Tell me, is this just a dream? 'Cause I'm really not fine at all.

Admittedly, Keiran had a problem. And he wasn't just talking about the pain or the confusion he felt, either. He was actually just irritated. Blinking down at the carpeted floor, his brow furrowed as he tried to piece together exactly what was happening. She wanted something from him, apparently, so he would inevitably do as she had asked. But she clearly didn't need him, as she had done it all herself and wandered into the bathroom. What good was he if his wife didn't need him or want his help? Perhaps he had been too vocal about his new opportunity. His lips, though previously parted as he tried to discern what was going on, closed as Keiran stood to gather her request.

He hadn't meant to offend her by forgetting momentarily about the pain she would be experiencing. Keiran wondered briefly if he had gone through the same ordeal with his leg, but it clearly wasn't the time to ask. He didn't appreciate the gravity of the situation until he actually looked into the bathroom, catching more proof of her accident. Why the hell had people been fussing over him earlier, when she was clearly the one deserving of the worry. The one who needed it. Pushing away the questions he had, the re-instated professor sank onto the step surrounding the bathtub, careful to keep his gaze somewhere appropriate.

He nodded slowly at her commentary, tilting his head from side to side as he considered her words. "Yes. It'll do for now. I can't expect too much, after all. I've time, yet."

His fingers lifted to comb through his hair as he sat listening to her, but then he just gave a long sigh. "No, no," Keiran replied, using his cane to assist him in standing. His hand reached out to take the glass from her. "Pictures later is fine. You need to relax," he reminded her as he left the room. He had wanted to replace his last sentence with You don't need to deal with me tonight, but that seemed cold and detrimental to their attempts at getting back to normal.

A refill was provided as she had asked, and Keiran brought back the decanter and set it on the step in place of himself. Instead of returning to her side, he set off in search of pain potion as he had forgotten to pick up earlier. Unless someone else had unpacked - which, they probably had considering the accident - it would be stored in one of the cabinets in the bathroom. He couldn't find anything helpful, though, so he wandered into the living area and dug about until he was holding it in his hand. That, too, was dropped off at her side before he started across to get ready for bed. "When you're done there," he said, setting his cane against the counter and shirking his robes so he could unbutton the long-sleeved shirt below, "let me know. I can-"

Keiran's words halted as he caught sight of the thin white lines that marred his torso. They must have come from whatever caused his leg, he mused, his eyes tracing his image in the mirror. Shaking it off, he went in search of a tee-shirt he could wear to bed, and continued to make his earlier point. "I can help you do whatever you might need. I mean, you might rather do it yourself," he conceded, tugging the tee over his head and pushing his arms into the sleeves, "but I'll just be in the other room, so it's no trouble."

Hesitating at the door, Keiran offered a gentle smile and a firm nod before turning to head back into the living area.

Long fingers reached out, twinkling through the hot, steaming air, and with the barest tips, her scuffed and cracked nails catching over the crystal, they turned the squared stopper. It lifted from the neck of the bottle with a pop that seemed to almost echo and linger in the air. Then with visible effort those fingers reached out and with the palm braced against the body of the thing, the whisky was poured, glugging generously into the glass held shakily in the only part of that side which, to her, felt human. Then, when the decanter was half-placed, half-dropped on the side she greedily lifted her glass to her lips, passing them with the sharp liquid that made her, in her entirety, feel human.

It took a minute but before the alcohol began to set in amidst the warmth of the room she did realise she’d become them. Her parents. Her father. The man she’d adored. Who’d drank himself to death over the end of everything he’d ever known. Who she’d never felt more akin to when they’d been smoking in the kitchen, eating takeaways every night and knowing for sure that if it was one thing he’d never forget, it’d be the alcohol. They’d squandered so much. Fifty, one-hundred, a hundred and fifty pounds an evening. Soon he didn’t go back to work. They lived on savings. A merry life they led, too. She couldn’t remember the majority of it and was thrilled at a chance to forget her life then as now.

Then he was dead.

In his place had come her – she who opened the carafes the same way, she who adored her twins with all of the fire and passion that her mother had used to hate her father and she who was going to drown her sorrows in the same way that the pair of them had always done. She hadn’t realised for a long time that she was him, but of course gifted with all of her mother’s penchants for poor decisions and selfishness. Yet, as she fell back into the water, her eyes closing not out of relaxation but because she couldn’t keep them open anymore, she knew that in sipping the whisky and, as she did stretch up to do once he’d left it there, take the pain potion with it, she was them.

That feeling, that desire, to be anything and everything unlike your parents, to ignore their rule and try to make life different? It doesn’t work that way. You are the sum of what is inside of you, tweaked slightly by environmental factors. Millie was tweaked by the same factors that adjusted her own parents, with an extra few doses of loss in there just to really dig in the knife. So she was them. She lived and breathed their poison. She drank the same poison. She was it. Poison. Death. Despair.

Millie looked up from her own brooding amidst the scarlet water and glanced at him, wondering why the thrumming sound of his voice had been given over to silence. Her eyes unseeingly set upon his chest and her mind produced an image of what he might have saw. She didn’t know where her glasses were. Happy to sit through the feast without lenses or specs, it hadn’t really occurred to her until now she wanted to see and perceive with all of the clarity that could be afforded to her. She knew what he saw, though. It was etched on the back of her eyelids. She didn’t think she’d ever forget any of the scenes of that night.

“My handiwork,” she uttered with a half-smile, swallowing back more of the whisky before endeavouring to pour some more, bits disappearing into the water as she grew clumsy. In the end she tossed the glass into the water once she’d drained it of its contents. The faint clunk of it hitting the bottom didn’t faze her much and instead she drew the decanter to her chest, from which she supped as though it was a fountain possessing life-granting powers. It did nothing to brighten her but as the whisky mixed with the potion, she was beginning to lose the smarting in her shoulder – though she didn’t know what was having more of an effect, mind you. The whisky, or the potion.

“Sewed you up like you were a jumper that needed patching or a button needing put back on,” she shook her head, snapping her eyes shut when a scalding ache lit up inside of it, encouraging her not to do that again. She took more from the decanter and for a moment that solved the issue so she took some more, to encourage complete felicity.

There was a bit of her that wanted to point out she didn’t think she’d ever be done. In fact, she was almost certain she wouldn’t but between the boys earlier and now herself taking from it in no measured way, the whisky was disappearing and so there was nothing left to keep her in that bath. The lacerations were clean now and the majority had given into clotting once more. None of the swelling around her shoulder where her collarbone had been reset or something – whatever Cael had done to it – had gone down but she felt level. As level as one could with the majority of a decanter of whisky in their system, added to with a smattering of pain potions.

It took a while but eventually, once the whisky was finished, she knew she’d have to get out. She didn’t know what she’d say to Keiran if she had to ask him for any more help. In fact, in her state she wanted to be stubbornly independent. Of all things, her body was the only thing she was sure of. Everything else was gone. The twins who she would have gone to, to cry into, had been whisked off to Bridget’s – the boys having had enough sense to take all hints of them away and smother back the doors to the nursery, as though they’d never been there. Tapestries now hung over where they would’ve been. She wanted to rip them down, burn them and seize her way inside in the hope that somehow that would undo time and she would be there again, setting them down to sleep and maybe the train wouldn’t fall and Keiran would be alright and-

A sob blistered past her lips. A shaky hand lifted from the murky water and she pressed her palm into her mouth as another ripped through her, jarring her shoulder and causing her to wail quietly even further as more physical pain was introduced. Tears rapidly began to spill over her cheeks, splashing thickly onto her hand and dropping intermittently into the water. But as quickly as the lapse happened, it disappeared. She splashed cold water over her face, scrubbed cruelly at her eyes and steeled herself by slipping a dribble of the whisky down her throat. She wanted out of the water and while doing so with only one arm was awkward, she managed to touch her feet down on the bath mat in the end.

Dressing was the easiest bit. Despite the chill of the night she needed to get the bandaging back on. She dried herself with a spell and donned a top with spaghetti straps. Then, after pulling on her pyjama bottoms she found out some bandage and some more tape for her jaw, the heat having pealed it off, away from her skin. She abandoned the bathroom and the bedroom thereafter and entered the living room with a renewed sense of disappointment and despair but this time she kept her peace and instead set her things down on one of the side tables before making her way towards the drinks cabinet, her eye having caught sight of it sitting innocently in the corner.

Rum. Rum would do for now. It was spiced, which she hated though it had been a gift, and she poured out an unruly amount of it into a glass, neat, which she began to drink, ignoring the way it burned at her throat and made her eyes splinter and wince with tears as the sharpness of it ripped through her. It was relief. That was what it was. At some point, though come the morning she wouldn’t be able to trace how she did it, she came to sit down on the sofa, setting the bottle down beside her feet and the glass she brought down to rest on her knee.

She looked at Keiran, then. All she could see was blankness. He was there. The man she loved. But he wasn’t. He was replaced by someone who looked like her husband but was coloured with the mists of confusion – of not knowing who she was, of not knowing, also, who he was. He’d gotten a little bit of meaning back. She knew he’d be able to orientate himself and move on by using Charms and the Deputy Headmaster position. He’d find out how to deal with life as it was now and he’d do it using that. She wasn’t sure how she fit in, though.

“I’m sorry,” she muttered finally, glancing at him. “For all of it, I’m sorry. I’m sorry you woke up with a year gone but married to me. I’m sorry about everything that’s put on you because of me. I’m sorry my sewing skills are so shoddy. I’m sorry that bastard Death Eater that did that to you is still alive. I’m sorry that those Werewolves don’t look as bad as I do.” She ran her fingers along her jaw and brought the rum back to her lips again. “I’m sorry, in advance, for everything you have to find out. Because it’s shit, Keiran. It’s all shit. You know, maybe it’s the whisky talking but someone picked the right year for you to go and forget because it’s not been the prettiest.”

“I mean, there have been highlights, don’t get me wrong,” she went on, waving the glass through the air. A little bit of the liquid slipped up and landed on the floor but she reached out with her foot and scuffed it away, rubbing it in and washing it from her mind with another sip. “But lately? Absolute shite. I did a bad thing. They broke you. There was this weird intermittent stage where it was just weird. Like now. The same level of weird. Then it was like … oh, okay, no… we might be getting along. Hey, this can’t be so bad, right? No, no. It stands to get so, so much worse.”

She swallowed another mouthful of the rum and brought up the bottle to slosh some more into the glass. She licked the sides where bits had dribbled round and set it down again, reaching up with the same to curl back a wet lock of hair behind her ear. She sighed gently and glanced round at him again. A weak smile teased at her lips and she set the glass down next to the bottle, finding that there wasn’t much solace left in it. She folded her arms around her middle and sat forward, half-doubled over in doing so.

“Tomorrow,” she began. “When sane of mind and suitably hung over I will take some memories out for you. I have a pensieve. It was my great-grandmother’s. It’s in the office. She said something like … a seer’s mind gets full of the nastiest things in the world and if we can’t filter it out … well, we go mad.” Millie smiled, half-dreamily. “I’m there already, feels like. But, before I beg you to mummify me,” she gestured to the bandages, her lip curling with obvious disdain at the idea though she did recognise the necessity of it. She lost her trail of thought then and veered off in another direction.

“When I first met you,” she began, swallowing the last of the rum in that glass, having taken it up again. “The first little golden nugget of information I gave you was that one of my special skills includes being able to put my legs behind my head.” Millie smirked, remembering the look on his face when she’d said so. “God, you looked like you wanted the world to open up and swallow you whole you were so embarrassed. I mean, probably not about that but I did say at the time that being married to you did take the fun out of sleeping with a professor.” She laughed a little and set down the glass again. This time she didn’t move to refill it. “It didn’t. But, y’know – it was funny at the time. Again, mostly for the look on your face.” She couldn’t help but continue to giggle, despite herself – despite everything.

“You were so snarky too. Like me right now, I guess.” She smirked and sat back against the cushions of the sofa. “Suits you better than it does me, mind you. But we were so happy here. Slightly different rooms, these ones, but when we were in Hogwarts it was good. Seems it always brought out the best in us. You got to do what you loved. I never had a care in the world and with all of that satisfied we got to work on ourselves and on our relationship and it was good. It did usually consist of me distracting you from anything remotely connected with doing work but we worked. It was seamless. There were no problems. I mean, obviously there were the usual ones like I would never clean up behind myself and there would be mess everywhere and you’d have to traipse along behind me, picking up what I abandoned because it drove you nuts. I think I started to do it on purpose.” She grinned to herself.

Millie looked down at her arm and sighed, fixing him with a careful glance. “Do you think you could help?” She asked of him gently. “I just need to look like an extra out of the Mummy again and then we’re good to go.” She smiled a little and leaned her head back against the cushions. “Is this like a do-over, do you think? Do you think someone just saw it and thought that maybe … maybe we’d be better off doing this again? That maybe we’d benefit from learning how to love each other properly again. I don’t think you really suffered from forgetfulness-” she winced but despite the slip laughed anyway. “Up until now,” she shook her head, continuing to snicker. “But I was crap at it. So maybe we’re squared in that sense. Maybe it was for the best. Though it’s arguably not the best thing to have happened… maybe it will be, y’know? Maybe all of the upset will be worth it in the end if we’re better? I don’t know.”

Who even was this woman seated beside him? So far, Keiran had come to the conclusion that Avery or Robin - or, maybe both, somehow - had planned some elaborate joke on him for the start of a new school year, and it was working brilliantly. Either way, he was most definitely not amused. Keiran didn't know who this blonde was usually, but right now, she seemed entirely off her jump. And, frankly, Keiran didn't really appreciate it. In fact, he wasn't sure he liked her at all.

An unamused frown crossed his face, though Keiran wasn't aware of the fact, and seemed to extend to his eyes as she continued. The stories she gave him - they definitely sounded like things he would do or say, but they came from someone who was getting closer and closer to tripping over her words, and Keiran just knew in the back of his mind that he should have stayed in the bathroom with her. Did that count as a failure, the not realizing she would go off the deep end? It wasn't like Keiran could have known. He hadn't met her before that afternoon! Well, not that he could recall anyway. Regardless, it hadn't been twenty-four hours, yet here he was hoping it was all a joke on him. Merlin, he must've turned into a real whit during that missing year if Millie thought he knew how to deal with her like this.

Had he worked her up into this before, too?

His attention was drawn to the tape passed his way, so Keiran yet again did as she asked of him without question. This time, of course, it made sense, so there was no hesitation or comment dropped as he did so. His eyes did jump up to look at her, though, when she spoke again. By the time he was looking down at her should her shoulder and once again applying tape there, his brow was slightly furrowed. "I honestly can't say," he reminded her, half wondering if she indeed was fully aware of his condition now that she was getting more on the tipsy side than the coherent side. "But apparently you've seen any mistakes I've made, so you can stop me before I get too far," Keiran shrugged, ripping the tape off so he could gently press down the last end.

"What you need, I think, is sleep." Keiran decided, standing and taking her with him over to the bed. The covers were pulled back, and once he had convinced her to settle in however she found comfortable, the covers were settled around her waist. He wasn't sure if she would feel safe if he actually pulled them all the way up to her chin, so he stepped back to look down at her. A little smile appeared in an attempt to keep from insulting her, considering he then turned and walked back to the couch.

A spare cushion was transfigured into a blanket, and he held it in his hands as he glanced over at Millie again. "Get some rest," he told her softy. "If you need anything, wake me up, yeah? I don't want to bump you, so I'll be over here."

He, of course, didn't voice his other concern: he didn't actually know her, and she was making him extra nervous. Instead, he lowered himself onto the couch, and did his best to fall asleep. Apparently, he had done so eventually, because he woke with a still feeling in his left leg. Sitting up to peer over the back of the couch, Keiran found that Millie was not awake yet.

Perfect.

Searching around on the floor with one hand to find his cane, the sleep was rubbed away with his other before he stood and did his best to keep quiet as he moved about their quarters. Time, he hoped, would be on his side - especially considering that Millie would most likely have a hangover. Or, well, he guessed that she might. Then again, she had made that comment about pain potions not working on her anymore. Was it the same for alcohol now? He had no way of knowing, and it was starting to drive him mad.

Regardless, he went over to the area where they apparently kept their medical "supplies," including the liquor, and gathered it all into his arms so he could move the lot to a cabinet on the far side of the room. It took some effort - and a couple trips - but everything was moved out of sight, and then Keiran stuck a strong locking charm on the doors. Millie perhaps wouldn't be pleased, but he would feel better about ever leaving her on her own, and it would mean that she would be required to let him help her. To let him get to know her without the alcohol turning her into someone who merely served to confuse him. Keiran couldn't deny, of course, that he was a bit scared.

When she figured it out, he hazarded a guess, she would not be amused. So distracting her would be the order of the day, and recovery (at least in part) would be their goal for the weekend. Picking up a book, Keiran made his way over to the bed and sat down on his side, careful not to jostle her as he lifted his feet to cross them at the ankles at the other end of the bed. Opening his book, he glanced down at Millie and wondered for probably the hundredth time how he had forgotten her. She didn't seem like someone that people usually let drift away - even in their minds.

"You don't change, Keiran," Millie told him with a whimsical half smile as the tape returned to her jawline. She looked at him with a curiosity that was entirely clinical but bore a depth of amusement that hinted at her familiarity with his being. Too familiar, almost. She couldn't quite reconcile the man she knew with the one who had manifested in their living room. She didn't quite know who he was either and as a natural consequence was no more sure of her own self as he was of his or, indeed, of her. The drink, also, didn't help.

"You always manage to think it's your fault," she went on as he helped her to her unsteady feet. "But has it ever occurred to you in your eminence that maybe there is more at work than what you think is your folly?" Millie's brows furrowed absurdly. "I don't know what I just said," she admitted to him.

Sleep was something she had been entirely bereft of and she would have wanted to deprive herself longer for the sake of the drinks cabinet but it was as a result of that, that she went to bed willingly. Curiously she didn't fight him on not staying with her, either. She merely pressed her face into the pillows, smelling faintly of the perfumed softener that the House Elves used, and pulled the covers up tighter around herself before disappearing into her dreams, the whispered "good night" still on her lips.

When Millie awoke, she knew she was in bed. She also knew there was someone beside her. Finally, she identified with stunning clarity that she, Melissa Hayes, was monumentally hung over. So much so that at first she didn't even endeavour to open her eyes. Instead she clasped them shut and hoped herself either dead or, when she finally opened them, miraculously cured. Neither turned out to be her reality and she gave a pitiful whine as the light assaulted her eyes. She turned over in response, snuggling into the form beside her; in doing so pulling the covers up over her head.

Keeping her arms clamped firmly shut against any offending sunshine, Millie wiggled her arm out from under the covers and wound it around the middle of who she'd now decided couldn't be anyone but Keiran. She could smell him - at least that wouldn't change. She moved her head, curling it into his hip, and sighed softly, still unwilling to open her eyes. She'd maintain that the booze was with it. At that moment in time she still couldn't feel her shoulder but she was just waiting for it to-- Millie gave a hiss. There it is.

"Mornin'," she mumbled, scrunching her eyes not for the sake of avoiding the sunshine but to ride out the wave of pain that was intolerable, comparatively making the hangover desirable.

Millie turned over onto her back and grabbed at her aching shoulder, as though to do so would in some way soothe it. It only did to make it worse and instead she curled over again, burrowing into Keiran's side. This, mind you, did little to relieve her pain but it allowed her to extract some solace from him. Her legs, albeit restricted by the blankets, came out to curl around his and she burrowed into him as best as she could, barely stifling a little sniffle of despair at her situation.

Things always seemed more dreadful after a bit of thought.

Eventually she opened her eyes and she stole a peek up at him. He was reading, she noticed, and she'd done a spectacular job of disturbing him, too. She also remembered then that things had changed and were different - he was different. And here she was, hung over and curled into someone who wouldn't understand the peculiarities of what was, let's face it, pretty erratic behaviour. Mind you, she wasn't sure she understood either.

"Sorry," she offered, lifting her arm out from around him. Her legs came away next and she spilled onto her back once more.

"Is it good?" She asked after the book.

Her stomach rumbled, then. Millie sighed and quickly envisaged their fridge. It was sparse barring some chocolate, eggs and milk. She hadn't had the opportunity to go down to Dufftown but had been hoping to take the twins with her. They'd always enjoyed the bright colours shops afforded them and their mother's theatrical despairing over prices always amused them. But she couldn't take the twins - not now, at least. It wasn't lost on Millie either that Bridget had been a constant in their lives that their parents could never hope to be if track record served. Needless to say, Millie hated that fact. All she wanted was her babies, their babies, and for everything to be normal again. Had it been, they would have been laid between her and Keiran, either babbling at them - and vice versa - or catching a few more winks of sleep. But they weren't. They were miles away from her and it left in her heart another hole and inspired in her a new sense of anguish she knew she'd have to quell in some way.

So, to carry on the theme of destructive behaviours: instead of drinking her feelings, Millie decided she now wanted to eat them - in a big way, too.

"The House Elves owe me a favour," she informed Keiran, stretching out her legs. "So with a bit of luck they'll make us some breakfast. Bacon and pain killers. Mmm."

Millie laughed a little despite herself and rubbed at her eyes before casting them over in Keiran's direction.

"How're you feeling, mister-man?" She asked fondly, despite the awkwardness she felt to be palpable between them. "Is your leg alright? Not giving you jip?" She yawned, bringing a hand to her mouth. "I reckon we should lop it off and make you an Olympic athlete," she smirked at him. "Dunno though. That hollow cane was expensive. It'd be wasted. Speaking of, d'you reckon we could fill it with skittles? They’d be fun to crunch through while we listen to the woes of teenagers."

Millie yawned again and threw her good arm over her eyes, half-desperate to snuggle back into the warmth of the covers. She was going to write off her first week of lessons, she decided. She didn’t feel up to it. She doubted the students would either and they’d appreciate a little time to gather themselves after the disastrous start to the year. She could use the time to sneak off and visit Bridget, too. Plus, it’d help with getting herself back on an even keel. Feeling like a human being again was her first priority. That came, primarily, through breakfast.

“Topsy,” Millie called out absently. A crack resounded and Millie lifted her head out from under her arm to see an elf sat on the end of the bed. “Hello, love,” she smiled at the creature who beamed in response.

“Is Master and Missies be wanting something?” Topsy asked diligently, bouncing at the prospect of helping.

“Breakfast,” Millie announced, slowly sitting herself up. “Do you think that’d be alright?”

“Missies be understanding Topsy will want something in return!” The elf replied shrilly.

Millie smirked. “I will ask the Deputy Headmaster very, very, very nicely to give you a little early bonus.” Millie promised, setting her hand on Keiran’s knee before wiggling her brows cheekily at the elf who flushed deeply.

“Best to ask twice,” Topsy announced, hopping up onto her feet. “Tis Hats’ birthday.”

Millie laughed and the elf disappeared with a wailing promise to bring breakfast and set it in the dining room. Satisfied, the blonde witch flopped back against the pillows, closing her eyes once more. Breakfast landed in the aforementioned room a few moments later and Millie called out her thanks to the elf and glanced at Keiran.

“Hungry?” She asked brightly.

Keiran had just turned the page when he felt Millie shift. Not a few moments later, she was moving closer and wrapping herself around him as much as she could, it seemed. His eyes stopped following the words, trying to keep himself relaxed rather than stiffening at her nearness when he wasn’t used to it. Or, rather, wasn’t anymore? That probably was more accurate. He set the book down on his bad leg, pages open on either side, and let his now-free hand move down to comb through her hair. “Hi,” he replied belatedly.

She moved away, though, so Keiran let his hand fall to the sheet where she had been. “It’s decent,” he replied slowly, careful not to irritate her hangover more. “Honestly, it was just sitting there, so maybe it’s dull because I’ve read it before. I don’t know.” He offered her a serious look, blinking a few times as he tried his best to remember.

He nodded, a smile growing on his features. “Glad to see you’re feeling up for it,” Keiran offered. “You never did eat enough when you were upset.”

A surprised look crossed his face, and he looked at Millie to see if he had just made something up. Keiran wasn’t sure at all where it had come from, but something about it felt honest. Felt real somehow. He shook his head, trying to determine what exactly he had just said. The idea that he had seen her refuse to eat because of whatever the problem was? It just rubbed him the wrong way.

At her questions, though, he changed tack and pushed the confusion away. “It’s not as bad as all that, really. I’ve no room to complain, comparatively,” Keiran pointed out, sending her a good-natured smile. He wasn’t fully aware of what she meant regarding his cane, though, so he tilted his head. “Sorry, when are we doing that? I’m not… I mean, I know I’m doing something besides teaching, but… So,” he backtracked, remembering something that Adrienne had told him. “So you’re doing that counseling thing with me, then?”

The house elf was fairly sassy, bringing out a fond smile. That is, until Millie reached over and made a comment that Keiran took a moment to understand. When the elf flushed, his chin ducked down towards his chest with a mix of self-consciousness and embarrassment. When Topsy joked in return – or, well, Keiran assumed she was joking, he tried to bring out the less awkward side of himself that had existed before all of this -- a year ago, before he had returned to Hogwarts and had been much more like Robin and the confident side of Avery combined.

The ‘old’ Keiran wouldn’t have hesitated before saying something along the lines of, “not for food,” in reply for her question. Instead, he paid attention to the situation at hand, as well as the issues both of them had to deal with, physically, and just nodded and smiled. “Stay here,” he suggested, putting the book on the side table so he could move to pick up the tray off the table and bring it back to her. “Here we go,” he murmured as he settled beside her once more.

“Pictures today, you think?” Keiran asked, hoping she would take it as an opportunity rather than a difficult time. He would certain believe it was both of those, but he was leaning more towards the former. Even if it didn’t work perfectly, it was worth a shot, and maybe it would open up some of those doors he couldn’t find his way through.

Some things transcended time and sense. It was becoming rapidly apparent to the Hayes woman that all was not lost. Certainly, it seemed bits of her - though arguably not her most flattering characteristics - were unforgettable. It made her heart feel lighter and it rested her into the mattress and pillows more easily. There was hope. It made her curl her fingers briefly around his, to squeeze at his hand gently before retracting her grasp for fear of alienating him even more than she already had.

"I agree," she uttered with a cheeky grin. "Comparatively, I am falling apart!" She laughed a little bit and turned her head towards him again. "Really though, I need to get up off of my bum and go shopping at some point anyway so if I need to pick up some potions or, I dunno, sweet teas - thy will be done, sir."

"Counselling with me," Millie sat up, finally mustering an answer for him. "Cause, you- don't probably know," she clicked her tongue across the roof of her mouth. "We're the Ministry poster couple, you see. We didn't fuss. We did as told and, well, liked each other a fair bit," she smiled a little. "So I guess they figured we were the most qualified. As to when, I suppose whenever someone books in. Hopefully not soon. I'm not feeling it."

The house elf came, went, and the smell of bacon filled their apartment in whichever distant corner of the castle they resided. Millie was considering get up and washing the alcohol out of her hair an skin before breakfast but before she could lobby her legs into an agreement about moving, Keiran was up and off to fetch it.

"Thank you," she replied softly. Millie picked up a sugar sachet from the tray and ripped the top off of it. The contents went into her coffee with some milk and after stirring she brought up to her lips, humming happily to herself as the caffeine began to chase away the thud of her head.

"Mmm, pictures!" She agreed, unfurling her legs out from her. She hastily took a bite of toast and set both down before getting up from the bed. She was minutely unsteady but no more than usual when first getting up. So, after grabbing her dressing gown she went into the living room to source the albums. She took the moment alone to check the fact that the photos of the children weren’t in there, unwilling to drop that bomb on him just yet, and then returned to bed.

"Alrighty,” she handed him the top one – a cream, leather-bound thing thick with what were, ultimately, a lot of useless photographs and a series of beautiful selfies of Robin looking terribly worse for wear. The first half of the book was semi-useful, though so she was hoping he’d have some luck with it. “This is the wedding one. There are an inordinate amount of pictures of the vicar dancing but some of them are alright. Personally I think we’re a bit more entertaining after a few beers. We’re sort of less static and oh-my-god-I’m-married. It’s quite sweet actually. It’s kind of like, well – you’ll see. But it’s nice… the bit where we kind of both go, ‘oh, you’re alright aren’t you?’”

Millie put the other one down between them and picked up her coffee again, sipping at it before leaning over to look at it with her husband. She’d forgotten a lot of the photographs, life having gotten in the way and left little time for reflection. So, when he opened it up and she saw the first photograph: the shocked face of her mother as her uncle wandered by and pinched her bum, Millie burst into a fit of giggles, nearly spilling her coffee in the process but narrowly managing to avoid the sheets, getting it instead on her trousers which she minded infinitely less.

“Oh, wow,” she shook her head expressively. “So, um. That’s my mum. Right witch, she is. I mean, she and I get along a lot better so long as we’re not talking to each other. Not like you and your mum.” She smiled before pointing to her uncle. “Uncle Arthur. My dad’s brother.” She smiled fondly at the man who, if she squinted, looked uncannily like her father. The two men were a lot alike, too – though Arthur had always been better at winding up Lavender whereas Seamus had preferred to lay low and not incite her rage. That, Millie supposed, was the main difference.

Millie lifted a plate into her lap and worried after eating, tucking into her poached eggs happily, watching Keiran carefully but also interested in the photographs which were candid to begin with and consisted of everyone hanging around waiting. There were several pictures of her relatives outside, glaring at the camera in their finery, and then inside, whoever had been flying around getting all of the photographs had gone in search of Keiran’s parents. Then the ones of them actually began to appear here and there – and the vicar, who clearly enjoyed photographs.

“It was a good day,” she said in reflection, setting down her cutlery for a moment. “Oh! Vows. Vows. Someone wrote them down. They were kind of, uh, spur. We were both a bit naff but someone, it might’ve been Bridget, wrote what we said down so it’s in here… somewhere. Should be soon-ish.” She smiled optimistically before returning to her meal, hoping that she wasn’t disturbing too much. But let’s face it – she probably was.

(OOC: Not reading it cause I'm brave. P: )

She seemed far brighter when he brought up pictures again, so Keiran supposed he had made the right choice in asking after them. A change in topic could be helpful, and he of course hoped that it might bring back some of the parts he had lost about their past year. He had just taken a bite out of his own piece of toast when she returned and started explaining a bit about the people he was looking down at.

"So, was this being more comfortable before, or after we drank? Because that always happens at weddings." Keiran sent a smile her way to show that he was kidding, but in truth he was actually quite curious. The latter would make more sense, but he actually hoped it was the former, if only because it meant that they worked when neither had any alcohol in their systems. After the night before, he damn well hoped that was the case.

It was difficult, Keiran found, to handle everything he was looking at. Obviously, he recognized Robin, Avery and the other people that he had grown up knowing. But then there were complete strangers - in his eyes, at least - that he was standing next to as though they had been friends for ages. Who was that? He looked a hell of a lot like Millie. "That's, um..." He attempted, pointing at a picture of the blond in question. "It's... El-Elliot? Did I just make that up?" He asked, looking up at her cautiously. How bizarre it would be if he really had made up the name. Or, more so if even Millie wasn't sure who it was. The idea nearly made him laugh, but he was far more interested in whether or not he'd gotten in right.

"Was it, though?" He asked slowly, blinking at her claim that the wedding had been decent. "I mean, yesterday you said... well, that it was a mess, really. That you wanted to do it over." Realizing that he was definitely putting her on the spot, Keiran sat up straighter and attempted to correct himself. "That is- I mean, not that I wouldn't want to, probably. Especially now that... Sorry, I just had hoped it was okay, and then it wasn't, so I feel kinda shoddy. Even more since I can't even remember to know if there was any excuse for it. There probably wasn't."

He shook his head, instead looking for the page she had seemed so excited about: their vows. "That's dad's handwriting, actually," Keiran pointed out lightly, hoping for a slight change in topic. After reading his over, he couldn't help but lift an eyebrow almost sarcastically. "That's the best I could do?" He half wanted to call it rubbish, because it sounded really half-hearted and insincere. Perhaps, at the time it really had been that way. Then again, the Keiran saying those words had known Millie for a few weeks, if he remembered the rules of the law correctly. A month to prepare, and all. "Sorry, Millie, that was not at all what I expected to say come time. I mean, I obviously didn't have any real plans about it before, but... you know. Stuff like this is expected to be more in depth or charming or something, that's all."

Looking down and once again seeing that it was his father's writing on that page, Keiran passed the book of pictures to Millie so he could get up and dig around for some parchment. "So, this is probably crazy," he started, tilting his head to the side in a show of being apologetic, "but maybe we should... go out or something? I mean, did we ever do that? It might be dull for you, since you already know me," Keiran conceded slowly, hands finally finding a page and a quill. Sitting at the desk, he looked up at her before beginning to write. "But, I mean, it might be easier than all of this. The pictures, they... they do help to an extent, because I'm getting these, like, images in my head. But I don't know if they're just in my mind or if they really happened. Going on, um, dates I guess, might be more normal. For lack of a better word."

Finishing the last line of what he needed to say, Keiran looked up again, letting his hand relax for a moment as he addressed her properly. "Did you have anything you wanted to say to my folks? I'm sure they've got to know you by now, right? I figured they would want to know what happened."

It was difficult for the deputy headmaster’s wife to really focus on her food, though she continued to sip at her coffee. It was a little trip down memory lane. With everything that had happened since, all the good and the bad, she’d forgotten some elements of the day that she was being reminded of with ever page he turned. The candid ones beside her in the burgundy coloured album were a little bit of evidence within regards to them actually getting along. They were her preferred ones, of course, because they had contained pictures of the twins. No longer, however, and she’d had to shuffle the other pictures to the front, making it sparser than before. She hadn’t quite realised how trigger happy they’d been with the camera. Her heart gave a painful pang in her chest at the thought of their babies, of the pictures that should have been there but weren’t, and she took a hasty bite of her toast.

“After the ceremony,” she admonished, bumping her shoulder against his with a playful smile. “Though a couple of glasses of champagne did make us a bit more amiable towards the whole first dance idea. We weren’t that bad. Really. In comparison to some of my relatives, we were practically sober.”

They reached the picture of Keiran and her brother and she felt a warm sort of feeling spread through her. She had been so glad that Elliot hadn’t been more directly grumpy with Keiran. He’d not been impressed, but more at the fate of the pair of them than for his sister explicitly. Yet, he’d been caught out, too. The best of them had. Only, Elliot had the uncanny ability to be able to disappear. The Ministry had yet to haul him into matrimony. They had yet to find him. Though, really, they hadn’t been looking that hard. Clearly they weren’t interested in another wayward Finnigan.

At Keiran’s words, Millie’s head snapped up and she looked at him, surprise exclaiming its way across her features. She beamed at him and nodded expressively, reaching out to turn forward a couple of pages. Someone had gotten a picture of Elliot walking her down the aisle. She looked to be holding onto him for the sake of all that was holy and the slight wince on his features alerted her to the fact that he was really aware of her nails digging into his skin. Nevertheless, it was an interesting picture – one that was definitely worth framing at some point.

“My brother,” she explained. “Littler brother by a couple of minutes. But still littler.” It was important. Liam would use it to one-up his baby sister in the years to come, just as Millie had done with Elliot. “He walked me down the aisle and all the rest,” she added.

She grinned to herself and ate some more of her eggs and a bit of bacon before reaching back for her coffee, her eyes lifting back up to his as he spoke his words all in a hesitant rush that made her face fall a little bit. She’d probably been a little bit liberal in her choice of words the night before, she realised. Nevertheless, she owed him something of an explanation for them and it was one she did try to supply.

“Until the papers were all signed, it was a bit of a mess.” Millie began softly. “We were nervous and I suppose…” she took a minute to weigh up her words. “It wasn’t our idea, as a couple or as individuals, of what a wedding was supposed to be like. It wasn’t because we loved each other, it was because we didn’t want to call the Ministry’s bluff. We didn’t want to go to Azkaban. The day was lovely, the venue pretty, the vows sweet, and everyone was nice but it wasn’t our own. It wasn’t what I wanted and I’m pretty sure it wasn’t what you wanted, either. That was why it was a mess – because we didn’t care for each other in the way you’re supposed to when married and, really, we were trying to make the best out of an awful situation. We didn’t know anything about each other, you see,” she shrugged her shoulders a little. “I guess it’s a bit like how you must feel about me now. Kind of ambivalent but sort of fond, eh?” She smiled gently, in half-understanding. “I was quivering like a leaf though,” she laughed, all of a sudden. “It was all smiles and shyness and you were just… well, you. So, of course, devilishly handsome and an angel.”

She smirked at him, bumping their shoulders together again before turning her head towards him. She popped a kiss onto his shoulder and then brought her coffee back up to her lips. She shrugged at him and shook her head, wondering how he could manage to apologise for something he couldn’t even remember.

“It doesn’t matter,” she promised. “It was charming, most definitely.” She nodded. “And besides, I wasn’t expecting a load of sonnets or something. That’s barmy. We did the best we could for the situation, love. I mean, I wrote mine on a napkin to start with. We definitely weren’t going to come up with Pulitzer Prize winning poetry.” She laughed and shook her head.

When the book was handed over to her, Millie took it without question and continued to flick through it as Keiran whirled around the bedroom. She raised an eyebrow over the rim of her coffee when he mentioned dating and though she did initially think that it was a bit silly, she considered that they had never actually done it. It felt strange that it was now an option – in fact a necessity – for them. She found herself smiling into her cup and she looked up again, replying:

“I’d like that.”

When Keiran mentioned what the letter was for, however, Millie thought for one mad minute the breakfast was going to come back up again. Folks. Multiple. Two. Mum. Dad. Oh god.. She blanched deeply, the colour draining from her face like someone had come up and wiped it all away. She swallowed uselessly for a few moments, her throat having gone irreparably dry, and she shook her head, trying to find the words to dissuade him without exclaiming that his father was dead. Wryly, something in the back of her head conceded it probably would have been easier to introduce him to the children. It was certainly a happier conversation than the one she’d eventually have to have with him. She didn’t want to relive Christmas again.

“Oh, I um…” Millie struggled out. “I already sent a letter. They- it … the news. Of, um. Hogwarts. It was everywhere. So, I had to tell Bridge we were okay and stuff.” She hastily took another sip of her coffee. “Come and eat. It’ll keep your strength up. Besides, I want to hear more about this going out idea. C’mere.” She patted the bed beside her, arching an eyebrow and expressing a smile that returned the colour to her face.

A grand smile grew across Keiran's face at her reply, simple though it was - probably the biggest he'd found outside of the news that he had been set on the right track back to his goals. In his imaginings, Keiran had never included a wife or family in those goals, but the first part of that had been handed to him, so he had no choice but to accept it and consider the possibility of the second part becoming reality. He doubted he would really be ready, but it didn't seem relevant enough for him to state his nervousness aloud.

As she hesitated, Keiran's face fell to one of concern. Did his parents dislike her? A part of him doubted it - though, if she had been so very drunk as she was the night before, Keiran could see why his father would be wary. He hadn't meant to insult her, if they really did seem to dislike her. Or, was it that she didn't like them, and he hadn't managed to sort that out? That one worried him a bit more, he hated to admit, if only because he had no intention of being the sort that stopped talking to his family after marrying.

It only got worse as she tripped over her words. It shouldn't have been all that bad, he mused, considering she was just correcting him. "Wait, wait," he started, standing and moving back to the bed to sit beside her as she had requested. "Did they answer? I mean, you mentioned the... the memory stuff?" Keiran's voice lowered at the end of the question, as though it was some huge, horrible secret. It wasn't like he intended to hide it, so really the choice didn't make a lot of sense. So he paused briefly to right himself before continuing, "It's just, I know they'd be concerned is all. I mean, you looked worried. They didn't say anything bad, did they?"

His eyebrows drew together, and his hand inexplicably reached out to brush her hair off her shoulder. Having done so, the fingers of that hand found their way into the threads of hair behind her ear and along the nape of her neck. Keiran's thumb brushed over his cheek as he tilted his head to the side to observe her. "I mean, if there's something the matter between you and my parents, you can tell me. I'd want to help you fix it. Or help them. Whoever, really. If you need me to, that is... Not pushing," he added quickly, retracting his hand and setting it atop his bad leg carefully so as to avoid any accidental pain. Just as he was certain to stay on the side farthest from Millie's wounds.

Doing his best to keep consistent with what Millie wanted to discuss, he went back to the topic she preferred. "Well, I'm not sure when exactly I'll be able to go off the school grounds just yet, since it's so new. But we could do Hogsmeade weekends if nothing else. Though, really it might be more comfortable to go when the students aren't out at well..." Keiran lifted a shoulder and leaned back against the headboard as he lifted his mug to his lips to take a sip.

When he lowered it back to the bedside table, Keiran let the back of his head rest against the headboard as he looked at her again. "Missie," he attempted, reaching for the hand of hers that was closest to him. "In all seriousness, how bad is it? The shoulder, I mean. Or, really, this stuff with me, if that's easier to answer. I'd welcome the answer to either."

The expression that enveloped Keiran’s so often brooding features caught his wife off-guard. She looked at him, her eyes widening a little, and she took a breath, sucking it between her lips, as she felt her heart speed up, fluttering excitedly in her chest. The warmth it evoked spread through her and she straightened her spine as it slid down to tickle towards her feet. Her hands tingled, from her fingertips to her palms, desperate to lift and lay themselves across his skin. She felt her tongue lose its moisture and her throat dry out. Then all of a sudden, her eyes were upon his lips, her body desperate to gravitate towards him, to kiss at his smile, to feel it against her mouth. Yet she couldn’t. She knew she couldn’t. In part, though it half-killed her, she was grateful for when the smile fell.

Against her better judgement, she found herself desiring him in his entirety at a time when, had things been alright, perhaps she would have been more interested in nursing her wounds and avoiding awkwardness than coveting her lust for him. Inappropriate on an inordinate number of levels though her desire was, she couldn’t help but look at him and want to take him into her grasp as much as her embrace would allow for and kiss him until she could not remember quite how to breathe again. She didn’t need sex – though that did spring to mind to cap off the most ridiculous time to want any of this. No, what she wanted was him. She wanted his love. She wanted to feel it thrumming under his skin. She needed it in his lips and in his touch. But it wasn’t going to be like that. Even if things had been right: it wouldn’t have been like that.

Snapping herself free from her thoughts at the sound of Keiran’s voice. She blinked his form back into focus and not for the first time she wondered grimly what she’d done with her glasses. She’d sort that out, she decided, when she got up again and would probably find them down the side of the sofa with whichever book she’d been reading last. Telling herself to listen to him, Millie refocused her gaze on him, her lips furrowing at the sides as she tried to weight her rebuttal carefully in her mind and simultaneously keep from wincing at his insistence at referring to both parents. She wanted to sob for him but, with so many things, couldn’t. She had not really done well to acknowledge what had actually happened to her husband. Now, though, she had no choice. He couldn’t remember his own father – or, more was the point and problem, he could remember him and could not remember his death. Murder. He couldn’t remember. He couldn’t remember.

“No, no,” Millie breathed, paling all the more for her trouble. “Everything’s…it’s alright. No, I, um. There are other things in the works so a visit is sort of out of the question and I mean with us it’s not practical to go there either but your mum wrote back and said to keep her informed and such so it’s alright. I dealt with it.” She managed a weak smile for his benefit but he saw through her. Thankfully, or bizarrely, he fixated on something quite different to what she’d originally thought. She looked at him with equal amounts of terror and love in her eyes as his fingers ghosted across her skin. She needed his touch like air and water and sustenance. She wanted him closer, to feel him against the cuts, pressed against the aching bones and seized with her, with her always.

“I love them,” she expressed softly, swallowing hard. “Bridget has been more of a mum to Elliot and I in twelve months than ours has been in nineteen years. No, there’s nothing wrong with my relationship with t-them.” She blinked, her heart beginning to ache painfully within her as she looked at him, willing herself not to cry and blurt it all out. She managed a smile and thanked the Gods above who made him change the subject. She couldn’t do it. She couldn’t tell him carte blanche that everything he ever knew as a human being changed at the point that he felt he was at now when all of it had already gone to dust. Nothing good had come of her entering his life, though she was not the cause of all that had happened – especially not pertaining to his father though she could take the blame for other things. No, the wedding was a turning point of its own. It brought him to ruin.

“Saves a little bit of responsibility unless we unload our charges off on Bae and Addie,” she smiled a little bit more genuinely. “God, Bae owes you money,” she clucked her tongue across the roof of her mouth thoughtfully. “He…” she looked at him wondrously again. Of course, he didn’t know Baldric. “It’s a long, drawn out story that I, myself, don’t really understand the ins and outs of. He’s probably having kittens now he got an advance on his pay cheque. Idiot,” she rolled her eyes and picked up her coffee, bringing it back to her lips for a sip before venturing, “Maybe we could pick a date,” she began. “On a Friday sometime?”

She set down her cup in tandem with him, a habit that she’d developed over time and she smiled when he reached for her hand, enveloping her fingers greedily around his. She began to slowly brush her thumb over the back of his hand and she sighed a little as his words washed over her, threatening to break down everything she’d come to conclude about how she could deal with what was happening. To admit that everything was as awful as she had a feeling it was… it wasn’t something she wanted to do just yet. Yet, the idea of being able to say it was one that promised liberty for her. She bit her lip absently and then found herself nodding, once up, once down.

“If I could get you out of this, I’d happily leave my shoulder the way it is forever. This is dreadful, Keiran.” She suffered a long sigh and rubbed her spare hand across her forehead, wincing a little bit as a shard of pain blistered through her. “I wish it was just a dream. I wish the shoulder hurt all the more for the sake of you remembering everything so you don’t have to remember, so you don’t have to live it again.” She squeezed his hand. “I love you,” she reminded him softly. “I just wish someone up top would let you catch a break for five minutes, y’know? Being cursed to within an inch of your life is one thing. I mean, we’ve all come back from homicidal maniacs in our time but this isn’t fair.” She shook her head, absurdly amused by what her definition of fair was before shifting over to sit closer to him.

“There’s a little hut in Jamaica that was my house after my dad died. I didn’t sleep in the sand, as much as I said I did.” She laid her head down on his shoulder and closed her eyes, conceding, “I’m beginning to think that I either never should have left in the first place or that’s where we should just go, Keiran. We should just go and I could go back to the bar and wait the tables and you could fish and make cocktails and we could laugh at the drunken tourists and make pretty necklaces out of shells and live for what we need. And have children who can swim before they can walk and can sing before they can speak. Just, life in the warmth where nothing but the rainy season can hurt us and the only thing we’ll have to remember is where we buried the fish we’re smoking in the sand. And we’ll take it out all flaky and falling to pieces and half charred but it won’t matter because everything will be fine and we won’t have a single care it’ll just be us…” she sighed again, bringing her hand up along his arm before slipping her fingers back down into his. “I wish it could be like that. Instead we’re in a mire I can’t see out of. I don’t know where we’re headed or what all of this is meant to mean. And I’m scared for it. Scared for you.”