Chapter 21

Complexity #21: Removing yourself from the situation brings new perspectives to light.

It's nothing short of a miracle that I don't Splinch myself as I go - maybe the sheer determination of being anywhere but home outweighs every other mistake in my Apparition technique.

But I arrive on Dom's doorstep entirely in one piece - it was the first and only place I'd thought to go - and I only manage to rap my knuckles on the door twice before the tears filling my eyes turn into full-blown sobs.

I just… I think I just left my fiancé.

There's a muffled 'who is it' that I couldn't answer even if I wanted to, and the door swings open only a few seconds later.

"Oh, fuck."

Dom wraps her arms around me almost immediately, and all I can do is just continue to sob into her shoulder. I can't get out the words to tell her what's just happened or why I'm crying like this, but the fierceness in the way she's holding me suggests that she's probably already put most of it together herself.

I eventually let her guide me into her apartment, and when I sit down on the sofa and immediately bring my knees to my chest, she just sits in the space next to me and doesn't say a word. The only other sound in the room comes from the magic-resistant telly Dom bought a few weeks ago - some sort of sitcom is still softly coming through the speaker.

There's no possible explanation that I could give that gets at the magnitude of what this feels like - walking out after a fight is far too simple of a retelling of what just happened. It's been years since I felt quite this broken.

I'm really not sure how much time has passed by the time I finally stop sobbing - it could have been minutes or hours and I wouldn't know the difference - but Dom's still there, with a glass of water sitting on the table for me, when I do.

As I reach for the water glass, she speaks for the first time since I got here. "Do you want to talk about it?"

And I know I should, but I just… it's too fresh right now. Reliving everything that just happened - especially when I still haven't even processed it fully - is too painful to do just yet.

I'm not going to keep all of these feelings and thoughts sequestered inside my own mind forever - I really think I've had to learn this lesson enough times at this point that it might finally stick this time - but tonight isn't the time to dig back into our issues or to try to analyse where things went wrong. Tonight, I just need something, anything, to distract me from what still feels like a knife through the heart.

"Not yet," I tell her, to which she just nods wordlessly. "For now, can you just… I don't know, talk to me about literally anything else?"

"I can do that," she replies, and even though I know she's trying to hide it for my sake, there's just a hint of pity in her eyes that I kind of hate seeing.

Although I suppose, if there has to be a time where I'm at my most pitiful, I imagine showing up at Dom's doorstep in tears with no proper explanation is probably somewhere in the top five.

She launches into stories about Quidditch practices and statistics and some other more complicated things that largely go over my head, but it's actually kind of calming to just sit there and listen to her. There's absolutely no escaping reality, and the fact that I might've just rung the death toll on a relationship with someone who I once thought - maybe still think - was the love of my life weighs heavy on my chest. But the company and mindless chatter is invaluable, and it's probably the only thing holding me back from letting the pain of heartbreak fully consume me.

Eventually, it gets late enough that Dom lends me one of her T-shirts to sleep in, and Transfigures her couch into a small bed. I try not to think about the fact that I can probably count on one hand the number of times James and I have slept in separate beds since he moved in with me.

And fortunately for me, she also happens to have a few Sleeping Droughts on hand - I normally don't like taking them, but I feel like tonight's as good a night as any to make an exception. I uncork the vial she hands me and drink about half; I'm afraid any more means I somehow won't wake up on time in the morning, and I'm still meant to be at the Ministry first thing.

Life goes on, even when it feels like it shouldn't.

"You can wake me up if you need anything," she tells me, and I'm really not sure what on earth I ever did to deserve having someone like her in my life. I also know that there's no way that I'd actually wake her in the middle of the night - I'm already sleeping in her living room, and that feels like enough of an imposition in and of itself.

But I nod anyways. "Thank you for this."

I'm not really sure what 'this' includes; in reality, it's probably a little of everything: the fact that she's letting me stay at hers without asking too many questions, that she talked for hours to me even though I was hardly responsive and really just needed her as a distraction, that she somehow knew what had happened without me even needing to say a word. I just… Godric, I don't know where I'd be without her tonight.

"It's what best friends are for," she replies easily, before stepping all the way into her bedroom. She doesn't close the door, but I still feel suddenly alone regardless.

Luckily, I can also feel the Sleeping Draught making its way through my bloodstream, slowing down my thoughts and making my eyelids feel heavy, so I'm not given too much time to dwell on this sudden sense of loneliness.

But the last thing that crosses my mind before I fall into a dreamless sleep is wondering what exactly James is doing now that I'm no longer there with him.

Thanks to some colour-changing on my robes from the day before, a good bit of Dom's makeup, and a well-placed Cheering Charm or two, I actually manage to look mostly okay when I get to the office the next morning.

For what is most definitely not the first time, I find myself incredibly grateful that work is as hectic as it is - once I've got casework for multiple assignments laid out in front of me, it's a lot easier to stop replaying the things we said last night over and over in my head in an attempt to dissect the conversation and find some sort of closure in my mind about where to go from here.

The one thing that takes me by surprise, however, is Al. Not that he knows anything - the cheerful way he greets me when I come into the office tells me that, if I know nothing else of what James might have done last night, I know that he didn't go to Al.

No, what gets me is that I'd almost forgotten just how much he looks like James, and I wasn't prepared for just how much that one would sting.

I wonder if he notices that I don't look at him when I return his 'good morning.'

When I get to my desk, I immediately open the report I left unfinished yesterday evening and dive straight into it - filling out the mundane details of a case is effective at saving me from dwelling on things too much, but only for a short amount of time.

Eventually, I start thinking again - sorting through the details of where I'm supposed to go from here. Last night felt… final, in a way, but it wasn't closure. I'm not sure what closure looks like in this situation, but it sure as hell doesn't involve James still living in a place that still has my name on the lease and a diamond ring still on my finger.

And at some point, I guess we need that sort of closure. But that's a nail in a coffin that I don't know how to - and even after all this, still don't know if I want to - shut.

I don't think we've got any other options at this point, but that isn't going to stop me from stalling it out as long as I can. Maybe if I were braver, I'd get it over with today and rip it off like a plaster, but I'm a Ravenclaw at heart, and I'd so much rather give myself more time to process it first.

And maybe, just maybe, giving myself more time will somehow result in a miracle of miracles in which I somehow figure out how we come back from this.

It feels like a vain hope at this point - I don't know how we recover from the fact that we've both apparently completely lost any faith we had in each other - but it's there regardless.

"Abby - they put you on the hiring committee for new Aurors, right?" I look up at Aaliyah, who's tapping her quill against the side of her desk.

"Yeah," I answer. Truthfully, I'm still surprised by that decision - given how many of the senior Aurors have developed a distaste for me over the past few months, I don't know why they want me playing a role in choosing the new people to bring into the department.

"Good - I can't be on it this year for conflict of interest reasons, and I was going to be pissed if they didn't put you on as my replacement."

I look up at her, confused. "Conflict of interest?"

"My sister applied," she tells me. "And I am obviously somewhat biased on that one - even if they anonymise the applications again, I still know her scores and writing style well enough that I'd immediately recognise her. And that didn't seem entirely fair, so I told Potter to put someone else on the committee who wasn't me."

While I'm probably the voice in the office most similar to Aaliyah's - and I appreciate that she didn't get subbed out by yet another older, male Auror - I also feel like I probably don't need another group to be a part of.

Although I suppose there's no one holding me back from working insane hours to fulfill all my obligations anymore, I find myself thinking bitterly.

Not that I particularly want to be working insane hours though, either.

I use my lunch break in what feels like the strangest way possible - it's one of the few times that I know for a fact James won't be home, and I'm definitely not ready to talk to him yet, but I also can't stay at Dom's for any longer without having any of my belongings.

So I go home at lunch, filling my magically expanded purse with about a week's worth of clothes and a few other necessary things. I barely touch most of it - James more than likely won't even be able to tell that I've been here - but it's enough of my things to get me through what I hope will be enough time to prepare myself for what comes next.

I think about putting my engagement ring in my jewellery box, just so that I no longer have to see it on my own hand anymore, but I just… I can't do it. Whether that's from fear that my ringless hand will somehow end up on the cover of The Daily Prophet or because I'm actually still in denial, I'm not quite sure.

I stare off in the distance thinking about that for longer than I should, mindlessly twirling the ring on my finger but never quite getting to the point of taking it off.

Eventually, the clock downstairs dings, and it's my cue that I need to get back to the office.

I find Lila sleeping on my pillow - my half of the bed is made up, but James didn't bother with his own, it looks like. It's a weird sort of reminder of something I already knew - namely, that James and I slept apart last night - but it's weird to see it so clearly visually represented like this.

Part of me wants to take my cat with me - she's my cat, after all, not James' - but I can't exactly bring her to the Ministry with me for the rest of the workday, and Dom's apartment isn't exactly pet-friendly anyways.

"You'll stay with James for a little while, okay?" I tell her, petting her softly behind the ears. She leans into my touch and starts purring, indicating that my words have had zero effect on her, but it felt necessary to vocalise nonetheless.

He'll take good care of her for now, though. Until… until whatever happens next.

When I get back to the office - pretending like I don't have an entire suitcase's worth of belongings tucked inside my work bag - there's a report sitting on my desk, and the use of clean white rectangles of paper held together with black plastic binding suggests that it's most definitely not a magical report.

"Randall left that for you," Al says, hardly taking his eyes off whatever it is that he's working on. He's meant to be leaving on a mission tomorrow, so I'm sure it's some background report for that.

In bold capital letters along the top of the first page are the words 'AUTOPSY REPORT,' and I know precisely what it is that I'm looking at.

This is the final result of all my fighting about this particular avenue; now's where I get to find out if I've actually gotten us anywhere on this case.

I sit down at my desk and pull my hair up into a ponytail, blocking everything else out of my mind but this stack of paper.

The report itself is incredibly dense - worse than the majority of the reports I've seen come out of any Ministry department or even Mungo's, and some of the terminology goes entirely over my head. The actual formatting of the pages is also a bit difficult to work with, and I'm assuming that's because this wasn't a report meant to exist in printed form - Muggles store all their things like this electronically these days.

But I read and comprehend as much as I can anyways, eventually going down a few floors to get a dictionary from the shared Ministry bookshelves to figure out what some of the words mean, and by the end of the day, I think I've got a reasonable amount of notes on it.

Because I've got only the most basic knowledge of Muggle science subjects - I'd learned some of it in primary, but I've forgotten most of it at this point - I honestly can't tell yet if any of this information actually qualifies as a breakthrough. I'll have to get my hands on some supplemental material before I can make that call, I suppose.

But all in all, the day doesn't go as badly as I'd feared it might. I'm not happy by any stretch of the imagination, but I also made it through the whole day without ending up crying in the loo, which somehow feels like an accomplishment.

The rest of the week is much of the same - although I feel my focus start to dwindle as the week draws on. I'm sure there's something of note in the report - particularly in the section about DNA matches - but I can't motivate myself to properly dig into the science behind it all.

I hate that I'm somehow letting my personal life affect my work - I feel like I'm supposed to be above this somehow, like I should be able to fully parse out these two individual sections of my life - but that's just… I guess I'm not perfectly immune to that.

I can't seem to shake the mental image of James' face as I left - it haunts me more than I care to admit.

It's honestly a wonder Harry doesn't cotton on; given how perceptive he's been about James and I's relationship in the past, I truly wouldn't have been surprised if he'd somehow caught on to me being just a little off all week.

And Merlin, I don't even know what I'd tell him. It's been four days, and I still have no more clarity than I did on Monday night.

But Caroline's coming over to Dom's tonight, in what is presumably Dom's attempt to either cheer me up or get me to open up - probably a bit of both - and I wonder if maybe talking will get me to a final answer this time.

Even if I'm not sure I want to know what that answer is.

When I Apparate back to Dom's flat and knock on the front door - I still very much feel like a guest there, even though I've been sleeping on Dom's couch for four nights already and she's told me it's fine to walk right in - Caroline's the one who opens the door.

I know that she knows the whole story - as does Freddy probably, and Merlin knows who else - so I'm surprised when she doesn't immediately give me the same sort of sad look that Dom did. Although Caroline's never been the type for pity anyways, so maybe it shouldn't be that surprising.

"Good timing," she says as a greeting. "Dom ordered pizza, and it just got here a few minutes ago."

I can't help but smile just a tiny bit at that - a proper girls' night with pizza and all is probably exactly what I need tonight.

And that's precisely what it ends up being - Dom puts some 'chick flick' movie on her fancy new telly and we eat an entire large pizza together and have a glass of wine apiece.

Dom's pouring herself a second glass when Caroline changes the subject. "So, what happened with you and James? Freddy only told me what he knew from James, which was just that you guys had a big fight on Monday and you haven't been home since."

"Yeah," I say with a sigh, "there's just… a lot that's happened between us over the past few months, and Monday was… I don't know what Monday was."

"But it's just been this whole thing since his birthday where we'd just been arguing constantly and we never really got anywhere with those arguments. We just kept fighting about the same things every time but running away from the fight every time it hit a peak and it progressively got nastier and nastier until… well, until wedding dress shopping happened."

I forget that Caroline wasn't in the room with me and Lily, but she doesn't seem to be all that shocked by the revelation that this was what caused that breakdown. "You know, I had a feeling that was somehow a relationship thing… but at the same time, you and James seemed fine every time I saw the two of you, so I wasn't sure."

I laugh bitterly. "We're apparently really good at pretending to be fine when we're not."

There's a beat of silence, and then Dom speaks. "So is this… are you two done now?"

It's a question I don't have an answer for either.

"Maybe? I don't know," I reply. "I don't want to be, but we also haven't exactly been able to deal with any of this properly either, and it doesn't feel like there's a way to come back from this anymore. And I mean, we tried to have a civilised discussion about all of the things that have come up between us and instead he essentially accused me of cheating on him with Markus, and that was just kind of the - "

"He did what?"

"The same Markus that's dating my brother?"

"That's ridiculous."

They both look equally appalled at this news, and I almost feel slightly vindicated that this was in fact a valid thing to be offended and hurt by.

"We've been - I don't know, I don't think I've done anything to even suggest that I'd do something like that, and he told me when that news story first broke that he knew me better than that and trusted me enough to know I wouldn't do that, and somehow… somehow that's changed recently. He's convinced himself that he has a reason not to trust me."

"And you haven't given him one?" Caroline asks.

"No," I answer firmly, before wavering a little. "He's been annoyed about my work schedule - which I have no control over and I've tried to express that to him on countless occasions - but me working overtime is hardly evidence that I'm sleeping with one of my coworkers."

I'm fired up about the injustice of this whole situation - of all the assumptions James has made about me to come to this one awful conclusion - but I suppose anger is better than the alternative, which is most definitely breaking down into tears again.

I can't pretend like I haven't constantly been wracking my brain all week to figure out how awful I have to be in James' mind for him to even, for a fraction of a moment, put any weight behind the rumours.

"And he just… straight-up accused you of cheating on him?"

"Not quite," I say, because as annoyed as I might be, I can't pretend that James' pointed comments were anything close to a direct accusation. "He just… we were fighting and he made some off-handed comment that I told him to explain, and well, he laid out everything he seems to think could be evidence, and I just… I couldn't stomach being there anymore."

Dom nods sympathetically, but Caroline looks a bit more critical.

"So that's how you left it then?"

It's said so bluntly that I don't know what to do with it for a second. "Er, yeah."

"You do realise that's just you running away again, right? I get that being accused of cheating probably hurts like a motherfucker, but damn, you didn't at least try to defend yourself or sort through why he might be feeling that way?"

I've been getting nothing but pure sympathy from Dom all week, and Caroline's almost accusatory comments are a… massive shift from that. I'm stunned into silence and I just stare at her, wide-eyed.

"Caroline…" Dom says, almost warningly.

"No, Abby needs to hear this," Caroline shoots back. "You only have her side of the story - and James hasn't exactly been forthcoming with Freddy, but I do know some things from his point of view too."

She turns back to me. "Like the fact that you haven't apologised to him for anything. And I'm sure he's got his fuck-ups too, but you're not entirely innocent either. You stood him up on his fucking birthday, for Merlin's sake."

Of course Freddy would've told her about that.

"And this whole cheating accusation thing feels like you were looking for a way out - you felt called out and got massively upset about something that, yes, is an awful thing to insinuate, but doesn't warrant running away from the argument - and James - for almost a full week. I'm not saying this to be a bitch, I'm saying this because I love you, and because you two are so much better than letting your inability to compromise or face problems head-on be the thing that tears you apart. Take it from someone who had their relationship torn apart by a literal ocean and had some serious shit to sort through when we got back together - it's worth it to fight for it."

There's absolutely nothing I can say in response to that. Part of me is a bit indignant - I've just been called out on a whole host of things, and my internal defence mechanism is in high gear - but a larger part of me realises…

She has a point.

She's not saying anything totally new, or anything that James hasn't said to me before, but it… feels different now. Maybe it's the space I've gotten from the situation over the last week, or that they're not being said when my defences are at an all-time high, but… Godric.

It's a bit of an epiphany, and it finally hits me that I care about James more than I care about my pride, more than I care about being right, more than I care about getting my way.

And I feel stupid - so, so stupid - for not realising that so much sooner.

After what feels to me like hours but is probably not even a full minute, I look up at her. "So how do I do that? How do I fight for it?"

She looks like she's thinking on that one for a moment. "I mean, I'm no expert on dealing with messy relationships, but from what I know of this situation, you need to try to fix things. And not in the shallow sort of way where you only use it as a gateway to asserting your own stance all over again like you've both done so far. You need to put yourself in a totally new environment with a totally new mindset - if you keep trying to 'fix your relationship' by literally doing the same thing over and over again, you're never going to fix shit."

"And I need to apologise," I add, because that's the thing that's stuck with me the most from Caroline's speech… if nothing else, I owe him an apology for never apologising before.

"That's definitely a step in the right direction," she agrees with a nod.

And I'm suddenly feeling impulsive and bold in a way that's remarkably out of character for me, and I suddenly stand up, setting down my long-empty wineglass on the table as I do so.

"I'm going to - I just, this has been a good night and I'm so grateful for both of you, but I just… I need to go and try to make things right, if it's not too late."

Dom nods understandingly. "Of course."

Caroline smiles softly, and I can tell that she's proud - although I'm unsure if she's proud of me for doing this or herself for being the catalyst of it. "Go do what you need to do."

"Thank you," I say to the both of them, and I'm struck for the millionth time this week by the fact that I've really ended up with some of the most incredible friends I could've asked for.

The one glass of wine I've had tonight is long gone - my senses feel like they're at an all-time high and my thoughts are racing. Unlike the countless times where I've felt like I'm somehow shutting down over these last few months, this feels like waking up.

And for some reason, the first place my mind goes is to the car parked outside James and I's place - it somehow seems like the perfect solution, in a way that I can't fully justify. But Caroline said we need a new environment, and that's… this is one way to get there, and there's something to be said for the way that a long, empty road can calm my mind.

So I hug both Dom and Caroline goodbye, and Apparate back home.

Instead of Apparating directly into the living room like I'd normally do, I Apparate into a side alley nearby. After a week of absence, suddenly popping up in the middle of the house seems wrong somehow - even though it is my place to begin with.

I walk up to our front door and ring the bell, taking a moment to revel in the oddity of that action. I've never had to ring the doorbell to my own house before.

But before I can linger on that thought for too long or start to doubt my decision to come here, the door is pulled open and I find myself face-to-face with James for the first time all week.

It strangely knocks the wind out of me.

He's got a good bit more stubble on his face than the last time I saw him, but he's wearing the exact same Appleby jumper that he was wearing the night I left.

"Abby?" he says, and his voice cracks a little on the first syllable.

Out of absolutely nowhere, an onslaught of tears start welling up in my eyes and falling down my face.

"I'm sorry," I start, and it takes more control than expected not to devolve into a blubbering mess. "I ran away in the middle of a fight instead of giving you a chance to explain. I got scared and hurt and my response to that shouldn't have been disappearing on you."

I take a deep, shaky breath. "But I'm not running away anymore. This is me, swallowing my stupid pride once and for all and apologising for that night and all of the things that happened before Monday that I also screwed up on, like ditching you on your birthday or picking a fight before the Ministry gala or not telling you about the Auror office. And it may be too little too late, but dammit James, you're the best thing that's ever happened to me, and I don't want to give that up. I'm willing to compromise and do whatever I can to make this work - if you can find it in yourself to forgive me, come with me."

I hold out my hand, and James stares at it for a moment, bewildered by both my speech and the gesture. "Come with you where?"

"I don't know. For once, I'm doing something with absolutely no plan." I laugh through the tears. "I just want to drive for hours and get away from here and figure it out – figure us out, really – when we get there."

James studies me for a moment, and I'm almost positive that he's going to shut the door on me.

But instead, he reaches out, takes my hand, and answers, "Okay."

A/N: damn, i really pushed the limits on the 'every other saturday' update schedule on this one - i blame the fun combo of my laptop being in the shop, my parents being in town, and my kittens needing to go to the vet today :P

Sneak peek of chapter 22…

"Hi," I say, doing my best to sound friendly and not scrunch my nose at this entire place, which could really do with a good Scorgify charm or twelve. "We need a room for tonight, please."

The receptionist looks up at me, an almost bored expression on her face as she looks between me and James. "The only room we've got is two singles."

"That's fine," I say hurriedly. At this point, I really don't feel like driving another fifty kilometres to the next shabby motel. And maybe sleeping in separate beds would be good for us, anyways.

"Alright then," she replies in that same monotone voice, before announcing a total amount due that seems almost criminally low, and not at all a good sign for the room we're about to be greeted with.

Thank Merlin we've got magic, honestly.