too late to fixate [darla]

early december 2001

“Hold my wand.”

Those three words were probably the best decision Edith Holthouse had made in a sea of bad decisions. Wand out in a pub full of muggles, she tossed it at the only other witch in the room. Two large steps later, Edith stretched her arm behind her, planted her foot, curled her palm into a fist, and let it fly, hitting the man squarely in the side of his jaw.

It had all happened quickly. One minute Edith was enjoying the Manchester United match (read: yelling loudly at the television set, saying rude things about the West Ham players, their mothers, and their supporters, and drinking to dull the pain of losing dreadfully) and the next insults were flying, ended by a muttered, “If ya weren’t a girl, I would teach ya some manners.”

It was probably Edith’s fault in the first place. Her regular pub, the one that attracted the most United supporters she had seen in one place outside of Manchester, her second favorite place on earth, was closed for something silly. A family emergency or fumigation, something she couldn’t remember now. She had picked the next best place, a pub halfway between her and Darla’s flats. She had already missed the first few minutes of the match by the time she had arrived, thoroughly distracted that morning, so when she discovered that it was full of them, the West Ham supporters, it was too late to find another place.

She was probably already drinking double to make her feel better about United’s fate in the match, drinking more when Darla didn’t seem to be getting quite as drunk as her, hoping to encourage her to keep up. United was on a losing streak: first to Arsenal, then to Chelsea, and now apparently to West Ham. They were the champions, this wasn’t supposed to happen. So she yelled. She drank some more. People yelled back, telling her to shove off, get lost, some other things that embarrass her gran to hear.

But she probably had to defend her honor. Or Darla’s honor. Or her mother’s. David Beckham’s. Sir Alex’s. The whole of England’s. She didn’t know. She wasn’t thinking clearly. Or at all.

Edith cradled her hand in the palm of the other, taking a step back, expecting immediate retaliation. Pain was fleeting and it was worth it, the look on his face, the look on his girlfriend’s face. But then there was hair pulling, slaps, kicks, and a couple more punches, two or three other people not necessarily ganging up on her, just wanting to join in on the fun.

Just as quickly as Edith had started it, the three stone cold sober, off duty police officers a few tables over had ended it. She was pulled off to the side by one officer, his grip much tighter on her upper arm than she thought the situation warranted. It took her a few minutes to understand what, exactly, was happening, that he was an actual officer with an actual badge and she was actually being arrested. She looked for Darla in the crowd but all she could see were blurs. She reached up to pull her glasses off for a quick cleaning, only to find that they were missing.

On duty officers were called and as efficient as ever; fifteen minutes later Edith was sitting handcuffed and empty-pocketed in a damp, grey room, trying to recreate the scenario for the inspector seated across from her. He left her alone for a bit and Edith slumped down in her chair, doing her best to sober up by sheer willpower. She didn’t want to think about the worst case scenario, not even sure if her version of a worst case was accurate or worth worrying about. Worst case wouldn’t be the worst thing she would have faced in the past few years.

Her brief musing about her war year and her dome month helped her sober up a tiny bit regain a hint of responsibility, and she sat up straight as the inspector reentered her room. She was being charged with assault and she ‘ought to be grateful’ that it was being classified as an offense and not a crime. She had denied her one phone call earlier, choosing rather to represent herself; the only phone numbers she knew were her own (she had no idea how to explain this to Arawn) and her mother’s (her one request when she moved to London was to not get arrested).

Edith and her handcuffs were relocated to a cell (again with a grip too tight), crowded with other women (or blurry shapes she interpreted to be women by their voices), cold without the coat she had left at the pub. She found an empty blur and took a seat, leaning back against the hard wall and closing her eyes, willing herself to not need to use the toilet. They hadn’t explained too much about what was to happen now, but she figured they would start to care about her when she couldn’t pay her fine.

She fell asleep, ten minutes, maybe thirty, roused awake by the gruff sound of her name. ”C’mon.” He led her back the way they came, stopping at a desk near the front of the station to uncuff her, hand her a clear plastic bag with her keys, ID, and cash, and point her through an open door, presumably toward the waiting area. She didn’t ask about any fines or repercussions, hoping that they had somehow changed their minds, despite clearly seeing her start the fight and have no intention of ending it. Edith left out the door she had been directed toward and stopped short, not seeing anything clearly past the end of her nose.

No vision, no good grasp on where she was, no wand, no way to apparate away. She had enough cash on her for a taxi, only because she hadn’t paid her tab at the pub, and she started toward the bright red blur across the room that she hoped was the exit.

@Darla Boyd

“Listen.” Darla said on a particularly stingy and annoyed voice, as she hit the desk as hard as she could. “For the thousandth time, I am not part of the Wo Shing Wo and this – “ the former Gryffindor pointed towards her Montrose Magpies tee, which had a picture of the most esteemed captain and actual light of Darla’s fangirl eyes, @Circenn Kekoa Teague. “ – is not your wanted Shanghai Tsai.” She felt like exploding; while the healer was generally quite the calm person, right now every nanometer of her patience was being put to the test. “And he’s not even Chinese, and neither am I for that matter. I’m bloody Scottish you darn retard. And you even call yourselves Scotland Yard, for fuck’s sake.” Perhaps that wasn’t the best way to address a muggle police officer, however, this Scottish girl had run out of polite words to say.

To rewind a bit, that day had been a complete disaster. It was Darla’s day off and she had wanted to spend it with Edith, so they would catch up and just have fun together. However, it seemed that her friend had other plans: a Manchester United game was airing, so Darla had found herself forced into a Manchester United hoodie and invited to a pub in the middle of the day, to watch Edith yelling and swearing at a television set. While Darla herself hadn’t initially been into football, spending time with Edith throughout their years at Hogwarts had gotten the Scottish as passionate for football as she was about quidditch, so she perfectly related to Edith’s desire of watching the match with a friend. However, since her maternal family was from Chelsea, Darla rooted for that team, and not Manchester United. But it wasn’t something which Edith will find out anytime soon, or ever for that matter, as Darla planned to hide this fact until she would die. However, she had to admit that part of her wasn’t enjoying per se the fact that she was forced to wear the enemy’s clothes.

In addition to that, Edith seemed to dislike that fact that Darla wasn’t the type to get drunk very easily. Actually, the healer didn’t ever recall to have gotten drunk, no matter how much alcohol she’s had. For that reason, she disapproved of Edith drinking par to her that day, but who was she to deny her friend a little pleasure, especially while Manchester United was dramatically losing the entire season. It would be better, in her opinion, for Edith to drink and just wake up the next day half forgetting that her favourite team was doing so badly.

However, it seemed that Edith had been too lose with her comments regarding the match, as a West Ham fan soon responding to her. Darla had hoped that the others in the pub would notice that her friend was too drunk for her own good and not take her seriously, but she had seemed to have forgotten that football as a very serious issue in both her countries, the United Kingdom and South Korea equally. She could not escape pub fights regarding football no matter where she went, however, Darla had hoped that if a brawl would start, it would be only verbal. Little did she know that the next moment, Edith would hand Darla her wand and punch the male West Ham fan, hitting him right in the jaw. Darla’s own jaw dropped as her eyes widened in shock. “Edith, stop!!!” She yelled as loud as she could, putting her friend’s wand right next to hers in her jeans’  back pocket, and getting up as quickly as possible, to see if she could stop her friend from being beaten to a pulp by angry West Ham fans.

But before Darla could even do anything, Edith was pulled off to the side by an officer, who had been in the pub since the very start. Darla could only assume that he was also a West Ham fan and things wouldn’t be in Edith’s favour. The officer took Edith away, and Darla quickly approached another one of the bunch, and pulled him by the arm, so she would ask what is there to do in such a situation. The police man, obviously a West Ham fan, told her to fuck off and pushed her away while disapprovingly looking at her Manchester United hoodie. Still, Darla insisted and eventually the man told her to come at the station, so she would complete some paperwork for her friend.

And she had done so. As soon as she arrived there and approached the on-duty inspector, Darla had been handed a ridiculously huge amount of forms. Initially, she had found no problem in filling them out, however, upon realising she had to use a pen and write everything manually, the former Gryffindor felt like dying. As she reached the sixth official form to fill, Darla had been so enraged with the useless bureaucracy that she literally felt too hot. She took off her hoodie, revealing her tee with the Montrose Magpies captain on it, which, in combination with her more-ripped-than-actual-jeans jeans and some old vintage boots she had borrowed from her future sister-in-law, gave her possibly not the most trust worthy appearance. In addition to that, her curly hair was all over the place that day, making her entire look even wilder than it already was. However, little did Darla know that her attire and overall appearance would cause issues at the muggle police station.   

As soon as she finished completing the forms, which stated that a generous fee of 300 pounds had to be paid, and that Edith would also have to do a month of part-time community work, Darla stepped towards the inspector’s office. She had all the money prepared as well, and initially thought that the procedure would go on smoothly, and that the inspector would release Edith immediately. But, it seemed that the inspector had wanted to have a chat with her. The man was annoyingly thorough and went through everything Darla completed, asking her quite suspicious things about her job. Naturally, she had lied and said that she was a medic for Doctors without Boarders, a cover up she learned from one of her older brothers, Iain. It had always worked for him, so she found it only normal that it would work for her as well.

However, her attire, her having 300 pounds cash in her wallet like it was nothing, combined with her overall appearance, soon had the inspector questioning if she was indeed a respectable doctor as she claimed. Darla lost it at that point, particularly when the man had asked her about a famous Chinese triad which got fear into all of the muggles of London. Truthfully, Darla didn’t know what offended her more – the fact that she didn’t seem like a doctor when she actually was, or the fact that the officer just assumed she was Chinese just because her Korean features inherited from her mother were more accentuated.  Darla literally facepalmed, not even knowing where to start. Confusing a Korean for a Chinese was literally as bad as confusing a Scottish for an English, a French for a German, a Lithuanian for a Russian. Her rage culminated however when the inspector dragged into the conversation her beloved Montrose Magpies captain.

Eventually, Darla just took the paper out of the inspector’s hands, signed it, and threw the 300 pounds in his face, before grabbing her bag and hoodie and got out of the station. Of course, this all didn’t happen until Darla also yelled out loud in Scottish. “Yer bum’s oot the windae, ye fuckin’ bampot.” Meaning, 'You’re talking rubbish, you unhinged tit'. Thankfully enough, Edith’s act was classified as an offense and not as a crime so, right now, Darla couldn’t even care less if the muggle police started investigating her own person as long as Edith would get out of that darn rat hole muggles prided themselves with. Scotland Yard, what a joke. They brought shame to the proud name of Scotland, those retarded blokes.

Reaching the outdoors, Darla didn’t even feel the cold, despite being just in her very thin t-shirt. She took a deep breath, running both her hands through her hair as she tried to calm down. But she couldn’t; if only Edith hadn’t gone punching that West Ham retard, then Darla herself wouldn’t have been in the situation where her most precious team captain had also been offended. A few minutes later, Edith came out of the station, but just to pass by her. That ungrateful little brat. Darla had the temptation of cursing at her friend, however she noticed Edith didn’t have her glasses on and assumed she just hadn’t been noticed.

“Ye’ve got a face lit a melted welly.” She wasn’t lying, Edith did look miserable. However, Darla hadn’t realised she had still spoken in Scottish. Probably because she was too annoyed at Scotland Yard that her inner Scottish persona just surfaced without her even realising. She approached Edith, pulling her tightly by her wrist, and making her turn around so she would face her. “Listen here, you three year old immature child.” Darla was fuming. Seeing Edith all miserable would’ve been all nice if Darla wouldn’t have known that it was her own friend who got herself into a West Ham pub and started swearing at everyone, later on punching a man. She was guilty and there was absolutely no excuse,

“I paid 300 quid to bail you out and I also signed as a guarantor that you’ll do a part time community service for a month. If you don’t do it, I will set your damn ass on fire myself.” She threated Edith, before letting go of her arm. “I gave them your address, so you’ll receive a notice from the Prosecution, and you’ll not ignore it if you know what’s good for you, young lady.” Darla couldn’t believe that she was literally talking to Edith just as she did with one of the children of the Paediatric Ward whenever they stole candies from her robes’ pockets, thinking that she wouldn’t notice. This day still had so much going on in it, Darla was fuming even at the thought that perhaps her work with the muggle police was not done yet.

“Let’s go.” She gave Edith a nudge on her back. “If I see one more police officer around, I’ll spit them in the face.” Worst part? She wasn’t lying. That’s how much Darla had hated her own experience with the muggles today.

Edith pushed the door of the station open and stepped outside, sighing both with relief and a touch of anxiety. There were too many black vehicles for her to pick out a taxi, but thankfully the big red busses were as big and as red as ever. She would only have to pick the right one to get her close enough to home. Now if people would just stop yelling, she could concentrate on doing exactly that, take another nap, sober up a little, then finally tackle the problem of her wand and her glasses and making sure Darla wasn’t too terribly upset about how the afternoon had played out. Honestly, no one could be more upset about the events than Edith.

But Darla, apparently having gained the ability to read thoughts and prove Edith very, very wrong, was suddenly close enough that Edith could see her every feature perfectly. “Hey--” she attempted to wrench her wrist from Darla’s grasp. “I’ll punch you, too,” she insisted, instead bringing up her other hand, still clutching tight to the plastic bag full of her personal effects, and swatting Darla with it. But she dropped her arm and her attempts at causing harm (in hindsight, not the best idea three feet in front of the police station anyway) when Darla spoke on those things Edith had been too afraid to ask about inside.

Three hundred quid. At one point in her life she had three hundred quid for longer than it took her to pay rent, but that was before the war, before she had blown through the measly savings she and her parents had scraped together, before she had found herself not staying in any one spot for longer than forty-eight hours. Community service was doable, though. She considered heading back into the station, to maybe negotiate that she receive only community service, as that was something she could actually afford. She would probably have to give up Saturdays, but that wasn’t seeming like too terrible of an option considering how poorly United was now doing.

But Darla still had her by the wrist, and Edith scowled at her. Not even her own parents would scold her like this. If she was getting this from Darla now, she could only imagine the kind of helpful talking to @Elias Dörfler would give her. This wasn’t something she could hide from him. Or should, for that matter. But she wouldn’t focus on that now. Couldn’t, for Darla’s fingers were holding her in the same place the handcuffs had moments before and she was having trouble focusing on anything but that.

She caressed her wrist in her hand as Darla let go of it, finally noticing that her hand hurt more than a hand really should. She didn’t get a good look at it before Darla was nudging her to walk down the sidewalk, but her glance was enough to show the bruised knuckles and few spots of dried blood that she had somehow failed to notice before now. But she swallowed her words, deciding not to say anything as they walked, far more concerned with not tripping over any unperceivable unevenness in the pavement.

They weren’t heading anywhere she was familiar with; no shapes or blurs stood out to her to indicate where they were going. But Edith didn’t have to wonder too long, as Drala soon nudged her through another door with a small sign Edith couldn’t read. But she would recognize a pub anywhere; they always smelled the same. Maybe Darla was only temporarily mad. She couldn’t still be upset with her if they were already heading to get another pint. Or maybe she could. Darla steered her past the bar toward the back corner of the pub, sitting Edith down at a far back table like a toddler in timeout.

“You, er--” she paused, not sure what the protocol was here, not having been arrested and bailed out of jail before today. “So, you’re mad. I get that.” Edith attempted to look apologetic, but it was hard to read the reaction on Darla’s face when all she could see was blurry. “But you don’t happen to have my glasses, d’you?” If she could at least see what she was dealing with, this would be a lot easier to get through.

While Darla hadn’t commented on Edith’s threat, along with her friend swatting her plastic bag with personal belongings at her, it was undeniable that the gesture pissed her off beyond the healer’s own expectations. It was a good thing Edith was as blind as a bat without her glasses, or otherwise she would have seen a rage on her friend’s face she probably had never encountered before. The Scottish took a deep breath and mentally counted up to five so she would calm down a bit, while nudging Edith even harder on her back, as she secretly and very harshly judged her friend’s entire attitude. For someone who had been behind actual bars, the English definitely didn’t even think of acting a bit more tame, at least until they would be as far away as possible from that repulsing police station.

Darla took Edith to a local pub, a place nearby where she knew that there would be mostly wizards and witches. It was conveniently called ‘Prince Albert’s pub’ to lose itself in the mass of similar places, more frequented by muggles. Stepping inside, the healer felt ridiculously warm, despite wearing only her very thin tee. She was still filled with anger, rage, bitterness, ready to fight everyone and anyone over Edith’s lack of gratefulness and the fact that her favourite quidditch player had been so highly insulted that Darla felt her own honour had been attacked. Sitting Edith down, Darla took a deep breath as she threw her stuff on a chair. She didn’t take a seat herself, but instead ran both her hands through her hair as she stopped a waiter and asked for a generous pot of Earl Grey tea and two potato soups.

Edith’s words just continued adding fuel to the fire. Darla bit her lower lip in annoyance, the fact that her friend simply assuming the fact that she was just ‘mad’ and she ‘got that’ firing up this former Gryffindor even more. She completely ignored Edith’s inquiry about her glasses; while Darla had indeed retrieved them before leaving the West Ham pub, and fixed them as well, she really wasn’t in the mood of doing Edith any more services that day. Yet. Or perhaps she should do her friend one service now, as the healer definitely noticed before that her hand wasn’t looking quite perfect. It was a bit swollen, and from what she had touched before, Darla felt that some of the bones were fractured.

Pulling out her wand from her jeans’ back pocket, Darla flicked it as she sharply said the incantation. “Brackium Emendo.” There, that should do it. Placing her wand on the table with a loud noise, Darla finally took a seat at the table, opposite from Edith. The waiter soon brought them the Earl Grey tea and poured some for them in two cups. As he left, Darla took a sip out of hers and finally addressed Edith again, her Scottish accent being little said noticeable. “You look like a dug licking pish aff a nettle.” She nodded her head in disapproval, curls swaying in perfect synchronisation with her movements. “You know, you felon, Circenn was called a Shanghai Tsai because of you so you’d better act all nice and docile with me for a while unless you want me to punch you and break some bones I definitely won’t fix for you.”

Darla pulled out Edith’s newly fixed glasses from her hoodie’s pocket, which rested on the seat next to hers, and just about as she was going to hand them over to her friend, the healer realised that perhaps her fixing the Obliviator’s fracture with no previous notice still wasn’t enough of a punishment. “Hmm.” Darla let out, on the most natural of tones, pointing with her free hand towards the window. Surely Edith could tell her figure’s posture, no matter how blind she was without her glasses. “Three officers are coming this way. I think they saw you hitting me with your bag in front of the station and want to take you back. Merlin’s balls, those jobby flavoured fart lozenges are pulling out their handcuffs and tasers!” She gasped, her entire lie being far too believable for Edith not to fall for it. Now things were finally starting to get even. 

Edith interpreted her silence to mean something along the lines of, ‘I didn’t know you had lost or glasses or I would have grabbed them for you, I’m so sorry. Let’s go find you a new pair.’ She shrugged, attempting to indicate that really, she didn’t mind. Who could blame her for not keeping up with her friend’s glasses? Edith hadn’t even noticed herself, and the glasses had been relatively attached to her face to begin with. But Edith was missing the look on Darla’s face, would have tried to fix the situation if she could tell there was anything that needed fixing.

Darla moved toward her pocket and Edith extended her hand to take back what she thought would be her glasses. That was the option that made the most sense, most pertained to what they had been discussing; it was no doubt that Edith hadn’t been expecting another bout of excruciating pain in her knuckles, starting in her little and ring finger and engulfing her entire hand, moving up toward her elbow. She recoiled, scooting her chair back and away from Darla, grabbing her elbow with the opposite hand and bringing in her arm towards her chest, cradling it as she willed the pain to subside.

She wasn’t given the chance to properly swear at her ‘friend’ before she had started in on her. Edith had spent enough time with Darla to understand when she was being insulted, even when she chose to use words that Edith could have sworn she was making up. Normally, she would respond in her best imitation of Darla’s accent, but she was too focused on the lingering tingles in her hand, bringing it closer to her face so she could take a better look. It was still swollen and bruised, but maybe just a tad less. Maybe. If she had been properly warned before she had been healed, she might remember more about the initial state of her hand. As it was…

“First.” Edith kept her chair pushed back, keeping a somewhat safe distance if not just giving herself more room to get a good backswing for her next attack. “I don’t know what a Shanghai Tsai is. Second, feel free to break whatever you want.” She paused, either for dramatic effect or to make sure that she sincerely wanted to say what she was thinking. “I’ll just go to a real doctor.”

She could see that she had already lost this interaction, would probably be better off heading home, buying new glasses, a new wand, a new friend. She could not care less what else Darla had to say. Still, her gaze followed Darla’s outstretched hand rather reluctantly, not sure why she was bothering because she was perfectly aware she wouldn’t be able to discern anything through the window. Thank goodness for Darla and her ongoing commentary. Not. She wanted to be incredibly amused at Darla’s use of the phrase ‘jobby flavored fart lozenge’, but at the rate this conversation was progressing, she was fairly certain she would never want to laugh at another thing Darla said again.

“Great.” Edith stood up abruptly, ignoring the lightheadedness she wanted to attribute to being in a fight, not still being intoxicated, moving towards the door to go meet them. “At least the women in that cell let me sit in peace.” She would much rather be back there than in the pub she was currently sharing with Darla. “Let my mum know where to find me, won’t you?”

Edith surely knew how to just keep adding fuel to Darla’s annoyance. Not only that she didn’t realise how big of an offence the remark of Circenn being a Shanghai Tsai was, but she also revealed to be completely and utterly ungrateful for Darla bailing her out. Honestly, this former Gryffindor was quite curious at this point what other person with barely minimum experience with the muggle world would’ve bailed Edith out of jail and fixed her arm. She took a deep breath, trying to calm down, realising her friend was still as drunk as one could get, which probably enhanced the general rudeness. Darla somehow had to continue being the better person, as much as that displeased her.

But Edith just had to continue playing the victim when she, in fact, had been the guilty party of this all. She played the perfect role of a misunderstood drama queen, oh poor dear her, and got up from her chair, moving towards the door, and waiting there, for the supposed police to take her away again. Darla bit her lower lip, half playfully, half extremely pissed off. She pressed her elbow against the wooden table, resting her chin against the palm of her hand, with her free hand putting Edith’s glasses back in her hoodie’s pocket. She didn’t deserve them yet.

The waiter soon came with the order; both the Earl Grey and the soups. He poured tea in two dark green cups, and as Darla picked up hers to take a sip, she noticed that the young man seemed to be looking quite quizzically in Edith’s direction, and then back at her. “She’s from Lunt.” Darla mouthed, barely even whispering, so Edith won’t hear her. The waiter started laughing quite loudly though, and continued doing so even after he’d reached the kitchen area. Darla then drank out of her tea, casually glancing at her friend, who was still waiting in front of the door. She poured herself more of the Earl Grey, and addressed Edith again, as she leaned against the back of her chair.

“Mmm.” Darla said a bit too loudly, on purpose, afterwards emptying half of her cup of tea before placing it back on the table. Edith loved her tea as much as she did, so surely the gesture would get her thirsty enough. Darla then picked up a slice of bread to munch on before moving on to the soup. She looked at Edith, as she was waiting in front of the door still. “Edith.” The Scottish commented, whilst taking a deep breath. “Come and eat. You need it after the healing spell.”

It was all she said, and nothing more. Edith definitely had to both thank her properly for everything, and apologise to her, should she want her glasses and wand back, that was for sure. The obliviator had yet to do either of those, which was probably what annoyed Darla the most by now. Edith wasn’t even sorry, wasn’t even appreciative, wasn’t even caring as much as the healer did upon actually involving herself with the muggle police to bail her out. She only thought about herself and nobody else. It piqued Darla knowing that’s how much she meant to her friend; so ‘much’ that she couldn’t even get a proper ‘I’m sorry’ or a simple ‘thanks’ out of her.

She picked up her spoon and started eating her soup. If Edith wanted to join her or not, that was her problem now.

She was split nearly evenly on whether or not there were police officers outside the window or not. But at this point, after abandoning the table, her friend, her wand, her glasses, there was really no going back. And uncomfortable couple minutes of silence passed between them as people moved back and forth past the pub, none actually entering or paying her any attention.

Edith successfully ignored the goings on at the table as the waiter brought them something, soup and tea, by the general shape of things. Earl Grey, if her nose knew any better -- no, she was furious with Darla. She couldn’t be bribed with tea. Of course, she wasn’t too sure why she was upset in the first place; the activities of the past couple hours had blended together for the most part. She folded her arms across her chest, looking decidedly away, back out the window, replaying the afternoon in her mind once again.

“Darla.” She was going to stop there after mimicking her tone, fully intending not to agree with anything Darla said. But she was right. As Darla mentioned the healing spell, Edith clenched her hand into a first, winced, and relaxed her fingers again. She only vaguely remembered the pain in her hand when she had punched that guy, but she was so sure that her hand felt worse now. She looked down at it, bringing it a bit closer to her eyes. It was bruised to hell, but everything was definitely straight and in the right place.

She supposed there could have been worse people to bail her out of jail.

Sighing, Edith resumed her place at the table. She avoided Darla’s eye as she picked up her spoonm careful to use her not-previously-injured hand, hiding her healed one in her lap. She only had one spoonful of soup before deciding she would rather have at her tea. Starting and finishing her cup in the span of a couple minutes, Edith resumed eating her soup, again pointedly avoiding looking at Darla.

Emptying her bowl, Edith pushed it aside and finally looked over at Darla. “I --” she stopped, not sure where she was heading with her sentence. She had had a few minutes to think as she ate and sobered up a little, but it wasn’t enough to know what to say. Her thoughts had strayed mostly to Elias and what she would have to tell him. But that wasn’t Edith’s problem now. Darla was.

Edith his her face in her hands, her elbows planted on the tabletop. “Fuck.” It was a muffled word from behind her hands, but it got her point across. “Fuck.” The replays in her mind became clearer as she sobered up. She ran through the punch to the break up to the station to being questioned, charged, jailed, and released with no fine.  She fanned her fingers so she could peer at Darla again. “Fuck,” she said for the third time, dropping her hands from her face. “Three hundred quid, Darla,” she started, almost certain that Darla was returning her faze. “Darla, I --” Edith didn’t have three hundred quid to repays her. “I’m sorry,” she added quietly, mostly about the money, the tiniest bit apologizing for how she had thanked her thus far.

“What the fuck did I do?” Edith leaned forward, laying her head on the table. “For fuck’s sake.”

Even if Edith was avoiding looking at her, Darla appreciated how finally her friend was acting as she should, docile and understanding that she had to behave in a particularly certain manner. Her mate took a taste of the soup, then drank some tea, and resumed eating her meal. Darla picked up the pot and poured some more of the tea in Edith’s cup, and later on in hers as well, the healer picking up her cup and drinking slowly from it. While she hadn’t been personally drunk, Darla herself did drink before as well, and the tea and soup combination was as good for her as it was for Edith. However, she was particularly pleased that Edith was actually eating, to both sober up and regain some strength after Darla healing her arm.

The Scottish herself resumed her meal, and emptied her own bowl only a few moments after Edith herself. She put aside her plate as well, placing her tea cup in front of her, as she poured more from the pot yet again. Edith seemed like she was at last properly gathering her thoughts, and Darla allowed her to do so, remaining silent. However, it wasn’t that kind of glacially cold and uncomfortable silence, but more among the lines of an understanding one, and, of course, one that was grateful that the obliviator finally seemed to regain her senses.

And then the Edith that Darla knew appeared at last. The healer took a deep breath in relief, and sketched a small smile as her friend was appropriately processing that day’s events so far. Her friend mentioned the sum of money that had served as bail, but truthfully Darla couldn’t care less about that. Her salary at St. Mungo’s was quite generous now that she was a full-fledged healer, plus Darla was quite ambitious at the work place, so she always took extra shifts and guards, which also resulted in a something extra to her wages. In addition to it all, the healer’s social life was almost equal to zero, so ever since the very start of her career, Darla had just been gathering her galleons, with no actual purpose or aim to use. Darla was glad though that she could finally put a bit of it to good use.

Before she could mention anything, Edith apologised. Darla froze for a moment, not knowing how to actually react. While yes, she had wanted a proper apology from her friend, the former Gryffindor wasn’t actually expecting Edith to truly offer one so openly. As Edith laid her head on the table, Darla stretched out her hand, gently grabbing the wrist she just healed, softly massaging it, for the slight discomfort Edith probably felt to fade away. “It’s alright. Don’t worry about anything regarding my end. The money doesn’t matter, really.” She emphasised on the matter, fully aware that it was probably what consumed Edith the most.

“I have both your glasses and your wand.” She commented, letting go of Edith’s hand and grabbing her things before getting up from the table. She left a few galleons to cover up for their meal on the table, and offered her arm to Edith. “C’mon. Let’s go to my place so I can properly check your hand and give you a potion against the pain.” They would get over this as well, Edith will get over this as well, Darla was positive. In the end, her best friend wasn’t the type of person that would be so easily discouraged and avoid facing her problems directly. And, perhaps, it wasn’t a really bad thing for Edith there to do some muggle community service. Maybe next time she will simply just know better before starting a bar fight.

With her other hand, Darla offered Edith her glasses, just before she Disapparated the two of them to her house in Chelsea.

Edith didn’t like to be touched and she was sure that Darla knew that, yet she assumed it might send the wrong message to pull her hand from hers, especially after she had healed it for her. She winced through the pain, though her face was still firmly planted on the table. She could only offer a muffled, “Ugh.” Edith lifted her head as Darla started talking, raising an eyebrow as she insisted the money didn’t matter. She didn’t want to press her on the matter though she knew she should. Instead, she shrugged, letting Darla change the subject, holding onto another ‘thanks’ until later.

She dropped her gaze to her tea as Darla mentioned her glasses and her wand. Her ‘hold my wand’ bit from earlier flashed through her mind and she grimaced, though that action was probably the only thing that had kept her out of trouble with the magical law enforcement. Her own department would have needed to be involved. She might have even been called in to work before anyone knew that she was the reason the call was necessary. She shook her head clear of that train of thought, glancing back up to Darla as she was handed her belongings. Blinking a few times as she regained her eyesight, Edith offered her friend a half smile and a nod.

“Yeah, sure.” There was no point protesting this right now, knowing her only other option was going directly to St. Mungo’s and that was certainly something she didn’t want to do, not now or ever. Stowing her wand, she grabbed onto Darla’s offered arm, prematurely shutting her eyes for the apparation.

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