RP: Watching the Storm

[tt_cecilia]

Date: 18. March 2002
Characters: Cecilia Proudfoot, Sirius Black, mentions of Jamie Proudfoot [NPC]
Setting: Cecilia’s home
Content: TBD
Status: Open: Private


The weather alert had brought along a flurry of chores for Cecilia. Thankfully Jamie had been a perfect gem and had helped out with stocking up on food from the market place while she had prepared more gardens than she cared to remember for the storm and the yet unknown mass of water that was coming. It had mostly been Muggles she had helped ensure that the massive rain wouldn’t wash away the plants they had taken care to grow in their gardens, and she had lost track of how many yards of shallow trenches she had carved and how many feet of barrier she had built from the relocated soil.

It had worked, though, and was working, she noticed as she nursed her mug of tea while she looked out the glass door in her living room. The water that was pounding down was mostly following the guiding hollows she had dug instead of pooling around her precious vegetables. The only thing she really worried about were the berry bushes that she didn’t dare trim any more than she already had. She simply didn’t know them well enough to know how much they could take, though given they were (somewhat) in their normal environment, she didn’t think the storm or the rain would harm them.

Slowly she drank from her tea. Even with the strength of this storm, there was something soothing about watching the rain drench her windows. Jamie didn’t seem bothered about it either, rather he was enjoying the free time, and she could hear the music playing in his room. Cecilia figured he was either tinkering with a new project or – more probably – sleeping.

A knock on the door drew her from her reverie, and had her hurrying to the door. “It’s open!” she called, hoping that whoever was outside would hear over the drum of the rain. This was no weather for anyone to venture out into, and she’d be damned if she let them wait too long. Opening the door, however, she stopped in her track, surprised to see the man outside. Surprised, yet very, very pleased. “Sirius?” she asked, though she knew perfectly well who he was. Her heart was pounding and she suddenly found herself completely dumbstruck.

Comments

[tt_sirius]

When Cecilia hadn't answered his message, Sirius wasn't concerned at first, but when several hours went by and the storm started to roll in, with no response, he grew very concerned. In the past, Cecilia had made it clear that she could be out in the field for days on end. He didn't know where her nephew was. Could she been caught out in the storm somewhere?

Without thinking, he locked up his place and pushed out into the storm, shifting into animagus form so he could run next to the back of the homes, using the buildings and trees as shelter against the brutal winds. There was a stretch getting across one of the paths when he wasn't sure he was going to make it but he managed to slip into the cross wind of the next door building to get across.

Returning to his true form, Sirius realized he was drenched to the skin as he pounded on Cecilia's door but he didn't care. All he thought of was her safety, her and the boy. When she pulled the door open, Sirius raked his wet hair back, holding onto the door frame with one hand as she stood there. "You're here. You didn't answer your messages, dammit," he growled.

[tt_cecilia]

“My messages?” Cecilia asked, confused at first since she hadn’t gotten any messages. She hadn’t gotten any messages… Her eyes opened wide. “Oh gods, my messages!” she burst out, realizing why she hadn’t gotten any messages, about the same time as the fact that Sirius was still standing outside in the pouring rain and the hard wind. Without further thought, she grabbed his hand pulling him inside as she pushed the door closed behind him.

With a wave of her wand she summoned a towel from the bathroom and handed it to him. “There’s a bathrobe in the bathroom if you want to change out of your wet clothes.” Concern for his welfare, for the fact that he had more or less risked his life to get here mixed with her need to apologize for having made the mistake that had led him to do it, but it was still good to see him, and quite a relief to know that he wasn’t in Australia right now. “I was so busy yesterday that when my datapad ran out of battery I forgot to re-charge it.” With another wave of her wand she summoned her backpack, withdrawing from it her indeed very dead datapad. “When I went by your house yesterday, you weren’t there, so I thought you were still in Australia,” she continued her explanation as she plugged in the charger and waited for the screen to come on. “So I just made sure the patches wouldn’t get washed out. I am so incredibly sorry, Sirius.” Looking up at him, she sighed and combed her fingers through her hair as her datapad began beeping with each message she had gotten since it had run out of power.

[tt_sirius]

It was clear that there was some disconnect. It was also clear that he was going to be trying to reach the Command Center or perhaps one of the nearby pubs because the wind was not going to allow him to return home, not tonight. He was just about to turn and leave - he still didn't know if she wanted to see him after all - when she grabbed his free hand and tugged him inside the doorway. Out of the wind, Sirius felt a bit of relief.

He took the towel from her, arching an eyebrow. "Thanks. I should probably do a drying charm first, though," he managed before she began speaking, hurrying into her home. Sirius glanced around - taking it in as he absently rubbed at his hair with the towel. Drawing his wand, he cast a drying charm encompassing his head to his waist, then another from there down to his boots, which were basically miniature pools now. Toeing them off, he cast another charm on them, getting the excess water out.

"I was on Australia. Kingsley summoned me back at the crack of dawn because of," he gestured to the windows. "that. I messaged right after that." Sirius watched her attending to her datapad for a moment before he reconsidered the bathrobe offer. Charmed, his clothes still were uncomfortably damp. "I'm just going to," he gestured ahead of him as he made his way to the bathroom. There, he stripped down and hung his clothes over the shower rod. The bathrobe took to an enlarging and lengthening charm well. Returning to the living room, he leaned against the doorframe. "I'm sorry if this is... uncomfortable for you."

[tt_cecilia]

Setting her datapad on the counter – anything on it wasn’t important at the moment – her full attention was on Sirius. Though the situation was entirely new, she still recognized everything she was seeing; the way he held his head, his long elegant fingers holding his wand as he Charmed himself dry, the tone of his voice and even the way he gestured past her towards her bathroom. “Yeah,” she simply agreed and watched as he disappeared around the corner. With a deep sigh, she closed her eyes for a moment, wishing that she had tried harder to make contact with him again.

While Sirius was in the bathroom, she set his boots hovering upside-down over her door mat and cast a small heating Charm on them to make them dry faster. She cast another Charm on the floor, cleaning up the small puddles of water he had left behind, before she brought the opened bottle of whiskey and two glass back to the sofa with her.

Cecilia was nursing her mug of tea, trying to think of how to handle this, how to explain and apologize to Sirius, when the sound of his feet on the floor made her turn to see him leaning against the door frame. The sight of him in her powder blue bathrobe, even if it had been enlarged to suit him better, made her lips twitch as she smothered the smiled it provoked. His words, however, sobered her almost immediately. “No,” she told him softly, holding up her hand and shaking her head. “No, Sirius. Any discomfort you being here might cause is entirely on me. Nobody else.” She gestured for him to come sit down. “I’m glad you’re not on Australia,” her voice was soft as she watched him, though she knew that wasn’t the whole truth the minute she had said it. “Actually, I’m…” Cecilia swallowed down and breathed in deeply. “I’m glad you’re here.”

[tt_sirius]

He noticed that she'd cleaned up after him, though his being there certainly wasn't a given for preferences. Still, he had few choices in that department, at least for now.

His gaze narrowed at her protests and he lingered at the doorway before finally crossing over to join her on the sofa, keeping his distance at a polite range. "Is that so?" he questioned dryly. "I've been under the exact opposite impression for a while now, Cecilia."

[tt_cecilia]

Cecilia nodded, looking down at her fingers around the mug. She was ashamed, sad and angry with herself for having made Sirius doubt her, and though she had brought it on herself, his words still hurt to hear. What had seemed overwhelming and complicated at the time could possibly have been much easier to deal with had she chosen to be open about it. But instead, she had opted for the same discretion she had asked of Charlie and in the process managed to alienate Sirius, a man she cared deeply about, even though she had failed to make him aware of that.

“I should have sent you a message,” she said quietly and swallowed down before she looked up at him. “When I kept missing you at home, I should have sent you a message, but I didn’t know what to write. There are so many things I should have done that I didn’t, because I didn’t know how, and I’m sorry, Sirius.”

[tt_sirius]

The suspicions that had been dancing along in his thought since the cure for the potion had been administered were having a right time of it now. Sirius looked away, at the closest window where the storm was showing no sign of slowing.

He got up and crossed to the window, feeling an odd kinship with the chaos on the other side of the glass pane. That was his world. That was his mind. Churning regret and frustration.

"What, exactly, is it that you should have messaged me about?" he said, finally.

[tt_cecilia]

Cecilia’s eyes were on Sirius when he got up. She felt like she was approaching a wounded dog… a dog she had wounded, and she couldn’t rightly blame him for feeling that way. Her eyes drifted from him towards the point at which he was looking, but she didn’t know what had caught his attention. Most likely nothing, she figured, the looks in his eyes were distant making her think his attention was on what was in his mind rather than what was outside in the storm.

His voice made her blink surprised when he finally spoke. “That I wanted to see you,” she told him softly. “That I’d been by your house every day, hoping to find you home so I could see you, talk to you, but you weren’t there.” She had been so incredibly stupid, and now she was paying the price for it. “I should have messaged you to ask where I could find you, to invite you to come over or hear if I could come over to your place.”

[tt_sirius]

"If you wanted to find me, you could have," he stated, neither pointing out the obvious nor accusing her of anything. What was, was.

"You don't owe me anything, Cec. And you don't owe me any explanations. I'd have to be blind not to see that something happened during the potioning. Its only been since then that you've put distance between us," Sirius continued firmly. "But that's your business. We don't have any commitment to each other that gives me any right to expect anything from you."

[tt_cecilia]

Cecilia sighed deeply and nodded; yes, she could have found him if she wanted to, but she had been too bloody coward to do so and that was what she had been trying to apologize for. Strike that: she had apologized for it, and Sirius hadn’t accepted her apology. Or had he? She was fairly certain he hadn’t acknowledged it at least. But that was his prerogative. She couldn’t force him and she had no intentions of doing so.

She could feel her lips tightening, the desire to openly share everything that had happened with an outsider battling her resolution to keep Sirius out of it as much as possible. Telling him everything would only benefit her, would only ease things for her, and that made her resolution to deal with it herself become the point she clung on to as if for dear life. Besides, he was right. This was her business. Going through every conceivable emotion in the register was her business. Figuring out which feelings were true and which were merely echoes from the potion was her business. Unfortunately, her attempt at being considerate had backfired and she had ended up pushing away one of the few people she had come to think of as at least a friend. “You’re right,” she said quietly,” that is my business.”

Quickly she downed the last now cold mouthful of tea before she got up from the sofa and went to the kitchen area. She could still see Sirius while she tapped the kettle to make the water boil and soon after had two mugs of tea steeping. Her mind was reeling. Feelings she thought she had dealt with, had either embraced or buried were once again intermingling making it difficult for her to determine whether she was angry or hurt, relieved or frustrated, or any of the other myriad of emotions she could sense battling for foothold.

Carrying a mug in each hand, she returned to the living room area and went to stand in front of Sirius. “Here you go,” she offered him, holding out one of the mugs for him. “Look, maybe I don’t owe you any explanations… I don’t know if you want any or if I can even give you one because, frankly, it’s all a huge mess, where little if anything makes any sense. I don’t know if you were potioned too, but you already know that I was and it…” She swallowed down and shook her head. “It messed with every feeling I’ve ever felt for someone not family. I’m not lying when I say that I’ve been through every emotion you could possibly think of in the past weeks, and I thought I was doing you a favour by keeping it to myself, because I didn’t want to risk saying or doing the wrong thing.” She shrugged dejectedly. “I was wrong and I can keep apologizing until I’m blue in the face but it won’t change the fact that I handled everything wrong.”

[tt_sirius]

He heard her moving about, but remained where he was at the window. This was her home, and he'd meant what he said. What had happened during the potioning was none of his business, nor was it anything she could have controlled. But he knew something had happened. It was only his concern for herself and the boy that he'd ventured out to make sure of their safety. He had no desire to stay, but there was little choice of that now.

She appeared beside him, holding out a mug and he took it. Sirius listened quietly, somber, until she stopped talking. "You aren't responsible for what happened when you were potioned, any more than I was, or anyone else that was affected," he pointed out. "And I wasn't looking for an apology, Cec. I only came here to make sure you were safe from the storm, not to drag some confession out of you."

[tt_cecilia]

With a deep sigh Cecilia looked down, closed her eyes and reminded herself that she was not prone to emotional outbursts. Not even when someone she cared about was being infuriatingly frustrating and she was beating herself up about having made the wrong choices. “I wasn’t talking about while I was potioned,” she said quietly before she looked up at him. “I was talking about afterwards, while I was dealing with the aftermath of it, which is now very obvious that I did the wrong way, and that is what I’m trying to apologize for.” Slowly she shook her head, scoffing slightly as what she had just said came back to her. “But you know what?” she asked with a shrug. “It doesn’t matter, does it? You’ve already made up your mind so there isn’t really much I can say.”

She turned away from him, ready to return to the kitchen to get dinner going when she thought better of it. Instead she stopped and waited a beat. “For what it’s worth, I did miss you, Sirius. I truly appreciate you coming over to make sure we were safe, though I’m sorry I gave you reason to worry and though you being here didn’t make me feel uncomfortable, I’m sorry that you’re now stuck waiting out the storm here.” Absentmindedly she rubbed her forehead. “I’m going to get dinner started. Please make yourself at home. You’re free to use the books or the telly, if you’d like. There’s whiskey on the table and juice in the cooler, and you can take my bed if you want to sleep.” Hating herself just a little more for having caused this rift between them, however inadvertently it might have been, she left him standing by the window as she went to the kitchen area and began finding things in the cooler.

[tt_sirius]

"Made up my mind? I don't bloody know what you're talking about. If I had half a clue, maybe I might but I don't, all right. I've said you have nothing to apologize for. It doesn't bloody well have anything to do with the potioning and everything to do with the fact that I have no right to any explanation from you," Sirius ground out, turning from the window.

So, she missed him. It hadn't been just a polite turn of phrase. Before he could piece together a response, she was heading to the kitchen. After a moment, he followed, coming up behind her as she set things on the counter. His hands moved to her wrists, stilling them momentarily. "I missed you, Cec. Every bloody day. I don't want this... distance between us. If nothing else, you're a friend, a dear friend I don't want to lose," Sirius purred, releasing her wrists to curl his arms around her waist from behind in a gentle hug.

[tt_cecilia]

Cecilia’s mind was whirling. She could feel the tears in her eyes, though she refused to cry; she had survived worse than losing a friend, but it still hurt to be at odds with Sirius, and she had no idea how to even begin to fix this. At this point, the best she could do was be a decent hostess and do her best to ensure that he was as comfortable as the situation allowed while he was trapped here with them.

She sensed him behind her only moments before his hands came into her line of vision only to close around her wrists. His fingers were warm, just like she remembered them to be, and her bathrobe was soft against her bare arms. Cecilia closed her eyes as she listened, his voice so familiar and wanted now that the hurt was out of it, and his breath tickling over the sensitive shell of her ear. When he let go of her wrists, a brief fear that he would leave jolted through her, though the fact that she could still feel him against her back registered before his arms curled around her waist.

It would be so easy to just lean back into his arms, tilt her head to the side to invite the kisses she so loved from him. But it wouldn’t be right. Not at this point, at least. Instead, she gave his hand a gentle squeeze before she turned in his arms and slipped her own around his waist and rested her head against his chest. “I don’t want to lose you either,” she murmured against the blue plush of her bathrobe, before she looked up at him. “It doesn’t matter if you have the rights to any explanation or not, just… ask, yeah? The worst that could happen is that I tell you it’s none of your business.”

[tt_sirius]

He loosened his embrace more when she squeezed his hand, giving her room to turn, and then she was snuggling against his chest, which made him sigh. Women. He wasn't sure he would ever understand what made them tick, nor was he sure he wanted to know. All that huffing and puffing for what?

Sirius reached up to stroke her hair, closing his eyes for a moment to just savor the feel of her holding onto him. "You're not going to lose me," he replied solemnly. He met her gaze. "That's not how I was raised, Cec. I can't change who I am." He wanted to kiss her but there was another concern. "Where is your nephew?" Sirius asked.

[tt_cecilia]

Cecilia took all the comfort she could from him, his embrace, his words, savoring it and for just a moment she allowed herself not to be the one in charge, the one with the responsibility of making the right decision. She nodded, accepting his reason for being of the belief that he was. “I’m not asking you to change,” she assured him. “I’m… I guess I’m just giving you that right, and you can do what you want with it.”

As she looked at him, her eyes drifted briefly to his lips. So easy. All it would take was to stand on her toes and tilt her head a little… No, not now. As much as she sometimes wanted to, she couldn’t give up that responsibility of making the right decisions and with Jamie in the house that went double. Sirius seemed to reach the same conclusion. “He’s in his room,” Cecilia looked over his shoulder, nodding towards the door just down the hall from them. “Sleeping… tinkering… I’m not sure.”

[tt_sirius]

Nodding, he straightened and glanced over his shoulder. "I should see about drying my clothes," he stated firmly. He didn't want to give the kid the wrong impression seeing him in Cecilia's bathrobe. He really had no idea what the kid would think, but politeness dictated he get dressed.

"I'll just be a few minutes, then I can help you with the food. Its the least I can do since I've barged in on you," Sirius explained, pressing a chaste kiss to the top her head before stepping back. He went to the bathroom, trying to sort his own thoughts as he cast drying charms absently. It didn't take long to get them dry, and he changed back into his own clothes. He put her robe back to its normal size, and returned to the kitchen feeling more himself.

[tt_cecilia]

Drawing in a deep breath to clear her mind, Cecilia nodded. “Yeah,” she said with a small smile as she straightened the lapel of her bathrobe. “Powder blue’s not really…” Patting his chest lightly, she nodded, closed her eyes and welcomed the light touch of his lips.

Once alone in the kitchen again, her mind didn’t slow. Being close to Sirius again, even having gotten past the awkwardness bordering on hostility, she had gotten answer to some of the questions that had been nagging her. Her desire for him was still there, there was no doubt about that as she had felt it blooming when he had held her, and she still cared deeply about him. The latter, however, she had never doubted, not even when she had been confused about her feelings, but what about the future? Were they on the same path there? She didn’t know, and she wasn’t even sure what her own path was, which made her think that maybe she should shelve that line of thought and come back to it later. That, however, was easier said that done, though she knew that she would be able to do it for tonight at least.

With a few waves of her wand she set the knife to chopping pickles and onions before she herself started whisking up a batch of mayonnaise. Like earlier, she sensed Sirius returning, though he didn’t speak or even make any noise. Setting the whisk to beat the eggs, she turned to look at him, appreciating the look of him in his own clothes again. “We’re having fish’n’chips,” she told him, her lips twitching in amusement when the memory of the first time she had met him in the market came back to her. “Prehistoric.”

[tt_sirius]

He wondered who it was, the man who had captured her heart during the potioning, and, who he suspected, still held it given her reactions. Sirius paused in the doorway for a moment, just watching her in the kitchen, so lost in her own thoughts.

Sirius had no idea what to say.

"The best kind," Sirius replied, coming to stand beside her finally. She was gorgeous and welcoming, but he wondered if he wasn't just confusing matters more. He had no illusions about his ability to make her happy. Maybe this other bloke could. "What can I do to help?" he asked.

[tt_cecilia]

“Indeed,” Cecilia agreed and moved the bowl of purple bulbs in front of him. “You can cut the chips,” she suggested, “or you can prepare the fish if you’d like. I’m just making some tartar sauce so it can chill before we eat.” After a quick glance at the chopping knives, she lifted the Charm and instead focused on the mayonnaise that was stirring in the bowl. As the whisk beat the egg yolks, she added just a few drops of oil, and then another few until it began to thicken, only when it went lumpy did she take her eyes off of it, letting the whisk work out the lumps on its own, as she watched the man standing next to her.

“How’ve you been, Sirius?” she asked gently, knowing she was risking opening a can of worms, but among the many things that had been going on in her head, concern about him had been one of them.

[tt_sirius]

"All right," he selected a knife and began making wedges from the bulbs. It was somewhat soothing to do this by hand, especially working alongside someone else. Sirius didn't hear anything from the rest of the house, but that didn't mean her nephew couldn't appear out of thin air, either.

"Busy," Sirius replied, considering again what he could say as he continued to form wedges. "I've been working on Floo magic for the other island and the settlements. With more pregnant witches, it's safer for them to Floo then to apparate. The bloke on the other side of the portal who is working with me hasn't been the most forthcoming with information so its slow going."

[tt_cecilia]

Adding drips of oil to the stirring mayonnaise Cecilia could feel her cheeks heat up slightly when Sirius brought up the topic of the increased number of pregnant witches. Though still mostly relieved at the negative result she had gotten, she was well aware that she just as easily could have been one of the many. “Well, at least one good thing came from that ordeal,” she sighed and added what she estimated to be the last needed drop of oil to the mixture, before she looked back at Sirius. “Any clue to why he’s being reluctant to share the information?”

The sound of a song changing midways alerted her to the fact that Jamie at least wasn’t asleep. More likely he had heard them talking and had chosen to stay in his room reading or tinkering or talking to his friends on the datapad. Maybe she should let him know that Sirius was here, but then again if he had wanted to he could just come out. Either way he would be out to eat, and then she could take it from there. “It’ll be easier for the kids to get around, too,” she picked up the topic again, “with the Floo, I mean. How about the settlement on Australia. D’you know how that’s going?”

[tt_sirius]

"I doubt it's his choice. We've been having trouble getting any information out of the Ministry. The only thing we get cooperation with is the records from St. Mungo's," Sirius replied, shrugging to counter point his words. He finished the wedges, adding the remainder to the pot.

He noticed the music alteration. So, the kid was awake. He was grateful that he hadn't given into temptation. That was not a scene he wanted to deal with. "They're working on the parameter wall first. There's more time now than we had here. Over there, we need those walls to enclose farm land. Too many predators not to. The dock is finished. If they ever work out a boat, it'll have some place to tie up."

[tt_cecilia]

For a moment Cecilia wondered about why the Ministry would be withholding information from them. What interest could they possibly have in keeping practical information from the one place human kind had a realistic chance of surviving? Then she pushed it away. She didn’t want to think about the Old World’s politics, though it probably should concern. It was a luxury she had provided herself with. This was their sanctuary and there were nobody on the other side that meant anything to her. This was where their lives were and she couldn’t afford to let herself worry about the things on the other side that she had less than no control or influence of.

The settlement in Australia, however, that was a different matter, as that could easily be part of her and Jamie’s future, not to mention the fact that Sirius was deeply involved in it. “Sounds like your making good progress there,” she smiled at him, as she stirred the final ingredients into the tartar sauce and after a quick taste found it perfect. After she had put it in the cooler to chill she turned back to Sirius, pausing for a moment before she came up next to him. If the sounds from Jamie’s room was anything to go by, he could be out any moment now, at the latest when dinner was ready, so if she had to do anything out of keeping things completely platonic with Sirius, now was the time. Her hand hovered above his for a moment before she placed it on top of his. “Thank you for coming over, Sirius,” she said softly, looking up to meet his eyes as she gave his hand a gentle squeeze. “I really am glad that you’re here.”

[tt_sirius]

With the kid home, Sirius felt that they'd at least reached some kind of neutrality about the events of the last month, and moved past it as best they could. There were lingering doubts on his part, but that was very normal for him, so normal that Sirius really didn't consider it unusual to second guess everything.

She surprised him by squeezing his hand, and he did startle just the littlest bit though he didn't move his hand away. Swallowing, Sirius nodded. "I'm glad you and Jamie are here, safe. That's what mattered."