Randel's there, mostly to buy up anything that doesn't sell to be featured at tomorrow's cat cafe. He's been pretty busy trying to keep everything straight at the shelter given how many wounded woodland creatures came in. That's why he's hardly noticed that new people have arrived. But when he spots her, he recognizes her.

And he is well aware that she is not Katherine. He couldn't make that mistake if you paid him.

Because that is clearly Elena. His cheeks turn more than a little red at a sensation that's entirely alien to him swells up in his chest, a feeling that he'd thought was literally impossible for him since his memories had started coming back to him. And these memories, they don't match with those; they're the memories from this place, the ones he hardly recognizes, the ones that give him all the things and people he's wanted, either because he never had them or because he'd lost them.

A girl who always made his heart skip a beat.

A girl he never approached because, well...

He'd say the wrong things. He'd muck everything up, clumsy and awkward and awful as he is with things like this. He'd trip over his own lackluster words and he'd either make her feel sorry for him or he'd make her upset or he'd say something. He manages, though, to reach up a hand and kind of half-flutter his fingers her way.

Hi.

She doesn't have to acknowledge his existence, and in fact it's probably wiser is she doesn't, but-

Hi.