My apologies for the long delay between updates. I lost sight of my muse for a while, but now we're back, and it's the holidays, so without further ado, here's some vignettes for you.

Standard disclaimer.

August 2029 - ?

Some isolated conversations between Rose and Scorpius during their respective jobs:

(1)

Rose collapses into her bed after a night out dancing with her new colleagues, and realizes that she hasn't spoken to Scorpius in a long time. It's 2 a.m. her time, between the residual buzz and the ringing in her ears, she can't quite figure out what time it is on his end. But he's a responsible young man and probably has good sleeping habits. So maybe he's already awake and ready to face the Sunday.

She dials him.

He picks up on the third ring.

"Rose?" His voice is thick with sleep. And rather than apologize for waking him up, Drunk Rose takes a second to imagine what it would be like to wake up to his gravelly voice.

When she doesn't respond, Scorpius tries again. "Rose? Is everything okay?"

"Scorpius! Haaayyy!" There was something else she wanted to say, but it has slipped her mind in the last 30 seconds.

"Rose, you're drunk, aren't you?"

"Maaayyybeee… What's it to you?"

"Rose, you should drink water and go to sleep."

"But I want to talk to you. We haven't spoken in forever and ever," Rose huffs in indignation. "Please tell me how you are?" That sentence made sense in her head but once it leaves her mouth, she isn't so sure anymore.

A laugh from Scorpius' side. "I'm fine, Rose. I was looking forward to sleeping in this morning-"

Ah, there it is. The thing that Rose forgot to say earlier.

"SORRY FOR WAKING YOU UP!"

"Yikes, Rose, it's okay, you're forgiven, no need to shout. It's really good to hear from you too. Hey, how about this. You give me a call after you wake up; I have nothing specific planned for today and should be able to chat with you whenever."

"Okay," Rose manages through a yawn.

"Sleep well," Scorpius says, and Rose can hear the smile in his voice.

"Have… a good morning," Rose yawns again, and pulls the phone away from her face.

"It's always a good morning when it starts with you," Scorpius says to the dial tone.

(2)

Rose is home for Christmas, and she and Scorpius are having tea before the old gang gets together for dinner and games night. They've been chatting about their social lives in their respective new homes, and Scorpius has just made the mistake of asking Rose about her boyfriend:

"How's… Jandro?"

A long pause.

Not a great sign.

Rose sighs and slouches lower in her chair.

"I spend a lot of time thinking about breaking up with him."

"Aren't you still supposed to be in your honeymoon period?"

"Supposed to, yes."

"Then… what…"

Rose sighs. "You don't have to ask if you don't care to know. There's a lot of thoughts bumping around in my head and it's all kind of a mess right now."

"No, no, I'm happy to listen, anytime, it's whatever you want to tell me."

"Oh, boy." Rose takes a breath and tries to distill her thoughts in chronological order, and in a way that will still permit them to make it to dinner.

Scorpius nods along to Rose's story and asks the occasional clarifying question, but Rose gets through the entirety of it. Nothing has crystallized in the meantime, like she hoped it would.

"I, just, I don't know. I started dating him because we had good chemistry and we had fun adventures, but that's mostly taken backseat since he brought his crazy ex into the picture, about two weeks into seeing him. Which was two months ago. And I don't know why I stay with him, she's clearly his first priority. Am I delusional to hang on to this thing, hoping that we can go back to how it was in the beginning, when it was fun?"

Even before she finishes her sentence, she knows the answer is yes.

Instead of meeting Scorpius' eyes, she glances at her tea, which has (predictably) gone distressingly cold. Despite this being a Muggle establishment, she reheats it using a new dragon fire spell that she has been developing at work.

Scorpius, watches her do this, and after a moment, responds to her question by posing a question in return.

"Clearly you see something in his interaction with his ex that makes you want to stay."

"Yes, I guess you're right. He's fiercely loyal to people he cares about – which is another thing that freaked me out a little bit, he told me that he loved me about three days into us dating, which is just like, what. How do you just trust and love so quickly! But yeah. He's loyal, he's passionate, and he's really intelligent and he challenges me to be a better citizen. But his priorities are completely backwards, and I hate it."

"So what I'm hearing is that you value those qualities in a partner, and you're waiting for him to shift his priority from his ex to you."

"Yes, I guess so."

"Rose." Scorpius drags his eyes up from his tea, and reaches out to lightly touch Rose's chin, and she starts and meets his eyes. "Rose, you deserve better than to be waiting for someone who doesn't actually seem that cool to realize that you're great. And besides, there are definitely other guys who have those same traits." Like me, he wants to add.

Rose gives a weak chuckle into her tea. Now there's the crystal clarity that she was hoping for by telling her story.

"Thanks for saying that, Scorpius. I think I was too deep into this mess to see the bigger picture, and I'm really glad for your eyes and your advice on this whole thing. You're right, of course, you always are, but, ugh, I got attached, and I hate having to extricate myself from these things... It sucks so much."

(3)

"I don't handle being single very well."

"How's that?"

"There's just all sorts of aspects of a relationship that I crave when I'm not in one."

"Do you care to elaborate? I haven't got any firsthand experience."

"Well, there's the obvious ones, physical intimacy, and all of the good things that come from touch, serotonins and all those happy brain chemicals. And then there's the sex, which has the potential to be great. And then the emotional aspect of comfort and trust."

"Do you do the whole dating app and casual hookup thing? I feel like that would help with the physical side."

"Ugh, no."

Scorpius internally heaves a huge sigh of relief, and asks, "Can I ask you why? Not as a judgmental question, I'm totally onboard with this, but it's not like sex is hard to come by these days."

"I guess I want both at the same time. Is that too much to ask? I would only have sex with someone who I already trust and get along with, not someone who's gonna give me weird random diseases and be gone in the morning."

"Okay, I understand the physical aspect. But I know you have a good number of close friends. Can't you confide in them?"

"Well, yes. But I also just feel strange unloading on just one friend. Especially since almost all of my friends are in relationships of their own. So I guess I end up spreading it out. But I guess I want just one person to really know me, you know? It would go both ways, obviously, but when I talk to different friends about different things, I feel a little spread out and broken."

"Er, just to make sure, you are happy in your own skin right now, right?"

"Oh, yes, it's not like a, 'I wasn't a whole person until I met you,' situation. It's more of I feel like my own person, but spread out too thin over different friends who see different aspects of me. I want just one person to see all of me." And if we're being completely honest, you, Scorpius, are probably the person closest to that right now.

(4)

"Do you still go home to stay with your parents every other weekend?"

"No, it's not as often any more. I'm trying to find things to do out here."

"What have you found so far?"

"I tried doing some outdoor activities when I first moved out here in the summer. Hiking, and Quidditch, but most of the people who I met at the organized events are young families. None super looking into pseudo-adopting a twenty-something.

"I gave up on outdoor social activities a little bit, and mostly just go for runs by myself, and I started cooking. But I guess I hit the social jackpot, or as close as I am going to come to it, when my apartment complex hosted a mixer, and I met a couple students who are our age from the Morian School of Mines. They're interning out here, but just for a year. We've started hanging out a little. Games nights, trivia nights at the local pub, and sometimes we go out to see Muggle sportsball games."

"That sounds like a lucky find! And you were all living in the same place for a bunch of time before meeting each other?"

"Yeah, it seems really silly now that I didn't really know my neighbors."

"I don't blame you! It feels strange to just walk over with a plate of cookies these days."

"What about you, Rose, are you still playing tennis with that local league?"

"Yeah, and there's a witch who grew up in California who I've gotten to be better friends with. Her name is Eileen, and we've been hanging out. Occasionally some of the Muggles in the league also will invite us to events, and it's pretty interesting to have also a Muggle friend group. We haven't inducted any of them to magic yet, so Eileen and I have gotten into a couple close calls with them when we're out hiking and know that we can make things more bearable with a little magic."

(5)

Rose is home for a week during the summer and has been helping her father with maintaining the house and the yard and working on some of her own craft projects. Scorpius is having a busy period at work, and Rose hasn't heard from him recently. That is, until she wakes up to a text from him.

S [0123]: Why in the name of Merlin can I not fall asleep tonight?!

R [0845]: Why were you awake at that absurd hour?

S [1034]: I guess I had four or five things on my mind.

R [1041]: Would you care to elaborate?

S [1045]: I'm reading the biography of Florean Fortescue, and it's just so fascinating how he took something seemingly so simple as making ice cream and turn it into a way to bring people together and still have a profitable business. My business certification exam is in a couple weeks, so studying is always on my mind. My buddy Pascal is having some girl troubles, it's an extension of the story that I told you last time you came home. And I had a really bizarre dream.

Rose counts four things. She wonders what the fifth was, and whether it was related to her. She hopes it was. Not least for the reason that she stays awake some nights thinking of Scorpius. But the logical part of her mind chides her romantic heart for jumping to such conclusions… but at the same time, Scorpius was never one to be vague with his words and his counting.

R [1048]: :o That's indeed a lot of things, and out of curiosity, what was your bizarre dream?

R [1048]: You're welcome to not elaborate.

S [1049]: I don't remember specifics, just that it was pretty weird.

R [1051]: Fair. How did you get to sleep in the end?

S [1054]: I picked up meditation recently so that's helped a bit.

(6)

Another night when Rose is walking herself home (because she's too drunk to Apparate) after going out with her tennis friends, she suddenly feels a bone-deep desire to cuddle up with Scorpius, but he's halfway across the world in a different time zone, so she has to settle for texting him:

R [0033]: u up?

S [0035]: yeah what's up?

R [0036]: walking home, can I call u

S [0038]: it's kinda late to be walking home rose :P

R [0040]: ik, answer the question

S [0041]: right now? sure

"Hi hi hi!"

"Hi, Rose. Did you have a good night out?"

"Yeeesss we went dancing at the usual place and they had concocted a holiday drink which was pretty tasty if I do say so myself."

"Gin?"

"Of course. I'm too old for tequila now, you know this."

After a beat, Rose prompts, "Enough about me. How are you?"

"Well, I was just getting up to go in for an early time point at work. But last night I went for a sportsball game with the Morians."

"Oh? And how was that?"

"Well, I went with the couple, and it was a little bit awkward."

"Not because you were third wheeling, right? You've hung out as three with them before."

"Yes, you're correct. So I had originally asked the one girl I told you about previously to go with me."

Rose feels a pang, but smaller than the time when he first talked about this other girl, and squashes the feeling by reminding herself that she has no claim to Scorpius. Outwardly she says, "Okay, so she declined and then you asked the couple?"

"Yeah. She said that she was planning to stay in tonight. So I went with the couple and we were just chatting in our seats, and guess who walks up with a date and sits three rows in front of us."

"NO."

"Yes."

"What a little…"

"Yeah."

"Man, this sounds awkward as all heck."

"Yeah, and there weren't really any other open seats, so we couldn't really move. So I spent like the entire game pretending I hadn't seen her and avoiding eye contact."

"Sorry to hear that happened to you."

"It's alright, I went for a beer with the couple afterwards."

"Wait, what? I thought you hated beer."

"Oh, yeah. Well, I don't anymore."

"What changed your mind?"

"I went for a brewery tour with the couple, and that particular brewery had a really nice nitro ale, and I guess that was my gateway beer."

"Oh man, this is so exciting, I'm excited for you!"

"I kind of miss having occasions to drink liquor, though. It's too backwoods out here for anything more than whiskey."

"We should fix that."

"Oh, no…"

"Twenty four shots for your twenty-fourth birthday, yo!"

"Um... Right. That's between all of the people who come, right? So I just need to invite more than 24 people..."

After a comfortable pause in the conversation when Scorpius clearly hears Rose cooing to her cat, he asks, "Rose, out of curiosity, why do you call me?"

"Because we're friends and I like talking with you."

"Er, actually, I was curious about right now. Why did you want to call me tonight? Is it because you feel safer knowing that someone is walking with you?"

And because he's given her a valid reason, she can just say yes (but also, "By the way, I've been home for a while," to which he replies, "I know, you've been talking to your cat."), and not tell him the entire truth, which would sound more like, "I'm still attracted to you, and I like the way I feel when I'm interacting with you, and therefore trying to maximize interactions."

(7)

Rose goes dancing on her twenty-fourth birthday with some of her colleagues and friends in the area, and over the course of the night, as people come and go from the party, they hand the birthday girl drink after drink, and by midnight, she is suitably trashed. And, in the culmination of months of half-jokingly, half-seriously flirting with one Steven Montoya from the tennis league, Rose pulls on his hand – which has been wrapped in hers for the last several hours – and kisses him.

If she had been less drunk, she would have been more conscious of a feeling like a bucket of cold water being poured over her. But even in her current state of inebriation, the quick, sloppy kiss doesn't feel right and she drops Steven's hand like it is a hot coal and saunters off in search of a bathroom. And when she comes back, she doesn't see him in the immediate vicinity, so she throws on her jacket and bids her remaining friends goodbye, and goes home.

Drunk kisses are for Sober Rose to sort out in the morning.

Unfortunately, Hungover Rose is the one to pick up her phone and read the message from Steven. It's remarkably noncommittal:

Steven [0809]: So…?

And in the following minutes where Rose collects herself enough to respond that they really ought to talk, she feels only a profound sense of disappointment in herself, as if she has betrayed Scorpius. Despite the fact that they're not together, despite the fact that he's shown no outward signs of looking at her more than a friend, despite the fact that they're all adults living in a time of sexual freedom, Rose cannot shake the sense that she's let Scorpius, the one person who knows her best, down.

This leaves only one valid direction for her talk with Steven to take, and Rose needs water, and deep fried potatoes, preferably with a heap of bacon on the side, to help her face that conversation.

(8)

Eileen [2057]: Hey, Greg and his boyfriend and I were gonna go dancing tonight, do you want to join?

Rose [2059]: Yes! What time? I was planning on hitting Brock's house party tonight

E [2105]: You know what, we just impromptu decided to also go to Brock's party. We can pick you up from there.

R [2113]: Lol, Brock, what a tool, but at least he's got good alcohol! Let's turn it up :)

The group eventually makes it to the club, and in a lull between dances, where Greg's boyfriend is refilling on drinks, Greg drops into the seat next to Rose, and leans close to her ear.

"Damn Rose, sorry that I'm like the biggest cockblock ever, all these beautiful people checking you out but they think I'm with you."

Rose throws her head back and laughs, a freedom of movement that is fueled by the copious alcohol running through her veins. But it's true that Greg's energy for dancing cannot be contained by his boyfriend who is just one human and has to be distributed across multiple people.

Greg scopes out the room, and shouts over the music to Rose, "So many beautiful people here. What's your type?"

Again Rose laughs, but this time it's a self-deprecating laugh. "Eileen says that I like strictly 'leading men,' but I guess anyone who's tall, blonde, and bad for me will do."

"For example?"

Rose nods across the space to a muscular young man wearing a red t-shirt, standing with his arms crossed, but two young women hanging on to every word he says.

"I think he's gay," Greg informs Rose.

"Oh," Drunk Rose manages to say, surprised, but only for a moment before she points her chin at someone else. He looks kind of young, but he's also pretty good-looking.

It takes Greg a couple tries to figure out who Rose is talking about, and in that time, the object of Rose's interest has also been looking around, and has made eye contact with Rose, who panics for a hot second. Single as she is, she doesn't know whether she wants to dance on someone, extremely drunk, not to mention what might happen after. Luckily for her, Eileen proclaims at that moment that she's tired and would like to go home, and Rose yawns in agreement, and their night ends quietly.

E [0921]: morning, rose, how's your head

R [1014]: ughghkdfjjf

R [1014]: wbu

E [1017]: yeah, same

R [1018]: but damn that was a good time

E [1021]: oh yes absolutely

R [1025]: I'm so happy you invited me, I didn't realize how much I needed that

E [1032]: how so?

R [1036]: I dunno, I guess I've just been feeling really low lately about how all of my friends are in or starting relationships, and here I am, still single with only my beautiful calico for company

R [1036]: and I'm in this weird headspace where it feels like no one wants to be with me

R [1037]: even if all the dudes were creepy last night, it was actually pretty nice to see them checking me out.

R [1038]: makes me feel a little less hopeless about the whole s.o. situation

And maybe she doesn't need to fixate on her non-relationship with Scorpius as the only promising thing in her barren wasteland of a love life.

R [1049]: cool story rose tell it again

R [1049]: thanks for putting up with my moaning about boys hahaha

E [1052]: sorrysorrysorry I hopped into the shower

E [1055]: brunch?

R [1056]: like you even need to ask, also please don't apologize for showering

A/N: The line about the ice cream was perhaps inspired by Stay Sweet, by Siobhan Vivian, which is a very nice summer read about friendship and taking charge of one's own life. It's a little slow to get started, but once it does, it's quite satisfying. Plus, there's ice cream.