The streets of the city rang out in silence. The only light accompanying Mia's headlights were the street lamps that illuminated the empty causeways every hundred yards or so. The city itself was quiet, its usual nighttime glow turned down according to the late hour.

Mia drove in silence, the sound of her engine one of the few filling the late night airways. At the sight of fellow travelers, her mind wandered to reasons of why they might be out at such a time. Were their ventures like hers? Her roaming thoughts helped keep her mind focused somehow and steadied her hands, gripping tight to the wheel.

She had no worry that sleep would overtake her eyes. She hadn't bothered to try and sleep when the rest of the world had headed for bed. The view of the city winking out its light as the night dove deeper occupied her time and kept her distracted enough that her head only turned to check the time every five minutes instead of every one.

And there was the compulsion to make sure she had the right information. That had helped keep her busy as it occurred once every hour; a continuous check on the status, the small icon that kept moving her way and accounted for her now racing heartbeat.

She left a light on in the apartment as she had prepared to leave, aware of the feeling one experienced when returning to a dark and empty home. She wished to fill the apartment with light only, leaving any thoughts of anything other than home far from its owner's mind.

With one last check to make sure there were only the right indicators that she had spent the better part of the last two months trying to make someone else's home her own, she closed and locked the door with her own set of keys.

It was with a final wave to the nighttime security guard, a figure she had gotten to know more than the man on duty during the day, and a turn of another key that started her ignition that set her towards the one destination she had been thinking of every moment for the past two months. Whether conscious of the thought or not, it had always been there. She had played out this night in her dreams, every single night since the last time she had taken these same roads.

It always started with her driving the route she knew too well. With street lights flashing past her as she drove, a strong feeling of deja vu washed over her and she swallowed it down in an attempt to keep her anticipation at bay. The thought of what was waiting for her didn't help in her efforts and her mind ran over the familiar scenario once again as she exited the city and started to skirt around its perimeter.

The winding roads and narrow entrances and exits of the complex compound were lit better than the rest of the city streets Mia had just wound her way through and among the concrete complex, she found only a few more fellow humans awake. Even for an international airport at three in the morning, the lack of movement and crowd was sure to be defined as a lull in traffic.

The last time Mia had found herself under these same fluorescent lights, she hadn't been awake enough to observe just how busy the airport had been. It had been at a very similar time of night but Mia had spent the previous twelve hours on a plane and the past twenty hours in transit. Her eyes were red from both lack of sleep and the few repressed tears that had managed an escape down her cheeks.

She could already feel the wells in the corners of her eyes starting to fill but smiled this time at the thought of why they were making an appearance.

A cold wind whipped through the narrow tunnels and an extra burst of early winter chill hit Mia as she waited at the crosswalk, letting the airport transit system do its job before she ventured forward. The warmth of the interior enveloped her as the automatic doors rolled open but the shaking in Mia's hands persisted. She rubbed them in an effort to regain feeling in her chilled digits but as they ran warm, Mia's mind kept on the task to expel some of her pent-up energy.

Only a few steps inside and Mia's eyes started glancing in every direction. The cavernous interior echoed with the few footsteps that walked its halls as Mia started in a direction she knew to be right. Her eyes stayed wide, scared to miss a detail. When not peering around every corner, checking every available seat, double checking the electronic signs reading out baggage claim information, Mia's eyes checked her phone screen, double and then triple checking the time, the date, and the flight information.

Her mind sent her flashes of images of what the next day would look like, and even the next, and the one after that. The images of that large apartment once again filled with laughter, sunlight shining through the tall windows that looked out onto the city and finding people once again among those four walls, they rotated through the millions of thoughts racing through Mia's mind, trying in vain to match the pace set by her beating heart.

She allowed herself a smile and a deep exhalation of pent-up oxygen at the thought of a tree strung in lights, illuminated in the dark, encircled with Christmas presents, and someone there to share it with, someone there to help her decorate, to remind her that that was what was suppose to happen during this time of year.

All the nights she had spent alone, sitting in front of the windows, when everyone else had already gone to sleep, when her friends and family eventually gone to their own homes, leaving Mia to remain in her temporarily empty one. They were now fading to a faint memory. That apartment was finally going to be a home again. And the missing piece was making his way towards Mia at that very moment.

Mia froze when the frosted glass panes had finally rolled back and a small mob of people came pouring through. She searched every face, peaking underneath every cap, in search of the only face she knew better than her own. He had found her before she had found him and he was smiling as he approached. Mia's smile beat his out for brightest but his was fighting against the stronghold exhaustion held over his body.

He still had his hat pulled down low over his face and his bags fell from his shoulders as he approached her. Her arms were around his neck and his arms were tight around her waist in the matter of a heartbeat. They stood there for a long moment, each second in each other's embrace an attempt to make up for the last two months of separation.

Mia was the one to start the release but only because she could feel the strain of his body against hers and the knowledge of just how tired he must be egged her forward. Reluctant to the act she came to a compromise when she grabbed tight his hand instead to make sure he really did exist, he was really there, at long last.

She finally got a long look in his face as he tried to smile down at her. She could see the sleep at the corner of his eyes, his face looking as if he had only just woken up as she was sure he had.

They had traveled thousands of miles together and never once had she seen him struggle to sleep while in the air. Even during the early days when their seats had been smaller and further towards the back, he had always found a comfortable position and fallen asleep.

She didn't mind that she had had a harder time of it. Watching him sleep helped her find her own. Even when the seats in the planes became wider and more comfortable, even with more leg room and space to stretch out, they always woke up leaning against each other, their sleeping selves always finding one another and finding there the most comfort.

Mia raised a hand to his face, taking in immediately the changes that had occurred over the two months since they had last seen each other. He had been tired when they had been forced to part. But now he was exhausted. His flight home had been shorter than hers had been but there had been so many more in between then and now, so many late nights, long bus rides and endless hours spent in front of an endless sea of people, in front of whom he poured out his heart every night.

The thought of a few weeks down the line, the next time she would be right back in this same spot, the scene they had just played, playing in reverse, flashed into her mind.

It did often, on the really late nights, when it was reaching dawn and she had still failed to find sleep. It flashed into her mind then and the crack in her heart broke open just a bit wider. She could feel her widest smile shrink, barely a millimeter, but it seemed to travel to his face as his smile widened, his bright eyes looking down into hers. He picked up his bags, Mia grabbing instinctively for one of them, and pulled her in tight under his arm.

They stepped outside and he took a deep breath of the fresh night air and the stillness and quiet all around.

"I missed you," he said, speaking out to the night air around them and the solid ground beneath his feet, his eyes landing lastly on her own.

Mia soaked in his expression and the crack in her heart healed itself up again; though still raw and fragile, but at least, at that moment, whole.

On his face, she read only relief and peace, pure joy at the sight of his hometown all around him and underneath his feet once more. There existed beyond the two of them an entire life, a whole world, still very much alive and waiting for him to dive back in. But in that moment, the only world that mattered most to him stood right by his side, pressed close to him and holding him tight, not daring to let go.

A/N:

Okay. We're three stories in. What do we think so far?

The diner one is one of my ultimate favorite but I also have major love for arrivals because it was the first one I wrote.

What about you? Which one is your favorite?

Alright guys. Imagine this. I actually have enough of these I'm gonna be posting a new one every Friday.

What?? I know right?? It's crazy. Unheard of. I have no idea what's going on either.

Maria actually updating regularly what is this life???

Thanks for reading. I'd love to know what you thought and I'll you guys next week!!