Mister, Missus, Babies, Cats, and Dog.

“Nope,” she retorted, grinning wickedly at him. “Highly probable,” she clarified, squeezing his hand in hers. They could – and possibly would – argue this one out forever. She supposed they’d come to their conclusion eventually, though it would take a while and neither would back down. She was right, of course. That’s what she was going to claim. She did think, however, that they were both about even.

Millie shook her head, unable to commit herself to the idea that he was being earnest. Well, no. She knew he was being truthful. What she didn’t believe was the idea that she was a Seer. There was a difference, she thought, in being good at Divination and having the inner eye. She had a bit of a sixth sense and it was definitely useful to have her around when betting on something but that was it. She didn’t project visions or anything like that.

“If you say so,” she replied dubiously, kissing his cheek. “Thank you,” she whispered.

The blonde woman’s eyes lit up at the idea of being privy to a spotty, moody teenaged version of her husband. The smirk that took hold of her mouth was almost Slytherin and she fought to sober herself, knowing that he was trying to explain part of himself he hadn’t before. She tugged his hand up and kissed the back of it before reaching around to slide his wand – thankfully not a double-entendre – out of his pocket. She held her palm open for him to take it and looked over at the pensieve still sitting, waiting, on the desk.

“I’m great with that. I promise to show you some embarrassing memories if you show me yours,” she wiggled her brows before laughing a little. She leaned up to sneak a kiss and then said, “I want to understand. You know that I’m not going to hurt you, don’t you?” She offered carefully, feeling as though she needed to add the ‘again’ to assuage any lingering guilt she harboured – any meaning, of course, all of the guilt and more than that which she had ever head. “I just, want you to know that. Cause I mean, I’ve not made good choices either and this isn’t about me but I don’t want you to think I’m going to do that … again,” she looked down, adding it now, feeling the hypocrisy warming her blood.

“Anyway,” she brought her head up, flashing a smile at him, putting the nagging feelings to bed mentally as she added, “I want to see you in Slytherin robes. Let’s go!”

Keiran shrugged at her refusal of his conclusion about her abilities, not quite keen on fighting it. Besides, what did he know, when he hardly even believed in it at all? He had intended to instill some confidence, but he wasn't sure it actually worked. Her next words surprised him, though, and he turned his gaze from the pensieve to his wife, blinking a couple times in sheer confusion. He hadn't meant for her to think it was any sort of jab at what she had done. Keiran wasn't even sure how she had possibly taken it that way, chiding himself again for messing things up, even if it was in such a small way.

And, besides. Hadn't he just told her he didn't like her apologizing? It just made him feel as though he had done something wrong in making her think it was still a problem. It merely convinced him that he had given some sign that he was angry, still, and that she was offended for it. Otherwise, Keiran didn't see why it was relevant. Perhaps she really was upset by the gift and wanted to avoid his asking to see the man in question. That would never happen. She was mad to think so, if that really was the case. Keiran knew his name and even that was too much for the professor to properly handle.

"Millie..." he started slowly, shaking his head. He wanted to sit in the desk chair and just stare at her for a moment, but that would merely be all the more unhelpful, he knew. So he kept on, shifting his stance so he was facing her. "I don't understand. I'm just trying to help you make sense of some of my actions... I never wanted you to think it was some backhanded comment about anything you've done. I swear," he added fervently, his hands reaching for her hips, "you don't need to show me anything. I'm not after embarrassing memories. It wouldn't be fair, given that the ones I'm thinking of don't fit under that category.

"Love, I-... There are things that I don't know about your past and perhaps it's better that way, for both of us. I don't know," Keiran shrugged, looking away for a moment before settling his gaze on hers again. "But the things I've done have negatively affected both of us, and even the twins. And I need you to understand so you can keep me from doing it again. I'm not asking for any of your stories in return - to be honest, I'm a bit afraid. In my case, there's nothing I would want to go back to. But it isn't the same for everyone, and I don't know that I could properly handle seeing you happier with someone else. In my case, you're safe there. Which is what I'm trying to explain and to show you. Why I'm... too careful, and why I always try to cut off arguments before they begin. It never works, obviously, since it just ends up backfiring. But there's a reason for it. There's a reason for my wrong choices and for my worrying that there's a person that you wanted but couldn't have. Millie, this," he gestured between them, "us, ... It's still surreal. I'm comfortable and happy, but not... unafraid."

Merlin, but he sounded like a coward, didn't he? It wasn't as though Millie didn't know that side of him. Keiran was just lucky she hadn't pointed it out aside from their argument about the affair - if he even remembered it correctly. It was so twisted up in his head, given that he had tried to focus more on what she wanted than what she had done - that he couldn't even pretend to know exactly what had happened.

"Darling, I know you're not going to do it again. I believe that. It wasn't my intention to make it seem otherwise," he said after a moment, sighing and pulling her into his arms. Keiran pressed a kiss into the crown of her head, doing his best to pour comfort into the embrace and the gesture as a whole. "Please, Millie. Don't apologize anymore. It just brings it up again and hurts us both all over again. It doesn't need to be said anymore. I wouldn't be doing this if it still bothered me. It's fine. And you're more than I wanted in a wife, no matter what happens. Nothing we've been through has been entirely your fault, and I can't accept the idea that you tell yourself it is. If I had not been... such a coward," he forced the word out, "then you wouldn't have felt as you did, and it wouldn't have happened. Which is why you need to see this. I don't think I could say the words, so hopefully you can put the pieces together. If not, well... I'll do my best to elaborate, after."

He stepped back when she reached for his wand, and Keiran cracked a smile and let out a quiet laugh at her words. "Right. We've got three people you need to meet, not including the younger, more troublesome version of me. The first two, we can meet in one go. Mind, you might know some of these girls now, but I can assure you they were much different back then."

He brought out three vials, one for each of the moments he wanted to show her. Then, one at a time, he drew the silvery mist of the memories from his mind, using his wand after he took it from Millie as she had suggested. Sending a wary glance in her direction, Keiran lined them up in order, then picked up the first one. "Would you like to do the honors? Be warned, it'll be loud," he added, referring to the location they would enter after she poured the lot in.


(ooc: I could've kept going, but it would never ever end XD Better, I think, to let her react and then go forth. :3 )

Hands found her hips, drawing her into the conversation she’d immediately wanted to shrink out of and hide from. Though she at first had wanted to steal them away from the slip she’d felt she needed to press into her words in order to cover the base that might niggle in his mind that she was a liar and saying that she wouldn’t hurt him like that was blisteringly, ironically wrong. She’d wanted to let him know that she knew that but despite it, she wasn’t going to. She’d broken the one promise she’d obliged herself to keep even when it was Ministry-arranged. Desperate and alone or not, it did not legitimise what she had done and she couldn’t square it with any sense of right. It was all so wrong. That time was wrong, immersed in darkness and upset that had followed them ever since. Where was the light?

“I know it wasn’t a dig at me,” she admitted, not wanting to meet his gaze so instead kept her gaze upon his chest. “I just needed … I wanted … I didn’t want you to say that I already had so I wanted to say it myself because at least then …” After that she wasn’t sure what her point was. The ‘at least then’ didn’t have a continuation. There was no thereafter. She just wanted to beat him to saying it. She knew why. She knew that hurting herself with the memory of it would hurt a damn sight less than if he did. She didn’t think that was a wound that she would ever be able to heal in her heart if he was the one who wielded that sword. That was why. She had no idea how to articulate it, though.

“Embarrassing memories would probably be preferred,” she admitted with a wry sort of petulance that screwed up her lips at the side. Millie lifted her hands to his upper arms and hesitantly brought her gaze to her husband’s, meeting the imploring looks for the first time. She drew in a shallow breath and nodded firmly to his words. It wasn’t in agreement. There was a lot that they had both done wrong and she knew his reactions were as a result of hers and they had spun around in this circle of dismay for a long while. It felt as though they were truly drawing out of it now but as much as she knew he hated her blaming herself, she dismayed at him blaming his self, too.

“You’re not a coward, Keiran,” she mumbled into his chest, squeezing herself to him. She looked up and reached for his mouth upon which she placed hers in a chaste kiss that she dipped out from before bringing her hand to his cheek. “I do want to see why,” she told him gently, stroking her thumb across his cheekbone as she thought along the breadth of her sentence. “But you shouldn’t let it define you.” Her eyes widened imperceptibly at their creases as a wincing look of realisation bit into her features. The same could be said for what they had done to each other and what she had done to him. “I’ll practise what I preach,” she promised. “I should have, for our sake, a long time ago. I’m sorry.”

Reaching for his hand, Millie curled her fingers around his and leaned into her husband, turning in to kiss his jaw. She sighed, snuggling into him briefly before drawing back out to stand before him, letting her fingers grow loose in his but not quite willing to let go of him just yet. She swallowed a few breaths before taking the vial from Keiran to pour it into the pensieve. It swirled inside and Millie bit her lip before turning to him, drawing up close, catching his chin in her hand, forcing him to look down at her.

“I am going because you want to show me,” she told him seriously, “not because I feel the need to see. I love you, Keiran. I don’t need an explanation like this in order to empathise or understand. I’d like to think I do understand you a little better than that. However, I am honoured you’d let me see because it’s private and important. Thank you. I hope I’m making sense but I … I don’t need to know to see why, if you know what I mean, maybe. But I am really grateful that you’d want to show me. So, I’m going to stop babbling at you now and get in this pensieve. God knows, I can’t wait to see the teenaged you.” She winked at him, her grin returning in full force.

He was content enough, and prepared to lead the way, but Millie caught his chin and pulled his gaze back to her. One corner of his mouth lifted, and despite his urge to suggest they just eat some dinner before delving back into the realm of the serious, he knew that it would be a bit of a laugh to see the old him, if nothing else. So he held tight to her hand and allowed them to push into the rowdy Gryffindor common room from the latter half of his fifth year.

It was lucky that their physical selves didn't actually return with them, given that students were wandering all over, essentially walking through Keiran, so he glared at them over his shoulder as they continued walking. "Right," he uttered after a moment, wrapping his arm around Millie as he led her off around the room. It wasn't until he caught sight of a rather wild head of brunette hair that he knew a bit too well.

Keiran saw his younger self making eye contact with Irene across the room, while he was trapped in conversation with Audriana and a Gryffindor that she particularly disliked. It was shocking, looking back on it, that the Slytherins had even allowed the others into their dormitories. But then he remembered that his team had won the House Cup, and had opened it up to rub it in all of the other houses' faces. Those who didn't care had come to party, and those that did care had shown up in order to prove that they didn't care as much as Keiran's team had wanted them to.

So he cringed a bit as he heard his younger self make a deal with Audriana when Irene came to talk to the Gryffindor they were talking to. He couldn't even remember the kid's name anymore, which struck him as odd, but Keiran supposed it wasn't that strange. Leaning towards Millie, he tried to give context, since the party was so loud he wasn't certain she could hear it properly.

"See," he began, "in fifth year I had a bit of a rivalry going with Audriana, who I think you know. Quidditch does that to a person, as I'm sure you're aware. Anyway, Irene," he pointed across the room to the other dark-haired girl, "well, she had gone on some kind of... hiatus with her boyfriend, and... Let's just say she had a way of convincing me to skip class now and then. So I struck a deal with Audriana, telling her that, if she distracted that Gryffindor we were talking to - I think he had a thing for her, but I'm not sure anymore - then I would owe her. I should have clarified at the time," he mused as the younger version of himself moved to get Irene a refill for her drink, "that I meant a small favor. It backfired spectacularly, as you'll see when we jump forward a bit.

"The only plus side to the evening, I suppose - aside from my having something of a friend with benefits for a year - was that Audriana over there," he pointed to the brunette as she yawned behind her hand, "was saved by Gavin, and whatever weird romance thing they had going on was helped along. So I get to take some of the credit for it, which is fun. And irritates them, which is also enjoyable."

And, indeed, as he explained it, Keiran watched the young image of Gavin Blackmoor crossing the dormitory to step in and get Audriana away from whatever the bloke's name was. He honestly didn't want to turn and watch himself - albeit his old self - flirting with Irene, or agreeing to things he perhaps shouldn't have with the sixth year. Nor did he really want Millie to have to do so, either. The only saving grace was that he wasn't being too serious about it, he felt. At least he wasn't treating it like a big deal.

"At the end of the year," he explained, "she went back to the boyfriend, and I was fine with that. It made more sense. It wasn't until my seventh year that I realized my problem with the situation between myself and Irene. Which is where we'll be popping in next, so I can explain that. Throughout the year I was more or less oblivious to the reaction I would have upon graduating, which - unfortunately - led to conflicting decisions and opinions throughout my years at University."

Her piece said, and the best assurances she could provide articulated, Millie now would have gone anywhere with her husband without any complaint. She followed him, too, lacing her fingers in his and sliding through the wateriness of the pensieve. The world seemed to, in part, melt away, and then as it reassembled, it was almost as though they’d never left Hogwarts. She could have been forgiven for forgetting, too, and she almost did if not for Keiran circling his arm around her that she remembered and as a rowdy first year unseeingly passed between them it became obvious. She opened her mouth to scold the boy but then remembered and flushed, turning into Keiran to hide her wry embarrassment before lifting her eyes across the room, attempting to find her husband somewhere amongst the gathered teenagers.

She spotted him just as Keiran leaned down to her and a grin lit up her features, extinguishing any reservations she might have had in bright light in her eyes. She brought her hand up to her mouth, both to stifle a threatening giggle and to hide her surprise. She decided on the spot that her husband was definitely like good wine: he got better with age. He definitely didn’t have much to worry about even as a teenager, either, though Millie wasn’t entirely sure whether it was okay to be attracted to Keiran’s younger self. Strangely, though, she was half-caught between desiring to pick him up and cuddling him to death, as though the mothering gene that had been switched on when she’d had the twins had never been turned off, and, well, jumping his bones. Not that Keiran, though. More like her one. But again, here was the morality – or immorality – of her internal dilemma.

“Look at you,” she breathed, “you’re so young. Not that you’re old,” she amended as an afterthought, flapping her hand through the air. “But y’know. You’re a baby! Ah, and Audriana look… that’s actually … that’s really weird,” Millie quirked her eyebrow upwards with a smirk, stifling a laugh. “No, I take it back. This is strange.” Her mouth fell open, half-lifting when he explained the plus side and she looked between the two Keirans, trying to reconcile it all in her head. You can’t really blame her from getting caught on one particular clause of that explanation and her eyebrows knitted together as she tried to imagine baby(!)Keiran in a friends with benefits kind of relationship. It was mental.

“Friends with bens, huh?” She drawled once she’d gathered her countenance again. “Who did you lose that precious little virginity trinket to then?” She waggled her brows at him cheekily, leaning up to kiss his cheek partly to soothe any objection he might take and to remind him she was his favourite. “So, Gavin and Aud … they weren’t Gavin and Aud yet? But sort of … became a thing? And you… you were shagging around,” she paused to smirk, “I want the dirty details memories, y’know.”

“So, what?” She bit her lip as concern flitted across her features. “It wasn’t … it wasn’t a good thing, then? Like … I mean … it didn’t lead to good things, either?”

Keiran almost laughed at her question, before replying, "I half wish it had been you. But then you'd not have been graced with the result of my earlier... practicing." He jested, not quite sure if he would have preferred things to be different. Really, he wasn't sure there was a point in wondering after what ifs anymore. They could never know what would have happened. "It was Irene, though, yeah. Probably not as 'special,'" Keiran added as he gestured with air quotes, "as people would say they wanted the first time to be."

Then, at her request, he merely rolled his eyes. "Trust me, love," he told her quietly, "the alcoves don't have the best lighting for looking on. Hence our choice of location. But," Keiran offered a properly Slytherin smirk, "I would be happy to show you exactly how it happened after curfew one night."

In retrospect, that sounded a bit odd. But Keiran hardly cared - especially not after Millie started worrying after him. "It isn't... I mean, it wasn't bad, per se. It just set me up to make a few decisions that I more or less regretted. I'll explain later. Or, well, you'll see."

The next vial took them into Keiran's seventh year, just after the positions for Quidditch teams were posted for the four houses. He found himself in the hallway outside of the Great Hall, watching Audriana yank the arm of his younger self and pull the seventh year Keiran away from the doors.

"You owe me," Audriana said, making both versions of Keiran frown. "You can't claim you don't remember it."

"I remember," the young Slytherin replied shortly, his gaze leaving the brunette and wandering the hallway in order to show his disinterest. "What are you after, Swan?"

The adult Keiran winced, waiting for the moment when Millie realized just how much of a jerk he had been. Not that he wasn't still sarcastic as hell or anything. And as Audriana made her request, Keiran groaned and turned to rest his forehead against Millie's temple to hide how frankly embarrassed he was.

"I'll give you two minutes after I finish to make fun and chide and everything else, but I need that favor," Audriana explained. "The thing is, though... I want you to pretend you and I are together."

"Excuse me?" the seventh year snapped, straightening up and looking around him with even more concern in his features. "Swan, that's just mad!"

"You owe me, snake. Don't forget that. This will get a certain person more invested in practices, and it'll make him pay more attention. Okay? And you might could start with using my first name, considering people who are involved typically do that."

The adult Keiran groaned a bit, but rather quietly, as he watched himself slowly but surely realize that if he did not agree, she would make his life rather dreadful - especially on the pitch. And it wasn't as though he had no idea who she was talking about. Back then, anything to get under Gavin's skin would be quickly agreed to. And so he had. As Audriana led his younger self back towards the Great Hall, clearly intending to make a show of it, Keiran turned to look down at Millie.

"So, to clarify.. I was trying to make my life a bit easier, in avoiding her incessant prodding at me, and to annoy Blackmoor so that he might mess up on the pitch. Plus, it got me out of owing her." Keiran shrugged one shoulder as he tagged on, "As far as I know, it worked. And it didn't really register until graduation, when we pretended to call it off, that my only 'relationships,'" Keiran formed quotes with his fingers, "were essentially ways for other people to use me. Irene might not have meant it, but in looking back it seemed that way. Still kind of does," he admitted, lifting a hand to rub at the back of his neck while his gaze fell to the floor.

"So, when University came around, I didn't take anything seriously. Didn't bother. And, I feel that we trust each other enough for me to admit that I did have an interest in Avery at first. But it wouldn't have worked. Not after all of this," he gestured towards the Great Hall. "And, really, I think we're both glad now that nothing happened."

“And then I might’ve ditched you for being rubbish,” Millie joked, leaning into Keiran with a teasing, loping smile on her face. Special was something she could say hers was, though not in the traditional way that it was meant to be used. It didn’t mean anything – these things rarely ever did – and what she discovered was that coming to that sort of relationship later and with life under her belt a bit more was better than awkward teenage fumbling ever could have been. In retrospect it was now bittersweet given the course that things had taken. In a way, though she felt the same as Keiran did, she was glad that it had worked out the way it had at the time.

A wicked grin lit up her face but despite that her nose wrinkled and she leaned into her husband, bringing a hand to his chest as the other wound around him. Her lips couldn’t find the words to tease him with at first but soon enough she laughed and leaned up to kiss him, imagining the poor teenaged Keiran trying to get his bearing in darkness. It was hard enough to deal with something you’d never really experienced before in full light, let alone in the dark. She felt sorry for him a bit but then considered it wasn’t half-bad teaching, or an excellent learning curve, given the – ahem – interesting times they’d had since they were married.

“I might treat you to broad daylight in a bed!” Millie shook her head at him, mirth in her eyes as she snuggled into him, now glad that he was sharing the memories. At least, she felt, they weren’t being upset by them. They could laugh – and that felt like something that they hadn’t gotten to do, properly, in a long time. “Funny how odd little instances go on to haunt you later on. But you should have really known better than to make a bet with a Gryffindor, Keiran.” She quirked an eyebrow at him and smiled before turning to see the scene melt away and another slowly rumble into view.

She blinked and at once the scene unfolded and Millie felt her lip curl a little at the sight of Audriana. It wasn’t the woman per se that upset the witch but what she was doing – or did, rather – grated on Millie’s nerves a bit. She would never forget playing dreadful games with the Slytherins she came up against in her year and in the years above. She had always been partial to firecrackers and slipping them impotence potions but she wasn’t sure if it was because it was Keiran or whether it was something else but she objected to the way Audriana was treating him, even if he did get a gold star for being an atypical Slytherin brat.

Something did catch in Millie’s throat when Audriana announced her plan and she narrowed her eyes, her grip on her Keiran subtly tightening as the urge to storm over and bat the offending Gryffindor away from the younger version of the man beside her. She turned a bit and pressed her lips to Keiran’s forehead, smiling against his skin. When she turned back, though, it seemed the younger man had decided to do the interesting thing and go for it. She half wanted to continue watching what happened in order to see it go down in flames but she didn’t think it would do any benefits for whatever association she had with the other girl.

“That’s dreadful,” she murmured, frowning a little, equally frown-y lines appearing on her forehead. “If it’s any consolation, babe, I would’ve chucked them off of the Astronomy tower,” she smirked, only half-serious, She laughed a bit more when he went on and she looked at him in mock-serious. “Duhh,” she intoned, rolling her eyes. “What do you take me for? Course you liked Avery. I don’t think I’d have believed the opposite in a million years. Water under the bridge now, though,” she reminded him, eluding to the previous Christmas. “Is there any more?” She asked eagerly. “I mean, now I’m curious. I want to give something back but I feel like my history is all misery and disaster in comparison.”

A wide grin formed at Millie's not-at-all-subtle suggestion, and despite himself, Keiran allowed his hands to reach for her waist. "Maybe after, hmm? Daylight will come around eventually, and we've got all the time in the world."

He gave the blonde's hand a squeeze in return, not fully cognizant of what had made her suddenly take a more firm grip around his own. But if it helped, he would be glad to do what he could.

Once Millie's expression became one of understanding, Keiran had to keep himself from assuming something negative. She did not mean to make his fears small. She meant that she didn't want to ruin the evening, he thought. He hoped. "No, no," he began quickly, trying to cover his sudden squashed feeling with a dose of lightheartedness. "I mean, you know the story, really. The last one isn't quite worth it... Um, dinner, then?" He added, doing his best to ignore the guilt that gnawed at him beneath the surface. He wasn't meaning to change the subject so much as keep himself from expressing any disappointment.

So he pulled them from the pensieve, and set the last vial aside. If she was curious, it was there for her to look at. If not, that was just as well. The other two memories were slipped into their own individual containers, and they were put up on a shelf next to his new books.

Keiran just wanted them to be happy. If that meant pushing aside things that - as Millie had pointed out - should not necessarily matter anymore, he could handle that. "You don't have to show me anything," he swore. "I brought this so you could choose to go back if you felt you needed to. I don't think either of us really got closure with some of the people we've lost, or the things we've been through. And I don't know that this is actually going to help any. But I'll be around if you want me to be. Even if you don't, that's okay, too. It won't bother me any," he assured her gently, his hand moving to rest at the small of her back so he could lead her out of the room. Perhaps, he mused, being away from the object would keep them from feeling any obligation to deal with it that night.

"And I'm more than willing to wait in the room for you if you want to go in but aren't sure you'll be feeling too well after. This thing has a way of getting to you, I've learned. So it's entirely open, entirely up to you, Millie. Just tell me when - or if - the time comes and you want me nearby. I promise I will be, if you ask it of me."

A shadow of embarrassment-mired frustration coloured the pale cheeks of the Irishwoman. With feverish fingers, she turned hair over the arch of her ear and her dulled gaze lifted ashamedly from the stone to the ebony bookshelves. Her tongue lifted from her mouth to wet her lower lip and she took a moment to bite down onto it and tear at the skin she had been worrying. Her eyes closed for a breath-beat longer than a blink and she reopened them as terseness tightened her frame and exasperation boiled in her jaw, souring in her clenched teeth.

A breath of air parted her lips and she held up her hands, her eyes darting to those of her husband to impress a meaningful look upon him. To take a history and face it, to hold it up in the light for inspection under the gaze of another was an unwanted necessity, for fear of breeding wonder between them. He wasn’t an ‘other’ in the most traditional of ways. There was nothing ‘other’ about him. He was in the most traditional of ways familiar, but he didn’t understand.

“You can go mad with something like this if you search for reasons where there are none,” the witch replied to the wizard.

She turned and broke from the hand on her back. She dug down her feet and glared for the sake of halting him, pinning him there to make him listen to her. She had nothing to say, really. Her mouth couldn’t form the words she knew needed to be said, though she couldn’t even pinpoint in her mind what that was. She knew she needed to be forthcoming in return but she wanted her secrets and her insecurities guarded. Such an object meant that it was high time a precaution like that was let go of.

“I want to see the rest,” she declared stubbornly, “and it is worth it because it belongs to you. Just,” her brows came together over her eyes as she squeezed them shut. “Just,” she reopened them to fix her stare once more, “come with me,” she decided, her words coming out in a breathless rush.

A long, silvery line of memory was drawn from the witch’s temple and the wand she had picked from the desk was abandoned there once more as she reached for her husband’s hand. Into the dish they pulled themselves, the world shimmering past and flooding through different parts of fragmented memory until eventually it reassembled. It placed them on a bright street corner in the middle of May and blossom from the trees that lined the road were showering them in buds that caught in the hair of pretty women in spring dresses and on the shoulders of businessmen whose smiles broke their studious facades as the girls fixing the market stalls laughed and brushed the flower from their clothes.

The salon before which they had materialised held a lot of interesting memories for the witch who reached down to lace her fingers with her husband’s. She passed him a hopeful smile, a little bit of regret shining in her cheeks as she considered the gravity of this. This memory was the happiest she could think of in that moment, though it was marred by obvious problems – the first of which was making its way down the street, dragging behind her a small blonde child trying her best to avoid the entire upcoming situation.

“Let go of me!”

“Oh, Melissa, do shut up,” Lavender Finnigan retorted tersely, taking her phone from her pocket to check the time. Millie jerked awkwardly, wincing at the sound of her name hissing off of the woman’s tongue.

“You’re nasty,” the girl spat, pulling her hands roughly from her mother’s tight grasp.

“Not as nasty as I will be,” Lavender returned, shoving her phone into her jacket before leaning down before the child, “unless you straighten this bloody dress and fix your hair.”

One hand curled around the girl’s upper arm, digging painfully into her skin, while the other rearranged the dress that Millie could distinctly recall being forced into while she’d kicked and screamed bloody murder. It wasn’t until her father had gotten home from the shop where he’d gone to get some milk and the morning paper that she could be pacified and it was only his gentle coaxing that saw her wear it. All of this she leaned in to murmur to Keiran, a wry sort of smile on her face that was plucked with obvious disdain.

“I hate dresses,” the younger girl churned out, her eyes slanting to the sides as she turned her head away. Her lips turned down noticeably and puckered, as though considering the words which in her later years she would scream at the woman before her. It wasn’t the dresses she loathed so: it was the woman who put her in them.

Dress straightened, Lavender pulled her daughter along the street past the elder version and her husband. Then, Lavender stepped into the salon, pushing ‘Melissa’ in before her. Instinctively, Millie found herself following, pushing through the door and into the salon that was, largely, dead. There wasn’t a soul to be found apart from the women that sat under dryers all morning this time of the week reading trashy celebrity magazines and were happy to spend fifty or sixty pounds for just the sheer joy of sitting with their friends. Even as a child, Millie had never understood it and as Lavender blustered around, shouting at her best friend and business partner, Siobhan, that there was no one around and “what on earth is Sophie doing?” Sophie being the layabout secretary who, in precisely five minutes, just before the little Millie slipped behind the desk, was sacked on the spot and cleared off without a word.

The elder woman followed in after her younger self and sat down opposite the girl who pulled a magazine from the shelf into her lap. She fiddled with her hair as her mother wanted and sighed, rubbing at her eyes before reaching to touch at her arm. She frowned a little, smoothing out the marks Lavender’s nails had made in her white shirt, and then opened the magazine, content to look at the glossy pictures while her mother dealt with the wayward employees. Millie found herself sitting down opposite the child, pressed against the shimmery qualities of the glass shop front that was behind the main desk. She held up her hand to Keiran and smiled a little.

“My mum bought this place with Siobhan – the redhead over there – not long after Elliot and I were born. She only really got a chance to have a go at it once I was this old. This was before we changed hands, Ell and I. Used to be me and mum and him and dad but then after … after this day, actually … everything changed a bit.” Millie smiled and shook her head before snuggling into her husband. “This is a good memory. All of the action starts a little bit later.”

Time passed relatively quickly and soon enough it was late afternoon and the customers had gone. Her mother and Siobhan departed into the backroom for tea and it was then that the little Millie emerged from the magazines she’d read, dozens scattered about her being indicative of time wistfully spent. She packed them away dutifully, stacking them neatly on the shelves she’d gotten them from, and then got up from behind the desk, shocking her elder counterpart into movement. Millie stood up and peered over the desk to see her younger self crawl up into one of the salon chairs.

“Oh gosh,” Millie murmured, laughing a little behind the hand she brought to her mouth as the younger picked up the large scissors that had been left on the table by the mirror.

The weight was, at first, too much for the girl but after testing it she pulled her long plait around onto her shoulder and brought up the scissors. She squeezed her eyes shut, her tongue being bitten in by her teeth as she concentrated, and then sliced. Her hair shimmered to the floor and she reopened her eyes, narrowing them at her gaze before chomping more off. Then, once satisfied, she abandoned the scissors and scoured her fingers through her hair, spiking up the tufty bits she’d left behind. It was a spikey mess and from the grin that lit up the little girl’s face, she absolutely loved it.

The scene changed then and Millie opened her eyes to find herself in her old home, stood at the foot of the stairs in the hallway. Her hand smacked down onto Keiran’s arm and she balled his jumper in her fist, fear catching breath in her throat as she looked around, feasting upon the familiarity of the place that was suddenly intoxicating to her. This was her home. This was the north London mess of a house in which she spent her summers with the misfortune of listening to the neighbours having sex. This was the place she used to laugh with her father and plot her escapes from when her mother got too much. This was the house he’d died in. The house she’d grown up in. It was home.

The front door was slammed open and a tearful little girl with a scarlet cheek was pushed in by her stormy mother who paused to scream further nonsense at the girl, exclaiming that she “couldn’t believe what” Millie had done. From the kitchen, floorboards squeaked and the elder and younger girls both looked at the same time to find Seamus Finnigan stood in the doorway of the kitchen. A half-swallowed cry rumbled at the back of the woman’s throat and she pulled at Keiran all the more, almost shaking his arm as she tried to keep herself together. He was young, again. He was happy, even though his brows furrowed at the sight of his wife. He was alive. He was there.

“Daddy!”

The little girl shot forward and he leaned down, scooping her up into his arms with a joyous laugh that ripped at the height of his elder daughter. He snuggled his face into her shoulder, pressing a kiss to her cheek as he lifted it once more. She cuddled tightly into him, drawing her arms around his neck, and dried her tears on his Aerosmith t-shirt. Seamus reached up with his large, nimble fingers and rubbed underneath his daughter’s eyes, studiously ignoring his wife who fumed by the coat hooks.

“You’ve changed a bit,” Seamus appraised his daughter playfully, trying to shake some happiness into her. “Has your mum got you a new dress?”

“No, daddy,” she pouted at him, unable to keep from smiling. She pointed dramatically to her head and Seamus laughed again, reaching to kiss her forehead.

“Ohhh, I see!” Seamus exclaimed, twirling her about as he turned away from Lavender. “You look very beautiful,” he told her, moving back into the kitchen. “Would you like some tea, Mopsie?”

The younger chorused her agreement for such a thing and the elder opened her mouth, finding the reply burning on her tongue. She brought her hand to her mouth and closed her eyes, shaking her head as tears stung at her eyes. Stubbornness had made her want to prove Keiran wrong but he’d been right of course. Equally, she’d not been far long. Madness in such an object was keen to be found. As she watched her father rub at her cheek and apologise for her mother, knowing that this was the moment when Lavender would be turned out from the house and the locks changed until her daughter allowed her home again, which would have been never had it not been for her father missing his wife, she felt a little bit more of that organ within her get chipped away at because Merlin she had forgotten how much she’d missed him.

“I can change the colour for you if you like,” Seamus offered, relinquishing a sob from his daughter as the tears couldn’t stop themselves from falling. The younger girl nodded delightedly and through shimmering eyes Millie watched as he reached up and drew his fingers across her head, changing it first to pink, to purple, to green, to orange before she settled on a bright blue that she delighted in, kicking her feet excitedly as she cuddled back into him. His lips found her forehead and he kept her close as he made their tea, ignoring his wife and ignoring, too, the child who strayed to her side as new ties within the shambles of a family were cemented.

“I love you daddy,” the little girl murmured wearily into his neck.

“I love you too, beautiful,” was the gentle reply as hot water was poured into the cups.

The scene fell away but the churned up feelings and the unfurled scars, ripped open with a stunning ferocity she’d not been expecting. Out from beneath her, her feet fell, sending her with a bump to the floor. Her hands rubbed across her face in a vain effort to keep the tears at bay but it was to no avail. Her shoulders began to shake more fervently and her sobs lifted more openly from within her as she was caught between letting go of it and suppressing it back down into the bottles she’d been storing the feelings in. With one memory, the cellar had been trashed and wine had been left to pool on the floor and she felt stained with it, with the hurt, with the memory and with the searing slap she’d gotten for cutting off her hair. Even now she could feel it but worse she could feel her father’s arms around her and his lips on her forehead, his voice in her ears. But he wasn’t there. He just wasn’t there. He was gone.

A worried frown flashed into Keiran's face when she pulled away, his heels pressing into the floor to halt his momentum towards the door. For a moment, he thought he was the one at fault again, the one who had caused whatever problem was going through her mind, and Keiran spent that moment wondering if he wouldn't ever be good enough. Nothing he did seemed to work at the time he tried to do it, and nothing he said seemed to be taken the way he meant it. So he wasn't at all sure that he wouldn't be the one who ruined them all over again. But she spoke again, drawing out a memory of her own, and Keiran had to actively consider the face he was making so that he could keep the shock from showing on his features.

He was pleased, to be sure, that she wanted him to see it - whatever it was - at all. But Keiran could feel the anxiety rolling off of her in waves, and it scared him -- enough so that a part of him wanted to say no. But of course that wouldn't help anything, so he knew that the choice had more or less been made for him. His wife, it seemed, could have him whichever way she wanted, and he would have no say in it despite the almost certain fear he thought she felt. And then, he came to a startling conclusion that he wasn't convinced was untrue: Perhaps Millie was more afraid of his seeing the moment than actually reliving it.

Once he got swept away and into the memory, however, Keiran wasn't so confident in that idea anymore.

Now, Keiran had a number of reasons for disliking Lavender, the main one being how she had treated the twins nearly as badly as he had at the start. He didn't have any right, obviously, to be upset about that, considering he could admit the fear that gripped his heart sometimes when he walked into a room and found the twins sitting there. They would look at him and smile or wiggle towards him or make it clear in other ways that they wanted his attention. But Keiran was afraid that nobody would be a bigger villain in their lives than he had been. Not that he wanted them to experience any pain - he certainly didn't. They had not earned any, and they never deserved any. Not after his absurd reaction to them and his inability to understand that his wife and their children might actually just forget who he was. Merlin, but it nearly broke him to look back and remember the moment when he knew they had nearly forgotten him. So, no. He didn't think anyone could do worse by them, and he supposed that it was good that they may not remember it later. But it did make him feel like the villain in their story some days. The snake come to ruin a perfectly beautiful place and some perfectly wonderful people who didn't know well enough to ignore him.

His other reason for disliking Lavender was an obvious one, though. His wife didn't want to deal with the woman, so he didn't want to, either. And it wasn't just his deciding to play sides - at least, not anymore. Especially after he heard the rather annoying voice of the woman in question as she led a small, clearly unamused Millie down the street. He instantly felt guilty about the name thing, deciding that, no matter how angry he got, he didn't want her to relate him to her mother. Keiran definitely didn't want to remind her of this moment when she was clearly so unhappy.

When they entered the building, he found himself glancing around at the hair supplies and wondering if young Millie had been interested in the place or bored out of her wits, left wanting to bound about or distract someone. But the little blonde went to read, and Keiran almost felt disappointed. Not in her, exactly, so much as in Lavender for stifling it. What good was there in bringing a young girl and forcing her to sit on her own when she could have been doing all manner of exciting things and being happy? Keiran didn't want his kids to look so downtrodden. Not ever.

His thoughts quieted as Millie explained, and he found himself standing behind her as she sat, half wanting to walk over and hug the younger Millie to him and protect her and make her laugh so the sadness could cease. But later, he found himself staring, dumbfounded, as the little blonde wandered over and chopped off most of her hair. Keiran's hand lifted to the hair of the woman next to him, as if he expected hers to change, too. He hoped she wouldn't do that again, but mostly because he liked her as she was. But he supposed that a haircut wouldn't change how he saw her, and it wasn't fair to worry after it, when his wife would probably go through with it before he even knew she wanted to. So instead of commenting on it, Keiran let his fingers drift through the ends of her hair before he kissed the top of her head. He did try to offer some assurance that he was paying attention, though, since he had been so quiet.

"Why do I get the feeling that Kelly will be just as independent?" He teased gently, a quiet chuckle released as his chin came to rest on her shoulder from behind. "You were just as endearing then, I see."

But his words meant nothing, because they moved and Millie seemed utterly terrified of something he couldn't understand and she couldn't seem to vocalize. Keiran let her choose what would happen, though, following as she wandered down the hall, the realization that he was seeing her father slamming into him when she tugged at his arm. He wasn't sure how to comfort her in this, but he did his best, offering one arm across her torso if she needed something to hold onto, and wrapping the other across her shoulders in hopes of creating a feeling of safety, and a show of clear proof that no negative reaction she had would be judged or brought up later. Keiran had been just as bad about Aiden, he mused to himself, except it had set him up to make terrible choices. But then again, hadn't Millie hinted at making ridiculous choices of her own once she was on her own? Perhaps he wasn't the only one who struggled with the concept of being one's own person and avoiding the influences of others. He had never been any good at that, though. Not really.

Keiran felt sick somehow to realize how much he would have liked her father. How well they might have gotten along if Keiran had taken a moment to realize how stupid he had been. A part of him knew, however, that he probably would have been punched a few times by Seamus, given his absolutely terrible track record thus far. And as the man showed just how well he understood his daughter and how brilliant he was at sorting her out again, Keiran found himself wishing he could have talked to him. Perhaps he wouldn't feel so lost.

But, perhaps he wouldn't have Millie at all if the man was still around. No matter how much Keiran wanted it for her, how much he knew she wanted her father back, he was sure there would have been a trade off. He wouldn't even know her, nonetheless be married to her or have the chance to mess things up and spend forever trying to make it up to their twins. Keiran knew there was no point in wondering, but sometimes he just wished he could know what would have happened. Without her, he probably would still be on his own, pretending that he was as okay with bachelorhood as Robin used to be. Not that he had fully intended to marry, he admitted to himself as Seamus toyed with the color of the little girl's hair. But he didn't want to go back to being alone. Not now that she had shown him how good it was to be with her, and how much it killed him to think he might have to go without.

Still, if he could have brought Seamus back for her (without the ghastly consequences of the methods he knew of, of course), he would have done so without question. He would have gone back and changed things, stopped whatever it was that made her lose him in the first place. No matter what that meant for him. Because the moment they returned to their house, she crumpled to the floor and his heart followed suit. Keiran wasn't the one she wanted comfort from in that moment, but he had no clue what to do besides try.

Something told him she needed to get it out, needed to have a good cry. So he first sat beside her, holding a hand out, palm up, willing to wait as long as she needed, but equally okay with the idea that she might ignore it. And despite his desire to say something, anything, that might help, he didn't think it was his words she wanted to hear. So he figured that it might be best to let her play back her father's words and assurances and endearments and "I love you"s in the safety of her own mind while she still could.

Had he really helped, though? He had to wonder, really, if he was meant to feel guilty for thinking the question at all. It wasn't about him, he reminded himself. She needed to see her father again, and he had brought the device that would help her do so. But it wasn't really about Keiran seeing her past, he didn't think. He wouldn't have wanted to go back alone to see his own father again, nonetheless how she must have felt about it. He wasn't sure if she had ever truly gotten closure regarding Seamus, but he wasn't sure he could help her with that part.

So he waited, quietly allowing her to get out anything and everything she needed to, somehow knowing that their evening wasn't actually ruined. It had been darkened by the pain of the past, sure, but now he had the chance to spend the rest of it taking care of her as he should have done from the start, from the moment the twins were born. It wouldn't change the past - that much was now painfully clear, but he hoped he would be allowed to counter those bad memories with good ones. Ones of making dinner for them while she set up the television or decided she wanted to eat on the couch and put out pillows accordingly. Perhaps of smudging his thumb across the corner of her mouth after she'd unknowingly left a spot of pasta sauce there, maybe of his giving sarcastic commentary on that one film about dancing while she wiggles in her spot as though she could do the mambo just as well as the characters. Of pulling those new books from the shelves and reading bits of them as she drifted to sleep and he could carry her off to bed and tuck her in while he put away the vials and kept them safe.

Perhaps they would go back to that pensieve when they were old and one of them was getting too sick, and they would watch the best moments back like their own home movie of just the good stuff, and even Keiran would cry a bit because it didn't matter anymore if he didn't pretend he was the strong guy he was supposed to be. Because there would be no point in pretending he wasn't desperate to stay, or for her to stay if she were the one leaving first. He would be, he knew. And he wouldn't even care if his kids were watching, because it mattered more to let them see the compassion and love he felt for their mother than it mattered for them to see him being strong. That would always matter more, he realized.

So when he thought he wouldn't be invading on her thoughts or her space, Keiran moved closer, lifting her into his lap as gently as he could. She was still young, not necessarily ready for the life that had been forced upon her, in part by him. But she was stronger than perhaps even she realized, and he didn't care if she felt one way one minute and differently another. He didn't care if her emotions turned him on his head for a while because he didn't understand why she was so upset. She was strong but she would need someone to rely on - she needed to feel that she was allowed to do so with him - and Keiran didn't want her to feel alone, ever.

He wanted to point out that he loved her, but it sort of paled in comparison to her father having said it only minutes before. So instead, he let his forehead lean against hers, dropping a kiss to her shoulder lightly, not wanting to stifle her or make her think he expected her to stop. He didn't want her to shove away what she felt for the sake of putting on a brave face in front of him. Feeling better needed to come from healing, not from pretending.

"That's right, love," he murmured finally, feeling the need to just say something, anything, to show that he wasn't upset with her for trying to deal with it. "Let it all out, okay? I've got you. You just let me know what you need, alright? I can move us downstairs or start dinner or whatever you need," Keiran offered, pushing her hair out of her face so it wouldn't get all the more wet with her tears. "I've got you."