Timothy Abbey loved foggy London mornings. The blurry atmosphere suited his indecipherable personality. He usually left his house in Mayfair around eight, in a dark suite and a dark mood. He always carried an umbrella on his right arm, even if he drove all the way to work, as if he wanted to infuriate the clouds and make the sky fall down over his wrecked dreams and suffocating frustration.

He normally arrived at Saint Thomas Hospital around half past eight, and, after putting on his white coat, he walked to the laboratory, where he spent most of his time remembering his Medical School years, and wondering how different everything could have been, if only he had been a little better, a little smarter, a little less... mediocre. He was undistinguished, second-rate, and that had been his sentence all along.

The images that invaded his mind and wrung out his heart were always related to Sophie Curtis. He could still picture how incredibly sparkling her eyes were back then, even after sleepless study nights. He could still hear the sound of her whispers in the library, the magic in each of her charmingly ambitious confessions.

Those happy reminiscences were always followed by remembrances of Hugh Wellesley, by unbearable flashbacks of their third year in college, when the spark in Sophie's eyes had started to drift towards him.

Even if she was undeniably interested in Hugh, Timothy had kept dreaming of marrying her, and he had been sure he would do so one day. But Hugh was special. He wasn't characterless, and he had accomplished to satisfy Sophie's high-reaching yearnings.

Timothy had finally found the courage to confess his love to her on their wedding day. It had been the first act of bravery he had carried out in twenty-five years, and, it had had an outcome that he hadn't pictured in his wildest dreams: Sophie had kissed him. She had brought her soft, plump lips to his, and, in that sweet and fiery gesture, she had sealed their love, forever. Even if she hadn't divorced Hugh immediately, she had never turned down Timothy's suggestions to meet up, and they had embarked themselves in a maddening, exhilarating and consuming love affair.

A few months later, she had published a ground-breaking medical investigation, and had become the youngest Medicine Professor in the history of England. That recognition of her brilliance had probably reminded her of how dull Timothy was, and how little he fitted among all that excellence. She had used his influence to find him a place as a Professor at the prestigious King's College, and, after granting him with that generous, and yet pitiful, goodbye present, she had never answered his calls again. Not even after she had broken off her relationship with Hugh a year later.

Quite ironically, Timothy had been made head of the Undergraduate Research Group, an association in which only the most outstanding, purely genius medical students in the country were admitted.

Thus, he had become a grey, lonely, and nostalgic sixty-five year-old with a gaunt soul, whose monotonous, heavyhearted life took place at his house in Mayfair, the laboratory at Saint Thomas Hospital, and the Undergraduate Research Group at King's college.

But everything changed the foggy London morning when Tessa Blake first showed up at the Research Group.

"Tessa Blake, I just read your CV... And... Egad! It's good!" he told her.

Tessa smiled, and almost laughed, at his antique choice of words, and Timothy found something in her ethereal, yet completely awake, blue eyes; something that he had only seen in Sophie's gaze before.

"Thank you, sir." Tessa said.

Her words were surprisingly strong, and the way they contrasted with her angelical appearance was hooking, and almost vertiginous. He stared at her for too long, and almost pinched himself when he realized that he was developing an inappropriate attachment towards a student.

They were sitting in his office at King's College, at both sides of his dark wooden table. As he retrieved her CV from the envelope it had arrived in, she looked out the window and bit her bottom lip.

She was definitely strikingly beautiful; innocently sexy. However, after hearing the answer to the next question he asked her, he realized that his fascination for her was grounded on something that was yet undiscovered, and that didn't solely have to do with her sensuous looks.

"I also read your personal statement. You mention that you want to focus your investigation on leukemia because it took something very special from you. Can you tell me something more about that?"

She looked down, and tugged a few locks of blond hair behind her ear.

"It was my best friend. She died of leukemia last year." She swallowed hard, and lifted her gaze and met his again. "I still can't get my head around the fact that she is gone. If I just knew why, if I just understood... a little more, a little deeper..." She shook her arms in the air.

She was almost crying. She was emotional. She was intense. She stopped moving and added:

"I want to get to know her killer, I want to see it, face to face. And, when I do, I want to take it down. That's my way of making sure it will never kill anyone else again. That's my way of avenging my friend. That's my way of taking her back, at least partly."

She was hurting. And brave. He had been mostly convinced when he had read her CV, but, after hearing her speak, he had no doubt whatsoever on whether to accept her or not.

Tessa didn't talk to the other students at the laboratory. She kept her intriguing eyes on her samples, and scribbled down constantly. She talked to Timothy much less than her peers did, she didn't ask question. She didn't doubt herself, and Timothy resented that, because he wished to spend time with her, to guide her, to be necessary to her.

That's why he asked her to go with him to an exclusive, cutting edge research conference that he had been invited to in New York. He told her that he was very pleased with her work, and that he wanted her to present it at the conference. He knew she was too ambitious to turn that down.

His life wasn't dull anymore. It still took place only at his house in Mayfair, the laboratory at Saint Thomas Hospital, and the Undergraduate Research Group at King's college; but everything was different. He still loved foggy mornings, but he enjoyed the sun as well.

One afternoon, after Tessa and the rest of the students had left the laboratory, he noticed something on the table beside the window. He walked closer, letting the last beams of the sun that was falling over the Thames caress him. He immediately recognized the illegible scribbles. It was Tessa's notebook. His heartbeat quickened, and he extended his hand to grab it.

But he paused. Tessa hadn't talked about her research with him, or to anyone. She didn't want to share it. He knew he shouldn't read it without her permission; but, at the same time, having access to something that was so intimate to her was exhilarating.

He grabbed the notebook, put in in his briefcase, and drove back to Mayfair.

He was taking the first sip of his usual after dinner tea cup when he started to read Tessa's conclusions.

He spilled it.

"Egad!" he cried, and he put his hands over his accelerated heart to prevent it from jumping out of his chest.

"I have to... I have to... To call her..." he muttered to himself.

He knew she was probably not going to pick up her phone. Why would she want to talk to him? She probably wasn't even at home. But it was almost Christmas and it was calmly raining outside, and the dim, orange lights on his living room and the Sinatra music he had put on made him feel like the protagonist of a life-altering, vintage film. Everything was possible in those films.

"Timothy?" she said, and he almost collapsed at the sound of her unmissable voice.

It hadn't changed in thirty years.

"Sophie." he said. He had almost forgotten why he had called her.

"You haven't called me in thirty years." she said.

"You never picked up."

"I did, this time."

He could almost hear her smile. And then he heard the rain outside the window, and he realized that none of them was talking.

"I called you because I have something that will change our lives, forever."

"Our lives?" she asked, and Timothy understood what she was indirectly asking.

"I know there's no us, Sophie. You made that clear a long time ago. What I meant is that this will change everyone's life. It will change the world. I need to see you. I need to explain this to you face to face."

He didn't expect her to agree. He thought that he would have to tell her something more, that she would force him to reveal the magic in Tessa's investigation over the phone. She had never liked secrets. She was too eager. But, this time, she waited, and agreed to meet up at The Wolseley the following afternoon. That unexpected behavior made Timothy think that, perhaps, she didn't just want to know his secret, but longed to see him as well.

Tessa had united him too Sophie in two ways already. First, she had casted the same kind of beguiling spell on him, and had made him remember what it felt like to be inspired, and excited, and alive. And, now, she had given him an excuse to get her back into his life.

He couldn't be happier. He almost danced his way to The Wolseley the following afternoon. It was an elegant 1920s tea room located on Piccadilly.

After opening the heavy wooden doors, not even the refined hanging lamps, or the the eye-catching pastry trays distracted him. His eyes found Sophie immediately. How could she still be so similar, and yet so different?

She was wearing a knee-length floral dress, and her lips were painted in the same red velvet color that she used to wear when she was twenty. However, her sparkly eyes were marked in wrinkles, in experience, in wisdom.

She also found him instantly, and smiled sweetly. Did she find him similar to when he was young, too? Why did she recognize him? Was he even the same person? Hadn't he gotten lost in misery and regret, and hopelessness? He had just started to feel like his old self again. Tessa had brought him back, but would Sophie take him back?

"Good afternoon, dear." he greeted her, almost automatically, driven by memories, by the undeniable power of his feelings.

His face reddened, and she smiled.

"Good afternoon, Timothy."

He sat down.

"What did you want to tell me?" she said, as she took a scone from the afternoon tea tray.

Timothy didn't answer, and started to pour her some tea.

"Do you still have it with a drizzle of honey?" he asked, as he hesitated about whether to pass her the sugar or not.

She nodded, and spread some clotted cream over her scone. The scene was too calm and coy for what Timothy was about to say.

"I... I..." he didn't know how to put it. His affection for Tessa made it difficult for him to betray her. But he had to. "I made an investigation..."

His stomach hurt as he definitely stole Tessa's idea.

"Oh, really? I didn't know you were into research." she said, and he felt mocked.

Of course she didn't. Nobody did. That presumption strengthened his will to lie, to take hold of something big and shiny, for once. It was his only chance. He would rather betray Tessa than betray himself.

"Immortality is possible. I made it possible. I started this research project willing to defeat leukemia, and I ended up defeating death."

Sophie dropped the jam jar.

"What are you talking about, Timothy?"

He felt powerful. Regret was not running through his veins anymore. His heart beat stronger.

"I designed a treatment to keep cells renewing themselves, to stop aging. We won't ever have to say goodbye, Sophie." he said, and he laughed, feeling victorious.

"What on Earth, Timothy?" she said, and she laughed, too.

"Here, read this. Everything is there." he said, and he handed him the information he had copied from Tessa's notebook.

Tessa didn't exist anymore. He had nullified her with his treachery. And he didn't feel sorry. Selfishness was definitely stronger than love.

Sophie read through the conclusions, and her face lit up as she did so. The sight of her regaining her youth, and, maybe, just maybe, her love for him, was the most exhilarating thing in the world. Timothy felt like he could fly. How was it possible, that, even if he had robbed the most precious thing that he could steal, from a beloved student, he felt better than ever?

"I know I didn't achieve ground-breaking conclusions at twenty-five, like you did when you published your first project. But I am proud."

Sophie lifted her eyes from the papers, and her eyes looked sad, suddenly.

"What I am trying to say is that... I know I was never good enough for you, Sophie. But I hope I can be know."

"Timothy, I..." she started, and she shook her head.

"You don't have to say anything now." he said, and he reached for her hand over the table.

"It's not that. It's just... I should have told you a long time ago... That was never the problem; you not being good enough. I wasn't good enough, either."

"What? I don't understand you, Sophie."

"My research. It was not mine. It was Hugh's."

Hugh Wellesley. Why did he have to come up again? Why did he still have to ruin Timothy's plans, thirty years later?

"What?"

"I stole that project from him. One night, he went to bed before I did, and left his laboratory notebook on the dinning room table. I was bored, so I started to read it. His conclusions were... unbelievable. I knew they would make me powerful if I published them, and I was desperately hungry for power, and excellence."

Timothy stared at her perplexedly. Her red lips and sparkly eyes didn't seem to belong to the woman he loved anymore. He had been deceived. Sophie was just like him. Under any other circumstances, that would be a good thing, but, right then... He felt like, in stealing that investigation, Sophie had betrayed him more than she had broken Hugh's trust. He had spent forty years longing for her uniqueness, for her liberating, transforming supremacy... And it had all been a lie. She was just average.

Tessa wasn't, and he had deluded her. He couldn't undo that anymore.

He could only do one thing at that point. He had to hold on to the lie he had told Sophie, he had to keep making her believe that the discovery was his, and he had to win her back, to succeed in drenching himself in her sweetness and heavenliness again. There had to be at least a remnant of those things in her fraudulent soul.

But how could there be any of that in a person in which nothing was true? People who betrayed others had surely betrayed themselves too at some point. And beauty, and singularity, and glory... couldn't coexist with betrayal.

They couldn't go on forever. Even if Tessa wanted them to. At that precise moment when his thoughts drifted towards Tessa, Timothy's phone rang, and it was her.

"Professor Abbey, thank God I reached you. I left my notebook at the laboratory yesterday, and I drove back there today, and it wasn't there. And I need it, be-because... because..."

He couldn't tell her that he had it, because, if he did, she would know that he knew.

"Shh, my dear Tessa, listen to me. The cleaning lady called me last night. She found it and safely stored it. Don't worry."

Tessa sighed, relieved, and another ounce of pureness evaporated from the world.

"Thank you so much, Professor. I can't wait to present my work in New York."

"I can't wait, either."

Host's Note: These have been the ten stories of Betrayal. How did the team do?