A/N: I'm sorry I didn't get a chance to reply to reviews this time around - along with the previews that go with the replies - by the time I had anything worth sending, the chapter was 90% finished anyway, and I figured you guys would rather have a full chapter than a couple of paragraphs!
Sabrina had done her best to delay their very inevitable meeting. That was Marilyn's first hint that she wouldn't like what it would entail - the way the older woman kept trying to convince her to give it another few days, to have a break, to relax, to collect herself before they discussed what might come next. The next indicator was more of a great shining beacon than a hint, coming in the form of the ashen colour of her face when the meeting finally did come the very next afternoon, upon Marilyn's insistence. But she still didn't realise just how bad it would be. Which was how she found herself tearfully packing her cases in her dorm room when Adriano entered.
"What the hell are you doing?" he asked.
It was tempting to bite out a what do you think? or something equally snarky, but he was the only person in this building who had been through more than she had in the last day or two, and he was undeserving of her ire. In fact, she owed him more gratitude than she'd likely ever be able to actually give him. So she answered.
"Packing."
The sheer dismay in his eyes as they widened was enough to have tears springing to hers.
"They kicked you out?"
"No," she said "Not technically. I…I went into the meeting thinking it was just our little performance that was over. Turns out it's more than that."
There was a tightness at the back of her throat - like a rubber band, being stretched to absolute capacity. If she stopped, and took some deep breaths, and if she got a fucking grip, it eased up a bit. But then she'd say a few words, and it was right back to being ready to snap again. It took a while for her to recount what had happened thanks to that, but Adriano was patient, sitting down on her bed and staring at her with those impossibly dark eyes of his.
"It's over," Marilyn said as Sabrina entered the office.
She said it before the woman even managed to close the door behind her, too, some small part of her hoping that maybe if she said it first, it would be less painful. The woman was free of her usual immaculate manner of dress - donning blue jeans and an oversized white cable knit jumper, her hair piled atop her head and not even a trace of red lipstick or winged eyeliner in sight. In all of Marilyn's time here, she'd never seen Sabrina dressed down.
It didn't bode well.
"Yes," Sabrina replied hesitantly - and only once she'd reached the chair behind her desk "I'm afraid it is."
"It's…it's time for it to be done," Marilyn shook her head, wrapping her arms around herself "With what happened to Adriano…and it'll only get more dangerous from here…I couldn't get up on that stage again and say the risk is worth it. Not when it's more than just me getting hurt."
Sabrina's eyes were fixed intently on her as she spoke, her eyebrows creeping up and up as though surprised to hear her saying all of this. It was difficult for Marilyn not to be offended by that. Did she really think she'd take this latest development as an occupational hazard and insist they continued?
"Maybe it's cowardly of me, but I'm actually relieved," she admitted - and Sabrina's eyebrows almost hit her hairline at that, at least until she continued "It'll be nice to just be a normal dancer again without all of the extra stress. It's not half as scary just being in the corps de ballet, it'll be nice to return to that. Pay my dues there, you know? It's also one less costume change to…worry about…"
It was the very visible reaction that Sabrina was giving her words that had Marilyn trailing off. Her eyebrows stopped rising and quickly began to move in the opposite direction, furrowing deeply - sadly - her lips pressing together in a thin line as her hands came clasping together atop the desk.
"Miss Baxter…Marilyn…" she sighed.
"What? What is it?"
"Some concern has been expressed," Sabrina said carefully "By your fellow dancers - as to how safe, or rather unsafe, they may be if forced to continue sharing a stage with you. I'm afraid they view Adriano's ordeal as a sign of things to come."
Marilyn stared at her. Sabrina stared back. For a time. Then, finally, she sighed and lowered her gaze. Still, she did not speak.
"I'm out," Marilyn breathed.
She meant it as a question, but it didn't come out as one - which was just as well, because she already knew the answer.
"I didn't say that," Sabrina shook her head.
"That's what it sounds like."
"You are under contract with the company for the next nine months still, and we recognise that recent events are not your fault and therefore we will happily honour the contract still. You are more than welcome to remain here, to continue making use of our facilities and our classes, but we cannot put you on a stage again. Not for the time being."
Marilyn stared blankly at her.
"You will also still be paid, regardless of whether or not you actually perform, given that we recognise that the reason for your inability to perform is beyond your control."
Inability. That was a funny word for it.
It was impossible for Marilyn to know how much longer she spent sitting there, staring at Sabrina in disbelief. And then, finally, she rose.
"I'll go and pack," she muttered.
"Marilyn, let's not act rashly," she said "As I've already stated, you're more than welcome to remain on the grounds, and-"
"Yeah? How long will that last?" she asked flatly.
It was hardly a great leap from we don't want to share a stage with her to we don't want to share a building with her. And what use were the facilities to her if she wasn't performing? What was she to do? Rehearse for parts she'd never get? Learn the moves for ballets she'd never dance in? Watch others progress while she could not? For something that was ultimately Sabrina's bloody idea, while they all sat back and looked at her like she'd masterminded the whole thing on her own with no help or encouragement?
In response to her question, Sabrina's face fell, and then she faltered, her mouth opening but producing no words. It told Marilyn all she needed to know about the sort of time limit she had left as far as hanging around here was concerned.
"You could go back to Beauxbatons…" she suggested slowly.
"Yeah, and then I'd be their problem, right?"
The school year was halfway done and she was dropped out in all but technicality. The 't's had not been crossed and the 'i's not dotted, but she hadn't looked at a textbook in weeks. Keeping up with NEWTs on top of the demands of being a ballerina was virtually impossible, and she'd been busy telling herself that no ballerina needed anything more than OWL qualifications, anyway.
Even if Madame Maxime was willing to have her back with her newfound notoriety, she'd gone through all of her previous years with ballet blinders on. To return now, kicked out of the WIB, would be more humiliating than what Draco had done to her in the Great Hall of Hogwarts a thousand times over.
"There's still the money," Sabrina pointed out.
The money was good money when living here - not at the mercy of bills, rent, and a need to buy her own food. Out there? Out there it likely wouldn't go far. And she'd only have it until September. The WIB would not renew a contract of a ballerina that could do no work for them, and the moment they could stop paying her would be the moment they would stop paying her. Shit, they'd probably do it now if they didn't worry that it would create the scandal of a lifetime. No doubt some Wizarding lawyer looking to make a name for themselves in the name of aiding Muggleborns would be all to happy to take her on.
Her ballet career was over before it was even truly beginning - unless He Who Must Not Be Named dropped dead tomorrow, which wasn't bloody likely - and now she found herself unqualified in just about literally everything else, unable to stay, and with nowhere to go.
"Yeah," Marilyn replied flatly "Great. How exactly has all of this impacted your career, by the way?"
Sabrina pursed her lips and looked away. Yeah. That was what she thought. The face of an act of rebellion was all too easy to turn into the scapegoat when that rebellion became inconvenient.
None of it felt quite real at the time. It only felt marginally realer now, in fact, while she stood in her grubby trainers, joggers, and a plain white t-shirt, stuffing anything and everything she owned haphazardly into her beaten blue Beauxbatons luggage. The weight of it all settled upon her in dribs and drabs - primarily when she stopped moving. So she did not stop moving.
"Oh, Marilyn…" Adriano breathed, hanging his head.
"Don't," she said sharply "You'll make me cry. I refuse to cry about this."
At least not until she was out of the building - alone, in private. She wouldn't be pitied. Not by these people. With most of her stuff seen to, one of the few things that remained was the pile of letters atop her desk. They'd arrived over the course of the morning. One from Hermione, judging by the handwriting, another from Fred and George - betrayed by the purple and orange stationery - along with some from school acquaintances, and a few others from strangers. Those would either be words of support, or cries of good riddance.
"Are any of them from him?" he asked quietly when she picked them up.
"No," she shook her head.
It didn't surprise her, and she didn't allow it to disappoint her. It was for the best. Neither of their lives were worth a half-hearted scolding and a quarter-hearted peptalk. With how things were going, she couldn't help but suspect the last time they saw one another would be the last time they saw one another. It was a hell of a way to end things.
"It's a good thing, too," she added quietly, when he continued to stare at her.
"I know that," he said "I'm surprised you do."
"I try to be clever in my idiocy."
"Using this time to berate you for foolishness feels cruel now," he mused.
"Look at it this way - if you do, it won't even be in the top five worst moments of this week for me."
She already felt like the world was falling apart around her - literally. Like how calm and quiet this room felt was only a facade, a delayed reaction, and that it was only a matter of time before her surroundings caught up with that fact, and the walls would crumble and the floor would give way beneath her feet.
"He was that bad in bed, was he?"
Marilyn laughed. But laughing felt too close to sobbing, and it opened the way for tears to finally start falling down her face. Standing, Adriano made to hug her but she shook her head, stepping away and extending a hand.
"Don't," she said quickly, fighting to pull herself together "I love you, and thank you, but don't. I can't. Not here. I'm not going to give them that."
He nodded his understanding, but he still took her free hand and pressed his lips to her knuckles, like a bloody Victorian gentleman.
"Explain to me," he said "About him. You're so pitiful right now that I'll actually listen."
The smile she gave in response to that was wobbly, but genuine. And so Adriano helped her move her case from the bed to the floor so that there was enough room for them both to sit, and then she explained everything from start to finish.
Some of it he already knew from rumours, and from the half-truths she'd already told him - how she'd gotten talking to Draco and how he'd made some rather incorrect assumptions about her blood status. How things got out of hand from there, and how he really wasn't happy when he discovered the truth. The rest he was rather more unfamiliar with. How they'd gravitated back towards one another, the gift of the broom, the Yule Ball, their secret hideaway room, and Cedric Diggory's memorial, as well as the almighty row that had followed. When they reached that point, the deep frown on Adriano's face suggested he thought her more idiotic than ever.
But Marilyn pressed on - explaining her return 'home', how any plans she had with the Weasleys had fallen apart, the way the year of writing to one another had brought them closer than she suspected a year of attending the same school ever could have, and all that had followed since.
Admittedly, she didn't explain everything. Draco trusted her too much, and already had too much on his shoulders, for her to go blabbing about the Dark Mark now sitting on his arm, nor delve into details about whatever great and terrible task He Who Must Not Be Named had set before him, but she didn't need to provide those details to explain how it was that he struggled, how clearly unhappy he was, how she was sure if he hadn't been raised into that mess he wouldn't willingly join it now…and how she couldn't help but wonder if she had at least a shred of something to do with his dismay over his former cause now.
By the time she was finished, the furrow in Adriano's brow had smoothed over, and he looked as tired as she felt. For that, Marilyn could not blame him. By the end, she'd talked herself hoarse, she felt like she'd just run a marathon, and she was forced to contend with the fact that she had no greater amount of history with anybody in the world than what she had with Draco sodding Malfoy.
When she was done, silence settled over them for a good few minutes, and Marilyn spent it fiddling with the silver charm bracelet at her wrist, the letters from earlier discarded to the side.
"Per amore di Merlino…" Adriano murmured "This is…a lot, Marilyn."
"Yeah," she breathed a laugh "It is, isn't it?"
"I was hoping you'd just say he was a good lay and then I could denounce you as a total fool and sleep well at night."
"I wish I was that stupid," she replied drily "Or that clever, maybe. But he wasn't involved in this. I know he wasn't."
"I'm inclined to believe you," he admitted "Much as I'd like not to."
"Still, it's over now. It's too dangerous. Far too dangerous. Look at what happened to you without anybody knowing this. What if they'd come upon you sooner? Found us all? It would've been a death sentence. Maybe they're not wrong to kick me out."
Even if they were being bloody cowards with how they were going about it. Like a lad who'd treat a girl like shit until she ended things, just so he wouldn't have to get his hands dirty and do the dumping himself.
"They're letting them win," he said, voice grim "The fact that they'll continue to pay you gives them just enough, er, negazione plausibile."
"Plausible deniability?" she guessed, based mostly on the second word at all.
"Yes, that," he nodded "It's a fact they can trot out when they're accused of cowing to him. She's still on our payroll, blah blah blah. But it's a win. For him. And a big loss for you, personally. The company will feel your absence in the end."
"That doesn't mean it has to be for you, too, though," she said "A loss, I mean. If the Death Eaters kick back and celebrate their win, they'll leave you alone. Dance with a nice pureblood girl or two and you'll be the lad who learned his lesson. If they kept going after people who gave into their way of thinking, it wouldn't be much incentment for others to follow that example, would it?"
Adriano's smile was more of a grimace than anything else "I hope you're right. Although if things keep going how they are, I'm not sure any of us will be dancing much longer. There's little need for ballet in the midst of war."
"A shame, other than that it sounds like so much fun."
He chuckled, slinging an arm around her and pressing his head against hers. Marilyn relaxed into the embrace, sighing quietly.
"This, uh, this'll be the last time we see each other for a while," she said.
"Where will you go?"
Without pulling away from him, she reached for the stack of letters by her side, and then brought them to her lap and rifled through them until she pulled out the orange and purple one, sealed with a large seal emblazoned with a 'W'.
"I have an vague idea," she admitted quietly.
A/N: Slight time jump ahead. Just to keep things rolling.
