Oho! What's this? An update in a (somewhat) reasonable time frame?

Feedback greatly appreciated, per usual. Leave a signed review and I'll do my best to respond. Leave me thoughts about the story and you might help shape the narrative (because I really have no idea where I'm meandering to. Hey, it's all about the journey, right?).

Ch 3

Rose remembered the first time Scorpius saw her with makeup on. "Are you ok?" he had said, after squinting at her for a bit. "You look really tired. Like a zombie." Her insecurities had stuttered and tugged on her heart before she shrugged it off, but not as flippantly as her pride would have liked. She had just wanted to feel pretty that day and, as a last minute morning decision, spent a few minutes dragging a pencil across her eyelids. She had stopped using eyeliner – or rather, stopped her attempts with eyeliner - after that.

Something about friends who knew so intimately who you were as a person, Rose thought, just made the feeling of wanting to be different for a day so daunting. With new acquaintances, potential new friends, she could be anybody. She could be the girl who wore make up every day, or the girl who wore make up some days, or the girl who never touched make up except for formal occasions – and it felt so liberating to be able to redefine herself as whimsically as she liked.

And so it felt slightly odd, sitting next to Al on her left and Matt on her right. It was like her two worlds clashing together, and she didn't know how to staple the boundaries together.

"Matt, this is Al, my cousin," she had introduced. "Al, this is Matt, a friend of Audrey's. He went to Ilvermorny, actually. Moved from the States a few years ago."

Al, outgoing and charming as he was, immediately was hitting it off with Rose's new acquaintances, and she couldn't help but feel a little envious about how natural it all was for him. A crude artist in her mind painted a picture of Matt and Audrey deciding that they liked Rose's cousin much more than Rose, hanging out with Al while she herself was – once more – left trying to articulate the feeling of loneliness.

No. Rose dismissed the canvas from her mind. That wouldn't happen, and it hadn't happened. She was being ridiculous, and perhaps it was this very insecurity that made her no fun to be around, anyways.

Still, at intermission, Rose turned around at the bar with two glasses of butterbeer and found that Matt had taken her seat to sit closer to Al and the pang hit her again.

"Looks like Matt's taken a liking to your cousin," Audrey snorted, appearing beside Rose.

Bewildered, Rose said stupidly, "What?"

"He's harmless, really, but he's an incredible lightweight and an incorrigible flirt after just a few drinks," Audrey said, rolling her eyes. "You oughtta go in and save Al."

Oh.

Dear Merlin, was she really so socially obtuse that she no longer recognized flirting when it was happening right in front of her? Forget making new friends, maybe she ought to tell Al that she's been clearing up her schedule to remember what dating was, because apparently Rose had forgotten the entire concept.

And now that Rose was removed from her emotional insecurities – really, what was the worst that could happen? Was she so petty that she begrudged others' kindling friendships? Objectively, she realized that people were different, and if some people clicked together better than others – that was okay. One couldn't be friends with everyone they met.

Perhaps what she was feeling was – was jealousy. Jealous for friendships she didn't yet have but was trying to foster, jealous of other potential friendships that she wasn't a part of.

It shook her a little, because Rose had never considered herself a particularly jealous person, nor had she ever thought of the idea of jealousy as attractive (though perhaps fourth year Rose and her hidden collection of romance novels might have disagreed – but things that fourth year Rose fancied was something that current Rose was very good at forgetting about). And what did it all mean? Was Rose feeling jealous because she was unhappy, or was she unhappy because of these latent jealousies she hadn't realized she harbored?

Did it matter, when they were so clearly coupled?

"I think Al likes the attention," Rose said, recovering slowly. She put on a smile and flashed it at Audrey. "He's always complaining about having to be the first to make a move with women, though I keep telling him it's because any sane woman would rightly stay away from him."

Audrey giggled. "You two are funny. I'm jealous of how comfortable you are with each other. Some days I think I'm descended from vampires, that's how batty my family is. Anyways, how are you liking the show?"

"Ooh, it's so clever. I can't believe I've never watched a show before. I loved that bit about witches with toads and STDs - "

"Well, don't be loving the first set too much! My troupe hasn't even gone on yet!" Audrey teased. "Anyways, that's my cue - "

As Audrey disappeared behind stage, Rose looked back at Al and Matt, feeling rather silly about the whole matter. It all seemed so obvious now – how Al was shooting her increasingly less subtle frenzied looks that Rose knew translated into I'm not sure what's happening here, and I have no idea how to respond. She giggled at seeing Al so out of his element, wondering if she were better at being oblivious to the world around her or if she were better at ignoring her own feelings until they were altogether a bit too much, before sweeping in.

"Matt," Rose said as she scooted down the row, "I spent the whole first set carefully warming that seat with my bum just so, could I please have it back?"

"Of course, my lady," Matt said, scooting back to his seat. "Just keeping it warm for you while you were gone."

"Thank you, kind sir," Rose said as Al leaned over and whispered a thanks into her ear. Audrey's words replayed in Rose's mind – You two are funny. I'm jealous of how comfortable you are with each other.

And as all three of them cheered as Audrey's troupe rushed onstage, Rose thought that perhaps the clash of different friend groups could paint a pretty picture indeed.

...

As it turned out, Matt was fond of art, too.

It was something that interested neither Al nor Scorpius, and so she didn't visit the art museum as often as she'd like because solitary excursions left little room for discussions. And, just moments ago, Rose was thrilled to share her interests with a newfound friend – someone who wasn't burdened into attending exhibits and someone who wouldn't just complain the whole way. But now...

"Whoah," Matt said.

"Oh, shit," Rose muttered.

"Now that's more like it," Audrey said approvingly, who – though not particularly interested in art herself – decided to tag along once she failed to convince Matt and Rose to spend the afternoon shopping instead. Audrey bent down and inspected the plate. "A Vision of Toadstools," sheread. "Merlin, this artist created a sculpture while high. When I'm high, I can't even hold a conversation."

"Didn't know there was a trick to getting you to shut up," Matt joked.

"Ha, ha," Audrey said, rolling her eyes. "Is that a wand sticking out of his bum?"

"I know someone who'd like Al's wand sticking out of his bum," Rose whispered to Audrey, grinning.

Audrey began to cackle madly, garnering a few disapproving looks from others. "Oh, shut up," Matt said flippantly, though Rose thought she saw a hint of heat at the base of his neck. "I said I was sorry."

"Well," Audrey said, "like you, this poor fellow isn't swish-and-flicking his way out of anything anytime soon."

He really wasn't, Rose thought, examining the sculpture. The wizard was in some sort of garden of hell – were those hippogriff beaks coming out of those flowers? - and, as she appreciated the pale stone carved into aristocratic features, she was reminded oddly of Scorpius.

She wondered what he'd say if he were here with her, looking at this sculpture. "Do you think," he'd say, "that this artist might be trying just a little too hard to be noticed?"

Rose felt a pang in her gut. She really missed Scorpius, she realized. As Audrey and Matt bickered back and forth as longtime friends do, she realized she quite missed the feeling of hanging out with someone she knew – or, rather, thought she knew – front to back. The feeling of just letting go in conversation, where she didn't have to worry about putting her foot in her mouth or have to constantly assess the situation to see if her sense of humor would go over well. She missed having someone upon whom she could dump her worries and stresses, without being concerned that she might be boring them.

She supposed that she had Lily still, but Lily was a specific personality that was more about action and sympathy. Al was a great sympathizer, and Rose often thought maybe he learned to be a great sympathizer in order to become a better gossip. Scorpius, though, was perhaps the best at making her feel better. He'd listen and help her chart out the most ridiculous solutions to her problems – helping her create alternate identities in case she wanted to run away, suggesting how to create new sources of stress until her current sources of stress seemed unimportant.

But in the end, it was always Lily who was right, just as she was in this case. Rose was a grown-ass woman, and it was about time she acted like it.

...

"You know," Al said, "Scorp has been freaking out."

"What?" Rose was immediately distracted from Grandma Molly's shepherd pie. Which, really, was quite the feat. Rose loved shepherd pie and was constantly petitioning Grandma Molly to prepare it for Weasley Wednesday dinners.

"Well, swallow before you talk," Al said, and Rose hastily gulped down the food she already had in her mouth. "Yeah, he's been freaking out. Like, freaking out, not even low key freaking out. I haven't even seen him this hyped up over dates before, and for those he's asked me to help him pick out which shoes to wear. Shoes, Rosie! Who cares?"

"Why?" Rose demanded, before realizing that her voice came out a shade too aggressive. "Oops, I mean, why?"

Al looked at her, bewildered. "How should I bloody know? They're just shoes! Choose something comfortable and halfway presentable, it's not supposed to be that hard - "

"Not that," Rose said impatiently. "I mean, why has he been freaking out?"

"Oh, that," Al said, shrugging. "Well, it seems like you two haven't spoken in the past two months? I think he's just concerned about you, Rose."

"Right," Rose said, stabbing at her shepherd's pie that now seemed like a silly victory to have won. "That makes sense."

Out of the corner of her eye, Rose could see that Al was watching her. "Should he be concerned about anything?"

"No. I mean – I hope not. I mean, I don't think so. Maybe?" Truth be told, she hadn't really thought about it in those terms. What did she want out of meeting up with Scorpius again? She wanted her friend back, certainly. She wanted to start smoothing things over.

But did she want things to return to the way they were before? Did she want Al and Scorpius to be held accountable for the way they made her feel?

She certainly didn't want to stop meeting up with the new friends she'd made and the old friends she'd reacquainted with. And with making time for more people in her life, she just wouldn't have enough time to schedule Scorpius and Al back into her life like they used to be. How could things go back to the way they were?

"Well, that's reassuring," Al said dryly, when it was clear that Rose was now lost in her own thoughts. "I'll be sure to let him know that, it'll definitely help."

(Lily would later pop over and sing, "Did my ears hear correctly from the far side of the table? Are you finally taking the advice of sage Li'l Lils and just telling the damn truth? Just do it, Rose. You're never going to get peace of mind until then. And, by the way, it looks like Uncle Ron finally heard about your potential non-existent boyfriend. You took too long, hun." And she would dash away, leaving Rose to fend for herself, sputtering, as her father asked to speak with her upstairs.)

…

Work had started picking up.

Depending on the time of day, Rose would tell you whether it was a good thing or a bad thing. Some days, when she was feeling particularly inspired, it was a great thing. Merlin knew that she was bored witless with the pace her job had been at before, and the inactivity made her restless. Now, with a new start-up company spearheaded by a Muggleborn duo hoping for Ministry approval on magicked Muggle technologies, there was plenty of case work for Rose to do.

Right now was not one of those times.

It was seven, and Rose only knew this because her stomach was grumbling, rather optimistically anticipating a dinner at a reasonable hour. She was on her fourth cup of coffee, the last of which was brewed by a forlorn-looking Felix.

"Hey."

A voice startled out of her notes and she looked up, catching sight of Scorpius in the doorway. Her stomach flipped, but it was hard to articulate why. There was the guilt she felt for cutting him out of her life without warning, whereas he was a good enough friend to show up again when she asked. There was the longing she felt missing her best mate, and there was the anticipation of starting a conversation she didn't know how to begin. There were too many emotions – some identifiable, some unfamiliar – churning in her belly, and Rose wasn't quite sure how to deal with it.

"Hey – Scorpius – hello," Rose stuttered, wincing at how broken her literacy had become. "Thanks for coming – sorry I'm running late, I've been swamped - "

" - at work, yeah, so your note said," Scorpius said. "I guess this time you were telling the truth."

Rose winced again, recalling her flimsy excuse for cancelling lunch plans. "Yeah, err..." She wrung her hands. "Let me just pack up."

The silence was unbearable. He was waiting for her to speak, she knew, but every rehearsed sentence fell apart in the moment as she busied herself by dumping files into her bag. Her emotions were everywhere but her thoughts went nowhere.

She snuck a glance at him as she fiddled with the latch on her bag a little too long. He was exactly as Rose remembered him to be, and yet not at all. She knew his face well – grey eyes, blond hair, sharp features – but she'd never seen him so stone faced before, and it made him feel as foreign as the art at the museum that she just couldn't understand.

"Er," Rose said as she reached him, her bag slung over one shoulder. She stared at her feet, and her mind clung to the stray comment that Al had said to her last Wednesday over dinner. "Nice shoes."

For Merlin's sake, talking to Scorpius was never this hard. Perhaps they were nice shoes, but they were only brown dress shoes and he'd come straight from work. How thick could she get? Two months she went without talking to her best mate and all she could say was nice shoes.

"Thank you," Scorpius said, and Rose's stomach plummeted even further. No snark, just formalities. She knew from their occasional poker nights that he was impressively capable of hiding his thoughts, but Rose was experiencing so many emotions at once that she just wanted to see something – anything – reflected on his face.

Rose wrung her hands on the strap of her bag. "I'm ready. Want to go to my place?" she said, and she hated the timid tremor that broke in her voice.

"If that's what you want."

And wasn't that the question that got her into this mess in the first place? "Well," Rose muttered with a bitter laugh, "I don't know what I want."

Later that night, when she would reflect back to this moment, she would think, Wow. How pathetic was I? Poor little Rosie, swarmed in unexpected work, unable to make conversation beyond commenting on shoes, running away from her friends but still not sure what she's looking for. Poor little Rosie with her doormat attitude, who struggles to confront her problems and sometimes isn't even sure what the problem exactly is.

It was so very pathetic – how hard she was trying and the mess she ended up creating. A bit like the artist behind the Vision of Toadstools sculpture, or whatever it was called. Perhaps she could be his muse for his next disastrous creation.

It was probably because she was so pathetic that Scorpius finally relented. "Okay, Rose," he said, and wrapped an arm around her. "Let's go home."