Hi everyone3 So, I planned to tell the story with five chapters but maybe I will need six depending on how many words the future scenes need. I hope you will like this very dialogue-heavy chapter… Another special thanks to the guest who leaves a lovely review on every chapter! Have fun everyone!

Promises, nooks and memories

A few days later I found myself in the Tech-Cave with Nightingale. It was quite late, and we had curled up on the couch while watching the sports channel without really paying attention. On the sofa table were two bottles of beer and our familiar paperwork, which we hadn't even touched yet. We were way too exhausted anyway.

We had visited Casterbrook before, hoping that the old school might bring back something of Mellenby's memory, but again without results and even I ran out of ideas eventually.

I looked at Nightingale. He didn't wear a suit jacket, but his clothes still offered a fascinating contrast to the slightly older sofa and the patchwork blanket that rested on his lap. Somehow, he still fits in a cosy TV evening, even though I thought otherwise years ago. Nevertheless, I still noticed the slight tension in his posture, which he had at least since Casterbrook. Mellenby was no different. At first, the two exchanged memories of their school days. Things that occurred to them when they entered the building, like the pranks they once played on a classmate. They were actually able to laugh together, and I felt a bit like the fifth wheel.

It's not hard to remember that Nightingale had a life before of me – hell, with all he had to go through, it could be two lives – he is somehow a reminiscence of a past times and the things that had shaped him. He never talks to me about his PTSD, but I think I am able to tell when it's getting worse. That's why wished to see Mellenby and him laughing in good memories very quickly as we moved on and finally came to the memorial wall. Countless names, no different to me than the names in a history book, but when they both got that sad, distant expression, I knew they were all seeing them in that moment, all the friends and relatives that the war and its aftermath had eaten.

Countless names that a fragile Nightingale freshly released from the hospital with a still healing gunshot wound, a head full of the atrocities he had seen in the war, and the recent loss of a lover craved into that wall because someone had to do it. That could easily be considered Nightingale's philosophy. He could have moved to the countryside, as Hugh Oswald had done, or even take his own life, as David Mellenby probably did, but he stayed because London needed him and no one else wanted or could take over the Folly. Because someone had to.

As soon as he sat on my couch, still a little tense, his real feelings began to blur over this confined facade. In those rare moments he seems small and vulnerable. After Lesley's betrayal when I realized that Nightingale was only a human being and not some kind of machine in human form with the ability to destroy tiger-tanks I was both terrified and enchanted. We definitely got closer, and I had noticed more and more that I suddenly felt certain things that you shouldn't feel for someone who could easily be your great-grandfather.

I must have stared quite obviously, for his grey eyes met mine and immediately the delicate touch of worry on his face faded and became a question.

"Are you all right, Peter?"

"Of course, sir", I said hurriedly, grabbed one of the papers and pretended to read it, but realized soon that Nightingale didn't buy it for a second... Who am I kidding are not going to work this evening anyway. "Actually, I've been wondering about something for a while."

Nightingale turned his head and nodded at me encouragingly. I sighed inwardly, in a small part, because he really looked good leaning his head elegantly, but especially because I was very sure that the following was not an easy subject.

"So really only hypothetically, in a completely impossible example, but if the case should happen where we could use it..."

"Peter, please just ask."

"What if we need the knowledge from the Black Library at some point?"

I was right. Nightingale's face derailed for a second before he caught himself, but he became visibly pale, and his eyes hardened.

"I'm not going to let you see what's behind that door."

"But" -

"No", he interrupted me harshly, but I saw his shoulders trembling. He took a deep breath before he looked at me almost apologetically. "These things are kept under wraps for a good reason. I've watched enough friends drive into madness."

"I know", I said trying to calm him down. "I really don't want to read anything of this, but what if the day comes when we have no other option because a life depends on it?"

"Then I'm going to research there. It's not the first time. But I'm not going to let you read anything. Not as your mentor or as your friend."

He looks surprised by himself and then anxious.

"So, it drives everyone crazy except you?" I asked, noticing how accusing I sounded. "You must take your own warnings seriously."

Nightingale designs plans with the main goal of keeping everyone on his side unharmed, but I know he's sometimes driven by a slightly self-destructive protective instinct. Don't get me wrong, there's a lot I like to let him do because I used to think he was damn invincible when it comes to magic. But I also took training seriously because I couldn't always let him save me and since he needs someone to look after him sometimes. But this man had given Mellenby his seat on the rescue plane, so occasionally he has to be literally forced to take care of himself.

"Of course", Nightingale said quietly and had the decency to look guilty. "I've opened it three times, but I've never been able to bring myself reading anything... not really."

"When?", I asked, because sometimes I am just too curious and realize much later that I can be quite pushy when he talks about something very sensitive.

Nightingale looked at his hands, but his face told me he was expecting the question.

"Once after Lesley was injured by Mr. Punch, and once to make sure there's nothing missing." And again, it was about Lesley's betrayal and that first night without her, where so much ended but maybe something began. Then there was sadness in the grey of his eyes, and even before he said it, I knew the third reason. "And the first time after David died."

For a split second, I saw it very clearly. Nightingale, who enters the Black Library, desperately and frightened, pulling books randomly off the shelves, unsure whether to destroy them because their contents had taken away his lover or to read them in the desperate childish hope of reviving him.

"Hugh and Molly found him downstairs in the lab", Nightingale said in a cluttered voice. "He did it only three days before I was released, needlessly saying that I went home as soon as I heard it. Part of me just had to make sure it was true."

An unusually strong dash of courage made me grab his hand. His skin was unexpectedly soft and pleasantly warm. Nightingale stared at me with big eyes.

"I'm so sorry", I stammered, squeezing his hand lightly. "No one should go through that."

Especially not you.

"It's been a long time."

He gave me a little smile that contained a lot of sorrow. But I knew he was trying for me – pretending to be tough to avoid burdening his apprentice – and I appreciated the gesture and smiled back.

Instantly I realized that it gave the wrong (or the right) impression to hold my boss' hand while we were smiling silly at each other and freed his hand from my grip in the hope of not giving too much the impression that he was some kind of hot pan that I had burned myself on... I don't mean to say by that that Nightingale isn't hot.

If Nightingale noticed that I was suddenly nervous because I was apparently a love-sick teenager again, he was too polite to show it. Instead, worry crept back into his face.

"May I ask you a question too?"

"Sure", I said, grabbing my beer to keep me from playing with my hands.

"Did David talk to you about it?"

"He touched it and told me why you fought", I admitted.

Nightingale was silent for a moment before he looked at me with a strange expression.

"Why did he come to you?"

"Uhm…" I couldn't tell him the truth, could I? Or was I just afraid of his reaction?

Meanwhile, Nightingale wriggled his face to an expression he'd never given me before (which is a miracle, considering how sloppy my Latin translations could be and the occasional explosions that I cause) but it was undoubtedly: he was disappointed. Very disappointed.

"Did he ask you to open the Black Library?" he asked so quietly as if he was afraid of the answer. He probably was.

"No", I said truthfully, but Nightingale gave me a look full of doubt. "He really didn't."

"If he ever does that, Peter... no matter what he says…"

"Don't worry", I said, hopefully reassuring. The truth is, it irritated me that he even asked me to. I'm not an idiot, and even Mellenby's 10 out of 10 smiles would never make me do something so stupid.

There was something on Nightingale's face that I didn't recognize right away.

"Please forget that", he said with a relieved smile. "It's just that he swore to me after the war that we would lock up the Black Library and throw away the key – metaphorically speaking, of course. He felt so guilty that he couldn't get within 10 meters of this place, as he told me."

A smile remained on his lips and suddenly I knew what he looked like. Full of hope. It brought light and life and warmth to his face and took the tension off his shoulders. He was beautiful and being able to see him was intimate. But instead of my heart pounding, I wished for his absent look for a brief shameful moment. Because he didn't look like that for me. It was meant for David Mellenby.

"After the war, David was ready for my role. He was always busy. He would have made plans to save the Folly, to hire new apprentices. You know, Peter, I'm not the best teacher, unlike him... He was able to break down those difficult things he was working on so that even I understood." Nightingale smiled at me repentantly. "I think if he had been in my place, you'd be a lot further, Peter. Even better than you are now."

"I don't want another mentor", I said firmly, trying to stop my mouth from expressing my thoughts. "You're doing a very good job, it's my fault if I haven't made the progress you're hoping for."

"That's not what I meant", Nightingale said sincerely. "I'm very proud and you shouldn't push yourself too hard. I just think David could explain a lot more of what you're learning, and you could understand even better."

"But he wasn't there", I said, biting my tongue could barely stop myself from hitting my head against the nearest wall. The light faded and Nightingale's face tried to fit into his polite mask, but the gloom remained noticeable. I'm such an asshole.

"You're right", Nightingale said in a vanquished voice. "He wanted to rebuild everything, but there were so many times when that impression of a loving, caring man, which he always slipped into before he entered my room in the hospital, crumbled. He saw them all as victims of his actions, all those who died in Ettersberg. I still don't know if I knew back then that he was feeling so worse. I'm sure there was some way I could have stopped him."

"What he did is not your fault."

"I have said and done bad things", Nightingale said forcefully. "You can't blame me for sometimes thinking he would have saved the Folly with that brilliant mind if we had switched places."

It remained unspoken that he must have wished to be the one who had carried the gun to his temple and pulled the trigger. He didn't have to say it, what I heard was enough to draw that conclusion. That made me angry. Nightingale had been through a lot of shit and had run the Folly alone for 75 years. He had kept London in check and now he beat himself up because I was too slow to learn a forma. It just wasn't fair.

When I told him that he actually laughed for a moment.

"Thank you, Peter, but I didn't really do anything. I should have made strategies so that I wouldn't end up being the last, but all I did was to wait for my death and when that didn't come instead of building something I was still waiting. And now…". He looked at me and an inconspicuous smile blossomed on his face. "Now I have you, so I shouldn't complain..."

And you had Lesley. Which I brought with me.

"But you have done a lot", I said, trying to distract me from my dark thoughts. "Taking care of the rivers and making all these deals that make our lives easier and keep Tyburn from killing me doesn't sound like nothing."

He laughed short and melodic, and it literally vibrated in my chest.

"You should be proud of yourself, sir", I concluded.

"Thomas", he said softly, avoiding my eyes and now my face slipped. "You can call me that, Peter."

I thought about the first time he offered me this. Right here years ago, where he was just my supervisor and mentor and not what he means to me now. Not just a simple friend, but almost like family... except I don't feel like kissing my family.

"I'll try..."

"I don't want to push you when it crosses boundaries", he said quickly. Oh, God, if he only knew.

"No, no", I appeased. "It's just a little unusual."

I smiled awkwardly and he smiled back... Oh man, I have to stop smiling dumb at him, otherwise he will find out.

"…So, if we're lucky, our trail leads to Patrick Evans", I concluded, grabbing one of Molly's decorated biscuits. David Mellenby, sitting next to Nightingale on the sofa, raised his eyebrows doubtfully as if he had any idea of our current case while my boss had leaned over to look at the documents spread out on the table. For a moment he was silent before he looked up at me and nodded.

"I'll try to contact Mr. Evans tomorrow, good work, Peter."

"We can only hope it's the cursed set this time", I said, pinching a yawn. "I'm starting to want cases with vampires again or something."

"A search for the needle in a haystack is always bothering", Nightingale said. "I don't want to imagine what our investigation would have looked like a few decades ago."

"You shouldn't work so hard, Thomas", Mellenby said soft. "It's still pretty late."

"To hear that from you, David", Nightingale said amused. "As often as I caught you in the lab in the middle of the night. Besides, Peter and I do this often. It's better to be productive than just sit around when the opportunity arises."

He didn't mention the fact that we met at wicked time because we are suffering from sleep problems. To be honest, the paperwork still helped, even though I hated it. But it's better to do something than keep your thoughts circling in an endless loop around the thing that keeps you awake.

Still, I couldn't blame David for not looking convinced.

"Yet, I'm worried."

He put his arm around Nightingale's shoulders and suddenly the left armrest of my chair seemed incredibly interesting.

"How kind of you", Nightingale said in a tone that was just a bit cool. "And you're right about one thing: it's really late. I think I'll excuse myself for tonight."

He got up and I looked at him. Nightingale wore an apologetic smile on his lips.

"I hope you two will do the same soon."

"Sleep well", said Mellenby, watching him with a strange look, as if he was secretly expecting something.

"Good night, Thomas." I didn't get it out until he was halfway through the room. His back straightened for a brief moment, but then he turned his head and gave me a little smile before he disappeared into the hallway.

I didn't have to look at Mellenby to know he was watching me. Since our nice little chat, where he found out that I wasn't apparently any kind of threat for whatever he was trying to accomplish by Nightingale, he's less wary of me. To be fair, I can't say it's mutual.

"That's how he always has been", said Mellenby, pointing to the door through which Nightingale had just disappeared. "Always thinking about the next step. Always focused."

"Yeah, he tells me that a lot", I said loosely, but Mellenby didn't seem amused.

"We just function differently."

"What do you mean?"

He sighed.

"I know pretty well how I felt when I came to the Folly." He waved off when he saw the surprise on my face. "I still don't remember, but it was like I woke up. Do you understand? Like if you are following a certain routine, so you don't know what you did first thing the morning, and then you think something is missing and break the routine by going back to check if you have really closed your door for an example."

"And suddenly you know this is no longer your time?" I asked. "So that could mean that you might really come straight from another time period."

"No,", said Mellenby gloomily. "I know what you're thinking, but I feel the weight of each year on me and I'm pretty sure I did what I did."

I knew what he was alluding to, but still hesitantly overcame me to ask how he could be so sure of it.

"It's like I said, we function differently than Thomas. I tried to be strong, for him, for England, because that's what I've been waiting for my whole life. A chance to rebuild something, to sign something, but at what cost? I couldn't tell Thomas how I felt."

He broke off and I only realized after a few seconds that he was looking at something behind me. I turned and saw Molly floating along the bookshelves with a steaming cup in her hand. She put it down in front of me and then disappeared silently without taking note of Mellenby or my confused thanks. Now I identified the drink as cocoa and cream and felt strangely embarrassed.

Molly had done something like this a lot lately and I knew it wasn't because of the upcoming Christmas holidays. Ever since David Mellenby lived here, Molly has done me a lot of small favours without me asking. I don't know if she liked me all of a sudden more, or if she wanted Mellenby to know that he was at the bottom for her. Still, it had advantages that I suddenly became her favourite, it gave an interesting insight into what Nightingale had to be to her. If Molly fed Toby the best meat and suddenly supplied me with cocoa and biscuits around the clock, I'm pretty sure he wouldn't need a fairy godmother if he was a Disney princess.

I frowned because my thoughts were obviously drifting to strange places that I didn't know my brain contained and tried to focus on the present.

"She seems to be kind of angry with you", I said, feeling a need to apologize.

Mellenby shrugged his shoulders.

"I think Molly has lost her respect for me", he said soberly.

It didn't make any sense to me. A little angry was a simple understatement for the way Molly treated him. At first, she was clearly afraid, which was no wonder, let's assume that Mellenby has returned from the dead. Thomas – I mean Nightingale had even said that Molly had found his body, but now I'm surprised that Mellenby was so unworried about her when every look she gave him was filled with murderous lust.

"If I wasn't visiting Thomas at the hospital, I was quite a wreck back then", Mellenby explained. "Even now I still feel this despair and a mountain of guilt. Thomas was not like that. He was quite forgiving when they transported him to London, somehow, he was able to stay in the here and now... how could he not? It was after all him who was against the recovery of the Black Library from the beginning, him who warned everyone and him who sacrificed himself for me anyhow. I almost hated him when he wanted to forgive me."

I didn't know what to say. Mellenby had voted in favour of the rescue, but still it was not possible to blame him for all if anyone could bear the blame. From what I had learned, the mission was considered simple and the fact that Ettersberg became the tomb of most practitioners can be compared to a sudden environmental catastrophe. In the end, there was so much that could have been done in advance, but it already happened.

"If I had stayed in his position that was once meant for me and Thomas was now in my situation, a world would collapse for me", Mellenby said earnestly. "I would be happy, and I would feel guilty and mourn for all the years I spent without him. But he's not like that, he's focused on the present. But the past suddenly catches up with him and all he can do is to accept it as the soldier he is as a problem he needs to solve."

The sudden onset of pity I had felt for Mellenby faded immediately. Nightingale was all but unaffected. Even today, he drifted regularly, confronted with his internal wars. David acted like he was free of conscience because he was against the mission, like he was standing above all of it like some kind of fucking messiah or something. I knew there was and sometimes is a time when he felt guilty for surviving everything when I hear him say he is not a good teacher or didn't do enough all these years without knowing even one of the dead he was likening himself to in those moments. After 75 years, Nightingale had trouble sleeping because he was in the bloody war, because he had to kill people, and because he had survived when so many didn't.

"Maybe Molly is angry because of the way you think about him", I pressed out. Because I definitely am. "What are you thinking? Just because Thomas doesn't blame you for Ettersberg, you are convinced that he is over it? He even told you something like that cannot be forgotten."

I definitely needed to calm down because my actions were driven by feelings that were more than someone defending a friend had to have. But it just made me so mad when Mellenby portrayed him as some sort of heartless monster just because Thomas didn't jump into his arms like in a fucking soap opera. People are different and they react differently when faced with an impossible situation. When you tell someone who has terminal cancer and has been resigned to the idea of dying for months, that the disease was suddenly defeated, tears of joy don't always flow. People are looking for a "why" because they can't imagine that they deserve it, when so many others die. But the truth is that God just rolls the dice sometimes.

And Nightingale had lost Mellenby but kept all the good times with him, so that sometimes he could smile when I said something he didn't understand but reminded him of David. But now he is confronted with the person who shared a past that contained more than just happy times and struggles to deal with it. But Mellenby couldn't see he is trying.

In fact, he stared at me as if I had gone mad.

"I love him, Peter", he said quietly and very slowly. "But after... my death he banished everything that had to do with me, forgotten everything..."

"No", I said, trying to calm my voice down. "He left your room the way it was."

"He probably never went in since I left him. Because I wasn't strong enough, because he was angry..."

"That's nonsense, sir..."

"Is it, Peter?" Mellenby asked sharply. "He's just passing on my belongings."

"Do you want it back?" I asked angrily, pointing at the clock. "Just so you know, I think he gave it to me because I reminded him of you, because he was still thinking of you."

I knew I was telling the truth and it hurt. The present was probably not a step to let the past rest. He had kept Mellenby's room, probably couldn't even imagine throwing away any of it. But David didn't understand, he didn't understand that there were nooks everywhere in the Folly where Nightingale had stuffed memories. That he must have felt so much worse to see them than I did when I found anything of Lesley's. And then I knew how to make him understand.

I stood up without saying a word while Mellenby watched me and went to the filing cabinet and found after a brief snooping around what I was looking for. I put the box in front of him, sat back in the chair and grabbed the cocoa to calm my nerves.

Mellenby's hands were calm as he lifted the lid, his face unreadable, but the more photos and papers he lifted and looked at, the softer his face became.

"These are protocols", he said quietly. "A few miserable experiments I did when I was still in Casterbrook."

He pulled out a large pile of letters that I had never dared to read, as I found David's name as the sender or recipient. Then he found the army photo, which I had been staring at quite a lot, and placed it neatly next to the other memories on the table and grabbed another photo. His whole face died, and he turned pale.

"David?" I asked calmly. It was weird to use his first name.

His eyes were fixed on the photo, so shocked that I briefly feared he was holding a Diane Arbus photograph or something. I tried to reach him over the table, failed and got up to stand next to him.

"David, can you hear me?"

When he didn't respond, I finally looked at the photo. It was very old and showed four boys who were sixteen or seventeen. I recognized Thomas right away, because at the moments when he revealed his rather dry humour, he had just that cheeky schoolboy smile. Next to him, with one arm around his shoulder, stood David, younger but just as handsome and to be honest, if I had gone to school with them, I couldn't decide who would become my first male crush. Collin Miller, my actual bi awakening probably wouldn't have stood a chance. Of course, I didn't recognize the other two, but it was one of the typical old photos, which seems a little forced, because the objects had to stand very still for the photo to succeed, but I could imagine that it was once hanging on the wall of a boys' dormitory in Casterbook.

When Mellenby finally placed the photo on the table with trembling hands, I also saw a small brown spot on a corner. David looked around at me and there was confusion and maybe even a little fear in his eyes... he looked younger.

"I had it with me", he said almost mumbled and coughed. "The day I did it, I remember. I have to go to the lab."