When The Snow Falls

The video continued onto happier and lighter topics and Daniel started to relax ever so slightly. He needed to look as unperturbed as possible. If he seemed oddly quiet Felix would pick up on it.

"I think that might have been a waste of time," he said lightly. "It was only slightly more interesting than Antiques Roadshow."

"It was Amien's idea," Oliver pointed out. "I'll see what else I can get hold of."

Daniel breathed a sigh of relief. His voice had sounded completely normal and his shaking hands were almost back to normal.

Then Harry spoke and he went back into a more panicked state.

"I'm just looking up that teenager they mentioned who died."

Daniel turned to stare at him immediately. Harry was on his phone and was probably looking at a photo of his original self right now.

"He solved a lot of cases and sounds really clever. This Daniel is quite similar," he observed. "Felix, take care of him so they don't die in the same way."

The current Daniel stood up. He couldn't stay in the room for any longer. The sweat was starting to drip down his forehead.

"I'm going to the toilet," he said. "Don't wait around for me."

He left the room before any of them could reply and regretted it the moment he closed the door behind him. By not staying he was appearing more suspicious.

Taking several deep breaths calmed him and he tried to return his mind to a calmer state.

Rebirth was not something most people would think of. No one, not even Felix could realise that he had been reborn into a different body.

He walked down the stairs instead of actually going to the bathroom as he didn't feel like he could face anyone yet.

The lights were off in the hallway and he turned them on. He had learnt from his first life that it paid to see where he was walking.

Daniel turned the lights on in the living room and sat down in one of the armchairs. It was a very comfortable armchair and the silence was soothing. It was a highly rusticly decorated place with a real fireplace which had smoking embers and a cuckoo clock.

Daniel stood up and peered at the cuckoo clock. The ornate metalwork reminded him of one of the keys. He ran his finger along the doors and was stopped by a noise.

He turned round to see one of the students from the other school standing in the doorway. It was the blond boy that had been sitting next to Ethan at the play.

"I didn't realise someone was here, I just wanted some peace," he said.

Daniel stepped away from the cuckoo clock and sat back down.

"It's fine, I just came here to get some quiet as well. My club was getting too rowdy for me."

The blond boy nodded in agreement and sat down opposite him.

"I'm Vincent by the way. Vincent Green," he said and held out his hand.

Daniel ignored the hand. Vincent spoke a lot like everyone at Kingston Royal Academy had and hearing people like that did always affect his initial impression of them.

"I'm Daniel," he replied simply.

"Charmed to meet you," Vincent said with a grin. "What do you think of the murder?"

That line earned a sharp look from Daniel.

"It was very tragic and shouldn't have happened," was the reply he settled for.

Vincent was definitely not showing any signs of shock or distress over it.

"That's true," Vincent admitted. "I'll probably have some weird thoughts whenever I watch a play for a while and will never do a murder mystery event again."

"Okay," Daniel said shortly.

He didn't like over friendly people and wanted some peace not to have someone tell him things about themselves.

"Who do you think did it?" Vincent asked.

Daniel shrugged. "It's a matter for the Police, not British teenagers."

"You seem hostile," Vincent observed. "Am I annoying you?"

"I came here to be alone," Daniel said pointedly.

Were all posh people born with a d.e.s.i.r.e to be annoying? Daniel imagined that the Earl would like Vincent. His straight posture and confident voice were definitely something that Earl had wanted to find in a son.

"I get that. I just wanted to find out more about you," Vincent said cheerfully.

That line was enough to make Daniel narrow his eyes in suspicion. Vincent waved his hands after seeing the glance.

"For your detective work. I read about you when you solved that case at your school."

Daniel relaxed slightly.

"I don't really want to talk about it," he replied. "I didn't do it single handedly in any case, I had help from the other members of my club and the sister of the murdered student."

"I understand," Vincent replied, seeming to be satisfied with the reply. "Are you going to solve the current mystery?"

"It is a matter for the Police." Daniel emphasised.

"That's true," Vincent said.

The strained atmosphere lulled into an awkward silence with Daniel's gaze was on the clock with a strong intent to not talk to Vincent. Surely Vincent would leave soon enough if he showed he didn't want to talk.

"Daniel?"

Daniel turned his head to see that Felix was standing in the doorway, staring at Vincent with a confused expression.

"I'm coming back." he replied and sprang up. "Bye Vincent."

Vincent waved primly and Daniel walked back to the boys room with Felix.

"How come you got chummy with that posh twerp?" Felix asked outside the door.

"He didn't seem to get that I wanted peace and quiet," Daniel answered truthfully.

Felix gave him a searching look and Daniel remembered that he was supposed to be in the bathroom, not downstairs.

"I decided to look downstairs for some peace, I was going to come back up," he answered.

"Of course," Felix said and opened the door.

The other members of the mystery club were crowded around Oliver's phone. Daniel could hear some strong accents and looked curiously at Felix.

"Ex on the Beach," Felix explained. "Amien is surprisingly into it. Well, he's into criticising everything about it."

Daniel looked for the oldest member of the club and saw him lying at the end of his bed staring down at Oliver's phone screen.

"How is this a thing?" he complained. "It's pure reality TV rubbish. Why is the nation ossessed with it?"

Daniel sat down next to him and took a glance. After a minute of the clip he was fully in agreement with Amien.

"It's addictive," he agreed. "It's rubbish nonetheless."

"Celebrity Big Brother next?" Meredith asked after the clip ended. "I feel like you would all love that."

Celebrity Big Brother turned out to be even worse than the program before and Daniel was able to let go of all his worries by joining in with all the criticism. After two hours of clips, he had almost completely forgotten why they had decided to watch all the rubbish TV in the first place.

"It's two in the morning," Oliver announced eventually. "Are we all ready to go to bed?"

Daniel stretched his arm and it all came back. There had been a murder and they had all seen his old face. His eyes were starting to feel tired despite all his panic and he was feeling ready to sleep.

"I'm okay to go to bed now," he said.

Amien yawned. "I am ready to go as well."

The yawn started off a series of yawns and Oliver put away his phone.

"As the club leader I say we should all get some sleep so we can wake up refreshed tomorrow."

"Well said for once," Amien commented with a yawn.

Daniel stretched again and rolled off the bed. He really was ready for sleep.

"Come on," Felix said and helped him get up.

The corridor was completely silent when they left the boys room and Daniel guessed that the other group had not stayed up late like they had.

He brushed his teeth quickly and was thoroughly ready to get into bed and sleep when he returned to the room Felix was standing at the window texting.

"I thought I would text Annabelle to let her know about the murder. You know how annoyed she was over being left out of the last case until we had solved it."

To say Annabelle had been annoyed over the case had been an understatement. It turned out that she had been waiting for them to contact her and they hadn't needed her advice so she had only caught up with everything once the case had been solved.

"That's a good idea," he said. "She might come up with something as an outsider that we haven't thought of."

He pulled back the duvet of his bed and yawned.

Felix passed him his phone.

"I'm going to brush my teeth. You can reply to Annabella if she gets back to me."

Felix left the room as his phone beeped. Daniel knew Annabelle had indeed replied very fast. He read over her reply requesting to be more involved and sent back another message promising to do better this time.

He pressed the back button to close down the app and his finger accidentally pressed the open apps button and he saw something saying 'rebirth'.

His blood ran cold as he brought up the source of it and found Felix had searched 'rebirth' in a search engine.

His boyfriend was onto him.