Run: 2026-09-29-01M3P2E9FD4DESVP6Y9T7KZSEA

Rain drove Rory through the Nest's side door with her helmet under one arm and a Golden Empress bag dangling from the other. The green neon bled through the front window and turned the puddles on the floorboards the colour of pond water. Silas stood behind the bar, polishing a tumbler that was already clean. His signet ring clicked against the glass. "Your two o'clock is at the end," he said. "She's been nursing that gin since nine." "I don't have a two o'clock." "Then she has you." Rory followed his nod. A woman sat alone on the last stool, in a navy blazer with the sleeves pushed to her elbows. Her hair was cropped close to the skull and the colour of wet sand. She peeled the label from a tonic bottle in one long strip, careful not to tear it. Rory stopped walking. Nobody else peeled a label like that. Megan Price had done it in the Students' Union for three years, and had left a pile of paper curls beside every pint. Megan looked up. The strip fell. "Aurora Carter." "Rory." "Is it?" Megan's mouth twitched. "The bloke behind the bar called you Laila." "He calls me a lot of things." "I bet he does." Megan slid off the stool. She stood a full inch taller than Rory remembered, or the blazer made her look it. "Christ. Look at you. You've gone all…" She circled a finger in the air. "Sleek." "You've gone all solicitor." "Barrister's clerk, actually. Fifth year." She held up her left hand. A thin gold band sat on it. "And married. Three years in June." "Congratulations." "You'd have known that if you'd come." Rory set the bag on the bar. Silas drifted to the far end, taking his glass and his limp with him. "I didn't get an invitation." "I sent one to your mum's. She said she'd pass it on." Megan tilted her head. "She didn't, did she?" "She might have. I moved." "You moved *six years ago*, Ror." The name landed like a coin in a well. Rory listened for the splash. Nothing came back up. "Sit down," Rory said. "Please. Let me get you a proper drink. Not that." "I'm on the tonic now. The gin's for show." Megan lifted the empty bottle and set it down again. "Doctor's orders, and a husband's. I had a rough couple of years after you left." "Meg." "I'm not making a point. I'm giving you the weather report." She climbed back onto the stool. "Conference at the Gray's Inn. Somebody said the Nest did a decent steak pie, so I walked in and there you were, like a bad penny with better cheekbones." Rory took the stool beside her. Up close, faint lines bracketed Megan's mouth, fine as thread. A silver chain at her throat held a tiny microphone charm, the kind sold at karaoke bars. "You still sing?" Megan's hand went to the charm. "Choir at St Mary's. Second alto. Sundays." She laughed, a short breath through her nose. "You remember the Bluebird? Me in that ridiculous pink wig, doing Dusty Springfield for forty quid and a bar tab?" "You brought the house down." "I brought the ceiling down. Half a tile. Dai the landlord docked me a tenner." Megan's laugh faded. "You were in the front row every Thursday. Every one. Then you weren't." The neon hummed. A glass rang somewhere behind them. "Evan didn't like Thursdays," Rory said. "I know he didn't." Megan kept her eyes on the bar. "I came to your flat. Twice. The second time you opened the door six inches and told me you were fine. You had a cardigan on. In July." "Meg…" "I'm not asking you to say anything. I just want you to know I saw the cardigan." She turned her wedding band around her finger. "I stood on that landing for ten minutes after you shut the door. I wanted to kick it in. Then I went home and did nothing, because you asked me to." "I asked you to leave." "Same thing, at twenty-two." Rory pressed her thumb into the crescent scar on her left wrist and held it there until the skin whitened. Megan noticed. Megan had always noticed. "He never touched you," Rory said. "You know that? You were the one person he couldn't stand and never once put a hand on. I used to think that was luck." "And now?" "Now I think you were too loud for him." Rory almost smiled. "He liked quiet. So I got quiet. I got so good at it that I forgot how to be anything else." "You're not quiet now." "Am I not?" "No." Megan studied her, and her eyes softened without going gentle. "You're careful. That's different. You clocked the door when you came in, and the window, and me. You counted the exits before you counted my face." Rory said nothing. Behind the bar, Silas straightened a photograph of a Prague street that already hung straight. "Who taught you that?" Megan asked. "Nobody." "Rory." "A friend." Rory pulled the takeaway bag toward her and unfolded its top, for something to do with her hands. "It keeps me sharp. I deliver food for a living. You'd be amazed what you learn about a city from the back doors." "You dropped out of Pre-Law to carry noodles across London." "Part-time." "Oh, *part-time*." Megan pressed her fingers to her eyes and laughed until it cracked in the middle. "Sorry. Sorry. It's not funny. You had the best mind on that course. You argued Professor Hale into a corner over *Donoghue v Stevenson* and he thanked you for it." "He said I'd make a formidable barrister." "He said it to me at your graduation." "I didn't graduate." "I know. He said it anyway, to the empty seat." Megan lowered her hand. Her eyes had reddened along the rims. "I keep a spare chair for you at every dinner. Tom thinks it's a superstition. It's a rebuke, honestly." Rory looked at the empty stool on her other side. Nobody had sat there all evening. She put her palm flat on the leather. "I wrote to you," she said. "Eleven letters. The first winter here." "I never got—" "I didn't post them." She turned her head. "They're in a biscuit tin under my bed. Upstairs. I could fetch them." "Ror." "I'd like you to have them. Read them on the train and hate me a bit. You've earned it." Megan sat very still. The tonic bottle sweated a ring onto the mahogany. When she spoke, her voice had dropped to the register she must use for the second alto line, low and level. "I don't hate you. I've tried. I'm rubbish at it." She wiped her cheek with the heel of her hand. "I just wanted you to walk through that door once and say you were sorry, and mean it, and let me be furious for an hour. Then buy me a pie." "I'm sorry." "Good." "I mean it." "I know. You've got your thumb on your wrist. You only do that when you're telling the truth." Megan sniffed and straightened the blazer. "Go on, then. Get the tin." Rory stood. Her knees felt unreliable, as they had on the landing of a flat in Cardiff six years before, with a door six inches open and a cardigan in July. "Silas," she called. "A steak pie for the lady. And a chair." "You've got a chair," Silas said, not looking up. "A second one. For a friend." He set down the glass. His hazel eyes held hers for a moment, and then he dragged a stool from the wall and placed it beside Megan's with a soft scrape of wood. "Anything else?" he asked. "Two forks," said Megan. "She'll want a bite. She always did."