Author's note: And here it is, the sequel to Inamorata. Read it, please, because if it's not popular enough I won't continue it. I've got other stuff I want to work on more, so if you guys don't support it, it's not going to happen. That being said, I love your votes and comments, so rock on!

Perched high in the rafters, Nightingale paused as she heard something that shouldn't have been there.

There came the sound of gunfire from ahead, rapid-fire bangs that thundered and echoed through the cavernous space. Her heightened hearing allowed her to pick out individual voices shouting above the sound. There were at least five people crying out over the roaring of bullets - it sounded like two women and three men.

"Firefight," she murmured into the mic at her wrist.

"Where?" murmured a voice in her ear. Pierce's voice, filtering through the comm in her ear, sounded as close to panicked as an agent was allowed to show. A firefight was not something they had expected when David had revealed the tactical plan to them.

It was supposed to be a quick job, fast and deadly, four arrests made and no one, not even the criminals, harmed.

That was evidently not how it had gone and now Pierce, who was running recon for the agents currently on the scene, sounded as though he was about to shoot himself in the head, death by his own hand an apparently preferrable situation to what would be David's anger if anyone ended up with a wound more severe than a scratch.

"Down the hall, I think. It's difficult to say from here," murmured Nightingale. "What's the plan now?"

There was a long pause.

"What's the fucking plan, Pierce? We don't have all day, Nick and Caroline are-" began Nightingale, growling into her mic.

"They're in the warehouse! Thirty feet along the beam you're on and you'll be on a catwalk above them. Drop down from there!" cried Pierce, the comm crackling with the hysteria in his voice.

Nightingale glanced back over her shoulder to find David. She did not have to look far, for he was close behind her, a hair's breadth away, loading his gun with swift, expert movements. His hands moved fast and he was utterly deadly as he cocked the weapon and held it in sure fingers.

"Let's go," he said, looking up at her.

Nightingale had her gun out as fast as he did. She held it loosely in one hand as she straightened up and tiptoed forward.

She flew along the beam quickly, balanced perfectly, confident that she would not fall. Fifty feet below her, machinery loomed in the dark, turning the abandoned factory into the maw of some behemoth, ready to swallow her up if she fell.

But she wouldn't fall. Even David, whose nimbleness was exceptional, moved at a slower pace than she did, and so when she had reached the catwalk, she had to pause and wait for him to climb the ten feet down and join her.

"Ah, you've finally found your way," she sniped at him, shouting over the gunfire. "It only took you several years."

He glowered at her and pushed past her to the railing of the catwalk. Below them, Nightingale could make out the situation. Nicholas and Caroline, separated but both having found cover, were sitting tight as two men and one woman - the drug mules David's team had been tracking for a year now - fired at them.

"Idiots," she muttered. Dealing drugs was a crime, of course, but this lot had made it worse - possession of a firearm was illegal, and attempted murder, especially the attempted murder of two police agents, was adding insult to fucking injury.

"I'll take those two," said David, gesturing. "You take that one."

He had to speak directly into Nightingale's ear to be heard and, despite the fact that she had known him twelve years, having him so close to her surprised and alarmed her.

He was off in an instant, skirting along the catwalk. Nightingale, knowing it would be faster, leaped up onto the railing and danced forward over it. She was not able to see the expression that would have crossed David's face but knew that he would roll his eyes at what he saw as her flaunting her physical capabilities.

Flaunting them or not, she found herself above her target faster than David found his. She didn't wait for him but sprang over the side.

Any ordinary human could not have landed on their feet jumping a distance of forty feet, and it was in rare instances such as this that Nightingale thanked the Corporation scientists for engineering her with superior reflexes and strength.

Not that she thanked them for anything else. The other things she'd been saddled with had caused little other than trouble.

She alighted on her toes, and even had the sound of gunfire not covered her landing, would not have made a sound. So she did not alert the man before her to his presence except when she crept up behind him, put the barrel of her gun to his head, and whispered in his ear:

"Move or make a sound and you're dead."

He dropped his gun instantly.

When Nightingale had disarmed him and cuffed him to a pole, she spoke into her mic. "One subject contained."

Both Pierce and David spoke into her ear, confusing her as their words flowed together.

Pierce was saying something, asking her whether she could get to David, something was happening, and David was shouting something that she could not interpret, though she heard more than one profanity.

So, cautiously, she stuck her head up and caught sight of what was happening. Nicholas, it was evident, did not need her help, nor did Caroline. One of the people David had meant to be restraining, the only woman of the three, had somehow made her way over to Caroline and Nicholas, who were in the process of disarming and restraining her.

But David needed help. Somehow, the last man had gotten the better of him. Both David's and the man's guns were some distance away and the man had David flat on his back, hands around his throat, squeezing the life out of him.

David didn't look frightened, simply angry, as he kicked and thrashed and clawed at the man. Nightingale, in all her years of knowing him, had never once seen him afraid, and this did not appear to be an exception.

But she was afraid, her stomach heaving with fear as she shot forward. In a moment, she was upon the two, pressing her gun to his head as she had done to the other man.

"Let him go," she growled, her voice audible as the gunfire had ceased.

The man paid her no attention, and David's face was turning red as he gasped.

"I said, let him go!" shrieked Nightingale.

The man dropped David and came at her, but she was faster than he was and she slammed him in the face with her gun, feeling his cheek smash against the metal. She felt a surge of disgust at what she had done, though the man had been threatening David.

It was Nicholas who came forward to cuff the man and to drag him away - he was not gentle - leaving Nightingale with a red-faced and bruised David.

She crossed her arms, not offering to help him up, and he hauled himself to his feet.

"Not going to say thank you?" she mocked.

He raised his eyebrows and said nothing, but Nightingale knew him well enough to know that a thank you would not be dragged out of him by anyone save those he liked the best - Robin, perhaps, or Steel.

Not Caroline, of course, for the marriage that David had hoped would bring him peace did not seem to be going according to plan. Even now, when she had been in danger, David did not turn to her to see if she was unharmed, nor even acknowledge her over any other.

They had tried to keep their marriage a secret from the team but had, naturally, failed, perhaps due to the tensions that were so evident between them. Caroline loved David; David, by his own admission, did not love her.

Now, Caroline rose and stared hard at David's back while David, rubbing his throat, radioed in to Pierce, letting him know that no one was harmed. 

"Are you all right?" she asked, laying one hand on his shoulder.

He flinched away from her touch, shying away so her hand slipped off and hung limply by her side. He said nothing, scowling into the air as he pressed a finger to his ear, listening to something Pierce was saying over the comm.

Nightingale had no love for Caroline, but she never ceased to pity her for loving someone who treated her - as he treated everyone - so terribly. Caroline, for all her flaws, could have done much better than David.

"Are you hurt, Caroline?" asked Nightingale when the pause became too long.

Caroline did not respond either, simply glaring at Nightingale and stalking away to gather together the three handcuffed criminals.

"You know, I've changed my mind," said Nicholas, appearing at Nightingale's shoulder and speaking in a low voice in her ear. "I know I said before that their marriage would be a disaster, but they're perfect for each other. They're both assholes."

Nightingale laughed loudly and it earned her a matching glare from David and Caroline.

 "Could you two act like professionals for one moment, at least?" asked David.

Nicholas snorted and motioned to Nightingale. She took his meaning and, hoisting one of the subdued subjects into a standing position, towed him along through the hall. Nicholas, who had two, had trouble keeping them still until Nightingale:

"Hey! Shut it!" she snarled.

They fell silent.

"It scares me how good you are at that," he muttered.

Nightingale smiled. "Only good thing I've learned from David, really."

"How to shout at people?" laughed Nicholas.

Nightingale joined him in his laughter for a moment, until Pierce's voice crackled in her ear over the comm.

"Status, Agent Brightley?" he said.

"All three subjects contained, though I'm sure David told you that," said Nightingale. Nicholas paused mid-stride, hanging onto both his subjects with one hand as he poked at his comm, looking mystified.

"Should I meet you at the hovercraft, then?" asked Pierce.

"Yes - and Pierce, are you transmitting this to anyone else?" asked Nightingale.

"Just to you," said Pierce.

"Mind including Nicholas in this conversation? He's looking at me like I've started hearing voices," replied Nightingale.

"Yeah, yeah, of course," said Pierce, and now Nicholas straightened up, recognition dawning on his face. He shook his head, and nudged everyone to a walk once more. "I just didn't-"

"Want David or Caroline to hear you?" guessed Nightingale.

"Yeah," said Pierce, and Nightingale could imagine the bashful little grimace - the one that was so reminiscent of his brother - creeping its way over his face as he spoke.

"That's really fucking brave of you, Pierce," said Nicholas, his voice heavy with sarcasm. "You're serious agent material if you can't handle talking to your boss."

"The fact that he's my boss has nothing to do with this," said Pierce, and his voice was now testy. "I wouldn't want to touch David with a thirty foot pole right now because of the godawful state of his marriage even if we were the best of friends. Which we're not, if you hadn't noticed."

"Robin's best friends with him, and he still braves him," Nightingale pointed out. She smiled a little at the very mention of the name, as she always did. She'd become quite the sappy creature in her twelve years of knowing Robin, or at least when it came to her husband, and now thought of him in her favourite way, a memory of Robin gazing up at her with his warm dark eyes, flicking a black fetlock of hair back over his forehead.

"Robin's batshit, though, Nightingale," said Nicholas, giggling a bit.

"Fuck you, Nick," said Nightingale. Her happy thought soured and now she glared at him.

"What? It's true. I love the man, but he's-" said Nicholas.

"One more word and I'll ram this comm so far down your throat that Pierce will be able to communicate with your fucking di-" began Nightingale, a world away from the sappiness she'd claimed to have earlier.

"Boys and girls, settle down," said Pierce, though he was laughing. "I'm in enough trouble as it is. I don't want to have to be the one to tell David that I couldn't stop Nightingale from killing-"

"Couldn't stop Nightingale from what, exactly?"

Nicholas froze, the look of terror on his face comical for one so large, and grasped Nightingale's arm in horror. She knew why, as it was David's voice that now sneered over the comm, and Nicholas had the reasonable worry that David had been listening for the better part of the conversation.

"David," squeaked Pierce. "How...uh, how much did you hear?"

"Only the tail end of what sounds like Nightingale's possible psychopathic tendencies, though that was already something I was fairly confident of," said David. Nicholas had to pat Nightingale's arm comfortingly to avoid her ripping out her comm and stamping it under her heel. "Why? Is there something I should have heard?"

"Just wondering whether Pierce has to bring you up to speed or not," lied Nightingale.

She could feel Pierce's relief radiating over the comm.

"Meet me back at the hovercraft. We'll take these...people back to HQ and we'll debrief there," said David. He kept his words to a bare miniumum, and made no effort to disguise the disgust in his voice. Whether it was disgust with the criminals or - Nightingale winced at poor Caroline - with his wife, she could not tell.

Either way, David's already terrible mood would be positively vicious the next time they saw him. There was a crackle and he disconnected from the comm.

"Oh, lovely," said Pierce. "Debriefing with David on a Friday night. It's not like I had plans or something."

"You didn't have plans, you liar," retorted Nicholas.

Nightingale couldn't stand listening to their bickering. Instead, she disconnected from her comm, stowed it in her pocket, and used her now-infamous trick of recitation.

But at my back I always hear Time's wingèd chariot hurrying near, she heard, and the voice that spoke in her head was a strange mix of her own and Robin's as he, with head bent over a book, read to her. She was transported back to her bed, to her home, as he, with one hand on her bare back and one on the book, soothed her out of a nightmare with his sweet voice and an even sweet touch.

The memory would have been enough to distract her, but the poetry always worked better.

And yonder before us lie vast deserts of eternity...

Nightingale sighed, even that happy memory of Robin tainted by bitterness in the form of the reason he had read her "To His Coy Mistress". Oh, it had been to please her to commend her beauty, to seduce her - not that he really needed to do that - but he had done it to remind her of his own age.

And in so doing remind her that she would outlive him.

She growled a low sound of unhappiness, low in her throat, something that was not lost on Nicholas and Pierce, who seemed to have found his way down from the command post and had joined them at the hovercraft.

"Something on your mind, Miss Nightingale?" he asked, using the sobriquet that Nightingale had never been able to get rid of.

"Life, love, death," she said, before she could stop herself.

"The usual thoughts for you, then," chuckled Nicholas.

"At least I have thoughts, unlike some," retorted Nightingale.

"Enough, you two!" laughed Pierce. "By the way, Nightingale, Michael called. He wants you to call him back. Says he's been trying to get in touch with you for ages now. Says it's important."

Nightingale nodded absently. She'd just seen David and Caroline approaching, a stiff arm's length distance between them. Though they were too professional to squabble at work, Nightingale knew that neither one had any sort of problem with being positively glacial to others regardless of situation.

"Is everyone loaded in?" asked Caroline.

"All three," affirmed Nicholas.

"All right, then let's get going," snapped David, and hurried into the driver's seat.