Author's Note: So there is an underlying angst to this - but I would still class it as fluff myself!

QLFC - Beater 1 - unexpectedly meeting someone you had been in love with later on in life despite having had to part ways with them before: (word) forgive; (dialogue) "I've waited this long, yet suddenly now I'm impatient."; (word) belittle

Hogwarts Assignment - Gardening - Task 7 - Larkspur: Write fluff!

Word Count: 2121

The Last Place You'd Look

Rose wasn't looking at the door when he entered. Her eyes had been firmly focused downward, a curtain of auburn curls creating a shield between them. She had been absentmindedly rubbing the small tattoo on the inside of her left wrist, but when the sound of his voice reached her ears, her head snapped up.

"Please forgive me," he cried, barging through the door. She caught him as he shoved the last bite of a sandwich into his mouth with one hand, a clipboard with — she presumed — her details on it in the other. He didn't look up at her, turning his attention to the board as the door swung closed behind him. "I get about 15 minutes for lunch these days, Miss We—"

Her heart, which had stopped beating the second she realised that it was him (of all people!), suddenly picked up in double time and she let out an audible gasp.

"Scorpius," she said, trying to sound like there was nothing wrong, though it sounded as if she was being strangled. "Fancy seeing you here! You managed to, erhm, achieve your goals of becoming a Healer, I see."

It seemed to break whatever was holding him in place and his eyes snapped up to hers. In that moment, they were seventeen again, on the platform at King's Cross Station as their fathers dragged them in opposite directions, screaming obscenities at each other. She had tried to owl him after that, to plead for his forgiveness, to beg him to be brave for her, for them. He had never replied.

"Rose." It wasn't a question or a statement but a word filled with a world of meaning that she couldn't even begin to decipher. "I — you are — well, obviously you are or you wouldn't be here right now. It's just a—" he sighed. "It's good to see you."

Rose smiled a tight, painful little smile and dropped her eyes to the floor. As if she weren't shy or embarrassed enough in this situation, but now Scorpius was her doctor. He would be her doctor for the next nine months. Oh Merlin, he would actually deliver the child. "Yes, I am pregnant," she told him bluntly — the only way she could manage to get it out. "The universe is cruel and funny, isn't it?"

His eyes flicked down to her hands. "Are you…?"

"Married? No. I thought I'd found the one, but it seems he didn't have the backbone when it came down to the important stuff." Rose let her hand settle protectively over her stomach, still flat, and the life growing inside her. "Though it's not their fault, is it?"

Scorpius's pale grey eyes darkened to storm clouds and Rose could feel the anger radiating off him. He didn't say anything, though — he didn't really have the right.

She sniffed sharply and looked away at the burning in her eyes as she thought about how abandoned she had been by the men in her life.

The appointment proceeded in near silence. Scorpius gestured for her to make herself comfortable on the reclining chair bed as he began taking notes and asking general questions about her health and lifestyle. Then came the slightly more awkward questions about her intimate lifestyle and monthly cycle. Rose felt herself blushing furiously as he wrote down the answers and could barely stand the silence.

"So! What happened to you after… our last meeting? How did you end up here?"

He looked up at her for a moment, his eyes searching hers for something that she couldn't determine. She didn't know whether he found what he was looking for or not, but he looked down and continued to scribble with his quill.

"I… struggled for a while after our parting. It was not an easy time; my relationship with my father hasn't completely recovered. He wanted me to become a businessman — as you know — and I found I couldn't. My whole life has been geared toward Healing and after a particularly heated argument, I had to just get away. So I headed for Diagon Alley and from there, started to wander the streets of London. I don't quite know what I was looking for." He chuckled, looking off into space now as he recalled the memory. "That's when I met her."

Rose's heart suddenly twisted and she felt sick to her stomach. Of course there was a her. Why wouldn't there be? He was smart and handsome. Embarrassed, she told herself off. It had been so long; she didn't have the right to those types of feelings any more than he did.

Scorpius must've sensed her sudden tension, because he looked up. Reading the assumption in her eyes, he flushed. "No, not in that sense. I don't — I haven't… well, that's not important. Anyway, I met Darcy that day on the street. She was very heavily pregnant, laden down with shopping and suddenly went into labour right across the road from me. No one would stop," he continued, his tone turning incredulous, "and she was clearly panicking.

"She took out her mobile — a Muggle device that acts like a Howler, I suppose, or Flooing — and called an ambulance, but she couldn't move. So I went and sat with her. I took all her shopping and held her hand, and talked to her about her life and mine. We talked about you, actually." He seemed suddenly shy, his pale cheeks tainted with a rosy blush. Quickly, he moved on with his story.

"Anyway, the ambulance arrived, and Darcy insisted that I come with her, that she couldn't possibly be alone; and I did. I stayed with her until her husband arrived and then in the waiting room until the baby was born. It was a little boy" — he smiled fondly — "and she wanted to call him Scorpius, but I begged her not to curse him with that name. So she made me a godparent instead, to little Ethan, and I visit him as often as I can. He's nearly four now and so intelligent already."

Rose could barely reconcile this man with the boy she had once known. He was so changed, so much more mature. It warmed and broke her heart. Would they have stayed compatible?

"So that's what made me specialise in maternity care," he continued, briskly putting down the clipboard and picking up his wand. Perhaps he had realised just how much he had shared. "Magical, not Muggle, obviously, but it made me want to help. Speaking of, shall we see if we can get a good look at the little one? There may not be much to see at the moment, but it doesn't hurt."

Rose nodded frantically, a nervous wave washing over her. She pulled up her t-shirt at his request, exposing her midriff and gasped at the cold feeling that spread from the tip of his wand as he pressed it into her skin and muttered a spell. He pulled something from within her; it almost looked like the memories you put into a Pensive, but not quite as silvery. It hovered around the tip of his wand as he pulled across a trolley with what looked like a tray of water on it. As soon as it touched the water's surface, the corporeal substance spread until a slightly wavy image appeared on its surface. She sat up.

At first, Rose couldn't quite make head nor tail of what she was looking at, but from the approving noise Scorpius made, there was obviously something to see. He pointed. "Can you see that bean?"

Rose tilted her head to one side and nodded. The whole tray seemed to be a reddish colour, but there was what looked like a small bean of a lighter colour — more like skin.

"Is — is that it?" she asked breathlessly, her hands resting once more on her abdomen. Her heart tingled with excitement.

"Yup, there it is. Tiny at the moment, but in the blink of an eye, it'll be all grown up and you won't know what happened!"

They both laughed and fell silent, staring at the image on the tray.

"Rose," Scorpius said eventually. His tone was careful and quiet. "I know you're in a situation you may find distressing and this is a difficult time for you—"

She cut him off.

"I don't need this from you as well, Scorpius," she snapped. Her temper rose quickly and anger flashed in her eyes as she half-rose from her seat. "I don't need you to be condescending to me or belittle me. You are not my father, and my own father has enough to say about my situation. I understand perfectly that this is going to be difficult to do on my own. I came top of our class, if you remember, and so I don't need another man to tell me what he thinks is best for me. If this is how you're going to act for the next few months, then I will find another doctor!"

"No! No, no, that's not what I'm trying to say!" he quickly intervened, holding up his hands in defense. It annoyed her to see a smile on his face. "Merlin, Rose, you haven't changed a bit."

"And what is that supposed to mean?" she demanded hotly.

"Just that you're as perfect as I remember," he replied quietly. "Rose, there's something you should know that I'm not even sure you'd believe. Merlin. I've waited this long, yet suddenly I'm impatient and now that I have the chance, the words fail me." He laughed.

"Waited for what?"

"The chance to see you, to speak with you. It's been five long years since school."

"I wrote—"

"I know you did; at least, I do now. Well, three years ago I found out, actually. My father had intercepted your letters and hidden them from me. He took the ones I was writing to you and burned them. I found yours in his study when looking for the documents that I needed to provide for my Healer placements. When I realised you hadn't been ignoring me, I was furious and determined and hopeful all at once, but by that point, you'd left home and I didn't know how to contact you. So, I went to your house."

"I bet my father was furious," she whispered, her anger suddenly deflating.

"Oh, he nearly cursed me on the spot, but I think he took far more pleasure in describing — in detail — just how much happier you were without me." He gave her a sad smile. "It crushed me, I won't lie, and did the trick. I never tried to contact you again. I didn't want to upset you with my presence and all the dark history we shared."

"Scorpius," Rose said breathlessly, helplessly. She didn't know what to say. How could they mend the years of pain and misunderstanding between them?

"But now..." Hope flared in his eyes and he took her hands in his. "Doesn't this feel just a little like fate? Accident pushed me towards this branch of medicine and, well, accident sort of brought you here too. Maybe this is our second chance?"

"I'm pregnant, with another man's child. Do you understand the financial and emotional burden that entails, Scorpius? How could you love it? And I couldn't be with someone who didn't."

"I love Ethan as if he is my own child. He's not only another man's; he's another woman's. How could I not love your child, Rose, when I love you so much? After being starved of so much affection by my own father, do you think I could do that to another innocent? As you said, it's hardly their fault their biological father is a coward. It takes more than biology to be a dad."

Still, she hesitated. Her heart was alive with joy and hope as he said the words she had been starved for for the past five years, but her head was cautious. She had been stung before. "I don't know…"

"Give me, us, a chance. Please, Rose. Let me make up for lost time. Let's find our love again; I know it's still there. And it's funny, but it turns out love is just like anything else. Did you expect to find me here? No! I certainly didn't expect to find you."

He tipped her chin up with a finger so she had no choice but to stare into his pale grey eyes, warm with hope and that charming smile.

"You can find anything, love included, in the last place you'd look."

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Much Love, MaryandMerlin x