#i can already describe it it will be england. the girls. everyone else

[chocobox]

although i will say western hetalia fans having an obsession with performative consumption of the characters and holding everyone else to a standard of "you HAVE to depict them like this or that" can get really annoying sometimes like you can do what you want but that's just not really where my interests lie. they are sea monkeys to me and i do think the political aspect is important to understand intellectually due to the flaws in hetalia's own writing but it doesn't really... interest me... esp because i don't 'like' hetalia i like england. and i get that some people may consider that a bad look but i'm not really here for any reason other than the fact that he is so catastrophically my type. i don't care about anything else in the world the way i care about him it has nothing to do with the other characters. i also just think it's more fun to engage with them as people than countries. i genuinely appreciate what other people do when that's where their passions lie but i don't really feel like i'm going to have fun if i change what i make and talk about to feel like i'm doing it 'right' when i'm only here to get my dick wet in the first place. i'm not here to do serious global politics that's not really a prerequisite i was informed of when i was 11 and my friend made me watch hetalia for the first time and it changed my penis forever

[shakespeareanwannabe]

As You Wish, Chapter 17

Summary: When arriving at Camp Silver Star, Abby Floyd was anticipating a summer of adventure with an ocean separating her from the three people she loved most: her mom, her Uncle Bob and her Aunt Natasha. But after a run in with Charlie Seresin, an extremely familiar looking and irritating camper in a different cabin, her summer plans take a turn that neither girl ever could have expected.

Trigger Warnings: reader's children are described as being blond with green eyes because genetics are wild and Jake's genes are strong, reader is canonically Bob's sister (but biological relation is never discussed), reader goes by Buttercup and is tattooed, angst (so much angst I made myself cry), panic attack, drinking, sadness, reference to divorce, kids breaking your heart, references to babies, swearing, references to the military, fighting and marital strife, PPD, references to sex (but nothing explicit)

Seresin Residence, Miramar, 12 years ago

Jake sighed as he pulled his truck into the driveway of the little beach bungalow he had scrimped and saved to buy for his family. Normally, he was excited to get home after a long day of training, but lately? Lately, it seemed like all they did was fight. Some days, it was him fighting and Buttercup sitting there, taking it. Others, it was all out warfare, each of them screaming at each other. And after the fight they had had that morning, Jake wasn’t too pleased to be home.

The fight had worn on him all day. He had been absolute shit in the cockpit because of it, and he’d already had a verbal dressing down by just about everyone. Cyclone and Warlock had ripped into him pretty good. Rooster and Phoenix had taken pleasure in seeing him knocked down a peg or five. Maverick had only shaken his head at him in disappointment, and that had probably hurt the most.

With a groan, Jake got out of his truck and grabbed his duffle, heading to the front door. Three months ago, he would have kicked his boots off with a playful, “Honey, I’m home!” before racing to snuggle his daughters, pecking his wife on the lips as he went. But not today. Today, he toed his boots off and tossed his duffle into the laundry room.

It was quiet. Too quiet. Maybe they were all asleep. He wouldn’t be mad about it if they were. Maybe if Buttercup got some quality sleep, she’d be in a better mood.

Jake sighed and flipped on the light in the living room, startled when he spotted Buttercup sitting in her preferred armchair.

“Hey,” he drawled. “You surprised me. I thought you were asleep. Where are the girls?”

“Asleep,” she murmured, eyes tracking him as he grabbed a beer from the kitchen.

“Good. They eat okay today?”

“Charlie doesn’t like not breastfeeding, but she’s getting used to it. Abby’s still not eating enough.”

Jake ignored her cold, indifferent tone. “She’ll get there.” He flopped onto the couch and reached for the remote.

“Jake…”

“Buttercup, it’s been a long day,” he groaned. “I really don’t want to fight tonight. The girls are asleep. Go have a bath or something, let me watch TV, and I’ll order us a pizza for dinner. Okay?”

“So, that’s it then?” Finally, her voice had a touch of a bite to it. “No comment, no nothing from you? You said no and that’s that? Your word is law?”

Jake groaned and let his hand flop back onto the sofa. “I don’t know what else you expected me to say. I’m part of the U.S. Navy. Meaning I have to be in the United States. I can’t move to England just because you got a job interview for a publishing job. There are dozens of publishers that are stateside. Why not go for one of them? I’m sure they’d let you work remotely. I don’t see why you want to move to a different continent.”

“They’re the only ones who have offered to take a look at my writing on top of my publishing responsibilities,” she hissed. “Which you would know if you paid any attention to me.”

“Okay, so you can do your whole writing thing from anywhere, can’t you? Skip the whole publisher thing and focus on writing! When you’re done writing or whatever, you can send it to a publisher! You’d at least get to stay with me that way!”

“How am I supposed to focus on my writing, Jake? I barely get a chance to breathe, let alone sit down at a computer and write!” Buttercup’s voice was weak and desperate, and grating on Jake’s nerves. He hated it when she sounded like that, and she’d been sounding like it more and more. He would’ve done anything to make it better, but he was too tired to try. “You’re not around during the day, so you don’t know what its like! One of them always needs me, and Charlie is fussy, and Abby’s not eating enough, and I can barely breathe! And you want me to what? Follow you around from base to base, taking care of our daughters on my own while you’re on deployment after deployment?”

“That is what you signed up for when you married me!” Jake shouted, his frustration and exhaustion finally bubbling over. “I thought you would’ve known that based on how often your brother gets to go home! This is what it means to be in a military family! This is what you signed up for!”

“I signed up for you!” she shouted. “I signed up for a man who loves me, who is home to share the load with me! Not a man who has his head shoved so far up Uncle Sam’s ass that he can’t see the sun!”

“Don’t you dare!” Jake stood. “Everything I do is for the safety of this country and for you and our daughters. Don’t you want our girls to grow up in a country that is safe?”

“I would rather our daughters grow up knowing their father! They barely see you anymore! And it’s only going to get worse as they get older!”

“I’ll be promoted by the time that they’re older! That means less time deployed!”

Buttercup was shaking her head, shrinking back in her seat. “You’ll never give up flying, Jake. You wouldn’t take a promotion that meant you were grounded. It’s not who you are.” Buttercup’s voice shook. “Just like sitting at home, waiting for my husband to come back while I take care of our home and children isn’t who I am. I need more.”

Jake scoffed, red creeping into the edges of his vision. He felt like he was running on autopilot, unable to stop himself or control his anger. “So, what? We’re not enough for you?”

“Don’t do that!” Buttercup snapped. “Our family is everything to me, but I need more! I need something outside of just being a mom and your wife!”

“Okay, so London is that then? Will London be enough for you?” Jake was wrangling every ounce of his strength to pull himself back, to not do this. They were both tired, both stressed. She hadn’t been herself since the babies were born, and it didn’t help that he had been deployed when they had sworn to him that he would be grounded for his first few months of fatherhood. If they could just get on the same page again, everything would be okay. But that would only happen if he could get Hangman to take a backseat and let Jake handle this.

Buttercup’s eyes flooded at his mocking tone. “Fuck you, Jake.”

Loud cries echoed through the house and Jake huffed before heading down the hall. “Go take a bath, Buttercup. I’ll take care of the girls.”

In the nursery, Jake pulled Charlie into his arms and sighed, rocking his red-faced baby girl in his arms. It would all be okay. The first year was always going to be the hardest. If they could make it through that, they would be stronger than ever.

It didn’t hit Jake that it was too late until a few days later, when he came home to find a teary-eyed Buttercup standing in the kitchen, handing him a pile of divorce papers.

Seresin Ranch, Clifton, Texas, Now

Early morning sunshine danced across her eyelids, and she tried to bury her face in the pillow beside her. It was way too freaking early to be conscious after the night she’d had, she was bone tired, and she was sore in a deeply satisfying way. The dull ache in her muscles and the muted throbbing between her thighs were better than any soreness she had ever gotten from an extended workout. It was an ache that she hadn’t felt in years.

Stretching like a cat, Buttercup slowly sat up against the headboard and blinked against the sun streaming through the grey curtains, and three things hit her in quick succession.

She was not in her bedroom. Her curtains were not grey, and her window did not face east.

She was naked. Her usual t-shirt and shorts were absent as the cool cotton sheets kissed her skin.

The soreness she was feeling was accompanied by a series of hickies and bruises that decorated her body like confetti. Her neck, her chest, her breasts, her stomach, and her inner thighs were littered with the dark purple marks, leaving her feeling like a teenager the night after prom.

Buttercup felt her stomach roil as the memories from the previous night washed over her like a tidal wave. The barbecue, fighting with Jake, dancing with Jake, having 3 a.m. grilled cheese with Jake and splitting a beer with him before giving him permission to kiss her…Jake carrying her to his bedroom and making love to her sweetly and gently, then rolling her over and fucking her hard, then taking her again in the softest, tenderest way as the sun slowly began to rise.

What had she done? What had she done? This wasn’t who she was. She had never been the type of person who just fell into bed with a guy, and certainly not when that guy was her ex-husband. But then, she had always been helpless against him. Back before things had soured between them, she had been almost as good as Maverick at keeping all of the Daggers in line, but one flash of those bright green eyes and those dimples, and she was basically Jello. She had never been able to tell him ‘no’, except for once.

Buttercup pulled her legs up tight against her chest and pressed the heels of her palms into her closed eyes until she saw stars. She was so stupid. So weak. She had put in over a decade of work to make herself stronger, strong enough to withstand being alone, strong enough to be a single mother, strong enough to hold her ground against him. And yet, like a teenage girl, she caved at the sight of gleaming abs and a cocky grin, and the sound of sweet nothings he had whispered in her ear.

What would the girls think if they found out? Would they think they were getting back together? Of course they would, that had been their plan since the beginning. But a one-night stand did not a relationship make, and neither did attraction. Attraction and chemistry had never been their problem. Communication had been, and, though they had clearly gotten better at it over the past decade, it didn’t solve all the problems that still remained between them. Past hurts and past histories and words that had been said that couldn’t be taken back.

God, how she wished she could take them back. She had been sick in the head and sick in the heart when she had uttered those poisoned words to him, wanting him to feel like she did in the most toxic way. She was toxic to him, not the other way around like so many had thought would happen. Her own brother had warned her away from Jake Seresin the minute they met, cautioning her that he would ruin her life, but he hadn’t. He had given her the greatest year and a half of her life and two daughters that she wouldn’t trade for the world. She was the one who ruined him. Just like her nickname, she was a poison, and she would only destroy him more if she stuck around.

Tears began to well in her eyes, but Buttercup quickly dashed them away as she scrambled from Jake’s bed and began searching for her clothes, which she found neatly folded on the antique wingback chair in the corner of the room. Her heart ached at the sweetness of this man, who had opened his home to her for a week so they could both get quality time with their daughters, who had ended his engagement because his fiancée had been cruel to their girls. He didn’t deserve this. Maybe the old Hangman had been cocky and brash and bold, maybe Hangman had left a trail of broken hearts behind him, but her Jake didn’t deserve to have his heart broken because she was so weak and selfish. Her heart ached at the thought of leaving him, of only seeing him at events for the girls, of eventually seeing him engaged to a woman who did deserve him. But she didn’t deserve him. She wasn’t strong enough to be his reason for living once the girls graduated.

The realization had her slowly pulling her clothes on, choking back sobs and dashing her tears away. He needed more than her. He needed someone who was strong enough to hold him up while he figured out what he wanted to do with his life once the girls had moved on. He needed someone who wouldn’t panic at the very suggestion of him going back to the Navy. She needed to walk away so that he could find that person. Despite the pain lancing through her heart and the heaviness in her limbs, she had to. She wouldn’t poison him anymore. Not when she…

More tears streamed down her face as she stumbled into his ensuite and desperately tried to make herself look like less of a heartbroken mess. He would be okay and, eventually, so would she. The girls would struggle, but she would fight like hell to make sure her girls still had so much love and support from both of their parents, even if they lived on opposite sides of the globe. They wouldn’t suffer just because their mother was toxic.

A deep wash of her face and multiple splashes of cool water later, Buttercup, resolved and heartbroken, strolled out of the bedroom and made her way back to the kitchen, finding her daughters sitting at the island while Jake flipped pancakes.

“Morning, Mom!”

“Morning, Mum!”

“Hey, darlin��,” Jake followed up the sweet chorus of their daughters’ voices with a shy grin, so unlike him but still so fitting that it made the ache in her chest deepen. “Did you sleep okay?”

Buttercup fought to keep her face straight as she regarded him with as much cool indifference as she could muster. “Yes, thank you. And good thing too. We’ve got a busy day tomorrow.”

Plates clattered as Charlie set the island for breakfast. “What are we doing tomorrow?”

Buttercup fought the pain and panic rising in her throat as she looked at the smiling figures of her broken family. “A-Abby and I are going home tomorrow,” she croaked out. “Our flight leaves at 9 p.m.”

Silence fell like a heavy, suffocating fog over the kitchen. Abby had frozen in her seat, a juicy red grape dangling almost comically from her fingers halfway between the bowl and her mouth. Charlie wasn’t doing much better, a plate suspended in midair while her face flushed. And Jake? She couldn’t bring herself to look at him, to see the anger or pity or fury that was undoubtedly marring his handsome features.

It was Charlie who broke the silence first. “What?”

The question was so simple, but Buttercup had to brace herself before answering. “We promised you a week together, and it’s been a week. Our flight has always been leaving tomorrow.” She managed a weak smile at her daughters. “I guess time really does fly when you’re having fun.”

“Mum…” Buttercup’s heart nearly shattered at the broken, pleading sound of her baby’s voice. ���Couldn’t we stay? Please?”

For the time being, Buttercup was winning the losing battle against the tears that were clogging her throat and flooding her eyes. “I’m sorry, sweetheart, but we can’t. You start school next week and I have deadlines to meet. Uncle Bob and Auntie Nat have to go back to work too. But your dad and I have figured out a good schedule for visiting. You get more school vacation than Charlie does, so you’ll get to come here for a few breaks, and Charlie will get to come visit us when she has breaks, and then we’re going to split the summer in half, okay? I—” Buttercup’s voice cracked, and she turned her eyes skyward to prevent the tears from falling again. “I know it’s not what you want, but it’s the best we can do.”

“That’s BULLSHIT!” Charlie’s cry was loud and harsh. “That’s complete bullshit! You could both stay! Everyone should stay!”

Buttercup’s breath stuttered in her chest as she looked at her daughter, so full of pain and anger. “I know that you wish we could, sweetheart, but we can’t. I’m sorry!”

“You’re sorry?” Charlie was crying now, hot tears running down her red cheeks. “I only get two weeks with you after 12 years and now you’re leaving and you’re sorry? That’s bullshit!”

“Charlie…” Jake’s voice was a soft warning.

“What?” She whirled on her dad. “It is! She could stay here if she really wanted to! But she doesn’t! She doesn’t care. Not about you or me or anyone! If she cared, she wouldn’t have left us in the first place!”

“Charlie…” Buttercup couldn’t stand the way her voice crackled with tears. “Charlie, I—”

“I hate you!” Charlie turned on her, green eyes full of anguish. “I hate you!”

“That’s enough!” Jake didn’t yell, but his voice held that military tone that immediately silenced everyone in the kitchen, save for Charlie’s ragged breathing and Abby’s soft sniffles. “You do not get to talk to your mother that way. You can be angry all you want, but this is a joint decision between your mother and I, so if you hate her then you hate me too. And no matter how you feel about us, I know that I taught you respect. We do not lash out at other people because of the way we are feeling in this family. We talk it out, and if we can’t manage how we’re feeling then we take a beat before we have a calm conversation. So, go take a beat. Take a lap of the ranch and cool off, Charlie.” Jake’s tone was no-nonsense and left no room for argument. Chest heaving, Charlie stomped away and let the door slam behind her. Jake sighed and looked at his oldest daughter, sniffling quietly in her seat. “Why don’t you go with her, Abby?” His voice was gentler now. “I think maybe some fresh air and a walk will do you both some good.”

Not saying anything, Abby nodded meekly and shuffled out of the kitchen, the front door barely clicking shut in comparison to the slam that had rocked everyone to their very foundations.

Buttercup stood stock still in the kitchen doorway, hand wrapped around her throat as she fought the tears that were falling slowly.

“Buttercup…” She flinched violently away from Jake’s gentle hand on her elbow, and he held his hands up. “Buttercup, it’s alright. It’s all gonna be alright.”

She shook her head, clutching at her throat to get the words out. “She’s right. It’s all my fault.”

“Now, I thought I told you I didn’t want to hear any of that anymore,” Jake said, gently but with a hint of stern resolve. “Now, why don’t we sit down and talk about this?”

“There’s really nothing to talk about, Jake.” Buttercup’s sigh was bone-weary as she sank into one of the island stools. “We have to go home. Abby’s got school, Bob and Nat have work, I have deadlines that I’m already behind on and signings I promised to do months ago and they want me to do edits for a script for one of my novels…We promised them a week together, and that’s what they got.” She shrugged helplessly. “There’s nothing we can do to change that.”

“I get where you’re coming from, darlin’, I do…” Jake leaned against the island across from her. “But…it wouldn’t be too difficult to get Abby signed up for school here, and Bob and Phoenix are grown ups, they don’t need you to take them home. And you…” He sighed heavily. “You can write from anywhere, so why can’t you write here with us?”

Buttercup’s heart cracked wide open, years of heartbreak and loneliness and anger pouring out of her like hot lava. “I can’t believe you’re asking me that again! What about the life I’ve built for myself? My professional reputation? My friends? Abby’s friends? I have a life in London! I like my life in London!”

“I know that.” Jake kept his voice even and calm, even as he wanted to reach out and calm her. “I know I fucked it up the first time. I know I didn’t get it the first time, how much the job and the move and everything meant to you back then. But you’re an award-winning author now, Buttercup. You’re like…number one draft pick in the NFL. You would have dozens of publishers falling all over themselves and each other to publish your stories now. Hell, with the way technology has improved in the last decade, nothing would stop you from keeping your publisher in London and Zooming into meetings with them from here. Isn’t it at least an option?”

Everything he was saying made perfect sense. It was all logical and well thought out, and, for a moment, she could picture it. Staying in Clifton, on the ranch. Turning the guest bedroom into an office for her to write out of while staring out at the pretty scenery, waking every morning in the cradle of Jake’s arms and cuddling with him until their daughters dragged them from bed. Giving them a real shot.

But a real shot meant the possibility of real pain. Pain that she had barely healed from the first time. Pain that she had put him through. Pain that he didn’t deserve. He didn’t deserve any of it, but to protect him, she would have to hurt him.

“I can’t just give up my job, my life because of a one-night stand.” Her voice was cold, belying the white-hot pain that was shooting through her heart, her very soul.

“I thought I meant more to you than that?”

She could hear the pain in his voice and ducked her head, refusing to meet his eyes. “You do…” she whispered, so quiet that he wouldn’t be able to hear her. The words “You did” came at a louder volume. “But I worked too hard to get to where I am now, and so did you.” She gulped down air, feeling like the walls were closing in on her. “I…I finally healed from everything we put each other through, and we can’t just fall back together again because it’s easy.”

Jake scrubbed a hand over his face. He knew what she was talking about. They had put each other through a lot, and it had taken over a decade to even start to heal from that, but they had healed. Wasn’t he worth giving it another go? Weren’t the girls worth trying for? He tamped down the anger he felt growing in his gut and asked, “When have we ever been easy?”

“You know what I mean, Jake.” Her sigh was heavy, bowing her shoulders like she was carrying the weight of the world. “We’re familiar. We’ve been living in the same house for a week, and, in a moment of weakness, we let ourselves fall back into old habits. And it felt good. But we’ve been down this road before. We know what lies at the end of it.” Tears pricked her eyes again and she blinked them back. “Besides, you were just engaged to another woman. You were planning on going back to the Navy. I…I can’t be the thing you hold onto just because you’re afraid of what your life will look like in six years.”

Jake felt the anger within him rise, and he relied on every ounce of his military training to remain composed, to not let the anger seep into his voice. “I don’t think I’m the one who is afraid here. You’re running.”

“Jake—”

Despite the way she was shaking her head, hands covering her face, Jake moved around the island and gently put his hands on her shoulders, turning her to face him. “I know you felt something last night. I felt it too. Just because we didn’t work out the first time, doesn’t mean we won’t work out this time. You don’t have to be afraid of what might happen either, sweetheart.” His voice was filled with so much warmth and passion that Buttercup felt the tears fall faster and harder down her cheeks. This sweet man. She had never deserved him. His hands stroked her upper arms as he continued. “You’ve done such a good job on your own. Abby is incredible and your books…” Jake shook his head in amazement. “You’re incredible. But you don’t have to be strong and do it all on your own anymore. I know you can, but you don’t have to. Let me help. Just stay and let me help.” He was begging and he knew it, but he couldn’t help the tightness in his chest that told him that he had to convince her to stay. That he couldn’t lose her again. “I know you felt it last night,” he ended in a murmur.

Buttercup buried her head in her hands and sobbed. He was saying all the right words and she could feel the warmth and kindness pouring out of him, but she couldn’t shake the feeling that she would ruin it all again. “I…I can’t,” she cried. “We have to be the adults here. I can’t just leave my life behind and stay with you. Not again. We tried that once and it didn’t work, and we owe it to our girls to be better this time. We have to be better this time. For them. What we want doesn’t matter.”

Breath whooshed out of Jake’s lungs as he took her in. His Buttercup looked so small and broken, sobbing at his kitchen island. He had done that to her. He had broken his strong, independent, fiercely loyal and kind woman. No matter how badly he wanted to keep her, he couldn’t hold her back again. “This…this is really what you want?”

With doubt clogging her throat, she murmured, “It is.”

Jake’s shoulders bowed, and he grunted to clear the tingling in his throat and in the bridge of his nose. “Then…as you wish, I guess.”

Buttercup nearly ran down the path towards the dude ranch cabins. After a tense breakfast, one where no one said anything to each other, Buttercup got changed and got out of the ranch house as quickly as she possibly could. She felt like she couldn’t breathe with the weight of Jake’s disappointed gaze upon her and Charlie’s hate-filled words hanging in the air around them. Not even her sweet Abby had been able to look her in the eye, so she fled the moment it was acceptable to do so.

Now, she was marching to her brother’s cabin to talk to him and his best friend, to get some sort of reassurance that she was doing the right thing. She quickly climbed the two steps up and came up short when the door swung open, Javy emerging in his jeans, carrying his shirt from last night.

“Oh…” They both froze and stared at each other. “Hey Buttercup.”

“Hey Javy…”

“You, uh…” Javy shuffled his feet. “You good?”

“Not really,” she admitted, staring down at her toes. “Is Nat in there? Or Bob?”

“Bob spent the night in Mickey’s cabin with him and Yale. But Nat…” A shy smile pulled at Javy’s lips as he shrugged. “She’s asleep upstairs. I’ve gotta run to practice though. Can you tell her I said goodbye? And that I’ll see her for dinner tonight?”

Despite her own broken heart, Buttercup found herself smiling. “I’m glad you two were able to work it out. I’ll let her know.”

“Thanks, Buttercup.” He grinned and placed a light jab against her shoulder as he passed. “And hey? I’m sure whatever’s bugging you will work itself out in the end.”

“I don’t think so, Javy. But thanks.”

Buttercup let herself into the quaint little cabin and headed straight for the bedroom, where her friend was just waking up. Buttercup thanked whatever not-completely-evil god that was out there that her friend was wearing a t-shirt. After the morning she’d had, the last thing she wanted was to have her friend flash her by accident.

“Hey…” Natasha yawned as she stretched her arms over her head. “What’re you doin’ here? Where’s—” Natasha cut herself off, looking away from Buttercup.

“Javy had football practice. He says he’ll see you for dinner.” That was all Buttercup managed to get out before flopping onto the bed and sobbing.

“Jesus Christ, B!” Natasha scrambled up and pulled her crying friend into her lap. “What the hell?” A gentle hand ran up and down the length of Buttercup’s spine. “You’re alright, girl. C’mon.”

“J-Jake and I hooked up last night,” Buttercup blubbered, burying her face into the plaid comforter that covered her friend’s lap.

“And…was it…not good?” Try as she might, Natasha was struggling to see the problem.

“It was great!”

Both ladies were surprised at the strength of Buttercup’s sobs. It was unlike her to cry so much, but clearly, she had to exorcise some demons, and crying seemed to be the best way to get them out.

Natasha sighed and patted her friend on the back. “Then I am confused.”

“Join the fucking club…” Buttercup muttered, wiping her face on the bedspread before sitting up, her tear ducts seemingly empty. “We…we’re going home tomorrow. I can’t believe I was so stupid as to hook up with my ex-husband right before we’re going back home.”

“Not gonna lie, lady, but you were basically eye-fucking him all night. I’m not surprised that you two fell into bed together. The sexual tension was too great.” Natasha propped herself up against the oak headboard and stared at her friend. “It’s nothing to be ashamed of, you know. Lots of couples do one last fuck fest after a breakup or divorce.”

“Is that what you and Javy were doing last night?” Buttercup bit out, no malice in her voice, only exhaustion.

Natasha bit her lip. “Actually…it was more of a ‘lets try this thing again’ than a ‘lets get this thing out of our systems’.”

Buttercup blinked her bloodshot eyes. “How are you two going to try it again when our flight leaves tomorrow?”

One of Natasha’s calloused fingers gently traced the scar that ran over her eye, something that she only did on the rare occasion that she was nervous. “That’s the thing…I’m not getting on that flight. Bob said that he could get me a refund with the airline since it’s, y’know, his airline.”

“You’re staying?” Of all the things she expected her best friend to say, it certainly wasn’t that. “What about your classes? Your friends?”

Natasha shrugged. “One of the other instructors can take over until they hire someone else. And there’s a gym in town that needs a new female personal trainer. Javy’s pretty sure they’d take me on the spot. And honestly, B? What friends? I had work friends that I only hung out with occasionally off the clock, and I had you and Bob. I lived in your home, ate your food, and hung out with you. No offence, because you know I love you, but not going back isn’t that big of a deal to me.”

Buttercup nodded as she looked at her friend. “I hate that you’re leaving me,” she mumbled, pulling Natasha into a fierce hug. “But I’m proud of you for giving him another shot. You just make sure he knows that if he hurts you, I’m only one transatlantic flight away from kicking his ass.”

“Or…you could always stay too and be just a walk down the road away from kicking his ass.” Natasha’s voice was gentle and kind, but Buttercup was already shaking her head. “Why not?”

“Because we tried, and we failed.”

“So did me and Javy,” Natasha nudged her.

“But you don’t have kids who will suffer if you try again and it still falls apart.”

“Fair point…” Natasha hummed and turned towards her. “What if it doesn’t fall apart?”

“I can’t risk it, Nat,” Buttercup murmured, tears welling in her eyes again. “I can’t hurt Abby and Charlie like that. They have to come first.”

“I get that.” Natasha reached out and squeezed her friend’s hand comfortingly. “But you have spent over a decade putting Abby first. You have been an amazing mother to that girl. Maybe it’s time to start putting yourself first instead.”

Buttercup squeezed back, snuggling down in her friend’s bed and sighing. If only it was that easy.

The next 24 hours passed in a blur of emotion. Charlie still wasn’t speaking to Buttercup, despite Jake’s private talk with her when she returned to the ranch house after her walk. Abby wasn’t faring much better, quiet but not angry the way her sister was. More…resigned. And Jake…well, Jake did what Jake always did. He walled up everything he was feeling behind thick, military issue shields and pretended. It was what he was trained to do. Compartmentalize and prioritize. His priority was making sure that his girls didn’t leave the ranch sad.

Buttercup’s eyes remained bloodshot for the rest of the day, and it broke Jake’s heart to see his girl so distraught. Part of him wanted to ask her to reconsider, to ask if her decision to leave was what was making her so miserable, but he didn’t. His Buttercup had only made one rash decision in her entire life: staying with him in Miramar. Every other decision had been meticulously thought out, including going to London to start over. He couldn’t blame her for that, and he couldn’t blame her for wanting to return to her life abroad, no matter how much it felt like it was killing him to let her go again.

So, Jake pushed it all down and tried to make it the best 24 hours he possibly could. He took his three girls on a trail ride after having a small goodbye lunch for their remaining guests. Fanboy, Yale, Payback and his family all enjoyed a small gathering despite the tense atmosphere. That atmosphere remained throughout the trail ride, though Jake had hoped it would help cool Charlie down. Dinner was similarly quiet, the five of them eating their spaghetti and meatballs in relative silence, though it seemed that both Rooster and Charlie were cheered to hear that Phoenix would be staying. Jake couldn’t help the glance he spared at Buttercup when that news was shared before Javy swept Phoenix out the door to keep their dinner reservation in town. He knew he couldn’t question why Phoenix was brave enough to stay and try to work things out, not when he knew why Buttercup was doing the brave thing by leaving. She was doing it so that the girls wouldn’t suffer from the fallout if they couldn’t keep their shit together a second time, and Jake couldn’t blame her. He would do anything to make sure Charlie was happy. Problem was that this decision didn’t seem to be making anyone happy.

Nobody got much sleep that night, the tension growing over the house like a big black storm cloud, what ifs and maybes swirling like a tornado. Day dawned without sun; the metaphorical storm having grown into a real one that had rain lashing at the windows. Breakfast was a silent affair, and Jake could barely choke down any lunch, one final meal before he had to say goodbye to his girls.

Bags were piled at the front door, waiting for the airport limo Bob had called for, complimentary because of his position with the airline. Six adults and two children stood in the doorway of the ranch house, waiting for the telltale sound of tire on gravel to signal the end. When Jake caught sight of headlights bouncing through the darkened sky, he sighed and gathered Abby into his arms.

“I love you, baby,” he murmured into her hair, and his heart broke as she clutched him tighter. “I’ll see you at Thanksgiving, okay?”

“I love you too, daddy.”

Jake opened his eyes and saw Buttercup ringing her hands as she approached Charlie, who had her arms crossed stiffly across her chest.

“I…I’m sorry, Charlie,” he heard her soft words and his chest ached for her. For both of them. His two girls were so strong and so stubborn, and they were both in so much pain. “I love you, sweet girl. I hope you remember that.” When it became clear that Charlie was not going to embrace her mother, Buttercup sighed and pressed a kiss to her hair instead. “I love you, darling.”

Buttercup turned to Rooster, who wrapped her in a tight hug. “You take care of yourself, alright, Buttercup?” he gravelled.

“I will. You take care of them for me, okay?”

“You know I will.”

A similar exchange happened with Javy, though Jake was sure that it included some sort of threat about treating Phoenix well, based on the slight grimace on Javy’s face as Buttercup turned and hugged her friend.

It was at that point that the car pulled up to the front door and Jake forced himself to release his daughter.

“Go say goodbye to everyone while I take your bags out,” he whispered to her, trying his best not to crumble at her tear-stained face.

She nodded and ran over to Phoenix, almost knocking her over. “I love you, Auntie Nat.”

“I love you too, kid.”

She squeezed Rooster next, the two of them having a whispered conversation as Jake passed, taking the bags out to the limo. He didn’t care that his white t-shirt was becoming see-through. He didn’t much care for anything at the moment. He was completely numb, just like he had been when he watched Buttercup and Abby walk out his front door the first time. He took his time loading the bags into the trunk before heading back into the house, feeling like he was walking to his execution.

When he stepped into the foyer, his eyes went straight to Abby and Charlie, embracing by the stairs. He sighed and turned to Bob, shaking his ex-brother-in-law’s hand before turning to Buttercup, who was watching her daughters with a sad sort of smile.

A gentle hand on her shoulder pulled her attention to him right as he pulled her into a hug. She folded into him the same way she always had, like she belonged there. Jake told himself that her trembling was because he was soaked to the bone, and if he felt moisture soaking into the front of his shirt, he told himself that was just the rain too.

She pulled away a few moments later, surreptitiously wiping at her eyes as she murmured, “It’s time to go, Abby.” She met his eyes for a fleeting second. “Thank you, Jake.”

“As you wish, sweetheart,” he murmured and escorted them onto the covered porch, where he gave Abby one more hug before pulling Charlie into his arms as they watched Bob, Buttercup and Abby make a run for the limo.

Bob held the door open as Abby slid in. Buttercup glanced over her shoulder at Jake and Charlie, standing like statues on the porch. She waved a sad goodbye before sliding in beside her daughter. Bob gave him an understanding nod before joining them and slamming the door shut. The limo roared to life and started down the dirt drive, rain and wind whipping at the windshield as they went. Abby and Buttercup huddled together on the leather seats as Bob gave instructions to the driver, and then they were silent.

Jake’s chest heaved as he watched them go, watched two-thirds of his heart walk away from him again.

“Wait!” Charlie cried, throwing off his hold and taking off down the wet and muddy driveway. “Mom, wait!” Jake lunged after her, grabbing her up in a hug as the limo disappeared between the trees, the falling rain too loud for them to hear her pleas.

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[legendary-defender-of-fandoms]

My (barely) Coherent Thoughts After Seeing Beetlejuice Live

Yes, I saw the show three times. Yes, I think I bought one of everything at the souvenir stand (and what I didn’t buy I either already owned or will add to my Christmas list). Yes, I know I have a problem. No, I don’t intend to do anything about it.

About five minutes into the show I decided that yes, if they ever stage a production on the West End (basically the Broadway of London, England), I WILL go to see it! And if Alex is invited back & says yes, I’ll book the next flight across the pond!

EVERYONE in the cast was amazing! From the leads to the supporting characters to the ensemble to the swings (a few subbed in for the last show) - they all gave incredible performances, and made every show the best.

Fun details you miss in a boot or just listening to the cast recording - on the backdrop for the opening scene, the hill in the cemetery is heavily based on Jack’s Hill in Nightmare Before Christmas. There are also two headstones with legible writing on the hill. One says “Van Dort” as a reference to Corpse Bride, and the other says Jane with a long name I couldn’t make out because my eyes suck & I got distracted by a group of mourners crossing the stage with an extra pair of feet.

I say this with the utmost respect & affection - every character in Beetlejuice is a certifiable weirdo! Charles LOOKS like the most normal character, but even he’s quirky & bizarre with his matter-of-fact “I’m very good at sex.” He’s awesome because he can play the straight man to the Deans & Otho and be funny with Delia, Lydia, Beetlejuice and the Maitlands. But everyone from the guy whose name is on the marquee to Maxine Dean is a strange & unusual person, and I am HERE FOR IT!

Things Beetlejuice would have to do to make me say “Yes” before he even finishes asking include: sit on my lap with his face inches from mine & his thighs balanced on mine so he can kick his feet in the air like a teenage girl, walk over to me with his silly little jaunty walk, wear either his full wedding attire or his Cowboy attire, just pop into existence when I say his name 3 times, etc.

The show really is part musical, part magic show. There’s a lot of sleight of hand & misdirection. I was starting to wonder how Justin even fits his arms into the sleeves of his costumes with all the crazy stuff they had hidden inside! Most of the tricks had to be modified from the Broadway version, like being stabbed by bad art, but they’re still impressive.

It should be illegal for anyone to look good in a decrepit red suit that looks like it just got Carrie’d, and yet.

It’s insane how folks can be handed nearly-identical scripts & songs for the same character, and yet come up with vastly different interpretations.

I don’t know what else I can say. I laughed, I cried, I stuck around at the stage door partially to get Justin’s autograph (which I did, the guy’s so nice & patient), partially to let traffic die down before getting stuck in a hot sticky parking garage for 20 minutes, mostly because my legs wouldn’t stop trembling after what can only be described as my first religious experience.

[flowers-and-fichte]

So I had the absurd concept of having the countries of Hetalia as the Avengers

We've already got:

England as a certain genius billionaire playboy philanthropist

Canada who turns into a giant polar bear when he's pissed

Ukraine who is a former Red Room spy

I'm running into whether I should have Germany as Captain America, Thor, or Hawkeye, because any of these choices are good.

America is a logical choice for Cap though Germany fits as well which I will describe below

So the reasons for each about the Doitsu Discrepancy, as I call it.

The reason I would have him as Thor: Just the vibes, also his English voice actor voiced Thor in a Marvel anime series, Marvel Future Avengers.

The reason I would have him as Cap, albeit an alternate version: He looks more like Steve Rogers than America does. He's also a soldier, and I have the feeling if given the chance to fight Nazis, he could and would do it as Cap does, plus he'd feel pretty awkward with those USO show girls hehe (also the training can be v. Cap-coded...I can imagine the "on your left" scene with him) -> yeah we can have Captain Deutschland who punches Nazis and that would be cool, designing new uniforms is fun (or maybe we could have a German Captain America, because anti-Nazi Germans, also there are immigrants!)

The reason I would have him as Hawkeye: He looks like some versions of Clint, and I can say with confidence that he's a great marksman.

(Personally, I'd rank my preferences as follows: Cap, Hawkeye, Thor)

So, do you think he should be Thor, Cap, or Hawkeye, since I've got everyone else picked out. Please let me know!

[rickie-the-storyteller]

*ecstatic waving*

For the character ask thing.

Can you please tell me about Alice?

*cheerfully waves back*

My first character ask ever! Let's go!

I love Alice so much. She's an underrated character in the series imo. I'd love to tell you a few things about her.

I'll try not to give any major spoilers... in case you want to read what I've posted related to the story yourself. But here's Alice in a nutshell!

(More below)

Here's a link to a small summary I've written recently for the series where Alice appears:

I wasn't allowed to mention any names, but Alice is the "sassy American redhead." I don't think I've ever straight-up mentioned the fact that she's an American girl, but if you follow the dialogue series for this story, you'd notice she says more "American" things lol (e.g. she refers to her mum as "Mom," while the rest of the characters say "Mum" 'cause they're all British haha). I wanted her to either be from Dallas or Kansas since it's where a few of my uncles and cousins live and I've been to those places a ton of times. Haven't officially decided yet, though. And it doesn't really matter in the grand scheme of things, so... idk.

I've given her a little backstory as to how she and her family got to London in the first place - she grew up in America with her mum, Jenna, and her twin sister, Mary. Her father died when she was four. For the majority of her life, it's just been her mother and sister in the house. But then, Jenna meets Victor Johnson. They get together and after a couple of years of dating and meeting the rest of each other's friends and family (including Ben Leigh, Stephanie's boyfriend! Small world, huh?), they get married. And Jen, Mary and Alice all move to Victor's place in London. This happened when the twins are about 12 years old - just in time to start secondary school (I haven't come up with a name for the school yet lol. But I was thinking something like "Canary Hill" Secondary School? Or something... I like "Canary" because that's a type of bird, and one of the friends in the crew is super sporty, so it would be like the sports teams at the school have a kind of mascot lol. Even though we don't do mascots in England)

Which eventually brings us to now! By the events of the story, Alice is 17 (and she's a summer child lol. Her birthday is July 23rd, which makes her the youngest in the crew. Everyone else in the crew is already 18 or turns 18 early on in the story. Her birthday is right at the end). She's doing well! By now she has made a few friends and is currently in her final year of Sixth Form, studying Physics, Computing and Dance. Mary is in a different school (I called it "Brexham") because she's gifted. And at the very start of the series, we see her stressing herself out trying to do well at her most recent set of mock exams. Only to find out that she only barely passed when she got her results.

In terms of what her place in the group is, she's kind of the most "normal" out of all of the friends. Like... to an extent, they all sort of fit into a certain archetype or stereotype of some kind (I use these as a starting point and then work to develop them beyond that, and make them unique). So, there's the confident "it-girl" (Stephanie), the jock (Dylan), the troubled rebel (Bret) and the brainiac (Elise). Alice is an ordinary girl... but I labelled her as the sassy one, since she definitely has some of the most witty lines and a sarcastic sense of humour. She has a normal life... nothing huge or bad really happens to her. She and her family are a symbol of stability and security in the story (one of the characters even stays at her place when they get fed up of the stress of their own home lives). I think this is why her character is underrated in the story - she's just kind of there to most people, while others have whole crazy storylines, and they do crazy things. Alice just kind of vibes lol.

But there is so much more to her than all that. Like I said, she's one of the funnier characters (in my honest opinion. But they all have funny moments), and this was intentional from the beginning. She is incredibly insecure. And she masks a lot of her insecurities with humour. She's like the Chandler Bing of the group lol (not saying she's as funny as him lol. But you get what I'm saying). She's also prone to comparing herself with other people - she lives with a literal genius twin, and she struggles in school. She also thinks her life is super boring in comparison with everyone else she knows. She's constantly thinking, "Everyone is awesome so why aren't I?!?!" Poor thing lol.

But the thing about insecurities is that you focus so much on those things, that you forget about what makes you great. And a lot of the things you are self-conscious about are in your head (like, people don't notice those things about yourself that you hate). Alice has a lot of admirable traits and talents - she's funny and charismatic in her own unique way, she's a kind, supportive friend that is insanely loyal and always willing to help a friend out, she's an incredible dancer, she's hardworking and has a lot of resilience and drive, and she doesn't let failure get her down and stop her from improving. Remember how I said that she almost failed her mocks at the start of the story? Well, by the end, she's getting great grades, and she even wins an award for "most improved student of the year." She doesn't let a bad experience define her or overwhelm her too much... she learns from her failures and negative experiences, and she takes the time to grow and improve herself. She's actually really inspiring!

So yeah. That's Alice in a nutshell. Thank you so much for the ask, @the-stray-storyteller!! This was so much fun. Love talking about my characters <3

Here are a few more links for you (hope you enjoy these!):

[fixomnia-scribble]

Ohh, Elementary School Gym Class is one of my most persistent Buttons, even though I'm nearing fifty years old. This is really just a vent - if I may take a turn in @inkskinned's Memory Circle.

Until I was about eight, I was short but generally average, more sturdy than willowy. I was always strong and flexible, and a fast sprinter, but endurance running is still my kryptonite. I didn't know I had PCOS and I didn't know I had ADHD, two major hurdles that combined to make me short, increasingly chunky, muscly, physically uncoordinated and socially awkward. PE class was a nightmare. Already socially ostracized, I had no shelter here behind intellect or humour or usefulness. Every flaw was exposed.

I was also an early developer, and in my elementary school, girls were not allowed to wear sweatshirts for PE until Grade 7. Tucked-in t-shirts were the rule. The PE teacher was a bona fide perv. We all knew, but we had nothing damning to report. Looking back, several teachers were watching closely. He was very nearly found out at his next school, and died of testicular cancer a few years later. My feelings on this are best described as "nuanced".

Any Canadians out there remember Canada Fitness? This was an annual national child fitness scheme with specific tests for arm and core strength, flexibility, and cardio endurance. We did this in small groups moving around stations in the gym. (Imagine being 12 and having to do push-ups with your perv PE teacher "correcting your form" with his hand on your hip and all your daily tormentors sitting in a circle around you watching. He never did this with the boys.)

The other tests were the Arm Hang (like a static chin up, counted in seconds before you dropped), Curl-Ups (modified sit-ups), a Bench Test for hamstring and spine flexibility, basic push-ups and a long run.

The award system ranged from Participation to Excellence. There was a big-deal badge ceremony for the whole school, and all the Golds and Excellences got called up. Everyone else got their badges in their classrooms later.

You'd think there would have to be some formula to assign badges, with everyone's different scores on each test. Nope. The last event at the end of the day was the Endurance Run. Whatever you got on that run was the badge you got.

Year after year, I would score Excellence across the board - sometimes repeating the tests because the teacher didn't believe the first result - except for the run. Year after year, I'd get called up in front of my sniggering class (I wasn't imagining it: they would get shushed my my lovely classroom teacher) to receive a bright red Participation badge. Did any of them remember I'd beaten most of their scores? No. If they did, it was all the more delightful to them to see. And when I tried to question the PE teacher on the unfairness of it all, I was lectured on the importance of Having A Goal To Work Towards, Being A Good Sport And Celebrating Others' Successes, and told that all I had to do was lose the extra weight and everything in my life would be fine, which I'm sure is a surprise to nobody here.

So yes: PE trauma is a real damn thing.

I spent a couple of terms in England as a kid, and while we had Games twice a week, that meant Football for the boys and Netball for the girls. It's like a mashup of volleyball and basketball, and requires teamwork and accuracy and sudden bursts of strength more than anything. Because that was all we did, we had a chance to improve. I still get shivers down my spine remembering the sensation of realizing I can do this I'm good at this they like me playing with them. That did me so much good...

in hindsight, the american public school idea of gym class was both absolutely buckwild and also incredibly ableist. i have a degree in education, and the more time i spend away from being a student, the less the concepts espoused there make any sense to me.

i was dancing ballet somewhere between 3-5 days a week, but i have never been a good runner. i have asthma and, at the time, i had horrible shin splints. yet running was seen as the only indicator of my health. my teacher fucking hated me for my lack of sprinter's interest here, like i was doing it to spite him. he thought that asthma was something "only for kids", like i was faking a wracking cough just so i could be "lazy" and "get away with it".

we weren't trained how to run safely. we often ran with bad form in sneakers that didn't quite fit. we were required to be able to ace this test once a year, immediately, with no follow-up or practicing. the rest of the year, gym class was a waste of time and energy. even kids who liked gym liked it because it was useless in entirety.

maybe he hated me because i was one of those students who shouldn't have struggled. i was pretty fit. during the sit-up test, i outpaced the other kids. corework is incredibly important to dancers, so i found the sit-up test easy. my teacher didn't take down my first result. he said, i've seen how you run, no way your number is that high. i explained i dance, he snorted and said you hardly have the body of an athlete and made me do the test again to be sure i wasn't "cheating". when i still passed, he said so you don't bother running just because you're a little rebel, huh? i bet you just like making men angry.

we had these sweat-covered wooden boxes to test our hamstring flexibility. you'd sit down, put your feet against a board, and push a slider away from your body. we had 3 turns to pass the test. on the first turn, my teacher watched as i gently pushed the slider to the end of the row instead of shoving myself forcefully over my toes. he said don't be rude, take the test seriously. i said - "okay, but i clearly can pass the test, i don't want to force my muscles. sudden movements aren't good form." he said i was going to get a detention at this rate. that he knew it was going to be a fight with you, it always is. you like the attention because you don't get it at home, huh?

i was 14, and i was annoyed and embarrassed, and i didn't handle it well. so i did as requested. i made my hands into a little diamond and shoved, just the way he wanted. the slider snapped off due to the amount of sudden force. i hit the end of the row so hard the test just fucking broke. i was sitting there, shocked by what was a legitimate accident: and this dude goes white and then red in the face. this is one of the only times in my life i got sent to the principal. he said she is vindictive and broke school property. malicious. noncompliant. for gym that year, i skirted by with an ugly "barely passing" D+.

and i was lucky. for once in my life, my parents were extremely chill about the whole thing. they saw the grade and just laughed about it. they were paying for me to go to dance class 4 hours a day, they knew exactly how fit i was. the principal tried to explain it to them, annoyed with their dismissal: i clearly wasn't healthy. he made sure they knew i wasn't an athlete, because dance is not a sport. i had to run the mile three times that year, to "make up" for my lack of effort. i walked it slow on purpose.

and i just... don't get it. in no other class would the lack of accommodations or training be appropriate. yes, you should know certain things leaving a class, but nobody expects you to be able to recite the whole biology textbook by the third month. nobody particularly expects you to pass a test if the teacher has literally never taught it. imagine if in english, you had a random test on vocabulary, and when you said these are just random words you never taught us. it isn't a good indicator of my reading level, writing, or of my reading comprehension - you were told: well it's most of your grade, but it's not that fucking hard, is it?

it is not a class about how to cook or how to help yourself balance your diet or how to run or how to get good at stretching or how to stay agile or how to do cool gymnastics or how to listen to your body or how to watch for injury or how to treat chronic pain or how to safely use weights. it was an hour of my life where i would be bullied with the teacher's permission. i look back at this thing and i just... i don't get it. while art teachers and english teachers are struggling for any funding - gym is just. protected under the idea it is somehow helping america... stay "fit". they make us run a mile and then say "great, we've measured your health" ... and then that's just... it.

as i was teaching the other day, i mentioned the fitnessgram pacer test to my kids. they're 19, are in college. many of them haven't been in gym class for a few years. i wish you could have been there to see their reaction. it was like i reminded them of their worst nightmare. we had to derail the conversation just so each person could go around the room and say their horror story about it. and each person had a horror story.

these days, i'm doing well. i love how strong i am, when i can be strong and my heart don't act up. i still dance at least 3 times a week. i have a performance on saturday, actually. but before you ask - no, i never learned to run. i don't really want to either, because it's just not good for my particular body.

so i guess, according to them - that makes me unhealthy.

[kaiparker-avengerssmut]

Twice Shy

Pairings | Preserum!Steve Rogers x f!reader

Warnings | smut, loss of virginity, fingering, implied oral (m reviving), vaginal sex, unprotected sex

Word count | 2.8k

Summary | you and Steve lose your virginities to each other

Masterlist

Exuberant. If Bucky had to describe the look in his best pal's face, he'd have to use the word exuberant.

When Bucky had suggested the double date, Steve had groaned - long and drawn out - but had relented with a deep sigh. His agreement didn't stop the man from dragging his feet the entire way there, though. A habit that Bucky had come to accept if he was to ever get Steve to meet a dame.

And this one, Steve seemed rather enamoured with. Well, that was an colossal understatement. Steve was completely and utterly besotted with her. The dame was beautiful, even Bucky could admit that. She was the kind of beauty that was often overlooked; it's innocence often snuffed out by the more...sexy girls that filled the dance hall.

Steve's hands rested on your hips, slender fingers curled against the soft fabric of your dress as he slowly swayed with you. You probably looked just as out of place and awkward as him, your hands tentatively rested against his shoulders as your eyes darted about the room.

"Y/n?" Steve mumbled, eyes centred on your lips. Your eyes snapped to his, baby blue calming as you bit your lip.

"Yes, Steve?" You murmured, starting to feel slightly flushed as the boy leant closer.

"Can I- can I kiss you?" Steve pondered, eyes searching your face for the usual disgust or pity that came with that question whenever he asked it. But he didn't find any.

Instead, you nodded. Sure and slow. Steve leant in, a small smile playing on his pink lips as he leant closer. The feeling of them fluttering over your cheek, plump and slightly wet nearly made you swoon. It lingered, his long eyelashes feathering against your skin.

Then, he pulled away. You dropped your hands from his shoulders as you felt your cheeks grow hot and your skin burn deliciously where the kiss still tingled. Steve stepped away from you abruptly, a pink flush spreading from the tips of his ears to under the collar of his shirt.

"Thank you, for teaching me how to dance." Steve muttered awkwardly, finally meeting your eyes with his. You smiled warmly at that.

"It was a pleasure. Goodbye, Steve." You mumbled back as you began to walk away, by Steve's thin hand around yours stopped you. You gave him a puzzled look.

"I hope we can, uh, do this again sometime? Maybe grab some food?" Steve asked, scratching the back of his neck as his body caved in with the nerves.

"I'd love that." You beamed brightly, your cheeks growing even hotter as Steve tentatively lifted your hand to his face and brushed his lips across the back.

"Until next time, then." Steve whispered and you bit your lip.

"Until next time." Then you walked away, and Steve sighed. Something caught his attention, a grinning Bucky out the corner of his eye. Steve breathed a little laugh, but the goofy grin on his face would not go away.

The next time Bucky dragged Steve out with him, you came. And the time after that, the time after, and the time after that. It was their thing now, Bucky often had a new dame on his arm whilst both and you and Steve grew more confident and comfortable around one another.

Cheek kisses were now a common occurrence, as well as Steve's skinny arm wrapped around your waist or his small had grasped in yours. He always had to be touching you somehow in public now, a claim that you were his and that everyone else should back off.

Your ma said it was unusual, that he was a) so skinny and b) that he was so possessive. But you found it endearing, it was just his way of telling others you were already his.

It was that night that Steve finally took you back to their apartment, Bucky having shipped off to England merely a week prior.

It was bittersweet, really. You knew Steve planned signing up again, planned on enlisting. You knew this was going to be his goodbye, his final hurrah with you before he most likely never saw you again.

And quite honestly, you'd made peace with that. The man you'd come to love was perusing what he loved, and even though that didn't seem to be you, you were happy for him.

"So where are you gonna be from this time?" You pondered as Steve fiddled with the key, finally jamming the cool metal into the lock. He hummed as he turned the key, the door sliding open as he tilted his head in thought.

"I was thinkin' Jersey, but I'm not quite sure yet." Steve remarked as he strolled into the small flat, you closely on his heels as the keys were thrown onto a brittle-looking table with a jingling clang. "I just wan' to get out there, ya know? Men like Bucky are riskin' their lives and I'm here, unscathed. It doesn't seem right."

You nodded solemnly, but the bright smile still stayed firm on your lips as Steve led you through the small apartment.

"I just hope I can be in the 107th, you know? Fight with Buck and just make my dad proud." Steve sighed, bordering on dreamily as he flopped down on the sofa - which was clearly in need for some heavy TLC.

You stood awkwardly, hands clasped in front of you as Steve twiddled his thumbs in his lap.

"I just hope that we win, is all." He finished and you gave him a bright smile.

"Well, they won't without you, soldier." You hummed and Steve's baby blue eyes peered up at you through thick lashes.

"You think so?" He pondered and you placed a gentle hand on his cheek.

"Truly. Our country needs a little guy - someone who will fight for those over there rather than those he had at home. As much as we're struggling..."

"There's men dying and no one seems to care." Steve finished your sentence and you nodded.

"Exactly." You muttered as you perched yourself of the sofa beside his skinny frame.

"Can I kiss you?" Steve's low voice mumbled, eyes flicking precariously between your lips and your eyes. Your breathing shallowed, and your heat slipped a beat.

"You know you don't have to ask anymore, soldier." You murmured, turning your face slightly to the side to giving him access to your cheek. But thin fingers grasped your chin in a soft hold, tilting your head back towards Steve as an amused glint flashed in his eyes.

"That's not what I'm asking." Steve's voice rumbled.

"Oh." You paused, hope glimmering in your eyes and Steve couldn't help himself.

His lips were soft against yours, if not a little chapped. It was a little messy, clumsy perhaps, but to you it was perfect. When you pulled away, Steve's lips were spread into a gleeful grin, eyes alight with joy.

"That was..."

"Awful." Steve cut you off and you were both set into spinning fits of laughter. You fell back against the sofa, hands clutched over your stomachs as your wriggled.

"I'm sorry. There are probably better first kisses than me." You said once you began to calm down, wiping the little tear that'd escaped from your cheek.

"You're the only girl I want to kiss." Steve whispered, head lolling to the side to look at you again. You swallowed thickly, eyes finding his lips again - slightly swollen from your disaster of a kiss.

You stumbled back together, knees caving as the backs bumped into the mattress. You and Steve fell together, arms still wrapped around one-another as you both giggled, his lips pecking against yours repeatedly.

You pulled Steve into a longer, deeper kiss - hands cupping his cheeks as his supported himself over you on the bed.

"How should we...start?" You mumbled against his lips, pulling away slightly and opening your eyes to find baby blue gazing down on you lovingly.

"Buck said I need to get you wet? But I'm not sure how I'm meant to, uh, do that?" Steve said doubtfully, both of you bursting back into giggles again as Steve's head dropped to rest in the crook of your neck.

"Maybe you're supposed to use your fingers?" You suggested, lifting a hand and wiggling your fingers. Steve blew a raspberry into your neck as he laughed, your own head through back as you wriggled beneath him with laughter.

The goofiness seemed to cease for a moment as Steve took his head from your neck, meeting your eyes with a soft stare.

"Are you sure about this?" He murmured, eyes loving. You nodded, lip trapped between your teeth.

"Yes." Steve sighed, ducking his head for a moment.

"But are you really sure? I mean, you'd be losing your virginity to, well," Steve looked down at himself, scrawny and small, "me."

You giggled, rubbing your fingers through his blonde locks, manoeuvring them away from his face.

"Of course I want it to be you, I wouldn't be here if I didn't, silly." You expressed, placing a quick kiss to his lips before looking up at the man through your lashes.

"I just need to know you're sure about this, doll." Steve mumbled, gaze burning your skin.

"I'm sure. D'ya know why?" You murmured, and Steve shook his head. "Because I love you." You uttered the words for the first time.

Steve's head snapped up. He couldn't believe it. He never thought he'd ever hear those words falling from a dame's lips, not about him.

"Y-you mean it?" He whispered, voice cracking. You nodded.

"Every word." Steve's heart swelled, his lips spreading gorgeously into a sweet smile.

"I love you too, y/n." Steve beamed, and his lips were on yours again. It was clumsy, sort of messy with inexperience but it was all you wanted in that moment.

Steve's slim fingers began to trail down your body, hiking your skirt around your waist so he could finger the band of your underwear.

"And you're sure about this? We can wait if you're not ready..." Steve asked again, browsed raised.

"Are you sure it isn't you that's not sure? It's fine if you're not Steve, we can wait until you're ready." You countered pulling back from him. Your thumb smoothed over his cheek, a touch that he nuzzled into.

"I'm sure, just a little nervous is all." Steve reassured. You smiled and pecked his lips.

"Wanna know a secret?" You whispered against his mouth and Steve nodded, a small movement. "I am too."

With that you were both laughing again, your legs kicking as Steve's fingers tickled over the inside of your thigh.

"Steve! Steve stop! It tickles!" You panted and gasped through your laughter, Steve's lips curled into something of a triumphant smile against your neck as he slowed his fingers.

"Mmmm, only because I love ya." Steve murmured, placing a kiss to the base on your neck before pulling away enough to help you take your blouse and skirt off.

He froze, ogling your body as his eyes flickered over your brassiere, your heaving chest, your panties, your slightly spread thighs.

"You're so gorgeous, sweetheart." Steve murmured and you giggled.

"C'mere." You mumbled, hooking your fingers into the collar of Steve's shirt and pulling him down on top of you again. He squeaked in surprise, but soon a breathy chuckle was slipping through his lips and onto yours.

You moaned when his fingers tugged down your panties, tracing your lips. He was mesmerised, eyes wide as he watched himself play with your folds.

"Steve!" You moaned when his fingers fluttered over your clit, your thighs snapping shut and your back arching. He pulled away instantly, worry in his beautiful eyes.

"Did I hurt you? Did I do something wrong?" His voice was panicked, filled with the dread of hurting his best girl. You shook your head, taking his hand in one of yours and guiding his fingers back to the same spot.

"No. It felt good. S'good!" You were moaning again, his fingers finding their way over your clit again in little circles.

You pulled away, lips shiny with spit and precum as your tongue smoothed over then. You moaned at the taste of him, Steve's musky sent lingering on your tongue.

"Where did you learn that?" Steve was breathy, voice merely a pant as his chest rose and fell rapidly. His face was red, pleasure still warped over his perfect features as his elbows propped up his thin frame. You smirked, lips curling up as your wiped your mouth with the back of your hand.

"Bucky teaches you about women, Angie teaches me about men." You hummed, placing a chaste kiss to each of Steve's hip bones before crawling over him.

"Well you're very good at it." Steve gasped, eyes sliding shut when he felt your lips on his. You giggled, the laugh flirtatious when you felt his hands on your hips.

He flipped you over, rolling across the bed in the limited space it offered as you both laughed. He placed small pecks all over your face, lips brushing lovingly over your forehead, your cheeks, your chin, the tip of your nose, and finally your lips.

You deepened the kiss, lips locking as your arms secured around his neck. Your hips jumped a little when you felt his tip bump your clit, still slightly sensitive from the orgasm he pulled from you with his fingers. You squirmed, Steve smirking against your lips.

"Steve, please, I need you inside me." Your lips formed a round the words desperately as he pulled away. His face dropped into seriousness, eyes glinting with question.

"Are you sure, doll? We can stop if you need to." You loved how sweet he was, how caring he was. You shook your head, lip tucking between your teeth.

"Please." You repeated, hand cupping his cheek as Steve nuzzled against your touch.

"Okay." He brought a hand down, tickling from your throat to your stomach as he did so. You wriggled beneath him, shrieking with laughter as he chuckled.

You settled once he stopped, nothing but love in your eyes as you watched the way the little crease appeared between his brows, which were furrowed in concentration as he lined himself up with you.

You both moaned when he pushed forwards, hips snug against yours as his length filled you up. His size was impressive for his body, the slim man hiding a good 7 inches.

Steve stilled, breath heavy as you panted against each other's mouths. You could feel the stretch, the slight burn tingling through your walls as you whimpered.

"You okay? Should I- should I stop? I can just pull out gently, it's no big dea-" Steve began to ramble worry in his face as he began to sit back, his length slowly sliding out of you.

"No. No, I'm fine. Just, give me a minute?" You mumbled, eyes pleading with his as Steve let himself slide back in to the hilt.

"Yeah, okay. Okay. As long as I'm not hurting you." Steve whispered, placing a delicate kiss to your hair line. After a moment you wiggled your hips, the feeling of Steve's damp lips resting against your slightly-sweaty forehead and his cock seated within you becoming too much.

"You can move now." You mumbled, and Steve smiled.

"You sure, princess?" He double checked, only starting to slide out of you when you nodded again.

The pace was slow, loving. Heavy breaths and pants were shared between open mouths; hair stuck to skin with sweat; broken moans hung low in the air.

"Oh, Steve!" You cried out when his fingers started fiddling with your clit again, your hips attempting to thrust up against his.

"Is that the right spot, sweetheart?" Steve asked, but he clearly knew it was by the way your eyes had disappeared into your skull. He kept up the little ministrations, rubbing until he felt you on the precipice of another orgasm.

"Please, Steve, more." Your demand made him smirk, the man picking up the pace just a little until you were writhing beneath him, hands clutching his small shoulders.

Somehow, it hit you like a ton of bricks, your walls fluttered and Steve's eyes widened. He quickly pulled out, letting his fingers pull you through your release as little white spots speckled your vision.

Steve's other hand moved to his length, rubbing up and down as fast as he could before he was releasing himself onto your stomach, a plane of white on perfect skin.

"Wow." You breathed and Steve couldn't hold back his laugh, the man collapsing on top of you and letting his head rest on your neck.

His laughter vibrates against your skin, your own joining his in a melody of joy as your hands smoothed through his now-damp hair.

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[plant-flwrs]

Can I request a ilvermorny transfer x one of the twins? I think it'll be cool if she wore roller skates to school (charmed by yours truly) since it's the 90s and she's cool but super sweet and caring - maybe when they invite her over to the burrow for the summer or their birthday she can give them a pair? Thanks ily!!!

roller skates // fred weasley 

masterlist!

a/n: ok i always feel bad when my fics take so long to set up and theres barely any like actual romance and i am trying to work on it. i think its hard for me to go into a fic where a relationship is already established, so i like writing them coming together and the immersion of it. but i hate reading fics where it takes forever to get to the good parts so just know that i will be trying to work on that flaw in my writing! thanks so much for reading! (i made the reader from florida just because my mind blanked on any other places that don’t have snow lol, but it’s not really relevant in any other situations so ignore it if u please) also just realizing all of my summaries sound scary and ominous also just realizing how i say way too much in these author notes im so sorry bye

summary: The American transfer student draws attention to herself with her accent, but Fred is drawn to something else about her.

(10.4k hehe sorry :D)

-----

Looking around at the students bustling past you, the only word you could think of was “proper”.

Looking down at your muggle clothes, loose and mismatched, your hair resting naturally, the only word you could think to describe yourself with was “improper”.

A boy with a permanent scowl and striking blond hair glanced your way, and the taller adults behind him followed his eye line. The three of them looked you up and down and their mouths all distorted into nasty grimaces. You felt your father’s comforting hand clasp over your shoulder, trying to help you remember everything he had said to you before arriving at King Cross Station.

“They aren’t that different from us,” he repeated, and you could tell he was doubting himself as he glanced at the uptight children and their matching parents.

He guided you forwards, and you pushed your large cart in front of you, navigating through the crowd. It started to separate around you, and even more odd glances were thrown your way. You supposed you should have felt a little insecure- you looked quite out of place- but the feeling could not overwhelm the excitement you felt. You had read all about Hogwarts, its history, its architecture, and you even picked up a few books about muggle London.

You were stood in your father's embrace, about to board. Your things were stored away, and you heard the train roaring louder and louder. You glanced around, the fathers in their dress shirts and ties, mothers in long skirts and blouses. Their children wore sweaters and jeans, or suit jackets and dress pants.

Something caught your eyes, though; a few feet away there was a large family, mingling in embraces. They all had flaming red hair, and their clothes looked like yours. In fact, your clothes resembled the oldest woman’s clothes, mismatched and colorful. Her eyes watered, and she smoothed down the hair on a fidgeting boy.

“Ronald, hold still!” she shouted at him, and he reluctantly allowed his mother to soothe his red hair down into a part on the side.

Once the woman had moved onto another child, Ronald roughed his hair back to the mess it was before. The woman now clutched a smaller boy, who looked like he was Ronald’s age, by the shoulders. She moved a hand to soothe his unruly hair off his forehead. Your eyes widened when you saw the lightning bolt on his forehead.

The books you had bought about the English Wizarding World did not neglect to mention the boy who lived. Elbowing your father, you both cast glances at the family. Your father nodded his head, looking impressed at the sight of Harry Potter.

“Thanks again Mrs. Weasley,” Harry said, and it sounded like he had said it millions of times before.

Mrs. Weasley waved off the two boys, who went to gather a girl with large bushy hair.

“Come on ‘Mione! We’ve got to get a good compartment,” Ronald said impatiently, tugging the girl's arm onto the train.

Mrs. Weasley was left with four other children. One of them looked like all the other proper British people you had seen at the station, a permanent sneer on his face. He shook his head stiffly at his mother and shook his father’s hand. You thought it was quite odd, and two identical boys standing with the family couldn’t contain their laughter.

“Yes,” one of them started, doubling over in a bow, “good day, mother,” he said pompously, imitating his brother.

“May you have a wonderful few months,” the other started, moving to shake his father’s hand as his brother had moments ago, “I’ll be looking for your owl,” he said, sounding incredibly posh.

The younger girl, with the same fiery hair, began to giggle, earning a scowl from the eldest brother as he boarded the train.

The girl pulled her mother in for a hug, and then her father, and waved to them fervently as she followed after her brother.

“You boys, stay out of trouble!” Mrs. Weasley said to the remaining twins, waving a finger at them.

“We always do, mum,” one said, and it was obvious by his tone that they didn’t often stay out of trouble.

They waved to their parents at the same time, stepping onto the train with a certain enthusiasm.

You averted your gaze, looking anywhere but at the family you had been staring at. You looked up at your father, hugging him one last time. When you pulled back, you heard his name being called.

“Mr. Y/n?” the voice called out, approaching the two of you.

It was Mr. and Mrs. Weasley, and Mr. Weasley already had his hand stuck out to your father.

“I’m Arthur Weasley, I’ve been the one to hire you at the Misuse of Muggle Artefacts Office at the Ministry. This is my wife, Molly. Funny to meet you here,” he said politely, looking at you and your father in a nicer way than any other wizard had during your time at the station. His eyes didn’t wander down to your brightly colored shoes, or your patterned pants, and he didn’t even cast a second glance at your oversized, offensively colored sweater. You beamed at him.

“Oh! Yes, it’s great to meet you,” your father said, shaking his hand. He squeezed your shoulder, jostling you a bit, “This is my daughter, Y/n.”

“Oh, would you hear that accent, Arthur!” Molly gasped, smiling as if she was astonished. Your father chuckled at her reaction. You supposed it would happen to you a lot at Hogwarts.

They both smiled at you, and Arthur offered you his hand to shake. You held your hand out, but the sleeve of your sweater swallowed the limb. You shook the extra clothing away, and Molly chuckled. Finally shaking his hand, you held it out to Molly. She bypassed your hand and began to roll up the sleeves of your sweater.

“Thank you,” you said, and she nodded, accomplished, at you.

“Better get her going,” your father said, and the Weasleys nodded at you.

“Have a good term, dear,” Molly said to you, patting your shoulders the way she had done to Harry.

“Thank you,” you repeated, moving past them and heading onto the train.

You waved one last time at your father, and the door closed behind you.

You wandered down the isles, looking for an empty place to sit. You pretended to look like you knew where you were going, hoping fewer people would stare at you if you did. Your plan didn’t work, and you caught the eyes of almost everyone you passed.

You had made it to the end of the train, and your eyes peered into the last cabin. It was empty except for a girl and a boy. They seemed friendly enough, so you slid open the door.

“Mind if I sit with you guys?” you asked, and the boy looked at you quizzically when he heard your voice.

“Not at all,” the girl said.

She had strikingly blonde hair and gray eyes that poured deeply into you. She had a faint smile on her lips, and her head was cocked to the side.

“I’m Luna Lovegood,” she said, and her voice was light and airy, “This is Neville Longbottom.”

The boy shifted in his seat, casting a shy glance at you. He raised a shaky hand and gave you a curt wave.

You smiled widely at the two of them, glad you seemed to have picked the right place to sit.

The train ride went fast enough. Luna asked you all sorts of questions about America, and you asked her all sorts of questions about England. When Neville warmed up to you, he asked some questions about Ilvermorny. They asked what house you had been in there, and you told him you were a Thunderbird, the soul of the witch.

“Where do you reckon she’ll be sorted into here?” Neville asked Luna. You leaned forwards, curious for the answer.

“Oh, I don’t know,” she said, peering into a magazine she had balanced into her lap, “but if I’m lucky, it’ll be Ravenclaw.”

“Which one is Ravenclaw?” you asked, trying to remember what you had read.

“The wise and witty,” Luna said, moving her robes to show the crest on it. It was blue with a bird over it.

“A raven, clever,” you said, looking closer at Neville’s red-trimmed robes.

“You’d think,” he said, “but it’s an eagle. I’m a Gryffindor, we’re meant to be brave but,” he trailed off, and Luna placed a comforting hand on his arm.

“Oh, stop it, Neville,” she said gently, her gaze back onto you, “there's Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw, and Slytherin.”

You nodded, recalling what little you read.

“My dad said he figured I would be a Hufflepuff. The Ministry told him he was a Ravenclaw, he had to do the silly sorting hat and everything,” you said, and Neville smiled at you.

“Hufflepuff? They’re quite nice, I suppose,” he said, sounding disappointed that you weren’t in Gryffindor or Ravenclaw.

“Well, we won’t know for sure,” Luna said, closing her magazine, “until-” but the train’s brakes began to screech.

Her smiled widened, and you looked down at your robes you had changed into. Maybe now people would be less inclined to stare, you thought.

You were right, but only briefly. Once you had gotten to the Great Hall, you were shuffled in with the first years. Your face burned a slight red the whole time, your larger and older stature standing out amongst the sea of younger students. Your name was called, and you heard a faint whooping coming from the table of red.

You glanced at it, seeing Neville lowering a cheering fist from the air. He looked around nervously, and you saw one of the Weasley twins glancing at his quizzically. You smiled at Neville’s support and sat in the stool.

An old and tattered hat was lowered onto your head, and suddenly it began speaking in your ear.

“Hm, very interesting. You’re not from here, that’s obvious,” it spoke quickly, echoing in your skull, “but I think the choice is simple. I’d say,”

Suddenly the voice left your skull and boomed into the room, for everyone to hear.

“Hufflepuff!”

Cheers from a table full of yellow sounded off, some raising from their seats and clapping for you. You beamed, moving off the stool and skipping cheerfully towards the table. You walked down the aisle between the red and yellow, and Neville’s hand stuck out at you.

“Congratulations!” he said excitedly, holding his hand up for a high five.

You hit his hand, and he waved you off.

A girl with a yellow tie and dark hair waved you over. She inched over, giving you room to sit with her.

“I’m Sarah, happy to have you in Hufflepuff!” she beamed, and you didn’t think you would ever get used to the British accents.

“It’s nice to meet you,” you watched her eyes widen at the sound of your voice, “I’m Y/n.”

“You’re American! You must have come from that American school, what’s it called, Ilmorny?” she asked, ducking her head and whispering as the sorting continued.

“Ilvemorny,” you corrected her, still smiling.

Sarah asked you a lot of the same questions Neville and Luna had asked, but you didn’t mind answering them. She had even offered to give you a tour of the school tomorrow, with the promise that you would choose the bed next to her’s in the dorm.

Sarah had lived up to her promise. You walked with your head permanently tilted upwards, admiring the greatness of the castle. Sarah ate with you at every meal and even insisted on walking you to your classes until you knew the way on your own. She had been so nice to you, and when Luna told you about the upcoming Hogsmeade trip, you knew you had to ask her to go with you.

The two of you walked through the snow, wrapped up in matching yellow and black scarves. She had linked her arm with yours and pulled along to all her favorite shops.

The two of you ducked into The Three Broomsticks, sick of the ice sticking to your face.

You saw a red scarf and a blue scarf sitting at a table, and when you saw the flow of blonde hair peeking from the blue one, you knew who it was. You pulled Sarah over to Luna and Neville, and Neville told you to pull up two chairs. You introduced Sarah to Luna and Neville.

“We’re just waiting for Harry, Ron, and Hermione to meet us,” Neville said, smiling cheerfully.

“Oh, should we go?” you asked, offering to free up your chair.

“No, no, stay,” Luna urged you, pulling your arm back down, “I’ll introduce you.”

This was how you were going to meet Harry Potter, you thought, huddled up at a small table, drinking a foamy beverage that left a little white mustache on your upper lip.

Harry was just like every other kid, and he was with the people you had seen at the station that day.

“What did you say your last name was?” Ron asked, leaning over the table so you could hear him.

“Y/l/n,” you said.

“Does your dad work for the Ministry?” he asked, and you nodded, “Our dads work together!” he said, elbowing Harry.

“Her dad is the bloke my dad was raving about all summer, the guy from America,” Ron said to Harry, and Harry nodded at you.

“What a coincidence,” you said, dipping your head to take another sip of the drink Sarah had ordered you.

You all fell into a natural conversation, and Hermione asked to switch seats with Sarah at one point. Sarah had no protests, filing easily into the seat next to Harry, glancing at him dreamily.

“Will you tell me about America? I’ve been to other parts of Europe for holidays, but never America. What’s it like? How different are the wizards?" Hermione sounded off questions like she had them rehearsed, but you were happy to answer them.

You and she were in a fit of laughter after she had told you about her parents’ reaction to her letter. Your eyes were shut, brimming with tears, as Hermione recounted her mother’s jumping up and down.

You were so involved with your conversation with Hermione, you hadn’t noticed Ron’s brothers come into the restaurant.

“Hello, Ickle Ronniekins,” one of them teased, messing a hand through Ron’s overgrown hair, “when are you gettin’ a hair cut?”

“Mum’s gonna cut it all off the second you get home,” the other said, pulling a chair in between Luna and Ron. The other pulled a chair in between Harry and Sarah, and you didn’t miss Sarah’s annoyed sigh at the interruption.

You and Hermione were recovering from your laughter, clutching your stomachs and breathing heavily.

“What’s so funny ladies?” one of them said, shoving Ron aside so he could rest his elbows on the table.

“Just telling Y/n about how my parents reacted to my letter from Hogwarts,” Hermione sighed, wiping a tear from the corner of her eye.

“You’re the famous Y/n?”

“The American?”

Ron elbowed each of his brothers in their sides, frowning at them.

“That’s me,” you answered cheerfully, smiling at them, “Are you Ron’s brothers?”

“More like,” one of them started.

“Best friends,” the other finished.

“He really would be nowhere if it weren’t for us,” they said at the same time.

A smile slid across your face; it was easy to smile around your new friends, you found.

Hogwarts was better than you could have ever hoped. You wrote to your father nearly every week, recounting the amazing things you had done with Sarah, Luna, Neville, Harry, Hermione, and Ron. The seven of you were becoming inseparable.

Luna’s blue tie dangled over your face as you lay on her lap, she was trying this odd head charm she had read about in the Quibbler. Your head rested in between her legs, back on the ground. Her skinny fingers were pressed to your temple, and they hesitantly pressed into your skin.

“Is that right?” she asked, consulting the cartoon pictures that moved on the Quibbler laying next to her.

“I don’t reckon, it doesn’t feel like anything’s happening,” you said, sitting up and rubbing where Luna’s fingers had been.

“Neville,” Luna said, motioning him over. His face grew white as she pulled him into him, moving to where you had been. Luna’s fingers pressed against Neville’s head, and his eyes fluttered closed. Luna began to hum to herself, and Neville smiled.

You crawled over to sit by Ron under the tree. Sarah was talking to Harry, her eyes dazed over as he gently brushed off a leaf that had fallen on her shoulder. Hermione was near, her head resting on her bag, laying on her back with his legs crossed. She was deep into a muggle book you recognized, and you couldn’t blame her for not wanting to put it down.

“Hi, Ron,” you snapped him out of his thoughts, ending his obvious staring at Hermione, “enjoying the weather?”

“Yeah, it’s just about my favorite time of year,” he said, twisting a blade of grass in his fingers.

The snow had melted, winter break had ended. Ron was able to shed his mother's heavy knitted sweaters and wear some of his more comfortable shirts.

“I quite liked the winter,” you said, your head leaning against the tree, “it was my first time seeing snow.”

“Are you serious? Why didn’t you tell us that?” Ron asked, seeming bewildered.

“Don’t know,” you shrugged, smiling at him.

“Hermione! Oi, Hermione! Y/n had never seen snow before she came here,” Ron said, calling out to Hermione.

“I know, she’s from Florida,” Hermione said, uninterested, head still buried in her book.

“Florida? Why didn’t I know that?” Ron asked, feeling out of the loop.

“Don’t know,” you repeated, shrugging again.

“Because you don’t ask, Ron,” Hermione said, sounding unpleased with Ron’s loud volume.

You stifled a laugh, but Ron looked at you, feeling guilty.

“Hermione’s right, I guess,” Ron said, casting a sad glance at you.

“It’s alight, Ron, I won’t hold it against you,” you reassured, and Ron perked up a little.

“Tell me one thing no one else here knows about you,” Ron said urgently. To this, Hermione closed her book and lay it on her chest, interested in what you were going to say.

You thought about it. You didn’t have anything to hide from your friends, but you felt yourself blanking on even the littlest fact about yourself. You tried to think of any special abilities you had, besides being a wizard, or any life events that were significant. The only thing you thought of was the hesitance you had when packing your trunk for school, debating on whether or not to bring your roller skates with you. Ilvermorny had allowed them, and you skated to nearly all your classes. The school's cold granite floors were just begging to be skated across, you had thought, and it was ten times faster than walking.

You thought about your skates, you missed them more than you thought you would. The white boots with slick, black wheels and rainbow laces were one of your most prized possessions. You wondered now, again, if you would have gotten in trouble for bringing your roller skates to school.

“Oh, alright, I’ve thought of something,” you began, and Hermione sat up a little, resting on her elbows.

“I really like to roller skate,” you said proudly.

“Roller skate?” Hermione and Ron repeated at the same time. Ron sounded confused, but Hermione sounded entertained.

“Yeah.”

“Like from the 80′s?” Hermione asked, still sounding entertained.

“They’re making a comeback,” you defended.

“What’s roller skate?” Ron asked, looking between you and Hermione.

“It’s like shoes with wheels on them,” Hermione said, used to having to explain muggle inventions her friend, “You tie them up and you skate around.”

“What do you do that for? Do they go really fast?” Ron asked.

“They can,” you said, “but it’s really just for fun. I used to take them with me to Ilvermorny and go to my classes on them, but I didn't know if Hogwarts allowed them.”

“Why wouldn’t they?” Ron asked, “Are they dangerous?”

“They're not dangerous, I suppose you could fall on them, but it’s not as bad as that Quidditch game you guys play,” you explained, “I just didn’t know if Hogwarts allowed those kinds of muggle things.”

Ron and Hermione nodded, and Hermione looked to be in deep thought.

“I’m sure they would,” she said, returning back to her book.

“What do you reckon they’re doing down there?” Fred asked, looming over George’s shoulder as he held the Marauder’s Map in his hands.

“Do you think Ron’s finally gonna get a girlfriend?” George teased, looking at you and Ron sitting together under the tree.

Fred sneered at his brother. Ever since he had told George he thought you were cute, it seemed George wanted to push his buttons any way he could. He would make jokes about you and Ron flirting, and for some reason it made his blood boil. He hadn’t even spoken to you on more instances than he could count on a hand, but he was enticed by you.

Your eyes were always moving, and they were always wide with excitement. He thought you were beautiful, you were always wearing your muggle clothes when you didn’t have to wear your uniform. You dressed kind of like his mum, he realized one day, but in a cooler way. That’s the word, cool, he thought you were cool. You fit in easily with Ron’s friends, you could talk about anything, and you were always so sweet.

“Where are they going now?” George wondered out loud, watching the names on the map begin to move.

You got up and dusted off your pants, feeling the baggy jean material under your fingers. You helped Ron up, offering him a hand and pulling him off the ground. You, Ron, and Hermione trailed after Harry and Sarah, who trailed after Neville and Luna. You had all been feeling a bit warm outside, so you decided to go to the Gryffindor common room for the rest of the afternoon. You and Sarah were always excited to go to the Gryffindor common room, feeling it was a nice change from yours in the basement.

Fred’s eyes watched as you, Ron, and Hermione walked together towards the Gryffindor common room. He suddenly felt nervous, even though he was up in his dorm with George. He stood, and looked at himself in the mirror. He pulled down at the bottom of his shirt, tugging uncomfortably at the way it clung to his arms. He hadn’t been dressed to impress, and he usually didn’t, but at the sight of your name getting closer to his on the map, he ignored George’s torments and changed into nicer pants and a more flattering shirt.

Harry stepped passed Neville, who had forgotten the password, and held open the portrait for everyone as they stepped through. You, Sarah, Luna, and Hermione occupied the biggest couch in front of the fire, and Neville and Ron took the armchairs on either side of you. Harry sat on the floor in between Ron’s chair and where Sarah had sunk into the corner of the couch.

Sarah beamed at you, taking notice of the small action, and you wiggled your eyebrows back at her. She blushed and leaned over the side of the couch, resting her chin in her hand and starting a conversation with Harry.

Hermione pulled her book from her bag again, reading the pages eagerly. You and Luna sat shoulder to shoulder as Luna began to tell you about her plans for the summer.

“I think I’ll try to learn French,” she said, toying with some sunglasses she pulled from her pocket.

“You’re going to learn French?” you repeated, a smile pulling up your lips.

“I think so, might also help my dad with his plums,” Luna said, turning to you as she slipped on the sunglasses. They overcame her face, entirely oversized and wonderful. They were bright green and had purple lenses that were reflective. You could see your wide and amused smile in them.

“Your father grows plums?” you inquired, always enjoying conversation with Luna.

“Yes, they’re Dirigible Plums.”

“What are those?”

Luna pulled her hair back and showed you a pair of earrings she wore. They looked like little orange balloons, but leaves hung from them.

“Oh, those are very pretty, Luna,” you said, admiring them.

“My dad says they make you wiser,” she explained, “so he grows them in his garden.”

“And you wear them as earrings,” you said, smiling at her.

“Yes,” she nodded and gave you a crooked grin.

“What are your plans for the summer?” Luna asked.

“Oh, I don’t know. My father will be working, so I’ll probably be home all day,” you said, feeling a little lonely already, “I’ll have my roller skates though.”

Luna looked at you, confused, but you were more talking to Ron anyways, who you noticed was listening to your conversation.

“You should come to the Burrow this summer! Everyone does, even for just for a week,” Ron said, standing and moving over to sit on the coffee table in front of you.

“That sounds cool, I’d love to,” you said, grinning at Ron.

You looked around you and felt so lucky, lucky to have found such kind and accepting people at your new school.

Pacing upstairs, Fred smoothed down his hair before ruffling it again and then smoothing it. He knew you were downstairs, and he knew he wanted to talk to you, but you just made him so nervous. He never gets nervous.

George sat with his elbows on his knees, eyebrows raised, watching his brother obviously losing his mind.

“Just go down and talk to her,” he said, a little afraid his brother might explode, “you’re gonna wear a hole in the ground.”

Fred stopped where he stood, near the door. He sighed heavily and nodded.

“Yeah,” he said, swallowing hard, “I’ll just go talk to her.”

Fred recalled the day he had formally met you at the Three Broomsticks. He was smooth, able to mask the way your curious gaze had made his stomach flutter. He couldn’t very well go down there and make a fool of himself, could he?

“Oi Fred!” he heard Lee call from where he stood near Harry, which was also near you, “Come over here a minute.”

Fred sauntered over, forcing himself not to stare at you.

Hermione had put down her book, and Luna had left to go to her own common room to do some homework. You and Hermione sat cross-legged facing each other, playing a muggle card game.

“Yeah?” he asked, stuffing his hands in his pockets and leaning against the banister of the fireplace.

Harry and Lee sat at two wooden chairs near the fireplace, only a few feet away from the couch you were on. This angle allowed him to watch you as your head threw back in laughter as Hermione scowled at her losing the game. His eyes easily flickered back to Lee, who pulled him into the conversation he and Harry were having about Quidditch.

Ginny walked through the portrait hole, returning from some Quidditch training she had been doing. Ginny was taking Quidditch very seriously this year and had taken to exercising on the pitch with Angelina every weekend.

“Ginny!” Ron called out to her, putting down the newspaper he was reading. He waved her over with a hurried hand.

“What?” she said, plopping down on the empty space next to Hermione, “What game are you guys playing?”

You looked up from the deck of cards you had begun to shuffle as Hermione told her.

“Ginny,” Ron said again, pulling his sister’s attention back to him.

“Hm?” she said, and it was very obvious she was tired from her day's activities.

“Have you asked anyone over for the summer yet?” Ron asked, and his eyes flicked to you, “I just invited Y/n, so I don’t want it getting too crowded.”

Ginny looked over to you, her gaze becoming analytical. You raised a hand to wave and cast her a kind smile, and she returned it.

“I don’t have anything planned, it should be fine,” Ginny turned away from Ron and back towards you and Hermione, “When are you lot coming? At the same time?”

You looked towards Hermione, not knowing the answer.

“Oh, I didn’t have any specific ideas yet, Ron’s just asked me. Still have to write to my dad,” you said, and Hermione nodded.

“Yeah, I’m sure it’ll be the usual time for me, though,” Hermione said, and Ginny smiled.

“What’s the usual time?” you asked, beginning to deal the cards to you and Hermione.

“A few weeks before school starts, Mrs. Weasley takes us all to Diagon Alley for our school things,” Hermione said, speaking fondly of the memory.

“Should I ask my dad to come then, when Hermione does?” you looked towards Ron, “Unless I should come at a different time,” you said, not trying to intrude.

“That would be perfect! Harry comes ‘round that time too, so we’ll all see each other,” Ron said.

He looked over at Harry, and upon seeing his brother, he called Fred over the way he had done to Ginny.

“Fred, have you invited anyone home for summer yet?”

Fred’s gaze immediately went to you, and he found you looking at him too.

“Yeah,” he said, pushing himself off the wall and over to Ron.

“Who?” Ron said, curious because his brothers usually didn’t have people over to the Burrow during holidays.

“George,” he said, smirking.

“Git,” Ron mumbled under his breath.

“Why do you ask, Ickle Ronniekins?”

“I just wanted to make sure it wouldn’t get too crowded when Hermione, Harry, and Y/n come ‘round,” Ron said, squirming as Fred forced himself into Ron’s seat that was only big enough for one of them.

Fred’s cool demeanor dropped for a moment, his eyes widening. He quickly recovered, wrapping an arm around Ron.

“How considerate of you,” he said, giving his brother an unwanted side hug.

Ron got up from his seat, leaving Fred to sit by himself. He watched you with unblinking eyes as you listened to Ginny talk about her time with Angelina on the pitch.

Looking down at your packed to the brim suitcase, you glance to the corner of your room. Your pristine roller skates sat there, one on their side. They looked sad and forgotten, but you knew that wasn’t true. Ever since you had gotten home from Hogwarts, you had taken to skating around ‘muggle’ London. You had also just gotten used to saying ‘muggle’.

Your father left early and got home late, and part of you was jealous that he got to see a Weasley every day and you didn’t. To ease your envy, you took to your skates.

You weren’t sure if you should pack them with you for Ron’s house. You were leaving when your father got home for work, the two of you setting off just before dark. You shoved a sweater deeper into your bag, making room for the skates.

Your father was to eat dinner with the Weasleys, sleep on the couch, and set off with Mr. Weasley for work in the morning. No point in two trips, they figured.

You were traveling by Flu powder, and your father went first. He heaved your bag into the fireplace with him and erupted in green flames. You carried a backpack on your shoulder, filled with little things that couldn’t fit in your suitcase.

Fred was more nervous and excited than he had ever felt in his whole life. He was determined to chat you up this summer, at least do something to make sure you knew he existed. He had been pacing in he and George’s shared room, but George pulled him down to the kitchen and made him drink some tea, hoping to calm him down.

You twisted your fingers, looking nervously into the fireplace. You were extremely excited to spend the remaining weeks of your summer with the Weasleys, but a small part of you was scared. You were nervous that Ron’s parents wouldn’t like you as much as they did at the train station. You were nervous that Ron, and his siblings, would get sick of having you around. You were nervous that you would become a burden.

You had been writing with Hermione, and she ensured you of how kind the Weasleys were. She told you that you had nothing to worry about, and you felt a little relieved.

You had visited Sarah a couple of times during the summer. She lived fairly close, close enough for you to take muggle transportation. Her family was welcoming and all had wide eyes at your accent. Thinking of their kindness, you felt confident enough to finally step into the fireplace.

Green flames surrounded you, and within seconds, you were stood in a different fireplace. It was a little shorter, and you were glad you had hunched over a little. Mr. Weasley and your father were shaking hands off to the side, over by a large couch. Mrs. Weasley was looking into the fireplace and waving you out. Ron was trudging your suitcase upstairs already, and Hermione and Ginny stood by Mrs. Weasley smiling widely. You noticed Fred and George sat at a large wooden table near the kitchen both drinking some tea and eating.

You took a step from the fireplace, making sure to wipe off any ash that may have stained your clothes, and allowed Mrs. Weasley to pull you into a hug.

“Oh, so good to see you again, dear!” she said, rocking you back and forth in the suffocating hug.

You didn’t care if you couldn’t breathe, you decided at that moment that Molly Weasley gave the absolute best hugs. She released you, patting your shoulders and running a loving hand through your hair, tucking it behind your ear. You beamed at her, and she smiled back at you.

When she moved away, Hermione quickly replaced her. Hermione’s arms pulled you close, wrapping around your backpack.

“I missed you!” she said, smiling at you.

“I missed you too!” you said, nearly ‘awing’ at everyone’s kindness.

Ginny hugged you too, and when you stepped away, Ron had come back downstairs. You hugged him, and then Harry, and finally you were left to be able to breathe your own air.

The house around you was adorable. It was better than you could have ever imagined. Magic was everywhere, and everything just felt like home.

“You’ll be staying with me and Ginny,” Hermione said to you from her spot next to you at the table.

“Perfect,” you replied, the same awestruck smile plastered on your face since you had arrived.

Fred looked at you from across the table. He felt like his dinner was moving in his stomach, and his hands were sweating. He’d nearly dropped his fork three times. He breathed deep, and when the conversation lulled, he took his chance.

“How has your summer been, Y/n?” he asked, and you looked up from your plate to him.

He nearly died, your happy eyes looking at him.

“Great!” you said, wiping your hands on your napkin in your lap, “I’m glad to finally be here.”

He smiled back at you, and it took him a moment to realize he’d been staring for a little too long, and that you had asked him a question.

“My summer? Oh, my summer’s been good too,” he replied, nodding.

You looked to George, who was next to him and raised your eyebrows, inviting his answer.

“It’s been good,” he said casually, and then an evil grin spread across his face, “but I think Fred’s just about worn my ear off talking about you.”

Fred coughed, choking on his mashed potatoes. His face went red, and he looked at his twin with an anger George had never seen before. Fred quickly looked back at you, as if to gauge your reaction. Your head was tilted down, but a shy smile was on your face and a blush crept on your cheeks.

Fred’s anger subsided at the sight of it, but when George kicked him from under the table, he was reminded.

“What is wrong with you?” Fred asked, nearly yelling at his brother in the privacy of their own room.

“I gave you a push,” George answered, not looking up from the Zonko’s catalog in his hands.

Fred simmered, coming to the realization that George was right. He fell onto his bed, thinking back to the pink on your cheeks and the bashful curl of your lips.

He didn’t know how he was meant to sleep, painfully aware of the fact that you were asleep just a room away.

“Did you hear what George said to Y/n at dinner?” Hermione asked, pulling Ginny into the argument you were having once she got out of the shower.

Ginny shook her head, removing the towel from her hair, “No, what’d he say?”

You rolled your eyes at Hermione as she divulged into every little detail of what George had said.

“And Fred could not stop staring!” she finished, and you let out an exaggerated breath.

“He was not staring!”

“Yes, he was,” Ginny said cheekily, sitting down on her bed.

“Ginny!” you said, giving up hope of having her on your side.

“He totally fancies you,” Hermione said.

Your face twisted for two reasons: the word ‘fancies’, and the fact that she thought Fred Weasley might fancy you.

“He does not!”

Ginny sat on her bed, listening to you and Hermione go back and forth. She knew Fred fancied you, he had since they had been at school. She saw his longing looks, the way he looked at you first after he told a joke, and the pure admiration he had in his eyes any time he looked at you. It especially convinced her when Fred had been talking about you all summer. She came to a decision.

“He does,” she said, watching Hermione’s face change into the proud one she wore when she answered a question right in class. Your mouth hung open.

“What?” Hermione’s gaze turned towards you, and she smiled widely. You liked to think it was her infectious smile that made your mouth turn up, and not the idea of Fred liking you.

“He has been talking about you all summer, I’m surprised Ron didn’t tell you earlier,” Ginny said, bringing the towel to her hair again to catch some dripping water.

“He probably hasn’t even noticed,” Hermione said, the tone of annoyance dripping off her tongue.

Ginny flashed her a sympathetic look, but Hermione ignored it, continuing.

“Do you like him?” she pried, and the whole room felt like it was frozen.

They both looked at you expectantly, waiting for your answer.

You didn’t know. Fred was handsome, and funny, and clever, but you hardly knew him. You knew he was mischievous, and that he tormented Ron, but other than that you might as well have been strangers. You could not deny, however, that he was attractive.

“I don’t know,” you said, honestly.

“You don’t know?” Ginny repeated, confused.

“Yeah, I mean, I barely know him,” you answered, the obvious energy in the room shifting to something of deep thought.

“Do you fancy him, though?” Hermione asked, her eyebrows raised.

“I think he’s cute, yeah, but how can he fancy me? We’ve barely spoken to each other. Are you sure Ginny?” you asked again, still doubtful.

“I’m sure he’s noticed the little things more than you think he would, Fred can be pretty considerate when he wants to be,” Ginny said, and you breathed out loudly. You flopped on your back, the mound of blankets around you and Hermione soothing your landing.

“See? I wouldn’t know that!” you said.

You knew it was a little silly, to focus on something like this. You had an older, attractive, popular boy head over heels for you, but you were harping on the fact that you didn’t know whether or not he was considerate.

“You’re being ridiculous,” Hermione said harshly, “I mean it’s not like you’re forced to marry him. You go on dates with people to get to know them, after all.”

You were nearly offended by Hermione’s tone, but you figured she was just getting irritated on the subject of crushes.

“I know, ‘Mione, I’m just confused by it,” you reassured her.

“Well, test the waters tomorrow,” Ginny said suggestively, wiggling her eyebrows.

You cringed away from her, and swells of giggles were coming from Ginny’s room nearly all night.

The three of you slept late into the morning. The Burrow’s eventful noises were nothing compared to the sounds of muggle London, so you slept peacefully. It wasn’t until something began tapping on Ginny’s window, did the three of you wake up.

“What the-?” Ginny started but soon fell silent at the sound of a loud crashing noise. Shards of glass scattered around the room and Hermione was lucky that she had rolled away from the window in her sleep. You put your hand up, flinching at the noise, and when you dropped it, the warm summer air flooded into the room.

A small golden snitch was soaring around the room, averting every swipe of Ginny’s hands, and ducking behind her dresser.

Ginny slipped on some shoes, and carefully navigated through the glass. She leaned cautiously out of the window, and that's when the screaming started.

“Harry! Are you mental?! What on Earth-” her screams divulged into threats and insults, and you looked over her shoulder, watching Harry hover many feet away on his broom, his face looking quite guilty.

You found your shoes and moved over to the window. You then realized that Fred and George were hovering closer to Ginny’s window, silencing the snickers and amazed faces they wore. At the sight of Fred, your eyes widened, and his eyes met yours. He smiled kindly at you, and before you knew what you were doing, you ducked behind the window, crouching by Ginny’s feet.

You heard George’s laughter, and Ginny’s ramblings stilled.

“What are you doing on the floor?” she asked you, lowering herself to crouch with you.

“I don’t know,” you answered, whispering. Your cheeks were red and your eyes were wide. Ginny’s threatening look turned into a smile.

She began to giggle, and soon enough, Fred and George hovered just above the window, peering into Ginny’s room.

“What are you girls doing down there?” George asked, resting a hand on the part of the windowsill with no glass on it, peering into the room.

Ginny looked at you, her smile wide. You looked around and began to pick up large shards of glass.

“Cleaning up the glass,” you said casually, although you could still feel the distinct burn of blush on your cheeks.

You could only safely pick up two large shards of glass without cutting your hands, so you raised yourself from the ground, meeting Fred and George’s eyes. Ginny followed you, crossing her arms and smirking.

The boys wore their practice robes, their names and numbers on the backs. They both had discarded goggles hanging from their necks, and their hair was wild. You looked between the both of them, swallowing thickly.

“Could you keep it down?” Ginny finally said, trying to ease the situation, “We’re trying to sleep.”

George removed a hand from his broom and glanced at his watch, “It’s nearly 12 in the afternoon,” he said sarcastically.

“Really? Well, we need our beauty sleep,” Ginny said, and you noticed she nearly reached out to close the window.

George rolled his eyes and zipped away on his broom, leaving Fred.

“I’m gonna go get a broom, clean this up,” Ginny said, huffing as she navigated her way back through the glass on the floor.

You and Fred were left there, staring at anything but each other. Fred moved slightly up and down on his broom as he hovered. He finally cleared his throat and looked at you.

“Sleep well?” he asked, eyebrows raised.

You nodded and smiled, rocking back and forth on your feet, “You?”

He nodded too and looked away quickly.

“Oh, I think George, is calling me,” he said, and it was obvious George was not calling him. He flew away on his broom, and you closed your eyes, letting out a restrained breath.

You groaned and threw yourself on Ginny’s bed. Hermione rolled over, a large and entertained grin on her face. You covered your face with a pillow and ignored Ginny and Hermione’s imitations of the incident while they swept up the glass.

Mrs. Weasley was furious to see Ginny’s window. She had come in later in the day, a basket full of laundry on her hip.

“Hello girls,” she said pleasantly, “Do you have- what the bloody hell is that?”

Ginny’s eyes widened at the sound of her mother’s deep and serious tone.

“Mum! It wasn’t us,” Ginny leaped from her bed and ran to her dresser, she quickly caught the snitch from where it had been hiding behind her dresser, “It came through the window this morning when the boys were playing.”

Mrs. Weasley looked at you and Hermione, and you both nodded your heads furiously. She huffed out a breath and pinched the bridge of her nose with her fingers.

Finally looking up, she set the laundry down and stood in Ginny’s doorway.

“BOYS!” she shouted, and you heard the sudden halting of George and Fred’s laughter, and Harry and Ron’s footsteps upstairs silenced.

The sound of four hesitant feet walking to Ginny’s room was the last thing you heard before Mrs. Weasley’s screams burst your eardrums.

The Burrow was crowded now that the boys had been banned from leaving the house. They had only briefly been allowed out of the house to de-gnome the garden, but Mrs. Weasley stood at the door, making sure they had absolutely no fun.

Your suitcase lay open in Ginny’s room, the three of you dressed and having absolutely no ideas as to what to do. You had all already ran through your spending money going to Diagon Alley on your first days there, and without the boys offering some entertainment, the three of you were idle.

Ginny paced, looking through her own things with interest. She twisted her broom in her hands, offering the idea of Quidditch, but Hermione wasn’t interested. Ginny was scanning her room, and her eyes fell on your bag. A pair of white shoes with wheels on them lay tucked away in the bag. She walked over to them and pulled them out hesitantly.

“What the bloody hell are those?” George said from the doorway.

The three of you girls turned, looking to the door. The four boys crowded in the hall, all peering into the room with interest. It seemed they were bored too.

“Are those the roll skates?” Ron asked, mispronouncing the word and shoving past George and taking the roller skate from Ginny.

“Yeah,” you said, your eyes flicking up over the top of your magazine.

The rest of the boys filed into the tiny room, nearly all of them shoulder to shoulder. Hermione rose from her spot next to you, picking up the other one from your bag.

“I remember seeing commercials for these things when I was a kid,” Hermione said, spinning the wheel in her hand.

“Commercials? What are you on about?” Ron said, and Harry caught your baffled look and smiled.

“What are they?” Fred asked, taking Hermione’s seat next to you on Ginny’s bed.

You lowered your magazine and looked at him, only to find him already looking at you. He gave you a crooked smile and nodded in greeting. You successfully fought a blush and smiled back at him.

“They’re roller skates. They’re like shoes with wheels,” you explained, taking the skate from Ron.

You rolled up your jeans a little and slipped on the skate. Fred watched your delicate fingers lacing up the shoe, noticing the way your hair fell into your face as you looked down at them.

Hermione handed you the other one, and you did the same to the other foot. You stood easily from the bed and nearly lost your balance. It was lucky that Fred’s strong shoulder was there for your hand to clasp onto, or else your feet would have slipped from under you.

You looked down at your hand still on Fred’s shoulder, even though you were standing fine. He slipped your hand off but kept it in his hand. You then became aware that you were just holding hands at this point. He stood with you and turned to face you. He pulled your other hand into his, and pushed you away from him, smiling widely as you rolled easily on the hardwood floors.

Everyone knew then that they had found their entertainment for the day.

The sound of joyful laughter flooded your ears as Fred pulled you around the limited space in Ginny’s room. Your hands fit together perfectly, and he walked backward as he pulled you, keeping his smiling eyes on you the whole time. Soon he was pulling you into the hallway, and everyone trailed after. You felt Ginny’s small hands pushing your back, and you began to gain speed. Fred hadn’t caught up, and you were coming closer and closer to him. You looked down but didn’t want to put your toes down to brake, in fear of scuffing up the floor. So, you let yourself fall into Fred’s arms.

The two of you stayed upright, but his long arms were wrapped around your waist. Your hands fell to his chest, and his chin pressed against his neck as he looked down at you. His hair fell into his eyes, and yours fell gracefully in its natural place. You smiled, and he smiled, and soon you erupted into giggles at the silence behind you. George catcalled, and you stuffed your giggles into Fred’s chest, tucking your head under his chin. You felt him take a sharp inhale, and his arms became a little tighter around you.

When Mr. Weasley got home, he was accosted by his children.

“Dad!” They said in unison, all waiting for him by the door.

He jumped at the sight of them all, then began taking off his coat.

“Look at these!” Ginny said, pointing to your feet.

You did a little spin, careful not to make any marks on the floor. Fred watched you spin elegantly, your arms coming out a little like a ballerina.

“Remarkable!” Mr. Wealsey cried, moving to look at them.

Questions came from his mouth faster then you could answer them, and you slid the wheels against the floor under the table while you ate dinner.

“We had an idea, Dad,” Fred said, looking at you proudly.

“Yeah, think you’ll like it,” George added, glancing at you with a smirk and then looking back at his dad.

“We need you to conjure some sort of track outside,” Ron finished, talking with his mouth full.

“A track! That’s brilliant!” Mr. Weasley exclaimed, missing the worried look from his wife.

“It was Y/n’s idea, she’s brilliant,” Fred said, looking across the table at you.

You giggled as George made a gagging noise.

“With what? Stone?” Mrs. Weasley inquired, placing a hand on her hip.

“Oh no, they’re usually made of wood or asphalt,” you explained, “they have a whole building of them in the muggle world. People rent the skates and pay to skate on a big rink.”

Mr. Weasley's eyes widened with excitement, and Mrs. Weasley’s worry tamed.

“Let’s do it tonight.”

The eight of you walked to a clearing on the side of the house. It was where the boys usually played Quidditch, but it hadn’t been in use for days. Mrs. Weasley hadn’t stopped the boys from helping with the track, and you were grateful.

“Hold it higher, Ron!” Mr. Weasley called out, and Ron raised his father's wand with a bright orb of light coming from it.

The track was nearly done. It was huge, a large hoop secured to the ground. There was an enchanted orb of light in the center of the circle, and it illuminated the entire rink.

Your friends watched you blaze around the track, your hair whipping around behind your face, the sides of your cardigan flapping in the wind. You heard loud cheers when you successfully began skating backward.

The rest of your trip to The Burrow was spent out there. The boys were lifted from their punishments, and the rink became the one place you all went to when you woke up, and the last place you were before bed. Soon enough, though, your father appeared in the fireplace with your school trunk by his side. He quickly took back the bag you had been keeping at the Weasley's, and you went through your trunk one last time, making sure you had everything.

This year, walking through the train station, you were still stared at. But you didn’t care because an entire family surrounding you, and they all looked like you.

Your father gave you a lasting embrace before Fred followed you onto the train. He had waited for you, watching as you hugged your dad. He waved to your father, and his hand grazed your lower back as he walked behind you. The two of you found the compartment that had to be the most crowded of the lot.

Lee, Luna, Neville, Harry, Hermione, Ron, Sarah, George, and now you and Fred, packed into a compartment, the entire room filled with busy conversation the entire ride.

It was weird to be in the Hufflepuff common room, your bedroom devoid of Ginny’s huffs as she rolled over to get comfortable, or Hermione’s anxious mumbles she said in her sleep. You pulled your blankets off of you, your legs feeling sore from the constant skating you had been doing for weeks.

Speaking of, you had made the decision to bring your skates to Hogwarts. You slipped them on, tightening the rainbow laces. You pointed your wand at the wheels and cast a silencing charm, so the turn of the wheels would be silent.

You carefully climbed the stairs from the Hufflepuff basement and looked both ways before you skated towards your destination.

Fred had been sitting under his covers, looking over the map as he usually did before he snuck to the kitchens. Out of habit, he looked at the Hufflepuff common room for your familiar name. He was shocked to see you across the castle, in a long-abandoned classroom. He suddenly lost his appetite and slid into some slippers.

He rested his forearm in the crook of the door, leaning against it. He watched you illuminated by the candles lit on the wall. You easily glided between the desks, twisting and turning, spinning, and navigating between them. His eyes followed you, your body moving naturally. He watched the sway of your hips as your wait transferred from foot to foot, the skates rolling against the smooth stone. You moved to the open space in the room, skating backward, your back to him. You turned just a few feet in front of him, and when you saw Fred, your surprise ran through your body. Your feet faltered and you bumped into a desk, making a loud crash.

He jumped from his spot in the doorway, closing the door behind him. He moved to you in two long strides, crouching to reach you on the floor.

“Are you alright?”

“You scared the shit out of me, Fred!” you said, smiling up at him.

“Couldn’t help it, I had to come see you,” he said smoothly, bringing the map from his back pocket.

“What? How did you know I was here?”

He unfolded a piece of paper and held it out to you. You took it in your hands and realized what it was. Before you could look at it for long, Fred took it back, a worried expression on his face.

“Filch is coming, he must have heard the noise,” Fred folded the map and put it back in his pocket.

Suddenly, his hands were on your waist, and he was guiding you to your feet. He looked around the room and saw the door to the supply closet.

With a wave of his wand, the flames of the candles were extinguished and he was pulling your gliding figure to the closet. The door closed just in time, and Filch burst in. You and Fred were pressed together, his hands still on your waist. You opened your mouth to ask him about the map, and one of his hands covered your mouth. He felt your soft lips, and his eyes locked onto yours. You heard Filch’s heavy feet stomping around the room and the screech of the desk against the floor.

Your mind was occupied by the lack of space between you, your back pressed to the door, and Fred’s warm hand on your face. He looked deeply at you, and his face was inches from yours.

You thought back to the day Ginny told you about how Fred felt, and you realized that you no longer had any hesitations about Fred. Standing this close to him, his leg slid between yours, his chest against yours, you felt what he felt. You fancied Fred.

Fred felt your lips curl into a smile beneath his hand. It was dark, so he couldn’t see your face, but he wished more than anything that he could. He heard the door close, and Filch was gone, but neither of you moved. Fred’s hand retracted from your mouth, moving to your neck. His fingers slipped under your hair, and his thumb rested in your jaw.

“Why did you come here?” you whispered.

“I like to watch you skate,” he answered, his voice devoid of any laughter.

“You’ve watched me skate for weeks,” you said quickly, inching your face closer to his, craning your neck to look up at him.

“I like to watch you,” he said without thinking, “I like you.”

You closed the space between you two. His lips were slow, and so were yours. You arched your back against the door, anything to get closer to him. His face was warm, and yours was cold. His lips pressed hard against yours, and the kiss held everything he had felt since he talked to you in the Three Broomsticks. It was all the nights he had ranted to George about you, all the times he had mentioned what little time it was until you’d finally be at The Burrow, all the times he looked at the map just to see your name, all the times his stomach had flipped just at the thought of you.

You pulled away, breathless, and he lowered his head to rest on your shoulder. His breathing was heavy, and your eyes had fluttered closed. He reached for his wand and said “Lumos,” just so he could see your pretty face and swollen lips.

He walked you back to the basement, and you shared another slow kiss. He had almost followed you down the stairs, watching you leave with your skates hanging from around your neck.

The next morning in the courtyard, Ginny was the first to notice.

“What happened?” she said, skeptical of your dazed face and the constant flush you had from just being near Fred.

He sat a few feet away in his own world, avoiding George and Lee’s conversation about the upcoming Hogsmeade trip.

You smiled at Ginny, and she furrowed her brows at you. You were about to tell her, but Ron fell with a thud onto the ground next to you.

“It’s been three bloody weeks and Snape’s already assigned 100 pages of reading,” Ron groaned, pulling a heavy textbook from under his arm. Hermione and Harry trailed behind him, sitting with much more grace than Ron had.

Hermione also noticed your at peace look and looked at you analytically.

You were finally able to tell them in the hall, during an extended period between classes.

“He kissed me last night,” you said with a blush.

“I told you!”

“Finally!”

You hushed them, a bashful smile coming to your lips. Fred passed the three of you, his eyes locked on yours as he walked. Over his shoulder, he sent you a flirty wink. You felt weak at the knees and was glad that you were leaning against a wall.

“Maybe he’ll ask you to Hogsmeade,” Hermione said, tugging you off the wall and in the opposite way Fred was walking. You looked over your shoulder to see him walking backward, watching you walk away.

“Knowing Fred, he’ll probably pull some elaborate prank or get fireworks to spell your name out,” Ginny said, watching you look at her brother.

Fred did something like that, the two of you in the courtyard, laying in the grass. He had pulled you from dinner just after you were dismissed, and he led you to the courtyard. You both stared at the sky, and he looked at you. You met his gaze and then he pointed at the sky.

In huge, shining, red words read “Y/n, Hogsmeade this weekend?”.

You smiled at him and nodded. His hand snaked to cup your cheek still laying down. He pulled you towards him, and you moved to look down at him, propped up on your elbow. His lips met yours, and the sound of more bursting fireworks flooded the air around you.

It was nearly Christmas now. You and Fred have been dating for a few weeks, and he invited you back to the Burrow for the holidays.

You accepted, and you trudged your heavy bag into the fireplace. It was filled with gifts for the Weasley’s, and you were feeling quite confident about it.

Ron, Harry, and Hermione stayed at school for the holidays, leaving you, George, Fred, and Mr. and Mrs. Weasley sat in front of a fire on Christmas eve.

You had called your father on your flip phone he had given you as an early Christmas present. He was coming over tomorrow for Christmas morning, and you felt incredibly content.

Coming back to the couch, tucking your phone into your pocket, you slipped back under Fred’s arm, curling into his side. Mr. Wealsey had already had a go at the device, and he just watched amazed at it fitting into your pocket so easily.

The next morning you were woken up by the sound of your father’s booming voice downstairs. You sat up, stretching, and looked over to Ginny’s bed. It was empty, the covers were thrown aside. You slipped on a large cardigan, pulling it around your cold arms and going downstairs.

You were met with what felt like a dream. All the Weasley’s sat around the table, eating a huge Christmas breakfast and drinking tea. They each wore matching sweaters with their initials on them, and your father was standing with Mr. Weasley by the couch.

“Happy Christmas!” they all beamed at you.

Ginny tugged you over to the couch, sitting on one side of you while Fred sat on the other. Your father stood behind you on the couch, and a pile of presents were stacked in the room. You had brought your presents for the Weasley’s down last night, and you saw them on the ground.

Wrapping paper was everywhere, and the sound of happiness flooded the room. It finally came time for everyone to open what you had gotten them, and Fred went first. He tore away the red paper and held the plain box in his hands. He shook it, holding it up to his ear and smiling at you.

“Careful!” you told him, and he tore away the tape holding the box shut.

Inside, a brand new pair of garnet roller skates. He gasped, his large hands holding a skate up.

“Oh, my-” Mrs. Weasley said, already thinking of the awful thing he and George could do with those.

“It’s amazing!” he exclaimed, wrapping his arms around you.

You returned the hug, and whispered in his ear, “Merry Christmas, Fred.”

Soon, all the Weasley’s were holding different colored skates, even Mr. and Mrs. Weasley.

[sapnxps]

(WTL) Chapter One: Greg the Neighbor- Georgenotfound x Reader

If I knew that when I moved to London, I'd have two weird neighbors, I'd laugh in your face. Now I'm friends with an old cat lady. Now I'm enemies with my cute neighbor that's definitely not single, who also screams too much.

Even though he's a dick, why can't I stop thinking about him?

My parents told me I’d regret moving to London from the state before I left because I’d miss them and the US too much.

They were half right.

I’m sitting on a box messily labeled ‘kitchen’ in the hallway of my new apartment complex. I huff, wiping the sticky sweat from my forehead. The moving bill is almost 4 thousand dollars. If I knew moving would be this expensive, I wouldn’t have moved out from my parent’s house until I was 40. Sure, I moved a lot of my belongings across the Atlantic ocean, but 4 thousand dollars? Who do I look like, Jeff Bezos?

Today has been hectic, to say the least. Three of my boxes somehow drifted away to Spain. Don’t ask me how that happened, I don’t even know. I’ve been unpacking by myself all day. A box of my kitchenware got shattered upon arrival. I should’ve listened to my Mom on that one, she told me to just buy plates and glasses here instead of shipping them here. Big mistake I’m never making again. Finally, the biggest chunk of my problems: My apartment is full of boxes and I don’t feel like unpacking. Maybe it’s the fact that I’ve been sleeping on an air mattress for two days, maybe not, but I woke up on the wrong side of the bed this morning. If one more thing goes wrong, I think I might lose it.

Begrudgingly, I lift myself up from the box I was sitting on. It’s a bit dented now, but the way it felt on my ass, it’s just pots and pans. I open the door, pulling this box into my apartment. I weakly push it into the kitchen. It collides with one of the boxes filled with shattered plates. The sound of the broken glass sliding across the box sounded like nails on a chalkboard. I need to make a note to properly dispose of that. Turning my head to look around my new home, I feel my brain's short circuit. All these boxes unpacked, I’ve barely made a dent. This is going to take for-fucking-ever. Moving is modern-day torture. Oh, that’s funny. Remember to tweet that later.

The next three hours of my life are taken up by filling up my kitchen cabinets and drawers with cutlery and various kitchen utensils. The counter was now less bare, housing my toaster and breadbox. My Tupperware containers sat in a special place in the far-right cabinet by the sink. It looked like this home was lived in, as long as you didn’t glance anywhere else besides the kitchen.

I soon after tackled the bathroom, which was the less intimidating room compared to the living room and bedroom. I got the shower curtain hung up, which made it look nice. The rug found its way to the floor, protecting my feet from the cold, cream tile. The shelves were now stocked with a few fluffy peach towels and soaps. Underneath the sink had cleaning supplies as well as spare toilet paper. Living alone meant having nobody to give you another roll if you finish the other one. Kinda sucks. I had a boyfriend during high school, and two years into college. I dreamed of living with him, we planned it all out. I’d finish college, we’d move to a city and rent out the tiniest apartment we could find. We’d live it out until eventually we made ends meet and the rest would be. Dreams cut short though, he cheated. It’s part of why I left in the first place. Needed a change of scenery, new people.

That’s where I am now. New people. Stuck on that part. Haven’t gotten a chance to meet any, which is oh so tragic. I can’t decide if I want to introduce myself to the neighbors or let them come to me? I’m stuck pondering on the thought until I hear a knock at the door. I wonder if my lost boxes have mysteriously arrived.

Opening the door, I’m greeted with an older woman, holding out a small cake into my space.

“Hi dear, I’m your neighbor to the right. Heard all the commotion, saw all the boxes. I had to see for myself the fresh meat in the complex,” She paused before lightly tapping my arm with her free hand. “Just teasing! It’s great to have another lady on this level. The young man to your left, handsome fella, never comes out much though. Hopefully, we can have a girl posse or something,” Her posh accent made her much different than me. Is it wrong to already feel isolated?

I grin at her, moving out of the way to invite her in. “Nice to meet you, feel free to come in. I apologize for all the boxes scattered around, moving has been proven to not be quite my talent,”

The woman smiles brightly at me, shock plastered on her face. “You’re American!”

“That I am,” I chuckle. She hands me the cake, which I gladly accept. My diet has consisted of soggy hash browns from the complex lobby. She makes her way to what is settled in the living room, politely setting herself on my suede blue couch across from the large wall in the room. I place the cake on my counter by the stove, making a mental note to grab a slice once the woman leaves.

The shock never leaves her aged face, “Oh goodness! How amazing. I have a foreigner as my neighbor. You’ll find London quite lovely. I know how it feels to be isolated and removed from what you’re used to, but I promise you’ll fit right in,” She says as I settle myself on the loveseat a bit away from the couch.

“Where are you from?” I ask. She obviously isn’t American.

She smiles, “Just a bit east of Surrey. South of London. Beautiful area, grew up on a small cottage,” The woman was glowing as she spoke of her hometown. She was obviously proud of where she grew up. Compared to my southern Arizona town, this place seemed like heaven. A cottage? Sign me up.

“Sounds lovely,” I speak truthfully.

“Welp,” The woman slaps her laps, a way of signaling it’s time to end the conversation. Despite only speaking for a small amount of time, she seems like someone I can come to if I ever have questions about London or the terminology that I hear around the city. I’ll need to remember that she’s the neighbor to the right. As she began to see herself out, I remembered the other neighbor she mentioned. The young man to the left. I believe she used the term ‘handsome fella’ to describe him. Once she was out in the hall, I felt the need to find out more information.

“Oh!” I shout, hanging myself out into the hallway. She pauses her steps, turning back to me. “By the way, who’s my other neighbor? The guy you were telling me about. Does he have a name?” I ask.

“Greg,” She nods, resuming her short walk back to her apartment.

Greg. Ugly name.

I completely forgot about the conversation by dinner time. As I was munching down on my cake, delicious by the way, I heard loud yelling from my right side. I wouldn’t even call it yelling, more like high-pitched screaming. Who was my neighbor over there again? Greg? Greg. He was causing a ruckus and a mere heart attack at that. He was screaming so loud I nearly jumped out of my skin the first time I heard it. If I didn’t know any better, I’d think he’s facing a very, very gruesome murder right now. Well, I guess I don’t know any better. I’m just wishing for the very best.

Another hour passes. The yelling never stops. It’s only 8, but my body is as awake as ever. I still have yet to get used to the new time zone. At times it was difficult, but I’m using it to my advantage now. I have some extra time to unpack and get my actual bed ready. My bed frame was put together professionally during lunch, so that was one thing checked off my list. The mattress I ordered was delivered yesterday. Now it was just the matter of putting the sheets on and preparing my duvet.

Fitted sheets fucking suck to put on a bed. I was currently struggling to put it on my nice mattress. It was edging close to 10 pm. The sky was dark, and I was stuck in some odd mixture of a starfish and the downward dog position. If this moment was a picture, it could be used for blackmail. The closer I got to finally getting the top right corner on my bed, the more stretched out I became. I was like one of those sticky hands you’d get in those toy dispensers at the grocery store. I was just about to get it, when another loud shriek could be heard. In shock, I slammed my head on the bed frame and lost grip of all four corners of the sheet.

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” I mumbled underneath my breath.

Whatever. He probably has a greater reason to be screaming like this, right? Justified shouting, whatever you want to call it. My bedroom is closer to his apartment than the kitchen was. Is it nosey to try to figure out what he’s saying? I don’t want to be that type of neighbor. I’ll continue minding my business because I don’t want to find out some weird shit about Greg that I don’t want to know.

The screaming never stopped.

In fact, if anything, it got louder. And louder. And louder. Is it okay to call the cops here?

It’s midnight now. The next fucking day. And Greg is still screaming at the top of his lungs as if everyone else isn’t asleep. If I saw some normal citizen just trying to get some rest, I’d be fed up. Well, I’m still fed up. I’m also running on a messed-up sleep schedule, so it’s not like I was trying to sleep anyways. My bed is made now, and comfy as hell. I built a shelf to house some of my small decorations, with the entertainment of my noisy neighbor’s yells to accompany me. For some odd reason, it made me feel less lonely.

At about 2, I began to reject the company. I felt irritation grow in my chest as I heard the same high-pitched shrieks that I heard at 8. The annoyance that bubbled in me overtook my politeness. Before I knew it, I was up and in the hallway banging on his door. I didn’t have the time to care about my Daffy Duck pajamas sticking to my legs due to the heatwave hitting England right now. Before I even realize it, my fist is slamming on his door. I never knew I had the power to knock that hard, but my anger and blossoming resentment overpowered me. I continued banging until the door pulled away from its frame. Now I’m face to face with Greg.

Boy was he handsome.

I was met with a man, about 5 foot 9. His dark brown hair was disheveled. Strands of hair laid across his forehead messily. If he wasn’t screaming, I would’ve thought he was sleeping. He was wearing a fluorescent green hoodie with an odd smile plastered on the front. It was a bit large for his skinny frame, that’s unimportant though. His grey sweatpants were twisted on his legs. What the fuck was he doing? His face was delicately shaped. This jawline looks sharp yet fragile like it was constructed of the most fragile rose crystal I’d ever seen. His brown eyes reminded me of caramel, thick and way too easy to get lost in.

“Hi, uh Greg-” I start. I’m just realizing now how close I am to him. The scent of his spearmint gum floods my nostrils. It’s a bit powerful, crinkling my nose at the smell. It wasn’t gross, just very shocking.

“George,” He spat. That’s fucking embarrassing. I’m meeting him for the first time and I got his name wrong. I’m not taken aback for long though, because his attitude oozing from his simple correction was enough to disgust me. I’ve done nothing wrong to him, except maybe get his name wrong. Was my moving too much of a nuisance to him? Poor little British thing, he can deal with it.

I cringe, “Oh, um, sorry.”

He leans into the door frame, sweatshirt adjusting to the movement. Forget a tiny bit large, he was swimming in this thing. “Yeah, no problem. Can I help you or are you selling girl scout cookies at,” George checks his watch. “2 in the morning. If you are, I’m not interested, sorry ‘bout that,” His outfit makes me feel a lot less aware of mine. Despite his face being rather attractive, the outfit makes him look like he just rolled out of bed.

“Oh, yeah. I was wondering if you could lower the volume a bit, please. Or just stop screaming entirely, if possible. I don’t know if you have some weird shouting fetish, but I certainly don’t,” I chuckle. George, however, doesn’t chuckle. Actually, he looks rather unamused. If a human was an art museum, it would be George. Curling into a ball and falling into an endless void doesn’t sound too awful right now. I think I’ll add that to my itinerary. I’ll do it in my bed so I’m at least comfortable while I’m drowning in my own self-pity.

He grimaces, “Yeah. Sure.”

He’s blunt. Got it.

The second I turn my back to the door, it slams. Wow. What a cunt. Shaking the interaction off, I begin to feel the wear and tear of the day beginning to hit me. Moving all those boxes made my muscles ache. The solution to all my problems today seems to be going to bed. Not that I’m not okay with that, just funny. The day before I left for London, you’d think I was shocked by lightning. The electricity that was running through my veins was no match for any ADHD medicine the FDA had ever approved. Now, my body is beginning to fall victim to the earlier time zone. Not that it was a big deal, it was going to happen eventually. These next few days would just entail a difficult sleeping schedule. Nothing I haven’t dealt with before.

I quickly find my way back to my own bedroom. The yelling was quieter, but I could still hear George through the thin walls. He was murmuring to someone softly. This apartment complex was all 1 bedroom apartments. He didn’t live alone. How lovely! I made a fool of myself to him, and he was most definitely telling his partner right now. Talk about dignity, am I right?

I scrolled through my phone for an hour, before the screaming returned to its original volume. Would it be overdramatic to say I felt my face go red with anger? I don’t think so. I think I handled the situation as politely as I could. Hell, I even cracked a joke so he could know I wasn’t that upset over the situation! If I knew he was going to resume his disruptive noises, I wouldn’t have been so nice or absolutely hilarious. Nobody that douchey gets my amazing humor. He didn’t even laugh! I hear another shout followed by a slam to a desk. What the fuck is wrong with this guy?

Welp. Welcome to London!

[mlwritersguild]

One Flew Over the Peacocks Nest by @maggies-scribblings​

Letter from Emilie Agreste to Chat Noir

Event Prompt: Choose one character for you POV to write letters to a randomly selected second character to be the recipient.

-----------------

FROM: emilie.gh.agreste@parismail.fr

TO: chatnoirmailbox@theladyblog.fr

M. Chat Noir,

I write to you not as a fan, much less an enemy, but as a mother. I have tried to contact everyone else who might have been of help, but no one has responded. You are my last hope. 

I am counting on you to help me. You have shown you are a kind-hearted boy, even through all this mess. 

My son will not speak to me or open any letters or e-mails I send him. I need to tell him my version of what happened. He needs to know it was all for love.  

As you know only too well, I have been awakened from my coma during the events of the Battle of Paris, three months ago. Since then, I have been involuntarily detained in this psychiatric hospital, by order of the judge. 

I need to make it absolutely clear that I did not in any way participate in, or even know about, my husband’s doings. I hope this message can make you believe me. Not for me — or my husband — but for my son.

I feel that I need to give you some background about me, since I’m sure the tabloids and magazines have already put too many lies out there. 

My family history is no secret — Amelia Graham, my mother, is a peripheral member of the English Royal Family, and my father was media owner Emile de Vanily. They were the sweethearts of the press in the 1970s. My sister and I were born after years of our parents’ (very public) battle with infertility, but the stress from the constant treatments and, later, two very energetic little girls, took a toll on them, and they ended up divorcing when we were six years old. 

Growing up, our family was constantly hounded by tabloid journalists and paparazzi, so we moved to a quiet countryside manor to attend a small private school. Our lives were as sheltered from the real world as Mother could manage. 

Between the two of us, I was always the rebel one, if you may call it that. I ventured out of the school yard with some other girls to buy smokes and gossip magazines. I dreamt of being a model and an actress, going to Hollywood and marrying some major movie star in a dream wedding. My mother and sister tried to smother those ambitions, but as soon as I turned 18 and received my part of the family fortune, I was off to London to start modelling. My father’s name opened many doors in London, and I got contracted by a major agency within weeks. I took the next step and enrolled in the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art to learn acting, while taking modelling jobs to pay for my expenses. 

I was 19 years old when I met Gabriel Agreste at the London Fashion Week. At 32, he was still a struggling designer, trying to make a name for himself in the business. He was tall, handsome, and dynamic, and his designs touched something deep within my heart that I still can’t describe. We fell in love the very day I modelled for him, and were married within a few months, much to the displeasure of my family in England. 

You have to understand, Chat Noir, that my husband wasn’t always the severe, reclusive, and paranoid man that you came to know. He was always proud, so he refused any financial help from me — his ascension to the fashion A-list was on his own merits and talent. 

The first years of our marriage were blissfully happy. Agreste was slowly growing into a major name in the industry, with some help from our friend Audrey Bourgeois, who took Gabriel under her wing by featuring him in the independent magazine she ran. When she was picked to be the editor of Mode she continued to support him, and when she took over Style Queen in New York, the brand went global.  

With the business booming and the company growing, Gabriel hired Nathalie, a CFO and a CEO, so that he could delegate the business dealings. He wanted to have more free time so that we could start to expand our family. 

I ventured into acting only once, but the film was misunderstood and a flop. The director was so angry he recalled all the copies and burned them on his terrace. I was devastated. At 25, I was getting “too old” to model or find other occupations, and fell into a deep depression.

But I digress. Coming back to the reason I am writing. My son.

After ten years of marriage, we hadn’t succeeded in conceiving a child. I’ll spare you the details, but my family history and Gabriel’s age did not help. 

Back home in England, my sister had married Ferris MacKay, an old friend from a wealthy family (keeping her maiden name). Coincidentally, they were also trying and failing to have a baby.

The top fertility clinic in Europe at the time was in London. Naturally, Gabriel and I moved there for some months as we started our treatments, not knowing my sister was a patient too. We eventually bumped into each other and reconnected. When we got pregnant with just a few weeks’ difference, we were all ecstatic. 

The boys were born, beautiful, healthy and so similar they could be mistaken for twins. Their personalities, though, were opposites from the start: my Adrien was a sweet, calm and happy baby, while his cousin Félix was fussy and whiny.

We resumed our life in Paris, only for Gabriel to find out his CEO and CFO had been embezzling millions by contracting sweatshops to produce prêt-à-porter collections. Nathalie was the one who uncovered the scheme, and worked closely with Gabriel to prevent any damages to the brand’s reputation.  

That’s when my husband began to change. He didn’t trust anyone but Nathalie, and micromanaged everything that happened in the company and the house. He was overworked, nervous and neglectful of me and Adrien.   

History was repeating itself. Just like my parents, we were slowly drifting apart. My depression came back with a vengeance. I was constantly ill, too, but kept doting on Adrien, loving him as much as I could. 

When Adrien was five, another major scandal broke: our fertility doctor was arrested for using his genetic material to conceive patients’ babies. Gabriel was enraged. He ranted on about the possibility that Adrien was not his son. That he didn’t look like him. That his personality was too different from his. That I loved Adrien more than I loved him. 

This had a huge impact on our fragile relationship. Suspicions were easily cleared with a DNA test, but his paranoia was here to stay. He controlled my every move, wouldn’t let Adrien go to school, and only let him play with some friends’ children. 

In my fragile state, I complied, afraid to make him angrier. I loved him as much as ever, and when it was just the two of us, everything was almost perfect. 

I smiled and took care of my husband and our son. If I behaved, there wouldn’t be any fights. I got medicated and felt a little better, but Adrien was still my only refuge from all the negativity.

A couple of years later, Gabriel and I went to a couple’s therapist who was very helpful. Among other things, she advised us to find a mutual hobby. There was something we’d both loved for a long time, but never had the chance to pursue: Tibetan folk tales. I loved the lore, Gabriel found inspiration in the illustrations that accompanied them. 

Saturday mornings became our alone time, scouring flea markets for old books and artefacts. Both of us could speak, read and write Mandarin, and every new discovery was exciting and fun! Then it was a small leap before we learned how to decipher the ancient ideograms, and we started to see veiled references to magical jewels and legendary heroes in historical writings. Even my coughing and illnesses were gone. In the back of my mind, I wondered if I could use magic to make all our troubles go away.

One of our major finds was a newspaper clipping from 1844, describing how a whole temple of an ancient order of monks had been burned down inexplicably, with no victims found. The article was illustrated with an engraving of the order symbol, one we had spotted in other writings, always associated with the magical jewels. 

I became obsessed. The clues were evident, and I wanted to follow them. With some more research, I managed to get an approximate location of the temple. Gabriel was hesitant to leave his business and our boy, but I insisted we go investigate. My rationale was that even if we didn’t find any magical jewels, the time alone could help us rediscover our happiness. 

And so we went. We left our beautiful boy, who was now eight years old, in Nathalie’s trusted hands. 

The first few weeks in Lhasa were fantastic! We hired a bilingual guide, a historian and an archaeologist, and started to plan our investigation. In one of his solo outings to the shady parts of the city, Gabriel found us another ally, who called himself Cash. I disliked him immediately — he was greedy and sleazy, but I put up with his presence, as he knew his way around the black market. 

Our little team began to roam the villages around the mountain where the ancient temple once stood, but people would not talk about anything related to it. Everyone had taken a vow of silence, willingly or not. 

Cash was the one who found the first real piece of evidence: the ancient Miraculous Book of Secrets, or Grimoire if you prefer. The fortune we paid for it was worth every cent: it was the first time we saw actual drawings and writings about the magical jewels and superheroes of old, confirming our suspicions! Together with our specialists, we went to work on it immediately, and soon deciphered a part of the code. You know, of course, how the jewels and power-ups work, so I won’t go into more details. 

Gabriel and I decided to visit the temple ruins as tourists, to see what we could find. It was so remote that there weren’t any roads leading up to it. It was late spring, so the excessive winter snow had already caused avalanches, leaving only permafrost. It should take us only a day or two to reach the temple. We left our team in the closest village inn and departed, just the two of us. 

It was a hard ascent, but we had trained for it. Not enough, unfortunately: before the end of the first day, I slipped on something even slicker than ice, and sprained my ankle. This was bad. Very bad. 

Even then, my curiosity took the best of me and I dug into the snow to find what had made me slip. There they were, glimmering in the sun: the Butterfly and Peacock Miraculous! It was like the seasonal movements of the snow had miraculously brought them right into our hands.

We removed our gloves to pick them up, and immediately two tiny creatures appeared: Duusu and Nooroo. Again, you don’t need me to explain what Kwamis are. They introduced themselves and told us how to transform and use their powers. 

Nooroo tried to warn us that the Peacock Miraculous was damaged, while Duusu dismissed him, whooping and spinning around me, urging me to transform. 

We weren’t planning on using the powers at all, believe me. However, my ankle kept swelling and hurt terribly; also, we were on such a steep, unsafe slope that there was no way we could spend the night there and survive.

I put on the Peacock brooch, and Gabriel, the Butterfly. We thought that if we could just fly back to the inn everything would be okay. 

The transformation was amazing at first, but something about it just felt wrong. My body was rejuvenated and stronger than ever, all the pain was gone. Meanwhile, my mind was racing, spinning and confused, my own thoughts and feelings mingled with others, I supposed from previous holders and Duusu himself. I could hardly focus on my movements. 

We made it back to the village inn, detransforming before we entered. Immediately my body collapsed, my head dizzy and my legs failing me. Gabriel picked me up and took me to our room. Our team was concerned, but believed the “just fell and sprained my ankle” story. 

During the night, I was even more disoriented mentally, and all the while my ankle swelled and got darker. I got feverish and delirious, and I’m told I was babbling about past adventures and speaking in other languages, laughing maniacally before bursting into helpless sobs. 

The village was so small they didn’t have a doctor, so a healer came to my help. He told our guide that we shouldn’t have messed with ancient forces and must quit whatever we were pursuing and go home. 

Gabriel spared no expense in flying us back to Lhasa in a rescue helicopter. I spent a few days in the hospital, and although my ankle began to heal, they couldn’t find anything wrong with my brain. I went through extensive tests, but everything looked normal. My cough came back, and my lungs burned. My delirious rantings continued even as I was awake, spikes of fever and hypothermia alternating alarmingly. 

The doctors advised against me travelling in such a condition, but Gabriel insisted we come home, where he could get the best doctors, state-of-the-art exams and treatments. 

I survived the journey, but my mental state was much worse. At least I could stand and walk after a few weeks. I was so happy to see our Adrien, he had grown so much in the few months we were gone…

Therapy and medication helped with my disposition, but I wasn’t the same Émilie any more. I began to crave the sheer power I had felt when I first transformed, so I started wearing it as a brooch, much to Gabriel’s annoyance. I promised him I would never transform again. I lied. 

Within a few years, I got used to the voices in my head and was able to live my life almost as before. Occasionally, when Gabriel was out travelling or working late, I sneaked out to transform and run across the rooftops. I willed my suit to be all black so that I wouldn’t be spotted. It was the first time I tasted true freedom.

I got greedy for it. I began to transform every night when everyone was asleep. Sometimes I didn’t even go out: I just walked around the mansion, listening to the stories my predecessors had to tell.   

Unfortunately, the longer I used the Miraculous, the worse my dizzy spells and coughing fits got, so it was back to the hospital for me. 

This time the doctors actually found a brain tumour. They had to operate soon, or it would get much worse and eventually kill me. 

The last thing I remember is signing the consent for the procedure and my husband whispering, ‘I love you. I promise I will save you, no matter what.’

Fast-forward to when you and Ladybug found me in the mansion basement, I know she brought me back, though I can’t tell how. I think I remember seeing a red kwami pop out of my forehead? I am forever grateful to her and to you for saving me. 

I hear Nathalie has been dealing with some side effects from using the Peacock several times, too. She was always stronger than me, and my debilitated mental state must have left me more sensitive to Duusu’s illness. I now know that the Peacock is repaired, but the thoughts and memories implanted in my brain will not go away. 

That’s why they’re keeping me here, isn’t it? 

But I’m okay. I’m fine. As you can read, I’m coherent and healthy. I just… lose it from time to time. Just a little. I regret that the first time my son saw me after all these years was during one of those… relapses. He must have thought I was crazy. I know I attacked him, but only because I was surprised, he was so grown up! I wanted my baby back, not a whole grown man! We suffered so much to have him and to keep our family united through all of this. Gabriel worked so hard to reunite us. He went so far for me! For us. 

The pained, horrified look my son gave me is something I will never forget. I know I said nasty things to him. That he should have helped his father, he should have offered to be the sacrifice for us to be together again. After all, we still have leftover embryos cryogenically preserved. He could have been reborn. Or I could… I could make a brand new Adrien if you could lend me the Peacock Miraculous, just for a little bit. 

But please don’t show this part of the e-mail to him. He wouldn’t understand. 

So, I beg of you, talk to my son. Convince him to see me. Tell him it was all for our family’s sake. For his parents’ happiness. 

Oh no, my internet time is almost over. If they find me writing this, they will tie me to the bed again. 

Goodbye, Chat Noir. I hope you can help me. 

Émilie Graham de Vanily Agreste

-------------------------------------

Notes: Thanks to everyone at the @mlwritersguild for coming up with such an interesting challenge (and for being patient with my delay!) 

Also, thank you to my early beta, @cassandrasfisher, for the encouragement when I was ready to quit.

Lastly, I want to thank my final betas, @valiantlyjollynightmare and @apopcornkernel who helped me fine-tune my story!

[wouldpollyapprove]

Coal Miner’s Daughter

Request: Can you do Tommy with number 4 from the fluff list?????

Requested by Anonymous

Thomas Shelby x Reader

Word Count: 2.8k

Warnings: Language

A/N: I enjoyed writing this so much and I think I’m gonna at least do a second part. I can’t tell you when that’ll be out, I have to first find time to write it. I also didn’t expect this to turn out this long as I’ve been suffuring from writer’s block. Thinking about it now, I think it’s because I wasn’t inspired by the prompt I was given.

Masterlist

Recently moving to Small Heath, Y/n knew nothing but the fact that everything she owned would be covered in dust and soot. The fact left her unfazed, being a coal miner’s daughter and all meant that she knew no life without either. But this place was cleaner than the Welsh village she’d come from that was covered in layers upon layers of the black material. With the life given to her, she also knew little of what went on in the larger cities both in Wales and England. And that meant, she knew nothing of Mr. Thomas Shelby. 

At least, no until she spilled her drink on him.

“Fuck,” the man shouted as the chilled liquor soaked through his waistcoat. Hands raised, he backed away from the puddle that collected beneath him, the whiskey in his glass splashing onto his fingers. His eyes meet that of what he could only describe as a terrified deer, wide-eyed and doe-like.

Sucking in a breath, Y/n set down her empty glass, cursing herself for not paying attention. “I’m so sorry,” she apologized and reached for a handkerchief that was tucked away in her purse. “Here let me.” Y/n dabbed the clothe over a few areas to suck some of the moisture out. 

“Just-” He removed her hand from his chest. “-go somewhere else.” Though, it was clear her intentions were good, having gin thrown at him put him in a rather grumpy mood.

Nodding, Y/n scurried past the man, his stern tone told her it wouldn’t be delightful to cross him. With an empty glass, she slid into the where her neighbors sat, the ones who invited her to the Garrison in the first place. After she’d told them that she’d never been to a proper pub, they shared a single glance and then declared that they would take her out for around. Seeing as how her portion of the round ended up on a random man, Y/n wasn’t enjoying herself.

Marie shook her head when Y/n slide in next to her brother, Will. “Can’t believe you spilled gin all over Thomas Shelby and he let you live,” she snickered, a finger tracing the rim of the mug in front of her. 

Eyes wide in confusion, Y/n hoped someone would explain who she was talking about. Had she known such a simple accident could result in her death, perhaps she would have reconsidered moving to Birmingham. When no one caught on, she asked, “What do you mean?”

“Christ, you are as innocent and naive as they come, aren’t ya?” Will rolled his eyes, downing the last of his whiskey. He sighed, setting the glass down when he caught the hurt and confusion in her eyes. “That man-” A finger pointed at the slender man that could be seen in the pub’s private room. Even from such a distance, Y/n couldn’t help but notice the sparkle of his ice-blue eyes under the light. “-is Thomas Shelby. Very long story short: he’s a businessman and gangster. Guts men like they’re fish and blinds them like their bastards. He’s not one to trifle with. Or lay in bed with.”

Face paling at his words, Y/n couldn’t believe she hadn’t been warned about the man before. Where she came from, the only people you had to worry about were the drunks. There were no gangsters in Aberfan, it was simply unheard of. You had the occasional thief, usually children who were left to starve when their fathers died in the mines and their mothers who couldn’t find work, and perhaps a murderer or two if a man was caught in the wrong bed. But it was never anything like what the people of Birmingham had to deal with. “Should I be worried?”

The woman across from her laughed, “No, dear. The worst he’d do to you is charge you for a new waistcoat.”

An hour or so later, Will let out a sigh and stretched his arms over his head. “I’m beat, think I’m gonna head home,” he said before shuffling out of the booth. Marie nodded in agreement, but she would agree to anything since she had finished off her sixth glass of wine. Y/n watched them stand and throw on their coats to protect themselves from the brutal Birmingham wind. “You coming?” Will asked, throwing a few coins on the table. 

Glancing at the glass that laid abandoned in front of her, barely touched after being refilled, she couldn’t find a reason to go home. Y/n didn’t want to spend another night in her apartment, too big for one person, all alone. Watch the shadows play tricks on her, make her feel safe one minute but let her believe she was in danger the next. At the same time, there was no reason for her to stay in the pub. Her glass would never empty and she would do nothing but feel sorry for herself, sorry that she couldn’t be more like everyone else. 

“I think I’m going to stay a little longer,” she finally said.

Marie raised a brow, “Are you sure ya wanna do that?” Y/n simply nodded and watched the pair slipped out the door.

Once they disappeared behind the wooden doors, Y/n started to regret her decision. It wasn’t too late to run after them, but her brain was telling her otherwise. In a room full of people who had known each other for years, seen each other on the street since they were children, she felt out of place. If she stood, Y/n feared a spotlight would be put on her, following her all the way to the door. But then, when would she leave? There would be no good time to slip past those in her way and run to the comfort and silence of the outside world if she feared the eyes that would be on her. 

Before her anxiety could bury her any deeper, someone slid into the booth. Bringing her eyes up from her glass, Y/n met the eyes of a thick, red-haired man. He looked like every other man that worked in the factories and the look in his eyes told her he didn’t care for a thing she had to say. “Here alone?”

Y/n hesitantly nodded. But as soon as she caught his reaction, she knew it would have been better to lie, say she was here with anyone to get him to find a new place to sit.

“Such a shame. A pretty girl like you, here all by yourself,” he commented, eyes scanning her body. “If you want, we could go back to my place.”

She smiled, “I would rather stay here and finish my drink. You can go home if you’d like.” Over the rim of her glass, she could see he wasn’t pleased and as the liquid stung her throat, she knew he wouldn’t leave willingly. 

“Or I could wait for you to finish.”

Closing her eyes, Y/n couldn’t understand how she had become lucky enough to not only spill her drink on a gangster but also have to put up with a bastard in the same night. How hard was it for the man to see she was uncomfortable? Did the loss of color in her cheeks not give it away? “I don’t mean to be rude, but I don’t want to go home with you.”

The man scuffed, obvious it was rare for women to pass him by. “What are you a prude? Women don’t come sit in pubs alone unless they want to leave with someone.”

Obviously, women in Birmingham took up much different social lives than those in Aberfan. If Y/n were back home, no one would question her being in a pub alone. No one would assume she was there for any reason other than to drink. Small Heath, Birmingham wasn’t the same and she was a fool to believe there wouldn’t be a little culture shock. 

“I-” she started before a shadow was cast over the table. Glancing up, Y/n wasn’t sure if she should be relieved to see Thomas Shelby standing in front of the booth. There was a dangerous look in his eyes when Thomas glared at the man across from her. Y/n found it odd, the man was her problem not his, so why wasn’t he enjoying himself in the little room that seemed to be set aside just for his enjoyment.

“This man bothering you?” he asked Y/n, eyes set on the man across from her. Before she could even nod, the man swallowed, skin turning a dangerous white. 

Shuffling out of the booth, the man stammered, “Sorry, so sorry, Mr. Shelby. I-I’ll just go then.” And like that, he was gone, almost as if he’d never been there to begin with. 

Watching him flee through the door, Y/n slide out of the booth, the eyes of her savior never leaving her. Standing next to him, she wrung her hands together, trying to find the courage to look him in the eye. Mr. Shelby was a tall man that held himself with a deadly sort of confidence that entered the room way before he even made an appearance. He looked like the man that was hard to please and easy to anger. 

Grabbing her coat off the back of her seat, Thomas handed it to her, “You alright?” 

His voice was soft, much different than she expected it to be when he wasn’t angry. “Yes, yes, thank you,” she finally managed, quickly glancing at his face that had softened since she’d spilled her drink all over him. “I think I’ll go home now, don’t want to bother you any more than I already have.”

“It’s no bother and I’d feel much better if you let me walk you home,” he waved her comment off and waited for his offer to be accepted.

Believing it rude to turn him down, a man like him probably wasn’t used to that, Y/n nodded, “If you want to, I suppose.”

With that, Thomas led her out of the pub, the cold air biting her cheeks as they walked out into the empty street. Stuffing her hands in her pocket, Y/n let her eyes wander around the buildings they passed. The brick structures, though not tall, were much larger than the ones she had grown up around. They were giants, looming over the pair as they passed, silence filling the air between them.

Thomas was the first break to the silence, his voice echoing down the street. “What’s your name?”

“Y/n,” she replied, eyes meeting anything but his own. 

It was silly to be nervous, she could tell he was making an effort. His voice was softer, a gentle touch to it that warmed her heart, and his demeanor was kind, almost loving. The glow from the few lights they passed drown his features in gold, making the man look angelic. In this light, Thomas Shelby didn’t look like a man that could pull the trigger and have blood on his hands. Instead, he looked like a man in love with the world, a poet or a painter. One that found beauty in almost everything. It made Y/n wonder if that’s what he looked like before he had turned to violence. 

“That’s a lovely name,” he mused, searching his pocket for something. With ease, he pulled out a cigarette canister and put one of the thin sticks between his mouth before passing it over to his company. 

“I don’t smoke,” Y/n shook her head as the cigarettes were placed back in Thomas’s pocket.

He nodded, striking a match. “Name’s Tommy,” he informed her once his cigarette was lit and he’d taken a drag, the match forgotten on the cobblestone behind them. “Am I correct in assuming you already know who I am?”

“I just know your name, not much else.” Y/n spared a quick glance at him, his eyes were following her every move, but she didn’t feel like prey with his graze upon her. In his presence, she felt safe, that could have been because he was a gangster or it could have been something she couldn’t put her finger on.

Taking a drag, Tommy glanced up at the night sky. It was a cloudless night, he knew it would be cold. When his mother was alive, she always grew a small garden and made sure to cover her plants when clouds disappeared from the sky come nightfall. “Starry nights are dangerous,” she’d say. “Not only are men fools when the sky is clear, but it’s anything but warm.” If his mother was right, he would wake up to a blanket of frost covering the plants at Arrow House. “You’re not from Birmingham, are you?”

Y/n shook her head, fiddling with the buttons of her coat. “Is it that obvious? But no, I’m not. I’m not from a place that’s anything like this,” she laughed, wondering why she ever chose to move to such a large city. 

“Where are you from then?” Tommy inquired, lips turning up in a small smile when he saw her eyes light up.

“Aberfan. It’s a coal mining village in Wales, dirty place but every lively,” she told him. “Small, everyone knows everybody and when you look past the soot and dirt, it’s very colorful and green. Beautiful, really.”

A big smile broke out on Tommy’s face, matching Y/n’s, it was out of character for him, but her smile was so God damn infectious. There were few people who talked of their home like that, especially considering she came from a mining town. Those mines were death traps for the men that entered, everyone was aware they may not see the light of day, but yet they went down because they needed the money. Knowing, that despite the death, Y/n saw beauty in the place she was raised made Tommy rethink how he viewed the city around him.

He couldn’t speak about the whole of Birmingham, only spending the majority of his life in Small Heath, but once he’d seen stacks of bills, the streets around him had become nothing but filth. Watery Lane was then a just a place for the poor to become poorer and where dreams came to die. There was nothing appealing about the dirt-covered streets but maybe there could be. If Tommy could only view his home under a different light, perhaps he could see the same type of beauty that Y/n did when Aberfan crossed her mind.

Tommy watched the smoke from his cigarette float through the cold air, his breath alongside it. “You miss it then?” The woman beside him shrugged. “You don’t?”

“I’ll always long for it,” she explained, finding herself to grow more comfortable around him. “But I know there’s more to the world than some quaint little mining village in Wales. As long as it’s in my heart, I do believe I’ll be fine.”

Letting her words sink in, Tommy came to a stop beside her at the steps of a front door, which no doubt lead to her apartment. How she felt about Aberfan was how he once felt about Small Heath when he was shipped over to France. The young man that went off to war believed that as long as he kept his home in his heart, it would be as if he never left. The man, a few years older, that returned from the tunnels no longer believed that, no matter how much he wished he did. “This your place,” he motioned to the front door, earning a nod from her. 

“Thank you for walking me home, you didn’t have to,” Y/n found herself smiling at the man as she climbed a few of the steps.

Taking off his cap, Tommy held it between his hands, the anxiety of a schoolboy coursing through his veins. “No need to thank me, I enjoyed your company.” There was a pause as Y/n climbed the rest of the steps, her hand hovering over the door handle. “And I was wondering if I could possibly see you again?”

Y/n didn’t give herself time to stop and question why a man that could drown in his fortune would want to spend time with a coal miner’s daughter. She was dirt and grim, while he was clean and polished, it just didn’t add up. But Y/n didn’t care as heat spread across her cheeks. “I’d like that very much, Tommy.”

“My Friday’s free, if that works for you then perhaps 7 o’clock,” he smiled up at her. 

She nodded, “That works for me. Good night, Tommy.” Y/n opened the door, but not before he said, “Good night, Y/n.”

Watching her slip through the door, Tommy stood there, hearing her feet on the floorboards. He didn’t know what was so appealing about the woman, she seemed shy, one to keep to herself, the total opposite of him. But he couldn’t just see her once and let her slip into the night, no, he simply couldn’t do that.

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[thejollyroger-writer]

Your Eyes Look Like Coming Home (1/1)

Just a simple little reunited childhood sweethearts one-shot that’s been on my mind for a while and begged to be let out recently. Title taken from TSwift’s “Everything Has Changed,” and the title of his book is from Sylvia Plath’s poem “The Rival”

Also on AO3

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Emma Swan sits at the table of her favorite restaurant, eyes wide on the dessert plate sitting in front of her. It's not what she should be looking at, of course, but it's the only thing she can focus on without her mind spiraling out of control. 

Again. 

She thought they were happy. She thought they had a really great thing going, and didn't want to mess all that up. In her head, it all made sense. Just because she wasn't ready to marry him didn't mean they couldn't still be together, right? 

Apparently not. According to him, if she didn't want to marry him now, she was never going to change her mind and therefore there was no reason for them to be together anymore. 

It made no sense to her. Lots of things about him made no sense to her, but she always thought that was one of the things she liked about him — his excitement over a particular piece of furniture, his love of the opera, his desire to rinse his hair with cold water. But all of those things were… quirks. Things that made him Walsh. 

It's not like she just dropped this on him, either. They had talked before about the future, about buying a house outside the city and having a family and all of those things, and every time, Emma assured him that, though she's not ready for it now, she will be someday. 

When he decided that someday meant right now, she wasn't sure. 

So she said no. It shouldn't have been a surprise. She said, just as she had during those other conversations, that she just isn't really ready for that kind of commitment. Yes, she loves him, yes, she wants to be with him, but she just isn't ready for that. 

What was so hard for him to understand about that? 

" This doesn't have to be an ultimatum," she told him, staring only at the ring in his hand, refusing to even look in his eyes. She believed what she was saying… right? "This isn't a make-or-break for us." 

"It is for me." 

There was a coldness in his voice that she never heard before, a side of him that he had somehow managed to hide from her for the last three years. 

Why wasn't she upset?

"Really? This is — this is it for you? Either I say I want to marry you, which you already know isn't the truth, or we end everything, right now?" 

He dropped the ring on the table, folding his hands in front of him. Finally, she pulled her focus up to his face, as emotionless as she has ever seen it, his brown eyes dark with what she can only describe as rage. "Yes."  

She said nothing. There's nothing for her to say, really, staring at the words "Marry me" written so beautifully across the plate next to her slice of cheesecake. 

The silence closes around them. She should find something to say, should tell him that she wants him to stay, but her voice is gone. She doesn't even know for sure if the words would come from a place of truth, or a place of fear, simply trying to hold on to the only good thing that has happened to her recently. So much in her life had gone wrong, her parents leaving her and leaving Storybrooke and fucking Neal in the years after that. Compared to him, Walsh was a breath of fresh air, a soft summer breeze to Neal's tropical storm, and it was the warmth she clung to more than anything else. 

"Really?" he says, breaking the silence, his voice much louder than it needs to be in the quiet restaurant. Everyone has to know what's going on by now, a fact that Emma tries to ignore as best she can. 

Tries to push down, like every other emotion. 

"You're not going to say anything? Nothing at all." 

She swallows, squeezing her eyes shut for a moment. 

And decides. 

"I have nothing to say," she breathes, feeling a warmth — her own fire, her own power — raging up inside of her. "If you can't respect my wishes and see this from my point of view, then no, I don't want to marry you." 

This is, apparently, all he needs to hear and, with a huff and a fist slammed on the table and a very expensive-looking ring stuffed back into the pocket of his dress coat, he leaves her there, staring down at her cheesecake and trying not to think about how many people just witnessed one of the most embarrassing moments of her life. 

It takes a bit, but the regular din of the restaurant starts to rise up around her, people turning back to their own conversations, their own lives, and leaving her behind. 

Just like everyone else has. 

With a sarcastic grin, she takes her pointer finger and runs it through the chocolate words on the plate, crossing out the words, then sticks her finger in her mouth. Another moment of contemplation, and a shrug, and she picks up her fork and begins to eat the dessert sitting in front of her. 

Walsh probably left the bill with her, too, so she might as well enjoy the dessert she will have to pay for.

So she eats his spumoni, too. 

  It's a cool spring night in Boston, and there's just enough chill in the air for her to slide her old leather jacket over her shoulders. It may not be the most appropriate with her black dress, but something about the softness of the red leather always reminded her of peace and of happiness and of home. 

The only home she ever had, really. A home she had found herself thinking about more and more recently, though she could never figure out why. 

Thinking of everything she left behind when she drove off for the last time, all those years ago. As a teenaged girl who had never known a real home before, Storybrooke was as welcoming as anywhere had ever been, and the friendships that she made there were the strongest she had ever known, even if she did only still talk to Ruby with a phone call or a text from Mary Margaret on holidays. 

Nothing in her life had been the same since she left that small town, but it was a change that she had convinced herself was a good thing. 

A change that was necessary, even if not on the best terms. 

God, she wonders if he was as embarrassed as she was tonight, the last person she said she couldn't marry. Did he feel this humiliated when she said she couldn't go to England with him? They had been so happy — possibly the happiest she had ever been, though her life was much easier at eighteen than it was now. 

She can't help herself: as her tired feet take her down the right blocks to her apartment — separate from Walsh as another way to protect herself from getting hurt — she thinks about what her life might have been like if she said yes that first time, if she had followed her heart instead of being overwhelmed by her fear. 

If she had gone to Oxford with him…  

Would they still be there? Happily roaming the streets of England, hand in hand, while she supported his dreams? What would she be doing? Certainly not living out her days as a bail bondsman, luring men into honey traps to get them to pay their debts? 

And, perhaps most importantly, would she be happy? Would she want to marry him, never having experienced the life-shattering heartbreak that came from telling him they couldn't be together? 

  Before she even realizes she has walked eight blocks, she's standing in front of the door to her apartment — but something in the shop window next to it catches her eye. 

It catches more than that, once she realizes what she is looking at, and for a moment, she can barely breathe. 

She never thought she would see him again, those bright blue eyes and charming smile. Sure, it's been ten years since she last saw him, since she said goodbye, but she would recognize him anywhere. 

She figures that would be true with any first love, but especially someone as stunning as him, and someone who left as much of an impact on her life as he did. 

For a moment, she tries to convince herself that it isn't him, that it can't be him, because that would be insane. But, more telling than his blue eyes, are the words written in block letters under his picture on the poster: "Up-and-Coming Author Killian Jones, Book Signing April 23" 

April 23. That's just a few days away. How long was this poster hanging here? Did she really pass by it all those times without noticing it? She knows that she was spending a lot of nights at Walsh's apartment, trying to appease his desire to live with her. She needed her own space, told him this all the time, but it was just another thing about her that he never tried to understand. That has to be why she is just noticing this for the first time. 

Dorothy, one of the girls that works in the bookstore, sees her staring at the poster and waves through the window, and even with all the turmoil going through Emma's mind, she can't help but smile at her braided pigtails and plaid button-down shirt tied around her waist. Dorothy always did know how to make Emma smile, always offered her a cup of coffee or a donut from the back room when Emma needed to come in to talk to August, her landlord and owner of the bookstore — or when Emma just needed a quiet place to stay for a bit, a book in her hands as she curled up on the couch in the back corner of the store, hiding from the demons in her head that came for her sometimes when she was alone. 

Emma waves back, trying her best to smile, and takes one more look at the poster on the window before climbing the steps to unlock the door. 

  His eyes greet her every time she leaves her apartment for the next few days, bright and welcoming and smiling as they have been since she was sixteen, lost and alone with nowhere to go, new to Storybrooke and small-town life. Besides Ruby, he was her first real friend (before he became something more), and she is pulled back into those memories with each glance at the bookstore window. 

On Thursday, the day before his book signing, she dares to walk into the store, deciding to gather as much intel as she can from August and Dorothy without seeming too suspicious. 

They already have books piled on the table in the back of the store and are working on lining the few folding chairs they keep in storage around the table when she comes in, exhausted from a day of chasing skips but needing to know the answers to some of the questions that have been eating away at her. 

She wanders around the shop for a bit, perusing the bookshelves and trying not to give herself away, until she finally winds up in front of the display set up next to the table. His picture on the back cover takes her breath away, even though it is the same one from the poster in the window, and she runs her thumb across his cheek before turning her attention to the summary on the back of the book: 

At just nineteen, Nathaniel Rogers has left everything he has ever known to move across the world to his dream school, only for everything he has left behind to crumble around him. Heart broken and alone, he wanders the streets of London mourning the loss of the only family he has ever known, only to be pulled back to his feet by a mysterious older man and his crew of poets. 

"It's almost based on real life, you know," Dorothy says, pulling her out of her mind before it can spiral again. "Maybe not the band of poets thing, but he's said that everything that happens to the main character in the beginning happened to him when he went to college." 

"You've read this?" 

"Yeah, and it's incredible. The way he weaves together storytelling and poetry and heartache and pain and happiness? I could read it over and over again and still love it as much as the first time." 

His writing has always been like that, she almost says, but catches herself at the last second. "Wow," she says instead. "Sounds really good. Can I buy a copy tonight and bring it back tomorrow for the signing?" 

With a smile, Dorothy obliges. 

  It's been a very long time since Emma has stayed up all night to read a book, but with Killian's book, Emma just can't help herself. The tale that he weaves, blending the present with heartbreaking flashbacks all mixed with a poetic voice so similar to what Emma remembers, is one that she gets so engulfed in that, before she even realizes it, it's 2 o'clock in the morning and she has less than 50 pages left. 

Home . That's what reading his book reminds her of, the warm feeling of life in Storybrooke, the welcoming atmosphere of Granny's diner and the comfort of walking the trail around the lake. But there's more to it, too, the obvious growth that his writing has gone through since he was a teenager, honed to an almost unfair perfection during his time as Oxford and his adulthood. 

Since she left him. 

  Showing up the next day is both the hardest and easiest decision she has made in a while. She wants to see him, she realizes, pulling her hair up into a high ponytail. She wants to see how he has grown, wants to catch up with him and learn all the things she has missed by staying behind. 

But she’s also terrified of both of those things. What if he doesn’t want to see her? 

No. That’s not what she’s afraid of. It’s stupid , really, to feel like this, to have butterflies for the first time since… 

She can’t remember the last time she had butterflies. She doesn’t think it was with Walsh, and it certainly wasn’t with Neal. It had to have been with him. Ten years since she’s felt like this, her heart pounding quickly in her chest as she grips her copy of The Great Light Borrowers against her, walking slowly down the steps from her apartment. She’s a few minutes late, just as she planned, hoping to show up after he has already started reading to avoid any chance of smalltalk. 

But seeing him there, his hair longer than it ever was when they were kids, his light blue dress shirt under a dark grey vest and unbuttoned enough to reveal a shock of dark hair on his chest, she feels something much more than nervousness. There is a tightness under the butterflies, a turning of her stomach just listening to his voice as he reads from one of the first pages of the book, and she has to lean back against one of the shelves to keep herself upright. 

“The details of that night are a haze, even now, years later,” he reads, his voice perfect and lilting and exactly as she imagined it as she read through the same narration the night before. “Certain things come back as clear as day: the sweet smell of the patisserie as I made my way down the street; the hum of the lights and the cars mixed with that patient quiet of the middle of the night, present even in the middle of the city; the feel of each rain drop as they began to fall softly from above. But I cannot recall where I was, even after all these years of searching for that patisserie. I know quite a few people made comments about my appearance as I stumbled down the sidewalk, but I cannot tell you what any of them said, what they looked like or how they looked at me. 

“But the heartbreak that I was feeling, returned back home to London for the first time since I was boy just to learn that everything I left at home was no more, is a feeling that I was unable to run or drive or swim away from, on my feet or in bottles of whatever I could get my hands on.” 

Emma doesn’t realize he has looked up from the book until she opens her own eyes, having closed them to both experience the words being told as they were meant to be, and to keep herself from running away as fast as she can. But when she opens them and finds him staring directly at her, his mouth half-agape and his bright eyes wide behind his glasses, his gaze is the only anchor that keeps her in the bookstore. 

But she knows he has to keep reading, knows that he is being paid to read for a certain amount of time, so he cannot simply choose to stop where he is and talk to her — or run from her, whichever feeling he is currently overwhelmed by. A flush rises to his cheeks, and Emma realizes he must be feeling one of them — but as quickly as it started, he clears his throat and continues to read. 

“To say I was at my lowest is an understatement of the worst kind, but in retrospect, I truly believe that I had to be drowning to that extent in order to move through the grates at the bottom of life to find the men who would pull me back to normalcy. 

“So this, dear readers, is the story of how I got there, and how I got back.” 

But this time, when he looks up, she is gone. 

  — — — 

  He’s read the words so many times, in his head and out loud, that he practically has them memorized. But, despite all his practice with public speaking, it’s something completely different when it’s his own words, words that he has stressed and worried and practically bled over, he’s learned, so he keeps his eyes down, focusing on the pages in front of him, the feel of them against his fingers and the smell of the newly-printed ink. 

“Certain things come back as clear as day: the sweet smell of the patisserie as I made my way down the street; the hum of the lights and the cars mixed with that patient quiet of the middle of the night, present even in the middle of the city; the feel of each rain drop as they began to fall softly from above. ”

His greatest struggle with this, he’s learned, is separating himself from the very personal words of his prologue. Because, while veiled in fiction, he does remember the night that started all of it, the night he learned his brother never made it home from helping him move across the ocean, and it destroyed him. There was no patisserie, there was no rain, but he was drowning in his own way, drowning in his own grief, just as Nathaniel is at the beginning of his story.

“But I cannot recall where I was, even after all these years of searching for that patisserie. I know quite a few people made comments about my appearance as I stumbled down the sidewalk, but I cannot tell you what any of them said, what they looked like or how they looked at me. 

“But the heartbreak that I was feeling, returned back home to London for the first time since I was boy just to learn that everything I left at home was no more, is a feeling that I was unable to run or drive or swim away from, on my feet or in bottles of whatever I could get my hands on.” 

As he finishes this sentence, he hears the voice of Robin, his agent, in his head: “I understand the nervousness, but you have to look at your crowd sometimes. Take a breath, look up, and continue.” 

So that’s what he does. 

Inhale. 

Look up.

Holy fuck. 

He can’t breathe. Literally, his lungs won’t move, every part of his chest is keeping him from exhaling, completely stuck. Except his already-quickened heart, working overtime through his nervousness, which takes to pounding at the sight of her. 

Emma Swan, as he lives and breathes. Almost definitely not a figment of his imagination, since his mind is already working hard enough to read in front of an audience. 

No, he takes that back. She’s definitely not a figment of his imagination, because she is somehow more beautiful than he has imagined her to be, in all the times he has imagined her in the last ten years. Her few pictures on social media do her no justice, because the angel standing in front of him, gripping a copy of his book against her chest and staring at him, takes his breath away. 

No. No, he can’t lose track of where he is supposed to be. For some reason, this small bookstore wanted to have him read while in Boston for his book tour, and wanted to offer him more money than usual — so he has to follow through with what he has promised them. 

So he clears his throat, tries to calm the pounding of his heart in his chest, and turns back to the words. 

Focusing on them is harder than it has ever been before, though, and her green eyes haunt him in a way somehow different than the way they had before, staring deeper into his soul now that he has seen her for the first time in ten years. She has always been real, has always been a ghost from the past, a mistake he constantly wished he never made. He’s dreamt about being reunited with her, probably even daydreamed about it, but he never imagined it would actually happen. For the first time in a while, he feels hopeful, a warmth in his chest that he vaguely remembers from the nights they used to fall asleep next to each other. 

But when he looks up again, the warmth is torn away, and it takes all his strength not to choke out a sob between the words. 

Because when he looks up again, she is not there. 

He goes through the rest of the reading hoping that maybe she is just out of sight, maybe she just went to the bathroom or to get a refreshment, but when he finishes the excerpt and she still has not reappeared, he realizes that his hope has, once again, dwindled away. 

Does she know how much he regrets leaving her behind? Giving in to her demand for an ultimatum and starting a new chapter of his life without her? As hard as he has tried to move on, he’s always found himself thinking about her, wondering where she is and if she is doing okay. He even went so far as to add her on social media a few years back, hoping it would offer a glimpse into her life now, but she barely posted anything — which really should not have been that much of a surprise, since she had always been so closed off. 

His few phone calls with Dave had proven just a fruitful, offering the barest trace of her, mostly through updates from Ruby. She was no longer in Storybrooke, had left around the same time he had — and, just like him, had never returned. 

But — Boston. She must be in Boston now, because he can’t imagine a scenario where she found out he was here any other way, nonetheless traveled to see him just to disappear. 

He hopes she’s happy. He has so many questions, wants to learn every little thing that has happened since he last saw her, but, more than anything else, he wants her to be happy. If she wanted to talk to him, she would have stuck around — it just makes sense. And since she hasn’t reached out at all over the last ten years, why would that change just because they’re in the same town for the first time since they broke up. 

And since she hasn’t reached out in ten years, it would just be wrong to try to find her. Right? Plus, it’s not like anyone around here even has to know her. He could ask questions to every Bostonian he sees and learn nothing. It would be wrong. It would be an invasion of privacy. It would be absolutely inappropriate. 

Yet, somehow, the question leaves his lips before he can stop it: “There was a woman here earlier, a blonde. Her name is Emma. Do you happen to have any idea where I can find her?” 

But the owner just shakes his head. “No, I’m afraid not.” 

Killian sucks his bottom lip between his teeth, nodding his head. It was a long shot, a totally impossible shot, and he knew that when he asked, but he still can’t help but feel — 

“Wait, you mean Emma Swan?” Killian vaguely recognizes the girl that asks the question, knows that she has been in the bookstore since he got there earlier that day — an employee, he thinks. 

“Yes!” He is maybe a bit too excited. “Why? Do you know her?” 

A beat passes, the girl on the receiving end of a glance from her boss, and Killian can’t help but notice the slump of her shoulders that follows it. 

“Uh, yeah,” she mumbles, turning her eyes to the floor. “She… comes in here a lot. I sold her your book last night.” 

His earlier thoughts rattle through his head again: an invasion of privacy. Absolutely inappropriate. Of course this girl can’t tell him where he can find Emma, there are laws against that. 

But maybe, just maybe , someone else can. 

  He waits until the next day, knowing that Dave lives a domestic life that includes things like small children and bedtimes , but hopes that the late morning is an appropriate time to call. 

Unsurprisingly, the voice on the other end of the phone is obviously shocked to hear from him. Usually they only talk on holidays, and Dave has always been the one to call, so simply seeing his name pop up on his phone must have been a bit of a shock. “Killian? Hello?” 

Only then does he realize how awkward this is. “Uh, hey, Dave.” 

“Is everything okay? You never call me.” 

“Ask him how his book tour is going!” Mary Margaret calls in the background, her voice growing ever-louder as she approaches him. 

“Yes, of course, everything is — everything is fine. The tour is going fine, thank you. I was, uh, actually hoping you could help me with something?” 

Dave, of course, agrees, so Killian gives him a small rundown of the situation. Book tour, Boston, Emma. 

“She showed up to your reading?” Mary Margaret’s voice in the background sounds just as surprised by this as he was. 

“You can imagine how surprised I was.” 

At this, Dave laughs. 

“So, how can we help you with this?” Mary Margaret asks. 

Killian clears his throat, nervous even for this. “Do you… happen to know where I can find her? She ran out before I was done, but I would really like to… to see her again.” 

“Do you think she would be okay with that?” Dave mumbles, most definitely asking his wife and not him, but he can’t help but answer. 

“She wouldn’t have shown up if she didn’t want to see me, right?” 

“Killian?” Mary Margaret yells, though absolutely unnecessary since he can hear her just fine. 

“Yes, love?” 

“I’m going to text Emma and make sure she’s okay with that, and then I’ll have Dave text you her address, okay?” 

His only option is to agree. He’s thankful even for the opportunity to talk to her again, and for the work the Nolans have to do to help him here, so of course he agrees, passes on a million thanks, and tells them he has an event to get to  — not totally a lie, but that event is only lunch with Robin, nothing too important. 

He doesn’t realize how nervous he is until he finds himself pacing across his hotel room, running his hands through his hair and fixing the collar of his unbuttoned shirt. It only takes a few minutes to hear from him, thankfully gifting him an address and a phone number, but he does not sit still for a moment between hanging up with Dave and receiving the message. 

He barely sits still through lunch with Robin, updating him with the newest part of his adventure, starting with her appearing before him last night and ending with the address from David — which he looked up on the way here, only to learn that it is the apartment above the bookstore from yesterday, most likely the reason the owner was unable to help him find her. 

“Did you text her yet? That’s why Dave sent you her number, right?” 

“And what am I supposed to say? ‘I’ve thought of you every moment since I got on the plane to England ten years ago, and seeing you last night made me realize that I’ve never stopped loving you, even if it doesn’t make sense’ ?” 

Robin barks out a loud laugh, rolling his eyes when Killian groans. "Yes," he chuckles. "Please, say exactly that." 

"Yeah, no." 

"Well, you have to send her something." 

Killian sets his phone down on the table, then runs his fingers through his hair. “I mean, really,” he says, letting out a soft laugh. “I don’t. Maybe we don’t get another chance.” 

“That’s not what you want, though.” It’s not a question, not even a little bit. Robin may be his agent now, but their friendship goes back further than that, all the way back to Oxford. Killian would probably even call Robin his best friend, if anyone ever cared to ask, though they usually didn’t. Most of his communication with others anymore was through book tours and the very sparse date he accepts, though they rarely make it to a second date. He has always known why, in the back of his mind, has known that none of them are her , though he doesn’t think he’s ever gone so far as to admit it out loud. 

But if he did, it would have been to Robin. 

“No,” he breathes, tapping his phone to light up the screen. 

“Then text her.” A beat passes silently, Killian allowing his screen to go dark again. “What’s the worst that can happen, really?” 

“She can do what she did ten years ago and tell me she doesn’t want to be with me.” 

“Alright, I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt. What if she does do that?”

Killian’s eyes jump to his friend. “Pardon?”

“What if she says that? Then what’s going to happen?” 

“I’ll probably never set foot on this bloody continent again.” 

“Okay. We’ll go back to England. We’ll cancel the rest of your book tour so you can wallow in sadness, is that what you want?” 

Killian sighs. “No,” he mumbles. “That’s not — that’s not what I want.” 

“I’ll tell you what’s going to happen if she rejects you again. We don’t have to be in New York for a few days, so we’ll get terribly, raging, mad at the world drunk. Maybe we’ll go dance naked under the moon in Salem, or dive into the Boston Harbor. You will, undoubtedly, do something terribly stupid. Then the next day, we’ll nurse our headaches, eat greasy diner food, and move on , yeah?” 

“I’ve been trying to move on for ten years, Rob. You really think that’s going to happen in one night?” 

“You’ve been convincing yourself for ten years that if you come back to her, show her the person you’ve become, that she’ll take you back. Once she rejects you again, then you won’t be able to convince yourself of that anymore, and you’ll be free. Free to do whatever you want.” 

“Like dance naked with the witches.” 

“Yes.” Robin raises his cup of coffee to his lips, his eyebrows moving in sync. “Exactly like that.” 

  It takes him the rest of their lunch to decide what he was going to send her — because of course he’s going to text her. There’s a reason she showed up at his reading last night, a reason she showed up in his life again, he’s very sure of that. 

That doesn’t mean his hands aren’t shaking as he writes out his message, or that his heart isn’t pounding as his finger hovers over the send button. He reads over it again, taking yet another deep breath as he tries to slow the pounding of his heart: Hello, Emma, it’s Killian. I’m in the states for a book tour, so I reached out to David on a whim, and he told me that you were in Boston. As it turns out, I am also in Boston, though I think you may have known that. I was wondering if you would like to meet while I’m here, maybe go to dinner? 

“Really, that’s what you sent?” Robin asks, incredibly unhelpfully, but Killian’s thumb has already pressed the send button. 

Robin is still holding his phone when it goes off, and Killian convinces himself in that moment that it’s something else, it’s Facebook or email, a new Youtube video or a football update from ESPN — but watching Robin’s eyes go wide, the beginnings of a smile on his lips, ensures him otherwise, even before his phone is back in his hand. 

“Looks like you have a date, mate.”

  The next day . She asks if he wants to meet the next day . Which, yes, of course he does, but he certainly hasn’t prepared himself enough for it. He starts the day with a run, trying to work off some of his energy. 

(It doesn’t work.) 

A hot shower. A few hours of work. Lunch. He even tries to sit down and try to read, but his mind is running too hard, too fast, and he cannot focus on the words. He almost takes another shower, but convinces himself otherwise. They decided to meet at a seafood restaurant by the harbor at 5, so he doesn't let himself start to get ready until 3:30, giving himself enough time to walk the few blocks — but he still finds himself in front of the mirror twenty minutes before he wanted to leave, dressed and ready to go, but far from prepared. He's not sure his heart has slowed from it's pounding since… when did it even start? When he sent Emma the text the night before? When David sent him her number? Maybe even when he looked up from the words he wrote to ease the pain left behind by her to see her standing there, watching him. 

That can't be healthy. 

He gulps down a bottle of water, only realizing how thirsty he is when he pulls it from the fridge, runs his comb through his hair once more. Straightening the collar of his unbuttoned grey dress shirt, he takes one last look in the mirror, checks his pockets for everything he needs, and grabs his jacket before practically running out of his hotel room, not giving himself enough time to overthink the decision again and change his mind again. 

He is, of course, half an hour early to their reservation, having walked a little faster than usual, and the hostess offers him a seat at the bar while he waits for their table to be ready. A drink is the very last thing he needs right now, could possibly make him feel even more jittery, so he orders a higher-end whiskey for something to sip in place of his usual rum on the rocks, knowing he could easily down that in a single gulp. 

As he lets the soft burn of the liquid settle into his stomach, he begins to overthink everything once more, though at least now he can't run away. What if she only agreed to this to be polite? What if she just wants to catch up, or — worse, perhaps, what if she's in a relationship, happy and in love with someone who is not him? 

How is this the first time this has crossed his mind? 

Just as he's spiraling into his thoughts once more, she walks through the doorway and into the bar, a soft pink dress hugging her curves under a bright red leather jacket. Her long hair — longer than she ever kept it when she was young — is pulled into a high ponytail, falling in golden curls past her shoulders. But when she smiles at him, quickly crossing the room to join him at the bar, he forgets all of his worries, every anxiety he's felt since he saw her again melting into the comfortable heat of the restaurant. Because she's here , and she looks like that, more beautiful than any of his memories or daydreams of her have been. She's here, smiling at him, sitting beside him at the bar, and nothing else in the world matters. 

  ——— 

  Taking a deep breath, she sits down beside him at the bar. "It seems I'm not the only one who showed up early," she quips, then orders a glass of sweet red wine. 

He smiles. "I may have been a little nervous." He takes another small sip of his rum, hoping to hide the blush that rises to his cheeks. 

"You aren't the only one," she says with a chuckle of her own. 

"Oddly, that doesn't make me feel any better." 

"What do we have to be nervous about, anyway?" she asks, then takes a big gulp of her wine before smiling at him — neither of which help calm his still-pounding heart. "It's not like this is our first date." 

He leans back on the barstool, covering his face with his free hand. "Oh, god," he groans. "That was certainly terrible, wasn't it?" 

"I don't know that terrible is how I would describe it…" She pauses, looking at him out of the corner of her eye. "Anymore, at least." 

"I think it's worse in hindsight for me, love." 

She didn't think she would be this affected by him. Honestly, she didn't know how she was going to feel, coming back to him after all their time apart. Nervous, she expected. Unsure of what to do. But butterflies , at twenty-one, just from being called 'love' ? That was certainly unexpected. 

( No wonder no one has measured up to him in the last ten years , she thinks to herself, trying to cover up her smile with another sip from her wine glass.) 

"I made a right fool of myself that night, and I crashed your car? I thought David was never going to speak to me again." 

She laughs. Out loud. If he couldn't still feel it pounding away in his chest, he would have sworn his heart had fallen to the floor. "Yeah, okay, Dave was beyond pissed. But not as much as when I told him I didn't have insurance for it because I stole it before I left New York City." 

"I've heard recounts of that conversation from both him and you, but I can still only imagine what he's like when he gets that angry." 

"Not to mention Ruth." 

"Oh, Ruth ," Killian breathes, falling back in his seat once more. "It's been a lifetime since I've spoken to that wonderful lady. Do you know how she's doing?" 

Emma's shoulders fall, slouching over the bar. She doesn't look up from her glass as she mumbles, "She passed. It couldn't have been more than a few months after you left for Oxford. Definitely within that first year." 

"Fuck me," he mumbles. "I'm so sorry, Emma. How did she — what did — what happened?" 

"Cancer. It was months between the diagnosis and losing her. It happened so quickly." 

"Why did no one tell me?" he asks, not even thinking about the words. 

But at this, she turns to him, full of rage. "Why did no one tell you? Really? You think any of us wanted to go through that? We had already lost Ruth, and you ran halfway around the world to get away from me." 

No!, he wants to yell, wants to remind her. I wasn't running from any of you! I asked you to come with me! 

But — thankfully — he is able to bite back the words. 

"You're right, love, I'm sorry," he says instead. "I can't imagine what you went through." 

"No," she snaps, her eyes cast down on the bar again. "No, you can't." 

He wants to correct her again. Because he does know. He knows exactly how it feels to lose the only family you have, and unlike Emma, he went through it alone, by himself in England. Does Emma even know that Liam died? Surely someone would have told David. But this isn't the place to bring it up. 

He lets the silence settle between them, taking another sip from his glass. Great job, Jones , the voice in his head scolds him — a voice that has always sounded like Liam. You've already managed to piss her off. 

Thankfully, the hostess walks over to them, a wide smile across her face. "Jones, party of 2? Your table is ready for you." 

"Thank you," Emma says softly, sliding off the barstool, her glass of wine in her hand. 

The hostess holds up a drink tray in one hand. "Please, let me take those for you." 

This time when Emma turns to him, she is obviously impressed, her eyebrows high on her forehead. "Thank you," she says again, setting her glass on the tray as Killian does the same with his. 

She leads them across the restaurant, back through the entrance and up a small set of steps before seating them at a table beside one of the large windows looking out over the harbor — a request made when Killian placed the reservation, suggested by more than a few happy internet reviewers. 

"Quite a place you picked for us here, Swan," Killian says, pulling out her chair for her to sit down. "I take it you've been here before?" 

"Yeah, Walsh brought me here once or twice, but we always just got a table on the first floor, not one with a view like this." 

He swallows, pushing his heart back down his throat as he sits across from her. "Walsh?" 

Her head snaps up, eyes meeting his and full of surprise. "Yeah, he was my…" She pulls her bottom lip up between her teeth. "We were together for a while, but we… broke up. We didn't agree on a few important things." 

"I'm sorry, Swan. When was that?" 

At this, she smiles, letting out a soft laugh as she takes a small sip of her wine. "Just a few days ago. I was on my way home from that when I saw your picture at the bookstore. Mary Margaret would have called it a sign." 

"You wouldn't?" 

“Nope. Just a mere coincidence. Why? Would you call it a sign?” 

“I would be remiss not to.” 

Emma laughs, a breathy thing that catches Killian’s breath in his throat. If he had any doubts about his feelings for her still being true after all this time apart, this moment, a soft chuckle under her breath as she smiles across the table at him, proves that he has truly never stopped loving her, not for a single moment. 

They’re both thankful for the appearance of their waitress at this moment, a redhead with a wide smile named Ariel, who stops Killian from confessing his love and keeps Emma from making a fool of herself by calling Killian dumb. She shares the specials, a pan-seared Ahi tuna and something about steak and lump crab, but though they are both looking right at her, neither of them are really listening. Emma’s been here before and knows their seafood manicotti is the best thing on the menu — the best thing she’s ever eaten, probably — and Killian could care less about specials or even the regular menu items; he’s just happy to be in the presence of Emma Swan once more. 

“Will your checks be together or separate?” she asks, looking back and forth between them. 

Emma glances at Killian, but answers the question anyway: “Separate.” 

“Together,” he says at the same time, then repeats it when he sees Emma staring at him. “It’s been ten years, Emma, the least you can do is let me pay for your dinner.” 

She rolls her eyes, but smiles as she agrees. 

They spend some time catching up, Emma recounting how she left Storybrooke not long after he did, trying her hand in a few cities, becoming a bailbonds-woman. She even includes Neal in her story, glassing over as much as she can. 

But their salads haven’t even arrived yet when she asks the question he’s been dreading the most: “How’s your brother? You haven’t mentioned him yet.” 

His groan has to be louder than he expected. Liam . How does he even tell her? 

“I, uh,” he mutters, coughing as his hand flies to scratch the spot behind his ear that has a penchant for itching when he’s nervous. “There’s no easy way to say this, love, but Liam died almost ten years ago now.” Emma’s hand flies to her mouth, stifling a gasp. “He flew to England with me, stayed for a few weeks with some people he knew, and was on a small flight to meet some of his friends in Germany that failed halfway through and crashed. He didn’t make it.” 

“Oh, Killian,” she whispers, her hand still covering her mouth, but she reaches the other one across the table and places it atop his, squeezing his fingers. “I’m so sorry.” 

“I would have throughout for sure David would have told you,” he says, refusing to meet her eyes, instead watching the slow movement of her thumb on the back of his hand. 

“I must have… I must have left by then, and I didn’t talk to anyone from home for a year or two after that, except Ruby.” 

He nods at this, unsure of how to respond, but the way she referred to Storybrooke as home made something in his blood sing. All he wanted when they were younger was to give Emma a home, somewhere she could be safe and comfortable, something she had stopped searching for before she was adopted by Ruth. ‘Just another stop ,’ she used to call it, not believing she would find anywhere to accept her for more than a few months, since that had been how the rest of her life went. He only wished he could take her back to those days, if only to tell sixteen-year-old Emma that everything was going to turn out okay. 

“So, wait,” she says, breaking the silence but also breaking their physical connection, pulling her hand back to cross her arms on the table in front of her. “How much of your book is real, then?” 

Killian can’t help but laugh. “The loss and heartbreak was real, obviously. I had just moved to England, back for the first time since I was just a boy, but in a different place as lonelier than I had ever been. I was hurt, and I was drunk, and I did meet a group of men in Oxford, wandering down a side-street not far from my flat. But that’s really the end of the fact in the fiction.”

“So they weren’t prolific poets?” she laughs. 

“Poets, sort of. They liked to write drinking songs and liked to read poems and tear them apart, but they were rather terrible at both of those things.” 

Emma laughs again, their conversation momentarily pausing as their waitress drops off their salads. 

Their conversation continues like this, pausing for refills, clearing plates, and — finally — the deliverance of the meal. Emma tries to convince herself that the conversation comes so easily because they have ten years’ of information to work with, but she knows that’s not the truth. There has always been something between them, an easiness unlike anything Emma has experienced with anyone else, and she knows that it’s simply being back with him that makes talking so easy. 

Though it lasts almost two hours, dinner feels like mere moments, and in the blink of an eye, Emma has eaten the last bite of her cheesecake, watched Killian hand his credit card to the waitress, and slid her jacket over her shoulders. A heartbeat more, and they are back in the cool Boston air, the smell of the harbor harsh in comparison to the euphoric smells in the restaurant. Emma pulls her jacket tighter around her. 

“You would think I would be used to the chill by now, especially given that it gets much colder than this,” she says, not sure in which direction to go. “It would help to buy a heavier jacket, but as soon as the snow disappears, I find myself in this one again.” 

“Well, red is certainly your color, Swan,” he says, feeling his face grow to the sameshade as her coat as he realizes this is the first compliment he’s paid her. 

“Thanks,” she laughs. “Maybe one day I’ll even learn that it gets colder once the sun sets, so I shouldn’t always walk everywhere.” 

“You walked here?” he asks, perhaps a bit more excited than necessary. “As did I. And I believe we’re heading in the same direction?” 

The night is quiet, dotted with car horns and engines and the regular hustle-and-bustle in a small city like this — and their conversation continues, Killian sharing more about Nemo and the men he met in England that helped him back on his feet, his schooling, the semester he spent studying in Madrid. Emma listens intently, quipping every few minutes but mostly silent, just as Killian remembers her to be. When asked, she shares more about her time in Boston, her best honeytraps, and she even shares a little more about Walsh when Killian asks, though she brushes any questions about Neal away faster than he can ask. 

Lost in conversation, it takes no time to walk the few blocks between the harbor and Emma’s apartment, and before either of them realize it, they are standing in front of the bookstore, looking at the same picture of Killian that started all of this. 

“Do you… want to come up? Have a cup of tea? I probably have some snacks somewhere,” she asks, the words coming out so fast she almost trips over them. 

Yes , every bone in his body sings, yet somehow, the words that escape his lips are, “I should get back to my hotel, we have to leave in the morning.” 

Her entire countenance falls, her shoulders slumping forward, eyes turning to the ground. “Oh,” she mutters, digging through her purse to find her keys. “I guess this is… goodbye, then?” 

Not this again , he thinks, desperately trying to find a way to fix the mistake he just made. “No,” he says, and her head snaps up, her eyes meeting his. “No, I’m a sodding idiot. Of course I want to come up, because I certainly don’t want this to be goodbye. Not again. I’ll even go out on a limb and bare more of my heart to you, Emma, because today has only confirmed what I’ve been trying to bury down for years. I tried to move on, tried to find a new life in England where I didn’t love you with every fiber of my being, but everything dulls in comparison to you.” 

She doesn’t care that her mouth is hanging open. She doesn’t care that her keys are still somewhere in her purse, that the April air is chilling her to the bone. All she cares about is him , saying the words she’s wanted to hear for years, the words but better , adding a poetry that so perfectly fits the new, updated version of the man she has loved since she was sixteen. 

She fills the space between them, wrapping her hand around the back of his neck while the other fists the collar of his jacket, slamming her lips into his. He is just as she remembered, warm and lovely and wonderful, the closest thing to a home that she has ever found, welcoming her back with his hand on her hip and his tongue quickly gliding along hers. 

Home . 

Her fingers in his hair, his breath on her neck, her name barely a whisper on his lips. 

Home . 

Everything she has ever wanted. Dreamed about. 

Home . 

Tagging: @shireness-says @let-it-raines @kmomof4 @pirateprincessofpizza @elizabeethan @hollyethecurious @teamhook @itsfabianadocarmo @spartanguard @ohmightydevviepuu @capswantrue @imlaxdris71 @thisonesatellite @ultraluckycatnd @stahlop @scientificapricot @kday426 @snowbellewells @xarandomdreamx @tiganasummertree @carpedzem @superchocovian

[infinitelytheheartexpands]

Do you have any stories or figures, etc. (of your creation OR already existent) that you'd like to see adapted into an opera? Who'd the dream cast be and what would it look like, sound like?

I have two stories I wrote in high school that I'd love to see as operas:

For Every Spring--short story about a mother and daughter during the Reign of Terror

Madeleine: Ying Fang

The Mother: Joyce DiDonato

sparse unit set, cross between music of the time period and a quintessential French Romantic style

The Last Testament of a "Monstrous" Condemned Woman-- prison flashback story about rediscovering art, burglary, and murderous arson

The Woman: Marina Rebeka

The Investigator: Gerald Finley

not sure about who to play the smaller characters, it's set at an unspecified point in the mid-to-late 1800s, so look reflects that, sound kinda reflects that but I also envision it as Korngold/Expressionist-esque

(the full text of both stories is below. please keep in mind that these are both at least three and a half years old):

For Every Spring:

March 19, 1794, evening.

“Go on now. Do it.”

The woman’s voice filled her daughter’s ears with that simple command. The daughter was standing with a pair of scissors in one hand, staring into a mirror hung on the otherwise bare wooden wall. Her eyes brimmed with tears.

“Mama, how much more can this revolution take from me?”

Her mother could hear her daughter’s weariness and despair, and for a moment, felt pity for her, but steeled herself. “You must do it. There is nothing left for me. But perhaps you could still escape.”

“I don’t want to go without you.”

“You must. There is no way I could escape… the revolutionary leaders know me too well. But they wouldn’t recognize you if you dressed in an urchin boy’s rags and had a dirty face.” Mother glanced at her daughter’s shining blonde hair that went almost halfway down her back again and sighed. “The hair, though. In order to look like a boy, you have to cut off your hair. If they see long hair, they’d suspect you’re hiding something…” She shivered. “And they would investigate, and it wouldn’t end well for you.”

“But what if I pulled it back? Tucked it in under my hat?”

“It could fall down. And if they took your hat off and saw a bunch of pulled-back hair…”

“I know, but other than you, my hair is my one joy left.”

“It’ll grow back.”

The young woman paused. She fell into a swirl of memories: how her father had loved her long golden hair, how when she was little, he would toy with it and tell her it was more beautiful than any princess’s, and finally, how the Reign of Terror had brutally claimed him, just like it was about to claim her mother.

Her mother went on, “Your life is more important…” Knowing her daughter was still hesitant, she took the scissors out of her daughter’s hand. “Now hold up your hair so I can cut it.”

The daughter obliged, but at the same time, a single tear trickled down her pale cheek.

Snip.

The first cut, like a dagger to the heart.

Snip-snip-snip-snip-snip…

In just a few minutes, the deed was done. The girl’s long golden locks were scattered all over the bare floor.

Mother turned her around and gazed into the girl’s eyes. She slowly whispered, “You look just like Papa…”

The tears her daughter had tried to hold back burst forth in her grief, and she collapsed in the middle of the cut-off locks of hair, weeping.

“I lost Papa, and now I must lose you! Why must I lose everyone and everything that brings me any happiness?”

The woman took her daughter in her arms as outside in the streets, people cried, “Vive la révolution! Vive Robespierre!” She said, almost under her breath, “You haven’t lost your life like I will tomorrow. You can make it out of the country, and you will, I know. Don’t stay to see me die, or you will too. Remember the plan?”

“Wear the peasant rags. I’ve done that,” she broke off, gesturing at the clothes she was now wearing. She quickly continued, “Dirty your face in the soot. Take the sack of bread, cheese, and money and leave under cover of night. Tell the guards at the city gates that your name is Raoul, and you’re going to see your sick aunt in Calais. Go to Calais; tell the guards there that you’re going to London to see your uncle. Get to London somehow- stow away on a ship if you must, and start over again. Without your mother who cares for you and wants nothing more than-“ She stopped, momentarily unwilling to recite the last part of the instructions her mother had drilled into her head.

But she took a slow, deep breath and finished,“To go with you, but she must be with you from afar, not by your side.” Her body shook with her sobs.

“Yes,” her mother replied. Now she was crying too. “But take heart, my child, and remember I love you more than the sun and the moon and the stars and the whole world.” She sighed. “Madeleine…”

“Yes, Mama?”

“I wish it didn’t have to end this way.”

“Me too.”

Now it was raining outside, and it was dark. The only light came from the half-moon shimmering in the black sky. It was silent now except for their weeping.

At last, Madeleine said, “It’s raining. See? The sky is crying because of your death.”

“No,” her mother firmly replied, not wanting to hear of any pity. “The sky is not crying- not for me, not for you, not for anyone. It is merely raining, my child. Spring is coming, don’t you remember?”

“Yes, but for every spring…” Madeleine did not dare say the second part of the saying she had heard about spring.

Mama sighed and finished it for her, “A winter melts away.” She shivered and continued, “I am the winter. I have lived a long life, I am old, I am about to die.”

Madeleine wept.

“But you- you are the spring, so young, so beautiful, with such a bright future ahead. Go and live. Do not stay to see me die.”

Madeleine, still crying, sat by her mother, and her mother took her into her arms. They held on to each other, not wanting to ever let go, though they both knew inside that sometime, they would have to let go of each other- forever.

At last, Mother whispered, “Go, my child.” She let go.

Madeleine grabbed the sack and was almost out the window before she looked back at her mother for the last time. She whispered, “I love you, Mama.”

The response, softly spoken through quiet tears, was simple. “I love you too. Goodbye.”

Madeleine slipped out the window.

Some time later, a church bell chimed midnight. “The beginning of a new day, a new spring. Today is the first day of spring,” she thought.

At last, she whispered into the air, to her daughter, wherever she was now,

“For every spring, a winter melts away. But please, Madeleine, do not think about the winter melting… ”

The Last Testament of A "Monstrous" Condemned Woman:

“The Venetian government sent me here.”

The man faced me, with a look that could best be described as a mix of utter contempt and bewildered curiosity, but still managing to be very official, on his face.

“Why? Do they usually do this to prisoners awaiting their imminent execution?”

“No,” he replied very sharply. “They sent me here because even after the questioning and your trial, they still do not understand why you did everything that you did. And your crimes- they are sensational, to say the least. Your trial had the whole city in an uproar. And, mia piccina,” he added with disdain, “that is a very hard thing to do in such a city as Venice. So before you are executed at dawn, they want to know why-why you caused such destruction so heartlessly, why you took so many lives like a hardened assassin.”

“Heartless? A hardened assassin?” I just managed to get out the words. “No, no. You do not understand. The reason I did not talk is because they would not listen. They saw a monster. That is all they saw, just like I know you see me now.”

“Do you not want to preserve your own story before you die?”

His words startled me. And then I realized it: This is my only chance to show them that I am no monster.

“Very well, then,” I replied. “I will tell you everything.”

Without looking at me, he reached into his bag, pulling out a notepad and a pen and setting the pad on his lap. After that, with eyes still averted, he told me, “You talk, I take notes. Begin now, for dawn will come before long.”

“I was born in the English countryside, the only child of a scholar who had come into some wealth thanks to his marriage to the daughter of one of the wealthiest men in all England. Throughout my childhood, I was constantly exposed to all sorts of wonderful thoughts and books and ideas because many scholars would come and share their thoughts on every subject imaginable. My father was always one of the ones who talked the most- he knew so much, and he always wanted to learn more, to discover more-”

“Will you please stop wasting time and get to the point?”

“That was just what I was doing,” I snapped back. “Anyway, he was very ambitious. As time went on, I became more interested in art than anything else. I could not draw, paint, or sculpt to save my life, but I marveled at its beauty, the way some people were just able to recreate something out there in the world, and I wanted to understand how they did it. And there was another aspect of it, too, that fascinated me: there would be scholars that came from Paris, from Rome, from the Netherlands to share these great lost artworks that they had rediscovered, and to tell how they had become renowned for finding these artworks, how the art would be preserved for eternity and so would they, for the simple reason that after all these years, they had found these masterpieces and given them new life. And I? I wanted to do just that too.”

At that moment, I noticed him hurriedly writing, trying to keep up with everything I was saying.

“I can wait for you to finish writing,” I offered.

He nodded, and for several seconds, I said nothing as he finished his notes.

“So what does this have to do with you coming to Venice?” he eventually asked.

“Well, the time came when my father passed away. When he died, he left his entire estate to me, including all of the books in his library. I had never seen many of them- he never let me read them, because they were too precious. But he promised me that when I inherited the estate, I could read as many of the books as I wished.”

“Those books,” I continued, “became my way of healing from the grief. To read the same books that my father had studied from somehow felt like a way of being near him, and that eased the pain. I spent almost every waking hour exploring the library, reading and then reading some more.”

I paused, and a thought shot through me: This is the moment you set down this road of sorrow. I shook it off though, and went on:

“One night, I was browsing through the shelves when I came across a set of eight dusty old books. They were all about Italian artists from the Late Middle Ages and the Renaissance. I can hardly describe to you the effect of these books. They had a massive effect on me, but not for the reason you think.”

“Well then, what was the reason?”

“The front cover of each book had a most interesting thing written in it. Together, they seemed to make up a series of instructions for finding a lost artwork. And those instructions were thus:

‘The city of the winged lion has many secrets yet to give up,

Including one by one not older, but younger.

A fire blazing in the Palazzo Ducale

Took the lives of many masterpieces,

And this was thought to be one of them.

But a saint still lives, preserved in that palace,

Old but still preserved, and still preserving,

Francesco’s St. Jerome writes, though he is asleep, and does not die!’

Now I knew enough to know this: the city of the winged lion is Venice, and the fire was the great Doge’s Palace fire in the late 1500s. The “younger” was almost certainly Palma il Giovane, who was the great-nephew of Palma Vecchio, a good enough painter, and who painted extensively for a Francesco, Duke Francesco Maria II of Urbino. It was known that Palma had painted St. Jerome for Francesco, but everyone assumed that the painting had been lost. And as soon as I figured all of this out, I thought, ‘What if this could be the great discovery I have hoped to make?’ You understand, I was very ambitious, and at that moment I resolved to find it, no matter what.”

“Let me get this straight. You pieced together some handwritten sentences, thought overly hard about their implications, and decided to go and do whatever it took to get this precious painting?”

“Exactly.”

“You are British, yes? You are just like Lady Macbeth! You get a hint of an idea, and you murder anyone who stands in the way of you!”

“No. I never planned on murdering anyone, I swear! Now if you would just be quiet, I would get to that!”

Silence. I shook my head, and went on:

“The next day, with nothing but two hundred pounds, a sack of food and water, and the instructions copied onto a sheet- you see, I wasn’t planning on staying in Venice- I left home, and went to London. And from there I traveled on, first to Le Havre, then to Paris-”

“No one needs to know your travel itinerary.”

At that moment, a church bell chimed twice.

“It’s summer, and dawn will be here before too long,” the man advised. “Now I suggest you stop wasting your last hours and skip to you getting to Venice and exactly why you did what you did here. You don’t have much time left to tell your story, you know.” He seemed not so much impatient now as considerate, as if he were genuinely interested in what I was telling him.

“Fine. Anyway, I arrived in Venice, and I immediately set out for the Doge’s Palace. When I got there, it took me forever to find the painting, especially because I had no idea what it actually would look like. No one knew anything about the dimensions or the medium or what it looked like because it had been lost for so long. But everyone was saying that it had been called a masterpiece in its day, that it would be a major find. And that was what kept me going during those hard days and nights of searching. And at last, I found it inside one of the private rooms once used by the Doges of Venice.”

“So you found it. Congratulations. And how did you get here?”

“I wanted to return home, to my books, and bring the painting with me. I was planning to study the painting and only then reveal to the world what I found. But there was a problem, one I had not anticipated.”

“And what was that, mia piccina?” He no longer said it condescendingly, but as if he genuinely cared about everything I had gone through.

“I had no money left, no money to return home, and no way of getting any money, or at least, I did not think I had a way of getting any money.”

I shuddered with remorse now, thinking of where I had gotten the idea.

“Later on, I was roaming the streets, thinking about what I could do in order to get back home. At first, I was thinking of begging, but I thought that was weak. I am not a victim, and I would not allow myself to be weak like that. And then, I saw a jewelry house, with many fine jewels in the windows, the most and the finest diamonds by far I had ever seen! And the store- it was called the Salvadori Diamond Atelier, I believe- was not even guarded! Even though it had all these wonderful jewels worth thousands, thousands of pounds, I tell you!” I cried.

His brows had furrowed, and I knew what he was thinking now.

“Sir, sir, I feel so much remorse for this, it’s true, but when I saw all those lovely diamonds, I could not help but think, ‘This is my way to get money, to go home at last and someday show the world what I have accomplished, and fulfill my ambition.’ And I resolved to steal as many diamonds as I could that very night, so I could sell them for money.”

No, no, no. I cannot bear to tell this… but all of Venice already knows this…and I must tell this…oh God, but it haunts me so much…

My face must have gone pale, because the man asked, “Are you ill? Do you need to rest?”

“No, I just feel so, so guilty and horrified by what I am about to tell you…” I took a deep breath. “But I must tell you anyway.”

“That night, it happened to be a new moon, and the full darkness of the sky covered me. I felt so confident that everything would go according to plan. I would get in, take some diamonds, and leave Venice at once.”

“And indeed,” I continued, “at first, everything went according to plan. There was a door in the back, a very small door, that had been left unlocked. I slipped inside and slowly felt my way into the shop until I found the glass cases. And that was the point when things started going awry: I had found a pin, and since I had been taught how to trick a lock using a pin, I thought that I could simply use the pin, unlock the case, and stuff the jewels inside my bag. But the pin did not work- I don’t know whether the lock was very special or whether I just performed the trick wrong. It wouldn’t open though, so I had to resort to smashing the glass.”

“Let me guess,” he said, looking up from his notes. “Someone heard, and started shouting for the police?”

“To tell you the truth, I don’t know, because of how concentrated I was on my work, although that is probably it. But in any case, the police arrived, and in that moment, I realized that if I was caught, then I would be arrested and likely never return to England again. And I also realized that there was no way for me to make it to that small door unseen. But there was still another option.”

“What was it?” Now he was leaning forward.

I panicked inside. Please, I want to go back in time somehow, make it so I never did this, so that I never caused so much pain, which I never wanted to do…

“There was a small oil lamp with a flame inside the case, some wood that had broken off the case frame, and a jar of oil. And I realized that a fire would cause confusion, during which I could possibly escape. So,” I shut my eyes and said as fast as possible, “I poured the oil onto the wood, dropped the lamp on top, yelled ‘You will die before you discover me!’, and ran out of the shop, to the streets, and as I ran, I saw the whole building burst into flames and I heard screams, screams of officers burning, burning to death. Those screams, they haunt me still, even after all these weeks in prison and in court. And I smelled their flesh burning, and I relished it at first, knowing I had made it out.” And I realized I was shaking, and yes, starting to feel sick.

“But you seem so full of pain and remorse now,” the man said, confused.

“Just a few minutes later, I ran into another officer. The sight of him made me realize what I had done- I had killed innocent men just for money…” I was crying now, but I knew I still had to finish. So I continued, “At that moment, my conscience overwhelmed me for the first time ever, and I started weeping, just as I am now, and started screaming about how I had burned a group of officers in the Salvadori Diamond Atelier to death. The officer was confused, but I led him there, and showed him- the burning building, the people screaming, the firemen bringing out the bodies of dead officers. And then he arrested me right then and there.”

I fell silent. I have nothing left to say.

The man looked at me. “Do you have anything else you want to tell me?”

Through my tears, I choked out, “No, the rest of the story, you already know it…the trial, my sentencing to death…I just want it all to end. I never wanted any of this, and now I just want it to end, to spare the world any more horror I could cause…You see, the world is right- I am a monster…” Again, I fell silent.

“It is a strange thing, life,” he observed. “So many times, good people are driven to do unspeakable things which they never would have dreamed of doing except in the moment they did them. And for that, they are unjustly called monsters, for that one black blemish in an otherwise good life, and they are condemned to eternal damnation in the minds of the world, to be forever called a monster. Most of the time, the condemned do not speak.”

The cell door opened.

“Dawn breaks,” the jailer said. “And with it, your monstrous life ends.”

“-But you have broken the silence. You are very brave and strong to do that. That man will soon realize, like the rest of the world will, like I already know, that you are not a monster.”

“Now I must leave, for the hour of your death has come. Remember, you might die to expiate what the world has labeled you a monster for, but soon, your legacy will be realized for what it actually is. Go. Hold your head high. You have suffered much, but you do not deserve to suffer forever, and you will not suffer forever. Goodbye, mia piccina.”

And with that, he left. I rose, and surrendered to the jailer.

That black blemish he spoke of, I thought to myself as I walked with the jailer, will never be excusable. But it is not everything I am. And the world will know it is not everything I am.

Suddenly emboldened by this thought, I raised my head and held it high.

I know that I will find redemption somehow, for the world cannot truthfully say now that this is all I am. For I have said otherwise.

Now I am ready to die.

[incorrectatotcquotes]

Hello everyone! I haven’t been very active lately, so I thought it was time to make a really long post to make up for it. And when I say long, I mean really long.

There are lots of references to A Tale of Two Cities in Cassandra Clare’s The Infernal Devices, and I wanted to post this theory I have that some of Clare’s characters in TID might actually be supposed to mirror characters from ATOTC. I have already talked a little bit about it in a previous post, but I wanted to make a whole long theory, so here it comes. Major spoilers for both The Infernal Devices (and maybe all of Shadowhunters) and for A Tale of Two Cities ahead. And of course, I’m no expert, so there might be some factual wrongs, and these ideas are just theories. If you find any wrongs, please tell me about it :-)

Will = Sydney?

This one is almost already confirmed. It is mentioned several times in TID how similar Will Herondale is to Sydney Carton, even Will himself knows it. Will seems to be quite upset about it (understandable, if all the stories are true, it might not be very nice to read about your own decapitation), but accepts it as the truth. Will and Sydney have similar personalities, they both seem cold and selfish at first glance, but later on proves to be good people. They both save the main character from their imprisonment in the start, Will helps Tessa escape The Dark Sisters and Sydney manages to get Charles acquitted from the false accusation. Later on they both also sacrifices their lives to save said main characters, Will covers Tessa’s body to shield her from the exploding automaton in Clockwork Prince (he survives, but he is totally prepared to die) and of course Sydney took Charles’ place at the guillotine. Will and Sydney both die at the final chapter of book three (ensuring heart break for us all). As mentioned earlier, they are both quite unpleasant characters from the start, both being rude and mean to the main character, and as readers we are annoyed with them at first, but later on learn to feel sorry for them instead. In Will’s case, he acts the way he does because he believes that he has a magical curse placed on him, making everyone who loves him die, so therefore he must make everyone hate him. Will’s only friend is Jem Carstairs, who Will dares to show his real self to, and who is sick and dying. His solitude and belief that he is unlovable (plus his belief that he unintentionally killed his sister) has made Will depressed and self-loathing. Now, we recognise that, don’t we, ATOTC-fans? Sydney’s problem and the reason for his bad behaviour is his alcoholism and depression, which is not a magical curse, but it might be a metaphorical curse. He also hates himself, and believes that he cannot be loved. Then there is the unhappy love they both have. Will is in love with Tessa, and he does not know that she loves him back, mainly because she is engaged to Jem (whom she also loves, and I’m not going to explain the very complicated romance in TID, it would take too long, if you haven’t read it, I’m sorry for the confusion). Sydney is in love with Lucie, who does not love him back, because she is happily in love with Charles. Will also quotes and almost quotes Sydney at various points in TID, like “you kindled me, heap of ashes that I am into fire”, and calls ATOTC and especially Sydney ridiculous, which honestly sounds like something Sydney would agree with. But Will gets to survive and sort out his life, which Sydney never had the time to do, so I think Will might have that life that Sydeny thought he might have led if he had been a better person. There are other examples of how similar they are, but I realise that this is becoming less of a tumblr-post and more of an essay, so I’ll leave Will and Sydney at this. But my conclusion is that I think Will Herondale was indeed meant to mirror Sydney Carton.

Gideon = Charles?

I’ll try to make this part shorter. So, if we assume that the theory that Will is supposed to mirror Sydney is true, is it not a little bit strange that he appears in TID and Charles does not? After all, Charles is one of the main characters, and Sydney is a side character. But maybe Charles does appear in TID, just a little more subtly. I read some theory (though I can’t remember where) that maybe Jem was supposed to be Charles, and I can see where that is coming from, Jem being a loveable gentleman and everything, but some things just don’t add up. Such as Jem being proud of his family, and his loyalty never being questioned, and not least the fact that it has been confirmed that Jem is based on the poet John Keats. But if we see it from the other end, maybe a TID-Charles will appear. Charles Darnay was born into a very rich family and after his mother’s death he was thought to not show any sympathy to the poorer people his uncle (and his father) were taking advantage of. However, as a young man he realised that the family’s actions were wrong and fled the country, deciding to become a teacher and lead a normal life from there on. He married “beneath his status” and lived very happily with his wife, even though they faced hardships, such as losing a child. Charles is later accused of being an enemy of England, and later also of France, so whatever he does it seems none of the two countries fully trust him. This sounds a lot less like Jem, and a lot more like Gideon Lightwood. Gideon was raised by his father and not his uncle, and he came back to England after living in Spain, but pretty much all of the rest fits perfectly into his story too. He is born into the rich but cruel Lightwood family, and is the first of its children to leave it, after spending time abroad and understanding that what his father is doing is wrong, He is later on mistrusted both by the residents of the Institute (because he is a Lightwood) and by the Clave (because he openly disagrees with his horrible father). Gideon’s appearance does not match Charles’, however. Charles is described to be dark haired and dark eyed, whereas Gideon is described to have sandy-blond hair and green eyes. I would not think the characters’ physical descriptions were very important, if it weren’t for the fact that Will perfectly fits the description from ATOTC. However, Gideon’s physical appearance does match that of Charles Darnay in the ATOTC TV-series from 1989.

(Sorry about the terrible quality of the image). I think Gideon Lightwood might be meant to mirror Charles Darnay. 

Sophie = Lucie?

So Sophie Collins is a loving and accepting person, who still manages to not be naive, and to be brave when she has to. This is not really evidence enough to say that she is supposed to mirror Lucie Manette, because they are common traits in characters. I really do not have a lot of evidence for this part of the theory, it is more a feeling than anything else. But if we assume that the theories about Gideon and Will are correct, there are at least a few similarities between Sophie and Lucie. Sophie is happily married to Gideon, despite all they have had to go through together, such as the loss of one of their children. Both Sophie and Lucie are described as very pretty, and they both become the comfort of the people around them. I’d also like to mention that Will does proclaim his love for Sophie (like Sydney proclaims his for Lucie), when she has knocked Jessamine unconscious with a hairbrush, although maybe Sydney put his in a nicer way than Will did. Sophie also manages to stay strong through all of her problems, something that Lucie also does. So there is not a lot of evidence, but I would still like to say that I think Sophie Lightwood is supposed to mirror Lucie Manette, perhaps the Lucie we would have seen if nobody had been there to protect her when she was still small.

Tessa = The Seamstress?

Yes, I know what you’re thinking, but I’m not only going to base this part of the theory on her relationship with Will. If anything, it’s actually a pretty weak argument considering The Seamstress and Sydney only had a few hours together, while Tessa and Will were married for almost sixty years. However, I think there is some evidence that points to Tessa being quite similar to The Seamstress. I think that Tessa might mirror different characters and historical people, depending on who she is with, for example being the Fanny Brawne to Jem’s John Keats. But with the characters mirroring ATOTC characters, I think she is supposed to be The Seamstress. For this one I again have very little evidence, but bear with me. We know very little about The Seamstress, pretty much only that she is born a peasant in the French countryside but manages to make herself a seamstress in Paris, something I imagine would have taken an immense load of work and determination. She is an orphan, and the only family she has left is her cousin, whom she loves very much. She is only twenty years old when she is denounced to the revolutionaries and guillotined, although she is innocent, and we never find out who denounced her. Tessa is born a poor girl in New York, her parents died when she was very young, leaving her with an aunt and a cousin (Nate) whom she thought was her brother. When her aunt dies, Tessa moves to London where Nate is already living. She is stubborn and determined, and she loves her cousin, making her risk her life several times in the first book in the attempt of saving him. We never learn what Tessa did for a living, but I think (and this might be wrong) that she always seems to have an interest in clothes and fabrics that none of the other characters has. Again, that is only what I think, and it might very well be wrong, but it is not impossible that she might have been a seamstress before coming to London. Tessa repeatedly gets captured over the course of the story, and is deemed insignificant by some Clave members, and suspected to be working for the wrong side by other Clave members. Tessa’s cousin is the one who betrays her, and although we don’t know who betrayed The Seamstress, her cousin is the only person we know that she knows, so I would say that that cousin is a good candidate to have done it. She also describes Will (okay, so I did bring up their relationship again) as looking  angelic quite a lot, and Will calls her “Angel Tessa”, which I think might be a paralell to how The Seamstress and Sydney ask each other if the other was sent to them by God. So, there isn’t a lot of evidence, but I think Tessa might be meant to mirror The Seamstress, at least a little bit.

Sorry that this became such a long rant. Again, this is the theory of an amature, so it is far from perfect, and please tell me if you agree, disagree, or find any faults in my reasoning!

[baronessblixen]

The Three Lost Children

This is my entry for the @xfilesfanficexchange Horror Fanfic Exchange. My words were lost and abandoned. Set in season 6.

The reason I’m posting it here as well as on AO3 is because this is also today’s Fictober story! Tagging @today-in-fic and @xffictober

Fictober Day 24

New England in autumn is a sight to be seen. Mulder drives them through the vibrant, popping colors and Scully watches, almost like a child, in silent awe. She can’t wait to stop the car, walk through the rustling leaves, take in the fresh air. Listen to the breeze of the nearby ocean. She hasn’t been to the ocean in so long and her soul aches for it. She chances a glance at Mulder. They’re both quiet, lost in their own thoughts. She wouldn’t be able to guess what he’s thinking about. Lately, this is all they’ve been; a long stretch of silence, of unspoken pains.

The longer they drive, the lonelier it becomes. She doesn’t know why they’re here, not really. Something about apparitions, something about a cold case. As so often, she just followed him, barely asking for an explanation, still trusting him with their work. Even after Diana. They’ve been inching back towards normalcy. But in her mind, it’s ever present. Before Diana, after Diana.

Mulder sets the blinker and turns onto a small, nondescript gravel path. She glances at him but he doesn’t say anything. They follow the path and Scully watches as the trees grow rarer, most of them bald, barely alive. She shivers involuntarily as a house comes into view, growing bigger and bigger. Mulder slows the car and parks at it what must have been a gate once.

“We’re here,” he says unnecessarily, turning to her. They get out of the car and Mulder stretches, holding his nose into the air, half a smile on his face. Scully watches him, half amused and, despite herself, a little bit in love with him.

“Mulder,” she says, looking at the house in front of them, abandoned and broken, “why are we here?”

“This house is said to be haunted.” Whenever he talks about haunted places, his face lights up. An enthusiasm she’s never been able to share.

“You already took me to a haunted house on Christmas Eve, Mulder.” And they almost ended up dead. Or so she thinks. The memories of that night are still hazy and untrustworthy. “I can’t keep doing this,” she says to herself but he hears her, throwing her a look she can’t decipher. They’re the only living things around here. Not a single bird is singing. The trees are watching on, dead und unmoving. Something is not right. She stops and looks around. The cold feeling is back, taking hold of her. As if someone were softly scratching her with long fingernails, making her shiver all over. She takes a step forward but the sensation remains.

Her eyes are drawn to the house. She squints, tries to see it for what it must have been once. The bricks are laid bare, the house a mere skeleton. It seems to be standing up by pure will. Part of it has crumbled to the ground, a big hole gaping in between the main house and a smaller cottage. They must have been a unit once. Now, they’re standing on their own sides, not touching, decaying by themselves, still in sync.

“Let’s go inside.”

“Mulder, wait.” He stops and turns around. “Why are we here? How is this an X-Files?”

“Just follow me.” He keeps on walking, pushing open the creaky wooden door. Scully huffs. So much for her New Year’s resolutions. There’s something about this house that repels her. She’s not going to admit it to Mulder. She barely admits it to herself. But she feels it all around her in the cool air, the eerie silence. There’s a presence here. Something rotten and evil.

“Scully?” Mulder asks from inside, his voice sounding obscured. She takes a deep breath, the smell of decomposition in the air growing stronger the closer she gets to the ajar door. She steps inside the damp, old ruin and looks around.

Mulder is on the stairs and they creak in pain with every step he takes.

“You still haven’t told me,” she says, walking through what must have been a kitchen once. There are a few cups on the table, on the counters. One day, someone walked out here and never returned. She doesn’t dare to look into the cups. One is chipped, another one has faded colors. There was life here, once.

“Told you what?” Mulder yells from upstairs.

“What we’re doing here.” Scully leaves the kitchen and finds herself in the main hall. She stares at the big, dark wooden grandfather clock in the corner. Her heart starts pounding as she realizes that it’s showing the right time. The hands are moving, tick tock, tick tock. How is it possible that this clock is ticking? How is it possible that anything is alive in this house?

“Come up here, Scully. I want to show you something.” She gives the clock one last look but it goes on steadily. It feels as if it were watching her with stern eyes, judging her. As soon as she turns around, facing away from the clock, she hears it. At first it’s soft, barely discernible. A laugh. She keeps on walking and there it is again. More laughter. It sounds like… like… children’s laughter. She turns back, gasping. There’s only the clock, mocking her with its precision. She takes a breath, reminds herself that perception can play tricks on your mind. There might be children outside, playing games. That’s what she heard. It must be.

As she ascends the stairs, the wood moaning, she touches the walls where yellow lines speak of picture frames that must have hung here once. Who lived here? She wonders. What happened to them?

“There you are,” Mulder says upstairs, his head peeking out of a small room.

“You owe me an explanation.”

“Yeah, yeah.” He touches her arm and leads her into the room. Gloomy light falls through the broken windows, fracturing this room, a child’s bedroom. Scattered toys, old and dusty, some gnawed on. Sadness engulfs her as she stands there, cold to the bone. She hugs herself but it neither brings her comfort, nor warmth.

“What are we doing here?” she asks again, the anger in her rising.

“One day in 1879, a girl named Lucy Monroe disappeared. No one expected fowl play. An accident, everyone said. The parents were devastated, left their house and moved away. No one heard from them again. Things went back to normal and no one thought about poor Lucy or her parents. That is until the next two children disappeared, a pair of siblings.” Mulder picks up a toy car and blows off the dust.

“Is this- did Lucy Monroe live in this house?” Scully looks around and her eyes linger on the wallpaper with colorful balloons and clowns.

“She didn’t,” Mulder goes on. “When Lucy disappeared, this house belonged to one Richard Watkins. His neighbors described him as an inconspicuous, religious man. He, his wife and their three children went to church every Sunday but liked to keep to themselves. Until a fire claimed the life of his wife and children. That’s when everything changed.”

“What changed?” Scully asks. Damn Mulder for knowing how to tell a story. He’s walking around in circles, still holding the small toy car. He turns to her, his face solemn.

“Richard Watkins bundled all his pain and his hate against God. He stopped going to church, stopped leaving the house altogether. People in town started talking about him. It became a dare for children to find this house and catch a glimpse of this ungodly man. The gossip started, as it always does. They said Richard Watkins turned his back on God, like he’d done to him, and worshipped Satan instead.”

Scully wants to roll her eyes, or laugh. She can’t. Mulder’s voice is mesmerizing. As is the story he’s telling. She stares at the three small beds, barely touched. She freezes. One bed, an old moldy mattress still in place, has an indentation. It almost looks like a child’s body. Scully looks away, focuses on Mulder and nothing else.

“What does this have to do with the case, Mulder?”

“Don’t you feel it, Scully? This house… it’s haunted.”

She feels it. She feels it in the strange scratching sensation that’s intensifying. She feels it in the heaviness of her bones. This house has memories and it is aching from them. She feels that same ache, too.

“I don’t feel it,” she lies. “Maybe you should have brought Diana. All I feel is a draft. I’m leaving.” She is angry with Mulder and angry with herself. Why does she continue to let herself be lured out to these places, into myths and folklores? This is not her job. She could be at home, she could be doing something of consequence. But here she is, in yet another haunted house, chasing ghosts and chasing Mulder.

This has to stop.

“I haven’t told you the rest of the story,” Mulder calls out but she’s already back on the stairs. She doesn’t reply, refuses to listen. She’s not as proficient in running away as Mulder is but she can manage.

Still on the stairs, she hears the clock in the main hall. Is that her imagination or has the noise increased? Drawn by an unknown force, Scully returns to the hall. Her eyes fall on the clock, the wood darker than she remembers it. Among all these broken, forgotten things, the clock doesn’t fit in. It doesn’t fit at all. Her eyes are trained on the hands. Maybe none of it is real, maybe she’s just imagining it, fueled by Mulder’s story. But they keep moving steadily.

The clock strikes the full hour and there’s a drawn-out creak that sounds as if someone were opening a door, but slowly. She stares at it, the clock, unmoving but for the hands. Tick tock, tick tock. The creaking stops and then everything else does, too. Scully holds her breath for a second, then lets it out. It’s all in my head, she reminds herself. She relaxes. There’s nothing wrong with this clock. Nothing at all.

Just as she’s about to leave, the clock-face crumbles, falls apart, and reveals a new face, half man, half not. Blood-red eyes meet hers for the flash of a second. An evil grin with sharp teeth, horns protruding from the forehead. She’s seen this face before. In stories, in her nightmares. It’s the face of the devil. Unable to look away, her shaky fingers search for her gun. She stops when she hears the soft, gentle sound of laughter close to her.  

Someone’s touching her. There’s pressure on her arm but as she looks down at it, there’s nothing there. Only laughter in the air. Happy, unabashed children’s laughter.

“We’ve been waiting for you,” a child’s voice singsongs. Scully makes a complete turn but she’s all alone. There’s only her and the big, dark clock that sits there unremarkably. The face, she notices, has gone back to normal.

“I’m losing my mind,” she murmurs, slowly walking backwards. She needs to get out of this room, out of this house. When her back comes into contact with something warm, something solid, she screams.

“Hey,” Mulder says, holding her by the arms. “It’s just me.”

“Did you hear it, Mulder?” she asks him.

“Hear what?”

“The children.”

“What children?”

“There was children’s laughter, there was-“ she stops. She sounds crazy. Mulder looks at her as if she’s lost her mind before he cracks a smile.

“So now you agree with me? This place is haunted.”

“Why did you bring me here?” she yells at him. All the anger and frustration she’s been feeling these last few weeks break out of her.

“I- the case, I-“ He’s stunned by her outburst. “I thought we could… I wanted to show you this house, tell you the story. I’ve been fascinated by it ever since I was a child myself.” His eyes grow soft and so does she.

“Tell me,” she says, feeling weak. “But not in here. I need fresh air.” They walk outside together, Mulder holding Scully’s hand. “I can’t believe I’m admitting this but this place is creepy, Mulder.”

He chuckles softly. “I know. Can I finish my story now?” Scully nods at him. “No one ever found out what happened to Lucy Monroe or the other two kids that disappeared. They were never found. But Richard Watkins was. The details are hazy but he slipped one night, fell down the cliffs and died. An act of God, it was later surmised. Because of what he’d been planning. They never found the kids but they found Lucy Monroe’s doll in his house, clothes that the kids had been wearing, too. They searched the whole place but no other traces could be found. It was said that Richard Watkins was planning to sacrifice the children to Satan the night he died.”

“The children,” she mumbles. She thinks of the laughter she’d heard and shivers. It can’t be. It just can’t be. There’s no such thing as haunted souls, a haunted house.

“You heard them.”

“I heard something,” she admits. “There might be children playing here somewhere that-“

“There are no children here, Scully. Listen. You heard the three lost children. That’s what folks around here call them. The three lost children. They’re said to be haunting this house. In early 1900, people tried to sell this house. Enough time had passed, they’d figured. No one has been able to stay here longer than a few weeks. The last recorded family that moved in were the Hendersons in the 50s. A newly married couple, just starting out. While Mr. Henderson never heard the children, his wife sure did. She thought she was going insane. They’d been trying for a baby and everyone, including her doctors and her husband, thought that unfulfilled wish was causing her audiovisual hallucinations.”

Is that why she heard them? Because of her own failure to conceive? She pushes the thought away.

“What happened to them?”

“They moved out. Their marriage was in shambles by the time they did. Mr. Henderson was so angry that this house, their dream house, was causing them so much misery that he destroyed half of it.” They both turn to look at the house, at the gaping middle.

“They separated?”

Mulder shakes his head. “They almost did. Their love for each other was strong though.” He stares at her, his eyes so green, so open, that she feels powerless. “They moved away. They worked on their marriage. They healed. Together. And then, not long after, Mrs. Henderson became pregnant. She gave birth to a healthy baby girl. The end.” He grins at her.

“How do you know all this, Mulder?”

“Because,” he says, taking her hand and leading her to the car. The more distance they bring between themselves and the house, the freer Scully feels. The tension leaves her body. “The Hendersons were our neighbors. That little baby girl? She grew up and used to babysit me. We came here when I was about 10 years old after I’d begged my parents. I haven’t been able to forget about this story ever since. Neither of us heard the three lost children though. But you did.”

“Mulder…”

“It’s okay. I know you don’t want to admit it. Most people don’t hear them. Only a few have reported the laughter and… feeling an evil presence in this house.” He touches her arm, strokes it gently. “Legend says only people who are pure of heart can hear the children.”

Scully snorts. “You had me until that last bit, Mulder.” He shrugs and smiles at her. “There is no case here, is there?”

“Oh, there is. But not here exactly. It’s further up north. I just wanted to take you here, share this with you. After… after everything.”

She bites her lip, but she can’t resist. “Have you ever taken Diana here?”

Mulder looks genuinely surprised. “No,” he says and she knows he’s telling the truth. “I never even thought about it.”

“Good,” she says and opens the car door. Mulder puts his hand over hers.

“I know it may take a while,” he says, his voice breaking. “But I want to win your trust back.”

“You never lost my trust,” she says. “And you and Diana… I know it’s none of my business and-“

“Of course it’s your business,” he cuts in. “It is your business. I want it to be. I thought I’d made that clear.”

“Clear, Mulder?” She raises an eyebrow. “When?”

“The hallway,” he says, his eyes fixed on hers. She blushes. “Taking you on all these adventures when we were off the X-Files. I mean it, Scully. I can’t do this alone. I don’t want to do it alone. I want you here by my side. If that’s what you want, too.”

She stares at the house, thinks about the Hendersons. He tore half of it down to repair something else, in a new place. Maybe they can too. She thinks of the laughter, of the three lost children, of the evil in this house. She doesn’t want to stay here in this place. She wants to move on, move past what’s holding her back.

Scully takes his hand and interlaces their fingers. They both stare at their hands as if they were a small wonder. Maybe they are.

“I want to be here, do this with you. I- I should probably tell you what I saw in there or what I thought I saw. Maybe there’s an X-Files here after all.”

“You don’t have to, X-Files or not.”

“I want to,” she says. “But not here. Let’s keep driving. Okay?”

He nods. “Just one thing before I lose my nerve again or before anything else happens.” He lowers his head, giving her ample time to move away. She won’t. She wants this. She’s been wanting it for so long. Their lips meet and everything around them stops mattering. It’s a soft kiss, a hesitant first. There’s still some rubble between them that they need to clean up.

There will be time to do that later.

“I’ve always wanted to make out at a haunted house,” Mulder admits when they disconnect. Her lipstick is smeared against his mouth, a bit on his cheek, too.

“Why am I not surprised?” she says with a smile.

“Let’s go. I think there’s something you wanted to tell me.”

[imagineaworlds]

I Love You (Part Twenty-Four) -- Aaron Hotchner

Written By: @desperately-bisexual​

Request: None.

Warnings: Cursing. Mentions of smut. Mentions of Dom/sub relationship. Talk of murder, shooting. terrorism, mention of bombing-- literally everything Criminal Minds.

Pairing: Aaron Hotchner x Greenaway!Reader

Word Count: 15467

Timeline: Season 3 Episode 20. Two months after part twenty-three.

It was a quiet morning at the office. At ten o’clock, we all gathered in the conference room to discuss cases, but before we could even sit down, JJ told us that there was nothing for our unit. It wasn’t entirely uncommon for this to happen, and it was always a relief because it meant that we would all get to go home early, which meant getting to see Jack sooner. With no paperwork to do, either we were all free to just wait around until something came about for us to do. That was the odd part. If we didn’t have a case, we at least had paperwork… but, nope. Honestly, if we wanted to, Hotch could just send us home for the day, but I think that all of us were still hoping that something interesting would come up. Also, what was the point in leaving if we could just be called back at any point? Might as well just stick around until three when I was supposed to pick Jack up from school.

While all of us were hanging out in the bullpen, JJ, Garcia, and Rossi with us, too, Hotch was up in his office. His door was closed, the blinds were tilted slightly, yet I could still catch a glimpse of him talking with someone on the phone. He seemed worried. He wasn’t pacing the width of his office quite yet, but he was tapping his fountain pen against his desk as fast as he could in order to keep his anxious body up with his racing mind. No one else seemed to notice, though—probably because they didn’t want to know if it had to do with a case yet. We were all content with just sitting around, chatting and laughing. If a case came up, so be it. If a case didn’t come up, that would be a miracle we would happily take.

“Do you think it’s about those shootings in New York?” I finally asked, turning my attention away from Hotch’s office long enough to gauge the team’s reactions to my question.

It had been on my mind for the past few days since we first heard about it on the news. The FBI hadn’t been called in to investigate the crimes yet, but we were all keeping tabs on it to see if it would get worse. There had been five shootings in the past two weeks, each of them in public spaces, but no witnesses. No one could describe the Unsub, let alone describe what happened It was like a ghost was shooting random civilians in the streets. Yet the NYPD was convinced that the incidences were all unrelated. Considering New York’s rising crime rates, it was a fair assumption, I supposed, but with five murders with the same M.O., our team was starting to raise brows and ask if the NYPD was ever going to call someone in for an outside perspective.

“Why would you think that?” Rossi asked. “Has Hotch said something about it at home?”

I shook my head. “We haven’t talked about it at all.”

“So, then, maybe it’s nothing.”

I looked back up at Hotch’s office, keenly aware that it wasn’t nothing. Something was wrong, it was just a matter of what. Perhaps it had to do with Haley, or Jack, or the Director, or another case he was just learning about. But if it were a case, wouldn’t it have gone through JJ first? It must have been personal, then, which meant that I would hear about it from him sooner than later. There was nothing to be worried about right now.

And then he stood from his desk and hung up the phone. Everyone seemed to be watching him with me now, trying to figure out if either Rossi or I were correct. Hotch grabbed his cell, a few files from his desk, and hurried to his door. The second it was open, he caught us all watching him, but he didn’t waver.

“Conference room,” he ordered, still making his way there.

We all leapt to our feet and scurried together towards the boardroom. “My money’s on New York,” I whispered to Rossi.

“I’ll take that bet.”

Hotch was standing at the monitor, the remote in his hand as he pulled up the news. When it was on, I heard Rossi sigh disappointedly. I grinned and elbowed his side playfully. Maybe he shouldn’t have actually taken that deal. The news was already talking about yet another shooting in New York, this time at a subway station in the middle of the night. No witnesses. No evidence. No leads. It was amazing that we were being called in this late.

“Don’t sit,” Hotch said. “We won’t be here long. We’ve been called in to help the NYPD with the random shootings.” Finally. “We’ll debrief more on the plane, but for now, what you need to know is that the police have eliminated any connections to organized crime, terrorism, or vendettas. There are no ties between any of the victims, and all of their records are clean. We’re looking at a randomized killer. He does the same thing every time. He keeps his head down, hood on, hands covered to hide his skin color. He shoots the victims quickly as he’s walking and doesn’t look back.” Hotch turned off the TV. “Wheels up in twenty. Garcia—” She looked up at the mention of her name, shocked that she was being addressed during a meeting she technically wasn’t even supposed to be at. “You’re coming with us.”

“Sir—”

“See you all on the jet.” Hotch collected his things again and pushed past the team to make his way back to his office so that he could grab his go-bag.

The rest of us were left in the boardroom, glancing between each other, waiting for someone to make the first move. It was odd that we weren’t even taking the time to sit down and discuss more of the case first. I mean, what happened to the case going through JJ, talking about it as a team in the boardroom, then discussing more on the jet, and so on? Why go to Hotch first and why was he in such a rush?

I made the first move, rushing back down to my desk in the bullpen to call Jessica to see if she could pick up Jack, and then text Haley to let her know that we wouldn’t be back for a bit. Jessica said she was fine with picking up Jack, and when I texted Haley, she thanked me for letting her know. She also told me to keep an eye on Aaron and to call Jack when we were at the hotel. When that was sorted, I grabbed my go-bag from under my desk and walked with the rest of the team out of the building.

When we got on the jet, Hotch immediately called for us to huddle up and start discussing the case. Since it had come through him, Hotch knew the most about the case. He knew what the cops had done for the investigation, he knew the victimology, the M.O., the possible leads, everything. We were just there to play catch up and then try to give what insight we could before landing in New York.

“Each victim was killed in a different neighborhood. There was no relation with their homes, their jobs, their hobbies, or so on. No similar physical or personality traits, according to the victims’ friends and family.”

“What leads do they have that they haven’t told the press about?” I asked.

“None,” Hotch shook his head. “Agent Kate Joyner has been leading the FBI-NYPD joint task force—”

“The FBI’s been involved with this already?” Morgan interrupted.

“Pretty much since the beginning. Kate called for our help after the sixth murder last night, though.”

“Wait. Kate Joyner?” Rossi clarified. “Isn’t she the agent from Interpole we gained a few years back?”

“I heard she can be a bit of a pain in the ass,” Morgan chuckled.

“I didn’t think so. We worked together back in the day when she was still working for Scotland Yard,” Hotch admitted.

“You… worked together?” Emily raised a brow. None of us were aware that Hotch had ever liaised with Scotland Yard before. One would think that I would have known about that. “When?”

“It doesn’t matter,” Hotch deflected. “Let’s just focus on the case, please. She’s leading the case, we’re just there to profile. So, just… follow her lead on this one.”

‘Follow her lead’? We never followed anyone’s lead. We worked with other units, SWAT, and the local police departments that needed our help; but the only person we directly answered to was Hotch. Why was he changing that for this girl, Kate? What was more concerning to me was that Hotch knew who this woman was—they were clearly friends at one point or another, and I had never even heard of her. It was like Hotch covered up this entire part of his life that I didn’t know about. Like, when the hell did he go to England? When did he meet Kate? How long did they work together?

I took a breath to relax. I didn’t need to get caught up in my thoughts. The reality was that Hotch and Haley had been together since high school. He loved Haley with everything he had while they were still together. He would have never cheated on her, just as he would never cheat on me— though I couldn’t say she didn’t show him the same courtesy, but that was a theory for another time. Hotch was probably just old friends with this Kate lady, just as he was old friends with Rossi. There was nothing to be suspicious of, and there was definitely nothing to be jealous of. I just needed to remind myself that this was about a case, nothing else.

When we arrived at the New York field office, we headed up to Kate’s unit’s floor. She was supposedly waiting for us up there with the two lead detectives from the NYPD who were assigned to this case, too. On the way up, Hotch seemed nervous and fidgety, which certainly wasn’t like him. I mean, I knew from Rossi that Hotch used to be like that, so maybe it was just habits of seeing an old friend again; but it was still unsettling to see that he was so wrapped up in the thought of seeing Kate that he wasn’t even making eye contact with any of us or trying to tell me and Morgan that we needed to be on our best behavior.

Once the elevator doors were open, Hotch stepped out, leading us all into the office in search of Kate and the detectives. We looked around, taking in how big the office was. This unit that the FBI had given Kate was ridiculous. I mean, the BAU was considerably big, but this was almost twice that, and everyone was running around, busy with work around the case.

My shoulders fell and I stopped in place when I saw a woman approaching us with a smile on her face. That was definitely Kate, there was no doubt about it… She was gorgeous. She walked so smoothly, but still held a poise that commanded everyone’s reluctant respect. And when she saw Hotch, her smile grew even more.

“Aaron,” she welcomed with open arms.

“Kate,” he smiled back, accepting her hug.

My eyes stayed glued to them and their embrace, despite the fact that the rest of the team was glancing between them and me. ‘Aaron’? ‘Kate’? ‘Aaron’… I was still trying to convince myself that it was nothing, and I shouldn’t have to be that petty person who got all jealous suddenly without an explanation. It was nothing, right? Just two old friends reuniting… Two friends that happened to hug a little longer than necessary and then stare into each other’s eyes as they parted— Oh, my fucking god.

JJ linked her arm with mine and pulled me close. “Is it just me or does she look exactly like Haley?”

Oh, boy, I was relieved that I wasn’t the only one who took notice. I thought I was going fucking crazy. Kate’s blonde hair, her small nose, her brown eyes, her tight lips, her short height, her tall posture… She was a mirror image of Haley… Just… British. It was so odd. I hadn’t anticipated that I’d be meeting Haley’s doppelganger. I mean, I never even expected to meet Haley in the first place, but now there were two of her. What the hell was I supposed to do with that?

I remembered how I tried to convince myself on the plane that there was no chance in hell that Hotch would have cheated on Haley, but when I saw Kate, I realized that it was entirely possible. If he really spent a long time in England, then he probably ended up missing Haley a lot… With someone around him who looked eerily similar to the wife he missed so much, if there was a night with one too many drinks or something, it was entirely possible that something happened between them.

I felt so stupid. I wasn’t a jealous person, and I certainly wasn’t one to speculate about Hotch’s past. We had both done things that we weren’t proud of. We had done things that we just hadn’t gotten around to discussing yet. But all the signs seemed to be there. But the worst part was that it pointed to the fact that Hotch seemed to have a type… A type that I didn’t amount to. I felt my self-confidence crash just by looking at Kate.

“Kate, this is my team. David Rossi, Derek Morgan, Spencer, Reid, Emily Prentiss, Jennifer Jareau, Penelope Garcia, and—” Hotch hesitated when his eyes met mine. “And… Y/N Greenaway.” He must have recognized that the wheels in my mind were turning, and I was working overtime to understand what was going on. He must have also recognized my shyness and the way I didn’t wave or smile at Kate politely.

“Thank you all for being here.” Kate smiled less now, like she was just trying to be courteous compared to her genuine happiness in seeing Hotch for the first time in years. “If you need anything at all, don’t hesitate to ask. For now, I believe that accommodations have been made for your technical analyst to review the city’s security footage. The rest of you, these are Detectives Brustin and Cooper,” Kate gestured to the two men standing to her left. They nodded and smiled shortly, seemingly less than impressed with our appearance. “I’ll leave you all to discuss the case with them. All I ask is that you run everything by me first. It’s been my experiences that having one butt on the line is enough.”

Detective Brustin rolled his eyes and mocked Kate's accent, “Yes, ma’am.”

Kate tried to ignore his rudeness after stepping closer to Hotch to whisper something. “Is there a chance we could talk privately before you go running off?”

“Yeah,” Hotch nodded with a whisper. They waited for a moment, their faces close together, their eyes searching each other’s.

As they walked off together, Emily and Garcia shuffled over to me and JJ.

“They, um,” Emily cleared her throat, “liaised together.”

“I don’t understand,” I admitted quietly, my go-bag falling to the ground. The girls’ grins disappeared in an instant when they realized that I wasn’t taking it all as a joke. “I thought I was the only one besides Haley…” My eyes followed Kate and Hotch as they walked into her office. She leaned against her desk, crossing her arms a little too tightly over her chest. Hotch didn’t sit or keep his distance. My breath hitched as he stood just in front of her, their knees practically touching. “They were high school sweethearts,” I continued to explain about Haley and Hotch. “I didn’t think that there was any point where they weren’t together before their divorce.” I looked over at Morgan, who had turned away from Rossi, Reid, and the detectives to pay attention to our conversation. “What did I miss?” I practically asked him directly, my eyes pouting.

“Hey,” Rossi called us all over. I broke away from my trance long enough to grab my go-bag from the floor and walk over with the team. “Morgan and I will go with Detective Brustin to the latest crime scene, find out what we can about this guy. The rest of you will stay here to help Reid look at the geographical information and start building the profile.”

“And Hotch?” Morgan asked.

Everyone looked back over at Kate’s office.

“Hotch… He seems a little busy. Just catch him up with your work here when you’re done.” Rossi avoided making eye contact with me as he turned back to the team. “Get to work.”

We all dispersed. Morgan, Rossi, and Brustin headed for the elevators; meanwhile, Emily, JJ, and I went with Reid to the boardroom we were given to work in. While they all got to work, I sat down at the table in the middle of the room and spun around in my chair to face Kate’s office. Her and Hotch were still talking privately, but his demeanor had changed entirely. He was a few steps away from her now, his arms crossed over his chest, his back towards her. We both stared at each other for a quick moment before he looked away.

Suddenly, Hotch was moving towards her door. They were finishing up. I pushed myself out of my seat and quietly hurried over to the door of Kate’s office. Hotch was wrapping up their conversation, though he was switching his gaze towards me every other step I made towards him. When I was within reach of him, he closed Kate’s office door behind him.

“We need to talk,” I said, grabbing his hand and pulling him to the side of the room. I let go of his hand and turned back to face him with crossed arms. “I’m not a jealous person, Hotch. I never have been, and I don’t plan on starting now. I think it’s stupid and I think that we’re both mature enough to not run into any problems when it comes to any past relationships. But I need to know something, and I need you to be honest with me.” He nodded. “Were you and Kate ever together in any way?”

Hotch wrinkled his brows together and shook his head before chuckling at me like the question was unwarranted and unexpected. What else did he expect? Kate looked exactly like his ex-wife, and they hugged— something Hotch hardly did with anyone other than me— and they talked privately, and he was smiling at her, and laughing with her, and… Shit. I told him I wasn’t jealous, and I swore to myself that I wasn’t, but… Fuck. I didn’t know what else to think. Something happened between them and I wanted to know what. Not because I wanted to find reasons to be more jealous or protective because I knew that he would never cheat on me, but because… Well… I wasn’t entirely sure. But, dammit, I wanted to know.

“Kate and I are just friends,” he insisted. “We never did anything.” I cocked a brow at him, and he rolled his eyes slightly. “We never kissed, we never held hands, we never… did anything. Nothing. We’re just friends. I promise.”

I nodded. I felt like such an idiot. This wasn’t who I was. Hotch and I were both grown, mature people who loved each other more than anything. Even if something did happen, it would have been a long time ago, and it wouldn’t have affected our relationship. I was just relieved to know the truth, even though I felt like a total jealous moron.

“I’m glad you asked me, though,” he complimented with a smile. I looked up at him as he continued. “I’d rather you ask than silently get jealous over nothing and turn it into a thing.”

I knew in my mind that if Hotch truly did love me— which, of course, I knew that he did— then there was absolutely nothing to worry about. Hearing him say it to my face reassured me that all I needed to know was the truth, straight from his mouth, and I could move on and do my job. Like he said, there was no reason to ponder in silence and let jealousy build for no reason. Him and Kate were friends. I had to trust that. Hotch promised once that he would never lie to me, so if he said that there was no history between them, then there wasn’t. I believed him.

“I love you,” I whispered.

“I love you, too.” He grabbed my left hand and gave it a gentle squeeze. “Thank you. Seriously.” And then his phone started ringing. We both sighed at the ruined moment as he dug it out of his pocket. “Hotchner,” he said into it while still staring at me. “Alright. We’ll be there soon.” He hung up just as quickly as he answered. “Morgan says that there’s been another murder a few blocks from where him, Rossi, and the detectives are.”

“Let’s go,” I said quietly, turning away from him.

He held my hand tighter and pulled me back to face him. “We’re okay, right?”

I nodded. “I trust you, Hotch. If you say nothing happened, then nothing happened. I’m not going to question that.”

He searched my eyes for a moment. “Thank you.”

“You’ve gotta think of a more creative way of saying ‘thank you’ at some point.” I smirked, turning away from him again so that we could head down to the car, but he didn’t follow me like I expected. He was smiling at me, but he was waiting for an opportunity to go tell Kate about the new crime scene. Right. I forgot. Kate. Just as soon as I grew jealous of her, I had entirely forgotten about her. “Go,” I told him. “I’ll meet you in the car.”

He silently hurried off to her office to let her know. I rolled my eyes to myself and made my way to the elevators. I wasn’t jealous. I trusted Hotch. I loved Hotch. He made a promise to me a couple of months ago that he would never lie to me ever again. He looked me in the eye and told me that we would never hold secrets back. I asked Hotch straight up if him and Kate were involved, and he told me that they never were. I had to believe him. I did believe him. They were friends, just like he said. And he was only going to tell her because she was still the lead on this case, and she had asked us to keep her updated on any new developments. It made sense. I shouldn’t have been pondering it too long.

When they got to the car together, Hotch took the front seat with me, while Kate took the back. At least that didn’t change. I drove us down to the crime scene with Hotch’s navigation help. It was somewhat out there for us, but just like Hotch said, it wasn’t far from the other crime scene that Morgan and Rossi were looking at. But the scene had already been taped off, which made traffic horrible, and it was nearly impossible to get into our own damn crime scene. From the backseat, Kate had to argue with two different police officers about letting us in before Rossi finally noticed us from the street corner and waved us through.

“It’s definitely our guy,” Brustin said. “Same M.O. Middle of the day, random, no pattern in victimology, hurried off before anyone could get a good look at him.”

“There wasn’t a single witness?” I asked while getting out of the car. We were on a busy street corner. Hell, the cops were having trouble holding back the crowds. How did no one see a guy shoot someone in the middle of the day on a busy road in fucking New York?

Brustin shook his head. “Nothing.”

“Y/N, go talk with Rossi to catch up on what he knows,” Hotch ordered me.

Brustin squinted, almost like he was offended by that command. To be fair, the way Hotch phrased it made it sound like he didn’t trust Brustin or Cooper and what conclusions they had come to. While we obviously still held our team’s intuition to a higher standard and were more likely to trust what our friends would tell us, Hotch’s order was still offensive to the detective, and I didn’t blame him for feeling that way. That being said, I didn’t argue with him either. I nodded and walked up to Rossi, who was standing over the body.

“Seven murders and he’s finally communicating with us,” Rossi told me, handing me an evidence bag.

I looked down at what was inside the clear bag while raising a curious brow. It was a Tarot card— specifically the card for Death. If the title on the bottom of the card wasn’t obvious enough, the artwork of Death riding a rose that was trampling over a king was a sure tell of what was going on. But why do this now? Why send us a message after so many deaths? It didn’t make sense. It didn’t fit the M.O. Realistically, the obvious answer was that the Unsub was trying to tell us that he saw himself as Death. He viewed what he was doing as an act of defiance against a higher power, which would be the king in reference to the card, but outside of that, it could have been a number of things. This could have been personally or politically motivated, but it was unlikely that these killings were sadistic or sexual. We didn’t need a card to tell us that. These shootings were long distance kills. There was no satisfaction that came from them, especially with how fast the Unsub was fleeing the scene. But toying with us because he knew that the FBI was involved now… That changed how we were building the profile. It meant that this probably wasn’t personally motivated, which left politics.

“Are we absolutely sure that this is the same guy?” I asked Rossi. He looked confused, like he didn’t understand where I was coming from. I decided to clarify. “Sure, the M.O. is the same, but this card changes everything. Why would he deviate from what he knows?”

“To tell us that he knows we’re here.”

“Obviously. But why does he care? The killings are signal enough. Why communicate like this?”

“Maybe Reid will figure something out.” Rossi shrugged.

I nodded an agreement. Something was different about this whole crime scene compared to the last ones. Despite how rushed they seemed, they were still more… I don’t know, organized in some way. Before, the Unsub was waiting until the target was alone to shoot them. But this was the middle of the day, around hundreds of witnesses. And the change in M.O. almost made the scene feel sloppy, in some way. As much as I hated to admit it, Reid could possibly give us some insight into the card, or maybe Garcia would be able to find something on the street cameras. Either way, we were stuck where we were. Those who were still at the office would be more helpful.

The drive back to the office was slower. It felt like going down to the crime scene in the first place was a waste of our time. Maybe that was the purpose of the shootings. It was possible that the Unsubs were doing this just to lead us around on a wild goose chase while they were working on something bigger. If that were true, however, then what was the bigger picture? Why string along the police and the FBI rather than just go for it. Like 9/11, they could have gone for the big one first. Why this? Why make us run around?

None of my questions seemed answered by the time we got back to the field office. Kate and Hotch were trying to run through some theories, but I had tried to focus on putting the clues together myself. Unfortunately, that didn’t seem to help. We got out of the car, and we were walking in, but I had nothing to contribute to their conversation. I think my silence was noted by Hotch, but he didn’t say anything to me about it.

As we waited for the elevator, Rossi, Morgan, and Brustin met up with us. They all started talking with Hotch and Kate about hypotheses, but I still didn’t get it. My whole “thing” was taking a quick look at something and being able to put it together with a snap of my fingers. I liked that it was my thing. Sometimes it meant that I would come to conclusions faster than Reid, and that was always a win in my book. But this case. These crime scenes. This Unsub. None of it was adding up, and I hated that I was falling short.

The elevator doors opened to Kate’s floor and we all stepped out.

“What do you have?” Hotch asked after noticing how Reid, Emily, and JJ were all crowded around a computer.

JJ looked up at us shortly before returning her gaze to the computer. “Garcia sent us the latest shooting.”

Emily played the video for us as we all gathered around them. Kate pushed herself between me and Hotch, earning a slight scoff from me and Morgan as we were shoved around. I rolled my eyes slightly, then looked down at the computer. As the footage played, we saw our victim, still unidentified, hailing for a cab with a hot dog in hand. Classic New York. A few moments later, just as a taxi was pulling up, a hooded man walked up with a gun in hand, shot the victim in the back of his head, and hurried off in a sprint.

I cocked a brow. That wasn’t very nonchalant of the Unsub. His whole thing was making this as casual as possible. So now, not only did he break M.O. by shooting with witnesses around, then leaving a card to taunt us, but now he was racing away? It didn’t feel like our guy, if I were being honest. Maybe it was a copycat, or maybe this was just another random shooting like New York saw all the time. Since we hadn’t identified the victim yet, it was possible that this was a gang hit, or maybe a hire to kill situation, or something along those lines. But it didn’t match up with our Unsub.

“Garcia says that they’re different heights, too,” Reid told us while Emily played back the video footage of the first shooting. Again, the differences were standing out. It was so obvious. “And their body types are different.”

“We’ve got more than one Unsub,” Hotch sighed, putting a palm on his forehead.

That changed our entire profile. We weren’t dealing with one guy who was politically motivated anymore. We were dealing with a duo who were trying to make a point of something. Duos were always easy to profile, though, which was a relief. In every duo case, there was a dominant and a submissive. Much like mine and Hotch’s relationship, the dominant had control over the submissive, but their connection and attraction was through their crimes— which, obvious, wasn’t like me and Hotch at all. The question in this case was which of them was the submissive and which of them was the dominant? Based on behaviors, it seemed like the first Unsub, the one who had performed the first six kills, was relaxed during the whole endeavor, which meant that he had confidence about what he was doing. On the other hand, the last kill was sloppy and rushed. If I were to guess, I would’ve said that the first Unsub was the dominant. He wanted to perform the murders because he got the most enjoyment out of them and because he knew how to do it properly; whereas the second Unsub, the submissive, seemed less sure about what to do and if doing it was right at all.

The big question now that the dominant/submissive profile was built was… why? Why were they doing this? My original hypothesis based on deductions formed around the profile of one Unsub told me that this was related to politics, but a duo killing at random changed things… And why would the submissive leave the Tarot card at the crime scene?

“Until we know why we’re doing this, we can’t get ahead of them,” Morgan said. “I think that we should get out on the streets. Increase police presence to force them into hiding while we try to build a stronger profile.”

“I only brought you here to create a profile, Agent Morgan. I don’t need your advice about what to do on the streets,” Kate responded calmly, though there was a bite to her words.

Morgan shifted on his feet. “I understand that, Agent Joyner, and we’ll have the profile ready in the morning. However, I think that based on the profile we have as of now, the smart thing to do would be to—”

“I still didn’t ask, Agent Morgan. Thank you, but I won’t be tiring out our forces just for an overnight shift.”

“They’re targeting areas like 14th Street, 42nd, 59th, 63rd—”

“Morgan,” Hotch interrupted, “it’s not your call.”

Morgan glanced between me and Hotch, as though I’d give him backup on this. I didn’t know what to say or do, though. None of us did. The whole team was just standing there, listening to Morgan and Kate’s back and forth, and Hotch, with his boss tone, had to step in to diffuse the tension. I didn’t need to get mixed up in it. I didn’t need to choose between my best friend and my boyfriend. Hotch was right that this wasn’t Morgan’s call. We were asked in by Kate to consult, that was all. He tried to tell Kate what he thought was right, and if she didn’t want to hear it, then that was her choice. He didn’t need to argue with her about it.

“Take a walk for a bit,” Hotch offered quietly.

Morgan stared at me. “You’re not going to say anything?”

“Morgan—” I tried to explain, but he threw his hands up like he didn’t want to hear it, and he walked off.

I sighed, taking a defeated step back. Hotch and Kate both looked at me, but I didn’t look at them. Instead, I told Emily to play the two videos again so that we could get back to work. Morgan clearly didn’t want me to chase after him, so I wasn’t going to. Even though it made me feel like shit. If we were going to get these guys before they could kill again, then we needed to ignore distractions for a bit. I’d apologize to Morgan later. It would probably be a nasty argument, but I think he’d understand that I wasn’t about to choose between them while in front of the team and Kate. I wouldn’t choose between them anyhow. That wasn’t fair of him.

“I can’t stare at this any longer,” Emily sighed, giving up while moving out of the seat in front of the computer.

Hotch stood tall and crossed his arms. “We’re not finding anything new. I think it’s fair to say we’re all worn out after the long day we’ve had.” He looked to Kate, “I think it’s time to call it a night.”

She nodded. “Fair enough.”

“We’ll come back at seven in the morning to give our profile.”

Kate reached out for a hug to say goodnight, but Hotch dodged it just to give her a handshake. She awkwardly accepted his hand, then Hotch ordered the team to move out. Rossi and I exchanged a glance which said: “What the fuck?” as we all headed towards the elevators.

We all grabbed our go-bags from the trunks of our cars before heading into the hotel for the night. Emily, JJ, and Reid were talking ahead about the profile, meanwhile Morgan and Hotch were hanging back with me in silence. The three of us didn’t know what to say to each other. Morgan probably still felt stung by the fact that Hotch took Kate’s side and that I didn’t do anything to stand up for him. To be fair, though, Morgan was a big boy, and he could handle himself. He knew that he overstepped with Kate. He didn’t need me.

“JJ,” Reid croaked, coming to a stop.

I nearly ran into him when I noticed what he saw. The rest of the team took notice just as quickly, but we all stayed frozen in the lobby. JJ, however, perked up and hurried over to the lounge where Will was sitting, reading an article in the newspaper about the shootings we were working on. When he noticed that we were all standing there, he jumped to his feet so that he could hug JJ, who was running at him with full speed and force.

“What are you doing here?” she asked him as they parted.

“I tried goin’ to D.C., but when that didn’ work out, I took a train here to come see ya.” He bit his lip as he stared at her.

He was so in love with her. I wasn’t sure if anyone else could tell, or if even JJ and Will were aware, but he was absolutely head over heels for her. I could see it. I knew it because it was the same way Hotch looked at me. He looked at her like she was the only thing in the world that mattered, and that nothing could change the way he felt about her. She was one of the lucky ones. I hoped that she knew that.

“Detective,” Hotch greeted, sticking his hand out for Will after we all approached cautiously.

Will shook Hotch’s hand politely. “I’m sorry for showin’ up like this. I know that y’all are working. But, um…” He hesitated as he looked back at JJ. “I can’t stand you being on this case with what’s goin’ on.”

I furrowed my brows and looked at Hotch. Did he know what was going on and elected not to tell the team because JJ asked him not to? Telling by how confused he seemed, I could tell that he didn’t know what Will meant either. Especially when he asked, “Is there a problem?”

JJ slowly turned to face all of us. She gulped as she found the courage for what she wanted to say. “I’m pregnant.”

“And I’ve asked JJ to marry me,” he said to Hotch.

Hotch smiled and shook Will’s hand again. “Congratulations.”

My eyes brightened as I threw my arms around JJ after Emily hugged her. I whispered a thousand congratulations in her ear. This was great news. We needed some good news, especially with how messy and dark our jobs were. A bright light like a baby was a gift and a half for us. I was so happy for her. While I didn’t realize that they were that serious, that didn’t stop me from hugging JJ as tight as I could and telling her that I was so excited for her and Will.

“We’ll give you two some privacy to sort things out, then,” Hotch said after JJ and I parted.

“Thank you, Hotch,” JJ said, hugging him shortly.

He smiled politely, but not like he was genuinely happy like the rest of us. He turned away to head for the elevators, and I started following him like it was an obligation, but JJ chased after him. When his attention was caught, he turned back to her and huffed, “You could have told me, JJ.”

“I know, Hotch,” she told him with lowered shoulders. “But you and Y/N—” She stopped herself. “I heard about what happened in St. Louis, and I didn’t want to… I don’t know. I’m sorry.”

I stiffened slightly. St. Louis felt like a lifetime ago. Back then, Hotch and I talked about having kids and if it were realistic for us. It turned into us having a string of arguments about it over the few days we were there, and, ultimately, I gave up because he seemed adamant on not talking about kids. He didn’t want to talk about it, let alone come to a conclusion, so I decided that he meant he didn’t want to have kids. At least not with me. And while that broke my heart into a million pieces, he tried to apologize and explain to me that he was just scared— but all that told me was that he was scared of having kids with me.

JJ had stumbled into the room while we were having one of those arguments, but I thought that she didn’t hear anything or forgot about it entirely. I never thought in a million years that she would have kept something like this from us because she was worried about stirring up more arguments between me and Hotch. Of course I was excited for her. I thought Hotch would be, too… And maybe he was, but at the moment, he just looked disappointed that she felt like she couldn’t tell him what was going on. Even worse, she didn’t tell him, and he was letting her come out into the field, which wasn’t safe. He probably felt like shit. Meanwhile, I felt like shit because she felt like she couldn’t come to me, a friend, because she didn’t want her pregnancy to impact my relationship? What kind of sense did that make? Hotch and I were our own people. We made our own choices. If we fought, we fought. Fighting was healthy. Talking about our future was good. She shouldn’t have been afraid to talk to me. I was a horrible friend…

“We’ll see you in the morning,” Hotch said to her before turning again.

JJ and I stared at each other for a moment. We both looked sorry. “I’m so happy for you, JJ. He’ll come around. I promise.” I squeezed her shoulder quickly, then ran after Hotch who was holding the elevator for me.

When the elevator doors closed, Hotch snaked his arm around my waist and pulled me towards him so that our hips were touching. As I smiled lightly and hugged him by putting my palm on his chest, he kissed my temple and whispered that he loved me.

At our room, I sighed as I closed the door behind us. It had been an incredibly long day, but the good news we just received in the lobby made up for most of it. Hotch set his briefcase down on the desk, and I put my purse beside it. We both sighed again as we put our go-bags on the floor, then sat on the edge of the bed. I pulled off my shoes while he stared at the window for a bit. When my feet were finally free, I reached down to grab my pajamas from my go-bag. I started getting dressed as the deafening silence hung in the air.

“Do you ever think about it still?” Hotch asked, pulling off his shoes one at a time. I raised a brow. “Having kids, I mean. I know that we talked about it in St. Louis, and we said that we’d hold out, but… are there ever times when you think about it… or maybe… I don’t know,” he shrugged. “Regret the choice we made?”

I shook my head. “Not really. I mean, I know that we’ll talk about it again when we’re ready.”

“What if we’re ready now?”

I paused and looked at him. I asked myself what he meant by that, and if it was really what I thought it meant. I mean, there were a thousand different things he could have been insinuating, but I was scared to guess which one, or to take the words out of his mouth. We were obviously happy for JJ and Will, and baby fever was obviously a real thing, but I didn’t think that Hotch would ever let it get to him like this.

“I mean, would you even want to get married? I know that we said we’d wait to have kids for when it would make the most sense for us; and don’t you think that getting married first—”

“Aaron.”

I froze after saying his name to let the silence sit. I didn’t have to think about it. I knew what my answer would have been if he actually got around to asking me to marry him. Of course I’d marry him in a heartbeat. I would do the whole lavish wedding, or I’d do a spur of the moment, Vegas shotgun wedding where an Elvis Presley impersonator officiated it. I would have literally done anything to marry Aaron Hotchner. Whatever he wanted, I wanted. If he wanted to run away to Fiji and get married there, I would have booked the first flight. If he wanted to wait the appropriate two year engagement period, then have a wedding in a huge venue with all of our friends and family, I would have started saving up the money.

I didn’t need to think about marrying Hotch. I didn’t even need to think about having kids with him. He was the one in St. Louis who got all uptight about the prospect of it when I brought it up. If he thought that we were ready to get married and to have kids, then I was ready to ask him what the hell took him so long to come around.

“If you’d ever ask,” I began quietly, “I’d say yes.” I tied my hair back out of my face as I continued getting ready for bed, trying to break the tension in the room. I could tell that his eyes were following me, but I didn’t stop to take note. “But you can only ask if you do it properly and not while we’re on a case. Never, ever on a case. Do you hear me, Agent Hotchner?” I stopped long enough to see that he was grinning ear to ear while nodding. “Good.” I smirked as I headed towards the bathroom to brush my teeth and wash my face.

Hotch jumped up from the bed, took his shirt off, and joined me in the bathroom to get ready for bed, too. We both started with brushing our teeth, and nothing was said between us. I kept catching him watching me through the mirror, and I rolled my eyes a few times at him. His question was still echoing through my mind, and I was sure that my answer was racing through him. I loved him more than anything. Truly. But there were times when I’d ask myself why he would look at me like that. I always wondered a lot if St. Louis was proof of some kind that Hotch and I were ultimately doomed to fail, but then he brought up kids and marriage again tonight, and I knew that he meant it. But why?

I finished brushing my teeth and washing my face long before him, somehow. Still facing the mirror, my eyes avoiding his reflection, I spoke up with, “Can I ask you something?” Hotch’s reflection stared at me for a moment before he nodded slightly. “Why me?”

“I don’t understand.”

My gaze fell to the faucet in front of me. “I mean, why… why me, Aaron? What’s so… I don’t know… appealing about me…”

Truth was, since first laying eyes on Kate, I couldn’t get over the fact that Hotch obviously had a type. Despite his insistence that nothing happened between them, there was still no denying that at one point or another, they had a spark, and some of that chemistry was still there. I asked myself that if I didn’t know Hotch, or if we weren’t dating, would he be with Kate? She looked so much like Haley, just like everyone had been whispering about all day. The fact that they had chemistry and she resembled his ex-wife, that would have been reason enough for him to seek her out once he was no longer with Haley, right? I mean, if I weren’t in the picture, maybe it would be her in the hotel room with him and not me.

I just didn’t understand how he could have a clear type, and then somehow end up with me. I tried to not be an insecure person considering I needed to have enough self-confidence to work in the field I was in, to take the chance of dating my boss, to bite back at Morgan and Reid playfully, and to stand up to Strauss when she was a pain in my ass. I needed to believe in myself or else I would fail in my career and personal life. But I was human, and sometimes I would look in the mirror, like I was doing just then, and I’d ask myself what Hotch saw in me. Why did he choose me? Why did he spend years silently passing by my office just to smile at me when he was married or, afterwards, when he could have had anyone else? Why me? What was so amazing about me that he could look me in the eyes and tell me that he loved me every day?

“Look at me,” he told me as he dropped his hairbrush on the counter. I reluctantly faced him. “I came alive when I finally met you. I saw colors for the first time. I could hear things I couldn’t hear before. I could feel things that I could never feel before. I look at you, and I see a lifetime of happiness waiting for me in your arms. When you first told me you love me, I could feel my heart restarting in my chest. I have lost a lot, Y/N… but meeting you… loving you… It’s the one constant I know I will have for the rest of my life. Every morning, I wake up and I look at you, and I think to myself that I got so damn lucky to find someone like you who loves me for me, while still encouraging me to do more, learn more, be more. I ask myself how anyone could come into my mess of a life and somehow choose to stick around, but somehow you do it. You continue to amaze me every single day when I see you at work, doing what you love, saving people’s lives. My heart melts every time I see you with Jack. My knees buckle every time you tell me you love me, and I swear I could listen to it forever.” He stepped closer to me and put his palms on my cheeks. “I look at you and I fall in love with you over and over again. I hold you in my arms and I think to myself that I should never let go because I’m so afraid that if I do, I might lose you somehow— and the thought of not getting to look at you every day, to hold you in my arms, to kiss your lips—” he dragged his thumb over my bottom lip— “to tell you that I love you every chance I can get… The thought of not having that with you because I might fuck something up… It terrifies me. You are the one person in the world who gets me. That’s why it’s you. That’s why it will always be you. You once told me that you’d never stop fighting for me, is that still true?” I nodded, pressing into his touch lovingly. “I knew the day I met you that I would do anything for you. I know that I’ll always fight for you. I know that I’d even die for you. That’s why.”

Before I could respond, Hotch leaned in close and kissed me with a fiery passion that expressed every word he just said to me in a way that both of us could feel. It was almost like his words were echoing through my body. I felt electric and on fire, all at the same time. I felt his love, warmth, and compassion with every second that passed by. Everything he said to me finally made sense when he kissed me, because I remembered that what he said was just as true for me as it was for him.

I loved Aaron Hotchner so much that it hurt sometimes. There were times when I would look at him and I would nearly cry because I was so happy, because I was so in love. No one had ever loved me like he did, and no one took the time to tell me why. Most people would have brushed off my question or allowed it to spiral into an argument because they couldn’t actually think of something to say. But not Hotch. He knew exactly what to say.

I jumped onto my tip toes and started kissing him harder to let him know that I heard him, I believed him, and I felt it all for him, too. I’d fight and die for him. I loved him more than anything in the world. Nothing made me feel more alive than kissing him. Nothing made me feel more at home than his arms. Nothing was more loving and comforting than the way he said that he loved me. The tug in my chest towards his heart skipped a beat as I thought it. I loved him. I loved him so much. I couldn’t think about anything else but how much I loved him. There weren’t enough ways to tell him just how much I loved him. The words didn’t exist, and even if they did, I didn’t have enough time in life to tell him every piece of it. There were a million and one reasons to love Aaron Hotchner, but I loved him for a billion different reasons.

Hotch lifted me off the ground. I wrapped my legs around his hips, and with my sudden height over him, I used it to dominate our kiss shortly. He set me down on the counter and pushed me away with a gentle hand on my neck. “You meant it, baby?” he asked me quietly, pressing his forehead to mine. “You’d say yes?” He was so stupid sometimes, I swear. He couldn’t just take yes for what it was. “And… and the other thing…”

“Aaron,” I whispered against his nose, “I love you more than anything. I don’t want to lose you either. So what do you think?” I smiled in response to his smirk. “Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. Does that answer it?”

“Say it again.”

“Yes.” I pecked his lips. “I’d say yes, Aaron Hotchner. I’d always say yes.”

He grabbed my hips roughly and pressed a sudden, breathtaking kiss against my lips. I tried to grab ahold of him before I could fall back against the mirror behind me. We both giggled against each other. I loved him… I wanted to scream it from the top of my lungs— which I was sure was what he planned on making happen within the next hour or so— and I never wanted to stop saying it. I loved Aaron Hotchner. I would marry Aaron Hotchner. I wanted to have kids with Aaron Hotchner. I wanted to devote my entire life and being to Aaron Hotchner. I loved him, I loved him, I loved him. Yes, yes, yes. Always.

At seven, half of the team was already set up at the police station to give the profile there, while the other half of us were at the FBI New York Field Office to deliver the profile to the Bureau workers. Since this was a joint task force operation, it was imperative that the NYPD was also aware of what we were looking for. That being said, I was glad that I didn’t draw the short stick on that one. Emily, Spencer, and Morgan had to go downtown to talk with them, meanwhile Hotch, Rossi, and I went to the field office. They were well behaved and good listeners. The NYPD, on the other hand… with how Morgan lost it last night, I did not pity them.

Delivering the profile was fairly textbook, but the profile itself was anything but that. It seemed like the team heeded my advice about the Unsubs’ intentions, because the profile we built around them relied heavily on the fact that they were politically motivated. There was some kind of bigger plan at play, though we weren’t sure yet what it was. That was why we needed everyone else’s help. We knew that because there were two Unsubs completing the tasks of these seemingly random murders, we were dealing with a dominant/submissive pair. Explaining that part to the field office was fairly textbook, however. Because of how they had planned and executed these attacks, it was easy to conclude that they were sophisticated and intelligent. Therefore, at least the dominant had a steady job—which was also why they were only hitting at certain times.

When we concluded delivering the profile to the agents in the field office, I saw Hotch pull Kate to the side to discuss putting more men on the street. When they left, everyone turned to me. The snickers that had been plastered to their faces yesterday morning when joking about how they liaised together were now frowns and pouts of apologies. But I wasn’t jealous or upset. Not since last night. What Hotch and I discussed—what we practically decided—made me over the moon happy. How could I be jealous of Kate anymore when I knew that Hotch wanted to marry me and he saw us living our whole lives together? I trusted him. I had to remind myself of that. The team didn’t know these new developments, however. All they knew was that all of yesterday, I looked miserable while thinking about what could have potentially happened between Hotch and Kate. But last night… “Magical” felt like a hyperbolic term or one alluding to Disney, which in itself felt overdramatic, but… last night… Hotch and I… There were honestly no words.

While everyone went to go back to work after giving me soft, apologetic eyes, I grabbed JJ’s hand and practically yanked her into the women’s bathroom. She tried protesting, but I didn’t relent. Once the door was closed behind us, I turned to her with a giddy smile that only made her urge for answers more prominent.

“Hotch and I talked last night,” I told her, making sure all of the stalls were clear. She was watching me like I was a crazy person. I turned to her with a wider smile once I was sure that we were alone. “I think he’s going to propose once we get home.”

JJ’s eyes widened, but not in a good way like I had for her last night. She seemed genuinely shocked and almost… disturbed. “What?” she scoffed.

I tried to maintain my smile. “Yeah. We talked last night, and I think you bringing up St. Louis again brought up a good point for us, JJ. We’re ready. We’ve always been ready, but we’ve just been scared.” I took her hands. “JJ, I think this is it. Seriously.”

“I—” she chuckled back another scoff as she carefully tore her hands away from mine. “I didn’t realize that you two were that serious.”

My smile finally faded. “What?”

“I mean…” She crossed her arms over her chest. “You guys have only been dating for, what, a year? And you were already talking about kids around the six months mark or so? And now you’re talking about getting married? Don’t you think you’re moving things a little fast?”

I took a defensive, defeated step away from her. “What?” I repeated like a broken record.

“Listen, Y/N, dating Hotch and seeing Jack occasionally is one thing, but are you really willing to be Jack’s mother just as much as Haley is? Are you willing to spend more time with Haley for the sake of Hotch and Jack without making things awkward for them? Are you prepared for if Hotch makes a widow of you while on a case—or is he even prepared for if you make a widower of him? Have you considered any of this before taking the idea of marriage seriously?”

I thought that, of all people, JJ would get it. She hardly knew Will any longer than Hotch and I knew each other, and they were already having a kid together. Why was it that she got that opportunity freely, but I had to consider a thousand different things and jump through a million hoops to prove that I loved Hotch and that I would do anything for him? Yes, I was willing to be a mother to Jack—actually, I would have loved to be a mother to Jack. I practically already felt like I was. What was the difference in putting the actual label on it? And, of course I was willing to spend more time with Haley. There was obviously a cold shoulder feeling between us, but for the most part, we got along fairly well. If dealing with Haley meant being with Hotch and Jack, then, yes, I was willing to do that. And losing Hotch… No… I wasn’t ready for that. No one was ever ready for something like that. I was sure that Will and JJ weren’t even prepared for potentially losing each other. That wasn’t a fair jab on JJ’s behalf. It wasn’t. Losing Hotch was my worst nightmare. If anything bad ever happened to him, I’d die.

Before I could say anything to argue with JJ, there was a knock at the door. We both sighed off the tension as we looked away from one another. I cleared my throat. JJ opened the door slightly. I could see a sliver of Hotch’s silhouette, but he was keeping his back turned to not make it look like he was peeking into the women’s bathroom.

JJ looked at me slightly, “There’s another victim.”

I cursed under my breath. Before she could say anything else, I pushed past her and hurried out of the bathroom. Hotch and I brushed shoulders as I stormed out. I could sense that, behind me, Hotch and JJ were exchanging a glance where Hotch was asking for answers and JJ was shrugging off his gaze.

In the office space, I could hear that Morgan and Kate were fighting again. I wasn’t sure what was going on between them, but it was really starting to tick me off. There were a thousand reasons I should have been picking fights with Kate, but I knew that it wasn’t my place and there wasn’t time. I also talked to Hotch—you know, as adults do, and we solved the issue before it could be blown out of proportion. Whatever was going on with Morgan needed to be resolved soon or I was actually going to smack some sense into him.

“We could’ve had that guy!” Morgan exclaimed. “If you and Hotch just listened to me last night, this wouldn’t’ve happened.”

Kate rolled her eyes. “Even if we were on that platform, odds are that they would have targeted a different, less policed platform.”

“Yeah, well, at least that woman would still be alive.”

“Morgan,” Hotch said, coming up from behind me to step between them, “second-guessing isn’t going to do any of us any good right now—”

Morgan turned his attention. “Hotch, how am I supposed to look these cops in the eye and tell them that we’re here to help?”

“You’re not. We’re here to give the profile, that’s all.”

“I said to put us at express stops. 14th, 42nd, 59th, 63rd. That’s exactly where they hit!”

“It’s not your place to have this discussion or make this decision, Derek!”

“My place?” Morgan scoffed. “My place, Hotch? Are you fucking kidding me right now?”

“You need to back off. You need to stay focused here and not let your emotions get in the way.”

Morgan chuckled. “That’s funny, Hotch. Focused. From where I’m standing, all of your focus has been on her,” he pointed at Kate.

Kate rolled her eyes, Hotch bit the inside of his cheek, and I sighed to myself while trying to practically hide behind Rossi. I didn’t want to get mixed up in any of that. Morgan had a short fuse since coming to New York. Whatever possible reason there was for it, I needed to wait until he was cooled down to confront him about it. As for what he said about Hotch and Kate, he wasn’t necessarily wrong. Yes, Hotch was going out of his way to stand up for Kate, even though it wasn’t his job to. I supposed that should have made me mad, but I couldn’t focus on anything besides what JJ said to me in the bathroom. I confided in her as a friend. I thought that she would have been excited for me, yet I was only met with skepticism. I hated it.

“Take a walk. Now,” Hotch said quietly and angrily.

Morgan huffed, giving up on fighting with Hotch again. He didn’t look at me as he turned towards the elevators so that he could catch some of that “fresh” New York City air. There was silence for the longest time in the office. Kate was watching Hotch, but he was watching me, and I was watching JJ. We all had different things on our minds, and none of it had to do with the case. Great. How were we supposed to save people like this? How were we supposed to put our jobs first when Kate clearly still had feelings for Hotch, and he was worried about me and the conversation we had last night, all the while I was mad at JJ for what she said. And then there was Morgan… Morgan was mad at practically all of us. He was mad at Kate for who knew what, he was mad at Hotch for defending her over him, he was mad at me for not having his back, and he was mad at the rest of the team for not taking a side.

“Kate,” Hotch whispered, nodding towards her office. She caught his hint and followed him there.

The rest of us stood around, completely clueless as to what we should do. Normally, we would head down to the crime scene to investigate, but that system had proven to be useless over the past couple of murders. More was getting done around the office than the crime scenes. But not this time. It felt like we were always in the wrong place. Maybe Morgan really did have a point. If Hotch and Kate had just listened to him, this wouldn’t have happened—or maybe it still would’ve happened, but at least we would’ve had cops on the streets to try and stop the Unsub, or maybe someone on the team could race to the crime scene to tell us if it were worth taking a look at or not. But now we had nothing. Kate and Hotch were talking privately and the rest of us were doing fuck all.

It didn’t take long for them to talk, however. Hotch opened the door to her office again, ushering her through, and then they met us back in the office space.

“We’re going to be putting all of our forces on the streets today,” Kate announced to everyone.

“Now?” I questioned. We had no proof that they would hit more than once in one day. What was the point of taking Morgan’s advice now? It would have been better if they just waited until tomorrow.

Kate squinted at me. “Yes. Now. We’ll all pair up, taking different streets and stations where we anticipate their next attack. Even if they won’t strike again today, it’s very likely that they’ll be scouting their next targets, which means that they’ll stick out like sore thumbs. Our job today is to look for people out of place and to question them. That’s all.”

I scoffed quietly and looked at Hotch. Now I know how Morgan felt “I’ll go with Derek, I guess.” I threw my hands up in disbelief of what I was seeing and hearing. I couldn’t believe Hotch was agreeing to this. We could’ve been staying to work on the profile instead of stalking the streets for no reason.

So while everyone quietly started pairing up, they kept an eye on me as I headed for the elevator. When I reached the lobby, I saw Morgan pacing angrily, hitting the wall with his foot every time he ran into one. When he spotted me, though, he stopped pacing, and his face softened a bit. My face was still hot with the anger that was building in my chest. Morgan’s frustration was rubbing off on me and I didn’t exactly appreciate it.

“Let’s go,” I huffed, walking straight past him. He followed on my heels. “Kate’s finally putting everyone out on the street.”

“You’re kidding,” he chortled.

“We’re all one step behind these two Unsubs, yet Kate seems about three steps behind us. I don’t understand why Hotch trusts her so much.”

“Their history?”

I shook my head as we pushed through the front doors of the building. “I asked him about it, and he told me that nothing ever happened between them.”

“Be that as it may, but they still have some kind of feelings for each other. She definitely likes him more, and I’m not saying he likes her like that, but… There was something there at some point, Y/N, and that’s all getting dragged up again.”

“I get that,” I said when we reached the SUV on the road that we were going to take to our assignment. “But that still doesn’t excuse his ignorance.”

“I know.”

We got in the car and I told Morgan where we were headed.

We were sitting in the car for a few hours, scanning the road, watching pedestrians as they passed by. Morgan and I chatted a bit about stuff outside of work because that was clearly a sore, irritating topic for us both. Unfortunately, there was a good hour or so where I had to hear about some of his hookups. Every detail. I think he forgot that just because we were best friends didn’t exactly mean I needed to hear about how many women he could sleep with in one night. I mean, hey, I was glad he trusted me with that information, but there were some things that were better unsaid.

“What’s going on with you?” I asked quietly. Morgan looked at me suddenly. “Why are you and Kate arguing all the time?”

Morgan sighed. “It’s nothing.”

“It’s not nothing. She’s got you all riled up. For what?”

His grip tightened on the steering wheel out of frustration. “Hotch told me something yesterday.” I cocked a brow. “The Bureau’s going to fire Kate if she doesn’t close this case with a ribbon on top.”

“Okay. So? Why should you care? Do you like her or something?”

He shot me a glare. “No. If she’s kicked out, I’m at the top of her replacement list.”

My heart dropped to my stomach. That was why he was challenging authority. He could see the position in his future. He saw that he could potentially be running the New York Field Office soon, and he was letting it get to his head. The whole point of our job was that we weren’t supposed to let emotions get in the way, but he was doing the exact opposite, almost like he was hoping that Kate would fail. Obviously, we didn’t want this pair of Unsubs to keep killing, but… he wanted that job. And I didn’t blame him. I didn’t want him to leave us—to leave me, but it was a good fucking opportunity. If he ended up getting the job offer for one reason or another, I’d have to let him go, even though it would kill me. He was my best friend. He was my partner in the field. I didn’t know how to do this without him. But if I had to, then I had to. That was life.

“Morgan—”

“Garcia! We’ve got an officer down!” Emily shouted into the comms. Morgan immediately pressed his foot onto the gas pedal while l turned on the lights and sirens. “16th West of Union Square!”

We weren’t very far from 16th. I mean, in New York traffic, we were pretty far; but with the lights and sirens on, we moved somewhat faster through the crowd of cars. Morgan weaved his way through, honking at every car that refused to move, cursing at every pedestrian that was in our way, cursing to himself that we weren’t getting to Emily faster. This was what he wanted, though. He told Kate we should put cops on the streets. Yet look what happened. Cooper went with Emily, and she called it in, but what were we supposed to do if we found Emily lying on the concrete, too? I don’t think either of us would be able to handle it.

As we approached 17th, I could see the crowd surrounding an alleyway just on 16th. Morgan made a turn and sped up to them to see what was going on. While he slowed down, I popped my door open and jumped out, running with the momentum of the car a bit to make sure I wouldn’t fall flat on my face. I pushed through the crowd of pedestrians, calling out: “FBI! Move!” while shoving them around. When I got through, I saw them. Emily was crouched over Cooper, and there was an Unsub about ten feet away from them, bleeding out.

I cursed under my breath and ran to the Unsub, pulling off my jacket so that I could use it to put pressure on his wounds. He couldn’t die. We needed him. He was our only chance of getting answers. But he wasn’t conscious. He was breathing, yet he wasn’t awake. If we could keep him alive long enough, to keep the two bullet wounds in his chest at bay for just a few more hours, we could get answers.

I pressed onto my jacket on his chest with both of my palms. I was trying to stop the bleeding until the paramedics could arrive, but he was already bleeding through the fabric of my jacket. I didn’t know what else to do. The ambulances were close—I could hear their sirens just a few blocks away. But I didn’t know what else to do. With all the blood he lost… And then he started to crash. My breath hitched before I started performing CPR in a panic. We couldn’t lose him. We just couldn’t.

He suddenly woke up with a gasp. As his eyes adjusted to the sunlight, he tried to wiggle around, but I held him still to make sure he wouldn’t cause anymore internal harm. He looked up at me. “Let me die.”

I froze. I wasn’t going to let him die. No. “What’s your name?”

“Let me die…”

“No,” I answered quickly. “What’s your name, kid?”

“Ma’am, we’ll take it from here,” a paramedic said, racing up behind me. I didn’t even realize that they had already made it. So I moved back, letting them get to work since they could do more than I could. “Step away,” he insisted, pointing to the end of the alleyway.

I nodded silently, then slowly turned on my heels. As I slowly started making my way out of the alley, I glanced over my shoulder to get a look at the Unsub one last time. He was just a kid… seventeen or eighteen, maybe. He didn’t look like the type of submissive or dominant to be running around these streets. He just looked like any normal kid. So why? The dominant wouldn’t have gotten caught, and he didn’t fit the description of the submissive. So… what was going on?

“Are you okay?” Morgan asked worriedly, running up to a shell shocked Emily. She nodded slightly. “Is he going to make it?” We all looked at the ambulance where they were loading up Cooper to take him to the hospital.

Her gaze fell to the ground. “I— I don’t… I don’t know.”

I suddenly felt a hand on my shoulder. “You okay, kid?” Rossi asked me.

I didn’t say anything. That kid down there was going to die because I couldn’t do more… How was I supposed to live with that? I could shoot an Unsub, no problem, but trying to save a kid? It didn’t make sense why it was hitting me so hard. It shouldn’t have mattered. He should have been any old Unsub. But he was a kid… Hotch and I were talking about having kids… What if someone shot our— No.

“Let me get you something to wipe this off,” Rossi said, pointing to my bloody hands. He snapped at Reid, a signal to find a rag or something. “What happened?” he asked me, trying to get me to focus on something.

I shook my head. “I… Morgan and I got here afterwards… Emily… She…” I looked up at him as Reid returned with a rag and started gently wiping the blood off my hands. “He’s just a kid, Rossi. He doesn’t match the descriptions of our Unsubs.”

“You think that this is an unrelated, isolated case?” Reid inquired.

I glanced between him and my hands. The fucking blood wasn’t coming off. It was still wet, and it should have been wiped away with ease, but it was still there, drying, taunting me. I had a kid’s blood on my hands. “No,” I answered him quietly. “It’s the same; I just don’t understand how.” I shyly looked at Rossi. “He wanted me to let him die.”

Rossi’s face relaxed, almost like something important occurred to him. “I think we have a serious fucking problem,” he cursed under his breath. Reid stopped wiping my hands clean. When I looked down again, though, it didn’t look like he made any progress, so I started scratching at it. “We have multiple Unsubs, they’re willing to die— according to Y/N— they’re using counter-surveillance, there seems to be a hierarchy, a random thirst for blood, a need to create chaos amongst the masses—”

“Terrorists,” I mumbled.

“Exactly.”

“What do we have?” Hotch asked, running up to us with Kate hot on his heels.

Still scratching at my hands to get the blood off, I answered, “Cooper’s headed to the hospital, the Unsub’s too unstable to transport right now—”

“Do they think he’ll make it?” Kate inquired.

I stared at her for a moment before shaking my head. I continued talking to Hotch, “There’s a problem, though. This guy’s a third Unsub, and he begged me to let him die, Hotch. We were just talking about it…” I trailed off, unsure of how to proceed while still focusing on the damn blood that wouldn’t come off my hands.

Reid took over after noticing my awkward silence. “We think these guys might be terrorists.” Everyone’s posture changed. “The murders simulate bombings. Typically, with terrorist bombings, there’s one, less lethal bombing to gauge police response times, then there will be another bombing on another day with a second bombing to follow suit once the emergency responders get there. The targets are usually civilians for the test bombing and the first bombing so as to create chaos. The second bombing, however, is the main focus of the attacks, and that’s because attacking emergency responders is, in a way, attacking the government and the system itself. Today, what we saw was that plan finally being enacted. They’ve been test running with the past few shootings in order to get our attention, which is also what the Tarot card was for, and once they knew that they had first responders on the street, they went for it. If Emily didn’t shoot the Unsub, he would’ve shot her.”

I looked at the blood on my hands again to notice that it was gone. My palms were all red from scratching them up, but the blood had been gone ever since Reid wiped it away, and I hadn’t noticed. Something about how Reid mentioned that the Unsub lying on the ground probably seven feet away from us would’ve killed Emily made me suddenly less empathetic.

“This is the bigger play here, Aaron,” Rossi said. “This is what we’ve been missing.”

Hotch’s phone started ringing. He glanced at the caller ID first to see if it were something he could ignore while we were talking about a potential terror attack. It must have been important because he answered it and put it on speaker. “Garcia?”

“Sir, we’ve got a problem. I’ve been looking through all the cameras since the last shooting, and they’ve all been hacked into. That’s how they’ve been watching us. That’s how they’ve been ahead of us this entire time.”

“How did we not catch that sooner?”

“It was system wide. I had to check camera by camera to be sure.”

Hotch sighed. “Okay. Thanks, Garcia.” He hung up on her. “This isn’t just a theory anymore. If the shootings were just a test, there’s going to be something big.”

Hotch put his phone away in his pocket. “Morgan and Y/N, head to Homeland Security to discuss raising this to a terrorist watch level. It’s…” He hesitated. “It’s possible that there will be a bombing soon.”

“Morgan, you have bomb experience, so I want you to head this if it comes to that point,” Kate said. Morgan, Hotch, and I all seemed shocked. “If that’s alright with you.”

Morgan nodded. “Sure.”

Before jumping onto our toes so that we could hurry back to our car, Hotch stopped us to make sure that we would stay in contact. These guys were going after first responders and they were watching us. We had to consider that we were all targets. Morgan and I agreed. Then we hurried off. The second we were in our seats, Morgan started driving off. Neither of us had our seatbelts on.

The sun was already starting to set, which meant that it would be dark soon, and that we were running out of time. If this really was as bad as we figured it was, then it meant that a bomb could go off at any point. It could have happened before, during, or after our meeting with Homeland Security, and then what? The whole city would go under lock down, our whole team separated. It wasn’t ideal. So we had to race to convince Homeland Security that this was a real, viable threat.

My phone buzzed with a call that I picked up as soon as I could, not even bothering to look at the caller ID. “Greenaway,” I answered.

“Hey,” Hotch greeted, “I just wanted to let you know that Kate and I are heading back to the field office right now. When you and Morgan are done at Homeland, meet us there before we head to the hotel for the night.”

“Okay. Sounds good. I’ll let Morgan know.”

“Thanks. I love you.”

That caught me off guard for a moment, but I tried not to overthink it. It probably had to do with trying to prove to me and himself that nothing happened with Kate— at least nothing that mattered— or that our conversation last night shouldn’t matter, or maybe it really was just an accident. Either way, I returned the favor before hanging up and tossing my phone in the cup holder.

“What was that about?” Morgan inquired.

“Hotch wants us to meet up with him and Kate at the office before going back to the hotel for the night.”

“Did he say why?”

I shook my head. “I figure it’s probably just to review our meeting with Homeland Security, and then we’ll be set loose.”

“Hopefully. I’m exhausted.”

“I could use a drink.” I threw my head back against the headrest.

“What’s been up with you today?” he asked, keeping his eyes on the road. I raised a brow. “Come on, Greenaway. I know when something’s wrong with you.”

“How—”

“Don’t ask because I won’t tell you how I know. But, seriously, what is it?”

“Did JJ tell you?” I narrowed my eyes suspiciously.

He looked over at me. “No. But now you’ve piqued my interest.”

I silently cursed myself for saying anything at all. If I would have just kept my mouth shut, I could have denied that something was wrong, or I could have just avoided the topic altogether by not saying anything until we would get to the Homeland Security office. But now Morgan definitely wasn’t going to leave it alone. It wasn’t like I didn’t want to discuss Hotch with Morgan. I knew that Morgan loved me and he was glad that we were happy with each other… but after what JJ said, I was scared to talk about it with anyone else. I thought that, of all people, JJ would have understood; yet she took my heart in her hand and practically squeezed it into dust. I didn’t want Morgan to give me the same pessimistic opinion.

I let out a quiet sigh and stared at my sweaty palms. “Hotch and I talked last night about getting married and having kids.” I waited, trying to gauge if Morgan would protest just yet. He didn’t react, though. “I told him that I’d marry him in a heartbeat, and I’d have kids with him whenever. I mean… that wasn’t exactly what was said, but that was the gist of it… I was really excited about it, though, Derek. I felt like Hotch and I were on the same page about it, and I even figured that once this was all over with, he might even propose…” I hesitated when I saw his grip on the steering wheel tense. My shoulders fell in defeat. “JJ thinks we’re rushing and should hold off on making any big decisions like that.”

“I agree with JJ,” he insisted quickly before I could continue.

I felt my heart sink in my chest. My worst fear had been realized. It didn’t matter how happy anyone on the team was for me and Hotch, they didn’t understand why we were already talking about getting married a year into our relationship. Morgan would always give me shit for dating Hotch, but I thought that it was always because of the age difference, or the fact that he was my superior. But I never stopped to think that it was because he thought that Hotch and I weren’t actually that serious. We were. I couldn’t imagine my life with anyone else but Hotch. Of course I wanted to marry him and have a family with him. Why wait if we knew that it was what we wanted? What was the point of dancing around it? I was serious about it, Hotch was serious about it… Why could no one else seem to understand that?

Morgan took notice of my silence, so he decided to backpedal and explain himself. “You know I love you, sunshine, but… Come on. I know that things seem really good, and they probably are because you’re still technically in the honeymoon stage of your relationship, but I don’t want you to jump the gun on this and get hurt like Haley got hurt. Hotch is different around you, there’s no denying it. I just worry that he might wake up one day and realize that he doesn’t want to be this new person anymore. He might want to be who he’s always been. And if that happens, I don’t want you to get hurt because of it. It’s easy to wiggle out of a situation like that when you have no legal ties. But look at Haley. She wanted out, yet she’s still tied to him. If you get married, or if you have kids, and things fall apart, what are you going to do? Stick around like Haley does? Stay in the BAU and pretend like nothing happened?” He looked over at me, reading the disappointed look I was wearing, and he grabbed my hand. “I want what’s best for you. If you really think you’re ready for the next steps, then I can’t stop you. But maybe you should just think about it a little longer—”

My phone started ringing. I thanked literally every higher power imaginable from saving me from hearing the rest of that. And, honestly, Morgan was probably relieved, too. It seemed like he was rambling in order to try and save his rapport with me, but it wasn’t helping. I knew that he meant well. I knew that he loved me. I knew that he was just looking out for me. But I really wanted his support on this when JJ wouldn’t give it. I felt like if even one person could be happy for us, then that was good enough for me. But Hotch and I cared too much about our team and what they thought of us to not take into account how they each felt about us. If there was any chance that our relationship was going to impact the team, they had every right to know about it beforehand in the same way Jack and Haley deserved to know.

“Garcia?”

“Oh, my god, you’re okay,” she sighed with relief.

I raised a brow and put the call on speaker so that Morgan could listen in. “What’s going on?” I asked.

“You haven’t heard?”

Morgan and I shared a look of confusion. “Penelope, what happened?” Derek asked this time.

“I—Wh—” She sniffled.

“Penelope,” he insisted, getting worried.

“There was a bomb in one of the cars. I don’t know where anyone is, I don’t know who took which car, I don’t know who’s okay, I don’t—”

“Woah, woah, woah, baby girl. Calm down. Use your words. Explain what happened.”

We heard Garcia take in a deep, calming breath. “There was a bomb in one of the SUVs.”

“Where?”

“Just outside of the field office.”

I nearly dropped my phone. Hotch called me from the car he and Kate were in on their way to the field office. He told us to meet him there. He— He was in one of those SUVs. I just heard from him— It couldn’t be him, right? Right… Please. My head started to spin.

“Have you heard from Hotch?” Morgan asked for me.

“I haven’t heard from anyone. You guys are the first ones I called. I didn’t know what else to do—”

“Calm down. It’s going to be alright. Call my phone and keep me on the line while you try to get ahold of everyone else. Y/N’s going to call Hotch, alright?”

I silently thanked him for knowing me well enough to know that I would want to be the one to call Hotch. He probably understood that I was fearing the worst, thinking that it was Hotch and Kate in that bombing. He knew that I’d be desperate to get off the phone with Garcia so that I could get ahold of Hotch. I thanked him for knowing me like that. I thanked him for being my friend who looked out for me. Even if he was an asshole only a minute ago.

“Okay,” Garcia agreed. She hung up the call on my phone, and moments later, Morgan’s phone started to ring.

As he answered, I started dialing Hotch’s number. It started ringing. One. Beat. Two. Beat. Three. Beat. Four. Beat. Five. Beat. Click.

“You’ve reached Aaron Hotchner. Leave your name and message and I’ll get back to you when I can.”