Arabella Pannone is used to the scorching, bright weather of her hometown of Rome, Italy. Despite the fact she's now lived in Canada for over two years, she's still yet to become accustomed to the frigid climate over here. As each winter approaches and the ground ices over Arabella still finds herself startled by just how cold it gets.

This is what she's thinking as she trudges to the bus stop near her house. Her feet, clad in electric blue Doc Marten boots, splash in semi-frozen puddles of the slush that always follows snow. The bus stop is deserted when Arabella reaches it. She stands under the shelter, shivering a little, and waits for her bus. As usual, it's late.

Whilst the bus service's failure to deliver a bus on time is annoying to Arabella, it's very handy for Artthur Morgenstern, who is currently hurrying towards that same bus stop. He's got a navy blue scarf wrapped around his neck and obscuring half his face, but it's still not quite enough to protect him from the bitter January weather.

Arthur reaches the bus just as its doors are about to close. Then he notices that someone, a girl, has held it open for him. He struggles to catch his breath as he thanks her, his smile hidden by his scarf. She nods and quickly shuffles to a seat as he gathers the ticket fare from his wallet.

As it turns out, the only available seat is next to the girl who'd held the door for him. Arthur sits down and gets out his History exercise book. Being the master of procrastination he is, he has managed to leave the essay due for first period to the very last minute.

Arabella glances across at the lap of the boy next door her, smirking when she notices that he's busy scrawling what appears to be homework. She can't help but be amused at the way his handwriting jolts and tilts with every bump and turn in the road. Thankfully, she completed all her assignments due for today before visiting her sister at college in Florida. She takes a moment to thank her past self for her initative and not letting herself end up in a similar situation to the boy beside her.

Instead, she gets out her phone. She'd been meaning to call said older sister when she arrived home yesterday but ended up going straight to bed the moment she got home, hit hard by the caffeine crash.

"Hey." The sound of Arabella's sister Catarina's voice always brings a rush of happiness to her; she sounds like home.

"Hi, Cat, it's me. I know you told me to ring when I got home but I was so tired that I just went to bed and slept for, like, sixteen hours," Arabella says, trying to keep her voice low as to avoid being the annoying person on public transport who yells down their mobile phone.

"I can't blame you. How was the flight? Any better than on the way over?" Catarina asks in a slow voice.

Arabella shrugs, despite the fact Cat can't see her. "Not as bad. I mean, I wasn't sat next to the bitchiest old lady ever, which helped. Actually, this boy went and got me a couple of coffees when I didn't want to get up, so that was good."

"Sorry, Bella, I'm trying to pay attention but I'm currently nursing the worst hangover and it would be easier just to speak in Italian - è che va bene?"

Arabella laughs and continues the conversation in her native language. It seems to be following closely along the lines of the passenger she sat next to as her sister persists to ask whether he was cute, was he a gentleman, etcetera - to which Arabella replies yes, he was cute, but no, he was also extremely infuriating.

Eventually she manages to steer the conversation away from herself and towards college life. For some reason, she's found her thoughts drifting to that boy more than once since her return and that is not something she wants to ponder on further.

Meanwhile, Arthur is furiously scribbling down the conclusion to his essay, blissfully unaware that the girl sat next to him right now is that same person who has managed to occupy a fair few of his thoughts. In fact, it's pretty much her fault that he's doing his homework now, as opposed to last night.

At last he finishes it and shoves it into his bag.

Now that his attention isn't focused on his assignment he becomes aware of a one sided coversation taking place beside him in - is that Italian? The language strikes at the memory of a voice he'd heard in the early hours of yesterday morning. At the time he'd brushed it off as just some vaguely European accent, but now it all clicks together.

The name, the accent and now the language.

"Arabella Pannone," Arthur says, thinking out loud as he stands up to get off at his stop. He heads to the front of the bus, almost missing the chance to disembark; he'd been so wrapped up in his thoughts.

As he steps out onto the sidewalk below the bus stop he looks through the window to see Arabella staring right at him. The bus begins to pull away and he just catches her lips forming the words Oh my God.