NICO WAS STILL in shock when they stumbled back into the briefing room, but by the slight tremor in his fingertips, it wouldn’t be long before that shock wore off. Jo didn’t want to know what would happen to the poor man then, almost as much as she didn’t want to see the reactions on the team’s faces when they found out. And they would, any second now.

Because, as expected, the briefing room was already full, brimming with tension so thick, Jo had been able to feel it even before stepping fully through the Door. Arm still looped around Nico’s, helping him a wobbling step at a time towards his seat, Jo looked from face to face around the table.

Pan and Snow were missing. The hell were they doing? an angry little voice in her wanted to scream.

Everyone had gotten to their feet upon Jo and Nico’s arrival, and after helping Nico sit down, Jo took Wayne’s usual chair so as not to remove her steady presence from the Italian’s side. She could feel the trembling of his fingers stretch up into an outright shaking along his arms. Any second now, he would fracture, crumble into pieces, and Jo didn’t think she’d be able to put him back together. But she would damn well try. It was better than focusing on her own rising guilt, her growing panic, her pain and misery at the loss, so much loss, and they’d tried everything, so why had at all still turned out so, so—

“So?” Takako’s voice caught Jo off-guard, wrenching her back to the briefing room. The woman was smart; she should’ve been able to see the creeping mental devastation all over their faces. Maybe she had. Because even though Takako had bothered to ask the question on everyone’s mind anyway, it was already obvious she knew the answer. “How’d it go?”

That was all it took for Nico to lose it.

A broken sob tore its way up his throat, a sound that held as much emotional anguish as physical. Nico had worked for hours, poured everything he and his magic had into the painting that now leaned, forgotten, by the Door. There was no doubt in Jo’s mind he’d been exhausted and broken down even before watching that final blossom of hope wither and die in the prime minister’s eyes.

Now, he was beyond broken, inconsolable. If they could manage to ease his suffering at all after this, it would be a miracle. And after today, after every one of her own failures, believing in miracles seemed incredibly naive. They were the ones who were supposed to be the miracle workers, and they’d failed.

The group probably didn’t need her to explain, but Jo couldn’t handle the idea of Nico’s sobs being the only sound in the room.

“He wouldn’t change his mind. Couldn’t apparently. Not even with Nico’s influence.” She hated the way Nico’s back seized beneath her hand, whole body tense and shaking in what was more than likely guilt. She wanted to tell him it wasn’t his fault, that he’d done all he could (which was true, of course it was true), but she knew he wouldn’t hear it; Jo felt guilty too, had ever since that first botched evacuation hack. So instead, she just kept talking, raising her voice a little to drown out some of Nico’s softer whimpers and cries. “Twelve hours just. . . wasn’t enough time. The magic wore off too quickly and it. . . it just wasn’t enough.”

“No. . .” That simple word, whispered past Takako’s lips, felt like having the breath ripped from her lungs. With the hand that wasn’t rubbing comfortless circles into Nico’s back, Jo gripped ruthlessly at her own knee. She shook her head.

“I’m sorry, Takako.”

A whimper this time, Nico’s hands falling from his face.

“So that’s it then?” Samson whispered, and when Jo turned her head in his direction, he was staring at her with sad, scared eyes.

In fact, everyone looked worn out and filled with a hopelessness that overtook each of their usual features. The bags under Samson’s eyes were prominent, his fingernails chewed down to the nubs. Takako looked like she was facing down the barrel of a gun, her hands tangled in the short hair on either side of her head. Wayne paced the room, the usual slicked-back perfection of his hair in complete disarray, his bottom lip bruised from being chewed on. Eslar’s complexion was pale, the usually rich darkness of his skin almost resembling the lighter brown of Jo’s own, and his face held more heavy emotion than she’d ever seen in him.

It took Nico rising slowly, shakily to his feet, for Jo to realize he’d stopped crying. Though how long ago, she had no idea. For all she knew, they could have simply been staring at each other, staring off into the panicked black holes of their own minds, for hours since their return. But now? Now everyone’s eyes were on Nico.

His hands, splayed out on the briefing room table, still trembled. His eyes, staring down Eslar with a fierce attempt at an even fiercer determination, were still red-rimmed and wet. But when he opened his mouth to speak, his words were steady, steadier than any of them should have had any possibility of being in that moment.

“I’ll do it again,” he said. Plain and simple.

Jo’s heart ached. “Nico, your restriction—”

“I’ll find someone else. There must be, right? Another diplomat. Perhaps the leader of an allied power? There has to be someone else to try.”

“There’s not enough time,” Eslar replied, brow furrowing in obvious frustration.

Nico looked down at the space between his hands, head falling between his shoulders. “I’ll do it. Again.”

“Nico—”

“I’ll do it again!” He cried, ripping himself away from Jo and turning to face Eslar fully. “I can do it, Eslar, I can! Just let me try one more time!”

He was screaming now, Eslar looking from Nico to the rest of the room and back before walking around to their side of the table. Samson buried his head in his hands. Wayne kept pacing. Takako finally let her fingers fall from the stranglehold she had on the strands of her hair, knuckles of one hand hitting the briefing room table on its way down to her lap; she didn’t seem to notice.

“Nico, enough,” Eslar said, tone bordering on an order, but Nico just let his head hang again, shaking it back in forth. Jo watched, her own eyes burning, as fresh tears made new tracks down Nico’s cheeks. Eslar placed a hand on Nico’s shoulder, but Nico shrugged him off.

“If we have even an hour left, a minute, then I have to keep trying,” he whispered, words beaten and battered beneath the weight of his own guilt, beneath the cruelty of their own hopelessness. “I have to try. I’ll show a painting to every individual citizen if I have to. Please let me keep trying.”

For a long moment, there was silence. Everyone looking at Nico and Eslar in turn. Even Wayne had stopped his pacing, though he chose to look down the hall instead, away from the room. In the hand that wasn’t buried deep into his pocket, Jo could see Wayne’s thumb rubbing circles into the face of his nickel.

“Eslar, I can fix this. I can do better. Please let me—” Nico started again, but Eslar just sighed, the unexpected sound cutting him off. He didn’t bother with words, a nod of his head and gesture of his chin towards the door the only indication of his acquiescence.

Nico wasted no time, grabbing the painting and sprinting off towards his chosen recreation room.

There wasn’t enough time. Eslar knew there wasn’t enough time the same way they all knew. And even if there was, who else could they show that would be as effective as the Prime Minister? It was like a visceral thing writhing inside their bellies, their chests, weighing them down and keeping them from moving.

But Nico had asked anyway. Eslar had let him go anyway. Because what else could they do at this point but pretend, and wait?

Jo looked around the room; no one returned her gaze, each too caught up in the suffocation of unknown consequences to do more than stare off into space. When Jo let her stare finally fall to her lap, the shift in line of sight helped a tear slip beyond its hold. It fell in a silent lament down her cheek, off her chin, and onto the white-gripped knuckles of the hand still clutching her knee.

“What do we do now?” She asked, though the words were purely selfish, her own spiraling mind throwing a plea out into the universe. It wouldn’t have mattered if no one had responded, but it was Eslar who did.

“We wait.” He sat down next to her, and it took all she had to lift her head enough to look him in the eye. She’d never seen his face filled with so much emotion; she just wished it was a better emotion than grief. “Other than that. . . I don’t know.”