Nick smiled out at him from the photo, hair windblown into its usual carefree disorder and bright eyes sparkling with mischief. David remembered, suddenly, vividly swept back to that time, to the many occasions when he'd caught that look flashing across Nick's face. When he'd played for it, even. Cracking a joke, making a pun or a throwaway, self-deprecating comment - anything to call forth that quick, sparkling glance.
God, he missed him.
The thought, and the weight of the hollowness that all at once filled his chest, almost physically squeezing the breath out of him, caught him by surprise. He - David Cameron, true blue Tory, ex-PM - missed an annoying, idealistic... charming... funny -
David slammed down the lid of his laptop without closing the folder of photos he had been re-organising and sat in frustrated silence, glaring at the painted wooden wall of his prized new acquisition. This was ridiculous! He'd bought this shepherd's hut as somewhere private to work on his memoirs, had seen off all the attempts of his family to claim it for their own purposes... and now he couldn't write a damn thing for mooning over a man he hadn't seen for two years!
Well, not exactly two years. They had spoken during the run-up to the referendum. At least, Nick had done most of the talking! Had told him his advisers had got it wrong and that the approach they'd chosen was going to fail... he'd been absolutely right, of course, but David had never liked being told...
... ah, but then - then - there had been that breakfast they'd had together a few weeks ago, when Nick had called him up out of the blue and they'd met up for a chat...
David knew he was smiling at the memory, but he didn't care. Nick had been just the same. Passionate, charming, and so, so alive! What had they talked about? Their families, of course, a little bit of politics - after all, Nick was still an MP, though he had cheerfully acknowledged that he probably wouldn't be for very much longer - and he'd seemed quite happy about that! - but most of the conversation had been... everything and nothing. Friends catching up, inconsequentialities that were nevertheless important to the two of them, shared memories and jokes and incidents and people...
... the time had flown by and neither of them had wanted it to end - David was certain of that.
Why hadn't he suggested another meeting?
David shook his head as sudden, self-directed anger swept over him - a bitter, furious anger whose strength took him unawares, making his breath stop and stutter. Abruptly he shoved back from the desk, slamming his chair back and shooting to his feet to stride furiously about the neat wood-walled space and narrowly avoiding crashing headlong out of the hut altogether.
He, David William Donald Cameron, was a complete, total, and utter idiot! A blind, self-absorbed, blinkered - imbecile! Now, at last, he could almost see it - almost understand what Sam, what his own mother, even, had been hinting at, trying to get him to accept what had been right - under - his - nose!
This - THIS - was what had been wrong with him! This was why he hadn't been able to settle, why he'd been dragging himself through the days unable to raise much enthusiasm for anything - which for David, who'd always thrown himself heart and soul into whatever project had caught his interest, who loved to take things on and wrestle them into submission, work himself into the ground, do whatever it took - for him to just... drift, as he had been doing -
Oh, how could he have been so blind? It wasn't the politics, the cut and thrust of Westminster, or even his resignation from his role as Prime Minister, though that had cut deep, and David had known even at the time that the pain of that loss would take a long time to heal, if it ever did. Because (and how he hated to admit it, even now) it had been an entirely self-inflicted defeat. It had been his failure, no-one else's, and no-one but himself should suffer the consequences... so that loss, in a way, he could accept as being his own fault. That wasn't the root of his malaise.
No. The drifting, the apathy... that had begun to develop even before his resignation, and well before he had given up his seat as an MP. In fact, David could acknowledge, finally, in the privacy of his own head, that this drifting, this disconnect, was one of the things which had actually led to him standing down.
His self-directed fury finally easing a little, David found himself shaking his head at his thoughts.
"You really are blind when you want to be, aren't you?" he said to his blurred, dim reflection in the half-shuttered window. "So focussed on 'moving on' from the job you'd been working towards for over half your damn life, so proud of 'taking the consequences', of 'doing what's next' and - and..."
His voice cracked as his breath caught, and all at once he was crying; harsh, choking sobs, bitter and desolate, clawing their way out of his chest despite all he could do and bringing no relief with them but rather deepening his pain.
Distantly, as he sank back into his chair, covering his wet face with his hands and trying futilely to regain a semblance of control, Dave felt a vague astonishment. Where had this come from? He'd coped, hadn't he? He'd handled it, he'd grieved in Sam's arms, had accepted her comfort, had looked around for other causes, other careers, a new life -
But that wasn't what he was grieving for.
The knowledge filtered through from some deep level where it had lurked unacknowledged since election night 2015. It had eaten away at the foundations of his faultlessly Tory majority government, turning what should have been the most fulfilling chapter of his career, a dream come true, into the most frustrating, soul-destroying, joyless time of his life.
He missed Nick.
He needed Nick.
Politically, personally.... emotionally... he needed Nick.
He loved Nick Clegg.
And so... David wept.
But now the tears had changed. At last they brought relief, some easing of that dreadful hollowness in his chest, eroding the pain that had lain at the foundations of his life for so long...
Slowly the storm passed and the sobs quieted until David found himself sitting quietly, breath still catching occasionally but otherwise at peace. In fact, feeling more at peace than he had done for two years.
His eyes were sore, and his nose was running. Getting to his feet and moving as stiffly as if he'd just come through a hard-fought game of tennis or a cross-country run, David went across to the small washbasin in the corner. There he bathed his eyes, blew his nose, and washed his face, all without thinking. He felt very tired, but relaxed and oddly serene. He did not want to think. Not now. There'd been too much thinking...
Gently he drifted back to his desk and automatically, as he sat down, opened his laptop. The screensaver faded and Nick's photo reappeared, eyes smiling into Dave's with that hint of mischief -
And Dave's serenity was gone, shattered by a stab of need so fierce, so physically painful that he found himself clutching at his chest as if some actual, real-life spear had skewered him through.
He had his phone in his hand, and he was opening Contacts.
"Nick? It's David. I was wondering if we could meet up for a chat some time soon? I did enjoy our last one, I'd love to do it again. No, nothing business, just personal..."
The conversation continued, friendly, joking, warm, and David knew he was smiling. Whether things between them went any further, or stayed at coffee-and-chat, did not matter. He was talking to Nick, and he would be seeing him soon.
To David, it felt like he was singing.