A/N: Hi guys! This is the sequel to Astra Inclinant, sed non Obligant I was talking about, but I'll probably take a while to update this as I want to focus on other stories. Anyway, as the summary says La Vita Nuova is the title of one of Dante's books, it tells the story of his love for Beatrice from their first meeting when they were nine until the end, and it means 'The New Life' so I figured it was the perfect title for this fic as I'll be writing my take on Robert and Sienna's new life together. I doubt it'll be canon, but as long as Dan Brown doesn't publish more books in which Robert gets the girl, I'm allowed to dream, right? ;) When he does, I'll just ignore the last page/chapter. Has been working perfectly for the Battle of Hogwarts in Harry Potter and my OTP, Remus and Tonks. XD
Also, I'm not really fond of Felicity Jones as Sienna (mainly because she doesn't look like the character, but also because I can't really imagine her with Sienna's badassery, and yes, I'm extremely picky with my favorite characters), so I use Amber Heard in my headcanon. Hope Felicity Jones does a great job though! On that note, I love Tom Hanks as Robert (I actually like the so controversial hair), I just wish he was younger since Robert is 48 in Inferno and Tom is already 56 (yes, I consider that a lot even in this age when people don't change much, but if you see Tom in both movies, you'll know what I'm talking about), still I can use Tom in The Da Vinci Code for all the things I need. XD Wow, look at me rambling, go read, you lovely person!
All you gotta know for this fic alone is: they just had their first night together and they're off to Florence!
Enjoy! And please review!
LA VITA NUOVA
CHAPTER 1: In Between
Warmth, darkness and a phone ringing. It wasn't exactly how Sienna had planned to wake up after their first night together. It was still the middle of the night and she fought to open her eyes, turning around to see Robert reaching for his phone somewhere on the floor.
"Give it 'ere," she mumbled opening her palm. "I'll tell whoever it is that you 'ave a woman in your bed and y'can't answer right now so we can go back to sleep."
"It's my alarm," he told her having turned off the alarm and sat with his back against the headboard.
"What time is it?" she asked confused.
"Four thirty."
Sienna lied prone on the bed, but kept her head turned toward him.
"Why d'you 'ave an alarm for four thirty in the mornin'?"
Langdon gave her a look smirking a bit.
"To wake up," he said as though it was the most obvious thing in the world.
Sienna stared at him.
"I like to swim and I can only use the pool when the students aren't using so I have to go when I know it'll be empty."
It took her a moment.
"You're not joking." She shut her eyes closed and opened two seconds later. "You can skip swimming once."
"I'll skip a week already," he reminded her.
Sienna exhaled heavily then gestured to the floor.
"My hotel has a pool. You can use it whenever you want. Key is in my pants."
Robert laid a kiss on her temple.
"You don't have to come." With that he pushed the sheets aside and slid his legs out of the bed. "Sleep some more."
Defeated, Sienna let her eyes close.
"Fine," she mumbled, "but you'll have to wait another five hours for breakfast."
"All right," he replied and left to the bathroom.
Doors opened and closed before Robert left to the warm summer night and Sienna was left in the quiet to sleep again. It felt like hours later when she woke up again, this time the smell of coffee beans being grinded filled the apartment. She gathered her clothes on the floor, put them on, got her wig still by the edge of the bed, and adjusted it carefully on her head before leaving the bedroom. Robert was in the kitchen, wearing a white T-shirt and still had his hair wet from the shower, probably. It was nice to know that he didn't wear turtlenecks while at home.
"Morning," she murmured leaning against the counter and repressing a yawn.
"Good morning," he replied with a smile then noticing her still sleepy face, he asked "Is this how you work night shifts?"
Sienna let out a small chuckle and rubbed her face.
"This is what caffeine pills are for."
"Speaking of caffeine," Langdon began, "I hope you like Sumatra coffee."
"Never had it," she said sucking in a deep breath to take in its scent properly. "Smells good, but I thought we'd agreed to have breakfast at my hotel."
"It's just coffee," he advocated. "I really like this one. We can leave right after."
Sienna nodded and in a couple minutes, Robert had two mugs ready. He sipped on his and kept his eyes on her. There was a light steam coming out of her mug, so Sienna blew the coffee's surface before swallowing it. A moment later her eyes had widened and she was smiling her approval.
"It's good, really, really good." Sienna nodded and sipped it one more time while Langdon grinned. "It's – I don't know, earthy …"
"Exactly how I describe," Robert said. "One of my colleagues once told me it was wild."
Sienna chuckled.
"Wild … How is a coffee wild?"
"Like this apparently," he answered tilting his head.
"Oh my, that's the scar?" Sienna questioned, leaving her mug on the counter and grabbing Robert's arm.
"Yes, it healed quickly though."
The catheter had opened a hole in his arm, and there was nothing she could do about it except wrench it out, but she figured the reminiscent scar would be smaller. Now, a thin, pink cut of an inch and a half blemished his arm.
"I'm sorry," she said nonetheless, rubbing it with her thumb. "It was a little out of the plans; I was going to get it out, but you stood up all groggy and –" She gestured to the scar. "What about your head?" she inquired turning him around and nearly spilling some of his coffee.
"It's all right." Langdon reached for the point where he used to feel the stitches. "The hair hides it well."
"Bend your knees," she asked standing on her tiptoes, and he obeyed.
Sienna pulled his hair apart until she found the scar. It had about four inches but was even thinner than the one on his arm. The cut had been deep for it had to cause him pain so Robert would believe it had come from a bullet and not her scalpel. It had healed perfectly, however.
"Wow … it's beautiful," she commented.
Langdon frowned. Beautiful?
"I'm sorry about this one, too, but I'm quite proud."
He turned to look at her so she could see his frown.
"What? I cut you, stitched you up nice, and now your scar is almost non-existent. Perfectly normal to find it beautiful and be proud," she chuckled.
Robert raised his brows.
"Doctors have an unusual sense of beauty."
"Comes with the job." Sienna shrugged a shoulder grinning at him.
"I didn't know it had been you to cut me."
"The provost did what he did, but he had a strict protocol to follow. He'd never do that if there wasn't a real doctor with you; and if he did, I'd never work for him," she told him, her tone much more serious.
"Yes, but I thought that maybe Ferris –"
"Oh, him? No, Ferris is not a doctor, he was just acting," she explained. "We came up with the excuse of him being Italian so I'd be in charge. If you remember it well, you'll recall that he may have prepared a couple things, but I did everything: I examined you, I gave you the drugs, I kept an eye on your vitals."
Robert nodded. In hindsight, she was right, Ferris had only been there so he could pretend to be killed, and get himself to trust Sienna for she was trying to save his life, which was never really in danger.
"I'm glad all my pain made you proud in the end."
"Though if I'm fair I'm proud of my patient, too," she brought forth. "It wouldn't be this beautiful if you had been scratching and fumbling with it all the time. Did you take the stitches after a week like I told you to?"
"Eight days," he answered. "I had a lot to take care on Monday since I'd disappeared the week before. Tuesday wasn't easy either, but I managed to get a minute to find the nurse."
Sienna nodded, sipping on her coffee once more.
"Better than a day before."
"I figured," he said finishing his mug. "Just give me a moment to change clothes and we'll leave."
Half hour later, Robert was parking his car – an automatic Saab 900 that he saw her frown upon when they arrived at its spot back in Harvard – in front of the Embassy Suites, a hotel located not far from the airport. In fact, looking up, he could see a plane taking off at that moment. In fourteen hours, it would be them.
"I just hope they don't recognize me," he commented as they neared the entrance.
"Should have chosen something else to wear then," Sienna pointed out with a smile. "Marta Alvarez was right to call it your uniform."
He looked at her with a fond smile, and placed his hand on the small of her back, but feeling somewhat nervous about having breakfast without paying for it.
"If I were recognized without my uniform it'd be a scandal," he joked.
"Let's just hope it gives you confidence then," she said. "If you look like you're a thief, they'll realize something is wrong."
Despite the early hour, they were welcomed by one of the hotel's employee smiling widely at them and asking how he could help them. Robert didn't avoid his gaze, and smiled when their eyes met, hoping it would be enough. Sienna showed him the card to her apartment, told him that they were in the room 239, and wished to have breakfast. The man led them to the lobby atrium, where they were just beginning to serve the meal. Aside from two old ladies, they were the only ones having breakfast at the time. It was much better than anything he could have offered her at his apartment, but he knew that it wasn't the only reason why she had chosen to not have breakfast there. They feast in eggs, bacons, buns, and cakes. Robert had a feeling that if his first meal of the day were always like that, not even 100 laps around the pool would be enough to keep his lean shape.
"So you always start your days this early?" Sienna asked as they left the lobby, entering a corridor.
Robert nodded eyeing the elevators with uneasiness.
"We can take the stairs," she assured him, pulling him by the hand and opened the door that led to the staircase.
"I've always been an early bird," he told her starting his way up. "I always feel much better during the day if I go swimming in the morning."
"Endorphins," Sienna said matter-of-factly with a small smile, "feel-good hormones that are produced during exercise."
"Exactly. So if I feel better, and it's good for my body, it only had good sides," he finished, opening the door to the next floor to her.
"You're lucky to not have a condition that affects most of the world population," she brought forth and noticing his frown, she added "laziness."
Robert shrugged.
"Sometimes I am; especially if I was up late grading papers, I re-set the alarm and sleep some more."
"We're all guilty of that sin, it seems," she grinned, using the card to open the door of her room.
"It was particularly hard to get out of bed this morning, I must say," Robert confessed and her grin turned into a fond smile. "If we weren't going to travel tonight, I would have." He stepped closer to her, and pecked her lips. "Don't ask me to stay again, my conscience doesn't find it easy arguing with both of us wanting to stay."
Sienna narrowed her eyes at his request, and Langdon closed the door behind himself.
"Sorry, I can't promise you that."
Robert let his breath out in a puff, though rather amused with her reaction. The room was impeccable, save for a couple of luggage on the corner. It made him wonder whether she had come to simply leave her things before calling him already from the cab.
"I can be your doctor, though," she proposed then added with a grin, "and help you not get fat which is pretty much the same thing."
Langdon smiled his agreement, it wouldn't be the first time she was responsible for his health. Sienna entered the bathroom, coming out a minute later to just leave a small bag on top of her luggage with one hand while brushing her teeth with the other before returning. Robert walked over to the window, glancing at the Memorial Park just across the street.
"Need any help?" he offered when she left the bathroom a second time while still brushing her teeth.
She tried to say something, but the amount of foam in her mouth didn't let her so she hurried back in the bathroom to spill it out.
"No, thanks," Sienna answered after having washed her mouth. "Just a second and we're out."
Two minutes later she had collected all her things, checked every inch of them room for something she might have forgotten and they were leaving the apartment.
"Give it here," she asked, gesturing for the luggage Langdon was carrying. "I'll take them in the elevator so you can take the stairs and meet me down there, all right?"
"All right," he agreed while she pressed the button.
"Now, both of us checking out isn't wise, so could you wait for me and take everything to the car while I pay?"
"Sure." Robert nodded again but waited with her to help her put the luggage inside the elevator when it arrived and only started climbing down the staircase when the doors closed. Her luggage was much heavier than he had thought when he first saw them in the room, but then again, it was all she had to travel the world with Dr. Sinskey for the past three months. It should surprise him if they weren't heavy. His Saab 900 was significantly closer to the street once he managed to fit everything in the trunk, but it would get them to Cambridge, and that was enough so he leaned his elbow on the car's roof to wait. Mickey Mouse was marking a quarter past seven; Boston was waking up, and only now the streets were starting to have a decent amount of cars; he would miss the quietude of driving at six thirty in the morning. Still, the reminder fulfilled its purpose, and Langdon smiled. Admittedly, if he stopped to rationally think about it, getting together with Sienna, sleeping with her, traveling with she for a week and the unspoken promise of something more sounded to him somewhat insane. However, his heart was once again beating faster in his chest in excitement for what was ahead for them.
"You look cheerful," remarked Sienna nearing him.
Langdon looked at her opening the car's door and was unable to put away the smile.
"I am."
She mirrored his smile as they entered the car, and Robert watched her for a moment.
"Thank you," he said.
Sienna eyed him for an instant, and though it was clear that he didn't mean the breakfast or anything trivial, she couldn't exactly put her finger on it.
"For what?"
He shrugged.
"For believing in me, trusting me. I know it doesn't come easy for you."
"You taught me that." Sienna squeezed his hand.
"I had a great student," he chuckled and started the car. "In all honesty though, I'm really glad you looked for me and decided to take this step."
Sienna smiled fondly and pulled his chin to kiss him lovingly.
"There's just something about you, Robert," she began as he started driving, "I'm not sure what it is, but it's not just trust that doesn't come easy for me, I don't connect easily with people, but I did with you."
His smile widened and he looked away from the street for a second to eye her.
"When it was all over with the WHO, I knew I'd have to start over wherever I went, but I had a choice between the whole world and the one place I had a friend, if nothing else. I wanted to give us a proper chance and I had nothing to lose," she reasoned. "So yes, I'm really glad you're glad," she chuckled but ran her hand on her face a moment later. "This reminds me … I'll probably have to explain why I was fired from Chicago County General. How many hospitals would be willing to hire someone who just leaves the job without telling anyone and flies to Italy, do you reckon?"
Robert furrowed his brows, apparently in deep thought.
"The same amount that want the woman who was traveling with the WHO for three months and saved the world?" he joked.
Sienna laughed, feeling that that was just what she needed.
"I'm glad I at least took care of that mess already." Though, she knew that there were still things to take care in Chicago when they came back from their trip. "But, um, since we're doing this, I'd like to say thank you, too."
Once more, Langdon moved his eyes from the road to her for a short instant, smiling.
"For giving us a chance," Sienna answered his unspoken question. "It was completely out of the blue, and I wish I could've done it differently, but –" She sighed.
Robert shook his head and reached for her hand, bringing it to his lips and kissing tenderly the back of her hand. Gingerly, he put it back on her tight and returned his own hand to the wheel.
"Don't worry about it."
Don't worry about it. Well, that's because he wasn't her. Sienna swallowed hard, chewing on her bottom lip. Whoever said that it required bravery to admit our mistakes couldn't be more right, it was so hard to say it. She kept her eyes locked on the road ahead.
"And I'm sorry," she spoke carefully but determined not to lose her courage. "For using you and keeping you in the dark about lots of facts and who I was, what I was trying to do … I know that if I wanted to stop Inferno, I wouldn't have a choice but still … I thought of apologizing to you so many times, but I never actually did, until now. I'm sorry," she repeated only then looking at him.
Langdon remained silent for a while, eyes on the road. Everything had been so complicated about that day and he knew that when she took that decision they were complete strangers; she couldn't possibly foretell his reaction or whether he would agree with her. Indeed, he didn't think he would agree with her position of not letting the World Health Organization ever seeing it so if he were in her position, if he didn't trust anyone, would he do the same? Still, it wasn't right to do what she did.
"Do you plan on doing it again?"
"No! Absolutely not!" she assured him. "Even if I had to stop a deadly virus at some point, I wouldn't do that to you, not ever again."
"Then apology accepted. Let's put this behind us," he proposed smiling to her.
Sienna beamed at those words and nodded fiercely, wishing with everything she had that he wasn't driving.
"Absolutely."
The rest of the morning passed in the blink of an eye. Upon returning to his apartment, Sienna set her luggage aside and went for a morning run around campus since she hadn't gotten the chance to go to the gym at the hotel. After showering, they finished organizing their luggage. Robert only needed to put in all the clothes he had set aside, but Sienna got everything out of her two luggages and chose the clothes she would take to Florence so they would fit in only one of them. During lunchtime, they ate the rest of the beef stew they had cooked the night before so it wouldn't spoil in the fridge while they were away.
"How about some chess now?" Sienna asked, licking her fork. "I saw the beautiful set you have over there," she added pointing to it with the fork.
Robert followed her fork with his eyes and glanced at the chessboard exposed in his living-room. Instead of the usual black and white pieces, it was composed of gold Roman soldiers and silver Egyptians, the latter had obelisks instead of rooks, birds instead of bishops and cats instead of knights, and their pawns had dog heads; all in metal. The chessboard itself had drawings of white scarabs in the black squares alternated with black hieroglyphs in the white ones, and four torsos of big, golden, winged sphinxes adorned the corners. Recalling the biography he read three months ago which included how Sienna had beat a grand master by the time she was four, he knew he wouldn't stand a chance against her thus, Langdon was about to politely decline when a thought crossed his mind. He most definitely wouldn't be the first one to do so and not only chess; she probably would beat him in every board game known to man. How hard was to her to find a partner to just play with her? No wonder she had always been lonely. He would sacrifice himself; after all, the purpose was to simply past the time, maybe he would learn a thing or two from her. Smiling his agreement to her, he stood up to fetch it, and she was quick to clean the table of dirty plates and cutlery.
"I've actually never played with this one," he told her landing it carefully on the table.
Sienna's eyebrows rose.
"Time for a debut then!" she exclaimed. "Which one do you want?"
Robert shrugged.
"You can pick."
"Really?" she asked giving him a look. "It's yours, and it's the first time you play, you should choose."
He dismissed it with a shake of his head.
"I don't have any preferences," he clarified. "I'm being a gentleman and letting the lady choose, but if you must insist –" He got one of each pawn in each of his hands then moved them behind his back, changing them from hand to hand a few times and offered his closed hands for her to choose. She tapped his left hand, and he opened it, revealing a Roman pawn.
"Sfortuna, ragazza," he said in his broken Italian. Bad luck, girl.
Sienna chuckled and swirled the board.
"All right, so I'll be the Romans, and you'll make the first move." She got the pawn from his hand and replaced it on the board.
Langdon searched for a note of pity in her voice but found none. He moved the queen's pawn two squares ahead. Sienna replied by making the same move. Robert moved the king's pawn one square ahead, but this time she moved the left rook's pawn two squares.
"So when did you started playing?" he asked.
"I was three when I first started," she answered and his eyes widened in surprise. "My father is a big fan of chess, and I used to see him playing every now and then with his friends. I don't recall this, but he told me that one day I got his board and started moving the pieces at random. He caught me, and I thought I'd done something wrong and ran."
Moving his cat-knight, Robert chuckled with her, imagining an even younger little girl than the one he had seen in the picture running away from her father.
"Rather than punishing me, he started teaching me. To be honest, I think it all started as a joke. I mean, by then, I was learning to play the violin with my mom and had shown a few other talents as well, but I don't think he thought I'd actually understand and get interested in playing the way I did. He was stunned by what I could do," she explained moving the bishop beside her queen four squares to the right. "I beat him five months later, and that was when he started taking me to competitions. It wasn't easy because people in these tournaments were used to parents thinking their kids were little geniuses and asking for a match, but Dad persuaded them; I won, and by the end of that year I had beaten a grand master."
"Impressive," he commented.
Undoubtedly, she left him with only a cat-knight, two dog-headed pawns and an obelisk-rook beside his Pharaoh-king, and beat him. Robert wasn't surprised, and in the end it was quite clear that it would happen since she had five more pieces than he had, two of which were queens. After putting the pieces back in their places, they changed and readied themselves to leave for the airport. Despite the hour, the cab took them there in just less than fifteen minutes. Logan International Airport is always a busy one; luckily for them, on a Sunday night, most people there were returning home rather than leaving. Soon, their luggage was on their way to the plane, and a little over an hour after that, Robert and Sienna were decollating to Rome, their only stop before Florence. She had insisted that he took the seat by the window, even though she had the 6A seat; Langdon only agreed because he did feel much better being able to look out the window as she had argued. A ten-hour flight is far from being the best place to spend the night so they slept and woke up several times. One of which, Langdon opened his eyes with his head on her shoulder. Sienna had a map of Europe and the tip of her pen was on top of six letters that surprised him quite a lot: London.
"Missing home?" he asked in a hoarse voice with sleep.
"No," she answered instinctively. "Just checking a few things." And she folded the map, hurrying to stow it in her handbag. "Want to play chess?" she asked with a smile.
Robert rubbed his face and sat more upright.
"You brought a tiny chessboard with you?"
"No, but we don't need one," she replied grinning.
Smiling fondly, he realized that that woman would never fail to surprise him. Still, he shot her a confused look.
"Not even the drawing of a board?" Did he sound hopeful?
"You've eidetic memory, Robert," she reminded him, her grin fading somewhat. "Close your eyes."
He obeyed and sucked in a deep breath to push the sleepiness away. He could see the Roman vs. Egyptians chessboard clearly. In chess, the winner always had the right to start an eventual re-match, so he said "You get the Egyptians this time."
Sienna nodded, even though he could not see her, she smiled and laced their fingers together.
"E4 to E6," she whispered, not wanting to disturb any of the sleeping passengers.
"E7 to E5," he replied.
It was good not only as a pastime, but also he could imagine both of them in his living-room as they had been earlier instead of a closed airbus several thousand feet in the air. The beginning of the game was quite easy since most of the pieces remained in the opening position. However, when the board became a mess of pieces everywhere, he had to focus not to forget where they were. True, he had eidetic memory, but this wasn't something he was remembering, this was happening now and he had work hard not to get any piece in the wrong square. At one point, he nearly ruined everything, by thinking that her bird-bishop was a square ahead, but luckily he realized that she had two black bishops without any of her dog-headed pawns arriving at the end of the board, so he swallowed his pride and asked her which was the correct position of the piece. It took much longer than their first match, but Sienna was patient and not once hurried him to make his move. She still won in the end, and Robert suspected that it took her even less movements to capture his king.
"See?" she grinned. "You did it, well done. You just have to get used to paying attention to all the pieces. Takes some time, but we can practice some more on the flight back."
The Leonardo da Vinci airport in Rome was busier than Logan International the night before, but Robert and Sienna were glad to finally be able to properly stretch their legs and have a half decent, though expensive meal. Nothing against Alitalia's airbus, but the feeling of the wind on his face and land under his feet once more was unrivaled. Before that, however, they had to stamp their passports, though the line for that on a Monday at noon was not long.
"Let me see," asked Sienna opening her palm and offering her own passport to trade.
Robert gave her a somewhat awkward smile and they exchanged documents. She didn't look much younger in her photo, and, if he didn't know better, he wouldn't think her hair was not natural, but now it was clear to him that she had the same wig on, though it was the only picture of her in which she didn't have it tied in a ponytail; there was a hint of a smile on her lips and her eyes looked too experienced for someone in her late twenties, just as he had thought when he first saw her, but they were still vivid. His picture was from seven years ago, his hair was longer and there were fewer lines on his face, but he still wore a turtleneck and Harris Tweed. Sienna noticed his date of birth: June 22nd 1964, it was coming up, twelve days from now to be exact, she would have to think of something, but for that, she would have to get London and her parents out of her head. She returned his passport, smiling fondly at him.
"You look nice," she told him.
"You are stunningly beautiful," he said, giving it back to her.
"… Thanks. Have I told you I think you're handsome?" Sienna asked, already knowing the answer.
Langdon smiled.
"That's not a compliment I'm used to hear," he confessed.
"Well, you are."
"Doctors have an unusual sense of beauty."
Amused, Sienna shook her head and leaned over to peck his lips.
"I'm not the only one to think so. Dr. Sinskey –" Dr. Sinskey was also a doctor.
His laughter didn't unsettle her.
"Just because women aren't as open as men about it, I'm sure I wasn't the only one the students were thinking of as a T-I-L-F back at the Art Institute."
"T-I-L-F?" he questioned.
"Teacher I'd like to –" she lowered her voice, "fuck."
Robert narrowed his eyes at her, and Sienna had a smug smirk on her lips. Was I really?
An hour later, after they had stamped their passports, they were embarking to the last part of their trip, and it was already the beginning of the afternoon when it ended with their arrival in Florence, announced by the sight of the giant cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore, better known as Il Duomo. The hot sun of the European summer shone on them as they took a cab to Hotel Brunelleschi. Robert was tired, had barely slept all night and already had a lecture to attend later, but the woman placing a kiss on his cheek at that moment brought an unexplainable excitement to that trip and made his heart beat madly in his chest. For a whole week, Dante's beloved Florence would be theirs.