It wasn’t often that Tybalt left a party early, but... given that he had seen the only person he’d actually wanted to, and they had left each other with the prospect of later, it had gotten increasingly hard to concentrate on anything else. Not that it had been any better, coming in and saying a casual goodnight to one of the other boarders he’d passed on the stairs and then finding himself, impatiently, alone in a silent room. He occupied himself for a little while in... well, first in tidying the worst of the mess (he hadn’t been expecting her here tonight, had he!), then drawing the blinds, kicking off his shoes and flinging his jacket over the back of a chair. Rolling up his sleeves, he had flopped onto the bed for a while, head still spinning slightly from the party, that buzz of music and champagne and perhaps a certain conversation. After that, he had sprung up to check his hair in the mirror - alright - and was trying to find something to do that was not pacing restlessly. 

And just before he began bouncing off the walls - there she was. She looked decidedly different than she had earlier (she had looked wonderful then, too, of course), but this was its own kind of glorious, with her hair tumbling down over her shoulders, the formal dress exchanged for a nightgown and shawl. (Thank Merlin she could apparate.)

“Elsie! What a surprise,” Tyb whisper-exclaimed in overexaggerated shock at her arrival, springing up to meet her in the middle by wrapping his arms around her with enough energy to lift her off the floor. “I was starting to think you’d stood me up,” he murmured in her ear in mock plaintiveness, having not imagined such a thing in the least (especially not with the way she’d been talking at the party). “And on Valentine’s day, and all.” He gave up the jest and beamed at her instead, pleased enough to get to greet her as keenly as he wanted to for once.

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