WHO: Danielle Kettleburn and Donovan Rookwood
WHAT: He comes clean with the truth about his current status
WHERE: Her flat
WHEN: Toooday?
STATUS: Finished oocly :]



After nearly two weeks of rescheduling, changing of plans, and owls full of apologies, Danielle was finally going to meet Donovan for lunch. Or...goodness, even though she hadn’t seen him, it had been the loveliest two weeks she’d had in a long time. During her long shifts and bloody patients, she’d been able to think about how their lives could set themselves back on the track she’d knocked them off of so many years ago. Her co-workers had teased, and for the first time in years she was smiling all the time and---it was just lovely. Danielle couldn’t think of another word. She couldn’t think of anything else but Donovan and their kiss, their kisses.

She knew they had been in a desperate situation, she knew that the circumstances had not been the best, but---he’d kissed her. And she had kissed him back, and he hadn’t pulled away, and it felt like Donovan wouldn’t have if the aurors hadn’t barged into the room. Danielle reveled in the thought of getting to kiss him again, so when she opened the door to her flat to reveal the man that had taken over her mind, she didn’t hesitate in pushing forward and kissing him soundly.

“Finally!” she chirped. Danielle chirped. That was something for Erin to do, not her.

While Erin had been grinning from ear to ear for the last two weeks, Donovan had been trying his best to push what had happened between them to the back of his mind…but he was finding it more and more difficult as time went on. They both had erratic schedules, and couldn’t find the time to see each other, but the delays were weighing heavily on the young lawyer’s mind. He had to talk to her, he needed to explain how things were, and why what happened at Mungo’s wasn’t something he was proud of, due to certain circumstances…

…circumstances named Cecilia Hooke.

It wasn’t that he necessarily regretted what had happened - because, Christ, it felt so bloody good to kiss her again – but he knew that it wasn’t right to lead her to believe that it was acceptable. He might have been a mean son of a bitch at times, but Donovan was never a person who could be described as cruel. He was also as loyal as they come, which made him hate himself so much more…especially whenever he saw Cecilia, and she smiled up at him with that sad smile of hers. He wasn’t sure what to make of her supposed ‘happiness’ at times…but he knew that for her, it was hard to come by. She told him that he made her happy, and the thought of betraying the trust she clearly had in him, it was just…it was hard.

He took a few seconds to prepare himself for the inevitable conversation that was going to take place once he stepped through the door, and with one last heavy sigh, he raised his fist to gently knock upon the barrier that separated him from her flat – a place he had never been until that point in time.

It was a little surprising, how quickly she had opened the door, but before he even got to complete his ‘hello’, her plush lips were against his. His eyes fell shut at the sensation, closing tighter when that guilt twisted around in his stomach like a snake, opening them to look down at her once she pulled away. He smirked faintly at the uncharacteristic greeting.

“I had a few things to take care of at the office…didn’t mean to keep you waiting.”

“It’s fine!” Danielle let out, turning back into her flat. She supposed they could go get lunch, but she didn’t particularly want to hold back the affection she felt bursting out of her. There was food in her fridge, she could whip something up really quick---hell, she wasn’t even that hungry! All she wanted to do was see Donovan, and kiss him, and hug him and---oh, what kind of vault had she locked her heart away in? She felt like a schoolgirl ready to go out to Hogsmeade, she felt like she was about to go meet her secret boyfriend in an abandoned classroom. “Do you want tea?”

She made her way to the stove, to set the pot anyway. Maybe, if she could distract him long enough, they’d scrap the lunch idea all together and get to the really important stuff. Like--when they could go out in public and have to deal with all the taunting and teasing from their friends. Allison had nearly died when Danielle had told her what had occurred, and had been owling almost daily for news (well---and to distract her from her missing family members, but). “I’ve got a few new recipes you ought to try.”

Donovan smirked faintly as she pushed aside his explanation, but it faded almost immediately as he watched her move further into the apartment, leaving him momentarily alone in the doorway with his thoughts. He watched her move from one place to another from where he stood, swallowing thickly around a knot of tension that had appeared immediately after her lips had touched his. Why did she have to be so happy? Why did she have to seem so relieved to see him? It was just going to make telling her the truth more painful…for both of them. It was his fault, and he knew it…his fault that he let things get as far as they did without trying to stop it.

But he didn’t want to stop it, and that was just more weight added to his shoulders. He knew, in the long run, it was going to be for the better…to tell her the truth about everything.

He just wondered how he’d be able to do just that, if she kept acting the way she was – like everything was lollipops and rainbows.

Shutting the door behind him, he took slow steps into her flat, looking around to take in the basic details of the room before he heard her voice coming from the kitchen. “Tea would be fine, thanks…”

Danielle let out a happy sound, turning from the stove to sit down at the table, Donovan slowly trailing in. Her eyes lit up at the sight of him, but---”What’s the matter?”

She’d realized that she hadn’t taken a more than a second to examine his face. Danielle was very good at reading people’s emotions---with language barriers and spell damage coming in between her and her patients, it was essential to be able to rate the amount of pain they were in. So...Donovan looked concerned. He wasn’t a normally chipper person, but he looked down right sour. Danielle hoped it wasn’t her, but she couldn’t help the feeling in her chest telling her that it might be the case.

“Is everything all right at work?” she asked cautiously. Maybe she was wrong. Or maybe she’d been too happy about them, and had completely jumped off track to where he wanted them to be. Or if he wanted them to be anything, at all. Donovan had made it quite clear when she’d returned that he was still hurt and betrayed by her leaving, so----maybe one short snogging session didn’t erase those painful feelings.

“Irritable client?” she asked weakly.

Donovan didn’t even realize he had been zoning out while Danielle moved around to set up the teapot, leaning his back against the counter with his hands slipped into the slacks he was wearing – he had just come from work, after all, and didn’t have a chance to change before apparating over to Danni’s place. His cloak had been removed in his office, and because he was so distracted by what he was about to say to the blonde standing just a few feet away from him, he had left it on the back of his chair. Blinking at the sound of her voice, Donovan looked up from where he had been staring (which was at nothing in particular, focused down at the tiles of her kitchen floor) in order for his stormy-blues to meet the warmer, brighter shade of her own.

Silence followed her questions, only looking away when she tried to take a stab at what the actual problem was, seeing how she knew there was a problem. He rolled his lips under his teeth thoughtfully, looking back at that random spot on the floor.

“…my clients are always irritable.”

He answered with a faint smirk as his eyes met hers, but it faded shortly after it had arrived. Looking at her from across the kitchen, Donovan’s stomach was twisted in that horrid feeling of guilt and betrayal, and he knew that he had to just…tell her. He had to tell her now, before she got to thinking that he was being evasive because of something she had done. For 5 years, that had been the case…but now, this was all on him.

Pushing away from the counter with a light sigh, Donovan approached the table she was sitting at, pulling out a chair beside her as he spoke.

“Remember how I told you we need to have a conversation?”

He asked gently, turning the chair towards her so that he could lower himself down into it. His hands reached forward to grab for hers, his thumbs brushing over the backs of her knuckles, focusing down on her smaller versions as he took in a breath through his nose, exhaling it as a heavy breath before his eyes were back on hers once more.

“…I think it would be best, if we had that conversation now…although I have a feeling it may be rather one-sided…”

This was not going to be good. Danielle felt like holding her breath while she waited for Donovan to begin, but all she could manage was to let her mind race and formulate the worst possible scenarios. But he’d taken her hands----but maybe that was to let her down easy. Maybe he’d been thinking about this, them, and had decided that it wasn’t going to work. Danielle knew that she’d been overly excited about the prospect, but she’d forced herself to hide away her feelings for Donovan for so long that when they burst out of her she could not control herself.

“All right,” she said with a nod, her hands gripping onto his. Maybe he was just nervous about jumping into a relationship with her, again. Danielle wasn’t one to be overly optimistic---she was more of a realist, than anything, but she could understand Donovan having hesitations about her. She’d left him from one day to the next, and it had taken years and death eaters for her to completely understand what she’d lost out on, he had every right to think that she was still a flight risk. Maybe he was just worried she’d leave him again, but she wouldn’t---she couldn’t.

This made her feel better, and Danielle offered a smile, hoping that the worst ways for this conversation to go were not the route Donovan chose to take.

Her nod was returned with one of his own, swallowing roughly as he tried to brace himself for the bomb he was about to drop. He wanted to feel like he shouldn’t care – like she deserved to be hurt by him, since she had done so much damage to the blue-eyed Slytherin who was sitting beside her at her kitchen table…but he couldn’t. No matter what she had done to him, no matter how much he thought he had hated her for so many years, no one deserved the verbal slap across the face that he was about to deliver. They had both made choices…but now, the only difference was that his choice affected not only Danielle, but another woman as well…another woman who, despite what other people thought of her, didn’t deserve to be turned away like she was nothing, like she meant nothing. That wasn’t true. She meant something to him…

…but Danielle, she meant everything to him. Even after all she had put him through, he couldn’t find it in him to love her any less than he had when they were children, back when they were in Hogwarts. He thought that love had turned sour…that maybe what he thought was true affection was just a childish romance, but when he thought that there was a possibility that she might die when they were at Mungo’s – that they both might die, he realized how incredibly wrong he was.

He didn’t hate her…he just hated what she had done. He probably wouldn’t ever forgive her for leaving like she had, but pain had turned into spite, and spite had turned into fury. But none of that mattered, not when he thought he was going to lose her…

His hands squeezed hers again, shifting on his chair to scoot more towards the edge, closer to her.

“I don’t need to remind you that it’s been 5 years since I’ve seen you…and I don’t bring this up to stir the pot, but just to point out that it’s been half of a decade since we’ve been together…” His eyes dropped to their hands again. “Throughout the years, I’ve tried to…’move on’, I suppose is the right term.” He sighed lightly, and then looked up to her. “No one came close to you, Danni. No one…fit.” A pause came, once again having to collect his thoughts, his gaze flickering back down to their hands. “If it were up to me, I wouldn’t have cared…I would have just kept waiting, to see if there would be someone else to feel that void…but no one came.” He ran his thumbs over the back of her hands again, almost like he was trying to comfort her in advance – like he was trying to soften the blow. “My parents, on the other hand…they grew impatient…” Eyes of stormy water met hers again, needing to have her full attention as he continued. He didn’t want to see that look on her face, he didn’t want to see the pain this news would cause, but he had to man up. He had to take responsibility, since he knew it would only hurt more if he put it off…if he made it seem like nothing was wrong.

“About a year ago, they arranged a courtship between myself and a woman named Cecilia Hooke….” He had to force himself to keep eye contact, keeping his hands around hers, still trying to ground her…trying to ground himself, since he wanted to horribly to stop with her looking at him like…that. As he continued, his voice was softer. “We’ve been together since Gabriel’s wedding…” A rough swallow came, and he looked away – not at their hands, just…away. “I didn’t think I’d ever see you again, Danni…and that night, at Mungo’s…when I thought that it could possibly be the last time I ever did…” He trailed off, not knowing how to continue. Silence fell between them, and then…

…the kettle was whistling.

How could everything have gone crashing down so quickly?

If Danielle wanted to be honest, the new found optimism she’d been clinging to had viewed his first few words as something extremely positive---her mind may have even jumped to something of a proposal. She felt silly or it, extremely so. But then, why would he go on about how he’d never found someone else to replace her, how he’d never filled the void she left if he wasn’t about to tell her that it was finally complete again?

Oh, God. Had this woman done it? Was she too late? Gabriel’s wedding had been in the winter, she’d received an invitation but thought it would be ridiculously rude to come home for a reason that wasn’t for a family matter or--Donovan. She’d always waited for a letter from Donovan, as he’d waited for one from here. Danielle’s eyes watered at his words and her thoughts; a little, just a little effort on her part could have saved them. Her grip on his hands tightened only because she did not know what else to do. If she moved to get the tea that meant this was actually happening, that she’d spent two weeks nearly pining for Donovan just to have him tell her that he was in a relationship and could do nothing about it.

With a squeeze of her eyes shut, Danielle finally get go of his hands to push away and take the tea off the stove. Her hands shook as she made for the cups and plates just to find something to do while she tried to figure out how she felt. Hurt, she was hurt that there was another woman in Donovan’s life, hurt because he’d kissed her when he shouldn’t have been. Sad because it had been such a terrible time to get their first kiss back, sad because it was only because he thought she was going to die and not because he’d had a reawakening of sorts as she had slowly been adjusting to. Danielle wanted to be angry with him, it would be easy to be angry with him, but she was a woman of logic. She knew that the surrounding circumstances hadn’t been in her favor, and she finally forced herself to stop hiding behind the tea kettle and turn around to face him.

That was a bad idea. Danielle put a hand to her mouth to stop herself from crying, because she’d really thought they were getting a second chance. How stupid of her to think positively for the first time in your life. Be real, how could he have just dropped his entire life for her, just because of one kiss? She’d left him, of course his life would be different---she’d expected him to be married by now, and look. A pureblood courtship that would undoubtedly lead to a proposal, or a betrothal if there already wasn’t one. Oh God, what if he was already engaged?

“What do you plan to do?” she managed, dropping her hands to her sides. Because it didn’t matter what he wanted to do. Right now, Danielle shouldn’t say a word, as she was now the ‘other’ woman, even though there was a build up of rage in her chest at this Cecilia woman. If he was sure about ending his relationship with Cecilia, he would have done that first, before coming to Danielle so that he could be with her. But Cecilia was still in the picture, that meant...she was something.