Remembrance day had never been easy for Mai, and it was always around this time that old muggleborn friends exchanged letters with her, wanting to meet for a drink and to catch up. While she never actually wanted to, she usually took them up on the offer. They needed to vent, and sometimes it was easier to vent to somebody who shared the experience. They had healed, but not completely. That, she suspected, would be a lifelong process.

She was exhausted, wound tightly, and generally felt raw.

Mai had left work earlier than usual. She needed to. If anybody had complained about it, she hadn't heard about it. And didn't want to. She went home, took a shower, and changed into comfortable lounging gear-- dark pajama shorts and a burgundy tank top. Instead of being left alone with her thoughts, she sought a distraction-- television and inebriation. Propped up on the couch with a half-empty mug of extra-dry champagne.

By the time Shrek met Fiona's parents[1], Mai was feeling fuzzy, warm, and just a little bit giggly, but the heaviness hadn't gone away. She heard a knock at the door, and was about to emotionally prepare herself to answer when Adon came in.

Good. She didn't have to move.

She threw her free hand up in the air, "Adoooooon!" Mai greeted him with the special brand of enthusiasm that tipsiness brought. He was just as much a welcome distraction as Donkey and Puss-in-boots.

1.	Shrek 2. Mai loves the first two Shrek movies.

"Maaai-iiiiiiiiii," he echoed back her inflection, closing the door with his foot, a bottle of beer in one hand, a bottle of wine in another.
As he approached the couch, he assessed the situation. That Shrek movie was on; she was in full-blown comfort mode. Before her was a half-empty mug. A mug. Oh, this wasn't looking good. They'd probably need to drink everything he'd brought.

Adon set the bottles down before settling next to her on the couch, shifting his hips to sink in and curl around her. He reached for the throw blanket on the far arm of the couch, tucking it around them. All settled. Arm now around her shoulder, he reaching out for his....

"Harah," he growled under his breath. "Forgot the glasses," he muttered, throwing off the blanket abruptly, shoving off the couch, and moving to the kitchen.

Once the Settling Ritual had been carried out a second time, Adon gave a sigh of satisfaction, taking a sip of wine.

"So..." he lilted, "what did I miss?" Adon asked. This wasn't the first time he'd sat through Shrek. But he always made it a point to not really  watch. "Have they met the dragon yet?"

He brought alcohol! What a clever man. She worried for a moment that she was too obvious about the fact that she was drinking to distract, but the fact that he was drinking with her alleviated any fears that he'd be judging. Tonight was a night to drink and watch Shrek-- a movie she enjoyed significantly more than he did. She almost felt bad.

Almost.

"They met the dragon in the first movie." She explained, "In this movie, Donkey and Dragon have babies." She paused, "It's evidence that just because you can come up with something, doesn't mean you should..." Like donkey-dragon hybrids. Sins against humanity. She snuggled up closer to Adon, "Shrek met Fiona's parents. They hate him because he's an ogre." Mai wasn't sure if this was supposed to be an analogy for real-life bigotry or not.

"We don't have to watch Shrek 2 if you don't want to. We own other movies." She was offering him an out, an escape from Dreamworks' best and most beautiful masterpiece. She looked up at him, expression serious and eyes slightly squinted.

"Your nose." She said, "It's perfect." It was practically an accusation.

Adon, who had been resting his chin on Maiko's shoulder, pulled away abruptly. "Wait," he said sharply. This took a moment to process. Withdrawing almost completely, he shifted to look at her with direct urgency. "How many are there." And how many was he going to need to watch, exactly? Just how many times had he already sat down to watch "Shrek" with Mai? And there was more than one?!  Khayim ba-zevel![1] Had he even wanted any of them more than once or were they all different? Was that why he was always confused? He'd just thought it was because of the imbecilic, asinine humor catered to tiny-bodied, simple-minded fledgling-humans  but could there  be founded reasons why all this escaped him?

And all this talk of miscegenation and cross-species courtship, social stigma... God. That was some liberal shit. Not that Adon didn't agree, but this was a kid's show. It was a tender mercy Dreogan was not in the room right now, or he'd be in full-blown treatise-philosopher mode and Adon'd probably would have needed to resort to like... sedatives or chloroform or choking him out with his own shirt or something to get it to stop.

...What were they talking about?

"No, no," Adon said in an easy lie and a smile that betrayed substantial practice. "Shrek XIII is great." Especially if she called him hot. That was how he was choosing to take that last statement. Leave it to Maiko to try to make someone feel weird about being conventionally attractive.

"Oh?" He said, lopsided smirk returning as he shimmined his way closer. Closer... and--slowly but definitely--closer... He pressed his face against hers, nose and lips smooshed against her cheek as he delivered a kiss. "There," he proclaimed, laying another kiss a bit closer to the jawline. "You've been touched by perfection."

1.	Roughly along the lines of "oh for F***'s sake...

Ew, he was so gross and sappy.... With a hint of arrogance confidence. She couldn't help but grin. "Terrible. You're terrible." She said, her tone making it very clear that Adon was probably the opposite of terrible. This goofiness was one of the things that made him easy to be around. So did his tendency to wear his feelings on his sleeve. She didn't have to guess what he was actually feeling, he would tell her. In a job where the majority of people she worked with had difficulty being open, he was a breath of fresh air.

Then came another knock, hesitant and then steady. The dogs immediately got up from their beds and ran to the door. Maslow let out the smallest whine, his tail wagging so hard it was hitting Crepe in the face. The smaller dog didn't seem to mind.

Okay, maybe she would actually have to get up this time. Mai wasn't expecting company. She stood up and walked to the door-- and the lightness of her body let her know just how tipsy she was. She hoped it wasn't too obvious to whoever was at the door. She nudged the dogs to the side and motioned for them to sit. They did.

She opened the door, only to see a cute delivery person, carrying a bag of food.

".... Uh, did you order food?" Maiko looked over her shoulder at Adon, and back at the delivery driver. It was then that she realized that she hadn't eaten all day. It smelled like curry-- one of her favorite things to eat.

"Me!" Adon called it, swinging his legs over the back of the couch. For several heavy steps, he sounded like a charging bull, the momentum of his body throwing him into several heavy steps before he caught his rhythm. Adon shoved his hands into his pockets as he approached the doo for the jangling handful of Muggle coins he'd been jangling around with since he'd left his flat.

Adon brought up a fistful of coins, counting out each of the eighteen golden coins and handing them over.

"Uh... thanks," the deliveryman said, holding both hands out to accept. He was still looking at the pile of coin as the door closed.

Adon turned back to Mai, arms full of takeout, and shrugged. If Muggles didn't want to carry around coins like everyone else, they should probably start accepting the Muggle plastic cards everywhere...

"Thai food--the green curry," he informed as he swung by the kitchen, pulling out some silverware and two plates. What were they expected to do--eat from those bendy white plastic abominations? He wasn't a fucking ogre. Returning to sit down again next to Mai, Adon was orderly and strategic as he laid out the boxes, opening each like an offering for Mai. "Rice, curry, more rice, and extra rice," he said, giving a smirk. "And..." he clicked open the final styrofoam box, clearly quite pleased with himself, "mango sticky rice." Damn, he was good. Adon glanced over, a little anxiously, hoping the offered food had its intended effect. He didn't expect a smile, exactly--he hoped for as much--but anything to help.

In all fairness, it wasn't much. Mai was hurting--and Adon felt pretty helpless about it. Food and drunk-watching Shrek was the best he could do at the moment--pathetic. He was still trying to get a feel for how the people in his life processed things like this. Adon had, for years, assumed others wanted to process the way he did... talking it out. However, his therapist had insisted that this was not always the case. Adon had tried to debate her out of that opinion, but there was compelling evidence to the contrary that even he couldn't ignore. Not two years ago, he'd nearly gotten clogged in the jaw by an angry Pratt when trying to talk about the loss of his parents.

It was just possible people preferred to hide these things away. He'd let it come up in its own time. Well, he'd try. He couldn't make any promises. Even though it was still a full week away--not until next Monday--Adon would be lying if he wasn't introspecting about his own Remembering Day, coming up: Yom HaZikaron. At least Israel did a proper job of remembering their fallen. There were built-in moments of silence, ceremonies... Days of service, things people could actually do to get out there, commiserate, and begin to process and heal. The overwhelming, visible unity when everyone--even people on the highways--would stand in silent remembrance when those sirens went off... Everyone served in the army in Israel. Adon was in a war of one sort or another the entire 8 years he was in the Army: the Second Intifada at first, then the Lebanese War just prior to his departure. Everyone had lost someone. Everyone had lived knowing they could be the ones lost at any time. The casualty rates were not as high as they could be, but it was a constant thought.

Here, though--and Adon didn't know if this was just part and parcel to Brits being pent-up emotionally--there didn't seem to be any attempt as a community; no significant displays. Shortly before Adon had arrived, Dreogan had remarked how there had been progress on that front: the Magical Community was holding a Memorial Ceremony at Hogwarts.  Due to the obvious aftermath of the terrorist attack on the stadium--and the deaths that followed--no such ceremony had been held since.  Which gave a sort of repressed feeling to this holiday; a layered grief and anxiety.

Hell, they were drinking and watching Shrek to remember the fallen. That just wasn't right.

Adon had fallen to silently, somberly doling out scoops of rice and drizzled curry. Recollecting himself, he gave a forced smile--less convincing than his insistence that he didn't mind watching Shrek. "You never did tell me how many of these movies there are..."

The appearance of mango sticky rice raised Adon to sainthood. Even if she wasn't particularly hungry right now, just knowing that such a delicacy was an immediate option was some sort of distraction. Or comfort. Both? The two were kind of intertwined right now. The smile Mai offered him was small but genuine. His thoughtfulness was one of the many things she appreciated about Adon.   

She dished up a portion of rice and curry and picked at it with her fork.

Adon was quiet. Too quiet. He wasn't the quiet type of person. Something was off, and sooner or later he'd talk about it. Instead of waiting for the tension to build up until he couldn't hold it in anymore, it was better now to give him an opening. Any opening. She pushed a piece of beef around the plate. "There's too many Shrek movies, I only watch the first two." Mai explained with a swiftness that indicated that it wasn't really that important. Because it wasn't. She didn't keep count at this point.

Now. The opening. Are you okay? No. It was an open question. How are you?. Too static. Be broad, but specific.

"What are you thinking about?" Mai asked, eyebrows slightly furrowed, concern worn plainly on her face.

"Noooooo, no no, Maikito," Adon cut in with a soft, melodious tone. She always did this. Every. single. time. But not this time! "It's not about me."

"It's about you," he said primly, lifting his chin defiantly. "I was thinking about you." His teasing smile grew muted as he mused. "And how you always put everyone else first." He set down his fork, hands moving over to her knee, where he gave a reassuring squeeze. That'd probably make her awkward as hell. Could be fun to watch...

Lips pressed into a smirk, he tilted his head expectantly.

He was thinking about her? For a brief moment, she felt a bit self conscious. Had she done something wrong? Surely he wouldn't bring her mango sticky rice if she was the Antichrist. But no. Mai hadn't fucked anything up-- instead, Adon was insisting that she always put other people first. Her first instinct was to argue against it.... But it only took a second of introspection to acknowledge that there was some truth to his words.

"Well," Maiko set her plate aside and put her hand on top of his, "I like putting others first. I worry." It was easier, sometimes, to worry about other people than it was to worry about herself. But it went deeper than that-- she genuinely, deeply, cared so much about the people in her life, especially those in her close circle. She threw everything she had into her relationship with students, friends, and family. She always had, and couldn't easily imagine any other way to be.

"And, I worry easily." She shrugged. Mai had spent the last couple months worrying about him. Whether he'd get through the dementor attack. It was scary, thinking about the resurgence of dementors in the area. The last time they had gotten this prevalent was during the war. She could feel her heartbeat in her head, the way things shifted and tensed up inside. At least now she could produce a mediocre patronus.

Now she was older, stronger, more capable. Not capable enough to keep students from getting abducted and killed, not strong enough to step inside a pub for longer than an hour. Not clever or wise enough to dissect prophecies to prevent atrocity after atrocity from happening. It wasn't as if she (or anybody else) was solely responsible for keeping the world from collapsing and falling apart around her-- but there was something sharp about the feeling of knowing how things could've gone, if one thing had been different. Mai was more than she used to be, but it wasn't enough. Even as she thought it, she knew logically, it wasn't true. But she felt it. With this mess of hangups, she was hardly qualified for the job she had.

Fuck, now she was being weird. She probably looked weird. Adon was the type to notice, and that knowledge only heightened her anxiety. Fuckfuck fuckity fuckfuck. How long had it been? Was she breathing normally? Inhale. Exhale. Mai hated it, how one stray thought led to an abundance of bullshit, to nameless emotions unreeling within her. A burning cold, not unlike a dementor's prescence. Had he said anything? Was she ignoring him?

Mai offered him a smile, terse and apologetic. What had they been talking about? She struggled a moment to focus, to remember.

Right. Her tendency to put others first. She worried.

She didn't know how to respond to that-- if she didn't put others first-- especially those who were in a more vulnerable and raw place than she was-- it could be a life or death situation.

Mai's throat felt dry and foreign in her throat. "It's nearly impossible not to put others first when you care." She cared deeply, about too much. All the time.

"I like putting others first."

"I know," Adon said with a quick nod. He pressed his lips together, thinking. "That's why I," he took a deep breath, pulling her in a little as she finally set down the cutlery, "love that about you." Pressed cheek to cheek, he listened as she continued. And when she grew fretful and silent, he tried to listen to that, too.

This was the most vulnerable Maiko had ever been around him. Every time he was troubled, she could read it. Adon wasn't a closed book; he knew that. But it was more than that. Mai was perceptive. She was good at her job--at getting people to open up. And it was because she cared.

Adon's job was also to get people to open up; recall painful details, get them to trust him, admit to things they'd rather not or, when necessary, to get them talking unguardedly long enough that he could catch them in a lie. He did all this because he cared, too. But he couldn't do that to the people he cared about. He didn't like asking questions, making it an interview. He'd rather wait until they opened. Or, if that failed, poke at the chinks until they snapped. That got them talking, too--albeit a little less ideal.

The people in his life--his mother, Dree, Raizel and Jacoba and Jonas--had all buckled eventually, one way or another. But not Maiko. When she was unhappiest, she threw herself into others' lives and wellbeing. And lately, she'd been throwing herself into his. Adon was grateful--she had become the center of a new life he was building up for himself. But it also scared the shit out of him.

And it wasn't doing Mai any favors, either.

"Well," he mused, running his fingers through her hair, "that may be true, but... we've got a problem. You know they always say do what you're best at... And I come from a first-rate family of worriers." Surely Mai knew the Eleors well enough by know to know this was without dispute. It was why Akiva fit in so well. And Maiko, too. At any moment, a person had only to look back 2, maybe 3 days to find multiple instances of world-ending worry and mind-bending meddling in response.

"And yet here you are," he gave her a light squeeze, lips curving into a smile, "keeping all the worries for yourself." It wasn't that he'd go so far as to call her selfish. But with work being more or less mindless these days, and Maiko being more or less distraught, Adon hadn't had a good, palpable thing to worry about besides himself in weeks. And as fascinating as Old Adon was to get to unravel and remember and obsess and stress about, Old Adon was also tiring as hell. And here Mai was, apparently sitting on a wealth of unspoken worries, that he hadn't even had a chance to touch yet.

There was a particularly loud and obnoxious moment in Shrek LXII, and Adon had to speak a bit louder to drown out the voice of Eddie Murphy. "You know I care, mn? So," he said, leaning forward to grab a bite of something only to realize, with a sigh, his major oversight: there was not a single finger food in sight. With a grunt, he settled back into the sofa. "Give me one of your worries." The Worry Gods demanded it.

He wasn't pushing, but offering an opportunity for her to share. Give him one of her worries. Maiko assumed he didn't mean a list of people she worried about-- their problems. That would've been an easy out, a loophole. He probably would've seen through that bullshit. He was an auror, seeing through bullshit came with the territory. Most of the aurors she'd met had been that way.

"Oh, shut the fuck up." She grumbled, fumbling for the remote to turn the TV off. Mai quickly looked back at Adon. "Not you. Donkey." Might as well turn it off. It wasn't like she wanted to associate a fun, relaxing movie with a moment of potential vulnerability. Talking about it hadn't been on her list of plans for the day. What if it went terribly wrong? What if Adon didn't respond appropriately? His family was pureblooded-- and while he could emphasize with some aspects of it, it wasn't his to entirely understand. Adon didn't have to.

And where to even start? The beginning of this year? Before then? There had been worries, g anxieties, stressors her entire life. Today though, was a reminder of the war. It had irreparably changed her-- and other muggleborns as well. Future generations of muggleborns would carry that with them. It was hard to explain, but she knew it. Something else she'd been struggling with for a year was the fact that she wasn't actually a muggleborn, though it was permanently marked on her. She'd gone through that, and she shouldn't have had to.

It felt wrong, to be angry at someone who was dead and didn't have a chance to explain himself. But she was.

"I. Have a lot." Mai finally said, getting settled and throwing her legs over his lap. She was trying to be calm. Trying. But everything was so heavy, tight. Suffocating.

  "But, who doesn't?" She was having difficulty finding the right words. "All Remembrance Day does for me, is hurt." It didn't feel like it was for the dead, or for the muggleborns who had been tortured and imprisoned. Sometimes she felt like it was for purebloods to see how far they'd come in bigotry.

Sure, maybe not for all of them. And maybe it wasn't a rational feeling. But it was the feeling she had.

"It was, what-- fourteen years ago?" That was when the war started, though the ending was thirteen years ago. She wasn't sure how much to share-- secondary trauma was a very real thing, even when the trauma described was old. She'd been a kid. Fifteen years old. "... I'm not sure where to start? Which feeling to process first?" Mai resisted the urge to throw in a hasty "Sorry!"

"Oh, shut the fuck up."

Adon froze, stomach lurching to a nauseous stop. He held his breath. He'd known this--forcing her to open up--was a risk. In only a couple of seconds, Adon went through hamesh daccot shel pachad[1]. Even when she clarified that the comment was not for him, he felt a bit shaky. He nodded numbly, trying to collect himself.

He ran his hand along her thigh, trying to soothe them both. This while thing might have been a mistake. But an important one; if she didn't feel safe opening up to him, if he couldn't come to mean the same things to her that she meant to him, he had no right to be building up his life around her.

As she spoke, Adon remembered this feeling from a project at school, before he'd gone to Beit Gaddol. He'd been assigned to interview a Holocaust survivor and record her story. He'd only been 10, and he'd shown up at the nursing home, pen and paper, to interview Inge Fackenheim. He hated it.

He hadn't felt prepared or qualified. He didn't want to shove his thumbs into an open wound. He didn't want to be congratulated--like his two pages of scribbles was a significant contribution to history and their nation. Like visiting a lonely old person was an act of charity that deserved a reward. But all of those things had happened anyways. But most of all, he hadn't liked what he'd heard, wished he could forget it--which made him feel like a failure.

The only thing that had made that experience alright was that Adon was Jewish--an Israeli kid given an assignment to learn about his heritage. On this Remembering Day, though, Adon was an outsider. He hadn't been here; he was trying to commemorate something he wasn't a part of. It wasn't him or his people who had been threatened with annihilation. But at least, to a degree, he understood the trauma: feeling like the whole world was trying to applaud your bravery, celebrate your suffering, and getting some sort of sick release from it. Like fucking Schindler's List. That wasn't even about a Jew. They'd somehow made a movie about the Holocaust another feel-good goy-fest. At least his Remembrance Day was established by the government and the people who had suffered most.

"It's different for everyone," he nodded along, agreeing as she insisted that everyone had their own worries. But not everyone took on others' so willingly. "Why don't you start by helping me understand." Mai liked helping people; maybe this could work. "What do you wish people--like me--who weren't here, knew?"

1.	Literally '5 minutes of fear,' a common Israeli expression

She didn't have to think about the answer to his question, and her response was immediate. "I don't know. Because I've never expected people who weren't here to understand." It wasn't theirs to understand. But, Adon was important to her. Significant. It wasn't his to understand, but as her partner... Maybe he needed to hear it to know why she was the way she was. She wanted to hear about his pains, his struggles, his history. It had to be a reciprocal thing, a sharing of stories.

"I guess. When we share our stories, they need to be treated as fact. But it's not owed to them. It's a gift?" Fuck, that sounded dumb. Mai cringed as she said it. But it's how she felt, when others shared about themselves to her.

She inhaled sharply through her nose, building up resolve. "I noticed the tension before the war officially began. It's still here. I mean," It had only been fourteen years ago. "Purists, they still want to marry their kids off to other purebloods. Hold on to tradition. But when tradition pushes down another group, it's..." Mai trailed off. She didn't have the word, she didn't have the energy to find it.

"I spent what was supposed to be my fifth year, being hunted by snatchers."If she talked about it fast enough, she wouldn't have time to think about the feelings behind everything. All Mai had to do was push through it. "I traveled with some other muggleborns. And a half-goblin." Most of them, around her age. There were a couple who were older. "There were some people willing to hide us." Gabrielle Murray, for example. "It wasn't safe to stay in one place, um. They caught us eventually." The witch looked away, not wanting to see Adon's reaction. "Marked us. Used unforgivables."

Mai let out a brittle laugh, an attempt to relieve tension. "I had a healer tell me that having the lasting marks was worse than the cruciatus curse. She was trying to be sympathetic. All I could think was that she obviously didn't know what she was talking about.  I'd take these--" She motioned vaguely behind, "Over that any day. And I was one of the lucky ones." She'd lived. She hadn't ended up on the Janus Thickley ward, like many other muggleborns or others who had experienced crucio. "I still think I was lucky."

She wasn't sure if she wanted to keep talking. She hadn't shared every single detail, but she said too much. Mai couldn't resist the apology this time, "Sorry."

It's still here. Adon nodded firmly. Didn't he know it. Adon remembered the shattered glass in Diagon just two years ago, and Reducto Records. The threats scrolled on the wall. The hate crimes against Jacoba were real and frightening and still had a place in their society. Even Zora Roh, his colleague, had demonstrated enough brutal purism for Adon to know that the Institution--even law enforcement itself--was willing to cast a blind eye to mild prejudice. Dreogan's office had its work cut out for them, for sure and for certain. Dree'd even pointed out that their language for comprehending such things--pure, half, and muddled Muggle--were all value-laden. It was one of the few things in Dree's book of theory-speak that had enough real-world application for Adon to buy into. He processed it a little differently, though.

There was nothing that made Adon want to contemplate murder quite so much as the thought of someone inflicting irreparable harm on a loved one. As Maiko related her experience with the Healer, Adon cursed under his breath in Hebrew. There were few things worse than the people who cared for you, who wanted to help, hurting you. Well-intentioned betrayal.

That was why this conversation was terrifying. What if it was him, next time? Adon breathed in heavily, shifting her so she sat closer to him. His fingers slipped under the strap of her tank top, thumb running under the muscles there to try to get her to ease up a little. She was taut--on high alert. As he did so, he felt the raised ridges of her scars. He was silent a moment, just taking in the feeling of her skin as he thought over what he could possibly say. It was important not to presume too much.

"Thank you for telling me. I know it's not easy." His touch was gentle, but his words had a hard edge as he added, "And don't be sorry--you do not need to apologize for what others have put you through. Least of all to me."