Ginny Weasley feels left behind, all of her friends have moved on, with partners and families of their own yet she's unsure if she will ever be able to take that step. Could a chance meeting at an Ice Cream Parlour change her life for the better?

This Fic was written for WWW's Wheel of Death Wednesday. I chose Chaos and Kris gave me:

Weasley: Ginny
Trope: Meet Ugly
Location: Florean Fortescue's Ice Cream Parlour

Extra Character: Theodore Nott

Ginny hated Saturday's, she hadn't always hated them but as late she did, she absolutely detested them. It might have been the fact that it was winter and Gwenog had taken to making them practice every Saturday morning in the biting cold, icicles clinging to their broomsticks, their fingers and noses tinged blue from the freezing temperatures. Perhaps it was the fact that every Saturday she met her girlfriends in Diagon Alley, each of them now married, starting families of their own. She loved her friends but all they talked about were either their partners or else ovulation cycles, pregnancies, births, babies, breastfeeding and all the other things that went into raising or starting a family. If Ginny heard one more friend talk about their mucus plug, she was certain she'd scream. Long gone were the days when they'd go out drinking, flirting with strangers and if they were lucky going home for a night of drunken sex with someone, they wouldn't remember the next day, now everyone was getting serious, settling down and Ginny didn't know if she was ready to take that step to find someone to spend the rest of her life with.

At one point Ginny had been certain she'd settle down with Harry however it became clear soon after the end of the war that though they loved one another, they wanted very different things in life. Harry wanted a family of his own, having been deprived of one his entire life and Ginny didn't. One day she thought she'd be ready to have a child or two but at the age of twenty-two when Harry proposed and offered her the world, she hadn't been ready, to be honest five years later and she still didn't feel ready for that step, for such commitment. Harry had since found love with Luna and the two had three children with another on the way, Ginny was happy for them, she was even godmother to their daughter Lily, but she wasn't ready yet to have a family of her own.

"Scorpius has started teething," Hermione told the table with a grimace, bouncing the sleeping blonde baby in her arms, they were sat in a small café in Diagon Alley, drinking tea and eating cakes and sandwiches, Ginny mentally groaned as the topic of conversation once more turned to babies.

"Oh I hated that stage, honestly breastfeeding Freddie and Roxie, it was like having a pair of piranhas on my breasts," Angie said.

"I have a balm that will help, it also helps with chafing," Luna added helpfully.

"I'll take anything, my breasts are so painful, Draco and I were having sex and I almost hexed him when he touched them," Hermione commented.

"It's good your having sex at all, I felt so ugly after having Poppy, wouldn't let Ron anywhere near me, no way was his cock coming within an inch of me," Pansy said.

"Clearly that didn't last," Daphne laughed, Pansy was now six months along with her second child.

"He made me realise that having had his child made me more beautiful to him," Pansy smiled, patting her stomach lovingly. Though she was happy for her brother and his wife that they were having another child Ginny was certain she could go her whole life without hearing about their sex life's, there were certain things sisters just did not want to know about their brothers.

"My mucus plug came out, won't be long until this baby is ready to come out," Luna told the table happily, all the other woman around the table began to coo, chatter, congratulate and talk about their own experience with mucus plugs and labour. Ginny couldn't take it, she was rather proud of herself that she didn't scream, she did however stand abruptly, drawing the eyes of everyone to herself.

"Gin," Hermione asked her, she smiled though she was sure it came out more as a grimace because Hermione frowned worriedly.

"I need to go," she told them throwing a handful of gold coins onto the table.

"Are you okay," Fleur asked, Ginny nodded and hurried away from them, ignoring the calls of her name as she stepped out into the snowy Diagon Alley. Despite the cold weather, she found herself heading to the Ice Cream Parlour, even in winter nothing was quite so comforting as a sundae from Florean Fortescue's Ice Cream Parlour. Frustrated tears made their way unwittingly down her face, it wasn't until this moment that she realised how lonely she had become, even when around her friends and family she no longer felt like she fit in with them, she felt like they were simply at different stages of life these days and that she could no longer connect with them.

Ginny reached up, wiping at her face, tears were freezing to her pale cheeks, and she wasn't paying attention to her surroundings as she stepped off the snow-covered cobbles towards the mint green door of the ice cream parlour. As she was stepping up the door opened suddenly and a tall broad figure bumped into her, shopping bags flying around them as he wrapped his strong arms around her slender waist, twisting them so that he took the brunt of the fall, Ginny falling to land atop of his broad chest.

"Oh, I'm so sorry," Ginny murmured.

"Weasley are you alright," a smooth voice asked from below her, lifting her head she found herself looking into the most beautiful deep blue eyes she'd ever seen.

"I'm okay, I wasn't looking where I was going," she whispered.

"Ginny your crying," he said, raising a gloved finger to wipe the tears from her face.

"I'm okay," she reaffirmed, scrambling to her feet.

"You don't look alright," he told her, silently summoning his bags back to him as he stood up.

"You ever feel like you don't fit in," she asked him.

"All the time," he nodded.

"All my friends have families, it's all they talk about," she told the curly haired man.

"Most of mine do too," Theodore Nott told her.

"It's stupid, I'm happy for them but I just wish sometimes it was different, I wish that we could do things without the topic changing to nappies and mucus plugs," she shuddered.

"How about I buy you a sundae and I promise we won't talk about any of those topics once," he suggested.

"That would be nice," she nodded, smiling at the dark-haired man as he held the door open for her. To Ginny's upmost surprise Theodore Nott was charming, handsome and incredibly witty, they shared ice cream at a small table beside a frosted window as snow fell outside, blanketing Diagon Alley. Over the course of an hour Ginny found herself laughing and smiling more than she had in a long time. When Theo as he insisted, she call him asked her to dinner that very evening, Ginny was happy to oblige. Perhaps Saturdays weren't the worst after all she thought to herself as she headed home to ready herself for the evening.

Two Years Later

All people are different; they prioritise different things and their key life events and milestones happen at different rates. Ginny Weasley hadn't been ready at the age of twenty-two to get married and start a family, even at twenty-seven she hadn't been certain if she'd ever be ready to take a step most of her friends had already taken. Now though she was ready, more so than she thought she'd ever be.

It was rather surprising really that a chance encounter at Florean Fortescue's Ice Cream Parlour would lead to a whirlwind romance with a man quite different to all the men she'd dated before. Theo had made her fall hard, made her feel love stronger than any love she'd felt before. It was easy, simple, there was no expectation on her to be more than what she already was. When he proposed six months into their relationship, surprisingly she didn't feel the anxiety she'd felt when Harry had proposed all those years ago, no, instead she'd felt joy, she'd smiled through tears nodding speechlessly as he placed a beautiful ring onto her ring finger.

To her mother's annoyance, Ginny and Theo eloped a year after their meeting at the ice cream parlour, neither one of them needed an extravagant wedding to show their love for one another and instead elected to get married while on holiday in Greece, with only a pair of tourists as witnesses to their union.

Neither Theo nor she were surprised when she wound up pregnant three months after their wedding, neither of them were the best at casting the contraceptive spell, far too often they got caught up in the moment. Surprisingly, Ginny didn't regret it, didn't feel sad, or unprepared, she felt that it was the right time, that Theo was the right man, that they'd have a wonderful family together.

So two years to the day since the day she ran away from her friends, who had been baby obsessed, Ginny found herself back in the ice cream parlour, now nine months pregnant, all of her loved ones surrounding her as they held a baby shower for her baby that was due any day now.

"Have you found your mucus plug yet," Luna asked, rather than grimacing or feeling awkward, Ginny laughed, shaking her head.

"Not yet," she replied, as Theo wrapped his arms around her waist, his hands settling on her rounded stomach.

"I love you Gin," he whispered, kissing her temple.

"I love you too," she smiled, turning in his arms to kiss his lips. Everything happened at its own pace and time, and that was for the best. Ginevra Nott was incredibly happy with her life the way it currently was and with her husband by her side, she felt closer to her friends than she had in many years, perhaps baby talk and stable relationships weren't so bad after all