Another Night in the Rehearsal Room PV AngelFyre McCubbin F

A Spoonful of Medicine from @Simon
Kincaid

As emotionally taxing, and quite surprisingly, as physically taxing, as the events of yesterday evening had been, AngelFyre was distressed that sleep had once again eluded her. If there had been a night when sleep would have been most welcome... would have been a soul-repairing mercy... last night was it. Too bad for AngelFyre, however, mercy had not been on the menu.

She had replayed the events of the evening over and over again in her shell-shocked mind, and they still stung as acutely with each new visitation. What had possessed her? She had behaved most respectfully up until the moment of her confession, but she doubted anyone would likely remember any of that for very obvious reasons.

So, having not slept, and with her eyes swollen from a long night of crying silently in her little badger cave, AngelFyre determined to face the first of the rest of her days at Hogwarts with her head held high. She prayed this would be the worst day of all the horrendous ones to follow. As she was not one to ever shrink from the consequences of her actions, she dressed for classes and steeled herself to face the onslaught of hushed whispers, snickers, open insults, and whatever other punishing pariahisms the Hogwarts student body could throw her way.

Truth was, she knew it would all go easier after she jumped the highest hurdle... that of seeing Simon for the first time. Nothing else would ever be able to penetrate her armor or the wall she would build to secret herself behind after she was forced to face the final break with Simon.

Sadly, she somehow missed seeing him at breakfast as well as the rest of the day. She had started to worry about him until she finally saw him, ever so briefly, at dinner. He made no eye contact whatsoever. He just grabbed something to eat on the run and was out of the Great Hall almost before one could say supercalifragilisticexpialidocious. He did stop just long enough to hand something to a fellow Hufflepuff, and then he was gone in a flash.

AngelFyre pushed her plate away and sat there quietly while all around her were chatting happily. She was unaware of it, but she was staring straight ahead of her, internally beginning to construct the protective wall around her broken heart. Unaware and uncaring of how long she had been there, she came back to reality when a hand gently tapped her shoulder. When she looked up, a Hufflepuff she did not know smiled at her... an honest to goodness friendly smile... and then handed her a note.

She opened it and read the line that put the knife through her heart, "... perhaps 'Heart and Soul' isn't the perfect duet." Was he mocking her? It was from Simon, of course. He wanted her to meet him in the Rehearsal Room.

She would go. She would go because it was Simon who asked. She would always go anywhere he asked her, but she wondered if his dhampir self would be able to recognize the spiritual embodiment of the walking dead about to present herself to him.

******
Ten minutes later, AngelFyre pushed open the heavy door to the Rehearsal Room and walked inside.

He pushed open the heavy wooden doors to the Rehearsal Room and entered the empty room. Light was still cascading through the windows as the sun was reaching it's daily descend, throwing fire against the sky as if to remind everyone of it's enduring power before it would disappear against the increasing darkness of night.

No longer was he a stranger to this room or any of the portrait people that were up on the walls. He knew them all and they knew him and as always, they were eager to see him and to find out what entertainment he held for them that evening. Sometimes he came to this very room to play the piano or his guitar, sometimes for a quiet place to work writing his music, and other times to practice singing or dancing. Most often he was alone although sometimes he was not and Simon hoped that evening he wouldn't be alone - that his requested guest would show up.

Not that he would blame her if she didn't.

He had unfortunately done nothing to help the disaster that went down the previous night. He had sat there like some sort of emotionless and speechless blob and when it had gotten too much for her, he let her leave in solitary instead of chasing after her and discovering how to make things right or making sure she was okay.

There was a decent chance that the girl wouldn't want to speak with him or see him and that he'd understand. Simon just hoped that perhaps she would come and maybe he could not only right his wrongs, but also admit feelings for her in the one place where they probably began in the first place.

He pulled out the bench to the piano and sat down before beginning to play nand hoped, beyond anything at all, that maybe perhaps she would show up.



It was a piece with beautiful sound; with a wonderful melody and chord progression. It was one of those songs where the music came from his heart and soul and translated beautifully through his fingertips. Sometimes for Simon, it was easier to put into song what he didn't know how to say and this talk with AngelFyre, if she should come, was going to be such a demonstration of such matter.

Simon played, and got through about halfway into the four minute song when he heard the large heavy wooden door push open once more.

She came.

He didn't stop playing or glance over her way just yet, still lost in the song, but somehow he still knew that she had come. Now if only he could gather his words as well as he could gather the melody playing out on the keys and translated to fill the the air around them.

As she reached the door to the Rehearsal Room, it struck AngelFyre that this was now the third night in a row she would find herself in this room. She had attended Hogwarts for a solid four months without ever stepping foot in this room for anything other than a quick glance during a brief, self-guided tour two days after arriving at what would be her new environs for the next seven years. But her true foray into this room, four months after that initial, casual glance, came at Simon's suggestion as it turned out, and it had ended as the happiest night she had spent at this school. It was also destined to be one of the single most memorable and important nights of her life.

But that was then.

These last two visitations had been anything but happy. Night before last had been Simon's 13th birthday party. That was the night "the redhead" fully became flesh and blood in AngelFyre's consciousness. Haley Rose. Beautiful. Older. Sophisticated. Stellar Quidditch player. Friendly. And Simon's girlfriend. If that night had only gone as AngelFyre planned, none of this... none of it... would have occurred. She would not have found herself in this room last night after the Valentine's Tea Party, crying so hard her body ached from it all day today, crying tears of shame and agony for whatever damage she had caused. There were not enough tears or apologies that could ever make an amends for that shameful display. She had done everything she knew to do in those horrific moments, but she would now have to find a way to move forward while living with the consequences.

So, here she was for the third night in a row, bracing herself to face the largest of the consequences. It all began with Simon's invitation to this place, his special place, and it would end with Simon's invitation to that same place. There was a certain symmetry she grudgingly appreciated about that she supposed. The aftermath following the aftermath. Another night in the Rehearsal Room. Tonight's visit, she just knew, would not be recorded in the annals of her memory banks with the same affections and bittersweet smiles that the first night in here with him had been.

So be it.

She took a deep breath and readied herself. It was not until she opened the door that AngelFyre could hear Simon playing at the piano. She froze in place. This was too reminiscent of her entrance at their first meeting here, and her heart began to pulse with a dull ache. No more memory lane, please! The tune was different but so hauntingly beautiful. And as had happened before, hot tears sprang to her eyes from the sheer beauty of it. Simon was just as beautiful to her, too, though beautiful may not be the descriptor he would have liked. Still, beautiful he was in her eyes. Just as she had the first time she watched him play, she could so easily recognize how he was transformed into the most resplendent version of himself while lost in his music... lost in his playing... lost in the melodic moments filling the room. This was Simon baring his soul... speaking his love language. AngelFyre had not thought for a second this would be easy on him either... only necessary.

She knew the moment he became aware of her presence. It was a subtle change of his body language, but she noticed. AngelFyre noticed everything about Simon. She always had. She drank him in like a woman dying of thirst in a desert. She would miss that. She would miss very much learning everything about him... all the little things. Things like him moving his hand through his hair when he was anxious or nervous. She was pretty certain he was not even aware he did it as fastidious as he was about that gorgeous mop of his.

Forcing herself to look away, she walked across the room and over to the window. The night had not yet completely snuffed out the fiery red and orange embers of the remains of the day, but it was coming. She could see her own reflection in the glass panes; a somewhat distorted reflection due to her too close proximity to the glass. Her focus moved quickly to Simon anyway. She could safely watch him from a distance. Distance. Her heart almost exploded at the thought of what that word would now mean to her on a daily basis from this point forward.

Soak it all in while you can. Remember it. Treasure it.

As his song was coming to a conclusion, AngelFyre pressed the tip of her index finger to her lips and then pressed the finger onto his reflection, saying her own best farewell to him now. Whatever was about to take place in these next uncertain moments had her feeling there would be no such opportunity later.

When the music stopped, her tears were streaming. She stood silent and still, watching as the night, at last, became the victor over the day.

He would have stopped the flow of music when she entered and devoted all of his attention to her only, even now, he wasn't quite certain what he would say to her. Things were out of alignment since he found her drawing in the Library, visually depicting her affections for him. Things were out of alignment since their night at the Great Lake when he began to realize his returned feelings. Things were out of alignment since last night's Valentine's Day Tea Party fiasco where he had remained like a silent and motionless passenger on a fast-sinking ship.

It had been his hope that as the song progressed - and especially by its end - that he would have some sort of plan. After all, it was he who asked AngelFyre to meet him there in the Rehearsal Room. To him, this was a good meeting place as it was really their time there that sparked the first feelings - at least on his part. The boy didn't know that she was there crying just the previous night or perhaps he would have picked another location. He didn't know how brave she was for returning.

Still there were two important things that needed to be said. The first was that he was sorry for being so silent the night before as ridiculous things played out at the Valentine's Day Tea Party: mixed up notes, a lacking of both conversation and eye contact, roses delivered, kisses given, friends attempting to steal love interests, love potions, personal confessions, singing entertainment, flower ambushes, upset friends, and an overwhelming amount of confusion and hurt.

Leaving the safety of the piano keys before him, he looked down and slowly made his way over to where she was near the window. Outside it seemed the setting sun was trying to provide some artistic encouragement.

"I'm glad you came," he whispered. There was a million and one reasons probably why she wouldn't have but she still chose to answer his request. "I thought we should talk about last night," and as he said that he glanced down, tasseling his hand through his hair a moment before taking in a slow deep breath. So much could be said for that night, but where did one start?

He looked back to her, knowing he needed to not shy away from this. Shying away is essentially what he did the night before and perhaps if he had been either physically or mentally present, some of the things wouldn't have gone down the way they had. He knew where to begin with his conversation right now, but he knew it had the potential to open up memories of the previous night and cause hurt and he didn't want to hurt her.

"I'm sorry." - Two simple words in the English language and yet they carried so much weight at times; this being one of them. Simon allowed his eyes to connect with her bright clear ones and he wouldn't look down again. He was sorry and he wanted her to know that he meant it.

Simon watched her intently, his eyes into hers as if searching if things between them were remotely okay but took a chance and stepped forward, bringing both of his arms around her and pulling her in close. While maybe his body temperature was slightly below that of others, he knew that it would still feel like a warm and strong embrace, one that showed that whatever happened yesterday and what doubt she had that she might have scared him off was very much the opposite.

He thought of the things she told him, about bottling up his scent and about wanting him. Would such feelings wane after embarrassment crept in? Would such feelings wane after another came to their table to ask her to be his valentine? Would such feelings wane after he didn't chase after her last night or come find her to remedy the situation?

The last of the options seemed to carry with them more weight and that's what he would address. "I should have never gone the entire night without checking to see how you were." There was a reason he hadn't and he'd explain why. Simon pulled back from their embrace and distanced himself, but only by a step so that he could look into her eyes while talking. This was a serious matter and he wanted to address it as such.

"I went to find Haley because Haley and I needed to talk. Haley and I have needed to talk for some time now, even before the night that we met in the Common Room. But you see, as of recent, we've really needed to talk because - well - it's not right to be with someone when you've developed feelings for someone else."

This might not have been some grand romantic gesture but the boy was still figuring out romance at thirteen and if anything, at least he was putting his heart on the line out there. He'd keep it relatively short and simple because AngelFyre didn't need all the details of the things that she said or how hurt he felt breaking the redhead's heart and trust. "My night ended with Haley and I breaking up and a broken nose. By the time I got back from the Hospital Wing it was too late to come and find you. If you got any sleep at all then I wanted you to rest. I hope I didn't mean to come off as insensitive."

From Resignation to Confusion and Then to Hope with @Simon Kincaid

When the music stopped, AngelFyre heaved an involuntary deep sigh and wiped the tears from her face. So many tears in the last 24 hours…too many tears. Simon had not moved from the piano bench. He was thinking. She would not interrupt his thoughts nor hurry the moment of her exile… her living death. He looked tired and sad himself and she would give him the space he needed until he was ready to proceed.

Nothing she could say would make a difference anyway.

AngelFyre continued to fix her gaze out the window, unknowingly squeezing his note in her hand while gently tapping that same hand against her thigh. The moments before he rose from the piano bench and began his walk towards her were probably few, but they felt like an eternity. She knew she would not want to hear the things he would need to say, but at the same time, she felt like every nerve ending in her body was tightly wound up and ready to spring. At least all her stressful tension would find its release once he had released her for good.

When she heard him rise, finally, and saw his reflection moving towards her, she noted he was looking down every step of the way. Her beleaguered but handsome executioner. She wiped her face quickly one last time and slowly turned around to face him. He drew near, but still he looked down. When he raised his head, it was not a joyful Simon standing before her. There was a lot to read on his face, but what AngelFyre primarily took away from his expression was sadness and uncertainty. She thought he would probably see the same sadness on hers, but uncertainty would be replaced by a heart wrenching sense of resignation. Her world was about to come to an end, and quite suddenly all she could think about was how very exhausted she was in that moment. The effort to even hold herself upright was a Herculean one. Her mind drifted away from his nearness and gravitated instead to the sublime thought of curling up in her badger cave and sleeping the sleep of Rip Van Winkle. Escape by way of denial. She recognized it for what it was, but there was no denying that the draw was magnetic right then.

She heard him tell her he was glad she came and that they should probably talk about the events of the evening before. Must they? She could hear him, but he was sounding farther and farther away as her mind was giving in to her escape plan. It was only when Simon raised his hand and slowly brushed it through his hair that AngelFyre felt herself halt her retreat and instinctively start to raise her own hand to comfort him. She quickly quelled the impulse and simply, quietly, stood before him... her eyes fixed on him.

And then Simon did two of the most unexpectedly remarkable things. Again, as if he were in a long, faraway tunnel, she thought she heard him say that he was sorry. Here it is. Finally. The ending was now beginning. Of course he would be polite about it. Had she really thought he was going to raise his voice to her in anger, disgust, or embarrassment? No. Not really. His gaze then found hers for the first time that evening…searching. AngelFyre was uncertain what it was he was seeking to see in her eyes in that moment exactly, but then he stepped forward and pulled her into a tight embrace. For a moment, she just stood there, arms stiff at her side, caught completely off guard and not knowing what to do. But then in an instant her heart screamed at her to wake up and seize her last moments, so she brought both of her arms around his back and squeezed her fingers deeply into his shoulder blades, her one hand still holding onto his note as she did so. Simultaneously she had pressed her forehead into his shoulder and was doing everything she could not to sob. And sad though she was in that moment, she still was overwhelmed by the same feeling she had in his arms on their first night in that room. She was home. And the heartbreak was that she knew she would never feel that again with anyone, no matter how long a life she lived. Some things you just knew, and this…. this AngelFyre knew.

Funny how life’s most critical moments of importance can sometimes turn on a dime. AngelFyre had come to the Rehearsal Room for a third night in a row fully anticipating she would be told that all contact with Simon must cease and desist from this night forward. Instead what she heard from him, while still in his arms, was that he should never have gone the whole evening before without checking on her. What? Why? Why would he need to check on her? Her head was now spinning with confusion, but everything was beginning to feel a lot less distant as she locked onto his gaze as he continued to speak.

And then the dime turned and landed on heads…not tails. AngelFyre had been granted a reprieve. She could not believe what she was hearing. It briefly crossed her mind she could be tricking herself into thinking she was hearing her heart’s fondest wishes, but no. It really was no trick of her mind. Simon was, honest to God, standing before her and telling her he had feelings for her, too. She just stood there. Looking at him. Listening to him. Saying nothing. She knew she was in shock. She knew she was ecstatic, but she also knew her joy came at great cost. She had just heard him tell her he had gotten back from the Hospital Wing too late to seek her out because Haley had broken his nose in their breakup when her legs could no longer hold her up, and she collapsed to her knees, hands resting on her thighs, her heels supporting her bottom.

Now with a grand view of Simon’s knees, she managed to ask, her voice cracking with emotion, ”Simon, you are actually serious? This is not a joke? You broke up with Haley?" Then more softly, her eyes meeting his once again as she craned her neck to look up at him, "And you… you have feelings for me?”

AngelFyre continued to look up at him and her voice was now very shaky and probably about an octave higher than normal. Adrenaline. “I- I - then this note,” and she haphazardly waved the crumpled parchment in her hand. ”What did you mean by this? “…perhaps ‘Heart and Soul’ is not the perfect duet? “I thought you were mocking me. I thought you were asking me here to tell me to stay far, far away from you, now and always."

And not wanting to, but unable to control the pent up emotions any longer, AngelFyre dissolved into yet another cascading waterfall of tears.

Simon was grateful that instead of pushing him away, he felt her join in the embrace. Maybe he hadn't done so much damage that he destroyed everything within one night. If she had been angry with him, if she had been upset, she was at least giving him a chance at redemption and that made him feel so much more at ease now that evening.

As she fell to her knees, he was a little concerned that she was alright but when he clearly could see that she was, it made sense. The emotional toll that was at play especially in the previous night alone and the gravity of the situation here and now was a lot for one person to take in. Simon knelt down first next to her, his hand gently placed against her face to make sure she was fine but then he smiled softly and came to sit beside her.

"Yeah, yeah I did," he said softly, answering her question about breaking up with Haley. It had been probably the hardest thing he had done - harder than trying to study for a test that a passing grade depended on, harder than broom racing try outs, hell, harder than finding out he was a dhampir. He wouldn't elaborate more though on the breakup, due to that difficulty, because that would only make him relive that moment.

"My note meant that perhaps Heart and Soul is good and all, but that maybe we could be better. We could maybe that better duet." His hand came and brushed away the fallen tears from the one side of her face before slowly caressing against the other side.

"My envision of this moment was so much better than what played out last night and led to now," although heartache would still be included unfortunately. "I would have found Haley a few days after Valentine's Day and ended it before approaching you about maybe there being an us. But that Tea Party, that was brutal. It was difficult the moment I realized I had to sit directly between you two and somehow I knew that Haley knew of my feelings for you so I didn't want to talk to you too much and I didn't want to upset her more. Then there was the rose, and the kiss, and I knew it would hurt you. THEN, Dave, my FRIEND, comes to ask you to be his Valentine. I don't blame him, he didn't know I liked you but still - it added to the insanity. And then with Della... I didn't write her a note. I didn't write anyone a note."

Simon sighed, hoping that his rambling would at least have allowed her tears to subside some. While the boy could talk a lot, he usually could eventually get to his point and making others feel rather calm was usually a gift of his that he always had. Perhaps it was his tone of voice or perhaps it was his sincerity.

"Except that one," he said, slowly taking hold of the small piece of parchment in her hands. "I thought, maybe you and I, could try and work on you and I. That we could maybe be an us. That perhaps we could be a more perfect duet than a duet that is already beloved by many and sparked some of the reason we're here now."

He knew the song was timeless. It was one of those pieces that nearly every piano player learned and it was one that Dean Martin had sang - and it had been around forever before that. It was going to become present once more there in the Rehearsal Room of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. "Heart and soul, I fell in love with you, heart and soul. The way a fool would do - madly, because you held me tight..." Simon sang the first few lines but then paused because the rest had yet to be applicable to the two. It went on to talk about a kiss which the two had yet to share.

Simon smiled over to her, his big bright smile that he usually had. The Tea Party/Horror Party was over, the breakup had been conducted, and his confession of returned feelings for AngelFyre had been delivered and with all that, he experienced a bit of ease from a heaviness that had been following him around for far too long.

"AngelFyre Afton McCubbin...would you be my valentine? My girlfriend?"

Simon first knelt down beside her, placing his hand on her face, and a calming peace blanketed AngelFyre just that easily and just that quickly. She felt like she was coming truly back to herself by the time he pivoted to sit down next to her on the hard floor, their backs against the wall, beneath the window. There was a tenderness in his voice as he revealed to her all the things he felt he needed to say, wanted to say, and would say about his breakup and the catastrophic events of the last evening. All this he managed to do so effortlessly and expertly while continuing to minister to her by softly and gently wiping her tears away and caressing her face. AngelFyre, for her part, gave him her full attention, listening to every word and every catch in his breath when he came to the parts that were too painful and raw for him to brush too closely against. She placed her hand over his hand now on her cheek and pressed into it; just her wordless recognition that whatever he was feeling was okay. She was there for him, too, and while she may press her face into his hand, AngelFyre would meet his gaze, hoping to convey that she would not press him further on such matters as the casualties of the two wounded hearts now parted. That was strictly between Simon and Haley and AngelFyre would respect it as such.

It was a pleasant, but a rather odd sensation to be able to touch, and be touched by, Simon without feeling her spirit spark to life while tempered with scorching furnace blasts of guilt. It would take some getting used to, but the primary sensation associated with it in that moment was simply one of overwhelming relief.

And then Simon reached for the crumpled note in her hand. She had by that time twisted and wrung it into a complete mess, but remarkably, it still remained intact. It easily slipped from her grasp and into his as he explained he had meant it as anything but a mockery of their first night together in this room. She could scarcely believe she was hearing him declare clearly and concisely that "I thought, maybe you and I, could try and work on you and I. That we could maybe be an us." Her breath caught in that very instant but he continued and then she heard him say, "… perhaps we could be a more perfect duet. " And in that moment, everything lit up inside AngelFyre and she felt as if every single thing she had ever most wanted or would most want was being offered to her right then and there. Every echo in her mind’s ear of her past prayers and wishes and dreams were jubilantly shouting Yes! Yes! Yes! and when she thought it simply could not get any better… it did. Simon started singing ‘Heart and Soul’ to her. She sat there smiling at him as he sang, but he only got a couple of lines into it before stopping. She knew why he had stopped, and truly, it was just a few moments in time before he then flashed his devastatingly charming smile at her and asked her to be both his Valentine and his girlfriend.

No one in their right mind would be able to resist that…well, certainly not AngelFyre anyway. Truly, before she even knew she was going to do it, she leaned over to him and kissed him. Right on the lips and right in front of all the portrait people. It was not just an awkward, quick peck on the lips, but it was also not a ridiculously long, lingering kiss either. Her boldness, as usual, caught her by surprise, but she was not sorry. Her eyes remained opened and fixed on his. She was aware in the moment of how incredibly soft his lips were and how they tasted of lemon drops, but she was mostly aware of how she had caught him off guard. He did not draw back from it in any way whatsoever, but AngelFyre saw the momentary flicker of surprise as his brows raised slightly while he quickly processed what was happening, and then she could feel him smile beneath her kiss. Almost as quickly, his brows lowered, the smile disappeared, and he leaned in, kissing her back, their eyes only then closing.

The kiss… their first kiss… had come and gone relatively quickly. Of all the things AngelFyre had dreamed about when it came to Simon, she had not spent a tremendous amount of thought when it came to kissing him. She had no reference point for it for one thing. She suspected he had kissed a lot of girls. She had kissed no boys. The scale of experience was definitely weighted in his favor, so when she had thought about it, it was always with more nervousness and dread than excitement. The thought of having him be disappointed in her always brought a huge knot to her stomach, and so she had always imagined in a perfect world, she would catch him off guard and they could just get it over with before his expectations had built up to a point where disappointment was the only place he could retreat to afterwards. She never really thought it through to the kiss(es) that were to follow after that, but hey… she was 11. There was time to learn, and if he were patient and interested, could she really have a better teacher? She knew she would be an eager and accomplished student.

When she pulled back from him…very reluctantly as it turned out… she would have expected to be able to say to him on the heels of the kiss, Yes, she would indeed be his girlfriend. But shockingly, as she came back to rest next to him, now holding his hand in hers, she knew her answer had to be no.

She had definitely not seen that coming.

“Simon, you are going to have to trust me when I tell you there is nothing I would love more than to be your girlfriend, so please hear me out as to why I am going to say no…but it is not a permanent no.”

She looked at him as confusion swept over him. As he was still leaning against the wall beneath the window, with his head turned towards her, she sat up and swiveled to face him. She reached for his hand again, but brought it up to her lips like he had done with her hand in the Library.

“This is going to be long, so just bear with me. I swear it was on the tip of my tongue to say yes to you just now. I want to be able to say yes. I have ached for this moment for so long. I truly have. You mentioned earlier that none of this is happening in the way you envisioned it, and while I think you may have been referring to the romance of it, that is also not why I am saying no. She looked down, really not wanting to make a hash of this because it was too important. Her thumb was caressing his hand as she began again and she looked back up at him, smiling. “You are so important to me. You cannot begin to imagine how much you occupy my mind and my heart. It did not go unnoticed how you very diplomatically left out of your confession earlier any mention of my shocking behavior at last night’s event. She saw him stiffen just a bit, and really, who could blame him?

Still she continued, gently patting his hand. “I know I apologized last night, but please hear me now. You have no idea how sorry and absolutely mortified I am by that little carpet bomb confession of my own. I literally have no idea why it happened the way it did, or even why it happened at all, but here is the crux of the matter. The things I said… all of the things I said… I meant every single word, Simon. I cannot and will not deny any of them at this point. The problem with all of it, however, was the timing, the setting, and the company in which it was all expressed.” Even now, AngelFyre could feel the deep well of shame threatening to overflow, but she maintained her eye contact with him, never wavering.

“The timing and the place in which those sentiments were expressed to you would never have been of my choosing. They were private… intimate, and amongst the million emotions I feel when I think on that shameful display, I would say that humiliated and violated top the list. Some of those things I may not have even expressed to you at all, or at least not for a very long time. I embarrassed you. I embarrassed myself. And I embarrassed Haley. And I am so, so sorry. But it happened and there is nothing I can do about it now except to let you know that I really am not a crazy person,” and at that, she laughed lightly and squeezed his hand, “but I am crazy about you. I have been since our first night in this room.”

She took a few breaths and continued, her expression suddenly taking on a much more serious cast. “I heard you clearly when you told me your relationship with Haley was rocky before I ever came on the scene, and that helps assuage some of my guilt, but not all of it. I admit I was devastated when I learned of her at your broom race. By that time, I was already head over heels for you, and when it became clear that day that you had a girlfriend, I was hurt and stunned and later pretty angry with you. It made sense that you would have a girlfriend. Of course you would. You are Simon Kincaid after all.” She chuckled and said it in a light, teasing manner so he would know she was okay with it…. now. “But it really did hurt me, Simon. It made me question if the signals I thought you had sent out had been misinterpreted by me; that they were just things I had made up in my own moments of wishful thinking. Because of that uncertainty, I have mostly operated for the last month thinking this was completely one-sided. The anger I had felt upon learning about Haley quickly vanished the moment you fell from your broom. I was so terrified for you and worried that you would not wake up that there just did not seem to be room for the anger any longer. You never knew it, but I was hanging around the shadows of the Hospital Wing that day, praying for you to open your eyes. Praying for you to be all right. I have never been so scared in my life, and that is the truth.”

Just remembering back on that day brought the icy finger of fear down her spine once again and she involuntarily shook, feeling it all too fully in that moment just like she had on January 9th. “When you opened your eyes and I knew you were going to be okay, I slipped out. You were safe and that was all that mattered. But I made a decision to stay away from you as there was no place for me with you. At least not the place I had been envisioning for myself up until that day. So, in my infinite wisdom, I avoided you and our Common Room for weeks. The avoidance part went along pretty well until you stumbled across me that night in the Library. Then everything seemed to change again; it seemed like we just clicked and picked up where we had left off. But I left the Library that night feeling confused all over again. Mixed signals. No signals at all. I just did not know what to believe when it came you and my feelings. I only knew being around you felt so much better than not being around you.”

Looking down at their hands, she smiled widely and interlaced her fingers with his. “I do better with you, Simon. Even when being with you could only be done in half measures, it was not nothing. I was still mostly uncertain where I stood with you, so I mostly landed on a version of yet one more school girl groupie chasing after the handsome Simon Kincaid like a lovesick puppy. Not the most flattering version I have ever held of myself, I must say. She sighed deeply and tried to measure how he was holding up to all of this. He was still awake, so that was a good sign. And then it crossed her mind that he was up for days at a time as a dhampir, so maybe that was not the best metric. Nevertheless, she was coming to the end.

“All of this is a very long-winded way of saying that we have both undergone a lot of trauma in the last 24 hours for sure, but also in the last month and a half. Last night tarnished everything, and I do not want us… and I really do want there to be an us… to start out like that. You just left one relationship. You need time to process that and I am not interested in being a rebound girl. I have been in a… well… I am not even sure what to call what it is I have been in with you, but we, you and I, have not been free at all to be our complete selves with each other. So I am saying no to being your girlfriend right now so that you and I can build into it. Everything in me tells me that we will have a much stronger foundation if we can have just a bit of a reset.”

She was silent for a for a bit and stared intently at him, thinking he was just so incredibly handsome and then praying he would see that maybe a delay in their change of relationship status would be a wise course of action. “So, what do you think?”

And before he could answer, she asked one more question. “The, ‘You know I want you.’ line from last night’s confession came from a suspicion I have carried for a few days now. Did you by chance find anything in the Library after I left you that night?” She smiled very broadly at him then and was quite happily pleased when the thought of wanting to kiss him again tripped across her brain.

She then wondered if she could sign up for private lessons.

AngelFyre always struck him as a girl of confidence but not necessarily confidence when it came to physical matters such as this kiss she presented him with. It took him initially by surprise but then he smiled before coming into it himself and returning the kiss. His hand came around her to hold her there just a moment longer and when it did come to an end he watched her, still eager to hear her response.

She didn't make him wait. Instead, she gave her answer to him just following and said that it was a no, but not a permanent no.

He tried not to show that it bothered him but there was probably a hint of it in his eyes. She took his hands into her own and kissed them and began to explain. What she wanted was time - time to recover from their trauma - time to build a stronger foundation before they made the leap to dating.

He looked down to the wooden floor below them and allowed his eyes to follow along the grain that made a sort of pathway. What could he really say? He couldn't MAKE someone go out with him. "Yea, - yea. Sure. Alright," his voice was low and he didn't look up to her. He didn't want to seem insensitive to her wants and wishes but they were opposite of his own and he didn't see why they needed to wait.

She then asked if he had found anything she left behind in the Library the one night and it was probably a good chance at a change in subject. No one wanted to dwell on rejection - however positive it sort of was.

"Uh, yeah, that night... In the stack of books I found a piece of parchment you had drawn on. There were some hearts and words - names. I uhh - I wanted to tell you about it but I didn't know how. I never wanted to embarrass you," he traced his fingertips from his one hand along that wood grain pathway.

"It was a sweet thing to find and I figured bringing it up would just complicate things," he admitted.

He glanced up to her, glad a change in subject had presented itself. But now what? Did he wait weeks? Months? Longer? How did he know when that line between friendship and more was crossed when it already had been?

Into the Breach for @Simon Kincaid

AngelFyre watched him closely. He had listened to everything she said, and his response to all of it was very deflated. As hard as she had tried not to, she had hurt and confused him. She knew it was bad... very bad...when he removed a hand from hers to trace the woodgrain on the floor next to him. She recognized both the distant look and the distant sound in his voice as his way to try and process what had just happened to him. It looked on him like it felt on her whenever she herself began to check out of a situation when it was becoming too overwhelming.

Panic was now knocking at the door of her mind, taunting her from a distance, threatening to huff and to puff and to blow her fragile grasp on her heart's desire to smithereens. What could she do here? How could she make him understand? Could she even make him understand?

Doing what she always did when she absolutely knew she did not have the answer herself, she closed her eyes and softly prayed for wisdom, guidance, and courage. "Please, Father... help me help him to understand. I do not want to lose him, so give me the wisdom here to know what to say to him."

Then, opening her eyes, she leaped into the breach. "Simon, I am sorry. Hurting your feelings is the last thing in the world I would ever want do. I think I said it earlier, but I will say it again. I am as surprised by my answer as much as you are, but I am not certain you understand what I am asking for here."

Gently shaking and then squeezing the one hand she was still holding, she wanted him to look at her when she continued, her voice softening and her eyes pleading with his. "I want time with you. I want every nanosecond you are willing to share with me so that we can learn about each other, laugh with each other, and just be ourselves with each other. I want us to do all of the things you envisioned us doing if I had said yes. None of that would be any different because I said no... for now. There is nothing I want more, trust me, than to be with you. I am asking you to just stop and think about our every interaction up to this point. Did I ever once give you any indication that being in your presence was something I did not want?".

"You are the one who has been in the driver's seat this whole time. Everything has been done, mostly, on your timetable. You knew you were going to break up with Haley. I did not know that. How could I? You knew you had developed feelings for me. I did not know that, not for certain anyway. You knew I had feelings for you, so there was a surety you had in our interactions. I never had the same confidence in where I fit into your life. Everything I "thought" I knew from our interactions was a shadow compared to the clarity you have had in this all along by comparison. You knew you were going to ask me to be your girlfriend tonight. I came here thinking you were going to tell me to take a permanent hike. None of that is blame... it is just meant to let you know that you were in possession of critical information this whole time I was not privy to know, and it has had us in near complete disalignment since day 1. I am just asking you to give me a little time to catch up, but I am not asking you to stay away... that I never want."

Simon was giving her his attention, but she still did not have a good read on how what she was saying to him was being processed."Finally, I will say this and silence myself. My father has always told me the worst time to make a serious, life-changing decision is in the aftermath of grief or tremendous loss. Your breakup was the very type of thing he was talking about. What is the hurry here? How many times in our Muggle world have you heard of a couple separating and then one of the parties jumps immediately into another relationship? It almost never works out for them, and I do not want to be just the girl you jump to because you have left Haley. I want to be more to you than that."

"We have a good chunk of time to be with each other here each day if you want, there is a Blossom Ball coming up, and best of all, we will have days of uninterrupted time during our Spring break to explore being an us, if you still want to come that is, and I hope you do."

She stopped talking, but she kept her gaze fixed on him. She had laid out her best case before him, but she had no idea if it had been enough or maybe it had been too much.

And once again, the prayers started up as she waited to see what Simon would say or do.