Chapter Text
In all honesty, she never thought this day would actually come. Sure, she was well aware that the university she’d accepted her offer at was …far away from home, but somehow the idea that she’d be moving a few thousand miles away from where she’d spent her entire life and to a completely new country –much less a new continent– was somehow just now sinking in.
Here she stood, her one pathetic suitcase and equally pathetic duffle bag being gently yanked out of the taxi she’d hailed outside the Edinburgh airport, now in the tiny town of St Andrews on the Eastern coast of Scotland. She was face-to-face with an imposing stone building that was, according to all of her admissions documents, her new place of residence. McIntosh Hall. It was an impressively sized building with a strange curvature to it, which had the effect of making it look even more imposing than it would be otherwise. Young adults and parents alike were in similar states of chaos all around her, managing luggage and attempting to get moved into a dormitory that almost certainly had only a single lift, if any at all. Suddenly overwhelmingly self-conscious of her stark loneliness in this moving experience, she quietly paid the taxi driver, and sent him on his way with a polite smile and a timid, “Thank you so much”.
Danielle Clayton used to be a lot of things, a cheerleader, midwesterner, long-term girlfriend. Dani Clayton (the nickname she’d been trying to convince everyone to use for the better half of a decade but to no avail) however, was none of those things; she decided months ago when she accepted her offer that here, she would allow herself to be all the versions of herself she’d never been allowed to show off before. Gritting her teeth and tipping her jaw up ever so slightly, Dani made her way up the worn stone stairs outside the building and through the double doors, where she was greeted by over-excited upperclassmen student ambassadors in maroon t-shirts with embroidered University of St Andrews crests across the right breast. Dani supposed she must have looked about as anxious as she felt, because a tall, strikingly beautiful woman in the group of ambassadors with the friendliest eyes Dani’s ever seen quietly approaches her from behind the check-in desk and kindly introduces herself as Hannah.
“Welcome to McIntosh Hall! I know this is quite the ordeal right now dear, but everything will settle soon enough. Once we’ve finished checking you in and giving you your matriculation card, would you like me to show you where your room is?” Hannah invites.
“Oh that would be lovely, thank you so much…” Dani trails off, suddenly so much more aware of how grating her flat midwestern-American accent must be to someone with such a lovely cadence and lilt like Hannah’s.
Hannah seems to recognise the self-consciousness in Dani’s eyes and tries to make her feel even more welcome, “Did you know that we actually have a lot of American students here? Roughly fifteen percent of our student body is from the States and over half is international, so I’m sure you will have plenty of people to bond with should you feel any kind of culture-shock or homesickness. Sometimes we all just need a bit of creature comforts, don’t we?”
Dani hums in agreement as she answers a few of Hannah’s checking-in questions, thanking whatever deity might exist that Hannah hasn’t asked why she’s obviously an international student having only just turned eighteen, moving into university alone. Perhaps Hannah can tell that Dani is starting to feel a bit overwhelmed, so she deflects some of the attention onto other topics, commenting on the variety of courses available to Dani once the term begins. Hannah tells Dani that she’s been at St Andrews since her undergraduate degree in Philosophy, but she fell so in love with the town and its people that she’s stayed throughout her Master’s in Philosophy as well and is now working towards a PhD in Divinity. Dani is beyond relieved to hear that a lovely person such as Hannah has had such a positive experience here in St Andrews, and she is infinitely grateful that Hannah was the person who happened to complete her move-in check-in.
Right before they depart the welcome desk in search of her room, she’s inundated with pamphlets regarding registration with a GP practice, immunisation requirements, maps of the town and University buildings, and a little sticky note with a phone number scribbled onto it, signed ‘if you ever want a friend, Hannah :)’. Dani feels such a strong pull towards friendship with Hannah due to her warm and welcoming nature, so she thanks her instantly for the leaflets and the sticky note, quickly opening her phone to capture a quick photo of the note in the event that she loses it (she definitely will).
Dani’s cellular data isn’t working for anything and it hasn’t since she landed a few hours ago. She knew she would have to invest in a new SIM card for her phone, allowing her to have a British phone number and subsequent contact with the outside world and (hopefully) her new uni friends. What she didn’t expect is that her phone isn’t connecting to any cellular service at all. Dani called her family network provider just a few days ago and prepaid international roaming for the first few days she’d be in the UK so she wouldn’t be high and dry until she could take herself to the Vodafone shop in town after unpacking her room. However, it seems that a certain Karen Clayton took it upon herself to remove Dani from their family cellular plan altogether which, quite frankly, isn’t all too surprising due to the way she took the news that her only daughter was moving across the Atlantic, breaking up with her boyfriend of three years, and enrolling in a university that was decidedly not the University of Iowa (which was a 'convenient' twenty miles from her childhood home). No way.
Shaking off the unwelcome reminder of home, Dani takes a moment to collect herself before Hannah moves her attention from her checklist to her, asking “Alright then, Dani. Would you like me to show you where your room is?”
Dani nods emphatically, getting a bit of her excitement from earlier back at the prospect of finally having somewhere to call her own, a place to decorate as she sees fit. Hannah grabs Dani’s duffle bag and immediately hushes her when the younger girl goes to protest, arguing that “that’s why I’m here dear”. Dani shuffles behind her as they walk through a series of fire doors (seriously how many freaking fire doors are there in this country?!) before ascending three flights of stairs to ‘A’ floor.
Whilst climbing, Hannah gives Dani a bit of information about her new halls of residence, “There’s five residence floors, A through E from top to bottom; the dining hall is reachable through its own staircase to the lowest floor. A floor is all female and B is male, while C, D, and E are mixed; however, there’s quite a few more women–roughly 65/35 ratio– at the University than men, so it’s likely to be mostly female anywhere you look. You’re on A floor, which is my personal favourite… it’s the floor I was on during my first year. It’s the smallest floor with the most adorable rooms that are a mix of single and shared rooms and it always has such a wonderful sense of community”. Dani practically heaves with relief at the news of her A floor placement and the surprising information that St Andrews is female-student dominant (she may feel a bit of extra pride at that).
Gathering her breath after the climb, she turns to Hannah unable to curb her enthusiasm, “which room am I in?!” she asks excitedly. Hannah smiles more broadly when she sees how much more enthusiastic Dani has become in just a few short minutes. She looks down at the paper in her hands and the keys paperclipped to them and she turns to Dani with a sparkle in her eye.
“You’re in A28, which is just down at the far end of the hall. It’s a single, so you’ll have your own room and space to call your own, but you still have access to the A floor kitchen, the shared bathrooms, and the dining hall”.
“...woah...schools in America don’t really ever have single rooms, this is so cool! I have to admit, I’m a little relieved. I’ve never lived with anyone else before and this is all so new for me, you know? But I guess maybe it will be harder to make friends? …oh shoot, maybe this is a bad thing–” she adds sheepishly before her rambling is cut off by the taller woman beside her.
“Well, Dani, I wouldn’t worry about making friends, you’re obviously very bright and kind. You seem perfectly splendid to me, I think you’ll get on just fine here,” she then hands the paper full of dormitory information and the roomkey into Dani’s before she lightly taps the sticky note that’s still in Dani’s other hand as she adds, “and if you ever want a friend or someone to talk to, I’d be grateful to be your friend”. Before Dani can even look over her shoulder to thank Hannah for all of her help and calming, welcoming words, the woman has disappeared back down the stairwell, back to the reception desk.
She takes one of the deepest breaths she can muster but she’s still a little winded from lugging her awkwardly sized suitcase up the several flights of stairs (with their strangely skinny steps that make it pretty damn hard to carry a person up, much less with all of their worldly possessions). “Okay Dani. Deep breath, in…out…” she mumbles to herself before she straightens herself back out, placing her skeleton key in the lock, twisting it to the left, and taking a big, yet slightly tentative step into her room.