A/N: Hey! I know it's taken a while but here's Chapter Four.

Falling Slowly

For the next few days the two met up with each other for coffee, sometimes at a place of Solomon's choosing sometimes of Tanith's. She was the main organiser of these meetings, always giving the cover that she wanted to ask him questions about Valkyrie and about what the Necromancer life, if she were to choose it as her magical discipline, would hold in store for her. In actual fact, Tanith just wanted to talk to Solomon some more.

Tanith didn't know why she liked him. He was a prick, a dick, an arse-hole, a bastard and a bitch, all rolled into one. And that cane he contained his Necromancy power in was like a physical manifestation of his arrogance.

But for some reason, she was fascinated by him. At least, that's what she told herself- that she just liked talking to him and that she found him interesting. He WAS charming and cultured, and he had an interest in literature very similar to hers.

She couldn't talk books with Ghastly. Although she loved Ghastly and his patriotism...he could be a tad small-minded when it came to his Irishness. The books he read tended to be by Irish or Anglo-Irish authors, which was great, because Ireland did produce some of the finest literature in the world.

But his patriotism blocked his mind to other writers. Yet Solomon was Irish, and he liked other writers. And then Valkyrie and Fletcher...no, she could not talk about literature with them. Perhaps Skulduggery or China, but China didn't like her and Tanith was hardly best friends with Skulduggery. No, Solomon was the best person to talk to about this stuff. Also...he was cute.

In a way. In a...businessman-in-a-sharp-suit kind of way. His hair was so black, like a lake at night and flopped onto his forehead in a tidy side fringe. He was pale, tall and slim, but not scrawny. No, he seemed...strong, though thin. His eyes were fabulous too. He had eyelashes that most women would kill for, but his eyes were also so...clear. They were a silvery blue, not cold like China's or warm like Ghastly's. But just clear. Like water.

Solomon had never met a woman like Tanith Low. She was...well, indescribable, really. She could be cultured and very knowledgable on subjects such as literature, film and theatre. She was very intelligent and practical, and tactical. But in another way, she was crude and crass and it was obvious she grew up in a neighbourhood very unlike his own sheltered upbringing.

Although she had been brought up by basically middle class parents,she said she had been surrounded by ragamuffins and street children, sneaking out to play with them in the rougher areas of London. Then Solomon remembered his own childhood, a little boy surrounded by books, his bedroom his kingdom, always poorly and afraid of almost everything...

Except for that which everyone around him seemed to fear, his parents, his teachers, for him and for themselves.

He wasn't afraid of death.

"Solomon?"

Solomon awoke from his reverie to find Tanith's dark eyes staring into his. They were in his favourite cafe, the one he had shown her on the first day together. The room seemed so dark to him now, he almost wished he was in Thunderroad again.

At least Tanith helped to brighten up the place. She wore her usual tight fitting leather, teamed with jeans and leather boots. She seemed to have a few leather tops. Her favourite was the brown but she also had a deep red and black. She wore the red today, and it brought out the green in her dark eyes beautifully. Her blonde hair was radiant, and seemed half-way tamed today, flowing rather than curling senselessly. Oddly, he wasn't sure if he preferred it this way.

"You zoned out again Solomon," she told him in that adorable Cockney accent. "Are you on anything?"

He blinked. "Excuse me?"

"Maybe other girls you've met haven't been ballsy or observant enough to tell you this," she continued. "But you, Solomon Wreath, have a terrible tendency to daydream. Either that, or you've been enhaling too much incense in that Necromancy Temple of yours"

Solomon looked at her. She WAS observant, but he didn't want her to think she had rattled him. He put on a sigh. "It's not a CHURCH, Tanith we don't USE incense during our masses."

"But you do have masses," she prompted. He smiled. She loved to be right.

"Yes, as does every religion." A thought entered his head and he leaned foreward in interest. "Let me ask you. What denomination are you? Out of interest."

Tanith shrugged and sipped the coffee he had bought her. "None."

"None at all?"

"No. I don't believe in religion. Or God, really..." She sighed. "I believe we're born, we live, we die and then we fly."

"What about an afterlife?" Solomon asked, prompting slightly. "I mean, do you believe in one of those?"

Tanith put down her coffee and narrowed her eyes. Then she smirked at him.

"What do you Necromancers believe, as a matter of interest?" she asked, keeping that smirk on her lips. Solomon stared back at her for a moment, then decided to answer her.

"We believe," he began slowly, leaning forward, "That...in a sense, there is no afterlife. Not a heaven or a hell or a purgatory, just...another life."

Tanith frowned. "Like reincarnation?"

"Yes," he replied with a nod. "We believe that death flows into life and in turn life flows into death. I mean, for every person that dies in this world, it's entirely plausible that another is born in their place,yes?"

"Well, yes," Tanith admitted. "But then the population of the world is always increasing. What you're saying is that the souls of the dead instantly reappear in the bodies of new born babies. Well how is the world's population increasing so? Where are those extra souls coming from, then?"

"Ah, well, THAT, dear Tanith," Solomon explained with relish. "is where OUR belief in afterlife comes in. We believe that some souls stay in a sort of limbo for a period of time. These are the souls of the wickedest of people, mage AND human. They stay in this place for sentences in which they are punished for the atrocities they committed, sentences of several hundred years or so. Then, when their sentences are completed, and only then, are they released into new human bodies."

Tanith stared at him for a long momnet. He wondered if she was going to contradict him, argue with him, maybe. Then she laughed.

"You believe that?" she asked, looking at him and smiling.

"Um, yes," Solomon said, raising an eyebrow.

Tanith stared, and her smile turned soft. "You're weird," she finally said. "But I like you."

He stared at her, feeling a lump rise in his throat for some reason, but swallowed it swiftly, along with a gulp of his coffee.

The two talked about alot of different things when they met up. Their lives, their homes, their favourite foods. But as much as the found out new things about each other, they also found out that each of them had secrets...

The two were in the Bad Ass cafe talking about weaponry on one of these days.

"A sword is the best weapon anyone could possibly have," Tanith insisted haughtily, leaning back in her chair. "It's elegant, precise, deadly..."

"And exhibit A, 'Indiana Jones: Raider of the Lost Ark'," Solomon argued, a smile on his lips. "Swordsman, proves that a scimatar is fancy alright. Not so good up against Indiana's gun."

Tanith blew a raspberry. "Guns are clumsy. It's so easy to miss. And anyway, I know one thing."

"What?"

She grinned. "A sword is a hell of alot better than a stick." She glanced at his cane.

Solomon opened up his mouth in shock, then smirked. "Excuse me, but a CANE is an excellent weapon. Besides the whole Necromancer thing-"

"Cheating," Tanith sniped with a grin.

"-Canes, are also elegant. Afterall, they're not the only sticks that are used as weapons. What about Kendo sticks? And have you ever gotten a whack of a bo-staff? Huh, knowing you, you probably have."

At the mention of the bo-staff the smile on Tanith's face faded. She looked at the table.

"I once had a friend who used a bo-staff," she said, slowly and quietly. Solomon let out a triumphant 'ha'."

"And did the two of you ever get into a fight?" he asked haugtily.

Tanith stared at the edge of the table, making tiny ridges in it with her thumbnail.

"I fought him a couple of times, yeah," she answered in a low voice. Solomon smile faded slowly as he watched her face grow solemn.

"And...you don't fight him anymore?" Solomon prompted. Tanith looked up at him, wearing her poker face.

"He's dead," she replied simply, and resumed scraping at the table. The smile on Solomon's face dropped.

"Oh," he said, awkwardly. A moment of silence passed. Finally, Solomon cleared his throat and asked, "Um. Do you want to talk about it?"

"No," Tanith said swiftly, her face brightening and then asking quickly. "Shall I get the next round of coffee?"

Solomon looked at her for a long moment, then said. "Um, sure-"

"Great," Tanith chirped, then rose from her seat and headed to the counter.

On another day, in a markt in Temple Bar, Tanith got excited around a DVD section.

"Oh my God, Hamlet!" she yelped, picking up the DVD. "With Kenneth Brannagh!"

"So I gather you like Hamlet," Solomon guessed with a wry smile. Tanith turned to him, holding the DVD in front of mouth. It was incredibly cute.

"It's the best!" she said. "Apart from the whole Oedipus Complex thing and stupid little Ophelia, but I love it. It's one of my favourite Shakespearian plays."

Solomon's smile dropped. "Why do you find her stupid?"

"Find who?"

"Ophelia."

"Oh. Well, just the weakness of her mind, you know?"

"Her heart had been broken," Solomon argued, looking at the ground. "She had lost everything. Isn't that reason enough to go mad and drown herself?"

"No, I don't think so," Tanith said, and she looked at him. "Hamlet did love her. He acted stupidly but he had a reason. Ophelia could have married him, but she acted too hastily."

"I disagree."

"Oh really? What if you were Hamlet? Finding the love of your life drowned like that."

Solomon didn't answer. He just stared at the cobbles.

"Well?" Tanith pressed.

"Well, I'd obviously be devastated, okay?" Solomon snapped back. He resumed looking at the DVD's and books, while Tanith eyed him, carefully.

"Are you okay Solomon?" she asked.

"Yes I'm fine," he said hastily, then a lump rose in his throat. He squeezed it back down and choked. "Um...do you want to go for a drink?"

Tanith stared at him for a long moment, wondering what he wasn't telling her. Then she nodded.

"Yeah, sure," she replied, then the two crossed the square together.

The two talked of books, of movies, of theories. They even found that they had common interests in terms of directors.

"Hitchcock was a genius, yes?" Tanith challenged one evening, walking up Dame Street. Solomon walked beside her, swinging his cane by his side. He smiled a dry smile.

"Are you saying that because he was English, or because of his talent?" Solomon asked.

Tanith shrugged. "Well, a bit of both actually."

Solomon laughed. "Yes, he was a genius."

"Do you have a favourite film by him?" Tanith asked.

"Vertigo," Solomon replied. Tanith looked up at him.

"Me too," she said, surprized. Solomon turned his head and his silver eyes met her gaze.

"It's your favourite too?" he asked, also taken back.

"Of course."

"Why?"

"It's romantic," Tanith said, shrugging. "And very tragic. Kim Novak was superb."

"That she was," Solomon agreed, looking ahead of him. "I liked James Stewart too, though. There's something about becoming obsessed with the memory of a dead lover that I can empathise with."

"Why?" Tanith asked.

Solomon did nothing for a moment. Then he shrugged. "It's a form of necrophilia."

Tanith stopped suddenly. Solomon turned to her and saw a look of disgust cover her features.

"In a nice way," he added quickly with a grin. "I don't mean shagging the dead body. I mean holding onto the memory, keeping it with you, not letting it seep away so you can hardly remember what life was like with the one you loved."

"It drove him mad though," Tanith pointed out quietly, her features softening.

Solomon gave a one-shouldered shrug. "It's better to have loved and gone mad with such love than too have never loved before."

Days together grew longer, lasting from breakfast to sunset. Every now and then it might be brief meetings at night for drinks in bars and clubs around the city. Of course the two left time for their own, separate lives. Tanith still remained training Valkyrie and crime-fighting with her and Skulduggery. Solomon fulfilled his Necromancer duties dutifully. But for each other, they always made time. They just didn't let each other know that.

One dismal evening at dusk the two were about to part. The sky was a dirt grey, patches of dishwater yellow barely visible in the west as the sun went down. Rain pelted pedestrians and cars indisciminantly, causing businessmen in their finely-tailored suits to dash in an undignified way from doorway to doorway, making teenage girls in short skirts and impractical jackets to squeal and laugh, using bags as umbrellas. Tanith and Solomon walked through the tunnel that was Merchant's Arch and stood at the opening, looking out at the rain before them and the Ha' Penny Bridge. Solomon looked down at Tanith.

"Are you alright for a lift?" he asked gentlemanly.

"I have my bike, Solomon," Tanith replied not looking at him, but he saw a smile creep onto her lips.

"But in this weather?" Solomon asked, frowning. "Are you sure you'll be..."

"Okay?" Tanith finished, looking at him. She laughed. "Solomon, I've fought trolls, Cleavers and hybrid gods. I have been injured in every possible way you could imagine. A little bit of rain isn't going to kill me."

"I know that, but..." He looked down. "As you've already pointed out, I am generally a bit of a bastard. I'm trying to cut down on my curtness by being courtious."

"That was a great line," Tanith said with a smile. Solomon looked at her. The two stared at each other for a long moment, along in the short sheltered tunnel. Before them, the sky was falling. Behind them, was the hustle and bustle of a rain soaked Temple Bar. For a few moments they were stuck in a strange sort of oblivion, where nothing existed with them. To Solomon, there was nothing but hazel greenery. To Tanith, there was nothing but clear, silver water. And then they caught themselves.

"I'd better go," Tanith began, shaking herself and breaking eye contact. "I'll see you tomorrow, Solomon."

She pulled her coat tighter around her and dashed down the steps, crossing the shining pavement, darting across the road and running over the Ha' Penny Bridge. After a minute she disappeared from Solomon's view, her golden hair gone.

"Goodbye Tanith," he muttered softly, not quite sure what had just taken place. Then he too descended the steps, passing a person begging with a coffee cup in hand, and turned left, striding up the quay through the rain.