Chapter Text
The question comes up some weeks after she’s been released. Released without parole and all, three long-and-short years after the whole debacle. Simon and the judge had helped her get off with a light sentence, given the mitigating circumstances; otherwise Aura is sure she’d have been languishing in a cell for much longer than that.
So, she’s glad to get out at any rate, despite the question that Simon poses her at dinner.
“...A return,” she repeats after him.
“Yes,” Simon says. “How…would you feel about a return?”
“A return to what , Simon? To my job, I haven’t any right to work there anymore; to academia, I can’t be arsed to write papers; to the outside world, I think I’ve already got that down; so, to what, then?”
Simon looks away, lips pursed, and the realisation comes crashing into her like a bullet train. They’ve not entertained this conversation once , in all the years before or since the incident.
Aura fidgets with the salt and pepper shakers.
“I’m not fussed,” she says, kicking up her feet on a spare chair. “The question is: are you sure you want to?”
Simon nods.
“Fine, then. I shan’t ask why.”
They don’t pack much, just as they hadn’t left with much. A couple of rucksacks, stuffed with two weeks’ worth of clothes and a bag of toiletries between them. Their passports are stuffed in their pockets; somehow they’re both still valid for use. So that saves wasting a day at the consulate. Driving licences — also miraculously valid; though she’ll ignore the penalty points she got when she was eighteen. Boarding passes are easily acquired, too.
Simon arranges everything; arranges for his ‘home leave’ with the office and for Athena to come and make sure Taka is fed and the plants are being watered. Beyond that, there’s…not much else to be done. All rather minimal effort.
Aura sinks into the plane seat; at least Simon’s work managed to get them business-class tickets.
“Good afternoon, this is your captain speaking; on behalf of the crew, I would like to welcome on board this iFly service to London—”
Aura sits up, and prods Simon in the shoulder. “I thought we were going to Edinburgh.”
Simon shakes his head. “No. Not yet.”
Aura settles back into the seat, a little less relaxed and a little more sceptical.
“Well, as I said; I shan’t ask. You lead the way.”
Lo and behold, it’s overcast, grey, and pouring with rain when they land ten hours later.
“So much for a welcome party,” she mutters.
Beside her, Simon smirks. “I don’t know how you’d anticipated anything else.”
She hadn’t really, but still. It is a bit of a shock, though, that they even make it through passport control without someone flagging them up and arresting them. Then again, Aura already feels like a fugitive here, especially when no one meets them after they stroll out of baggage claim. Not that anyone ever used to meet her when she came back intermittently in her youth.
“...Sandwiches?” Simon says, pointing out the Sparks and Mencer’s further down the arrivals hall.
They go in for sandwiches; egg and cress and prawn mayo and coronation chicken, packets of crisps and water. A newspaper or two, too. Not that Aura will read any of the news; not that she particularly cares what idiot has made an idiotic fool of themselves today.
Then they’re outside, walking the mile to the car rental company offices. September in England smells of damp gravel — to be fair, it smells like that all year round; she’s just forgotten.
They get the car sorted after an hour, mainly because Simon’s so bloody tall they have to find a car that actually accommodates his lanky legs. And they do, but not without some jetlagged irritation on Aura’s part as she rips open a packet of sandwiches afterwards, leaning on the car’s bonnet.
“Actually,” Simon starts, hovering next to her. “I...I’ve something to tell you.”
“If it’s about anything other than the rental car, then, no, you haven’t.”
“What?”
“You haven’t anything to say to me, Simon.”
Simon bows his head. “...No, I haven’t.”
Aura crumples the packet, shoves it back in the bag and stalks off to the driver’s side — before she realises she’s on the wrong side.
“Right. Have you finished your sandwich yet?” she asks, walking to the other side where the driver’s seat actually is.
“No.”
“Well, bloody hurry up and finish it, would you? I’d like to get there by nightfall.”
“Where?”
“Oh, you’ll see where.”
Central London. Something of a stupid decision on her part, because of all the traffic, and the watery autumnal afternoon sun that forces her to pull down the sun visor. She doesn’t really know where she’s heading — perhaps Simon booked accommodation; perhaps he didn’t, she had said he’d lead the way.
Maybe he’s just letting her have a nostalgia trip till he gets behind the wheel; and she’s taken the long way round into town.
“Oh, look,” Aura mutters, pointing out all the baby-faced freshers’ students that are thronged about the big universities with their luggage and boxes of their belongings. With their parents and siblings too.
“Ah yes. That takes me back to my own matriculation,” Simon says, thoughtfully. He’d gone here, to the University of London; for a law and psychology joint honours degree.
She’d gone even further south to get away.
“Shame I couldn’t see you off for that,” she adds, driving off.
“Quite alright,” he says.
Simon becomes a little more talkative afterwards, and he does end up directing the way after that. Even it takes them up and down Whitehall and Baker Street for no real reason and to the doors of the Royal Hotel.
“Oh, very funny, Simon.”
“Oh no, I don’t jest. The office paid for the night. Then we shall see where we end up.”
Aura narrows her eyes, but she says nothing.
…She is grateful, though, for the hot bath, the warm bed and even for the food. And very glad, really, to have got out of Penn. E. Dent.
The next morning, Simon drives them south. Further south.