The following day, after work, Marlowe went to Sean and Evelyn's flat. He wasn't even sure if Evelyn would be there. She might have gone home.

But when he knocked on the door, she answered and her face fell when she saw who it was. Presumably, she'd been hoping for Sean.

"Hi," she said dully, and stepped aside so he could come in.

She had a bunch of textbooks and notebooks spread out on the kitchen table, but Marlowe had a strong sense she hadn't been getting a lot of work done.

"How's the homework going?" he asked.

Evelyn just shook her head. "I can't think about anything else," she whispered. "I can't focus on anything."

"Can I give you a hug?" Marlowe asked. "I know it's not gonna fix anything."

She nodded, so Marlowe gave her a hug, patting her on the back.

"I think I messed up," she said. "What if this is the worst, worst mistake?"

"If you felt like it was the right thing, it was probably the right thing. It just might not feel good at first. But once things settle, you'll know."

"It doesn't feel good at all," Evelyn said. She let go of him, sat down at the table where all her work was and put her face in her hands. "I just lost my best friend. I don't even know what to—- I don't know. I don't know. I think I messed up."

Marlowe sat across from her.

"He probably hates me," she said. "I handled it so badly. I just panicked. I didn't want to say it like that. I don't know if you heard but—"

"We did," Marlowe said quietly.

"Oh my god, Caiti probably thinks I'm just the most awful person."

Marlowe shook his head. "No, she doesn't. She's worried about you."

"But it's you here and not her." There was a thickness to her voice. Marlowe could tell she was crying even though her face was still hidden.

"She just feels like she should be with Sean. As his sister, you know. But she still cares. She knows it's hard on you, too."

"I feel like I'm not allowed to feel like this," she said. "Because it was my idea."

"The right thing isn't always the thing that feels good," Marlowe said. "Believe me, I've learned that the hard way."

Evelyn's shoulders shook.

"Marlowe, what am I supposed to do?"

"I don't know, Ev," he said. "But anything we can do, just let us know. We're both worried about you. Both of you."

She cried for a long time after that, and Marlowe sat across from her, just so she wasn't alone.

He didn't think he was much help at all.

—

Sean was a disaster. He took two days off work completely, then went back in but was sent home early two days in a row, because he couldn't focus on anything.

Caiti had been spending a lot more time at home than she normally did, worried as she was about him. He shut himself up in his room a lot and when he came out, he took Barry for very long walks and when he came back, his eyes were usually a little red and puffy. She couldn't remember ever seeing Sean cry, although Evelyn had told her he had cried after he'd quit his old job.

Every time she saw him, she just got so sad. He had been doing so well, was finally starting to seem like himself again. He had just started joking around more, seemed so much lighter, and now this.

But it was a week after it had all happened that really broke her.

He had gone to the flat to get a few things and he came back home with a bag over his arm and he dropped it on the ground and sank down on the couch, shut his eyes, and pinched the bridge of his nose. It was almost as though he didn't have the strength to make it to his room.

"Sean?" asked Caiti. She had been sitting on the floor working on an idea she'd had for how to alter her recipes enough to combine them without any of the ingredients nullifying the others.

He didn't answer her.

"Was she there?" she asked. He barely nodded.

Caiti got up and went over to him.

"Can I sit with you?"

He shrugged but kept his eyes shut. His eyelashes looked wet.

So Caiti sat beside him and they both sank low into the cushions. She said nothing, just stayed there with him, didn't point out that she knew he was crying, and they sat like that for nearly an hour until Sean finally pushed himself back up and said a very small, "Thank you."

Then he went back into his bedroom and shut the door.

Caiti did not move. She kept trying to imagine what he was going through and she couldn't. Even though she and Marlowe had had big fights where they hadn't talked for a while, she had never really considered that they would never talk again. She just couldn't imagine anything as final as breaking up.

Their world's were so intertwined. He was such a permanent fixture of her everyday. To just not have him there anymore was heartbreaking to think about.

Marlowe showed up after he got off work. She could tell he had been home to shower, because his hair was still wet.

"I've got to think about something else," she whispered. "I'm taking this all in too much."

"Let go for a walk," Marlowe said.

They went back to his house first, for the better walking paths, and then they started off, not talking much at first.

"I just have to tell you about this afternoon," Caiti said, reaching for Marlowe's hand. "And then I'm not going to think about it anymore for now. We'll talk about something else."

"What happened?" Marlowe asked patiently.

"Honestly, I don't really know. Sean didn't say a word. But I know he went to get some things from the flat and he thought she wouldn't be there, but she was. I don't know if they talked or what happened, but he came back and he just sat on the couch and cried. I mean he was trying really hard not to, but he was. And I just sat with him. I didn't want to make him talk about it yet. But oh my god, Marlowe. My stomach... I felt so nauseous. He just looks so broken. It's killing me."

"Evelyn's not doing much better," Marlowe said. "I haven't seen her today, but she's been a mess all week." He had been checking in on her periodically.

"I should really talk to her," Caiti said. "It's just hard not to side with Sean. Even though I know where she's coming from."

"You don't have to rush into anything just to feel like you're being a good friend," he said. "She just needs time to figure out what happens now."

"Right," Caiti sighed. The full moon was just a few days away and she could feel the very slight shake in his hand where it held hers, one of the telltale signs he was starting to feel a little off.

"How are you holding up?" she asked. "Like with training and everything this week?"

He shrugged. "I'm a little sore, but I'm getting used to it," he said. "It's constant, honestly. Something's always a little off."

He took a deep breath and added, "But it was a lot better after last month. Taking both potions. It didn't take me out as much."

Caiti wasn't ready to let him try taking both at once without clinical supervision so the plan was just to resort back to the wolfsbane potion only for this month until they could set up a plan to try a second round of testing at the medical research clinic. Caiti, though, was still set on combining them somehow. She wanted one recipe. Two might work, but it was costly and time consuming and just wouldn't be easy for anyone to keep up with. She wanted something people could stick to, something the ministry would be willing to fund the way they were doing with the wolfsbane program.

She knew he was feeling a little down about this. He had been so eager to try it again, so ready to believe that because it had worked once, it would always work. But things just didn't work like that when you were testing a new potion. You couldn't just publish a recipe and call it safe after one trial. Mixing two together was a whole different thing entirely. Any time you took two potions at once you ran the risk of a counter reaction or some kind of side effect.

"I've been trying to figure out what I could eliminate from one recipe that would be replaced by something in the other. Like if I were to sort of combine part of one into part of the other, what are the active ingredients, you know? And is there something else that could be accomplishing that same thing? I think I might have figured something out, but it's so hard to know for sure."

"What is it?" Marlowe asked, and talk of what she was working on carried them all the way to the end of their preferred trail at the edge of the forest until they reached a small neighborhood with a few small cottages tucked away in the trees.

"This is the kind of place I imagine us living someday," Caiti said, interrupting her own train of thought. "Close to your parents, so your mum can visit easily. Lots of big trees. Quiet with a bunch of sweet, elderly neighbors who'll dote on our future kids."

Marlowe smiled. "Yeah," he agreed, and then he started to say something else, but suddenly just stopped. Stopped walking, stopped talking, stopped everything.

"What?" she asked.

He was staring at an empty lot with a for sale sign in the middle of it.

"Oh," she said. "Yeah, it's for sale, that's cool."

"No," he said. "It's— I drew that."

"What?"

"I drew that. That drawing I gave you. The one in the greenhouse. That's it. I mean without the house obviously, but that's it."

"You think?" Caiti asked. She tipped her head to one side in thought.

"Yes," said Marlowe, growing more earnest by the second. "Look, that big tree is the one that sort of draped over the front porch and— nevermind, I'll just show you. Stay here. I'll be right back." He slipped deeper into the trees on the empty lot and disapparated. Caiti stood there and stared at the trees wondering how similar it really was. She had spent a long time looking at that picture only a week ago.

Marlowe was back in less than a minute with the frame in his hands. "Look," he said, hurrying back to her and handing her the picture. Caiti looked. She looked at the drawing then up at the real trees and back down again.

"Oh my god," she said. "It's uncanny."

"Isn't it?" asked Marlowe excitedly. "Look, this is where the house would be. We'd have to clear this out obviously, but this would be the big tree in the front and this is like that one over the side of the house. And right here is where the little path up to the front steps could be. It looks just like it."

"Maybe you've been here before," Caiti said. "Maybe you knew this place subconsciously."

"Maybe," he agreed.

Marlowe stood behind her and pulled her hair behind her shoulders. He slid his hands down her arms and they looked at the lot together.

—

Much later that night, they lay in Marlowe's bed. Caiti had been asleep for hours at this point, but Marlowe had been in and out of sleep all night.

He couldn't stop thinking about that little lot full of old trees. His stomach was flip flopping like when they'd first started dating, like when he'd been so nervous every time he'd kissed her. He couldn't stop picturing the two of them in a house that was just theirs, in a bedroom they truly shared, without anyone's parents down the hall, without the reminders of their awkward childhoods.

But it was more than just the privacy. It was the whole idea of sharing a life with her. They already spent most nights together, already saw each other every day. But to actually have a home together that they took care of and made their own, that, he thought, would feel so much different. So much better.

"Caiti," he said into the darkness. He couldn't help himself.

She didn't answer right away, too deeply asleep.

"Caiti," he said again. He smoothed his hand down her back.

She started to stir.

He waited until her eyes groggily blinked open.

"I think I want to buy that lot," he said. "It would mean waiting like a year before we could actually move in together. But I think I want to do it."

"You're really going to build a whole house?"

"I built a whole greenhouse. And after the season's over, I'll have all that free time again. I could get started on my days off and then really work on it in a few months. We could be there by next spring."

Caiti smiled a little. "Okay," she said.

"Really?"

"Yeah," she said. "Why not?"

Marlowe kissed her. When he pulled back, she kissed him again, long and sweet.

"Okay, I'm going back to sleep," she whispered, snuggling into him again.

"Sorry for waking you up," Marlowe said. "I couldn't stop thinking about it."

She laughed quietly. "It's okay," she whispered. "It's nice to think about."