"Not necessarily, no." Jo said. Zach had already proven countless times over the past year that he would follow her lead. Be it in Greece or in Hogsmeade, he wasn't the one pushing them in any one direction. No, every decision was firmly placed in her hands. Perhaps that was what intimidated her so — knowing she could make or break them with a single word. But, mainly, Jo feared forcing him to chose between his and her worlds. His family or her. His shop or her.

Sighing, Jo twirled the liquid in her glass and bit her lip. "No, he wouldn't." She reiterated. "I guess I more stress over causing a great conflict within his family. He's older — nearly a confirmed bachelor — and his mother hasn't ceased her matchmaking intentions. How can he resist her without explaining why?"

  

---

beautiful set by mj

Alfred shook his head, unable to resist the smile that broke out at the (comparative, slight, but definitely present) similarities in their situations. "Well, you came to the right person for advice," he joked. "I'm the expert on causing great conflict within families."

Joking aside, though, he understood her predicament. She was worried his family would push for a more traditional match. Zelda's family clearly had similar opinions. In his case, they'd decided to damn the torpedoes and rush full speed ahead, dragging her family along behind whether they liked it or not, but Alfred wasn't going to pretend it was the right answer for everyone. Things had certainly been easier when their relationship was a closely guarded secret instead of a thing open to scrutiny from all sides. Alfred did think things would be a little easier for Jo, if she chose to go that route, because she was a woman. At the end of the day, if her fellow wanted to marry her, they didn't really have to care what his family thought, the way that Alfred had to care what the Fisks thought.

  

---

MJ made the most Alfredy of sets and then two years later she made it EVEN BETTER

"I did?" Jo wasn't aware of any great strife in the Darrow or Fisk family. She thought there might be some tension between him and his brother, but not enough to cause any kind of divide. "I've told you my issues, what drama have you caused?"

  

---

beautiful set by mj

Alfred raised an eyebrow at her question. "I thought you knew," he said, with a shrug. He had been soft-of, half courting Zelda since the beginning of the summer, and it felt like ages to him; he was not used to this level of restriction on what he was able to say and do, and the fact that it was affecting only the time he could be around Zelda made it feel all the longer. It didn't seem like Jo had really been gone long enough that she could have missed it. He also felt like it had to have been obvious to anyone looking that Zelda's entire family didn't care for him, but maybe not. That was sort of the point, after all, of this ruse — banking on the fact that they wouldn't come out and say they disapproved, lest it be widely known that Zelda had gone against their wishes in courting him.

"They don't like me much, suffice to say," he said, because he wasn't sure how much time they had to really unpack all the Fisk issues pertaining to him. "Her father is pretty adamantly opposed to sailors as a group — which is understandable, really," he joked with a playful grin. "With a few notable exceptions, we're rather incorrigible."

  

---

MJ made the most Alfredy of sets and then two years later she made it EVEN BETTER

Jo left in mid-June and was gone for months. By the time she returned she was too caught up in her own business to focus on more than the bare minimum elsewhere. "All I knew was that you're courting," she confirmed with a shrug. Though, it wasn't surprising that they didn't like Alfred's type for the same reason she suspected Zach's family wouldn't like her.

"He must like you well enough if you're courting." She commented. "Otherwise you'd be dead in the water."

  

---

beautiful set by mj

Alfred didn't respond. Instead, he puffed his cheeks out and turned his hands up towards the ceiling in a well, about that gesture. He wasn't sure if Jo really wanted any of the details of the whole situation with Zelda, but it would have been impossible for Alfred to pretend Brannon Fisk liked him enough to agree to let him court his daughter.

  

---

MJ made the most Alfredy of sets and then two years later she made it EVEN BETTER

Jo eyed him skeptically. Apparently there was a story there, one he wasn't particularly willing to divulge. "You don't have to talk about it if you don't want to."

  

---

beautiful set by mj

"It's not like I don't want to talk about it," Alfred protested. "It's just not a particularly good story. Well," he clarified, "The first time I tried to court her, I accidentally interrupted some sort of Jewish holiday and the entire family was sat around the dinner table, including the Minister of Magic. So — that's a story," he said with a shrug. Not a particularly good story, as far as he was concerned; he was too close to the situation still to be able to find it funny, though he recognized from an objective point that it must have been at least a little funny, all of them sitting there around the massive table and watching him sputter away trying to convince Brannon Fisk that he was in love with Zelda.

"But — maybe that's a story for another day," he said with a half-smile. It wasn't that he didn't want to tell Jo, but dissecting his whole lengthy history with Zelda was hardly what he'd invited her over to do. "You've got magic to practice," he pointed out, with a vague gesture at his slightly misshapen throw pillow.

  

---

MJ made the most Alfredy of sets and then two years later she made it EVEN BETTER