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13th of November, 2023.
That was the day David made his return.
Ed sat in his office, mouth slightly ajar, as he watched the news with wide eyes.
“Maybe Keir'll ask you for some old unused jokes for PMQs, eh, Ed?” One of his aides joked, and Ed found it in himself to laugh.
“Surely he's going to the Lords? Unless some brave MP is giving up their seat for him to stand in for a by-election.”
Around him, his colleagues muttered agreements. “Lord” David Cameron, Ed repeated in his mind.
Sir David Cameron.
Ed tried to keep down the blush that threatened to rise to his face, as he thought of the times David had liked being called “Sir”, and thankfully no one seemed to notice if his cheeks were currently matching the shade of his tie.
Oh, David… as soon as Ed had started to move on, acknowledge he would never have the taller man back with him in England, he just had to step out of that car and through that black door. That black door Ed had so desperately wanted to walk through himself. The one he now found he still wanted to walk through, but not to chase his own career this time - to chase the man who had stopped him doing so all those years ago.
Idly, he wondered if Cameron would get that office back in the Conservative Party Headquarters, the one he’d done things he could never admit to in. He wondered if it was for the Party Leader or had been Cameron’s personal choice, and, with a slight grimace, if May, Johnson, Truss and Sunak had all used that same desk Ed had found himself bent over all those years ago.
Perhaps if he did go into the Lords, that would be for the best. Staring across the Commons at his rival, desperately wishing Cameron would lay off the personal attacks, well, that was something he could live without.
But he did miss it. In a way, he really, really did.
He thought to message the other Ed, one of his best friends, and ask him if he'd seen the news. Checking his phone, though, he could see Balls had thought to do it first. Probably less wrapped up in the desires and dread that consumed his old boss.
It took a few tries of typing messages and deleting them, trying to write something that didn't reflect how desperate Ed felt for Cameron's attention. Finally, he settled for a simple “I can't believe he came back.”
As he sent the message, he spotted Cameron in his contacts, not far from his old friend, and decided to open the messages. Ed grimaced at the date written in small letters above their last exchange - the 13th of July, 2016. Clearly 13 really must be an unlucky number.
Would it be too desperate to shoot him a message welcoming him back? Probably.
Was he going to do it anyway?
Of course.
He waited, trying to control his breathing, for a response, keeping his eyes on the TV to see when David left. Once he got back in that car he would have the chance to respond, surely? Or at least read it. He had never been one for straightforward responses anyway.
It took 20 minutes, although it felt longer, before Ed could see the car drive out of the famous street. 25 for a response.
No words.
Just an address, and a time.
Ed gulped. He knew what that address was. Recognised it from all those years ago. Maybe he really had got that old desk back.
Well then, nothing else for it.
If he was quick he could write it off as a lunch break. But Cameron was never one to be quick.