Lyla and Charlie walked down the gently sloping hill from the village center to the cottages. Charlie juggled the various jars and tins in one hand while his other was closed gently around Lyla's hand. On the way towards Charlie's cottage they ran into Taylor and another colleague of theirs, Liam. Both had bottles of alcohol in hand and explained they were going to Dorin's for dinner.

"You should come!" Taylor said excitedly, squeezing Lyla.

Lyla looked up at Charlie and smiled, he nodded at her in response. "Yeah," he said "We'll be there. We just have to stop home."

"Yeah" Lyla chuckled, "I hope it's not a formal affair because I'll probably be turning up in this" she tugged at the hem of her shirt.

"No, no! Not at all!" they waved as they walked away, towards Dorin's cottage.

When they walked into Charlie's cabin and the door snapped shut behind them the air vibrated with silence. Lyla rested her hip on the back of the couch and stared at the wall across from her, her back to the entrance, where Charlie was standing looking at the back of her head. The tension broke when he walked over to her and placed his clammy hand on the nape of her neck and ran his thick, rough fingers against her soft, warm skin.

Lyla closed her eyes and smiled then turned back to face him. Charlie leaned in and rubbed his cheek against hers then pressed their foreheads together. Her moss green eyes looked into his soft blue ones while he squeezed her upper arms gently then, he licked her nose.

"Gah!" she said softly, pulling away from him and wiping her nose. Charlie chuckled and kissed her cheek right next to her eye, and moved to the kitchen to put the tea from Madame Allegra in one of the cabinets.

"We don't have to go to the party tonight if you don't want to, you know" he said as he moved into the bedroom to put the oil Lyla had gotten as well.

"No," she said, following him into the bedroom, "I want to!"

"Okay," he said, kissing her on the head. "You want to go now? How do you feel?"

Lyla took a second and evaluated her body. She wasn't feeling that nauseous anymore so she shook her head softly and smiled up at Charlie. "I'm fine, we can go. Just give me a second." She moved into the bathroom and looked in her face in the mirror. She was still wearing the same makeup as the night before when she was with Jack. The corners of her eyeliner were smudged down her lower eyelid a bit and her blush had been pretty much scrubbed off. With the tip of her ring finger she pushed the residual eyeliner off her eyelid to return her it to a clean line.

When she met Charlie at the front door to leave for Dorin's cabin he kissed her deeply, pressing his lips into hers and weaving his fingers into her hair on the back of her head. She smiled into the kiss and closed her eyes. He pulled away and cupped her hand in his, led her out the door and locked it behind them.

The fall air was colder in the canyon beneath the mountains and the sweatshirt that Lyla had taken from Charlie was barely sufficient to warm her so she slung Charlie's arm over her shoulder and nuzzled into his warm, rugged side. They walked along in front of the cottages and watched the lights from the torches staked in the path flicker on the ground in front of them and reflect the shadows of the houses and mountains in front of them.

Lyla tilted her head up to the sky and gasped softly at the bright peppering of stars across the sky, more than she had ever seen in London or even at her mother's house. Charlie concernedly looked down at her and followed her gaze upwards to the sky and smiled.

"Sometimes, I wish there was a window in my ceiling" he said, hugging her closer to him as they walked together. "But I see this sky enough when I'm working and fall asleep too fast when I lay down" Lyla chuckled in response.

Charlie gestured toward one of the cabins they were approaching and the couple veered toward it then knocked on the door. It opened almost instantly and Taylor, his cheeks flushed a deep red, pulled Lyla our from underneath Charlie's arm and into his torso, damp with sweat.

"Charlie's here!" he called excitedly to the rest of the cabin. Lyla couldn't see who else was in the dwelling because her face was pressed against Taylor's sweating pectoral.

"Taylor...Tay-Taylor!" Charlie said loudly, laughing and tugging at his arm. "Could you please not suffocate her?"

Lyla resurfaced, laughing and kissed Taylor on the cheek after being relinquished from his grasp. "Nice to see you cutie." Taylor hiccuped in response.

"Welcome!" Dorin boomed jovially and bumped his jaw against her head to simulate a welcoming kiss. "You haven't met Luke or Torry!" He held out his large hand to two men standing next to him in the kitchen.

"Luke" the tall, green-haired man with a deep, ragged scar on the side of his face said in greeting as he shook Lyla's hand. If it weren't for the deep cut on his face and dark circles under his eyes Lyla would've guessed that he was no more than a fifteen year old after a very successful growth spurt.

"Torry" the other said, smiling sweetly and shaking his light chestnut hair out of his face. He was stocky, with short, square hands to match his squared jaw.

From the living room some more people have come over to say hello as well and Charlie put his hand on the small of Lyla's back and turned her to face them.

"Hi!" a sweet-sounding, rich voice said, holding out a long-fingered copper colored hand "I'm Abirami. So nice to meet you!" Lyla looked up at the slender, toned woman shaking her hand. Abirami had a kind, long face and thick, raven hair braided to the right, exposing the undercut on the left side of her head.

"Nice to meet you too!" Lyla smiled back in response and shook her hand.

Javier walked between them and kissed Lyla on the cheek in greeting and rubbed her upper arm. He kept walking through and winked as he passed Lyla and continued into the living room.

"Here!" Liam said to Lyla, shoving a bottle of Butterbeer into her hands and swooping back to the living room with everyone else.

Abirami nodded her head toward the living room and Lyla followed her into the living room where Charlie was already with his colleagues. Meg was sitting in the corner next to the fireplace, sipping a Firewhiskey with the corners of her mouth turned up in a snide smile. She watched as Lyla pressed against Charlie and he turned to her and smiled. His smile fell when he saw the Butterbeer in her hand and he took it from her and downed it himself despite the drink in his other hand.

"Lyla" Charlie said abruptly, taking her away from her conversation with Abirami and introducing him to another woman with bright auburn hair, porcelain skin and rosy cheeks. "This is Torry's wife Velma" he said, introducing the two and watching them shake hands.

"Nice to meet you!" Lyla said smiling at her. "Do you live on the campus?"

"Yes!" she said, her voice high and mouse-like, a harsh contrast to her husband's deep growl.

"If you don't mind my asking, what do you do?"

"Do?" Velma asked "Oh, I work at one of the shops in town. It's a shop for soaps and scrubs and things mostly."

"How lovely!" Lyla exclaimed

"Yeah. Fascinating." a familiar, sour voice said behind her. "Nice to see you again, Layla" Meg handed another Butterbeer to Lyla, smiled and walked away.

"I thought your name was Lyla…" Velma said, her eyebrows furrowed in confusion.

"It is" Lyla said, turning her back on Meg and rolling her eyes at Velma

In response to Lyla's eye roll Velma mouthed an "Oh" in understanding and nodded her head. Again, Charlie's hand removed the Butterbeer from Lyla's hand and he drank it quickly, Lyla chuckled at his vigilance and pulled his ear down to her mouth and said, "Just because I have to start eating for two doesn't mean you need to drink for two."

"Stop picking up drinks then" he goaded her playfully

"Let's play a game!" Taylor said excitedly, holding up some blank pieces of paper "Let's play Headbanders!"

"Yeah!" Abirami said enthusiastically. Velma smiled and bounced on the balls of her feet excitedly.

Charlie and Dorin cheered loudly together and high-fived, Charlie moving to stand next to Dorin.

"Aw man!" Liam said, "Can't we mix up the teams for once, you guys always win!"

"Yeah" Javier chimed in, "How about you play with your girlfriend!"

"No, no" Lyla said sarcastically, "I see how it is." she held her hands up in surrender.

"Lyla will be on my team!" Abirami said nodding in solidarity with Lyla

"Yeah!" Lyla said, moving closer to Dorin and Charlie "And we're going to kick your ass!"

"Ohhhhhhh!" the room erupted into drunk cat calls and Abirami pounded Lyla on the back supportively.

"Alright then" Dorin said, "Ladies first, pick your third team member."

"Taylor" Abirami said. She and Lyla high-fived and then high-fived Taylor when he came to stand by them. Dorin chose Torry, Lyla chose an very excited looking Velma, Charlie chose Luke, Abirami chose Liam, Dorin chose Meg. When she crossed to the other team's side of the living room Charlie looked at Lyla and winked and her reassuringly. When the teams were fully formed Taylor threw the blank pieces of paper into a bowl on the coffee table between the two teams and tapped his wand shortly three times.

Bottles of Butterbeer were continuously passed around and short glasses of Firewhiskey refilled while the two teams faced off against each other, everyone laughing at the attempted hints and wild gestures and screaming at one another when they accidentally answered for the other team. They had so much fun that they completely lost count of the points each team was earning and Lyla and Charlie spent the walk home chuckling and arguing about which one of their teams had won.

Lyla held Charlie up in the doorway while he kicked his shoes off into the living room. They walked in the semi darkness together to the bedroom and Charlie flopped down on the bed. Lyla walked into the bathroom and finally turned on the light, closing the door behind her. Her washed her face and removed the eyeliner from her lids.

When it was gone, she looked at herself in the mirror longer. As she looked at her own fair eyes in the mirror she dug her fingertips into her olive skin and dragged them down her cheeks, her skin lightening beneath their pressure and instantly returning to their golden tawny color when her fingers fell to the edge of the sink and rested there. She picked her hand back up and pinched the same cheek, feeling the density of it between her fingers and noting a slight increase in weight resting on her bones. She moved her hand down her face and neck and rested it on her collarbone, feeling the hard ridge that slopes into the soft pocket of skin below her shoulder. She dropped her hands to her waist and squeezed her sides together to make her fingertips touch across her midriff. Her eyes travelled down to her stomach and stared at it in the mirror. She pulled her shirt up over her head, keeping her eyes on her stomach and put her hands over her belly button. When she started rubbing her stomach her head tilted to the side and her eyes glazed over while she felt her skin beneath her hands and thought of the life stirring farther still beyond that.

"Hello in there" she whispered softly, rubbing her shoulder with her cheek and smiling

"Lyla?" Charlie groaned from inside

She jolted out of her reverie and focused her eyes again and saw her hands resting gently on her stomach. "Coming." she replied.