Costa Crew 2: They Walk Among Us

Chapter 3 - Return to Costa

When you work in a Costa Coffee near a school, you should expect pupils to come in. Sometimes they drop in, buy a hot chocolate and leave, other times they find a table and stay for a while. But there's always miscellaneous teenagers coming and going every day. That is, until Christmas 2019.

The staff didn't think anything of it at first. A group of five friends coming in and sitting in a booth in the corner: chatting, drinking hot chocolate, taking BuzzFeed quizzes, it was nothing that they hadn't seen before. Except for the fact that they always seemed to come back. Almost every day in December, they'd come in, sit in the same booth, order the same drinks (more or less) and become immersed in their own world of conversation. Even after Christmas they'd still drop in regularly, and after a few years the group started coming in every Saturday morning without fail, always in the same booth. The staff had managed to gather that by this point they had left school, and assumed Costa was their way of making sure they stayed in touch.

However, one day this Glasgow Costa grew quieter as the group who had defined themselves by the café found themselves moving to London. Even with their own London Costa, five had temporarily become three. But Becky Hidgens and Hannah Perkins had returned from their time in MI5, and the Costa Crew were back.

Paul was the final member of the group to arrive. "Sorry I'm late," he said as he sat down.

"Don't worry about it," replied Becky. "How's the new job looking?"

Paul shrugged. "Pretty good. Nice new office, plus Samantha Foster already works there so it's good to have a familiar face."

Charlotte smiled. "Samantha was really nice," she agreed. "How is she these days?"

"Seems to be doing well," said Paul. "Same with her partner, a DC Ben Davis. He's new, but I have a feeling he's good."

"Shall we order?" asked Ted, now that everybody had arrived.

The others nodded and went to join the queue. "How's your family, by the way?" Paul asked, turning to Becky.

Becky tensed. She hadn't spoken to Curt since then, and she knew she had to tell her friends about her moving to Glasgow, the sooner the better. But she figured she'd wait until they all sat down with their drinks.

"Yeah, pretty good," she said. "Large hot chocolate please."

To avoid going into any more detail, she turned to Charlotte, Ted and Hannah. "What about you guys, how's everyone's day been?" she asked.

Ted rolled his eyes. "After Paul left DCI Drake spent about an hour just walking round his office. I already have a bad feeling about this."

Paul laughed. "He's just getting it out of his system, I'm sure. Drake's come a long way since I started working with him. I hope."

"Who's DI now?" asked Charlotte.

"Greg Daniels," replied Ted. "Quite frankly my only hope for the squad now that Paul's gone."

"You never know, Drake might be a good DCI," Hannah pointed out. "Give him a chance."

"Plus, you've still got Erica," added Paul. "She might be overly obsessed with us, but she's a good leader. Between her and Greg, I think there's enough people there to keep Drake in line."

At this point a group of young children - no younger than 8 and no older than 12 - entered the café. One of them stopped in their tracks when they saw the five friends standing at the counter. She turned to her friends, who all started talking in animated whispers.

The group tentatively approached Hannah. "Um, excuse me?" asked the girl who had stopped. "Um...I was wondering…uh…"

"Are you Hannah Perkins?" asked one of her friends boldly.

Hannah blushed slightly while the others smiled wryly. "Uh... yes," she replied after what seemed like an eternity.

The girl searched frantically through her bag, pulling out a notebook and a pen. "Could I have an autograph? It's for my little brother, well, he watches The Young Agent every week, and well…"

Hannah could sense that the girl was anxious, so she smiled and signed the notebook. "Thank you," the girl continued, still shaking.

"No problem," said Hannah with a reassuring smile. "Have a nice day."

Once the group were out of earshot, Becky grinned. "Nice to see a voice actor getting the credit they deserve."

"Shame Bruce couldn't join us, otherwise that girl would've had a voice actor and animator from The Young Agent," added Charlotte.

The barista handed over two trays of drinks, and the group returned to their booth. Becky took a deep breath, having finally worked up the courage to discuss this matter. "I need to talk to you guys about something," she began hesitantly. "I...might be moving back to Glasgow."

The entire café seemed to fall silent as the group took this in. "How come?" asked Charlotte.

Becky sighed. "My parents want to move to London. I know they're only doing that to be closer to Curt and I. They acted like it wasn't a big deal, but I know it's not what they really want. I talked to Curt about it a little after the dinner, and we agreed that one of us should move back to Glasgow. We just haven't agreed on who it should be."

"Why, what did Curt say?" asked Paul, frowning.

Becky hesitated. "He says he's happy to move back and doesn't think I should because I've just been promoted and you guys are all here. But he's got the museum, and I don't want him having to start again because of me. We're going to talk about it more, I just think he'd be more likely to agree to me moving if he knew you guys were okay with it."

"Well, we'd miss you," Ted said after a long hesitation. "But if you need to do this for your parents, then do it. We can always video chat, and visit each other."

"I agree, do what you think is best," added Hannah. "Whatever happens you'd better stay in touch though."

"It's quite the blow, but I know you've got good reasons," said Charlotte.

Paul nodded. "At least we'd know that you're okay."

Becky smiled. "Thanks. I'll call Curt tomorrow."

The matter wasn't discussed again that evening. They took an updated version of BuzzFeed's "What Kind of Onion are you?" quiz, were all delighted to see that nothing had changed, and by the end they were back to reminiscing about Becky's slightly insane high school chemistry teacher, who had a knack for setting things on fire and putting all the students in danger.

"Much as I hated chemistry, she was a good laugh," Becky managed to say through giggles. "Paul, do you remember teaching her to play Dobble?"

Paul laughed harder. "You could see her trying so hard not to swear," he snorted.

Becky checked her watch as she took slow, deep breaths. "We'd better head, they're about to close up," she said. "Paul, Hannah, did you guys drive?"

They both nodded. "See you at home then," said Becky. "Charlotte, say hi to Linda and Matthew for me, and I'll see them on Monday. Ted, say hi to Bruce, and I'll see you guys soon."

When Becky arrived home she was greeted by the bark of Captain Jack, a West Highland Terrier that had been her only flatmate during her time in MI5, and had stuck with her when she and Hannah had moved in with Paul.

"Long time no see," said Paul, walking through the door a few seconds later.

"I know, it's been a whole ten minutes, I don't feel like I know you anymore," Becky joked as Hannah walked in. "Oh wow, it's the Hannah Perkins! Where've you been all this time?"

Hannah laughed, then they split off as usual - Becky looking through some algorithms she had been working on that day (or just reading a book), Hannah looking through scripts (or just drawing) and Paul looking over some cases (or just playing video games). I'll miss this, thought Becky as Captain Jack jumped up onto her lap. But I have to go.