The Timeline

16.

June 26th, 2014:

The flight from London Heathrow to Milan Malpensa took 2 hours and 5 minutes, exactly. The whole ordeal before and after the actual flights, however, took almost as much time.

The United Kingdom was a part of the European Union, so in order to exist the borders of the Country and enter another European Country, all they would've needed would've been their ID card. The procedure took - the gist of it all - took a total of 30 seconds each, as the guards behind the parting glasses looked at them and then inspected the ID, to make sure that they were the people they said they were. What was vexing was the line of people who left the UK and went into other countries.

"This was supposed to be our main characters moment, why are all these people standing in our way?"

David, dressed like he was about to attend an event with the Prime Minister themselves, at 7AM, was glowing and glowering as they stood in line. He had been waiting for the trip ever since he had booked the tickets and now that it was finally here, he couldn't wait to actually get down on Italian soil. He was also - not surprisingly - the most awake of them all.

To catch their 9AM flight, they had gotten to the airport at around 5:30AM - Richard had driven them, of course, because none of them still had a car. Which meant that sleep time had been at 7PM last night (none of them had fallen asleep at that time, obviously). Running on a total of 3 hours of sleep each, the Core Four stood rubbing their eyes and blinking at their surroundings, suppressing yawns and bouncing on the balls of their feet to keep themselves active and awake. They could only hope they could've slept during the flight - although 2 hours of sleep wouldn't have really done much for their tiredness. Italy was also 1 hour ahead, so they would've experienced a - very minor - jet lag once they would've landed. It would've been midday there. The only thing keeping them going was the fact that they would've bought Italian food for lunch.

Their seats on the plane were all separated from each other, because choosing your seats meant paying an additional fee on the ticket price. Claire ended up on a seat at the very back row of the plane. She slept the entire flight to Milan Malpensa. The getting away from the UK was long overdue, especially after the suffocating months Claire had spent, drowning in her own lies and schemes.

The days after the night she had spent at Harry's house, when she had told him everything, even the things she wouldn't have told anyone, had been emotionally draining. Claire would get to the end of each day feeling exhausted, falling asleep the moment her head touched the pillow. She had faced everyone in this exact order: Josh, her best-friends, her friends from uni and then her sister, Anna, and her husband, Richard. It didn't get easier, each time she said it; if anything, it got even harder.

But nothing would've ever been as hard as it had been to tell it to Josh. Josh, who had practically flung himself at her, crushing her in a hug so fierce the breath had been knocked out of her lungs; Josh, who had bloodshot eyes and bags under his eyes because he hadn't slept; Josh, who had listened to everything she had to say to him, and hadn't interrupted her even when he had started crying (silently, to not interrupt her). Josh, who hadn't hurt her, ever, and whose heart she was breaking in an irreparable way. He had let her go, of course, after having told her that thing, maybe the most hurtful thing he had ever said to her. She hadn't repeated it to anyone, but herself, as she went on with her life.

"One day, someone is not going to be as nice as I am, and they will hurt you very badly, and I hope that day is very far."

She hadn't said it to Harry, once she had gotten back in the car, so spent that she had almost asked him to drive her back to his house so she wouldn't have had to face her friends in those conditions. The only thing that had stopped her from doing so had been the knowledge that he had a world tour to carry on with, and he needed to get ready for the European dates. So she had mastered a smiled and had told him to drive her home, please. And he had done so, without inquiring about how the talk had gone (badly, of course, he could tell as much).