He was steps away from the floo — steps away from leaving her again. The last time he left her like so he left her life. He bid her good day and left her to contemplate the grievous reality of her decisions. Maggie refused to let him disappear again. Not like this.

"So that's it, then?" She asked quietly, already knowing what his response would be. "You took care of the hinkypunk and what? Another decade is going to pass before we bump into one another again?"

  

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Beautiful set by MJ

Her question stopped him and he turned to look at her. Of course it was, what else was there left to say, to do? Percy knew better than to say anything to answer the following questions, but instead he turned and looked at her face. An expression he remembered from their school days mixed with a new weariness he had never remembered in her.

"What else is there?" He asked quietly, looking her straight in the eye. Something he hadn't been able to do the last time he'd say good-bye. There was nothing else to lose, he'd lost it all before. Nothing to be ashamed of, she knew it all. So what else was there that she felt was left? He thought they'd understood each other the day of her wedding, the last time he'd seen her, but now he wondered if she were truly so selfish she could not even see that.

  

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Pretties from Lady <3

What else is there?

The question hung between them like the sharp blade of a guillotine. How did he not know, even then, that it was duty, and duty alone, that kept them apart? The months of silence stretched on and on with Mother pestering her constantly to accept Edmund's suit. She hadn't had a choice in the matter, but he hadn't known that then. Maggie hadn't wanted to humiliate him further by admitting that he was simply too late.

But, now she was older. Her duty was done, her husband two months dead. Now, Maggie had nothing to lose but him, again. "I can't lose you again. It nearly killed me the first time." She admitted quietly, her gaze never leaving his own. How could he still not know? Even after the elevator and their letters? "Please, don't leave again. I was wrong to let you leave the first time."

  

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Percy went cold at her words, and before he could stop to think the words were out of his mouth. "I was never your's to lose." The words were quiet but anger simmered behind them. "Don't you understand Maggie? You chose him. You had your happiness, your life to live." Now that the words had started he didn't seem to be able to stop them. "I was left with no one. Nothing. I lost my best friend, my version of the future. So don't tell me that it almost killed you. You know nothing of what I went through." Percy rarely lost his temper, but over a decade of carefully avoiding his emotions on the matter steeled him for such an encounter. He'd never see Maggie again after he left her house, he was sure of that. He'd walk away and that would be that.

But even as he thought it on some level he knew that he couldn't stand the pain on Maggie's face, in her voice, that he'd pick her own happiness over his own and spend another decade buried in work he had never intended to marry.

  

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Pretties from Lady <3

"What happiness!" She nearly screeched. Her life with Edmund was mundane and loveless. What little happiness they shared was centered solely around their children, and even that was wrought with tension at the end. Maggie was lucky if he remembered his sons' birthdays, for he certainly never remembered hers. .

She quickly drew her wand and cast silencing charms around them. The last thing she needed was her children asking why she hadn't been happy to have them in her life. Then, once secure in the knowledge it was just them, Maggie turned her fiery gaze to him once more. "I waited for you for two fucking years. I wrote letters that went unanswered for weeks if not months. I — fuck, Percy. What was I supposed to do?!" Maggie's hands were flailing as she ranted, her temper sparked for the first time in years.

"I waited for as long as I could for any kind of sign from you. I thought you forgot me. He wasn't my choice. He was never my choice." And yet, she married him. Maggie had turned her back on her best friend, solely because of her responsibility to her family. "I couldn't keep deferring my parents. I didn't have a choice."

  

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The shrill words hit Percy as if they had been a physical blow. He had never imagined that Maggie had not been content in her marriage, happy with her choice in life. She had never bothered to tell him that. But now she exploded as if he ought to have known this whole time. Percy bristled at the blow.

Before he realized it Maggie had whipped her wand out and Percy found himself reaching for his own without even realizing it. It had been years since he had last seen Maggie and she seemed unhinged enough that he wondered if he'd find himself needing a shield charm between them. He'd seen her temper before, but never like this, and never at him. Instead Maggie cast a charm around the room, he let go of his hold on the wand, surprised at the hastiness he had felt in defending himself against the one person he had never thought he'd have to.

Then she turned back on him. Her words hitting him like icy buckets of water. The reality he had created for them, the truth he had never seen. "You always have a choice." Percy glared at her. "What was I supposed to do Maggie? Show up at your parents do a penniless boy barely out of school?" His voice rose in exasperation. "They would never have allowed that, and you know it. I had to make something of myself first!"

  

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Pretties from Lady <3

Thankfully, Maggie hardly noticed his hand reach for his wand. The verbal fight might very well have become a duel had she fully registered it.

"You might have told me. Given me any indication that I was right to wait." She hurled back furiously. The grief of losing him was rearing its ugly head once again, as though they had only parted yesterday. "My parents expected me to establish connections for my brothers. Dennis was guaranteed employment with the Goyle's." She was a woman — and not a wealthy one at that. Her only fortune was her looks and those vanished quickly. What little choice she did have was superceded by Dennis' needs for a future.

Maggie unconsciously took a step towards him, her heart in her throat. Percy was going to leave her again, and there was little she could do about it. "I waited for you, Percy. I waited as long as I could." 'I loved you,' was what she meant, but those words were sure to make him flee.

  

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"And what good would that have done?" Percy fired back, "You know full well that my family didn't have the types of connections your parents wanted." Percy glared at her. Not to mention that he only had a suspicion of her feelings for him, nor the fact that he had wanted her to find a better life if that was what she wanted. So when she'd found one.... he had thought she'd be happy with that choice, not beholden to an old friend from school.

It hurt to hear that she had waited, that his suspicions - the ones he'd spent more than ten years to forget - might actually have been true. That he ought to have fought for her. That it was his own insistence that she might find something better and what that instead that doomed them.

  

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Pretties from Lady <3

A singular frustrated tear escaped her as they fought. Maggie brushed it away furiously, her fingers knocking more of her curls loose in the process. "Are you that obtuse?" She demanded. Here she was nearly screaming her love for him and he was still as oblivious as he was then. "Any sign — any word from you and I would've waited forever if it meant being with you. I only said no because I knew the scandal would ruin you and your career if I said yes."

  

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Her words hit him like fists. He felt each one as it hit his gut. She had loved him. He hadn't been a fool after all. A decade of misconceptions spun through his mind and for a second he could feel the anger deflate from him. "Why didn't you say anything?" He asked before he could help himself. Adding with increasing passion, "Something, anything? Given me a say in the decision you made for the both of us?" He would have chosen her over everything.

  

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Pretties from Lady <3

Back then, their futures had seemed so final. The announcements made, the wedding preparations undertaken. There hadn't been room for negotiations, not when her parents were insisting upon a wedding sooner than later. Maggie was a caged bird, then, batting frantically against the bars as the love of her life walked away.

"I couldn't." She answered helplessly. "The wedding was already in the works, everyone knew about it. You were finally making headway in your career. I didn't want to jeopardize that...it seemed...it seemed important at the time."

  

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I couldn't. Couldn't give him a chance to actually have a say in what their futures would bring, to find a way to work through it together. Percy's jaw clenched tighter, his grip on the cane tightening, chuckles white against it. "So you decided not to tell your best friend?" Percy's words were frustrated, he raked a hand through his hair. "Merlin, Maggie! I didn't care a whit for my job." Percy exclaimed. "I only took it to make something of myself so your parents wouldn't frown on the match."

Percy took a breath, trying to calm himself. When he spoke again it was calmer, still frustrated, but quieter. "You should have told me. Given me some say. We could have come up with a plan." Another hand raked through his hair, leaving it laying in different directions haphazardly over his head. Something was deflating inside him as he took Maggie in, took the tears and words in. "Maggie-" Percy started forward, his hand outreached, but he stopped and let it fall. He had no right to touch her, to comfort her. "I only ever cared for your happiness." He admitted, his voice quiet again.

  

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Pretties from Lady <3

"You were gone!" She protested weakly. Maggie refused to think of the countless days she spent waiting for a sign from him. A letter in the mail. A knock at her door. How unfair it was that the sign came only a few weeks too late. "You stopped writing to me, too distracted with your job. And I don't blame you for it, it was what you had to do." Having never had a job herself, Maggie didn't quite understand the intricacies of office politics, but she certainly knew the singular focus it took to thrive. It was how she managed to survive her final three years at school.

She sighed deeply. Maggie couldn't wish for an alternate reality, for then her children wouldn't exist. Her and Percy's children would stand in the place of Oliver and Sebastian. Whatever mistakes they made, Maggie couldn't admit to wishing to change it all. "I ...we did the best we could with the knowledge we had. I only ever wanted the best for you, whatever that meant." The past was what it was, they couldn't alter it now. All they had left were the years ahead of them.

She stepped towards him once more, only realizing afterwards that they were well within arms reach of one another. "I still only want the best for you ..I only hope that your best somehow includes me, too."

  

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It was true, Percy's letters had become less frequent in those days. But he hadn't wanted to bother her, sure she had better things to do then write an old friend from school. He'd doubted the feelings he had thought they shared at that point. "I didn't want to hold you back from your life." He explained mildly. At the time had made so much sense, but now it was dawning on him that his consideration of her life, his self doubt, had been what had doomed them.

She stepped toward him, it was only a short distance to reach out for her. Their eyes glued to each other. He didn't know what to think, or how to feel, or what would happen next. "I don't know..." His words were soft as he reached forward and brushed her hair out of her eyes. It wasn't so much an answer to her statement, an answer to her words, but more of a confused confession. He didn't know anymore. But here was Maggie, confessing a love as old as his, wishing to remain in his life. He had no idea how that would appear, of if it was grief of her situation that pulled her to it, but it didn't matter. She had loved him and for that moment, that soft tender moment, he looked at her as if she had been his all along, his hands gentle as it brushed dark curls from her face, brushing the curve of her cheek and jaw, an intimate gesture that she had never been any thing less than the woman he loved.

  

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Pretties from Lady <3

For a moment, Maggie was convinced his uncertainty meant there was nothing left for them. Her bleak future stretched before her with a clarity she had never known. Was this how Percy felt as he walked away from her that afternoon? As he witnessed her sign her life away to another? Sharp pangs of grief tore through her — a grief not unlike the devastating loss of her daughter. Maggie hadn't felt this pain for Edmund, not even for a second. And yet, the prospect of living the remainder of her days without Percy was enough to nearly cause her knees to weaken beneath her.

But then, he reached for her. His palm felt like fire upon her skin, its heat blazing through her entire body. Surely, he wouldn't have touched her if he meant to leave her? Even Maggie at the height of her foolish teenaged years knew better than to reach for him as he walked away. "Percy..." she whispered, not entirely sure what she was asking. This, a loving touch, was entirely new to her. Maggie stepped towards him again, now close enough to grip his jacket if she so chose.

  

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Maggie stepped closer to him, close enough that he could have wrapped her into his arms, embraced her as he had longed to for all those years. He should leave now, before he fell deeper into the cauldron, but Percy couldn't tear himself from her. Not now, not after it all. "Maggie..." He echoed, his hand gently pushing her chin up to meet his eyes. He didn't know what he wanted, what was fair or right, but he did know that he didn't want this moment to end. His gaze looked at her for askance before dropping down to her lips. Lips that had tantalized him since he was fourteen.

  

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Pretties from Lady <3