Jo seemed to have caught up even without them saying anything, but Alfred sort of wished she hadn't. Her question hadn't been so bad in and of itself, but the sharpness of Zelda's response stung him.

Part of him wanted to point out that they didn't really know what it meant; they'd just heard a vague rumor about it. That wasn't going to help matters, though; Zelda had drawn her own conclusions and trying to contradict her on the nature of the spell would only annoy her, he presumed.

"Do you want some air?" he asked Zelda. He had no idea where they could go to get any, at least not without bringing her sister into the matter, but at this point he thought even walking away from the table would be an improvement on the current predicament.

  

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

Right. She needed to leave, and she needed to leave five minutes ago.

Plastering on her most polite smile to disguise the obvious tension she was leaving behind, Jo looked about the room one last time. She focused on some random table as though that would be where her mother sat. "Oh, I think I see my mother," Jo said. "Miss Fisk, Mr. Darrow. I hope you enjoy your meal."

She had never fled a room so fast in her life.

  

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beautiful set by mj

She looked back at Jo as she was leaving, and felt a sudden slickness of guilt in her chest - it wasn’t as if the biscuits meant they had done anything, and attraction was not proof of impropriety. But the slight guilt was nothing compared to the embarrassment she still felt, and it was only when Jo was gone that Zelda found herself able to actually look at Alfred again.

”Yes,” she said finally, ”Air. The hallway?” Surely Katia would cut them enough slack for the hallway.

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AMAZING set by MJ

Alfred would have agreed to follow her anywhere at the moment if it meant getting back into her good graces once again. He nodded, rose, went to the hallway. He wished the stupid biscuit spell would wear off; having a conversation like this with glowing pink cheeks was a little undignified.

"I had no idea that was going to happen," he said, when they had reached the relative safety of the hall.

  

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

She wished that his cheeks weren’t glowing. The fact of the pink glow made her feel a little annoyed, and she tried to bury it, thinking it the most irrational part of this. Zelda nibbled on the inside of her lip again. ”Did you know?” she asked, just above a whisper. ”That you were attracted to her?”

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AMAZING set by MJ

"What?" Alfred asked, less because he was surprised by the content of her question and more because he had no idea how to respond to that particular phrasing. Was it possibly to be attracted to someone and not aware of it? Wasn't that precisely what the phrase meant in the first place?

He debated, very briefly, lying. He wondered if it would make her feel better, get them through this faster — but she was friends with Jo and might conceivably get some version of this story from her, too, so outright lying was out of the question. And given that he'd once had Miss Smith literally naked in his bedroom, it probably wouldn't do to say I don't know, either.

"I guess?" he said noncommittally. "You know, I met her when I thought you weren't speaking to me," he added, as though this might lighten the blow somewhat.

  

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

Zelda closed her eyes, because I guess? might as well have been a yes. She counted to three before she opened them, a physical way of steeling herself. Alfred loved her. Alfred loved her, and just because he was attracted to Jo and Jo was attracted to them did not mean - well. It meant something, but it didn't mean that she had to feel insecure.

Thinking that didn't stop her from feeling insecure, though. She was running over the conversation she had had with Jo about Alfred, months ago, and her mind caught on the way Jo had seemed oddly defensive of him.

There were things she wanted to ask that she couldn't in an almost-public hallway. Because if they had met when she wasn't really speaking to Alfred - well. He hadn't owed her much, at the time. And thinking about Alfred touching Jo hurt Zelda in a specific, chest-deep sort of way, a soft spot that started when Mr. Williams was actually in love with Xena.

"She's allowed to do anything she wants," Zelda said, looking loosely wounded, because it was the only thing she could think to say here. And because it was true - Jo could hang around men and skip chaperones and go on adventures. "And I'm not."

Certainly Alfred's life would be easier if he was with Jo; he'd be allowed to touch her.

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AMAZING set by MJ

Alfred could tell, from the way she closed her eyes and said nothing, that this had not been the best thing to say. He wasn't sure what she wanted to hear, though. Would it have been better to lie to her?

He waited, feeling rather exasperated. Stupid biscuits laced with magic. He hadn't done anything wrong, he didn't think, and yet here he was trying to work out how to get himself out of trouble. When Zelda eventually spoke, her words didn't seem to be directly connected to anything. She wasn't wrong, but what did Jo's relative freedom of movement have to do with whether or not he was attracted to her?

Oh — he realized the connection. His demeanor soften considerably and he reached out to touch her elbow. "Zelda," he said quietly, "Nothing's happened between us."

  

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

There was something grounding about Alfred's touch at her elbow, or maybe about his words. "Alright," she said, "All right." Nothing had happened between them. You could be attracted to someone and not do anything about it. People did that all the time.

"And you don't -" she frowned, trying to find a way to articulate this "- wish that it had?"

The thing was, she didn't know much of anything about Alfred and Jo's friendship. Until today, that had never bothered her, but now in the hallway she was wishing that she had more of an understanding.

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AMAZING set by MJ

Alfred inhaled a touch more sharply than he'd intended to. That was a broad question, and he wasn't sure exactly what she meant by it, which made it difficult to answer honestly (which he was trying to do, though he'd realized after his last statement that 'nothing' may have been overselling it a bit — he meant nothing that mattered, but there were plenty of people in society who would not have considered the sorts of things that had happened between Alfred and Jo to be nothing).

On the one hand, wishing that something might happen was — again — sort of what it meant to be attracted to someone, wasn't it?

On the other hand, if he'd actually wanted something to happen, it would have. He'd certainly had opportunities, and Jo Smith had been quite willing, from all appearances, to do whatever he wanted to do. He'd been the one to put a halt on things last spring. He sort of wanted to say something to that effect, but recognized that explaining how close they'd come to doing something would not do him any favors at the moment. Besides, even standing in the hallway, they were still a little too public for any sort of conversation like that.

"I want to marry you," he said firmly. It was not, technically, an answer to her question, but it was the point he wanted to emphasize. It was an answer in a roundabout way, too; if he wasn't so in love with Zelda perhaps he might have slept with Jo, but no matter how attracted he was to her, it was not worth the risk of losing what he had with Zelda. Even if what he had with Zelda was, at the moment, a few stolen minutes every few months.

  

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

Alfred wanted to marry her. That wasn't really an answer, but at least he sounded sure of it.

"I know," Zelda said, because she did - if Alfred didn't want to marry her there were surely better uses of his time than to be harangued by the Fisk family at large. "I want to marry you too." If he had to make a choice, he had chosen her, hadn't he? They were courting; they spent time together; he wanted to marry her.

But Jo could be at Alfred's alone, and Zelda couldn't.

She trusted him, but - how much?

"I just -" she paused, a little frustrated. "You wouldn't like it either. If things were flipped."

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The following 1 user Likes Zelda Darrow's post:1 user Likes Zelda Darrow's post
   J. Alfred Darrow

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AMAZING set by MJ

Alfred took a minute to try and put himself into her shoes. If he had been out with her somewhere, unsuspecting that anything might be amiss, and then he got some indication that she might have had a crush on someone else, there might have been a little twinge of jealousy. And if that someone else was a person who could have time alone with her whenever they liked — say, if they worked at her office and could go out and about with her on cases or just drop by for a chat with no supervision or have lunch with her someday with no prior planning whatsoever — yes, he'd be terribly annoyed, but not because he doubted her intentions. He'd be annoyed because he wanted to do all those things. He missed the days when no one except her brother had known anything about the two of them at all; when she could just show up unannounced at the Museum and fall asleep on a bench waiting for him and then they could walk around London together, talking. When she could come by his flat. They'd had a few hours together at Christmas, but he'd planned for weeks to get the portkey arranged, and even then it was risky.

"No, I wouldn't like it," he admitted. "But I'd trust you." He paused a moment, then continued in a significantly lighter tone, "But depending on who he was, I might want to go have some words with him."

The following 1 user Likes J. Alfred Darrow's post:1 user Likes J. Alfred Darrow's post
   Jupiter Smith

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

The corners of Zelda's lips twitched up into a smile. "I do trust you," she said, because she did - she didn't think Alfred was going to sleep with Jo. Or at least he did not intend to sleep with Jo. "All right?" They could not get too into it in the hallway - another issue with their inability to actually be alone almost ever - and she was not convinced there was a way to get too into it without upsetting him. She wanted to know more about the actual nature of their friendship.

She was not entirely convinced that she trusted Jo.

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The following 1 user Likes Zelda Darrow's post:1 user Likes Zelda Darrow's post
   Jupiter Smith

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AMAZING set by MJ

A smile was something. He'd been hoping for a laugh, or at least a chuckle, but a smile was something, and it made him believe they'd gotten to the other side of this unfortunate obstacle. "All right," he confirmed with a small smile and a subtle nod. He glanced back at the room with the lunch tables; they ought to go back, he supposed, and sit down and pretend none of this had ever happened.

"But if you're ever feeling self conscious about not having any time alone, you know I wouldn't stand in your way," he added, teasing. "I'd run off with you right now if you wanted. Mrs. Meadowes might not even notice you were gone for another twenty minutes," he joked. He clearly did not think Zelda was going to be interested in throwing caution to the wind and leaving together in the middle of a luncheon, where all of wizarding society might see them, but it seemed important to reaffirm his desire to be alone with her, just in case she had any doubts.

  

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

Zelda laughed, this time; she wasn't planning on eloping during a luncheon with her sister present, (or on marrying Alfred while his cheeks were glowing), but it was a little reassuring to hear him confirm that he wanted to. "Some other time, maybe," she said playfully, "But for now we should probably go back to lunch." Certainly they ought to before Katia actually noticed she wasn't in the main room; Katia was a relaxed chaperon, but she wasn't a stupid one, and she would ask sooner or later if she thought something was wrong.

(Was something wrong? Zelda knew, deep down, that Alfred could still change his mind. They weren't married. He could decide he wanted something fun and casual instead.)

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AMAZING set by MJ