Surprise! I decided to finish this after all. Enjoy part two of two!

Rose Weasley was in a mood for two reasons.

For one, it had been exactly eight hours and seven minutes since she started work this morning. That it was a rather uneventful eight hours and seven minutes didn't matter. What did matter was that it was going to be another seven hours and fifty-three minutes until she could go home to a glass of mead and a bath.

For the first time since Rose had started as a healer, there were no patients admitted to the Spell Damage floor. Not one. The last that had been seen—an elderly woman with a mild case of babbling—had been discharged that morning. The medical staff on the Spell Damage floor had since appreciated a day of reprieve from unsanitary bodily fluids and rude middle-aged witches.

Unfortunately, the universe had its way of maintaining equilibrium. For all the time Rose had been making jokes with the nurses, her manager was hatching a plan he liked to call keep Healer Weasley on her toes. Rose tended to think of Ullman's plans as more decidedly make Rose miserable because it's a Tuesday and/or because she's smarter than me!

Rose knew she shouldn't have corrected Ullman on the proper administration of the Wiggenweld Potion yesterday.

Consequently, Rose was now seven minutes into a second consecutive shift on an empty Spell Damage floor.

Vika had passed her a mildly sympathetic look before leaving. "It's too bad Malfoy isn't on call tonight, too. I'm sure he could teach you how to properly brew a cauldron full of hot, strong love," she sang provocatively a-la Celestina Warbeck. And then Vika was on her way with all of Rose's liberated coworkers.

Therein lay the second reason Rose Weasley was in a mood.

Scorpius Malfoy. The man she professed her love to in the most unintentional, embarrassing fashion. By the way, you look devilishly sexy in maroon and I think I'm in love with you.

On a scale ranging from minor offense to atomic bomb mistake, Rose felt this particular blunder landed her in the nuclear warfare region. Hiroshima took twenty or thirty years to recuperate from nuclear war, and Rose was certain she would need at least that long to recover. She had already spent three weeks on high alert for stupidly handsome men with secret smiles.

Her plan to circumvent the entire blunder was going rather swimmingly. She avoided the potions department (and the entire basement) during normal work hours, ate lunch in the stairwell leading to the roof, and ducked into rooms whenever she saw tall and blonde mixed together on a man.

Vika, for her part, called Rose what she was. Coward. It was true, in part. Rose couldn't even bring herself to talk about the incident.

At the same time, Vika didn't understand. Vika had a smooth way with words and matters of the heart. She certainly had never pined away at someone for months and months only to trip over her tongue right before things had a chance.

And then there was the most frazzling part. Rose had no idea what to make of what Scorpius had replied.

Have I ever told you how marvelous you look in green?

What was Rose to think? Moreover, how was she supposed to avoid the never-ending confusion when she looked at her arms and saw green, and looked in the mirror and saw green, and looked at her fellow healers and saw green. If she had been a less responsible healer, he may have said she looked marvelous in purple or whatever color she had chosen to wear that day. But, of course, Rose was not the irresponsible type, so she was being haunted by the one color she saw more often than the sun.

The heat that had risen to her face pulled her out of her trance. There were no clipboards in sight, so Rose set her hands over her cheeks to calm down.

As the coolness settled in, Rose let out a huff of determination. She was a twenty-four year old professional, not an irrational teenager. Patting her cheeks fiercely, Rose vacated her chair at the nurse's station. Grandmum Granger had always said that laziness bred anxiety.

The Spell Damage floor was rather unnerving when no one was around. St. Mungo's was an older building, but its age didn't show as much when patients, families, and workers were bustling about. Now, in the silence, the pipes could be heard creaking up and down the ward. The hall's fluorescent white-blue hue was accentuated by the unlit and vacant hospital rooms on either side.

It was in light of the horrific ambiance that Rose decided to go down to the cafeteria. If she was going to be here all night, she may as well enjoy it with a cup of creamed coffee. Hell, she may as well enjoy it with whatever she wanted. Ullman wasn't around to tell her otherwise.

Rose flung open the door to the east stairwell and flew down the stairs two at a time. During the day shift, she would have been told off for endangering herself and others. She decided she quite liked endangering herself on this particular staircase. It was quite a liberating feeling to do what she wanted to do in a place that she loved.

Upon reaching the basement, she jumped the last few stairs and thrust her arms out to—thwack!

First registering a shout then registering resistance against the door, Rose stopped cold. Bloody hell, she was endangering herself and others by running and throwing open doors.

"Shit!" she exclaimed. Nudging open the door, Rose looked for a victim. She found one leaning against the wall and clutching his head. Her first instinct was to duck into the nearest closet.

Tall. Blonde.

"Rose?"

Yes, this was most certainly the man Rose had been avoiding for some three weeks now.

In a moment of self-pity, Rose berated herself for coming to the basement at all. Dedicated avoidance should not be limited to regular business hours.

Rose approached, determinately pushing aside her embarrassment and steeling her nerves. Few things could focus her quite as well as a person in need of medical attention, but her heart still hammered as she grasped Scorpius' wrist and pulled it from his forehead.

She was ashamed that her first observation of this particular patient was how handsome he was with his eyes closed. Quickly shaking her head, Rose noted the wound which bled down his face in slow droplets.

Linear laceration of the left mediolateral frontal region. Roughly 3 centimeters in length. Its edges would be easily approximated with a suturing spell.

"I'm sorry for hitting you with a door." She almost missed the twitch at the corner of Scorpius' mouth. "I don't suppose there is a supply room down here? I'll need some cleaning supplies to fix this."

"You don't have to do that," he briefly squinted through his right eye. How was it that Rose had missed the intensity of his blue eyes before? "I can take a quick walk to the emergency wing."

Rose scoffed. "Don't be ridiculous. Those healers suture wounds like cavemen."

Consenting with a nod, Scorpius kept his eyes closed. "There's a room up the hall. Two doors further than my department, I believe."

Swallowing hard, Rose reached out to guide Scorpius down the hall by the shoulder. She was glad the blood in his eyes kept him from seeing the red flooding her cheeks more and more every moment she stood near him.

There were no nearby pipes to disturb the silence between them, only the gentle cadence of footsteps on tiled floors. Not for the first time, Rose wondered what Scorpius was thinking. Was he wondering where she had been lately? Did he notice that he hadn't seen her? Was he relieved to have had some distance from her?

Just as Rose felt the hall could stretch on forever, she finally spotted the supply room. The room itself was more closet than room, but a quick look through the drawers and cabinets told Rose that she could do her work here.

She led Scorpius to a stool in the corner, vanished the blood from his face, and turned to collect equipment. Sterile water, sterile gauze, sterile gloves, antibiotic cream, swabs, and a bandage. The rest she would do magically.

By the time she had assembled a sterile table with her equipment, a few more drops of blood had made it down Scorpius' nose and into his open palm. "I've never had a healer who used anything other than a wand."

Rose was sure he was looking at her quizzically, but she refused to be taken in by him. "Many of my coworkers believe Muggle medicine is for the birds. I've always felt there was something useful about combining the approaches."

Though Rose had never had much occasion to treat minor wounds on the Spell Damage floor, she had become a healer to her rather accident-prone family. Merlin only knew how often one of her cousins or distant relatives called her up to repair a broken bone or prank gone awry.

"Hold still. This will sting." Rose muttered a localized Numbing Spell to the area before applying a magical cleaning spell. Donning her gloves, Rose patted the wound with sterile gauze and water for both cleansing and hemostasis.

Ignoring Scorpius' gaze as she stood over him was possibly the hardest thing Rose had ever done. Three agonizing weeks away from him was nothing compared to suppressing the desire to get sick on his shoes or jump him.

"How have you been?" Scorpius asked as she assessed his forehead and decided on which suturing spell to use for the occasion.

Wasn't that the million galleon question? Neurotic. Lonely. Pathetic. Uncertain she should answer honestly, she decided on, "Fine."

He nodded absently, one hand coming up to rub his jaw. As his long fingers dropped to his lap, Rose could make out his carotid artery thrumming across his pale neck. Rose might have sworn his heart was beating as quickly as she heard her pulse in her own ears.

Damn it. This was why she couldn't look at him. She took a deep breath before turning her attention to the real matter at hand.

Anyone with Healing experience could have spotted Rose's difficulty concentrating as she magically approximated the edges of Scorpius' laceration. Luckily, Rose had enough experience with wound repair that her shaking hands did little to divert her efforts.

Just as the lesion closed, Scorpius cleared his throat. "I haven't seen you in the potions department recently."

She ignored the urge to spew excuses at him. Instead, she quickened the pace of her procedure, determined to finish, clean up, and leave within the next 30 seconds. A quick escape was the only way Rose could foresee avoiding what was sure to be an uncomfortable conversation.

Antibiotic cream to swab. Swab to skin. Bandage to skin. Done.

As she had turned back to discard her supplies, she heard the scrape of the stool behind her. "Does it have anything to do with our encounter a few weeks ago?"

Clamping her eyes shut and holding her breath did nothing to alleviate the sheer panic running through Rose. Her hands slowed as she thought of how to respond. What was her angle? Naive? No, Scorpius would see through that. Annoyed? No, she didn't want him to think she hated him.

Overly-professional it was. "I don't engage in personal discussions with patients."

Just as she turned to duck out of the door and sprint toward the lift, he stepped in front of her. Face-to-chest with him, she bit the inside of her cheek to keep from letting out a desperate sob.

"Very well, then. You're dismissed, Healer Weasley."

"Excuse me?" Rose didn't have to pretend to be offended. She may have lost some concentration during the procedure, but the outcome had been marvelous. There wouldn't be a scratch on the young Malfoy's face in a week's time.

"Never been sacked before, have you?" Scorpius quirked an eyebrow at her. Before Rose could voice her disapproval, he added, "Can I make it up to you over dinner?"

Rose dug her nails into her palms to wake herself up from what surely was a dream. The question hung between them even with her white knuckles and drawn blood.

Dinner?

Not five minutes ago, having her feelings reciprocated had seemed an impossible thing. Hope threatened to blossom in Rose's chest.

She stared, hoping to discern what he was thinking. His lips were slightly raised at the corners as usual, and his body language told her nothing. It was only the shift of his eyes that gave away his feelings of disquiet. That, and the quickened pulse Rose was now sure she saw across his neck.

He was nervous.

All at once, Rose was excited by the possibility of really knowing this man. Not the aloof, perfect Mr. Malfoy who was devilishly sexy in red, but the unsure, hopeful Scorpius who smiled when she injured him with a door. Rose fought the urge to laugh as a strange kind of confidence bubbled up in her chest.

Hands coming to her mouth to keep in hysterical laughter (and possibly tears of joy), she nodded.

For a moment, they stood there in the doorway, hearts fluttering and faces flushing beneath matching grins.

Scorpius was the first to break the silence. "Merlin, Rose." He raked a hand over his jaw once more. "I'll need to temporarily re-hire you, Healer Weasley." He reached for her hand and pulled it up to his chest. True enough, his heartbeat was elevated, matching the pulse in his neck. "I'm feeling a bit strange."

She turned his hand to feel her pulse point at her wrist. His eyes jumped to hers in surprise when he noted her heart rate. "It must be contagious."

A breathy laugh escaped him. Tugging on her extended arm, he pulled her into his chest.

Before returning the gesture, Rose muttered, "Just so we're clear, I'm sacking you as a patient."

This story has made me realize that "healer" is a really strange word. Just think about it.

Let me know what you think by favoriting/commenting/following. Sending you all the best!

Blessings, CompletelyDone