A/N: I know that I made no promises of when I would update, but I'm sorry that this one took so long. I am already writing the next chapter, and will hopefully be done with that soon. Thanks for being patient.
Disclaimer: Rosie and Jenny are mine, along with one plot line. Everything else belongs to JKR.
"His name is David," Rosie began.
"Oh," Severus replied awkwardly, "is he marrying someone else too?"
"No," she said slowly, "He's serving ten years in the California state prison system."
"Why?" Severus asked, his curiosity getting the better of him always.
Rosie sighed and took another gulp of her beer before she continued.
"He is in prison, because he beat me with a baseball bat and left me to die in our apartment."
Severus stared at her in disbelief. "What? How?"
He continued to stare at Rosie in bafflement. How in the world could such a sassy, dominating woman, get caught up with a man that would beat women with baseball bats? he thought.
"I met him at a club one night when I was out with my friends," she explained, her voice small and frightened, "We kept seeing each other after. I thought I was the luckiest woman in the world. He was so attentive and gentle. All he wanted was me to be happy, or at least that's what he said."
Rosie hung her head as she continued, "But then things started to get strange. He wouldn't let me go out with my friends, he would scream at me if I even looked at another man, and then he started hitting me. Don't look at me like that!"
Severus snapped to attention at her last words, and stared at the fuming witch in front of him.
"What?" he asked.
"Don't look at me like I'm some weak pathetic little girl who let the big bad wolf eat her up. You have no idea the terror and confusion I lived in."
Severus looked at her in surprise. She was breathing heavily, and her eyes looked on the verge of tears.
It was her eyes that gave him courage to speak next. Eyes that beautiful should never have to cry, he thought to himself.
"Actually," he said, with a boldness that surprised him, "I do know what that's like. My father beat my mother all the time. I grew up with it."
At his words, Rosie relaxed, and tears spilled out of her violet orbs.
"I'm sorry," she said, as she grabbed a napkin and dabbed at her eyes, "I just hate telling people that story. It's embarrassing. If I had been in my right mind, I would never have let anybody treat me that way. I felt like I was with someone else when I was with him, and I hated it."
"I understand," Severus said, visions of his childhood flashing in front of his eyes.
"I'm sorry," she repeated, still crying slightly.
"You don't have anything to be sorry for," Severus said firmly, and before he knew what he was doing, he placed his hand on hers.
"No, its just," she said slowly, looking from him to their hands, "I just hate telling that story, and I get so defensive, especially when its another magical person."
"Why?" he asked.
"I was at the top of my class at school, especially at potions," she explained, completely missing the twinkle in his eye when she said 'potions', "and I couldn't even handle myself against one muggle. I could have stunned him, put a potion in his drink, or so many other things."
"Why didn't you?" he asked again.
"I was afraid," she said quietly, "we're not rational or in control when we're afraid."
"I understand that," Severus said, thinking of his mother, and giving her hand a small squeeze, completely shocking both of them.
An awkward silence filled the space between them. They stared at each other in confusion.
Severus finally broke the silence, and grabbed his beer with the hand that had been on top of Rosie's a second before.
"I say we get pissed," he declared, holding his glass still higher, "to a better future, without all the messy relationship crap."
Rosie giggled, and mimicked his movements, "Here, here!"