The plane was large and comfortable. It would seem the Negaverse’s displeasure with General Avalon was not so great as to send her to England in coach; she was settled in the first class cabin of a 747 with a major airline, a cup of coffee at her right hand and a dog-eared copy of Hamlet in her left. In her frenzy to be prepared to teach full classes of Crystal girls about literature, she had ripped through every book on the syllabus, and in some ways this showed. The book had a broken spine in places, one page was half-torn out, but in many ways it was better tended than her other, similar books. Catcher in the Rye was likely still shoved into the gap between her bed and the wall--no, not her bed. Vanya Morgenstern didn’t exist anymore. Or at least, the Vanya Morgenstern others had known in Destiny City, didn’t, and her apartment had been abruptly abandoned. Which was a shame. She’d liked that place.

Vanya sighed, and took a sip of her coffee, draining it. The life of Gwen Rivers (and wasn’t that a coincidence; if she didn’t know the Negaverse better, she’d accuse them of having a shitty sense of humor) could take a backseat to the tragedies of Denmark, at least for this plane ride. When she landed in London, she’d worry about how a shy American scholar would act. Right now, she was permitting herself to relax.

That lasted for about twenty minutes. Just as the pilot announced the halfway point of their flight, and right after she’d ordered another coffee, a piece of notebook paper--folded into three parts and blazoned with the sigil of Babylon--appeared beneath her right hand and her coffee cup. She stared at it for a long moment, set down her empty cup and picked the paper up. It wasn’t that she didn’t know how the paper… the letter… had gotten there. She had been a knight and she remembered how signets worked. She did wonder why he had written to her, so soon. Surely he didn’t regret what they had done.

She unfolded the paper and scanned it. Phrases popped out at her--I can’t stop thinking about you, and I meant everything I said to you last night. I love you. I should have realized it ages ago, but better late than never, right? Pointless cliches that she would have taken points off a student’s essay for, but from Babylon--from Finn--they brought tears to her eyes. I love you. I want to see you again, when it will be safe.

For the second time in as many days, Vanya eyed the signet ring on her left hand, wishing it would work as it had when she was a knight. She longed to write back. See you soon? He deserved better than she’d given him, but in the end, wasn’t it more important that she be alive than they be together? As long as she lived, there’d be a chance for last night to happen again. But if she had refused to go, gone on the lam from her superiors, refused to take up the greatcoat of Avalon ever again, she would have been summoned and summarily killed. They would not grant her amnesty twice, not the great General-Queens of the Negaverse. Not with the near-murder of two of her peers on her record.

Had she ever really been irredeemable, she wondered? Of course, purification was not in her future. She had no desire to be lonely and weak again. Only in her strength had Babylon finally been drawn to her the way she’d wanted him to be; if she became weak again, she would lose him. That would be untenable, having finally tasted what she’d always wanted--

“Dearie, are you alright,” inquired a woman. Vanya looked up, over her shoulder, to the elderly flight attendant with her coffee. “I’m sure it’s not all that bad,” she said.

“It’s not,” said Vanya, rubbing her fingertips under her eyes. “Going long distance.” She gestured to the letter with a tiny, forced smile. The attendant looked back to the paper, and Vanya did too. Such a useless little scrap of a thing. She ran her thumb over the bright blue ink of the seal and smudged it, leaving blue smeared over the pad of her fingers.

The old woman nodded, and patted Vanya’s shoulder as she set her coffee down. “He must love you so much,” she said, in what she clearly wanted to be a comforting tone. “He’s staying in the States?”

Vanya sighed, and folded the letter up, and tucked it into the back of Hamlet. “He doesn’t know,” she said. “My reassignment has been… rather sudden.” The old woman pursed her lips, sympathetic, and bustled off to answer another alert light.

He didn’t know, thought Vanya. And they didn’t know about him. That would just have to keep Babylon Knight safe and alive until she could come back.