Run: 2026-02-19-01KHTYY3DYBJZND8AR32CK5A13

The green neon sign bled colour across the wet pavement outside, casting the narrow street in an otherworldly glow that never quite reached the corners. Inside The Raven's Nest, the rain tapped its fingers against the windows like a guest who'd forgotten the password. Rory wiped down the mahogany bar, though it needed no wiping. Silas had retreated to his hidden office an hour ago, leaving her to mind the thin Tuesday crowd. Three regulars nursed their pints in the far corner, their conversation a low hum beneath Miles Davis drifting from the ancient speakers behind the counter. The door swung open, bringing with it a gust of October wind and the smell of the Thames. Rory glanced up, ready with a smile for whatever lost soul sought shelter. The glass she'd been polishing slipped from her fingers. It didn't break—some small mercy—but it clattered against the wood with a sound that seemed too loud, seemed to announce something she couldn't name. "Imogen." The woman stood in the doorway, shaking rain from an umbrella that probably cost more than a month's rent. Her coat was camel-coloured wool, tailored at the waist. Under the bar's amber lights, her hair gleamed like polished chestnut, cut in a sharp bob that framed cheekbones sharper still. "Rory?" Imogen's voice cracked on the name. She took a step forward, then stopped, as though an invisible wall had risen between them. "My God. Rory Carter." "What are you doing in London?" "A conference. International litigation summit at the ExCeL." Imogen's laugh came out brittle, rehearsed. "I needed a drink after nine hours of networking. I didn't expect to find—" She didn't finish. She didn't need to. The silence filled in the blanks: you here, behind a bar, in a place like this, looking like that. Rory was acutely aware of her black t-shirt, the faded jeans, the absence of any jewellery save for a simple silver stud in each ear. She hadn't thought about how she looked in years. Suddenly, she was twenty-one again, standing in the law library at Cardiff with Imogen beside her, both of them in sensible blazers, both of them certain the future stretched out in neat, organised lines. "Sit down." Rory gestured to the nearest stool. "I'll get you something. What do you want?" "Whatever you recommend." "Whisky. Neat. It's what this place does best." Imogen settled onto the stool with the careful grace of someone who'd learned to occupy space efficiently. She removed her gloves finger by finger, revealing nails painted in a subtle nude shade. A diamond caught the light on her left hand—engagement ring, wedding band, the full architecture of success. Rory poured two fingers of Talisker and slid it across the bar. "You're not having one?" "I'm working." "Since when do you—" Imogen stopped herself, took a breath. "I'm sorry. That came out wrong." "Since when do I work in a bar?" Rory kept her voice level, curious even, as though they were discussing a stranger. "About three years now. Give or take." Imogen lifted the glass, inhaled, took a measured sip. Her eyes—still that startling green, still framed by the same delicate brows—assessed Rory over the rim. "You look good." "I look tired." "I meant it as a compliment. You seem... settled." "Settled." Rory tested the word. "I suppose that's one way to describe it." The Miles Davis track ended. Another began, something slower, trumpet notes hanging in the air like smoke. One of the regulars in the corner laughed too loudly at something his companion said. "Your father still asks about you." A coldness spread through Rory's chest. She reached for a clean glass, began polishing it with more force than necessary. "How is he?" "Same as always. Working too much. Worrying about you." Imogen swirled her whisky. "He came to my chambers last month. Wanted to know if I'd heard from you." "And what did you tell him?" "The truth. That I hadn't seen you since—" She stopped. The since hung there, pregnant with everything they weren't saying. Since the graduation party. Since Evan. Since Rory had walked out of her own life and into a different one. "That I should have called," Imogen finished quietly. "That I should have checked in." "You had your career to focus on." "Is that what you tell yourself? That I was too busy building my future to care about what happened to you?" Rory set down the glass. Her scar caught the light—the small crescent on her left wrist, normally hidden by her watch strap, now exposed as she'd rolled up her sleeves earlier that evening. Imogen's gaze dropped to it. Her expression changed, just barely, a flicker of something that might have been recognition or might have been horror. "How did you get that?" "Childhood accident. You know that." "No." Imogen leaned forward. "I don't mean the scar. I mean this." She gestured broadly, encompassing the bar, the clothes, the life Rory had constructed in the ruins of the old one. "How did you end up here, Rory? You were top of our class. You had your pick of training contracts. Your father had—that connection with the firm in Bristol, the one he pulled strings to get you an interview with." "Turns out I didn't want to be a lawyer." "Bullshit." The word landed like a slap. Imogen rarely swore—they'd used to joke about it, how she'd say "sugar" when she stubbed her toe, "fiddlesticks" when a case note went missing. Now she sat there in her thousand-pound coat, her accent still refined but her vocabulary hardened, and called Rory a liar to her face. "You wanted it more than any of us. You used to stay late at the library, remember? You'd ring me at midnight to argue about tort reform." "People change." "Do they? Or do they just run away until they forget who they were?" Rory gripped the edge of the bar. The wood bit into her palms. "What do you want me to say, Imogen? That I threw it all away because of a man? That I let someone break me down so thoroughly I couldn't remember why I'd wanted anything in the first place?" Her voice came out steady, which surprised her. "Would that make you feel better? Give you closure?" "I don't want closure. I want my friend back." The admission hung between them. Imogen's composure cracked, just for a moment—her lips pressed together, her jaw tightened, and in that flash of rawness, Rory saw the girl she'd known. The one who'd helped her sneak back into the dorms after curfew. The one who'd held her hair back during freshers' flu. The one who'd cried in Rory's room after her first rejection letter, convinced she'd never amount to anything. "That friend doesn't exist anymore." "Maybe not. But something of her might." Rory moved down the bar to serve one of the regulars, a pensioner named Frank who wanted another Guinness. She poured it slowly, letting the foam settle, using the time to breathe. When she returned, Imogen had finished her whisky. Her perfectly manicured fingers traced patterns in the condensation left on the bar. "Who hurt you, Rory?" "No one. Not anymore." "That's not an answer." "It's the only one I have." Imogen studied her face, searching for something—an admission, an accusation, some sign of the person she'd known. Rory let her look. She had nothing to hide anymore, nothing to prove. "I'm married now." "I can see that." "His name is David. He's a partner at Clifford Chance. We met at a recruitment event two years ago." Imogen's voice softened, took on the practiced quality of a story told many times. "He's kind. He listens. He doesn't mind that I work too much." "Do you love him?" The question seemed to catch Imogen off guard. She blinked, and for a moment, her carefully constructed expression slipped. "I think so. I think I must." She paused. "But sometimes I wonder if I even know what that means anymore. If I ever did." The honesty of it struck Rory. Imogen had everything—the career, the husband, the life they'd all been promised if they worked hard enough and followed the rules. And yet she sat here, in a bar she'd wandered into by accident, searching for something in the face of a friend she hadn't seen in years. "We make choices," Rory said. "And then the choices make us." "That sounds like something Silas would say." Rory smiled, despite everything. "It might be." "Is he the owner? This Silas?" "Something like that." Imogen glanced around the bar, really looking at it for the first time—the old maps on the walls, the photographs of places and people from decades past, the warm shadows that made the space feel timeless and separate from the London streets outside. "It suits you. This place." "Does it?" "You always did prefer corners to centres. You liked being on the edge of things, watching." Imogen stood, pulled a note from her wallet, and set it on the bar. Far too much for a single whisky. "I should go. The conference starts early tomorrow." "You don't have to—" "I want to." Imogen hesitated, then reached out and touched Rory's hand. Her fingers were warm, steady. "If you ever want to talk—to someone who knew you before—I'm in London until Friday. The King's Hotel, by the ExCeL." Rory turned her hand over, squeezed Imogen's fingers briefly, then let go. "Take care of yourself, Imogen." "You too. Rory." She paused at the door, the neon green light catching her silhouette. "Whatever happened to make you run—I hope it was worth it. I hope you found whatever you were looking for." Then she was gone, swallowed by the London night and the rain that still fell, relentless and indifferent.