Chapter Text
The bell above the door of the Starlight Diner clinked as Aidan Wilde stepped through it tentatively. He was flying solo these days. It had been ten months since his partner in every meaning of the word had vanished from his life, only to reappear halfway across the country in the form of a shy waitress-turned-debut novelist.
How many times had he instinctively looked to his right to tell her a joke or show off a cool move in a fight? He should have found Rachel there, letting him protect her weaker side. For now, he could only do so from a distance, which brought him to Elly Conway’s former employer.
Aidan could almost envision her days here. Rachel would have attacked the job with gusto, ensuring accurate plates and pleased customers as if they were matters as weighty as the very order of the world. He would have ordered just to watch her float across the floor.
Of course, neither Elly Conway nor Rachel Kylle had ever actually worked at the Starlight Diner. She had been conditioned with memories of the place as part of an entire pseudo-lifetime that she hadn’t lived, either. Aidan’s task was simply to convince the staff and patrons that they remembered her short tenure at the café. It all came down to the power of suggestion.
He put on his dorky glasses and favorite Hawaiian shirt (journalists wore Hawaiian shirts, right? Probably at least the cool ones did) and packed a notepad, pen and tape recorder. It was the perfect cover – a chance to be quoted in a feature for the sleepy suburb’s newspaper about a hometown gal making a splash in the publishing industry would get the locals talking.
“Sure, Honey. Elly and her family are in all the time now that she’s recovered from her…” the matronly restaurant manager leaned in and whispered. “… skating accident. It was such a shame.” She shook her head ruefully. “Come to think of it though, she mostly kept to herself before. I can’t think of a full sentence she would have uttered while she worked here.”
Aidan didn’t bother pondering the identity of the unsuspecting former employee his interview subject was actually thinking of. His mission was simply to plant enough fuzzy details to bolster Elly’s reputation of innocence to interested onlookers, may they be friend or foe.
But then some invented witnesses were more cooperative than others in creating their assisted memories of a familiar face around the diner.
“Oh yeah, I remember her,” the customer with the dented gold wedding band told Aidan around a mouthful of syrup and pancakes. “Listen, off the record, yeah?” He waited for Aidan to hesitantly click “STOP” on his recorder. “She always seemed to want more than a tip, if you know what I mean.” He winked and let out a disgusting laugh, his beer gut joggling in his lap. “Sure wouldn’t have turned down a roll in the sack with that one, eh?”
Later, if you asked Aidan whether he saw what happened, he would tell you that the big oaf had tripped over his own clown shoes on the way to the bathroom. Shame when grown men couldn’t keep their laces tied. Or watch their path for foreign objects like a stranger’s sneakers.
Of course, a major world event would probably come along by tomorrow and usurp the front-page space of this puff piece. The news cycle was cruel that way. Just when Aidan was ready to pack it up for the day, satisfied that none of the regulars of the Starlight would share any dangerous or unsavory outlooks about Elly to any moles from Division, CIA, or even YMCA, the bell of the door jingled again. He turned around and simply forgot what it was to breathe.
In had walked Elly Conway, officially. But the halo of red hair represented only one person to him, and there was no way he would be able to separate them yet, up close.
“Well there she is, Sweetheart!” The woman at the counter called out to him before he could split. Fortunately, Elly hadn’t looked up yet from her putting her things down in a corner booth.
Aidan started packing faster, hoping to escape out of a back door to the joint. If there wasn’t one, he may have to inquire where they wanted one.
He put down an extra twenty on the counter. “Keep the coffee coming for her table.” He swallowed around the lump quickly forming in his throat. “And in about half an hour, send over a piece of chocolate pie.” The corner of his mouth turned up involuntarily. “Extra whip.”
The manager’s brow wrinkled. “Don’t you want a quote from Elly? The light’s good this time of day, maybe you could even get a picture out fron—”
But Aidan was gone. He just wasn’t ready to meet a stranger with Rachel Kylle’s smile. He wasn’t sure he ever would be. But once he hit the back door, he wrapped around through the alley and crossed the street, blending seamlessly into the lunch rush. From the corner he watched for longer than he would admit as Elly tapped away on her laptop, bright yellow but tattered journal laying open in front of her.
Aidan smiled so that he wouldn’t cry, then turned to walk on to another day without her, hoping to God their time apart would be short.