Evening, February 14th, 1891 — Courtly Love Inspired Charity Garden Party, Southampton
Ezra Applegate

It was under great duress that Rosalie was attending the charity event. Despite initially supporting her withdrawal from the high society life, her parents were still keen on seeing Rosalie married before she reached official spinster age. Nevermind that she wasn't yet healed from the first failed engagement, or that she has less than zero interest in finding someone else to wed. They're insistent, and after months of deflecting their invitations Rosie finally caves.

The party itself isn't the worst one she had attended over the years. (No, that particular party was the third one she attended after her debut and its evening concluded with a nasty bout of food poisoning.) At least the festivities were interesting and the champagne was flowing freely. If she had to suffer through the entirety of the evening she intended to do so slightly tipsy. (Never drunk, her mother would rant at her for days if Rosie ever showed up back home drunk.)

After having both danced and chatted with Anthony for a decent while, Rosie found herself nearly alone on one of the warmly lit terraces. There were others scattered about, but, for the moment, she was able to have a hint of peace. A minute to reflect on what this party ought to have represented for her.

She needn't reflect long. Rosie hadn't examined the terrace fully open entering it, she hadn't spotted him just off to the side. And yet, somehow Rosie had gravitated towards him. She ought to turn and leave, to avoid interacting more than the wide eyed eye contact she was now engaging in. Nothing about their circumstances had changed, their future together shattered like glass between them. She ought to leave.

She couldn't.

"Hello. I'm- I'm sorry, I didn’t realize you were out here." Rosie offered as a greeting. She hadn't even known he was there at all. "I can go." She really ought to go, for going down this path with him again would lead to nothing but misery for them both.

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stunning set by Lady <3

One quick game before you go? his sister had asked him earlier that afternoon, already pulling his bag of tiles open and dropping into a seat at the table. Ezra didn't know how she'd even gotten it; he usually kept it on him, but he must have set it down somewhere and she'd spotted an opportunity to swoop in and save the day once again. Ezra didn't think he needed saving — not anymore, anyway — but he couldn't fail to appreciate the effort. And today was a big day for him, in a way. It wasn't the first event that he'd been coaxed out to since Rosalie had left him, but it was close — he was still shaking off the dust when it came to socializing with anyone outside of his house or his office at work. And this was the first Valentine's Day since he had become a single man again; bound to stir up painful memories, even if the party was otherwise perfectly pleasant.

Sure, a quick game, he'd agreed. It was a quick game, too, because he didn't let her win this time. It was a tricky balance, with his game — he had to try hard enough to be really thinking about it, or it didn't drive the shadows back. But he had learned relatively early on that if he didn't let people win often enough, they stopped playing with him. So it was always a bit of a dance — effort, pull back, effort, pull back, right up until the end. This time he just gave it his all and smoked his sibling handily. He could do that, with family; they wouldn't begrudge him the win.

He'd started off the evening neatly enough. He'd made polite conversation — he did not feel up to anything more than polite conversation, yet, even on his best days — and clung to the edge of the crowd, not partaking in any of the silly party games they'd staged for the event. Then he'd seen her, and his chest had grown tight. It didn't drive the shadows closer or anything — nothing so melodramatic — but it did make the party significantly less pleasant for him. Particularly when he noticed her talking to some bloke for a good portion of the night. Moving on already? he thought cynically, though deep down he didn't believe it.

Ezra had made a good enough showing for the evening, he decided, and he had just resolved to finish off his drink and go home when Miss Hunniford herself approached him. For a moment he merely gaped at her, startled by the audacity. They hadn't spoken since she'd left — not so much as a letter. All of the necessary arrangements for the dissolution of the engagement had been handled by his mother, on his side — he neither knew nor cared who had been the correspondent on hers. I can go, she said, perhaps in response to the look of bewilderment on his face.

"No," he said, too quick. It probably would have been better for both of them if she had, but — something had surged at her offer to leave, and the word had erupted from him before he'd had a chance to think it through. He coughed to try and cover whatever emotion was probably showing on his face, shifted his weight from foot to foot, wished he had more to drink left in his glass. "I don't mean to chase you off, I mean."

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His expression cut through all her anxious thoughts and left her feeling nothing but overwhelming grief for all that was lost. As her husband, no one would have questioned if they stepped onto the terrace for a private conversation. Ezra wouldn't be staring at her with a look of confusion (and what she perceived to be) contempt. Instead, they'd likely be whispering the same sweet nothings she still longed to hear. The same sweet nothings they were exchanging when it all fell apart.

Rosie wasn't sober enough to know how to navigate this conversation without further making a fool of herself. Her mother had drilled her countless times over the past year of how she was to act if she came across any of the Applegates in public (kind but not overly friendly, as though they were some distant former acquaintance). However, now that it was happening — and with Ezra no less, the very same man her mother had warned her against having a conversation with — she couldn't fathom being anything other than what they were. She couldn't understand how she was meant to be anything other than enchanted by him.

Even despite his betrayal still causing a gaping wound inside her chest.

"No, I know." She replied just as quickly. "You're not, of course." Ezra would be right to, he had claimed this terrace first after all. "I just needed some air."

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stunning set by Lady <3

Ezra's mouth felt too dry. He worried it would sound hoarse when he tried to speak, but he managed a reply in spite of it: "Well, plenty of that out here."

What a stupid thing to say. He loathed himself, sometimes. What were they doing, coexisting at parties and exchanging pointless small-talk banter? What came next, a question about whether she was enjoying the evening? A superficial discussion of the hostess' design choices for the event? As though either of them cared. Well, he supposed he couldn't really speak for her — he didn't care about any of those things. He had a hard time believing that she did, either. But she had approached him, so presumably she wanted something, and it probably wasn't just the benefit of his engaging company. He wasn't very good company, these days.

Not that she would know that, he supposed. This was the first time that it had occurred to him to wonder how much Rosalie knew about how he'd been, in the ten months since she'd left him. Probably no one in his family would have volunteered the information that he had been going off the rails without her, but it wouldn't have taken much digging on her part to uncover it, if she'd been interested. His coworkers couldn't talk about work, but they could have talked about him; they'd all certainly noticed his decline. She knew who his friends were, and some of them might have shared some news with her if she'd framed the questions as concern. So if she had wanted to keep track of him, she could have... but if she hadn't expended any effort in that department she may have been entirely unaware of what he'd been going through. The realization was jarring enough that his discomfort showed on his face, and he took a drink to try and cover it. If he had died a few months ago — as he had seemed perfectly on track to do — he wondered if she would have been invited to the funeral, and if she would have accepted the invitation if she had.

These were the kinds of things on his mind as he looked at her, and the latest words in the air between them were plenty of air out here.

Ezra looked mournfully towards his glass, only a quarter full and fated to be empty much too quickly. He drank too quickly when he was anxious.

I'm sorry for whatever it was I said that upset you, he thought, wishing there was a way to communicate the sentiment without words. It wasn't worth trying to say it out loud; the last time he'd tried to talk about it had gone disastrously for them, and he had no reason to suspect a second attempt would go any better. And they were in public now; it would make quite a scene if she slapped him again. So what he said instead was: "I hope Mr. Delaney is a good dancer."

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   Rosalie Hunniford

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That there was, Rosie thought bitterly to herself. Approaching him tonight had been a disastrous mistake, an unintentional one but one she would be wiser against making in the future. Engaging in small talk with him was agonizing, she understood now why her mother was so insistent upon avoiding him. Rosie would sooner walk the opposite direction of him than face this pain again. Perhaps in time it wouldn't hurt so much, perhaps when he finally did marry she would be able to smile and wish them well.

But, for now, all Rosie could swear to do was spare them both the agony of socializing.

She swayed slightly on her feet, not enough to stumble but enough that she flushed with embarrassment. She'd never been the sort to drink to excess but she had needed the courage tonight. Now, Rosie wished she hadn't indulged at all, for she never would have thought to approach him sober.

Not as good as you. She thought to confess. Would it be cruel to voice such emotions when it was she who left him? The curse was impossible to work around (even if she was still quietly researching blood curses and how to break them) and its consequences were unfathomable. But, that didn't change how terribly she missed him. Their conversations, that stupid tile game that she found herself wanting to play at odd hours. She missed everything about him, and it hurt all the more.

"He doesn't step on my toes. All you can ask for in a dance partner I suppose." Rosie said instead. She didn't intend to speak negatively about Anthony, he had proven to be a good friend to her this past year. Still, she didn't wish to brag to Ezra. Not tonight. Not like this.

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stunning set by Lady <3

I could ask her for a dance. The thought appeared as suddenly and disruptively as a wild animal bursting from a bush when startled; it disappeared in much the same way. If anything about tonight got back to his sister, he expected that the idea of his interacting with Rosie would worry her; he'd promised never to let himself get that bad again. A conversation was excusable. He could say, without even lying, that she had approached him and he'd had to respond to be polite. A dance was much harder to explain; a dance was willful self-destruction. He took another drink and looked at some undefined point up and to the right.

"I suppose," he agreed. "Did he do the — broom thing?" Ezra asked, a little haphazard. He hadn't honestly been paying much attention to any of the gimmicks involved in this event, but it seemed the likeliest avenue of conversation since he didn't actually want to talk about her dances with Mr. Delaney and they could not talk about anything real. What did she want? Why had she approached? Were his halfhearted attempts to fill the air with banalities putting her off from bringing it up? He could have just stared her down and waited in silence for her to get to it, except that he lacked the courage for something like that. He was hardly even meeting her eyes now, when they were talking about the broom thing.

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"Oh, uhm. I'm not sure." Rosie hadn't focused too much on the supposed jousting, opting instead to discuss her internship with an old school friend. Anthony may as well have jousted, he certainly had the build for it. That wasn't the point though, and Rosie knew better than to comment further on Anthony's status at the event.

She frowned then. Was it prying to ask how he was? Rosie hadn't heard much of anything about him this past year (the move to London helped create enough distance that she wouldn't stumble across a mutual friend and have cause to ask) but she knew him well enough to know he didn't look the same anymore. He looked tired now, haunted maybe. Off enough that Rosie, who was watching him carefully, was able to spot the differences.

"There's to be boggarts soon, I think. Those'll be interesting to watch." She had no intentions of facing her fears this evening but it'd be interesting to learn what others were afraid of.

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stunning set by Lady <3

Boggarts. He had known that, because someone else had already mentioned it, but he caught on her description. "Interesting," he echoed, as though she had said a word in a language he didn't understand and he was trying to parse out the meaning from context clues. He wouldn't characterize anyone's greatest fears as interesting, he didn't think. The last time he had seen a boggart in the flesh was back in Hogwarts, as part of Defense class — presumably her experience of it was the same. In that vein maybe he could forgive the word interesting; at thirteen, all of the manifestations the boggarts took on had been little more than interesting, he supposed. Childish, rudimentary, caricatures of bogeymen. None of them had known what real fear was, at that point in their lives. Ezra hadn't learned until years later. He knew now.

I wonder, he thought, glancing back to Rosalie's face for a moment, would talking to her still drive them off? He couldn't test it; he'd played a game only a few hours ago and he hadn't caught a glimpse of one of his shadows for hours. No data to compare against. But he wondered.

Things had gotten dark after she'd left him. He had been halfway to going mad — maybe more than half — and not terribly far from driving his body so ragged that it gave up on him entirely. He was better now, or was getting better, and it was not because of her. He suddenly felt guilty — disloyal, in a way — for even having wondered. Rosalie had not been the one to save him, in the end.

"It's an interesting party," he said briskly. "Did you want something, particularly?"

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"No, nothing. I just needed some air." Rosie explained. Her cheeks were hot with embarrassment, her hands suddenly as clammy as they were last April. She shouldn't have approached him, shouldn't gone when she gave them the out. She would go now, the sharp change in his demeanor wouldn't allow her to stay anyway.

"I'm sorry to have disturbed you." She meant it too, even if the swaying was worse now and shame burned deep in her gut. "I'll go."

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stunning set by Lady <3

Ezra looked at her then, a more lasting look than he'd leveled at her so far in this conversation. He'd been looking off at nothing, or at the corner of her face, or most anywhere to avoid really looking at her except for fleeting glances, but the idea that she was about to leave, and that she was lying (there was something she wanted, he was sure; there was air everywhere, and she'd approached him deliberately), drew his full attention at last.

She's drunk he realized, surprised and disappointed by the discovery. Surprised because he didn't remember her being the sort to need alcohol to get through a saccharine party — but then, if she was thinking back over what she remembered of him she probably would have said he wasn't the sort to be clinging sulkily to the edge of the event and waiting for an acceptable opportunity to leave. He had been that way before, from time to time, but he had never been that way with her; Rosalie only had him on his best days, when they had been together.

And disappointed, because... he had wanted there to be a reason she'd approached him. He was still sure that there was, but in light of this new information it might just as easily have been a reason she hadn't realized herself. And later tonight or tomorrow when she looked back on this, she could call it an alcohol-fueled mistake. He had wanted — without letting himself admit it — something more. This was the wrong venue for anything that fell into the category of more: reconciliation, closure, apology, confession. But she had approached him and in doing so had sparked the idea of it deep inside him, and he wanted.

"Wait, Ro — Miss," he said, catching the slip half a second too late to avoid her hearing it. (Could she fault him for still thinking of her as Rosalie, darling Rose, dearest Rosie? It was progress enough, he thought, that he no longer thought of her as his Rosalie). "I don't mean to chase you off, honestly. I'm sorry. You — maybe you should sit down," he suggested, with a gesture towards the bench. He did not especially like how she'd swayed on her feet. After a moment he added, "I didn't mean it like that."

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Were it not for how unsteady she now felt on her feet (was it grief or the countless glasses of champagne she'd downed earlier that was effecting her so?) Rosie wouldn't have remained near him long enough to hear his plea for her to stay. She wouldn't have heard his slip or how he was now inviting her closer. Rosie remained half turned from him, her heart thundering in her chest, for a moment longer. There were plenty of chairs inside and now that she felt unwell her mother would have no reason to force her to stay. She could make it through the doors and to one of tables where someone would notice her condition and summon help. Rosie didn't have to listen to him.

(Her husband — he was meant to be her husband. Ezra was supposed to be hers.)

She moved towards the bench without thinking of it further, stumbling only once as she neared the bench. Ezra was sorry, for what though she didn't quite understand. She was the one who left, she was the one who refused to listen to reason. (After all, her parents had tried to insist there couldn't be such a curse upon the Applegate family. Someone would have sought out help by now if it were true.) If anything, Rosie ought to be apologizing. Still, she knew what she heard and she understood herself enough to know that wasn't a fate she could stomach.

"I know." She eventually replied, her tone sad as she avoided looking at him for the first time since stepping out onto the terrace. "I didn't know you were out here, truly. I was just -" suffocating. Suffocating without him by her side. Drowning in the endless sea of grief. "I needed a minute."

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stunning set by Lady <3

She said I know and Ezra said nothing, but he wondered how much she did. They had known each other well and loved each other well; maybe she still knew enough about his character to hear what he meant to say instead of what he really said, in situations like this.

But she had left him. One conversation, where she hadn't heard what he'd said or what he'd meant, and she was gone. Not a single letter afterwards; no chance to explain himself, to claw his way back to her good graces. How well could she have known him, really, if in five minutes he was no longer granted the benefit of any doubt? How well could she have loved him?

(Did he love his tile game, or did it only look that way to people who didn't understand? Maybe there was blame enough for both of them).

He finished off his drink and abandoned it on a table. Withdrawing his wand, Ezra conjured a cup and charmed it full of water, then handed it to Rosalie.

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Rosie thought to refuse the glass, not out of concern for its contents but because taking anything from him felt like it meant something. It was more than a glass of water to her — it was him caring for her well-being, him thinking enough of her current state to offer a possible solution. It was the act of a partner, is what it was. Ezra ought to have let her leave or have left himself. They weren't partners anymore, they weren't anything.

However, refusing the glass would only bring to light all that remained unspoken between them. It would create cause for further animosity and make room for an argument. There was already so much pain shared, Rosie didn't wish to cause any more.

"Thank you." She said after a significant pause. It wasn't fair of her to miss him this much, not when she was the one to leave. It wasn't fair of her to want to beg him to sit besides her, to pretend for just a minute that they were the same Rosie and Ezra of last year. She was supposed to be more healed by now, anyway. Love for him wasn't supposed to be an emotion she still felt, and yet, as she looked up at him, Rosie felt a plea for forgiveness burning in the back of her throat. Forgiveness and pleas for reconciliation. Anything to make this not hurt so much.

Except, that wouldn't be fair of her. And he remained cursed. And she could never be the woman to suffer through such a loss intentionally.

Rosie remained silent.

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   Ezra Applegate

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stunning set by Lady <3

Ezra was aware that it had been a long time since he'd said anything, and even longer since he'd said anything meaningful (maybe ten months, in fact — it was debatable whether either of them had said anything meaningful at all during the course of this interaction). He had handed her the conjured glass and then moved to the farther edge of the bench — not sitting, for fear of being too close to her, but hovering around the edge of it. He wasn't watching her to see if she drank any of the water; he'd gone back to looking off at the upper corner of the terrace area, around where he'd been focusing before when he wanted to avoid looking at her. She'd thanked him and he'd said nothing, and then he had gone on saying nothing. He felt like he should say something, if only to fill the dead air, but where to even start?

If he'd been aiming to reconcile he would have said I miss you, but he wasn't sure he was aiming to reconcile. Not that he had considered the possibility and dismissed it... rather, he had never considered it a possibility, or at least not since it had truly sunk in that Rosalie had left him for good. In the confrontation itself he'd disbelieved his own senses, and even after he'd realized his memories of the event were correct — or at least, he had no reason to doubt them — he'd still been in denial about what it meant. He'd thought she would change her mind, or write, or at least come talk to him at some point for some sort of closure. Even if that was a confrontation, it would have been something. When days turned to weeks and it became clear that she wasn't going to reach out to him, any hope he'd had for a future with her — whether the one he'd envisioned originally or one that they pieced together from what was left after the argument — died. He hadn't considered reconciliation since then, because it had seemed entirely impossible. A lot of his thoughts had been fatalistic at that point, stark black and white extremes with no tolerance for gray — or they had become fatalistic at some point, and now looking back it was hard to remember where the transition had happened. He'd been as convinced that Rosalie was lost to him forever as he had been that he was going to go mad, or that he was soon going to die... and after a certain point, he'd stopped caring about any of them. It was pointless to agonize over the inevitable, the immovable, the facts of life.

His sister, pulling him forcefully out of the grave he'd been perfectly willing to lie down in, had managed to convince him that neither going mad nor an early death was inevitable after all. She had never attempted to persuade him to reconsider his assessment of a future with Rosalie as a lost cause — so he never had. And so what was there to say? They had no future. They did not have a particularly compelling present, if their conversation so far was anything to go by. And it would serve neither of them to talk about the past.

"I don't actually mind," he said eventually. "You dancing with Mr. Delaney. Or — you know, anyone. In case it — sounded like I did." He didn't know how he had sounded a moment ago when he'd said he hoped Mr. Delaney was a good dance partner, because he wasn't sure why he'd said it in the first place. And he did not actually know whether what he'd just said, about not minding, was the truth or not — but it felt like the sort of thing he shouldn't mind, given everything. And if he found that he did, that was more his problem than hers.

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   Rosalie Hunniford

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The silence was lingering for too long. It seemed to stretch for miles and obscured any opportunity to find an ounce of hope. Besides, Rosie understood that peace was an impossible feat for them to achieve, because for them to have burned so bright meant that nothing but ash could remain. Hope was found in glowing embers that they might fan into life. There was no use in growing a flame that would only live to be extinguished once more. There could be no hope.

But, that didn't stop the crushing wave of disappointment from settling over her chest. It was terrible of her to want Ezra to have some sort of claim over her still, to be secretly delighted that he cared enough still to note who her dance partners were. She left, she ignored every avenue to reconciliation. He had every right to move on and be fine that she was too.

(Rosie wasn't sure if she could ever move on. She could pretend, she could dance and talk and act like everything was fine. But Ezra's betrayal ran as deep as her love for him once had and had cracked her very foundation. Rosie didn't think she could ever heal away that pain.)

"We're only colleagues. He's my boss, really." Rosie quietly admitted, staring down at the glass in her hands. She knew she had to force the next bit out, because fair was fair and if he didn't care anymore than neither should she. However, try as she might, Rosie couldn't bring herself to give him that same permission. Perhaps in time she would learn to live with the sight of him happy elsewhere. That day wasn't today.

"I - " don't want to dance with anyone else. Rosie bit back the lump in her throat at that. No hopes, no embers or flames. Ash, that was how they had to remain. She had to say something else now, something to cover over the fact that she was obviously struggling. But all that came to mind was I miss you. And so, rather than finish the thought, Rosie remained silent once more.

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   Ezra Applegate

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stunning set by Lady <3

He must have sounded jealous earlier, Ezra reflected, because she felt the need to explain it to him now, in spite of what he'd just said and in spite of the fact that he had no rights to an explanation. Her explanation surprised him, so much so that he initially wondered if he'd misunderstood it somehow. Colleagues, boss were words that he knew but he had never seen them applied to this context before. Rosalie didn't have a job — or she hadn't, ten months ago. Apparently that had changed, because he could think of absolutely no other way to make sense of what she'd said.

Rosalie had an occupation, and Delaney was her boss. It was difficult to sort through the tangle of emotion these pieces of information created, but the one that eventually won out against the others was concern. Was she working because she needed to work? Had something happened to her family's finances, maybe something that prevented her father from working? She didn't have brothers — not anymore.

He was three steps into working through what he could offer her in terms of support before he realized how insane it would be to even suggest it. Rosalie had left him. Jilted men did not offer to pay their former fiancee's mortgages. Even if something terrible had happened to her father and Ezra had always gotten on well with him — even if she was on the brink of destitution — it was simply impossible. And it wasn't as though the Applegates were so comfortable that it would have been trivial to add the expense. With Ezra's father so thoroughly out of commission he was mostly shouldering the burden of providing for the rest of the family. He could do so without running into issues, but given the... fragility of Byron's situation (and Ezra's, honestly — his coworkers at the Department of Mysteries had certainly noticed his issues for the past ten months) it wasn't as though they could be sure that would continue.

She had been about to say something, and had stopped herself, and Ezra felt it would be most prudent to try and get her to continue before he said or did something regrettable. Maybe she was planning to give him some more context, and maybe more context was what he needed. "You...?" he prompted.

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