Chapter 33. Author's note - I think you will all be happy with the character we meet again in this chapter. After all, I did make this character for a reason. Also: vote, comment, all that jazz! Thanks!

Nightingale awoke the next morning with a man's arm curled around her waist. Based on the boniness of the arm and the way the ribs pressed up against her back jutted into her flesh, she surmised that it was Robin.

Sitting up, she was able to confirm her hypothesis.Twisting around, she could see it was Robin who'd fallen asleep next to her. She was unable to pinpoint at which exact moment the pair of them had sunk into slumber. However, she did remember Robin speaking softly, soothingly to her, in his lovely tenor voice, comforting him when she had spoken bitterly about Clarence's death.

"As if I needed another reason to hate him," she muttered, laughing bitterly. But she did get a vicious pleasure at the idea of Bobby rotting away in some prison cell, manacled with an anklet like hers. She actually smiled when she imagined him tasting for the first time the pain of the shocks he'd used on his slaves.

Thinking of her anklet, she looked down at her own leg, where the manacle was still curled around her ankle, a reminder of what she had been.

She growled again in anger, and it was the sound of that anger that woke Robin.

He woke in the most endearing of manners. He sat up, yawned, stretched like a cat - for Robin was surprisingly flexible - and then ruffled his hair with the back of his hand.

"Good morning, Miss Nightingale," he said, and yawned again.

Nightingale raised her eyebrows, an unwilling smile slipping onto her face as she stared down at him. "I took it that you slept well, Mr. Brightley?" she asked, affecting his overly-stuffy diction.

"Dreadfully well, my dear girl. I always sleep well next to a beautiful woman," said Robin. He treated her to his most charming lopsided smile, his gaiety practically filling the room. The warmth of the expression touched Nightingale in a way nothing else could - not the feeling of Clarence's kisses, or the safety she had with David, or even Rose's joy.

"Like you ever sleep next to beautiful women," Nightingale returned, her jibe playful enough to counter the cruel truth in it.

Robin pressed a hand to his heart, miming being wounded to the heart. "How terribly mean-spirited of you, Nightingale," he said.

Nightingale arched one eyebrow. Then, leaning forward, she kissed him.

It was a welcome feeling, the warmth of Robin's slender lips. It helped chase away the ghost of the cold, bloody touch of Clarence's full ones.

But before Nightingale could so much as press herself into Robin and knot her fingers in his hair, he pushed her away.

"Robin," she said to him. "Don't do that. You know I hate it when you refuse me. Besides, I'm a free woman now. I can do this if I want t-"

He cut her off quite forcefully; more forcefully than Nightingale was used to hearing from him. It was surprising enough that she immediately stopped speaking and watched him with wide-eyed contempt.

"Is this what you want? Really, Nightingale, is it?" he asked.

Before Nightingale could even narrow her eyes at him, he went on in a gentler tone.

"Me? Am I really what you want? I should hardly think so. You're attached to me because of my role in your liberation. I would hazard a guess that, given two months in this city, you would find someone far more interesting, far more beautiful, and far more equal to yourself and you would lose interest in me," said Robin.

Nightingale would have been angry with him for his low estimation of her fidelity had he not looked so nervous as he spoke. His dark eyes were wide and his mouth was pinched tight with anxiousness. Nightingale could see that bashfulness and lack of confidence that he usually covered expertly showing in his expression.

"Don't be an idiot, Robin," she chided him gently. "If those had been the qualities that dictated my interests I would never have attached myself to you in the first place."

When he opened his mouth to speak, she covered it with her hand. His eyes widened even further, lending him a deer-eyed look that was charming.

"Besides," she said, a hint of bitterness creeping back into her voice as she spoke. "When I saw Clarence die last night, I realized something."

"Oh?" asked Robin. His eyes were even wider now and his voice high and breathy, most likely because Nightingale had taken his hair in her hands and was clutching his face to hers, their foreheads pressed together, lips inches from each other.

"There is no one in the world I could have hated to see die more than you," she told him. A little bit of grief at the very thought of it, the idea of Robin lying dead instead of Clarence, Robin bloodstained and cold and unmoving, made her shudder. "Not Clarence, not David, not even my sisters. I still mourn Clarence, but I'm unspeakably glad you're still here."

There was a very long pause.

"Still," he said, shaking his head and seemingly unfazed by the gravity of Nightingale's statement. "Promise me that you'll at least have a look around before you commit yourself to the pathetic old gasbag that is me, hm?"

Nightingale did not know whether to laugh or snort at his words. "And by look around, you mean fuck David, don't you?"

Robin quirked a smile. "He was the candidate I had in mind."

"That's damned selfless of you," muttered Nightingale.

"It is, isn't it?" said Robin, his voice without the slightest hint of either modesty or humility.

There was a moment of pause before Nightingale and Robin glanced at one another with the same sidelong glance. They were posed identically, both seated on the edge of the bed, leaning over ever so slightly, and glancing at the other.

And then they burst out laughing. It was loud and joyous and full of life, so starkly in contrast to Nightingale's previous apathy. They were lying back on the bed, shoulder to shoulder, when in walked David.

It took only one glance for Nightingale to ascertain that he was his ordinary, composed self. His bearing was calm and collected, his expression cold.

As his lip curled in contempt, Nightingale smiled.

"Did you sleep here, Robin?" asked David.

Robin did not grace his friend with an answer. Instead, he simply leaped to his feet and greeted David with a broad smile.

"I'm happy to see you, too," he retorted.

David rolled his eyes. "You're to be debriefed, Nightingale," he told her. As he stared down at her, Nightingale searched his face for some trace of something other than calm composure. She found nothing. Perhaps it was David's years undercover that made him so terribly good at hiding his emotions, but she could not read any marks of happiness or sadness or grief in his face.

She nodded and got up. David only raised his eyebrows when she reached over and took Robin's hand. The reception she got from Robin at the gesture was far warmer, on the other hand, as he smiled broadly at her.

"There are clothes under the bed. Put on something more decent than what you're wearing," said David. He motioned to her attire in a short, sharp movement that betrayed some of his unhappiness. Nightingale looked down as he waved. She was so accustomed to wearing her whore's clothing that it had not really crossed her mind that she oughtn't wear a corset, fishnets, and garters to meet with government agents.

So she nodded as sharply as David had waved. At the curt incline of her head, he went on. "When you're ready, Robin will show you to the interrogation room. I daresay he knows the way," said David, arching his eyebrows at Robin.

Robin smiled, his sunniness at odds with David's complete lack of it. "Of course I do, David. I've poured enough money into this institution to at least know where things are," he said. Straightening the cuffs on his tweed jacket, he stood at attention like a soldier before David. "Therefore, feel safe leaving Nightingale in my responsible hands."

"I have no doubt your hands are anything but responsible when it comes to Nightingale," David shot back sharply.

"Of course," Robin returned right away, not even missing a beat in his response. "This Mr. Wickham is always wicked in comparison to this virtuous Mr. Darcy."

The virtuous Mr. Darcy proceded to glare at so-called wicked Mr. Wickham before turning to Nightingale.

"Have Robin escort you when you're ready," he said.

With a smile, Nightingale nodded. When David had left, she immediately began to strip, ignoring Robin's protests that he was still in the room, and that shouldn't he step out or at least turn his back while she proceeded to make herself naked as the day she was born?

"Nonsense, Robin," scoffed Nightingale. "You've fucked me, darling. Surely you can take seeing me naked?"

Robin muttered something about decency and turned his back. When Nightingale was dressed in the loose fitting tunic and leggings that were under the bed, she and Robin headed out of the room. She noticed that a guard was still standing sentinel in her room.

Feeling mouthy, Nightingale snapped at her:

"Here to keep me in, or keep me safe?"

The guard stood there in stony silence, her mouth set and her eyes forward, not looking at either Nightingale or Robin as they passed. Nightingale was tempted to pose her question again, to get some sort of answer from the silent guard, but Robin pulled her away with one hand on her arm.

"Nightingale, behave," he told her.

Nightingale shrugged. "Don't tell me what do to," she returned.

"Don't be a child," he said, a little smile on his face. Nightingale wondered absently if Robin could go more than a few minutes without smiling. She'd even seen him smile in his sleep.

"Don't be a-" she began, about to continue their repartee, when the sound of shouting reached her from around a bend in the hall. Her keen ears allowed her to hear it before Robin could, even allowed her to identify it before she and Robin rounded the corner and saw exactly who was screeching like a madman at David.

"Steel?" she murmured. Though she could see from his stance, from the way his jaw was set, that Steel would not appreciate her interrupting, she nevertheless took an involuntary step towards him, eager to greet him.

A hand on her arm, a shockingly tight grip, stayed her. She turned to see Robin holding her back. He shook his head gravely, a smooth, slow motion that immediately gave her pause.

"No," he said. "Don't."

"Why didn't you tell me before?" they both heard Steel demand of David.

"How could I tell you?" cried David. His voice was more plaintive, more ardent than Nightingale had ever heard it and it astonished her to hear him using such a tone with Steel. "How could I tell you, Steel? If only for the integrity of the case-"

"The integrity of the case? What the hell makes you think I care about your fucking case, Detective?" Steel shrieked. Nightingale could see his blue eyes flash and his handsome face flush with pink colour.

"What's happening?" asked Nightingale.

Robin shook his head gravely. All of his previous smiles were wiped clean from his face. Left in their place was a stoicism not unlike David's. "You don't want to know, Nightingale."

"Bullshit," she retorted.

Robin sighed. His eyes did not leave David as the pair of them watched the detective's fists clench with anger. "A reasonable point. But it also not my place to say. You ought to ask David."

Nightingale opened her mouth to reply, but was promptly shocked into silence by what she heard David say next.

"I'm sorry, Steel. Truly, I am. But you can't expect me to have done anything differently. What happened with you was a mistake and I wish I could have done things differently, but I-" started David, and his tone was pleading. Begging. Apologetic. Nightingale was astounded to hear such a voice issuing from between David's stony lips.

When he had asked her forgiveness that once before, he had not sounded so desperate. His apology to her had practically been ripped from him, seeming to tear at his pride as it did so. But this was diffferent. This apology was ardent and desperate.

"I don't want to hear it," snarled Steel. With a rough hand, he pushed past David. With his jaw set in a furious line, his brow furrowed into an even more formidable one, and his eyes flashing with a cold fire like the one David had when Nightingale infuriated him, he stalked towards Nightingale and Robin.

"Steel?" whispered Nightingale.

"Hello, Miss Nightingale," he snarled. He leaned down and kissed her cheek so roughly it was like the peck of a bird's beak and not at all the gentle caress she knew his lips were capable of. "I wish you luck with Detective Beckett."

Without another word, he stormed off, leaving David staring after him, looking angry and disappointed, and Nightingale confused and unsettled.

Silently, Nightingale approached David. When his eyes turned to her, she stretched forward and embraced him. Though she did not know the reason for his unhappiness, it still touched her to see him suffer.

"Nightingale," he protested, his voice muffled by her hair.

She ignored him, continuing to cradle him in her arms as she had done the first night they had met. Pressed together as they were, Nightingale could feel the thudding of David's heart slow as he calmed, and the rapid gasps of his breath come in slower bursts as he became composed once more.

After a few minutes, he drew back. When he did, his countenance was back to its cool mask. All the grief Steel had caused David seemed to be hidden from sight behind David's well-practised, inscrutable mask.

"Come this way for your debriefing," he said, and led Nightingale into the interrogation room.