c.bones

“I don’t usually cry at  weddings,  but that was beautiful.”

Abigail is certain she’s never been more happy. The whole ceremony had gone exactly as she’d planned it, and everyone seems to be enjoying the reception. She’s finally married, and only one thing is missing. She waves to catch her new husband’s attention, then signs with her hands low and close to her body, Can we sneak away?

“I’m so proud.”

I really hope you had a better day than me, someone at the office keeps stealing my quills which I guess is fine. But today, someone walked off with that really good pen I got from Dad over Christmas. I think it was Basil. But since I can’t prove anything, and he is the Minister’s golden boy…

I shouldn’t have put that in writing. 

Oh well, you’re not going to rat me out, right?

How is wedding stuff going? If you or Abigail need any help, just let me know and I’ll see what I can do. I’ve been in a slight research hole for this case that’s coming through the Wizengamont, so I haven’t really checked in with her at all…but I should. I know I should. 

I’ve gotta run, my kettle just finished. I miss you!

xo

You should fix them to your desk. Or just set them to fix to the next thing that touches them. Someone with sticky fingers would be easier to catch. I’m sorry to hear they took your pen. I hope it comes back. Good pens are hard to find.

Your secrets are safe with me. Basil will never know.

Our planning is going well. Abigail is amazing at it. Things are starting to fall into place. I’m really excited. More excited than I’ve every been. I have to figure out what I’m going to do about my muggle friends who have no idea about magic, but now know I’m engaged because I can’t keep that part a secret.

I’m surprised I still have my job by how far in the clouds my head is. I think I missed a whole few sentences today at least. Thankfully, I caught myself up with context, but that’s never good. Slowly pulling myself back.

Yours,

“Can you show me one more time?”

The rational part of Abigail’s brain, the part that knows Charles, knows that he’s processing. The fact that he’s frozen in the kitchen isn’t something bad, it’s just him catching up to where she is. An irrational part of Abigail’s brain is suddenly spinning a story where the box contains earrings, or a very small necklace, or anything but an engagement ring and now she’s tipped her hand. For a moment this borderline hysterical certainty that she’s made a mistake is overwhelming, but then Charles is there and he’s taking her hands in his and she thinks she may never stop smiling. 

“I do.” Abigail giggles a little, those two words carrying such a different meaning now. “I do know what it is and I will marry you.” 

Abigail pulls her left hand out of Charles’ grasp and holds it out for him to put the ring on. It’s shaking a little bit, and her cheeks are starting to hurt, but she doesn’t care. She feels just a breath away from tears. Tears of happiness and tears of relief because she is happy. She’s not scared, or nervous, or unsure. For possibly the first time in her life she is completely certain that the choice she’s making is the right one.

Charles’ hands started to shake. Less from nerves and more from excitement. There had been part of him that was certain that Abigail would say no, but that was blown far away because here in this moment, Abigail Norton had said yes. She was going to marry him. He tried to say something but it came out all jumbled, instead he laughed and shook his head a bit, opening the box.

“Someday.” Abigail repeats. She may have strongly held beliefs about this sort of thing, but she’s not an activist by any means. There are always more important, more concrete things to do. Crusading for great social change that she might never see seems like such a waste of time when faced with the pain she witnesses every day at St. Mungo’s. She’d much rather focus on the present that some pie in the sky future.

“It sounds delicious however you say it.” Abigail smiles, then wanders away. She’s much more of a hindrance than a help in the kitchen, and she knows dinner preparations will go more smoothly if she leaves Charles to his own devices.

While Charles is distracted with the food, she makes her way back to his bedside table at a faux casual pace. He seems more calm now that he was earlier in the night, but there is definitely still something wrong, and she wants to know. Not because she’s nosy, of course, even though she can be quite curious at times, but because if she something is wrong she wants to fix it. She pushes the books aside as unobtrusively as she can, not wanting to be caught snooping when she probably shouldn’t be. She’s already thinking ahead, to what it might be that he’s tucked away, what it might mean, what could be wrong and how she can remedy it. Then, she just stops thinking.

If someone had somehow caught her at the exact moment her eyes land on the small, velvet covered cube, she would not have known what to call it. For a moment, she can’t even conjure the words ring box. Then it’s like her brain picks back up in double time to make up for the momentary lapse and everything comes flooding back, words like ring box, and diamond, and wedding and all the plans she’s been making in the back of her mind and trying not to think about are suddenly at the forefront and everything is fading out but she’s acutely aware of the small box, which she doesn’t remember picking up but is now in her hand, and Charles, still in the kitchen and probably oblivious, and before she knows she’s doing it she’s said,

“Yes.”

Charles as the sort that would sometimes get caught up in what he was doing or wanted to do. He felt lucky that Abigail would indulge him and support him. He was a bit of an optimist with it, maybe more than he needed to be--but he always hoped for the best. After a moment, he lets himself get caught up in the cooking.

There wasn’t so much left to do, but enough to keep him busy. Enough to not notice that Abigail was starting to look around his bed and his nightstand. His cat lazed on the bed, tail flopping back and forth, a terrible alert system for something Charles was attempting to make happen tonight as a surprise. But Charles is comfortable with Abigail in his space. As far as he was concerned, what was his was hers. There were very few secrets he kept from her.

They were mostly fears and concerns. Anxieties he didn’t want to pass on. Right now, none of those were on his mind. They were situated in his chest and Abigail was free to explore whatever she’d like. Charles turned to check the oven’s temperature, unaware of what Abigail had found sitting there between his books.

Abigail nods, and turns around, letting him take her coat as she shrugs it off her shoulders. “You’re being quite the gentleman tonight.” Her voice is light, her smile soft. She’s teasing, ever so gently, because of course he’s always the perfect gentleman, not stuffy or overbearing, but polite and respectful, always concerned with her comfort above all else. 

“After how well you did tonight they’d be remiss not to.” While she listens to Charles talk, Abigail pulls the pins out of her hair, gently massaging her scalp once her curls are free. She takes her time turning over his words in her head. Conversations between the two of them are always slow moving, because if Charles’ stutter, but also just because they both tend to think before they speak. “I think there are many ways the Wizarding World could benefit from closer ties to Muggle society, more interpreters is certainly one of them.”

Abigail notices Charles fussing over the books on his bedside table, but decides not to investigate immediately. Instead, she follows him into the kitchen and leans against the counter. “What are we having tonight?”

Charles’ cheeks tinge the slightest bit pink as Abigail teases him. He always loved that--when she teased him. It was the sort that was really kind beneath and seemed to be reserved for him, and that made him feel special. He smiles lightly as he hands up her jacket, holding back a bigger one. It helps calm his nerves. Like it’s just another night, just the two of them, with nothing big or important looming just ahead.

He nods as she speaks. It’s a sort of controversial idea, having connections to the muggle world--well, really the other way around. Muggles having any sort of idea about magic. When it came down to marriages and love, it was looser, but overall? The Wizarding World was a secret. And if it came to adopting Muggle ways? Magic was better it seemed. “S-Someday, th-then.” Working between the worlds, Charles couldn’t help but hope. There was a lot that could benefit one another.

The truth is Christmas is one of Abigail’s least favorite times of year. Holiday cheer is, in her experience, quite noisy and prone to giving her headaches, and all of the emphasis on time with family just reminds her how fractured and cold her own family is. Her childhood Christmases had not been times of messily decorated sugar cookies and handmade decorations, but rather uncomfortable dresses and long, silent dinners. But she had been looking forward to spending Christmas Eve with Charles. It stoked the small spark in the core of her heart that hoped one day she would have a family with him. Unfortunately, things were not quite unfolding as she’d imagined.

There is, Abigail is learning, a special kind of knowing the comes from being in a relationship for a long time. She’s witnessed Sarah Bones see just the way Edgar walked through the door and be able to tell without words that he’d had a hard day at work. Abigail didn’t pretend to know Charles as well as Sarah knew her husband after nearly five years of marriage, but she could tell when something was wrong, even if she couldn’t quit put her finger on what, or why. Charles has been nervous for a few days now, a slowly building frisson of energy that had reached a fever pitch tonight. She was trying to be patient, something she felt she was usually pretty good at, but it was getting harder. She wanted to ask him what was wrong, but she didn’t want him to feel pressured into talking about something he wasn’t ready to address yet.

So she was doing her best to enjoy the night anyway. The concert had been beautiful, all the more so because she’d been able to take out her earrings and just watch Charles interpret. It was, truly, one of her favorite things to do, and never failed to take her back to the first night she’d truly seen him, the night, if she was honest with herself, that she’d fallen in love with him. The walk back to his flat had been brisk enough to give her an excuse to thread her arm through his and walk closer to his side than she usually allowed, an excuse she’d been more than happy to take advantage of. 

“The concert was beautiful, I love watching you interpret.” It was quiet enough in his flat that she didn’t need her earrings to carry on a spoken conversation, and the night was very nearly perfect. “It is certainly progress. Maybe next year they will reach out to you.”

He’d prepared a fair amount in advanced. He didn’t want her to wait too long for him to cook it all. “C-Can I t-take your c-coat?” he asked, offering a hand. Charles was doing his best to make it all perfect. He wanted so much for it to be perfect. It was likely unattainable, he knew that, but it didn’t mean that Charles wasn’t going to try. Abigail deserved as close to perfect as he could manage.

So caught up in that, he was very much unaware that Abigail could see right through him and straight to the nervousness. “I’m s-so g-glad you enjoyed it. I had a l-lot of f-fun,” he admitted with a grin. “It was r-really n-nice t-to have s-something l-like th-that in the m-midst of everything going on. And t-to sh-share it with you.”

Whenever Abigail was there, she was the focus for Charles. He wasn’t interpreting for others. It was for her. His best work was done when she was there. “I hope th-they d-do. It’s t-times l-like th-this th-that I wish th-that th-there was s-some c-connection b-between the M-Muggles and Wizarding World. Th-there’s f-far m-more interpreters th-there—n-not a l-lot m-more, b-but m-more you kn-now?”