Chapter Text
Chapter Summary: The first step in solving a problem is admitting you have one.
Kinsie Marie Mackley
17 Years Old
St. Paul, Minnesota, USA
August 1992
Alone.
The word echoes around the crowded lobby of the hospital. It bounces off the crystal white walls, electrifies the air it takes up, and whispers quietly in her ear. It tells her that no matter how many people are around, no matter how close she inches to the woman sitting beside her, the cold feeling will not leave. It’ll stay with her, like a shadow on a cloudless day. It’ll haunt her, creeping down every hallway she walks and lingering in every room she resides. It’s unnerving, really, how even as she sits in the sunlight, staring out at the autumn’s day, she can’t feel anything but the coldness within her, like a blanket of fresh fallen snow has landed on her and it’s only December.
The rush of footsteps behind her does nothing to soothe her unease. The room is much too big and much too open for her to feel safe, yet as she sits in the centre of the room, she doesn’t look around. She doesn’t act on the urge to take in every detail of her surrounding, to make sure there’s not a man standing in the dark corners of the room, or hiding under the main desk behind her. She gives no indication that her current location is leaving her feeling vulnerable because the second she allows the paranoia to kick in, fear follows. And that…that she doesn’t want.
A shift in noise around her sets her off to his approach. She knows even before she turns around that he’s found her, can hear the relief in the way he walks, in the way his shoes come down on the clean tile floor. She knows he’ll chew her out for being down here, for coming early, without notice, and staying in such an open area. But she can’t help it. She needs to see him. Especially with knowing where she’s setting out to after…she needs him.
“Kinz, what are you doing here?”
His voice is low and rushed, borderline harsh. She knows he doesn’t mean to be. He just worries. And she hates that.
“Do we have somewhere to go for a minute?”
She keeps her voice equally as low as she rises from her seat, arm barely brushing against the cloak of the woman sitting beside her, who pays her no notice.
Her eyes turn to his, blue locking on brown, eyebrow raised with the question. He hesitates, enough to be obvious to her but no one else, before taking a step back and bringing out his arm as an indication for her to walk with him. She offers a tight smile before starting forwards, towards the hallway she’s sure he’s just come from.
He falls into step next to her, hand drifting to rest on the small of her back as his eyes flicker around the room. He’s attentive to any gazes that linger just a little too long on the pair of them or anyone who makes a move towards them—or their pockets—with no obvious reason to.
She would berate his paranoid behaviour (despite the fact she wanted to do this very thing just moments ago) but the slight pressure of his hand on her back is enough withdraw the coldness that she’d been struggling to breathe through without him. She can feel the radiating heat that always surrounding him, that always keeps her grounded and afloat. It is a safe feeling, the only place she knows she can get it from.
He continues leading her forward, hand on her back. He moves around a couple corners and then down a short set of stairs. He stops her at the far end of that hallway, pulling open a door clearly labelled ‘sleeping quarters’ before ushering her inside. He shuts the door tight behind him, fastening the mechanical lock before withdrawing his wand and securing the room further.
“What are you doing here? Especially now? Did I miss an appointment or a meeting or something? Wait, who was with you? You didn’t come out on your own did you? Is something wrong? Did something happen?”
The words flood out of his mouth, almost getting caught on each other as each new question is more pressing than the last. She knows that if she gives him an opportunity, he will continue to work himself up until he hyperventilates, which is something she doesn’t have time for today.
She steps forward as his questions go on. She presses her fingers into his chest, pushing up onto her tiptoes before she cuts him off mid rant, lips on his just long enough for his hands to find her waist.
“Easton, take a breath. I’m fine. Everything is fine. You didn’t miss anything and Halverson is around somewhere,” you assure him quietly, lips ghosting over his. “I just needed to see you.”
“Needed to see me? Kinz.” Relief comes with his sigh as he backs up just a bit, giving himself a little space to breathe. “I know it’s really hard, with it going on almost 15 months of this, but I can’t have you showing up at my work unannounced. It gives me all kinds of anxiety when your name comes through circulation.”
“I’m sorry. I just…it’s just one of those days and being cooped up in that house is only going to my head. I needed to step out and get some air, the little bit I can manage coming here, and just…to see you. You make it better.”
She rushes the words, keeping her voice low and focusing intently on his brown eyes. She knows the lies are looming ahead in the discussion and knows if she’s going to manage this, she has to take his defences down. She’s got to calm him down, get him out of high alert, and slip the lies in just under the radar. It’s the only way.
He sighs after a moment of assessing her. He can see her distress and reads it like she’s just had enough for the day. Fifteen months of being on lockdown, of needing someone to escort you everywhere, all the time, is taxing. It’s taxing on him, and he has been able to get out a couple weekends here or there or take a day or two to do whatever he wants. She doesn’t have that.
“I know I do, but this can’t happen all the time Kinz.”
“It won’t. I just had nowhere else to be today, no opportunity to get out.” She brushes her hair out of her face, resisting the urge to bite her lip at the end of her sentence. “I just…I needed time.”
He sighs again, using his hands, still perched on her waist, to pull her to him. He brings his arms around her back, squeezing her to him and just holding her. “I’m sorry things have been like they have. I do have time off coming up. Maybe I’ll see if I can arrange being somewhere else for that time, yeah?”
Swallowing heavily, she nods her head. “That’d be nice. I miss us.” Tears prickle in her eyes.
“Me too…”
The silence is deafening, almost worse than the loneliness that haunts her when he isn’t around. He seems to understand that as after a minute, he shifts his stance and tightens his arms around her.
“I’m getting off early today. Just a couple more hours then I’ll be home. We can just take some time, you and I.”
Her hands grab at the fabric of his robes, squeezing until she can feel her fingernails digging into her palm through the thin material. She presses her forehead into his shoulder, trying to memorize the way her body fits against his, the way that standing like this allows the hot air of his next breath to blow against her neck and send shivers down her spine. She breathes in his robes, drowning herself in the antiseptic smell of hospital that has a slight smoky edge (he’s probably spent half his day in the potions lab) and a light touch of lavender (he’s definitely been using her shampoo in the shower again).
Eventually, she nods. She agrees to his promise of time, just them. She agrees, and she manages to hold back the tears as her heart stutters a beat. A new kind of coldness takes over in her chest, making it hurt more than anything she had been subjected to in the past, more than anything she’s seen.
“I love you.” Her voice hitches, just a bit, at the word love.
“I love you too,” Easton murmurs, one of his hands moving to lift her chin, eyes soft, smile warm.
His lips lower to hers and she pulls up her walls. She puts the barrier between herself and her feelings and him because this is goodbye…he just doesn’t know it yet.
“I’ve got to go, but I’ll see you later.” His lips hover in her space, not quite willing to stop what’s been started but knowing he’s only got a couple more minutes before he’s got to be back on the floor.
“Okay…yeah…have a good rest of your day.” Her voice comes out steady and she forces the smile she knows he needs to see.
He smiles back at her, lips brushing against hers one more time before he takes the charms off the door and pulls it open. He reaches out his hand for hers, and she takes it. She ignores the butterflies that explode in her stomach, the anxiety that tightens her lungs, and allows him to pull her along until they reach the hallway that connects the rest of the hospital with the lobby. It’s there that he places one more kiss on her cheek before turning and hurrying away.
She watches him, waits until the ends of his sea foam green robes disappear around the corner, before she turns and finds Halverson waiting in the chair closest to the hallway she’s standing in the middle of. She closes her eyes for a moment, taking a deep breath to stop the aching in her chest, before she walks over to Halverson, stopping next to his chair.
“Are you ready?”
She nods, unable to open her mouth for fear she’d start crying right there in the middle of the room.
He gets to his feet, eyes studying her face for just a moment before his hand comes to rest on the small of her back. The feeling is so much different than the one Easton leaves with her, and that thought is enough to allow a single tear to stream down her face. She wipes it away quickly, allowing Halverson to lead her across the room to the apparition point.
There, she holds tightly to his arm as he turns, causing an all too familiar squeezing sensation to ripple through her. Her eyes squeeze shut tight against the feeling, only opening after her feet have been on solid ground for a couple of moments.
Eyes opening, she doesn’t spare a glance around the entrance hall of the ministry. She’s been through the area so much that the glimmering ceiling tiles and clean marble floors hold no interest to her. Even the ever changing fountain in the centre of the room, which has a different statue in the middle every other week or different ribbons of colour flowing in the water, doesn’t draw her eyes as she hurries to the lifts on the far end of the room.
She can hear Halverson’s footsteps echoing behind her and it helps soothe the spinning in her head a bit. She takes a slow breath as she punches the button for the lift up, mind settling on the procedure she’d memorized and would repeat as a mantra, something to keep her mind off of what the meetings were about, what she was planning on doing.
Fourth floor. Third door left. Up two, left and down. Wait for five, back up and right.
The lift rattles to a halt before her within a couple of moments. It’s empty and cold, just like it always is as she steps forward, moving to the back corner where she always stands. She makes brief eye contact with Halverson as he joins her and presses the button to close the doors.
Fourth floor. Third door left. Up two, left and down. Wait for five, back up and right.
Getting off the lift, she mechanically walks down the hall until quickly slipping into the third door on the left, the only unlabelled one in the hallway. She can feel Halverson shadowing her as she takes the stairs two at a time before looping around to the left. There, Halverson stops while she goes down a small rickety set of stairs, down into a space about as big as a telephone booth.
Wait for five, back up and right. Wait for five, back up and right. Wait for five, back up and right.
Time moves slow, much slower than it should. It seems to take hours for the lights in the room to flicker twice, giving her the indication that the five minutes are up. When they do, she finds her feet suddenly are made of lead. She can hardly pick up her legs as she returns up the very staircase she just descended.
Back up and right.
Everything appears just how it did five minutes previous. Three doors spaced evenly on the wall, three sets of stairs (one going up and two going down) are on the wall behind her and Halverson is emotionless and just barely leaning against the wall across from the second door.
“This one today.” He indicates the door across from him when his eyes land on hers.
Nodding, she shuffles her feet down the hall before reaching out and opening the door. She glances inside to find the room is very similar to the one behind the first door she usually goes in. The only difference is the table is pushed into the centre of the room with a large cardboard box in the middle of it and a man she’s never seen before stands just beyond it.
“Miss Mackley, please come in. Your personal belongings you were approved to bring can be placed in this box, along with your wand, please.”
The man’s voice is deep and smooth, his posture straight, and his dark navy robes orderly. He doesn’t quite make eye contact as he gives her instructions, and as much as it shouldn’t, she finds it soothing. He’s disconnected from emotions and she knows it’ll just add to her resolve.
Taking a slow breath through her nose, she steps forward and pulls the purse she had slung over her shoulder off. She shifts it around in her hands a couple of times before dropping it into the box. She then extracts her wand from her pocket, spinning it briefly between her fingers before settling that on top of her purse in the box. She takes a moment to find a comfortable stance across from the stranger as Halverson gets the room secured before moving to stand in the corner.
“You’ve gone over all of the details of the agreement. You have no questions or last minute concern or doubts?”
She shakes her head before he even finishes asking the question. She doesn’t have time to re-think her choices. There is no other way she can protect those she loves, no way she can keep them all safe and allow them to live their lives how they want at the same time. It can’t be done unless she does this. For them.
“Alright. We’ve got the agreement form here. All you have to do is sign on the line and we can begin.”
She steps forward at his words, finding that she overlooked the roll of parchment and quill on the table when she first entered. She finds her hands shaking as she reaches out and picks the quill up in her left hand. She closes her eyes as she spreads open the parchment, releasing a long breath before opening them and scrawling her name across the line.
She places the quill back down, quickly crossing her arms over her chest before retreating back to the centre of the room, the only place she really felt comfortable for the time being.
“That’s all we have to do, so, if you’re ready?”
She nods immediately, eyes shifting to the wand in the man’s hand. She watches him raise it before pointing it at her. Doubt flashes across her mind, images of Easton, of the places she’s been locked up in for nearly the last 15 months, of the man who she never really knew, of the body of the most important person in her world on the floor of a house she hadn’t seen in years…
It’s better for all of us, if I go alone.
Her eyes flutter shut, chest tensing to keep the oxygen in her lungs.
“Obliviate.”