A/N: Of course I wouldn't leave you like that! *evil cackle*
Disclaimer: I make no money. I take no credit. So, uhm, yeah. Big, fat, unnecessary: NOT MINE!
The Confrontation
It had been a week since she'd seen Flint.
Yes, Katie thought in slight disgust, I've counted.
What happened between them remained a mystery to her. All she could recollect was his mouth on hers, his hands on her skin, and the morning chill fading beneath him. She couldn't actually remember anything happening though. It was a blur of motions, pictures twisting together and branded with memory-like sensations.
She flushed whenever she thought of it. And him.
It was a mystery. Flint was a mystery.
She didn't know whether she'd closed that chapter in her life or if there was more to it. For someone who had always considered herself fearless, she now lacked the initiative and self-assurance she'd always managed to fake so well.
What did you get yourself into Katie girl? Katie thought bitterly.
"Well, whatever you did, it worked."
Jerked from her thoughts by none other than Charlie Weasley.
He grinned lopsidedly at her and tossed her a thin manila folder. She caught it easily, and flipped it open on her desk.
"Did what?" She mumbled as she stared blankly at the numbers in front of her.
"With Mr. Flint," Charlie said with a slight roll of his eyes. He leaned himself against the edge of her desk and pointed to the sudden influx of money that had been donated to the wildlife foundations.
Katie frowned.
"What did you do to the poor bastard anyway?" Charlie winked playfully.
Katie flinched. Lucky for her, Charlie wasn't too keen on her sudden silence. He, like many of her friends, was used to it.
"I didn't do anything. I don't know why he decided to support us," she lied blandly. But she was so good at it that nobody would ever know otherwise.
"What? Did you charm him into donating half his billions?" Charlie chuckled.
Katie closed the folder gently and stared at the top of her desk.
"Where is he now?" She finally said.
"What?" Charlie turned to look at her.
"Where is Flint?" She said after clearing her throat.
"Who knows, probably back at his flat torturing his poor servants into hell and back," Charlie shrugged.
Katie stiffened at Charlie's careless insinuation.
He stood up suddenly and took a step towards her, his blue eyes shining with the good-nature so often attributed to his family.
"So how about a little celebration, eh?" Charlie reached out and tugged the ends of her sherry blonde hair good-humoredly.
The man certainly had a disarming grin but Katie's mind was elsewhere.
"I need to see him," she said matter-of-factly.
Charlie gave her an intense frowned and blurted, "Why?"
"To discuss his current change of heart and our brief escapade in the jungle," Katie said sternly.
"Don't look a gift horse in the mouth, sweets. Flint's out of our hair. We've got the money to keep the parks going. Gilberton's been booted in place of, ohlookithat, me. We can be happy without complications now, Katie girl!" Charlie picked her up and spun her around in a mock attempt at dancing.
Katie stiffened, and Charlie, though pleasantly oblivious at times, wasn't moronic enough to dismiss it.
He sighed and put her back down.
"Charlie…"
"I guess asking you to dinner would be a bad idea then?"
"I'm sorry." She said softly.
"It's not your fault, Kates," Charlie smiled, chagrined.
The contempt Katie had felt for herself over the past few days only magnified itself.
"I can't make you care, can I? I just thought … after all this time, that Wood… sorry, Oliver, wouldn't be an issue anymore. I'm dafter than I look, eh?" Charlie sighed.
She motioned with her hands helplessly when Charlie interrupted.
"Flint's address is filed away. If you want to Floo over or anything, just ask someone to open the grate and you're in. Hope it goes well, but if you need anything, just owl. I've got work to do anyway. There's some rampaging siren I need to take care of," Charlie said.
He walked out of her office quietly and left Katie alone to her dastardly thoughts.
Flint, it turned out, was a lot harder to find than she'd thought.
The elves at his manor had told her he hadn't been back in months. He hadn't worn his Falcon robes in years, none of his former teammates knew where he was. Even his aunt and uncle claimed to have cut him out of their lives years ago. So where was he?
Katie found him in a small, rented flat in a densely populated Muggle area in London.
She had overlooked the tiny printed address in his file earlier because she had dismissed it as an afterthought. The purchased date had ranged so far back into the years of the War that she'd automatically assumed he'd been running a Deatheater errand, or perhaps even Ministry business, in that tiny flat by himself.
Well, she was wrong. As she often was when it came to Marcus Flint.
The door jerked open haphazardly after the first three quick knocks.
The slanted, shadowy face of a man appeared in the doorway as it was pulled open a crack.
She heard the sharp intake of breath, the hushed profanity, and the sound of bare feet on hardwood as Flint stepped back and fully opened the door.
"What're you doing here?" Flint asked sharply.
Katie froze at the sight of his bare chest. The sleek pair of black trousers he wore left him awfully exposed. She swallowed harshly and forced herself to look him full in the face, but even his gray eyes were unnerving.
"We need to talk," Katie blurted, then grimaced. She sounded like some ninny bird intent on sinking her relationship with a man.
Flint stepped backwards and swung an arm outwards, mockingly motioning for her to enter.
She did promptly and watched him shut the door behind her.
Flint looked her up and down with a wry smirk before turning around and stalking off to seat himself in a chair facing an open window. He propped his feet on the windowsill, picked up a bottle of firewhiskey standing by the leg of the faded, green-coloured couch, and stared outside with a blank expression on his face.
Katie stared at him in silence.
It was strange, seeing him propped in such a tacky chair, with the white curtains around the window drifting lazily around him, carried by a gentle breeze from the city. The noise of the night life managed to float into the room, and filtered patterns of cars driving by and flashing lights from stores below moved like brilliant shadows on the dark walls. It looked like such a moment of peace.
She gave into the silence first.
"What happened?" Katie asked after clearing her throat.
She heard the alcohol swirl in his hand as he took a hearty swig.
"Nothing," he answered with a slight shift of his shoulders.
Katie couldn't help but notice how broad and thickly muscled they were. She could even remember how they had felt beneath her hands.
"Bollocks," she snapped.
"Well, if you think so, why ask me?" Flint snorted.
"Because…" She paused. "Because I don't remember."
"Figures," he muttered.
"I need to know."
"Well, I just told you, Bell. Maybe if you paid attention you'd know. Or perhaps you don't understand the concept. Nothing. Nothing happened."
"We…"
"Snogged for a bit, yeah."
"But you didn't…"
"Take advantage of a hysterical bird? No, unfortunately, though I can't say I don't regret it."
"So we didn't…"
"No and no again, Bell. We might've lost our heads a little in the beginning, but I had the sense knocked into me when you said his name. You fell asleep. I took it upon myself to go back and left you at your place out of common courtesy.. That's it," Flint snarled.
"Said who's name?" Katie asked blindly, her stomach sinking, even though she already knew.
"Who do you think?" Flint snapped.
"Oli--"
"That's fucking right, Oliver's."
"Marcus, I didn't know what I was doing!" Katie said angrily as she stalked over to his chair and grabbed the bottle of firewhiskey from his hand.
She was sick of talking to the back of his head.
"You didn't need to tell me that. If you did you would never have touched me. Is that it? Another nail in the coffin?" Flint snarled.
"Good Godric, I'm never going to find the nerve to forgive you if you keep provoking me!" Katie shouted heatedly.
"How charitable of you, Miss Katherine, to forgive a Flint like me."
"You keep pushing me, Flint, and you'll be sorry."
"Oh?" He sneered.
"I came here to talk," she said in steely resolution.
"Well, fuck! Isn't that just your bad luck, because I'm not in the mood. Leave your grievances at the door," he said dismissively and jerked the bottle back from her.
She could smell the alcohol on him.
"How much have you had to drink?" She asked in disbelief.
"None of your fucking business, now go before I do something I really will regret," Flint glared at her.
"Make me," she said succinctly and froze.
She had no idea what had prompted her into making such an asinine comment. Flint's temper was at its breaking point, he was half-drunk, and here she was, taunting the dragon.
His gray eyes seemed to smolder in the darkness as he slowly licked the taste of liquor off his lips and stared at her. She hadn't even felt his free hand twist in her hair as his other hand lowered the bottle of firewhiskey onto the floor with a dull clunk.
"That was a very stupid thing to say, little girl."