He doesn't move right away. There are a few more minutes where they are caught together, watching one another under a blanket of layered silence. Noemie is still cupping his face in her hand, the faintest touch of her fingers on his cheek; Louis runs his finger over the bone of her wrist, Noemie's eyes flick down to his mouth again, and Louis follows the tide of that look back towards her once more. She stops him with barely a movement - just a sweeping of her thumb from the corner of his mouth along his bottom lip – and turns away. Noemie swallows and says, "Perhaps…"

This time Louis does take the cue, and push away from her. Noemie watches him for a few seconds while Louis opens up his camera bag, pure muscle memory, then stands and touches him on the shoulder before she steps away. He looks over his shoulder as she walks towards the bedroom, not sure if he ought to say something else.

She doesn't turn back, so he assumes he doesn't.

He just… isn't letting himself think for a moment, letting himself get absorbed in the process of removing his lens, fitting his equipment back in the case, walking out the door.

Noemie doesn't turn back.

So he takes another minute outside the door, leaning up against the wall.

He wants to be surprised, but he's not surprised. He's surprised because he's not surprised. It's less that he didn't know he felt that way about Noemie, and more that he didn't want to know?

He can feel his stupid heart pounding, beats reverberating to the base of his skull, right under his ears (right where she'd touched him first, right where- )

Louis, wails a frustrated voice (maybe a Rose-voice) in his head, Get home first!

So he does.

He goes home, he gets out his camera, and edits his picture. Brings out the highlights, adjusts his shadows so all of the structures are clearly separated, messes around with the contrast. He's still buzzing along on adrenaline and muscle memory.

She'd pushed him away, the second time. Did he do something? Did he – did he want too much? Did he seem like he was moving too fast? He cringes. Maybe he was – maybe he did.

He sets his print up, corrected settings in for his home machine, and not his work one.

Maybe, maybe, maybe –

Louis pulls out the photograph from his printer and taps his table thoughtfully. This is definitely a question for Hugo.

-x-

For all that he works in wizarding technology, Hugo is distressingly old-fashioned when it comes to communication. He also refuses to take their phone calls; something about boundaries. Louis has to go hunting through his cupboards to find the small tin of Floo powder and then spend a minute lighting a fire in his horribly dirty, possibly-scene-of-a-crime fireplace. Suffice to say he's a bit annoyed by the time he's actually gotten Hugo on the other side of the connection.

Nothing compared to Hugo, though, who is, as always, scowling.

"What?" Hugo snaps, having finally gotten his boyfriend outside the living room after a conversation conducted entirely in angry whispers across the doorway.

("Why can't I watch? You never let me see the fire-phone-thing!"

"It's called the Floo, and you know it's called the Floo! You've literally been helping make it obsolete, please don't pretend –"

"Yeah, all right, but then why won't –"

"And it's Louis, you know he never calls –"

"What if I want to talk to him –"

"Ricky.")

"Er, hi," Louis says, "Am I interrupting?"

Hugo crosses his arms and frowns. "I just threw Ricky out, you're clearly already finished interrupting. Now what do you want?"

"Well, I- I'm coming all the way through," Louis says, "Hold on."

Hugo makes an inarticulate protest, but Louis is already crawling through the connection, dusting himself off on the carpet.

"I hate just talking through the Floo like that, sorry," he continues, a little breathless, and sits on the carpet for a second, trying to figure out what to say next.

"Louis…" Hugo says, threatening.

"So there's a girl – a woman, I mean," Louis says, and Hugo sighs, with feeling.

"So you've been visiting for a few weeks, you like her, she kissed you –" Hugo summarizes after Louis has finally told him about everything.

"Well, I kissed her, I think?"

"Okay, whatever, what's the problem here?" Hugo asks. He's crouching in front of the fireplace in front of Louis, as usual clearly invested despite his crabby exterior.

"Well, Hugo – she's having a baby! And she has this whole maybe ex-fiance situation? And then she's stuck in London, so that's also complicated?"

"And?"

"And what?"

"And if that bothers you, why do you keep going back to see her?"

"Well, it doesn't bother me," Louis says, since that is a ridiculous question, "It's just, you know… She's here alone, and she has no one to talk to her in French and- "

"Have you told your mum?" Hugo interrupts.

"What?" Louis bursts out, "Why would I tell my mum?"

"Because she's… French… and she speaks… French?" Hugo mutters, staring at Louis askance.

"But – I … I hadn't thought of that, actually," Louis says, crossing his legs and settling in.

"No, I've gotten that far, Louis," Hugo says, irritably.

"I think it's just that she's - she's … she's just, you know, cooler? Than me?" Louis suggests, even though it sounds a bit off, even to him. "Older?" he tries after a second, "A bit older, I think a couple years… I mean, that's not what I meant - she's just sort of fierce and independent and doesn't want to, like, need help from anyone. So, I think that was why – you know, why it didn't occur to me she might like to meet my mum."

Hugo rolls his eyes and scratches his eyebrow exasperatedly. "Well, this is fascinating. How does that make you feel, Louis?" he says with exaggerated interest.

"I think, well, a bit bad, sort of?... I didn't even think of it, Hugo," Louis continues, a bit crestfallen, "I did what I wanted, I mean, kissing her and all. I got as far as her needing company, but I just got so caught up in… in feeling good around her and liking her company and – and –" he flaps his hands inarticulately, not sure what comes next.

"She really is miserable," he says at last, looking at Hugo, "I think she doesn't want to be. I think she doesn't want to be upset about what's happened, but she is. And I'm trying, but … maybe I'm not helping enough. And maybe, you know, maybe I bother her," he finishes.

Hugo's expression, paradoxically, softens as he looks back at Louis. "Louis…" Hugo starts, then lets out a breath and clears his throat. "You don't - It's not your job to fix everything, all right? …I'm not saying I know everything about how… you know, feelings work, and all. But nobody ever expects someone else to just – just, show up and fix everything they don't like about their life. I mean, maybe she is miserable - maybe you do bother her, but -" Louis flinches, but Hugo pushes onward, speaking louder, "- but she's allowed to feel that. You haven't even asked her what she wants, or what she might be doing already, you know?" Hugo leans a little further over the fireplace, and pats Louis briskly on the hand. "You can't change the fact that she made the choices to be here, and that she did all of that before you ever met her… You're trying to take too much on yourself, Lou."

It does help to hear that, but Louis also feels like crying a little bit. It always turns out to be more complicated than he's ready for.

"Oh, don't make that face, please," Hugo says, "It makes me feel like I hit a puppy with a chair. Look, do you want something to eat? I think we have – pasta, Ricky, do we have pasta?"

In a response that is far too prompt for someone who wasn't eavesdropping, Ricky leans back into the room and replies, "Yep, pasta and tomato sauce! Food of the gods." Proving the point, he then looks at Louis and says in a carrying whisper, "And for what it's worth, people don't kiss back if you're bothering them."

He waggles his eyebrows expressively, and Hugo scoffs.

"Oh, go away and warm it up, will you?"

But they both look a little more satisfied when Louis grins back.