‘And when you’re at home, you’ll be with Paco.’
‘Well, I don’t know about that,’ they say casually, but their cheeks flush slightly. ‘But, you know you could always come with me when I come down to Oxlea.’
‘I don’t think I’d be welcome.’
‘I wouldn’t be so sure of that if I were you,’ says Ambrose, who points down the station concourse.
In the far distance are Kit, Laurel and Christopher, looking around, as if searching for something.
Laurel spots Ambrose and starts waving like she’s trying to flag down a taxi.
Kit spins round to face them, and yells, ‘Haf!’
‘Kit?’ she whispers, and then shouts, ‘Kit!’
Before she realises what she’s doing, she’s running. Or, as her backpack is so huge and heavy, she trots and sways, dodging out of the way of people.
‘Kit!’
And Kit speeds up, yelling at tourists and Londoners to just get out of her way. ‘Haf! Fuck’s sake,move.Haf!’
Not wanting to overtake either of them, though it would be admittedly easy to as neither of them are actually moving that quickly, Laurel and Christopher fall into step behind Kit, while Ambrose slinks along behind.
They meet in the middle, under the enormous Christmas tree. Kit and Haf stand a few metres apart, watching each other, too overcome to say anything else, suddenly incapable of moving any closer.
‘What are you doing here?’ Haf croaks.
Too excited to wait, Laurel squeezes Kit’s shoulder and yells, ‘We came on a mission to get you! It was jolly exciting. Hi, Ambrose!’
‘Hi, Laurel!’ they say, coming to stand beside Haf.
‘Wait, did you tell them where I was going to be?’ Haf lowers her voice so only Ambrose can hear. ‘Is this an intervention? Am I being ambushed?’
‘How dare you accuse me of something so iconic?’ they say with a smile as Haf throws the giant backpack to the floor. ‘And no, it’s not an intervention, you goof.’
Christopher clearly can’t sense the divide between them, he crosses it in seconds and pulls her into a hug.
‘Just go talk to her,’ Christopher says in her ear.
‘I’m scared,’ she whispers, worrying at her lip. ‘What if I missed my chance?’
‘Kit hasn’t come all this way to palm you off and call you a dickhead.’
‘She will probably call me a dickhead.’
‘Okay, notjustthat. Look at me,’ he commands softly, pulling back so he can look her in the eye. ‘Nothing will make this sentence less strange for me to say, but go on, go tell my sister you love her.’
It appears Kit was getting a similar encouraging talk from Laurel. They both look up at the same time, eyes locking.
Suddenly, those few metres don’t seem so insurmountable.
Time slows as Kit walks over to her slowly. In the emerald wool coat that Haf first saw her in, Kit looks beautiful. She looks exactly how she did only five days ago, when they first met in the bookshop opposite them. The only difference is the candy-cane walking stick, and the deep, deep certainty that Haf loves her.
‘Kit,’ she bleats. ‘I’m so sorry.’
She reaches out for Kit, the gloves on her hands.
‘I just got them. I promise, I didn’t know you’d given me them, and I’m so sorry for, quite literally, running away, because that’s not what I want and—’
