"Bis später." 

As the two other women slipped through the door of the coffee house, Jacoba left the her things on the table and returned to the counter for a coffee refill.  Over the past few months, she'd become so focused on the present that it hadn't even occurred to her that her university back in Munich was in the midst of their two month holiday.  But, Jacoba had been strangely relieved to find several clusters of German-speaking youths at the Backpacker's hostel when she'd checked in late Friday evening.  To one who'd never really had a long-term home she could call her own, this was about as familiar and 'homecoming' of a feel as she probably could have hoped for. 

Though there'd been a limit to how much Jacoba could explain to her new (and temporary) social group, they'd quickly gathered that a break up where she'd been the live in guest had led Jacoba to join their midst.  On the surface, at least, that was really all they needed to know.  Yes, the whole situation was complicated by hidden worlds and people for whom magic was more than a trick of the eye but all those details had little baring on the immediate weight of the situation. 

That, perhaps, was the loneliest part of the whole situation.  There really wasn't anyone she could talk to who would really understand.  She had plenty of witches and wizards as friends that, superficially, understood the challenges she was facing.  But, they knew nothing of her own history.  As that best friend who'd been there during her darkest days and her recovery, Erwin Koppel was the one person who was in position to understand best and, even there, fear of the Ministry's reaction if she violated the Statute of Secrecy had forced Jacoba to refrain from explaining the wizarding side of things.  Erwin had offered to take the train from Amsterdam to help Jacoba get resettled or return to Amsterdam or Germany or, just in general, help Jacoba figure out the next step.  And, to watch her back in case she slipped up. 

Jacoba had, initially, tried to dissuade him from coming.  After all, without being able to explain the full story, how was Erwin really supposed to offer reasonable advice?  But, Erwin had insisted and his train was to due to arrive shortly.  He was meeting her at this cafe before checking in at Backpacker's.  She still had no idea what she was going to actually tell him - whether she was going to flagrantly break wizarding law and tell him everything.  Legally and biologically, he wasn't immediate family - but, for almost two years he'd been the closest thing she'd had to family.  But, then, that immediately family law was there for the benefit of legitimate witches and wizards.  Not her. 

With a fresh cup of coffee in hand, Jacoba returned to her table and flipped open the newspaper to the classifieds.  A daunting task in itself.  Was she looking for a flat?  Should she be looking for one in the muggle newspaper?  Was she looking for a job?  Was she staying at Reducto?  Those questions had been hard enough to tackle when there'd been someone else to tackle them with and she'd had a safety net. 

Now, there was nothing.  It was terrifying.

---

Title from Mary Chapin Carpenter's The Moon & St. Christopher

Middle outfit.

Darian was in no such depressing mood. Darian was on the prowl. His ensemble, barely eccentric by wizarding standards, was earning him plenty of looks here in Muggle London. In the case of the businessmen and the occasional matron, disapproving ones. In the case of all the pretty young girls and boyos... quite the opposite. It was why Darian liked Muggles so. They might snicker at first, but by the time their eyes traveled from the brightness of his blazer to the body beneath it, once they took in his wicked smile and his Renaissance curls and their gazes traversed the fit of low-slung trousers over (he'd admit it) lean legs and shapely thighs, he had them.

And Muggle girls and boys these days were so refreshingly frank about what they wanted once they wanted it. On the club scene, anyway. Three nights ago Darian had started a veritable mob in a nightclub over on the West End when he'd started to unbutton his shirt. He'd only wanted a little air... perhaps next time he would be more sparing in the application of his new magical cologne. Still, it was the thought that counted, and he hadn't let something so petty as a little cologne effect the ego-boost of a dozen different people offering to undo his buttons for him.

Hard to find busy nightclubs during the middle of the day, so currently Darian was simply strolling. He quite liked to kill time in Muggle London, and came frequently. Even without company, the city was enthralling with all its Muggle gadgets and its non-moving posters and signs. Darian might never understand how a cab worked, but he knew how to call one (just like the Knight Bus, only without the wand); he had a pocketful of strange paper money he had learned how to spend (the businessman in him had a good head for sums), and most importantly as long as he stuck to pubs and cafes he never had to make his own tea or a buy a paper when there were all those abandoned ones lying around, thereby avoiding displaying his utter ignorance at things like electric kettles and those little machines that ate coins.

Speaking of tea, he'd spotted a cafe - his current target, nearly as tempting as any lovely bird. He swanned in to buy a cuppa, tossing off a slow smile to the cashier in the process. But there were no loose newspapers about, which Darian did so love to read even if he couldn't understand half of the things they said. It was that half that made the reading so exciting - some thing never changed, politicians or celebrities or the like. But nuclear power plants, used cars, a new type of dental floss in the adverts? They were like puzzles to his greedily inquisitive mind. The only ones here were being read by various patrons, the lot of which included a married couple (the man reading while the woman attacked her fone with her thumbs all clickety-clack), a bored-looking boy in uniform cutting bits out and pasting them in a book, and... aha. A young lady, all criminally alone.

Darian approached, slick and smooth and with a dazzling smile.

"Pardon me," he said, managing to make even cupping his mug look like something out of a fashion editorial, "May I share your paper? I am ravenously interested in the news to-day."

"Of course," Jacoba offered reflexively, lifting her head just enough to be polite as she slid everything but the classifieds to the edge of the table.  She'd expected the fellow to take the paper and return to his own table; the British weren't nearly as prone to sharing tables with strangers as folks back home in Germany. 

It was a moment before Jacoba looked up, properly, at the fellow who was still standing by her table and a slight smirk spread across her features as she took in the man's appearance. 

He was dressed something like a fashionable train conductor.  Or one of those eccentric English professors from the US.  But, not really fully like either.  It was quite ... Jacoba couldn't put her finger on it.  Unexpected.  Intriguing.  Unusual.  But not in that horribly mismatched way that she'd come to associate with wizards trying to appear muggle and failing. 

"Ravenously interested?"  She took a sip of her coffee before settling back in her chair.  "That's quite a lot of enthusiasm.  Hopefully, genocidal priests[1] and starving kids[2] won't disappoint."  Jacoba hadn't done much more than skim the headlines.  Given her already tattered emotional state, that's about as far as she'd gotten. 

"I'd offer you a seat but I wouldn't want to distract you too much." 

1.	Article 1
2.	Article2

"Yes," he agreed. "Best to humor me before I explode." His eyebrows raised slightly at her words as she pushed the paper across the table to him, his enthusiasm slightly damped by genocide as one might expect; he slid the front page off the edge with one hand, snapped it in mid-air, and ended up with a nicely folded sheet that was just manageable for a man attempting to read with a cup of tea in his other hand. It was either the smoothest most practiced of gestures or really subtle magic; either way, he did it with an effortless grace that matched his elegant clothing and long, nimble fingers.

"Good with my hands," he would have said if pressed, and laughed.

He'd barely begun to read when she offered him a seat. Darian was an expert at deciphering that inviting edge to a pretty girl's voice, and at the sound of hers he glanced up with a sweet upwards curve of his mouth that flashed, briefly, into a glimpse of a dazzlingly white teeth.

"Thank you," he said, all low and pleased like she'd granted him his heart's desire instead of a seat, and sunk down across from her while he read. "I'll risk it." His eyes flicked over the headlines at top speed, absently setting his cup aside; slowly his smile faded into a frown. "Well, that's... terrible news," he said after a moment, and with another twist of his talented fingers folded the paper in half again, obscuring the rather depressing headlines. He rifled through the other sections next, left on the table when he'd made his first choice. His face lit up with he drew forth the Human Interest pages. "A much better match to this lovely day," he said, apparently talking as much to her as to the picture of the scantily clad celebrity on the front. "Ridiculosity, scandal, and strife with gabb instead of - " only the briefest hesitation as he sought for the right Muggle word - "Guns."

Privately, Darian liked to call them bangsticks. He'd never actually seen a gun, except in old illustrations of the "Dangers of Muggles," but an encounter with the toddler son of one of his Muggle flings had proven educational. Women went weak for blokes who got along with kids, and Darian had spent a happy morning sitting on the carpet obediently making "bang bang bang!" noises with his mouth and moving tiny motionless green men around. Little Travis had been delighted at the dramatism of his death throes. Muggles certainly were violent.