A Winter Most Miserable || Bae

Saturday, January 7, 1922
1:30 PM

"I swear, he's such a piece of shit," Rae said as she shoved another book into place. Her words were no longer distorted when she spoke despite the mandrake leaf tucked into her cheek. It had taken some practice and she'd swallowed no less than two other leaves, forcing her to start the process over twice. She was determined to not have it happen again, unwilling to have to wait for the moon cycle to come around for a third time. As it turned out, the third time really was the charm, and while the first two weeks had been awkward and annoying – especially at meal times – by the end of this third week, her tongue barely noticed it was there.

Third week. Just one more to go, then she would meet with Professor Barlowe under what they called the 'super wolf moon', wand drawn for the final transformation. She couldn't believe it was finally happening after all the years of prep. Suddenly, it didn't feel real.

Rae had doubts – worries, if she was being honest – but she was also excited.

As far as botching went, Barlowe had gotten off easy. The lingering effects he suffered weren't, by any means, the worst they could get, and everything she'd read made it clear that whatever transfiguration failure occurred would be permanent. The Slytherin might not be lucky to just have sharper teeth and grating sensory issues. What if she had a tail forever?? Or one hand and one paw???

She shook the thought firmly from her mind, subconsciously shifting the leaf from one side of her mouth to the other as she focused in on what she'd been saying.

"He won't accept that I don't ever want to see any of them again." Of course not. Why would he? It didn't fit the narrative he was carefully cultivating. "Doesn't understand what awful people they are. But that's not enough for him. He took me shopping over in Oxford and forced me to get everyone gifts." She pulled a face as she walked back to the cart they shared, searching the pile to see if there were any other books bound for this aisle.

"Heartfelt," she said, mocking the stiff, authoritarian tone her father had taken when he explained the day's agenda. "Thoughtful. Not just anything will do." She rolled her eyes, newly reminded of the way her stomach had churned at the thought of doing anything for her 'sister' – being forced to.

"Here." Rae handed him the one at the top of the pile. "It goes over there."

"He always has been," the boy replied without a care about it. Roger Burke had been a real shithead from their first meeting, and that hadn't improved over the course of the last year or so. If anything it only got worse and the man never hesitated to put either Rae or Benji in 'their place'.

One day, Benji's place was going to be a fist across Roger's jaw.

"I think he knows good and well what awful people they are. He's not blind," Benji took the book from her, shoving it into the place she indicated, "and we both know he's far from stupid." Unfortunately. His future father-in-law was the exact opposite of stupid. He played the game hard but subtle and knew exactly what to do and say when shit rocked the boat.

The Lucy incident being a prime example. He was still on good terms with his uncle, and to the two men, it seemed to already be water on the bridge. Easily managed. Easily forgotten. His mother hadn't forgotten, but she wasn't a power-player like Roger and James.

Nor did she seem to want to be, all things now considered.

"But that's the thing sometimes with families like ours. James knows what a piece of shit Leo is, but he tolerates him because he's a good fucking barrister and he's 'family'." Not on Benji's watch. He'd be all about his family, but the moment an apple proved itself to be rotten at the core, he'd have zero qualms cutting it from the branches.

He felt himself grinning at the idea that Rae presented her step-mum and brother and sister with 'heartfelt' gifts, likely wishing them all to choke on them. "So," he asked slowly, his cheeky grin growing wider as he caught her eye.

"What did you get them? And what did they say? A nice fake-ass display of gratitude that no one bought?" The idea amused him, genuinely.

Except at the thought of Lucy. The only idea that would amuse him about her was seeing her name on a tombstone.

A lot had changed in her life since Roger Burke went out of his way to find her. Most of it wasn't good. Nearly none of it was good. The only benefit Rae could think of for having her father find her was that she no longer lived with the worry that someday—inevitably, whether either had wanted to admit it—Benji's new family would marry him off to someone with a name. Her father had given her a name. It wasn't one she asked for, nor was it one she valued, but it protected her from replacement and a future where she would have to adjust to the idea that Benji belonged to someone 'better'.

But he was still a piece of shit, and she was glad she had her boyfriend in her corner in that regard. There were so many who were choosing to see 'the good' in the man. Billie had said it was because he was there to stay, whether they liked it or not. Her mother told her that there was no point sulking in a corner and painting him as a villain because it wouldn't change anything. It would only make her feel small and miserable. The woman wasn't suggesting she see the man as a hero by any means; she just didn't want her frustrating herself with the futility of her situation.

She was frustrated anyway.

Rae read the cover of the next book, absentmindedly chewing on the mandrake leaf before she caught herself. Now that it no longer really registered in her mind, the girl found herself with the new problem of having to be mindful enough not to destroy it by accident.

This was probably part of the discipline training, as if having everything she ate tinged with a hint of mandrake wasn't enough suffering.

"Top shelf, over there," she said, handing Benji the book.

"But that's the thing sometimes with families like ours. James knows what a piece of shit Leo is, but he tolerates him because he's a good fucking barrister and he's 'family'."

"Everyone's always fussing about those types of families, always wanting to be them and be in them. I don't get it," she confessed. One would think, being raised on the streets in-between foster care stints, that the girl would be ecstatic at a 'found-family fairytale' with a rich daddy over in the up-and-coming New York world, but she wasn't impressed. She wasn't falling at her father's feet, grateful to be chosen. She was sick of them all and didn't want to tolerate the bullshit they'd all learned to smile at. "Why do you think they do it? I'm not putting up with anyone's shit – you should've been there." She leaned against the cart with a wistful sigh and a look of pure spite. "My darling sister got the shit knocked out of her when our father thought we'd all gone to bed. It wasn't very festive of him," she tutted, "but it certainly improved the holidays."

All it took was loose lips, and Rae was in short supply of those after what her sister had done.

"What did you get them? And what did they say? A nice fake-ass display of gratitude that no one bought?"

Rae reached for the next book, choosing to deliver this one to its spot herself. "I gave Francine an emerald necklace because she's vain as fuck, but he made me justify every gift I picked, so I told him they matched her eyes."

She paused, seconds from shoving the book in place. What in Merlin's beard was this book doing here? Seriously? "I got Roger," her brother, not her father, "a cauldron and some ingredients because he's been telling me he'd like to learn potion making. It's damn near the closest he'll ever get to being magical, so I figured, why not. Lucy..." She plucked the errant book from the shelf and levitated it over to the cart to be placed two aisles over when they got there. "I got her some dress from Selfridges; told him I knew she'd started taking an interest in British fashion and might like to show it off to that insufferable, pig-faced friend of hers."

Rebecca, was it?

"Roger was over the moon, wanted me showing him brews that afternoon. Lucy and Francine would've rathered swallowing their own tongues than admitting they liked my gifts but my father made them thank me anyway."

Truly, a warm and fuzzy Christmas morning.

"You never told me how yours was."

Top shelf it was. There were benefits to Benji being as tall as he was now, and his girlfriend would do well to appreciate them. She was always complaining that he was outgrowing her, leaving her behind in stature while he consistently insisted on towering over her. It was the natural way of things. If women were meant to be taller, they wouldn't sit at a happy five-foot-three-inches like a curly-haired gremlin he knew.

She should be grateful. Some girls had short little boyfriends that could barely see over a cauldron. It was embarrassing.

Book stashed away and he gave a slight shrug. Why did their sorts of families behave the way they did? Same reason he supposed any family acted the way they always had. Continuity, tradition, consolidation, safety. Some just didn't know how to act any other way.

For his family, he supposed it had a lot to do with the mentality that they were all they had. He'd learned over the past couple of years, that the Laurences were very insulated. They trusted very few outside of the family, and everything they did surrounded the betterment and security of each other. As long as a member didn't outwardly betray another or do something completely unforgiveable, they remained tightly within the circle of protection.

"I don't know," he answered honestly, a slight sigh escaping his nose. "Maybe..." he paused, thinking a bit, "Maybe it's a bit like the streets. How it was for me anyway. All for one and one for all. No one gets left behind. Our family emblem has a wolf on it, and it's always sort of felt like a pack mentality." As far as he knew what one was anyway. The pack hunted together, fed together, survived together. They didn't seem to know any other way of doing things.

"My darling sister got the shit knocked out of her when our father thought we'd all gone to bed. It wasn't very festive of him, but it certainly improved the holidays."

His eyebrows knitted together. "What for?" he asked. Lucy was as shit as they'd come, but curiosity got the better of him. If she hadn't been punished for what she'd done to him which was pretty egregious, he couldn't imagine what else it could have been.

He smiled as she named off each gift. He knew she had to have hated every moment of it, but there was some delight in knowing they'd had to thank her. A bastard colored girl, her step-mum had called her, as though she was disgusting or something to be reviled.

He couldn't wait for the day when he had the freedom to tell them all what he thought of them.

"Sorry you had to do that pretty," he said taking her lightly by the chin and dropping a kiss on her lips. "They don't even deserve to have you in their vicinity." He smiled, tugging lightly on one of her curls. "Proud of you though. Not for doing what Roger said, but for being bigger than them." He knew she didn't want it, but it was important to him that she knew all the same.

"I hope you got Lucy a size too small." He grinned, taking another book and shoving it into a random spot.

"You never told me how yours was."

"Ah," he said with a little shake of his head, "Uneventful." On the contrary. His mother had dropped a bomb on all of them - one that would change up the fabric of their family. He had been asked to remain tight-lipped due to Maddox's upcoming trial and he would, but his mum already had the start of a small belly. People would know soon enough she was pregnant, even if they wouldn't know who the father was. He could share that much.

"Julia's having a baby," he said lightly, a grin forming on his lips as he glanced sideways at Rae. His eyebrows perked up a bit. "So I'll have a little brother or sister soon. Kate's...taking it about as well you'd expect." As well as one took a hammer to the skull. Kathryn didn't handle change well - even as small as a ten minute change to her routine. Having a whole baby enter the picture was going to be...something.

He pivoted. "Other than that, it was weird, you know? Not having Rosie there." He shrugged it off, refusing to linger on it.

It was their first Christmas without her, a reminder that his cousin that he'd grown so close to, was gone without a trace.

Like a pack.

The idea wasn't foreign to her by any means. She understood the concept in theory. All for one, one for all, no man left behind. Following where one central figure led, doing everything you could to blend in and contribute to the collective. Before the Laurences, Benji had found himself in a 'wolfpack', losing his own mind to the groupthink of a pair of miserable, mopey boys, who didn't mean him any good.

It wasn't for her.

Rae didn't care to fall in line to make someone else's dreams come true or to help a group achieve a goal she didn't particularly believe in. She was her first priority, her second and her third. Her early years had taught her that if she didn't look after herself, no one else would. The Burkes hadn't proven her wrong. They were their own pack, and they expected her to comply with little return on her investment of self-sacrifice. She preferred to deal with people on an individual level.

"It's a crock of shit," she said, moving by him to take the book he'd carelessly put away. It did not belong there. Benji didn't care, but if they were doing this, they would do it right. Rae replaced it near the bottom of the pile so he wouldn't easily get his hands on it again before they left the aisle. "Sharing blood doesn't obligate me to anyone." Just ask Lucy; she'd had to learn that the hard way.

Speaking of the girl.

"What for?"

A sly shrug rolled off her shoulders. "I told our father that she's been fucking the stable boy. He didn't like that. No, he didn't like that at all." A duke-in-training, the man would accept. It spoke to her sister's ambition – albeit misguided – and her drive for elevation. A stable boy with no real education and a rundown, overcrowded family apartment in Lower East Side, Manhattan? Sacrilege. Deliciously scandalous. Not to be tolerated.

Rae tugged down at the collar of her shirt, revealing a bruise by her shoulder, then pulled her blouse from the waistline of her skirt to reveal a second bruise by her hip. "She tried to stop me, took us both down the stairs. Merlin, I nearly swallowed the leaf, then I'd have had to kill her for real for making me start over this animagus thing again. Anyway, me and Roger sat outside the door to the study, sharing a box of Bertie Botts while we listened." And she'd enjoyed every moment of it of the older girl's agony and her father's ire.

His lips met hers as she lowered her shirt, causing her to abandon her immediate plans to tuck it back into place. Inside, she held him, prolonging the kiss for a few seconds more. "Don't be," she said when she let go. "I'd been pretty mad they wouldn't let Billie spend Christmas with us, but seeing that bruise beneath Lucy's chin made it worth it." She hadn't been the bigger person. She'd been the pettier one and held no regrets.

Rae turned to the pile of books again, sifting through to make sure there was nothing else that belonged in the aisle while she listened to his break. 'Uneventful', he'd said. A festive time like that and nothing happe–.

"Julia's having a baby."

Nothing he said after mattered. Nothing.

Rae dropped the book atop the pile, whirling around to face her boyfriend, looking like she'd been struck by utter devastation. "Beeeeennnjjjiiiiiiiiiiii." She latched onto him, ready to begin a series of waterworks at a moment's notice. The fact he'd mentioned her friend made the tears easier to pull for. She missed Rosie more than she could say.

But.

"How come even sshhheeee gets a baaaabbbyyyy? How come you won't give me one? It's not faaaiiirrrrr. I could carry a baby; don't you believe in me? You saw how great I was with the triplets – and I could make you more sandwiches. You like sandwiches, don't you? With extra ham and...and cheese...and fresh tomatoes?" She rested her chin against his chest, looking up at him with plaintive mahogany eyes. "You like food and other things, remember?"

She wasn't asking for much.

"It's a crock of shit. Sharing blood doesn't obligate me to anyone."

He didn’t agree. Couldn’t. Benji knew good and well he and Rae didn’t have the same views on this, but it wasn’t something he could just relinquish either. “It’s not though,” he said, his eyebrows coming together as he looked at her. “Family means something, Rae. We haven’t had the best examples of them,” he admitted, “but moving as one isn’t always this sinister thing you think it is.” He leaned against the bookshelf as she fixed the book he’d stashed away.

“What about you and me? What about our kids when we have them? We’ll want them to look out for each other. We’ll want them to put each other first before anyone else. We’ll be obligated to them and each other as a family. It’s no different.” He knew that although he and Rae had experienced similar childhoods, their outlooks that resulted from it were completely different.

Rae wanted autonomy. Benji wanted belonging. It had led to more than one argument between them now, and he wasn’t looking for another. But if she was going to be his wife someday, she had to start trying to see other perspectives. Being self-absorbed and self-interested didn’t lend to a healthy role as a mum and wife. Just like he couldn’t be wound up in drinking and partying and running around like crazy. He had responsibilities, just like she would.

They had to at least get on the same page with that.

"I told our father that she's been fucking the stable boy. He didn't like that. No, he didn't like that at all."

His grin split wide and he shook his head, clicking his tongue. Shameful really. A proper well-bred girl like Lucy fucking around with the help. Leo and Arthur had gone nuts at the idea Rosie was laying with a halfblood kid with no name. He couldn’t imagine the outrage if Cass had been some groundskeeper. “Why doesn’t that surprise me,” he hummed grabbing another book and shoving it into a random empty spot.

No one read these books anyway.

His eyes drifted down to her collar, his fingers brushing against the bruise she revealed. He smirked, even as she lifted her shirt to shown the one at her hip. “Ruth Anaya,” he tutted against her lips, relishing the petty spirit that she was, “How unbecoming of you.” In truth, he relished the image of Lucy tumbling down the stairs while Rae wailed on her. It was too bad she’d been able to get up afterwards. “I hope she screamed bloody murder.”

But…he’d made a mistake.

And his ears were paying for it.

"Beeeeennnjjjiiiiiiiiiiii."

She grabbed onto him, as his eyes widened and he stumbled backwards, his back hitting the shelf with a harsh thud. He grimaced, his hand tenderly stroking the spot on his spine, realizing he’d have a bruise later. The look in his girlfriend’s eyes was one he’d seen before and he groaned, bracing himself for what he knew was coming.

"How come even sshhheeee gets a baaaabbbyyyy? How come you won't give me one? It's not faaaiiirrrrr.”

H U H?!

“I didn’t knock her up!” Bewilderment crossed his face as he shrugged. How was it his fault his mum had somehow found herself in a compromising situation with the Charms professor? Maddox was a good guy, made her happy, all that jazz, but their predicament had nothing to do with Benji.

He definitely wasn’t in the room when…things were happening. The hell was Rae talking about?!

“I could carry a baby; don't you believe in me? You saw how great I was with the triplets –“

“Yeah, you were great.” She was. Had passed that assignment with flying colors.

”– and I could make you more sandwiches. You like sandwiches, don't you? With extra ham and...and cheese...and fresh tomatoes?"

He…he did like all that. Rae made him great sandwiches, and when they’d had the ruddy dolls she made him even more. She knew how to toast his bread just right and knew the perfect thickness of tomato that he preferred.

But what did that have to do with him being a father?! Her big brown eyes stared up at him, pleading for something she knew good and well he wasn’t giving in to. “No,” he said lightly, dropping a kiss on her forehead. “Come on, we’ll never get this shit done if we sit around like this.”

He was a menace to the library. Rae grabbed the next book Benji had carelessly placed, slapped it back atop the pile, then took the cart before he could reach for any more.

She shoved it ahead, indicating it was time to move to the next aisle.

“It’s not though,” he said, his eyebrows coming together as he looked at her. “Family means something, Rae. We haven’t had the best examples of them.”

"Find someone else to lecture; I'm not interested."

But he wasn't done. For whatever godforsaken reason, Benji had decided that this was the conversation they needed to be having – as if it hadn't caused enough arguments in the past. Rae didn't need self-righteous ramblings about the greater good and family needing to come first. She chose her family; she chose her people. The rest could rot in hell regardless of any shared DNA, and she wouldn't obligate herself to anyone who didn't obligate themselves to her.

“What about you and me? What about our kids when we have them? We’ll want them to look out for each other. We’ll want them to put each other first before anyone else. We’ll be obligated to them and each other as a family. It’s no different.”

"It is different." She shoved hard against the cart, mostly because it would serve neither of them to shove him, but also to keep it moving. "I chose you. I didn't choose them. Family's choice, not circumstance. I'm not somebody's 'pack' because they fucked each other and I came out." They really hadn't been raised the same. Rae had had to learn that the people closest to you didn't always mean you the best. "I'm family because I care and you care and we want the best for each other. Our kids are the same; we'd choose them – but they wouldn't have chosen us, and if they didn't agree with us or want the things we wanted, we don't have the right to make them fall in line and obediently do as they're told. If they don't treat each other well, they aren't obligated to each other's loyalty and kindness. They'll put each other before everyone else if they deserve it. It's a family, not a military regime. I won't teach my children to bow and smile at people who treat them poorly and who do bad things."

What he described was systematic and mindless. James knew his cousin was horrible and did terrible things but 'for the sake of family' allowed him to continue. Lucy had done a terrible...awful thing, but she was family, so Rae had to buy her a Christmas present and kiss her on the cheek when she saw her.

Fuck. That.

She turned when she realised he wasn't following, catching the way his eyes lingered a moment on her bruises.

"Why doesn’t that surprise me.”

"She's got a good eye, all things considered. Muscular, if not a bit simple. He's got the jaw of a god, but," she shrugged again, "he was collateral, and she needed to be knocked down a peg."

“How unbecoming of you. I hope she screamed bloody murder.”

She leaned in to kiss the lips that brushed lightly against hers. "What can I say? Spite suits me." And when it came to her sister, she had an endless supply.

The cart was long forgotten by the time the news of Julia's pregnancy really set in. Benji tried to create distance, but she wouldn't let go. This was too important.

“I didn’t knock her up!”

"But you could knock ME up!" she whined. How was this not clear? She was speaking English. She was doing so at a volume most might not find acceptable – frankly, half the library now knew that Ruth Anaya was trying to extract a baby from one Benji Henry, but that was no concern for the girl, who was quickly growing tearful as she looked up at her boyfriend.

“No. Come on, we’ll never get this shit done if we sit around like this.”

"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" she wailed, clinging more earnestly to him. "No, it can't be 'no', it can't! Benjjiiiiii, pleeeeaaasseee. You were just talking about family and kids and and and how are we supposed to teach them anything if we don't haaaaave them?" She latched on tighter, very real crocodile tears bursting their dams. "Beeeenjjiiii! We can work this out. You can work me out. The babies will be the cutest, sweetest, most fantastic babies in the whole world." Rae sniffled, her chin wobbling with emotion.

"Why don't you love me anymore?"

"Find someone else to lecture; I'm not interested."

Jesus Christ. She was never interested. Rae made it a point to be completely uninterested in his perspective on anything. He was certain that half of the time she didn’t even listen to him, just waiting for an opening to spew all her shit. He rolled his eyes as she grabbed the cart and shoved it, following behind it with an attitude he’d become far too familiar with.

She was going off, rattling on and on about how she’d raise her children, as though he wouldn’t have a say in any of it. All of it surrounded her. Her perspective, her experiences, her feelings. His never mattered, didn’t hold any weight or value with her. Hell, he hadn’t even really had the chance to explain what he felt about it all, only what he had observed.

“I won't teach my children to bow and smile at people who treat them poorly and who do bad things."

“Whatever.” Why bother? They were her children. Not his, not theirs.

The boy could only hope when that time came she’d have a different perspective, but he wasn’t going to stand in this ruddy library and argue with her over it.

He barely heard a word about Lucy and her jaw-God before Rae let out a shriek that embarrassed his ancestors.

”No, it can't be 'no', it can't! Benjjiiiiii, pleeeeaaasseee. You were just talking about family and kids and and and how are we supposed to teach them anything if we don't haaaaave them?"

Benji’s eyes widened as her pleas sounded across the hushed library, disturbing all of its occupants. It absolutely could be a no, and it would be, considering how insane she was acting and the lecture she’d just bored him with.

“Rae, shut up,” he hissed his plea, glancing around the room as heads began to turn in their direction. Mutterings and whispers while his neck and ears grew hot. She squeezed him as he tried to move, dragging her along with him like an attached sloth. Tears rolled down her cheeks and the boy looked at her incredulously, realizing she was not only throwing a tantrum in the middle of the library, she’d completely lost her mind.

“What the fuck is wrong with…”

"Beeeenjjiiii! We can work this out. You can work me out. The babies will be the cutest, sweetest, most fantastic babies in the whole world."

Hell. He was in Hell. A few pairs of eyes peeked around the bookshelves, staring at the mortifying display his girlfriend was putting on, a few giggling and grinning at him as they did. Merlin. She was ridiculous. Absolutely ridiculous. Why? Of all the options there had been had his heart decided to chase after the unhinged feral creature that was Ruth Elliot?

"Why don't you love me anymore?"

“You’re insane.” He shook his head and grabbed her arm to try and yank her with him down the aisles and towards the restricted section where at least he wouldn’t have eyes on him. “We’re not having a baby. We’re fucking fifteen. And you have to get a grip.” He let her go when they got to the gates.

He held up his wand as the gates swung open and he grasped her again, yanking her roughly through and slamming the iron barrier behind him. They clanged, echoing through the library, but they still weren’t louder than his girlfriend had been.

“Rae,” he huffed, letting her go when he got her deep enough into the section, “You gotta let go of this baby nonsense. It’s not gonna happen but now the whole fucking school knows what we’ve been up to.” Not lately, but still. “We can’t even agree on how we want to live our lives. We’d be the two stupidest parents anyone saw.”

He sighed, rubbing his hands through his hair and shook his head. “Can’t we just talk about Christmas? Forget I said anything about Julia.”

He’d never say the word ‘baby’ again.

'Whatever' was right. Rae wasn't in the mood for another self-righteous spiel about Benji's superior moral fortitude or how he'd gotten the 'right' kind of street upbringing. Learning to care for others, all for one and one for all, allegiance by proximity.

Idealistic and unnecessary. Rae was focused on more important things, namely her empty womb and the boy who refused to do anything about it.

“Rae, shut up.”

"DON'T TELL ME TO SHUT UP!" She was getting louder as her emotions took hold of her. It was always the same. They were too young. He still had baby teeth – he really should just let her knock them out so they could put an end to that banal argument. If he still felt like a child because of a growth in his mouth, the solution seemed exceedingly simple. A lot of their problems were simpler than he liked to pretend they were. Lots of people had babies by accident.

Rae was so engulfed in the storm of her boyfriend's making that she never noticed the mutters and whispers. The giggles floated above her head, distant and irrelevant to her cause. Benji was the only one she could see, and only barely through cloudy, tear-filled eyes. It probably stopped being about babies two screamed sentences ago, but she was locked into her grief and loss and unwilling to let it go. The catharsis of her release was worth more than the comfort of any gathered in the library.

Then he yanked her.

Rae quieted down immediately, her eyes sparkling while her grumpy boyfriend tugged her away from prying eyes.

She wiped at her nose, sniffling a little while she took in his retreating form. Shoulders square, muscles tense, a dreamy storm of embarrassment and overcorrection. The Slytherin's expression brightened when she realised where they were headed. The restricted section. Bold, a little understated, unlikely to draw the kind of attention they didn't need.

He was back.

“Rae.”

Yes, she was Rae. Present. Accounted for. Did he need her by the screeching tomes or over there with the books on the forbidden arts?

She took hold of the end of the shirt she'd never bothered tucking back into her skirt, ready to hoist it over her –

You gotta let go of this baby nonsense. It’s not gonna happen but now the whole fucking school knows what we’ve been up to.”

...

......Huh?

“We can’t even agree on how we want to live our lives. We’d be the two stupidest parents anyone saw.”

What?

She let her shirt fall.

“Can’t we just talk about Christmas? Forget I said anything about Julia.”

Who the fuck was 'Christmas'?

Rae blinked up at him, looking at the boy as if he'd grown a second head. For a moment, she was perfectly still. Then she deflated. Her shoulders sagged visibly as she leaned against one of the safer shelves. An entire conversation flooded her mind at once, several threads beginning and resolving in a matter of seconds.

"Everyone in the school already knows what we've been up to," she heard herself say. "That's never bothered you before." Rae looked around the dimly lit section with its looming shelves and unsettling inhabitants.

"Did we have any books that need returning here? You left the cart."

"DON'T TELL ME TO SHUT UP!"

Good grief.

The boy had never been happier to be in the Restricted Section. Normally, he avoided the area, not because he was afraid of the contents here but because it was so isolated. No one ever came back here, except Julia and her assistants and Benji hated working alone. It was boring in the library, but in this moment, he was glad it was just the two of them.

Apparently, so was Rae who had the idea to begin lifting her shirt.

"Everyone in the school already knows what we've been up to. That's never bothered you before."

A lot of things never bothered him before. Benji didn't know what to say, so he said nothing, instead sighing deeply again before dragging his hands down his face. At least she'd put her shirt back down. "No," he moaned, finally dropping his hands to his sides. "We don't have go-backs. I brought you back here because no one else is here."

He held up his hand before she grasped at the idea again, "And not for that! Rae, you've got to get this dumb idea out of your head. We'll probably have kids someday, it's just..."

He glanced behind him toward the gate to make sure his mum wasn't coming. Rae didn't know things. Certain things. Things Rosie had told him about. His girlfriend obviously wasn't giving up on this cockamamie idea. For who knew what reason.

He could provide the illusion, he guessed. At least it'd stop her from screaming in the fucking library. He grabbed her arm without another word and yanked her further into the dark section.