Aftermath
Percy leaves.
It’s clear that Dave isn’t interested in mediating anymore. Audrey’s pregnancy throws him and Mara for a loop.
He simply stands up and walks out. He hears Mara swear behind him and scramble to pick up her briefcase and papers. She trails after him.
“Percy! Wait, please.”
Percy stops walking, feeling numb. He turns to face Mara. She’s usually so calm and collected but now she looks frazzled.
“Are you alright?”
Percy’s not sure what he’s feeling. He’s not really feeling anything right now.
“I-I don’t know.”
Mara purses her lips and nods. “That’s okay. Listen, we’ll get a paternity test and go from there.”
“What if it’s mine?” Percy asks. He can’t imagine Audrey sleeping with someone else while they were together. He doesn’t want to, so he turns to the alternative.
“We’ll figure it out. But-,” she fumbles. “There’s a good chance if we take this to court and it’s yours that full custody will be awarded to Audrey.”
It’s like his throat closes.
“What?”
She winces. “Courts are usually biased toward the mother. And a newborn-, well they could make the case that you weren’t supporting Audrey during her pregnancy.”
“I didn’t know.” Percy croaks.
“I know you didn’t. But it can be difficult to prove one way or the other. A being a new mother would make her very sympathetic. I’ve seen it before- 9 times out of 10 custody is awarded to the mother. To keep the siblings together.”
“She’ll get the twins?”
Mara looks like she wants to cry. “I don’t-, I mean… Shite, I can’t lie to you. You’re like a lost puppy.”
Percy tries to not read into that.
“There’s a good chance she will.”
The world tilts on its axis. Percy feels himself swaying a little. Mara starts to get a little fuzzy in his vision.
“Oh my- Percy, here sit down-,”
“That’s okay.” Percy utters, his voice hollow. He takes a breath. “I need to think about this.”
“I’ll come with you-,”
‘Alone. Please” Percy pleas. Mara sighs, shoulders drooping.
“Okay. Please, call me when you feel up to it. This isn’t set in stone. We can get around this.”
Percy only nods and turns on his heels and walks away.
He’s not really sure where he’s going. He wanders around Muggle London for a awhile in a bit of daze. The events of the morning play over and over in his head, but it’s like he just can’t quite feel it. He’s somehow over and underwhelmed all at the same time.
He finds himself in front of his new flat, staring at it. His knees are aching, and he’s not sure how long he’s been standing there. He wants to knock on Penny’s door but she’s probably at work. So he uses his muggle key to open the flat and step inside. Shuts the door behind him. Locks it. Takes off his shoes and sets them by the door. He's feeling more despair in this moment then he thinks he ever has besides what happened with Fred.
The flat seems smaller with all the furniture in it. It’s still bare- no pictures on walls, no bits and baubles. It looks like a staged home ready for an open house. It doesn’t look lived in. It doesn’t feel like home.
Pathetic as it was, home was Audrey. She was all he had, and now he’d gone and ruined by doing something as stupid as asking for a divorce. She’s his everything and it was all ruined because of a little arguing.
He misses their life together. He mourns for what could have been. He can see it clearly in his mind, a new baby by Yule with Audrey’s brown hair and his freckles. A boy, maybe. The girls would love a younger brother. He could figure out a way to deal with Audrey when she got upset, he could take whatever she did. If just so he could feel anything but lonely again. They could grow old together. The girls and their brother could come visit them on holidays from school. When they graduated and brought home a partner Audrey and Percy could interrogate them over brunch together.
He walks over to the phone built into the wall, included with the flat and picks it up. He knows her number by heart. He could call her, apologize, explain this all away. And she’d take him back, he’s sure of it. Surely, she missed him.
Percy dials. It rings. And then-,
“Weasley residence,” comes his wife’s voice over the answering machine. “We’re not home right now, but please leave your name and message and we’ll get back to you. Thanks!”
Right. Audrey was a Weasley, wasn’t she? And that message- it was the same one that’s been on their answering machine since they bought the phone. But hearing her voice hurts. Badly.
There’s a beeping noise. And Percy realizes he needs to speak.
“Uh,” he says into the phone. “Audrey, it’s Percy. I-, I was wondering if…”
Suddenly he blinks and he’s back home, laying in the kitchen hallway. He can see himself on the floor, pathetic and bleeding and broken, whispering into the telephone for help because he didn’t know where Audrey was and-,
He drops the phone, shaking. It crashes to the floor and breaks, the back plastic popping off and skidding across the floor. It beeps in protest.
What had he been thinking?
Audrey could have killed him. She’d almost blinded him. She screamed at him until her voice ran out. She was violent with him, and even if she hadn’t been with the girls they’d seen it firsthand.
She was taking everything away from him, still.
His sense of safety, a sense of normal. God, when was the last time he’d ever felt normal? He couldn’t even date who he wanted to because of her. It wasn’t fair. It just wasn’t fair. Was this punishment for what he’d done? For being a coward during the war, for initially picking the Ministry over his family?
For getting Fred killed.
Percy bends down and picks up the phone, raises his arm and throws it back down again. It shatters against the laminate. It feels good. He sees the dishes he’d bought earlier, stacked up in a neat pile on the counter. He takes the whole stack and chucks that to the floor. They splitter and shatter, spreading out in every direction. Percy’s blood pumps in his ears as he throws open the cabinets next and finds the glasses. The silverware. All of them, he throws. To the ground. To the walls.
When he’s run out of dishes he yanks on the drawers until they slide off their hinges and chucks them at the wall. They’re cheap pressboard and collapse on themselves, splintering against the wall in a fantastic shatter.
Percy takes one of the kitchen chairs and throws it against the wall in rage. The chair doesn’t break but, the wall gives. The chair slides to the ground and the wall cracks. There’s now a hole in the drywall. Percy doesn’t care.
He rages. He seethes. He screams and screams and screams until he can’t anymore and keeps going. He doesn’t even notice the front door opening. Doesn’t hear the footsteps behind him.
“Percy!”
Percy’s mid-chair throw and he doesn’t stop. The chair crashes into the wall, making the hole in the drywall bigger. He wanted to tear it apart with his bare hands.
“Percy, stop!”
And then large, muscular arms are being wrapped around him, squeezing him tight. He struggles against it, trying to rip apart the bear hug but the arms remain locked around him. Someone lists him a little off the floor and drags him out of the kitchen. Percy tries to dig his feet in, but they’re wet with red, and he just slides.
“No!” Percy shouts, still fighting. He knows who it is just by their embrace alone.
“Percy, please!” Oliver begs in his ear, and he sounds scared.
Scared like Percy is.
It makes him go weak at the knees and Percy feels like a puppet whose strings have been cut. He goes basically limp, dissolving into incoherent sobs. Tears stream down his face and slip onto the floor.
Oliver catches him. He guides them to the floor safely, Percy’s legs out. He needs to feel whole again, and Percy’s scrabbles for purchase onto the arms, gripping onto them tightly. He lets out a painful choking sob.
“Shhh. It’s okay Percy. It’s okay.” Oliver comforts behind him.
Percy loses all of his fight and slumps against Oliver. They tilt a little, leaning to the side. He’s still crying.
“It’s not,” he gasps out between choking sobs. “It’s not, it won’t be. She takes everything. I’m never going to leave her. She’s pregnant. God, Oliver she’s pregnant and she’s going to take the girls.” He wails.
Oliver audibly gasps behind him. It makes Percy feel a wave of grief so insurmountable he can’t take in air.
“Why does she hate me so much?”
He shuts his eyes trying, to force the tears to stop but they still leak through. They’re hot and wet and cascade to the floor, mixing in with the red there. In the corner of his mind Percy realizes it’s blood. His blood.
“I love she loved me.” He croaks, voice getting quiet.
He feels Oliver’s chest shudder on his back, and Percy realizes that Oliver is crying, too.
“D-don’t,” Percy pleads. “Don’t cry Oliver. I’m sorry.”
Oliver sniffs behind him. “Oh, Percy. I’m so sorry this is happening.”
Percy feels dizzy and weak, the emotional turmoil too much for him to handle. He feels his body start to relax of it own accord, even though his mind tells him to keep his eyes open.
“Percy? Percy! Wake up for me, Gods. Did you-, did you take anything?”
Percy huffs out a miserable laugh. As if he was brave enough to kill himself. He’s too much of a coward; too scared to die. Too scared to live.
“No,” he hoarses out. “I wish I did.”
“Don’t say that. Don’t you ever fucking say that.” Oliver barks sternly. It’s the meanest Percy has ever heard him sound.
“I’m just so tired, Oliver.” Percy gasps. He nestles into Oliver’s embrace, ask awkward as it is. They’re sitting on the floor of Percy’s destroyed flat, surrounded shattered belongings and crumpled drywall.
They stay there awhile.
When Percy wakes up, he’s a little confused on where he is. The ceiling is unfamiliar, and the bed is lumpy. He feels warm in an uncomfortable way, his eyes feel swollen and his ears stuffed.
He is lying flat on his back, a position he usually doesn’t sleep in. Then he hears some light footsteps and clanking, and all the weariness is thrust from him.
Audrey. They went to mediation, and she revealed that’s pregnant. And Percy had genuinely thought about going back to her. Merlin, he’d even called her. What had he been thinking?
It hits him like a train.
Oliver.
Oliver, who was supposed to be in France for Quidditch had somehow showed up at his flat that Percy had been in the process of destroying in grief-stricken rage. Oliver, who’d dragged him away from his destruction and held him until Percy didn’t have the strength to stand. He vaguely recalls being led to the small bedroom and being sat on the bed. Oliver with his wand out, healing the cuts Percy had on his feet. Being tucked under the covers.
It's mortifying.
Percy buries his face in his hands in shame. Oliver was too good for him, he knew it. Oliver, regardless of whatever they were was too good for him.
The door opens to his room.
It’s Oliver. He’s got dark circles under his eyes, and he’s carrying takeout container and a paper cup.
“Good morning.” Oliver says in greeting.
“I’m so sorry!” Percy blurts out. “I shouldn’t have-,”
“Don’t apologize, Percy.” Oliver interrupts. He sits down on the edge of the bed and busies himself with opening containers.
“Divorce is one of the hardest things someone must go through. Even if it’s what is best.” Oliver pops the lid off of one of takeout containers. A salty smell drafts from the container. Oliver places the lid down and puts plastic spoon into the container before passing it to Percy.
It’s some kind of porridge, but it’s not one Percy has ever seen before. It’s sort of dark like wheat, and it smells of ginger and onion.
“It’s dailya. It’s an Indian wheat porridge. It’s made with broken wheat.”
Percy’s not very hungry at all, but he picks up the spoon anyway.
“It’s from the Indian takeaway place by mine. Arjun says hello.”
Percy thinks back to the day Audrey hadn’t picked the kids up and he’d been too scared to go home. Oliver had dropped everything. It was the first time Percy had ever tried Indian food. A small, kind act in the middle of chaos.
And now, here he is again.
Tears starts to flow down his cheeks. They splash into the meal. Percy sniffs and sets it down.
“Hey, Perce- what’s wrong?’ Oliver asks. He sets the rest of the containers down, his movements quick but careful as he moves closer. Without hesitation, he pulls Percy into an awkward hug, his hand resting on his leg, his touch warm and grounding.
“Y-you’re so nice-,” Percy manages to get out. “I don’t deserve it.”
“Don’t say that, Percy.” Oliver says gently. “Yes, you do. I lo-, I care about you. It just hurts me to see you so upset.”
“How did you find me?”
Oliver huffs out a little chuckle and pulls away. His hand doesn’t leave Percy’s leg.
“Penny. She said your solicitor called her and said something happened during mediation and you were upset. But she was stuck at work and called me. I had just gotten home from France.”
“I’m sorry.
“I’m not. Please stop apologizing, Percy.”
“Sure.” Percy says lamely.
“Your parents said you weren’t at the Burrow, so I just sort of told them you needed a night alone. The girls are there. I figured you would either be here or there. I’m glad I was right.”
Percy pulls his knees up to his chest and wraps his arms around himself. He feels miserable. Embarrassed, humiliated. Like his life is falling apart, piece by piece.
“Do you remember what happened yesterday?”
“Yes,” he mutters, the words tasting bitter. “Audrey’s pregnant. And my solicitor says if it’s mine, she has a good chance of taking the girls.”
Oliver exhales slowly, his voice low as he processes the words. “Wow,” he says softly, before pausing. “I’m sorry, Percy. That’s a lot.”
“Yeah.” Percy agrees miserably. “And during the mediation her solicitor just kept- kept interrogating me. The mediator had to shut it down. We must go to court.”
Oliver sits quietly for a moment, his hand still on Percy’s leg, a comforting weight. Then, in a softer tone, he says, “It’ll be okay, Percy. I know it doesn’t feel like it right now, but you’ll get through this. You always do.”
Percy’s not sure.
But Percy doesn’t know. Doesn’t feel it. Doesn’t see how.
Oliver hesitates for a moment, and Percy watches him, confused, still drowning in his thoughts. “Do you remember what you said yesterday?” Oliver asks again, his voice careful. Percy looks at him, the fear starting to settle into his chest.
“What do you mean?” Percy asks, his heart hammering in his chest.
“When I asked you if you’d… if you’d taken anything. And you said you hadn’t, but you wished you had.”
A sick feeling rises in Percy’s stomach, and he buries his face in his hands. “Oh, god.” His voice cracks, and he feels like he’s breaking into pieces. “Merlin, Oliver, I’m not going to kill myself or hurt myself. I just… I don’t know what I feel. It’s all so much. I can’t keep doing this, not like this.”
Oliver is quiet, his gaze unwavering, steady, even though Percy can hear the pain in the silence. Finally, Oliver speaks, his voice soft but filled with something raw, something too real. “I think my mum was the same way.”
Percy freezes, his breath catching. Oliver’s voice cracks slightly as he continues, his eyes never leaving Percy’s face. “I think in the end, she just gave up. She stopped fighting. She just… accepted everything, accepted that it was how things were supposed to be. And I think… I think I would have given anything to have told her there was always a way out. There was always another option. But I didn’t, and now I’ll never be able to. I’ll never get that chance again.”
Percy watches him, the rawness of Oliver’s pain crashing over him like a wave. Oliver’s voice breaks a little, but he keeps talking, his words trembling, full of regret. “I’ll never forget the day of her funeral. The room was packed. It was like we were suffocating, all of us, crammed in together. People from her past, people she hadn’t talked to in years, people who never knew the real her. I had to shake hands with strangers, people I didn’t even know. I kept asking myself: Why didn’t anyone see? Why didn’t anyone do anything? Why did she have to die so young?” His voice cracks again, his eyes burning wet with unshed tears.
“She had so many people who loved her. So many people who would have supported her. And none of us saw it until it was too late.”
Percy feels like breaking down into sobs all over again. He can barely breathe through the sorrow, the feeling of drowning. But Oliver is here. He’s here, and somehow, that means everything.
“We’ll be okay.” Percy croaks, trying to comfort Oliver. “Someday.”
Oliver gives him a small, wistful little smile, brushing the tears off his face.
“I think so, too.”