Susan and I made up on Sunday morning. She apparated into my kitchen while I was making toast which startled me. She had complained to Henry about what I had done and he sided with me and had a talk with her about boundaries. I couldn't help but laugh. We spent a good chunk of the day talking. Susan was my favorite form of company when she wasn't making demands.

The week that followed was crazy. A number of odd cases in and out of my wing and a few complex bites that Hippocrates Smethwyck requested my help with. It was nothing as complex as a particularly bad snake bite that wouldn't heal about a year ago. Nothing we tried worked. The poison from the snake was particularly nasty, I'd never seen anything like it. There had been an increase in the frequency of werewolf bites and they were almost routine care now thanks to Fenrir Greyback.

It was only Wednesday but I was completely drained. It was nearly nine at night by the time I got home. I put my bag and my portkey down and opened my refrigerator. I was starving. There was nothing in there that looked any good so I turned my attention to my cabinets. I was rifling through when the phone started ringing. I swear to God, Louis.

I ripped up the receiver. "Sometimes late nights are unavoidable and if I find a SINGLE niffler in my flat…"

"A what? Have you never been taught how to answer a phone? I feel like two out of two times is a pattern."

My breath caught in my throat. "Charlie?"

"Yeah, sorry it's taken this long to call. These last few days have been…a week." he said.

"Mine has been the same. Sorry, I thought you were my brother nagging me again." I explained.

"For the bad habit rehabilitation accountability program, right?" he asked.

I laughed at his wording. "That's one way to describe it."

"What's a niffler?" My heart skipped.

"I didn't say niffler." I said as I tried to come up with rhyming words or something that could be mistaken for niffler. "I said…snifter."

"Like a brandy glass?" he asked.

"Yes." I had to change the subject fast because that lie didn't really make sense. "I missed you."

I cringed so hard I fell to my knees on the floor and knocked myself several times in the forehead with the receiver. It was the first thing that popped into my head and I just blurted it out like someone under a confundus charm. I put the phone back to my ear.

"...unless you already have plans." he finished.

"What did you say?" again with the blurting.

"I was saying that I missed you too and was wondering if you wanted to get dinner on Friday, unless you already have plans."

My heart soared. "I would love to get dinner on Friday. Let me know where and I can meet you there."

"Will you be helping your aunt that day by any chance?" he asked. "I could stop by the shop and we could go to the restaurant together. Then I can make it a surprise."

"I will be helping her that day." I said. "I'll meet you outside by the ugly mannequin."

"I'll see you at six." He said, "I look forward to seeing you again, Ruby."

The rest of the week dragged on as slowly, if not slower, as the first part of the week. Nothing particularly exciting happened in my ward and it wasn't as busy as it normally was. I was also looking forward to something which always makes time pass slower than you'd like. It felt like weeks had passed before Friday arrived. It brought with it an influx of patients with a complicated array of maladies. It was the most work I'd seen the entire month and it was all happening on the day that I needed to be out by a specific time. I was in the middle of extensive research about what kind of poison could cause the effects my patient was experiencing when I looked down at my watch to find that it was already well past six. I leapt up from my seat, upending it and making an extremely loud crash in the library. Every pair of eyes in the library looked at me with daggers. I apologized profusely before grabbing the book I had been searching through and rushed from the scene.

I shoved the book into my assistant's arms as I rapidly explained his assignment to figure out the poison. It was of great importance that it was discovered quickly but I assured him that I almost had it figured out and that I was certainly in the right section of the book.

"I have already given the patient a bezoar, but it didn't seem to have an effect, if you don't have your answer in fifteen minutes, please, do not hesitate to contact Healer Smethwyck, he's very adept at poisons and this is a matter of timely importance, but I am already extremely late or I would do it myself."

I left feeling bad that I pushed my work off on someone else, but was also confident that he would be able to accomplish the task I had almost finished.

I changed hurriedly in the staff toilets and rushed to the reception area as I pulled my shoes onto my feet. I checked my watch again and it was beyond half-passed. I gave a wave to the Welcome Witch with my shoe as I ran for the exit and slid my foot into it. I burst through the door and into the cold night air with such speed that I heard the backfiring car that acted as a distraction. Everyone in the area's head turned toward the loud noise and away from where I was exiting through a door that wasn't there.

I quickly looked around for Charlie, fearing that he had given up and left, but searching frantically anyways. I found him leaning on the outside wall of a building near the abandoned storefront; his hands in his coat pockets and his head was turned towards the racket.

"I am so, so, so sorry." I apologized as I ran to his side. "Please, tell me that I didn't ruin our evening."

He looked over at me, not a trace of a smile on his face. My heart plummeted into the deepest depths of my gut.

"I'm so sorry." I apologized again.

He shrugged. "I was starting to feel like an idiot waiting for you."

I felt awful. I should have had an alarm set, I should have paid closer attention to the time, I should have done something so that I wouldn't have messed up and lost track of time.

"I lost track of time." I said, "I know that's not an excuse, but it was insanely busy at the hospital today and I was working on several things at once, most of them rather odd, and I rushed here as fast as I could. Please, tell me I didn't ruin everything."

"The hospital?" He asked, "I thought you were supposed to be helping your aunt. That's why I felt like an idiot."

"I couldn't get away from work to help her." I said, "Why would my helping her or not make you feel like and idiot?"

He gestured to the shop front. It was dark.

"There's clearly no one in there." He said, "Unless your aunt prefers to make you do unpaid labor in the dark so she can save on electric costs.

A small smile tugged at the corner of his mouth.

"I thought you were standing me up. I saw the dark shop and I…I don't know why I waited for as long as I did, clearly you weren't in there."

"I'm glad you waited." I said, still feeling terrible. I reached out to touch his hand, but he still had them in his pockets. I placed my hand over his wrist. I could feel his watch ticking under palm. He looked at my face, his blue eyes sending shockwaves down my spine. He pulled his hand from his coat and took mine. His warmth was a welcome sensation to my cold fingers. I hadn't been outside long, but it was near freezing.

"There is no way we will be on time for the reservation I planned." He said with surprising lightness.

"I really am sorry." I apologized again. "I'm never late. I haven't been late since it was my mother's responsibility to take me places."

"Shush," he lifted his hand that held mine to his mouth, he placed his finger to his lips. "It's really not a problem. I think I got a bit pretentious when I made that reservation anyways. I wanted to impress you, but there is a place not far from here that is more my style anyways."

He held onto my hand as we walked down the pavement, our hands keeping each other warm in the cold. He looked more styled and clean cut than he had been on our relaxed Saturday. He traded his worn leather jacket for a well tailored navy peacoat. His hair was immaculately styled. I was still impressed that he was able to keep it that neat through an entire day.

"This is one of my favorite places to stop when I've had a late day at work." He said, bringing me out of my study of him. "It's certainly not fancy, but the food is good and the people are nice."

He let go of my hand to open a door. I looked up at the signage above the shop. I was surprised to see that it was just a pie and mash shop.

The inside was warm and the smell reminded me of my nan's kitchen. I missed her so much.

"Chips or mash?" Charlie asked, jolting me from the memories beginning to form in my head?

"Huh?" I asked.

"With your pie, chips or mash?" he clarified.

"Oh, uh, mash." I said taking a seat in the chair he had pulled out for me.

He walked up to the counter to order. He clearly knew the man he was ordering from, they shared a few laughs and seemed to enjoy their banter. At one point they both very obviously looked at me. I quickly looked down at the table away from them, but I felt my cheeks turn red.

Charlie returned with two plates with pie and mash and two bottles of Guinness.

"Sorry if we made you a bit uncomfortable." he said, "That's Gary, he thinks you're too pretty for me."

I looked at this beautiful, put together, charming man sitting in front of me. I found it hard to believe that any woman could be too pretty for him, especially me.

"If either of us is too pretty for the other…" I trailed off and gave him a meaningful look before taking a bite of pie.

I looked back up and he was smiling at me. If I hadn't been sitting I'm certain my knees would have given out. I needed to learn to control myself around him and that smile.

"You must be delirious from hunger." he teased, "Eat."

He took a long draft of his Guinness. I watched his adam's apple move as he swallowed. My eyes wandered from his throat to his sharp jawline to his cheekbones to his eyelashes. He lowered his beer and I lowered my eyes to my plate so as not to be caught memorizing his features.

"So what kinds of things were you caught up in at work?" he asked.

I sputtered the drink of beer I was taking. Panic began to rise, what had I told him I was? "Oh, you know, normal stuff…but also some unexpected things?"

"What would you consider normal when people come in for brain problems?" he asked.

"Well, not normal, but there are things that are common to diagnose and things that aren't." I said as I remembered I told him I was a Neurologist.

"Do you ever get on peoples'...nerves?" he asked.

I looked up from my plate. His eyes were bright and his mouth was pulled into a goofy grin. He seemed very pleased with his joke.

"I think we're done here." I said seriously as I placed my fork down on my plate.

"No!" he faked urgency. "I'm sorry, that one was bad."

I laughed and picked my fork back up. "What about you? Did you have anything interesting happen at work?"

"I never have anything interesting happen at work." he said, "I don't do my job because it's interesting, I do it because I am gifted in the art of kissing ass and it pays fabulously."

"How can you go into a job day after day if you aren't interested in it?" I asked.

He shrugged. "I didn't say I wasn't interested, I said it's not interesting. You have a job that is life or death, that has serious responsibility, people depend on you for quality of life. Your job is awesome. My job, if I mess up, which never happens, by the way, some man with far too much money loses a tiny fraction of his wealth that is probably equal to what I lived off of through all my years of university. Since, however, I am very good at what I do he will earn that back and more when I reconfigure my strategy. It's also very motivational that I get a percent of whatever growth he has. My job is…far from noble. You make me feel inferior."

"Oh," I gasped. "I'm sorry."

He shook his head. "It's not your fault. I get inside my own head sometimes. Your job is so full of nobility and selflessness. You're helping people who wouldn't be able to help themselves. You don't benefit from helping them but you do it anyway."

"Have you seen what a neurologist gets paid?" I asked with a smirk.

"You don't do what you do for the money." he said matter of factly, his eyes stared into mine. He was serious. The change in his attitude made my heart stop. He was absolutely beautiful when he was being earnest.

I shook my head silently and looked down at the table.

"You're something different, Ruby. You don't play by the same rules as everyone else. You're a light in the dark. It feels like…I don't know how to describe it…magic?"

I jerked my head up to look at him. His eyes held mine, my heart was a constant drumming in my head.

"The day we met, I was having an awful day. My favorite suit had a rip on the shoulder so I couldn't wear it, an absolute knob had been promoted over me even though I consistently outperform him, but he's dating the boss' niece, so fuck, why not, and my new shoes had been rubbing against the same part of my foot and I could feel the blister starting. And then on the way home, there was that stupid shop I alway pass that's never open, with that ugly, outdated mannequin, waste of money, absolute bane of my existence. Then, suddenly, there was you. You appeared out of nowhere…like magic. Now, here we are and just being in your presence makes me want to be the best version of myself I can be. I'm sorry, I'm rambling, aren't I?"

Something about his words made me want to cry. How could he think of me like this? I really wasn't special. The city was full of people like me. He wasn't aware of it, but we were everywhere. Why would he choose that word? Magic. I looked down at my plate of pie and mash carnage trying to fight back tears that shouldn't even exist. The tears collided with each other and formed a ball that lodged itself in my throat. I couldn't speak if I wanted to. I shook my head refusing to look at him. I was stuck.

He placed his hand gently, almost apprehensively, on mine.

It was too much. I stood up quickly from my chair, too quickly, I had a second of dizziness and almost lost my footing. I grabbed my coat from the back of my seat and fled from the restaurant.

The cold air hit my face as the hot tears streamed down my cheeks. I pulled my coat on as I started walking. The world around me was blurred at the edges and was full of sound and rushing people. The tears kept coming. I was deceiving that man. He thought I was some noble, selfless creature. A light. I was a coward, a self-serving coward. I had one chance to fight for something in my entire life and I let it go at the first suggestion.

Fresh tears erupted. I kept walking, not knowing or paying attention to where I was going. I was knocking into people on the pavement, they offered apologies but I wasn't bothered to offer them back.

"Ruby!" A voice called but I didn't respond to it. I kept walking. I kept crying.

"Ruby!" The voice called from right behind me. A frantic but still gentle hand gripped my shoulder and spun me around. "Did I say something…"

His sentence was carried away on the wind when he saw my face. He said nothing further. He pulled me close and wrapped his arms around me. New, more violent sobs shook my body. We stood this way in the middle of a busy Friday night walkway. My arms hung limply at my side as I cried into his chest. His arms held me tightly, enveloping me in his warmth and his scent. His cheek pressed onto the top of my head. He didn't move me to the side of the street, he didn't say anything, he simply held me as I stained his peacoat with my tears and the sea of people split to go around us.

My shaking sobs subsided and he loosened his hold on me. He wrapped his arm tightly around my shoulders and led me on a walk in silence. It was nice to be with him in silence. His presence was more than he could know. I burrowed into him and rested my head on his shoulder as we walked.

I had no idea where we were going, my sense of direction was non-existent, but suddenly we were at the Thames. He sat me on a bench before sitting next to me and wrapping his arm around me again. I nestled into him. I felt raw and my deep breaths were still ragged. He still didn't speak.

I watched the moonlight dance on the ripples in the river. I listened to the voices of people passing by. I breathed in the scent of the river and of Charlie. I wondered what cologne he wore, it was having a calming effect on me, or perhaps he was what was calming.

"I'm a mess." my voice cracked and my throat was dry. "I'm sorry."

"Yes," he agreed, "I'm relieved."

I looked up at him, he was already looking at me.

"I was worried you might be perfect." he said, "I'm relieved to see that you are clearly dealing with something internal, draining, and flawed. Unfortunately, I now like you even more."

He kissed the top of my head. I grabbed his gloved hand that dangled over my shoulder with both of my hands. The leather of his glove was soft against my fingertips. We sat together in silence and it was enough.