Previously in the Darklyverse: Alice moved in with Remus and James, with Sirius intending to move in after James gets married. Frank asked Alice out after her breakup with Dirk, but she chose to wait to date anyone until finding her footing again.

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October 8th, 1978: Alice Abbott

"So James is moving out when he and Lily get married in June, and Sirius will probably give up his and Lily's apartment and move in here with us, but I don't know if I really want to live with Remus and Sirius. I feel like I'd be too much of a third wheel, I don't know."

Alice says this all very fast as she stirs her coffee with a wooden stir bar. She's sitting outdoors in a Hogsmeade café with Frank, who is picking slowly at a croissant but seems to be more intent on studying Alice's face than on finishing his breakfast. Between work, the Order, and their outings once or twice a week in their off hours, they're seeing a lot of each other, and it's been—really nice, if Alice is being honest with herself. It's not like her whole life revolves around him or anything—she still hangs out with James and Remus plenty at home, writes weekly to Mary, and catches up with the others whenever she's on orb duty or at Order meetings—but it's nice to have a buddy, someone she knows for sure will wave her over at meetings or catch up with her at the end of the day when Auror training is over.

And—maybe he's becoming more than a buddy. Maybe Alice had forgotten how nice that can be to have.

"So I take it you're looking for a new place?" Frank asks sympathetically after setting down his coffee and fingering his croissant again.

"I… yeah, I really should. I just don't know where to go. I don't want to go back home, but Auror training doesn't really pay well enough for me to live on my own." She knows Frank can understand this, as he's living with his parents at the moment. "Peter and Em would probably take me in if I asked, but they have their whole… weird thing going on, and I don't really want to get in the middle of that, either. And I could ask Marlene to room with me, but she's doing so well right now with her uncle that I don't want to—"

"Alice."

"What?"

"Would you like to move in with me?"

"I—what?"

"You and me. Together. In a flat," says Frank, smiling. "What do you say?"

Alice hesitates. What if living together propels them into something romantic that doesn't work out and leaves them stuck on a lease together? But Frank reaches across the table to seize her hands in his, and he says, "I know we haven't always been as close as we are now, but you're one of my oldest friends, and I would love the opportunity to spend more time with you."

"You're not sick of seeing me all the time already?" she croaks, and Frank laughs.

"Not at all. If I need some time to myself, I'll disappear into my room with the door shut. Besides, you can just kick me out if ever you want to have friends over or, you know, have date night with somebody at the flat."

"I'm not planning on having date nights with anybody else," she says, and then realizes her mistake. "Anybody! No date nights with anybody."

"It's okay. I… I don't want to have date nights with anybody else, either," says Frank. His smile has faded, and he looks—nervous, maybe.

He's still holding her hands, and she looks down at them, feeling suddenly flustered. "Are we really going to talk about this, then?"

"…Yeah, I guess we are."

"Because I feel like we've been skirting around this for a long time, and I don't want to make things weird or complicated—"

"The only way this could get weird is if you don't feel the way about me that I feel about you," says Frank firmly, "and even if that's true, I'll back off and never say another word about it, so that we can still be friends to each other. I want you in my life, Alice. Yes, I want you in my life as more than this, but if all we ever have is what we already have, I can—"

"Frank?"

"Yeah?"

"I want you in my life as more than a friend, too."

"Oh," says Frank, and then, "Oh."

Alice is starting to feel self-conscious still holding Frank's hands, so she pulls hers back. He only looks disappointed for a moment, until she stands up and says, "Come on. I don't want to do this in a café."

So they Apparate back to Alice's flat, which seems to be empty; she doesn't know for sure, but she assumes that James and Remus are visiting with Lily and Sirius. "In here," she says, and she leads him by the hand back into her room.

Alice's bedroom is still pretty barebones; there's a queen bed with no headboard, clothes hanging in the closet, and her trunk from her Hogwarts days sitting in the corner. She keeps meaning to ask James to do it up for her, but she's not looking forward to the argument they're bound to have when James tries to insist on furnishing it for free. "I know it's not much yet," says Alice, feeling a little embarrassed.

Frank doesn't seem to mind. He takes a seat on the edge of the bed, and she sits down next to him a moment later. For all that she wanted to get out of the outside world to have this conversation, Alice can't for the life of her think of what to say, but Frank eventually just smiles shyly and says, "Is it okay for me to kiss you?"

"Yes," says Alice. "Yes, I would like that very much."

She's been kissed before, of course, but she and Dirk never really did much more than peck each other on the lips, even after dating for almost two years. So when Frank moves in to kiss her, and keeps kissing her, and doesn't let go even after a whole good thirty seconds have passed, it starts to feel a little—much for Alice, who pulls back.

"Everything okay?" asks Frank, looking concerned.

"I… haven't really done much of this before," Alice admits, bowing her head.

"That's okay. I'm sorry. I shouldn't have assumed that you and Dirk were on the same level as Dana and I were."

Alice folds her arms and seizes her elbows in her hands, hunching over a little bit. "It's okay. I'm not used to, uh—to not feeling totally in control every second. I might be really slow to… I mean, I don't know if I can ever… be that person."

Frank holds her by the shoulders and leans in to kiss her on the forehead. "No pressure," he says. "At all. Do you want me to trust you to come to be and do things, or should I check in with you every once in a while, or—? Even if you want to just not do anything for a while, we can do that, too."

Alice feels a surge of affection for Frank even as she's still feeling a bit, well, rattled. She knows she has no moral reason to hold off on physical affection with him—the whole argument she always heard growing up was that she was too young to make those kinds of decisions for herself, but she's of age now, and surely that means she's old enough to do what she wants with her body, isn't she? Besides, it's not like she's contractually obligated to start having sex as soon as she's in an adult relationship—it's not like she's married to Frank—and she feels silly for getting so wound up over a bit of kissing.

Remus and James are back home by the time Frank leaves. He and Alice pop into the living room so that Frank can say hello to them for a few minutes, and then he kisses Alice goodbye (a quick and simple one on the lips) before he Disapparates. James and Remus, of course, immediately start whooping.

"Oh, hush," says Alice, but she's smiling.

"Did that just happen today, then?" asks Remus.

"Yes, this morning," Alice answers, and then she hesitates.

More than ever, Alice wishes she had a best friend she could talk to—someone who will be excited for Alice in her new relationship and give her advice about the kissing business that's got her so worked up. She doesn't feel especially comfortable talking to a bloke about it, but she feels weird encroaching on Lily and Marlene by singling one of them out, and Emmeline seems like she's always so tied up with Peter.

And then it occurs to Alice: Mary could probably use a new best friend, too.

"I'm going to pop over to Mary's place for a bit," Alice says abruptly.

"Careful what you tell her. She's probably going to spread the news about you and Longbottom to everyone we know," says James with a bit of a snicker.

But Alice thinks James should give Mary more credit than that. Yeah, she'll probably tell people that Alice and Frank are dating, but why shouldn't she? It's not something that Alice needs to keep secret. The real secret here is Alice's total fear of physical intimacy, and she's pretty sure that if she tells Mary about it, Mary's not going to spread that around.

Alice feels like it would be rude to just Apparate directly into Mary's living room without an invitation or any prior warning, so she appears on top of the welcome mat outside their front door and knocks four times. "Just a second!" she hears Cattermole call out from inside, and about ten seconds later, the door opens. He's wearing an apron and is mopping sweat off of his brow with one of his arms. "Abbott! Hey. How are you?"

"Oh, I'm just fine, thanks, and you?"

"Good," he says, and he steps back so that Alice can come inside. "You here for Mary?"

Alice nods, and Cattermole turns his head and yells, "Mary! You've got company."

Mary emerges from her bedroom a minute later, still wearing her dressing gown and fuzzy slippers. "Hey, Alice. Sorry, I wasn't expecting visitors, so I'm a little, well, sleepy."

"Oh, that's quite all right. I'm sorry to just barge in like this," says Alice. "Can we talk in your room, maybe?"

"Oh—sure."

So they retreat to Mary and Cattermole's bedroom. It's much better furnished than Alice's room back home is, with all mahogany furniture and Quidditch posters and photographs hung up on the walls. "How are you doing? I feel like I haven't seen you in forever," says Mary.

Alice doesn't push down the surge of guilt she feels at Mary's words—she thinks maybe she deserves it. Instead, she says, "I'm fine. I have something I wanted to talk out, though, if that's okay? It's about Frank."

"Frank Longbottom? Yeah, of course. What's up?"

"Well—we started dating."

Mary perks up at this. "You did? Al, that's amazing. Congratulations!"

"Thank you," says Alice, ducking her head. "It's just—there are some complications already."

"What kind of complications?"

"Like… I think he and Dana went a lot farther than Dirk and I ever did, and I'm… a little uncomfortable? And a little bit freaked out, too, I guess."

Mary tuts sympathetically. "You know, out of all the boyfriends I've ever had—even with Reg—I've never had sex."

"You… haven't?"

"I've made out with some of them. Reg and I do some stuff. But—yeah. I've never so much as touched anybody's privates before."

"We kissed today, and even that made me feel… I liked it, but it scared me, too. Even without us going very far, it felt like everything was moving so fast."

Mary smiles a little bit. "You're—forgive me—a bit of a control freak, right?"

"That's not how I would have put it," says Alice, "but—yeah, I guess so."

"This stuff is all about letting go of your control and trusting the other person. If that's going to be hard for you, the best thing you can do is take it really, really slowly. Is he the kind of bloke who'll be good about letting you do that?"

"I think so. He was really sweet and everything today when I wanted to stop."

"That's good. That's really good. I think the biggest thing is just talking to him about your expectations and what you can and can't do, you know? And, like—go slow. Go slow, but don't totally avoid any intimacy at all… unless sex stuff isn't something you want to eventually have. I don't know; some people don't need it, and that's okay, too."

Alice shrugs. "I don't know. I think that's something I'd like to do someday, but I can't really see myself going from here to there."

"Oh, and one other thing," says Mary. "If he starts pushing you to do more than you want to do, dump his arse. That's what happened between me and Davy Gudgeon."

"Really?"

Mary grins. "Yeah. We were, like, fourteen. I think it took him a while to get over me, but as far as I'm concerned, I gave him what he deserved."

Impulsively, Alice kind of awkwardly pats Mary on the shoulder a couple of times. "Thanks, Mare. That—really helps, actually. We should—I don't know. What's your schedule like later this week?"

"I… well, I'm free most evenings and weekends. Reg and I both don't really get out much."

"Great. You can start coming over. I could use more Mary in my life."

Mary smiles wryly. "You're not busy? You know, with Order stuff?"

"Not all the time. I'm on duty for—some stuff in the evening—for the next couple of days, but why don't we get dinner on Friday?"

Alice doesn't leave until she secures a yes from Mary. When she does turn on the spot and compress into blackness, she can almost, almost believe that she's not going to be best friend-less for much longer.