Long Distance.

There’s a few thuds and a bit of yelling before Shay reappears, dragging someone behind him. He slumps down in the seat Aled was in earlier, and it’s a few minutes before Alex realizes that he’s wearing a name tag.

“When are you at work?” Shay asks, appearing from the kitchen with a plate of toast. The newcomer eyes it warily, but takes it anyway and sets it on the arm of the sofa. Shay sits down beside him and absently throws his arm around his shoulders.

“Half one-ish.” He responds.

“So who exactly are you?” Shay asks, and the Americans all turn to them.

“Wait, I know this!” The guy with the tag exclaims, jumping up, “You’re Daniel,” he points exuberantly at Daniel, “and you two are obviously together, so you’re Jack and Alex. You look older, so you’re Alex and you’re Jack. Which means by default, you’re Andrew.”

Everyone stares at him in disbelief.

“I was right, wasn’t I?” He says smugly.

“Uh, yeah.” Alex says, ruffling his hair, “And you are?”

“Oh, right!” He giggles, “I’m Josh, and he’s Andrew too, but call him Shay. Everyone does.”

“How’d you remember their names? Aled told us years ago.” Shay asks in amazement.

“I tend to retain information I rarely need. I can tell you all of their names, but I can’t tell you when rehearsal finishes tonight.” Josh laughs a little. Shay frowns at him.

“Aled said it was at around six.” Shay sighs.

“They expect me to dance around for two hours?” Josh asks, horrified.

“Josh, the show is two hours long. And it’s next week. If you paid any attention to anything Aled says, you’d know it’s a full dress rehearsal.”

Josh sighs and folds his arms.

“They won’t let me and Joel out early, I know it.”

Shay smiles weakly at Josh and pulls him into a hug. Josh pushes him away and takes a step back.

“Anyway.” Shay says awkwardly, “Coffee?”

*

Aled glares somewhat menacingly at Shay as he pushes open the door to Costa Coffee. Shay drags everyone to a table and Aled comes waltzing over with a notepad.

“You love ruining my life, don’t you, Shay?” Aled grumbles, but when fixed with a glare from one of the girls at the desk, he returns the ‘happy to serve’ guise, “What would you like to order?”

Alex, Jack, Daniel and Andrew place their orders fine, but Aled doesn’t look at them for the entire time.

“And you?” He sighs, turning to Shay.

“A latte, please.” Shay smirks.

“What? You don’t even like lattes. You complain they’re cold.” Aled retorts with a frown, stopping halfway through writing the word.

“The customer is always right, Aled.” Shay says patronizingly, and Aled resists the urge to flip the bird at him as he stalks away.

“Anyway, now that piece of light entertainment’s done, let’s talk Aled.” Shay says, stacking up the menus in the empty place setting.

Everyone looks at him expectantly.

“See that girl over there? The one with the long wavy hair and the whore lips? That’s Marina. She’s Aled’s best friend. He has a little bit of a crush on her, if you couldn’t tell.”

“He also switched his glasses for contact lenses a while ago, don’t know why.” Shay says with a slight frown, looking over at him, “He takes the same university course as Marina and Josh, Music at Cardiff Arts.”

“She seems like a real asshole.” Alex says, having watched the girl for a few minutes.

“Random useless fact: he adores Lady Gaga. He’s in the university’s music showcase thing next week, because it’s supposed to show off all the new meat they’ve gotten. He also can’t stand mess. That’s why the apartment’s so clean.”

Shay silences himself as Alex walks over with a tray. He sets it on the table and narrows his eyes at Shay.

“Enjoy your coffee.” Aled says through gritted teeth.

Shay holds back a laugh as he stomps away.

“He’s such a kid.”

Shay’s about to start talking when the door opens behind him. He thinks nothing of it, and opens his mouth to speak, but when he hears Aled yell ‘GAVIN!’ across the shop he gives up.

“And that’s Gavin Butler. Also known as serial pants invader. He goes to Aled’s university, and I swear he wants in Aled’s undies so bad.” Shay says, glancing over his shoulder with contempt at Gavin, “Thing is, Aled doesn’t stop him.”

Only Alex really notices the glare Daniel’s now giving Gavin. He elbows the younger under the table and Daniel turns to look at him.

“But, I guess Aled’s not interested because he never really got over you.” Shay finishes, gesturing at Daniel with a stirrer that’s dripping coffee everywhere.

Alex looks at Daniel, who sighs and stares down into his coffee.

“I don’t know. I always figured he’d have tried to stay in contact if he was still interested in me.” He sighs. Shay sighs, rummaging in his pockets for some cash to leave on the tray, which he eventually finds, before dragging Daniel by his wrist back to the apartment.

He leaves Andrew, Jack and Alex in the sitting room again before pulling Daniel up the stairs.

“You need to see this. I don’t usually go in his room, but when I went in for one of my hoodies he had by accident, I saw something.”

Shay pushes open the door and heads inside, pulling Daniel after him. He gestures at a notice board on the wall, and for a second, it looks just like a regular notice board -covered in photos, and occasional tickets and memories.

But then Daniel looks closer and it’s a notice board dedicated to him and Aled. There’s photos from Aled’s time in Virginia, letters Daniel had sent, printed out emails and even stills from some of the times they’d video called each other.

“He’s definitely not over you. And I’d say he’s still into you.”

*

“I just… Can’t believe they’re over here.” Aled says, pulling at his hair lightly. Josh pats his shoulder lightly and glances across the room at Marina and Iain.

“But the point is, they are.” Josh says, pulling his friend into a hug, “And they’re here for you. I left them with Shay today, but we’re both off tomorrow. We could hang out with them.”

Aled nods against Josh’s shoulder and the younger smiles a little.

“It might be a little difficult for you, but if you want me there, I’ll be there.” Josh continues, “I know it’ll be hard for you to see Daniel again after so long.”

“But what if it happens again, Josh?” Aled asks into Josh’s shoulder, “What if we get back together? He’ll just have to go back and leave me behind like I did to him, then we’ll break up again and I’ll be even worse than I was the first time. It’ll be worse than the first time.”

Josh sighs a little.

“Don’t think so negatively. I’m sure everything will be fine. In fact, I promise everything will be okay. Better than okay. Awesome. I promise everything will be awesome.” Josh says.

Aled smiles a little and pulls himself up from Josh’s shoulder.

Marina comes back over, dragging Iain behind her.

“Are you ready to go, guys? We have to work on Happy Ending first.”