2025. London Heathrow Airport.
Heathrow was its usual cacophony of motion-announcements booming over the loudspeaker, the shuffle of suitcases dragged across smooth floors, languages crisscrossing in the air like the converging trails of departing flights. It smelled faintly of coffee, exhaustion, and the sterile hum of international arrivals.
Alexis Wood stepped into the arrivals hall, the wheels of her carry-on suitcase whirring obediently behind her. Her coat hung loosely over one arm, her eyes scanning the sea of expectant faces and paper signs, searching-for what, she wasn't quite sure.
She looked lost.
Not in direction-she knew Heathrow like the back of her hand. But something inside her had detached. There was no welcoming committee, no family, no colleagues waiting with flowers or fanfare. Just the low thud of her heart as it tried to keep pace with the weight of everything she was carrying.
Her long red hair was tied loosely in a braid today, falling over one shoulder like a flame dulled by the wind. The elegance in her gait hadn't left her, but there was something weary in her shoulders now. Something pulled inwards.
She paused for a moment near the large windows that overlooked the runways, the planes crawling on tarmac like insects made of steel and ambition. People bustled around her-hurrying to greet, to leave, to connect-but she stood still.
In the back of her mind, she couldn't shake the incident. No matter how many time zones she crossed, it clung to her like a second skin.
The scandal.
The photos.
The whispers in the hallway that turned into HR meetings behind closed doors. The investigation that never allowed her to speak first. The subtle silencing. The way her accomplishments-the publications, the conference panels, the student recommendations-were all swallowed up by ten blurry images and a campus gossip thread gone viral.
Steve Adams never stepped forward. Not publicly. Not once.
In the end, she hadn't been allowed to resign.
They made the decision for her.
Unfit for academic leadership. Conflict of interest. Breach of ethics.
As if she were nothing more than a footnote in her own career.
Her fingers curled instinctively around the handle of her suitcase. She drew in a breath, steady and sharp. The air in London was different-cooler, somehow more honest. Or maybe it was just the absence of pretense.
She started walking again, weaving through the crowd, heels echoing faintly beneath the chatter. Each step forward was part muscle memory, part survival instinct.
She told herself she had come back to regroup. To reset. But truthfully, she didn't know where she stood anymore-not in the world, not in her profession, not even in her own story.
But she was home.
.
"ALEXIS!!!"
The voice shot through the terminal like sunlight piercing through fog-familiar, loud, full of life. Alexis's head snapped up just in time to see her.
There she was.
Bursting from the crowd like a firework in human form, a woman with a cascade of curly blonde hair bouncing around her shoulders, waving with both arms like an excited tourist trying to signal a helicopter. Even in a sea of strangers, Clarisse Ann Martins was impossible to miss.
She was wearing a dark wool coat cinched at the waist, paired with knee-high boots that clicked assertively against the airport tiles. Her lipstick was a striking cherry red that would've looked ridiculous on anyone else, but Clarisse wore it like war paint. Always had.
She was a year older than Alexis-but had always made it feel like ten years wiser, three years braver, and one year more dramatic.
The moment Alexis saw her, something in her cracked-gently, quietly.
She didn't realize how fast her feet were moving until her suitcase tumbled behind her with a thud she didn't bother to acknowledge. She met Clarisse halfway, and before either of them could speak, Alexis threw her arms around her best friend, holding on with everything she had.
Clarisse returned the embrace immediately, wrapping both arms around her with that familiar blend of suffocating affection and fierce protection, as though shielding Alexis from the very air itself.
And for a moment, just a moment, Alexis let go. Of the tight smile she'd been rehearsing, of the professional posture she carried like armor, of the grief she'd kept so carefully folded inside.
She closed her eyes and breathed.
Lavender and Clarisse's perfume.
Safety.
Sure, they had kept up with video calls-midnight rants, whispered updates, grainy phone screens between time zones-but none of it came close to this. The physical warmth. The grounding presence. The reality of her best friend's heartbeat against her own.
"I can't believe you're really here," Alexis murmured, muffled against Clarisse's coat.
Clarisse pulled back just enough to look at her, her eyes searching.
"I told you I'd be here the second you came home. Didn't I?"
Alexis nodded, blinking back the pressure behind her eyes. Her voice was quiet. "Two years has been too long."
"I know, babe. I know. But you're here now. You're safe. And guess what? We are not talking about California until I've made you cry-laugh over pasta and wine."
Alexis laughed through her breath, and it came out sounding a little like a sob-but she didn't mind.
Clarisse squeezed her hand tightly, grabbed the handle of her suitcase, and lifted her chin in that theatrical way she always did before launching into something grand.
"Let's go. Home awaits. And I swear to you-within 48 hours, I'm going to make you forget that awful university, that lying bastard of a coach, and that entire sunburnt continent."
Alexis smiled for real this time.
Not because the pain was gone-but because, finally, she didn't have to carry it alone.