Note: I've been trying to portray these two characters as insecure and flawed because Katie's basically watched every meaningful relationship kinda crash and burn... the split of her parents... her and her ex AND she likes to run from her problems instead of actually facing them. I've been trying to hint that after Oliver's graduation, a lot of things have been really tough on her and she's been on the run ignoring her family, friends and magical past. Oliver is just the opposite. Unlike Katie, he wasn't particularly popular, kinda awkward kid who has made it big but can't really deal. So while he seems pretty confident... he's actually really insecure and confused and is on "break" because of an injury. So here are two characters that have been forced to grow up and while Katie openly doesn't have it together... Oliver is more secret about it. So yes, there's no magic and there are awkward mentions of Quidditch, but that really is the main conflict... So eventually Katie and Oliver will have to help each other face their problems AND live happily ever after. Because I say so. :0).
Katie walked back up the stairs of her apartment dragging her feet up the stairs. It had been a long day. Her professor called her in for a last minute chat about a research proposal she needed to complete by the end of the week and she already had plans to do for her architecture class due soon, not to mention she still had an awful physics problem set she had to work on... This wasn't going to be a pretty week. Katie could feel the stress already. She shook her head when she heard her stomach grumble. She opened the door to find the room completely dark. She groped around for the light switch and the moment she flicked it on, she found Oliver silently sitting on the couch staring at the wall. She nearly shreiked.
"You scared me Oliver. Why don't you turn on the lights?" Katie said as she picked up her bag that she dropped on the floor and walked over to the love seat and placed her bag down on the couch. She started to unpack and then realized that she probably wouldn't get much sleep tonight. She organized her books in little piles. She looked up and saw Oliver still sitting there staring at the wall. He looked like he had had a hell of a day and he had been drinking. From the looks of it, a lot.
"What's your problem, Katie?" he said not turning his head to look at her.
"What is MY problem?" Katie repeated as if in shock. She didn't know where this was coming from, and he was the person trying to make something out of nothing. How dense could this boy be? "I don't have a problem, but you certainly are trying to make a problem out of nothing there."
"That's your ex. Every time he walks all over you and everytime you roll out the welcome wagon." Oliver huffed.
So he still wasn't quite over that incident... but then again she still wasn't over the incident herself. "I just thought I would offer him some coffee and some saliva." Katie made a small spitting sound, grinned, and looked up at Oliver.
"Oh." Oliver looked up at Katie and back down at the wall.
"So we got that all cleared up?" Katie asked as she walked to the fridge and poured him a glass of orange juice. "Plus, I've got bigger fish to fry... this architecture project is going to kill me." She shot him another smile. She sat down on the ground and emptied out a bag of toothpicks and popsicle sticks. "I have to build this structure that will support over 50 kilos. All by the end of this week." Katie took out her blueprint and started to build.
"You know, you could just use-" Oliver was cut off.
"I'm not going to use magic to build my structure!" Katie added.
"Fine, fine." Oliver took the blue prints and then started to scan over them. "You should just know that the weight of this tower needs to be properly propogated."
"Properly propogated?" Katie giggled as she repeated what he just said. She grabbed her glasses off of the coffee table and looked over Oliver's shoulder to get a glimpse of the plans.
"Did you know that the arch structure is actually the strongest ever? Because the more weight you place on a structure, the more the structure compresses on itself and the stronger it becomes?" Oliver said just before he stuck a pencil in his mouth and thoughtfully munched on it.
"I know, but the structure itself- wait, Oliver, where did you learn that?" Katie asked, surprised.
"I read a book once." Oliver replied as he tilted his head and looked at the blueprints again.
"No really Oliver!" Katie impatiently punched his arm and laughed again.
"If I told you I'd have to kill you." Oliver smiled and started to measure and cut the popsicle sticks at the right lengths. Katie frowned and started to mix the paste.
Before she new it, hours has passed and she was looking at a drying structure... a true work of art. Oliver shifted his weight from one elbow to another, but toothpicks stuck onto his arms and he started to pull them off of him laughing.
"My little sister dated a real piece of work in junior high. I think she was about 11. She claimed that he was the love of her life and would never love anyone else again. After all, she had kissed him!" He laughed. "So when he broke it off with her, she was devastated and went on this hunger strike because she thought that if she starved herself and died... he'd be damn sorry. Anyway, no one and nothing could cheer her up. All of that tween angst you know?" Oliver sat up and started to clean up the mess. "She always wanted a treehouse. So I built her one to cheer her up and did my research. That's how I know how to build."
"Awww... is that a real story?" Katie smiled as she gently moved the structure over.
Oliver nodded.
"Well, I just finished dating a real piece of work... when do I get my treehouse?" Katie smiled at him and gently nudged him with her arm. She slowly stood up.
Oliver reached out and grabbed Katie's wrist just as she was about to walk away and walked up behind her. She could feel his breath on her making the hair on the back of her neck stand up. She slowly turned around to face him. He ran the back of his hand along her jaw, making her swallow. He went in for a kiss, but this time Katie backed away into the couch.
"I do have a problem with this." Katie looked up and Oliver who seemed extraordinarily hurt. "I know you don't get turned down a lot, but I don't see it happening. I don't see anything coming of this." Katie backed up a little more along the couch.
"So the kiss got to you, didn't it? Is that why you invited him over? To see how I would react?" Oliver asked pointedly.
Katie thought about it for a while. He was half right and it made her feel awful. He came over unannounced the first time and she had spit into his coffee. After she found Oliver's guest in that night, she had invited him back over to show Oliver that she was unaffected. "You waltzed into this apartment on the first day with your nose up in the air, too good for me, too good for my apartment, too good for my world. What do you want from me, Mr. Hot- Shot? What the hell could you possibly want from me? I don't even know who you are anymore!" Katie looked at Oliver painfully.
"What do you want me to be? The poor old me. The guy that you and your friends made fun of back at Hogwarts for being too Quidditch Obsessed? The guy that was always nice to you no matter what you and your friends did? The guy you and your friends would giggle and talk about Cedric in front of? You think it was easy being me and painted as an obsessive loon? You think it was easy dealing with you and knowing that while I appreciated every moment with you, you couldn't wait for practice to end and whine about how crazy I was. Well, I was crazy, but crazy about you." Oliver looked down at his feet.
"Is that what this is all about now? If you can get under my skin? So yeah, fine. That kiss got to me. You got to me. The girls you bring back get to me. You win. You got your revenge. Aren't you happy?" Katie threw her arms in the air. She felt betrayed by the one guy she thought she could really trust.
"I walked into the apartment the first day I met you, I thought that I changed. That I was over this, that I was over you because I had everything I could have possibly wanted... because I had money and fame and power. Those girls... I thought you had made it clear that there was nothing between us. That we were just friends. I wanted to show you that I wasn't that same guy who just pined away and used Quidditch as a stupid excuse to talk to you. I wanted to show you that I could be there for you as a friend too... if you didn't want anything more and I would be supportive of it too." He leaned back on the wall and tilted his head backwards so that it would touch the wall. "But I'm still me. You still get to me, you've gotten to me for over 7 years and I'm still crazy about you. You'll be fine though, after tonight, you'll go and find that cute aero/astro guy in the gray sweater and you'll be fine and I'll still be me. I'll still be here and pathetic. I'll still be crazy about you, so no matter who holds the cards, you'll win. Stop testing me. Just stop testing me because you'll always fucking win." His voice cracked and his bottom lip trembled a bit but he inhaled deeply to cover it up. "So just don't be angry." He bit his lip and looked at Katie.
Katie stood there trying to figure out what he just said to her. She felt him brush past her and stopped in front of her and hesistated and quickly planted a small kiss on her forehead and slowly started to walk away. Tears streamed down Katie's face as she realized that it would take a hell of a lot more than her ex and a couple of days for her to be okay. She wanted to call out to him, but nothing came out and all she could do was watch him walk out the door.
She caught her breath and realized that she made a huge mistake. She ran barefoot out the apartment and running down the stairs hearing her feet echoing through the halls. She yelled Oliver as loud as she could and kept repeating his name as she descended the stairs, skipping multiple steps at a time. Just as she reached the second floor landing, she saw Oliver sitting in the corner with his face buried in his hands. She immediately sat down next to him and wrapped her arms around him and placed her chin on his shoulder and whispered, "I can't promise anything and I can't even being to figure out what I feel for you... but I'm not going to be okay without you." She felt him tense and then relax and gently exhale. He lowered his hands and just as he was sure he was going to get teased about crying, she pressed her lips against his.
Awww... so everything is okay for now, but it ain't over until I say it's over. Thanks for the reviews!