Afternoon, September 14th, 1890 — The Abernathy/Skovgaard Flat, London

Without the brightly lit flame of anger coursing through her, Fallon felt as though her walls were crumbling. Someone had attempted to murder her, and not because of some spell cast mid-duel. Someone had arranged for a horrific, drawn out, miserable death for her that would've left her family without answers for eternity. Fallon should've expected it at some point or another, should've recognized it as a hazard of her occupation. However, the thought that someone might want revenge had never crossed her mind.

Good was meant to defeat evil. That's just how it was.

Only, it wasn't. The universe was cold and cruel, and now Malou was potentially at risk of dying, too.

Fallon reentered the flat in a daze, her thoughts anywhere but the small space her and Malou rented. A murderer had stood in her bedroom, had moved and shifted her belongings as though he had any right to do so. A new flame ignited within her, this one aimed at her would-be killer. Merlin, Lachlan had the right idea with a bloody beating. In fact, such revenge would be worth the years in Azkaban.

She paced the length of the flat once before heading towards the kettle to make a fresh pot of coffee. The black liquid was her lifeblood these days.

  

This morning Malou had taken an early shift, leaving the loft as the sun’s gentle rays had only just begun to caress rooftops. By the time afternoon came around she was yawning, the busy day at the hospital enough to exhaust her. She let herself into their flat suppressing another yawn. If she didn’t need the sunlight to knit she might have considered a rest before supper, but Fallon had requested a new scarf and Malou was determined to finish it as soon as possible. Then there was dinner to make after that. No, there was no time for a rest, coffee it would have to be.

Fallon was already in the kitchen, she looked as exhausted as ever, her face drawn and tired, circles under her eyes. But there was something else, something simmering that Malou recognized from Fallon’s various foul moods as they grew up. It was hard to hide expressions when you grew into them next to the person watching you, Malou had always thought.

“Hello.” Malou greeted Fallon giving her a small smile. “Mind pouring a second mug? The hospital was exhausting today.” Malou nodded at the kettle, steam rose from it in a happy reminder of something to lift her spirits.

Coffee always reminded her of her parents. Her mother, while British bred, had loved the custom of coffee in the mornings and coffee houses with other noble ladies. It had also been her father’s preferred drink in the morning, muttering about the weakness of tea when it was brought up by his wife’s visiting family. Malou closed her eyes for a moment as she took in the scent, remembering just for a moment those happy times before opening them again and focusing on her friend

  

---

Fallon did as asked without addressing either question or greeting, too caught up in her own thoughts to think clearly. She'd become a horrible friend lately. The drama was nearly always about her, her crushes, or her employment. Eventually, the balance would shift back towards Malou. Such was the nature of their friendship, a selfless giving when the other was in need. Fallon liked to believe it was why the two got along so well.

She handed Malou the second mug and lent against the kitchen counter. A long minute of silence stretched between them, as Fallon's thoughts were too garbled to make any sense. Eventually, though, a quiet and furious whisper escaped her. "Someone is trying to kill me. Isn't that the most absurd thing you've ever heard?"

  

As Fallon moved silently through the motions, Malou’s suspicions were confirmed, something wasn’t right. She had learned over the years, much like when Fallon was angry, to allow her to come to her, to give her the time to formulate the thoughts before she pressed on her and found out what it was.

Accepting her mug of coffee Malou cast a quick cooling spell on both mugs, never having been a fan of having her tongue burned. She smelled a waft of the coffee first then took a sip of the perfectly warm coffee, keeping her gaze on Fallon as she waited for her.

There it was. The thing that Fallon hadn’t yet spoken to Malou about. The topic she had avoided as she furiously worried about Mr. Hatchitt and Mr. MacFusty. A murderer. The person who had been in their loft.

It wasn’t the most absurd thing she’d heard given Fallon’s line of work, but the reality of it happening to her friend was something out of a horror story. Fallon was Malou’s only remaining family, she worried over her endlessly, this iteration of her fears had been fometed in Fallon’s training days but remained mainly unspoken between them. And now it was a reality that Malou was trying to press from her mind. But the stark truth still remained even when she did her best to pretend that now that her friend was home all would be alright.

“It is.” Malou agreed quietly, meeting Fallon’s gaze to reassure her she didn’t have to be strong for her. Malou could hold them both together.

  

---

"It was awful, Malou." Fallon assumed all near death experiences were awful, but having none other to compare it to she couldn't elaborate much there. "One minute, I'm consoling Lachlan in the Leaky Cauldron, and the next ... the next we were standing in a bloody barren wasteland." The hysteria was slowly making its way into her voice as the reality further sunk in.

For weeks, she had steadily avoided thinking anything of it, focusing instead on JP and Lachlan and the drama there. Fallon drank some of her coffee, unsure of what to do or say. How could Malou understand? How could anyone but Lachlan understand? "We ate a fucking polar bear. Did you know they're massive?"

  

Malou leaned her hip against the counter as she listened to Fallon, her lips pursed slightly and eyes widened a smidge as she was want to do whant to do when she was listening intently. She could not image what Fallon had gone through, but her friend’s words hit her hard. Forever there would be something that Fallon had gone through that Malou would never be able to heal for her.

“They are.” Malou agreed quietly, allowing Fallon to continue as uninterrupted as possible. There was no way she would be able to help her with words, better to be a listening ear and a shoulder to cry on when she was ready.

  

---

She could go on — she knew Malou both wanted and expected her to — but Fallon could barely think straight, nevermind form additional coherent sentences. Instead, she clutched her mug in a vice like grip and stared at the wall ahead.

A minute passed, maybe two, during which time her emotional instability only heightened. Were Malou not here, Fallon might've forced her way into the ministry (again!) to visit the training rooms. A hands on fight or even a duel would be more fitting right now. "I gave up," Fallon eventually confessed to Malou. "I caused Lachlan his injuries, and I ... I bloody gave up."

  

Fallon wouldn’t meet her gaze as she stared at the wall behind Malou, silence wrapping around them. During the minutes that stretched between them Malou watched Fallon, taking in her stance, the look on her face, the way her fingers wrapped around the mug and grew whiter and whiter from her grip. All Malou wanted to do was wrap her into a hug and tell her she would be alright, but she couldn’t do that.

Her words confused Malou. Fallon never gave up, never. She was a fighter through and through. Not only that she had been flying when she had arrived back in London, that to Malou was proof that her friend had never stopped trying to get back home. “How did you give up?” Malou asked instead, tilting her head slightly to the side. Having tended to Mr. MacFusty’s injuries she highly doubted that Fallon had caused the man his injuries either, but the best approach was to focus on one thing at a time and right now it seemed more important to Fallon that she had supposedly lacked in perseverance.

  

---

Fallon bit her lip. How to confess the worst of her sins to Saintly Malou? She didn't often think her roommate to be better than her, but after this ordeal it was difficult to think of Malou as anything but. Malou wouldn't have met up with a man in a pub. Malou wouldn't have allowed him to become as sick as he was. Malou wouldn't have failed as Fallon did.

Keeping her mug tight within her grasp, Fallon walked over to the sofa and sat in her typical corner. "I ..." she couldn't think of a kinder way to admit to her sins than the blunt truth. The missions had failed, they - she - resigned themselves to dying in that godforsaken cave. "There were twigs in the cave, I made them into a broom." Fallon explained, her tone slipping into cold detachment than the hysterics of a minute prior. It was easier to pretend she was, once again, relaying this to a fellow auror than Malou. "We - Lachlan.- flew missions in each direction trying to find something." Perhaps if they hadn't kept returning? Fallon could've made some sort of ice hut for them.

"Eventually we ran out of directions and it was so bloody cold. We just stayed in the cave...we didn't try to fly out again. Not ... not until Lachlan was barely lucid." Thank Merlin Fallon had the foresight to tie him to her, otherwise he would've fallen once he fell asleep again. "I was planning to fly until I died, just so i wouldn't have to watch him go."

  

Malou followed her friend to the couch, her own mug held delicately in her hands as she settled down on the familiar blue fabric that had seen so many late nights of conversations and confessions between the two friends.

Fallon's voice sounded much like the tone she had related events to her coworkers with, but Malou had seen enough patients act the same way she supposed she should have anticipated it. She nodded at Fallon's words, not seeing how such missions could be the cause of Fallon's determination that she had indeed given up. But then the words fell from her lips. Oh.

"Oh. Fallon." Malou breathed. It wasn't a judgmental tone, it was simply that Malou wished she could have spared her best friend the pain of what she had gone through. "Getting on that broom, flying no matter the reason, it only shows me you still had fight in you." Malou's gentle voice assured her.

  

---

"Perhaps," Fallon murmured. It wasn't true, though. Malou would never understand the decision Fallon had been forced to face. It wasn't fight that propelled her into motion, but the fear of being alone with her sole companion's corpse. When the broom was tumbling out of the sky, all she felt was fear and a touch of relief. Relief that death would be warmer than the winds were.

She sipped on her coffee in silence, unsure of what to add. Her thoughts were all a jumbled mess. If only Lachlan hadn't left the hospital already, he was likely the only one to understand what she felt.

"I got stuck in a lift with JP today," she revealed to Malou instead of continuing to focus on her trauma. "We made up, I think. Or, I guess I don't think. We might have ... hugged?"

  

It would never matter what Malou thought, for Fallon the only person who could relieve the guilt of her actions was herself. Malou didn't know when or if she would ever be able to forgive herself, but that simple word from Fallon's lips told her enough to know it wouldn't be right now. Somethings even a healer couldn't heal.

As the subject changed Malou tucked her legs under her, smoothing her skirts over them. "Oh?" At least there was some good news in the world. Malou rather liked Mr. Hatchett, he had earned her approval during Malou's absence enough that Malou had written to him when she first heard of his and Fallon's tiff. She wondered if that letter had had anything to do with it - in fact she'd been waiting for days to hear Fallon even mention him in case it had. But of course Fallon couldn't know of that so Malou had to remember precisely what a friend should say here, rather than what she already knew. "What did he say about his letters?" She asked, head tilted to the side as she surveyed Fallon to see how happy she was about this development.

  

---

"We fought about them, and...I might have slapped him." This was a far easier conversation to have than the one about her experience. Boys, who knew that they would be a comforting topic between them? "He told me to be reasonable, Malou. I think he would've been okay if I had slapped him again, too." Fallon had debated it briefly. A shove or a kick to work out the overwhelming emotions she was experiencing. In the end, though, he had hugged her and that was more comforting than continued violence.

  

"You did what?" Malou's eyes grew wide. "Whatever for?" She asked as Fallon paused only to have her question answered the moment she started to speak again. "How ever did it go from that to a hug?" She would never really understand relationships. While she might long for one, like most women, she always knew that for her it would squash her dreams and wasn't worth the risk of her freedom.

  

---

"He hugged me after I slapped him," Fallon shrugged as though it was the most natural reaction in the world. "I slapped him, he asked if I felt better, I said no, and then he hugged me." The apologies were as comforting as the hug itself, even if Fallon didn't quite think she had much to apologize for herself. It wasn't her fault JP had pulled back, after all. "We're okay now, I think. Promised to write again."

  

Malou’s eyebrows furrowed in confusion. A hug after a slap seemed the complete opposite of a natural reaction, perhaps Mr. Hatchitt had lost his senses? But Fallon continued to explain and it did make sense, in fact it endeared Mr. Hatchitt to Malou yet again. His kindness for Fallon even in her anger…. it could only mean he actually felt something deeper for Fallon that perhaps Fallon herself had yet to realize the true extent of.

“I’m glad you two are alright. Truely.” Malou smiled at Fallon, glad to hear that the letters would begin again. She wasn’t sure if Fallon saw it, but from Malou’s perspective the letters had done her a world of good after the experience she had just been through.

  

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