Edgar has retired his stilettos. FOR NOW. (goodoldbones) wrote in find_horcruxes, @ 2009-11-05 22:00:00 |
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Entry tags: | calypso bones, edgar bones |
05 November 1979
Who: Ed & Cally
What: Arguing over Ed being adament about returning to work against healer's orders.
When: Thursday evening
Where: Their house in Dover
Rating: PG-13 for language
Status: Completed log!
Edgar hated sitting at home, and doing nothing. He enjoyed his downtime after a long day at work, listening to the wireless, spending time with Calypso, taking a breather. But days spent at home having to "take it easy" on the Healer's orders while the office was likely imploding with activity? They needed every pair of hands on board, and working. They needed Edgar there to help coordinate. They had a massive attack to investigate, that included endless interviews, a countless review of the scene, and way too fucking much evidence. Bagnold was taking over the Ministry. The recent werewolf attacks limited as to how many Hitwizards were available to help in the investigation. Most of all, Edgar needed to be there. The attack and the Healer's telling him he had to watch himself because he wasn't young anymore... it had hurt Edgar's pride. He needed to feel useful. Cally, however, seemed to be on the side of the healer's in not allowing Edgar to go back to the office. No amount of his pleading and, well, whining, seemed to make a difference. Sitting on the sofa in the living room, Edgar was shaking his head. "I don't. This is ridiculous. I'm a grown man, and if I want to go back, I'm going back." Calypso had grown increasingly frustrated over the course of the argument, too. Did he have no idea at all what she had gone through, coming across that ballroom to find him halfway to dead? She couldn't do it again, not for something as foolish as his stupid pride. "Absolutely not," she snapped back at him. "Because you'll say that you'll stick to the desk and you'll just do the administrative work, and then Frank Longbottom will stroll in and the two of you will be off chasing someone down an alley fifteen minutes later. No!" Edgar set his jaw and glared at her. "Calypso. I've got a bandage around my middle, I haven't lost my mind! I'm not stupid enough to go over-exert myself when I can barely hobble down the fucking hallway! If I keep sitting here, then I'm going to go crazy!" "You've already gone crazy!" Calypso declared, throwing her hands up as she stood. "The idea of you going back to work now? That is crazy, Edgar. That is the very definition of crazy. You are injured, you idiot!" "Yes, thanks for pointing that out, because I hadn't already noticed!" Ed snapped angrily. "I am deputy head of the fucking department! I can't just sit at home and not do anything after a massive bleeding attack on a good chunk of the wizarding world, after John--" he stopped, nostrils flaring. "There's too much to just. I feel. I'm going back." "You are NOT!" his wife shouted. She'd had quite enough of this argument, and of Edgar being an idiot, and the mention of John Dawlish did not do a damned thing to make her feel better about any of it. "Everything in the whole bloody wizarding world is being attacked now, and you think I'm going to stand by and watch you step back out into the middle of it when you can, as you put it yourself, barely hobble down a hallway? You really are out of your mind if you think that! No, Edgar! I will not stand for it!" With a flash of embarrassment, Edgar grabbed the cane that was given to him by the healers from where it was resting against the sofa, and stood himself up with some difficulty. "Fine," he practically seethed, and that was it for him, he turned and started moving toward his study. "I'll just go sit and twiddle my fucking thumbs and stare at the ceiling. It'll be a lovely evening, I'm sure, and I'd know wouldn't I, since I did the exact same thing all God damn day!" "Read a book!" she shouted after him, every bit as furious as he was. "Steal Noah's crayons and draw pictures! Build models of famous landmarks! For all I care, you can write notes to Sturgis and Gawain about how horrible and unreasonable your mad wife is being, but I will not watch you walk out the door and get killed through sheer stubborn stupidity!" Cally could feel the tears building up, and as always she hated it. She had always tended to cry when she got terribly angry and frustrated, and it really made it difficult to keep up a proper furor when she was started to choke on her own words. She had never found a way to stop it, though, unless she could get in a few good deep breaths, which she was trying, but that would fail completely if she had to speak again before she got proper control of herself. "I never did it any of that shit when I was a kid! I played quidditch! I went out! I did things! I didn't sit around at home doing fuck all! I'm not one of those people!" Edgar shouted back, heading down the hallway. "This is complete fucking bullshit! I don't get hurt, I can't not do something!" Then he was in his study. He slammed the door behind him, and then sat himself down in his chair with some difficulty. It was a winged chair, and with a great whomping bandage around your midsection, sitting up straight was kind of difficult, and uncomfortable. "Fuck," he said angrily under his breath. Thoroughly angry and upset herself, Calypso went stomping into the kitchen. As Edgar had pointed out before, it was always focaccia when she got upset. She liked focaccia, and making bread involved hitting things, which made it ideal for the purpose of working off frustration. So out came flour and yeast and warm water and a little salt, and with her teeth gritted in fury she got to work. "Oh, Merlin forbid that Edgar Bones should actually have to spend an evening at home with his wife!" she ranted aloud to herself. "The entire Ministry of Magic will surely collapse upon itself! Amazing that it hasn't already, really! Well I wonder how it will get on when he's dead because he's more concerned with not being bored than with seeing his children finish school!" The dough formed up quickly, and she slammed it down on the floured countertop with her hands. "Thinks he's bloody invincible," Calypso muttered to herself. "Or maybe he just doesn't care! Maybe it's just that if he dies for the Ministry, that's bloody well fine, and his wife and children will just have to understand. Just once," she snapped at no one who could hear her, "Just once I would like for it to be about me. I want to come first. Couldn't he at least just keep himself alive for me and learn to live with being bored for a few more days?" Calypso had known who she was marrying when she married him. She was proud of him, even, and believed in the work he did, and she wouldn't really want him to be anyone else. It was hard to remember that when she had just watched John Dawlish's body carried out of the Starlight Ballroom, though, and had seen his sister's face the next day. She had seen those same looks on the faces of Roger Davies's family and too many others before and since him. She didn't want that to be her and her family, and it might be selfish, but she was going to keep Edgar right here in the house until he was back up to fighting speed, and that was that. Back in Edgar's office, he'd flung his cane across the room where it had crashed into the wall, causing some service award he'd gotten years ago to fall to the ground, glass going everywhere as the frame broke. In Edgar's mind, this argument about his wanting to be in the office had nothing to do with staying alive or not, but everything to do with feeling like himself. Because he didn't. When he'd been young, he had felt invincible, and he had thought himself capable of anything. He wasn't so sure anymore. He was angry with himself for one stupid misstep that could've happened to him just as easily when he was 25 as it had at the masquerade. He felt old, and he hated it. He felt breakable, and he hated it. Worst of all of it was the uselessness. If he could keep himself busy, he could put John's death out of his mind a bit more, and he could feel like an auror again instead of like a 37-year-old man who gave himself more problems than he should have. He needed to work because that was how he coped with things he couldn't comprehend. That was how he dealt with the things he seemingly couldn't change. He just said "fuck that" and tried to change them anyway. He knew that Cally only had his best interests at heart and that she wanted him to get well again before charging off, because she didn't want Edgar to be the body at the next memorial service. He was afraid she was taking it personally, and not for the first time in sixteen years, he wondered if he'd been a bad husband, if he was letting his own preoccupations overshadow everything else in his life. He should comfort her, or reassure her, least instead of letting his own frustrations with himself eat away at him. He just staked so much of who he was in being bigger and stronger than whatever was out there, he just couldn't deal with having any sort of weakness exposed. After about 15 minutes of staring at the closed door, and after calming himself down, Edgar got up again. He had to hold the desk for some support as he maneuvered slowly around it, putting his hand against the wall to reach for the cane amid the broken glass. Ignoring the mess for now he open the door and left his study, heading back out into the main area of the house, where he spotting Calypso banging around in the kitchen. He watched her silently from the doorway for a moment, trying to decide what it was he needed to say. He could apologize for being irrational, perhaps, or apologize for not putting her first, or even apologize for being such a useless, headstrong twat when maybe he really should just listen to the healers and to his wife and take it easy for once in his life. Procrastinating speaking he just kept watching, feeling, honestly, like a massive arse. He supposed that being selfish was just something he hadn't ever managed to grow out of. After a few minutes he finally spoke. "I remember," he started slowly, "the first year we were married, when we had an argument over... well I think it was over something inane, like wallpaper. We did a lot of yelling and screaming at one another and then after we'd both calmed down, we reasoned that the only reason we'd gotten so up in arms was because we were two crazy people who would argue for the sake of it if the mood struck. I think that that was the first time I pissed you off and you made focaccia." She heard him come in, but she didn't speak then. It was either going to be to apologize or to tell her that he was going in and that was the end of it. She kept shoving the dough around - stretch, fold, pound, pound, pound - as she waited. Then, as he began to speak, she slowed down. She listened, and she remembered very well that first year of learning to live with one another. There had been several arguments over silly things that year. Sometimes she missed the stupid arguments of their youth; they were louder, but they didn't hurt nearly as much as the ones they had now. There was so much more at stake now, and that made it harder to simply let a fight blow over. Silently, Calypso set the ball of dough into a bowl to rise. It wasn't until it was covered with a towel and a light warming charm that she finally replied, her voice quiet and her eyes still on the countertop that she had begun to wipe a wet rag over. "Focaccia's very forgiving. Even if I pound on it too much, it's still good in the end." Not a bad metaphor for a marriage, really, now that she thought about it. She didn't want to discuss symbolism, though, and went on to what really had her so upset. "If you go out too soon and get yourself killed because you're not up to speed yet, Edgar, I will not be all right," she said softly, and finally she turned around to look at him. "I will not be strong for everyone else. I will be a hysterical mess, and Jon will have to give me so many calming draughts that Sturgis will be the only one left to plan your funeral. Your children will never really recover, and this whole family will be irrevocably damaged. I know--" Tears were beginning to well up, and she didn't like it but she couldn't stop it. "I know you don't like being here right now, but I am begging you, Edgar...just wait until the Healers say it's all right to go back. If you do, I swear I'll never say another word about it, but if you don't and something happens to you because of it I will absolutely never forgive you." Edgar's mouth felt dry. "I. I know," he said, swallowing hard and inhaling deeply through his nose before speaking again. "I'm not trying to... to put undue stress on you. I'm not actively trying to kill myself either, Cally. I'm just not handling this the way that perhaps I should, and I've always just. I've always been able to go back to work the next day and make the world make sense again. I know that that sounds terrible and I'm sorry that you. That I'm putting myself first when I shouldn't be." He wasn't going to go charging back in to work, and that was all she needed to hear right now. It was more than enough to make her leave her work to step forward and put her arms gently around his neck, careful of his injury even as she kissed his cheek and then rested her head on his shoulder. "It's all right," Cally murmured, because now it more or less was. "I know it's frustrating for you, Edgar. Honestly, I do. I just can't bear the thought of losing you, and I live with it enough even when you're perfectly well." Inching forward and supporting himself on the side holding his cane (with the injury being mostly on the right side, he had some difficulty standing up straight still, never mind the sitting in his desk chair), he slid his free arm around her and put his face in her hair. It was one of Edgar's favorite places to be, holding Cally with his face buried in her curls. "You know I can't ever say that nothing's going to happen, Cally. I wish I could. I just. I try to take care of myself, I try to be careful. This has just been a really poignant reminder of the fact that I'm not. That I can't recover as easily as I used to." "You never had an injury like this before either, Edgar," Cally quietly reminded him. "This wouldn't have been a simple and easy recovery ten or fifteen years ago, either. You've no reason to think less of yourself for not being back at work yesterday." Edgar kissed her hair, and didn't say anything to it. He knew that it was true, but it didn't really change his perception of what had happened. The Death Eater he had fought had been on his level. He'd kept up. He wasn't continuing in this war as a young man who was in the prime of his career. He knew he was still capable, and that he wasn't washed up yet, but that, combined with his children growing up too fast and his friends... his friend dying. He couldn't figure out where the years had gone. "I love you." "I love you too," Cally murmured in reply, and pressed another light kiss to his jaw. He was tired and so was she, and it had been a very long week. "Why don't we go have a lie-down while this bread rises? You can talk to me, or pick up your journal to harass everyone at work and make sure they don't let the department fall apart." "Okay," Edgar replied agreeably, thinking it would be good for his brain to just relax (because though he'd been off work, stressing himself out over going back certainly wasn't relaxing), maybe talk about the kids or about Christmas, or about something cheerful and easy. "And... honestly. I think they're managing." |