memorize the lines and try to work within the frame [dennis]

All she wanted to do was go home; but failing that, getting drunk in the Three Broomsticks was a close second, she supposed. She wanted to find out how United did that day -- football, not quidditch -- but she'd even give that up if that meant she could get out of Scotland, get away from Hogwarts. Edith had missed the early afternoon portkey and for some reason, the next (and last) portkey wasn't until much later, so she was down to that last option -- the drinking.

She had considered apparating -- she could have stopped in Lunt for a visit, broken up the trip a little -- but apparently being in such close proximity to Hogwarts made her want to do as little magic as possible. There was the floo, but the last time she had used a fireplace for travel, she -- she didn’t want to let her thoughts go in that direction. So waiting, drinking: much better options.

Edith had sent Elias an owl -- she was considerate sometimes -- but then she had five hours to kill. She had passed two of those in the corner of the pub, watching the crowd slowly dwindle down. She was sipping on her pint, but every time the fireplace flared up with green flames she finished the glass. Sure, she could probably sit somewhere she couldn't see the floo in action, somewhere that didn't convince her to finish four pints well ahead of schedule. It was too much, and she couldn't stop her train of thought, on a constant loop: floo, Hogwarts, the Dome, Hogwarts, the battle, the articles, another drink. It probably should have worried her a little more, rather than the constant nagging feeling it gave her, the constant have another swallow feeling, but whatever.

It had been about six weeks since she had started publishing her column under her own name, and she had tried her best to focus on what she was trying to accomplish rather than the whole reason why; since using her own name and writing her own story, however, Edith had been over and over past events so many times that she was still doubting if it was really worth it in the first place. Nothing had changed -- there were hints of ideas of change, but that was about it -- besides the amount of hate mail she received and the amount of actual work she now had to do. Work in Scotland, so close to the school, just to talk to students. It was necessary, of course, but again: whatever. Her thoughts were rambly, all bunching together. That was probably the alcohol.

Ugh. She needed to walk, clear her head, anything to focus on something else, anything else. She glanced over to the bar, half expecting to see a dinky television set feebly broadcasting the sports news of the day; she hid her disappointment in her glass, finishing her fifth pint in a few large swallows. Sighing, she pushed herself out of her booth and deposited her empty glass on the bar on her way to the toilet. In the few minutes she was otherwise occupied, she had changed her mind from taking a walk to having another pint.

She finished wiping her freshly-washed hands on her jeans as she ordered at the bar; drinking anywhere that accepted sickles was difficult, because she was never quite sure how many more drinks she had the financial capacity to buy. Seventeen sickles to a galleon, and twice seventeen was thirty-four, but any more math than that and she’d need a calculator and she was pretty sure one wouldn’t work here anyway. She at least had enough money for this pint, and she traded sickles for it happily, turning around with her hands full, one with change and one with drink. She had been fully prepared to settle back into her corner booth, but her face fell as she saw it was now occupied.

She had the fleeting thought that she would have seen him that afternoon, being in Hogsmeade and all, but she hadn’t -- or he had seen her and avoided her, more likely -- and now it was getting later and it looked like the only people left in the village were those who didn’t belong at the school anyway. Plus, it wouldn’t have accomplished anything, seeing him. Edith had used their conversations to write about herself, finally say things that needed to be said only because she had already said them to him; but in the end, she had made money off of it, just like she had made money off of modifying memories. It didn’t always sit well with her, so she could only imagine what he must think about it. Imagine, of course, because she would never ask him -- never mind that she doubted he thought about her at all.

Talking to Dennis Creevey had basically been the thing that had tipped her over the edge, to write about herself. The talking had been more like drinking, rambling, not knowing when to shut up, really. Hadn’t it? She hadn’t spoken to him since, hadn’t heard anything from him after she had published, hadn’t done anything to reach out to him herself; she had put in enough effort by writing in the first place, she supposed. Not that she had been expecting anything, of course. That night was a one off; he’d gone back to thinking she was shit and she’d continued agreeing with him.

And there he was, sitting at her table. Never mind that she had abandoned the table a few moments ago, had taken her backpack with her, had left no indication that the table was reserved, had zero intentions when she had left to return to it at all; minor details. She could just leave now -- he hadn’t seen her -- but she highly doubted she could get a refund on this pint missing two-swallows worth of beer. There were other tables, sure, but wouldn’t it look worse to so obviously avoid him? She wasn’t sure why she wanted to avoid him in the first place -- was it because she had shared too much, that he had shared too much, that she was sure he regretted talking to her in the first place, that she didn’t want confirmation that she was right in assuming he wouldn’t want to talk to her again?

All of the above, probably.

Five pints down, though, and at least one more to go. Edith took another sip as she stuffed her handful of change into the pocket of her United hoodie, making up her mind much more quickly than (and in the opposite direction of) sober Edith. She figured she surprised him as she slid back into the booth, across from him. “This,” she started, any questions she had for him just seconds ago gone from her mind, “Is m’table.” She nodded as she shrugged off the straps of her backpack, inviting herself to stay.

It wasn't really okay.

Dennis didn't know why he'd thought that coming back to school was going to be better, or at least less bad, than being alone all summer. Something about the break had obfuscated these particular feelings; abstracted them from the source (Clementine) and made him experience his negative emotions in a still-legitimate-but-broader context (depression). He supposed that there were ways that being at school was better; it was better in the more general context of his mental health, he ate better, slept better, talked to people more than once a week. He went out in the sun more when he was in the castle, which didn't make a lot of sense but was definitely better. But when it came to those very particular feelings; the ones that revolved around the young blonde he couldn't help but see five hundred times per day around the common room or in the corridors or at mealtimes; things were not better. No.

Which was exactly why he was here. Thank god she was quidditch captain. Thank god quidditch try-outs and training rosters were posted in the common room, so he could work out exactly when she was busy and avoid her. It was unhealthy that his life was suddenly back to revolving around her and her movements, even though they'd broken up months ago - and he knew it. But he couldn't help it. Dennis didn't want to be near her, didn't want to make small talk. He didn't want to see anything he felt reflected in her eyes and he definitely didn't want the opposite - to search for that common ground and be taken off guard by its absence. Out of school he'd been more depressed, but less depressed about her in particular, and now he was in Hogsmeade, waiting for a drink and hiding from the girl he'd stupidly fallen for and subsequently screwed everything up with the previous school year. The former being equally as stupid as the latter. Maybe more so.

He was lucky that he was older. Sort of. Lucky in the sense that he was old enough to order a proper drink here, old enough that when he'd talked to McGonagall at the start of term he'd been able to talk about things like spending odd weekends away from Hogwarts and have his points treated like ones an adult was making, rather than a child. Of course, he still had to go back to that school and wear a uniform and play catch-up in the classes he was doing badly in, et cetera, but it was better than nothing. He was reluctant to go back to school now, even as the day was drawing to a close. In part, he dreaded seeing Clem in the common room or the halls. He was also just not really used to being back yet; every September for the past few years had come with an adjustment period.

Dennis glanced up as someone approached his table. He hadn't been fully present, so it took him off guard, but when his eyes met hers, everything froze for a moment. Immediately, he felt a swell of trepidation in his chest. Oh, how he wished he could fold away into the back of his seat just then. She slid into the booth across from him and he just watched her. He hadn't been avoiding Hogwarts just to run into another person that he didn't know how to act around. He was far too sober to be here. Dennis didn't speak for a moment. He didn't react, didn't express anything. As per usual, he'd run over this meeting a thousand times in the weeks in between now and the last time he'd seen her; he'd imagined it a thousand ways. He remembered thinking once that anxiety wrote him all kinds of scripts for all kinds of situations, but that in the moment none of it was accessible. He'd obsessed over what he might say if he saw her again, but he hadn't really assumed he ever would.

"Edith," he said, belatedly, his voice soft. Something like relief fluttered in his chest when he realised how drunk she was. The way she slurred, the glassy sort of look in her eye. Drunk Edith was less intimidating than sober Edith. Perhaps it should trouble him that he only knew one of them. "Do... you want me to go?" he asked, confused about her words and confused about why she'd come back here when there were other empty tables around. Dennis was more far more awkward when not under the influence of alcohol. He glanced over his shoulder, casting his gaze over the other empty tables and settling on the door for a fraction of a second, but he couldn't keep his eyes away from her for long.

Turning back to her, he put one hand on his backpack. He could go anywhere else, if she wanted. The things he'd offloaded last time he'd seen her made him cringe; he'd done his best not to think about it in the past couple of months but, being himself, "not thinking about things" was how he filled his days. He "didn't think" about all of his mistakes every night before sleep, every morning when he woke up, every time he was reminded of the past. And that was a lot.

Edith didn’t process the lack of immediate greeting, nor did she see any look of hesitation on his face; instead, she focused on her beer, and swallowing more of it, and setting it down carefully on the table at the optimal distance: close enough to pick up again yet far enough to not risk knocking it over with a stray hand. She leaned back and looked up from her drink as he spoke, her hands quickly finding a place in the pocket of her hoodie. “Dennis.” She nodded, like it was something to be proud of that they remembered each others’ names. She ignored his question, nodding again before taking a large swallow of beer and leaning back again.

Her gaze followed his to the door, but she brought it back, front and center, as he did the same. At least he was being polite about not wanting to spend time with her, she supposed. “No, I--” She didn’t want to sound desperate -- she wasn’t desperate, she insisted -- but she certainly wouldn’t have minded the company. Of course, it was only fair that he shirk all responsibilities and stay out all night so people could wonder where he’d gotten off to, but they weren’t there anymore. Even the minute spent with him now had made it clear: the night in July was a one off, and maybe she would have been better off avoiding him to, at the very least, avoid rejection.

But it wasn’t like she had anywhere to go and -- presumably -- he didn’t either. All roads lead to dead ends replayed in her mind and she shooed the thought away; this wasn’t one of those. She didn’t want it to be. It seemed far too formal ask how he was doing, or if he was allowed to be there quite so late, or the million other things she wanted to ask. She could probably just leave now, though really, sitting across the empty pub by herself would be just as awkward if he stayed sitting here. Of course, he still had the ability to leave, and she assumed he would, especially if she continued not saying anything.

Or -- Edith slipped a hand from her pocket and nudged her beer farther from her, looking down at it before looking back up quickly. “You should catch up.” Maybe the circumstances weren’t right. “I’ve been here a while.” She didn’t know why -- okay, she did know why but didn’t want to admit it -- she was trying so hard to turn this into any sort of positive interaction. He had played a big part in the last several weeks of her life, whether or not he was aware (he surely wasn’t) and she had the smallest hope that hadn’t been the end of things. But she hadn’t forgotten what he had said to her, assumed that he clearly remembered what he told her, and that she was probably grasping at straws now. Was it too presumptuous to order them a round of shots? Probably.

Though nothing was preventing Edith from ordering herself a pair of shots, she figured, a split second before she waved in an earnest attempt to get the waitress’s attention.

Dennis was suddenly struck with relief regarding the fact that he hadn't worn his robes when he'd come into Hogsmeade today. Some people did; he had, before, on other occasions. They tended to be warmer. The idea of physically sketching out the disparity between them really mortified him though, and suddenly he was anxious to have a drink in between his palms. Something physical signifying his age; something that drew lines around him and her, rather than him and the children attending to the school nearby. It was easier to be equals under the comfortable anonymity of London, far away from the grey walls of Hogwarts.

Their eyes met as she glanced up from her drink and for a moment he felt like there was a meaningful weight to her gaze. Some kind of magnetic force, tugging at him. Like she was trying to say something, or like she was looking for something. Perhaps he imagined it. He was probably projecting, honestly. It was actually taking some level of mental fortitude for him to control his hands from fidgeting; the familiar tendrils of anxiety were unfurling inside his stomach and chest. Important material things, like the slow chatter around them or the feel of the booth underneath him or the warmth of the bar sort of drifted away.

He found himself wanting to reach out, to ask what she was thinking, or to just know. It wasn't so absurd, was it? Dennis had gone in and out of really believing that she'd felt the same way he had that night; that talking had been easy; that he hadn't had to work so hard to know how she'd react to things he was saying. He had a memory of being able to say things he meant, and guess the way she might react before she did. He had a frustratingly difficult time deciphering her now. A part of him thought that he might have imagined the whole thing, or changed it in his head somehow - twisted it like he always did. That thought made him want to walk out of here straight away.

But still.

He watched her for a moment, his hand resting gently on his backpack, some internal part of him spring-loaded and ready to leave as soon as she said the words. If she wanted him to leave he'd probably just head back to the castle. Maybe he'd dawdle on the way, or go for a walk and end up getting a detention or something. The idea of running into Clementine or one of her friends and making awkward small talk didn't make returning to his tower all that appealing after all. She broke eye contact for a moment but he didn't look away. His thoughts skittered away from Clem and backwards through time, reaching through the fogginess of inebriation and clutching at stills of that night like lifelines. Sitting on stools at a bar. Sitting in a booth at another. Duplicating false tickets for the tube. He remembered how she'd fallen asleep and he'd had a chance to wake her up and send her home, but hadn't. He remembered not wanting to. Dennis' reluctance to be here was real. But these things were real too.

No, I--

Edith looked down but Dennis didn't look away, relying on her for cues. Of course he wondered why she was so drunk, and more specifically he wondered why she was so drunk here. "Um..." Dennis trailed off. You should catch up. He didn't say anything for a moment, then nodded at her second sentence. "Why not?" he asked with an uncommitted shrug, a smile of equal assuredness gracing his features for a bit, one cheek dimpling ever so slightly. Dennis was somewhere between hesitant and amused as Edith hailed the waitress who was already heading over to their table with the drink he'd ordered on her tray. The woman set down his glass - rum and coke - in front of him as Edith ordered shots.

He moved his hand from the backpack he'd placed on the seat beside him and reached for his drink. It had been a while since Dennis had stopped wondering about the way he relied on alcohol to take the edge off moments like this, thankful for the help and purposefully avoiding thinking about the topic. As much as he could, anyway. Mixed with something fizzy and sugary, he could barely taste the rum. He took a long sip, waiting for the waitress to leave again before placing his near-empty glass down. The atmosphere was different already, even before the alcohol really had a chance to affect him. They'd been here before, drinking and talking. It shouldn't be impossible to do it again, right? Especially if she didn't want him to go. There was some unease on his end regarding her lack of sobriety - a paranoid part of him suggested that it was unfair of him somehow to take advantage of the situation, but the alternative was leaving her here stumbling and returning to the castle. So those thoughts could fuck right off.

Dennis didn't speak right away, and felt a bit awkward for it. After a moment of silence, he threw something out. "So..." he said, leaning his forearms on the table, his glass safely between his hands. He resisted the urge to check over his shoulders for professors or students lingering in the pub. It wasn't illegal for him to have a drink at hogsmeade on a day off. He was turning twenty this school year, after all. Dennis shrugged again. "Didn't think I'd see you here." He nodded to the side, at the pub, or the town, or the school. He almost said it by name, but he was avoiding all things explicitly Hogwarts, both consciously and subconsciously. It wasn't exactly a question, but being direct in a situation like this didn't come so easily to him. He figured she was drunk enough that she might just talk about whatever she was thinking, rather than whatever he asked anyway.

Edith nodded once, suppressing a smug smile. Why not? Despite her reluctance to sound desperate, she had been prepared to give him lots of reasons why he should stay; of course, she hadn’t thought of any yet, and she was pretty pleased that she didn’t have to think of any now -- drunk Edith had a less-than-eloquent way with words. But Dennis knew that, she supposed.

He smiled, so she smiled; things were already off to a great start. She still hadn’t figured out what she was trying to start; a conversation; a correspondence; a drinking companionship; a friendship? All of the above? None of the above? She knew that she didn’t want to drink alone, which she was doing, and that they had already had one good  -- it was good, wasn’t it? -- night of drinking together so that was argument enough. Not that it mattered, really. Her logic made much less sense when she thought back on it after sobering up.

The waitress was prompt -- very prompt -- and set down a drink she hadn’t seen Dennis order. She wondered briefly if he even had to order at all, if he was here regularly enough to be recognized -- there couldn’t be that many adult students, after all -- but that would lead her down a path of having that nagging feeling she got sometimes that being recognized in a pub wasn’t necessarily a good thing. So, it didn’t matter; the waitress was prompt.

“Whisky, please.” Edith held up two fingers. “The bottomest shelf you’ve got.” She nodded like she had ordered the most expensive shots; at this point in her quest for inebriation the quality of the alcohol didn’t really matter. She heard the whoosh of the fireplace behind her -- she hadn’t realized she was no longer sitting on the side of the table that afforded her a view of it -- and she was all the more relieved to have found Dennis here. Dropping her gaze from the waitress, Edith looked back at Dennis as she pulled her beer towards her again.

She supposed she ought to initiate some conversation but she didn’t know where to start. Did he read the article? Did he decide to never read it again after talking to her? It was still her, not doing enough, after all. Or did he read it and hate it? There was no way he could have read it and not realized that she was using their conversation as some sort of catalyst for writing about herself; the timing of it was just over a week after they had met again and she was ninety-nine percent sure she used words lifted from their talk. Maybe catalyst wasn’t the right word for it. Maybe exploitation would fit better. God. They were all the worst case scenario.

But Dennis beat her to it, anyway.

“So,” she repeated, pushing all her previous thoughts away and getting back to herself-when-faced-with-a-general-lack-of-sobriety, one hand balled into a fist and propping her cheek up, her elbow on the table. She nodded crookedly. “I did not think I’d be here,” she agreed before sighing and straightening up to get another swallow of beer. “I --” she hadn’t wanted to get on the subject of her column so quickly despite how desperate she was to know what he thought of it, but she could see no other reason for her to be in Hogsmeade but the truth -- “Was talking to someone.” Talking always sounded so much less intense than interviewing, which she didn’t like to think she did. “For work,” she clarified, heading off the assumption that she would come all the way to the village just to have a little catch up. Never mind that was exactly what she was attempting now.

“So I missed my portkey and got a later one and decided to have a drink while I waited and…” She was talking quickly, her words coming together around the edges. A drink was a bit of an understatement, but she didn’t paused to correct herself. She leaned back again, her hands clasped together in the pocket of her hoodie. “And then I had five drinks. I think.” Sometime in the past five seconds she had decided to come clean; it was the least truthiest truth she had told him, after all.

Edith dropped her gaze to Dennis’s drink before hauling it back up to his face. “I was only eighteen for less than two months at school, so I’m not exactly clear on the rules for legal drinking and all -- not that I did any of that anyway, y’know. Big nerd.” She clearly remembered him calling her that earlier and hoped he did, too. “Study, study, no time for drinking in the first place, what a waste.” She laughed, picking up her glass. “Wow, I am talking a lot. Please stop me.” She took a large swallow, giving her mouth a few seconds to seriously shut the fuck up.

He didn't respond much as she rambled in start-stop sentences. It was a bit awkward still; he didn't know what to say or what the appropriate prompting questions would be to keep her talking. He held his glass in between his hands; something to stop him from fidgeting. "Oh," was all he said, nodding slightly to show he understood. Was she interviewing a muggleborn student, then? Or perhaps a professor? There weren't a lot of those; he wondered who it might be. Naturally, his thoughts turned to her column and her new lack of anonymity. He was a little reluctant to ask her about it, as much as he wanted to. He didn't know what would or wouldn't be okay to mention. A part of him felt strange when he imagined her talking to a student at the castle - he was a muggleborn student, why hadn't she wanted to interview him? The thought didn't even complete itself before he acknowledged the obvious, though; he wouldn't have done it. He didn't know if she knew that fact or not, but there was no way he'd have his words immortalised like that. Not intentionally, anyway.

Reckless.

Then again, maybe she just hadn't wanted to see him.

"Ah, no floo for you?" he asked. This curiosity was one he could voice without any baggage on his end. His greenish-brown eyes flicked to the fireplace behind her as he tried to remember something about her not using the floo system. If there was anything, though, it was evading him. Perhaps she was lying about the order of events here; maybe she was already drunk when she'd decided to leave and didn't trust herself to floo to the right place. Or maybe she was going further than the UK, and catching a portkey was simpler? Dennis' apparating skills were still absolutely questionable, so these other forms of magical transportation were kind of a godsend for him. The sooty fireplace smell was a familiar one by now. His thoughts lingered on her column.

"Yeah," he said, the echo of a smile twitching his lips as he remembered the phrasing. Big nerd. A part of him couldn't help but wonder, in an abstract and detached sort of way, what his life would have been like if he'd been a bit older, a bit closer to her in age. What would it have been like if he'd gone through school completely before ninteen-ninety-eight? He supposed he probably would have come back to Hogwarts for the battle, more prepared than his brother had been. Dennis did a little mental math, and figured Edith must have an April birthday too. It didn't surprise him at all, and that made him wonder if he'd maybe learned it already but simply forgotten. Then again, maybe he hadn't imagined the sense of familiarity he associated with that night after all; between matching thoughts on so many things, matching blood, matching patronuses for god's sake, what was a matching birthday month? Dennis didn't believe in fate anymore, but these coincidences and circumstances were threads that drew them together. He didn't know what to think about that.

The teenager smiled a bit again when she asked him to stop her from talking but he didn't know what to say. Instead of speaking, he just copied her movement and reached for his drink. Why was he so awkward when he was sober? He didn't remember it being this difficult last time they'd "hung out", if it could really be called that. Would Edith have even approached him now if she hadn't been drinking heavily beforehand? A part of him seriously doubted it. Dennis placed his empty glass back on the table, determined not to let the conversation drift any closer to school. "Okay," he started, glancing up from his glass. "So you got home all right that night then?" he kept his tone light and well-natured. "...That day I guess," he added with a bit of a crooked smile. The Gryffindor shrugged a bit. "No angry search parties sent out to find you?"

“Er, no.” No floo, that is. Edith shrugged, much more casually than her actual thoughts on the matter warranted. “The Dome made the floo system all wonky and I --” She shrugged again. “No floo for me.” They had touched on the Dome before, but she had left herself out of the narrative. It wasn’t that she hadn’t wanted to compare her experiences to his, or didn’t think they were really worth talking about after the dome, the scar, the story, or… no, that was exactly why she had stopped herself from elaborating earlier and was stopping herself from elaborating again. Unwilling to travel by fireplace seemed like a much better outcome than half a chest made up of scar tissue. She had lucked out. Again.

He wasn’t very helpful with the whole ‘stop Edith from talking’ thing, but after a few seconds had passed, she didn’t care too much. She lengthened her sip, buying herself a few more seconds of not talking. “Okay,” she repeated, leaning back again and resuming her hand-holding-in-her-hoodie-pocket position that was encouraging her to take longer breaks between swallows of beer.

Edith returned his smile with a bit of a nod. Day was certainly a more appropriate term, considering they had technically spent the night together and woken up in the morning together and then awkwardly left separately. “I did, yeah.” She laughed. “It was more ‘angry’ and less ‘search party’, really.” She shrugged. “I mean, for like… valid reasons.” Dennis hadn’t asked for clarification but apparently she was going to offer it anyway. “Y’know, being okay yet still not letting him know I wasn’t dead.” She was sure that if she hadn’t owled him a few hours ago, he wouldn’t have waited around for her to show up on her own time, not again. It had happened before -- the disappearing without a word -- so Elias had been rightfully worried.

But of course, he was also Elias, so he did have to put the extra Elias-worry on top of things. She smiled again, able to now appreciate the caring; at the time, of course it had just been annoying. “I left out about half the drink and the bits about you, explaining it to him.” She shrugged her shoulders; glancing up at the ceiling was much more preferable to watching Dennis have a reaction -- or a non-reaction -- to not being mentioned.

She had, by now, come very close to being completely honest with Elias about all the things, but there was still so much that would require further explanation that she hadn’t wanted to put all the effort into it. Explaining things just upset her, and now she had firsthand experience how nice it was to be able to talk about those things without having to stop and make sure she was being understood. Her gaze flicked back to Dennis as she thought about him, and she shrugged again.

But there was time post-lecture, after Elias had left for work; Edith hadn’t slept, writing down every bit and piece of the night that she could remember. She had written a column, that column, not asking for permission to weave in his words with hers. It felt right at the time, even with all the second guessing; she had waited for him to say something about it but eventually just took his non-communication as its own answer. “I guess you did, too?” She asked that instead of risking disappointment.

"Is that how you got in?" he asked, his eyes widening a little as he imagined it. Dennis hadn't really thought about why Edith had been there in the first place. Most of the adults that had ended up trapped in there with them had been there helping with whatever other colossal fuck ups Hogwarts had thrown at them prior to the Dome going up. The basement levels collapsing, for example. The fires. Editch wasn't a medi-witch or a cursebreaker or anything though, so it sort of made sense that she'd come later. Of course, eventually there had been new faces - that was nearer to the end. By then, Dennis was pretty disassociated from everything. He remembered Edith's face, her presence, but he had no idea when she'd entered the school.

"Oh yeah?" he asked, trying to imagine going home to someone who was angry that you'd stayed out all night. The closest point of reference he had for anything like that was probably Dean. Valid reasons, she said. "Sure, yeah," he said with a bit of a shrug. Dean had almost gotten angry with him, once. Dennis cringed a bit internally, thinking once more that he should probably send an owl and let his friend know he was okay. Then again, he'd probably have to tell him about his breakup and then he might have to talk about it... "Probably would have been helpful," he agreed lightly. It was strange to imagine this ministry-employed boyfriend she'd had at home that whole time. International magical cooperation department, was it? Dennis remembered feeling like he and Edith had a lot in common; there were a lot of parts of her that had felt a little untethered and drifting, similar to parts of him. He didn't think he'd imagined that. The teenager drew lazy circles on the wooden tabletop with one finger absentmindedly.

I don’t usually talk this much, she'd said to him. I mean about this stuff. Ever.

Dennis wondered how a long-term, live-in boyfriend factored into that.

"Oh," he said again, once more completely unsure about what the appropriate response to that was. Did she mean she'd left out half of the bits about him...? Or half of the amount she'd drunk, and all of the bits about him? Dennis wondered how the story of that night - those hours talking, the morning after - looked without him in it. He wondered why she'd left him out. Perhaps, he mused, she was embarrassed about getting trashed with a nineteen-year-old? Or maybe her boyfriend was super jealous and possessive and wouldn't like hearing that she'd spent the night with a strange man he didn't know? Then again, she probably just regretted the whole thing. Probably thought he was super overdramatic or something. "Yeah, that might have ah..." He shrugged a bit, glancing down into his glass. "...Might have been weird." He wasn't really saying anything; his words were just filler.

He felt her eyes on him for a moment, but he didn't meet her gaze until she spoke again. "Yeah," he answered, a crooked smile gracing his lips again as he glanced up. "Got a bit lost, but I found my way back." That morning had been pretty awful, from memory. He'd gotten off a bus early to throw up one more time - it had been a mistake to sit upstairs, apparently - and he'd had a pretty smashing headache by the time he'd found his hostel again. Of course now that he was here, and not there, he could see it all from a more rational sort of perspective. It was funny, kind of. Funny in that very teenage way, where binge drinking and doing stupid stuff like sleeping in a playground was funny. He hadn't really experienced that framing until he'd been with Clem; drunken adventures weren't really the same when you were drinking alone.

At that thought, Dennis took another drink. He was stalling a little, busying himself while trying to think of something to talk about. She probably didn't know how quiet he usually was when he was sober; that wasn't something she'd gotten the chance to learn last time. Well she's learning now, he thought to himself, placing an empty glass back down on the table. How many times, exactly, had he said "yeah" in the past five minutes? The Gryffindor glanced towards the bar. Where were those shots she'd ordered? Hadn't that been a while ago now, at least several minutes? He looked back at her, caught her gaze accidentally and then smiled a bit awkwardly again, dropping his gaze to his hands.

"I'm sort of here avoiding someone," Dennis said casually. It took a lot of effort to speak flippantly about these sorts of things, but at least it was something to talk about. He wasn't used to urging conversations forward by speaking honestly about himself, but he didn't want her to leave. Other than digging further into that night - not something he was comfortable doing - and bringing up school (again, something he'd rather avoid with her), there wasn't a lot happening in his life to talk about. "This girl I was seeing for a bit last term," he added. Officially, they'd only been together for five months or so, but unofficially they'd been hanging out from about a year ago until the end of last term. September until June. Dennis met Edith's eyes again, gave a lazy shrug. "Different worlds, I guess," he mumbled, even though she hadn't asked.

Edith nodded, adding a bit of a shrug as she shifted her gaze to her glass. Her hand was wrapped around it and she tilted it toward her, admiring the slosh of the liquid. She didn’t want to talk about the Dome, didn’t want to jump into the subject quite so suddenly. How had they gotten on the topic last time? Was it really so unceremonious as this? Did the scar show-and-tell happen before or after the Dome was mentioned? She didn’t like not remembering; she hadn’t been nearly as drunk then, either, which certainly didn’t bode well for remembering things now.

“Probably, yeah,” Edith found herself agreeing with his agreement as she brought her gaze back up. “Having disappeared before, and all that.” She shrugged; magic had always been her reason for disappearing yet she always managed to come back to it. Magic is funny like that, like a drug, she remembered suddenly, but she shrugged it off again.

She nodded as he agreed some more, silently encouraging to tell him more things he didn’t ask about. “Might have been weird, yeah,” she repeated quietly before burying her words in her drink. “It was...” her hands were around her glass again and she focused on that instead of the man across from her, “Weird.” She wasn’t talking about her column though, so explaining all the reasons why it was weird really wouldn’t do. Edith didn’t know how to explain her thought processes that following day -- but then again, she didn’t think she would have to, not to Dennis -- and that if she had included him while making excuses for her absence, she probably would have had to do a lot more talking and a lot less writing. So it was worth it in the end, she supposed; that’s what she was telling herself, anyway. Elias was protective, not possessive; she liked that safety net, needed it, and if she didn’t have to disrupt it, she wasn’t going to.

“Yeah,” she repeated, remembering that she had pointed him in the wrong direction, or at least, had pointed him in a less correct direction than the right one. Edith smiled when he did, deciding to hold back her apology for any part she might have played in him getting lost. She didn’t offer anything else about that night, didn’t ask anymore follow up questions -- why didn’t you say anything about the column being the one she wanted to ask both the most and the least -- and she shrugged again. This sort of silence was usually uncomfortable, but something about this particular silence felt almost normal. She didn’t question it.

She glanced at the bar when he did, looked back when he did, smiled awkwardly when he did. She drank again; her glass was nearly empty, and she wondered where the shots were. Maybe they were just fulfilling her request of the bottomest shelf and were fishing out some truly horrible whisky -- at this point she didn’t really care where it came from as long as it arrived sometime soon. Every few minutes she remembered she was in Hogsmeade and she was reminded of not wanting to really form those memories; of course now, with Dennis she did want to remember, but that didn’t make her want to rule out the whisky.

“Oh yeah?” Edith was intrigued by his avoiding someone, was almost surprised that it was just one someone instead of the entire school, like she was trying to do. “Ooh.” She didn’t think they had talked about this the last time -- it took her a bit longer than she would have cared to admit to remember that she had blatantly avoided the topic, considering the circumstances in which they had first met. She hadn’t wanted to give him any opportunities to link the topics of non-conversations together, had made a conscious decision to not return his guess of you’ve never dated a muggle.

She swallowed hard as he finished his thought, though she returned his shrug. Different worlds The other part of his guess, the or another muggleborn part ran through her mind and she gave a knowing nod. Her situation hadn’t exactly changed in the past six weeks; she was still too familiar with the different worlds scenario. She took a drink and laughed. “You’d have thought we’d have figured it out by now.” She had thought it was funny once, that there were classes at the Ministry teaching witches and wizards how to fit in with muggles, a class at Hogwarts all about muggles. Now it just felt like they were doing it on purpose, to set them up for some form of failure, not teaching them the very basics of the society they were being expected to live in.

But Edith was still hung up on the different worlds bit, and the feeling that she owed him something now. That was how it worked, right, trading one confession for another? At the very least, it’d keep him around a bit longer. She still had three hours to kill, she reckoned. “Elias--” she didn’t pause to clarify who she was talking about, not realizing that she hadn’t shared his name before “--is pureblood. Super traditional family. I mean, I guess. I’ve only met his sisters.” She shrugged, shifting her gaze to the waitress finally walking toward them with two shot glasses; Edith ordered another beer before she left. “He was like,” she shrugged again, still not fully believing the circumstances herself, “Engaged. Or like, engaged on his behalf, I guess.”

"Yep," he confirmed with a nod, catching the curious tone in her voice but not super excited to explain with much more depth than that. If he was really going to talk about Clem with someone, he'd have to delve a little into all the ways he'd been a shitty boyfriend, and why. He wasn't nearly drunk enough for that to be a topic of conversation. Dennis rolled his empty glass in a circle along its edge against the table between his hands.

You’d have thought we’d have figured it out by now.

Figured out what, exactly? Figured out the two-worlds problem? Thinking about the arrogance of wizardkind, he doubted that that would ever happen. He wondered if she'd reflected on the point of her column more since they'd spoken about it. It wasn't a thought that had crossed his mind between then and now, but suddenly it felt important to know. Still, he wasn't about to ask.

Intuitively, he guessed at her thoughts instead. "I mean, it's not just a blood thing," he said quietly. Their age gap hadn't really been much of a problem; he was nineteen and she was fifteen - sixteen, he corrected, remembering that her birthday had passed last month - which wasn't a huge difference. But still, there was something there, concerned with the passing of time, that he thought had helped push them apart a little. The fact that he should have graduated already created a disparity. The fact that her older brother - four or five years older than her - had been in Dumbledore's army, with him and his brother, while she hadn't been in school yet, meant something. Then the fact that her family had come out of the war relatively unscathed, the fact that she was close to her family at all, and yes, also the blood thing... It all felt relevant to him, even though he'd wished it hadn't. Different worlds, he thought again.

It was easy to get caught up in thoughts of Clem, even when he tried not to. He met her eyes as she spoke again, his brain only belatedly putting the name she gave to the person they'd been talking about. It was good, he thought, to not have to refer to him as Edith's ministry boyfriend in his head all the time. He wasn't expecting to go where her sentence led him, though. "Really?" Dennis asked, his sudden surprise unhidden in his expression. The conversation had turned back towards her again, and he couldn't say he wasn't a bit relieved. Better to be talking about her than talking about him.

The waitress came back just then, placing their shots down on the table for them. The glasses looked so small, their diminutive size made even smaller by the long wait that had preceded their arrival. "Can we have two more of these?" Dennis asked quickly, before the woman turned to leave, "And another rum?" The woman nodded and disappeared and Dennis turned his attention back to the table in front of him. Before Edith had a chance to reach for a glass, Dennis deftly took them both. "I'm s'posed to be catching up, remember?" he said with a lazy half-smile, one cheek dimpling. The teenager carefully tapped her beer glass with one of the shots before downing them both in quick succession. He'd buy her some more drinks if she wanted them, he thought. She didn't really look like she needed them.

Dennis wiped his lips with the back of one hand, a part of him wishing he had something sweeter to wash away the burn in his throat. He felt the alcohol's warmth right in his chest, and though the liquid had tasted a more like petrol than his favourite whiskey, the sensation was comfortably familiar. "That traditional?" he asked, happy to return to this conversation rather than have his thoughts linger on a certain blonde. The young man leaned a little closer unintentionally. He sort of knew this part of the wizarding world existed, but hadn't ever brushed against it. To him it was abstract in the way the queen and the royals were abstract; he knew they existed but couldn't possibly imagine what their lives were like.

Resting his elbow on the table, and his cheek against a closed fist, Dennis paused for a moment, then asked the obvious question. "He broke off the engagement, then?" The friends he'd made when he was younger were halfbloods (Danny and Jeremy crossed his mind briefly) and the friends he had now - well, at least anyone he'd been close to recently - none of them were remotely "pure". He cringed a little at the word in his head. It all sounded very old England to him. Rich, upperclass monarchs and the like.

"So what do they all think about you?" he asked curiously, already feeling a little defensive of Edith, a fellow muggleborn, at the mercy of these otherworldly traditionalists. Conservative wizards, what a thought. "His parents and stuff?" he continued, forgetting that she'd just mentioned she had only met Elias' sisters. He wrestled with the picture she'd painted for him, but it didn't seem to fit. He didn't understand. Dennis' thoughts drifted for a brief second, then he jumped in before she could answer the other part, meeting her eyes. "What does he think about the column?"

And there it was. Dennis frowned a little, but it was more because internally, he'd been sitting here with that thing - the column - on his mind since he'd seen her. Neither of them had brought it up. It was a frown of intensity rather than confusion or anger, though depending on her answer he supposed that could change. It seemed absurd, suddenly, that it hadn't been the first thing he'd brought up - the way she'd used their words, his words. Mentioned him indirectly. Did Elias even read it? Did he not want to know why Edith had started using her own name when she wrote? Dennis certainly did. 

“Oh,” Edith replied just as quietly. “Yeah.” She knew there were other things to ruin relationships, had done plenty of them herself. She had assumed they were back on the same page again, having the same thoughts, but yet again she was proving her theory that it had been a one time thing. Still, she wasn’t going to prod any further. Of all people, she had the least right to ask why his relationship had gone south. She drained her glass instead of following after those thoughts.

But it’s not just a blood thing did bring a lot of questions with it; she seemed to bring all of her own relationship troubles back around to that thing; it was easier to explain her problems away with that excuse.

Edith only had time to nod in response before the waitress had returned. Really, she finished in her mind. She had said that she was guessing at them being traditional, but she was acutely familiar with how much the word applied to them. She didn’t mind taking a break from her thoughts for the whisky, but before she had time to react to its arrival, Dennis had taken them both. Edith’s hand was still outstretched -- and still empty -- as she narrowed her gaze at him. She was on the verge of being upset at his attempt to cut her off -- she had a million excuses ready to go -- but her shock softened just a bit as he spoke. She rolled her eyes and leaned back again, doing her best to ignore his smile.

She nodded, her fake annoyance replaced by the real sort. He leaned in and she followed suit, though she kept her hands in her pockets. She didn’t have anymore alcohol to drink at present, after all. “Yup.” That traditional. She nodded with a little shrug, not questioning how easy it was to talk about this right now. Thanks, alcohol? “I assume so.” She smiled half a smile with another shrug; a year ago, that statement had been true, Edith just assuming that had happened, though she was painfully aware now that he had broken it off -- dismantling his life for her. “Be sort of awkward if he hasn’t.” One more shrug, though she couldn’t stop herself from laughing.

She didn’t think she had been trying to get all serious -- just keeping the conversation flowing, keeping Dennis seated across from her -- but she had clearly picked the wrong topic. Her smile was weak and her shrug more noncommittal; she was trying to form an answer that didn’t make her sound like a complete hypocrite. It’s not a big deal, she was prepared to say, getting the rest of her defenses ready for when he saw right through her. The relationship had ‘disaster’ written all over it, either by his parents’ hands or her own. She wanted to tuck that problem neatly away into a little box and then shove that little box as far back into the dark depths of a closet for as long as she possibly could.

But Dennis cut off her non-answer with another question. What does he think about the column? She dropped her defensive smile and swallowed hard. She had thought they were past this -- it hadn’t come up already, so it wasn’t going to now --  and didn’t have an answer prepared and ready to go for him. Honestly, they didn’t talk about the column too much. He hadn’t tried to stop her -- was proud of her, she thought -- and had read that column even though she had told him he didn’t have to; she didn’t want to dump anything on him; she was already the main cause of the guilt in his life and she hadn’t wanted to add anything more.

“What did you think about it?” She didn’t break eye contact, didn’t specify the it she was referring to; she knew that he knew -- assuming he read it, of course. She still wouldn’t be able to blame him if he hadn’t; no one to blame but herself. She didn’t think he’d want an apology, but she had one ready, and a thanks to add on the side just in case he needed that, too. But the longer he looked at her without answering, the more she was certain that the only answer was for her to leave.

Dennis actually smiled when she made a joke about the engagement. Both cheeks dimpled now, asymmetrically so. Despite the smile, though, nothing she was giving him was helping to make things fit any more neatly than they had before. Her boyfriend was a pureblood from a traditional family who'd done what, exactly? Disowned his family for her? Fled from an arranged marriage? Maybe it was Edith who he had all wrong, rather than the situation; maybe real-life Edith didn't really match up with the concept he'd formed in his mind. Just the fact that she wrote what she did, and had gone through what she had, but had somehow fallen for someone whose upbringing must have been so diametrically opposite hers... He couldn't wrap his head around it.

He watched the way her expression shifted when he asked about the column. He wondered if his shifted similarly; wondered if they were both thinking about the same thing, in in the same way. Again. Though, he'd just asked about her boyfriend, hadn't he? So maybe she was thinking about that. How could he still be working at the ministry if he agreed with her views on it all? How could he be with her if he didn't? I don't usually talk this much - that was what she said, wasn't it? Dennis was a hypocrite; a part of him couldn't fathom why she hadn't talked about this stuff with the person she was with, even though he hadn't been able to do it last year either.

"Ah - " He opened his mouth to protest her avoiding his questions, then smiled instead, his gaze dropping to the table between them before he looked back up, half of the smile remaining. Of course she knew he'd kept reading; he'd told her he would, hadn't he? He couldn't remember now if that was on the train or at the station. That part of the night was a touch blurry. Whatever. Either way, he'd kept copies of everything. "I 'ready said I liked it," he said with a bit of a shrug. It was half-teasing though; they both knew she wasn't asking for a general opinion. The it she'd mentioned certainly wasn't the column as a whole. His thoughts lingered on the weird fictional romance story he'd constructed around the tidbits she'd given him about her relationship, but he couldn't help but shift in the direction she'd urged.

The fact that she had only answered his questions with one of her own hadn't escaped him, but the way she'd asked, so suddenly and with such an obvious lack of regard for anything he'd just asked her carried a sort of intensity he hadn't been prepared for. Her eyes, magnified by her lenses were still firmly on him. He glanced down at the empty shot glass he'd been toying with for a moment of relief from the feeling. "You used some stuff I said," he commented. It wasn't a question, but there were clearly questions in his gaze as it met hers again. Dennis was starting to feel the effects of the alcohol in his system now. Just a little. Just at the edges. He felt a touch less tense; it made him bolder.

He cleared his throat. "I think it's good that you're using your name," he told her honestly. Dennis didn't get the paper for much other than this these days; when he'd flipped to the appropriate page that afternoon, looking for her piece, Edith Holthouse had been the first thing that his eyes had come to rest on. He'd wondered if she'd been nervous publishing it. He'd been nervous for her, reading it. Then, of course, reckless. After their conversation, and the timing of the print, opening with that word... it felt like the start to a letter addressed just to him.

Dennis didn't know what she was looking for when she asked him for his thoughts just now, but there was clearly something. He didn't know what to say - should he ask all of the things that he wanted to ask? Ask what else she had planned? Tell her that he had a clipping of every piece she'd done since the column had started? Things had seemed lighthearted only a moment ago, but when she asked him for his thoughts, she hadn't had her typical defensive humour barrier up against him. He didn't want to trivialise that fact, or this feeling, but he didn't know what to say. "What were the five words?" he asked suddenly, remembering the line from her piece.

Edith’s brow furrowed the slightest bit at his reminder. He had told her he would read it, sure -- she vividly remembered his fuck off just before his reassurance, his eyes closing before he nodded off -- but he knew which column in particular she was asking about. He had to. August 4th, her editor had been calling it. Unless he had blocked out literally every part of their conversation, he must have made the connection. She had taken his words, whether he had wanted her to or not, had used them for herself, had mentioned him only indirectly; she thought he would have appreciated the anonymity, but she wouldn’t blame him if he had wanted to be left out completely. Christ, she had gone about this all wrong. She had good intentions at the outset, hadn’t she?

He looked away, and Edith closed her eyes in a long, slow blink, opening them again when he spoke. “I--” she started, almost defensively, but what would be the point of that? “I did, yeah.” She nodded as little as she could, not wanting to lose eye contact with too much movement. She was on the precipice of saying something more, that the whole night had resonated so much with her, that it had meant something, that he was the last person she had imagined coming clean to. Reckless rolled through her mind, much as she imagined it was doing in his -- she didn’t want to assume but now that she knew he had read it, she figured he had to remember bits of it. She had an overwhelming feeling that they replayed the same bits of the night; nothing else really made sense.

But he started again, unprompted; she nodded again as she swallowed. “Yeah, I,” she started, folding her arms across her chest and leaning forward to rest them on the table. “I didn’t see much point in doing it without my name,” she finished after a few more seconds of silence, her voice quieter now that she had leaned in. “It seemed necessary.” She took another word from him; even words so innocuous as necessary or reckless had some weighty meaning behind them these days.

All the worrying about his thoughts on it aside, the column had a mostly net positive. It’s nice not to feel so alone all the time had become some sort of recurring theme now; of course, now she was missing the anonymity, just a little bit. She had received some less-than-enthusiastic letters, had a couple run-ins she thought might have gone worse if they hadn’t been in public. But for the most part, she thought, it was nice. It was better, at least.

She wanted more than just a kudos about her name, but she didn’t want to overstep any more than she already had. It was enough that he had read it and still wanted to talk to her, she supposed.

Edith paused at his next question, her lips parted to answer him before she closed them again, offering him a half smile and a shrug instead, buying herself a couple more seconds before being brutally honest yet again. “And that’s pretty fucked up,” she said slowly, not seeing the need to explain herself any further. She hoped she wouldn’t have to, didn’t want to draw any more attention to that particular version of herself anymore than her general existence already did.

The waitress practically snuck up on them, or on Edith at least, even though she had the better view of the bar. She flinched as the woman appeared, four glasses in hand, dropping them off without another word. Edith glanced at the drinks only briefly before looking back at Dennis with another shrug and the half smile that hadn’t yet left her lips. She had said it a couple times now that she wouldn’t give him all the credit, but for that column? She supposed she could fully blame him for that.

"Necessary, yeah," Dennis agreed, one side of his lips quirking a little; the ghost of a smile. He wondered if that was something they shared; the habit of picking over things that had happened, forcibly committing them to memory. She didn't seem to have picked that word by accident; the weight in her eyes despite her drunken state told him as much. Dennis shifted in his seat, moving a little closer to match her. It irked him that he didn't remember the words - though of course it had occurred to him that they might not have even been his. He could have imagined the coded language in her piece, or it could have been a mistake. When she spoke, though, he remembered.

And that's pretty fucked up.

"Right," Dennis said, faraway memories building the scene for him. A room full of old bunk beds. The smell of his cheap shampoo - he'd just showered. Those words from his lips instead of hers; the sentence infused with anger. That whole thing had been such a surreal experience for the teenager. Not so just that particular conversation, but the months on either side of it. Being trapped in the school. Attending his hearing. The thing he'd tried to do that Easter break. Even that word that he'd just said - right - could be neatly tied in to the memory; it was the first and last thing he'd said to her that day, first cautious and then dismissive. Matching parentheses on each end of a conversation he hadn't tried very hard to remember. The word was an echo.

Dennis looked up belatedly as the woman appeared with their drinks, a slight frown furrowing his forehead. That whole period of time - six months? More? - was sort of foggy for him. And at the time he hadn't tried particularly hard to commit Edith and that morning to memory. Between the events with the Dome and his awkward sort of falling out with Dean, Dennis hadn't had a lot to hold on to back then. He'd lingered a lot more on the night prior, and the redhead he'd been so enamoured with for such a short period of time. Tried to forget the rest. It made sense that he didn't remember the five words that had affected her so.

The young man reached for his glass - the shot, not the rum, which had not been served with coke this time, but something clear, much to his chagrin - and lifted it to his lips. He hesitated with it a few centimetres away from his face. "Cheers," he said thoughtfully. It had affected her, hadn't it? Conversation hadn't lingered on that morning in the hostel last time they'd spoken; Dennis hadn't let it. After reading her piece, though, and hearing echoes of their conversations woven through it, his thoughts had drifted back to that day. He hadn't known she was a muggleborn then. His idea of Edith was so entrenched in that identity now that it was almost difficult to imagine not knowing. Dennis placed the empty shot glass back on the table.

The thing about hanging out with Edith was that he didn't really know how to behave. Dennis was generally a fairly neurotic person, but not so much a socially awkward one. He was comfortable being quiet in groups of people, or talking to strangers in most scenarios. With Edith though... It was difficult to gauge how familiar he should be, or what jokes he could make. They weren't really friends; obliviating someone's date and then having one drunken conversation with them a year and a half later didn't really make you friends, even if you did fall asleep in a playground together. They'd talked about things like their relationships with their parents but he didn't even know how old she was; they'd skipped the parts of friendship that were supposed to come first.

"Can't believe I forgot that," Dennis said quietly, reaching for his rum - and lemonade? - this time. He'd forgotten his intention to drink her shot, but he'd clearly missed his chance on that one anyway. It irked him a little that his recollection of that morning had been imperfect. Dennis took a sip from his glass, washing the cheap whiskey down with a mixed drink. He wiped at his lips with the back of his hand habitually. "Anyway," he said, looking back up at her, "I liked it. It was good."

Edith felt the smile slipping away, and she did nothing to stop it. She couldn’t figure out the thoughts behind his expression, the almost worried sort of look that wasn’t particularly reassuring. She hadn’t stopped to consider that maybe it hadn’t been significant for him -- she had just assumed that anything so big for her must have had some sort of lingering thought behind it for him, too. She had been more sure of this after they had talked several weeks ago, once it was painfully clear just how small that page was that they were both on -- there hadn’t been that many differences between them, she had thought.

She didn’t say anything else, instead reaching for her own shot glass as he moved toward his. She didn’t want to give him the chance to steal this one, too. He hadn’t been wrong, though -- about the fucked-up-ness, not the whisky hoarding -- and sure, it had taken her some time to really piece it all together, but she had gotten there eventually.

The glass was nearly to her lips when Dennis offered his cheers, and she returned it quickly and quietly before downing the shot, her eyes closed for a few seconds as she concentrated on the burn of the alcohol. Edith wanted to know what he was thinking, was uncomfortable because she didn’t just know. She opened her eyes and wasn’t surprised to find Dennis not looking back at her; she dropped her gaze, swapping the empty glass in her hand for the full pint a few inches away.

Her beer stayed in the glass for another beat. Edith glanced back up as he confirmed her suspicion -- or had at least hinted at confirming it -- that his words hadn’t made quite as much impact on him. He hadn’t even remembered them. She wanted to make a joke about being able to remember enough for the both of them, but just like simple words like reckless were so weighty now, so were words like memory. She wasn’t convinced that he had forgotten the whole interaction -- he had assured her he wouldn’t yell at her in those first few minutes at the bar so he clearly remembered parts of it -- and she wasn’t about to risk falling out of his good graces. She didn’t know what this was, but whatever it was, it was doing her good by letting her be a part of it.

She ran her thumb up and down her glass, rearranging the patterns of condensation, fidgeting and listening instead of drinking. He looked back at her and Edith nodded, allowing the half smile to make a reappearance. I like it. It was good. “Thanks.” It was a quiet syllable, but she didn’t mean it any less. She took a large swallow from her pint and set it back on the table, still not removing her hand from it.

“It’s obvious, right?” Edith leaned back in, resting her unoccupied arm on the table in front of her, not sure what had prompted her question/confession other than alcohol. “That I only wrote that because we talked?” It should have been obvious. She wanted it to be. There were still things that she had said that night that didn’t make it into the column; he continued to be the only other person to know some of her more particular thoughts, some she didn’t think she would be printing any time soon. “Really,” she reassured him, whether he needed it or not.

“Jesus.” She leaned back and rubbed her forehead with an open palm. “Full disclosure,” she continued after a brief hesitation, “I know how cheesy this is gonna sound.” She shrugged and pushed on anyway, even though she was about to sound like she had lifted her lines from a Hallmark card. “It meant a lot. The whole thing.” Okay, maybe a really cheap, off-brand Hallmark card. She stopped short of thanking him, though she wasn’t sure if that was because she thought he wouldn’t accept her thanks or because she didn’t know which thing to thank him for first.