Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

The office door slammed behind her harder than she meant it to.

Ginny stood in the doorway, coat dripping, hair still damp from the shower that had decided to spit ice water at her for the second time that week. The landlord had promised to fix it. Three times now. Three times he'd promised, and three times nothing had changed.

She peeled off her coat and hung it on the back of her chair, shivering even as the office heating blasted from somewhere overhead. The walk from the Tube had been brutal. Cold rain. No umbrella. Obviously.

Her desk was a disaster zone. Notebooks stacked unevenly, yesterday's coffee mug still sitting there with a skin forming on top, sticky notes plastered across her monitor like some kind of frantic wallpaper. She dumped her bag on the floor and made a beeline for the kettle.

She was mid-pour, watching the steam curl up, when Gavin Sinclair appeared at her elbow.

"Ginny. Good. You're here."

"Clearly," she said, not turning around.

Gavin was the kind of boss who treated every interaction like a performance, all brisk hand gestures and meaningful pauses. He never just said things. He announced them.

"The new hire arrived this morning. Criminal journalist. Very impressive credentials. I'd like you to meet him properly, get him oriented, show him the ropes."

Ginny finally turned, coffee in hand, and gave him a look. "I'm barely oriented myself. And I've been here three years."

"Exactly," Gavin said, completely missing her point. "Which is why you're perfect. You know the place. You know the rhythm. He's quiet. Needs someone to break the ice."

"Quiet," she repeated. "So he'll fit right in with the rest of us."

"Ginny."

"I'll meet him later. I need to settle in first."

Gavin opened his mouth, likely to argue, but she was already walking back to her desk, coffee warming her fingers, and he seemed to decide the battle wasn't worth it. He gave a little shrug and disappeared toward his office, probably to polish his ego or whatever he did in there.

Ginny dropped into her chair and took a long sip of the coffee. It was terrible. Instant. Powdered. But hot, and that was what mattered right now.

She started rummaging through the mess on her desk, pushing aside notebooks and loose papers, hunting for the flyer she'd shoved in here last week. The flat share listing. The one that had seemed so promising until she'd actually visited the place and discovered the bathroom window didn't close and the previous tenant had left a collection of mouldy takeaway containers behind.

Still. The number was on the flyer. She'd written it down somewhere.

She yanked open the top drawer.

Her stomach dropped.

Ink. Everywhere. A pen had burst, spreading a dark blue stain across the entire drawer's contents. Receipts ruined. Post-its illegible. The bottom of her bag had a matching stain from when she'd thrown the pen in there last week and forgotten about it. The whole drawer was a crime scene.

"Brilliant," she muttered. "Just brilliant."

She sifted through the mess carefully, trying not to get ink on her fingers, and finally spotted the flyer wedged at the back. She pulled it out, holding it by the cleanest corner she could find.

The number was printed at the bottom. Partially obscured now by the ink spill, a dark smudge bleeding across the last digit. She squinted at it, tilting the paper toward the light.

Seven? No. Looked like a one. Maybe. The ink made it hard to tell.

She typed it into her phone anyway, copying what she could make out, and hit send before she could overthink it.

She put the phone down and took another sip of her coffee.

The three dots appeared almost immediately.

The phone buzzed against her desk.

Ginny stared at it for a second. Wrong number. Of course. She'd typed the digit wrong, probably because of that stupid ink smudge. She should apologize and move on.

Instead she picked up the phone.

She paused, fingers hovering. That was not the direction she expected this to go.

She leaned back in her chair, coffee warming her hands, and considered the question. It was a stranger. It didn't matter what she told him. He'd never know her.

Ginny laughed, quick and genuine, and glanced around the office to make sure no one noticed.

She set the phone down and took another sip of her coffee. The office was starting to fill up, people drifting in with their own coats and umbrellas, greetings exchanged across desks. She should get to work.

The phone buzzed again.

She looked at the screen, considered it for half a second too long.

She glanced across the office. Gavin was nowhere in sight. The new criminal journalist was probably tucked away in someone's office getting oriented. The day stretched ahead of her, full of editing and meetings and the usual chaos.

She stared at the screen.

She drummed her fingers against the desk, debating. She should put the phone down. She had work. Gavin would come looking for her eventually, and she'd have to explain why she was smiling at her phone like an idiot instead of proofreading copy.

But the phone buzzed again.

She bit her lip, caught between the sensible part of her brain that said to put the phone down and the part that wanted to see what he'd say next. The sensible part lost. It usually did.

She snorted, quick and undignified, and covered her mouth with her hand. Across the aisle, a colleague glanced over. She gave them a tight smile and looked back at her phone.

The phone buzzed again almost immediately.

She stared at the question longer than she needed to. It was just a stranger. A wrong number. Nothing about this was serious.

She set the phone down face-first on the desk, a deliberate act of self-control, and picked up her coffee. Cold. Of course. She drank it anyway, grimacing, and tried to remember what she was supposed to be doing.

The ink-stained flyer was still sitting on her desk, half-ruined, the wrong number she'd typed still visible beneath the smudge. She should throw it away. Find a different listing. Maybe get a better landlord somewhere that wasn't falling apart.

Instead she folded it carefully and tucked it into her bag.

She picked the phone back up, trying not to smile.

She pressed her lips together, considering her options. Across the room, Gavin's door opened and he stepped out, scanning the floor. His gaze landed on her.

She glanced up. Gavin was walking toward her. She shoved the phone into her bag just as he reached her desk.

"Ginny," he said, with that theatrical sigh of his. "I asked you to meet the new hire."

"I said later."

"Later is now. Come on. He's in the conference room.

She stood, straightened her shirt, and followed Gavin across the office, trying to shake the smile off her face.

The conference room door was open. Inside, a man sat at the table, quiet and composed, hands wrapped around a mug of coffee he hadn't touched. He looked up when they entered, and Ginny caught a flash of something in his expression before he smoothed it away—hesitation, maybe. Or shyness.

He was tall. Lean. Around her age, give or take. Dark hair that fell across his forehead in a way that seemed accidental but probably wasn't. Round glasses perched on a nose that was maybe a little too sharp for his face.

But his eyes. Green. Very green. The kind of green that made you do a double-take without meaning to.

Gavin gestured between them like he was introducing royalty. "Harry, this is Ginny. She'll be showing you the ropes. Ginny, Harry. Our new criminal journalist."

Harry stood, offered a hand. His grip was brief. Polite. He dropped it almost immediately.

"Nice to meet you," he said. Quiet. Flat. Like he'd rehearsed it and then decided the rehearsal wasn't worth the effort.

Ginny shook his hand and gave him the smile she'd perfected for new people. Friendly enough. Warm enough. Completely meaningless. "Welcome to the chaos."

He nodded. Said nothing else. His gaze drifted back to the table.

Ginny settled into a chair across from him and waited for Gavin to leave. He did, eventually, with some parting words about getting them settled and making Harry feel at home, the kind of fluff that didn't mean anything.

The door clicked shut.

Silence.

Ginny leaned back in her chair. "So. Harry."

He looked up. "Yeah."

"Gavin tells me you're a criminal journalist."

"I write about crime," he said. Like that was the full explanation. Like that was everything.

"Right," she said. "I gathered that. What kind of crime? White collar? Street level? Organized?"

He shrugged. "All of it. Depends on the story."

"Specific."

She nodded slowly, trying to find somewhere to take the conversation. He wasn't making it easy. His answers were short. His voice was flat. He kept glancing at the door like he'd rather be anywhere else.

"Where were you before this?" she asked.

"Freelance," he said. "Based out of Manchester."

"Big move."

"Needed the change."

She waited for him to elaborate. He didn't.

"What brought you here specifically?" she tried.

"The job."

Ginny pressed her lips together, fighting the urge to roll her eyes. She'd met shy people before. She'd met awkward people before. This was different. This was active resistance, like he'd decided before she walked in that he wasn't going to make this easy.

"Okay," she said, giving up on the small talk. "I'll show you where everything is. The kitchen, the bathrooms, the printers that always jam. The stuff Gavin won't tell you because he's never actually used any of it."

Harry stood. Followed her out of the room. Said nothing.

She led him through the office, pointing out landmarks. This is the break room. This is the supply closet. This is where we keep the good pens, hidden behind the bad ones so nobody steals them. She made jokes. Drove the tour with the same energy she always did, the one that usually got new hires to relax.

>Harry walked beside her, hands in his pockets, nodding occasionally. That was it. Nodding.

"Any questions so far?" she asked.

He shook his head.

"None at all?"

"Not yet."

Okay," she said, and gave up entirely.

She showed him to his desk—a corner spot near the window, which was nice, she'd give Gavin that—and left him to it. Unpack. Settle in. Whatever he needed.

He sat down, pulled out a laptop, and started typing.

She watched him for a second. Quiet. Focused. Completely unremarkable.

Then she walked back to her desk, dropped into her chair, and pulled out her phone.

/p>

She blinked at the screen.

She glanced across the office, almost involuntarily, and caught sight of him at his corner desk. He was hunched over his laptop, typing steadily, his face completely blank. No expression. No hint of anything happening behind those eyes. He could have been writing an email or planning a bank heist and she wouldn't have been able to tell the difference.

She snorted, quick and undignified, and covered her mouth with her hand.

She smiled at the screen. Across the office, the new guy shifted in his chair, adjusted his glasses, and went back to typing.

She paused, fingers hovering over the keyboard. Across the office, the new guy adjusted his glasses and kept typing, completely oblivious to the fact that she was having the best conversation of her day with someone who could have been anyone.

She considered that. It was true. She'd already written the new guy off. Maybe too fast. But the new guy wasn't texting her about broken showers or making her laugh in the middle of a Tuesday morning.

She shook her head at the screen, grinning. Across the office, the new guy finally looked up from his laptop. He scanned the room, eyes landing on her for just a moment before darting away.

She didn't notice.

She laughed again, quiet and quick, and glanced around to make sure no one had heard. No one had. The office hummed along, oblivious.

>

She set the phone down, face-up on her desk, and pulled up her work. The screen glowed with half-finished edits, deadlines looming, the usual chaos. She stared at it for a full ten seconds before realizing she hadn't read a single word.

Across the room, Harry pushed his glasses up his nose and reached for his phone one more time. He pulled up the thread, scrolled through the conversation, and smiled at something she'd said three messages ago. Then he pocketed it, turned back to his laptop, and tried to remember what he was supposed to be doing.

He typed a few sentences. Deleted them. Typed again.

Neither of them looked up.

Neither of them saved the number.

Neither of them had any idea the person they couldn't stop thinking about was sitting thirty feet away, staring at the same blank screen, smiling at the same invisible joke.

The office hummed around them. Phones rang. Keyboards clacked. Somewhere, Gavin Sinclair was probably preparing another theatrical announcement about something that didn't matter.

Ginny reached for her coffee. Cold. She drank it anyway.

Harry reached for his. Also cold. He drank it too.

Two desks. Two cold coffees. Two people who had no idea they'd just spent the last hour falling for the same person.

The day stretched ahead of them, ordinary and unremarkable.

Neither of them knew it was anything but.