Run: 2026-02-17-01KHMQFDNQG1K9WJWWVXQC74ZM

The green neon sign flickered above the bar's entrance, casting an emerald wash across Rory's face as she pushed open the heavy wooden door. The Raven's Nest always smelled the same—whiskey and wood polish, a hint of smoke trapped in decades-old wallpaper covered with faded maps and forgotten photographs. She'd barely taken two steps when she saw him. Michael Reese. Sitting alone at the far end of the bar, nursing a tumbler of amber liquid. He looked different—thinner, harder, the soft collegiate edges of their university days completely sanded away. His hands, once soft from academic pursuits, now looked weathered. Capable. Their eyes met. No smile of recognition, just a sudden stillness. Silas Blackwood, the bar's owner, watched the exchange from behind the bar, his hazel eyes tracking between them with the practiced neutrality of someone who'd seen a thousand such moments. "Hello, Michael," Rory said. He lifted his glass slightly. Not a toast. Not a greeting. Just acknowledgment. "Aurora," he returned, his voice unchanged—precise, controlled. She slid onto the stool next to him, close enough to speak quietly but not so close as to suggest intimacy. The bartop between them might as well have been an ocean. "I didn't know you were in London," she said. A slight shift in his shoulders. Not quite a shrug. "People change." The words hung between them, loaded with everything unsaid. Their shared history—university debates, late-night conversations about changing the world, the passionate idealism of youth—felt suddenly distant. Foreign. Silas placed a glass of red wine in front of Rory without being asked. She nodded her thanks, a practiced gesture that suggested this wasn't her first time here, that this bar held some meaning beyond mere coincidence. "You look different," Michael said. Not as a compliment. More like an observation. A clinical assessment. Her black hair, straight and precise, framed a face that no longer carried the soft uncertainty of their shared past. The bright blue eyes were cooler now. Harder. The small crescent-shaped scar on her left wrist—a childhood remnant—caught the green neon light. "People change," she echoed back to him, taking a measured sip of wine. The silence between them was a living thing. Weighted with potential. With memories of what they'd been to each other, and what they'd become. Michael turned his glass, watching the whiskey catch the light. "I heard about Evan." A muscle tightened in her jaw. The name dropped like a stone into their conversation, creating ripples of tension. "Did you," she said. Not a question. "Academic circles are smaller than you'd think. Word travels." She knew what he wasn't saying. That he'd heard about the abuse. That she'd left. That she'd walked away from the carefully constructed path they'd both been groomed to follow. "And you?" she asked. "Still chasing academic glory?" A mirthless smile. "Something like that." The bar hummed around them. Soft conversations. The clink of glasses. The subtle movements of Silas cleaning and restocking, always listening, never interrupting. "We were going to change everything," Michael said softly. So softly she might have imagined it. But Rory heard. And in that moment, she saw the ghost of their shared dreams. Their shared hope. The version of themselves that existed before life happened. Before compromise. Before reality. "We were young," she said. And in those three words lay an entire history of lost potential. Of paths not taken. Of the brutal negotiation between idealism and survival.