InsaneJournal

What the fuck was she thinking last night? Hell, if she knew. Sometimes she just acted first, and thoughts came later at all. Ellie should have just left with Alasdair as planned. Now, she found herself rooting around in his kitchen trying to pull together some sort of breakfast of forgiveness.

Unexplained, yes, but not all that off par from how she usually acted. Although slapping Florrie was certainly going to make Christmas with the McGonagall cousins complicated.

For right now she was focused on the task at hand - breakfast. The flat was lacking a lot of things, but not breakfast foods. Breakfast foods were about one of the few things she could reliably make, so it wasn’t too difficult to pull together a hash, some eggs, toast, and coffee.

Thinking before acting was just par for the course with them. He understood that more than anyone. Still, Alasdair couldn’t help but be confused over what happened the night before. That was his thought that morning as he woke up and found Ellie missing. Also registering that they were in his flat for once.

Alasdair pulled himself out of bed to go in search of Ellie. Pulled some jogging pants on for good measure. It took him a few minutes of waking up and wandering into the washroom, before he finally made his way to the kitchen. It was the smells of breakfast, best meal of the day of course, that led him to Ellie.

“Good morning,” he said to let her know he was there before coming up behind her. Alasdair grinned when he saw her wearing his jumper. He went up behind her and leaned down to press a kiss to her shoulder. “Is it a good morning?”

Ellie let out a sigh, leaning back into him and closing her eyes. “Morning.” She turned just slightly so her temple rested on his cheek. There were too many answers to that question. Each door lead to a different conversation and she wasn’t sure she wanted to lead this morning. “I made breakfast.”

When Ellie leaned back against him, he wrapped his arms around her waist so that she could stay there. He rubbed his cheek against her temple. Oh well, good morning or not, Ellie could still be cuddly. And the answer he got wasn’t really the one he expected, but they could work on that. “It smells good,” he offered. “I like breakfast.”

She was grateful for the moment, however, small where they didn’t have to talk about the half dozen other things just hanging on the horizon. “Good.” Ellie turned off the hob, so nothing would burn. Then she maneuvered around so she was facing him, making it a proper hug. “Still not sure why you’re living here. I like our kitchen better.” And it she wasn’t such a morning person, and she hadn’t already been up for some time, Ellie might have been able to brush that off as a half-asleep comment, but she was fully awake.

Alasdair loosened his grip enough so Ellie could turn around but then pulled her closer again because he could. This was nice. Just like when things were nice and good before. He leaned down to brush a kiss to her cheek, and to tease her with his beard too. Though he did pull back at the comment about ‘our’ kitchen. “Well, seemed like a good idea at the time,” he said to get his less serious comment out there. “Does that mean you want me to live in our house?” he asked though getting closer to the more serious topic.

They had finished building An Nead together, it was always as much her home, as it was his. “Maybe?” She said squinting up her face. “We were pretty good, weren’t we?” It was chaos, sometimes barely controlled, but that was Ellie until she spiraled out hard and long enough to finally push him out.

Ellie was steady when she had quidditch. It was an appropriate outlet for her anger, it kept her focused. Without it -- well this past fall was a good snapshot of what happened. But when it came to their relationship, it was never clean the interplay between her quidditch career and their commitment to each other. Things had been rocky following her injury at the end of the 1993 season, along with Lorna’s pregnancy. It set the perfect storm of conflict into motion, that came to a head in the dark months that were her post-Worlds recovery.

Alasdair had been patient with her. Far more patient than she deserved. But she was angry, angry unable to do a damn thing about it because her body had betrayed her. She wasn’t a dragon, she wasn’t a quid player anymore, she was barely a person. And Saint Alasdair just kept coming back, trying to help, trying to make it better, and she hated him more for it. Hated his career, hated his kind and supportive words. And just hated his stupid face and beard.

It was a pathetic mess to run him out of their home with want for a divorce because she couldn’t bring him down with her, couldn’t keep herself tied to him. She had said for better or worse, and while he kept those vows, she didn’t want them. Not anymore.

And yet, somehow the months that followed without him were worse. For both of them. And maybe that was her problem, she didn’t know what she wanted. To some extent she only considered officially marrying him because Lorna married Owen.

Then it arrived at a point where he was throwing his career away, by making dumb arse decisions, and she wouldn’t let that happen. So for as hard and fast as Hurricane Ellie kicked him out of her life, she descended upon his again when got fired from Montrose in the Winter of 1996.

“We were always good. Sometimes things were just bad,” Alasdair said to Ellie. He’d given Ellie the divorce (or separation rather) because it was what she wanted. He’d done what he could to try to help her, but he wasn’t what she needed then. Or if she did need him, she didn’t want him. There was no point in forcing the issue then, though sometimes Alasdair thought maybe he should have. He couldn’t have given her quidditch career back, and at least she’d found her on path back without him. That at least seemed to justify their time apart.

For himself, Alasdair had been a mess without her. While Quidditch had been Ellie’s stabilizer… she’d been his. If he and Ellie couldn’t be together, then why did anything else matter? He had the ability but losing Ellie made him lose his drive for a time. He’d fucked up with the drinking, and not taking Quidditch seriously anymore. He’d pissed off his teammates (probably Lennox forever) and got himself sacked.

Then it had been Ellie’s time to get him through. At least somewhat. They weren’t together together, but Ellie and Allie could rely on each other once again. It was easier to pretend that things were just like the way they were before they got married. The fact was Alasdair didn’t need to be married. He just needed Ellie.

And when the war came… and his public support of muggles was well known, Alasdair was in trouble. He’d already seen what had happened to some of his friends, and Alasdair knew what was next. It wasn’t a cowardly decision to leave, but it was to protect Ellie. If she wasn’t associated with him because he was gone, she’d be safe. Ultimately it was the reason why Alasdair hadn’t gone back to An Nead and ask Ellie to go back to Canada with him. He’d thought about it. Almost sent her an owl to ask. But he knew what the answer would he so he didn’t and didn’t tell her until he was already gone.

“So… was talking to Jason about something the other day,” Alasdair mentioned thinking this might be a good time. Also it was ignoring the slapping Florrie thing. “And he brought up the fact that… we’re still married?”

Ellie paused. Whatever else Alasdair could have said, she was not expecting that. “Are we?” She honestly couldn’t be sure. There was a fight. They no longer lived together. There was definitely a ring in a misplaced box - but she had never really worn the ring to begin with. Ellie ran her hands up his chest, fingers running over the stylized heart-shaped E.

She wasn’t sure if that answer changed anything, but now she needed to know.

“I said we were separated. But that doesn’t seem to apply either,” Alasdair said with a shrug. He looked down to see Ellie running her finger over his wedding tattoo of her E on his chest. He adjusted his arms around her so they were sitting more comfortably at her waist. “Though, marriage was never the be all the end all for me. You and me, that’s what was important,” he said making that point obvious no matter what Ellie thought.

With his hands on her waist, his thumb landed right over her wedding tattoo. Ellie couldn’t remember actually signing the papers. She had just sort of loudly screamed divorced, separated their Gringotts account, and that was it. Except that wasn’t exactly legal.

And if they were still married...fuck.

She buried her face into chest, letting the weight of that realization hit her. Apparently it was okay for the coach to be sleeping with the starting chaser of her rival team, but married? Well, that both complicated and clarified things.

“Hypocrite thy name is MacFusty.”

Alasdair leaned down to kiss the top of Ellie’s head when she leaned in against his chest. “Happens to the best of us,” he said. Sometimes. Maybe. Yeah probably. He pulled Ellie in for a more comforting hug. “What’s the hypocrisy this time?” Alasdair asked though he probably already knew. Just giving Ellie the opportunity to talk about it.

She groaned. Where to start? “Oh just my tantrum about Cav and Florrie, or Buchanan and Olivier for the matter. Although I didn’t shag the other Alasdair.” And Miracle was going to gloat so mightily over this situation. There was totally egg all over her face on this one. Not even the weak, but long standing argument she married this Alasdair long before they were rivals would hold up.

“Ah, that one,” Alasdair said and nodded when she admitted it at least. Though he didn’t know she’d been mad about Alasdair the younger and Ada. Though that last comment made him pause. “Wait, so you did shag Cav?” No judgement but an eyebrow raise and clarification was needed. But whatever. “It was a mistake. People will get over it. Apologizing helps too you know.”

“I shagged a lot of people, Cav being one of them in my very impressive fight, fuck, or firewhiskey streak after MacDonald.” She very nearly sounded proud of that, but it wasn’t exactly something to be proud of. Even thinking about it now, still made her sad and angry all at once. Ellie was a complete mess in the lead up to the Fall Classic, some might argue that she really wasn’t doing much better.

Alasdair nodded understanding. Emotional baggage came with the territory here. No point in jealousy over something when they weren’t together. In fact, Alasdair had been kind of sort of dating Valmai Morgan. That went to shit after Fall Classic, but no regrets. He rubbed his hand over her back and placed another kiss at her forehead and her temple before bringing his hand up to brush her cheek. “Yeah, that bloody sucked.” he said about MacDonald. “That’s when you asked Lorna to come back too,” he said just going for it even if this was not a good time for that conversation either. But you know, speak without thinking logic was a patented Maddock Ravenclaw thing.

Groaning again, this time louder, Ellie tapped her head against his chest. If he just brought up concussions or how she couldn’t play quidditch anymore, he would hit all of her trigger points in one morning. And before breakfast.

“If we’re going to do this, we should at least have coffee,” said Ellie.

“Sure,” Alasdair conceded that he’d hit too many points already. “Did you make coffee? I can do that if you just did the breakfast part.”

Ellie pointed to the coffee pot with the coffee still warming. Breakfast was finished and ready to go with the exception of the toast that was still just bread right now. Food didn’t sound half bad too. “You get the coffee, I’ll fill some plates?”

“Sure. In the cupboard up there,” he said pointing to where she could find the plates. And for good measure Alasdair leaned down to kiss her proper because getting Ellie talking deserved rewards and encouragement right? He let go so he could go grab some mugs and went to pour the coffee and brought all that over to the table to sit. He was starving now that he really let himself get the scent in of breakfast. So some food first, and then talking. “So… have you talked to your sister yet?”

“It’s funny,” she started, “because I have been so worried about fucking this whole thing up, and well, that’s exactly what I’m doing.” Ellie could make a list. A rather pathetic list of all her bad decisions - personal that impacted her professional. “I’m still not talking to Lorna, I punched Maggie, nearly punched Cav but instead slapped Florrie, I haven’t been fair to Buchanan. So I have dug myself a pretty good hole here, and just before Christmas.” She raised her coffee mug and took a sip.

Alasdair was really just becoming aware of the whole list. And he frowned to himself because yes he was concerned… but really he should have tried to help her sooner. They did have that one talk that day on the beach, but apparently that hadn’t been enough. “So… let me get this all straight… this isn’t torment but just laying it all out there. Punch me if necessary. But not really,” he said deciding against that immediately. “So… Cav and Florrie, and Buchanan are about this issue of cross rivalry dating,” he said getting that out of the way. “Lorna… well we talked about that already. Why did you punch your medic?”

The truth was, it was all a little bit of everything. “The short answer? I am barely contained fiendfyre and I don’t have an outlet anymore.” Ellie knew she wasn’t really answering his question, but the truth was she didn’t actually have an answer. To so much of it, it was guy reaction, action really than any thought. “I don’t know what I’m doing. At this point, I honestly don’t think I should be coaching. Certainly not as head coach.”

Alasdair reached over to take Ellie’s hand in his. He thought about what to answer and knew this all just went back to the fact that Ellie couldn’t play anymore. It was true she didn’t have an outlet anymore. “Well, I think we need to fix that then,” he suggested. “Maybe you could go get a second opinion at St. Mungo’s about your injury. Maybe see if anything can be done. It might not be enough to get you back to Quidditch, but it could be something,” Alasdair suggested but didn’t know if that was opening a can of worms or not. “You still have the rest of the break though. Why not just take that, and see where you when it’s time to come back. I think you’re regret it if you stopped coaching before you really thought about it. And that’s just one less outlet you already don’t have.”

How many times had she chased that thread? How many second, third, and fourth opinions did she have? Now, it was twice yearly appointments to follow up and watch for progression of secondary symptoms. “My head is not getting better.” If anything it was getting worse, but she didn’t want to say those words out loud.

“I couldn’t walk away from the game so I became a coach. Turns out that didn’t really make things better.” She squeezed his hand, grateful for his presence. “And I think I have arrived at a point where if I tendered my resignation today, it might be met with a sigh of relief from administration and ownership.”

While Ellie didn’t said it in so many words, Alasdair could tell she wasn’t confident about that avenue of investigation. He lifted her hand up so he could kiss it because really he didn’t know what else to say to that. Well… one thought but save that for another day.

Alasdair hated it when Ellie was down on herself. It was… not the way she should be. She was a dragon. Fierce, protective and outgoing. To see her brought down so low… and knowing that no one else could see this but him, it didn’t help anyone else see this perspective. “Fuck admin and ownership,” he said and really he meant it. “What are they concerned about? Public image. Your job as a coach is working with the players. Portree jumped to 3rd place in the standings. In ONE match,” he said making that clear. “You’re good at what you do Elsie. You can’t play anymore, but you can help others do better.”

She shook her hand loose of his, throwing it up in the air. “Just because I’m good at something doesn’t mean I should be doing it. Not when it’s a shit show off the pitch.” Ellie shook her head. It was all spilling too far into her personal life. “Maggie. Cav. I’ve never particularly liked Owen, and I don’t think Gwen has ever liked me.

“Just because I can make the team win, doesn’t mean I’m a good role model.” She laughed, nervously. “You know I was, still am, actually proud that Scrimmy punched that guy at the Shawarma shop?”

Alasdair frowned when Ellie took her hand away and felt they’d back peddled from the issue here. “Fine, you’re right. You need to be able to work with people too,” he said going back to that. “But what are you going to do if you quit coaching, Elsie? That’s only the solution to make other people happy, and that’s only a minority. That doesn’t solve your problems,” he said bringing it back to the main issue. “Put the coaching thing aside for the moment. If quitting ultimately is going to help you, then it’s always a possibility. But what is going to help you stop being angry. What do you need, Elsie?”

“That’s the secret, Allie, I’m always angry.” It was also wasn’t much of an answer, but it was the best and most honest one she had. “And If I knew how to deal with, I don’t think I’d be in the position I’m in, but continuing forward as I’ve been doesn’t seem like much of a solution.”

That, Alasdair could probably believe. He reached for her hand again… even if she didn’t let him take it, he still wanted it to be clear that connection was there. “No, I don’t think just continuing on is going to work. You don’t do the same thing and expect different results,” Alasdair agreed. “I don’t know how… but I’m going to help. Any way I can. And if you try to kick me out again… well basically, you’re not allowed to,” he said not assertively, but with a hint of emotion that meant more but wasn’t the topic of conversation now. “I know we’re not the best at thinking before doing so… I’m not saying think it over, but take a break? Talk to these people and figure things out.”

Sitting beside each other, holding hands wasn’t quite enough. It wasn’t practical, she wasn’t even sure it was comfortable, but she slid herself over into his lap. “It was never so much me pushing you away as much as it was not bringing you down with me.” Although the end result was the same and really based on how he responded, she still brought him down.

Ellie knew she wasn’t any wiser and the older part was more a reflection of time rather than any personal growth. Still, she could spot the similar pattern. “And I don’t even know where to begin.”

He made the adjustments in his seat, and let Ellie slip into his lap instead. Arms went around her to fold her comfortably against him. “Doesn’t matter if it’s up or down, I’m with you,” Alasdair said not commenting that he did go down last time. That didn’t matter anymore. He bounced back eventually. They were finding a way back again. Ellie was the one that needed the help now. “Apologises usually work,” he suggested when she was unsure of where to begin. “Say you’re sorry, and then you can work your way from there.”

She snuggled a little more into him, breakfast forgotten for now. “I am sure this is true, but this also assumes that anyone wants to talk to me, and is even ready for me to apologize.” Ellie would have to make a decision about how to apologize and what to do about Christmas. If she went, it was probably going to be awkward and uncomfortable, for her certainly, but more so for everyone else. “And that’s not even addressing the fact there isn’t a particularly good reason for what I did.”

He rubbed his hand up and down her back when Ellie snuggled into him. “Anyone who says an apology isn’t enough are just mad, and they don’t mean it,” he assured her even though he didn’t know if that was true. “While in person usually means the most… a written one isn’t a bad gesture either,” he offered. “They decide if they read it or not, but it’s still permanent and you can go back to it.” The reason was harder. Ellie didn’t fully understand so how could he understand for her. “Say sorry for what you did. That’s the start. If they ask why, you’re working that out.” While there was no excuse for Ellie acting out… he wanted to defend her too because what she was going through was difficult to explain and for others to understand.

She let the joke about in person might yield the threat of punching, but it wasn’t really funny, was it? Not anymore. Ellie was slowly putting a plan together. “I think I need to stop by the Keep and talk to mum tomorrow, explain why I’m not going to Christmas Eve. Then actually do some thinking on things.”

Alasdair nodded to this plan. “Alright.” While he felt bad that Ellie was going to miss out on Christmas Eve with her family, he had his own moment of relief of avoiding the awkward of a MacFusty family gathering right now. It was better not to deal with relationship drama when Ellie had other things to work out first. “We could always go steal some turkey from my Mum’s house.” Not the best alternative plans, but Alasdair wasn’t going to subject Ellie to his side of the family either when he wasn’t as keen to go as well.

“I don’t know, think your mother could help me with my issues?” It was far from the best joke, a bit too close to the mark and honest to be funny. But if she wasn’t going to the MacFusty Clan party, then she would be open to stopping around to his.

He laughed, even if it wasn’t the best joke. “Doubt it. She can’t help herself,” he said though he didn’t put Ellie’s issues anywhere near the ballpark of his Mother’s. The main difference being… Ellie wanted help. His Mum didn’t. “Gran would offer a sympathetic ear though.”

“This Christmas?” She said looking up at him, still trying to process the weight of everything that had unfolded this morning. It was a lot. And there were still layers to go, but even then she could find one good piece in it all. “Whatever you want, as long as I don’t have to have to sleep in that bed anymore.”

That brought a smile. Alasdair reached to brush a strand of her hair back from her face as he held her close. A lot of things checked off the list today even if some of them didn’t have resolutions yet. But Alasdair was happy with this one good thing. “Never again. Promise,” he said. “And all I want is to be home for Christmas.”