Run: 2026-02-19-01KHTX2N5751ZZBRNSYSWM2XWZ

The Raven’s Nest exhaled smoke and old vinyl into the damp Soho evening. Rain slicked the pavement outside, glinting under the green neon of the sign that flickered like a dying pulse. Inside, jazz curled from the ceiling speakers—Miles Davis, muted and brooding—winding through the scent of bourbon and damp wool. Aurora Carter sat at the far end of the bar, shoulders angled away from the room, one hand wrapped around a half-empty glass of ginger ale. She always ordered it that way—no ice, lemon on the side—ever since the last time she’d let herself drink past two fingers of anything stronger. Her reflection in the mirrored back wall looked tired. The black hair she used to wear in messy buns was now precisely cut just below her jaw, the kind of style that said *I mean it* even when she didn’t. Her bright blue eyes scanned the room without really seeing it. They did that more lately—flicked to exits, noted the man near the door adjusting his coat too many times, the woman who hadn’t touched her wine in twenty minutes. The bell above the door jingled. A gust of wet air swept in. She didn’t turn. Not at first. But the pause in the jazz—someone had leaned on the record—told her something had shifted. Then, a voice. Light. Familiar in a way that scraped at bone. “Rory?” She turned. He stood just inside the doorway, shaking water from a trench coat that hadn’t aged as well as he had. His dark curls were threaded with silver now, shorter, combed back like he had meetings to get to. He still moved like someone used to being seen—shoulders back, chin up—but there was a tightness around his mouth, a guardedness in the way his eyes took in the room before landing on her. “Jamie,” she said. Not a question. A surrender. He smiled. Not the wide, reckless grin she remembered—the one that used to light up lecture halls and dodgy all-night kebab shops—but something careful. Controlled. “Didn’t think I’d find you in a place like this.” She didn’t answer right away. Instead, she watched him walk—still no limp, still that athlete’s stride—and slide onto the stool beside her. He didn’t take off his coat. Didn’t look at the menu. “Old habits,” she said. “This place doesn’t kick you out for sitting too long.” He nodded, then flagged down the bartender with a tilt of his head. “Whiskey. Neat.” She studied the side of his face. The sharp jawline was softer now, the skin around his eyes carved with lines that hadn’t been there when they were twenty-two. He wore a watch—expensive, understated. The kind Evan used to wear. “You look... put together,” she said. He let out a short breath. “So do you. Different. But put together.” A beat. The bartender set the whiskey down without a word. Jamie didn’t thank him. He poured half into his palm, rubbed it together, then sniffed. A nervous tic. She remembered that. He’d done it before exams, before speeches, before he proposed to her in a train station in Dublin and she’d said no. “You live around here?” he asked. “Above the bar.” His eyes flicked to the ceiling, then back. “You drink here every night?” “Not every night.” “But often enough.” She didn’t answer. Outside, a siren passed, muffled by the rain and bricks. “You disappeared,” he said. “After Cardiff. No number. No forwarding address. Just—gone.” “I needed to be gone.” “And Eva? She vanished too.” “She left first. I followed.” He turned on the stool to face her, elbows on the bar. “You never called. Not once in five years.” “I didn’t think you’d want to hear from me.” “Why not?” She looked at him then—really looked. His dark eyes, once so full of fury and poetry, now held only a flat, polished calm. Like glass over stone. “You said a lot of things the last time we spoke,” she said. “So did you.” “What I said wasn’t true.” “What, that I was suffocating you? That I wanted to lock you in a life you didn’t ask for?” She exhaled. “You believed it, though. That it was all real. The house. The ring. The future.” “Wasn’t it?” “No,” she said softly. “Not for me. Not then.” He took a slow sip of whiskey. “And now?” Now she traced the crescent-shaped scar on her wrist with her thumb. A nervous habit. A tether. “Now I know what it means to run out of time.” He watched her hand. “You still have that scar.” “Yeah.” “You never told me how you got it.” “I fell. Off a wall. When I was nine. Evan found me bleeding in the garden. He was the one who wrapped it.” He flinched, almost imperceptibly. “Him.” She didn’t defend him. Didn’t explain. There was no point. Jamie had met Evan once—just once—and walked away with a look on his face like he’d smelled something rotting. “You still see him?” Jamie asked. “No.” “Alive?” She glanced at him. “Alive.” A silence settled, thick with everything they weren’t saying. The man behind the bar—tall, with auburn hair streaked in grey, a slight hitch in his step as he moved—he caught her eye from across the room and gave an almost imperceptible nod. Silas. Watching. Always watching. Jamie followed her gaze. “Friend of yours?” “Silas. Owns the place.” “Ex-military?” “Something like that.” Jamie nodded, as if filing the detail away. “He watches you.” “He watches everyone.” “Not like that.” She didn’t argue. “You changed jobs,” she said, changing the subject. “You were teaching. Politics at Cardiff.” “I’m a consultant now. Risk assessment. Geopolitical forecasting. Travel a lot.” “Guns and shadows.” He smiled again. Smaller this time. “Something like that.” “You always hated the real world.” “And you loved it. Arguments in the library until two a.m. Debating whether justice was a structure or a feeling. You used to say the law was just violence dressed in Latin.” “I was nineteen.” “You believed it.” She looked down at her glass. “I believed a lot of things.” The record flipped. A new track began—soft piano, tentative. “You ever think about coming back?” he asked. “To Cardiff?” “To us.” She closed her eyes. Just for a second. “Jamie—” “I know. I know how this sounds. But I see you now and... it’s like I can almost reach back. Like none of it happened.” “It did.” “I know.” “And I’m not who I was.” “Neither am I.” She turned to him. “You don’t even know what I do now.” “Tell me.” “I deliver food. For a Chinese restaurant in Crouch End. I live above a bar. I haven’t been to a museum or read a novel in over a year. I check the locks on my door three times before I sleep. I don’t go out after dark unless I have to. I—” “You’re scared,” he said. She stopped. Not angry. Not defensive. Just—stopped. And then—barely audible—“Yes.” The word hung between them. Not a plea. Not a confession. Just a fact. Jamie stared at his glass. “I used to think if I could just talk to you one more time, I could fix it. Make you see that I wasn’t the one holding you back. That I loved you enough to let you fly.” “You did. And I knew it. That’s why it hurt so much to leave.” He looked up. “Then why did you?” She didn’t answer right away. Instead, she reached into her coat pocket and pulled out a small, folded photograph. Handed it to him. It showed her, younger, face swollen, lip split, one eye nearly shut. Someone’s hand—large, ring on the index finger—reaching into the frame, gripping her arm. Jamie’s face emptied of colour. “Jesus Christ.” “That was the week before I left Cardiff. The week after you proposed.” His fingers tightened on the photo. “And you didn’t tell me.” “How could I? You were going to marry me. You thought we were building something.” “And you thought I’d fix it.” “I knew you’d try. And I knew you’d fail. And I knew that failure would break you. So I broke us first.” The record hissed. The piano faded. Jamie set the photo down gently on the bar. Slid it back to her. “You should’ve let me fight for you.” “You would’ve lost.” “Maybe. But it would’ve been my fight.” She looked at him then, truly looked, and for the first time in years, felt the weight of the years press down—not just on her, but on both of them. The versions of themselves that had loved too hard, fled too fast, misunderstood too much. Outside, the rain slowed. The neon buzzed. Neither of them moved.