Disclaimer: Not mine, of course!
A/N: For Schpocky's Joker of the Pack challenge, and several others. Orla is canon, but unknown. Many thanks to StarryNightfall for the beta-ing help. A bit rubbish, but I've had it written for a long while, and Uni isn't leaving me which much time for fanfiction so I thought that I may as well post! Reviews are awesome, and if you favourite please take time to review?
'Do you still see Stewart?' Morag smiled, when their interview had finished. It felt strange to be engaged in this reminiscent banter with someone who she would very soon be working for. Orla had always liked Morag though, remembering with admiration the dark days of Death Eater controlled Hogwarts, when she was a young fourth year, and the year boundaries had stopped being important. Morag had been the one to save Stewart from Alecto Carrow.
Orla smiled. 'Everyday. We've lived together since we left Hogwarts.'
Morag nodded knowingly. 'Don't think me impertinent, but is he - ?' She gestured towards Orla's pregnant stomach.
She almost laughed at the thought of Artie being a part of this mess, except where she had managed to drag him into it. Artie, her brother, who would never harm a fly, or speak a harsh word against anyone, let alone impregnate a girl without his ring on her finger. She swallowed her laugh, because it really wasn't funny. Given, Artie was like a brother to her, but the situation would be far more favourable if the child was his. She shook her head. 'No, it's not his.'
Her tone, though not cold, told Morag not to question further, so she didn't. Instead, she looked back down at her papers. 'Though I can see why you can't play for the team anymore, I can't help but wonder why you didn't try to get a job for the Puddlemere offices?'
'I wanted a change. Besides, I've been a Wasps fan since I was a little girl,' she replied. 'I think if you looked, my heart would be beating yellow and black.'
It was a lie, but Morag didn't have to know that. Morag just beamed at her. 'In which case, I've made the right choice, and I can't wait until you start on Monday!'
'I can't either!' Morag's enthusiasm was infectious, and Orla felt almost like a little girl on Christmas Eve, rather than the twenty-three year old woman she was, who had just sold out almost everything she had ever believed in.
She hated the Wasps, she hated the Stingers, she hated that this was the woman she'd become. She loved Puddlemere United and she always had. When they'd taken her on as a reserve chaser, it had been the proudest day of her short life, and she'd felt like there was nothing she would ever want again. But Puddlemere lead her to Oliver.
Orla Quirke smells like blueberries. She's a whizz in the air, and she really should have been on the first team, not the reserve, but they'd had no spaces avaliable. She's great to watch, and he suddenly finds himself distracted when he watches the reserve team practice. There's a look of such intense concentration on her face, and she seems to genuinely care like he does about the team.
He doesn't know whether he's putty in her hands, or whether she's his, but it doesn't seem to matter. From her first day, his mind starts making these plans, to stop her when she's leaving, to make her see him, to kiss her. And his plans seem so foolish, but they're plans nonetheless, and his plans, meticulous and well created, don't usually let him down.
Given, they're usually about Quidditch, but tangentially, this is too. So he goes along with it, and he pretends he's about to go and face the Falmouth Falcons. There's this fumbling, awkward silence (which is ridiculous, considering he's a successful, attractive twenty-nine year old bachelor; he's not even being vain, the description was given to him by Witch Weekly magazine), where her eyes are set questioningly on him, before he tugs her into a kiss that she willingly reciprocates.
'We can -' she punctuates her words with kisses '- go back to my place -' he drops one to her neck '- my roommate's gone for the week.'
He stays for three days, going like normal during the day, but apparating there at night. They are proper lovers, even though it's wrong, because he's supposed to be dating every eligible witch (another decision by the journalists at Witch Weekly), and she doesn't want to be tied down, at only twenty-three.
There's this sensibility, because while it isn't sensible at all, they fit together perfectly. They make a strange kind of sense.
Orla didn't go straight home. She took a long, rambling walk, with her thoughts twisting and turning, tumbling over themselves, until she was thinking so much at once that it made her head spin and spin. She took a turn down an empty side street and threw herself down onto the concrete ground (as well as she could with his bloody baby inside her) and let her head fall to her hands. She took great gasps of air, her breathing heavily as she shook. Her eyes were dry, but painfully so. If only the tears would come, she reasoned with herself, she would feel better. If only she could force the tears.
She should have felt better, now she had the job. The job, she had taken out of spite. Cut your nose off to spite your face, she heard her mother tut, in that way that she always used to. It felt like echoes of a thousand years ago, from a faraway source.
What did it matter, why she'd taken the job? She'd done it to spite Oliver, but he wouldn't feel the sting because he didn't care. He didn't give a damn about what she spent her sorry days doing.
Sighing heavily, she wrenched her tired body up. She may be different, but she was still Orla Quirke, and she would be damned if anyone was going to find her crumpled in the street, pregnant and with a face red from tears that refused to come.
It's not long before their bodies just know each other. Their minds take longer to gel for anything that isn't sexual pleasure and understanding.
'So, what's this I hear about Katie?' She asks with a smirk, as she slips back into her robes, late in the evening after they left the practice together, at the same time, but very separately, very much not together.
'Katie's been my friend for year, Orl.' Oliver replies with a smile, and a kiss pressed to her neck, 'Her career's just getting successful, with the Arrows. It looks good for her to be seen with me.'
He shrugs slightly, and she doesn't need to point out again that he's a smug bastard. They both know it, and she supposes it's allowed, really.
'So selfless, Oli,' she smirks, seeing through him, 'what are you getting from it? An end to the media thinking you're gay? Or an end to them thinking your only lover is a Quaffle?'
He chuckles, 'Wouldn't you like that? No, not just those two things, as hilarious as you find them.' He starts to move her hair back from her shoulders, so that he can slip her robes from her shoulders, and then her dress from her body too. 'Katie's a good person, she's grown on me,' he settles his hands on her soft waist, pulling her back to him.
'Planning to keep me for longer?' Orla replies softly, and Oliver doesn't pick up on the hardened edge to her voice. 'Won't Katie miss you?'
'We aren't in a relationship, Orla.' He tells her, voice lighthearted, but he misses the 'yet' off the end of his sentences, and there's something hanging unspoken. He almost doesn't know which of them he's told her he's not in a relationship with; he both is and isn't, with Orla and Katie.
'The papers would tell it differently,' she says. And she's right, but Merlin, the papers know nothing.
'You didn't just have sex with the papers, and they aren't the ones who want you to come back to bed.' He states, as she settles back onto the bed, leaning prettily against the pillows, and smiling sadly as he joins her. 'What's wrong?'
'Oliver, is this the last time?' There's this look, in her eyes, that's spread across her whole face, and he suddenly doesn't know what to do. Being in an almost-relationship with Katie has made this so different, even after they swore not to get too involved. He knows it should be the end of this, that he should take this opportunity that she's giving him.
He just looks at her, trying to find the words. His smoothness has always really been on the pitch, and in his plans for maneuvers and ways to win matches. This isn't a match, and he doesn't know how to win it. He doesn't even know how to lose it least badly. 'Not yet, I…' his words fade into nothing because he's kissing her instead.
'Artie?' Olga called tiredly into the hall of their flat. 'I got the job.'
She sounded indifferent.
'Good!' Artie's soft voice replied. 'But I still think the Wasps are a bunch of shits!'
She made her way into the kitchen, and grinned. 'I can't argue with that.'
Stewart smiled, and hugged her gently, splaying one hand across her stomach, right where they had felt the baby kick for the first time a week before. She'd never doubted his faith in her, not really. She was going to have this child (a boy, she knew without anyone having to tell her), and he was going to help her. He was her brother, and that's what brothers did for their sisters when they got into trouble. It helped, of course, that Stewart's girlfriend was a muggleborn who understood that she needed him more than she ever had before. Marina was her friend too, and she had been knitting booties of every colour.
'You don't sound very proud of yourself, Olly.' He said lightly as he fixed up some tea (he hadn't allowed her to have coffee since they'd discovered her pregnancy.)
She shrugged nonchalantly, and she tried desperately not to notice the tears that stung behind her eyelids when she blinked. They still didn't spill. 'I don't think I care anymore, Art.'
'And yet I know you do.' Stewart said sadly as he looked at her. 'It's okay, you know. We all make mistakes, and whatever yours have been, this baby isn't. From now on, the mistake is Oliver's.'
She nodded, but that was a lie too. 'I – I don't think he's made a mistake…'
'Orla, how has he made no mistake? Between the two of you, you're the one who had to be here, but he should be too,' Stewart reasoned sensibly. 'He isn't here, and I think that's probably unforgiveable.'
'Oh Stew, I love you,' she looked down sadly, 'but he isn't here because I haven't told him.'
Stewart was silent for a good half a minute. Orla counted the seconds as they ticked by, the clock sounding louder than ever before. 'I was going to tell him, I really was, but when I went, he was … busy with Katie Bell. I was the other woman, Art, and I knew that. I –' she was beginning to choke on the thickness in her throat, ' – I was meant to be intelligent.'
'But he knows that you're pregnant?'
'He'd have to be an idiot to miss it, wouldn't he?'
'You weren't with anyone else, and I think he knows that,' Stewart said softly. 'Somewhere in the back of his mind, he must be aware.'
Orla smiled widely. Of course Stewart was right. When they'd started their love affair, Orla had known she was second to Quidditch, that there was a distraction. She knew that Quidditch was his before she was, and even when they were in the middle of them, she wasn't really his. He simply hadn't wanted her enough. That was why it was a love affair, not a relationship. We aren't going to get romantically involved, she had told Artie, it's not that serious. But then he'd ended their relations, she'd discovered her pregnancy, and he'd come out in a very public relationship with Katie Bell. Nothing made sense anymore. It was a given that she had done nothing wrong, and Oliver had, but until now, she'd believed that. Perhaps it was just her clouded vision, or pregnancy hormones, but she made herself believe it.
'So you don't think I should tell him?' She smiled.
'Olly, I never said that. I think you need to talk to him at some point, yes,' Stewart replied, moving back to the cooker, 'but if he doesn't know already, he's a bigger fool than I thought. Do you want a glass of water?'
Orla acknowledged the change of conversation, but did not fight it. 'To be honest, I'd kill for a a glass of wine. The good stuff that we used to buy at the end of the month when we'd both been paid, and we'd drink it all and be silly, and forget to be adults for a while.'
'We're not allowed to forget anymore. You know that. Getting pissed and putting all this behind you is no longer an option.' He put her water on the table. 'I've made a sensible, brown fried rice risotto though. It's packed with nutrients. Rina gave me the recipe.'
She wrinkled her nose, but didn't complain. She did want to forget about Oliver for just one night, but she was nearing six months pregnant, and she wasn't going to do anything that could harm her baby. Their white wine night would have to wait for a little while longer, and she ate another of Marina's miracle recipes, cooked with precision by Stewart.
Truthfully, she was glad that Marina couldn't join them that evening. She'd grown to love Stewart's girlfriend, she had quickly become a good friend, and Orla wouldn't be surprised if (at some point in the future), Stewart left her to be Marina's husband. And when that day came, she'd accept it happily. Stewart had supported her through everything, and so had Marina, and she wanted to be able to support them both too. But not yet, for now she had to be selfish. She just couldn't do this on her own; Stewart was like a brother, and Marina was her friend and she understood, and her Hufflepuff heart was too kind. Besides, she'd argued when Orla had raised the subject with her, she was only young. But Orla couldn't face her then.
Even after regaining her composure in the alleyway, the thickness in her throat had remained with her. When she was talking to Stewart, she had had the feeling that tearless sobbing was only seconds away. She was proud of the fact that she had kept them at bay like she had. If Marina had been there, she wouldn't have been able to surrender to them when the time felt right.
And the more she thought, the more it felt right to be upset. Her hand shook as she raised her fork to her mouth, and she chewed slowly and purposefully. Everything was so loud suddenly, and the baby was moving around inside her, and kicking. It was a mistake to let herself think now, when she had fought against her own mind for the course of her pregnancy. Taking the job that day had changed everything. She wanted to spite him, to make him wonder and to think of her. She needed him here. When she was pregnant, it was supposed to be with someone she loved, who was supposed to be the one she went home to after a long day, who cooked for her and who she could talk to about it with. Not her best friend and his girlfriend.
She wanted Oliver. Whether or not she loved him, she needed him there with her. Laying her fork down, she raised her fingers to her cheeks. They were damp now, and the tears collected on her fingertips. She stared at the wetness, but that only made the tears come faster, heavier, until she couldn't see, couldn't breathe anymore. Stewart didn't come immediately, and Orla was glad. He knew her too well.
The baby kicked harder, and she leant over her stomach, arms clasped tightly around her growing bump. 'Artie, he should be here.' She sobbed, and his arms were around her, comforting her the best he could. 'I need him, Art.'
'I know, Orla, I know.' He tried desperately to soothe her. 'Try to calm down, sweetie. We'll go and talk to Oliver tomorrow. I can go with you, or 'Rina can. Whatever you want to do, okay?'
She nodded as best she could.
When she leaves him for the last time (with a maturity he couldn't muster and a dignity that he admires), he feels a loss he hadn't expected to, but he brushes it aside. There's a publicity event that evening, in preparation for the first match of the season in a week's time. It's Puddlemere vs. Arrows, so there's competitive, friendly banter to be had between him and Katie. The papers lap it up, and they make front page the next day.
He'd managed to laugh off the 'Wood's Mysterious Mistress?' headline of a month ago, telling Katie that people always left practice together. It didn't mean they were going to have affairs. The story of his 'unknown blonde' has faded away, but his image is still tarnished. These days, it does him as much good as Katie to be seen as a couple.
Orla plays a game against the Arrows as part of the first team - her last, though he doesn't know that at the time - and she flys in a different way to Katie. Most surprisingly to him, he's more entranced by Orla's careful, sweeping movements than Katie's fearless tumbles. He spends most of the match watching Orla, and the other half thinking that he should be watching his girlfriend instead.
Katie plays as she always has. In a way, it's unlucky that both Orla and Katie are chasers, because it means that Orla gets the worst of Katie's rough play. An angry look flits onto her face, but it lasts only seconds before she focuses on evading, rather than fighting.
They win the match by twenty points. Afterwards, he tells her how well she flies, and her eyes fill with tears as she thanks him, in an all too subdued fashion. She quits the team the next day.
She actually saw him without meaning to, the next morning. After she had calmed down yesterday, and started to rationalise her thoughts, the idea of going to see him on a Thursday, mere weeks before the Quidditch season began, had seemed like a terrible idea. She had been planning to owl him about meeting for a chat on Saturday afternoon.
He was walking ahead of her, making his steady way towards the Ministry, probably on his way to the Department of Magical Games and Sports. He was, after all, the Captain of one of the teams soon to be playing in the League, and there was planning to be done.
Almost without thinking, she sped up very slightly, until she was close enough to reach out and tap his shoulder. When she did, he turned, and his expression changed from puzzlement to delight, to shock.
'Orla? You look so different.' He said, dumbly, itching to pull her into a hug. 'So…'
'… Pregnant?' She guessed the end of his sentence with a smile. 'I was when I last saw you too, you know.'
He blushed a little, and hugged her very awkwardly. 'I know, but you could hardly tell then. You're bigger now.'
She laughed. 'I know - tends to happen…'
'It suits you.' Oliver smiled widely. 'How are you, you know … with it?'
'Not too bad, now the morning sickness is done with, but it's making my back so sore.' She tried not to go into too much detail; there was still a large part of her that was screaming to tell him the truth. 'Stewart's helped me so much, and Marina.'
'No one … no one else?'
'Well, lots of other people.' Orla missed his meaning entirely, without realising. 'It's not … what I expected it to be. Enough on this - it's all anyone will talk to me about these days. How have you been? How's Katie?'
He looked down to hide his smile. Orla didn't know what to make of it; she'd never known quite what to make of it. 'Katie's well; took a bad bludger in her last game against the Wasps, but recovering.'
There was an awkward silence. Orla didn't know how to fill it. The words 'it's yours' died quickly on her tongue, because surely he must know already. Even though it wasn't a relationship, she hadn't slept with anyone else while she'd been with him. What did he take her for? Whether or not she could blame her hormones, she felt the anger bubble up inside her.
'So … Stewart's been helping you?' Oliver asked, hands in pockets.
Orla felt her eyes narrow. 'Someone has to - Merlin knows I couldn't do it on my own. Stewart's all the family I've got, really.' She didn't expand, didn't feel the need to explain that her child wasn't Stewart's, as she thought he was insinuating. She'd thought about it long and hard after talking to Artie the past evening. If Oliver didn't know, he was a fool.
'Why is the father not helping you?' Oliver sound so innocent.
'You know,' she replied, fuming now. 'I've been asking myself the same question recently.'
How could he not know?
'I'm sure there's a good reason?' He said softly, but he didn't sound like he believed it. 'Orl, it'll be all over the papers tomorrow anyway, so I think you should know that I'm not with Katie anymore…'
Orla's anger melted into a confusion that sat in her throat with a painful thickness. She had to tell him. She had to now, and there wasn't any excuse to keep this from him. Suddenly, she just felt guilty.
'Well, I'd best get off, if you need anything, let me know.' He paused for a second. 'I miss you, you know, Orla. Don't be a stranger?'
She nodded, without moving or speaking. She didn't know how much time had elapsed, but the time had soothed away the thickness of her throat and loosened her tongue.
'Oliver!' She called to his retreating form. 'It's yours!'