marlene (corner) mckinnon (marly) wrote in an_ill_wind, @ 2009-08-31 22:05:00 |
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Entry tags: | - 1980/08 august, marlene mckinnon, sturgis podmore |
WHO: Marly and Stu
WHEN: 27 August 1980
WHERE: Marly's room at Dig's house
WHAT: A reunion
STATUS: Incomplete log
Marlene knew that physically she could have been much worse off. She could have been kidnapped by the Death Eaters themselves - which she basically was, but that wasn't the point - and dragged down to be tortured with curses, hexes, and Merlin knew what other sorts of torture devices they could have turned to. Instead, she had just been (nearly) starved, asked questions that she didn't answer, and left to her own thoughts in a holding cell. There was no Azkaban, no torturing, no Veritaserum. She had gotten lucky. But, Marlene still felt awful. The worst part of it all was being left to her own thoughts and forced to just, well, think. She played it over and over again, thinking about how much of an idiot she was. It felt to her as though she had betrayed the Order, her friends, her boyfriend. At the time there was nothing else she could do, but now she just couldn't believe she hadn't thought it through more. Even now, out of the Ministry and at Dig's house, she was still driving herself up the wall with her own thoughts. She was thinking about everything she had done wrong, what the Order might think, what her family might think. In all reality, she was making the room that Dig had let her lay down in as much of a prison as the Ministry holding cell had been. When Stu had read Moody's words announcing that Marlene was finally free and well, it had been, as cliché as it may seem, as if a ray of sun had finally found its way through the dark clouds that had followed him for the last couple of weeks. He had no idea how he'd made it through it all, through his coworkers' murders, the attack on Ed's house, his parents' horrible deaths, Marlene's capture, and everything else that had happened around him as well, the Dark Army's attacks, Gideon's injury... But now... now Marlene was alive and well and he could not wait to see her, to touch her, to make sure she really was fine. She'd been through so much, her arrest had to have left scars, whether they were visible or not. The door to the room where he'd been told he'd find her was slightly open, but he still knocked softly to announce his arrival. "Marlene, it's me," he announced before pushing the door open. Marlene didn't get up from where she had been laying. In fact, all she had to do was open her eyes. She had conveniently placed herself on the bed so she was facing the door, partially because she was half expecting the Ministry to storm in at any given moment to haul her away again. The fact that Stu was the reason she opened her eyes, though? Well, that was much nicer than anything her imagination had let her think about. Managing the smallest of smiles for him, Marlene shifted just a bit under the blankets. "Hey there." Marlene's image had never left his mind, for the whole length of her imprisonment, every image his brain had came up with scaring him worse than the one before. He'd imagined her scared, famished, beaten up, dead... He'd had to remind himself time and again that she was at the hands of the Ministry, where the Death Eaters had to at least attempt to keep up appearances, and that no, she would not be owled back to them, body part by body part, as his parents had. To see her here, now, alive and smiling - even if it was a weak smile and if she had lost so much weight that she was disappearing in the bed - was the best feeling he'd got in weeks. His heart jumped in his throat and he couldn't find words, and so he merely walked up to her bed side and took her hand in his, bringing it to his lips for a soft, tender, careful kiss. Pulling a nearby chair by the bed side, he sat down next to her, never letting go of her hand. "Hey," he finally said back. "It's so good to see you." Which was the understatement of the year. "It's good to see you too. It's good to just...you know," Marlene replied, her voice quiet. She shrugged her shoulders just slightly, then sat up just enough to scoot herself down a bit on the mattress. Her hand stayed linked with his as she tugged gently. "You should lay down by me." Stu hesitated only a few seconds. "Are you sure I won't hurt you or anything?" he asked as he was already moving to join her, carefully settling down on the bed by her side. He didn't cuddle yet, worried that he might hurt her. "Is it okay like this? I'm not hurting you or anything, am I?" He knew he was repeating himself and that it must be annoying for her, but he couldn't help himself. He'd missed her so much, he'd been so bloody worried for her, he couldn't just take a risk and hurt her now that she was back. "No, I'm fine," Marlene sighed, deciding to take the initiative and pull in closer to him. She could understand that he might be worried about her, but she was more worried about the intense need that she was feeling to have him right next to her. Even if it might not be the most comfortable thing, she needed to feel his arms around her and like someone was protecting her. And, well, if she had to pick anyone to do that it would certainly be Stu. After a moment, she looked up at him and asked, "How are you?" It was a very pedestrian thing to say, even though there seemed to be a lot more that she ought to be saying instead. She just wanted some normal back and this was the only way she knew ho When she pulled closer and assured him that he wasn't hurting her, Stu pushed aside any worry he harbored and finally allowed himself to wrap his arms around her as he'd been aching to. He wanted to feel her alive against him, to protect her as he'd failed to do before, to make sure that nothing else happened to her. "Better now that you're here," he murmured in reply to her question. "It is a question I should be asking you though, not the other way around," he said, squeezing her tighter against him. "How are you? Do you want to talk about it?" he asked, trying to show in his tone that she didn't have to talk if she didn't want to, but that he was there to listen whenever she wanted to. "I'm okay," Marlene replied, mostly telling the truth. She breathed out a long sigh, taking the time to decide if she wanted to actually tell him everything that was going through her mind or not. In all honesty, she didn't even know half of what she was thinking about and that seemed like reason enough to hold off on that sort of conversation until she had time to straighten things out in her own head. Tightening the blankets around her a bit, Marlene let her eyes flutter shut as she cuddled in closer to Stu. "I don't really want to talk about it, though. It's almost too much to worry about and...I'd rather not." "You don't have to," Stu comforted her. "If you ever want to, I'm here to listen. On your own time, when you're ready." He thought back on how she'd helped him when he'd received his parents' in pieces by owl, and he wanted to offer the same support to her now. She deserved his every thought. She already had them, already occupied them. As she cuddled closer, he pushed a lock of hair from her eyes, letting his fingers caress her cheek afterwards. "I love you," he said softly, the words passing his lips for the first time. He meant them with all his heart and it both scared him and gave him courage and strength. She brought the best out of him and he couldn't imagine never seeing her again. He'd felt as if he'd lost a part of himself when she'd been captured and it might be cliché, but it was so true. Once again, for the hundredth if not the thousandth time, he wished that his parents had met her. His courageous Marlene. "I'm so proud of you," he added softly. Marlene's eyes shot right back open when he said those three words. Those were words that she never thought she would hear - not in a million years. She never thought that she would find someone that cared about her enough to say them. Really, she never thought that she would live through the war to even hear it. Just hearing it from him when she was feeling at her very lowest, well. It definitely made her feel better. "I love you too," Marlene replied in the same quiet voice that he had been speaking in. She was blinking a bit furiously, trying to hold back tears that were trying incredibly hard to flow down her cheeks. Instead of focusing on that, though, she instead leaned up to give him a soft kiss. Stu never thought he'd say them, never thought he'd hear them either. He hadn't worried about settling down like his friends. It had come upon him; he'd found Marlene almost by accident, at the right moment. He smiled as she echoed his words, leaning down to meet her lips halfway. Their kiss was delicate and slow, both of them relishing in being alive and together once more. His recent brushes with death had given Stu a new understanding of the value of what he had here, with Marlene in his arms. He knew now more than ever that it could be taken away at any moment. [Incomplete] |