Professor Abbey was ordering a cup of coffee to an elegant waiter, and he looked too calm to be in the same planet that I was. I became aware that I had still not washed the remnants of my make up just when he noticed me. Too late, as always.

"Tessa." he said, as I sat in a fancy armchair in front of him. "I thought you left with Luke early this morning."

For an instant, I didn't get why he wasn't talking to me as if I had betrayed him. Just a moment later, I realized he still didn't know that, and I thanked God for ignorance. There was no such thing as being naively trustful.

I shook my head.

"I can't leave, Professor. I'm stuck in here."

"What do you mean? You're scaring me, Tessa. Are you in trouble? You look sick."

I looked at him and didn't manage to get a single word out of my clogged mind. That thought took me back to the summer nights when I was little and dad and I slept at the garden in our house. I insisted on going camping and living adventures, and that was the closest thing he could offer to me. Most of the nights, he slept, and I drifted back and forth in my most imminent worries, as if the whole world depended on me, as if I couldn't afford to get out of my conscience even for a few hours. He usually woke up after a few hours and found me in the middle of some fantasy, looking up at the sky, which was normally the scenario of all of them. I was very little, but still I understood I couldn't relax because my mind was too full, of both worthy and worthless information. Dad, in despair to help me sleep, taught me a method to unclog my mind that I had continued to use every time it got saturated. This time I used it again.

I closed my eyes and expelled forcefully, and I pictured all my thoughts getting out, each of them in one colour. They got away, Luke in red, Kate in babyish pink, loneliness in grey. All of them were wrapped in a big, purple bubble that represented fear.

I opened my eyes and found Professor Abbey impatiently waiting for me to say something.

"Do you want a cup of coffee, Tessa?"

"No, thanks, Professor. I think I'm cutting excitants out from now on. I just wanted you to look through these papers."

I handed him my folder, and he looked through it for what seemed too long even in my newly acquired eternity-wise time perception. Finally, he looked up at me, and stated:

"You should wait here. I am calling my lawyer."

"Aren't you mad at me?"

"Of course I am. At you, and at your fugitive helper." I cringed at his reference to Luke; at his reference to Luke as someone on my side. "But there are other people usurping all my anger right now. "

He got up to make the call, and I decided I didn't mind ruining myself by making a long-distance call to England.

"Lindsay?" I jumped as she answered the phone.

"I know, Africa told me. And then, I read the papers. This is all such a mess, Tess. What are you going to do?"

"I don't know, but at least I've got someone with me that's on my side."

"I know, but Luke and you-."

"No, I didn't mean Luke. I don't know if Luke's on my side, but he's definitely not by my side. Didn't Africa tell you that?"

"No, she must have missed that part."

"Well, I meant Professor Abbey. He's talking to his lawyer right now, so I figured I should do the same and call my terrifying older sister to kick the bad guys' asses."

She giggled, and laughter sounded very foreign. Even more foreign than after Nora's death. Now it seemed like discovering pleasure after... my own death. I shivered.

"I've been thinking it through, Tess, and I think we only have one way to knock Fleming&Florey down."

"If there is a way, why do you sound so resigned?"

I heard her swallow.

"Because I've just realized that it's going to be even more difficult that I thought."

"Go on."

"We need the person who passed the information along to confess and plead guilty."

I fell on the armchair.

"And... you're saying... that there's no other way?"

"No. Taking into account that they already have all the information of the research, they could build the same case against you, and state that you're the one that's trying to benefit from their research. And we don't stand a chance against the most important pharmaceutical enterprise in Europe, Tess."

"You're right. But we don't know how to handle this, Lindsay. We are doctors, we think passionately, we act quickly. We need someone that thinks mischievously, someone who doesn't just consider the facts, but knows how to manipulate them and turn them around. Some serious, intelligent lawyer."

His flawless skin and contemplative look popped into my mind all of a sudden.

"Oh my God. We do have a lawyer, Lindsay. Do you remember David, the guy I met in Brighton and got along with?"

"You want to tell him? Tessa, this is big! You shouldn't be proclaiming it!"

"Isn't that what we want? To get people to know the truth?"

"I guess." she said, but she didn't sound convinced at all.

I suddenly remembered that knowing a young lawyer wouldn't bring back everything I had lost.

"I don't really know what I want, Lindsay. I am tired, in a city that is too big but is eating me up at the same time. I don't have a clue on anything."

Professor Abbey had finished his call, and sat down in front of me again.

"Look, I'll take a flight back home as soon as I can. We'll talk then."

Professor Abbey looked as resigned as my sister probably did back in England.

"I must admit that I am a bit of a woman in some aspects." Professor Abbey said, jokingly.

"What?" I said, and I smiled. The muscles in my face stretched as I did so. It seemed like years had gone by since I had last smiled sincerely, and I worried I would have stiffness the following day. That absurd thought made my grin widen.

Seeing Professor Abbey, a praised, wise physician, sit there in front of me, and joke in a situation like the one we were living, made me question why we hadn't trusted him before. We. Luke and me.

" I mean that I'm able to do more than one thing at the same time, usually. I listened to your conversation as I had mine. I didn't know you had a lawyer as well. You should've told me, because mine is a shabby old brat."

I laughed.

"I don't have a lawyer. It was my sister. But, while I talked to her, I remembered a lawyer I met a couple of months ago. I believe we can trust him. He just graduated, but..."

"Well, if he was only half as advanced a student as you are, he could probably crush my lawyer and all his suave colleges with a few words."

I smiled softly again.

"Anyhow, his advice surely won't do you any bad. What preoccupies me the most of what I overheard is that my lawyer and your sister seem to agree on something."

I nodded, knowing what he meant.

"We have to find out who did this, Tessa."

My eyes watered and my mascara got even more smudged.

"Why did you believe me so easily, Professor?"

He shrugged and breathed deeply. I realized I was trying to make myself comfortable in the armchair by moving continuously and annoyingly.

"I've seen you work, Tessa. And even though I didn't expect any of this by far, I knew from the moment you joined the group that you were going to do something revolutionary. When you handed me your report about leukemia, I couldn't believe it. I knew you were motivated because of what happened to your friend, but this is too much to put it down to motivation. I am good at recognizing the outstanding and picking it up, and I can tell you that you're the greatest researcher I have ever known, Tessa. And not only that: you gave elderly fossils like me hope. I now feel that peace you feel when you're young all over again. I'm not a prisoner of the days passing by anymore. I thought it was thanks to those... shameless bastards, pardon me. Now I know it's thanks to you."

"It's funny. I am young, but I have never lived that peace you describe. That comfort of having uncountable years before you. And, even now, I don't feel it either."

I gasped. I didn't know why I was suddenly confessing all my fears to someone who had only been a distant teacher for me until then.

"That's because you're hurting. Do you know where Luke is? Maybe you'd rather have him support you, than an old bore like me."

"I think he went back home."

Hadn't he overheard that part of my conversation?

"And I think that's what I'm going to do as well."

"Yes, I agree that's the best you can do. Once we get back, I think I should introduce you to a friend of mine who was involved in a similar situation many years ago."

"You know someone whose research was stolen? Now I get why you believed me so quickly. I'd love to meet him."

I don't know if we said goodbye or I just dashed upstairs to my room, packed, and fell asleep, still in my conference outfit.

What I know for sure is that I left that ironically enchanting hotel the next morning without looking back, hanging on Africa's arm, feeling like I had already lost my battle, because I felt terribly old.

The empire of time had already won.

What did you think of this chapter? Do you think David will agree to helping Tessa? Let me know in the comments! I am entering the Wattys 2016, so, if you enjoyed it, please don't forget to vote :)

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