Bad Luck and The Law of Averages (The Old Guard Fanfic)

Chapter 1 - The Bad Luck

It had only been three months and two small missions since everything had almost gone to hell, but Andy had managed to get herself shot, again. It wasn't bad, not much more than a flesh wound in her upper thigh, but she was refusing to acknowledge that she actually had to rest to let it heal now. So, Nicky was on a mission of his own. If there was one thing that could bribe Andy into behaving, at least for a little while, it was her sweet tooth.

They were in Edinburgh laying low after their latest successful mission further south, one more drug ring would be looking for a new leader and new hierarchy for a while at least. Nicky had heard about a new little bakery that had started opening late when the clubs and pubs let out as a gimmick, but had grown to become a phenomenon and was now famous for pastries. He had left Joe and Nile trying to get Andy to stop reopening her wound with the promise that he would return with treasure that might get her to sit down for more than a minute at a time.

Of course, for a shop as hip as this one, there was a queue, so he joined it and pulled out his new phone (courtesy of Copely). He took a picture of the building opposite and sent it to Joe with the caption 'remember that little place in London'.

A few seconds later a text came back 'Of course, how could I forget, but please hurry, she is talking about leaving the house.'

'Will be as quick as I can,' he responded, and glanced hopefully at the queue.

It seemed to be moving at a decent rate.

He laughed when Joe sent back a gif of some slapstick comedy chase. He could only imagine how difficult Andy was being. He responded with a cat failing to cat and falling off a chair in a hilarious manner and looked down the queue again.

As he looked back at the screen he felt a momentary pang of loss, normally it would have been Booker sending ridiculous things, after all it was Booker who had insisted they all be up to date with modern technology, even if they weren't all one hundred percent good at it. Only Booker's considerable expertise had convinced Andy it was safe to have phones when he had first suggested them several years previously. These ones might have been courtesy of Copely, but it was the same principle.

He sighed and stared across the street for a moment. The anger at Booker's betrayal was still there, but it was no longer quite so fiery hot.

A scream shattered his contemplations. He looked up, eyes instantly zeroing in on a woman about one hundred metres up the road. She was on the edge of a streetlight and was struggling with a man who had grabbed her bag. Nicky noted two things instantly, the man was much bigger than she was, and her short coat was doing nothing to hide the bulge of pregnancy. When the man pushed her, she went down, and Nicky moved without even thinking about it.

He ran to her side, crossing the distance quickly, but the man was still disappearing round a corner when he reached his goal. For a moment he was torn between giving chase and helping the woman, but when she groaned, concern for her won out.

"Are you alright?" he asked, crouching down beside her.

She looked up at him, arm protectively around her baby bump.

"I think so," she said.

"I will call an ambulance," he said, unlocking his phone again.

"No," she said, reaching out and placing a hand on his, "I'm fine, really."

"The police then?" he suggested.

He really didn't want to deal with the authorities, but the poor woman had just been mugged.

"The moron only got my knitting bag," the woman said. "I had almost finished the baby blanket."

"It must have been precious," Nicky said, offering her his help as she tried to stand up, "you fought like a lioness."