WHO: Meredith Fielding & Derek Dobbs
WHAT: 199% Chance This Is Going To Be An Awkward Thread
WHERE: Derek's flat
WHEN: Erm... today?


It seemed more and more these days like Meredith Fielding’s life had popped right off the pages of some Muggle movie script. Waking up in the mornings she found she had to pinch herself to make sure it wasn’t all a dream; that her hard work was really paying off, that people were actually paying her to do what she loved and giving her respect for doing it well. She had known since before she could remember that this was what she was destined to do, but to have it finally come into fruition was an absolute dream. She felt like a literal ray of sunshine walking down the street, like nothing in the world could touch her.

Maybe that was why she had suddenly found herself connecting with old friends like Dianna Dobbs as she had. Sharing her excitement was on the top of her mind, and it thrilled her that her fellow blonde fashionista had been so willing to oblige. There were probably many better things that she could have been doing with her first paycheck than running around town and blowing it on a really fabulous pair of shoes, but that wasn’t the point. And Dianna understood that, which was just perfect and had quickly catapulted her to Meredith’s list of top people to spend time with.

Maybe, though, it was a little forward to show up at her flat unannounced and drag her to London on a weekend. Maybe.

That didn’t mean she hadn’t done it.

Brushing the soot off her designer handbag--ugh, that was new!--as she stepped out of the Floo at the address Dianna had provided, her immediate impression was that she had the wrong flat. The decorations, while simple and clean seemed very... masculine, at least for someone who made herself as much of a fabulous diva as Dianna did.

Meredith suddenly felt like the floor was made of eggshells as she stepped forward softly as possible, peering around down a hallway, then into the kitchen. “Hello?” Perhaps she should have checked the address twice before leaving. “Dianna?”

"Di?" Derek called after a moment's pause from the visitor’s inquiry. His lips pursed at the lack of response. She was supposed to tell him when she was leaving, it was part of the arrangement. Even if he'd been in the bath, a knock on the door would have sufficed.

He heard another call.

Hell, really? Dianna hadn't had a slew of people over, just the opposite, in fact, but the one time she expected company, she neglected to mention it to either of her current housemates or even remember it herself. But despite the flare of annoyance, Derek recognized that this was good—calling people to socialize with was healthy. Doing it because she wanted to and not because she could not tolerate being in her tainted flat a moment longer was leaps and bounds better for her. That pacified him, but only moderately. "Vinny?" he called softly, throwing on his robes with a bit more speed after an aggrieved sigh. There was no answer. He was either asleep or already at the stadium; Derek hadn't yet adjusted to his friend's schedule.

Giving his hair a half-hearted toweling, he was still adjusting the collar of his robes as he strode into the living room to send the caller on her way. Then the Ministry; to Dirk, then level two.

"Sorry, Dianna's not—," Derek's frown deepened as he recognized the girl hovering hesitantly about the kitchen. "Ah, she's at," he glanced at the grandfather clock in the corner: at St. Mungo's, in fact, "the museum," he finished, not exactly smoothly.

The second she had heard the low male voice calling down the hallway, her heart rate picked up dramatically and Meredith knew that she was going to be in trouble. This was definitely the wrong flat--silly, silly, she had known Dianna wouldn't be living in a place that was any less than decked top to bottom with womanly charm, why hadn't she turned back---so stupid, really... How much time did she have? Could she turn around and Floo away quickly enough or--

Contemplating that thought rather seriously, the diminutive blonde began to turn on her heel to make her way back towards the living room and attached fireplace. She had gotten no further than the threshold to the kitchen when the mysterious voice, now notably louder with the benefit of close range, sounded again from behind her. Mortification evident on her face, she spun around to face the imposed-upon homeowner, pathetic apology already writing itself in her head.

---Oh.

Meredith wasn’t sure if it was relief or further embarrassment that greeted her mind at the sight of Derek Dobbs; maybe a combination of both. Although honestly, it had always been very difficult to discern exactly what she felt in regards to him. Even years later, she remembered distinctly the conflicting emotions of intense hatred and awkward sympathy which seemed to do a constant exchange depending upon the circumstances of the moment. Either way, this was fairly uncomfortable, if she had to describe it, and she knew immediately that had Dianna mentioned that she was living with her brother, she would have never dropped in unannounced.

“I am---really sorry,” she managed to stutter out through the lingering surprise. “She gave me this address, but she didn’t tell me---I mean---I thought Dianna lived alone.”

"She di—does," he replied, slicking his semi-dripping hair away from his eyes. "It's, er, being fumigated at the moment." He tried to recall the story she'd insisted be made up for it. "Doxy infestation. She's staying here in the meanwhile." Derek gestured back out to the living room sofa, where a small pillow and quilt were folded on the arm. His, in fact, but no need to share.

He glanced back at Meredith, whose presence seemed very jarring to him, like someone from another lifetime altogether. But, as he thought, that wasn't altogether incorrect. For the last two years, who had he really seen whose life didn't revolve tirelessly around the Order or the Magical Law Enforcement? In a way, he'd forgotten that there was life outside of the hellish existence he and his comrades in arms had lived. There were touches of it about his siblings, and it never failed to put him ill at ease. No one lived in a bubble, not after so much devastation, but the difference was they could start to rebuild it after the reign of terror ended. But a divide still existed between him and normalcy that at times felt wider than an ocean. Now, when everconfronted with it, Derek felt that simply by being, he had the potential to break such fragility.

There was a pause that went on a moment too long. "Does she—erm, she was expecting you?"

There was really something surreal about this. Yet, even to say that it was surreal seemed odd, because what about this should be? It wasn’t difficult to dissect and identify all of the different parts of the scene on the surface, and none of them were really that amazing or out-of-the-ordinary... there was at least nothing that should compel her to lose her thoughts and composure so entirely.

Despite having a claim to having associated with him years before, really the man standing in front of her was nothing more now than her friend’s older brother. It seemed like he had disappeared from her life shortly after she left Hogwarts and that was just---how it was. The most contact she’d had with his presence since then had been casual conversations with Dianna, sharing with no little distress how his life had somehow seemed to manage to spiral downwards even further and how rare it was to see him happy. It was an offhanded thing, just friends talking, and not really because Dianna had felt like Meredith cared too terribly much about someone she’d long since lost contact with.

It was all interesting, and Meredith couldn’t say she hadn’t felt the slightest bit of heartache for a man she had once upon a time discovered wasn’t as bad as she thought, but there was that detachment. Or--there was supposed to be. As it was, maybe the core issue was that seeing him there looking undeniably divergent from the laughing, laid-back Derek she had known was a surprisingly forceful shock to the system.

“No, I was going to surprise her,” she answered slowly, finally. Certainly the long pauses in conversation were not helping issues in the least. Meredith wondered suddenly if it would be rude to try and talk to him, or if it would be ruder not to. Despite such discomfort, something pulled inside of her that wanted to take advantage of the situation to quell her own inexplicable curiosity.

Shifting just a bit onto one leg, she turned her eyes away from him to take a more calculated gaze around the room. It was simpler to speak when she wasn’t looking in his eyes. “It’s a nice place,” she commented awkwardly, searching for something to say that wasn’t as stupidly naive as ‘are you alright?’ or ‘how have you been?’ “I’m sorry for barging in, but I’ll admit it’s funny to see you again.”

For the first time in a long while, he looked at the place where he lived through the perspective of a visitor. Tidy, though it was not hard to maintain with such limited ability to clutter. It did seem… spartan. There was a place to sit, a place to eat, a place to put things down, but that really was it. Functional, without much of the fuss—most of which had come from the few days his sister had been staying with them. It looked very temporary, as if the people here did not plan to stay very long. Simply passing through. Perhaps that wasn't an inaccurate statement. It was more a house than it would ever be a home, and Derek knew the reasons for that. He cast a long look at his roommate's closed door, remembering when it had been someone else he'd shared this home with.

Bringing himself back to the present with a little shake of his head, Derek rubbed the back of his neck. Funny. He nodded. That it certainly was. With a half-hearted wave of the hand, he said, “S’alright. I guess it has been a while."

It was a strange feeling of not impotence, per se, but uselessness that he felt in the company of acquaintances or strangers. That safety net of shared experiences vanished, and he was left with a faltering sense of how to proceed with the Them. He laughed and smiled these days, though they might be fewer and further between than before, but it was with the people he felt most secure, the people who'd seen him at his worst. Ill at ease was the most positive description he could think of to describe being with his sister's friend.

He blinked suddenly, as if recalling something. "Oh, d'you—want me to give Dianna a message?"

“Oh---”

She wasn’t sure why she was surprised by the question, but the most likely answer was that these long pauses were lulling her into an out-of-focus state. The sheer volume of thoughts in the room laid heavily as they blanketed its two occupants, wrapping them up in their own little worlds and leaving them only half-here and half-there, shards of consciousness scattered all about but none forming quite full pieces. It was that surreality again, like she wasn’t entirely sure of what was going on at that moment or how she had come to be there.

That was what she figured, anyway. Obviously it would have been impossible to speak for him as he was now.

“---no,” Meredith finally answered, slowly stressing the syllable. “No, that’s alright. I’m sure I’ll be able to catch up with her later.” That was her clue to go, she thought. At this point, the intruder would excuse themselves and exit and that would be that, but for some reason her feet seemed very strongly affixed to the floor.

Helplessly, the most she found herself capable of was toying idly, nervously with a tassel on the end of her bag. What was it that she wanted to say, before she left? There was something--- she wouldn’t have still been there if there wasn’t something that she wanted to tell him, quite suddenly, and somewhere she knew she had the words for it. They were just out of her reach, fluttering around her head like a snitch, waiting for her to take hold and spill them out. It was the weirdest thing, what a sudden spin this simple coincidence was taking her for, and---oh.

“You know,” she began, her voice noticeably surer than before, “try not to be such a stranger, Dobbs.” Surprising herself in the process, the tiniest of smirks touched the corner of her mouth. “Seeing you, I just remembered that I don’t entirely despise you.”

Well... it could have been said more nicely--but what could one expect?

He inclined his head, chuckled weakly, maybe despairingly, because of the irony, because who was he even to himself anymore, but a stranger? Learning and discovering and coping with it every day. But with steps, small steps, perhaps he could change that and one day it wouldn't be quite so painful to look in a mirror, less jarring because he'd be able to recognize himself and know who he was and how he'd gotten to be there.

"See you around," he replied quietly.