The day looked beautiful outside the golden framed window. The sky was blue, and, in the endlessly glowing sunlight, the Eiffel Tower glistened almost as much as the previous night.

"We should visit the Pantheon." Africa suggested. "Many of the greatest thinkers in history have been buried there. Marie Curie, Voltaire... Maybe being there, among them, will inspire us."

"Or maybe we will shudder at their horrible, avoidable ending." I pointed out.

"Are you no longer able to visit cemeteries?" Alex asked me.

"No, of course I am able, it's just... It's a weird approach to drenching in normality. I was thinking of something like Galeries Lafayette."

"Well, we can go there too, but let's get going." Lindsay said, and stood up.

She was eager to get out of the room.

David walked beside me. I knew he wanted to talk about what had happened between us, but I also knew he wouldn't be the one to bring it up.

Crossing Pont Alexandre III, I thought that Paris and Oxford had something in common. They were both majestic, elegant and beige. They were both real-life, three dimension, sepia photographs. Sepia turned moments into memories faster. It froze them and underlined their essence; laughter lost in space, a sound that kept echoing in another dimension. I concentrated on the sun finding its place on my skin and heating it, on the sound of bateaus, on the sight of the august palace-like Hôtel des Invalides in front of me. I tried to absorb every factor of that instant and had a flash forward. I knew that, centuries after, I would be able to go back to that moment and remember precisely how happy, how alive, how confused, and how scared I felt at the same time.

"I am sorry that I was so sure it had been Luke." David finally said, as we walked through the wide Boulevard Saint Germain.

It made me smile that both of them had told me the same thing about each other.

"But how did Abbey find out about it?" he asked.

"It wasn't that difficult." I answered. "He followed my work, and, if my thoughts turned in the direction of immortality, why wouldn't his?"

"Because your brain isn't average, Tessa." he immediately answered, and, then, he added: "Nothing about you is."

"Well, I guess we have that in common." I said, and, when he flashed his perfect smile, I decided it was time to get to what really was on our minds. "Yesterday, at the steam..."

"Yeah, that wasn't average either." he said, widening his eyes, and he put his arm around me.

I smiled, and wondered what Alex would think when she saw us like that.

"After the steam, going up to my room, I thought that..."

His smile faded and his face showed worry. He probably expected me to say that I had regretted it when I had seen Luke right afterwards.

"I know it was probably too soon." he said.

"No, not at all. I was thinking just the opposite; why it didn't happen sooner. If we had gotten together that first night in Brighton, everything would have been different."

My words slapped me as well as him. Did I regret Luke? He had certainly thought that, and he looked half pleased and half scared. I knew he didn't want to be a quick, egoistically chosen replacement, a feel-good solution, an easy way out. I didn't want that either. I wanted to ask him if what he had said about loving me was true, but I was aware that question would inevitably lead to him asking the same thing to me, so I kept silent.

My phone beeped, and I looked back, to check if we had lost the others. They were still there, so it had to be someone else.

"Holly shit!"

"What is it?"

"It's from an unknown number, but I... I know it's Abbey."

"What does he say?" he inquired, and, when I didn't respond, he grabbed my phone.

"I don't think that text was for me, David, I think it was..."

He sighed. I caressed his arm, aware of the pain that was going to flood him gradually, until he couldn't breathe.

"... for my mother."

The others must have seen the expression on our eyes, because they run to us, and asked millions of questions at the same time. Alex grabbed the phone and read out loud:

" "Dear, I know you are scared, but it will take them at least another hour to get to the Plaza. I can say something to Tessa to get them out of there. I just beg you to not tell them the truth. Always yours." "

David's stare was lost. I knew his vision of his mother had changed over the events my discovery had brought up. I knew he had gotten his hopes up about finally finding some love and nobleness in that woman. Knowing that she had been on the other side all along, together with his father's best friend – really together- had irreversibly broken him to pieces.

"Oh my goodness. They know we are here." Lindsay said, starting to hyperventilate.

Listening to the text message out loud, I brusquely took the phone from Alex's mouth and typed:

" "We already know the truth, "dear" loathsome son of a bitch." "

"What are you freaking doing?" David shouted, with bloodshot, crazed eyes.

But I had already pressed send.

"Now they can track our location. Damn it, Tessa!" he yelled, and kicked a lamppost. "I don't get how you think sometimes!"

So much for my brain not being average.

"Well, sorry for not being as cold and calculating as you!"

"I might be calculating, but at least I don't scheme what order of fucking people would have been best for me!"

My jaw dropped. The rest's eyes widened. A couple passing by looked at us in despise. Tourists sitting on a nearby cafe lifted their eyes from the maps they were looking at and gasped. We were drawing too much attention.

"Come on, let's move. We are already close to the Pantheon. We can hide in there. I guess there won't be much service." Africa said, and she patted my back before we started running through Boulevard Saint-Michel.

What was left of the way to the Pantheon was all uphill, and the streets were narrower than what I was used to in Paris, but they were full of cafeteria terraces too, like the rest of the city. It was lunch time, so most of the tables were occupied. My bouncy crossover bag made a cafe latte fall to the floor, and a woman shouted something long at me.

I arrived at the square were the Pantheon was panting. A stairway led to a building that reminded me of Ancient Greece. Tall, thick stone columns with pictures of the great people buried inside hanging among them supported the triangular roof of the entrance, which was carved showing a picture of many man worshiping another one. Was it Christ? Was it any of the people buried inside? Underneath the carving, there was something written in golden letters.

"Aux grands hommes la patrie reconnaissante." Alex read for me. "It means "For the great men, from the thankful homeland." "

"Wow. Will they build something like this for Fleming&Florey someday?"

"Maybe they will build it for Abbey." Africa said, joining us.

Over the triangular entrance, there was a grandiose dome that seemed to rule over Paris. I turned around, and found out that I could see the Eiffel Tower. Even the tower looked small from the majesty of the dome. The great men really did rule the city. Had they been sincere, had their discoveries been their own? Or had they been traitors too? My belief in talent and hard work was wearing out. The world seemed to be mastered by those whose only gift was avid manipulation; so why should we believe the great conquers had been claimed by the ones they ultimately corresponded to?

Lindsay took my hand and led me inside. It was even more bombastic and breathtaking than the outside. I felt cold and overwhelmed. Marble columns led the way up to embroidered cupolas, and colourful, and yet dark neoclassical paintings covered the walls, depicting the greatest moments in French history. Something brought my attention from the middle of the room. Numbers were written in a circle. It looked like a clock. I walked towards it, fascinated. As I got closer, I saw there was a golden pendulum hanging from the dome over it.

It wasn't a clock. It was a Foucault pendulum. It had been the first proof of the rotation of the Earth; proof of something many people had refused to believe for a long time, proof of something conceived as contrary to reason. Proof of something people had had to die for. I couldn't stop finding similarities between that discovery and mine. Both of them had – one more literally than the other – turned the world upside down.

David took my hand this time, and he led me down the small stairway to the crypt, where the great men's bodies rested. Or rotted, I corrected myself.

"We should hide somewhere." he said, drily.

The distribution of the tombs appeared to me like a maze. Low lights illuminated the arched, low ceilings. It was even colder than the main room. Almost spooky.

We passed Voltaire and Rousseau, and continued further down. I chose Marie Curie's tomb, and David forced the door so that we could get inside. I expected alarms to go off, but they didn't. We sat as far from the door as we could, and stayed silent for a long time.

"I expected it to end like this." I said after a while, as I lifted my hands to point to everything surrounding us. "With applauses, and worship, and... Glory. The aftermath was not supposed to be the hard part."

He nodded, but he was staring at the ground, and didn't say anything. He wasn't going to talk to me until I apologized.

"Hey... I am sorry if I hurt you with what I said before..."

He lifted his eyes to look at me, but still kept silent. His serenity intimidated me.

"You are not a quick replacement. You are not a fix, David. That's precisely why I said that about wishing we had hooked up that first night. I wish you had been the first one because I hate it when what I felt for Luke – and I say it in past tense – comes between us, because... Because you are it for me, David. You are everything I always wanted."

He was looking in my direction, but his gaze was so lost I doubted he had listened to me.

"Say something, David."

He didn't.

"Please..."

He nodded, and his eyes moved back to observing the floor again.

"Alright. I have never felt loved. And I haven't devoted myself to anyone either. My mum betrayed us, and my dad... My dad lost his warmness after what she did to him. I couldn't let it affect me." Tears were streaming down his face, but he was so serious that I was afraid to hug him. "I learnt how to be brilliant, I learnt to love myself, because I could trust that no betrayal would come out of that. I had it... all under control. And then... Then you came, Tessa, with your stupid love for that dimwit, and..."

He looked at me, and my heart started to pump faster. He was so indescribably, devastatingly beautiful.

"... and your angel face, and your crazy ideas, and your... God, your insanely sexy body..."

Those last words made me feel my rapid heartbeat somewhere other than my chest.

"And I fell in love with you. There it is, I said it, not in the middle of sex, but in the middle of a freaking tomb."

The absurdity of having that conversation there hit me when he said that, and I couldn't help but laugh. He was still serious, and continued talking:

"I said it for real. I love you, Tessa. And I hate you for having messed with my being in charge of everything, and with my self-respect."

I didn't know what to say. I just wanted to kiss him. I crossed the remaining of the cold wall between us, and ignited as soon as I pressed my lips to his. He tangled his hands in my hair and explored my mouth delicately and sensually. I moved my hands along his back. His shoulders were so broad, his skin was so hot. He moved his mouth to my neck and bit it gently. I moaned, and suddenly remembered we were supposed to be hiding. Discrete.

I separated from him, heaving.

"Do you know where the others are?"

"Your sister and I agreed on hiding in the tombs, so they must be in others around here." he replied, caressing my leg.

"Isn't it funny that we are running away because we found out how to become immortal, and we are hiding in a cemetery?"

He flashed his radiant smile for the first time since we had arrived at the Pantheon.

"Everything is kind of funny. My mother has an affair with the criminal that put us into this mess, which happens to be my dad's best friend. I wonder how he is going to react when he finds out. It should be titled: "Sophie's treason, part two: Expanded and improved"."

"Well, at least something good came out of this."

He looked at me quizzically.

"We met." I said, flushing. "I love you too, David."

He leant in to kiss me again, but loud steps and a cry startled us.

"Hands above your head!" a man's voice shouted.

"No, please we are innocent!" Alex cried.

"Let's see what the judge has to say about that." another man said.

David put his hand over my mouth and tried to hide us some more behind Marie Curie's body, or perhaps behind her cleverness, or rightfulness.

But the policemen came to us in less than a minute, and there was nothing that rightfulness, or greatness, or veracity could do for us. They drifted me away from David, and, like a dark, sarcastic, twist of fate, we went down precisely on the place that commemorated the contrary.

What did you think of this chapter? Did you expect David's mum to be involved in the betrayal? Did you like that Tessa finally confessed her love for David? Let me know in the comments!

There's only 3 chapters left till the end of the novel! The following one will be up tomorrow, at 21h30 UK-time! Remember that the first chapter of the sequel - "If I live forever, can I live now?" - will be up on September 15th!

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You can contact me at: seasidewhispersauthor@gmail.com