If you can't get someone out of your head, maybe they're supposed to be there.

"I'll be right there," Declan called down the bar, throwing a tea towel over his shoulder. Then he turned back to Dom, shaking his head with a throwaway smile before leaning forward to kiss her before moving away to tend to the man at the other end. Unlike one Keiran Hayes, he didn't even realize the way his face fell once she could no longer properly see him.

It was feeling more and more unusual for him to be out of the kitchen, acting as bartender instead of cook. But it did make it easier to spend time with Dom that way. If he thought she wouldn't laugh at him or feel weird about him suggesting she change her new goals yet again, he would have suggested she work with him. But she had other people that she was training with, and he was more of a pub or home cooking kind of guy anyway. Those things he could not help with, and that was probably for the best in the end.

After fulfilling their request, he turned back, picking up a couple of glasses to wash in the sink across from Dom. But it wasn't until he looked up at her again that his expression brightened again. She was around more often now that her school had let out and she'd finished her program, becoming another normal part of the Leaky for him, and it sometimes hit him before he even thought too hard about it.

Pressing the glass over the sink brush a couple of times, he lifted his chin at her to pull her attention fully. "Henry has tickets to the match this weekend if you want to go? He's got to skip it for work, but he's got space in a pretty nice box."

Dom had a way of adapting to each situation she found herself in - and if she couldn't adapt, she made tweaks to the situation. For example, there had been a time where it had been hard to see Declan, what with school for her and the pub for him, and each had friends and family they had obligations to as well. She could have adapted to just be patient and mature and wait for the sparse weekends they both had time... but instead she had sort of kind of maybe moreorless moved in to his place and begun waiting tables at the Leaky. There was no employment paperwork in her name and they had never discussed the former but it was working. And why ruin a good thing?

Declan hurried off to do his job, leaving Dom to lean back and squint unashamedly at her boyfriend's retreating arse. The reminder to be professional chided her and she hitch-stepped off to top off the rowdy group at the end of the bar, her athletic dress swirling around her legs. She grabbed her tips at another table and swung her hips to an unsung song playing in her head, looking across the pub with eyes that were more fond than they perhaps ought to be. She should have been more purposeful in her gaze but she couldn't help but feel an attachment to the place and its patrons, and she never had been good at hiding her feelings.

Declan joined her back behind the bar where she was folding silverware into napkins. She tilted her head towards him and arched an eyebrow. "Private box all to ourselves? Sounds like trouble. I'm in."

Someone slammed a drink down at the far end of the bar, laughing with their rowdy mates, and Declan looked over out of habit. Things were easily fixed, but he wouldn't have fights or shattered mugs in his pub if he could help it. Nothing was amiss, however, except for the fact that his eyes settled on the spot where Ant had been standing, a total wreck the day he took her in properly with Dom.

Declan swallowed, turning back in time to crack a smile at the look she gave him. "I thought you might say that. I've asked Corinne to run things while we're out."

He turned, putting the glasses back on their racks before leaning over the bar on his forearms. "Dom," he went on more quietly, changing the subject without warning, "...Do you-- I mean.. you miss her, too, don't you?" And then he gestured down the bar to where the girls had been introduced.

The way his adam's apple bobbed made Dom withdraw a bit, lips quirking into a frown while her eyebrows lifted, though her bright eyes remained large and fixed in optimism. With Declan, it truly could be anything. He worried about her, he worried about Henry, he worried about the Leaky, he worried about the world in general. He could have just seen a patron get dumped and was fretting about how to handle it, or he could have been sitting on bad news from home all morning. Dom learned to save the guessing game - he usually told her.

And that he did. And as he did, she felt that familiarly melt-y feeling he was so good at conjuring within her. As emotionally volatile as she could be, that sensation of all that was good in her bubbling towards the surface and wanting to bumrush him and fold him into her arms and make things good. Not that she could. She was the least qualified for making things good. But Merlin he made her want to try.

Eyes softening with the seriousness of the situation, she reached out and rubbed a hand down the back of his arm, drawing near, not caring that patrons were probably watch. She looked up at him - was that a question that really needed answering? "We can do some digging. We have some right to know how she's doing."

Declan leaned forward even more at her touch, subconsciously leaning into the comfort. She wasn't wrong, but he had his own struggle with the idea of reaching out: "I just... she found her way here before. Several times. And that makes me wonder if she just doesn't want to anymore. Or if something is stopping her."

And that, arguably, was the real problem. If she was happy and didn't want to, Declan could come to terms with that. But he wouldn't be able to accept it if they'd left her in a situation that was completely awful. Would Ant ever forgive him for it? Surely she knew it had been his idea to ask Henry for help. He and Dom weren't exactly guardian material, but if they were better than whatever situation she was in, he knew that he could find a way to make it work. And he trusted that Dom, regardless of her early concerns about relationships and things like this, would feel the same way.

One of the things he loved the most about her was the quiet Gryffindor personality that set her apart from people like Henry, or even Declan himself. Dec was all bold gestures and a refusal to stand down. Henry, obviously, lived for being reckless. But Dom was different. Fear was something she rejected in favor of finding another emotion she liked better, and although it didn't always manifest in the ways he hoped, he firmly believed that she would choose love and caring for another person over the worry that they couldn't do it.

"Wouldn't they have someone assigned to check on her? Maybe Henry knows."

Declan often took the place of her rock, especially with the stress of school, quietly sweeping in to take care of things such as reminding her that her bills were due or that she had worn the same pair of jeans for four days straight. When she would rush in absolutely certain that she had just flunked an exam, he would force her to eat her leftover souffle and remember all the had work she had done.

He handled her worry with ease but Merlin he had no idea what to do with his own. It rolled off of him like stink on a pig or... something more flattering than that. There wasn't much use trying to hide it and he was getting better at not even trying. But she also knew that the subject of Ant had higher stakes for him. He had felt guilty ever since Ilvermorny, feeling as though he had done the least to help the students stranded in a foreign place - and there was no leftover souffle from that to shove in his face as proof of his competency.

It was with a flourish that she whipped off her apron. "C'mon," she said, tugging on his wrist. "Let's go. I know the owner. He'll probably let us go early if I flirt with him."

Declan blinked in surprise when she tossed her apron over the top of the bar, and it honestly took him a moment to register what she meant. But he grinned fondly at her, setting aside his dish towel and stepping around the end of the bar to join her. Leaning down a little, he pressed a thankful kiss to the top of her head. Then he waved to Will, gesturing towards the door to explain that they were heading out. Luckily, his employees and managers had gotten quite good at dividing work so they would likely be just fine. And if not, they'd send him a message anyway.

So they disapparated, landing directly in Henry's office, because if anybody was allowed to do that it was Declan. Henry, predictably, looked peeved. Not at them, though. He was standing in the doorway, just having finished a shout to someone down the hall. He jumped a little as he turned to look at them, and just shook his head. Probably at the way Dec was essentially wrapped around Dom. But that only came naturally to the pub owner, especially when Declan stepped aside and gestured towards a chair for her if she wanted it. Even as he did so, Dec was looking at his best mate, jaw tight.

"Your contact in the social working thing. Can they check on Ant?"

Okay, so he was wasting no time. Henry frowned, shutting the door. He walked around his desk and sat facing them, his hands clasped like he was some sort of teacher or authority talking to two unruly idiots.

"I don't know if I have the right to ask for that. If they've done so, I'd expect it to be in some private file or other."

Henry was all amped up, no surprises there, so she let Declan deal with him, as she was not looking to get in the crossfires. Besides, Declan had more experience defusing his friend – she would accidentally wind him up and set him off. Declan usually knew how to navigate the situation, steer Henry back to baseline with some quips and teases, but today he was not patient enough for it, it seemed. He jumped right in and surprise registered on her face just as it did on Henry’s.

Henry wasn’t amused. Dom cleared her throat. “Yeah, we thought so. But with some of the information we got out of here, we realized that if she got put back with her parents, she may not be in the best place, and may not have the voice to speak up for herself. She ended up alone on the streets once before, after all.”

One thing that Henry was still trying to figure out was why Declan and Dom had not broken up yet. Sure, they made sense in a lot of ways, but then they showed up and they were always in some kind of mess. Why couldn't they just deal with their own issues like he did? Or didn't, arguably. Just because he and Maude had shouting matches in the hallway, that didn't mean anything. Besides, Henry himself was a man of action when it came to the things that really needed doing. Declan was a worrier, and Dom? well, Henry wasn't sure. But that wasn't what he was sitting there for, evidently.

He frowned deeply at Dom's reply, and though he himself thought it was valid, there was one problem. "Do you think that they would have let her go back if they thought the situation was a bad one?"

But Declan spoke up at that, having none of it. "No one intervened before. And we all know that things get by when they shouldn't. Kids get put into homes all the time that are no good for them, yet the foster parents get away with it because they want the money." Sitting forward, Declan eyed his best friend with a look more furious than Henry could ever recall, apart from the events surrounding Danica. "Where is she, Henry? I'm not dropping this."

One eyebrow arched, Henry glanced between the pair of them, seeing the potential for Declan as a father for the first time in their long, trial-ridden friendship. It was there, though Henry was not convinced the older man was really mentally prepared for it yet. "... Fine. I'll check."

So he pulled out a sheet of parchment, writing another letter to his friend, hoping that they would be helpful. By the time he had finished it off and sent it away, Declan had relaxed into his chair, looking a bit surprised with himself. "How long do you think they'll take?" Dec asked after a moment, looking up at Henry despite the way his chin had ducked towards his chest.

But Henry could only shrug, looking over at Dom. There was something questioning behind the Welshman's eyes as he studied her, the silent question of whether or not Declan was improving. So far, Henry couldn't believe that he was.

She was glad Declan was taking the reigns. Though she had gotten rather invested in the little girl, she still felt like Declan had a bond with her she had not quite achieved yet, and she certainly wasn't close enough with Henry to start making demands. She still sensed that he didn't trust her with his best friend's heart... which she supposed was fair, considering how long it had taken her to actually commit to him. She hoped Henry had seen how far she had come, how happy Declan seemed to be, but she could never be sure. And until she was, she wasn't sure she should be pushing her luck with him.

But his eyes were darting towards her and her blues widened in surprise, caught in headlights and without a clue as to what was wanted of her. But his eyes narrowed, and she could feel the question. She glanced towards Declan, who was beginning to look her way. So she settled with a conflicted shrug that conveyed the message it's complicated.

But Declan was looking her way now so she said to Henry, "Anything we can do to help speed it up... We're worried. Obviously. I don't think we have any real right to contact her but just some... assurance? That'd be nice."