Chapter Text
Under the first rays of moonlight, the bar looked so small. Flanked by bare trees and snowbanks, the parking lot only held space for a few cars: beat up SUVs that had driven through endless winter, their exhaust pipes turning the fresh powder black. In a few hours, snowplows would salt the narrow roads, clearing an icy path for chained tires to creep through, slowly and methodically, careful not to spin out.
The locals must walk to get here.
Mike exhaled. It was cold enough to fog his glasses a little when he did so, but he barely noticed. He’d only started wearing them at night in the last few years, preferring to keep them propped next to his typewriter. But tonight, like the last several hundred nights, Mike hoped they’d preserve a modicum of his anonymity as he floated silently through town.
It’s not like anyone would recognize him here. Tucked beneath the Kolen mountain range in Lapland, Sweden, the majority of people were either locals who built their homes beneath the Northern Lights, or adventure-seeking tourists who came to hike and ski. As long as he wore a heavy snow jacket, his glasses, and a beanie, it was easy to blend in. To ask friendly questions in broken Swedish - sometimes a little German, a few words in Dutch - without ever lowering the thick scarf shielding his face from snowfall. Questions like, have you seen an odd girl in your town? Is there anywhere around here that pays under the table in cash? Can you take me to the shittiest dive bar you know?
That last question had finally gotten him somewhere. After nearly a year of hunting through Europe, beginning in Iceland, he’d finally started to hear some rumors. For the last three towns - a tavern in Eagle’s Nest, a small dive near Tivoli Gardens in Copenhagen, and a travelers’ hotel bar on the coast in Malmo - they all sounded the same. A girl had shown up, gotten work as a bartender or dishwasher. Barely spoke a word, unless it was to the customers. Her coworkers and other locals had tried to get her to talk, tell them more than her name, but it was useless. The only thing they knew for certain was that after almost every shift, she’d hit the nearest corner store to buy waffle mix and eggs.
Mike always grinned when he heard that part of the story, he couldn’t help it. He’d searched for her in so many diners, theorizing that she’d taken a cash-paying job as a dishwasher just for access to free waffles. Once, he’d spoken to a cook who swore he saw a former hostess shut a cabinet door just by looking at it, but he also told Mike that this girl always ordered chicken tenders for her shift meal.
Now, he finally had a solid trail of leads, despite his flimsy excuse of a backstory. For all his storytelling, he couldn’t write a good enough reason for him to be in any of those bars or diners, asking questions and drinking when he couldn’t find answers. On the worst days, he could tell that the people he spoke to worried he was stalking her, wondering if he was her reason to hide. On the best, he managed to convince them that he was desperate to interview her for research into his next novel; that her secrecy was a fascinating subject just waiting to be revealed. Most of them laughed, wished him luck getting her to talk. She once quietly packed up in the middle of karaoke night at a dive in Austria, leaving her tips behind, and disappearing - all because another bartender asked if she had a boyfriend. She never stayed anywhere more than a few months. Mike felt like he was tracking a ghost.
Thank fucking god she’s addicted to waffles.
This bar was like the others, but smaller. He knew that’s why she’d chosen it. People were too friendly at hotels, but it was rare to find a smiling face inside a low-brow local watering hole like this. He took another deep breath, relaxing his shaking hands before twisting the handle. The inside smelled like stale cigarettes left over from the 70s, and the lighting was terrible. But just behind the bar, Mike saw a tuft of curly brown hair duck under the counter, a regular steadying himself against a weathered stool in front of her.
Fuck. He quickly shut the door, heart pounding, and stumbled into the darkened parking lot. He briefly wondered if his legs would collapse, and planted his hand firmly against the side of the building to keep himself upright.
Over the last seven years, he’d managed to think of every terrible way this could possibly end. She could run again. She could refuse to listen. If she was mad enough about him finding her, she could toss him into a snow pile and disappear. Worst of all, she could have forgotten him. Maybe she’d finally found a way to push him out of her mind, like he’d spent so many nights trying to do with thoughts of her.
He slid down the side of the wall, whipped off his glasses, and pressed his palms into his eyes. He tried desperately to think of a greeting, an opening line, anything he could say. A simple “hello” couldn’t possibly convey the number of sleepless nights, or the string of incoherent theories that led him here.
I can’t do this.
Mike stood, slipping his hands into his pockets as he turned towards the road. Now that he knew she was here, he reasoned that one more night alone to think couldn’t hurt. He had to get this right, or she’d leave again. Maybe he’d even call Lucas or Will, finally tell someone where he’d been for nearly a year. Careful to retrace the steps he took to the door, Mike headed back towards the wooded path that led to his motel. To protect the mountain’s wildlife, light ordinances were put in place to limit the amount of man-made brightness. When he stopped at the edge of the parking lot and looked towards the sky, thousands of distant stars winked back at him, the moon barely showing him the way forward.
Taking another deep breath, Mike closed his eyes. It was hardly any darker. After nearly a decade of planning for this exact moment, he felt like an asshole for chickening out. Just keep walking, Wheeler.
Before he could open them again, the snow cracked behind him. It was the unmistakable sound of a boot tamping down on fresh powder, and Mike took a step forward, hoping that one of the drunken regulars wouldn’t attract attention to him. The last thing he needed was a loud-talking stranger looking for a smoke.
But then he heard something else, something that took him a moment to register. A soft voice, barely audible above the whipping mountain winds, a one-worded question that sounded more like a prayer.
“Mike?”