Who: Therese Bonaccord & Michal Conway Lynch
What: BLARG
Where: HIS HOUSE
When: TONIGHT
Status: FINISHING IN COMMENTS!!

This was probably the worst idea she’d ever had.

Therese pushed herself through the sand, feeling remarkably exposed under the moon, the full moon that she was sure was causing her to do such a ridiculous thing. She was being dramatic, radical, she was doing everything she would tell one of her patients not to do, but sometimes when her subjects went out on a limb and took a chance, things seemed to fall into place.

Or they crumbled into worse debris and Therese swept up the mess, but---she had to try.

She tugged her cloak tightly to her chest, the ocean breeze creating quite the chill. She shouldn’t be here, she shouldn’t be here for more reasons than one, but as she hurried up the steps of the porch she wondered if this was one of those moments that people talked about, those times that defined the rest of their lives because of the stupid decisions they made, that if they hadn’t they would always be left wondering what if.

She was a person who deciphered thoughts for a living, she couldn’t handle having her own unsettled. So if she could get a final answer out of Michal Conway Lynch about----everything, then---she could move on. She could continue to see the nice Hufflepuff that was kind to her without any second guessing. She just needed to know. Therese rapped her knuckles quickly on the glass door, wondering if Michal had upped the security since his last late night visitor. As a light flickered on inside the house, Therese felt her insides go cold with fear; this was a bad idea, she should leave. Just---disapparate! Go!

But then she saw him and she knew he saw her and even with all of her worry, fear, and doubts, she smiled gently, because she had not seen his face in months.

Michal immediately felt... something collect in the pit of his stomach at the sight of Therese Bonaccord behind the door. Was it anxiety? Impassivity? Regret? He swallowed thickly, and rubbed his eyes with the faint hope of expelling or confirming what kind of dream this was. Seth, during their schooldays, had never let him forget what a frequent sleepwalker Michal was, but that required a bit of lack of lucidity didn’t it? He felt quite lucid right now. Relatively. As lucid as one could be while simultaneously feeling paralyzed in your own kitchen.

What was she doing here? Michal’s mind couldn’t settle on much else besides the fact that it was late, and he had no idea what had possessed her to appear here. Seth, Seth he supposed, with all the badgering he had been doing within the past week. But...

While Therese’s faint smile would have disarmed anyone else into a sense of security concerning this potential exchange, and should have for Michal, it did not. Instead, as he slowly approached the door, he found himself feeling lost and unsure about how to act. What would be... right? And here he had had himself convinced, while trudging down the stairs, that the knocking on the back door had to be his sister after she locked herself out after a late night stroll... the hair on his bare back stood on end.

Despite watching Therese’s face hungrily, he tried to maintain as much distance as possible. In case, you know, she instantly lunged to suffocate him with her hands. Not that he didn’t deserve it, but the thought wasn’t pleasant.

“Hey...” he spoke uncertainly, hands clutching the door tightly. This was uncomfortable. He had never had an ex appear at his doorstep before not swinging profanities or objects at his face.

Her mouth opened to respond, a simple ‘hi’ back, but her voice was lost. There was no room for niceties or small talk, there was only results. Answers, conclusions. Therese had come here for one reason and that was to find out if that tiny seed of hope that Seth had planted into her head could actually come to fruition. That...the fact that Michal’s best friend was snooping around meant there was reason to believe that he had not completely dismissed her from his life like she’d finally accepted he had.

Her gaze dropped as she strained to build up her courage. The ocean breeze was sending shivers through her body, though she could say it wasn’t entirely the cold air’s fault. She had to remind herself that no matter the outcome of this seemingly delirious decision of hers, she was going to have an answer. All these months of attempting to accept that they were over seemed to wash away the moment Seth had inquired about Otto. Of course her mind raced with suspicion, of course she and Mackenzie had spent hours discussing the possibilities and the pros and cons! Therese’s mind had been built up into too big of a fury to simply let this, let Michal, drift away from her again without any closure.

“I---tried to get over you,” she said, unable to look him in the eye. “I thought that I should, that---I was supposed to, but---” Therese shook her head, putting a hand to her cheek as she suddenly felt very hot. She had to say this, because if she didn’t then she’d never know for sure. They had been so close, she had finally begun to feel like life had something good in store. She had to know if there was a chance to get that feeling back. Therese finally tore her gaze off her feet and stared him in the eye.

“But thinking that there’s even the most miniscule of chances there still might be something has me going mad! I can’t think about anything but---you!” Her hands went out in a manner that seemed near defeat, she really was losing her mind. “ So I---I’m here...probably humiliating myself...to ask you if---if there’s still some hope for us.”

Please, let there be. she thought desperately.

Michal felt his eyes gradually widen, and his grip on the door tighten. Therese’s words were unexpected, though any topic she decided to bring up would have been unexpected; he’d assumed she had little to say to him, and what she did nothing he would benefit from hearing. So this, with her topic of choice, this late at night, in such a sudden manner... it was a combination nothing short of shocking. He felt shocked, Michal felt shocked, and a bit dumbstruck.

She couldn’t stop---? He felt a lump form in his throat, as he felt the familiar rise of overwhelming uncertainty fill him. Or perhaps it was an underwhelming lack of capability... to... process how... his brow contorted as he pulled back his mouth to run his tongue along his lips. Looking down, his hand reached to begin rubbing unnecessarily at the side of his face.

“I...” Michal began vaguely. “I...” he tried again, but found that his mind struggled. “Look, Therese.” Michal closed his eyes with the faint hope that it would help him focus. What did he want to say? He had... there had been... “I don’t know if...” But that wasn’t necessarily true either, so--- he let out a frustrated sound, and gave up on that trail of thought with huff.

Did he see her differently? Yes, he supposed, a bit, and it would be wrong to say that he didn’t long for what they had been but... was that possible, now? He didn’t want anything serious, but that wasn’t exactly... they had been, hadn’t they? With what had happened, it felt like all that they could be, now, was serious. But that hadn’t been her fault, had it? It had, technically, been his, and--- Michal’s hand inched up to rub his own forehead.

“I don’t know,” he let out eventually. “Maybe?” His face contorted further, more severely with each passing second. He felt confused, very confused about why he felt confused, and even more so about why he couldn’t quite commit to this witch that had honestly done nothing and easily put up with the shit he knew he tended to pull---

“I feel confused,” Michal finished with an exasperated sigh. His tone dropped down, and Michal returned his gaze to their feet and his hand to the side of his face. “I don’t know what I want,” he murmured.

His tone took her on a wild floo ride of emotional reactions. Therese had been trained to read other people’s expressions, their tendencies, their mannerisms, but when her own feelings and desires were involved it was hard to truly decipher what Michal was trying to say. It scared her, sometimes, how easily she was able to read some people and then others it was like she was wearing a blindfold in a pitch black room. She thought she’d grown close enough to Michal to understand him on a more significant level.

No, she had, they had---she wouldn’t deny herself that.

So how to get a solid answer from him? Therese had come here tonight to make their status clear. The advice she would give one of her patients was that it was a good idea to move on and find something, or someone else, in your life that brings you the joy and happiness you deserve. Therese had always been terrible at taking her own advice, but she justified herself in the fact that she knew how happy they’d once been. What had happened was traumatizing, for the both of them, and she had been angry at Michal for his reaction, for months, but being angry did not fix things. It didn’t fix her. Therese found her heart aching more at the fact that she’d seemingly lost out on yet another chance at being happy and...her anger subsided to give her a clearer vision of what was truly important.

Knowing that Seth immediately relayed the information about her date with Otto to Michal, because there was no way in hell that he hadn’t, Therese went into motion. She took the smallest of steps closer, her feet almost in between his. She kept her eyes focused on him, however.

“Do you want me to see other people?” she asked softly.

Michal’s breath hitched as Therese approached him, and felt his mind quickly turn and grapple even more to think clearly. Her lavender scent was encompassing, her close proximity arousing, but in the most... conflicting of ways because while she was, and continued to be, beautiful, the most glaring of thoughts concerning her and what had happened would always be fresh in his mind when he looked upon her face. And when he took in her smell, thought about her, most definitely when he would touch her....

Michal closed his eyes, covered them with his hands in hopes that it would help clear out the confusion. A large part of him wanted to lean back, slip away from her but it was to... another equally large part of him wanted to revel in her presence. It created a thick block in his mind, which really, didn’t help at all.

So, as time passed and he still did not know what to say, Michal fell back to what he knew he should be saying.

“You can see whoever you want Therese,” Michal mumbled slowly. He struggled to produce the words, hearing them come out in a gargled and jerky manner, but what else could he do? “Do... whatever you want.” He continued faintly. Michal couldn’t even wrap his mind around whether he should be closing the door behind her or not. Should she come in? Or would that give the wrong idea? What was the wrong idea? He knew his cheeks had started to grow cold from the breeze, but aside from that...

“I won’t stop you,” he finished lamely, one hand dropping unceremoniously from his forehead to his side. But he still could not look at her, so Michal kept his gaze on the floor.

It was troublesome, how the presence of this man could cause her to sometimes forget her Slytherin roots. A calculated move would be the best way to go about this, to keep her emotions from running too high, but already a brash flare of heat had caused her to straighten her shoulders and cause any sort of filter in her mind to dissipate into thin air.

“I’d fallen hard for you, Michal,” she said, feeling breathless even though she’d barely moved in the past five minutes. More than hard, she was sure. “I want to see you.”

Her face flushed with every emotion imaginable, but she held her ground. If she left this porch today without him, then she’d know that she had finally given herself the release she’d been desperate for since February. All the emotions she felt about their situation, the sadness, guilt, anger, humiliation---it would finally be able to fade away and she’d be able to move on.

Pulling herself into an outside view of their relationship, whatever was left of it, she could see what was holding them apart, keeping them separated. Therese could tear all of their minimal interactions apart and write a six foot long paper about it, but she wasn’t watching from the point of a healer. She was in the middle of this sad predicament that didn’t really have a clear cut answer, no matter how logical she liked to pretend she was.

Therese shook her head slightly, hands moving up from her side instinctively to grab onto his, but she clenched her fists and held them steady.

“You didn’t answer my question,” she said, trying hard to keep her voice from sounding desperate. “Look me in the eye and tell me you want me to see other people.”

He couldn’t. He couldn’t do that, he couldn’t do anything, he could barely focus; all he could do was stand here in the dark, with his eyes drooped and his gaze on the floor, thinking about how he didn’t know what to think. Or, he didn’t know what to feel, how he should be feeling just that... it was confusing, and it made his chest hurt.

“I can’t,” he mumbled honestly. Admittedly, what he couldn’t quite do was not exactly clear. Answer her question, figure out what he wanted, realize how he felt--- all of it was unclear and difficult to muddle through. This was why he didn’t think about these things, steered clear because when it came down to it, he didn’t know.

What did he know? He knew... he had to wake up early tomorrow morning. He knew this ridiculous weekend Falmouth was hosting and his contractual participation in its events had spurred his sister to visit for the weekend. He knew... Therese was beautiful, and he liked her. At one point, he had liked her. But... he couldn’t look at her in the same way, it was different now. Now was a more serious place, where ‘she’d fallen hard for him’.

His eyes widened slightly at that thought, and his fists unclenched at his sides. He couldn’t commit to her like she wanted him to, he wouldn’t ever be able to, would he?

“It’s not... like it was before, things are different, I don’t... think of you the same... I can’t... pretend to...” Michal began to trail off, losing his momentum. He didn’t know what to think, just that he knew what not to not think, but that was... different than knowing what to think so...

“You shouldn’t have come to my house like this.” Michal produced suddenly, realizing at least, he knew that.