Angus Campbell (![[info]](https://www.insanejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} scrambles) wrote in ![[info]](https://www.insanejournal.com/img/community.gif){kind=small} neeps,@ 2018-01-02 23:29:00 |
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| Entry tags: | ! narrative, angus campbell |
Who: Angus Campbell, NPC Elsa Reichert.
What: "When one is in love, one always begins by deceiving one’s self, and one always ends by deceiving others. That is what the world calls a romance." - Oscar Wilde
When: 1 January 2000
Where: Charlottetown, PEI, Canada
Warnings: A moment of terror (for Angus), but otherwise just a wee bit sad.
Angus hadn't planned out a speech or anything. He'd figured the right words would come to him when he saw Elsa. Now that he was staring at her door, trying fruitlessly to smooth down his hair, he was finding that plan a little bit lacking.
He hadn't even told her he was coming, which in retrospect possibly hadn't been the smartest idea. Maybe she wasn't even home.
He knocked anyway.
After a moment, the door swung open. "Hello?" said the person at the door -- who was too tall, too red-headed, and too male to be Elsa.
"Uh," Angus said, even further derailed from his resolve of coming up with a big speech on the fly. "Hullo. Don't know if I've got the right house. I was lookin' for… Elsa Reichert?"
"Honey? Someone at the door for you," the man called over his shoulder, and a second later Elsa was there -- just as lovely as she had been two and a half years ago when she'd fled the country with her parents, carrying a dark-haired, slate-blue-eyed toddler on her hip.
It must have been a full minute they stared at each other without saying a word. All Angus's half-formed words fell right out of his head; he gaped, open-mouthed like a fish, at Elsa and her kid.
"Angus," she said after a long, shocked moment, not sounding as happy to see him as he could've wished. "What in Helga's name are you-- no. Just a minute." She handed off the child to her boyfriend (husband?) and disappeared back into the house, leaving the man staring at him.
"Who are you?" he asked, sounding politely suspicious.
"I'm, ah… Who are you?" Angus answered numbly. Not the sharpest retort, but he was still staring at that wee bairn, who was staring back at him with solemn wide eyes that were a too-familiar shade of grey-blue.
"I'm Rob Johnson. Elsa's fiance." He shifted the child on his hip to offer out his hand, which Angus didn't take. "Nice to meet you. Mr…"
"Angus Campbell," Elsa said from behind him, boots on and coat on, a woolen hat jammed haphazardly over her blonde hair and pulling mittens onto her hands. "We knew each other back in Scotland. Come on, Angus, let's talk outside." She put a quelling hand on the man's arm when he looked like he wanted to say something, giving him a look Angus knew well. "We won't be long, Rob."
Angus moved mechanically, following her down off the porch and onto the sidewalk of their quiet street with one last look at her frowning fiance and the tiny staring child in the doorway, too thunderstruck to speak.
The snow crunched under Elsa's boots as she marched in silence for a moment. "What are you doing here, Angus?" she asked finally, once they were out of sight of the house.
He shook his head to clear it a bit, clenching his gloved hand around the Magibus Canada token in his pocket. He needed something physical to focus on, like he and Florrie had been working on to stave off the blankness when he felt it building in his head. "I, uh," he said helplessly. "I wanted to…" None of what he'd vaguely wanted to say was coming to his mind. "El, that kid. How old… when did… I mean, is it…" Black spots danced in his vision and he gestured weakly to himself.
"Beth? She's nearly two. Why?" She sounded legitimately confused. "I don't... oh, Merlin, no. No, no, no. She's Rob's kid, I'm going to be her stepmother. You can't think I would've kept it from you if I'd been pregnant when I left Scotland -- do you?"
When she left Scotland. Not a word about how she'd left him, too. Angus looked down at the snowy sidewalk under his feet, trying to get his mind in order as his heartbeat went steady again. There was a load of blinding relief that he didn't have a kid he'd known nothing about, of course, but also a creeping bit of disappointed yearning he'd hadn't known was there before and he didn't know what to do with now.
"I reckon I dinna ken much at all about you these days, El," he answered finally, giving up on puzzling out his reaction to not being a father. "I havena heard a word from you since last summer. When you told me you were staying here, and then stopped answering my owls."
She frowned over at him. "What else was there to say? What we had was long over." Angus shook his head silently, disbelievingly, and she threw up her hands in a way that was still so familiar from their fights back then. "You missed a lot, Angus. Life moves on, and I moved on. I thought you had, too."
"I was in feckin' Azkaban, not on beach holiday," he retorted, shoving his hands deeper into his pockets. "Not a lot of opportunity for new romance in that foul place, darlin'. Or for moving on, when you're tryin' to cling to your memories, fightin' for your very mind. Godric, I thought about you in there, every day, every hour--"
"Well, so did I," Elsa interrupted him defensively. "At first. But I had a life here, and I couldn't just pause it while you were gone, and… and other things creep in. I'm sorry about what they did to you, Angie. I am. It was incredibly brave what you did, standing up for people like my parents. I was so proud of you. When your brother owled me to tell me what had happened with the trial and that you were going to prison… I thought about coming back to see you once more. But what could I have done? I couldn't have helped you, I'd only have put myself at risk too. And I'd just found a new job, and my parents were getting settled here. I couldn't leave here. And then… I didn't want to."
He ducked his reasonably-carefully-shaven chin down into the collar of his coat, feeling ice-cold. She'd given up on them a lot sooner than he had, apparently. He walked on silently for another minute before he said, "I loved you."
Elsa looked away, her breath puffing out white in the cold air. "I know," she said. "I… thought I loved you, too."
Well, that said it all, didn't it?
In retrospect, he didn't know what he'd been expecting. He hadn't come back here to fix things, not exactly, but Angus had hoped to find her needing resolution. Maybe struggling as much as he was; maybe still needing to close that chapter in both their lives as much as he did. But she'd done it on her own, more than a year ago, maybe before he'd even been released from prison. She'd moved on, and he was the only one who'd been stuck in the past, hung up on a love story that had apparently been lifeless in the dust long before he'd realised it was even ailing. All that time in Azkaban struggling to hold onto his memories of her, thinking of her day and night, imagining she was thinking of him, and she'd been halfway around the world living her life. While he'd barely been living at all.
"How are you doing?" she asked, softer. "We get the Prophet here -- Mum still reads it religiously. I read you're still playing Quidditch."
Angus nodded jerkily. "Aye. Reserve, though. Cannae hack it as a starter anymore." He tapped his forehead with two gloved fingers. "Azkaban was rough on the noggin. I have… some problems." He grimaced. "It's getting better. Dinna want to talk about it. Ah… what are you doing? Still working on your wandcrafting?"
She nodded, not looking at him. "I've been a craftswitch in the local artificer's almost since I moved here. That's actually where I met Rob; his dad owns the place. He's a really good man."
"Ah," Angus answered dully. "Weel. Felicitations." He scrubbed the back of his glove over his cold nose. "When's the weddin'?"
"Angus." Elsa sighed, looking up at the heavens like she was exasperated with him. Well, that was a familiar response, too. "In March, all right?"
Well, that was quick, he did not say. He also didn't ask how long they'd been together; he really didn't want to know exactly how quickly she'd got over him. He just nodded and tromped along silently for a minute.
"You never used to want kids," he said, after another moment of silent consideration.
He saw her shrug out of the corner of his eye. "I didn't," she agreed. "But Rob already had one, and… she's changed my mind."
"Ah," he answered. He'd forgotten how much he and Elsa had fought about things. About almost everything, really. Time and distance, as well as the loneliness of Azkaban, had tempered the rougher patches of their relationship and smoothed over all the disagreements, the things that had annoyed each of them about the other, how they'd been expert at rubbing one another the wrong way after two years together. He'd remembered the times when it was best, and forgotten that there had been times it was rotten, too. "So it was really that you just never wanted kids with me, then," he couldn't resist saying.
"That's not -- no, I'm not doing this again," Elsa said, stopping in her tracks and grabbing his arm so he would face her. "What are you actually doing here, Angus?"
He watched her for a few moments as they stood together in the cold, studying her face, the pursing of her lips, the unhappy lines folded into her forehead. She looked the same as in those old pictures he still pulled out sometimes, but looking at her now, he didn't feel what he once had. Elsa was still beautiful and accomplished and clever, and he knew he'd loved her, but he couldn't exactly remember why anymore.
Maybe that was what he'd needed to come out here to see for himself.
"Weel," he said finally, "I reckon I'm leaving, is what I'm doing here. Sorry for droppin' in unannounced. Happy New Year and all that. Give my best to your folks if you get the chance."
Elsa shook her head at him, frowning, but she didn't say anything more as he shook her hand off his arm and turned to walk away. He just needed to walk for a bit, he reckoned.
***
It was two hours and several warming charms later, on a long and winding street he didn't completely remember walking down, that Angus finally felt prepared to make use of the Magibus Canada token in his pocket. He pulled it out and tapped it with his wand, and waited the few moments before the bus popped into existence, careened around the corner and screeched to a halt in front of him.
He climbed aboard, earning a curious look from the matronly driver: the same driver who'd brought him out to Charlottetown, just hours ago. "You again? That was a quick trip, eh?" she observed.
"Oh, weel," Angus answered, dusting snow off the shoulders of his coat. "I, ah... got dumped. Very finally."
She gave him a sympathetic look. "Sorry about that. Where to, hon?"
"Ach, it was a long time comin'." He gave her a weak grin. "Dinna really mind where to. What's your next stop?"
The driver checked her scrolling list of fares. "St. John's?"
"Weel, I don't have any earthly idea where that is, but it sounds fine," he said, and swung into the first seat on the nearly-empty bus, taking advantage of the aisle to stretch his long legs out in front of him. "Take me there, if you please. Preferably to a pub."
He hadn't even told her he was coming, which in retrospect possibly hadn't been the smartest idea. Maybe she wasn't even home.
He knocked anyway.
After a moment, the door swung open. "Hello?" said the person at the door -- who was too tall, too red-headed, and too male to be Elsa.
"Uh," Angus said, even further derailed from his resolve of coming up with a big speech on the fly. "Hullo. Don't know if I've got the right house. I was lookin' for… Elsa Reichert?"
"Honey? Someone at the door for you," the man called over his shoulder, and a second later Elsa was there -- just as lovely as she had been two and a half years ago when she'd fled the country with her parents, carrying a dark-haired, slate-blue-eyed toddler on her hip.
It must have been a full minute they stared at each other without saying a word. All Angus's half-formed words fell right out of his head; he gaped, open-mouthed like a fish, at Elsa and her kid.
"Angus," she said after a long, shocked moment, not sounding as happy to see him as he could've wished. "What in Helga's name are you-- no. Just a minute." She handed off the child to her boyfriend (husband?) and disappeared back into the house, leaving the man staring at him.
"Who are you?" he asked, sounding politely suspicious.
"I'm, ah… Who are you?" Angus answered numbly. Not the sharpest retort, but he was still staring at that wee bairn, who was staring back at him with solemn wide eyes that were a too-familiar shade of grey-blue.
"I'm Rob Johnson. Elsa's fiance." He shifted the child on his hip to offer out his hand, which Angus didn't take. "Nice to meet you. Mr…"
"Angus Campbell," Elsa said from behind him, boots on and coat on, a woolen hat jammed haphazardly over her blonde hair and pulling mittens onto her hands. "We knew each other back in Scotland. Come on, Angus, let's talk outside." She put a quelling hand on the man's arm when he looked like he wanted to say something, giving him a look Angus knew well. "We won't be long, Rob."
Angus moved mechanically, following her down off the porch and onto the sidewalk of their quiet street with one last look at her frowning fiance and the tiny staring child in the doorway, too thunderstruck to speak.
The snow crunched under Elsa's boots as she marched in silence for a moment. "What are you doing here, Angus?" she asked finally, once they were out of sight of the house.
He shook his head to clear it a bit, clenching his gloved hand around the Magibus Canada token in his pocket. He needed something physical to focus on, like he and Florrie had been working on to stave off the blankness when he felt it building in his head. "I, uh," he said helplessly. "I wanted to…" None of what he'd vaguely wanted to say was coming to his mind. "El, that kid. How old… when did… I mean, is it…" Black spots danced in his vision and he gestured weakly to himself.
"Beth? She's nearly two. Why?" She sounded legitimately confused. "I don't... oh, Merlin, no. No, no, no. She's Rob's kid, I'm going to be her stepmother. You can't think I would've kept it from you if I'd been pregnant when I left Scotland -- do you?"
When she left Scotland. Not a word about how she'd left him, too. Angus looked down at the snowy sidewalk under his feet, trying to get his mind in order as his heartbeat went steady again. There was a load of blinding relief that he didn't have a kid he'd known nothing about, of course, but also a creeping bit of disappointed yearning he'd hadn't known was there before and he didn't know what to do with now.
"I reckon I dinna ken much at all about you these days, El," he answered finally, giving up on puzzling out his reaction to not being a father. "I havena heard a word from you since last summer. When you told me you were staying here, and then stopped answering my owls."
She frowned over at him. "What else was there to say? What we had was long over." Angus shook his head silently, disbelievingly, and she threw up her hands in a way that was still so familiar from their fights back then. "You missed a lot, Angus. Life moves on, and I moved on. I thought you had, too."
"I was in feckin' Azkaban, not on beach holiday," he retorted, shoving his hands deeper into his pockets. "Not a lot of opportunity for new romance in that foul place, darlin'. Or for moving on, when you're tryin' to cling to your memories, fightin' for your very mind. Godric, I thought about you in there, every day, every hour--"
"Well, so did I," Elsa interrupted him defensively. "At first. But I had a life here, and I couldn't just pause it while you were gone, and… and other things creep in. I'm sorry about what they did to you, Angie. I am. It was incredibly brave what you did, standing up for people like my parents. I was so proud of you. When your brother owled me to tell me what had happened with the trial and that you were going to prison… I thought about coming back to see you once more. But what could I have done? I couldn't have helped you, I'd only have put myself at risk too. And I'd just found a new job, and my parents were getting settled here. I couldn't leave here. And then… I didn't want to."
He ducked his reasonably-carefully-shaven chin down into the collar of his coat, feeling ice-cold. She'd given up on them a lot sooner than he had, apparently. He walked on silently for another minute before he said, "I loved you."
Elsa looked away, her breath puffing out white in the cold air. "I know," she said. "I… thought I loved you, too."
Well, that said it all, didn't it?
In retrospect, he didn't know what he'd been expecting. He hadn't come back here to fix things, not exactly, but Angus had hoped to find her needing resolution. Maybe struggling as much as he was; maybe still needing to close that chapter in both their lives as much as he did. But she'd done it on her own, more than a year ago, maybe before he'd even been released from prison. She'd moved on, and he was the only one who'd been stuck in the past, hung up on a love story that had apparently been lifeless in the dust long before he'd realised it was even ailing. All that time in Azkaban struggling to hold onto his memories of her, thinking of her day and night, imagining she was thinking of him, and she'd been halfway around the world living her life. While he'd barely been living at all.
"How are you doing?" she asked, softer. "We get the Prophet here -- Mum still reads it religiously. I read you're still playing Quidditch."
Angus nodded jerkily. "Aye. Reserve, though. Cannae hack it as a starter anymore." He tapped his forehead with two gloved fingers. "Azkaban was rough on the noggin. I have… some problems." He grimaced. "It's getting better. Dinna want to talk about it. Ah… what are you doing? Still working on your wandcrafting?"
She nodded, not looking at him. "I've been a craftswitch in the local artificer's almost since I moved here. That's actually where I met Rob; his dad owns the place. He's a really good man."
"Ah," Angus answered dully. "Weel. Felicitations." He scrubbed the back of his glove over his cold nose. "When's the weddin'?"
"Angus." Elsa sighed, looking up at the heavens like she was exasperated with him. Well, that was a familiar response, too. "In March, all right?"
Well, that was quick, he did not say. He also didn't ask how long they'd been together; he really didn't want to know exactly how quickly she'd got over him. He just nodded and tromped along silently for a minute.
"You never used to want kids," he said, after another moment of silent consideration.
He saw her shrug out of the corner of his eye. "I didn't," she agreed. "But Rob already had one, and… she's changed my mind."
"Ah," he answered. He'd forgotten how much he and Elsa had fought about things. About almost everything, really. Time and distance, as well as the loneliness of Azkaban, had tempered the rougher patches of their relationship and smoothed over all the disagreements, the things that had annoyed each of them about the other, how they'd been expert at rubbing one another the wrong way after two years together. He'd remembered the times when it was best, and forgotten that there had been times it was rotten, too. "So it was really that you just never wanted kids with me, then," he couldn't resist saying.
"That's not -- no, I'm not doing this again," Elsa said, stopping in her tracks and grabbing his arm so he would face her. "What are you actually doing here, Angus?"
He watched her for a few moments as they stood together in the cold, studying her face, the pursing of her lips, the unhappy lines folded into her forehead. She looked the same as in those old pictures he still pulled out sometimes, but looking at her now, he didn't feel what he once had. Elsa was still beautiful and accomplished and clever, and he knew he'd loved her, but he couldn't exactly remember why anymore.
Maybe that was what he'd needed to come out here to see for himself.
"Weel," he said finally, "I reckon I'm leaving, is what I'm doing here. Sorry for droppin' in unannounced. Happy New Year and all that. Give my best to your folks if you get the chance."
Elsa shook her head at him, frowning, but she didn't say anything more as he shook her hand off his arm and turned to walk away. He just needed to walk for a bit, he reckoned.
It was two hours and several warming charms later, on a long and winding street he didn't completely remember walking down, that Angus finally felt prepared to make use of the Magibus Canada token in his pocket. He pulled it out and tapped it with his wand, and waited the few moments before the bus popped into existence, careened around the corner and screeched to a halt in front of him.
He climbed aboard, earning a curious look from the matronly driver: the same driver who'd brought him out to Charlottetown, just hours ago. "You again? That was a quick trip, eh?" she observed.
"Oh, weel," Angus answered, dusting snow off the shoulders of his coat. "I, ah... got dumped. Very finally."
She gave him a sympathetic look. "Sorry about that. Where to, hon?"
"Ach, it was a long time comin'." He gave her a weak grin. "Dinna really mind where to. What's your next stop?"
The driver checked her scrolling list of fares. "St. John's?"
"Weel, I don't have any earthly idea where that is, but it sounds fine," he said, and swung into the first seat on the nearly-empty bus, taking advantage of the aisle to stretch his long legs out in front of him. "Take me there, if you please. Preferably to a pub."