Goosebumps on your skin

Feel the love and chemicals sink in

Seventeen years in

I am still, still beneath your skin.

-"One," Meadowlark

July 2018

James arrived on Elise's front porch shortly after lunchtime that Saturday. It was noticeably cooler here than at Raigan's but with a light jacket on, even the mist, which was almost as characteristic a trait of the Irish air as oxygen, didn't feel so bad. He knocked on the front door and waited, listening to the sound of the waves tumbling onto the shore. A little speckled sandpiper swooped down and went pattering across the rocky shore. James watched it's head cock side to side in jerky motions. Birds had always struck him as nervous creatures.

About the time the bird took off again, James realized that Elise had still not come to the door. He knocked again, figuring she had just not heard, but after a minute or so in which she did not appear and a quick glance through the front windows, it became pretty clear she wasn't home.

James took two steps off the porch and turned to the ocean, thinking. They had definitely decided on one o'clock to meet. He knew he had not mistaken the time. After a minute, he kicked off his shoes on the front step and walked out towards the shore, wondering if perhaps she gone out and not realized how late it had gotten.

At the same time as he began to walk, following the wiggling line of the water that ran parallel to the cliffs behind them, he knew she wasn't out here. In fact, he knew pretty certainly where she was: back at the office. But ever since Thursday evening when he'd said to her "we used to go almost every day," he hadn't been able to stop thinking about it. This place, this beach had been such a big part of his everyday life in the brief period of time he had lived here. A short walk after work had become such an integral part of his routine that at some point, he'd begun to head out even when Elise didn't.

The beach had been her thing, really. It was because of her that they'd found this house and that they'd ended up moving into it, and it was because of her that their big glass vase rose higher and higher with sea glass every day. But at some point, James had fallen for it all too: the water and the sky and the sound and the way when it rained hard it was almost impossible to tell where the sky and water began and ended. The ocean had a way of seeping right into you, of wetting not just your body but your soul and long after you had dried up again, your heart still remembered how it felt to be drenched in it all and it tugged you back, day after day if it could.

When he'd first started at Hogwarts, James remembered how hard he'd tried to avoid the lake. It wasn't an ocean, certainly, and the small bit of sandy soil that faded into the black water could hardly be called a beach, but it still reminded him a little too much of Elise, so he'd tried his hardest to stay away. As time went on and the possibility of hearing from her again - or of his reaching out to her - grew smaller, so did his self-control. He went out there often, circled its perimeter on nice days or just when he felt the pull was impossible to ignore any longer. But it could not compete with this.

James didn't spend much time looking at the ground the way Elise usually did. He walked with his hands in his pockets and stared straight out in front of him, watching the tide flow ahead of him. He thought about how much he would like to show Piper this place.

He'd been too afraid to take her to the beach. Not just this one, but any beach. Besides the lake, James had not been back at all.

The sun poked out from behind the cloud and he squinted, looked down, and caught sight of a small piece of white sea glass. He pocketed it, and then, testing Elise's theory, slowed his steps and began looking for another. He found three. It was possibly the most he'd ever found in one go. In the past he remembered picking up the occasional piece he saw before she did all for her benefit. He'd loved watching her dump it all out on the kitchen counter when they got back home. She'd pick through everything she'd found for her favorite pieces, make some sort of declaration about that day's success in comparison to other days, and then she'd leave it all out on the counter for a few hours before she dropped it into the jar.

For maybe the first time, James experienced a little thrill of his own when he picked up a piece of dark blue. He got it, suddenly, her treasure hunt. These little bright, sparkly spots that were at once so vibrant and so easy to miss. Little bits of glass, trashed, thrown into the ocean, and then broken and beat up and tossed and turned around for who knew how long before they resurfaced and found a bit of calm in the sand. Glass had a beauty on it's own, he supposed, but it took a beating and it's beauty became a little more special, a little sweeter. Sharp edges rounded, and dazzling, bright colors muted. Even the smooth, slippery surface became both softer and grittier, a little easier to hold onto.

It all made James think of Elise: her combination of hard and soft, the way she was always quiet. She did not draw attention to herself, but once you'd spotted her, it was difficult to look away. And she too had been thrown overboard, tossed around and beaten up by something that should never, never have happened to her and she had come out of it, not hardened or jaded, but softer and sweeter yet.

Suddenly, James couldn't wait to see her anymore. He apparated back to their front porch, took a quick look inside on the off chance that she had arrived home again and finding that to be false, he slipped back into his shoes, and headed to the ministry.

Sure enough, James could see her office light on from the end of the hall. He tried not to walk too quietly, because he didn't want to scare her, but she still jumped when he appeared in her open door. She sat in the middle of the floor with documents, photographs, and manilla file folders spread out all around her. As soon as she realized who it was, she tipped her head back and said, "Shoot, I'm so sorry."

"No, don't worry about it," said James. "I figured you were here." He took a weaving path through the mess and came up behind her, crouching down to see what she was looking at at that moment. "How'd it go with Anna yesterday?" he asked, putting his hands on her shoulders. She was so tense he could feel the knots in her shoulders without even trying.

"Pretty well," she said, tucking a loose bit of hair behind her ear. J. James leaned around to kiss her on the cheek and then he pushed a few things aside and sat down beside her. She looked at him, eyes round with surprise, but she just blinked a few times and said. "She gave me a list of cases off the top of her head that she thought were suspicious and gave me access to a couple of statements in which he's said things that could be taken as being a magical elitist. Some of them are a stretch, but I don't know. I've been looking at this stuff so long now, it's like I've started thinking everything is probably nothing and also everything's something."

James accidentally laughed and then said, "Sorry," but Elise cracked a smile too.

"Maybe I'm going crazy."

James shook his head. "Probably just onto something," he said.

"Maybe."

"Did you see the article in the paper?" he asked.

"About Pauley?" She nodded. "I was pretty pleased with it," she said. "They don't usually make us look very good."

"It's big news," said James. "Cleansweep is a major company."

"I'm just relieved we've finally got something public, you know? I mean it's not the first proper arrest and accusation, but it's the first one that's newsworthy and that like... people will care about. When it's just so and so from the English countryside wreaking havoc on one or two muggles, people go, "Hm, that's not good," but it doesn't really raise any alarm. But when it's a whole company that's at fault, it's really..."

"Scary," finished James.

"People have to take note," agreed Elise. "Which will hopefully lessen the amount of hate mail I get every day alerting me that I'm not doing my job properly," she added with a wry smile. "I'd like to tell them what a waste of time it is for me to read their unwarranted opinions, but I don't have the time for personal replies."

James laughed. "I get a lot of angry letters from parents who think I'm not teaching their kids the right things when it's really just their kid not paying attention. I know where you're at."

"I believe it," said Elise quietly, thumbing the corner or the paper in her lap.

"So tell me more about it. What've you been up to?"

She tucked her hair behind her ear again, the same bit that had fallen out of her ponytail before.

"Not that much yet," she said. "I got here at seven, but I-"

James cut her off. "You got here at seven on a Saturday?" he asked.

"I slept in," she said defensively. "Usually I get here at six." James just smiled. "Anyway, as I was saying, I spent most of the morning on scheduling, because now Pauley's been arrested and Cleansweep's been temporarily shut down," she paused, took a breath, "we've got permission to order questioning on everyone in the company. But Harry's only authorized Steve and I to do it and I'm trying to get through as many of them in the next two weeks as I can, because I really can't have this being a big drawn out thing. There's too much else to do. So I've got all of this," she gestured around at her floor, "to organize, because I want to assign the Berlin project to Carston on Monday and I don't want it to feel as complicated as it does right now."

"That'll be good for him," said James.

"I thought so, too," she said. "He does good research." She sat back on her hands and folded her legs with the opposite one on top, tugged down the hem of her grey t-shirt, and straightened up again.

"He'll do well on anything you give him if it feels like it's something you really care about," said James. "He wants to do well."

"He's a sweet kid," said Elise.

"I think you're growing on him," said James. "Not so scary after all."

"God, really not letting that go are you?" she said, eyes flicking up to the ceiling.

"Told you I wouldn't," said James easily. He reached for one of the documents nearest him and scanned over her notes.

"D'you think the fact that he didn't let Pauley off is actually going to be a problem, trying to get rid of him?" asked James.

"I thought about that," she said. "But most of these cases didn't really warrant the use of Veritaserum, and if someone pleads guilty under it's influence, it's be pretty dumb to turn around and say he's innocent, you know? I don't think he had much of a choice. I'm hoping we can use the fact that he only got nine years to cover that one. Nine years is about how long it'll take to be completely sure we've covered everything up if I'm being honest."

"Don't forget about the six months," said James.

She smirked, let one silent laugh through her nose, and said, "Yeah, that's the tipping point there." They smiled at each other and James couldn't stop himself. He leaned forward and kissed her, resting one hand on her knee.

As he pulled back, Elise rolled her lips together, eyes locked on his. She was frowning slightly. "I'm sorry I forgot."

James squeezed her knee and said, "Honestly, don't worry about it. I wasn't mad."

She looked away, scanned the room.

"Let's just go, James."

"You sure?" he asked.

She looked a little conflicted about it, but she nodded and said. "Yeah. I need to get out of here."

"Alright, let's do it," said James, pushing himself to standing. He held his hands out to her and pulled her up, and then Elise pulled out her wand and with it, she gathered all the papers on the floor into one hefty folder, sealed it and locked it in the lower drawer on the right side of her desk.

She straightened up, smoothed down her denim shorts, and said, "You ready?" James held reached for her hand.

---

They walked for a long time, maybe an hour, mostly discussing in more detail Elise's conversation with Anna the previous afternoon. A few dozen pieces of seaglass weighed down James' pockets already. Rain spit at their faces, but they spent so much down hunched over looking at the ground that it hardly mattered.

"You know you've gotten better at this," said Elise, when James showed her the piece of bright green glass he had just spotted. "You never used to find any."

"I think I'm just having a lucky day," he said, but Elise shook her head.

"A little bit of it's luck, but it's mostly patience. You're more patient than you used to be."

James glanced at her and back at the rocks. "I guess I have to be working with preteens," he said. After a long pause he asked, "Was I impatient?"

"No," said Elise. "You just never slowed down."

James mulled this over while they walked on. He kept coming back to that idea of the "before" of before, of all the little things James had spent so little time thinking about for the past eleven years, all of it overshadowed by the last few strained months of their relationship. It was amazing how much he still remembered without exercising his memory of her.

Besides their unexpected beginning and their crashing end, there had been a whole middle full sweet moments and funny stories and a whole lot of fiction-worthy crime-fighting. They'd been a team in more ways than one. He had often considered the fact that most of the conversations had revolved around work, but there had still been a substance to their relationship that he had never shared with another girl. She'd been a friend.

Elise stopped, crouched down, and picked up a piece of glass. James paused to wait for her while she peered around the surrounding area, selected another piece, and passed them up to him. The wind caught hold of a section of her ponytail and curled and it flew straight up and settled down again. She brushed off her hands and stood. Less than ten steps later, she stopped again, but this time, her face brightened. "Look at this," she said, holding up her latest find. "Purple."

James took the piece from her to examine. Sure enough, it was pale lilac. James had seen her collect enough glass to know that this was very, very unusual. White, blues, browns, greens, and the occasional red were expected, but he didn't think he'd ever seen that. He looked up at her again and something about the look of bright-eyed wonder on her face put him in a playful mood. "I don't know," said James, "I don't think you need any more sea glass. Let's let someone else have it."

Elise rolled her eyes, but when James lifted his arm like he was about to throw it, a look of panic flashed across her face. "James, don't you dare," she said.

"I might," he teased. She reached up to try to take it back, but she wasn't quite tall enough, so she tried a different tactic and held out her hand, palm open.

James took off, glancing once behind him to see Elise throw her head back with a loud, "Ugh," before she ran after him. She was fast. When she'd started to get too close, James veered into the water, crashing through the shallow waves to where it was a few inches higher than knee deep. He stopped, turned around, and saw her standing at the edge of the water looking very unamused. He didn't blame her. The water was very, very cold.

"Come get it," he called, flashing her a grin.

"Oh my god," said Elise, but she started wading through the water towards him. On her height, the water was nearly at the bottoms of her shorts. One slightly larger wave and they were both drenched. "James Mason," she said. "Hand it over."

"Try and get it," said James, holding it over his head again. He got a kick out of making her mad. It was maybe a bad thing, but Elise could be playful when she wanted to. She just need a little more urging than most people to let it out. James had always been good at that.

They stared each other down, her eyes narrowed, and then she pursed her lips and said, "Fine," with her nose in the air. She wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him hard.

James had been expecting her to jump and his hand lowered involuntarily to her waist. All without breaking the kiss, Elise reached around her back, grabbed his hand, and brought it around between them. She pulled back, gave him a stern look, and then pried his fingers open to retrieve her precious find. "Hm," she said snootily, and she tucked it safely away in her own pocket.

"That's why they made you senior auror," said James. "Diversionary tactics."

Elise frowned, but then she started to laugh and pretty soon James had joined in. "You're a jerk," she said, wrapping her arms around his neck again.

"You're beautiful," said James. It just sort of came out, and once it had, he wanted to say it again. "You're beautiful, Elise." Her smile softened and her eyes flickered around his face.

"Thanks," she said quietly. They kissed again until another larger wave splashed them and the entire back of James shirt was soaked. Elise jumped back in surprise, looked down at herself and said, "I'm sopping."

James laughed again, reached for her hand and they waded out of the water.

---

By the time they'd walked all the way back to the cottage, James had mostly dried off, but he was still a little shivery. They slipped inside and he turned out his pockets on the kitchen counter to reveal a pretty hefty pile. It had been a successful search.

"Do you want to stay in here, or do you mind going back out?" asked Elise, looking out the window. "I know it's not that warm."

"We can go back out if you want," he said.

She paused, looked at him a second, her face impassive, and then said, "Okay. Give me a sec."

She went back to the bedroom and returned wearing a navy blue sweatshirt and jeans. She held out another sweatshirt to him, this one larger and faded grey. "This was actually yours," she said. "If you want it."

James unfolded it; he remembered. He'd had this sweatshirt since school. It said Ravenclaw Quidditch across the front in blue letters with a silhouetted image of an eagle beneath them. Elise had borrowed it all the time and it must have still been in her drawer when he'd packed up his things.

"You still wear it?" he asked.

Elise shook her head, but then she sort of smiled and he knew she was lying. She stepped around him to get to the kitchen cabinets and pulled out two wine glasses. "It's comfortable," she said, not to his face. James pulled it over his head, smiling a little too much.

Outside, they laid out a big blanket a few feet back from the shore where they would not be at risk of getting wet, sat side by side, and sipped their wine. James, reunited with his heritage by the sweatshirt, started talking about his old quidditch victories, the stories he had repeatedly told Piper, by request. Elise sat with her knees tucked up and listened, smiling down into her glass. Once or twice she commented on things she actually remembered watching.

"Can't believe you were cheering for the wrong team all that time," said James shaking his head.

"Can't believe I betrayed the right team by going out with the enemy," she countered.

"You saw the light," said James. "Hufflepuff never won back then."

"We had a good team my seventh year, actually," said Elise. "You missed out."

"You know I never used to get why you were a Hufflepuff and not a Ravenclaw," said James thoughtfully. "But I do now."

"You thought I should be a Ravenclaw?" she said, wrinkling her nose.

"You're smart," he said. "And you ask a lot of questions and then answer them all yourself."

"And Hufflepuff's aren't smart?" she asked, faking affrontation.

"Course they are," he said. "I just mean, you seemed like everyone I knew in school. But anyway, I get it now. You're definitely a Hufflepuff."

"And what made you change your mind?" she asked.

James shrugged. "You work so damn hard."

When his glass was empty, James dug the base into the sand and laid back. Elise laid down next to him, close enough to be touching, if not cuddling.

"While we're on the topic of school," said Elise. "Can I ask you a serious question?"

"Sure," said James, staring up at the gray, cloudy sky. The rain had slowed down to just an occasional drop or two now, but it was still overcast. James didn't mind. He didn't need to squint to look up.

"Raigan told me once about how you used to date around a lot."

"Oh god," said James.

Elise laughed. "I always wondered why you never tried to go after me."

"I don't know," said James. "I guess I never saw you much or I would have. I wasn't picky if you were blonde."

Elise turned her head to look at him, eyebrows raised.

"I didn't say I was proud of it," said James. "Did you keep to yourself?"

Elise shook her head. "I was pretty social in school."

"Did you have a boyfriend?"

"Fourth to seventh year."

"That's why," he said. "I probably spotted you at some point and then found out and gave it up. I didn't waste my time with trying to break people up."

"Can I ask you another question?" she asked.

"I don't know, is it serious?"

She smirked. "No."

"Alright then, go for it."

"Did you ever get slapped?"

James looked at her and her lips were spread across her face in the widest smile she could manage without showing teeth. He bumped her shoulder, but she just said, "Were you?"

"Once or twice," said James.

"Once or twice?" asked Elise.

James considered this. "Depends how you look at it," he said.

Elise rolled onto her side, eyebrows raised. "Tell me," she said.

"Well," James began. He stopped to clear his throat. "I may have mistakenly asked two different girls out to Hogsmeade once in seventh year. And they were friends."

"You asked two girls to the same Hogsmeade weekend?" she asked. James nodded. "You really are a jerk."

"Was," he corrected. "Again, I never said I was proud of this. But anyway, I asked the one girl out, forgot, asked another girl out. That Saturday comes around and they both show up at the common room door waiting for me and I realized and then they realized and then one them slapped me and then I said something along the lines of, "alright, I guess that means I'm going out with you" to the other one and then she slapped me too."

Elise's jaw dropped open and pretty soon she was belly laughing. It was impossible not to join in: Elise rarely laughed that hard, rarely allowed herself to reach that deep, gasping laugh where no sound even comes out. She was so controlled.

Several times she nearly calmed down, only to start laughing again. By the end of it there were tears on her face and her cheeks were pink. "For the record," she said, through the last giggles, "I'd call that two."

James grinned, readjusting slightly so that he could wrap his arm around her. She settled down, head on his chest. For a few minutes they were quiet. James watched the sky darken into dusk, unable to wipe the smile across his face. He was starting to feel good about this, to feel secure. It was maybe, possibly, even better than last time. Maybe, possibly they had actually needed to grow up a little first.

"You know," he said finally, "all the crap I did as a kid... I mean I was kind of a jerk. I'm not denying that, but like... I didn't mean to be that bad. I just didn't really realize... I guess I didn't get the point. I was competitive and stupid full of myself and honestly if it weren't for Raigan, I probably would've been in trouble all the time. But I wasn't like... a bad person. Totally."

"I know," said Elise. "Bad is a lot deeper than breaking a few hearts."

"May have been more than a few," said James.

"Now you're just boasting."

He laughed. Elise traced her finger down his sternum.

"Anna was my first long relationship, I guess," said James, not quite sure why he was sharing all this. "But it wasn't serious. I think I thought it was at the time, because it went on for like a year or something, but it wasn't. I used to think long and serious were the same thing, but they aren't. I didn't know that until I met you."

Elise smiled a little. "Neither did I."

She began to tell him about her one and only Hogwarts relationship, the one that had potentially been the deterrent that kept James off Elise until they officially met as aurors. "My boyfriend in school, the one I mentioned... he was this kid in my year named Ned Lobach but everyone called him Nello except me, because he hated it when I called him that. So we got together in the fall of our fourth year and never broke up until a couple months after we graduated, and I remember I acted like I was so upset when we finally broke up because I felt like I was supposed to be, but really it was like... we'd been together so long just going through the motions and I'd sort of forgotten why we'd started going out in the first place. It just kind of became what we did and I never questioned it until we were out of school and we didn't see each other twenty four seven anymore and I just didn't miss him. I felt sort of guilty actually, that I wasn't that sad, so I made myself cry over it and ate a lot of ice cream and my friend came over and listened to me go on and on about it, but inside I just kept thinking, 'you're faking. You don't care. Why don't you care?' And then I met you and I got it," she said. "Long doesn't mean serious."

James nodded, crossed ankles, and shut his eyes. He smoothed his hand down her arm and back up again.

"The craziest thing," Elise continued, "Like when I really realized that.... was when I first told you I loved you."

"On Christmas Eve morning," said James. His stomach had done a funny jolt and he wondered if she was as nervous to talk about this as he was.

"Yeah. It had been what... nearly seven months we'd been together, a couple months living together and everything and I still hadn't said it, and I told my sister and she was like, 'okay, either you hate him and don't want to admit it, or you're that far gone you're too scared to do it,' and I said, 'yep, I'm too scared.' And I thought about how with Ned it had been so easy I didn't even think twice about it. It was like the natural next step, but with you, god, it was terrifying. I woke up that morning and you were about to meet my whole family for the first time and I just got this resolve that I had to say it that day, before we got out of bed. I had to say it. But it was the hardest thing I think I'd ever done at that point."

"I never thought about how long it took," said James.

'I never said it either?" He opened his eyes and peeked at her. She shook her head, her hair staticing against his shirt. "I don't think I even thought about it until you said it. I don't think I knew that's what it was."

"Didn't know that's what what was?" she asked.

"Love," said James. His cheeks went uncomfortably warm just saying the word. "I knew you were different and I knew I wanted to do things differently with you, but I don't think I knew how to define what was different."

All Elise said was, "Yeah," and then she snuggled in a little deeper and James lifted his head briefly, to kiss her hair and settled again feeling impossibly lucky.

They laid outside for what was probably hours, though James hadn't checked his watch at all, and they just talked, telling old stories, remembering their shared stories, and, as always though much less than usual, discussing issues at work. Finally, when the sky had gone completely dark and the wind picked up, spitting ocean water at them, Elise said, "We never ate dinner. I'm sorry."

"Wasn't even thinking about it," said James. Elise pushed herself up to sitting. At some point she had slid off the elastic around her ponytail, and now the wind whipped her hair across her face. She tried to push it back only to have it blown across her eyes and mouth again. James stretched and sat up with her. He grabbed their glasses and she bunched up the blanket and they made the short trek inside.

"I'll cook you something," said Elise, dropping the blanket on the armchair by the fire. She took a minute to peel her hair off her face and then flicked the light on in the kitchen. "What do you feel like?"

"I don't care," said James. "I liked everything you made."

"You were easy to please," she agreed, opening the fridge to see what she had to work with. "Which was good, because I didn't know what I was doing back then." She tucked her hair behind her ear. He knew she was itching to put it up again, but he hoped she would hold off.

"Make something you think I could learn to make," he said.

Elise turned around looking skeptical. "You cook now?"

"No, Raigan doesn't trust me in the kitchen."

She considered him and then looked out the window. It felt like any minute the rain would return full force. They had probably lucked into the best couple of hours they could've hoped for, weatherwise.

And otherwise.

"You wanna learn how to make soup?"

James thought this was being rather ambitious, but he said, "Yep," and Elise nodded once and clapped her hands together.

"Alright," she said. "First rule of cooking. We need good music."

James grinned. "I can handle that."

---

There could be no denying that Elise had done most of the work, but still, James thought he had earned the right to feel a little impressed with his own abilities. The soup had come out well and he'd done enough to be considered a contributing chef.

More importantly, for the first time since 2007, he and Elise sat across from each other in their kitchen at their kitchen table eating a home cooked meal. And even though it was summer and hardly the time for soup, the rain had indeed picked up again, it was long past the average dinner time, and all in all, James felt like they were having the perfect cozy evening.

They'd left the radio on but turned it down a bit to be able to talk. Still, neither one of them said much. James had so much to process. He hadn't been able to stop thinking about their conversation out by the water, what a serious relationship was. James circled his spoon around his bowl, scooped up a spoonful and then let it pour out again. "Hey, E?" he asked.

She looked up at him, eyes round. She hadn't broken down and put her hair up yet, but she kept messing with it. Now she combed her fingers across the top, shifting it all to one side.

James looked back down at his bowl because he couldn't quite manage to look at her and ask the question he wanted to ask at the same time. "D'you think this is serious?"

Elise set her spoon down. It clinked against the edge and for several seconds she didn't say anything. He was pretty certain she knew what part of their earlier conversation he was referring to. Then, finally: "Yeah," she said. "I do."

James let out the breath he hadn't known he was holding in. He scooped up another spoonful of soup. "Me too," he said.