Run: 2026-02-20-01KHY8BBFTVMV9D6FKA6MF8GNP

The neon green of The Raven's Nest sign bled through the rain-streaked window, casting a sickly glow over the bar’s worn Formica tables. Rory Carter wiped the condensation from a pint glass with a rag that reeked of lemon polish, her movements precise as she’d learned to be. At 25, she’d shed the softness of her Cardiff years—no more clutching her books like a shield, no more blushing when a barista asked her name. Now, her left hand moved easily, the small crescent scar on her wrist a constant reminder of the kitchen knife she’d dodged at 12, when her mother had taught her to cut carrots. *Steady*, Jennifer Carter had called it. *Steady and sharp*. Rory had taken that to heart. The bell over the door jangled. She glanced up, ready to greet a regular, but stopped short. A man stood in the doorway, water dripping from his leather coat, which clung to his shoulders like a second skin. He was taller than she remembered, broad-shouldered, his auburn hair streaked with grey that caught the neon light. The scar on his left knee—a thin white line that ran from his thigh to his calf—was visible beneath the rolled-up cuff of his jeans. Of course he was limping. *Silas*. “Rory?” He said her name like a question, like he wasn’t sure she’d recognize it. She set the glass down too hard, the rag skidding across the counter. “Silas.” It came out shorter than she meant. *Don’t gape*, she chided herself. *He’s changed*. No more tailored suits, no more the sharp, confident stride that had made him the bane of Cardiff University’s debating society. Now, his dark blue shirt was unbuttoned at the collar, and his beard—neatly trimmed, as always—framed a face that looked like it had been carved from weathered oak. “Took you long enough to recognize me.” He managed a half-smile, but his eyes stayed sharp, measuring. “Busy.” She turned to straighten a rack of shot glasses, her fingers hovering over a row of dark bottles. *Evan*. The name still tasted like ash. *Don’t let him see you flinch*. Silas moved to the bar, his limp more pronounced now, a shift in his weight as he sat. “Yu-Fei’s delivery this week? Broke your record by ten minutes. She’s going to start giving you extra tips.” “Good.” She poured him a whiskey, the amber liquid sloshing into the glass. “Can I get you one, or are you here for the details on the next batch of dumplings?” “Just the whiskey.” He nodded at the glass. “Unless you’re here to tell me why you haven’t answered my letters.” The scar on her wrist itched. *Letters*. She’d gotten three, postmarked from Prague, then Berlin, then Paris. *We need to talk*, each had said. *I can help*, the second. *Don’t go back*, the third. She’d torn them up in the bathroom of the hostel in Bristol, the toilet paper clogging the bowl with paper and guilt. “Didn’t get them.” He blinked. “Three letters. Posted within six months. I tracked your delivery routes—” “I moved.” Her voice was colder than she intended. “A week after the third one. Changed my name. Left Cardiff.” Silas set the whiskey glass down so gently it made no sound. “Evan.” The word hung in the air, heavy with all the things they’d left unsaid. Rory had come to London with one suitcase and a bus ticket, Eva at the wheel of her ancient Ford Fiesta, laughter in her voice. *He can’t hurt you here*. *We’ll start over*. No one had mentioned Evan since—Rory had buried it, along with her old name, along with the girl who’d worn her heart on her sleeve, who’d believed in love until it had bitten her. “Why?” Silas asked. “Why run from *him*? Scared? I could’ve—” “I didn’t need you to fix it.” She slammed a napkin down on the counter. “We were kids, Silas. You were off saving the world, me off chasing some stupid law degree my dad thought would make him proud. Evan—he didn’t *matter* except to me. And I fixed it. I’m fixed.” He tilted his glass, swirling the whiskey. “Cardiff thought you’d won a scholarship to Cambridge. Eva’s still there, you know. Talks about you every time I see her. Did you know she got engaged last year?” Rory’s throat tightened. *Eva*. The only friend who’d stayed when Evan got too loud, who’d cried with her in the shower when he’d broken her phone. “I heard.” “Died in January. Car crash.” The world went quiet. The bar’s jukebox stopped mid-note. Rory stared at Silas, her hands shaking. “What?” “Hydroplaned on the M4. No survivors.” He paused. “Eva called you every Sunday. Said you’d promised to come to her wedding. Said you’d never miss it.” Rory closed her eyes. The memory of Eva’s voice, bright and warm, hit her like a fist. *“We’re going to have a toast with that terrible champagne your uncle sends every Christmas,”* she’d said. *“And you’re going to say you’ve found someone who deserves you.”* *“I have,”* Rory had lied. *“He’s in Dublin. Busy.”* “I’m sorry,” Silas said, his voice rough. “I should’ve told you. I… I tried. But you’d already cut me out.” She turned away, wiping the counter again, harder this time. “You should’ve kept trying.” “I was busy.” He stood, his chair scraping the floor. “Fixing my own mess. The one in Prague. The knee injury. The botched operation.” Rory’s hand froze. *Prague*. She’d heard whispers at the university—a covert op gone wrong, a team abandoned, a man left for dead. Silas had been the man, then. “You never told me,” she said. “None of my friends did.” He paused, shifting his weight. “But you… you were the one who asked the hardest questions. The ones no one else would. Remember? After the Prague briefing, you stayed behind. Asked why we were trying to take down a man who’d helped us track a terrorist network. Why we were willing to let him die.” She did. She remembered. Silas had looked at her then, his hazel eyes so soft she’d thought he might break. *“Because he knows things,”* he’d said. *“Secrets. That could hurt people.”* *“No more than we’ll hurt him,”* she’d replied. *“No more than we’ve already hurt.”* “I was wrong,” he said now. “About Prague. About a lot of things.” “You should’ve come to London.” He laughed, bitter. “And do what? Beg for a place to stay? Be your charity case? You were the one running from *him*, Rory. Not me. I had a bar. A safe house. A reason to get up in the morning.” “You were my reason,” she blurted. The words hung, raw and unvarnished. “When Evan started… when he started hitting me, I called you. At 3 a.m., sobbing, and you… you said you’d come. You *promised*. And I waited. For three hours. And then your car didn’t come. And I thought… I thought you’d forgotten. That you didn’t care.” Silas stepped closer, his stance deliberate, like he was afraid to startle her. “I *did* care. I had to. The Prague thing—” “Was more important?” “Yes.” He sounded tired. “But that’s not the full story. My team was compromised. A mole. We thought if I… if I took the fall, they’d come after me less. That they’d let the others live. But the mole was still there. Still moving. And I wasn’t just a failure. I was a liability. So I stayed in Prague. Fixed things. Slowly. For two years. I didn’t have a phone. No way to send messages. No way to tell you I was alive, or that I was sorry.” Rory’s chest ached. *He’s been running, too*. “Why didn’t you tell me?” “Because when you left Cardiff, you didn’t want to be found. You changed your name. Worked odd jobs. Delivered dumplings. And I… I respected that. I thought if I let you be, you’d heal. But Eva called me. Every month. Asked if I’d heard from you. And I lied. Said no. Because I was scared you’d hate me. That you’d look at me and see the man who’d left you in the lurch.” She stared at his signet ring—silver, carved with a raven, warm from being worn. “You were my man in the lurch.” He reached out, hesitated, then touched her wrist. The scar was cool beneath his thumb. “I’m sorry I didn’t fix that.” “You did,” she said. “You sent me letters. You *tried*. That’s more than Evan ever did.” Silas pulled his hand back, but his eyes stayed on hers. “You’re different, Rory. Sharper. Like a knife honed by something sharp.” “I learned.” She pushed the whiskey glass toward him. “Drink. Before it goes cold. You’ll hate me for that.” He picked it up, took a sip. “Not yet.” The bar fell quiet again, but the tension that had coiled in Rory’s chest was starting to unspool. She thought of Eva, of the champagne she’d never drunk, of the toasts still unmade. Of Silas, of the man he was now, of the boy he’d been, who’d once given her a friend’s card and said, *“If you ever need me, I’ll be here.”* “You know what I regret?” she said, after a while. He shook his head. “Not telling you I loved you.” Silas’s eyes widened. “What?” “I did. A little. A long time ago. When you were always there, fixing our辩论 society debates, when you’d buy me coffee at 2 a.m. after I’d pull all-nighters, when you looked at me like you saw something no one else did.” She laughed, bitter. “Don’t worry. I got over it. Eventually.” He set the glass down, slower this time. “I loved you, too.” The words hung, weightless, but real. Rory felt it in the way her breath hitched, in the way her chest ached in a good way, the way it had when Evan had first kissed her, before he’d turned it cruel. “You should’ve said something.” “Age,” he joked, but it was thin. “I was too much of a coward. Thought you’d never want a man who was broken. Who’d never be whole again.” She reached out, touched his face. His skin was warm, creased with lines she hadn’t noticed before, but his eyes were the same—hazel, and full of a million unspoken things. “You’re whole now. Just… a different kind of whole.” Silas leaned into her hand, his beard rough against her palm. “Can I kiss you?” She didn’t answer. She just closed the distance. The kiss was slow, tentative, like they were afraid the moment would shatter. His hands were on her waist, steady, and hers tangled in his hair, the grey threads soft beneath her fingers. It wasn’t the electric jolt of first love, or the hot passion of a casual fling. It was something quieter, something older—two people who’d lost so much, finding a piece of themselves in each other, in the middle of a rainy night in Soho, in a bar that smelled of whiskey and memory. When they pulled apart, Rory rested her forehead against his. “We have a lot to talk about.” He smiled. “We have a lifetime.” The bell over the door jangled again. Rory pulled back, wiping her lips with the back of her hand. A delivery van was parked outside, the driver leaning against it, smoking a cigarette. She glanced at her watch. “Dumplings.” She grabbed her coat. “I’ll be back in an hour. Fix the lights. The one by the pool table’s been flickering for months.” Silas laughed. “You’re bossy.” “Only with you,” she said, and then she was gone, the bell jangling behind her. He watched her go, the whiskey glass still in his hand. The neon green light flickered, casting shadows on the old maps and black-and-white photographs that lined the walls—pictures of Silas, young and sharp, in a Prague alleyway; of a girl with straight black hair and bright blue eyes, laughing in a Cardiff park; of a woman with a scar on her wrist, stepping into the rain, her future wide open. He took another sip of whiskey. *A lifetime*, he thought. *We have a lifetime*. And for the first time in years, he didn’t feel like a man running. He felt like a man home.