Four Hours-
Maybe he was running late.
Four hours late? She scoffed at herself. That was reaching a bit too far. Maybe…maybe he had picked up an extra shift from the hospital. Hadn't he mentioned something earlier in the week about them being short staffed?
What if he was killed? Her blood chilled at the thought. No, no, don't think like that, she thought to herself. But if he doesn't come home soon….
Rose sighed and dropped into the nearest chair, the pounding in her head and the blurriness in her eyes from lack of sleep finally registering to her adrenaline-run brain. She felt the signs of fatigue in her body as she rubbed her temples with her hands, desperate to get some kind of relief.
Where is he?
Had she missed something? She racked her brain for a few minutes, desperately trying to remember every single thing he had said to her in the last week. She couldn't think of anything that he said that would lead to this night, waiting up for him for four hours after he was supposed to be home.
She closed her eyes and sat in the darkness, breathing deeply to get herself into control.
He is fine, she told herself. He just got held up at work. He'll be home shortly, he'll…
She had not realized she'd fallen asleep until she woke up.
The door was creaking open. Immediately, she grabbed her wand and sat up, instantly more awake. Was it a burglar? Why was she in a chair? She could feel the crick in her neck already from sleeping in that uncomfortable position.
She flicked her wand and the lamp beside her turned on, giving off an eerily dull light.
He stood before her, looking exhausted as just as fatigued as she was. His cloak was wrapped tightly around him, protecting him from the cold. His skin looked paler than usual and he had dark bags under his eyes. The same eyes that looked at her confusedly as she sat in a chair, bathrobe tightened around her waist, a furious expression on her face.
"I thought you'd be asleep," he said quietly.
"Really," she said, hearing the venom in her own voice, "you thought you'd just be able to sneak back home four hours after you were supposed to be and I wouldn't notice? Do you think I'm dense?"
He sighed wearily, as if expecting this. "You aren't my mother, Rose," he said, hanging up his outer cloak on the cloak rack.
She stiffened immediately at his offensive attitude. She should be the one calling the shots! She, who had stayed up late even though she had to wake up early to visit her grandmother on her one day off tomorrow—no, today—she, who had been worried sick that he had been killed, or harmed, or raped or something! She should be calling the shots.
She stood up, facing him, crossing her arms over her chest to protect herself from the insults he threw her way.
"Of course I'm not your mother, I'm your girlfriend! I should have some right to care! You came home four hours later than you said you would, Scorpius! I was worried like hell! I thought you'd been killed or raped!"
He snorted at that. "Can men even get raped?"
"Not. The. Point." She growled.
"Rose, we're both tired and angry. Maybe we should just go to sleep and talk about this in the morning."
That was Scorpius, always in control of things, always rational.
"In case you haven't noticed, it already is the morning! Where were you?"
"The hospital." He answered shortly, rolling his eyes. "Where I always am when I'm not with you."
She scoffed, rolling her eyes. Right. That's why he spent so much time with Albus and his other friends. Not that she didn't mind that, Merlin forbid if they spent every waking minute of their time together. She enjoyed her evenings out with the girls. But he made it sound as if his whole world revolved around her, the patronising bastard.
She took a step closer and was consumed in the scent of…perfume?
"Is that perfume?"
His grey eyes met hers and he straightened up, on the defensive now.
"Old ladies never know when to stop. She came in towards the beginning of my shift and I haven't been able to get rid of it since. Promise me you won't do that."
And there he goes, assuming that she'll be there. He always assumes, she thinks. He never asks her anything. Even when he asked her to move in with him, it was a simple short conversation. "Move in with me," he said and that had been that. Within a week, her stuff had been moved into his flat. Not that the flat had changed much, he wanted everything kept the way it was when he used it as his bachelor pad, there were few, if any, feminine touches.
"I can do you one better. You'll never have to know if I pour the whole bottle of perfume on myself when I'm old and senile, because you won't be there."
He stiffened in surprise, registering her words as she dodged his tall frame and went to the cloak rack, grabbing her outer cloak.
"Rose, think about this." He said calmly, telling her what to do as always.
"I've already thought it through, for four hours while you were late."
She grabbed the wristband off the entryway table and threw her hair up fully aware that she hadn't thought of leaving him until a few moments ago. Leaving him. It sounded so surreal, even in her head.
"What about our flat?" He asked, his gaze steely.
"Our flat?" She scorned. "What part of this flat exactly is ours? It's your flat, Scorpius and I'm just an intruder!"
He stared at her, dumbfounded. "I didn't know you felt that way."
She threw her hands in the air, exasperated. "Scorpius where exactly are my things in this apartment? In the few drawers you gave me? And my favorite chair, the one I always read in? It's sitting in Albus's flat! The mirror that I love and always use to get ready is at Lily's, and James reluctantly agreed to hold on to half my books until we got a bookshelf. Everything in here is yours. I still think of it as yours. I think to myself 'Well, I might go grocery shopping today, his cupboards look a little bare.' This is not my home!"
She was breathing heavily, her face flushed and her hands were shaking. She hadn't quite meant to go that far.
But as agitated as she was, he appeared eerily calm, as flushed as she was, he was pale, as vibrant as she was with anger he was calm, cool, collected, always in control. Maybe it was the healer in him, maybe it was his ability to compartmentalize, but whatever it was it made Rose furious.
He still, said nothing, just stared at her with his all-seeing grey eyes. She felt bare, like all of her thoughts were laid out for him to see, like he somehow knew every single thought running through her head.
"You could have just written a note. Let me know, that's all I wanted. I wanted to know that you wanted me to care."
She bit her lip and looked down, scared to see his reaction to that.
"It was just four hours."
"Four hours! Do you know what can happen in four hours? So many things. People die, people live, people make up, have sex, fight, break up, build tree houses, write novels, get raped, get killed! So many things can happen in four hours! Maybe you don't understand that yet, though you should because I know you've seen perfectly normal people die in the space of four hours due to unfortunate coincidences. My father was an auror, my uncle was an auror, Albus is an auror, Hugo wants to be one too," her voice broke and she saw Scorpius now only through blurry eyes filled with her unshed tears. "Every day could be your last. I hear horror stories around the dinner table, 'So and so's daughter was killed. Her boyfriend turned out to be a psychotic sadist who enjoyed beating her up and one day took it too far.' 'This guy never came back from the super market, we think he was abducted.' Scorpius, I care about you. I don't want that to happen to you. Four hours can make a load of a difference. What if it was me? If I disappeared off the face of the earth for four hours? Would you have been worried? Would you care? Would you even notice?"
Would it be you ready to call the aurors, frantic and wondering where I was? She wondered.
"Of course I would notice, Rose, I care about you."
There, he had said it simply, logically, he was still the same calm, cool, and collected man she'd met in school. The same one she had fallen in love with.
"But do you care enough?"
She had always wondered if he felt the same way about her. She had fallen in love with him, but he was never affectionate. He didn't like holding hands in public, and though he was a fantastic lover, he hated to cuddle. She loves being able to touch the people she cares about and he made it so difficult to be close to him!
"Rose, I care about you." He said it firmly, taking a step closer to her, his eyes locked on hers, searching. Searching for something she didn't know if she could give him.
Not good enough.
"But when did this become the issue? I thought you were angry at me for worrying you because I took an extra hospital shift and didn't tell you?"
Maybe this was just the bigger problem.
"I thought so too. But now I can't help but wonder, Scorpius, is it that awful to hold my hand? Or let me kiss you on the cheek in public? Is it me?"
Her voice, once so loud and angry had been reduced to quiet and broken. She could barely stand hearing herself. She sounded much too pathetic and she couldn't handle that. She was a strong woman, like her mother, she would walk out of here with her dignity intact, at least.
But he grabbed her arm, and with his other hand he lifted her chin.
"It's not you, it's me."
She bit back a bitter laugh. So he was going to dump her, it was that simple. After a year together and a few months living together, he was going to leave her.
But he continued. "My family isn't affectionate. I don't have a million and one relatives to kiss and hug and hear about my day. I don't show affection well, Rose, but I care about you." His eyes looked at her with a burning intensity that she so desperately wanted to believe.
"I'm leaving."
Stop me.
She pulled herself out of his grasp, striding towards the door.
"Rose!"
She turned and thought she saw a change in his eyes, or maybe it was his stance. Something was different about him. "I'll write you a note next time, I swear." He wasn't as calm; there was a hint of desperation in his voice.
He doesn't seem so cool and collected, now.
She opened the door, and stepped outside, slamming the door behind her.
She stood for a moment, trying to gather her thoughts; her body betrayed her quickly putting one foot in front of the other, walking away.
As she did when every relationship ended, she thought about their beginning.
The way he would smile at her when she said something horribly embarrassing, like she was the most adorable thing she'd ever seen, the way he would cup her face in his hands when she blushed at him like a young schoolgirl. He was always fascinated by her easy blush.
She thought of the fun dates they'd had, the nights when after lovemaking they had sat up and talked about stupid, inane things that made her laugh until she almost cried.
It was like a muggle film, playing in her head. All of the good times they had together. Was she making a mistake?
Her mind zeroed in on the last few months of their relationship as she walked to the staircase at the end of the hall. Did he act any differently? Were there warning signs she could have predicted? The first night she moved into his flat, he had helped her put her clothes into her allotted drawers. He smiled at her, laughed with her, he had even made dinner. She smiled sadly, remembering. And he had held her hand across the table! How could she have forgotten that? She had felt like she was on cloud nine the rest of the night.
One stair case, down, three more to go and the memories kept flooding in.
The way he would guide her in the restaurants by lightly touching the small of her back, when he passed her in the kitchen the other week and had smiled at her, his hand grazing her shoulder as he walked by. Just the other day he had grasped her hand quickly when he saw another man looking her way at the park down the street when they had taken a walk. It was brief, and had disappeared when the man had gone, but she had been secretly thrilled.
Another staircase down.
He would always stand too close to her. He wouldn't touch her but he would stand so close that, had he wanted to, he could just reach a finger out and touch her. He always stood so close, so intimately close to her that at first it unnerved her. But now she wondered if that was his version of holding hands.
Another staircase. Memories, flooding her mind, she wrapped the cloak more tightly around her as she practically sprinted down the last staircase to the bottom floor. She ran lightly across the lobby, thinking of all the times she and Scorpius would enter, carrying grocery bags, filled with food, in a domestic sort of bliss.
She opened the door and stepped outside, into the cold air.
She sighed and she could see the cloud of her own breath in the night air. Traffic was slow, a few random cars sped through the street, and she stood, staring into the blackness. He cared. He had to. She shivered lightly from the cold, and took a few steps to the edge of the sidewalk and glanced up. The light was still on, she could see it. A shadow flickered, he was still awake. She thought he would drop dead into a slumber as soon as he got rid of her.
And then his shadow flickered again. He was…pacing?
He cared! He cared about her! He cared enough to pace, enough to break out of his cool, calm, collected shell.
The casual touches, the standing too close, the asking her to move in…it should have been obvious. She almost laughed in relief. To anyone else, it would have been obvious. But she was so used to blatant displays of affection. Making out in public, hands tightly around her waist, hand holding. She hadn't missed any of that with Scorpius, not with him. With him…she just knew.
And then she was back inside the building, sprinting across the lobby.
Up the stairs, she felt her breathing become uneven. She was gasping for breath and had to stop briefly to catch her breath after two staircases. She took the next two slower, gaining her composure.
She felt alive, invigorated, even. She walked calmly to the door again and hesitated, her last words to him resounding throughout her mind, 'I'm leaving'. What could she possibly say now?
Her hand raised on its own accord, knocking lightly.
Seconds later he threw open the door, his eyes wild with some sort of emotion and he stared at her, dumbfounded for the second time tonight. He thought she was leaving for good.
She felt a smile on her lips and uttered the only thing that made sense to her right then, knowing she didn't want to go anywhere important without him by her side. Despite his faults, and hers, she wanted to be with him.
"Would you like to come with me?"
A/N: Heh. Hi! :)
Long time, I know. I was out of town for three weeks, I managed to upload GBTC once but it was a bit sketchy. Anyway, this is a one shot that has been running around in my head for a while so I finally wrote it down. My favourite part is the end line.
I hope you enjoy!
~wwccd