AI The low hum of conversation vibrated through the worn floorboards of The Raven's Nest. Amber light from the bar cast long shadows that stretched and contorted the faces of the few patrons scattered at tables. Rory leaned against the polished mahogany, tracing the grain with a fingertip. The scent of stale beer, lemon polish, and something faintly metallic – Silas’s perpetual hand sanitiser – hung in the air . It was a familiar smell, a comforting camouflage. Outside, Soho pulsed with its usual nocturnal energy, a restless beast that never slept. Inside, time often felt suspended, a forgotten relic behind the green neon sign.
She finished wiping down the counter near the till, placing the damp cloth beside a stack of coasters. Silas was nowhere in sight, likely holed up in his office, poring over ledgers or whatever secrets the night demanded. A small smile touched her lips. He’d hired her for her discretion as much as her speed, a quiet understanding passing between them after she’d walked into his bar, looking like she’d been running from something important, clutching the keys to the flat above.
The bell above the door jingled, a sharp, cheerful sound that cut through the bar’s low murmur. Rory glanced up, her mind already cataloguing the usual late-night arrivals: office workers unwinding, theatre folk seeking a final drink, the occasional lost tourist. But the man silhouetted against the illuminated street drew her gaze, a flicker of something she couldn't quite place . He stepped inside, shaking a stray drizzle from a dark, expensive-looking overcoat. He moved with a confidence, a practiced ease . Not the furtive shuffle of someone trying to disappear, but the purposeful stride of someone who belonged everywhere .
He turned, his eyes scanning the room. And then they landed on her.
His eyebrows, darker than she remembered, pulled together in confusion, then widened with a jolt of recognition. A slow, almost disbelieving smile unfurled across his lips.
"Rory?" The name, when it came, was a question. A relic.
Her breath hitched, just for a second. The smooth, worn wood of the bar suddenly felt foreign under her hands. "Ethan?" The name felt clunky, unfamiliar . It had been years. So many years that the boy who’d spoken it with a cheeky grin felt like a character in a book she’d long since finished.
He approached, his gait even and steady, no hint of the awkward teenage sprawl she recalled. His jawline was sharper, his posture straighter. He wore a suit, tailored and dark, that seemed to absorb the bar’s dim light. On his right wrist, a gleam of gold caught her eye – a watch, impossibly sleek. Silas’s stories about the world beyond this one often featured such details, markers of ascent.
"Bloody hell," Ethan said, stopping a few feet away. He chuckled, a low, resonant sound, nothing like the nervous bursts of laughter she remembered. "Aurora Carter. I didn't believe it was you. You look… well." He scanned her again, his gaze lingering for a fraction too long. It wasn't the casual appreciation of a stranger, but a more critical assessment. "Still serving drinks?"
The question hung in the air , sharp and unexpected. She didn't flinch. "Something like that," she replied, her voice steady . "And you? You're a long way from Cardiff."
"Only for the week," he said, his eyes bright . "Business. Closing a deal. London’s always buzzing, isn't it? Always something happening." He gestured vaguely with a hand that looked far too manicured. "Never thought I’d see you in a place like this, though. Always thought you'd end up… somewhere else."
"Here works," she said, picking up the polishing cloth again. She’d learned that when life threw curveballs, neatness helped. "It's quiet. People don't ask too many questions."
He leaned against the bar, not with the casual abandon of a patron, but with the possessive air of someone who expected service . "No questions? That's a change, isn't it? You used to have a thousand questions for everything. Used to want to know how it all worked, how it all fit together." He paused, his smile turning a fraction harder . "Still got that scar?"
Her left wrist, unseen beneath her sleeve, tightened into a fist. The crescent moon ached, a phantom sensation. She met his gaze directly, her own blue eyes unreadable . "Some things stay with you."
"Some things," he echoed softly . He signaled to a stool. "Mind if I…?"
She nodded towards an unoccupied stool near the end of the bar. "Silas is usually around. He'll sort you out." She hadn't moved from her spot behind the counter. The dynamic felt wrong. He wasn't the impetuous boy who'd once tried to scale the tallest tree in Bute Park with her. This man was built of different materials.
Ethan settled onto the stool, his movements fluid, his expensive shoes tapping a silent rhythm on the floor. A waiter, one of the younger ones Rory sometimes worked with, immediately appeared, a notepad at the ready. Ethan ordered a scotch, neat, with a casual wave of his hand that suggested he’d done it a thousand times.
"So," Ethan began, turning back to her as the waiter retreated, "what about you? Eva said you just… vanished. Packed up and gone one day. Left everyone wondering."
"Eva," Rory murmured, the name stirring a faint, unwelcome warmth . Eva, who’d found her, who’d pulled her from the wreckage. Eva had always been the rescuer. "She worries too much. I just needed… space."
"Space?" He took a slow sip of his scotch, his hazel eyes appraising her over the rim of the glass. "London's a big place for 'space', Rory. Bigger than you needed, maybe." He set the glass down with a quiet click. "Still seeing Evan?"
The question, so blunt, so carelessly dropped, landed like a stone. The air in the bar seemed to thicken, drawing in the shadows. Rory kept her gaze fixed on the bottles behind him, her hands stilling. She remembered the nights Evan’s shadow had fallen over her, the tight knot of fear in her stomach . She remembered Ethan, caught somewhere between oblivious and unwilling to see.
"No," she said, her voice a low, level tone that didn't betray the tremor that ran through her. "I left him behind. A while ago. Long before London."
Ethan nodded slowly , a thoughtful expression on his face. "Right. Of course. Eva mentioned… some trouble. Sorry, I didn’t mean to pry. Just curious how the brave Rory Carter ended up behind a bar in Soho." He paused, a glint in his eye. "Thought you’d be debating in Parliament by now. Or arguing some massive case. That fire you had, Rory. It was… something."
"Fire gets banked, Ethan," she replied, picking up a clean glass and examining it for imperfections. "Doesn't mean it goes out."
He chuckled again, that unnerving, smooth sound. "Maybe. Or maybe it just smoulders, waiting for the right wind. Mine never really caught. Not the way I intended, anyway." He gestured with his scotch. "Law school. You remember? Dad practically packed my bags the day graduation rolled around. Said there was good money in defence work. Cutthroat, but good money."
Rory met his gaze, a subtle shift in her posture. Pre-Law. Her own father, the barrister, pushing her towards the same path. The suffocating weight of expectation. "So, you did it?"
"I did it," he confirmed, taking another sip. "Been making my way. Got a firm now. Little one, but it's ours. Specialise in corporate mergers. Sounds dull, doesn't it? But the figures… they’re something else. Figures don't lie, Rory. They just add up. Or down." He turned the glass in his hand. "We built it, my partner and I. Brick by brick. Took a lot of late nights. A lot of… compromises."
"Compromises," Rory repeated, the word tasting bitter . She knew about compromises. Her compromise was keeping her head down, serving drinks, keeping her silence , ensuring the crescent scar on her wrist never saw the light of day. His compromise… he hadn't elaborated, but the way he'd said "cutthroat" and the almost-too-bright gleam in his eyes suggested it was a different currency.
"Yeah. You learn to see things differently when you're fighting for your own patch. You see what people are really made of. What they'll do for a piece of the pie." He leaned forward, his voice dropping slightly , though it still carried easily across the bar. "Evan… he was like that, wasn’t he? Always wanted a bigger slice, didn’t care who he stepped on to get it. I saw the way he looked at you even back then. Knew it wouldn't end well."
"You saw?" A flicker of something – surprise, resentment – broke through her carefully constructed calm. He’d seen. And he’d done nothing. He’d just watched the boy with the "bigger slice" mentality circle her. "You never said anything."
Ethan shrugged, a small, almost imperceptible movement of his broad shoulders. "What could I say? You were already in deep. And honestly, Rory, you were always the one who could handle things. You were the smart one. I figured you had it under control." He smiled, a tight, self-deprecating twist of his lips. "Turns out, I didn't. I just… drifted into my own fight. My own sort of survival."
He looked around the bar, then back at her. "Still, The Raven's Nest. This little bolt-hole. It's a far cry from the life we talked about, isn't it? The globetrotting, the risks, the grand adventures? We were going to change the world, remember? Or at least shake it up."
Rory picked up a clean glass, her fingers moving with a practiced efficiency. "The world keeps turning, Ethan. Sometimes it just doesn't go the way you planned." She ran her thumb over the smooth, cool surface of the glass. "You get off when you can. Find a place to land. Make do."
He watched her for a moment, his gaze unreadable . The easy charm he’d displayed earlier had faded, replaced by a kind of weary appraisal. "Make do," he repeated, a low hum of something that might have been disappointment, or perhaps just resignation. He raised his glass again. "To making do, then."
She met his gaze, her own unnervingly steady. She lifted her chin, her mouth forming a small, unsmiling curve. "I'll drink my own kind of toast, thanks."
The waiter returned with Ethan's drink. He took a long, slow swallow, his eyes never leaving Rory. Her own hand rested near the crescent scar, a silent knot of history tight in her chest. The silence between them grew, a heavy, charged thing, filled with the ghosts of shared dreams and the stark outlines of lives irrevocably altered.