Note: By popular demand, I'm continuing this! But really - if it's a modern AU you want, check out "Den of Thieves" by astudyiniris. It's funny, clever, and overall just lovely... what more could you ask for? :)
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Alek's palms are sweating.
He notices this when he checks the time on his phone (two minutes later than it was), and for a moment he's sufficiently panicked to forget that Deryn's train from London is late.
God's wounds, he thinks, rubbing his palms flat against his trousers. He glances around at the other people waiting outside Cambridge station, wondering if they've noticed him fidgeting, and leans back against the metal bench. He has to calm down. This is absurd, getting so worked up over a simple visit.
And yet – their first face-to-face had been such a disaster that this one, he feels, needs to be perfect in order to balance things.
He's made a mental list of things he should avoid doing this time. Don't act like an arrogant, pompous ass is number one.
Alek groans and puts his head in his hands. He'd been surprised to learn that his online friend "Dylan" was a girl – understandably so – but there'd been no need to act as if she'd deliberately lied to him. He was embarrassed, he was humiliated, and he'd lashed out.
The simple truth: he had never asked if she was a girl. He'd never even thought to.
He hadn't much experience with girls. The few in his acquaintance only seemed to be interested in parties, clothes, boys, and horses (not necessarily in that order). He had therefore automatically assumed that anyone playing an online war game, with a male avatar, would be a boy.
"Only fools assume," Volger had told him at the time. "You should have informed me. We might have run a proper background check and spared you this melodrama."
The worst part was knowing that Volger was entirely correct.
For the rest of his time in the UK – nearly a week – he had toured universities while fuming and brooding over this perceived injury. He'd vowed to have nothing to do with Deryn ever again. And then, back home in Vienna, he'd logged on to his computer, saw that he had no new email, and realized that he was a fool in more ways than one.
He had just alienated his only true friend.
He didn't care if she wasn't a boy. He missed her.
He'd emailed her to tell her so, to try to make amends, only to find that she'd deleted that account. So he'd spent days trying to "accidentally" run into her online. But it she wasn't playing World War Leviathan anymore, and he didn't know where else to look.
In desperation, he asked his etiquette tutor what to do. "There's no substitute for a handwritten apology," Herr Franck had advised.
A letter. A handwritten letter, sent by post. Old-fashioned, yes, but he was desperate.
Alek had written his apology and express-mailed it (having asked Volger to please run that background check after all, in order to get her address) before he could lose his nerve. Then he'd waited.
Had she gotten the letter?
And waited.
Had she tossed it into the bin without reading it?
And waited.
Or worse: had she read it and tossed it anyway?
And finally, when he was beginning to think that it was all over, he'd checked his email and found what he'd been hoping for.
I missed you too, ninny. Friends again?
He'd sat back in his chair, smiling in relief. Smiling until his face ached with it.
After that it was like nothing had ever been amiss. They'd started playing the game again – as allies. They'd emailed and chatted, about everything and nothing. Then she'd convinced him, over Volger's objections, to install a video chat program, and they worked out a time that they could talk to each other. Every day – or nearly. Face to face…
…with most of Europe between them.
But it's different now. Now they're on the same island, shortly to be in the same city, shortly to be face-to-face for real. And he's different. He's not that spoiled little boy he was two years ago, visiting her in Glasgow. He's at university – an adult, really. He has his own flat and his own car.
And he's quite probably in love with his best friend.
He groans again, but his self-pity is cut short by the unmistakable noise of an arriving train. The public address system announces that it's the train from King's Cross.
Deryn.
Alek checks his phone. Fifteen minutes late. God's wounds, the longest fifteen minutes of his life.
He stands and tucks his phone into his trouser pocket, wondering if he ought to have worn a jacket. Perhaps one of those hooded pullovers that Deryn likes so much. He doesn't own any, but he could have bought one.
People begin to emerge from the station, carrying briefcases, suitcases, bags, cups of coffee. Alek stays where he is; Deryn had been quite firm that they meet outside. He searches for a flash of sunlight on blonde hair, a brilliant grin, a face that he sees in his dreams.
He doesn't see her. She's not here.
A sick, cold sensation rises in his stomach. Where is she? What if something happened to her along the way? He knew it was a terrible idea to have her travel by herself. He should have gone to London, and never mind what her brother might have thought…
Or has she stayed away by choice?
No, he thinks, dismissing the idea as soon as it occurs. She would never.
But…
…where is she?
His phone rings. Alek curses and hurriedly pulls it from his pocket. His palms are sweating again – damn it all – and he almost drops it before he can answer.
"Hello?" he says, politely, heart in his throat.
A young man's gruff voice says, "Is this Alek, then?"
"Yes, this is he," he says, still polite, though his pulse goes faster yet at hearing the Scottish accent.
"Oi, hullo. It's Jaspert – Deryn's brother. She's had a bit of an accident –"
The cold feeling in his stomach gives a vicious twist. "What happened? Is she all right?" he interrupts.
Jaspert snorts. "She's well enough. Bashed her knee. We're in A&E… bastards keep you waiting all day."
Alek finds he can breathe again. "Oh," he says. "Well, is she – you're certain she's all right?"
"Aye, she will be," Jaspert says. "She'll not be visiting anyone for a while, though."
Alek winces at the disapproval in Jaspert's tone, although he understands better, now, why Deryn had been adamant about sneaking out to Cambridge while Jaspert was scheduled to be at work all day.
Goodness knows what Herr Franck would advise for this sort of situation. Alek clears his throat and says, hesitantly, "I – I greatly respect your sister, and I would never…"
But he trails off when he realizes Jaspert isn't listening. In fact, to judge from the muffled quality of that side of the conversation, Jaspert has his hand over the phone.
"No you bloody can't!" he's saying. "I'm not even supposed to be using this here -"
A girl says something in the background. The words are indistinct, but Alek knows that voice.
"All right, all right," Jaspert says, aggravated, and then he's back with Alek: "Deryn's being a right sodding pain. You get thirty seconds, and then I'm hanging up for you."
Before he can respond, the phone is handed over.
"Alek?"
Deryn's voice instantly brings to mind one of their conversations, much too late at night, both of them yawning and half-asleep, both of them unwilling to sign off. He had been perfectly content to listen to her then. He'd found her drowsiness… comforting.
Now, however, there's pain mixed in with the exhaustion, and he doesn't like that at all.
"Sorry I bollixed this up," she adds.
"Deryn," he says. He finds the car keys in his pocket and turns away from the station, gripped by a sudden, mad, undeniable idea. "It doesn't matter. Which hospital have you gone to?"
"Blisters," she says, incredulous. "Are you daft? You can't come all the way here."
"Why not? I have a car; it's not that far a drive. And I – would like to see you properly."
God's wounds, what an understatement.
There's a long pause. He crosses the street to the car park, fear twisting his stomach with every step.
Finally, she says, tired: "I want to see you too, Alek, but… We're two for two now, aye? Maybe it's not meant to be."
"Of course it is," he says – and realizes, halfway through, that Jaspert has hung up as promised.
Alek stares at his phone for a moment, fragments of a plan whirling and coalescing in his mind.
"It is meant to be," he says fiercely.
Now, he'll have to prove it.
