Chapter 14 - Author's note: okay, so this will be the last chapter before they embark on the case.

Update: artwork on the side (technically for Inamorata, I know, but I wanted to include it in the newest update because I love it) by the talented FallingApples. I just love it - it's very pretty!

Nightingale had found herself counting the days until they were all scheduled to start the mission. Only a certain amount of time could be wasted in training and information gathering and coordinating. At some point, they would have to leave.

Sorcha's mimicry had become so uncannily accurate that from a distance only Robin and Caroline could tell Sorcha and Nightingale apart (even David had been recently fooled by Sorcha's imitations, about which he seemed intensely frustrated), and Amartya had told everyone that the time was right for him to have an audience with the triumvriate for selling the false copy-Nightingale. It had been only a week since the Britannic team had arrived, and now it was nearly time for them all to fly off to London and start the mission.

Nightingale dreaded that day. She went cold with fear at the idea of going back to her bordello days, and felt sick at the prospect of being touched by any hands less loving than Robin's or Colm's. She could hardly bear the thought, moreover, of being separated from her husband and her son. It was not because she was not fiercely independent, but it was because they made her happy.

Her happiness was so hard-won that she hated the idea of relinquishing it.

As she lay in bed, two days before they were scheduled to leave, Nightingale was not able to sleep. She was trying not to think of Robin, whom she loved so much, whom she would so soon leave, or of Colm, whose sweet love would leave a gaping hole in her sanity the moment she was away from him.

Instead, she was thinking of something else. Something far more strange, but far less worrying.

Nightingale wasn't supposed to watch. She wasn't supposed to hear. But saw she did, and she couldn't remove the image from her eyes, nor the sound from her ears. She remembered it as well as when she had seen it, how when she had been at HQ, passing through the corridor, she had seen an open door and the scene within.

It was David and Caroline, together, which in itself was not odd. As former partners, and as teammates, and being the married parents of a child to whom they were devoted, it made sense for them to be together quite often. It was not that - it was how they were standing, and what they were saying.

David and Caroline touched so infrequently in the presence of others. It was professionalism on both their parts, Nightingale knew, for both of them were consummate professionals. They were very well matched in that respect.

They were well matched in many respects. They had the same cold, reserved demeanour, and the same severe self-discipline that was more likely to come across as both frigid anger and steely stoicism than as simply the latter. Both were ruled by their morals and believed in the rule of law above all else.

But that was not the only reason they did not touch in public except for casual touches of hands. On David's part it must have also been an awkwardness he had with his wife. Caroline's was more complex - an understanding that it was not her touch that David desired above all else, as well as the humiliation of David's being in love with someone else. And, as well, Nightingale got the sense that Caroline did not touch David out of pity for him.

Now, however, David and Caroline stood a hair's breadth apart. David pushed back her hair with both hands, stroking his fingers through her hair before cupping her face in both hands. He stared straight into her face, his eyes searching hers, intent and keen.

Nightingale, for however much David loved her, would never have that sort of trust from him. Caroline was his true confidant, his partner, the one he held faith in above all others. He had said he trusted Nightingale with anything; but Caroline had seen more with him, spent longer with him, been darker places with him. 

"Two weeks," he said. "That will be it, I think."

Caroline made a sound of skepticism. "So you say. Or will this be Copenhagen all over again?"

A reference to an old case of theirs, for David quirked a small smile. "Copenhagen would be fine, don't you think?"

"I suppose," she said. She looked like she was going to say something else but then David kissed her hard and she didn't seem to want to say anything.

That in itself surprised Nightingale. She supposed they were intimate - they were married - but she so rarely saw any evidence of it. She wondered, as she often did, whether they had been fucking since long before she knew either of them. Had they? It was impossible to tell. But had David given up on a lover for a woman he barely knew, twelve years ago?

Nightingale was not sure. She had once asked Robin, and he had had somewhat more insight.

"Sleeping together before they got married? Difficult to say. Not often, if they were. Both too professional for it, my dear," he had said. He had been sitting in his bookstore when she had asked him, sorting through a large pile of books, already pleased to have found a second-edition copy of Tristram Shandy. "But they were undercover together, and that changes you. Whether it changes you enough to go from working with your partner to sleeping with them is a bit more difficult to tell."

"How about after Steel?" she pressed. She had been sitting on a stool across from him, keeping an eye on where Colm was carefully climbing a ladder up to one of the tall shelves.

"Even less, if it were happening at all," Robin had said. He paused and looked at her. As he went on, he continued with his task. "Or perhaps more because of the new trust."

"Do you think they fuck now?" said Nightingale. Colm was far enough away he would not have been able to hear the profanity.

"Good Lord, Nightingale, you're offending my delicate sensibilities," said Robin, the mockery in his voice doing nothing to cover the way he blushed with embarrassment.

"I thought I'd trained delicacy out of you," Nightingale replied.

"Oh, please," said Robin, waving one hand. "You love my delicacy, darling."

"I do. It's very charming," Nightingale conceded, before she went on. "But do you think they fuck?"

"Definitely," said Robin, without missing a beat. Then he looked up at Nightingale and gave her one of his lopsided smiles, and continued. "Wouldn't you?"

"Fuck which one?" asked Nightingale, raising one eyebrow.

"Either," said Robin. Then he shrugged. "Both."

Nightingale had laughed. Now, she was brought out of her considerations as her heart began to race and adrenaline brought her senses into focus. Her thoughts scrambled ahead, to Colm, sleeping a floor above, to Robin, lying next to her, as a single sound, a footstep, betrayed an entrance.

There was someone in their bedroom. The door opened and then shut, and a figure could be seen slipping into the room. Nightingale, sitting up with a start, grasped Robin by the shoulder and shook him awake. He awoke but was silent in bleary, sleepy confusion.

At the same time, a voice spoke. "Nightingale."

Robin gave a half-yell of startled surprise and Nightingale, who had seen who it was with her keener vision and had recognizes the tell-tale voice with her sharper ears, climbed out of bed.

"Fuck's sake, Caroline," Nightingale swore. She wasn't surprised Caroline had gotten in without triggering the alarm, since Caroline was one of the stealthiest agents Nightingale had ever met. Nightingale reached for her dressing gown and put it on as Robin, fumbling for the bedside table, flicked on the light with short command. "Now isn't a good time."

"Ah, fuck," he said, the profanity sliding off his tongue with heaviness of sleepiness. "What an unexpected pleasure at three in the morning. What can we do for you, Agent Bure?"

Caroline ignored him. She was standing by the bed with her hands folded, all trim, reserved stoicism. Her clothing - a coat cinched neatly over what Nightingale assumed was an equally immaculate dress - seemed to make Robin aware of his own nudity, since he yanked the covers up to his chin.

"Now is the only time, Nightingale," said Caroline. Her voice was as it always was; measured, controlled, and cold as ice. She often put David to shame with the frigid anger of which she was capable.

Nightingale sighed. "If you say so. What's so fucking important, then?"

"I'd prefer not to discuss it in your bedroom," Caroline replied, and her eyes flickered back to Robin. Caroline did not like Robin, nor did she trust him. Nightingale had always considered both those things utterly fucking ridiculous.

"Downstairs, then?" asked Nightingale.

Caroline inclined her head in agreement.

"No one minds if I just stay here?" Robin piped up from the bed. 

Caroline said nothing but levelled a look of pure contempt at Robin. He looked to Nightingale for direction and when she nodded, he nodded back, flipped the covers up to his shoulders, rolled over, and turned the light back off.

Nightingale escorted Caroline from the room, which wasn't necessary since Caroline knew her way around the house well enough

Nightingale was mystified. Caroline seemed to make it her mission in life to avoid Nightingale as much as possible, and Nightingale allowed it. She found it in herself to respect Caroline, to become as fiercely protective of her as she was of all the members of her team, but she had never been able to have a relationship of any friendly warmth with her.

Caroline was jealous, of course, and had become increasingly so in the early days when Steel had preferred Nightingale's company to that of either of his parents. Nightingale would never reveal to Caroline or to David, of course, her own influence in repairing the relationship between son and parents, would never tell them that it was at her persuasion that he had made peace with David and Caroline.

Nightingale had never been the easiest with Caroline, either, and that was her fault. But her poor disposition toward Caroline was the product of years of weathering furious glares and guilty snarls from Caroline, and so Nightingale did not feel quite so guilty about it as she could have done.

And so, of course, Caroline disliked Nightingale intensely and Nightingale could firmly say she felt the same way.

"Have a seat," said Nightingale, and Caroline's lip curled in disgust before she sat. "Can I...offer you anything? Coffee? Tea? Triple whiskey?"

Caroline did not even reply. Instead, she straightened her coat, and waited for Nightingale to sit. Nightingale did so, and then after some time, Caroline spoke.

"I'm worried about David," said Caroline. She crossed her legs and, the very picture of elegance, fixed Nightingale in her cool stare. Caroline, in her late forties, looked younger in everything save that gaze. Her hair seemed to resist nature's attempts to put any grey its red lustre, and any lines that had crept up over her skin's fresh glow gave her the air of mature dignity and queenly beauty. It was a beauty of which Nightingale had never been envious, but could appreciate for its magnificence.

But her stare had all the sorrow of a hundred years of suffering, and it was that stare that now fixed itself on Nightingale before falling to the carpet.

"Isn't everyone?" said Nightingale. It was half-hearted jab at David, and one that Nightingale regretted nearly instantly despite the fact that she had enjoyed saying it.

"More so than usual," conceded Caroline. She waved her hand and then she fixed Nightingale in her gaze. It was a predatory gaze she had learned from David, one that left its subject no place to hide.

"Fine," said Nightingale, since she could agree with Caroline that David's behaviour had been slightly odd. Not as odd, however, as Caroline having broken into her house in the middle of the night to needle her with questions about David. It worried her somewhat, but her own worries were too great to allow for much else. "In what way?"

"He's not himself," said Caroline. She did not pause as she said it, as though she had practiced saying this to herself before telling Nightingale.

"What is 'himself', exactly?" asked Nightingale. It was partly snarky, and partly a genuine concern. Who actually knew what David was?

"Are you trying to be difficult?" retorted Caroline. Her lip curled again and spoke to Nightingale as she would a petulant child.

"No," said Nightingale. She didn't like being talked down to, not by anyone, and especially not by Caroline. Then she smirked and went on. "It just comes naturally."

"Could you make some effort to control it, then?" she said, all mockery and condecension.

"Oh, fuck off, Caroline!" Nightingale replied.

"I didn't come here to be insulted," Caroline said. She straightened her coat and rose to leave. Nightingale felt a little guilty, and more than a little concerned, and so she unbent her pride enough to stop her from leaving.

"Caroline, wait," she said. She refused to plead, but she did try to persuade. Caroline turned, and her gaze dared her to go on. "This...this animosity between us - I'm not blameless in that, I know."

"Neither am I," said Caroline. Ngihtingale could swear she could hear her own heartbeat in the silence that followed - Caroline's admission of a fault surprised both women so much that they were utterly silent for a moment. Then she went on. "Though I can't ever forgive you, Nightingale."

Nightingale flinched back from Caroline but could not bring herself to be angry.

"The reasons for my anger with you are mostly not your fault," Caroline confessed. Then she added something that made her sound once again like the Caroline Nightingale knew, "Though you certainly don't help."

Nightingale scoffed in a laugh. "You think I don't know that?" she challenged Caroline. "I'm well aware of why you don't like me, and I'm well aware that I do nothing to endear myself to you. I'm the furthest thing from blameless in the way we treat each other."

Caroline paused, as if taken aback by Nightingale's honesty. "Are you being humble, Nightingale?"

Nightingale twinged a little smile. "Me, humble? Never. It's one of my worst faults. I'm incorrigibly proud."

Caroline's expression mirrored her own, a tiny smile. "And, I think, one of the only ways you survived."

There was a tiny bit of admiration in Caroline's expression, and so Nightingale seized upon the opportunity to speak, and said, "For how much we dislike each other, Caroline, I think we trust each other. At least professionally," she added, because she did not want to strain this tiny bit of camaraderie too far.

She waited a moment, wondering if Caroline would admit to it. After a subtle twitch of her lips - it was evidently difficult for Caroline to admit such a thing, evidently, since it was possible that she was prouder and more headstrong that Nightingale and David combined - she inclined her head and acknowledged Nightingale very carefully.

"I didn't always trust you, Nightingale," she said. Her voice was bleakly honest. "I used to neither like you nor trust you. I trust you now."

Nightingale ground her teeth a little. "Glad to hear it," she said, her smile turning sour. After a moment, she went on, since she was certain that if she didn't speak soon she would revert to the self that recoiled at even the possibility of speaking to Caroline. "If you trust me, then tell me - what are your concerns about David?"

Caroline flinched as though someone had touched a raw nerve. Nightingale understood that - her relationship with David was such that it was an open wound, that never healed, that always pained, and that bled at the slightest touch.

"I..." she began. She seemed at a loss for words, troubled by something she could not quite say. "How does he seem to you?"

Nightingale resisted the urge to retort that she'd asked first. Instead, she humoured Caroline. "Like David, I guess."

"He doesn't seem strange to you?" pressed Caroline. She wasn't looking at Nightingale, which was odd, since Caroline tended to use her searching gaze to wrangle answers out of anyone.

"Maybe a little more erratic," said Nightingale, tip-toeing around anything that would reveal David's bursts of affection. She did not want to hurt Caroline any more than Caroline wanted to be hurt. "I suppose...a little more emotional. He's getting older, Caroline. That happens. People change."

"Do you?" Caroline said, instantly. Now Caroline looked up, fixing her blue eyes on Nightingale's face.

"Yes. Yes, I hope so," said Nightingale. She certainly did hope that she'd changed. The Nightingale of the bordello was a good deal unkinder, more unsympathetic, more volatie, and less forgiving than she hoped she was now.

"But you don't get any older," said Caroline, eyeing her. Nightingale tried not to squirm, caught in that gaze. It was as though Caroline could hear her thoughts, could sense Nightingale's perturbation over her new-found immortality. "How can you change if you don't get any older?"

"I am older. Time might not look like it passes for me, but it does," said Nightingale. She shook her head, tossing her hair back over her shoulders.

"You can't possibly understand what the passage of time is like," Caroline snapped, her voice scornful. "Not when you stay youthful. Not when you are now as you were twelve years ago."

"I can't understand it?" Nightingale retorted. With her teeth clenched, she spat the words at Caroline. "I can't understand it? When I watch my husband grow older before me, grow more infirm, when I stay like this? When I watch my son grow and change in ways I never did, nor ever will? Tell me, Caroline, when I watch those I love age and get closer and closer to dying - Robin, and David, yes, even David - how can you say I don't understand change?"

Caroline shook her head, her fine red hair swinging from side to side as she spoke. "Someone who stays forever beautiful will never understand-" she began, her voice full of acid and anger.

Nightingale cut her off with a scornful sound, furious. And she thought Caroline had changed - no, she still thought Nightingale as shallow as she had always done. "Beauty? Is that all you care about? Do you think that's all that matters to you or to me or to-"

"It's so easy for you to disregard it, not to notice it, to-" Caroline went on, shaking her head. Her hands clenched at the open air, snarled into claws.

"What is easy for me?" demanded Nightingale in a half-shout.

"To be beautiful!" cried Caroline. She raised her head to Nightingale and Nightingale fell silent instantly, for Caroline was weeping. Nightingale had never seen Caroline weep. "For God's sake, Nightingale, don't you know how you take it for granted? Don't you understand? No, you can't, you don't!"

Caroline's voice was full of desperate anger as she rose and turned her back on Nightingale. Her shoulders shook and she quivered, before she whirled around.

"Don't you know how people look at you?" she asked. Nightingale said nothing, struck dumb. "Young, strong, capable, beautiful, so beautiful! Now don't you know how they look at me?"

She slammed one fist into her chest as she raged in desperate sorrow, glaring hard at Nightingale was eyes that burned with tears. "Aging, weak, fading, burnt out, burnt out! Beauty shouldn't matter but it does and what does that make you? A deity. And what does it make me? Pathetic."

She paused a moment, her hand clenched in her hair so tightly it looked as though she wanted to tear it all out.

"Caroline," Nightingale tried, as she rose and took two steps toward Caroline. The pity in her voice was not cloying or condescending. She genuinely hurt to see Caroline so wounded.

Her sympathy was not taken well, since Caroline looked up with pure hatred in her eyes. "And if you think I want to be defined by being jealous of you, when in no way but your beauty are you any better than me, you're mistaken," she said. "I never wanted to value myself on my beauty. I believe that other things are so much more important, so much more fucking valuable. And I am so much better than you will ever be - I have worked harder, I have striven more, I have overcome to attain things that you just breezed in and-"

"You act as though everything has been easy for me-" began Nightingale, even her pity hard-pressed to allow her to let Caroline's argument stand. Nightingale had suffered, and she had suffered too much, and she was terrified she was going to suffer again.

"I have suffered, too," Caroline growled, and with such agony that Nightingale could not bear to be angry.

"I know," said Nightingale. And Caroline had indeed suffered. Nightingale took another few steps forward and tried, vainly, awkwardly, to touch Caroline's arm and comfort her.

"Don't touch me, you bitch," snarled Caroline, swatting Nightingale's hand away. With another little snarl, she turned away and stalked out of the house. Nightingale watched her as she went, feeling as though she should not let her go but that she didn't know how to stop her.

Nightingale sighed and sat back down. No sooner had Caroline left did Nightingale hear another set of feet padding gently down the stairs. Without turning around, she spoke.

"Did you hear, Robin?" she asked.

"There was shouting. Of course I heard," said Robin. Nightingale wondered how much, but did not ask. She had said nothing to Caroline that she had not expressed to Robin. She turned for a moment as he wound around the sofa, coming to stand behind her.

Robin ran his hands over her shoulders, holding her gently at the tops of her arms as he leaned over to kiss her cheek. He rested his temple against hers and when he spoke, Nightingale felt the soft hum of his voice in the contact between them.

"She is angry with you," he said.

"Yes, she is," said Nightingale. It was an obvious statement. She turned and leaned her temple against his.

"She envies Steel's affection for you. And David's love for you," he conceded, lifting his head and straightening up. There it was, when he spoke - one of Robin's only flaws. He was smug in the most subtle way that Nightingale loved him and not David. "Most of all, she wants to admire you, wants not to be jealous of you for those things, but she can't. She sees her anger toward you as sentimental weakness, and she hates you all the more."

Nightingale made a low sound of scorn. "She thinks I don't suffer."

Robin brushed the back of one finger across her cheek, tracing the line of her cheekbone up to her ear. As he spoke he stroked the soft skin of her neck, leaving goosebumps of pleasure at his touch. "She knows you have suffered in the past, but she wonders how you could suffer now - when you are so good, and so kind, and so beautiful."

Nightingale closed her eyes, momentarily distracted from her turmoil by Robin's stroking fingers.

"Who wouldn't envy you, Nightingale?" he asked. He stroked her cheek again, this time with the backs of four fingers, so gently and so lightly that it was as though he was afraid to break her, or too reverent to touch her. "'Thou wast not born for death, immortal bird', as the rest of us were."

Nightingale got up and embraced Robin fiercely, dragging herself as close to him as she possibly could, hooking her clawed hands into his hair, pressing her whole body flush with his, holding herself fast next to him.

"I love you," she told him, and her voice shook with how much she meant it. "I love you so much."

"I know," he said, cradling her head in one hand and the small of her back in the other.

"I'm afraid," she said, next. And she was, and she hated it. She was afraid of everything, it seemed - of the case, of her own immortality, of losing Robin.

His arms tightened about her. "I know," he repeated. "But you're very brave. I am so proud of you."