Run: 2026-02-17-01KHNFQSWH853F6Q3GVDR86S69

The green neon sign hummed softly above the door, casting an otherworldly glow on the damp Soho pavement. *The Raven’s Nest*. Rory pushed the heavy door open, the familiar scent of old wood, spilled ale, and Silas’s particular brand of lemon polish washing over her. It was a smell that had come to mean safety. The bar was quiet for a Thursday. A few regulars hunched over their drinks, islands of solitude in the dim light. The maps and grainy photographs on the walls seemed to lean in, listening to the low murmur of conversation. Behind the bar, Silas was polishing a glass with a slow, methodical rhythm, his silver signet ring catching the light with each pass. He gave her a slight, almost imperceptible nod, his hazel eyes crinkling at the corners. His limp was more pronounced tonight; the damp weather always made the old knee injury ache. She slid onto her usual stool at the far end, the one with a clear view of both exits. A habit she’d picked up, one Silas had quietly encouraged. “The usual, Rory?” he asked, his voice a low rumble. “Please, Si. Tough day.” He nodded, reaching for a bottle of a decent single malt without needing to look. He poured two fingers into a clean tumbler and pushed it across the polished wood. His movements were economical, precise, the ghost of the field agent he’d once been. As he turned to put the bottle away, the door opened again, bringing with it a gust of cool night air and the sound of London traffic. Rory took a sip, letting the whisky burn a warm path down her throat. She stared at the crescent-shaped scar on her left wrist, a pale little moon against her skin. A relic from a time when accidents were simple and the biggest worry was explaining a broken vase to her mother. A man’s voice, hesitant and oddly familiar, cut through her thoughts. “Excuse me, is this seat taken?” She looked up, ready to offer a polite, dismissive shake of her head, and the words died in her throat. It was Evan. But it wasn’t. Not the Evan she remembered. The man standing before her was a faded photograph of the one she’d known. His once-athletic frame had softened, gone slightly paunchy beneath a cheap, ill-fitting suit. His hair, which he’d always been so vain about, was thinning at the crown. Lines of stress were carved deep around his mouth and eyes. He looked… diminished. Worn down by years she hadn’t been there to see. He was staring at her with a mix of shock and dawning recognition. “Laila?” he breathed, the old pet name sounding foreign and clumsy on his tongue now. He’d always called her that, a name he’d chosen himself, saying ‘Aurora’ was too much of a mouthful. She’d hated it, but had let it slide, one of a thousand small concessions. “Rory,” she corrected, her voice cooler than she intended. “It’s Rory.” She saw the flinch, the tiny wound the correction inflicted. Good. “Rory. Right. God, it’s… it’s been years.” He hovered awkwardly, his hands fluttering as if unsure what to do with themselves. Silas had stopped polishing his glass. He was watching them, his expression unreadable, but his posture had shifted subtly. He was no longer just a bartender; he was a sentinel. “It has,” Rory said. She didn’t offer the stool. She didn’t offer anything. He took the silence as an invitation and sat down anyway, the wood groaning under his weight. He smelled of stale cigarette smoke and cheap aftershave, a far cry from the expensive cologne he used to wear. “I can’t believe it’s you,” he said, shaking his head. “What are you doing in London? Last I heard, you were in Cardiff. Pre-Law, right? Following in your dad’s footsteps.” The past felt like a physical weight pressing on her chest. “Plans change.” “Yeah,” he said, a hollow laugh escaping him. “Tell me about it.” He signaled to Silas for a pint of whatever was on tap. When it arrived, he took a long, grateful pull. “So. What do you do now? You look… good.” His eyes scanned her, and she felt a familiar, unwelcome prickle of assessment. She was dressed in her delivery gear—dark jeans, a comfortable jumper, practical boots. She looked capable. She looked like she could run if she had to. “I deliver food,” she said flatly. He blinked, as if waiting for the punchline. “You… deliver food? For a living?” The disbelief was tinged with a condescension that was so intrinsically *him* that for a moment, the years melted away and she was twenty again, sitting across from him in a café, listening to him pick apart her career choices. “It pays the rent. The flat’s just upstairs.” She gestured vaguely toward the ceiling. His eyes widened. “You live *here*? Above a pub?” He said it like she’d told him she lived in a sewer. The Evan she’d known had been obsessed with image, with the right postcode, the right car, the right friends. This place, with its worn charm and secret histories, would have been his idea of hell. “It’s a bar. And it’s quiet.” She took another sip of whisky, her bright blue eyes fixed on him over the rim of the glass. “What about you, Evan? Still in finance? Driving the Beamer?” The question hung in the air, sharp and pointed. He looked down into his pint, his shoulders slumping. The bravado drained out of him, leaving behind something raw and defeated. “The firm… there were cutbacks. After the crash. I’m in sales now. Office supplies. It’s… it’s a living.” He couldn’t meet her gaze. “Sold the car.” The silence stretched between them, thick with everything unsaid. The memories of slammed doors, of cruel words meant to wound, of the constant, exhausting effort to mould herself into someone he wouldn’t be ashamed of. The frantic, terrified phone call to Eva. The train ticket to London bought with trembling hands. The relief of disappearing into a city where he would never think to look for her. He finally looked up, his eyes searching her face. “You just… left. You changed your number. Blocked me everywhere. I didn’t… I never got to apologize.” The word ‘apologize’ felt too small, too flimsy a bridge to span the chasm he’d created. “Some things don’t need an apology, Evan. They just need to be over.” “I was a bastard,” he said, the words rushing out as if he’d been rehearsing them for years. “I know I was. I was jealous, and insecure, and I took it all out on you. I thought… I thought if I could make you feel small, you’d never leave.” He gave a bitter, choked laugh. “Turns out that’s not how it works.” Rory said nothing. She just watched him, this ghost from a life she’d worked hard to escape. The anger was still there, a cold, hard stone in her gut, but it was covered in layers of time and distance. Now, looking at this broken man in his cheap suit, she mostly felt a profound, weary sadness. “I heard you were happy,” he mumbled into his beer. “I asked around, once. Someone said you’d moved on. That you were doing well.” “I am,” she said, and for the first time, she meant it. The delivery job, the flat above the bar, the quiet mentorship of Silas—it was a life she had built herself, brick by careful brick. It was hers. He finished his pint and set the glass down with a finality. He looked older than his years, weighed down by regrets he’d carried for far too long. “I should go,” he said, not moving. Rory just nodded. He stood up, fumbling for his wallet. Silas, from his post at the other end of the bar, shook his head once. “On the house,” he said, his voice leaving no room for argument. Evan looked startled, then grateful. “Thanks.” He turned back to Rory. “It was… good to see you, Aurora. Really.” He used her full name, a peace offering. “Take care of yourself, Evan.” He gave a jerky nod and walked out, the door swinging shut behind him, sealing the bar back into its hushed, amber-lit world. The silence he left behind was different now, charged with the echoes of a past finally laid to rest. Rory turned her glass slowly on the bar, watching the light play in the amber liquid. Silas limped over and refilled it without a word. He didn’t ask. He just waited. After a long moment, she looked up at him, her expression clear. “He’s nobody,” she said, and it was the truth. Silas gave her another of his slow, understanding nods. “I know,” he said. And that was the end of it.