"Don't apologize," she said softly, pushing off from the door but making no attempt to get any closer to him. "I didn't mean to scare you, unless... " Unless it was something else entirely, like the duel or something he'd been thinking about but hadn't revealed to her, but she didn't elaborate.

"That was a panic attack. It's - completely normal. Everyone has them sometimes." Perhaps not everyone, but enough of them, and she wanted him to know that it wasn't really strange, least of all to her. "What can I do for you?"

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He didn't like the phrase panic attack — it was two very bad things being pushed together into one exceptionally bad phrase, and it made his stomach surge uncomfortably to hear the words applied to him that way. He thought he ought to protest — I wasn't panicking, I'm fine — but his mouth felt dry and it wasn't worth interrupting her, probably. She was being kind, and he shouldn't argue with her when she probably knew better. She hadn't asked to be here for that little episode, so this was — just another thing they could add to the list of things she'd done for him with no repayment of any kind whatsoever. And now she wanted to know what else she could do.

"Nothing," Ben assured her quickly, already feeling embarrassed about it. "I don't need anything. I'm fine. Honest, I'm fine."

  

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MJ made this <3

He was embarrassed, and she might have  found it endearing if she hadn’t been so concerned for him. She tried to smile—it was sincere and real conveyed how much she cared, but also the hesitance and concern that was unlikely to go away anytime soon.

She stepped closer, just to gauge his his reaction.

“I know what it’s like. I’ve had one before,” she explained, hoping that the casual conversation might help steady him even further if he was still struggling.

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For some reason he laughed at that — not a real laugh, but a short chuckle that was sharp and obviously too thin to hold any real mirth behind it. "Yeah?" he asked, letting out a long breath again as he glanced up at the ceiling. "The last time you dueled someone over your baby sister's honor?"

He didn't even know if it had been that, really, that had brought it on. Maybe it had nothing to do with the duel — there was certainly enough other shit going on. Melody's illness, and her falling asleep, and her recovery in the hospital. Elliott, and all of the complicated drama that entailed. Art, and how fucked up everything was there, and how they didn't talk to each other anymore and how Ben had bought tickets to his Quidditch match but then he hadn't even gone. Witch Weekly and Meredith Watchword. Aldous sending him howlers and Macmillan writing out jibes about his sister and Ellory. Carrying all of that and bringing all of that — all of that shit into this little kid's room, into a nursery that was so — so pure and innocent, and here Ben was, with all of this... shit, and the option to offload some of it onto his son whom he didn't even know that well for a little while.

He shouldn't have come tonight. If he hadn't seen Elliott, he probably could have kept it together.

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   Arthur Pettigrew, Dionisia Fisk

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MJ made this <3

The smile faded, but the concerned remained. She wasn’t sure what made her do it, and perhaps she shouldn’t have—but being a caregiver, a helper, a problem-silver were all essential parts of her character, and when she stepped forward and touched his arm all she was worried about was soothing him.

It helped that she knew the cause, and that the cause—by his own words—was not her.

“Your sister is lucky to have you,“ she assured him, but there was something in the tone that suggested a but was coming. She couldn’t say she knew much of his life beyond their brief time spent together with Elliott, but she was certain he was a good person. (She’d always thought herself a good judge of character—and to date she hadn’t been wrong.)

“But you don’t have to do it, though. It’s not the only way to solve a problem. Don’t do this—don’t duel—just because you think you have to,” she practically pleaded.

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A moment ago, this might have affected him more, but now that he'd gotten himself back into his body and felt calm again he was once again ready to dismiss her protest out of hand. "It's going to be fine," he assured her. Without really thinking about it, he moved his free hand up to rest over the top of hers where she had reached out to touch his arm, as a sort of comforting gesture. She had no reason to be upset about him getting himself into trouble, or into danger, though — she had her own life here, with all these happy pictures in the hallway, and Ben was if anything only a footnote in it.

"It might not even happen," he said with a shrug. "At least half the time, they don't. If he backs down and apologizes before Friday, we'll call it settled."

  

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MJ made this <3

Considering he’d just come out of a panic attack, she found it difficult to take his I’m fine seriously at all. He surely didn’t believe it was fine, for all the shrugging and dismissing and reassuring he was doing. It would have been best to let him hold onto that self-assurance, to tell himself that so he might not spiral again.

But Dionisia had always been a little selfish. Not for herself—no, this wasn’t for her.

“And what about Elliott?” she all but whispered. “What if—?”

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The muscles in Ben's arm tensed beneath her grasp. He might have pulled away if he felt like there was anywhere to go, but he was already leaning up against the wall and the hallway wasn't that big. He'd have to actually push her away to move, and she probably didn't deserve that. She was probably just trying to help, even if this felt suddenly like she was trying to trap him in another room with no air.

"Elliott wouldn't miss me," Ben pointed out, his voice tense. "He hardly even knows me. He doesn't need me."

Elliott had a father. He had a whole family, in all of these pictures surrounding Ben in the hallway, and this whole arrangement was temporary, anyway. She'd said he could keep visiting Elliott but Ben knew it couldn't last forever, and that sooner or later when Elliott got old enough to really understand it would all be over. If anyone was going to need him, it was Melody's child, not Elliott — and Melody didn't even know about the duel, and Ben wasn't going to tell her, because she would have been able to talk him out of it with a similar sentiment to this. But he wasn't going to die, so it wasn't going to matter. He wasn't going to die.

  

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MJ made this <3

All three of those things were true—Elliot wouldn't miss him, didn't know him, didn't need him. He was a toddler with only a vague awareness of his biological father's existence and would recognize his face if he saw him in public, but had no idea of the magnitude of the connection.

"But he will," Dionisia said in a whisper, feeling as though she was about to let go of a secret. Her chest felt heavy and with his arm stiffened under hers, she felt tempted to drop her hand away; but she didn't, because the contact was keeping him grounded in place, keeping her grounded in place.

"Maybe not now. Maybe not for fifteen, twenty, maybe thirty years. But one day he will figure out that Ari's not the man who fathered him, because he'll be just as clever then as he is now, and I don't want to want to have to look my son in the eyes and tell him that he'd met his biological father, was getting to know him, was cared for despite the circumstances of his birth, but that he'd made a decision that made ever truly knowing him an impossibility." It was a heavy burden to place on him, and she wasn't trying to force him into any proper role, but he needed to know that this—fatherhood—was not something that would go away once they didn't see each other or talk anymore. Elliott would always be a bastard, and one day he would know it.

The regret—or maybe it was just sorrow, since she was not sorry for the truth that she would have to live with whether or not Ben was there—showed on her face as she pulled away from him. She watched his face as she backed away to the nursery door, positioning herself against the doorframe once more.

"I know there is nothing I can do to change your mind," she said softly, putting her hand on the doorknob behind her, "and if all goes well, or even if it doesn't, I will be here. Just - be safe, Ben."

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Ben had never considered what would happen after. When he'd learned about Elliott he'd been focused on the immediate present, the toddler who existed and was right here and that he'd have an opportunity to get to know, and on the past, the baby whom he never would. When he thought of the future it was only with a vague feeling of insecurity. Someday Elliott would be five, or six, and he'd have questions that no one could answer about Ben and they'd have to call this whole thing off. And rightly so, too, because Elliott had a father, and Ben didn't have any rights to him. He wouldn't have wanted to interrupt his son's life to force himself into it, when the alternative was that he could be happy and healthy and loved. He was clearly well provided for, and these pictures in the hallway indicated he always would be, both physically and emotionally. Ben had no business in the middle of that, making trouble through his very existence. But he had never conceptualized of an after, of Elliott existing as an adult rather than as a child. He couldn't picture Elliott as an adult — when he tried, briefly, all he came up with was himself as a teenager or a young man, and then himself, at that time of life, dealing with the death of both of his parents.

"I —" Ben started, but he had no idea what to say. He didn't want to duel Macmillan. He wanted to call it off, but he couldn't do so now — they'd picked a date, they'd named seconds. It was out of their hands. Maybe Macmillan's second would talk him into backing down and conceding, staying away from Ben's sister, or maybe Art would come up with something, but — if not — Friday morning.

"I'll be alright," he assured her for what felt like the hundredth time that night, though he had no notion that she would believe him any better now than she had on the earlier occasions. "I'm going to be fine."

He chewed his lower lip, wondering if this was the end of the conversation. Should he say goodbye? He didn't want to seem like he was running away, but there was a note of finality in what she'd said, in be safe, Ben.

"I don't know your name," he admitted sheepishly. Since she'd called him Ben.

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   Dionisia Fisk

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MJ made this <3

The more he said he would be fine the less Dionisia believed it. He'd spent the entire evening reassuring her that he'd be fine, and then he'd had a panic attack, and now he was back to reassuring her as if she hadn't just watched him struggle to catch his breath in the hallway. She smiled solemnly, because that was all she could provide—a comforting smile, a listening ear, a gentle word of advice. That was all she could be for him in their position, because anything else would cross the boundaries that they'd never expressed aloud but had danced around nevertheless.

She gazed up at him with that sad smile, trying not to think about what could go wrong but whatever might happen next if he somehow made it out of the duel without a scratch. She thought about how they might set up another meeting with Elliott, this time without the backdrop of an impending duel. She thought about how she would tell him what Elliott had been doing since they last saw each other, how he'd discovered a love of muddy puddles and had cried the other day when he realized dragons did not make sounds like ducks or cows but instead breathed fire. She would hold onto that and hope that the next week she was not worried about a funeral she would not be invited to.

"My name is Dionisia, but you can call me Dio. Everyone else does," she said, her hand freezing on the doorknob. She thought she'd have to make a hasty escape back into the nursery to avoid upsetting him (or herself) anymore, but the question about her name was so - out of place. She didn't realize she'd never told him that small but very significant fact about her.

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   Arthur Pettigrew

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Ben raised an eyebrow in mild surprise, because he hadn't expected that response. She always signed her letters with T, so he'd thought it would have been something that started with a T, but Dio didn't sound like it did. Unless there was some very creative or foreign spelling at play, but she didn't really look foreign.

"Alright," he said, because there wasn't really anything else to say about that, was there? "Well, I'll — see you soon," he said, even though they hadn't discussed this and it was far from a given. He was trying to leave, though, and it sounded appropriately casual and optimistic for the facade he was trying to put up.

  

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MJ made this <3

Dio tore her gaze from his and nodded, because even if there were doubts in her head about the accuracy of his statement, she couldn't say that aloud. He needed to think he was going to be okay if he was actually going to duel—which he seemed to be set on doing.

"Write to me when it's over, even if it's just to say you're well." She glanced up at him, just long enough to really take him in. She noted the color of his eyes—grey—and tried to think of a word to describe his hair color, just in case she never did see him again, but then dropped her gaze back to the floor again. "Goodbye, Ben," she said, trying not to make it sound so final.

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