Caiti hadn't expected to feel nervous about meeting with Professor Pym, but as she headed inside from the greenhouses on Monday afternoon, she started to panic. This was a stupid idea. Who was she kidding, entering something like this?

Perhaps it wasn't too late to back out. It wasn't as though she had submitted the application yet. She had only told Professor Pym she was planning to enter. She could change her mind. She could say that she was afraid it would jeopardize her N.E.W.T. scores to be that focused on anything but schoolwork, even though she had been significantly more focused on her research than schoolwork all that year and had been doing fine so far. It was all she thought about.

She'd gone out to check on her plant just now, the first time she'd seen it since leaving for break, and it had grown several inches. A bud was forming from the largest stem already. Caiti wanted more than anything to pluck it's petals right off and put them to use, but she couldn't do that yet.

She needed to study it first, learn about it. Wait and let it bloom more fully so she could propagate it. If she started testing ingredients with it too soon, she would waste the only sample she had.

Professor Pym came out of the potions classroom just as Caiti rounded the corner of the stars into the dungeons. "Go on in," she told her. "I'll be back in just a minute."

So Caiti, her nerves spiking again, sat down in Professor Pym's office and counted the bottles on the walls to calm herself down.

She had made it all the way to two hundred sixty three before Professor Pym came back.

"Sorry about that," she said, shutting the door behind her. "One of my third years ended up in the hospital wing earlier, because he decided to dip his finger in his potion. I went to go check on him."

"Oh," Caiti said. She couldn't even find it in herself to smile at this very appropriately thirteen-year old boy behavior. "That's okay."

Professor Pym took a seat on the other side of her desk and rifled through some things behind her, eventually pulling out the application which she slid across the table to Caiti.

"I'm so glad you decided to do this," she said. "I really think you'll be glad you did, no matter what happens. This is going to get your name out there and whether you win or not, people are going to take notice of you. I guarantee it."

Caiti just nodded, swallowing hard, because the panic was starting to fill up her throat and she couldn't speak.

"The first page or two is just personal information, contact information... that sort of thing... It's the back section we want to look at." She flipped to the third page so Caiti could see. "They've spelled out all the criteria for you here, but the gist of it is that you're writing a proposal. They aren't looking for completed research yet. They want something that can be developed, so you're in a really good place. You have a clear idea, you have some lines of inquiry to follow, you have a methodology... and all of that is going to go into this paper. There are seven different sections you'll write, starting with what the goal of the project is, moving into what you've been doing and are currently doing, and finishing up with how you would move forward with your research given this opportunity. So you'll need to think about how a mentorship and the money would help to facilitate your work. You want good, clear examples."

"Right," said Caiti. She stared at the words on the page in front of her but she could barely take anything in.

"I figured today we would start to brainstorm, get some ideas down to get you going, and then we'll come up with a tentative schedule for you. You can focus on one section at a time for a few days each until we've got a full draft. I want you to do as much as you can without me so it's really your proposal, but I'll help you revise it and you can always stop by and bounce ideas off me if you need something to talk to about it. How does that sound?"

Caiti just nodded. She swallowed hard again and took a deep breath through her nose. She could do this. Professor Pym sounded so confident. She could do this and she wasn't completely out of her league. She would keep telling herself that until she believed it.

—-

Sean was absolutely buried in work again. He had hoped that the break would give him the space to reevaluate a little and get on top of things, but it had only taken a few days before he felt like he couldn't breathe. On Saturday evening, he was trying to work his way through a stack of reports he was supposed to analyze, but everything seemed to be taking four times as long as it should because he had this tight feeling in his chest that wouldn't go away.

Evelyn had been busy all that day running various errands and doing things around the flat, which he appreciated, because it had kept her from pestering him, but she came and sat by him now. "We should leave in about fifteen minutes," she said.

It took Sean a minute to pull his brain out of work-world to respond to her. "Leave for what?"

"To go to Margaret's," said Evelyn. Sean didn't respond, and he could see that Evelyn found this irritating. "I told her Saturday would be better so you wouldn't have to worry about it after work yesterday, remember? I told her we'd be there and then I told you we'd be there and we agreed on half past six."

"Right," said Sean. "Let me just... give me a minute. If I don't finish what I'm working on, I don't know if I can- this is hard to stop in the middle of."

Evelyn didn't even justify this with a response. She got up and went into the bedroom. "I'm going to change," was all she said as she left.

Sean couldn't get his brain to refocus after that. For months, Evelyn had seemed so sad every time she'd talked to him and he'd gotten so used to that it was easy to ignore. She always tried not to let on so even though he knew her too well to miss it, he could at least pretend he didn't notice. But she seemed angry now and that was not like her. She was always so even tempered.

He stared blankly at the page he'd been looking at until she came back out of the bedroom again. She'd put on a cream colored sweater and a pair of faded jeans. Her winter jacket was folded over her arm and she had a pair of ankle boots dangling from her fingers. She dropped them on the floor by the front door, hung her jacket over the back of the couch next to Sean, and went into the kitchen.

"I'm going to finish getting this food together to bring, and then we need to go. So if you want to change or anything..."

Sean looked towards her. She was standing in the middle of the little kitchen, just staring at him. She was standing up very straight, chest and chin up like she was bracing herself for something.

"I've still got a lot to do," Sean said, turning back to the papers he had made no progress on since she'd come in the first time.

"And you have all day tomorrow and we said we'd be there."

"You said we'd be there," said Sean. He knew he shouldn't have said this, but he couldn't help himself. He had never agreed to go. He hadn't ever wanted to go. He barely wanted to talk to anyone he did know let alone strangers.

Evelyn went very still at first. Very still and very quiet. Then she opened the door to the fridge with more force that was strictly necessary and she started pulling things out. Sean stared down at his papers but all he was actually focusing on was Evelyn, aggressively putting together whatever appetizer she was bringing. He had gotten so used to her tiptoeing around him, doing everything so quietly and tentatively. This new response to his brushing her off had jolted him.

The tightness in his chest got worse and his face felt hot and stiff.

Evelyn didn't say anything else until she was already at the door with her coat and shoes on and the food she'd made wrapped in foil in her arms.

"Are you coming or not?" she asked.

Sean turned around, his mouth open, but no response came out. He didn't know what to say. His mind had frozen and she was looking at her with her lips pressed tightly together.

"That's what I thought," she said, her voice low and bitter. And she left before Sean could get out the word, "Yes."

The living room seemed so, so silent when she'd left. A small part of Sean was relieved he didn't have to fake a good mood through hours of board games and small talk with people he didn't know, but mostly he just felt sick to his stomach.

—-

Evelyn wanted to stay angry. She wanted to go in and rant and rave about what an absolute jerk Sean was and how furious he made her. But when Margaret opened the door and asked where he was, she just started to cry.

"Oh, Ev, I'm sorry," said Margaret, tilting her head to the side. "Here let me take that." Margaret lifted the casserole dish from Evelyn's arms, passed it to a figure Evelyn assumed must be Peter, though she could barely make out behind her tears. Then she felt Margaret's hand on her back and let her friend lead her towards the couch.

They sat down and Margaret pulled her into a tight hug and just held on until she felt able to talk.

"He just didn't want to come," she said, her voice thick with tears. She tried to mop at her eyes, mad at herself for losing it like this in front of Margaret's boyfriend who she was only meeting for the first time. "He wasn't done with his work. But he's never done with his work. It's all he does. All the time. And I just feel like an absolute idiot for even thinking he might come."

Margaret took out her wand and summoned a box of tissues from somewhere down the hall. Evelyn saw Peter watch it whiz by him with his mouth open in a perfect 'O.' For some reason, despite everything, this made her laugh.

"Sorry," he said quickly. "I know this isn't the time, but that is so sick. I can't get over it."

Evelyn grabbed a tissue and blew her nose, grabbed another one to wipe up the tears under her eyes and then blinked a bunch of times, looking up at the ceiling.

"I don't want to talk about Sean," she said. "That's not why I came."

"Okay," said Margaret without a question. "We can do that."

"You told him, I'm guessing?"

She glanced at Peter. "Yeah, and he's got about ten million questions so maybe I'll pawn him off on you for a while," said Margaret sounding exasperated.

Evelyn sniffled but smiled weakly. "Ask away."

The rest of the evening was fun. It took a while for Evelyn to fully snap out of her funk, but one she had pushed all thoughts of Sean to the back of her mind, she was able to have a good time. Peter was very easy to talk to and Margaret's flat was so cozy and welcoming. She had art absolutely everywhere. Knick knacks crowded the shelves and frames, posters, prints, photographs, and other various memorabilia covered nearly every square inch of the walls. The couch cushions were a bright mustard yellow and the pillows all mismatched but brightly colored. It was all so Maragaret. She was so vibrant. You couldn't call her organized at work, but she was somehow on top of things anyway and her home seemed very much the same.

They turned up the radio loud and ate and played games and all the while Peter asked question after question about magic. They had a long debate about whether or not he could be taught their kind of magic. He could not wrap his head around the fact that Evelyn had been muggle born — like him, he thought — but had gone to school and learned magic and yet he was also muggle born and couldn't learn it? The difference between being muggle born and just a muggle seemed to be harder for him to process than the fact that real magic existed.

Margaret was good about not asking if Evelyn was okay again or even acknowledging the fact that she had arrived in tears, but Evelyn could tell she was thinking about it.

When she got ready to leave a few hours later, Margaret pulled her into a good long hug and said. "You've got to tell him you're upset. You can't let him keep treating you like this and not say anything about it." And Evelyn nodded, thinking maybe the evening had bolstered her enough to finally do it, but when she got back Sean was already asleep.

—-

About three days later, Sean and Evelyn were sat on opposite ends of the couch, Sean looking over his notes for a meeting he had the following morning and Evelyn trying to read her book. She hadn't been able to focus enough to read in what felt like weeks. Every time she sat down and opened it up, her mind started spinning and spinning, trying to figure out what on earth she had done wrong. She kept glancing at him out the corner of her eye, trying to think of something to say, but she was so afraid of getting shot down that she dismissed every possible thought before it came out.

At about quarter to ten, Sean shut his notes and announced that he was going to get ready for bed. "Okay," said Evelyn. She shut her own book, slouched down lower into the couch cushions, and put her head back. She stared up at the ceiling.

She couldn't take another night like this. She couldn't take one more day of sitting there pretending like it didn't bother her that they didn't talk. Margaret was right, she either had to tell him she was upset or try (again) to get him to spend some time with her, to slowly shift things back to how they were supposed to be.

She set her book down on the end table and stood, heading into the bedroom after Sean.

He wore a pair of navy plaid pajama pants and an old Ravenclaw t-shirt and he'd already brushed his teeth. Evelyn knew this because Sean did things in the exact same order every day and he was already laying out his clothes for the next morning.

"Sean?" Evelyn asked. She perched on the edge of the bed, on his side. He glanced back at her. She didn't really have a plan, she realized.

"I was just wondering what you have going on this weekend," she said. "There's this winter festival going on downtown where they do ice sculptures and stuff and I was thinking about going. It might be fun to walk around."

"I don't know," was all Sean said.

"It goes on the whole weekend, so we could go whenever. It's up to you."

"Why don't you get Margaret to go with you?" asked Sean.

"Because I want to go with you," said Evelyn in a very small voice. "We haven't done anything together in a long time."

"We spent all kinds of time together when Caiti was home," said Sean. "That wasn't that long ago." He walked out of the room and to the fridge to fill up the glass of water he always kept by his bed.

Cautiously, Evelyn followed him out. "I know," she said, folding her arms across her stomach. "But we haven't done anything since then. And we hadn't gone out for a long time before that. I just feel like we don't spend any time together."

"We live together, Evelyn. We spend every single night together." At the sound of her whole name, at Evelyn and not Ev, she felt a telltale pressure building behind her eyes and in the back of her throat and the roof of her mouth. He shut the fridge and made to head back to the bedroom with his cup, but Evelyn was standing at the entrance to the short hallway, blocking his path.

"I just thought it would be nice to do something out of the house. Just you and me," she said, hoping he didn't hear the tears that were threatening as clearly as she did.

"If you want to go that bad, you can go, but I probably can't," said Sean. "I have a huge presentation coming up next week that I have to work on."

"You have to work on it for the entire weekend?" asked Evelyn.

"Probably," said Sean. He skirted around her and back into the bedroom. Evelyn followed him slowly, watched him turn on the lamp before shutting off the overhead lights.

"I just don't understand why you won't talk to me," she said. Her voice started to waver. It was getting harder and harder to hold the tears back.

"We talk every day," Sean snapped. She could tell he was getting frustrated and that was all it took for tears to start to slide down her cheeks. Sean never used to be like this. He had always been so patient. He had always been kind to her. He had always wanted her around.

"No you don't," she said shakily. "You never talk to me. You never ask me questions about my day. You never listen to anything I tell you. You barely answer my questions. We don't talk, Sean. We don't do anything together. We never go anywhere. We never even do anything here. You just go through the motions and do just enough to make it look like we're still together, but there is nothing, nothing behind any of it. You kiss me and it's completely perfunctory. I don't feel anything from you anymore. And I just don't know what I did."

"I have to work, Evelyn," said Sean. He had started to raise his voice and it scared her. "I don't get to come home until seven or eight at night and sometimes I just want to come home and not talk to anyone and not do anything, okay? It's draining. It's tiring. You don't have a professional job so you don't get it."

Evelyn's mouth shut tight and she set her face. She waited for Sean to feel guilty. She waited for him to realize what he'd said and apologize. But all Sean said was, "I don't know what you want from me. I see you everyday. I talk to you everyday. I don't know what else I can do."

"I want you to be my friend, Sean," said Evelyn. "I miss you being my friend."

To her surprise, Sean did not retort. Instead, he shut out the lamplight, got into bed, pulled the covers up, and lay down facing away from her. Evelyn stood there in the sudden darkness, stunned.

"What are you doing?" she asked.

"Going to bed," snapped Sean. "Clearly."

"Right now?"

"Yes, Evelyn. Right now. Like I told you I was going to before you decided to start an argument over nothing."

"So you just think the way we act around each other is normal?" she asked quietly. "You think this feels the same as it used to?"

Sean did not answer.

Because she did not know what else to do, Evelyn got into bed next to him, lay down on her back, and stared up at the ceiling, rigid. Sean was so, so still next to her, but she could tell he was not asleep, was in fact nowhere near sleep. For two long, horribly awkward minutes, she lay there until her tears started to slip out again and she couldn't take it anymore.

"I can't do this," she said. "I can't do this anymore. I'm done."

She got up and, making no effort to be quiet, she pulled on her coat, boots, hat, scarf, and gloves, walked back out of the bedroom and out the front door. She sank down at the top of the metal staircase, put her face in her hands, and cried.

It was bitterly cold in the dark. A few stray snowflakes trickled down from the sky, only visible under the streetlights.

Evelyn had always imagined that when she finally worked up the courage to tell Sean how she was feeling, he would come to his senses. He would realize he'd been letting something get in the way of them, that he hadn't been acting like himself for months now. He would apologize. He would start trying to make things better. She hated herself for still hoping it would happen like she'd thought. Surely, she thought, he would come out to check on her. Surely, he would come out soon.

But ten minutes passed. Then twenty, then thirty, and finally after nearly three quarters of an hour, Evelyn couldn't take the cold anymore. Shivering, she pushed herself up and back inside. She left her coat on.

As expected, Sean was still wide awake when she came back into their room. She glanced at him and then turned away, swiping at the tears still sneaking out every so often. She went into the closet and started pulling things out at random. She shoved them all into a bag. By the time she came out again, Sean was sitting up and staring at her.

Evelyn pulled out four or five sweaters and a few pairs of pajamas from her dresser, stuffed them in the bag, and dropped it on the floor. She turned into the bathroom, flicking the lights on because Sean was awake anyway. She could feel his eyes on her back. She sniffed and wiped at a few more tears and then she grabbed her toothbrush and face wash, her shampoo from the shower, and her makeup pouch. She stuffed them all into the bag on top of the clothes and crouched down to try and zip it up.

"What are you doing?" Sean asked finally. That tiny bit of something from him almost took away her resolve, but it was too little too late.

"Going home," said Evelyn. Her voice didn't crack, but it shook.

Sean didn't answer right away. Not until she stood up and looked at him. "Why?" he asked quietly.

Evelyn looked up, shook her head side to side, and inhaled. She leaned back down and picked up the bag, heaving it onto her shoulder.

"Because you didn't come after me, Sean," she said. She waited another ten, twenty seconds, hoping Sean would say something to make her change her mind, but he didn't, so Evelyn disapparated.

She landed on the doorstep of her childhood home and even though it was nearly midnight now, she knocked on the door. She heard both her parents coming down the hall to see who would be calling at this hour, and when her mum recognized her through the glass, she sped up calling, "It's Evelyn."

She pulled the door open, took one look at the frozen tear tracks on Evelyn's cheeks and her puffy eyes and the bag she'd only managed to zip halfway, and she pulled her into her arms.

"Sweetheart, what happened?" she asked. But Evelyn couldn't answer. She'd started crying all over again.