Hey guys!

This is my first FanFiction in English and it was abandoned from January 2015 until June 2016.

All chapters are edited now, but still far from perfect. At least it does not cause me physical pain while reading it anymore. There are still mistakes in it, let's be realistic in this point, but it got much better.

In my attempt to make the story smoother to read, I changed some parts and even changed the whole ending of this first chapter, so re-reading might be worth it after all those months.

Constructive critic is still always welcome!

The first kiss

Somehow, Tapas always remind her of the good old times. If they really were good or not is the matter of opinion, but they weren't bad for sure.

She had spent the whole evening preparing those little dishes instead of working and she doesn't know yet if she should regret it or not.

It will depend on the person she sits face to face with and how much wine she will drink tonight.

"You've always liked it exotic. I remember how you compelled me to cook a Far Eastern speciality with you. Hell, and how the kitchen looked like after it! A battlefield.", her guest says and takes one of the little bowls.

At the thought of it, she has to grin. In those days, she had zero cooking skills but fancied cooking all kinds of dishes from regions far away. Sometimes it worked wonderfully, most of the time it did not, but it always ended with a kitchen... well, burning it down and building a new one would have been easier than always cleaning it up.

"Oh yes, and I also remember the not really amused look of Alther he had given me every time he had seen me with a cookbook and a pan. But you have to admit: the duck we had one time was very delicious." She takes one of the few dishes too.

"With the sauce the north retailer love to make... I forgot the name of it, but I remember the taste." He nods approvingly and puts another bite into his mouth. It's always like this: Either the food she made matches his taste and he wants to enjoy every tiny piece of it, or it is the complete opposite. An in-between hardly exists somehow, but this time, he cannot complain about anything. And to be fair, even her worst dish still tastes better than his best. "It's rather interesting that we sit and eat here together again, after all those years. The last time was more than fifteen years ago, wasn't it?"

"It is also interesting that we have made up and I... Well, if someone had predicted this six years ago, I would have throttled them, most likely." She hikes her shoulders. "It's interesting how life goes sometimes, but I cannot say I am not happy with the outcome."

"I cannot say I am not pleased to hear this. Somehow I've missed you and these shared evenings." He looks into her piercing green eyes and would like to lose himself in them, but he knows that an embarrassing moment would follow immediately. She is so beautiful.

Hell, he really did miss her. At first, when she stopped talking to him, he knew it but shrugged the pain that came with it off. During his marriage and after it, he forgot about his feelings towards her. But after they met again, after he returned to the Castle, it hit him like the carpet beater her mother hit him with once. He missed her. Always.

He never doubted his love for Cerys and he never doubted the decision he made to marry her, but he will never understand why he led Marcia on for a while and hurt her so much, made the woman that never avoids a fight close up to him and even made her cutting him out of her life. Anyway, she was his best friend since they were only children.

She did not deserve this and he wants to make up for it, wants to show his affection for her which he always had and wants to show her the feelings he has for her in the present.

His short-lived wife is part of his past and he probably would have loved her deeply until his own death if they had spent a long life together. He even loves her now, but it is different. It has changed with the long years without her and although he is not a real pragmatic, he knows that she will never come back and that it is time to move on. To not dwell on the past anymore.

But Marcia, his childhood friend is his present and the only thing that matters is the right here and the right now.

She is the person with whom he can imagine to build a life, a future, to have her by his side, even if she does not see more in him than a friend. He does not know when the intense feelings for her came up, but they are here, he cannot deny it. Since the reconciliation between them, he has some sort of hope that she has warm feelings for him, even though she hides them behind the usual cold veneer to avoid getting hurt.

But what kind of feelings she has for him, he does not know.

Maybe he is only a very close friend, maybe even something like a brother, but he does not care as long as she allows him to stay in her life.

What Milo does not know is that Marcia did not only have a simple crush on him as a young woman and that her feelings never really were gone – got less, but never were gone – even after he had stopped talking to him because he got engaged with the Queen. Of course, they were gone after he had left the Castle and did not return. But when he returned, when she saw him standing there, she felt not only a tingling in her stomach but a roller-coaster. The feelings she thought lost lived up within a few seconds. But, as the ExtraOrdinary Wizard, she has no time for a relationship, which is why she is used to suppress her deeper feelings she develops for men and only allows her daydreams in weak moments. He wouldn't be the first she rejects not because her feelings are not mutual, but because she lacks time and has a too big duty sense. Besides that, his interest in other women leaves her in a confused a hurt position, over and over again. She gave up on everything that is more than a close relationship months ago. He loves to flirt, she is no exception, so she cannot assume he wants more... Well, of course, Milo wants more, but he probably does not want the more in her understand: A relationship.

But... why not enjoying having a good and established friendship? What is wrong with that? You cannot stop feelings overnight, but when you put something behind, it does not hurt that much anymore. Both of them are deep in their own thoughts, drink their wine and eat.

No one speaks until Milo tilts his head and starts watching her. Confused she looks up and looks right into his eyes with one of her eyebrows raised. What does he think?

"Let us dance.", he says with a calm and silent voice.

"What?", she asks and looks at him in amusement. "What gave you the inspiration? We don't even have music."

"So what? With or without it, because of you, we will get out of step at one point anyway. Besides that we have done that every now and then in the past." He stands up and puts out his hand with a smile. "May I have this dance, girl with the big green eyes?"

"That's how you called me when we were not even twenty and even back then I hated it. And I take the thing with the cadence personal." Laughing, she takes his hand, letting him pull her up and guide her into the living room to have more space.

"I know", he says, grinning and pulling her nearer. "How about a slow waltz to start with? Bet you did not unlearn it."

"I hope so. Everything else would be quite sad... And you do know that your hand should be between my shoulder blades and not on my lower back?" With a raised eyebrow and still amused she puts her left hand on his shoulder.

"Pardon, madam. This was not my intention.", he answers with an innocent look and puts his hand further up. "Ready?"

She takes his left hand with her right one. "Ready."

She has forgotten how near you are the other person while dancing the waltz and she feels a misgiving coming up nearly immediately, yet she continues. He guides her with soft pressure and even without music, he had the right tact. After a few minutes of dancing and being chest to chest with him, she feels a prickling going through her body. So there it is. Damn. She curses herself before getting distracted by the hand that strokes her back so softly, so innocently. She looks squarely into his eyes, loses herself in the warm brown of them, caresses the side of his hand with her thumb. The time seems to stand still for now and there is only him and her. No work, no Septimus who will come home soon, no work on her desk.

"You are so beautiful.", she hears him say and needs a moment until the sentence sinks in.

"Thank you.", she replies awkwardly, to say at least something. Inside, she is torn up between the feeling of stopping whatever there is happening right now and giving in for once. How do you deal with compliments like that? How do you reply properly? "You are not hard on the eyes either."

They stop dancing, only stand there and look at each other. Delicately, Milo brushed a curl out of her face and runs his fingertips over her cheek. How long did he want to do this at least one time in his life? No one says a word and there is no need for it. Unusual shy, she puts her right hand on his nape and lets him put both of his hands on her waist.

For a moment he rests his forehead against hers, they both breath faster and Marcia shivers from the nervousness that got hold of her, but she does not pull away, rather leans in closer and travels with her left hand down his shoulder to his upper arm. The air seems to be electrified and she asks herself if this is one of those moments that some people had experienced and wrote down very bad love story she has read out of boredom in her teenage years. Back then she never believed this actually happens to people. It is strange how she thought about their relationship and what might be between them today, only a few moments ago, and now she stands here, her lips so close to hers, his breath tingling on her skin.

The soft kiss he places on her lips does not surprise her, she rather traces everything like in a time-lapse. He pulls away after a few seconds, but after she does not protest or shove him away from her, he leans in for another, again a soft one, slow and careful, as if he fears to scare her off if the kiss is too passionate.

Right now she realises how much she has ached for this for years. How often did she dream of this? How often did she have to really force herself away from the thought of this?

Her lips prickle and she replies the kiss, deepens it, tastes him and the sweet wine they had for dinner. Her arms wrap themselves around his neck and she snuggles more into him, allows him to place his arms tighter around her.

"I don't want this to end.", he mumbles against her lips before he catches them again.