Stay
Curtains of heavy rain kept rolling over Dread Hill House as a small group made its way down the manor's front stairs, the five umbrellas that had risen one after the other to keep its members protected from the downpour, closing in a tight circle as the group came to a stop on the driveway. Chatting. Waiting. Breathing a sigh of relief when a pair of headlights cut through the night and a Bentley rolled out of the darkness, moving down the house's gravel path, tires crushing the stones against each other.
The group broke apart just as the car stopped in the driveway. Four out of five umbrellas moving towards the imperiously arriving vehicle. The fifth making its way up the same path the Bentley had just come down of, the two young women taking cover under it proceeding to walk right under the warm orange light coming from the manor's checkered windows and towards the darkness beyond them. Wind-beaten rain soaking their clothes. High-heeled boots sinking into large puddles.
"You said that garage was close," the tallest of the two complained after a moment, strawberry blond hair hitting her face, a rich french accent cutting through the night. "Close, Samantha!"
Walking right at her side, the umbrella her friend tried to hide under leaving her left shoulder fully in the rain, Sam rolled her eyes at the glare she was being given.
"I meant it was 'close' in the sense you wouldn't have to wait long," she remarked. "I never said it was a good idea to come with me."
"You have to be me more explicit than that, dear!" came the all too dramatic answer. "Here I was thinking—"
Sam felt her boots sink into a new puddle, her friend coming to a grinding halt as her feet too sank into the water leaving Sam to take the umbrella from her hands and try and steer the two of them back towards the group near the Bentley and the warm blade of light coming from inside the manor's open door.
"I'm leaving you there," Sam announced signaling with her head towards the group, rain now cascading from the dark canvas to the floor rather than her arm.
"Leaving me there?!" came the outraged answer. "Non. Non. Non! I came this far!"
And the umbrella was taken from Sam's hands. She was being pulled now. Away from the manor's checkered windows. Away from the house itself and across the driveway. Sam was jumping over the Bentley's tire tracks now, heels sinking into the loose wet gravel, the margins of the large puddle coming back in view making it clear they were meant to go around it. Or, at least, so Sam had thought for although her friend stepped into the unkempt flowerbed and marched safely through land, Sam found herself being dragged right through the water.
"Helena!"
Helena wasn't hearing. In fact, Sam could see this fanatical gleam taking over her eyes when a lightning bolt went over the tempestuous sky and both the garage and the old tower standing right next to it came into view. If she had thought she had been dragged before it was because Sam hadn't yet experienced what was going on now. Helena was pulling on her arm. Forcing her to almost ran. Which would be nothing major if Sam had been wearing her other boots and Helena wasn't showing every sign of being able to sprint in the dark, in a storm, and while wearing stiletto-style heels. In fact, the only thing Helena didn't seem able to do was to keep the umbrella stable over them. It was wobbling all around. Being turned and going back into position. The rain hitting it cascading right on top of the two of them rather than to the floor with such frequency Sam could feel droplets of water going down her back. When they finally reached the garage and Sam managed to raise the door, both of them had become so drenched they seemed to have just fallen inside St. Edmund Hall's pool.
"Finally!" Helena nevertheless exclaimed, triumphant, hair sticking to her face as she went to take refuge away from the open entrance. "A roof! I thought we would be stuck outside forever!"
Still at the entrance, twisting her black hair, water dripping from it to the floor, Sam looked over her shoulder. The garage was as it had always been. The same old and moldy paintings peeked from under a blanket while lying against the wall to her right. There were a large toolbox and a fire extinguisher. A fuse box. The Bentley was not here, of course, waiting as it was in the driveway. Her red bike, however–parked, as always, on the opposite side of the garage the car usually occupied–remained and it was near the wall in front of it that Helena stood. She was taking a small mirror from her bag and grimacing at her own reflection.
Making her way to her bike, dropping right next to one of the rear-view mirrors to find herself also making sure her dark make-up hadn't taken any major damage, Sam had to snort when she again looked to the back of the garage and found Helena with a make-up case in her hand:
"Oh, come on, you look fine!" Sam exclaimed.
"Fine? I look like a rat!" Helena remarked, outraged. "A muddied-rat which is worse! Regardé ça!"
She pointed at the tight bodice and pink mini-skirt peeking from under her black jacket with passion. It wasn't as if Helena wrong about the mud. There were tiny bits of it splattered a little all over her clothes, but–
"It washes off, Helena," Sam pointed out while dropping to one knee next to her bike, the key to the padlock on its front wheel being taken out of her jeans' pocket. "Believe me, I ride one of these, I know all about mud. It's no big deal."
"No big deal?" Helena repeated, horrified. She was closing her make-up case now, the pale light washing over her wet hair and clothes giving her the look of a tragic heroine. "Dear, these boots are suede! Suede! They are ruined! I wonder if Papa can still find another pair, he—–"
Helena crossed her arms with that thought, a frown being given to the garage's gray ceiling.
"Knowing Papa he will end up sending the wrong color," she pondered in a low voice. "Or the wrong number. Or both."
She sighed and Sam could see Helena turn her attention back to her, eyebrows dramatically raised.
"Men, don't you agree?"
"Yeah, men."
Helena frowned at the lack of enthusiasm in her answer, a long "Hmmm—" going through her lips as she stood there, under the incandescent light, thoughtful. It took a while for the clicking of her boots to echo on the garage, when Sam looked up, however, this shadow having called her attention there, Helena was on the other side of the bike, leaning over the seat, head on one hand.
"Have you talked with Styles?" she asked.
The chain that had been locked around the bike's front wheel slipped until it was hanging limp from Sam's fingers. The question, one she had known would came sooner or later—one she should have known was the reason Helena had wanted to follow her to the garage—nevertheless leaving Sam standing there, looking at the bike front wheel and seeing absolutely nothing, sadness and guilt taking turns at beating her heart.
"No," she finally admitted. "Not yet."
"You have to talk with him, Samantha!" Helena reprimanded, a hand wave from Sam making her step away from the bike's seat and watch as Sam opened it. "He sure looks like he wants to talk with you!"
Sam gave her this sad half-smile, the chain and padlock being put at the button of the open seat.
"I very much doubt that," she said and Helena looked outside, beyond the storm, the trees and the driveway, a small smile touching her lips when she returned to Sam.
"He is looking here now."
Sam's eyes widened, Helena's words pointing her attention straight outside, passed the gray garage and towards the house's long drive where the Bentley was waiting, headlights illuminating the falling rain and the dark night. There was a figure still standing next to it. That of a man. He was holding the car's back door open. Talking with those inside. Black umbrella in hand. The light from the passenger compartment drew the lines a good-looking face—and those of the mask covering half of it.
Still, and as recognizable as that mask made David, Sam didn't think she would need it to know that was him. Not even at this distance. Not even in a night as dark as this. And, if she was honest with herself—and she had this bad habit of always doing that—it didn't look like David had ever glanced this way. Instead, he was standing next to the car like he was trying to keep it from leaving. Like he would have preferred to escort all three of the students inside on foot all the way back to Oxford in the middle of a storm than let them go in the car. Like he didn't trust the vehicle to deliver them there safely. Like he didn't expect it—or anyone—to make it back.
Sam would be lying if she said she didn't understand. The photo of the mangled and charred remains of the car David had been driving three years ago—the wreck where his wife, Laura, had died—was hard enough to forget without her own experience of sitting and waiting for the car her parents had left in and that had never made it back.
She knew what must be going thought David's mind, but she wouldn't have known what to say even if she was with him in the driveway and so, in the end, she watched him close the car door and step away, the Bentley's red tail lights disappearing down the road leaving only David's figure standing in the rain. Still watching the night. The lights of the manor washing over him as he stood there. Alone. And never looking her way.
"You have it bad, dear," Helena pointed out once David made his way back inside the manor that was his home and Sam dropped her eyes. Sadness washing over her expression. "Really bad."
Helena's gentle smile, the one she was wearing once Sam looked back at her to find her leaning against the wall, was more than she could handle. She went straight back to action, fishing a spare helmet from inside the bike's seat compartment and shoving it into her friend's hands.
"Why does everyone keep insisting I am in love with David Styles?!" Sam snapped, now reaching out to close the bike's seat.
"And are you not?" Helena inquired, going from staring at the helmet she had been offered to look at Sam. Her eyebrows rose at her expression. "Non? So–Can I have him all for myself?"
The bike's seat slipped from Sam's fingers, crashing close with a bang.
"Is any male creature safe while you are around?" Sam tried to cover her second-long slip with while Helena went to face her with this cat-like grin.
"Is it?" she teased with a broad smile. "Harvey perhaps?"
If Sam wanted to stir the conversation any other way, she failed her cue right there. She was midway between going around her bike and leaning to pick a second helmet—her own—from the cold gray floor when Helena returned with the heavy guns.
"So," she purred, still leaning against the wall. "Can I have David?"
"No!"
Helena covered her lips as she chuckled, her warm laughter filling the gray garage and mixing with the song of the incessant rain and Sam's defeated groan.
"This is payback for Charles, isn't it?" she said, but Helena's laughter had come to an abrupt end, she was staring right ahead, towards the covered paintings, not looking like she was seeing them. Not looking like she was here.
"Helena?"
Helena crossed her arms. Hair still sticking to her face. Expression falling. Sam thought–She thought she knew what Helena was thinking about. What subject she was about to touch.
Angela.
What had happened to her.
It wasn't something Sam wanted to even think about. And so she stepped forward, marching towards the red bike, and took the situation into her own hands before Helena had a chance to.
"Still want that ride?" Sam offered, holding her own helmet against her hip and pointing behind her, towards the roaring storm and the empty driveway. "The car is already gone."
Helena gave the half-helmet she had in her hands a doubtful look before pulling herself from the wall.
"I'm already drenched to the bones, so why not?" she said, determined. "Allons-y."
The bike exited the garage, gray stone slabs giving way to brown pebbles before its front tire sank into the large puddle right outside and the headlight shone a long beacon over the driveway and the trees and this line of unkempt shrubs.
"Are you holding on back there?" Sam threw behind her, voice muffled by the helmet and the rain.
"How much more should I be holding—?"
Helena's words turned into a startled yelp, her arms closing painfully tight around Sam's waist when the motor went back to life and the bike roared forward. They were going right through the waterfall falling from the garage's roof now, then passed it and the garage itself, riding right under the windows to the parlor, the figure Sam thought she saw there, cut against the orange light, looking outside, making her take a glance through the rear view mirror— hopeful—before leaving Dread Hill behind.
If David had actually been at the window— if it hadn't been only wishful thinking on her part—he hadn't been there anymore when she had looked back and so… So, she drove. Down the already familiar road to Oxford. Down the city center, the never-ending rain beating her down.
The Bentley ended up going by them before they reached St. Edmund Hall and an even more drenched Helena jumped from behind Sam to the sidewalk, giving the helmet back, taking a decisive step towards the dormitory and what she loudly announced as a 'warm bath', before suddenly turning back to Sam and her bike, her expression so strange Sam—closing the spare helmet inside the seat—was left to blink.
"What is it?" she queried while going back to sit on the bike. Her question made Helena's eyebrows knit further, rain cascading from her umbrella to the floor as she threw a penetrating look at Sam.
"Why do I get this feeling you are planning a disappearing act?"
Sam raised one hand to her heart, her eyebrows raised in an overly exaggerated ark.
"Disappearing act? Me?"
"Yes. You," Helena retorted, suspicious, and crossed her arms—or did whatever passed for that while holding an umbrella. "I will see you tomorrow, Sam. Be careful going back."
"I will," Sam reassured, leaning forward over the bike, rain falling around her and dripping from the helmet's open visor as she watched Helena walk all the way to St. Edmund Hall's entrance, turn back towards her one last time—still suspicious—and step inside with such determination she never got to see the enthusiastic wave Sam was giving her fall apart. Or the way, it so clearly stated she had been right.
"Goodbye, Helena," Sam whispered, sadly, and she closed the helmet's visor, looking up to the dark sky, watching the scars of light go through the clouds and the flashes cutting through the night, before again taking to the road, rain beating her down.
It was, Sam supposed, fitting that it should end how it began. With a storm roaring over England's green pastures. With her driving through the rain. Alone.
It was only right.
It was as things had always been.
But this time, the excitement Sam had always felt while being on the road was missing. That drive to know new places, to get her next gig, to put on her shows, that drive that had taken her all over Europe, that had made her leave the US, simply wasn't there. She had wished so so much for—
Sam's expression hardened, fingers hitting the turn light handle on her bike.
It didn't matter what she had wished for. It had always been a silly dream anyway. And it was an impossible one after the monumental screw up from some days ago. The same screw up that had sent all her not-so-carefully-built lies crashing in spectacular fashion, that had convinced David— of all people—that she was behind those cruel pranks going on at the University. The ones tied with his experiments. The ones meant to make him believe his wife was coming back. The ones she had, fortunately, find out in time Angela was behind.
Angela.
The rain forced Sam to slow down, the downpour becoming now so strong she could barely see a meter in front of her finally bringing the bike to a stop.
She didn't know what to make of Angela. In fact, Sam had been always so disgusted with the person who had been behind all of what had happened, that she was surprised by how sorry she actually felt for the culprit and for how everything had come to that absolutely horrific end. What had happened—
No. She wouldn't think about it. Angela's memorial had been a dreary enough occasion without thinking about the rest–be it the gray clouds that had hanged heavy overhead or the rain that had that seemed to conspire to scare the mourners away, almost like Angela had people to spare.
Sam dropped her head at that thought, the rain losing a little of its fury sending the bike again forwards.
If she was being honest, that so few people had been at Angela's memorial hadn't surprised her at all. Sam knew too much about being alone not to recognize a kindred spirit and that was why she had wanted to be here. Why she was still here. She had wanted to be at the memorial and David—David had said nothing about her staying at Dread Hill. That had been kind of him. For all his bite and snappish temperament, David had been kind. Always. Giving her the room at Dread Hill. Raising her salary. Fixing the bike. Even Houdini. He was the kindest anyone had ever been to her and—
And she had to go and screw it all up.
And, as far as she didn't think David hated her anymore, she didn't think he had forgiven her either. So it was better to say goodbye. To leave before she overstayed her welcome. To bid farewell to the very thing she wished above all and that she had found, if just for a moment.
A place to come home to.
"I'm back, Houdini," Sam whispered upon entering her room, the large white rabbit that was asleep on the bed—having once again gotten out of his cage—gaining a smile when he raised his ears, nose twisting.
"This is a great bed," Sam agreed, getting belly down on the mattress to caress his head. "But we have to leave now."
Houdini's red eyes followed her as she made her way to the other side of the room, what Sam at least imagined to be judgmental look going through his expression as he hopped all the way after her, stopping at the edge of the bed to see her pick the picture of her parents from the bedside table.
"I screwed it," she confided in them before pointing at the window with this lopsided smile. "At least, I won't have to leg it down the ivy, right?"
God knows that had actually been on her plans when she had first gotten here. The window had been her emergency exit if things went wrong. Like they so often did. But, atypically enough, this time she got to leave through the front door and doing that was proving a lot more difficult than opening the window, land on the side of the house and run all the way to the gate.
It was really being a lot more difficult than that.
"I love this house," Sam whispered, sitting beside Houdini for a moment, fingers running through his fur as she looked around, and then, finally, shook her head. "This is silly."
Sam was up again, marching to the backpack that was still at the foot of the bed, her few belongings and the photo of her parent's being put back inside before she turned to the very small pile of clothes Mrs. Dalton had left over the dresser and rolled them up, putting them inside a bag she had just bought in Oxford.
"No more fighting for space with the clothes," she told Houdini and judging by the rabbit's behavior when she started taking apart his cage he knew what was coming. In fact, he was giving her this look. He was giving the dreaded 'Look' and he didn't stop even as she put him inside her backpack.
"We will stop somewhere nice," Sam promised him, before closing the bag and putting it on her back. "We have lots of nice places to explore."
But there won't be any more like this, an uninvited voice whispered inside her head and Sam stopped just short of leaving what had been her room, fingers hovering over the light switch, attention going over the bed, the dresser, the old carpet and the door as it closed and left her standing in the atrium.
The manor was silent. The storm roaring and thundering overhead the only sound echoing inside. But even in the depth of night–and judging by the clock on the dining room tolling the time it must be two in the morning already–it was not dark here. It was never dark here. The window by the stairway had always made sure of that. And tonight, so did the storm. The flashes of light washed over the lion statue at the end of the stairs and the veiled woman looking down on the atrium. They played on the large chandelier hanging overhead. They showed a pair of blue eyes watching from the portrait in the stairway–the eyes belonging to a beautiful woman who seemed as pleased by what Sam was about to do as Houdini was and who—even if she had long been dead, even if she was just a portrait—Sam wanted to face as much as she did David.
And so, she walked straight under Laura's portrait, marching to the small table holding the phone, never looking back, the cellphone Mrs. Dalton had lent her being put next to it.
Sam wondered what Mrs. Dalton would think once she found this here in the morning. It didn't seem fair to worry her. But then again, what Sam was about to do—and that was to disappear in the middle of the night without telling anyone— wasn't fair to anyone. As wasn't that her mind seemed to be running over an entirely new set of excuses to get hold of the cellphone again and copy the contacts.
She wouldn't do that. No matter how much she actually wanted to.
She wouldn't take Helena's phone number.
She wouldn't take Mrs. Dalton.
And above all, she wasn't about to write down David's.
If she had learned anything while being turned over from house to house while being in foster care was to cut ties.
And she was leaving.
This was meant to be goodbye.
So why why was she still here?
She was standing in the middle of the atrium like a scarecrow—if there ever was a scarecrow with a backpack and bag and holding a bike's keys on his fingers. She was not taking a single step toward the front door. Instead, she was watching the flickering light peeking from under the door to the parlor, frowning at the way the door rattled. And now, she was walking towards it, leaving the bag with her clothes on the atrium's floor. She was…
Inside.
Sam had to press both sides of her head at seeing what had once been the waiting room for the Center of Cognitive Abnormality Research–now simply a living room–opening in front of her.
What was she doing here? What—?
The sound of crackling and snapping wood brought Sam's thoughts to a halt, her attention immediately slipping towards the fireplace.
So that was the reason for the flickering light she had seen under the door, for the one still filling the parlor. David had clearly forgotten to make sure the wood was no longer burning before retiring. As he had, Sam noticed with a sigh, to close the window. Fire or no fire, the room was freezing. And, really, the only good thing here was that she hadn't to squeeze herself passed a skeleton to go and close it. Not with her and Mrs. Dalton having moved both that and the anatomical model inside David's old consulting office when the old governess had found out the entirety of the Lamb's Club was coming here after Angela's memorial and stated rather peremptorily that the medical horrors were out the door.
Sam suppose Mrs. Dalton would have to ask David for help to put them back in place. She supposed David would want things back as they had always been. And she really shouldn't care. Not anymore.
And yet she very obviously did.
A head shake being given to herself as she stepped away from the now closed window, Sam marched deeper inside the parlor, walking along the bookcases, towards the fireplace and the–
Sam frowned, the cold from her wet clothes giving way to some warm as she approached the fireplace, looking around.
Had someone coughed just now? She could have sworn that—
Sam's eyes widened. She stopped before she ever got to reach the flames. Right at her side, resting half slumped on the nearest of the two dark green armchairs, was a man. A pale man with raven black hair. And now Sam was standing here, wide-eyed and bewildered.
D-David?
What–What was he doing here ? Shouldn't he be, if not in his room, at least down in the lab? Why—?
The many questions bombarding Sam's brain came to a halt as she kept looking at David. Or rather, the way he was dressed. Not that there was nothing new there. He was dressed just like she had always seen him dress. White shirt and dark trousers. The leather glove he always hid his right hand in firmly in place. But—
Wasn't he cold?
Sam approached David quietly, dropping to her knees in front of him, her fingers reaching out to touch the back of his hand and then moving forward, so that her hand rested on his.
As cold as she herself was she could tell one thing.
He was freezing.
Where was that—?
Sam spotted the red blanket laying over the sofa's back the very instant she looked up.
Rising back to her feet, fingers sliding slowly over David's hand, she picked up the blanket and covered him with it, her attention lingering on his face for a moment before she stepped away.
Okay. This was it . She really really had to leave before she lost the entirety of her nerve and did something stupid. And, to be honest, she would have fled out the door right this moment–she was already on the move–but there was this blue rectangle on the carpet, laying right under David's hand like it had slipped from his fingers and, honestly, Sam had just wanted to pick it up and put it over the center table. That was all she meant to do. But she ended looking at it instead.
The blue rectangle was a photo. The photo of a couple. The good-looking man, standing to the left, was obviously David, even if he was not the David she knew. The man on the photo was–happy. He stood there with his head tilted and giving the camera this half-smile, like he was laughing at a private joke. She had known David for many things—like, but not restricted to, being absolutely impossible—but not for smiling. She had never known him for that, much in the same way she had never known the woman standing with him. Laura. Beautiful as always. Blond air cascading down her shoulders. An elegant white dress hugging her figure.
They looked perfect. That had always been Sam's opinion. But while getting to her feet to lay the photo safely on the center table, next to the place where David had left his mask, the flickering light from the fireplace guiding her steps, Sam found herself doing something she had never everdone. And that was staring. At the photo. Or rather, at the wall of blue tiles behind David and Laura.
There was something—
She was opening a path to the fireplace now, dropping to her knees, leaning forward so that the flickering flames now warming her, could also illuminate the image.
A moment later, she had her eyebrows raised.
No, she hadn't been wrong. There was something on the tiles. A shadow. But it made no sense with the couple standing under it. It wasn't them. No. Instead, it looked like this distorted creature. A being with long limbs, whose burning eyeless sockets stared hatefully at the pair under it. Like it wished them warm. Like—Like it was alive.
"I believe we can agree it is rather unnerving," came a deep male voice and if Sam described her reaction as simply being startled that would be a gross understatement.
In fact, what really happened was that David's voice practically made her jump out of her skin and, in all fairness, she was damn lucky there wasn't an indentation with her face on the burning wood considering she had almost dived head first into the fireplace out of sheer fright.
Not that David seemed to notice any of that going down. In fact, when Sam scrambled to her feet and turned to him, he was pressing his eyes, a tired glance being thrown her way.
"What are you doing up?"
Contrary to David's present drowsy state, Sam's heart was beating so loudly it seemed to threaten to come jumping out of her throat.
"Saving you from pneumonia!" she snapped, holding her chest. "You almost scared me to dead! I thought you were asleep!"
Again glancing her way, the blanket Sam had wrapped around him getting this thoughtful look when it slid to the floor, David let himself sank back into the pillows behind his back, right hand covering his eyes.
"I was," he whispered and, remembering Mrs. Dalton's comments about how little he managed to sleep, Sam couldn't have felt more guilty if she tried.
"Sorry," she said, dropping her voice, and went back to the photo, back to the humanoid shadow drawn on the blue tiles.
"What is this?" she queried after a moment of frowning at it. "The thing on the tiles?"
Her answer was quick coming.
"Angela," David stated, voice going back to a more professional tone when he stopped pressing his eyes and straightened, clearly pensive. "Or possibly some sort of mental, possibly emotional, projection."
Less than two days ago, Sam would have taken that with a grain of salt. Possibly put it to one of David's very unorthodox 'brain' theories and run with it. But then, then things had gotten weird. They had gotten very weird indeed.
"That's Angela?" she repeated, still studying the shadow. "It looks—"
Sam pressed her lips. She wasn't about to call that what had just crossed her mind. Not in a million years. David, on the other hand, obviously had no problem doing it.
"Like a demon?" he offered and leaned over the sofa's right arm, the hand that went to hold his head clearly being used to keep the right side of his face from view. "How are you?"
Sam threw David a penetrating look as answer.
"How are you?" she asked, stressing that last word. "You were with Angela when she—You know."
There was this long moment of silence, one in which David went to stare at the flames, a distant expression taking over his eyes. Then—Then he was up and marching to the center table.
"I have seen worse," David stated, picking up the white mask that was there and hiding the right side of his face with it.
"What do you know about Angela?" he now asked, moving across the foyer, the sofas and the fireplace being left behind as he approached the closed door to his old consulting office.
Standing next to the fireplace, taking advantage of the warmth, Sam tilted her head at his back.
"I told you everything I know when we went after Angela," she pointed out. "In the car."
David scoffed, the note of humor taking over his voice one that had more of derision—against himself—than anything else.
"If I had the level of retention you imply, getting those diplomas would have been a walk in the park," he replied, giving this hand wave to the diplomas on the wall before stepping inside his old office. "If I remembered correctly—"
David had just hit the lights and Sam would be lying if she said she hadn't just muffle her laughter when the anatomical model jumped into view and he took a step back, an alarmed exclamation leaving his lips.
"For the love of—! What is this doing here?!"
Sam was not laughing. She was also not tilting her head so she could watch David as he went around the anatomical model and made his way deeper inside the office—Or maybe she was. Maybe she watched him just for a moment longer, before he got out of view, and Sam shook her head. Judging by the reigning silence, David had forgotten she was still here. This was her opportunity, wasn't it? To leave. She wasn't making this easier on herself by lingering here. She—
"I will need Angela's student enrollment files. Today."
Had David said that a second later, Sam would have been truly gone. As things stood, however, Sam had her hand over the door handle and she didn't think she had ever moved so fast in her life. She was on the other side of the parlor now, sticking her head inside the office.
"Wait!" she exclaimed. "I'm not fired? I can stay?"
Crouched behind the door of one of the bookcases on the consulting office, David looked her way, studying her for a second.
"Do you want to leave?" he asked.
"No!"
"Good," came the reply and David closed the large book he had over his legs. "It is difficult enough to find one good assistant, without having to go around worrying about replacing her."
He was up, putting the large tone over the ancient desk right in the center of the room and turning to her.
"However, there is one condition."
Sam crossed her arms, head tilting.
"What is it?"
David's dark brown eyes bored into hers.
"No more lies, Sam," he put forth and that must be his Professor voice for Sam froze for a moment. Or she did, until this glare he was giving her fell apart under, apparently, pure practicality. "At least, unnecessary lies."
It was Sam's turn to frown.
"Define unnecessary."
"Telling me you were an Oxford student comes to mind," David immediately tossed at her and as far as that hadn't been right in any sense of the word, Sam really couldn't help defend herself.
"I needed the job," she pointed out. "You almost fired me for being late and I had just found you four volunteers! If I had told you I wasn't a student you would have kicked me out the door!"
David apparently hadn't a come back for that. He stood there for a moment, blinking, trying to find something to say—which also involved searching for it in the ceiling—and then, finally, shaking his head.
"I can't say I wouldn't," he admitted, going to lean against the desk, fingers tapping on the book. "Out of curiosity. The student the university sent to work here. What came of her?"
Sam went to lean against the door frame, the memory of the night she had arrived, of a young blond woman exiting a taxi right by the gates, making her raise her eyebrows.
"Do you think I spirited her away or something?" she asked, her teasing smile being immediately hit by a glare.
"Sam."
"It was just a joke," she hit right back at David. "Is this your not lying test?"
"You can see it that way."
Figures. Sam let out a long exhale, hands now on her jean's pockets.
"She arrived at the same moment I did," she informed David. "And ran away screaming."
She probably should have lead up with that. David visibly froze for a pair of seconds, before letting his head fall on one hand.
"I'm assuming you mean it literally," he grumbled. "I would like to say I was surprised. I really am not."
And he made his way back to the bookshelves, back to searching for some tone or another, back to putting them on a neat pile over the desk.
"You came back," he commented after a moment, attention going from the title on the spine of the book he had just picked up and back to Sam. "After that argument—"
David stopped himself, harshness taking over his expression.
"No, that is hardly the right description," he whispered to himself before coming back to her. "You came back after I went all the way down to London to shout at you. I have no idea why you would want to help me after that."
Sam was back from leaning against the threshold in a heartbeat. Eyes wide. A note of outrage in her voice.
"You think I would have left you alone here when Angela–?!"
"I don't think anything since you obviously did not," David cut through, impatient, what irritation was in his voice, however, had given way to a note of sadness when he continued. "But I certainly gave you no reason to be here. Less yet to stay."
Sam—She was looking at everywhere but him now. What Helena had said earlier, what Mephistopheles had said back at the Deadulus Club—the two of them weren't wrong. But she wasn't about to tell David what those two had already figured out. So, she went with something else entirely.
"The food is quite delicious," she shrugged.
"Is it?" David asked and his expression saddened. It saddened if just for a moment. The next, he was back on his game. "I assume that is better than going over remuneration—"
"Well, that is a factor too," Sam joked and David pressed his lips, picking the books that were over the desk, what started to look a lot like a balancing feat over one arm sending Sam marching inside the office before the tower of books lost all manner of structure and went tumbling right to the floor.
She had just picked those that were still on the desk, however, when—
"That is not looking better," David commented, frowning from over the books he was carrying, the way he was looking straight at her forehead making Sam try and comb her bangs to cover the swollen bump from view. "I'm not at all convinced it was a good call not to go to the hospital."
"I told you, I'm fine," she whispered.
"I heard you the first time," David retorted, frown growing deeper still as he took in the rest of her. "But judging by the state of your clothes we will end at the hospital anyway."
Sam pressed her lips, leading the way straight out of the office. It wasn't as if she wasn't cold, wet to the bones and the warmth from the fireplace hadn't made those two things worse now that she was no longer near it, but—
"I just came back from . I dropped Helena there," she informed. "It is raining in case you haven't noticed."
She looked back in time to see David giving her an odd look. A very odd look. And then follow behind her, lights being turned off with his elbow.
"Where do you want these?" Sam queried, once he was back in the parlor. "Lab?"
"The center table is just fine."
Sam raised her eyebrows, attention following David as he lowered the books to the floor next to the armchair he had been sitting at and picked the one that was on top, immediately starting to read it.
"You aren't going upstairs?"
That hadn't been the most sensible thing to ask, Sam suddenly remembered. Mrs. Dalton words when she had first arrived here, about David not sleeping at night, however, only hit her after David's own reply did.
"What for?" he said, quietly, bitterly, and turning back to her. "You will go to the University's Archives tomorrow and bring back Angela's student enrollment files. I want to look at them at the shortest possible notice."
Sam frowned.
"They won't give me those," she reminded David, taking the opportunity to lower the books to the center table. "They wouldn't when they thought I was a student. They will even less now."
David had returned his attention to the book.
"They have been informed you will be there to pick the files," he said. "Even if I am rather sure you would be able to get them regardless of that."
Sam would take that as a compliment. For the sake of not being embarrassed out of her mind, that was. And so, seeing David's attention disappear into the book, Sam said a very quiet "Goodnight" to him and began making her way to the door.
She had just stepped back into the atrium, however, when she was called back inside.
"And Sam—"
Sam took a step back, stopping with the door handle still under her fingers, to find David standing next to the armchair.
"I will pretend I didn't see that rabbit peeking from inside your bag," he said, looking at her from over the book. "Disappearing in the middle of the night without informing anyone, without even stopping to consider how worried I—people would be, is hardly what I call a good start."
And he sat, going back to the book, while Sam stood at the door staring at the back of the armchair. It would be only when she was back on her room, lying on her bed, Houdini right at her side, that she would manage to put two words together again.
"David—" she said while frowning at Houdini. "He said he would be worried, didn't he?"
Sam didn't remember the last time anyone had said that to her.
Author's Notes: I have no idea if there is anyone in this fandom, but if there is (or if you just stumbled upon this fic and decided to give it a chance) thank you for reading.