It felt weird being there alone sitting in the basement on one of the machines, but it finally no longer felt as if I was intruding in my own house. It took almost a year before I finally felt settled in, I still did some travelling and even fixed up the cabin so it was much homier again. I set it so that I could travel between the two places quite easily via the floo. Apparition was fine at times but it tended to give me a headache if I used it too much. I kept my feelers out to see if openings were arising in the British Ministry, and finally summer of 2078 I went in and just applied, Dan accepted my application and managed to somehow talk me into becoming the Department head for level 9. The one department I never wanted to ever go back into, especially after what had happened the last time I had been in the department. I refused to go into the Time room even just to check on things, which irritated a lot of people especially my employees but I had a deep sense of fear in that room. There wasn’t much that could scare me that bad, but the Time room did. I still studied everything I could about time turners and if there was a possibility of returning to my time but I was really hesitant about doing so now. I had learned so much about the past and didn’t know if I ever wanted to go back and live it, if I went back Maree would still die young, same with my mum, but at least in my mum and Ava’s case I could be there and they wouldn’t have been alone. It’s sad thinking that I’d found my mum and Ava having died young, because in Muggle eyes honestly, they’d lived a long life but in wizarding life you can live much longer than any Muggle.

The first thing that I’d been determined to do when I started in the ministry was get to know the different department heads as well as the minister of magic. Helena was a nice woman, she seemed quite abrupt but she appeared to be fair. I didn’t see much of her as she was often out and away from the ministry, I think that’s one of the reasons she didn’t stay on as minister for very long. I met the other heads, but the only one that really caught my eye was Becca Lee. It was stupid really considering the woman was married but somehow we connected well enough, and I knew I could count on her if I needed help especially in the department of Mysteries. She was once department head there herself, so it wasn’t anything new down there that she couldn’t help with if I was stuck on one problem or other. We became a bit more than acquaintances and more like friends over the next few months, but I never saw her more than that until over a year later. And I wasn’t exactly sure why things changed but it had.

I found the different laws in the Department of mysteries was quite odd and irritating at certain points. Like not being able to have coffee in level 9, not even in the break room or my own office. But it was things I had to live with if I was to be the department head on that level. One afternoon in the Time Room, I had managed to drag myself in there because we were in need of time turners and I was working on making them. I wouldn’t ever test them out myself, but I knew enough about them to create more. I was just pouring some of the sand into the glass I had formed, when the bucket I had put down on the shelf slipped and dumped all over the floor vanishing all of the sand from sight. It wasn’t the accident that freaked me out, it was the fact that moments before I had seen Isaac Muir, one of our aurors standing there just moments before and was now gone. Freaking out I ran from the room searching hoping to find him somewhere in the department and calling out his name. Finally giving up I ran up the 7 levels of flights of stairs til I reached level 2 and ran into Becca’s office, ghostly white, trying to talk but completely out of breath. She demanded to know why I had been so careless. I felt at the time so completely terrified I had put another person into the exact place I had been 15 years before! How could I explain that to the minister, let alone Isaac’s own family! I might have overreacted a bit that day with regards to Isaac’s disappearance, and flipped out a little too much. But hell after what I’d been through I blamed myself for his disappearance, and was terrified for the poor man, who ended up appearing out of nowhere. He had just left the room as soon as the bucket fell and left me alone, not realizing that I had thought he’d completely vanished. I had probably lost all Becca’s confidence in my abilities that day, and it took a long time before I gained those back again. I spent the next few months really working on toning by fears down in regards to the Time Room. It wasn’t easy and I still refused to test any time turners but I actually did work in there again. As department head I couldn’t just ignore one room because of a fear I had in that room. And for the time I was working alone so I needed to be able to go in there. I finally confided in Becca during one of our meetings, telling her about part of my past, telling her about the accident and what time era I was actually from. She didn’t give me a whole lot of the sympathetic look, which was a bit of a relief, I didn’t want that sympathetic look as anyone who actually believed me gave me. She asked questions though and I told her really anything that she wanted to know. She knew better than ask private and personal questions, but seemed interested in knowing what it was like back then. She didn’t treat me like some idiot who was looking for amusement in telling lies. So many had made those accusations of me. I don’t lie about anything unless I absolutely have to, like in regards to work. I won’t steal because I find that it is pointless, and all it causes is more trouble than it is worth. I’ve had many people scoff when I say I don’t lie, but I ignore it. It’s just something that I have chosen not to do. It’s probably one of my downfalls and likely turns people off but I’m brutally honest in so many ways. I don’t mean to hurt anyone but I don’t like the idea of stringing a person on.

I met a woman named Bay, and she worked at St. Mungo’s. She wanted to go out for dinner a few times and it was obvious that she was wanting to become more than friends, but I just couldn’t. I had no interest in a relationship and there wasn’t any way that I was going to keep going as if there might be something between us at some point. Maybe it was a bit early, or maybe I didn’t give it enough of a chance. The one thing that I always feared was that one day the person that I managed to actually give my heart to, would turn on me the moment they saw the mark on my shoulder. I told Bay one night before dinner, that I just wasn’t able to be more than friends. She looked a bit hurt and I felt bad, but I explained I couldn’t lead her on and make her think that one day I might feel something more for her when I just didn’t. I said I wasn’t ready for a relationship. I didn’t sleep around, have one night stands or anything and I wasn’t going to lead the poor woman to think that maybe if she kept trying to charm me I might one day have feelings for her.

Within a few more months, of working in the ministry, level 3’s department head position opened up and I requested a transfer. I had worked in level 3 in the Italian Ministry and even in the British ministry years and years ago. So I loved the idea of going back to work in Accidents and Catastrophes. Being I was closer to Becca, she and I started working together as a team, and worked well. Since level 9 was without a department head, the two of us tag teamed working in level 9 together as well, making sure that nothing was missed. I went into the locked room one day and was working when Becca came in to see how I was doing, she looked really down and when I asked how she was she said she was surviving. I knew then that something had happened, and of course being me, I asked what it was. I was amazed that she confided in me and told me what was going on. God if I had half a mind I would have found out where Brian was hiding and gone after him that very night. Who the hell took young kids away from their own mother like that? He’d hurt Becca more than anyone ever could have, and she was one of the strongest women I knew! She tried to hide that she was hurt and I knew that. But even then I could see through it. I had lost everything over 15 years before, in an accident I couldn’t reverse, and I now saw Becca sitting there on that sofa having lost everything that she held dear in her life, to an jerk who didn’t know how to take care of her and show her unconditional love. How could someone be so cruel and hateful? I couldn’t comprehend it after all I had gone through and my heart hurt for her. For the first time in many years, I wanted to hold a woman, for so long I had pushed aside any thoughts of being close to them, even for just a hug. But that day I held her and let her cry. I saw the images of Norah and James in that room, and sat on the sofa with her holding her. So many painful memories flooded my own head that day, seeing the accident happen all over again, losing all the ones I loved a second time. But my mind and thoughts were on Becca. How, I wasn’t quite sure yet. It was about that time that I started noticing that Maree was fading from the room. She was still there but her image of her was fading out as if she were disappearing. I asked Becca about it, and she told me a new dominant love was taking her place. I didn’t want to believe that! I still loved Maree, and no one would be able to fill her place. I knew that we were never going to be, but I still didn’t quite grasp how someone could fill that place I had in my heart for Maree.

I wasn’t sure if maybe at that time something was starting to click for me that day with Becca or if it were just the fact she seemed like she really needed someone to show they cared and my instincts just took over. But I brushed some hair from her shoulder that day as if in a loving gesture, and I froze. I don’t know why I had done it, but I had and I had to step back a bit and really take myself in hand, but at that moment she asked if I was alright. She’d said I had kissed her head when I held her when she’d been crying and I stared at her, wondering if I’d lost my mind. I pushed women away, kept them at a distance and here I was doing things without even thinking about them, caring and loving gestures? I wasn’t looking for a relationship, and hell definitely not with a woman who had just lost her family because of an jerk of a husband! It was about a month later when something completely wonky happened in the locked room. Pink fluffy clouds appeared, and just sat in the room. They weren’t dense nor felt like normal clouds, and I asked Becca to come down because some weird things had started happening. Maree was nearly completely gone now and Becca’s form had appeared. I definitely knew something was wrong. People didn’t suddenly appear in the room, and Becca definitely had just appeared. I wanted to get to the bottom of the problem, where Becca’s form and the clouds that were there now. Even Becca appeared stunned when she saw herself in there! She told me to wait a few weeks and the clouds should fade, but then she told me something that made me think she was crazy! She said that the new person that had taken place in my heart was the one that had created the clouds and the person that was now also in that room with us. I stared at her thinking she’d lost her marbles. Seriously, that meant she was talking about her! She’d completely lost her marbles, I hadn’t fallen in love with her! I followed her out of the room and up the stairs to the atrium, and caught her turning Becca towards me and said she was wrong. I then remember telling her to hex me and be done with it. When she stared at me, unsure of what to say, I did what was probably the stupidest thing I could have ever done in my entire life.

I kissed her.

Why the hell had I kissed her? I had no idea. I had forgotten that I had a gentleness in me, and I kissed her with that gentleness. But after doing it I expected all hell to break loose. I was a fool, having kissed her to prove to myself that I didn’t love her and there was nothing there between us. But after I kissed her I felt something and felt even more stupid than I had before I had kissed her. What happened next, she broke my nose. That was a story we could tell our kids one day. ‘What happened when you kissed mummy the first time? Oh she broke my nose.’ It was at that moment I realized I’d hurt her as well. She thought I’d used her as an experiment, and I told her she wasn’t no experiment. My eyes showed pain as I backed away, I apologized and with a heart that felt like it was tearing in two again left the atrium. I couldn’t bare to look at her seeing that pain in her face, as if I had smacked her and threw our friendship out the window. Hell it was bad enough that I had fallen in love with her according to that blasted room, but now had kissed her as well? I was an idiot, complete idiot! I went to my office and fixed my nose without really caring about doing it carefully and tossed my wand on my desk. I stood by the window trying to get control of myself, angry that I’d been so damn stupid as to kiss her. I’d thrown away a friendship, one that meant a lot to me, and wanted to smack myself for throwing it away. It was the first damn time in years that I felt like someone actually accepted me for who I was. And that was gone I believed. I think the one thing that I will always remember about that day was she followed me. The one thing I’d never done with Maree, Becca followed me and didn’t let me get away that easily. She wanted to know what I meant by the kiss and why I had said she wasn’t an experiment. She wasn’t an experiment, and now I know that I had meant to show her even then at that time, that I cared for her a lot. I had meant the kiss, it wasn’t just a whim, it was something I wanted to do. I hurt her even more at that point, she was sat on the floor by my door and close to a break down saying she couldn’t, she wasn’t ready and I was the biggest jerk out there. What did I say? Again I told her to hex me, because I would be damned if I told her that I didn’t have feelings for her. I couldn’t lie to her, because if I did, it would only hurt her more and make me want to disappear completely and never return to London ever again. I put my arms around her that night, and told her I was sorry that I knew that I’d probably ruined the one friendship I never wanted to lose. And the one thing she said I still smile at the memory of, I think it was the first time she ever threatened to hex me. She said if I apologized again she really would hex me. She told me that she had gotten her divorce papers from Brian, and that she still loved him. She told me she wanted to stay friends, but I didn’t want to put her in a bad position or for her to say that and honestly want me to leave and not see her again. I didn’t want that but I didn’t want her seeing me and being hurt every time she did. I was willing to leave, maybe even attempt to go back in time. That was the first time I’d thought of that in a few years, but I’d be gone, and would respect her wishes. I sit here writing this with tears in my eyes, because three words still sit in my mind even now and those three words came from that beautiful woman’s mouth ‘Please Don’t Leave’.

I promised her that night I would never leave. I never have and never will. I know that that night she probably feared that I would break that promise, but I wouldn’t. It took sitting there on the floor, for me to realize, I did love her. There was no way in hell I’d admit that any time soon, but god I loved her deeply and to my core. I looked into her eyes and sat there amazed, as she leant over and kissed me ever so softly. I hadn’t expected it and the only thing that ran through my head was that I was a dead man if Brian ever found out. It was a stupid thing to think of and even say aloud but her response made me smile slightly and I knew that between us there was something and I would be damned if I let that ever get away. I was here to stay, right there in the right time, not back in 1998 but there with Becca. I knew I had been put into the future for a reason now, and I wouldn’t let that get away from me now. She asked me if I was sure about this, if I wanted to take that step. She said she didn’t want me to regret it, and that it would only happen if I wanted it to. I told her that I wouldn’t regret it. She didn’t want to be hurt again, she couldn’t handle that. I promised her that I wouldn’t let her be hurt again, and asked her to let me show her. I think besides feeling as if my heart was being pulled in so many directions at once, the wait for her to respond though it took only a moment before she nodded, my heart stopped beating until then. I felt so relieved and happy at that moment. The worry and fear dissipating and feeling as though something good might be coming out of all the horror I’d lived through over the years!

One night I looked to Becca and asked offhandedly if she’d like to go to dinner. I knew that her and Brian had split up a few months before and little by little had been trying to bring her out of the hole she was starting to dig for herself and hide inside. I didn’t push for more than friendship because honestly I wasn’t ready for that either. But somehow working together had brought us closer together, and it was nice to actually have someone who I worked well with. She was working with me helping me get trained once again with auror training, and I offered to take her out one night. It was our first date and though awkward a bit, I loved the end, where she allowed me to kiss her and I did it right that time. I asked her and with the gentleness I was starting to find inside me once again I did.

I hadn’t ever expected to find myself falling for someone again, and I certainly knew she hadn’t either. Just thinking about Becca made me smile and it felt fantastic to have someone in my life once again. We may not have began our relationship like most people, but we were both still really hesitant, afraid we’d be hurt again just like we both had been. I didn’t think I was even boyfriend material anymore, I’d gone through hell and back and had things in my past that I was afraid to even have found out, if she found out about them, would she leave like I was afraid anyone else would? I kept everything to myself, afraid she might find them out somehow regardless of how much I tried to hide them. The one in particular being the mark on my shoulder. One morning I went to her office to see if she was in yet and found her lying behind her desk, and before even thinking quickly went to her and found myself stupefied before she had awakened. I hadn’t realized she was now sleeping in the office and not even having a place to stay. I had this huge house with two floors, and even two apartments, and here she was sleeping in her office without anywhere to go. After sorting out why I was there, I insisted that she move into my downstairs apartment. I didn’t have much but I had a hell of a lot more room than I ever needed! She was very hesitant and insistent she was fine where she was. I didn’t want to push her to do it but I hated knowing she had nowhere to go! I finally talked her into it, and told her there was 5 entire rooms she could choose from. She could pick any one that she wanted, and I wouldn’t get in her space. It’d be all hers. I knew we each had boundaries neither was ready to cross and I didn’t want to scare her off with me being overly pushy! I honestly had thought she’d take the downstairs apartment so she’d have her own place, in a way. It made me thrilled though when she chose one of the rooms upstairs. I didn’t blame her though, it would have felt weird to me if it were me as well. To live downstairs rather than share the same place. It was a bit weird having someone living in the house with me but it wasn’t unwelcome. At first we were both kind of tiptoeing around but we soon fell into a sort of pattern, and Becca even started joining me downstairs and I showed her some moves. I think my favourite part about all of it was when we’d make it a goal to take each other down. It was fun because we were almost exactly at each other’s level when it came to skill. Though both of our skills were centered around different points, it was fantastic being able to have a person that actually gave him a good test of his skills. He didn’t have to really worry about hurting her! Though he had knocked her a few times and had to give her a potion to help clear her head, and she had hurt him a few times as well, but they were a great match!

I think the hardest thing that I’d seen though was Christmas Day, when she needed to see her kids and make sure that they were safe and happy. I went with her insisting that she couldn’t be alone, well she could but I didn’t want her to have to go through that on her own. Seeing her break down at Brian’s was really painful to see and again that same argument that we had over and over again happened. That she needed to fight this, that she couldn’t let Brian just win. It killed her not having Norah and James in her life! I wanted to go in there and fight for those two kids and I hadn’t even met them.

She was really self-conscious about the scars on her, and I had one scar that I was terrified that she might see, and somehow in that time she hadn’t seen it yet. But I was afraid something might lead her to look at the back of my shoulder. I don’t remember how exactly it came that she was really self-conscious of her stomach especially but I tried to ignore it and said she was beautiful regardless, but she still was hesitant. I asked if she had seen my shoulder, with a dreaded sink of my heart. She told me she hadn’t, and I told her about the mark, she moved around to my back to look at it. My heart fell in my chest, and I closed my eyes afraid of how she was going to respond. Fear gripped me. That was until I felt her lips on my shoulder. She was kissing the spot on my shoulder, and she asked how I could feel that that mark would ever make her stop caring about me, why would I think a mark that I had no control over would ever change anything. It was what had shaped my life and a part of me. I remember having tears in my eyes, and looking at her in an entirely new light. We’d been through so much together already and it was just the beginning of our relationship. I had no idea what was going to happen in just a few short days, but I remember that night very clearly. And not because we showed each other how much we loved each other, even though neither of us were ready to admit it yet, in an entirely new way. I loved her deep inside so much it hurt, and I knew that I would give my life for her, if ever that happened. I would do anything for her. It was then that I was finally starting to admit it to myself, I still didn’t say it but I definitely knew I did.

A few days later, my entire life crumbled before my eyes, and I felt like my heart had been ripped out. It was on New Year’s Eve, and we were supposed to meet just before midnight, when we were both working at the Ministry.