Who: Will Jugson & Anneliese Rosenberg
What: Crazy crazy
Where: Their house
When: Tonight
Oh, this was just
horrible. Anneliese felt like she was some rogue burglar, sneaking into
her own house at the dead of night. Or an unwanted fugitive that needed a hideout. Or, one of those homeless people she had read about in the Prophet a few weeks earlier that would sneak into your house during the night to sleep there, and then leave in the morning before you woke up. Yes, she felt like one of those people. Or, at least, wished the
tiniest that she sort of was.
Except, in reality, she was really just some knocked up eighteen-year-old that wasn't really doing
anything with her life because she had turned down the only job offered to her just last week (which Will also didn't know about) and was too afraid to tell her husband-to-be that they would be expecting a bouncing baby boy in nine months.
Yeah.
And, alright, she knew she couldn't hide from him forever, but... it seemed so much easier just to pretend that she could and he wouldn't know any difference. Anneliese
knew that this coming home late and then him leaving for work early deal could not keep on going on, and they were going to get out of this funky place they were in, just---
A light snapped on her right, nearly scaring the skin off of her. Anneliese stumbled jerkily right into a potted plant, almost throwing it to the ground as she tried to gain balance and keep it from breaking into a million pieces. Oh... dear, that did not help her case. Sheepishly, she turned to Will with nothing less than a caught smile. Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear.
"Hey."
Will Jugson was in a sour, sour mood. Which, really, was quite surprising with how well his week had started off. He'd even been getting along with
Longbottom, of all people, which would have normally meant that Hell was about to freeze over. So to have his best friend
and his fiancée behaving so bloody strangely, Will was starting to think that he was quickly going insane.
Well--or that he'd done something he couldn't remember, but he was leaning more toward the insanity plea.
Anneliese had managed to sneak in the past few days without waking him, and being out of the house while he was in the shower before work, so this time, Will was simply going to have to deal with losing a few hours of sleep. Their wedding was in two bloody weeks, and if she was getting cold feet then. Well. He wanted to know.
He didn't feel bad about scaring her, because if he'd waited for her to get settled then the excuses of being too tired to talk or something would grow irritating and Will just wanted to get things out onto the table. Maybe it was Anneliese that was going out of her mind, not him.
"
Hey," he copied slowly, not moving from his position in his chair. Will's ankle sat on his opposite knee and he watched her carefully. "Have a moment?"
Holy hell, he looked absolutely terrifying. Just completely--- like she was guilty, because she
was, obviously, he was a bloody Auror for crying out loud, there was a reason for that. Anneliese looked quickly away from him, focusing on wrapping her fingers around the pot as if trying to fix it back into place. There was absolutely nothing wrong with it, they had charms on every single thing in this house to keep them from breaking (big dogs always equally big messes). So. She--- just. Needed something else to stare at, because she really was a horrible liar.
"I-- er--" Anneliese looked up to glance around for a clock (of
course there wasn't a bloody clock in this room), eventually resorting to gazing toward the window as if looking for some reference. "Now?" Anneliese replied in a strained tone, leaning back slightly. She knew that wouldn't work, not even the slightest from the look of his disagreeable face.
This was-- it felt like she was under a very bright
spotlight. Anneliese frowned for a second, ready to just crawl in her own skin. Or into it. Fall into a random black hole, perhaps. Disappear. Finally, she let go of the pot to wrap herself up in her arms. "It's late."
"And...where do you have to go tomorrow?" Will did honestly hate being rude to Anneliese, with four sisters he had grown a tendency to simply let women win petty arguments, but; he also knew when to put his foot down to get what he wanted, and he simply was not going to let the woman who was going to be his wife (his
wife) act as if she'd just committed a sinister deed.
Will pushed himself up and out of his seat, shaking his head with a breath that signaled impatience. He knew Anneliese wasn't the calmest of people when it came to things that bothered her. He'd known her for long enough to know that she was a terrible liar and would probably break down into tears about a minute into their conversation as that was the norm for one of their serious conversations. It wasn't a bad thing--he knew when she was able to control her emotions that she honestly did discuss things to its fullest, but--it was frustrating and sort of scary when the big, blindingly
white thing that Will believed
had to be upsetting her was just two weeks away.
Great--every time he told himself the wedding was
two weeks away, the knot in his stomach grew bigger and a wave of nausea hit.
"Look---just tell me what's wrong, I'm not going to let you go to bed until you do, so." He shrugged. They needed to do this.
Oh, but it
felt like she had committed a sinister deed. Anneliese tugged her arms tighter around herself knowing full well she deserved that jab. Her fingers curled around her elbows as her toes tried to curl underneath her feet. This was--- not good. She could practically feel her body getting ready to start sobbing. Or, perhaps, vomit unnecessarily, because that was plausible too.
Anneliese pulled her lips back tight, refraining from letting her eyes swell up. She had definitely cried enough in the past few days, as Juliet had so bluntly told her in her own Juliet-way, but it seemed there was still some water left in her. Her shoulders scrunched up toward her neck, and Anneliese half turned away from Will. It made her feel like a liar when she didn't look at people.
"Nothing's--- wrong," she sniffed, her mouth breaking into a deep, uncontrollable frown. This was--- horrible, completely horrible, she couldn't even think of anything to
say that would make any form of a mildly acceptable lie, what was she suppose to
say? She couldn't lie to him, she didn't
want to lie to him. But, but---
"
Willlll," Anneliese moaned randomly, her hands already in her face as she suddenly moved to shove herself into him. Her shoulders began to shake as she pressed her face into his shirt.
"Oh, hell," he involuntarily let out as his arms wrapped around her. Will held his breath as he pulled Anneliese close, mind whirling with what he could say. It had to be the wedding, right? She was getting worried, they were too young, she wanted to wait for awhile---his job was too dangerous? What could it
be? Less than a week ago they'd been making final arrangement as happy as could be, what could have caused her to snap? Will glowered for a moment as the though of Anneliese's
friends had brainwashed her into thinking getting married was a bad idea, but that was quickly pushed away as he recalled how bloody helpful (
too helpful) they'd been with preparations.
So what the
hell was wrong with her?
"Anneliese," Will said soothingly, moving back to sit back into his chair, pulling her down on top of him. He needed some time to settle his own beating heart; this wasn't about school, this wasn't about...what else couldn't it be about. It
had to be about them, she wouldn't be avoiding
him if it wasn't about
them, but what was
wrong with them other than their impending nuptials?
Not that there was anything
wrong with that, but what else could it be. Maybe she killed one of their dogs; he hadn't seen Leela all day. Ooh--maybe the blasted cat.
"Just--just tell me what's wrong," he said softly, hand rubbing up and down her back.
She pushed her face harder into his shoulder, completely unwilling to speak. Couldn't he read
minds? What was so horrible about just doing that, now? Anneliese particularly couldn't care less if he fished around for what she was so upset over. It would be
so much easier, and a lot less horrifying if he would just instantly know to relay to her whether she should sob even more or just relax because she was being ridiculous.
No, no,
no, she couldn't tell him, she could not bare to see his face when she did, it would just be--- just be--- too
much. Anneliese had no idea what he must be thinking right now, as she broke out into full-out sobs, but most likely something along the lines that she was absolutely bloody insane. Which only made her cry
harder, because why would Will ever want to marry her when he was convinced she really
did belong in some stupid mental health ward.
Oh-- Oh! She was---
insane and he wasn't going to
marry her now, and she was carrying around
his child and---
"I--- I---
can't," Anneliese choked out, turning her face away from him for air. Her hands dropped slightly from her face, but only so much that they could clutch onto the fabric of his shirt. This was almost as bad as her Sunday night. Thinking about that only led Anneliese to think about how she hadn't been home that night
either, and that was what Will was so
upset about and--- oh, she was such a horrible, horrible person.
"I'm--- I'm---
sorry, I---
Will---" she continued, trying not to moan between sobs, and curling into Will as seamlessly as possible.
All right--all right,
now he was seriously worried. He'd been concerned before, because he knew Anneliese well enough to know that she had panic attacks over the strangest, sometimes trivial things, but
this was far surpassing any sort of sob-fest she'd had before. What--
what could have happened?
"Anneliese," he hated that his auror training was kicking in, because that forced him to think the absolute worse. And--thinking of Anneliese in any sort of terrible situation was something Will had always refused to think about. His hands went behind her ears to grab hold of her face, trying to force her to look at him, "
Anneliese, you need to tell me exactly what happened, okay?"
He tried to search her bawling eyes, and Will felt his face heat up intensely. If anyone had done
anything to Anneliese--he didn't care if he got sent to Azkaban, people were going to feel his wrath for the next century, "I swear, Anneliese, if anyone hurt you---"
He stared pointedly at her, she
had to tell him what was wrong right
now or he was going to go out and do something very, very stupid to whoever brought on any sort of suspicion.
For a second, Anneliese fell completely silent as she looked at him. What exactly
happened? Did anyone
hurt her? Her eyes went wide as she snapped her mouth shut, knowing exactly what was about to come next. Fucking
hell, this was completely out of control. Not only was she an insane jobless
mess with no future but a baby, but he thought that--- something of a yelp escaped her thick lips as she jerked out of his grasp to smother her face with her hands again.
This was
horrible, completely
horrible to the point where it was becoming painful.
He was going to be upset with her, she knew. Because this wasn't something--- well it was
serious, but nothing compared to what he was
thinking, but
she took it extremely seriously because what if--- Will was an
Auror now, how horrible would it look if--- Anneliese felt stupid, completely stupid for... everything. Everything that had gone through her mind in the past few days, what she was doing to everyone else and--- just dumb. This wasn't--- they were----
"No, no-- no one--- it's not---" Anneliese began to whimper, trying to control her voice enough to spit out an audible response. Shakily, she took a deep breath through her mouth. Emmeline had just told her to say it out straight, because there really wasn't any other way to do it, but that
wasn't how she wanted to tell him, she wanted him to not worry that she had possibly just killed someone and needed his help to keep her out of Azkaban.
"I'm--- I'm---
pregnant."
"
Anneliese," Will let out breathlessly in relief, as if he'd just been released from the cruciatus curse (of
course he knew what
that felt like--) and a warm wave of---pregnant? She was pregnant. He blinked a few times, staring oddly at his fiancee; not--not in a shocked, horrified way, but more of just plain confusion. He was
surprised, but seconds ago he'd thought she'd been raped or had been an accomplice in a murder or someone had---so to go from one extreme to the very, very opposite was very difficult for his mind to handle.
Will's hand on her back gripped at the ends of her hair and he stared down at Anneliese's lap for a second before letting his head fall back against the chair, shutting his eyes tightly. He really felt like shouting at her for nearly giving him an aneurysm (or driving him to go out and kill some random muggles---maybe she wasn't the craziest one in the family), but the flush of this new, life-altering information was enough to knock him completely and utterly senseless.
Pregnant--a baby. "Anneliese."
He pressed his fingers into his eye for a second to try and force down the headache that was ready to erupt. They were having a baby. "Do you--what is it? I mean. Do you know? Oy, love--" Will pressed his lips together and kissed her temple before she had a heart attack waiting for his actual response to the news, "This is good. Stop crying."
A very
loud voice in her head (the same one that had told her to react this way) screamed that he was only saying that to get her to stop crying, because how could this be
good! It wasn't---
bad, but surely not--- getting a raise was good, finding out the train was on time was good, feeling
good was good, but having a baby was--- was--- well, she couldn't really think of the right word, but
good didn't fully paint the picture right.
Though, then at the same time, a much softer voice purred with joy that he had said it. It was good? It was good. But she definitely could not just stop crying. Anneliese didn't know what to think, or what to say, because everything had really just led up to
this moment, and now that moment had long gone and passed.
Anneliese didn't look at him as she laboriously tried to calm herself down, only accomplishing a quieter version of simple crying. It helped to know that he hadn't left, or even worse, reacted badly. Not that she thought he would have, just---
"You're--- you're not," she began feebly, now feeling completely exhausted. Anneliese rewrapped her fingers into his clothes and pulled her knees closer to her chest. "----
upset?" Finally, she looked back to his face, trying to pay close attention to it now that she could see clearly.
This kid was going to have a lot of work to do.
Will forced a smile, not because he wasn't happy about the baby; he was, because right now the actual reality that he was going to be a father to a living thing hadn't
actually sunk in yet. But, he was now amused by her, instead of wanting to go and out and kill something. Being a death eater and an auror really messed up the edges of sanity a human possessed, and Will tried very hard to not tip over into the absolutely crazy zone.
Though, if Anneliese was only in the beginnings of her hormonal stages, he wasn't going to be sane for long. He let out a breath, wrapping his other arm around her shoulders to pull her tightly into his chest. Will pressed his face into her hair and shut his eyes, willing himself to not explode from the vast stretch of emotions he'd just been through in the past--five minutes. Definitely not healthy.
"I'm not upset," he assured her, kissing the top of Anneliese's head. Will pulled back with a smirk, shaking his head at his nutcase of a fiancee. "Let's--get to bed." With an exaggerated smile, he pressed his hand to her stomach, winking greatly, "All of us, haa..."
