WHO: Fawcetts
WHAT: Emoooooo
WHERE: New place in Ottery St. Catchpole
WHEN: night of 14th Nov

Moving had been good for something, he supposed. Now he had acres with which to remove his bad-tempered self from his family, instead of a matter of rooms. The weekend had brought with it one stress after the other, from the harrowing delivery of his niece to a nasty surprise in the tabloids. Drystan had kept the mood bayed by tending to the children and avoiding his mother-in-law, but even that couldn't stem the release for long. He'd stalked out, angry paces taking him far to the rolling hills that skirted their property, where he'd zapped some anger away with his wand and some choice marks before working enough energy off that he could sit on the tree stump that crowned a hilltop, now fingering a small souvenir branch from one of his targets.

The thought that Spinnet had had those hands all over his little sister, then all over every one of those other girls mentioned in that tabloid drove him to sheer insanity. Drystan had been so long without contact from his sister that he'd actually believed Spinnet and she were still seeing one another, then to see that printed… talking to him as if he had a right to even think about Penelope, let alone chastise Drystan. And it clawed nastily at him because he knew Spinnet was right, and it just killed him. Did he still want to put his fist through the little bastard's face? Absolutely, and he was relishing the fact that the opportunity might present itself quite soon.

And all of this was only exacerbated by his watching the days tick down til the sixteenth of November, of knowing he'd driven away his last family member, of missing them so much that it choked him at times when he couldn't outrun the feelings quite fast enough.

Growling, he flung the branch as hard and far as he could bring himself to, watching it flip through the air as it sailed far, far away. Drystan dropped back down on the stump and put his head in his hands.

It was feeling useless that drove Bess the craziest. She watched her husband barely contain himself throughout the day, knowing that there was literally nothing she could do to help the situation. She had tried to talk to Penelope, but the girl wasn’t ready and who was Bess to force things? After the scare with Rose this weekend, Bess wasn’t sure if she could even handle another family trauma, but she’d said for better or for worse, hadn’t she?

Her mother was still messing in the kitchen; they’d come home from visiting Adam and Willow hours ago, but there was always something to be done. Bess had done her best to distract her mother from noticing Drystan’s mood, but apparently the rest of the world wasn’t as akin to Mister Fawcett’s slight tendencies as she was. Bess excused herself, pulling on her cloak and muttering something about having to go close the gates. She hadn’t had much of an idea of where to find her husband, but the broken tree limbs and the still smoking bits led an easy path to his location. Bess stood at the base of the hill for a few seconds before starting up it, pulling her cloak close.

She watched the branch soar, disappearing in the dark shadows. Bess frowned, unsure of what to say. It was usually just known that Drystan needed his time to brood, but these past few months had proved that things were not going to get any better if they stuck with that philosophy.

“What brought you out here?” she asked, concerned and curious. Bess hoped he’d be honest with her, even if he knew that she did know what was on his mind.

He hadn't heard her approach, had barely registered her speaking until after the fact, but he wasn't surprised Bess had come. In fact, Drystan thought, he rather thought she might, though it would be so much better for her to stay away. Internally he groaned, perhaps also aloud, because he wanted to not be a poor husband and a poor father, in addition to an already poor brother, but there were days when it all spilled over, tainting what it touched. Sighing, he dropped one hand and rubbed his forehead with the other. Drystan knew full disclosure of what drove him to this blackest of moods was not possible—there were parts to the story he could never tell Bess in good faith, fearing too much that his own shame would drown him, and that she'd look at him like she did upon learning what had driven Penelope out of their home. He knew he would not cope with that, not again.

"Getting closer," he said, not looking back, but forward, out at the horizon of the night sky with its dark blue velvet and luminous stars. Thousands of them, all winking down on them, small and insignificant, when one forgot their size rivaled that of their own galaxy's sun. Were there so many of these deceptive stars out in the country? It seemed unreal. Nights and views like this reminded him of school, of when things were so much simpler, and the force with which he longed to feel like that again shocked him. "The anniversary. It's harder—without her."

That part was the truth, and had him saddening steadily over the course of the last few weeks. It was merely the four people in his home that kept him together, now.

Bess sat down on the grass, her shoulder leaning against the side of Drystan’s leg. She had never been a country girl, and felt very small when she looked out at the hills and the sky. It was startling to see all those stars when on a normal night with all the lights of the town or the city, only those immediately recognizable constellations stood out. Bess didn’t think she’d ever get used to the beautiful sight, just like she did not think that it would ever be easy for Drystan to get through this time of year.

She stretched out her legs, shutting her eyes as a night breeze whipped past them. The only person that Bess had lost was Fabian, but it was a much different kind of loss than what the Fawcetts had suffered. Fabian had been fighting in the war, he was a vigilante with the Order of the Phoenix and every time he went out for one of their missions he knew he might not come back. Bess still struggled with how seemingly selfish she had been during their time together, but she’d had a child to think about; why would she have wanted that sort of danger brought so close to home?

The Fawcetts hadn’t done a thing. They hadn’t protested the war, they hadn’t frustrated You-Know-Who directly, they’d just been a family. As strained as her relationship with her parents had been, and still was, felt her chest constrict at just the thought...but she’d never be able to fully understand how Drystan felt.

“Tell me about them,” she said, leaning back on her hands, enjoying the cool feeling of the grass between her fingers. Her legs crossed at her angles, ready to listen. “Tell me everything.”

He felt his throat begin to close, and while it hurt, it would always hurt, it was a sort of relief to be able to talk about them. Drystan spent so much time worrying that bringing them up, even thinking about them would open the floodgates, because it still devastated him, still angered him beyond reason that they'd been taken from him for seemingly no reason. But then he worried that if he didn't constantly hold them in his thoughts, it would be both a disrespect and the fastest way to lose his memories of them. Finding a balance between the two seemed impossible.

"I wish you could have met them," he told her softly, wrapping a lock of her hair around his finger. "They were—the best people." And it was to his utmost regret that he'd left as soon as he'd finished schooling—not in the sense of moving out, for they expected it with his pursuit of professional Quidditch, but that his visits slowly dwindled in number, to the point where he'd only just had time for the odd owled letter, or a five minute call via the Floo.

Drystan took his time, piecing together the words painstakingly to give her the best picture. "My father—me da, he'd insist, was an Irishman, through and through, a raging nationalist. Muggle-born. My mother was the primmest and most proper of witches. Merlin knows how or why, as they hated each other in school, but they fell in love before they left and married not long after. She even jilted some poor wizard her parents picked out for her. They disowned her, or she them, but we weren't in contact with her side of the family for years." He recalled that his father was a moody man, loyal to a fault, with a deadly sharp sense of humor, and his mother was calm and poised in every respect but where her husband was concerned, and though fair, a witch to never cross, so together they were a loving pair. And Sorcha, with her good heart but almost comical lack of tact, with the husband he'd never truly known, but respected.

For a long while, he spoke, more than he could ever remember saying, reliving memories he hadn't thought of in years when he added little anecdotes to the story of his parents. The quiet years of his boyhood in Ireland, his dad teaching Sorcha and he Gaelic, that though they weren't well off, they were happy. How his mother always read to them before bedtime and had a sweet singing voice, and his father knew how to carve the most intricate little statues out of wood with just a simple knife, claiming there was no magic to do that for you. The way they hadn't planned for Penelope and affectionately called her their "pleasant surprise," and their dad teasingly calling her Ducks, like he claimed her name meant, until all four of them did it as well, to her chagrin. He didn’t quite know when it had happened, but their hands had snuck together to intertwine, and Drystan ran his thumb lightly over hers. "I wish you'd known her before, too," he smiled down at her sadly. "No one could stay unchanged, but for her…My life might be different, but who I am fundamentally stayed the same. For her… I couldn't even recognize her, some days." When he bothered to look closely, which had been proven to be too few times to matter.

“She’ll find herself again,” Bess said assuredly, keeping a tight hold on his hand, “With the flat, and the job...that was more than I was doing at nineteen.”

At nineteen...she’d just had a baby, and was staying on her brother’s couch as a waitress at a really terrible pub. She’d failed half of her N.E.W.T.s because of her morning sickness and the stress she’d been under from keeping the secret of her pregnancy, which in turn caused a great strain between her and Chester. When she was nineteen, Bess was sure that her world was never going to get any bigger than Adam’s flat and Sadie’s crib. Now, there were rolling fields and a seemingly endless sky of stars laid out before her.

Bess tilted her head to look up at Drystan, her hair falling over her shoulder. Her husband looked so sad, he was so sad, and she decided that instead of feeling useless like she hated, she was going to once again take the initiative. The house had been the first step, to start a new life that they could call their own. Bess knew, she could see how happy this new home would make them. The children were too young to really appreciate it, but they had a safe haven. The seclusion might seem strange to some, but to a family constantly put in the limelight it was Now he just needed to let himself enjoy what he had because he deserved it.

“You will too,” Bess said, twisting to rest on her knees. A hand went to his face, to make sure he was looking at her. Her eyebrows lifted, “You’re allowed to get better.”

All he could do was nod silently as he saw the truth in her words, even saw she believed them, but had difficulty feeling it in his own heart. Something Drystan had avoided coming to terms with for a long time had been the sheer guilt of being alive when they weren't, yes, but what might have happened if he'd only gone over that night, if he'd only been near, if, if, if only his family hadn't been snatched from him, if only they hadn't left them behind. But without that event transpiring, would he have the family that he did today? The one he'd have done anything, anything to protect? Then the sinking feeling that he'd had to exchange one happiness for the other insinuated itself in the recesses of his mind and how, he wondered, how could he ever be better as long as thoughts like that existed for him?

The torturous emotions ate away at him slowly, creeping up on him when he was too still, when he didn't think it could still hurt so much, when he let his guard down, and he was so tired of it all but didn't know how to make it stop. It was a desperate and slightly mad man that sat atop that hill, and the thing that kept him good and sane was crouched before him, holding his face in her hands like he mattered, because he did to her, and that was miracle enough.

"Stay out here a while?" he whispered, begged, pleaded, demanded, putting his forehead to hers. "Just let me hold you."

Bess pressed hard against him, nodding before she kissed him. Her hands went to the back of his head, wanting to pour everything she felt for her husband into the one kiss but knowing she couldn’t. Taking on this challenge of making the healing process less painful was going to take a great effort on both of their parts. Bess knew, as she kissed his forehead before she put her arms around him, that she would have to be a more active part in the process instead of a by-stander who felt as if she shouldn’t barge into their family issues.

She was a Fawcett, this was her family and their issues were her now hers and were going to be dealt with accordingly. Space could only heal so much, time worked too slowly for the human mind...for her. Drystan loved his sister and Penny loved her brother, there was no denying that no matter the blow out they may have had, but. Bess was done being an outsider and was ready to take the initiative in getting this family to...a better place than before. There was no desire to go back to how they were because how they were was living on eggshells they didn’t know existed.

Enough with the decision making. Bess pressed her face into Drystan’s shoulder, hoping her hold on him was tight enough, that she was strong enough to assure him that she’d never let go if she could.