Run: 2026-02-19-01KHTRCCZFH4W8AK17Z9NWWW75

The bell above The Raven’s Nest door croaked its usual complaint as Aurora Carter stepped inside, a gust of Soho night air tumbling in behind her. She rolled her shoulders beneath her battered green jacket, pulse ticking with the traces of a late delivery run. Sweat prickled along her collar, citrus and pepper from the takeaway bags clinging to her skin. Music stuttered over ancient speakers. Maps wrinkled along the walls, their borders yellowed, pinpricks marking forgotten cities. The bar huddled in shadows, the crowd thin—most gone home, the diehards drawn to their glasses and the low hum of Silas’s laughter. Aurora eased past the pool table’s battered edge, glanced at the cracked face of the grandfather clock above the bar, and slid onto a stool close to the end, where the light from the green neon sign only just reached. Silas Blackwood shifted behind the counter, polishing a glass in slow circles. The silver signet ring flashed on his right hand, a steady, unspoken fixture. His once-rich auburn hair took on the dull embers of age, grey streaks joining the years etched around his hazel eyes. Silas leaned his good leg against the beer fridge, nodding at Aurora. “Cutting it close, Carter.” “Bike chain snapped.” Aurora flexed her fingers, left wrist catching the lamplight, crescent scar pale as milk. She let her hair fall forward, black curtain shielding her gaze. “Yu-Fei sent you the extra dumplings.” He set the glass down, slid over the Tupperware box, and smirked. “You keep feeding me, I’ll have to expand the bar.” Someone scraped a chair behind her. Aurora braced, tension curling. The Nest drew odd souls; she’d learned not to look over her shoulder when laughter stabbed or when the jukebox stammered to silence. Still, the voice landed against her spine, familiar and unwelcome as a childhood bruise. “Rory?” She gripped the bar’s edge. Silence caught in her throat. Only two people called her that anymore, and Eva never sounded unsure. “Aurora Carter,” the same voice, steadier, rolling her full name around like hard candy. Aurora released a slow breath, turned her stool, and time folded oddly in the musty glow. There stood Samir Habib. Sam. His shoulders jutted sharper now beneath a worn blazer. Facial hair dotted his chin, badly carved, and his eyes—soft brown, once filled with comic mischief—had taken on something older, wary. A threadbare scarf wound high around his neck, as if he’d forgotten how to uncoil. “Well. I’ll be damned,” she managed, the phrase clumsy in her mouth. Sam looked her over, blinking as if she might disappear if he closed his eyes too long. “Thought you vanished off the map.” Silas wiped a ring of condensation from the counter, moving with the steady presence of a lighthouse keeper. “You two want a table or are you planning to reminisce right on my bar?” Sam smiled at Silas, surprise flickering. “Still can’t shake the old spy manners, eh, Mr Blackwood?” “Have a seat.” Silas slid two whiskeys toward them, no ice. Rory scooped up her glass, knuckles whitening. “Come on, then. Table in the back.” Sam followed, trailing the scent of damp tweed and distant cologne. They found a sticky table beneath a photograph of some wartime pilots—no one Rory recognised, but it looked like a blackout in their faces. Sam fiddled with his glass. “Didn’t mean to—startle you. Just… it really is you. Last time—” He broke off, mouth working. “Six years?” Aurora shrugged, folding her coat over her knees. “More like seven.” Sam traced the rim of his glass, pulling at his cuticles. “Your hair got longer.” “I cut it last spring. Easier to deal with.” She sipped, swallowing the burn. “You still in Cardiff?” He flinched, eyebrows winging up. “No. Moved to Brixton two years ago. Couldn’t keep playing house back home after… well, you know.” The jukebox coughed, spat a snatch of Ella Fitzgerald. Two tourists quibbled over darts at the other end of the room. Aurora dug her thumb into the scar on her wrist, let silence unpack itself. Sam looked around, curiosity still peeking out. “You work here?” She laughed, dry. “Delivery for the Golden Empress. Flat upstairs. Helping Silas keep his books straight, when he’ll let me.” He rolled his jaw as if tasting news he couldn’t argue with. “So you really did it. Left everything.” “Wasn’t much to keep.” She leaned back. “You look—different.” He squirmed. “Job at the council. All-day meetings. Mum calls it soul corrosion, Dad says it’s a pension. Michelle left last winter.” His mouth twitched. “Didn’t see that in the five-year plan.” Aurora rested her forearms atop the Formica. “Did you ever?” He didn’t answer, just scanned her face, searching for the echo of the girl who used to vault garden fences and steal apples from Mrs. Hughes’ tree at midnight. “I kept thinking—” Sam’s voice scraped, softer now. “After A-levels, we’d all end up in London, raise hell, you know? You, me, Eva, maybe Marcus. Instead got this.” He gestured, uncertain, at his own chest. “I owe you an apology.” Aurora hunched, words slipping out faster than she wanted. “Should’ve called. You came to the hospital and I never wrote—I didn’t know what to say.” “No one ever does,” Sam replied, voice roughened at the edge. “I heard about Evan from Eva. Didn’t know how bad… until it all blew up. I tried to find you.” She pressed her glass to her lips, breathing whisky fumes. “I didn’t want to be found.” Sam’s shoulders dipped, the old ease between them brittle, worn smooth by years apart. “I figured that out. Eventually.” He fingered his scarf, knotting and unknotting it. “I let things fall apart with us. Sorry.” Aurora shook her head. “Nothing you could’ve done.” Her nails dug tiny half-moons into her palm. “I made a mess. Still sweeping up.” He nudged the edge of his glass, eyes darting to her wrist. “You got out, though. That’s something.” “Depends who you ask.” Aurora forced a smirk, gaze on a photograph behind him, two men shaking hands in shadow. “I’m stuck on the service stairs of my own story half the time. Maybe that’s the trick: just keep moving.” Sam looked away, blinking hard. “I lost touch with everyone after Mum got sick. When she died, Cardiff felt empty. Too many things unsaid. Too much ordinary. I kept thinking someone would come along, knock me loose. Didn’t happen.” They sat. Words rustled between them, heavy with the ballast of unfinished business, of things left unsaid for longer than they dared measure. He tried following a tear in the table, voice turning uncertain. “Sometimes I think we grew up wrong.” Aurora snorted, folding her arms over her chest. “Is there a right way?” The pause stretched, soft and worn. Then Sam straightened, a nervous laugh escaping. “You remember that summer by the seaside? Eva dared you to swim out to the rocks. You nearly drowned—Dad had to haul you out by your ankles.” “Still grateful Mrs. Davies never found out—she’d have barred us from the pier for life.” His mouth curled into a real smile, light glancing over his teeth, brief and shy. “You were always braver than me.” “Bravery, stupidity—thin line.” Aurora set her glass aside, spine stiff with old pain. “People mistake running for courage.” He leaned in. “What would you call it, then—what you did?” She traced the condensation pooling beneath her glass, voice set low. “Survival.” The word hung, final, but not cruel. Just fact. Sam toyed with the rim of his drink, smile fading. “You ever think about going back—home, I mean?” Aurora stared at the wall, mind sifting through memories thick as bramble. “No home left to go back to.” He swallowed, tongue darting against cracked lips. “Sorry. Stupid question.” “Not stupid.” Aurora caught his gaze, searching for the old Sam, the one who snuck her chocolate on bad days, who trusted her with the secret places under the city bridge. “You changed, Sam.” “So did you.” Neither flinched. The words clung between them, settling in the strange cold clash of past and present. Somewhere, laughter brightened. Glasses clinked. Silas drifted by, catching her eye, silent reassurance in the nod of his chin. Aurora fished her hair behind one ear, catching the small pulse fluttering at her throat. “Maybe we didn’t grow apart so much as grew sideways.” Sam smiled, fragile and fierce at once. “Next round’s on me, then. For old times’ sake?” She pressed her hand over his on the table, tight grip for just a moment, anchoring them both. “For old times.”