Hello. My name is Hope. Most of you probably don't know me. I was very popular in this fandom about 3 years back. I stopped writing HOA as I got further into high school, but I recently received a request to go back and write a new HOA fic. I didn't think I would, I didn't have a plot, but then this idea was born. It's a bit mature at first, bordering on M, but I'm going to keep it T because really this kind of stuff is in pg-13 things all the time. Anyways enjoy. It's good to be back. I'll update as I write, so no set schedule, but I'm on break right now so things should come fairly fast. Enjoy!

Chapter 1

She was never supposed to see him again. She was never supposed to see any of them again. When she'd chosen not to return to Amun Boarding school she'd chosen never to see any of them again, but she'd especially chosen to never see him again.

And yet, there he stood in front of her, just a few hundred feet away. He looked much the same, perhaps a little bit older, a little bit surer, a little bit…manlier, but much the same. His back was turned to her; he had no idea she was standing there, frozen, just behind him. She didn't need to see his face, however, to see the crinkle of his eyebrows or the blue oceans of his eyes. Even though years had passed she still knew this boy, this man, just as well as she knew herself. Nina knew he could never change, not the way she had.

There was a part of her, the sane part most likely, that said she needed to just run. Lots of people panicked when they finally arrived for their year abroad. Nina would lose a bit of money, and it would be difficult, but she could turn around and go back to Massachusetts that very second. He never would know she'd been there in the first place. He never would know that she'd walked away for the second time.

But it had been four years since Nina had last seen him, and she'd changed quite a bit in that time. She'd never been a coward when faced with danger, but when faced with reality Nina had always run away. No more. The last few years hadn't been kind to Nina, and she now knew that you can't just run away from the messes life throws at you. Sometimes you need to stand firm and just let life punch you in the gut.

Nina shut her eyes, took a deep breath, and prepared to call out his name. Just before she could, however, a different voice beat her to it. "Fabian!"

Fabian turned at the voice, and Nina could see the smile on his face. It was a smile that had once been reserved only for her, and her stomach dropped when she realized just who the girl was, or, specifically, just whom the girl was to Fabian. "Eva!"

The two embraced, and Nina turned away when she saw Fabian tilt his head down to kiss 'Eva'. The feeling of jealousy the spiked within her was ridiculous, Nina knew that, but she couldn't make it go away. Instead she found herself backing away. She wasn't about to run back to Heathrow Airport, but she couldn't dare stand around and watch this.

Fabian pulled away from Eva as he caught a flicker of movement in the corner of his eye. If he hadn't known better he would have said it was… well that it was her. Obviously it wasn't of course. She has been gone for four year, and she'd never even been in London. Fabian was just hallucinating, or perhaps it had just been someone who looked similar. Nina was a pretty common looking person. (Or so Fabian had been telling himself for years. He was almost to the point of believing it as well.)

"You okay?" Eva asked noting Fabian's distraction. There was a hint of hurt in her eyes, and when Fabian grabbed her shoulder it was remarkably tense. "You look like you've seen a ghost."

Fabian had seen a ghost, but not in years. That was his past, his secret legacy no one would ever believe. It was certainly nothing Eva would ever know about. "I'm fine," Fabian assured her with a quick smile. "I just thought I saw someone watching us," he admitted before massaging her shoulders to loosen them up a bit. "I've got to go see my advisor about one of my classes. Come over to my apartment for six."

"Netflix and chill?"

Fabian rolled his eyes, and planted a kiss on her soft lips, "Dinner."

Eva wiggled an eyebrow, as if that would change his mind, but let Fabian go on his way. He hurried across campus to his advisor's office, but despite there still being 10 minutes left to office hours, the lights were all off.

"Damn it, I guess I'm stuck in the Egyptology Seminar. It's almost as if the universe doesn't want to give me a break," Fabian muttered to himself. On the bright side, however, he now had extra time to gather supplies for dinner with ever over-excited Eva.

But Fabian didn't mind her eagerness because he loved her. He loved her more than he'd ever loved someone before. (Or at least that was what he told himself every night before he went to sleep.)

"You can't fucking do this to me!" Eddie Miller howled banging on the door. He knew Jed, his landlord, was still right on the other side, but the elder man wasn't responding. Jed knew that if he opened the door his drunk-former-tenant would probably punch him in the face. "I didn't do shit to deserve this!"

Eddie kept banging, but he got no answer. Finally he hit the metal door so hard that his skin began to bleed, and he gave up. Letting out a string of curse words, Eddie wrapped his hand in one of his old shirts and laughed when he realized just how old the shirt was. It was one of his old uniform shirts from high school. He hadn't even realized that he still had any of those shirts. He didn't realize he still had anything from those days. He certainly didn't have any of the joy or luck he'd had in those days.

Eddie opened up his phone and noticed that the battery was almost dead- just one more thing going wrong. There was just enough battery for him to make one call. He was tempted to call Patricia. She was in school in London still, and while it had been two years Eddie knew her well enough to know she'd come. She'd come and make fun of him. She'd come and yell at him for what he'd done to himself. She'd come.

Of course his father would come as well. He would, undoubtedly drive all the way from Liverpool to pick up his son. He wouldn't yell or scream or throw things, but his disappointment would be just as palpable as Patricia's. What was worse, he'd want to help Eddie. He'd want to do something to fix his son.

But you can't fix what's broken and you can't bring the dead back to life. Eddie didn't want Patricia's disappointment or his father's help. There were others who Eddie could call, but then he'd owe them favors, and they weren't exactly the kind of people you wanted to owe favors.

Finally Eddie just let his phone die and hailed a cab. There was one person he could go to who would offer neither judgment nor help. Eddie had to admit that he'd only kept track of where Fabian was living for this exact reason. Fabian would let Eddie crash for one night while Eddie decided whether he should continue ruining his life or just end it. Fabian was good at dealing with broken people.

"280 High Holband, London," Eddie told the cabbie before adding on, "Please."