October 23rd, 1894 - Angie's Flat

But when I see you fading in the dark
I'll leave a light on for you
Through the long nights, I will be right
There for you if you drift too far
I'll leave a light on for you

Ever since the arrival of Cash's letter yesterday evening, Ang had been on edge. She'd known things weren't good. He was spiraling and she could tell, but she couldn't tell quite how bad. If there was anything the two of them knew about the other, it was what their impending crash looked like. They had been through far too much together to be anything but hyper-aware of things like that. Fortunately she hadn't had anything overtly crazy happen in the last few years; she knew she had missed out on too much of Cash's life in those times she was gone, but she hoped that he would have told her if there was something she needed to know.

Ang had to assume that's what this visit was for. It was late, she had the good bourbon out, two glasses sitting on the coffee table as she lounged on the couch with a book. It had taken quite a bit of self-control not to pour a glass and drink the whole thing before got there. She had an interview next week at the ministry for the Department of Magical Accidents and Catastrophes. It wasn't cursebreaking, but with the amount of incidents Hogsmeade seemed to have over the years, she hardly thought it was going to be boring. It was cursebreaking on a smaller scale and it allowed her to be home and available to her family. It was high time she stepped up.

She kept checking her pocket watch anxiously, for what felt like the fifteenth time in as many minutes when the hearth finally lit up green to announce Cash's arrival. "Hi," she greeted softly, sitting up better and closing her book. She eyed him critically, taking in his appearance from his expression to the countenance of his stance and everything in between. Her mind had been reeling about what exactly he wanted to talk to her about and now she wanted every detail she could get, including his body language.

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Cassius Lestrange

  

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It was like going to a detention, or going to one's manager's office without a sense of the reason that the meeting was called, and never mind that he asked her when he could come over in the first place. He was in trouble, maybe not the trouble that resulted in one writing lines, but the sort of trouble that sent other men to asylums. He had not been honest with Angie about how he was feeling, because part of loving her had meant that Cash didn't want her to feel shackled to him. But he couldn't lie anymore, he had to talk to people, and he did not trust his ability to get through it on his own.

He waited until the healer left and until he'd done some semblance of eating the dinner the cook prepared to take the floo network to Angie's, still with that distinct sense of an impending scolding. He stepped out of the fireplace, brushing soot off of his jacket and to the brick as he did so, and smiled thinly at her.

"Hi," Cash said, aware that he was being studied. His hands had been shaking off and on for days, even as he was trying to make a good-faith attempt at eating consistent meals. His coat smelled like cigarette smoke, because he was smoking again. There were persistent shadows under his eyes, and his shoulders were slumped from that same sense of foreboding, or maybe guilt.

  

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MJ made this!

Fuck.

Angie knew that look on his face. Things were worse than she expected somehow. She pushed off the couch and stood in front of him. "What?" She framed his face gently with her hands. Their minimal height difference always put her right at eye level. He couldn't lie to her when she was looking him right in the eye.

"I'm right here." Angie was staying here. Her interview was next week, she would get some sort of position, would take anything offered even if it wasn't what she wanted. "I'm staying right here." Angie was ready to put down roots, to anchor him somehow if that's what he needed. Things were changing, she had grown up, had learned to shelf the things she needed to and push her own needs aside. He was more important and Ang realized she needed him around just as much as he needed her.

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She was looking at him, right in the eye, and Cash could not lie to her when their eyes were meeting. He swallowed. Angie was promising to stay. He had never wanted to make her stay; he wanted to let her be free to do as she wished, to wander the world, to have all the options that Cash didn't.

He swallowed.

"I almost did something drastic," Cash said, quiet in the emptiness of her flat. "But I didn't."

  

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MJ made this!

"Oh Cash," she felt an unfamiliar sting of tears in the corners of her eyes; Ang couldn't remember the last time she cried. It felt like a lifetime ago. She didn't have reason to. Even when injured she always managed to keep her composure, almost a little to well. "I'm so glad you didn't." Angie sighed softly, still holding on to his face gently.

"I'm staying," she reiterated. "I have an interview at the ministry this week." This might be more imperative than she realized. Angie would move to Hogsmeade if she needed to. Letting go of this flat might be almost as hard as giving up her career, but if anybody was worth it, Cash was. She needed him to realize that. Ang had never loved anyone like she loved Cash and she couldn't stand to see him this way. Maybe that was part of the cowardice she'd avoided for so long, being out of the country. But she'd realized she couldn't lean on that anymore, she needed to be here and keep him here too.

Angie dragged him over to the sofa and curled herself in his lap, tucking her head in the crook of his neck. "I need you here with me, please." Angie couldn't lose both Eli and Cash. If there was a cause to do anything drastic, that would have been in. Nobody would actually miss her anyway, if he was gone.

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She knew what he meant, without making him say it, and while Cash had been afraid that she would be  angry, like Theo had been, she wasn’t. He was pliant, he let himself be dragged, and he wrapped his arms around Angie once she was in his lap. He tucked his face into her hair, inhaled her family Angie-smell, sighed.

”I don’t want to trap you,” Cash whispered, into her hair. He hadn’t asked her to stay, she was choosing to — but would she have chosen, if she was doing well?

  

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MJ made this!

Angie was just breathing him in, trying to keep herself from letting it spiral too far. She had to keep a clear head. The fear that he'd been worse off was suddenly very real and true and it left her breathless in a way that felt like drowning.

He didn't want to trap her. That was what she had always known, what she had used as the excuse when she took another long assignment and was gone for months at a time. "You are not, I'm ready for a change and I want to be here." Ang didn't know if her being home would truly help, but they were so intertwined that she had to hope so. "I've got things and people I need to take care of, you included." She had her arms around his neck now and was squeezing him, trying to stave off the tears once more. "I should have done it a long time ago, I'm sorry," She whispered, afraid that anything more and her voice would catch.

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She was staying, she wanted to stay, and she was apologizing. He buried his face further into her hair. "I love you," he said, "I don't know why my — head doesn't work." He'd been nervous his whole life, but the depressions that had come on the past few years were much worse — and even knowing what he did about his own memory, he didn't know why they'd come or what the best path forward was.

  

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MJ made this!

Angie kissed his temple gently. She could feel the sting of tears again, tried to blink them back as best she could. It wouldn't do them any good and she knew it.

"None of this is your fault." She assured him quietly, afraid that if she did any more than whisper he would shatter in her arms. "Nobody should have to go through what you've gone through. It would make anybody feel like this." Angie had only suffered through part of what he had and she was still plagued by nightmares and bouts of melancholy.

"It's too much, but you're still here and I'll be here with you now." It seemed like a stretch as to the depth of what she could possibly do, "And I will do anything I can for you." Her hold on him tightened, afraid to let go.

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   Cassius Lestrange

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Angie was holding onto him tightly, the same way that Ford had when Cash said something blithe about having no plan beyond the room he was in. It was as if they both thought that they could keep him tethered to reality by holding onto him. He inhaled the smell of Angie's hair again. Maybe it wasn't so bad that he had people who wanted to tether him here.

"I could use some help," Cash admitted, after a beat, "Looking up treatments for melancholy."

He didn't want a cure. He did not think that one existed. But treatments, sure — there were sure to be treatments.

  

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MJ made this!

Melancholy, she experienced it every now and then herself. She had never quite figured out what to do beyond distancing herself and finding a distraction, but she could hit the library and do some research; Ang was good at that. "Of course," she agreed immediately. "Whatever you need," she meant that, absolutely anything.

Ang pressed closer, still holding on tight. "I love you," she remined him, feeling like it was exceedingly necessary to reiterate. "We'll figure something out, try and lighten the load." She would take it all from him if she could. Shoulder it and carry it away as far as possible. It was impossible, but she could try and make things some kind of easier for him by any means necessary.

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Cash didn't know what he needed. He just knew that he wanted to not die more than he wanted to die. He rested his head against her hair. There was something, though. Part of his scrambled plans that night had been trying to think through this, had been writing some approximation of a will.

"If something ever does happen," he whispered. An accident, like the pit, or something more purposeful. He cleared his throat. "I want you to take the baby to Trystan Selwyn, and tell him as much as you need to make sure he doesn't give it to my father."

  

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MJ made this!

Angie stiffened at the request. She leaned back to look him in the eye, lip trembling a little. "What about Adrienne?" Surely if she was still around Angie could not go kidnapping the Lestrange heir. Perseus. He had a name, even if Angie thought it was a little pretentious and she would undoubtedly call him Percy, if she was ever allowed to meet him. It fit the theme, given Cash's given name and that of his brother, but if she stopped to think about it, which she only had in passing, it was amusing.

Still, this disaster planning made her chest tighten. She understood his desire to keep the baby from his father; Angie would do it at all costs, even if she needed to take him and disappear to ensure it didn't happen. Having to think about this as a possibility had her worrying that maybe things were still bad for him.

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He was making her uncomfortable, and he knew it. "Her, too," Cash said, although privately he did not think that anything drastic would happen to him if nothing drastic happened to Adrienne. He met Angie's eyes, his glaze flicking downwards briefly to see her lip trembling. "I'm not planning anything," Cash added, voice quiet.

  

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MJ made this!

"I didn't mean it like that," Angie sighed. She would hit the library for some research and she would come up with a plan to keep in her back pocket that she hoped she would never need. "I can't go kidnapping your son, if she's still around," she joked halfheartedly, trying to lighten the mood. "I'll kidnap both of them though, if the need arises." And get them to Trystan Selwyn in the event. Anywhere but in the grip of Lucius Lestrange. Ang knew what he was capable of, but she was capable of a lot too, she'd seen some things in the last ten years on the job and she had far less morals than a lot of people around her would think her capable of.

"And I'll go to the library tomorrow, give me a couple days and then we can see what I've found." Surely there were lots of crackpot theories out there on how to treat melancholy, but Angie would scour through everything she could and bring back her best ideas.

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Cash smiled gratefully at her. "I'll try anything," he admitted, "As long as it keeps me out of an asylum and — better, how bad can it really be?"

He knew he was signing himself up — signing both of them up — for attempts at potions and other strange cures, and that there arguably wasn't a cure for melancholy. But there had to be something, and obviously what he was doing was not sustainable in the long-term if he was going to spiral every time he had a child.

  

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MJ made this!