'Okay,' said Aberdeen, leaning forward with her hands clasped on her knees, evidently thinking carefully. 'Robin's... favourite colour?'

Luke, who sat cross-legged on his own bed across from where his wife was perched on hers, tapped his finger against his chin in thought. 'Hm... Red.' It was certainly the colour he favoured most in the scribbles of his Akiva had brought them. 'My turn. Robin's favourite food?'

'Easy, brownies,' Aberdeen replied instantly. 'Especially the ones Akiva bakes. His favourite animal?'

Luke frowned a little, deliberating his answer. '...Puffskein?' he guessed, glancing towards Robin's pet puffskein K7, who currently resided on Luke's pillow.

'Nope, nope,' Aberdeen said. 'Adon'd be know this one.'

'Oh... Oh! Lions,' Luke realised, remembering how excited Robin had been in the photo of him and Adon next to the big cats at the zoo.

'Too right. He likes lions, the colour red...' Aberdeen grinned. 'Kid's gonnae be a Gryffindor when he grows up.'

'Says you.' Luke stuck his tongue out at her. 'He'll be a Ravenclaw.'

'What difference does it make to you, anyway? You don't have a Hogwarts house.'

'I would've been a Ravenclaw if I were a wizard,' he told her loftily. They both chuckled for a few moments; then Luke sighed. 'Deenie, does it ever bother you that we have to learn this stuff?' He looked worn out; that happened suddenly sometimes, these days. 'We should already know all this.'

'Yeah, I know,' his wife said softly. It was still an unfamiliar feeling, Luke needing to be comforted. Usually he was the one to reassure her. 'Believe me, I don't want to learn this either. I want to remember it. But... this is the best we can do. For now,' she added. They couldn't ever give up on recovering their memories of Robin.

They looked at each other, and another, unspoken question hung in the air. They both thought about it, but never dared mention it... What if Robin came back not remembering any of this either? What if everything changed while he was gone? What if he didn't remember them?

Aberdeen was about to think of another question about Robin to ask Luke, in the hopes of distracting them both, when there was a sound at the door. She glanced towards it, calling out, 'Hello?'

Work was so predictable lately as was dramallamas over love lives, but if one thing was unpredictable at the current moment, it was seeing Gabrielle Murray entering St. Mungo's dressed in jeans, boots & a leather bomber jacket, along with a few packages, of which one had antique sketches of an all familiar children's story upon it: Peter Pan (which also was under the wrappings, including a signature that happened to say 'With Love Always, Aunt Gabie' with a few other bits).

It had been her boots that squeaked from the residue of snow on them, causing Deen to inquire a 'hello?' in a worried tone. "All children, but one, grow up," she said, peeking her inside the room, a broad smile upon her face. Although they were poor souls without a child (seemed a bit Pan-like, eh?), Gabie was quite happy to find Deen & Luke sitting there, apparently putting memory skills to excellent usage. It pleased her to see such progress for the couple - it was a good omen to see they were prepared to use their brains. Only now to get Robin back...

"No need to get up, lovelies," she chirped, placing a kiss on Luke's cheek & a half hug to Deen, "I can manage well, mind you." Gabie placed the gifts upon the nightstand table before pulling a seat up to join the couple. "I apologize greatly that I haven't been here lately - work has been keeping Tink quite the busy fairy.... after all, there's only so much that I can do before I must drop it all & head off to see wonderful people like yourselves. Do tell...is the memory recollection helping any?" She hoped so, even as she sat there, a comforting smile giving solace & comfort for a couple who needed more than herself.

Aberdeen smiled to see Gabie. It was a stark contrast to how she had been just a month ago, when she secluded herself from the outside world and seemed to want to have nothing more to do with a social life. But that was before Robin had been taken. Now, every visitor, every kind, familiar face, helped a little to fill the empty spaces left behind by Robin's disappearance. And despite the circumstances, it was good to see Gabie again. The last time, well, it must have been before she was Imperioused. Months. Gabie seemed much the same as ever, though.

'No need to apologise, Gabie, it's just good to see you,' Aberdeen assured her; Luke nodded his agreement. (He didn't know her as well as his wife did-- Gabie was Aberdeen's colleague after all, not Luke's-- but they had met before and he generally thought well of her.) 'Are these for us?' she enquired, touching a finger to the packages on her bedside table. 'Thank you!'

'The memories... aren't coming back quite like we hoped they would,' was Luke's response to Gabie's question. 'We're not giving up, obviously, and it's not as bad as it could've been... What was it the specialists said?'

'The memory specialists said it wasn't an expert Memory Charm,' Aberdeen filled in. 'So we have a better chance of getting our memories back than someone who'd been more thoroughly Obliviated--' like her friend Akiva, she thought unhappily-- 'but it's slow-going. We've started remembering how we feel about him though.'

'Yeah,' Luke conceded. 'So it's coming back a little, in bits and pieces. We know how important he is to us.' He smiled a little, trying to take heart in his own words. 'Not even magic can make you stop loving someone, not really.'

'Course the gifts were for them! After all, having no family of her own (well, aside Quince & her father) to call a son or daughter, Gabie was well to dote upon a few people she felt particularly close to. "Don't mention it, Deen! Family's family & you three will always be a part of the extended of the Murray clan."

Luke's words gave her hope for the family as it seemed the memories would eventually return to them. The last bit caught her, caused a lump in her throat & tears to form in her eyes. "S..spoken like a true Murray ought," she said with a soft smile on her face as wiped the tears away as she thought back to her own family.

"I know losing my mother was particularly hard for my entire family, including on her own father as he had lost another daughter a year before I was born. Mind you, I know it's not the same as in your case, but he stayed strong as the patriarch & what you've said, Luke, he lived by," she stated, patting Aberdeen on the leg, smiling. "You two can and will make it through with this! After all, when you do, Robin's going to be read Peter Pan-" Her eyes looked at Luke, then back to Deen. "Luke can be our Hook."

Aberdeen had, inadvertantly, she thought, managed to surround herself by a support network of people who knew how it felt to experience loss, pain. Akiva had faced the anti-muggleborn prejudices that culminated in her abduction and the loss of part of her memory. Adon had lived the difficult life of an Auror that made him very well aware of his own mortality-- not to mention that of his brother, after recent events. Colonel Kabir had suffered through the loss of his family. And Gabie had lost her mother. None of the situtation were exactly the same and it was difficult to compare many of them. To know she had a son, but not to know where he was, or how he was, not even to remember him properly... That was something Aberdeen shared only with Luke, but that Akiva, Adon, Kabir and Gabie knew their own share of hardships somehow made it easier for Aberdeen to open up to them. As though they could better understand somehow, even if they couldn't feel exactly was she was feeling.

So it brought a small, but genuine smile to Aberdeen's face to hear Gabie refer to her, Luke and Robin as like family. She rested her hand on Gabie's shoulder briefly, a rare gesture of camaraderie.

Luke chuckled at the role Gabie had assigned him, but pretended to look afronted. 'Gee thanks! I suppose I just have a naturally villainous air?'

'Stage presence,' Aberdeen corrected wryly. 'Plus, your name sort of rhymes, Captain Luke.'

'Hm. Of course, going by casting traditions, that'd make me Mr. Darling as well. So I suppose that'd make Robin... Michael?'

'Not Peter Pan, hm?' Aberdeen mused. Upon a moment's reflection, she added, 'Yes, I like that idea. Michael actually came home at the end of the book. And we'd never put up bars on the windows while he might still come back.' Maybe we'll put bars up once he's home again though. Anything to keep him safe.

Turning to Gabie, Aberdeen gave her former colleague a lopsided smile, raising an eyebrow. 'I take it you'd be Tinker Bell? Just watch where you sprinkle the pixie dust, Tink, I wouldnae want my wee bairn bopping his head on the ceiling.' It gave Aberdeen an odd sensation in the pit of her stomach to speak about Robin as though it was so definite he was coming back, as though she was somehow in denial. But it was far, far better to the feeling she got when she allowed her mind to stray to the worst-case scenario.