey hey hey," he tsked. "You can't call me that until after you get the story out of Fiona."

"You should've reached out to her, Andy," Niko said with a sigh. "It sounds like that's what she very much wanted from you."

"Should've, would've, could've. We're here now, so I'll just have to live and learn. And when Fiona gets here, I'll give her the 'speak your mind speech I gave to you, so we're all on the same starting point."

The house had mostly kept itself busy today by the girls getting all their things moved in, as well as adding some décor to the house that wasn't purely Andy's. Sure, the publicity posters for all of his novels were still hanging on the walls, but now they'd been joined by movie posters for both Sarah and Emily's movies, framed photographs that Asha had taken before leaving London, framed posters from Sheridan's Cirque Du Soleil shows, a couple of framed articles detailing Piper's rise in the volleyball community, a framed sand painting done by Niko's mother and a few original paintings that Aisling had done as a break from her more commercial work. It helped make the place feel less like his house and more like their house. He would encourage all the girls to make sure they left some kind of a mark on the house as they arrived. He didn't want any of them to feel lesser that the girls who'd arrived first.

Emily and Sarah had also converted one bedroom into a makeshift studio for them to use, lining the walls with sound-dampening foam, setting up cameras and microphones, so the room could be used for them to record lines for voice overs, or to film video auditions. There was even a large green curtain backdrop that could be pulled over so they could do low level CGI work in a very desperate pinch. While there was a desk for them to record at and a couch to relax in, they purposefully didn't put a bed in the room. Both of them insisted they were never going to be sleeping anywhere in the house other than the master bedroom, acknowledging that from time to time, Andy would be sleeping one-on-one with some of the more traditional women he would be partnered up with, but that he would do it in their rooms, or set aside one bedroom for the more private play sessions. It wasn't like he was running out of bedrooms any time soon.