Who: Emmeline Vance & Anneliese Jugson
What: bonding!
Where: Emmeline's flat
When: now


"Your mummy is an excellent cleaner, yes she is."

Emmeline smiled down at the squirming baby in her arms, amazed that Henry could rest on her forearms while her hands cradled his head. Had she been this tiny? He was tiny, how could a person ever be this tiny? Her eyes hadn't left the baby for quite some time, even though she was supposed to be helping Anneliese clean up the flat. Her flat.

But, really, how was she supposed to pay any attention to piles of laundry and scattered books and shoes when there was a baby in the vicinity. No, it was a terrible idea to bring Henry along with her, if Anneliese was looking for some help. She supposed she should fake paying attention, as she had to cancel her previous cleaning dates because of the Potter and Longbottom fiasco. There were only so many 'really busy' days a library could have, and Emmeline had finally broke away from St. Mungo's and the Order house to spend some quality time with Anneliese and Henry.

Merlin, if she could do this all day, every day, she may have a chance of being happy.

"I think she's so good, that she should just let me sit here all day."

Cleaning, unlike to most other people, was not a chore to Anneliese; she genuinely enjoyed it. She more than enjoyed it, actually. She felt comfort and ease at the fact that the floor she was walking on was clean, the walls that were surrounding her were dust-free, and the objects everywhere else were spotless, put in their correct places. And fortunately for her, Emmeline's flat was nothing like that, giving Anneliese a way to clear her mind, which had been sorely needed with her past few days.

Of course, there were other reasons why Anneliese had so willingly volunteered to sort through and clean Emmeline's rooms, boxes, and other miscellaneous things that hadn't been touched but piled upon since she moved out from the Longbottom's but, that was why Henry was being such a good little helper today! Distracting Auntie Emmeline for the next few hours, like the good boy he was! Anneliese had long ago figured it was the least she could do for her best friend. Of course she accomplished many other things, like attempting to stop people from getting married, but Emmeline didn't need to be bothered with trivial happenings like that.

Sitting cross legged on the ground (she could do that again now!) and surrounded by boxes she had pulled over to herself (you were allowed to passively clean too), Anneliese had taken to systematically pulling out things that were either thrown out, kept or hidden. It was a good system; she was already on her third box and had only needed Emmeline's help once or twice as to decide whether to keep or throw out. Hidden things were obviously never taken out of the box. Opening a new box, she reached in for the first thing on top.

"What is this? Where does it go?" she asked, holding it as high as she could for Emmeline to see.

Bah, she had to get up. Emmeline carefully put Henry into his seat, a sort of...she didn't know how to explain it, really, a disc-shaped thing that rose off the ground and bounced. She didn't know, she wasn't very literate in the world of babies and their furniture. Emmeline made sure he was buckled securely and stretched for a second before making her way through the piles and boxes to Anneliese. It amazed her how she'd let her flat become such a disaster zone, but it didn't move her much. She could apparate from room to room, it didn't matter much how clean the literal pathways between the rooms were.

Emmeline realized what the object was before she sat down on the floor beside Anneliese, and she reached out to take hold of the small piece of fabric. A smile played on her face, and she held it up with two hands.

"This is the Hapsburg coat of arms, sewn onto a napkin owned by Maximilian I, Holy Roman emperor." Emmeline said this with ease, turning the napkin around to examine it in her hands, "Caradoc stole it from a museum in Vienna, you know---for Max." Her eyebrows crinkled at the silly joke, hearing her dog awaken and exit his cage at the sound of his name.

Emmeline tore her eyes off the napkin to look into the rest of the box, and she winced slightly. This was her box of Caradoc-related items; how had she let it get buried under everything? Emmeline folded the napkin back up and began moving some more things around, wondering what else she'd forgotten about.

Oh--- was she--- that wasn't--- oh--- Anneliese sat perfectly still, her fingers still clenched in her lap as if they were holding the--- Caradoc napkin. She tried to watch Emmeline closely, looking for the slightest sign or signal to rip the box away from sight because... because--- because just because she liked finding little things like this (Will had definitely never stolen anything for her from a foreign museum), didn't mean that-- well maybe Emmeline wasn't ready yet! To look at all of these things, and remember.

What had she done! In an effort to try and help Anneliese had just gone and probably made things worse! Emmeline had been appearing to being doing so well lately, and here she goes pulling out an entire box (she recognized that hideous pink journal he had given to her around valentine's day when they were still in school, as well as a slytherin scarf) of his stuff, which had the possibility to make Emmeline go into a-- well something she didn't want to bring on! Stupid, so stupid.

Anneliese moved to try and inch the box away from Emmeline, but quickly brought her hands back down to her lap as her friend reached into the box further. Then maybe... that was a good thing? That she wanted to, or--- Anneliese had no idea, but she wasn't going to mess up whatever was about to happen.

"It's pretty," she decided to say, propping her leg so that her chin rested on her knee. That was safe, simple observations were a good way to go. A small smile appeared on her face. "Will's never stole anything from a museum for me." Making Will look bad was safe too, that was bound to make Emmeline feel at least a little bit better. Maybe she should tell her about how he wouldn't let her drink tea that Rhys and Juliet had just sent a few days ago. He had been a stupid enough there that surely retelling the story would bring Emmeline's spirits up a little bit.

Emmeline let out a soft laugh, crossing her legs underneath her, "No, I suppose being an auror and all.." It was terribly easy to lie about her feelings toward Anneliese's husband; if it looked like a fake compliment, her friend was quite aware that she and Will didn't get on very well (though he had been rather nice at her last visit, actually offering her tea instead of simply dropping the pot onto the table). So--it had become second nature to force fake smiles when the subject of her husband was brought up, though at the moment Emmeline was feeling slightly smug. No, he hadn't stolen some museum's prized possession for her, simply because the owner's name was the same as her dog's.

She let out a breath, hands pushing against random objects that would seem like junk to anyone but herself. There were random knick knacks that Caradoc had left around her flat, a few gifts (the ridiculously ugly glove he'd given to her for her birthday two years ago, she never did get its match), and just--him. This box was all she had left of him, and Emmeline suddenly felt very guilty for not taking better care of it. Her eyes dropped away as she felt a familiar clenching in her throat.

A large part of her wanted to push herself up from the floor and change the subject, but Anneliese was her best friend. She was supposed to be the one who helped her get through this, right? Emmeline had barely acknowledged his death to her, in all these months; the Order made her feel like every aspect of her life had to be tight-lipped and secretive. But, sitting on the floor of her messy flat, Emmeline suddenly just felt like a heartbroken teenager, ready to spill everything to her best friend.

"What would--what would you do, if Will--died," Emmeline asked softly, keeping her head down as her fingers tugged at the tassles of the green and silver scarf she had pulled from the box. "What would you do?"

She had been preparing herself for this moment when Emmeline would finally ask her something really important for a while now. Or open up in any sort of way. She and Ellie had gone over this, they had even once thought about debriefing Juliet about what would be appropriate to say, if anything at all, because--- it was important that Emmeline knew they were there for her. That they always would be! Especially in times like these... so she would answer as fully as she could. Emmeline deserved it, and there was no reason to be short.

"I----" Anneliese glanced over at Henry for a second, just out of habit. But of course he wasn't doing anything wrong, it seemed like he never did. She swore, he was the most well behaved baby she had ever seen (which meant he was going to be a bad toddler? She hopped not). Even now as Max stood near him, a very large dog and much bigger to baby's eyes, Henry sat quietly, simply intrigued. But... Anneliese sighed, a frown appearing on her face.

It still hadn't really set in that her husband was an Auror. Yes, of course she knew what being an auror meant, and how every day they were out there catching... death eaters. And she was very aware of the possibility that one night he could just never come back, but--- not really, a part of that didn't seem real. Something like that didn't seem like it was possible to happen to her. But she should be thinking about the possibility, it was very possible.

"I---" she started again, pulling her face to rest more on her knee. "I don't know." Anneliese's hands went to her face for a second, her fingers brushing at her face. "I don't know, and---- I should but--- I just can't--- imagine what that would--- it would be so... hard to--- to do anything!--- I'm sorry."

Now, Anneliese was sure both of them would end up crying by the end of this conversation. She would at least try not to, she had promised herself she wouldn't when Emmeline finally brought something like this up, because it wasn't about her, this was about Emmeline.

Anneliese hadn't actually answered, or spoken a full sentence, but it was exactly what Emmeline had been hoping for. She couldn't describe experiencing the death of her husband, just as something hard, it was inexplicable, it seemed, and Emmeline needed that answer. "It's...it's good to know I'm not crazy."

Emmeline looked up finally, mouth twisting as she forced herself not to start crying (even though it was bound to happen, she was sure). She felt odd for attempting to compare her situation with Caradoc to the death of Anneliese's husband, but---the only thing that was different was a ceremony and a piece of paper. The Jugsons' feelings for each other weren't greater than hers because they were married; Emmeline knew plenty of miserable married couples. The feeling had been stuck with her since January, though; she was just his girlfriend to the public, just the supposedly idiot girl that didn't know her boyfriend was a death eater. Juliet was 'closer' to the situation, it looked like, to everyone, so---it was how she felt, at least, that she was not truly allowed to take on everything Caradoc's death brought.

Strange, seeing as she was the reason behind it.

She let out a shaky breath and leaned back on her hands. Emmeline's lips pressed into a tight smile, because she didn't know what else to do. "I've been having dreams, about--him. I hadn't, I mean--when it happened, I did, but---really vivid, it's..." Emmeline couldn't help the flush that soared up her neck and to her cheeks, "They're so real."

"Of course you're not crazy!" Anneliese replied almost immediately, her hands falling from her knees quickly. No no, Emmeline had no reason to think that, not at all! Depression and--- it was very hard to get over death in general, let alone get over the death of someone close to you. Emmeline and Caradoc had seen each other nearly every day! And done things together, everything had been going well (from what Anneliese knew) and--- going from that to finding out that he not only was dead but a death eater too... Anneliese wouldn't even know where to begin with a situation like that.

"You miss him," she sighed sympathetically, pulling her legs closer to her chest as her head fell back sadly to rest on her knees. Which exactly what this was; so sad. Everything wasn't suppose to happen like this, there was no reason why they should have. Everyone was suppose to be happy, get married and have babies and... live life! So why wasn't Emmeline allowed to? It wasn't fair! And--- just because he had done something horrible didn't mean she had to punish herself over not knowing.

"It's okay for you to miss him. And--- and be sad or--- angry! Everyone grieves in their own different ways and---" Anneliese frowned, and she held back another unhappy sigh. This was hard for her to get out what she wanted to say, and Anneliese had had time to think about it, so she could only imagine how Emmeline must be feeling, then. Reaching out, Anneliese shifted closer to Emmeline, wrapping one arm over her friend's back.

"Are they at least good dreams?" She hoped they would be, because if Emmeline was going to be tortured by the thought of him, the least her brain could do was make them worthwhile.

Emmeline turned her face toward Anneliese, hoping that her expression and the deep redness of her cheeks would be enough to explain what kind of dreams. She'd had nightmares in January, but they had stopped mostly because her sleeping patterns had become so erratic that she completely blacked out when she hit her mattress. But these, well. Half of them felt like they were things that had happened, and the rest seemed like they could have, and she was definitely not complaining for the way her mind was working, "They're good, yeah," she said with another breathy laugh.

She took in a deep breath, glad that they managed to not burst into tears, because that meant results. See--talking about him wasn't going to kill her. Her close friends wouldn't mention his supposed death eater status (even though...he had been), and the Order knew the truth. This would be okay. Eventually. Soon? Maybe. Her brain was shot from doing everything and absolutely nothing at the same time.

"I can just put this one in my room," she said, prepping herself to stand up. Emmeline felt like going through the box at this very moment, to refresh all of her memories. She'd wait until tonight, however, and right now she did not even want to fake clean. She looked to Anneliese, "D'you want to attempt to make something for lunch, or should we teach Henry about fine cuisine?"

Anneliese wasn't sure whether she was happy or sad that this moment of theirs was over--- had it helped? Was it not helping? What was going on in Emmeline's head? Actually, she didn't want to know that. Their conversation had been so short, so... the social aspects behind what had just happened was well beyond her at the moment. Later she would think about what had just happened, but for now, Anneliese was just fine with passing onto something else.

"Definitely fine cuisine!" she smiled, following Emmeline and jerkily standing up. Sitting down in one position for as long as she had had been a very bad idea. Now not only did her chest hurt, but her butt and knees felt like they were never going to obtain feeling again. It took a few moments to completely recollect herself (she was no longer pregnant, mood swings did not come as easy), but once she did Anneliese felt comfortable enough to maintain an upbeat mood.

"Even though you can't eat real food yet, you still like to watch mama cook? And Auntie Emmeline too?" Anneliese held Henry close as she pulled him out of his seat, a wider smile brimming as she tickled her son for a few seconds. "Smell the nice smells and see the pretty colors? Yes?" In the beginning Anneliese had refused to use a baby voice with Henry but... it was just too hard not to.

"I think that's a yes," Anneliese looked over at Emmeline with a laugh as he looked passively at her.