June 24th, 1894 — Angie's Flat

Cash had gone off to the Puddlemere United stadium to check on the wards, expecting it to take most of the rest of the day — and when it didn't, he had no desire to go back to the Ministry. There were only a few hours left of work, anyways — what was he really going to get done?

(Maybe he was having a difficult time. Adrienne was undeniably pregnant; people could tell. And that meant the baby would be here soon.)

There was a key, on his key ring, that did not go to his home. It was warded, so it only worked in one particular door, and it took Cash to one of the only places that he felt safe. He apparated to the street outside her building — he'd worn street clothes today, for the Puddlemere appointment, which was good because he would have felt self-conscious if he was here in Ministry robes.) He stepped in, took the stairs, and unlocked the door, stepping in.

He had almost forgotten that she was home; he had not seen her yet. Cash smiled at her. ''Your hair's still brown,'' he said, reaching out to pull her into a tight hug.

Daffodil Grimstone Angie Swan

  

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MJ made this!

The flat was ever much the same, only a little evidence that people had come and gone in her absence. Angie left a spare key with very few people, but she knew, as small and slightly dingy as it was, this was somewhere people could escape to, even if she wasn't home. It was one of few reasons she kept it at all. She could have rented a room instead, it would have been less expensive, but she just couldn't let this place go yet.

She'd done her washing after breakfast, had enjoyed her second coffee and was thinking about a snack while she lounged on the couch with a book in her hand. It felt like home and not at the same time. She was away so much that she forgot what it was like to have a space to herself, where she could lounge around in some state of undress, with her hair down, adding bourbon to her coffee if she wanted to. Cash always left the good bourbon and it was a shame letting it go to waste.

Angie had meandered to the kitchen, piled her hair loosely on top of her head and was fixing herself a plate to eat on her little balcony when she heard the key in the door. She had a feeling she knew who it was before he even said a word. He didn't usually take long to surface once he knew she was in town. Ang had to work around his schedule, he was the one with the big important job and the growing family, but he always made time for her when he could. "Yeah, I like it this way." She sighed into the hug, resting her head on his shoulder as she squeezed him.

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"It looks good," Cash said, keeping the embrace going. Especially with Adrienne pregnant and their weekly sojourns ended, his life did not include very much physical touch — and he missed it, desperately. Just not as much as he had missed Angie.

"I missed you," Cash said, verbalizing it to the only person he felt he could be fully honest with every time he talked to her. "Drinks?"

  

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MJ made this!

Angie had sported the brown hair for long enough now that she didn't feel the need to change it back any time soon. She had needed some sort of divergence from the life she had once lived and without Eli around, needn't play into their fabricated story of being siblings anymore. It did look good, fit her features and her complexion, so all she did was smile and say, "Thanks."

Content to hold on for as long as Cash needed, she breathed him in, absorbing that familiar scent that she'd know for so long she could pick him out in a crowded room. Ang had to wonder sometimes, if she hadn't eschewed her previous life, if she could have made a good stand-in wife for him, but too much life had happened between then and now and she didn't know how else to live her life. "Sure, I was just making a snack." She mumbled against his jacket, still waiting for him to let go first; Ang needed the embrace just as much as he did.

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Cash finally let go of Angie, and dropped into the chair next to her small kitchen. He rested his hand on his palm, looking at her, a little slumped. "Sometimes I wish that I had run away with you," he admitted, "When we were Hogwarts students." He hadn't had the Transfiguration skills to be a cursebreaker, but maybe he could have done — literally anything.

  

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MJ made this!

Ang took the following moment to really breathe him in before he let go. She went back to making her snack, nothing much just some fruit and cheese with bread. Most of her life consisted of snacking unless a real meal was being provided to her. It worked, she kept fit through work and she wasn't starving by any means. Up on her tiptoes, she pulled down the two nicest glasses she had; rocks glasses reserved just for her and Cash and the good bourbon.

His statement had her pausing momentarily, recovering herself quickly, as she moved to the table, putting the plate and glasses between them. "Me too," she sighed. Their lives would have looked a lot different, but probably would have somehow still been easier. Ang was living a life she enjoyed and was good at, but she never lost that nagging sensation that he wasn't able to do the same. If they had, Eli might still be alive and the three of them could have found some corner of the world to hide out in and stay forever.

But life didn't work like that, especially lives like Cash's. Sometimes she wondered if she'd remained in the same class as him, if she could have been his pretend wife, but knowing the Lestranges, the adopted daughter of a vampire couple probably wouldn't have fit the bill. Reaching out for the bottle, she poured them each a healthy measure. "How's... the family?" She always felt awkward asking this, didn't know if he really wanted to talk about it, but she would listen to whatever he did or didn't want to say.

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Cash looked down at her table, the familiar injuries to the wood that had accumulated over the years, rather than at her. He took a sip of the bourbon. He looked over at Angie's hands — they were calloused in a similar way to how his had been when he played Quidditch, but her callouses were from the actual labor of curse breaking.

"I'm — worried," he said, after a beat passed. "About fathering."

  

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MJ made this!

Angie popped an apple slice into her mouth, both elbows on the table as she toyed with her bourbon glass in one hand. While he looked at the table, she looked at him; really looked at him and she found that at least, he could be worse. She hated that there was always some sort of permanent worry etched into his brows or a frown tugging at the corners of his mouth. There was a lot Angie would give to make his life even a fraction easier or happier.

"I'd be worried if you weren't, it's a big change." Neither one of them had very good examples either. She wanted to give him assurances that he would be fine, that it would come naturally, but Cash didn't even really want to do what was required to conceive said child (she was impressed he had made it work), raising a child of such circumstances was a different story. "You'll be able to hire good staff. It's not all on you." She pointed out. Angie had only met Mrs. Lestrange the one time, the rest she knew as gleaned from talking to Cash and while the pair seemed like they were friends, if nothing else, it may not automatically be conducive to parenting together.

He certainly couldn't be worse than his father.

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"I know," Cash said. He would not be alone, and they would be able to provide the best wet-nurse, nanny, and governess that the child needed — but he was still not sure that that would be enough. It had not exactly been enough for him.

"I just — want to do better," he said. He wanted to be better than Lucius and Alexandria had been for him. "And I am not sure that I can."

There was something inherently broken about him; maybe that had not always been the case, but Cash knew it was true now.

  

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MJ made this!

"Love, you are already leagues better." Cash's sense of duty was normal, rational, he was already so far ahead of his father that she didn't even put them in the same category. "The fact that you are worried about it, that you care about it, says that you will do just fine." She reached out with both hands to hold his, squeezing tightly.

"Only good parents worry about those things." Ang didn't have the best of examples either, but she'd seen enough of the world, been to so many different countries and seen so many other cultures that she thought she at least understood what it should look like. She was obviously no expert, but they could learn from the mistakes their parents made and do better. Not that Ang had any intention of ever becoming a mother.

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Cash wrinkled his nose at Angie.  She was saying, more or less, what he'd expected — that she loved him, that she believed in him, that he could do this because he had done other hard things.

He was not sure he believed her.

He squeezed her hands back. "You've gone soft on me," Cash chided gently.

  

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MJ made this!

Ang stuck her tongue out at him, but didn't let go. "Only for you." Which was true. Angie loved Cash more than anyone else in the world. There was nothing she wouldn't do, including squaring up with his father, to make sure he was alright. She would traverse the ends of the world and back for him without a second thought. If only she could figure out what would be useful or actually help him, other than this.

"Otherwise I'm as hard as stone." Which wasn't far from the truth, but Cash knew better anyway. There were only two people left alive that could get through her exterior and she hadn't seen the second for over a decade. She pulled one hand back to take a sip of bourbon, but kept the other hand firmly on his. There was a welcome familiarity in the contact that neither one of them would admit to needing, but sought out anyway, as if there was a connection they could not break when they were physically touching. "Love you." She reminded him with a smile.

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