Midnight, on the rooftop of a country estate.
"What are you doing up here?" a figure asks softly in the darkness.
"I could ask the same of you." The female figure, her identity unknown in the darkness, is sitting on a bench that overlooks the property. Her voice is soft, but his senses pick up a hint of warning.
"Escaping the crowds." The male figure's voice is rueful. In one hand he holds a bottle; in the other, a glass. It is a peace offering.
"Hear, hear." The female shadow raises a glass of her own and toasts the air. Her voice is grim, but the odd threat is gone.
"May I?" the male indicates the bench next to her with the bottle. He is intrigued by her lack of hesitation. He is known for being attracted to strong women.
"As long as you refill my glass." The woman's voice reflects a sharpness borne of bitterness. He feels that he should know this voice, but draws a blank. This is unusual. The light is all wrong, casting odd shadows. He shrugs internally.
He complies with her demand. In the dark, neither figure's identity is obvious, nor is the fact that he put far more in her glass than his own. The bottle bought his way out of the crowds; now it buys him company for a while. They sit in companionable silence for a time. Finally, the woman speaks.
"I hate funerals."
The man snorts. There is no one in the world that hates funerals more than he. It is a rare exception for him to be here tonight; only the urging of an old friend and the opportunity to be seen brought him through the doors. He had not been seen in too long. The necessity makes his stomach sour, that a funeral should be an opportunity that he cannot waste. Even that is not enough to keep him below with the sycophants and vultures.
"A funeral destroyed my life." It comes out of his mouth as a surprise, in a tone that reveals pain. He does not speak of these things. Ever. He blanches internally. Where is his head tonight?
"Mine, too." Her voice is soft now, the hard edges blurred by sorrow. "Ironically, it isn't even this one that did it." There is contempt in her tone. "How sad for the Great Doctor to fall second fiddle in anyone's mind."
"Was he so arrogant, then?" He is puzzled. This is a side of the deceased he did not know of—and he is a man that knows many things. He seeks to know all things.
"Beyond belief." Her tone now indicates disbelief at his ignorance. "But that's over now. Obviously." There is a hint of satisfaction.
They sit again in silence for a time. The night must be making him philosophical—he answers to her statement.
"Sometimes I wonder what they will say of me." The anonymity makes him bold.
"It's hard to say when nobody really knows you at all. I imagine that there is no one in the world who knows that I have no desire to be viewed in my casket. Or that I hate the smell of lilies." She is full of macabre humor now, and he sees her glass rise to emphasize her words before she takes another sip.
"I hate wakes. And casseroles. And people I don't know acting like they knew anything at all about me." He joins her in her morbidity. He borders on scorn now.
"Wouldn't it be nice to have someone just know? Have them just know because they know you? The real you?" she asks boldly. It's a rhetorical question thrown out in to the night but he shocks even himself.
He draws a breath in deeply and answers her with honesty never given to another before or since.
"I would love to have someone actually know me. Everything." He looks away, suddenly awkward even in the cover of darkness. His statement is tantamount to treason.
"I don't know if that ever happens. Sometimes, there's just too much to hide." Her answer is slow now, stark, and she drowns the rest by drinking deeply.
His head snaps in her direction, a slight trill of alarm tickling at the edge of his mind. She alleviates his misgivings by chuckling slightly.
"Oh, what would Daddy say about me now?"
She is referring to herself, then, though she could never know the depths of secrets to be kept. He ruefully tells himself that her sins might be avarice, or lust. They could never be his sins. His were far more complicated—sometimes he wished for the simplicity of normal pain.
She sighs and hunches down over her wineglass, the sign of sorrow. He recognizes her now, vaguely—she is the doctor's daughter, and this is her home. Something flashes in his memory—sharp, painful—before he shakes his head to clear it. There is shouting on this rooftop, overlaying the silence of the grounds and the far-off music of the unsubtle wake below. It is not shouting in the present, but in the past. He is confused and disturbed by it.
He puts a hand up to his eyes and presses between them. It is a rare show of weakness. This also means he has dismissed this woman as a threat. This has yet to proven.
"Are you all right?" she asks, her hand moving to touch his shoulder.
The contact is like fire and ice all at once—the shock of ice followed by the fire that is a sudden desire to be comforted by another human being. It is a need he had almost forgotten.
He forces himself not to shrug out of it. The desire to run is almost overwhelming as another part of him growls with impatience to strike the hand away.
"I'm fine." He forces a smile into his voice, the night covering the fact that it's but a parody of warmth. He has practiced this many times.
She frightens him more by chuckling with surprising warmth. "It's a funeral. We're supposed to be maudlin." She releases him, though, and he steadies himself. The past is too close tonight, memories he fights to keep quiet unusually loud and insistent.
"I'm afraid I am not good company tonight," he mouths in meaningless words intended to put distance between them.
"You're the perfect company," she says softly. It shocks him as much as it seems to shock her. There is a final, long silence.
She sighs. The party below has disbursed and the house has grown quiet. "I should go. There is a long day ahead of me tomorrow."
He nods companionably. He will not sleep this night. These few hours have been something of a respite but now leave him with an impatience to be on his way.
He takes the cue and rises to make his way down to his waiting driver.
"Bruce?" He whips around at the sound of his name.
"Be safe." There is a deep sorrow in her voice, far more than anything she has shown for her dead parent. He is left wondering what it is that she mourns for.
He will forget her quickly, a safeguard for himself.