Run: 2026-02-17-01KHMN1X4PAFET1R07D6AR53T0

Aurora was wiping down the bar top when the stranger walked in. The amber lights of The Raven's Nest caught the silver in his temples and brought her hand to a halt, cloth suspended over a ring of condensation. Something in the careful way he placed each step, favoring his right leg ever so slightly, pulled at her memory. When he looked up and their eyes met, recognition crashed over her like a cold wave. "Marcus?" The name felt strange on her tongue, dusty from disuse. His face, thinner than she remembered but unmistakably his, broke into a cautious smile. "Rory Carter. I'll be damned." Five years had carved new lines around his eyes and mouth, had threaded silver through his once uniformly dark hair. The broad shoulders she remembered were still there, but they carried themselves differently now—a touch lower, as if bearing some invisible weight. "What are you doing in London?" she asked, discarding the cloth beneath the bar. "Last I heard you were conquering Wall Street or something equally ambitious." Marcus slid onto a barstool, his movements deliberate, like a man who had learned to think before he acted. "Hong Kong, actually. Then Singapore." He glanced around the bar, taking in the maps and photographs that lined the walls, the soft jazz playing just loud enough to give privacy to conversations. "I'm back for my mother's funeral." "Oh." Rory's stomach tightened. "I'm sorry. Mrs. Whitaker was always kind to me." "She liked you. Said you had good sense." He drummed his fingers against the polished wood, a habit she recognized from university days. "Though she might question that if she saw you tending bar instead of arguing before the court." A flare of defensiveness rose in Rory's chest. "It's not my bar. I just help out sometimes." She didn't mention her delivery job at Golden Empress or the half-finished law degree she'd abandoned. "What can I get you?" "Macallan. Neat." Rory reached for the bottle, aware of Marcus watching her movements. The sleeves of her black shirt rode up slightly as she poured, revealing the crescent-shaped scar on her left wrist. "You still have it," Marcus observed quietly. "The scar." "Hard to get rid of scars." She slid the whiskey toward him, her tone more pointed than she'd intended. He caught the edge in her voice, his hazel eyes flickering up to meet hers. "I deserved that." "I wasn't—" Rory began, then stopped herself. "It's been a long time, Marcus." "Five years, two months." He took a sip of his whiskey. "Not that I've been counting." Silas emerged from the back room then, his slight limp more pronounced than usual after a long day. He nodded at Rory, then assessed Marcus with the quick, evaluating glance of a man who had spent his life reading strangers. "Silas, this is Marcus Whitaker. We were at university together," Rory said. "Marcus, this is Silas Blackwood. He owns The Raven's Nest." "Mr. Whitaker." Silas extended his hand, the silver signet ring catching the light. "Any friend of Rory's is welcome here." "We were more than friends," Marcus said, shaking Silas' hand. "Until I spectacularly ruined it." Silas raised an eyebrow, glancing between them. "Well, the past has a way of finding us, doesn't it?" His tone was light, but Rory recognized the concern behind it. "Rory, why don't you take a break? I can handle things for a bit." She hesitated, then nodded. "Thanks, Si." Rory came around the bar and led Marcus to a corner table beneath an old map of Prague. The irony wasn't lost on her—sitting beneath the city where Silas' career had ended, confronting the ruins of her own past. "You look good," Marcus said once they were seated. "Different, but good." "Different how?" she asked, curious despite herself. He studied her, his gaze moving over her face like he was relearning its contours. "Calmer. More... settled in your skin. The Rory I knew was always buzzing with nervous energy, always planning three steps ahead." "Life has a way of adjusting your pace," she said. "What about you? Still chasing that partnership and corner office?" Something shadowed his expression. "I was. Right up until I collapsed in a board meeting last year." He rotated his whiskey glass slowly. "Turns out working twenty-hour days and surviving on caffeine and ambition isn't sustainable. Who knew?" "What happened?" "Exhaustion, initially. Then they found an arrhythmia." His smile was wry. "Nothing too dramatic, but enough to make me reassess a few things." Rory absorbed this, trying to reconcile the invincible Marcus she'd known with this more vulnerable version. "So you're taking it easier now?" "Trying to. Old habits, you know." He took another sip of whiskey. "I've been consulting instead of grinding away at a firm. More control over my hours." They fell silent. Outside, rain began to patter against the windows, blurring the green neon light from the bar's sign. "I heard about Evan," Marcus said finally. "Eva told me. Not right away, but eventually." Rory stiffened. "Eva should mind her own business." "She was worried about you. We all were, when you just disappeared from Cardiff." "I didn't disappear. I moved." Rory's fingers found the scar on her wrist, tracing its familiar curve. "There's a difference." "Without telling anyone? Without returning calls?" His voice remained gentle, but the hurt was evident. "Even before... before things ended between us, we were friends, Rory. I thought that still counted for something." "It wasn't about you," she said, meeting his gaze squarely. "Not everything is." "I know that. I know." Marcus set down his glass. "But after what he did to you—" "You don't know what he did," Rory cut in, her voice low and tightly controlled. "Nobody does, except Eva, and she only knows because she's the one who drove me to A&E." Marcus paled. "I didn't know it was that bad." "No, you didn't." Rory's throat felt tight. "And I didn't want you to. I didn't want anyone looking at me the way you're looking at me right now." "How am I looking at you?" "Like I'm broken. Like I'm something to be pitied." Marcus shook his head slowly. "That's not what I see when I look at you, Aurora." The use of her full name startled her. No one called her Aurora anymore, except her father when he was being particularly formal. "What I see," Marcus continued, "is someone who survived. Someone stronger than I remembered, and I already thought you were the strongest person I knew." The sincerity in his voice made something in Rory's chest ache. She looked down at the table, suddenly unable to meet his eyes. "Why didn't you reach out?" she asked after a moment. "After we broke up, before I left Cardiff. You knew where I was then." His expression shifted, guilt washing across his features. "Pride, at first. Then shame. I was so focused on my career, on proving myself. By the time I realized what I'd lost..." He trailed off. "I convinced myself you were better off without me." "That wasn't your decision to make," Rory said quietly. "No, it wasn't." He acknowledged with a slight nod. "One of many mistakes." Silas appeared at their table, a fresh whiskey for Marcus and a cup of tea for Rory. His hazel eyes lingered on her face, checking that she was okay before he retreated back to the bar. "He watches over you," Marcus observed. "Silas watches over everyone who matters to him," Rory said. "It's his nature." "You matter to him." She shrugged, wrapping her hands around the warm mug. "I rent the flat upstairs. I help out when he needs an extra hand. We look out for each other." "Is he why you stayed in London? After everything with Evan?" The question caught her off guard. "Partly," she admitted. "Silas offered me a place when I needed one, no questions asked. But I stayed because I finally felt like I was making my own choices, not following my father's plan or running from a bad relationship." Marcus nodded slowly. "I get that. I think that's what I'm trying to do now—figure out what I actually want, not what I thought I should want." He hesitated. "I'm sorry, Rory. For how things ended between us, for not being there when you needed someone." The apology hung in the air between them, sincere but insufficient to bridge five years of silence. Outside, the rain fell harder, drumming against the windows. "I'm not the same person you knew at Cardiff," Rory said finally. "That girl who thought she could plan her whole life out, who believed she could control everything if she just worked hard enough—she's gone." "I'm not the same either," Marcus replied. "And maybe that's okay. Maybe we needed to become different people." Rory looked at him, really looked at him—at the silver in his hair, the new lines around his eyes, the way his shoulders carried that invisible weight. She saw remnants of the ambitious young man she'd loved, but also someone new, someone tempered by time and his own mistakes. "I'm in London for two weeks," he said. "Settling Mum's affairs. Maybe we could get coffee sometime? As these new people we've become." Rory considered his offer, weighing the risk of reopening old wounds against the possibility of something new—not a return to what was, but perhaps a beginning of what could be. "Coffee," she agreed finally. "But just coffee. No promises beyond that." Marcus nodded, a genuine smile warming his features. "No promises," he echoed. "Just two old friends catching up." As they exchanged numbers, Rory caught Silas watching from behind the bar, his expression unreadable. He gave her a small nod when their eyes met—not approval exactly, but acknowledgment. A reminder that whatever happened, she wouldn't have to face it alone. The weight of the past still hung between her and Marcus, but for the first time in years, it felt a little lighter, a little less like regret and more like a story neither of them had finished telling.