"You look surprised to see me," Draco said as she approached.

"Shouldn't I be?"

She made sure to ask it matter-of-factly rather than with any kind of accusation in her tone, but she wasn't certain she did a good job judging by the face he pulled as he looked away.

"We left things a bit, uh, questionably," she added with a sigh, making a vague hand gesture as if it might make her point a little more eloquently "Very few would blame you if you wanted to avoid any subsequent awkwardness. Men aren't famed for their enthusiasm when it comes to talking through a problem."

"Does it have to be a problem?"

"Is it not a problem?" She countered.

Taking a few steps down the street, she turned her head as Draco fell into step beside her, his hands buried in his coat pockets.

"I don't know," he admitted "That's the top and bottom of it, really. I don't know."

"Yeah, well, neither do I," she breathed a laugh.

With that admission, a great deal of the arctic grade ice that had formed around the two of them cracked. It was funny how admitting that there was a problem made said problem seem much easier to solve. Problems were her bread and butter - especially back in the day. There was always a costume that was going to malfunction, or some choreography that packed an absurd amount of moves into a very short piece of music, or a schedule that there weren't enough hours in the day for. Marilyn was very much of the opinion that life was just about solving problems with as much grace as possible, rather than avoiding problems altogether. In fact, she'd once considered herself the champion of solving problems. It was pretending that no problems existed that really bothered her.

In short, she would take Draco's bemoaning of every single obstacle that stood between them (if, and it was a big fat hypothetical if, they were going to acknowledge that there could ever even anything resembling a 'them' in the first place), than him pretending nothing was going on and that nothing was wrong. Problems, she could deal with - delusion, she could not.

"That makes you happy, does it?"

"Talking this through makes me happy. Happier than pretending it never happened and having it be the big, raging elephant in the room for the next month, anyway."

Which was what she was expecting to happen.

"I've never known a woman to be happy when she hears a man doesn't know what he wants."

"Did you just lump me in with every woman, ever?"

"You just lumped me in with all men not one minute ago."

"...Touche."

She couldn't help but smile. Damn him. In all honesty - though there wasn't much of a tactful, delicate way to put it - she felt like whichever way she cut it, she was royally fucked where this situation was concerned. There was a sort of scale to how much they could give into temptation here, and wherever they fell on the scale, they would be signing themselves up for some sort of trial.

Say they said 'fuck it' entirely and gave in entirely, like they might if there were no obstacles - gave any modicum of self-restraint the middle finger, and simply did what felt right in the moment. Fell into a romance worthy of some terrible 'star-crossed lovers' type novel, and ignored everything that stood in the way of making that a real, feasible idea until it bit them in the ass. That would only end disastrously. In fact, it was just how disastrous that would be that made considering other less favourable options a necessity. What was the point of getting into a serious relationship that had an expiration date before it even started? It was like when couples stayed together despite knowing one of them wanted kids and one didn't. Utterly pointless, and doomed for failure. It might feel good in the here-and-now to avoid the inevitable, but in the long term they would suffer.

A bad ending by the standards of a conventional relationship would be the best case scenario, if they eventually realised they were too different or that they really weren't very fond of each other after all, and simply did not stand the test of time. The alternative was a more troubling prospect. The alternative was the scenario that had them falling for eachother, really falling, before inevitably having to break-up and go their separate ways when it was time to do his duty by his old-money style family and marry some woman who had just as much, just as old money. The most she could hope for under such circumstances would be to be a mistress, and she flat out refused to go down that road. She'd seen enough period drama movies, and known enough ballerinas with wild off-season social lives, to know what that road looked like. Waiting around in a hotel room for four hours only to get a text saying their wife had sprung a surprise dinner on them and they wouldn't be turning up after all. Ducking out of sight of the windows in taxis when somebody they know drives past. Being a dirty little secret and acting unbothered by the fact.

It was a sorry state of affairs indeed when they couldn't consider the prospect of a real relationship out of fear that they mightn't stop liking one another.

So, if the 'all-in' end of the spectrum was off limits, she had to consider the other end. To be all-out. Depending on one's definition, that would range from being strictly platonic - no accidental (or not-so-accidental) flirting, no movie watching on her bed for fear of implications or where it might lead, keeping six feet of space between them at all times, the whole deal - to just not seeing each other at all. Untangling their lives and pretending they'd never met in the first place. Maybe that would be the wisest course of action. Okay, it was definitely the wisest course of action. Not, perhaps, in the short-term, but definitely in the long-term. It had the least potential for heartbreak, or heartache, or any sort of pain in the general chest region. Didn't it?

Sure, a couple of years from now she might stop and wonder what might have been, but that would be stupid of her in the first place, because nothing might have been. Seriously considering any real, serious future with Draco Malfoy would be the same as seriously considering a future with Prince William. Delusional.

"What do you want?" He asked.

The question, as valid a question as it was, was posed strangely. Not in the manner that one might ask somebody they disliked when they approached them, but not out of light honesty either. He asked it as though he was scared of what the answer might be.

"A tub of salted caramel ice cream," Marilyn shrugged "A hot water bottle. World peace."

"In that order?"

"In that order," she nodded.

"Well, I had meant regarding…" he trailed off and gestured vaguely between the two of them.

"Oh, well you should've been more specific," she shrugged.

"-But now I'm more concerned with why you'd want ice cream when it has to be at least minus five out here."

It was a comfort that he seemed just as relieved as she was by the small amount of solace that their joking offered.

"Wait 'til summer when I'll eat jalapenos in the middle of a heat wave and really freak you out," she said drily before sighing heavily "What do you want?"

He made a face. To avoid the nutcase who had just conjured mental images of their future a decade down the line after one tipsy kiss, perhaps.

"Mulled wine," he said eventually "A new pair of gloves…"

He was silent for a moment, like he was weighing what to say next - and when he did say it, it was so quiet that she almost didn't make out the words.

"An easier life."

"In that order?" She asked softly.

"Reverse order."

"Ah."

For a moment she hesitated. But then she sighed and reached out, slowly so that he'd have a chance to pull away, and gently nestled a hand in the crook of his arm. It was a strictly platonic gesture. An 'I'm sorry things are so shitty' in a situation where words felt too futile. She'd do the same for anybody. For a moment he tensed, and then he bent his arm just a little as if to keep her hand there.

"Nothing can come of it," she said after they'd walked down a few streets in silence.

"No," he admitted "Nothing can."

It was a statement of a fact, not an accusation - nor a subsequent rejection. As casual and concrete as if they were commenting on the fact that it was cold out, or that it was just beginning to rain. Marilyn's hand almost slipped from his elbow, but he squeezed it just a little tighter.

Maybe if she was a little younger, or a little more idealistic, she'd be horrified by his words. Her teenage self would certainly expect some grand gesture of adoration - for him to declare that, after one kiss, he was ready to drop his entire family, turn his back on every value they'd instilled in him for years, and propose marriage. They'd be wed by summer. Birds and various woodland creatures would help her into her wedding dress, and hours later they would travel off on their honeymoon in a carriage that was once a pumpkin. Her teenage self was a bit of an idiot, and often fell prey to the age-old mistake of being so concerned over whether a boy liked her that she didn't stop to consider whether she liked him.

Alright, she was fond of Draco. There was no denying that. But this conversation was more about steering themselves away from perilous waters before they sailed smack-bang into an iceberg than it was about declarations of adoration and forbidden love. They'd kissed. Once. She wasn't quite ready to try on wedding dresses.

"...Should we stop hanging around with each other?" She asked tentatively.

However logical such a solution might have been, it was one she absolutely did not desire. But she tried to keep her distaste out of her voice as she asked it. He was the other half of this situation, however messy it had so quickly become. It was only fair that he had his say, too.

"Do you want that?" He asked, tone unreadable.

"No," she admitted freely "Do you, though?"

"No."

His answer was clipped and strongly discouraged further discussion of that particular matter, but it was difficult to tell whether he was annoyed by the fact itself, that he had to say it out loud, or at her for asking. Whichever the case was, he seemed intent on looking anywhere but at her, eyes scanning the streets relentlessly as they walked as though he was looking for something - a solution waiting for them in the middle of the street, perhaps. Marilyn brushed it off as a sign of his discomfort. She was too busy trying to make sense of her relief.

She was long past pretending that her affinity for Draco's presence in her life was solely a convenience sort of thing, that it was all because she didn't want to put in the effort it would take to find something else to fill the evenings he occupied. It was nice to see that he was in a similar place, neither of them pretending that his continued showing up was purely moralistic, making sure she'd get home from work safe.

However reassuring it was, though, it offered no answers as to where they'd go from here. Her hand remained in the crook of his arm.

"We could...go on as if it never happened? Pretend we rang in the New Year with a nice friendly handshake?"

It wasn't a suggestion that she made because she wanted to go down that route (although the part of her that dwelled somewhere between cowardice and cold, hard logic was screaming at her to do so), but because it was another option that she felt like she had to make available to him. If it was something he wanted, she didn't want him not to voice it out of fear of offending her. Nobody ever wanted to tell somebody they'd kissed 'let's just pretend it didn't happen' - and nobody ever took being told such a thing well, not unless they were absolutely on the same page.

Okay, it wouldn't be like Draco to not just flat-out say so if that was what he wanted, but still. It offered her peace of mind.

"Could we?" He challenged "I knew you were a dancer, but not an actress. Nor a very good liar, come to think of it."

The way he raised one pale eyebrow at her as he asked told her he didn't think so. If she didn't know him so well, she might've been offended by how bored he seemed by the suggestion. Exasperated, even. But...she saw his point.

"...I doubt it," she admitted with a sigh.

But where did that leave them? Unable for this to go anywhere, unable to nip it in the bud entirely and stay out of one another's lives, and unable to pretend it never happened? That was just about every option they had, unless he had a map of all the other potential routes they might take hidden away up his sleeve.

"What do you suggest, then?" She asked.

"That we go on as normal," he shrugged, the movement jostling her own arm from where her hand lay.

"Draco, that's literally what I just said."

"No it isn't."

"...Yes. It is."

Was he fucking with her for a laugh, or was she missing something?

"You suggested going on like it never happened. That isn't going on normally, that's going on...oh, I don't know, delusionally. Awkwardly. And awkwardness is tedious."

Well, they were in agreement on that. It was almost adorable, how suddenly uncomfortable he became when discussing these matters. It was a far cry from his usual bluntness.

"We both know nothing can come of it, and more importantly neither of us is under any impression of otherwise, and we both know we can't disappear from each other's lives. So we just...go on. No need to overthink it all. If we make anything seem illicit or, or forbidden, it'd just make it all even more tempting anyway. We should just...What's that phrase you always use - play it by ear? What use is there for rules, or some sort of strange, overly detailed plan of action?"

Marilyn was fighting to wrap her head around his words, not least because they were the opposite of what she'd expected. She'd fully anticipated her next encounter with Draco to include a very long list of dos and don'ts that they'd both have to follow to the letter if they wanted to continue being friends. Perhaps with a very awkward talk about how nothing serious could spawn between the two of them because something-something-class system, something-something-expectations, something-something-different ways of life that he would do his best to word tactfully, but would basically amount to 'you're too common for me to be kissing, so keep your hands to yourself, alright'.

Maybe if she didn't already know all of this, that would be the talk she'd be treated to - if she was some daft cow who thought they were about to live out a modern day version of Pride and Prejudice. And he had a point, anyway. How many girls had she known who fell head over heels for a guy she usually wouldn't look twice at, all because she was dancing a pas de deux with him, or he was a university flatmate, or so on - because there was some circumstance, whatever it might've been in that individual case, that meant a romance would not be recommended. It was like how being on a diet immediately made people crave chocolate. Constantly being very concerned with the fact that she could not kiss Draco Malfoy, would only make her think about kissing Draco Malfoy all the more than if it wasn't an issue to begin with. It was bound to make things all the more awkward (or tedious, to use his phrasing) too, if every time they sat on her bed or walked side-by-side, all she could think about was making sure there was an appropriate amount of distance between the two of them.

But she had to be sure that she understood what he was saying...and she couldn't pass up a chance to wind him up.

"Are you suggesting we be friends with benefits?" She snorted.

He frowned at her, but it was one of confusion rather than disapproval.

"Fuck buddies," she clarified with an innocent shrug.

Now his frown was disapproving, his nose wrinkling in distaste.

"No need to look so horrified at the prospect," she prodded.

"My horror is to do with the phrasing. Fuck buddies? Really?"

Whether it was his posh accent, the imperious way he held himself as he said it, or just how he seemed to over-pronounce every single syllable of the phrase, Marilyn was powerless to suppress her shriek of laughter.

"Say it again!"

"Absolutely not."

"Please?"

"No."

"Not even for your favourite fu-"

"Baxter."

He might've pretended to be absolutely done with her, but she wasn't blind to the way his lips twitched like he was trying his best not to show that he did indeed find her funny. But she wasn't stone-hearted - at his pleading, she forced her lips into a thin line, but still couldn't hold back the occasional snicker.

"That wasn't quite what I was suggesting," he grumbled "Not that it should, or would, be expected. Just that...we don't make anything more tempting by entirely ruling it out or outlawing it, but should anything happen in the spur of the moment, like it did on New Year's Eve, while we're playing it all by ear...it happens with full awareness by both parties that it can't lead anywhere serious, but without guilt or awkwardness over the fact that it did simple."

Or that complicated, she thought to herself. But then she pondered the matter a little more. Did it really have to be so complicated? Surely it was as simple or complicated as they made it, and neither of them were the type to over-complicate things for the hell of it. Marilyn considered the idea quietly, any of her earlier teasing now gone without a trace. It was a novel solution - one that was far more modern than what she might expect from him. It seemed her silence was making him nervous, though. Or, well, as nervous as he ever visibly got.

"If you're not amenable to the prospect and would prefer that we avoid any blurred lines and wish to go on like it never happened, I'll respect that and will endeavour to do so," he said "And if either of us decides it would be best to come to some other arrangement in the future, we can do so. I just thought it an idea worth raising."

It was oddly adorable how he became more formal the more uncomfortable he got. She wondered if he'd switch to Latin if she kept her face unreadable for much longer. No, the more she ran the matter through her mind, the more she liked his suggestion. It seemed the key to keeping things as they were, and she was a big girl - she didn't fall head over heels with any and every guy she had some semblance of intimacy with. That would've made her career as a dancer rather difficult, wouldn't it?

"They do say the simplest answer is the best one, right?" She said carefully.

He turned his head towards her, eyebrows raising just the slightest as something that looked dangerously like hope shone in his eyes.

"Sounds good to me," she added with a shrug.

Draco smiled. Then he coughed and nodded, and they both pretended the decision was much smaller and more meaningless than it really was. That strange, unacknowledged tension remained between them throughout the rest of their walk to her place.

Perhaps, in hindsight, they should have realised that the most tempting solution often masqueraded as the one that made the most sense, especially to those who weren't careful.

A/N: In which our protagonists think they know themselves a lot better than what they actually do. We're nearing the end of the first leg of this story - there is much more to come, but this first little arc is a sort of 'calm before the storm' type thing...and I am very excited to write said storm!

As always, thank you guys so much for the loveliness you've been sending my way, it makes my day.