dorcas meadowes is with john dawlish (warrioress) wrote in find_horcruxes, @ 2010-03-16 23:51:00 |
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"Surprise," Dorcas said with a grin when Edward opened the door. And she had to fight the urge to laugh, in case Edward didn't think it was funny that the blond American he had been giving pick-up lines to at Emmeline's wedding was really someone he worked with everyday. Although when Dorcas in her disguise had eventually leaned over and whispered in his ear that she was someone he knew already who he would discover next morning and he ought to stop the pick-up lines, it had been a strong giggle-inducing moment. "You know, you should have seen your face when I walked away from you. I'm pretty sure I left you paranoid all night," she held out a basket of breakfast food for him to take and then side-stepped past him to get inside. Dorcas was one of the last people Edward expected to see that morning, so seeing her standing on the other side of his door with a basket of food rendered him speechless for a second. He expected... maybe Sam, stumbling over because he needed a potion or food and he was too lazy to cook. But Dorcas with what appeared to be (and smelled like) breakfast? No. She was already stepping around him when, bleary-eyed, he blinked himself awake enough to respond. "When you walked away from me?" he asked, his brow knit with confusion. What was she talking about? She turned back around to face him and put on the American accent again from last night, that she had used for her cover. "Hi there! I'm from California actually. Never been to London, but oh my God, London is totally groovy!" Dorcas supposed it would be a little too early for him to fully register why she was there, but with a recognition cue like that, he couldn't not remember. Unless he was absolutely trashed out of his mind from one too many drinks when he was talking to her, but that seemed unlikely. Though she obviously didn't look the same as the woman from the night before, Edward remembered the voice. Besides, unless Dorcas had talked to someone in between the wedding and that morning and had heard all about Edward's failure with the blonde American, there was no way she would have known that and be able to nearly recite some of what she'd said to him. His cheeks turned pink immediately. "That was you?" he asked, incredulous. No wonder the woman from the wedding had said that he knew her. "I'm such an arse. My friend Sam dared me, and I never could turn him down." Dorcas gave him an amused smile with a nod. "Hence why I said you know me. I couldn't exactly say my name there, otherwise--" She'd blow her cover. Shite, it had just occurred to her that she'd need a pretty good reason to tell Edward on why she was under a disguise. And the truth was not an option. "But it's all right. It made me laugh more than anything. Not that you're a horrible flirt or anything... those were some pretty good lines. Anyway, I brought over breakfast. Figured you'd not have eaten by now." Yes, when in doubt, go for a topic change. "I guess that's something," Edward grumbled, rolling his eyes. Making women laugh wasn't exactly his forte, or so he thought. He could flatter them, say nice things, but funny -- that was more up Sam's alley, in his opinion. Or Boyd's (albeit maybe unintentionally). "It'd be better if making a girl laugh actually worked and didn't make her walk away, though," he pointed out. He followed Dorcas into his sitting room and gestured towards the couch. Thankfully, his flat wasn't a complete disaster zone. His bedroom was, but Dorcas wasn't going to see that. "No, I haven't eaten yet." But suddenly, he was starving. "Want... coffee? Tea?" Dorcas felt a mild stab of guilt when he said that, remembering the last time they attended a wedding together. She wasn't exactly the best date, abandoning him when she was annoyed with John bringing someone else, then getting drunk and dancing with the Prewett brothers. While the dancing meant absolutely nothing past three people having fun as friends should be doing, it hadn't really been fair to Edward who she had went to the wedding with. And then her explanations following were just vague and still hurtful. Maybe it was time to come clean about a few things. "Tea would be good," Dorcas said, sitting down on the couch and pulling out croissants and bagels from the basket. "Coming right up." Edward gave the girl on his couch a smile before disappearing into the kitchen to make tea. His comments hadn't really been meant to be a veiled stab at what had happened between them; he'd gotten beyond that months ago. It was mostly residual negativity left over from what had happened with Miriam. On a regular day-to-day basis, it wasn't too bad, but she'd been at the wedding the night before and Edward thought it had felt all wrong. The encounter left him unsettled and uncomfortable. He might still consider her a friend, but that didn't mean it wasn't strange. A few minutes later, he returned with a pot of hot water and cups. After setting them down on the coffee table, he took a seat next to her. "So what were you doing as an American last night, anyway?" Dorcas almost winced when he asked her that question. "Hiding from someone, I guess," she shrugged before realizing maybe she just ought to use the same excuse she had given to anyone else who wondered why she'd been too secretive of her whereabouts outside of work. "Uh, my mask fell away during the Masquerade before and well, it was due to the Death Eater I was fighting." She helped herself to some tea as she gave a shrug. "Considering everything that's going on, people who's families are being targeted, I didn't want to take the chance. Emmeline knew my identity though. So that's all that mattered." "Oh, right." Edward reached for a croissant before sitting back, letting the information settle as they waited for the tea to steep. It made some sense, but the more Edward thought about it, the more questions Edward had. The Death Eaters would have already had her name, prior to the masquerade. They would have known what she looked like prior to her mask falling off. It was one of the things Edward worried most about, particularly since the attacks on the Quidditch matches. He was worried that someone would come after his family for no other reason than because he was an Auror. "Death Eaters know who I am and I'm not hiding out in disguise at a wedding even though I'm there with an Auror's girlfriend," he commented, arching his brow at her as he took a bite out of the croissant. "Call me cowardly?" Dorcas laughed, and then shook her head. "Okay, okay, that was a stupid story. But really, just call me cowardly because an ex-boyfriend was there with whom it ended fairly badly and I did not want him to see me at all." Hey, it was a cover-up that Angus had initially used for the MacDougals as to why Dorcas was suddenly living with them. She settled back into the couch with her own croissant. "It was a gorgeous wedding though. The food? Was really good. I can't say it topped the Longbottom's though, because... I'd be torn between loyalty. Alice and Emmeline are both my closest friends." She had been a bridesmaid after all at Alice's wedding. And... a horrible date to Edward. "Hmm." The ex-boyfriend, then, was probably invited to the wedding (if her story was true, and considering the lie she'd first told him, Edward wasn't inclined to believe her second story). If it was true, he wondered who the ex-boyfriend was. Part of the same society that the new Mrs Warrington belonged to? Edward couldn't see Dorcas in a relationship with any of those men. Edward's lips twitched upwards into a smile. "The Longbottoms' was more my style," he commented, "though the food was brilliant at last night's too. Those people -- Emmeline and her family and friends, they really know how to throw a party. Or at least they know how to feed their guests." It was too bad he couldn't have consumed more of the wine, though. "Yeah, we partied a lot harder at Alice and Frank's, that's for sure," Dorcas replied with a laugh. She had definitely done so, after several drinks in her system already before Gideon had found her and got her to drink some water. A mood-saver that one. She likely would have been moping the entire time otherwise. "I mean, well, at the ceremony..." Her voice trailed off and she stole a glance at Edward. "Ed, I'm sorry, about that day." "Uhh..." In Edward's mind, the apology was completely out of the blue and, honestly, unnecessary. That wedding had been six months ago. It would have been unreasonable of him to still be put out over what had happened -- or not happened. He'd dated someone else in the interim, however short-lived that had been as well. "It's... okay." Edward frowned, unsure of what else to say. "I mean, I was really frustrated with you directly after, but... that was so long ago." Half a year really was a long time when you were only twenty two. "I stopped being mad a while ago." "I know, but I guess. Well, I was incredibly vague on the why," Dorcas said, moving away the croissant from her face that she had been about to bite. "You remember I told you I'd been holding a torch for someone? It wasn't Fabian or Gideon, of course. Again, as I told you. It was just... a torch from a very long time. Probably sometime after I joined the programme, and yes, he was in the programme. More specifically... it was John. Dawlish. I just saw him at the party with someone else, and while I thought I would be able to get over it, seeing him just sort of ruined the mood." She took a brief pause in which she contemplated taking that bite out of the croissant but decided to let out the rest of it before she would do that. "I didn't think anything was going to come out of it, and then somehow, I managed to just waltz into his office one day to tell him how I really feel and then starting there, we started seeing each other in secret. And then a month later was the ball." Though she might have told him that she didn't have feelings for Fabian or Gideon, Edward remembered how he hadn't believed her for a second. In his mind, no one danced the way she did with someone if there weren't feelings, and he didn't understand why she would ask someone out on a date if she had feelings for someone else. Talking about it again, after so many months, made Edward uncomfortable. He didn't particularly enjoy reliving those moments and the way he'd felt after -- used, like he didn't really matter. Luckily, there was something else to concentrate on: John Dawlish. Edward stared at Dorcas for a moment. "You were seeing... oh, shit." Suddenly, whatever issues he'd had in the aftermath of their failed date seemed insignificant. "I'm sorry." Dorcas gave a nod, not really sure how to answer that, answer his look of surprise. While there were some people who were able to find out, by at least putting two-and-two together after Halloween, she expected most others not to know. But she knew Edward had been somewhat curious. "That's basically... when you asked me back in December. It was that. I was just not ready then to start talking about it again." Unfortunately, Edward understood all too well not being ready to talk about something. That was one of the things he appreciated most about his friends: that they didn't poke and prod at him to talk, even though he was sure Sam wanted to. What he found he needed, more than talking, was a distraction. That might not have been the healthiest route to healing, but Edward didn't know how to face the loss of his father just yet. "How are you doing now?" he asked, leaning forward to pour out two cups of tea. It certainly explained a lot of her behaviour since the end of October, and Edward was glad he finally understood what was going on with her. Dorcas turned her attention back to the croissant before continuing. "I guess... okay? That's not something easy to just move on from, even after four months. Losing someone you love is never easy." She paused, thinking about her mother. Three years. Or it would be exactly three years, at the end of this month. "Less hard, maybe but..." Suddenly, she shook her head and smiled up at him. "Sorry. I didn't intend for this to become a depressing meal." "No, it's okay," Edward insisted, shaking his head. It wasn't really okay, of course. He didn't particularly want to steer the conversation in a depressing direction any more than she did, and he hated that there was anything depressing to talk about. "Less hard. Yeah, I get that." It was impossible to wake up one morning and be okay with what had happened. It might feel easier than it did the day before, but then something else would happen and Edward would feel himself taking another step backwards. He gave the girl next to him a smile. "Anyway, look, don't worry about what happened at the wedding," he said, trying to get the topic away from John Dawlish, "I got over it a while ago and it's not like I ever hated you or anything." Dorcas nodded, grateful that all he had really said about John was a sorry. It might have been awkward if he asked anymore questions. Like how they managed to keep it a secret for the most part. "Well, I could see that since you haven't kicked me out," she said with a laugh. "How are things with you? Outside the DMLE, of course." They saw each other enough in the department and with Auror Prewett's parents' disappearance, she had a feeling she didn't really need to ask how he was doing job-wise. Edward shrugged. "Getting by, I guess." He wasn't doing poorly outside of work by any means. He hadn't been holing himself up in his flat for days on end, refusing to see his family or friends. He considered that to be a success, but there were always moments where he felt sad, angry, confused, or just generally unsettled. He figured there always would be. "My dad's birthday was Friday, so... we had dinner with Mum. I'm more worried about my sisters, and my brother, but I'm okay. Been better, but I think that's always the case." Edward knew he wouldn't really feel better until You-Know-Who and his followers were no longer a problem. "That's good. That you're okay." Dorcas hesitated at first, but then brought over one hand to pat his arm. "We'll get through this." She gave him a smile, before deciding that they really really needed a topic change. "You know, I think the whole wizarding town needs a massive pub gathering again someday. The one last month was absolutely brilliant." "Yeah? It was... certainly memorable, to say the least," Edward replied with a grin. "Maybe when this is all over." He hated to think about Death Eaters showing up at some massive gathering at a pub, and honestly, Edward had trouble finding a whole lot to celebrate lately. Not that they were celebrating that day like the paper said, but there weren't a whole lot of reasons for Edward to end up somewhere like that with a lot of high-profile people either. He preferred to disappear into a world where he could just be himself, minus the status. "When this is all over," he repeated, "we'll all go out and celebrate. Deal?" Dorcas raised her cup of tea, before bringing it to her lips. "Deal. And I'm holding you to that!" |