March 4, 1888 — Near the Fisk house

Give my regards to soul and romance
They always did the best they could
And so long to devotion
You taught me everything I know
Wave goodbye, wish me well
You've got to let me go
Lou had taken to walking around Bartonburg, once he'd been forced to pry himself out of the cottage at Daniel's behest. It wasn't the safest place for him to take a casual stroll— far too many people who might recognize him—but Lou had stopped caring about things like that. He had stopped caring, really, about any of the things that he should have cared about. He walked this way because there was a chance, slim but existent, that he might catch a glimpse of Xena.

He hadn't spoken to her since the fall of last year, when she had been livid about the supposed dangers he had placed her sister in. Lou didn't believe there had been any physical danger present, at least none that he had caused, but he felt too guilty about whatever emotional damage he'd caused to argue with her, and they had parted on something less than the best of terms. She knew that he was out here, though, and Lou was waiting for her to forgive him, sooner or later. Before she'd known about his interactions with Zelda, she'd been ready to marry him. Even without his parents' money, and without his name, or anything of the life that he'd offered her before, she had still wanted him. He couldn't have broken all of that, could he? Sooner or later, she would forgive him and she would want him back, and he had pinned all his hopes on that day, whenever it might be.

The Fisk house was alight that evening when he walked by. It was still early in the evening, but the winter had already swallowed the sun and most of the residual light in the sky was fading fast, making the house seem alive. He walked by, but was still on the block when he heard a carriage approach the house. He could hardly have walked on without stopping to see what it was for, since carriages were not, in his experience, an everyday occurrence for the Fisks. Standing in the shadow of a nearby garden wall, he watched as Xena emerged from the house — his Xena, so vibrant and full of life and everything he always imagined her to be when he conjured her up in his dreams — and was helped into the carriage by a man he didn't recognize.

It was as though the world had come untethered from its place in the stars and spun off somewhere distant and foreign, and had left Lou behind. She would not come around after all, he thought despondently. Xena had moved on. He had always wanted her to, hadn't he, in his less selfish moments? He had wanted her to be happy — but Merlin, actually seeing it was no pleasant affair.

The carriage bustled past, and Lou didn't even have the presence of mind to turn away so that he might not be seen. What did it matter, anyway, if Xena looked out the window and caught a glimpse of him? It would make no difference to her.

Then the street was quiet, and he was alone; alone and quite lost, though he knew exactly where he was. Feeling as though he had lost the strength in his legs, Lou found himself sitting down against the sidewalk, his back up against the garden wall of some stranger's house. He lost track of time, sitting there, but what did it matter? What did anything matter, if the one thing he had been hoping for was well and truly out of reach?

  

The evenings Dionisia didn't have to go to work were often spent at one of her friend's houses. Despite the love she shared for her friends, even spending a single evening with them was becoming a melancholy occasion. To see them with their families, happy and laughing, while knowing she would return to her Pennyworth boarding house as soon as the family decided to retire for the evening. Not that she was one to complain aloud; she never wanted to seem overly needy or anything like that.

The winter air was cool, but it was a welcome change from the previous nights. Being a mediwitch usually meant going out into extreme conditions to help anyone who needed it, and she was far better able to cope with cold weather than hot weather. Still dressed in her hospital robes and with a long muggle coat wrapped around her frame, Dionisia had taken to the streets instead of choosing to floo home.

She passed the Fisk house with a smile on her face, knowing that Zelda was probably resting after a day's work. However, that smile faded as she crossed the sidewalk near a garden wall, where a gentleman—a very depressed-looking gentleman—had slouched over. The shadows obscured any detailed features, but he had to be no older than thirty-five or so. Glancing both ways, she cheeked to see if there was anyone else around that she too hadn't noticed. No one.

"Sir?" she asked softly, approaching him with her head craned at an angle where she hoped to catch his eyes. "Is everything alright?" Unless he just had a naturally depressed resting facial expression, it wasn't difficult to figure out that the answer was no; however, she didn't want to come off as prying.

  

---

The voice startled him. He'd forgotten where he was, to be honest, and hadn't expected anyone to wander by and intrude on the creeping feeling of despair that he'd sunken in to. He felt entirely alone, and it was a shock to realize that this wasn't the reality. Merlin, how long had he been sitting on the street like this? He had no idea, no notion of time, and as drawn into himself as he had been it was entirely possible that he'd already been passed by multiple people before this woman had spoken to him. That was too careless of him — being out like this where anyone could see him, especially with such close proximity to her house, was dangerous.

But what did it matter? If there wasn't a future with Xena, how could there be a future at all that was worth carrying on for? He might as well be seen; might as well have someone turn him into the Ministry. He might as well let his father's Vow take him, if it came to that. There wasn't anything else in his future, so why prolong the inevitable?

This woman, though, was unfamiliar (or at least, she appeared so in the dim twilight) and Lou found himself blinking up at her, entirely at a loss for what to say. "Fine," he eventually managed, though his tone made it quite obvious that he wasn't. His voice was hoarse, as though he'd forgotten how to use it. He cleared his throat and tried again, hoping to be more persuasive. "I'm fine."

  

Dionisia grimaced at the rough, coarse sound of his voice. It sounded like he'd been crying—or at the very least his throat had become a victim to the wind of the winter evening. He didn't perk up, nor did he smile; in short, he obviously was not fine. Though definitely more of practical sort of doer, her soft, sympathetic side had never fully faded. Perhaps that's why a mediwitch was a good job for her: she could be active and move at a fast pace while providing comfort to those in pain.

Dionisia crouched down an arm-length away from his, allowing his features to be revealed to her. Though his features were familiar, she knew that there were many people out there she'd come in contact with. Injured patients, friends of patients, family of patients. The concern didn't leave her expression, yet she tried to smile at him nevertheless. He looked like he could use one, even if he wasn't in the sort of pain she was used to helping people through.

"You don't sound fine. At the very least you could use some water," she pointed out, her gaze wandering across his body. "This weather isn't good for sitting outside in—not without something heavy on," she said, pulling off her coat before offering it to him. "You'll get sicker. 'Already pale in the face, you know."

She wasn't sure if the nameless man was homeless or if he'd just fallen into a somber mood while out and about. Not many people usually chose to sit up against a house when they could be by the fire.

  

---

Her persistence confused him. Most, he thought, would probably have passed him by without a second glance, or if they had stopped, would have done so only long enough to satisfy themselves that he was not either dead or actively in the process of dying. Good Samaritans, as the Christian stories had them, were not so common as the religion itself, and most would have been content with the bare minimum courtesy they believed required of them. His fine should have been the end of the conversation, except it wasn't. Here she was, getting down to his level in order to see his face, and here she was offering him her coat. Who did that?

"That's — very kind of you," he said, genuinely, but did not move to take the coat. He couldn't possibly accept such an offer from a lady (what of chivalry!) even if he was cold, which he — well, he supposed now that he thought about it, he was. When had that happened? And when had the sun sunk so low?

"I'm not ill," he assured her. The paleness she had attributed to him might very well be the result of his last battle against the moon, not even a full week past, or it could have been something he'd acquired during the time that he'd been sitting here, paying no mind to the outside world. It might have even become a part of him since he had left the house so little during the months since September; it wasn't as though there was much sun to be had in the winter, anyway, but he certainly hadn't been out and about to soak it up. Maybe he was always white as a ghost. Who could say? Daniel would have been too courteous to point it out, and Lou himself certainly wouldn't have noticed. He did recognize, however, that he probably ought to offer some sort of explanation for it — otherwise she would hardly believe his claim that he was well (physically, at least) — and so, shifting his eyes down to his knees briefly, he confessed, "I suppose I just had a run-in with a ghost, of sorts."

  

He didn't seem to want her coat—likely because usually it was a man who offered his coat to a young lady, but still, he looked like he needed it. Frowning, she didn't move to put it back on, instead opting to keep it in her hands in case he decided he did need it. Chivalry was admirable, but what wasn't admirable was a man freezing half to death because he was too proud to accept a gesture. Hopefully he'd either decide to take it or find somewhere warm to go.

"I'm glad you think so," she responded with a (somewhat teasing) cocked brow. "Though from my experience, those who are adamant about their wellness—especially when the evidence suggests otherwise—are the ones in the need of the most care." It applied to both physical health and emotional health.

She'd dealt with plenty of men who denied soothing packs after falling off their broomsticks (despite having purple bruises all over!), and women who proclaimed they were "perfectly well, thank you" after repeatedly fainting from menstrual cramps. On the flip side, many who demanded treatment could have gotten by with a few more days of bed rest.

His final comment could have been taken in two ways. Many muggles who claimed the same thing were talking about something—usually a person—who'd surprised or scared them. Wizard-kind, however, had actual ghosts, but in this case she thought that former might have been more believable (he was an adult man!).

"A ghost? Hopefully not one like the Bloody Baron. He terrified me as a student," she said, trying to use the same comforting, almost playful tone that she'd been taught to use to comfort those who were in distress. "If you need to talk, I'm certainly here." And she was. She didn't have anyone else to go home to, nor anything to look forward to for the remainder of the evening. The Pennyworth boarding home was absolutely dreary, almost as if all the color of the world was drained away when one walked inside! Talking to someone—anyone—was far better than sitting in solitude.

  

---

The undercurrent of kindness in her tone hadn't changed, but there was something in her words now which had struck him in a different way. The way that she had phrased her first sentence — 'the ones most in need of care' — seemed strangely clinical to his ears, although there was nothing about it which wasn't perfectly correct English, or which was necessarily out of place in everyday conversation. It just had a certain ring to it, as though... well, it sounded like something his father would have said, back when he had been on speaking terms with his father (Merlin, seven years ago?), which made Lou suddenly wary. He didn't know who this woman was, or what she was doing alone in this part of town at night, and it suddenly struck him as suspicious that any woman would be striding around Bartonburg without a chaperone in the twilight.

"Are you a healer, then?" he asked uncertainly. He didn't recognize her robes as those of St. Mungo's, but since it had been years since he'd been living with his father and seeing the man on a daily basis, that meant very little. Anything could have changed in the last seven years, and he couldn't recall what he'd seen on the very brief occasion when he'd been there the previous summer, to drop Miss Zelda Fisk off with her head injury following their escape from the Wizarding World Market. The robes she was wearing did seem like a uniform, though, which only fed in to his suspicions.

"I don't need checking in on," he said abruptly, without waiting for her answer to his question. "Tell him that, then leave me be," he continued, breaking eye contact with a scowl and starting towards his feet.

  

His tone changed very quickly, leaving Dionisia to run her previous words through her head once again. Had she struck a nerve? She looked down at her own robes—not healer robes, but hospital ones most certainly. His sudden movements and unfriendly demeanor frightened her for a moment as she became acutely aware that she was outside, in the dark, with an unfamiliar man. She rose from her crouch to meet his height, clutching her coat against her front side.

"Actually, I'm - uh - a mediwitch at Hogsmeade," she responded uneasily, taking a step backwards. "I didn't mean to disturb you. Who is — 'him'?" she asked before casting a glance over her shoulder. Nobody in sight.

Dionisia wasn't sure what sort of epiphany the man had come to, or what involvement he thought she played in it. He hadn't struck her as the dangerous sort, but obviously his sudden mood shift meant that he could be any sort of man.

  

---

The slight verbal hesitation before she said she was a mediwitch from Hogsmeade made the words sound, to Lou, like a fabrication, and not even a particularly good one. Whether she was a mediwitch or a healer didn't much matter, actually — it seemed out of character for his father to task an intern with something he considered such a scandalous secret, but Lou supposed a mediwitch was perfectly capable of proving herself trustworthy. The hospital she'd said was the wrong one, but if that was the only thing she could come up with on the spur of the moment after he'd found her out, maybe his father hadn't picked the best agent for this, after all.

"You know very well who," Lou said hotly. What was his father playing at, sending a spy to check up on him? He must have assumed that Daniel could no longer be trusted to babysit him, he supposed, after the events of last summer and fall, but was some young healer with a pretty face really the best the old man could come up with?

  

Now it was clear that this man — whoever he was — had an idea that she was someone she obviously wasn't. She hadn't even said anything that she thought could be misconstrued as suspicious or a threat. "I'm not sure what or who you're talking about, sir, but I must assure you I have no knowledge of it," she responded more assertively. She could feel her wand poking her in the thigh, almost as if reminding her that it was there if she were to need it.

Though, he still looked pale and had bags under his eyes. Maybe it was all delusions. Maybe he needed water, or maybe he needed to warm up. Perhaps he was on the edge of hysteria. Tentatively, she repeated the message she'd been pushing since the beginning: "I still think you need something to drink — perhaps a fire to warm yourself by."

  

---

Lou wasn't sure what her endgame was, or why she seemed to be pushing his health so insistently. Was she — and by extension, then, Charles Jameshill — actually concerned about his wellbeing, and thought that he needed a nursemaid to follow him around like a child and ensure he took basic care of himself by reminding him to drink water? Or was she trying to lure him in with some sort of offer of assistance — perhaps an invitation to the Three Broomsticks for the aforementioned warm fire and drink — and then question him when his guard was down? He couldn't imagine what his father would want pried out of him that he couldn't simply ask himself in a letter (not that Lou would have replied to one) or sent Theo to discover (not that Lou would have spoken to Theo).

Well, maybe the avenues available to his father weren't quite as numerous as they once were, but Lou still wasn't sure what the point of this entire charade was. "I can take care of myself, thanks," he said as he turned to leave, pulling his thin coat tighter against the twilight chill. "Goodbye, Miss."