As Marilyn had fully expected, she wasn't able to sleep at all the night before she was set to dance again. Draco slept soundly beside her all night, but she stared at the ceiling, mind alight with imaginings of how the next day would unfold. It was something she didn't often allow herself to do when it came to anything, really, figuring it would just breed disappointment, or at least some sort of mild disorientation, when things weren't exactly how she envisaged on a whim. But, bar fire or flood, she doubted the next day was capable of disappointing her at all, so she allowed herself her whimsy.

In the end, she excused herself back up to the top floor, careful not to disturb Draco's meticulous set-up which covered almost the entirety of the entire left side of the room, a hot chocolate in hand, and sipped at it in silence while she stared at the sky and tried her best to convince herself that this was all very much real. Sometime after she finished her hot chocolate, she fell asleep bundled in blankets on the floor, and she wasn't even aware of it until she opened her eyes early the next morning.

The morning itself passed in a blur - she was wired enough that she didn't even need a coffee, and it took all of her self-control to sit like a grown-up over breakfast with Draco rather than sprinting off to rehearsals and banging on the side door until they opened up for the day and let her in.

"Are my eyes deceiving me or are you actually nervous?" He regarded her over his own coffee "Don't tell me you've chosen now to doubt yourself now."

"I'm not that boring," she snorted "I'm excited. I'm thrilled. It's just a lot, though. I spent a long time pining - a long time wishing I could dance again. Maybe I've built it up in my head so much that the reality won't be able to compare anymore."

"It will."

"But-"

"It will," he interrupted simply "Stop waiting for something to go wrong."

Marilyn gave him a rueful look, pretending that the certainty with which he spoke didn't reassure her. Then, finally, she heaved a sigh and nodded.

"You're right."

"Usually, yes."

"Thank you. Everything will be fine."

"It will be. Or when it's not, it'll come in the form of crazed blood purists wielding wands, not a bad day at work."

"And there's that dazzling sense of perspective I needed," she said flatly.

"You are very welcome," he offered a smile that somehow managed to look sarcastic "It's a tactic I use with myself all the time. Whenever I'm doing business with somebody who is particularly moronic, I sit back and remind myself that my father very likely wants me dead, and suddenly the here and now seems a little bit less horrendous."

"You should go into psychiatry."

"God, no. Then I'll have to deal with people who are worse than moronic - those that are dull."

Marilyn decided arguing against that point would lead her to a hill she wasn't much willing to die on…and Draco, thankfully, managed to keep his smugness to himself when he noticed how any nervous fidgeting had left her posture as she packed her pointe shoes into her gym bag. While he didn't have much of a future in motivational speaking, his words really did have the intended effect. It was quickly becoming her go-to mantra of sorts whenever she faced anything even slightly daunting. You've literally been tortured, you daft cow, you're not allowed to let this frighten you now. Somehow she had a feeling it wasn't the sort of mantra that meditation or yoga teachers recommended, but hey - it worked.

Draco left her in one of London's side streets with a lingering kiss and a "give them hell, Baxter", and Marilyn was walking through the doors of the rehearsal space not ten minutes later. Before Draco, her strange sort of celebrity (for lack of a less horrendous word) had always amused her. The way she could walk down any given street and be a total unknown, but step into the dance world and be anything but. Her relationship with Draco had changed that a bit, but not entirely. She could still walk down the street and be totally unknown so long as it wasn't a Wizarding street - and even then, few approached on said Wizarding streets through sheer virtue of the fact that she and Draco both had incredibly severe looking resting faces. Although her not-husband's reputation as a Dark and Scary Wizard probably helped more than her own permanently unimpressed expression, she had to admit.

Still, stepping into the changing rooms that adjoined the spacious studio they'd been practising in was an adjustment. Mainly because the attention she received wasn't negative. In Draco's world, those on the wrong side of the war hated her for being a Muggle, and those on the right side hated her for being Mrs Malfoy. It was lose/lose. Even the looks that weren't withering were instead wary. Now, though, when she slipped into the room to be met with the sight of around twenty women who all already knew each other, the room slowly grew silent as more noticed her, and none of their faces were filled with hate or distrust.

Resisting the urge to shift uncomfortably, Marilyn instead offered a smile to the first handful that she made eye contact with before finding a space to one side as she put down her bag and began to take her coat off. Because the Phantom didn't really have seasons per se, not the way ballet did, those who performed (at least in the background) were just ever revolving - one lot for a few months, then another for a few months to give the first lot a break. This particular group had begun rehearsals already, so she was stricken very much by the feeling of being the new kid in school. Glancing around furtively, she took them in as they did the same with her. She wasn't the oldest here, but there weren't many who looked to be older. She'd folded her coat up neatly to one side and was undoing the laces of her trainers by the time somebody finally approached, the room having taken up quiet murmurs in place of the animated chatting she'd interrupted when she first walked in.

"You're Marilyn Baxter - I mean, you are, right?" The girl to her left asked.

"I am," she smiled.

"Are you sitting in on the classes today? Helping with the choreo or something?"

The girl who asked this question crossed the room to do so - she was one of the youngest, but her demeanour wouldn't have given that away.

"Oh, no," Marilyn offered a smile, and hoped that it wasn't a sheepish one "I'm dancing with you. Weren't you told?"

Judging by the way her dark eyes widened, and the way that reaction rippled around the room, they had not been.

"But…you can't dance anymore. An ACL tear. We all heard," she said slowly.

Thanks to the fact that she'd travelled in her dance clothes, once her shoes were off she needed to do little more than shimmy out of her sweatpants and pull her pointe shoes from her bag. It was only when she was wrapping the pink ribbons up around her ankles that those gathered really seemed to believe what she'd said - accepted that it wasn't some strange prank. For that she could not blame them, for even as she wriggled her toes within the shoes she kept expecting for the shiny pink satin to dissipate and for this to all be revealed as some strange illusion. A spell, if not a dream.

"It's a long story," Marilyn waved - as per her agreement with Sylvia "But I'm fine. I'm back. I'm here for my big debut."

As she said it, she looked about the room. If those gathered didn't like that fact, she had to know it in case she had to be on the lookout for petty bullshit. But there were no frowns, no exclamations of it not being fair, just looks that ranged from wide-eyed curiosity and excitement…to complexions that seemed to become just slightly pale as hands reached up to smooth their buns nervously.

Words wrapped in Adriano's voice came drifting back to her as she stood and began to stretch. I want to see the dread on the faces of the other ballerinas when they realise it's game over for their careers. She suppressed a snort. She hadn't been expecting him to be right. But then other words reached her - ones that drifted from across the room, hushed as though they expected her not to hear.

"Don't worry about it, she's been out of the game for what? A year? And she's already two weeks behind. It'll be us that she has to catch up to, not the other way around."

This time she did smile - a lopsided, almost excited smile before she stifled it and forced her expression to become blank so as not to give anything away. Well, she'd have to prove them wrong about that, then, wouldn't she? She'd always loved a good challenge.

The end of Marilyn's first full day of rehearsals found her sprawled across her very new sofa in her very new living room with her eyes shut as she tried to find the will to walk to the kitchen and make dinner. Her stomach was on her side, but her legs were not. Nor the rest of her body, really. If she had a muscle, it was throbbing, and while she was sore and exhausted (and knew she'd be doubly sore tomorrow), she was blissfully happy.

Draco had apparated with her down to London, given that his swanky new office wsa in Diagon Alley anyway, and given her a portkey to get back so she wouldn't be waiting around for him. Said portkey had dropped her (quite literally) into a field just on the outskirts of York, and she'd gotten a taxi the rest of the way home rather than face the walk. It had taken all of her willpower to even make it to the sofa rather than just crumpling into a heap in the entrance hall. There were lots of other good reasons to get up - to change into clothes she hadn't spent the day sweating in, to get heat and ice packs ready so she'd be capable of at least walking, and maybe even just to turn on the light so she wasn't lying here in the dark silence like some sort of moody teenager. But all of those things were so far away, and the sofa was soft and warm.

She wasn't even aware that she'd drifted off until ice-cold fingertips were brushing against her cheek and she was jerking awake.

"You looked like you were dead," Draco remarked lightly, sitting down beside her feet on the sofa.

"A prospect that clearly had you shaken to the core."

He looked as tired as she felt, his hair dishevelled (by his standards, anyway, which meant there was a single strand or two just slightly out of place) and his eyes weary.

Snorting at her comment, he shook his head "Things would certainly be quieter."

"I love you, too."

He smiled - a smile that had a distinct warmness to it, as though she'd confessed it lovingly.

"Nice tights, by the way," he plucked at the blindingly white tights that clung to her legs like a second skin before he leaned forwards to pull his shoes off.

"Fuck off," she snorted "They have to be white. It shows off your form better."

"Well, I am a fan of your form."

"There's that fabled pureblood charm."

"It worked on you, didn't it?"

"My choice was you or a potential rapist, I seem to remember."

"And you chose me," he sighed wistfully.

Marilyn laughed - one that started as a snort and devolved into real, albeit tired, giggles as she shook her head. His silly side was seldom seen (to anybody but her, she supposed, which she took as a real honour), and always impossibly endearing.

"How was your day?" She managed to ask once she calmed herself.

"Fine enough," he shrugged a little "People were stupid and exhausting, but people are always stupid and exhausting. Business, however, is going well…and I have something I need your opinion on."

"My opinion? Well, don't I feel important."

"My choice was you or Granger," he replied drily - his revenge for her earlier comment.

Snorting, she pushed herself up on her elbows (her arms and abs both screeching in protest as she did) and accepted the folded piece of parchment he offered her. The edges were torn and it had been folded haphazardly, giving the effect of an odd scrap for some notes, which made the immaculate handwriting that resembled calligraphy on it almost funny with how out of place it was. Marilyn squinted at the list. Lights, television (misspelled as tellehvision - something she probably could blame on her accent), computers (not misspelled, impressively), internet (which was followed by a single question mark), fridge, then '…freezer?", hair dryers, and then a few more which had been scribbled out with blank ink to the point of being unreadable.

"What's it meant to be?" She asked finally.

"A list of some of the Muggle equipment I may one day hope to adapt - to branch out into," he paused and then made a face before adding "Theoretically."

Marilyn blinked, taking in the things listed with renewed interest "Wow. It's ambitious."

"Too right it is," he replied "It's not set in stone, it was more…brainstorming. Mainly listing any Muggle contraption I could think of. Some of it is entirely pointless, made obsolete by spells that are more convenient. Others, though? We already have radio, why not films? We could go beyond simply making life easier for muggleborns and half-bloods and branch into bringing new technology to the Wizarding world in general."

"I love your ambition," she commented - and sincerely, at that.

He snorted tiredly, lifting her legs (and raising an eyebrow at her pained grunt as he did so) so that he could scoot backwards and sit on the sofa properly before lowering them again so her knees rested across his thighs.

"How was your day?" He asked.

"These are good. I'm not totally sure which are obsolete thanks to magic and which aren't - the freezer and fridge, I'm guessing? I'm sure you have some sort of permanent frost spell that's way more sustainable than running a fridge," she murmured, eyes scanning over the list "The internet could be good in the long run, but it would take a lot to get there. Typically you need somebody to come in and install it if you don't have any lines already in the house. It'd raise too many questions for the households that aren't even remotely Muggle. Not to mention that you can't just have an internet guy waltz into Diagon Alley. I'd say revisit that one way later down the line, but keep thinking on it. The television could theoretically be more simple - not the channel part, but if they were to use it for DVDs, videos, video games…which means you could create adaptors for those appliances too. Same goes for computers, really, they just wouldn't have internet for the time being, but there's other stuff they could use without it…"

"Marilyn."

"Hm?"

"How was your day?" He repeated, slowly raising one eyebrow.

As he repeated himself, he plucked the list from her hand - apparently happy enough with her feedback for the time being. Marilyn shrugged.

"The choreography is laughably easy. It has to be, I guess, since it's not meant to be the focus. The people were nice. To my face, at least. I think I took a few souls when I picked up everything so quickly. I've already promised to sign my first pair of dead shoes for the girl that's dancing beside me in the first act, bless her. She's one to watch, actually."

"Dead shoes?"

"Pointe shoes only last so long under the strain before you need a new pair."

"So she's going to hold you to that a few months from now?"

Marilyn laughed "A few days, more like. Tomorrow night, probably. I'll go through three a week, easy."

"A week? You're not serious."

"I'm pretty thrifty with mine, too. Some girls go through double that. Once I'm back to where I was, doing proper ballet, I'll go through a fresh pair every show. Now just imagine what it does to our feet if that's what it does to our shoes," she snorted, wriggling her toes and suppressing a wince "I've still got more I need to do. I should stretch, roll out my muscles, get my next pair of shoes ready, then force down not one but two chicken breasts so I can at least half-function tomorrow. If I'm already sore now, I'm going to be in agony tomorrow. I don't know how I forgot that going en pointe is basically a form of medieval torture, but I did."

When she looked at him again, Draco was eyeing her expectantly, the most unamused amused expression she'd ever seen fixed to his aristocratic features.

"You're loving every second of it, aren't you?" He gave her a knowing look.

Marilyn grinned "Beyond words. I can't remember the last time everything felt so right. I'm still not convinced it's all real, you know. Although I am now questioning whether I'm a masochist."

"Just as the papers tend to do," Draco smiled - a slight, small half-smile, but a true smile nonetheless, but she kept talking.

"Thank you for this, Draco. Thank you. I'm not sure I'll ever be able to thank you enough for it."

Grasping his hand, she brought the back of it to her lips and pressed a soft kiss to it before dropping it to her chest, but keeping her hold. Mostly because her abs couldn't take the effort it would take to sit up and kiss him properly.

"It was nothing," he waved his free hand, even as the one that rested in hers squeezed.

"It was everything," she disagreed readily "Never doubt that."

He bowed his head as if conceding defeat, and she didn't push the matter. For somebody who was supposedly so arrogant, he really did have difficulty accepting praise when it came to things that truly mattered. It was adorable. She kept that to herself…and took pity on him by changing the topic.

"I despise admitting it, but it's probably a good thing that I have to do this first. I thought I was in good shape, but it's not what it was. Not what it has to be. This gives me a chance to get fighting fit again before I, well, fight properly. A gradual return - dipping my toe in the water rather than cannon-balling right in."

"I thought you were going to turn them down, you know. When you first told us all."

"Did you?"

"I did," he nodded "I was ready to ask you if you'd lost your mind…once your friends were gone."

"I admire your restraint in confining your lectures to a time that wouldn't embarrass me in front of my nearest and dearest."

"We were in a room with Sarah and knives, what do you expect?"

Marilyn snorted "Touché. Don't waste a well-prepared speech, though, what would it have consisted of?"

He gave her a deadpan look that was just a touch exasperated "You won't use it as an excuse to be angry with me?"

"Only if it starts with 'listen here, bitch'."

The smirk that earned her had her questioning if she wasn't a little bit too close to the mark.

"I was going to ask you if you'd lost your mind - if you'd said yes when I asked whether you were going to cut ties with your old company and find another," he shrugged before making a face "With the caveat, I suppose, that if it really was an insult of the truly highest possible degree, you'd be right to laugh in their faces and tell them to piss off. But I didn't get the sense that it was quite as bad as that…mainly because you didn't come home covered in blood."

With a chuckle, and then a wince at the chuckle, she used his hand to pull herself up into a sitting position, groaning all the way, so that she might sit and listen to him properly. His fingertips traced circles on the back of her hand as he spoke.

"The way I see it, had you turned it down, you'd have been walking away from a guarantee at your old position for the sake of pride and ego, and perhaps a period of discomfort…not entirely unlike what I had to face in order to do the right thing," he said the words mockingly - as if that distanced him from the admission that he had done the right thing, apparently more comfortable being the villain than the good guy "It would've been hypocritical, had you urged me to do it before deciding that you couldn't."

"Ouch," she said teasingly.

"But you didn't, so you're not," he pointed out.

"Very true. I'm more stubborn than that. And I would've deserved that speech, had I been stupid enough to take the other path."

"So you're not going to harbour some secret grudge because I called your hypothetical alternate self a hypocrite?"

"You know me well enough to know by now that my grudges are never secret," she teased "So no. If anything I'm glad you would've said it. I didn't fake-marry a wimp, or a yes-man, and I wouldn't want to."

"I will endeavour to disagree with you more often," he said solemnly.

"If you want to be wrong more often, that's on you, my love."

He rolled his eyes, and then he paused and frowned "What's that noise?"

The noise he was referring to was a repeated buzzing over and over, like a very angry bumblebee.

"My phone," she replied simply.

"You're not going to answer it?"

"The Phantom people made the announcement just before rehearsals ended - probably so nobody else could spread word before they did. From what I understand, the ballet company have boosted it, too, probably reassured by the fact that I left rehearsals with all of my limbs in order. That is everybody I ever knew back in the day trying to get in touch to find out if it's true. I love them, but I cannot for the life of me be arsed having the same conversation fifty times at the moment."

"I'm not sure how I feel about being married to a celebrity."

"Welcome to my world."

"Fame and infamy are rather different."

"Mm. Infamy is arguably hotter."

He chuckled "You sound like my aunt Bella."

"I've read about her, I know that's not a compliment."

"I didn't mean it as one," he said lightly.

"Well I don't know how I feel about being married to somebody who insults me."

Draco smiled fondly "Welcome to my world."