It was early in the afternoon, as much as Alex did not want to go outside and go shopping, the fact she had very little in the way of food left was what made her decide maybe she should go shopping, she had run out of most things and by now all she really had was bread and butter, she couldn't live off of that, she needed more to eat, and right now she needed so much chocolate to keep herself going.

She was sore, and tired, and she was pretty sure others were judging her, they had to be right? 34 week pregnant woman, in sweat pants and a large baggy blue shirt twice her size to cover her belly, followed by a red and black plaid shirt tied up around her upper half but not her belly, her hair was a mess and she didn't even bother to try to make herself look nice, she just wanted food, once she had food, she would return to her dark room and curl up to watch TV as she snacks, it is the best life.

She pushed her trolley slowly as she glanced the shelves, she hated the big muggle supermarkets, they were busy, noisy, not to mention they just had like...so much stuff, she did not want half of this stuff, why couldn't there just be a shop for what she wanted? Not all this other junk, who really bought Marmite? Who needed burger sauce? What even was half of these spices for?

The fact they had so much stuff made it so she couldn't get what she wanted! Why did the best flavours of crisps have to be on the top shelf? It was impossible to reach for her and it wasn't helped by the fact her stomach kept lightly bumping on the shelf so she couldn't even get on her tip toes, not that she could really lift herself up anyway.

"Reach...damn it..." She grunted as she hugged her belly with her right arm and reached with her left.

Heroes didn't get any appreciation. Tessa had practically worn her shoes out on patrol over the past three nights. She had kept watch for deadly beasts until her eyes had hurt, and spent so long in her fox form that she probably had fleas. She had even been one of the first on the scene when someone had called in the werewolf near Betws-y-Coed, which meant that she practically could have died, which certainly qualified her for a day or two off from errands as far as she was concerned.

Unfortunately, her mother never saw it that way. Still looking sour, Tessa checked the shopping list in her hand, and then paused to pick out exactly the right box of bone-dry, tasteless breakfast cereal, which she knew she'd never hear the end of were she to somehow get it wrong. Her mum didn't care that she was out all night, she thought churlishly as she dropped the box into the trolley's basket. She barely seemed to care that her daughter practically could have died. No, what mattered was the fact that Tessa had slept in past noon, which meant her mum had nagged and nagged at her until she'd finally gotten up and then sent her off to do the shopping.

Tessa painstakingly crossed off the Weetabix from the list, sighing as she scanned over the rest of it. Sometimes, she couldn't help but wonder if her mum's endless fussing was all part of a plot to finally get her to move out of the family home.

 She'd already secured most of the basics: eggs, milk, supper ingredients for the next week. All that was left were some crisps and some other snacks for her brothers. Heaving another loud sigh, Tessa leaned into her trolley to jolt it into forward motion once more.

The blonde witch was still tired enough from her full moon watch that she wasn't really looking where she was going. As she rounded the corner into the snack aisle, it was only by sheer reflex that she managed to halt her trolley in time to keep it from smashing into another one that someone had left in the middle of the aisle.

"Oi!" she snapped, more than a little annoyed. "You can't just --"

Then her brain finally processed the information that her eyes were sending it. Young woman. Very, very pregnant. Stretching hard to reach something...

"--do that on your own," Tessa interrupted herself, her face flushing with embarrassment. Recovering quickly, she pushed her trolley to the side of the aisle, and then stepped forward next to the young woman. "Um, do you want a hand with that? I can help."

At first she flinched from the shouting, was she being told off? Had she done something wrong? She was pretty sure she hadn't done anything wrong, how could she just from shopping? Or was it some weird law about pregnancy that no one ever talked about? It was just expected for you to know despite no one really talking about it, like taxes or insurance sort of thing?

She yelped in shock and stumbled a step back before catching herself with a panicked look over her face, a hand was lightly placed over her chest as she caught her breath, although it quickly turned into the woman offering to help her, the woman was looking somewhat red from it but maybe she was a witch? And just recognized her? As much as she hated it some pictures had been taken of her in her pregnant state and made it into gossip and quidditch magazines for a couple of days before they lost interest as the news always did.

"U-uh...right...yeah..." She slowly calmed herself as she gripped her own trolley for support. "I-i can reach it, I'm just struggling to do so.." She tried to recover some of her dignity, she wasn't going to let herself look all weak and helpless infront of the other woman, she didn't like the idea of just being some helpless pregnant woman.

"Its just...difficult to reach right now. I can't stretch properly." She hmphed. "B-but yes...please...the prawn cocktail at the top..." She sighed in defeat as she asked the stranger for help with reaching her snacks.

Tessa chewed her lip; she never would have guessed that it was difficult to reach right then. But she kept her snarky thoughts to herself as she stepped forward, standing on her own tiptoes to reach towards the crisps at the top of the shelf.

It was pretty high up. That was one of the most annoying thing about Muggle shops, where she didn't dare pull out her wand to summon anything from a high shelf. Finally, Tessa settled for a careful jump, which allowed her to swipe at the corner of the bag just enough to get it to tumble from the shelf and into her waiting hands.

"Here you go," she said breathlessly, handing it off to the pregnant woman.

As she did so, she caught sight of the other woman's face and did a double take.

"Wait. You're --" Images flashed through her mind as she tried to place the context where she knew her. It wasn't from the Ministry, not from the past few years, but before that... It only took a moment for it to click. "Cooper, right? You were in my year, but in Gryffindor. At H--"

Suddenly realizing where she was and what she was saying in the middle of a Muggle supermarket, Tessa blushed a deep, sudden pink and dissolved into a coughing fit.

"I mean, at school," she managed at last, attempting to recover.

The woman made it look so easy to grab the crisps, admittedly she had to jump still but even then it was over in a few seconds whereas for Alex it was taking...practically forever to do so and was causing pain to herself, her feet were barely allowing her to walk right now let alone jump, she wasn't even sure she was able to jump or if she was too heavy, it wasn't something she had any interest in finding out either.

She took the bag and put it in her trolley slowly as the girl started to recognize her, she braced herself for it, she struggled to go about Diagon without atleast a couple of people coming up to talk to her about her Quidditch career now, it didn't help that there was that slanderous magazine that tried to make up random gossip, Quidditch Facts Weekly she believed it was called, and it just went off as soon as she couldn't hide her baby bump coming up with all sort of rumours. Theorizing from the baby was some weirdo who ran the Tetra Wizard Tournemant. To the most damaging being with her team captain, the other Beater she played with, commenting that her own style was so reckless there was no way for her to stay on the team without screwing someone.

But luckily it was just from Hogwarts, which was a breath of fresh air at the very least.

"Oh...uh. Yeah, just call me Alex...You're..." She tried recalling the names of other students, she somewhat reminded her of someone. "Fox right? Or fox something?" She sounded half distant as she tried recalling who she was. "Am I getting close?" She asked as she looked back over the blond, she swore there was something to do with foxes as far as she could remember.

Then with a groan she leaned herself against the shelf, it wasn't the most stable but if kids could climb it then it was surely safe to lean herself against for a few moments, her hands started to idly rub over her belly as she closed her eyes. "S-sorry...just got to catch my breath real quick...they've not liked me going out today very much." Or any day recently she'd found.

"Fenneken," Tessa provided, flashing a friendly smile. "Or Tessa now."

it was funny, thinking they'd all moved on from Hogwarts' preferred use of surnames. Socially, at least: last names were still the typical mode of address at the Ministry, especially in the Werewolf Capture Unit. She'd never thought before that that was probably just a holdover from school, where most professors tended towards the less-personal use of surnames.

Cooper -- Alex -- gave a sudden groan and caved back against the shelf behind her. Brows knitting, Tessa frowned, eyeing the other woman's very pregnant state with concern.

"Do you need to sit down?" she asked worriedly, looking around the aisle to see if there was anything to offer as immediate aid. (There wasn't.) In the middle of a Muggle supermarket, it wasn't as if she could just conjure up a stool, but it felt as if she ought be doing something to help. She wasn't if they referred to the incoming baby or Alex's healers, but judging by the look of things, the point was probably valid either way.

Tessa, that was her name, so it was like...Electric Fox? If Tessa meant Electric like Tesla, either way she knew the name and would do her best to keep it in her mind, for now the main worry was the movement inside her, she hated it and wished it would stop.

Softly she nodded at her, it was kind of her to offer help, or atleast to sit down, but Alex took it as an offer of help, so she took advantage by putting a hand on her shoulder and leaning onto her, she made sure not to put too much pressure or weight onto the girl, she didn't want to drag her down due to how big she had gotten in recent months, her eyes closed as she gave yet another groan and let out a sharp hiss.

"Y-yeah...I could do with a sit down, I...I think there's a cafe nearby." Her voice was quieter then she meant for it to be but she didn't have much of a choice, a soft whimper escaped as her other arm gripped onto the shopping trolley to help her move with it.

"H-how have you been since school? You seem rather tired, you're not pregnant also are you? That'd make the school reunion more awkward, people might say you copied me after all." She tried to joke with a faint smile as she took a few steps carefully to get moving, it wouldn't be quick to get there, but it isn't a long distance, she just hoped it didn't get too awkward.