Immortality

Chapter Six - A New Case and Its Old Horrors

"Yes." Then his voice softened and, as though the first admission had eased the rest, he spoke with an astonishing gentility and a candid honesty. "I trust you. With my life. With anything."

"Good, then," she said, and nodded. She did not smile, and tried to keep her tone civil as she went on. "Now, could we possibly get along, given that you trust me?"

There was a very long pause. David's head was bowed and he did not look once at her. It was not a defeated silence, far from it, but it was one of someone overcome. He was ashamed of his sentiment, Nightingale supposed, and exhausted by having let it get the better of him.

"Do you trust me?" he asked eventually.

"Yes," said Nightingale after a pause of her own. Years out of the bordello and of becoming less bitter had made her better than David at allowing for the tenderness of emotion, but she still disliked unbending her pride to say it.

"That's idiotic," he snapped. His anger was for both her and himself, it seemed. "I sold you out, for Christ's sake. Used Rose to get you on my team."

"And I imagine you feel your share of guilt over that," said Nightingale.

"I-" he began.

"I won't force you to answer that," she said, and waved her hand. She could only expect so much from David. His years since their meeting had made him more bitter, not less, and he had already unbent himself so far. "I won't ever forgive you, which I'm sure you know. I don't think you ever expected me to forgive you, really. The damage is done and can't be undone. But would you do it again? Sell me out again?"

"No," he said. "No. Of course not. Never."

"Then I trust you," she replied.

There was another very long pause. David's head was bowed. Nightingale, rising from her seat, went over to him. She did not reach for the hand that sat gripping the back of a chair, nor the other held loosely at his side. Instead, putting her hand under his chin, she raised his head.

He obeyed her, and looked straight into her face. She smiled at him as sweetly as she could to try to take some of the crushing sorrow - or was it some sort of perverse joy, or satisfaction? With David she could never know - out of his eyes.

Running her thumb up over his cheek, she felt him lean his head into her hand with a low, rumbling sigh. Then she rose and kissed his other cheek. He did not flinch away from her, as he was wont to do. He stayed very still, and Nightingale appreciated that more than she could say. He was allowing himself to be humbled for a moment, to give in to the emotion he despised. Nightingale valued that surrender.

"There," she said, and smiled at him again. "That wasn't so hard, was it?"

He was out of her grasp in a moment, his teeth bared and his eyes flashing. The surrender was gone and he was all hot fury and cold aggression again. "Don't you fucking mock me," he growled.

"I wasn't. David, believe me, I wasn't," she said. She reached her hands forward in supplication and invitation.

He had turned away and was grasping the back of a chair very hard. Everything about him was a series of hard lines: his clenched jaw, his straight back, his clawed fingers. After a moment, he gave a sigh that seemed to come from the very bottom of his soul and pulled out the chair.

Nightingale's eyebrows rose but she did not give into the temptation to ridicule him for it as he, waving his hand, offered her the seat. Instead, she came forward and took the invitation. She sat and folded her hands in her lap, which was wise, for had she leaned forward and picked up her tablet she was sure she would have shattered it in surprise for what David did next.