Authors Note: Hi, everyone! This is my first piece in about six years...so please be kind! Also I've placed the characters in a setting that I'm familiar with, which is why they are in the Southern United States. Although the story is heavily A/U, I've tried to stay true to the essence of the characters, especially later in the story. I currently have about twelve chapters written and envision it being around twenty-five. I welcome all (constructive) criticism and hope you guys like it! :)

"Just don't you give him the wrong idea."

I turned in my seat and fixed Georgiana with an exasperated gaze. "When have I ever given him the wrong idea?"

"Oh, certainly never throughout college."

"We were just friends."

"Only because you always made sure he was firmly in the friend zone," she muttered.

"Everyone knew we were just friends."

"Except him."

"That is not true!" I exclaimed defensively. Georgiana was one of the most argumentative and bullheaded women I knew. She was also my oldest girlfriend, a fact which she assumed meant that she was precluded from my irritation when her contentious trait reared its ugly head. I hadn't even been back in the country for two full days yet but here we were anyway: stuck in Atlanta traffic and snapping at one another.

God. It was good to be back.

"I'm just saying-jerk!" Georgiana honked as a minivan cut her off. "That sometimes you flirt without realizing it."

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Thirty minutes later we were finally in pulling into the small parking lot of our favorite grungy pub in Midtown. As we walked into Juniper's, I felt a sense of trepidation settle over me.

What were you thinking, I asked myself. Coming here like nothing had changed?

Georgiana must have sensed my dread, because she quickly threw her arm around my shoulder and gave it a gentle squeeze. "It's trivia, Lou. Just like old times."

Yeah, I thought to myself. Just like old times.

I spotted them as soon as we walked in. They were still sitting at that corner booth; the one with the ratty seats and the table that rocked. Rupert was sitting in the middle, pouring over the menu-like it was his first time seeing it-with his girlfriend Alicia. Beside Alicia were two men that I didn't recognize. They were holding hands and engaged in an animated conversation with Freddie. In the back of my head I remembered Georgiana mentioning some of Freddie's coworkers had joined the team too. That must be them.

The lively conversation stopped as soon as we were spotted. When Freddie saw us, his eyes lit up and he jumped to his feet. He opened his arms wide and trapped Georgiana in a giant bear hug, then kissed her firmly on the lips. For as long as I had known them this was the way he acted every time he saw her: as if he were a blind man seeing his entire world for the first time.

Some people search their whole lives for something like that and still arrive at the end empty-handed.

I was empty handed.

With an almost equal amount of enthusiasm, Freddie turned to me and enveloped me in a hug as well. "We've missed you, Lou."

"I've missed you guys too," I replied. Freddie too was one of my oldest friends, and somehow his embrace calmed my unease. As we pulled away from one another, I looked around, feeling a confusing mixture of relief and disappointment. There was someone missing.

"Ah, there she is. Back from all of her great adventures."

The voice came from behind me. It was just as I remembered. Soft and low, husky almost. His voice was like a smooth Kentucky bourbon; and it warmed my core and burned my soul all at the same time. I braced myself as a wave of emotions and memories rushed over me.

I took a deep breath before I turned around. He was here after all.

Will.

He was grinning. The sight of his handsome face and brilliant smile after so long an absence almost knocked me to my knees. He was just like I remembered.

Except...he wasn't.

Although he masked it well, he couldn't hide it completely. Not from me, anyways. The broad grin playing on his lips stopped there. There was no light in his eyes. They looked hollow and empty and tired.

I felt shaken. There was no doubt that the Will Traynor I had once known was different from the man in front of me.

You had known he would be, and yet… I sighed and let the thought trail off.

My gaze left his face and traveled as I assessed the man that sat in the wheelchair in front of me. It was black and bulky and Will sat it in slightly reclined. His hair had grown out-it almost touched his shoulders now-and was much longer than I could ever remember having seen it in the last fifteen years. There was also stubble on his cheeks, the beginnings of a beard. His arms lay mostly motionless on the armrests, except for his right wrist which lay in the rest of a U-shaped joystick. All things considered, he looked healthy, if not a little pale. But, that could have been attributed to the poor lighting in the pub, or the overcast November skies.

"Oh, it wasn't as glamorous as all that." I rolled my eyes and leaned down to give him a hug. Halfway down, I paused, not sure of the mechanics of hugging a someone in massive wheelchair. "I went to Brussels a few months ago and ended up with measles."

I was still crouched halfway down. Any more hesitation on my part would make the situation even more uncomfortable than it already was.

The subtle but rich scent of musk hit me as I leaned in closer to complete the awkward hug. The smell was so familiar and comforting that it almost hurt. I breathed in deeply, and felt Will's chest shake as he started to chuckle. "Isn't there a vaccination for that?"

I tried to sear the memory of the smell into my nostrils and stood back up. After taking a step back so that he didn't have to crane his neck to look up at me, I grinned sheepishly. "Yeah, apparently they're still working the kinks out of that one."

I couldn't be sure, but from the way he threw his head back in laughter, I think he bought it.

I joined in his laughing, and for a moment it was just like old times. But eventually the laughter ended, and then we lapsed into an uncomfortable silence. Somehow our friends had alienated us and were all involved in deep conversation with one another, effectively ignoring us. No doubt that they thought they were being considerate and letting us privately catch up. After all, Will and I had been the instigators. The original partners in crime. We'd brought these people together. We'd started this Thursday night tradition fifteen years ago. We were the reason everyone was here...so the least they could do was give us some semblance of privacy, right? Because even though it had been so many years, there was no doubt in any of their minds that anything had changed between the two of us.

Yet, here we stood. The years weren't falling away, as people always said they did between old friends, but instead slowly forming like bricks and building an impenetrable wall.

I edged myself onto the edge of the booth beside Freddie. "Will," I started.

He shook his head. "Clark, please don't."

I looked down at my lap.

"You were in a different country," he said after a moment. "A different continent."

"I still should've called or -"

"Yes. You should have," he cut me off. I kept my gaze fixed on a speck of French fry littering the floor. "But then you would have had to pay those outrageous international charges."

He was letting me off the hook. Surprisingly. I couldn't stand it though, because I knew that out of all of his friends, I'd been the only one who hadn't so much as sent a text message when they had found out.

I looked up and our eyes met. His were a rich brown, full of emotions and thoughts that I had never been able to read. I'm not sure what mine reflected-remorse, regret-but Will had always been able to read me like a book. Only a nanosecond later he chuckled and added, "I probably wouldn't have answered your overpriced call anyway. I was too busy being a dick and wallowing in self-pity."

I gave him an incredulous look. "You? Being an insufferable ass? Say it ain't so."

"I know," he laughed. "I managed to push a decent amount of people away, but try as I might, I couldn't get rid of those guys," he nodded in the direction of Freddie and Georgiana and Rupert. "The three of them are like leeches."

I smiled at Will cautiously, hearing the words he wasn't saying underneath the confession: It's okay. I understand.

He returned it with one of his brightest. This time it extended to his eyes. "Okay. That's enough of that. Now, I want to hear about your adventures. Your favorite building, your favorite city, and how in the hell you would up with measles."

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Just like it always did, trivia lasted two hours. Our team, The Purple People Eaters, came in second-no thanks to me and Will.

There was just so much to talk about, to catch up on. His life, my life, our parents, our friends and acquaintances. He wanted to hear-in excruciating detail-about the three years that I'd been abroad studying fashion and design. Meanwhile, I wanted to know all the things that I couldn't actually bring myself to ask: would things get worse, and if so, when?

Instead, I learned that he'd started working again last June. He'd started his own small consulting business and operated it from home. Oh, he'd bought a house too. A nice little Queen Anne cottage, picked purely on the architectural style. "Because you always said Queen Anne was your favorite," he told me.

I looked at him sharply.

"The look on your face!" he laughed heartily, but his shoulders barely shook. "I kid. I'm totally kidding."

I huffed at being the butt of his joke. "Queen Anne are my favorite," I mumbled darkly.

"You'll have to come out and see it sometime," he paused and chose his next words carefully. "Maybe this weekend?"

"It's a date!" Georgiana caught my eye from across the table. I thought back to our earlier conversation in the car, and rolled my eyes. Will was a thirty-three year old man and he knew what I meant. So I didn't take the words back.

It was 10:30 before anyone finally gave in and left. Rupert and Alicia were first. "It's a school night," he apologized as they gathered their things. They were both teachers.

"Pansy," I joked. "You barely could make it past 10:00 when we were in college."

He balled up his used napkin and threw it across the table, hitting me squarely in the forehead. Alicia rolled her eyes and announced she'd be waiting in the car. She left without another word to anyone.

"Oh, for God's sake," Will blurted out as we watched her cross the restaurant. "She needs to get the stick out of her-."

"She's just tired. It's late," Rupert interrupted and apologized.

Will guffawed. "She's abrasive."

After they finally left, Freddie and Georgiana went to the bar to snag us one last round before 11:00. While we waited, Brodie, a friend of Freddie's, turned to us. "So Freddie said you all met in college?"

I nodded. "Yep, in 2001." I groaned as I realized how long it had been. "Good God, fifteen years."

"Has it really been that long?" Freddie asked as he and Georgiana returned carrying three beers apiece. There was a long straw in one of them. For Will, I assumed. "It's flown by."

Will eyed him skeptically. "Has it though?"

"Well, sure." Freddie said seriously. He moved the beer with the straw in it and lifted it to where Will could reach. "I mean, think of all of the great adventures we've had in the last fifteen years."

"I can think of some great disasters," I mumbled, mostly under my breath. Brodie giggled.

"Oh, oh!" Georgiana suddenly exclaimed. "Like the trip to Africa!"

I grimaced. "That one was definitely something."

"Yeah, well it was far from a disaster!" Will said defensively.

"We were stuck in Arusha for three days."

"And I got giardia." Georgiana added brightly.

"I told you that you needed to treat the water before drinking it, Georgiana."

Brodie stared at us.

"We were celebrating," Will started to explain. He engaged the joystick on his chair and turned to face Brodie. "It was the summer after we graduated college. I planned this big elaborate trip to Tanzania."

Freddie snorted. "Yeah, except that your broken Swahili landed us in Mwanza instead of Arusha."

"That's the other side of the country," Georgiana clarified in a stage whisper to Brodie.

He laughed at the punchline, and then insisted we tell the whole story, from start to finish. For the rest of the night, we outlined the whole ordeal, laughing until we were practically crying, as we each thought back to one of the best years of our lives, and no doubt, wishing we could just go back.