If I'd stayed, if you'd tried

"Dan?" PJ's worried voice pulls him out of his thoughts and Dan quickly shakes his head, willing the memories to disappear.

"Sorry," he murmurs as he takes the blue ornament out of the box and lifts it up, watching sadly as the light in the room reflects on it, "it's just that my ex boyfriend bought this one for me at a Christmas market last year."

He opens the drawer of his desk and carefully places the ornament in there before closing it again. Now is not the time to think about Phil, who should be with him right now and not living in a university dorm up north, so far away from Dan.

They've been dating for three years. Their mother's always liked to call them high school sweethearts. They were the kind of couple that made other people long for a relationship just by watching them interact. For three years, Phil was Dan's world - and then Dan had decided that this simple life up north with Phil wasn't enough anymore. He moved to London for university after graduation, while Phil had decided to stay near home, wanting to be close to his family. Dan thought that it would work out just fine, that for a few years they'd just be in a long-distance relationship before moving in together - and then Phil had broken up with him, saying that a long-distance relationship was not what he wanted.

It's been months, but it still hurts. Phil was Dan's first love. His first everything. He had been sure that they'd grow old together.

PJ, sensing Dan's sadness, suggests they watch a movie. That's how they end up watching Love Actually on Dan's bed, because PJ's has too much stuff on it to fit both of them comfortably (which isn't to say that Dan's bed fits them comfortably either, because they are both big and the beds at the dorm are ridiculously small). Dan knows that movie by heart, and even though he has seen it a thousand times by now, he still tears up. And when he watches as the author Jamie flies to Portugal to propose to Aurelia, this silly little idea starts forming in his head. But he couldn't possibly - or could he?

Dan doesn't sleep much that night and listens to PJ snoring softly, and before the sun has risen he's out of bed and packing a backpack to last him two or three days.

(Dan often has stupid ideas. This one might be the most stupid of them all.)

"What are you doing?" PJ's words are slurred and heavy from sleep. He's blinking at Dan tiredly.

"Go back to sleep," Dan tells him. When PJ wakes up again, there'll be a letter explaining to him that Dan is on his way up north, that he'll catch the next train that will bring him to Phil. And then Phil will change his mind and take him back, and they'll be happy like Jamie and Aurelia in the movie. It's not going to be quite as romantic, because Dan didn't learn a new language for Phil and he didn't plan on proposing either, but it was going to be pretty damn romantic anyway.

The air is cold and the blue sky is covered by gray clouds as Dan makes his way to the train station. Excitement bubbles up in his chest, the kind of excitement a child gets when thinking about Christmas. Dan hasn't felt that feeling for so long. The train is heated and slowly his fingers get warm again, and then he leaves the station, leaves London to go back up north and really this is the most ridiculous thing Dan has ever done, but also he really thinks that it's the best decision of his life. Minutes feel like hours but Dan passes them by listening to music and imagining Phil's face when he spots him. Will he be frozen to the spot? Chase towards Dan and sweep him off his feet? Maybe even shed a tear? Phil never cries, but maybe this will get him to tear up.

Only when Dan arrives at the train stop and gets off does he realizes that he's come without a plan. He only knows that Phil lives in a dorm, but he has no clue where. Google maps helps him find the university Phil studies at, and from there he starts walking from dorm building to dorm building, asking at the information desk if a Philip Michael Lester lives there. He gets rejected three times, and one time he's told that such information can't be given out. But at the fifth dorm, he gets lucky. Phil lives here. Room number one hundred and twenty-three. And as far as the lovely woman at the information desk knows, he's currently in his room.