-Ten minutes after the last owl post to Francis-


-SNAP!-


Gabrielle had only enough time to grab the strudel from the oven and put in a container before apparating to Francis' abode. She had clearly not been around this abode in quite some time, but Gabie noted well that it looked good considering all.

She had landed at his back doorstep, knocking at the door, dressed in her own pj's but wrapped in a dark blue nightrobe, as if believing the winds wouldn't be too vicious. "Lemme in, Pep! It's bloody windy and cold! Pleaaaaase!"

Francis Pepper liked living among Muggles, they were interesting to watch and converse with, and increasingly left each other to their own devices, which made living amongst them more easy. Yes there were certain limitations on the amount you could do in your back garden, and the Muggle, built structure certainly took a genuine dislike to magical repairs on a long term basis.

With Ambrose and his younger brother, Timothy, away at Hogwarts, and his wife, Claire in St Mungo's having suffered severe memory charm damage during the summer holidays of 2008, Francis Pepper had woken alone on that October Saturday morning. That first moment of waking was always bliss, especially on a morning where he wasn't expected into the Department of Mysteries to repair time turners and knew he could so easily turn over and go back to sleep. Then he remembered the bed was empty beside him, and the bedrooms the other side of the hallway were empty.

Descending to the kitchen in his striped pyjamas after a brief visit to the bathroom to wash away the night, curly hair still unruly, Francis made the decision to cook himself the bacon and eggs he'd promised himself when he had made one of the trips to the Sainsbury's supermarket at the top of town. Admittedly not having a car made those sort of trips a little more irritating, but luckily the river was within walking distance and there was normally a safe point to apparate back onto the back doorstep without being seen.

Gabrielle's owl had come at a bit of a surprise, and within ten minutes she was at his back door, looking as recently woken as he was.

Latching the door behind her, he scooped the box out of her hands and drew her into a hug.
"Good job you got here now, the eggs are just right." He released her and trailed back to the cooker, scooping them out of the pan and onto plates, before adding the bacon and escorting them to the table.

The cutlery danced behind from the drawer, and set itself out. Self-setting cutlery was a magical luxury the Peppers did enjoy, though one of those things you had to watch if a Muggle called round at dinner. Once Ambrose had been seen chasing the whole dinner set across the kitchen when a Muggle had called at the door to try and sell double glazing. A confundus charm hastily cast by Francis had been enough to deal with the situation, though he'd been ticked off about it at work, and advised to improve his Muggle repellant charms.

Stirring the teapot, he sat down opposite Gabie and sighed contentedly.
"Now then. What's on your mind my dear?" He asked, dropping the teapot lid back and offering to pour.

She could not respond to him like this.

She couldn't. He was so...blissful & it only made her that much weaker in the knees when Francis gave her this kind of attention. The Ministry could be burning, but a waltz from this man would render her dumbfounded... What had she been thinking all those years ago with that 'no'? Clearly, it had been a damned childish reaction - one of fear & uncertainity.

Gabrielle snapped back to reality, staring at the very man she had rejected all those moons ago. A sigh escaped her lips; it was an indication she couldn't respond to his inquiry. Not with staring (more like gawking, her father would argue) at him right now. It was because at this very moment, Gabrielle Murray found herself wrapped in happiness.

She was sitting, prepared to eat breakfast.... with the man she loved. The man who she rejected but was the one who still loved her. "....It's nothing too troublesome. We can always discuss it later if you'd like. It's black currant, blackberry and raspberry strudel." Her lips curved upward into a smile to show how truly happy Francis made Gabrielle.

She knew now what she had suspected for the longest: She was still in love with him.

"Excellent!" Francis replied with a smile across the table. They tucked into breakfast together, but Francis couldn't help but be curious.

"The owl wasn't just a rouse to see me in my pyjamas then?" He asked, "I mean, you used to prefer to see me out of them at one point... but I'm not as young, so I don't blame you." Francis chuckled.

He picked reached to pick up his cup of tea and caught sight of his wedding ring and fell silent suddenly. Here he was, having breakfast in his pyjamas with his former lover, in her pyjamas. Although innocent, a peek through that kitchen window from someone would form an altogether different picture indeed.

Gabie choked into her cup of tea at his comment of no pyjamas; coughing, her eyes had widened in fact by that remark. A hand smacked him across the shoulder that was closest to him. "As to quote the only Lewis Carroll, 'Your hair wants a cutting,' Francis Pepper. I'm a lady, not an ale companion," Gabrielle warned. This was while in the back of her mind, she could still see a youthful Francis Pepper....

Her cheeks burnt a reddish hue and so she soon dismissed such thoughts for now. After all, Gabie noted his sudden observation of the wedding ring and in an instant, the guilt of her dream as well guilt weighing from how she made the boys feel at Easter holiday returned.

Claire was the one Francis had fallen in love with when Gabrielle left him and suddenly those feelings burdened her likewise. "...I...I want you to know something, Pep." Gabie's fingers holding the teacup were released as she soon put a hand over the hand without the ring.

"I know you love Claire as do the boys. She brought you the happiness I robbed you of and I just want you to know I do /NOT/ want to rush you into hasty decisions and I have no intentions in making you do that." A pause as her voice faltered. "Please be wise in what you choose and know whatever you may decide, I'll respect it, Francis.

Minus Quince and Gwyn, who I have hurt horribly, I admit.... You three are all I have. Father's always going to be my father just as Ignan and Johann will be themselves." She smiled weakly as tears fell down her face. "I want you happy. It's all I've ever wanted for you ever since I ruined that for us so long ago. I do love you, I'll admit that, but you must do what is right, what is necessary....an-an-and if that scenario excludes me, know I'll always be there for you for support."

Her hunger was now gone as were the words she had been holding in since the first owl delivered the post only an hour ago. Hopefully, Gabrielle prayed, Francis would truly understand.

"...I...I want you to know something, Pep. I know you love Claire as do the boys. She brought you the happiness I robbed you of and I just want you to know I do NOT want to rush you into hasty decisions and I have no intentions in making you do that. Please be wise in what you choose and know whatever you may decide, I'll respect it, Francis."

He looked across the table in surprise.

"Minus Quince and Gwyn, who I have hurt horribly, I admit.... You three are all I have. Father's always going to be my father just as Ignan and Johann will be themselves. I want you happy. It's all I've ever wanted for you ever since I ruined that for us so long ago. I do love you, I'll admit that, but you must do what is right, what is necessary....an-an-and if that scenario excludes me, know I'll always be there for you for support."

There was a pause, as Francis Pepper let these words and tears settle in his mind in his conscious. What had brought this on? Then, suddenly his mind made a connection to that odd conversation with Johann in the cafe. But instead of being angry, he felt strangely glad his curious friend had mentioned something of it to Gabrielle. He had been too afraid to say it to her.

"I..." Francis began, his eyes sliding to her hand on his, "I... Gabrielle, I..." His eyes returned to her tear-streaked face. If he didn't speak soon and firmly she would probably not want to utter this again.
"I love you too." Francis heard himself say.

It sounded so alien to hear him say it to someone other than the boys, or Claire in those moments where she almost knew him. But at the same time, it took him straight back to the time before he had met Claire, when he had freely uttered them to that very woman across the table.

He deflated, as if the words had been holding in his thoughts.
"I mean, I love Claire, but the Claire that I married, before the accident. She is the mother of my children, and I see her in their faces. But, Gabie, she is almost worse than dead to me now. A wife who doesn't recognise me, who doesn't reciprocate my love, who cannot care for her children. I can't help feeling this is no life for any of us, and..." He wiped away a tear on his own face that had suddenly sprung, "I can't help wondering if she wouldn't notice me gone."

The grip between their hands had intensified and Francis continued,
"I should have waited for you. I was impatient, and although I have had many happy years, I wonder if I ever made the right choice. If I could go back..." He laughed at the irony "... I spend half my life reliving as it is... I don't have time to waste."

He drew his chair back, and gestured to her to sit in his lap as they used to do, so he could comfort her, and also bury his own head in her shoulder and be held.
"Come, come here." He uttered softly.

Gabrielle's eyes widened to mini sickles upon his own professions. Small cold chills ran down her body with each sentence, or so it seemed. Watching him cry really hurt down deep; after all, Francis was one man who loved dearly those he held close to his heart.

The revelations about Claire stung the heart in the sense that Gabrielle saw the suffering in Francis' facial expressions as he spoke of it. Her own heart ached from his suffering, the longing of love, but majority of it came from the hand squeeze. It wasn't one a friend gave to another - it was one Gabie recalled when they were younger & they needed the other. It said "I need you; help me, please" so very clearly.

"..." Speak! her brain argued abruptly when she made it into his lap, silently shutting the curtains around them (The neighbors could freak out later, she mused). "I'm so sorry you must suffer through this - you & the boys... That being said, I want you to have a sense of ease...." A sigh as she looked into his eyes once again, mystified and speechless. "Let me help you. Let me love you. Let me hold you again and not let go. Let me ... let us be happy again."

Gabrielle smiled weakly. "I'll help you in this journey for as long as you may need me: with Claire most especially." Her lips kissed his forehead before chuckling somberly. "After all, you truly aren't getting any younger, Francis Pepper. Nor am I."

Her smile became softer, more gentle.

"I'll love you with my dying breath. Just know that you mean the very world to me."

And he was crying, out of pity and joy and for not waiting and relief at her feeling the same. Francis Pepper sobbed, holding Gabrielle tightly to him as she perched on his lap. The tears were hot, frustrated, at first, and then eased as he inhaled her scent, of faint perfume, clothing and her own scent beneath. It rushed his memories back to the times they had laid in bed together, entwined, her head resting on his chest, arm around his stomach as he ran his fingertips through her hair.

He withdrew and his lips found hers, to be kissed in such a way he had not for so many months, and also in a way that he had not kissed in many years. His heart soared and he felt like singing aloud and forgetting everything that tied him to the house, of all the reminders of the absent.

"You have no idea how good it is to hear you say those words." He whispered, "I thought you wouldn't entertain matters, what with the complications and the boys, but I think... I hope they will understand and accept." He kissed her again - that would never get old.

"Theta can help me talk them round, she has been surprisingly understanding, like a daughter of my own. She looks up to you."

Francis reached up to touch her hair, to trace his fingertips around her jawline.
"I look up to you, you clever, beautiful, exquisite woman. I love you."

His sobs moved her to weeping inwardly for brief moments as Gabrielle realised Francis wasn't torn over the revelations, but rather elated with the news. She could feel the soft air escaping his lips as well as nose when he exhaled onto her skin - like Francis was thinking, it brought memories back of happier times.

Times of when they had been young and so madly in love.

Her daydreaming only led to a snap to  reality when lips met one another in twenty or so years. Gabrielle sighed in contentment and in want of another while Francis spoke up about the next plans of strategy. She had contemplated in mentioning if they didn't understand, maybe... just maybe they would in time.

No puns intended.

The second kiss was just as wonderful and to hear Francis mention enlisting Theta's assistance as well as that the young lady saw Gabrielle as a maternal figure... it was so much to end up flustered about the situation. However, Francis' last words brought tears of joy down her face when the touch resumed.

She leaned forward, kissing the man's lips longer than Francis had, giving Gabrielle time to reassure, readjust and reconfirm her own emotions towards her one true love. Wiping the tears, Gabrielle chuckled as her eyes stayed on Francis. "You wonderful, brilliant man. I love you more than I ever did before. Dash the eggs - dash the bacon, the tea, the danish! I just never want to leave your side again~ ...... I love you, my darling Francis."

The Pepper kitchen was filled with joyful noises of happy sobs and kisses as the two reunited. Thoughts of his wife at St Mungo's were washed from his memory as Gabrielle was in his arms.

Hours later, breakfast cleared, the two of them sat entwined on the sofa in the living room, Francis having kicked off his slippers, but still in his striped pyjamas, bare feet entangled with hers.

"Its so quiet without them." Francis mused, his arm around Gabrielle, resting his chin on her head lightly. "During the holidays there was always a door opening, footsteps, a neighbour mowing their lawn. Apart from the occasional car, there's nothing. The house sighs a relief when Tim and Ambrose go to Hogwarts, but it misses their clutter. You must be lonely too - you have far more space to rattle around in alone." He traced his fingertips around the edge of her ear, and down her neck.

Feeling his body against hers from his head on hers down to toes touching her own made Gabrielle forget that she had worrisome dealings of her own back at the Ministry as well as the fact that her personal clock was ticking. True, it was nowhere as horrible as having a memory-loss partner, but still, grief was grief.

His sympathies were always something Gabrielle felt glad about but likewise guilty as well. He had two boys and a house - Francis was a married man. Gabrielle Murray? She was a single and confirmed bachelorette with an esteemed family background with its inheritance that itched to spread wealth towards. A single woman with two manor houses, a private villa that very few knew about and still, she was miserable.

"...Yes, I am lonely," she responded in an almost robotic response as his fingers caused her to shiver momentarily. "I'm one of the richest people in Wizarding England and yet I'm miserable. Minus, of course, moments with you and family - but mainly you."

A smile crept to her face thinking of just that. "Call me barmy, but I used (still do, her brain and heart argued) to think of what would have been. Namely if we /had/ children. Would they have had curly locks like you or wavy like me in my preteen years?" Her cheeks blushed profusely. "Listen to me - rattling on and on like an old crane. I'm just glad you're here to hold me and listen to this namby pamby."

"Money makes the world go round, but can't buy you happiness." Francis echoed her confession.

He chuckled at her thought of children.

"They'd probably be Ambrose's age or older I think. If we'd got married back when I proposed, I reckon it would have followed." He petted her head. "I think Ambrose takes after Claire and Tim takes after me. He's got my curls. They'd be beautiful, I know that." Francis smiled, "and have the most wonderful mother in the world. I do hope Ambrose and Tim can accept us. We know you'll never replace their mother, but I know they need someone here other than me. The past thirteen months have been difficult to negotiate."

Francis squeezed Gabrielle in his arms, deep inside he was longing to take her to bed, to drown himself in her scent and to feel close to someone he loved in that way again, but he feared such an action would mean he would wake cold, the whole thing a dream, and guilty of what he was doing to what remained of his marriage. In sickness and in health.

"If we had a daughter, I'm sure she would have been as beautiful as her mother." Francis assured Gabrielle, kissing her forehead.

Even with his sweet words and sweet kisses, Gabie felt the weighing of her heart tugging her chest tightly. How could she truly justify making Francis depart from the woman who gave him two beautiful boys and life after she had wrecked their own in the past?

Her smiles were beginning to fade - thoughts of how her mother had Jonathan in her life (albeit a short timed fling) which in turn brought for Quince, only for Vlad to come in and the two of them bring forth her own life. A heavy sigh escaped her for such thoughts.

Gabrielle was happier than she ever had been: her patronus, she found out as of late, was no longer a falcon as it had been for years, but rather a turtle dove. So, why suddenly did grief and regret wish to destroy it? Her body soon moved to where she could bury her face into his body this time around.

"I don't want to become the evil stepmother by any means but why do I fear I could be?" she whimpered quietly, quickly adding "I don't want you to end up regretting this." Damn these angsty emotional feelings.

"Shh now. I don't think you could ever be an evil stepmother." Francis patted her arm. "But if it helps, leave me to do the discipline until things settle down. Teenage boys are a law unto their own. As for regret... we'll cross many bridges. This isn't without complication, but I feel in my heart its meant to be."

He sighed and smoothed her hair.
"I think Claire always knew I still loved you. I never meant it to hurt her. I still don't mean it to hurt her, but I think she is beyond knowing now." Slipping his wedding ring from his finger, he examined it, the tiny scratches in the metal where it had been damaged in the workshop, and the wearing away that had occurred naturally during the years of their marriage.

"The heart is never an easy organ to please, is it?" He mused, rolling the ring between his thumb and forefinger, which were sporting a couple of nicks in the skin too.

A soft smile stayed on her lips in listening to Francis, opting to not speak but rather to listen. Listening to someone who spoke reason and understanding when her own mind spoke irrational fears and doubt. The hair petting helped too as it recalled memories of her grandfather, the medicine man that had medicinal advice even outside of being a former Healer.

Alan had dried her tears after heartbreaks, even as he was ailing himself. He had been her voice of reassurance as a young child to a young lady, which was up until the day he died. Alan understood her pain: after all, losing two daughters in mere years of one another was no easy feat.

Gabrielle knew suddenly in this moment what he would've done. Alan would have dried the tears by kissing them away, followed by telling her to follow her heart and simply to believe in herself. For Gabrielle to stop doubting...

Her head soon tilted upward and watched Francis play with the ring. The smile stayed. "Yes, tis a fickle thing, the heart, but it always knows what it wants when it knows what the want is. I love you more than I ever have but I can be patient; I can wait if you need the time to make it right. Don't go in and do something stupid."

Leaning up, she kissed a cheek. "Believe in yourself, Francis. Learn to love yourself and let your heart love you. Believe me, it's hard and it's so very perilous but you can do it. I'll be there every step of the way. I promise."