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There were two teenagers smoking outside their apartment. It was almost two in the morning, much too late for any kid to be up on a weekday (or too early to be up, if you wanted to look at it that way), but they'd been there for a good forty-five minutes now; dragging the cigarette they were sharing out long enough to know that this wasn't something they were used to. They were both girls – one was tall, but not tall enough to hide her youthfulness, and had dyed her hair an ugly neon green. The other was much shorter, and much more normal looking; blonde hair pulled into a pony tail so tight it looked painful.
She reminded him of Liv.
And that was it, wasn't it? Why Aaron hadn't been able to pull his eyes off them. It hadn't helped that he'd been thinking of Liv all day, wondering if she was getting to college on time, if she was eating properly, if she was thinking of him, too. That was why he'd even been up; the yearning for his family in Emmerdale hitting him like a bullet train every time he tried to close his eyes.
Seeing her take the first drag of that cigarette had made him wonder if Liv would ever smoke. He'd known that he'd never let her, wouldn't allow her to let something like that ruin her life, but the more he thought about what he would allow, the more he realised that he wouldn't have a choice in that anymore. She could do anything – take any drug in the world – and he would forever be none the wiser. And the mere idea of that made him want to vomit.
They'd only been on the run for five days. Mandy had gotten them the fake passports with fortunately no hiccups and they'd left for Dover that night, picking a fake licence plate up from a contact before taking a ferry to Calais. They'd gone straight to Paris on the Thursday and had met up with some of Aaron's old friends from his previous time spent there, who had agreed to give Aaron (or Rory, as it was now) a job at the garage he'd once worked at. It was those mates they'd been crashing with for the last few days, having only started renting this apartment the day before. Only five days, and so much had happened. Five days and he already missed his family something fearsome.
Outside, the girls took a final puff of the dying cigarette before the one with the neon hair threw it on the ground and stamped on it. As she did so, Aaron wondered, against every ounce of love for Robert in his body, if he had made a mistake.
“I suppose that depends on your definition of a mistake.”
Aaron turned, the unfamiliar voice sending his heart through his chest. It was a woman, sat on one of the few chairs they'd managed to afford from some second hand shop down the street. And that was all he could say about her. And the reason that was all he could say about her was because she had no face.
No, she had a face, he was sure of it, but every time he tried to so much as glance at it his vision became blurred, as if he were looking through glasses with the wrong prescription. But even though he couldn't see it there was something about her that felt familiar; in the way that you could see the same stranger twice.
“Who are ya?” he asked. He'd wanted to scream it, to try and wake Robert up, but somehow his voice merely came out as a gentle whisper.
“That doesn't matter,” she said. “All you need to know is that I'm here to help you.”
The words were ominous, and all he wanted to do was run, but the second he tried it felt as if ice was being spread up his legs; freezing him into place. His heart rate quickened and his palms slicked with sweat as he balled his fists together. He'd never felt fear like this in his life.
“Now, there's no need for that,” she said, standing. “Like I said, I'm only here to help. I've become quite good at helping the two of you, although that was an entirely different world to the one you live in.”
Aaron went to call her insane, but with a simple look his way his mouth froze too.
“So you regret running now, do you?”
And just like that his mouth was free, his outer mouth tingling at the sensation. The action made his fear shrivel into anger – what the hell had been the point in that? But that was just it, he realised quickly. She'd been trying to make a point.
“I wouldn't go that far,” he argued honestly. “I was missing home, it's not like I was buying a plane ticket back to England.”
Slowly, she shook her blurred head at him. “I heard you, Aaron Dingle. And you were wondering what it would be like if you'd stayed.”
“So?” he tried to challenge her, deciding that he at least should try to be brave. “It was just a thought. A passing one. It didn't mean anything.”
“The dangerous thing about thoughts is that they rarely stay just that for long.” Her voice was tinged with something painful. Something that, to Aaron, felt like experience. “So I think you deserve the chance to see what you'd be missing.”
Aaron blanched, “What?”
One second, the two of them were in the apartment in France. The next Aaron was blinking in the dark blue walls of Mill Cottage, the sudden transition making him dizzy. As he steadied himself he took it all in; the spiral staircase, the pictures dotted all around, the nicknack's and keepsakes stuffed in every nook and cranny. He'd barely been gone a week, but the sight of it all made him ache deep in his chest. No matter where he lived, he knew the Mill would always be his home.
“The home Robert built for you,” the woman seemed to be pointing out, although her tone remained neutral. Aaron wondered how she was able to read his thoughts, but decided that her transporting him to a whole other country was what he really should be focusing on.
Suddenly, there was movement. It took him second to realise, but it was himself; creeping hurriedly into the kitchen as he constantly looked over his shoulder. Following his gaze, Aaron noticed what he probably should've done when he first arrived here: Paddy was asleep on the armchair, which had been moved in front of the door, and Liv was on the sofa, also seemingly deep in sleep.
“What's going on?” Aaron asked, watching himself as he searched through a satchel that had been on the table; getting more and more visibly frustrated as he looked.
“Paddy's locked the door and destroyed all the keys,” she explained casually. “You're trying to find a key so you can get out.”
“Well, yeah,” Aaron deadpanned, having gathered that. “I meant why. Actually – why are we even here?”
“I said I was going to give you the chance to see what would've happened if you'd stayed, and that's exactly what I'm doing,” she said, as if it were simple. “This is the exact same night that it was when we were in France, but in a different world. In this one, you and Robert never escaped the country.” At the sound of Other Aaron throwing the satchel back on the table, the two of them turned to look at him; watching as he practically raced around the flat in search for the keys. “Robert's currently in Police custody. You were planning on breaking him out before he could be sentenced, but Paddy found out and took it upon himself to stop you.”
Other Aaron stopped in his search and put his head in hands, letting out a silent scream into them. When he pulled his hands away, his face was red and his eyes were full of tears. Aaron had seen his face through many emotions, and that? That was the face of desperation.
Aaron felt similar, the thought of Robert in a cell haunting him. “I don't get it,” he said helplessly. “Even if I didn't want to run, why didn't he?”
Although he couldn't see her face, he could still tell that she was looking at him sadly. “Do you really believe that there could ever be a world where he flees this country without you?”
And that – that stung. “So what, you bring me here and guilt trip me into not missing my family anymore?”
“Oh no, the guilt tripping is coming tomorrow.”
Again Aaron's mouth was frozen over, stopping him from arguing with her further. Together, they watched as Other Aaron slowly gave up before collapsing on the floor.
“Tomorrows when you really see what you'd be missing.”
***
“Aaron, he's not a hero!” Paddy spat. “He's selfish and he's reckless, and I know you don't want to hear this but if he valued your marriage even half as much as you do-”
“He gave himself in because he loves me,” Other Aaron argued, but the fight was leaving him. Aaron, the real Aaron, watched as Paddy claimed that Robert didn't do what he did because he loved him, as he took their marriage and dragged it through the mud by the nape of it's neck. By the time he was done, Aaron just felt cold.
“Whys he saying all that?” he asked, begged, needing any other explanation than because he means it.
“Because he doesn't want you to go,” she answered. Somehow, that answer felt worse. “He may be going about it the wrong way, but it's only because he loves you – if that makes you feel better. Just as you are, he's acting out of desperation.”
It didn't make him feel better.
He watched as Paddy told him to hit him, as he told Liv about what he'd done to him, as if the two situations even compared. He watched as Liv cried, and told him how much she needed him, how she'd be lost without him, as if she hadn't been the one pressing him to go.
“This doesn't feel fair,” was all he could say.
“It never is with you though, is it?”
When Other Aaron, like a tower crumbling, fell into Liv's arms and promised he'd never leave her, Aaron simply felt hollow. It was as if he was watching a bad film made about himself and the actor playing him was awful, his brain couldn't connect what he was watching as him.
And all that did was enrage him.
“So this was a guilt trip?” he asked, whirling on the woman as the scenery changed back into the apartment around him. “What were you hoping I'd think after that? That if I'd stayed then my family would've treated me like crap, so I might as well forget about them and stay here?”
“If anything, I've shown you the lengths they'd go to keep you,” she said calmly, not rising to his anger. “But if there's one thing I did hope you'd take from this, it's that either way you're clearly unhappy.”
Aaron shook his head, “But I'm not unhappy here. It was a moment, just one moment of wondering.”
“I'm sure in a few years that Aaron will too say that that was just a moment. Although with where you are now, it begs the question: how many more moments will you have as the years go on?”
“But Robert's behind bars in that world.” He shook as he said it, the thought of it still effecting him deeply. “How could I do that to him?”
“He made that choice in that world,” she said. “That's free from your conscience.”
Aaron sat back down next to the window, feeling close to tears. “And if I decided I wanted to go back to my family, you'd take me to that world?”
“I would,” she confirmed. “I'm sure that ideas more pleasurable than having to leave Robert and hand yourself over to the authorities.”
It was, he had to admit it. But he felt lost, stuck between two worlds that would never let him be truly happy. He wanted to see Liv grow up, to meet his new sibling, to live in the Mill. But he wanted to do those things with Robert. What was the point in any of those things if he wasn't there?
The woman took pity on him. “You don't have to vocalise your decision to me now, but when you wake up tomorrow morning you'll know, deep down, what you really want. You'll have no memory of any of this, but you'll know. There'll be no mistaking it.”
Aaron nodded and hoped that she'd be right. And more than that, that he'd make the right choice.
***
When Robert woke up the next morning, the space beside him was empty.
It was only a twin sized bed, the queen and king being way too far out of their price range, so Robert was surprised he hadn't felt the movement, especially as the coolness of the mattress suggested it had been empty for quite some time.
Wondering into the main area of their apartment, a small open kitchen and living room, he was concerned to find it empty. Aaron didn't have to be at the garage until midday and it was barely eight o'clock, and there was no evidence of food or drink being touched; it being very unlike Aaron to not have any breakfast at all.
He gave it five minutes before deciding to panic. There were a million things he could be doing – either having gone for a run, or for a walk. But neither of those things sounded like the kind of thing Aaron would do in a good state of mind, which forced him to consider why he'd left. Maybe he was starting to resent him, not even a week into their time on the run. Or maybe he'd simply got overwhelmed with it all and had needed to get out. But what if he'd gotten into trouble? He hadn't googled Paris's crime rate before they came (why hadn't he done that?) and anything could have happened to him. And what could he even do? Call the Police and report him missing, blasting his photo out there with a fake name for all the world to see? And how would he even call them, he didn't speak a lick of-
The front door opened, then banged as it closed. He'd been pacing like a madman in their bedroom, and when the door went he ran; slamming straight into Aaron, nearly making the other man drop all the bags he was carrying.
“Steady on!” Aaron said, reaffirming his grip on the bags. “Would've thought I was a burglar with the speed you came running out of there.”
“Where the hell have you been?” he demanded, not in the mood for snarky comments.
“Ugh... shop?” Aaron said, holding the bags up for emphasis.
Feeling slightly stupid, and very ridiculous, he asked, “Why? I didn't know we needed anything.”
Aaron shrugged, “Dunno, really. Just woke up this morning and felt like treating ya.”
“With our budget?” he tried to reprimand, but was almost instantly swayed when Aaron pulled out a bag of fresh pain au chocolat and told him they were for breakfast.
He ate it in the kitchen, standing beside Aaron as he unloaded his shopping into the cupboards. And although he'd been wrong in his assumptions he still felt that worry, eating away at him like he ate his breakfast. He knew he couldn't ignore it.
“Aaron?”
He stopped unpacking a loaf of bread and looked at him, hearing the seriousness of his tone. “Yeah?”
“Would you...,” he said, not knowing how to start this. “If there's a part of you that wants to go back then you know you can, yeah? I would never, ever stop you, or try to guilt you into-”
“Hey,” Aaron said soothingly, taking Robert's face into his hands. “Where's this come from?”
“When I woke up and you weren't here...,” he trailed off again; the embarrassment was too strong. But Aaron, like always, understood.
“It's actually funny that you've brought this up now,” he said. “Because I was thinking about it this morning. What it would be like to have let you go that day. And you know what I realised?” He didn't know if he wanted to know. “That it would be the worst thing that could ever happen to me. Ever. I love my family, and I miss them, but I need you. I need you because you know how to calm me down without shaming me for being angry. You know the difference between me having a bad day and me having a breakdown. You know how to handle me at my absolute worst, and you know what? I think I do a pretty good job at doing the same for you.”
Robert smiled. He couldn't argue with that. “But in Emmerdale – you had a life there-”
“My life is with you,” Aaron said, the certainty in his voice almost knocking Robert over. “Emmerdale, France, Atlantis, I don't care as long as I'm with you.”
They kissed, knowing that maybe, one day, they would need to have this conversation again, but being sure that it was settled for now.
They didn't notice anyone watching them.