She hoped Henry liked chocolate chip cookies.

They'd texted back and forth a little bit over the past couple of days to check that they were still on for dinner on Friday. He'd assured her that she didn't need to bring anything besides herself, but she felt compelled to contribute something to the evening despite her lack of cooking skills beyond the bare basics. She already had some dough in the fridge that she hadn't baked yet, so chocolate chip cookies it was. If nothing else, her kitchen smelled amazing now.

Her day had gotten off to a bumpy start in a rather literal sense—she wound up with a flat tire after hitting a pothole on the way to Nat's for work. Fortunately, she'd finally figured out how to change a tire after years of procrastinating on learning how to do it, so she was up and going again after just a few minutes. Driving any distance on those flimsy spare tires made her more anxious than it probably should have, but when she mentioned what had happened to Henry, he offered to pick her up for dinner so that she didn't have to be worrying about it before she could go buy a replacement tomorrow. She almost declined out of the desire not to inconvenience him, but Nat nudged her to not bail on dinner and offered to come get her from Henry's place afterward so that he wouldn't have to drive her both ways.

So here she was, sitting at her kitchen table while she waited for him to arrive and forcing herself not to start snacking on any of the cookies that had just come out of the oven in the meantime. Amelia had people ringing her doorbell so rarely that the sound of it managed to startle her even though she'd known it was coming; she hopped out of her seat to answer it.

"Hey," she smiled when she opened the door for him.

Henry was looking endearingly disheveled, having thrown on an old college sweatshirt (Amelia was fairly certain she had the same one lurking in the depths of her drawers somewhere) and letting his hair be a mess as if he'd rolled out of bed and barely attempted to tame it. But she liked the lack of formality wrapped up in him coming to her door like this, so casually, like they were friends who had known each other longer than they had. Then again, she had already cried in front of him, so she should have known that formalities had already been thrown far out the window.

"I made cookies. I know you said I didn't need to bring anything, but..."

"I'm sure they'll get eaten," he returned her grin. "They smell great, at least. You ready to go?"

She nodded and stepped outside, twisting her key in the lock behind them. A chill was hanging in the air that hadn't been there for the past couple of days and a sweatshirt suddenly seemed like a better idea than the thinner sleeves she currently had on. But it was only a very brief walk from her doorstep to his car, the interior of which was still warm from when he'd had the heat running in it just a minute ago. It resumed, pleasantly mild, with the turn of his key in the ignition, and it also didn't hurt that the fresh container of cookies resting on her lap doubled as a free leg warmer.

Henry was quiet for a moment while he pulled up the directions back to his place, but she found the silence with him to be surprisingly soothing considering how quickly anxious thoughts had been popping up in her head the instant she let her world get slow down too much. He glanced over at her before moving the car out of park.

"You look nice," he said, still with a soft smile on his lips, then looked down at his own outfit. "Maybe I should have tried a little harder."

Amelia felt a small burst of pink rush to her cheeks as she laughed. The long-sleeved dress she'd put on was nothing over the top—she thought the most exciting thing about it was that it had pockets—but it did make her feel good about herself, so she felt some satisfaction about the fact that Henry had noticed even if that wasn't her goal. She hadn't felt an obligation to dress any certain way, but she'd found in the past that putting more effort into her appearance boosted her mood on days when she didn't feel great mentally.

"Or maybe I should have worn a sweatshirt," she mused. "Alternatively, all three of us could wear dresses."

It was Henry's turn to laugh, lightly shaking his head as he backed them out of the parking space.

Reasonably, Amelia had assumed that dinner would be the most exciting part of the night. Henry had already made all of the food right before he came to pick her up, so it was waiting on the stove for them once they got to his place and was now just the right temperature to be served. Liam showed up just a couple of minutes after they did with an extra bottle of wine in hand.

How interesting, Amelia thought as she talked to the boys between bites of food at the dinner table, that Lily's the one who brought the three of us together and I've never even met her. She felt like she hadn't gotten a chance to hear Liam talk about his life as it existed separately from Lily yet, so it was nice to get to know him better while also getting to enjoy Henry's rather excellent pasta.

Liam was apparently a financial analyst, a job that sounded complicated and frankly boring to her, but the company he worked for produced live events like conventions and concerts, so that part seemed cool. He also didn't seem to expect her to find it particularly interesting, pitching it more as something he was good at and offered him stability. Amelia, on the other hand, had the exact opposite problem with her work life—she loved being a graphic designer and getting to operate on her own terms, but the only stability that working freelance offered was that she technically couldn't get fired from it. Having Nat's support was a little less intimidating than riding completely solo, but it could still get very stressful for them sometimes.

It wasn't until they had already cleared their plates of pasta and were munching on her cookies that the topic of Lily finally came up.

"So," Amelia started. "I take it there's been no news since I haven't heard otherwise?"

Liam shook his head. "Not for a lack of trying, obviously. I took the whole prescription situation to the detectives at the police department, but they said pretty much exactly what I expected them to. Lils getting her meds isn't exactly the giant red flag they'd be looking for."

Amelia felt a twinge in her chest—she didn't think she'd heard him call her anything besides Lily before. The look in his eyes grew a little more distant as if he'd caught himself saying it at the same time she had.

"And her parents called up the pharmacy," Henry added. "I'd hoped that they might be able to tell us if she was the one who came in or if it was someone else, but I honestly shouldn't have let myself think that they'd have anything for us to work with. None of the meds she takes require a photo ID to be picked up, so it wasn't like there was any sort of written record of who had actually gotten them."

He lifted his wine glass to his lips, taking a long sip before continuing. "And the most annoying part of it is that I can't even be mad at them for not remembering since I do the same job. I mean, I have dozens of people coming to pick up prescriptions every day. If someone called me up asking me to describe the person who'd come for one specific order I wouldn't have a damn clue."

Amelia had to consciously stop herself from sighing—this was all so frustrating and she wasn't even at the center of it. She'd never found herself wishing that prescriptions were even harder to get in this country than they already were, but now it felt barely short of infuriating that they didn't have a stronger paper trail to work off of when this had been their only solid lead in a potentially life or death situation. The whole thing was like a jumbled ball of threads that all trailed off to nowhere, offering them separate snippets of information but failing to form any sort of cohesive picture.

How are you not literally going insane? she wanted to ask both of them. Instead, she offered to clear the dirty dishes off the table. Afterward, as she returned to her seat, she glanced at her phone just long enough to realize that she'd let the time slip away between her fingertips and that Nat was already on her way to come pick her up.

"I think my friend's almost here."

"You can tell her she's welcome to come in for a drink if she wants," Henry offered.

Nat was rarely one to turn down a glass of wine and Amelia knew that she was secretly dying to meet Henry after how much she'd been rambling about him at work, so she passed the message on with a quick text. Considering that Nat was much more of a social butterfly than she was, she highly doubted that the offer would be declined.

And thus the doorbell rang five or so minutes later, just a moment after Amelia heard a car pulling up outside. She hopped up to fetch Nat from the porch while Henry pulled out another wineglass.

She had accounted for the cool weather a little better than Amelia had. Over her coat and jeans, she'd loosely draped a red scarf around her neck.

"Thanks for offering to get me. You find your way here okay?" Amelia asked courteously as she hugged her and ushered her inside, as if this were her own house and maps apps weren't a thing that existed.

"No problem," she answered as they walked towards the kitchen. "And yeah, I managed not to miss any of my turns. You should be proud of–"

She went completely silent mid-sentence, coming to a halt. When Amelia glanced over at her, she saw that her eyes had gone as wide as the dinner plates they'd just eaten off of, and she was about to ask what was the matter when she happened to look back towards the table. She suddenly realized that Nat wasn't the only one who looked like she was in a film and someone had hit pause. Liam's mouth had fallen open, his cheeks red. And he was staring right at Natasha. They were staring at each other.

Amelia was officially confused.

He was the first one to move, his mouth clamping shut and then opening again like a fish out of water before he swallowed, his voice strained as he finally got one word out.

"Nat," was all he said.

It took Amelia a second to process that she hadn't mentioned the name of the friend who was coming to pick her up. And even if she'd done that, he hadn't called her Natasha. He'd called her Nat.

She had a running joke that she'd only let friends call her that.

"Oh, God," Nat murmured, still fixated on him and appearing to have some sort of realization. "...You're the boyfriend, aren't you?"

Liam slowly nodded, and when Amelia glanced at Henry to gauge if he was just as confused as she was, the look she received was equally as puzzled as she felt, if not more. She figured it was time to intervene.

"Um," she said. "Do you guys know each other?"

Natasha was the one who answered. "Something like that."

How helpful. Amelia's brain was scrambling to put the pieces together, but Nat was usually so open with her, so upfront, that receiving a vague answer for once threw her completely off-kilter.

"Define something like that."

Nat hesitated.

"Maybe you should sit down," Liam offered dryly, still looking only at her. "Seeing that I think we're about to be interrogated."