It's just before noon on a remarkably pleasant Northampton morning, and Hannelore Ellicott-Chatham is taking her lunch break.
She walks past freshly organised stock to the back door of the Coffee of Doom, opens it, and looks out into the dirty alley that sits behind the shop. Finding no one there, she steps out, pushes the door closed, and silently permits the tears she's been holding back for hours to stream, unhindered, down her face.
It's not the first time she's cried today. The first time had been when Marten had re-entered the shop and revealed that Claire was interviewing, that very moment, for the role at Cubetown. A burst of emotion, a surprise, but mostly a flash in the pan, not something she'd well-thought out. A harbinger for what was to come.
The second time had been when Claire had come back in and elaborated on what the job would entail. There'd been fewer tears, but more of a shock. Claire isn't just interviewing anymore. They want her for the role. They want her to go.
Hannelore's frankly amazed at herself for holding things together for so long after that, distracting herself with answering questions; calling Station and getting him to talk about Cubetown, with work. With anything else.
But now she's crying for the third time, and it's different. She's had time to think, to think about what it means, what will happen, and what - who - she's soon to lose.
She leans back against the wall, feels it pushing her grey tank top against her body, feels the cold where the brick touches her bare arms, and rests her hand on the dumpster to keep herself steady. Her skin crawls at once from all the contact, but her mind is too focused on worrying about the future to summon sufficient will to care about the present. A part of her brain is screaming about it still, but it will have to wait its turn.
Two words repeat over and over in her head - two words that, she has to admit, have been pressing deeper into her mind from the moment she first heard the good news, from the moment she understood what it would mean. Two words so selfish that she knows there's no way she'll ever be able to say them.
Don't go.
A few days pass.
She's sitting with Dora and Tai in the library, helping them sort the last few hanging threads with their wedding plans. It's a warm autumn evening, so Northampton's student population has mostly decamped to engage in more entertaining activities, and the building is reasonably empty. Dora's left Penelope in charge of the Coffee of Doon, and Tai's supposed to be working, but isn't. The "perks of being in charge", she calls it.
On the whole, Hannelore's satisfied enough with the preparations so far. Tai may as well be chaos personified, and averse to thinking beyond even the next day, let alone towards an event a few weeks away, but Dora is fastidious, paying great attention to the slightest detail. Hannelore knows what her friend already has covered, and what she doesn't, and helps to fill in the gaps from there.
She was so happy when she learned that they were engaged, but sometimes wonders what it is that brings the two together when they seem so very different. She sees how each's behaviour sometimes grates on the other, doesn't quite understand how each can cope with the other - and yet they do. They love each other, that's what matters, and she doesn't need to understand it herself.
It's their relationship, not hers, and it's not like she has any experience of her own where such things are concerned. What right does she have to question it?
It's getting late, and they're almost ready to pack up and go when Dora's phone, on silent, buzzes. "It's Marten," she announces, to little surprise. He and Claire have jetted off to Cubetown to see the facility, to meet the staff and to better understand the work that the latter will be doing before she accepts the job.
Dora picks up the call and holds the phone to her ear. "Hi hon– oh, hi Claire!"
Hannelore winces, startled by the sudden noise in this mostly quiet place. Dora has her call volume up so loud that their red-haired friend is somewhat audible, even without the speaker. Marten's voice is there too, hovering in the background, but Clare seems to be doing the most talking.
She's happy for Claire. She really is. Claire's one of her friends, if not exactly a close one, and she wants to see her do well, succeed, and be happy.
But - and she fully acknowledges that following a statement with 'but' renders it almost meaningless - but…
She doesn't know what to make of Marten and Claire's relationship. And… she doesn't like the way that Claire speaks to him, sometimes. The way she interrupts him when he's barely begun to speak. It feels so… dismissive.
She feels a bit anxious, a little guilty for thinking this way. What right does she have to judge their relationship? It's not like she's around them all the time. She doesn't know how they act when they're alone.
And, after all, she's never dated anyone herself. She doesn't know what it's like to be part of a couple. She doesn't even have any memories of her parents as a couple, before the divorce. All she has to go on is the example of her friends, and what she's consumed in the realm of fiction, from the safety of her room.
Maybe the stories are wrong. Maybe that's what some relationships are like.
Maybe that's what love is like.
She hopes that it isn't.
"Hold on, I'm putting you on speaker." Dora says, tapping at her phone, apparently nonplussed that they're sitting in a library. "Tai and Hanners are both here."
"Get this - we thought the chief of security was trying to bug our room, but she was really just trying to–"
Claire interrupts him with a vehement Ssssh that carries harshly through the speaker, and Dora and Tai laugh.
Hannelore snaps her pencil in half.
She can't sleep.
It's a week before the wedding, still a while before her friends' final departure, and she lays in bed, tossing and turning.
Insomnia is nothing new to her, of course, but normally her sleepless nights are consumed with simple anxiety - about the world, about work, or just about herself.
This is different. As she lies awake, she remembers, and she imagines.
She remembers the first time they met. The remarkable cocktail of pills she was on at the time renders her recollection something of a blur, but she can't forget his kindness; his understanding and his acceptance… even if there had been a taser involved, at first.
She remembers hugging him for the first time, having just landed her job at the Coffee of Doom. How happy she'd been that day. How warm he'd felt to embrace.
She imagines another wedding, one that she never attended, through sickness and misfortune. A moment missed, an opportunity lost.
She imagines his arms around her waist, gently pulling her close. The feeling of his breath on her face as she leans in, and their lips–
She clutches her pillow tight, wishing for sleep that will not come.
More time passes. The days slip by, and Tai and Dora's wedding comes and goes.
It's a lovely affair - both of them are utterly gorgeous in their dresses. Things go mostly as planned on the day - thanks primarily to Dora, and with proportionately less thanks to Tai - the songs are sung, the vows are said, the cake is eaten (not necessarily in that order). There's a brief mix-up with the rings, but Marten - going above and beyond in his duties as Dora's best man - manages to resolve things before it becomes too much of a problem.
Naturally, Hannelore cries as they seal their eternal promise with the kiss. Surprisingly, so does Faye.
She has to admit to playing some small role in helping Marten sort things out at the last, though doing so means she doesn't see him much outside of the ceremony, and only in passing at the reception later. She comes away resolved to spend more time with him before he leaves.
It doesn't happen that way. In the end, they're both… busy.
Mostly, he's the busy one. There's a lot to do when you're moving from one place to another, and moving to a different country adds an additional layer of complexity. She messages him, offering to help him with any paperwork he needs sorting - maybe they could make an afternoon of it? - but he thanks her for the offer and gently declines. Cubetown has clerks and solicitors engaged to resolve everything on that front, and Claire is determined to see and be sure that they're capable of handling such a task. Which is understandable.
On the few occasions that he would have been free, she isn't. One day she's working, covering a shift for Ayo. Another, Marigold has asked her to dinner, and she doesn't see her other friend enough as it is to feel comfortable enough to cancel and rearrange, especially on very short notice.
In the end, they both try to make time, but life… gets in the way.
She knows that he's drifted apart from her, as she has from him. That they've been drifting apart from each other for a while. Both of them are to blame, and neither are to blame.
She doesn't blame him. She tries not to blame herself.
More time passes, measured in weeks, and suddenly it's the night before the final farewell. There's a party going on in a bar, not far from their building. They've hired out part of it for the evening, and most of their friends and family are here to celebrate, to bid the couple goodbye. There are a few people that Hannelore doesn't know, or doesn't know well, but she recognises the majority of those crammed into the space.
She doesn't plan on drinking much. It's been a few years since she first met Marten and Faye - a few years since she started drinking at all - and the hangovers are starting to bite a little harder than they used to. Faye, naturally, is staying sober, doesn't plan on staying too long, and Hannelore can't help but notice that Marten nurses each drink a while longer than he once used to.
Then again, it's understandable if there's another reason for it too. He has a busy day tomorrow, after all.
Sitting a little way far from the door with a glass in hand - far enough away from the bar's speakers that the music isn't so loud, and close enough to the toilet that it isn't a long trip - she chats to a variety of company as the night wends on. She speaks to Faye and she speaks to Bubbles, the latter enjoying the sensation of a new, fruitier blend of tea that Claire had found on the internet, purchased, and then gifted - almost like the reverse of a going-away present. She has no idea how Bubbles managed to bring it to the bar, or how her friend had been permitted to heat it. But somehow she isn't surprised.
She hangs with Marigold and Dale for a while, talking about yoga and listening to more of the streamer's exploits, and laughing as her partner desperately tries to avoid seeing Claire's mom ("it would spoil the mystery", is his cryptic, baffling explanation). She catches up with Veronica, whom she hasn't seen for a while, and after that with the newlyweds, rings still glossy on their fingers, hearing more about their honeymoon exploits.
And then she finds herself alone. A few hours have passed, and the room has thinned a little, but the party's still in full swing. She contemplates getting a new drink, or maybe popping to the toilet first, but sees a shadow appear on the table before her, and looks up.
"This seat taken?"
She shakes her head. Marten slides into the booth opposite her, drink in hand, and smiles.
"Having fun?"
She nods. "It's been good to talk to everyone tonight. It feels like old times."
"Yeah," Marten. "Shame we haven't been able to do this as often as we used to. It seems fitting, at least - can't forget that you and I met in a bar just like this one."
She'd love to say that she could recall those events perfectly, but that wouldn't be strictly true. Looking back at those early weeks of their friendship is like looking through a fogged window, for her. She wishes she could remember it all better - every second, every detail - but the most she has is the feelings that those scattered memories have left behind.
"Where's Claire?" she asks. He looks around for a moment, blue eyes sweeping the room, then shrugs his shoulders.
"I saw her going outside a few minutes ago," he replies. "I think Tai had a little bit of weed she wanted to get through, and they were going to share it. Not my taste, personally, but, you know, I'm cool with whatever."
She nods, and looks down at her drink. There's a feeling in her chest that she doesn't quite understand, like a knot, or maybe a pit. It's not the anxiety that she's used to. It feels tight, like a pressure on her chest - but also like something's missing, like a void, an emptiness that just consumes.
Like there's something she wants to say, but can't.
Don't go.
She thinks she understands what's causing it, but doesn't really understand why. It can't be because she wants to say those words, because she knows she can't. Knows that they're pointless, that they won't help anyone, that they're selfish.
She doesn't know if it's that feeling that eventually causes her to open her mouth, or just the drink that she's more than halfway through, but she starts nonetheless.
"Marten," she begins. "Maybe… maybe you…"
"Mm?"
She stumbles over her words and pauses. It must have been the alcohol that caused her to speak, because the knot suddenly feels worse, clamping up to her throat like a vice.
Marten notices something's up. She can tell that he can see the flush of warmth spreading across her cheeks, and that causes her to blush even harder. But he glances down at her glass briefly, then waits patiently for her to continue.
He thinks it's the alcohol, too. It must be, then.
"Maybe… maybe I could come visit you both up in Cubetown sometime. I'm sure I could bring Winston, maybe something from Station that could help make it more official?"
This is easier. This, she can say. It's a reasonable request to want to see two good, old friends, now and then, even if they're moving to another country, to some wacky, improbable research facility.
"Any time - I'm sure Claire can authorise it," he assures her, then looks thoughtful. "Hope you're happy to put up with a goblin with no people skills."
"I've been that goblin," she rejoins, recalling late-night hoovering, impromptu games of scrabble, and weeks of covert observance.
No doubt Marten remembers too, but he shakes his head, trying to be kind, trying to spare her blushes. "I wouldn't say that you were ever that bad."
She stares at him with mock incredulity. "I stalked you."
"Haha–"
"Okay!" His chuckle is interrupted by a shout that heralds Claire's return. The redhead staggers back into the bar, coughing lightly from a recent hit, followed closely behind by her mother and Tai, giggling away like they're both ten years old again. "There he is - the librarian's consort!"
"That I am!" Marten stands up to meet her and raises his glass, buzzed enough himself to play along. Or perhaps just simply cool with, like, whatever.
"Have I ever told you," Claire drawls, slowly, "that I love you?"
"You have," he says, wearing that radiant smile, "Regularly. And I love you too."
Off to the side, Hannelore sees the warmth in his blue eyes as he leans in to kiss his girlfriend, sees the same look returned in Claire's slightly bloodshot own. Smiling awkwardly at the display of affection, she gets up to visit the bathroom, leaving the couple to themselves with a wave that they don't see.
That must be what love is, she tells herself. She can recognise it when she sees it. The sight of it is familiar to her, from the media she's consumed, from her friends in relationships, even if the feeling isn't. Even if the feeling can't be.
She doesn't understand it - can't understand it, any more than she can understand the feeling in her chest that still hasn't gone away - but she's happy for him all the same.
It's so much easier to be happier for others than to be happy for herself.
She's having a panic attack.
This wouldn't be out of the ordinary, in and of itself. Even after all the steps she's taken, all the progress she's made, it remains quite common for her to have at least a minor one every couple of days. Her medication helps to blunt the effects, and she has a well-practiced regimen of breathing exercises and other coping mechanisms to get through them much more quickly than she ever used to.
There are just two things that make this one particularly unhelpful.
The first is that she's been hyperventilating for a solid half an hour, and it's really starting to hurt her throat.
The second is that it's the day of Marten and Claire's final, permanent departure to Cubetown, and it's happening in the airport.
More precisely, the airport food court.
Having blurted an excuse to her friends, she's sequestered herself within the bounds of a shopping-mall-style fast food restaurant - the kind where the tables border the main concourse and you can sit and watch passengers struggle and hurry along while you wait to meet someone on an inbound flight. It's closed for a reason that intrigues and eludes her, that she can't currently fathom, and she's pretty sure she shouldn't be there, but that lingering thought is having surprisingly little impact on her overall level of anxiety… compared to everything else. She's squeezed into a booth, well hidden from anyone passing by, trying not to think about how dirty everything is, trying to calm down and control her breathing.
Trying, and failing.
Her upper body aches from the unbidden exertion and her face itches from long-dried tears, even as fresh drops fall to replace them.
She knows she shouldn't be alone right now. It's not safe. At home, she has Winslow to help her when this happens. At work, she has her colleagues; her friends. And they're all here right now, in this very airport, but she can't go to them.
It's humiliating. It's embarrassing. It makes it worse that she knows precisely the reason she's having the attack, but doesn't feel remotely able to tell anyone why.
She can't tell anyone why.
She can't control her breathing.
She can't control him leaving.
Don't go.
Of course she can't say those words. She doesn't deserve to. Not after how she once ran away herself, to find herself, chasing after self-improvement… and self-indulgence. Not after she left without even saying a proper goodbye, because she was too scared to face her friends.
Scared that she'd change her mind.
At least he has the kindness to show her more courtesy than that. It's far more than she deserves.
She's not his girlfriend. They're not related. What right does she have to second-guess his choices?
They're just friends. Close friends. That's all they are, and that's all they'll ever be.
Don't go.
She's not Claire. She's not even Dora.
She's just the girl who showed him the stars, but that could never compare to what he'd already helped her towards by the time she did.
Friends. Family - both the kind she was born with, and the kind she found. A life that, once upon a time, she couldn't have possibly imagined.
She can't tear her thoughts away from him, so closes her eyes and tries to imagine what he might say, how he might act, if he found her like this. She doesn't know if it'll help or just make things worse, but there's nothing else she can do.
That he would promise to stay with her until she felt better, no matter how long it took.
The concerned look that he would try to mask with a smile.
"Hanners?"
She opens her eyes and sees that concerned look right in front of her, blue eyes staring into tearful green.
She can see the worry etched into his face, even as he summons up a smile and offers comforting words, just like she'd known he would. Like she'd feared he would.
"Deep breaths, slowly, in… and out. It's going to be okay."
Don't go.
"You're going… to miss… your flight."
He shakes his head. "We still have another hour and a half before boarding 'cause we got here so early. You can thank Claire for that."
…thanks, Claire.
"Is it about today? About me and Claire going away?
She shakes her head violently and grabs for his hand. "It's just… this airport…"
It's easier to lie than it is to tell the truth. It's certainly easier to lie than it is to breathe.
Don't. Go.
"That's okay," he says, and now she feels worse for misleading him, for giving him the hope that this will end, that its source is something so finite, so small, as a cramped airport - when she knows that her feelings will go on forever. "You'll get through this. Just keep breathing."
Don't… "Go," she croaks out.
And that's as close as she'll ever get.
"I'm not going anywhere until I know you're okay," he replies, and his earnest concern makes her grip his hand even tighter - so tight that it makes him wince.
"S-sorry!" she manages, the tiny burst of shame adding to her anxiety. "So… sorry..." She hates the idea of hurting him now, by having him witness this today, on a day that's meant to be his and Claire's day: a day of difficult goodbyes but also of exciting new beginnings. She hates the thought that she might have hurt him, years before, by leaving without saying goodbye.
But she can't let him know that he's hurting her. He doesn't deserve to suffer that.
She doesn't deserve to say it.
Don't…
So she doesn't.
She does what she always knew she would do, would have to do, deep within, as much as it simultaneously, paradoxically seems impossible for her to try.
She pulls together all her thoughts, her emotions, her feelings inside her head - all the things that are giving her the panic attack, that are setting her heart and mind aflame. Her burning fears, regrets, affections. She swirls together her uncertainties, embarrassment, and shame, and mixes in her longing, her anxiety, and more.
She contemplates this fiery accumulation of her inside her own mind, pauses for a moment as - in the real world - she feels the warmth of his fingers entwined with hers - and then she crushes it deep down, burying it beneath the cool, suffocating weight of lived experience, of masking the pain, of cold, hard logic that tells her the truth that she cannot deny.
Marten is leaving. There is nothing I can do to change that.
And she gains control. Numbs herself, because she has to.
It's only temporary. It'll never last. All those feelings will come spilling back out again when she's back home, or perhaps even sooner. But for this next hour, she knows she will manage. Knows she will endure it.
Once upon a time she never could, even for an hour - but he helped her change that.
Her breathing slows - calms, as she takes deeper and deeper breaths.
She lets go of his hand. Stands. Smiles at him, dully recognises his relief at the improvement in her condition. Apologises again calmly, and asks if he can take her to get a glass of water.
They walk back to the gate together, to what she knows will be the end.
Time passes in a blur. They meet back up with their friends, who are concerned, but ask no questions of her. Faye mock-threatens Marten for his absence at such a critical hour, and he plays it off in response as having gotten lost while looking for the bathroom, earning himself a lecture from Claire.
Everyone laughs.
She stays towards the back of the group, letting the others say their goodbyes first. When it's her turn, she earnestly wishes Claire well for the future, that she hopes the job works out (she does) and that she will miss her terribly (she will).
Then she goes to him, and she's the last person he hugs.
"Goodbye, Marten and… thank you," she says.
He thinks her gratitude is just about today. "No worries," he replies. "See you later, Hanners."
She doesn't want to let go of him. But she does.
She wants to say more. But she doesn't.
She doesn't want to let him go. But she will.
"See you soon," she whispers.
The couple walks away to board, hand-in-hand. They go through the gate, give a warm wave, and make their way along the tunnel, which narrows a bit and curves off to the side as it leads to the plane. Claire disappears around this corner first, with Marten a short way behind, luggage in one hand.
He looks back towards them at the last opportunity, hesitating on the spot, then waves one more time with his free hand and smiles. One last gift.
Hannelore waves back, and manages a smile of her own.
She watches their plane take off a little while later, watches them soar away towards another sky.
And it's then - and only then - that she allows herself to break down in Faye's arms.