Immortality

Chapter Three - Reminiscence

Author's note - aaaaaand, after weeks and weeks, an update. Sorry to have taken so long but it's not exactly like there's a lot of demand for the story. That being said, if you want more, please vote and comment! The encouragement really helps me write!

Headquarters was quiet. Nightingale slipped through the hallways, the only sound she made that of the computer authenticating her handprint as she ghosted through various locked doorways. A few guards stood alert in the atrium, but she was too quiet and moved too fast to give them cause to see or hear her.  

She expected to be alone in the office. She knew Nicholas had gone up to the Muskokas for a weekend with his new girlfriend, that Pierce was trying to avoid Michael's calls and so had gone with Nicholas.

As for Caroline, Nightingale had not really thought it best to ask. Besides, when Caroline was not on duty, it was usually almost impossible to get a hold of her. She was the opposite of David in that respect. Nightingale barely had to form in her mind a desire to see David and it seemed as though he had materialized before her.

 Materialized as he had now, she noted. For when she entered the office, she caught sight of David seated at the long table in the centre of the room.

"What're you doing here?" said David, his voice as brusque as his expression as he looked up from where his fingers were flying over a keyboard. 

"I could ask you the same question - but I'm here to do a bit of profiling of the next-" began Nightingale, taking a seat at the table and snapping her fingers to summon up a hologram from her tablet.

"Go home," he told her.

Nightingale's eyebrows rose. She had long since tamed her desire to throttle David at nearly every juncture, but his incessant poor temper never ceased to annoy her.

"I beg your-" she began.

"It's Sunday. We've just come off a big case. You should be taking at least a week off," snapped David, looking up very sharply at her, his hazel eyes alight. He slammed his hand flat against the table and stood. "And I don't say that for you. I say that because Robin and Colm probably deserve better than a fucking workaholic with nothing better to do than-"

Nightingale had learned that to get the better of David one needed only not to rise to the provocation he provided. Nothing made him angrier than a cool reply or no reply at all. It was how Robin, in his most teasing moods, used to infuriate with David with only a few words.

"Pardon me for not taking your advice on either parenting or marriage," she replied in her quietest, politiest voice. She cocked her head and arched her eyebrows, giving him a cold, tiny smile.

David's jaw snapped shut and his eyes bulged. Despite it being Robin's tactic, Nightingale knew that he would disapprove.

"Don't you dare speak to me that way, you-" he began, lip curled into a snarl. She hadn't seen him this angry in a very long time. David did not frighten her, however, and never had. So it was with utter confidence that she replied.

"Then don't you speak to me that way. In this building I'm your agent, not your...whatever else I am to you," she told him. She crossed her arms and glared at him just as he was glowering at her.

"My concern for your family-" he began again.

Nightingale didn't let him finish. "Is none of your business here! You're the one who's so eager for a separation of work and home, dear detective, so don't bring up my family!"

There was a pause in which David, giving a little smirk, sat down. Nightingale sat opposite him, giving her holograph a little flick, until it displayed the features of two men, suspects in their new long case. She was just about to read what exactly it was they were suspected of - David hadn't circulated a briefing bundle yet - but David's smiling had gotten to her.