Professor Clairmont had been right.
As she made her way from New College to each of her seminars and lectures that morning, Diana could neither spot nor sense Peter Knox anywhere around her on campus. By the time her lunch break rolled around, she felt far more relaxed and confident than she had earlier that morning, so she decided to splurge a little and suggested a trip to the pub with her friends.
Diana only had one lecture left after lunch, and when their professor drew it to a close, she wasn't at all surprised to see Gillian turn her way to ask if she was planning to head for the library. Normally, her answer of yes would have come automatically, but that afternoon, Diana hesitated for a moment over it.
A large part of her wanted nothing more than to lock herself in her room, away from Peter Knox and his creepy stare until he finally got the hint and fucked off back to whatever dark corner of the city he'd crawled out from. But another, slightly larger, part of her refused to cower away and waste the precious resources the Bodleian had to offer. So as she hefted her bag up onto her shoulder, Diana met Gillian's eyes with a firm stare and told her friend to lead the way.
Her confidence faltered a little as they approached the stunning building, but Sean's easy smile at the returns desk soon had her relaxing once again.
"Hey, Diana."
"Hi, Sean. How's your day been?" she asked, giving Gillian a slight nod that said the other woman should go ahead and grab them both a table.
"Busy. That science professor who sat with you before is back again, and everyone's going crazy trying to keep him happy." Sean crouched down to retrieve a couple of the manuscripts that Diana had requested the day before, and then placed them onto the countertop. "I really don't get the hype," he whispered, leaning in close so that their conversation wouldn't be overheard. "I don't even know who the guy is. He can't be all that impressive, right?"
Diana snorted out a soft laugh as she gathered the books into her arms, checking their spines to make sure that they were the ones that she needed. "I don't really know who he is either," she whispered back, before offering Sean a cheeky wink and turning to head into the reading room.
She'd been expecting to find Professor Clairmont sat at the reading bench she and Gillian usually occupied, but instead, only her redheaded friend was there. It didn't take her long to find him, however. That usual flurry of snow fell over her right shoulder the moment she stepped into the room, and it followed her as she made her way over to the bench that Gillian was already sat at. Diana set her books gently down on the table and began to unpack her supplies before she turned her head to find Professor Clairmont sat a couple of tables down from her own. He was watching her carefully, and something about that ice-cold gaze of his felt safe and reassuring after the panic she'd experienced that morning. Diana offered the man a soft smile that she hoped conveyed her thanks for all that he'd done, and then turned her attention towards her laptop as she unlocked the device and opened up her research proposal.
Her list of things to do that day was relatively short, but she knew that it would take her hours to get through everything on it. She'd been making some good progress with her research project and her advisor seemed pretty happy with the direction in which she planned to take it. But she'd also provided Diana with a few more thinking points to look into, and the young student wanted to cover those that afternoon, just to see if any of them would be relevant to what she was trying to convey.
For almost two hours, Diana made her way methodically through the points that she wanted to cover. She used the research provided by the manuscripts she'd requested, and her own notes, to weave a few of her advisors talking points into her paper as effortlessly as she could. After hitting save on all of her open documents, she looked up to check on how Gillian's afternoon was going. Diana could tell from the look on her face that her friend wasn't having the same luck as she was.
"Are you okay?" she whispered across the desk.
"No. I think I'm just gonna delete it all and start again," Gillian huffed out quietly. "It's all crap anyway."
"I'm sure it's not," Diana reassured her. "Before you delete anything though, you should show it to your advisor. He might be able to help you see where it could go, or what to keep and what to scrap."
Gillian's eyes flicked down to the clock on her screen before she raised them again to meet her friend's sympathetic gaze. "He has office hours starting in ten minutes."
"Then go," Diana urged. "You'll work better when you've talked through your problems with someone who better understands your work."
Gillian hesitated for only a moment before she began gathering up all of her supplies, stuffing things into her bag as quickly and quietly as she could. "Thanks, Diana. You're the best," she praised, swinging her bag off the desk and onto her shoulder (and almost taking out the guy in the seat next to her as she did).
"I'm merely doing for you what I know you'd do for me. If you don't fancy coming back later, text me and let me know what he said?"
"I will," Gillian promised, but she was already on her way out of the library. She was hoping to make it to her advisor's office before anyone else decided to make use of those couple of hours of his free time.
Diana allowed herself a moment to watch her friend leave before she turned her head towards the spot that Professor Clairmont had occupied when she'd first entered the room. She had felt his icy gaze on her a couple of times while she'd been working, but it was always very brief – and usually gone before she'd even had a chance to process what she was feeling. The professor was still sat where he had been earlier that afternoon, with his head bent over a notepad and a different book to the one that he'd been reading when she'd last looked his way. But before Diana could turn her head, his own shot up from what he'd been working on.
For a brief moment, Diana wondered if he could feel her gaze the same way that she could feel his, and then she realized that the professor wasn't looking in her direction. Instead, he was glaring at the main entrance to the Duke Humphries reading room.
Diana couldn't see whatever it was that had gotten such a severe reaction from him, but she didn't need to see it to understand what was happening. Or, more accurately, what was about to happen.
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