Amber didn't know that she would be still single at twenty-four. She'd always expected to be married and living in a castle with several handmaids by this age, her prince a combination of romantic and spontaneity that she saw in eighties movies. She didn't have to work for a minute, spending a generous portion of her husband's money on retail therapy and the cats and dogs she'd always wanted to have. Most importantly, she would have proved Daddy wrong.

Of course, Amber learned quickly that life tended to throw shit when one least wanted or expected it to. Ever since she moved to New York things were more fucked up than she could care to admit. Life was hard, what with assignments being due in all the time, and reading Vogue seemed so much like a chore. She didn't mind harnessing her higher-than-average abilities to dissect outfits down to the core, but in some occasions it felt overused and unnatural. She preferred using it on her friends rather than to please several fashion experts. (Granted, it was in her nature to try and please everyone, just not all the time.) Then she graduated fashion school at the ripe old age of nineteen. It was Nina who got her through the first year of unemployment, letting her stay at her place and reap her benefits.

Her restlessness led her to several down-and-out companies, where she worked for several months before they finally shut down. It wasn't enough to continue her previous habit of shopping luxuriously, but it was enough to put food on the table. It was enough, and she didn't know how she ever got used to that.

At twenty-four and at a company whose outlook seemed more promising than those she had been employed in in the past, she'd heard of Alfie Lewis's presence in New York city through a phone call with Jerome. Naturally, Amber had dialed her ex's number - after some long hours of coercion - asking for a coffee date at six in the evening. She would have to forgo the luxury of a candlelit dinner considering her thinning pockets, and if Alfie hadn't changed it was more of his thing anyway.

An hour to go. Dousing her long blonde hair in a stream of cold water, Amber decided that she had rinsed her hair enough to at least look like she had the high maintenance attitude she was so accustomed to in her formative years. Her outfit was laid out neatly on the bed, most of them from last year as she had never gotten to saving enough from her paycheck to hoard products from various haute couture sales. "You never thought you'd end up like this, didn't you?" she whispered, half smirking as she dressed herself. "Yeah, me neither."

After bidding Nina a brief farewell, Amber sashayed down New York's trottoires to the cafe on 88th she said she'd meet Alfie in. By the time she arrived he was already there, sipping his own cuppa as another one was steaming across the table from him. Amber raised a brow in approval as to the way he was dressed: it seemed that she had taught him well back when they were together. It was his turn to see her, and he too seemed visibly dumbfounded by her change in appearance.

"Hey," Alfie greeted, gently pushing her coffee towards her. "I - um, ordered you a coffee. Grande latte, two sugars and cream, if that's right?"

"Yeah," she replied, "that's right. You remembered."

"I'm sorry, Alfie, but I still can't imagine you married."

The conversation had somehow taken a very humorous turn, as it often did whenever Jokerman Lewis was concerned. They had elaborated on their circumstances since they had last seen each other. Of course they'd heard about Amber's slowly increasing reputation and Alfie's marriage to Willow Jenks (though that, Amber had heard from Jerome and was not invited to the wedding). Now that they were sitting across from one another and hearing the fine details, it felt almost like old times again.

"Don't worry, you aren't the only one that can't imagine me married. Jerome can't either, and I see him a lot more often than you do." Alfie gave Amber a small smile. "I'm married, and sometimes I think that this marriage doesn't feel as real as it should. Willow is a special girl - you have to agree with that - but... it doesn't feel... it doesn't feel right."

"You must have gone through a lot, though, if you know you love her," Amber advised, returning his smile. "I mean, if you did go through creepy Egyptian tunnels and saw a dead man awake and had to like, deal with bugs and all that kind of stuff then you must love her. I don't know much about being married but they say that if you go through really hard times with someone then you tend to have a stronger love or something. By they, of course, I mean Nina's romance books."

Alfie's smile widened as he thought of those days, and so did Amber's. She remembered screaming as the bugs crawled up her hand and her body. Alfie was always there to be counted on when things got too scary for her. He climbed through the tunnel for her, only for things to turn out awfully bad for him. She had always taken it for granted back then, but after numerous failed relationships (she had dated Mick a couple of years ago, and had dumped him after three weeks) she wished she never left Anubis House. If she didn't, he wouldn't be married and maybe she would be the one bearing the Lewis family name.

"Amber?" Her name being uttered brought her out of her stupor, and she gazed upwards, her eyes locking on his. "Wha - what do you think would have happened if... if you'd stayed?" His fingernails scratched his scalp. "I know that... it - it's an inappropriate question b - but... I've always wondered i - if you've wondered."

Resting her chin on her hand, Amber gave an almost noncommittal shrug. "Of course I've wondered. I wish I didn't leave too, sometimes." Her mind paused. "Why? Do you wish I never left?"

"I do."

"Do... do you love me, Alfie?"

There was a deafening silence which took the both of them. The cymbals crashed when he nodded. "I love you, but you know I can't - we can't - I, you're my first love, Amber. I'll always love you."

"And I, you."

His hand searched for hers across the table, and she did not give him much room for error. Their fingertips met at the intersection of fashion and jokes, of intricacy against simplicity. Slowly, their fingers wound round one another as if the old days had never passed. They were sixteen and Egyptian detectives once more: not twenty-four and alone.

The moment lasted for a long time as the New York sky slowly darkened from an orange to the dark blue night they had spent so much time observing when they were younger. She missed him so much: she missed the way his arms wrapped so readily around her every time he could, the taste of raspberries on his lips which had always resulted in an itch later in the day. The way he'd always make an effort during their former dates by trying to dress nice. He may have been a total klutz, but he'd always been her klutz, and she'd loved him enough to cry the twelve hours to New York. She'd loved him enough to carve his name into the air with sparklers during New Year's Eve. She loved him enough to leave him so he could be safe.

If her pain was the cost, then so be it.

Amber's hand retreated, her eyes still firmly fixed on her fingers. They were tingled and warm, trembling from the affection she wished she had to herself. Alfie gave her one final look, half-smiling in order to try and lighten her up. They both knew they could never see each other sad without wanting to cry themselves.

"Goodbye, Amber."

He leaned in to kiss her, and they kissed for so long that by the time they pulled apart Amber smelled the raspberries on his lips and she was sure that her rosy perfume was imprinted on his shirt. They shared a long gaze as their half-drunk coffee cups were finally at an atmospheric temperature, with no hint of steam billowing from the small openings at their lids. He then held her hand one last time before letting it droop slowly, turning around and walking away from their last night.

"Goodbye."

A/N: So, my first HOA fic. Feel free to constructively criticise this fic. I won't mind.