27-Dec-98

Chapter 18

December 28, 1998

* * *

The Burrow was filled to bursting. Six Weasley siblings with spouses and significant others in tow, a set of nearly two-month-old twins, and a pair of beaming patriarchs had crammed themselves into the living room around a Christmas tree that morning. – George & Annie: an Unofficial Biography, Chapter 43

* * *

On his first full day back in Romania after spending Christmas with his family at the Burrow, Charlie stood at the sink, filling it with sudsy water from the tap, wearing nothing but pants. Keeper hut number nine wasn't nearly as drafty as eight had been, even though it was at least twice as large in order to house visiting researchers. He assumed it was because nine was built probably two centuries or more after eight had been. Number nine's much more modern and efficient heating system, coupled with some strangely mild December weather (for the Carpathians, at least – there were still several feet of snow outside the door), permitted a bit of laxity in regards to clothing.

Not to mention a general holiday laziness pervaded the hut; Charlie and Sasha hadn't bothered dressing for breakfast, nor were they in any hurry to do so. Duties were a little lighter during the winter anyway, what with the dragons less active and for the most part confined to their lairs, sitting eggs. Poachers never took a day off, of course, but no sign of anything untoward had been reported since before Charlie'd left for England. Perhaps even filthy poacher scum preferred to spend Christmas with their families.

A very warm body sidled up behind him, a hard chest pressed against his back, and arms with diameters resembling tree limbs wrapped around him. "I missed you," Sasha murmured, his lips brushing against the back of Charlie's neck. Rough stubble scraped the sensitive skin there, sending chills down his spine that lodged rather more heatedly in his groin. It wasn't the first time he'd heard the sentiment that day, but he never tired of being welcomed home.

Charlie spelled the breakfast dishes to finish washing up by themselves. Placing his wet hands on Sasha's warm, dry ones, he smiled. "I missed you, too." It was very possibly the understatement of the century. Words couldn't really express how much he hated being separated from Sasha for any reason.

Sasha turned Charlie around until they faced each other. As Charlie's hands settled on the firm globes of his gorgeous hut-mate's arse, Sasha pulled him close. He nibbled on his earlobe, then planted hungry kisses down his neck to his collarbone in his patented get-Charlie-instantly-hard move. As usual, it worked.

Charlie spun them both around. Pressing Sasha's backside against the sink, he murmured, "Brought you back a present," then kissed him, coaxing his tongue out to play.

"Is it hidden in here?" Sasha rumbled low, his hand working itself under the waistband of Charlie's pants and curling around his aching erection.

"No fair peeking," Charlie mock-scolded him.

He began kissing his way down his partner's bare torso, slowly sinking to his knees. He'd memorized every divot, every raised scar along the way – all components of perfection in his opinion. Sasha's skin was still a little shiny and mostly hairless – an after-effect of the Greek Fire curse nearly a year ago – and still felt a bit tight and itchy, according to him. Charlie'd been given the agonizingly pleasurable task of massaging him with a special healing salve every day since.

"Close your eyes and hold out your hands," he teased.

"I'd rather watch," Sasha chuckled, and Charlie reckoned it was nearly the sexiest sound he'd ever heard. Sasha's fingers slid into Charlie's hair. "And touch."

Charlie gazed up into his lover's dark eyes. "Suit yourself." Nuzzling Sasha's navel, lightly kissing the rock hard bumps of his abs, he gently tugged on the hem of his pants, drawing them down tantalizingly slowly. He was rewarded with an impatient moan.

Charlie left slow, soft, open-mouthed kisses along the path from navel down to pleasure as his hands roved Sasha's body, eliciting more moans. Then he tortured his love with teasing, fairy-light kisses along the velvety soft skin of his rigid shaft, fingertips tracing the miniscule seam of flesh on his perineum, palm grazing against bollocks.

"Charlie..." Sasha breathed.

He licked his lips, then brushed them, barely parted, from side to side across the sensitive head. He breathed in the scent of his lover's arousal, heavy and musky and masculine. Opening his lips wider, he let a soft exhale waft over the straining cock, and the tip of his tongue edged past his teeth, seeking out contact.

A loud banging against the front door startled them both. "Wake up, you lazy wankers!" a feminine voice bellowed. "Sasha! I need to speak with you!"

Charlie and Sasha shared an instantaneous look of mutual panic. Was there any chance they could just silently hide and she'd go away? Was there any chance she hadn't looked through the window and seen them already?

More pounding was followed by, "I know you're in there!"

Charlie leaped to his feet, calling out, "Just a minute!" Sasha hauled up his pants in the same second, and together, they scrambled out of the kitchen, back down the hallway that led to their dorm rooms.

"I'm coming in to warm up at the hearth," Freya Eitelmann announced. "It's bloody cold out here."

From his room, Charlie heard the pop of Apparition, followed by the stomping of feet and clapping of hands in front of the fire. Freya's forwardness puzzled him – the weather wasn't all that bad, considering what they usually endured. Why was she using it as a ruse to get inside their hut? What was so urgent that she needed to speak about with Sasha? Why had she shown up in the first place?

His heart somewhere in the vicinity of the back of his throat, Charlie hurried to dress. Shoving his legs into trousers, feet into socks and boots, arms into shirt then jumper, the process took a minute, at most. Despite his quickness, he found himself trailing Sasha back into the common room.

"Why are you here, Freya?" Sasha asked as he strode into the room, failing to suppress his irritation.

Charlie held back a step, watching her warily over Sasha's shoulder. Mouth shut, eyes open, he counseled himself.

"There's no need to take that tone," she sighed, looking as frazzled as Charlie had ever seen her. Not in her presentation, so much – nothing about her clothing or person was disheveled. But her manner was uncharacteristically... twitchy. "You can always pick up where you left off after I'm gone."

Icy dread gripped his bowels, and he froze. She saw something! Before Charlie could recover from her damning insinuation, much less speak, Sasha's otherwise expressionless face leveled a stony glare at their visitor. "I don't know what you're talking about," he said softly, warningly. "And neither do you."

Freya threw up her hands. "Oh, get over it!" she scolded them, exasperated. "Trust me, I've got a much bigger problem than your secret that isn't."

"What secret?" Charlie and Sasha asked accidentally in unison.

"This isn't why I'm here," she huffed through gritted teeth. Then she leveled a challenging stare at them both. "But it hasn't exactly escaped anyone's notice the two of you don't bother with the ladies. Seven bloody years is an awfully long time to hold out for Miss Right, mates. But nobody's quibbling about it, are they? This really isn't an issue."

Not a secret? Everyone knows? Charlie's mind careened through the implications as his stomach plummeted to the floor. They all know but... they don't care? It really seemed like too much to imagine, much less hope for, and the surreality of the conversation led him to surreptitiously pinch himself. Ouch!

Freya began pacing in front of the fire, arms folded across her chest. "I assure you, as long as you continue to keep it private like you've been doing–"

"Privacy is so much easier to maintain when colleagues aren't barging into one's home unexpectedly," Sasha snapped, interrupting her.

"I hardly make a habit of this!" she protested, spinning on him. Her arms were now ramrod straight at her sides, fists clenched. "When have I ever–"

"Make certain that you don't," Sasha growled, unfazed and eyes flashing.

Charlie grabbed his arm, silently urging him to stand down. Freya didn't seem to be looking for a confrontation about their sexuality – she seemed rather aggravated the subject had come up at all, actually. No threat of exposure had been implied; in fact, if her declaration was correct and everyone suspected already, the point was moot.

He took another assessing glance, during which she stretched and rolled her neck in a decidedly agitated manner, he decided she looked like a woman at the end of her rope. "Freya, you wanted to speak to Sasha about a problem you're having?" Charlie asked in a calm, firm manner, reminding them both of her stated purpose. Freya nodded, then she and Sasha visibly relaxed a little.

"Everyone have a seat. I'll make some tea."

Charlie busied himself in the kitchen, directing the kettle to fill itself at the tap, then heat itself on the cooker while he fetched tea from the little pantry. While he worked, Freya wrung her hands in her lap, staring at them. It was unsettling to see her so keyed up, for she usually cultivated an aura of unflappable confidence. What is she so damn upset about?

"You grew up on a dragon reservation, didn't you?" she finally asked.

"This is your emergency?" Sasha retorted, vexed and disbelieving.

"Just... please! I need to know how it was for you," she practically begged.

Like Charlie's, Sasha's brow furrowed. Perhaps he, too, was starting to notice Freya's odd behavior. "Yes, I was raised on the Circassian Reservation in the Central Caucasus Mountains."

"And what was it like for you?" she repeated.

Sasha shrugged. "It was unremarkable."

Charlie noted Sasha's reflexive stonewalling reaction to questions about his past. Considering what horrors and unhappiness lay there, he couldn't really blame his partner. It was unfortunate that his habitual reserve was interpreted by their fellow keepers as either a sense of superiority or mistrust, depending on who was complaining.

Freya pursed her lips, frustrated by his reticence. "Why did you leave?"

"My mother sent me to school," he bit out. Charlie felt a little twinge in his heart, knowing what an old wound that was for Sasha, but kept his expression carefully neutral.

She expressed her tried impatience with a flat look. "Why didn't you go back after you finished?"

Sasha took a deep breath, then let it out in a sigh. "I did not see much of a future there."

"Why?" she pressed.

Charlie delivered the tea then. Once everyone was served, he pulled up another chair, pointedly seating himself equidistant from the two of them. Just because Freya knew – or thought she knew – about them didn't mean a public display of affection was in order. Not to mention her distress, not their relationship, was the focus of the moment.

Sasha took a drink from his cup, the tiny vessel dwarfed in his hands, then stared into it like he was attempting to read the still submerged dregs. "The Circassian Reservation was originally a tribal territory," he explained. "My father's people had a very long history of dragon keeping before the goal of the profession became preservation of the species. They guarded the land not for the safety of the dragons there, but to ensure their own exclusive access to them – it functioned more as a game preserve than anything else. Over the centuries, the Caucasian Razorclaw's population was decimated by a combination of overharvesting and a particularly ill-timed epidemic of Wing Rot. As you know, the breed was officially declared extinct in 1906.

"In exchange for a healthy breeding population of Ironbellies and Horntails, my father's people allowed their land to become a reservation and agreed to abide by the International Brotherhood of Dragon Keeper's professional guidelines. But this decision was not made out of any sense of stewardship – it was merely the only way left to cling to the only livelihood any of them had ever known."

Charlie wondered why Sasha was attempting to hold Freya off with a history lesson that she'd no doubt learned in school, just as he'd done. Apparently, she was too.

"But what was it like for you as a child?" she asked pleadingly. "Do you have any fond memories of it at all?"

"Why don't you ask Flaviu or Boian?" Sasha hedged a little suspiciously.

Freya stared at her cup. "I already have," she mumbled softly. When she raised her head, she set her teacup down with an air of resolute acceptance. "I'm sorry to have bothered you about this, Sasha. I'll assume from your avoidance of my question that your childhood, like that of the Vaduva brothers', left something to be desired."

Sasha sighed heavily, at last either tired of resisting or convinced his colleague truly needed an honest, forthright answer, and the sound made her pause hopefully. "The Circassian Reservation is very small; we were very isolated to begin with, you see. Like it is here, the keepers who worked there seldom married, and the bastards they spawned were typically raised in a few distant magical villages surrounding the reservation."

"But not you," she prompted.

Sasha shook his head. "My family was the exception to that rule, yes. While my father was alive, my mother lived with him in his family's ancestral home on the reservation. We lived there together until my mother insisted I leave for proper schooling."

"And you were glad to go?" Her voice was quiet, almost agonized for some reason.

"I never doubt my parents loved me," Sasha said, sounding faintly guilty to Charlie. "But I had only busy adults for company. Looking back, I remember being lonely much of the time, but I did not quite understand this feeling for what it was then."

Charlie thought his answer was a very neat avoidance of the question. He knew that Sasha was very conflicted about that time in his life. As a lonely little boy, the prospect of going to school with so many other children had thrilled him, and he'd been eager to leave the rez behind. To say Durmstrang hadn't lived up to its promise was misleading to the extreme – the experience had nearly broken his heart. Sasha tried not to feel betrayed by his mother, who'd knowingly sent him into that harsh environment, but was not always successful.

"Will you tell me about your parents?" Freya asked.

"My father, like his ancestors, never left the rez for more than a night at a time once his father came to town to claim him at the age of ten. He learned his craft from his father and uncles, just as they did before him. He was a simple man, but steadfast and decent. As I said before, he loved us and did his best to provide for us. He is in no small part the reason I am a keeper today."

"And your mother?" Freya looked almost hopeful. "Was she a keeper also? Is that how they met?"

Sasha shook his head again. "Mother is Belarussian," he said carefully. "She met my father when she came to the reservation to do research. At Durmstrang, she studied Potions and Alchemistry – she is quite adept. She wanted me to have more options in life than my father had – thought wizarding school was the best path for me to take – and he somewhat reluctantly agreed."

Charlie smothered the urge to wince, well acquainted with what had happened to Sasha at Durmstrang and how miserable he'd been there. And Sasha's mother, Sofija Vasilieva, was more than "adept" in alchemistry: she was a brilliant scientist, having developed the current protocol for extracting the flame-retardant dried mucous found on dragon gorge pellets and subsequently reconstituting it into a liquid form used to render treated clothing almost impervious to flame. He was a little surprised no one else at Ridgebit seemed to have figured out the connection, but since Sasha rarely spoke about his life before coming to Romania, he supposed their ignorance wasn't all that difficult to understand.

Sasha set his empty teacup down next to Freya's. "You are pregnant," he stated rather than asked.

Charlie nearly did a spit take to hear him say it out loud. He supposed it was no great leap of intuition, really. His own conclusions about the motivation behind Freya's interrogation had been drifting in that direction as well, but never in a million years would he have voiced his suspicion.

Freya didn't speak. She didn't move her head, not even to look up. Instead, her shoulders jerked in an effort to smother the sob that threatened to escape.

For the second time that morning, loud pounding on the door interrupted them.

"I know you're in there! I've been everywhere else!" Flaviu Vaduva, Freya's partner, bellowed from the other side of the door.

"Put that away!" she cried as Sasha leaped to his feet and spun elegantly toward the door, wand drawn.

Sasha smirked, but had already thrown a ward upon the door for good measure. "State your business, Vaduva," he called out.

"Goddamn it, Freya, talk to me!" Flaviu howled.

"You want us to get rid of him?" Charlie offered.

She shook her head resignedly. Quickly gathering her composure, wiping away a stray tear from her cheek, she straightened up in her chair. "I've gotten what I came here for. And I've imposed upon you long enough."

"Nonsense," Charlie insisted. "If there's anything else you need–"

"OPEN THE FUCKING DOOR NOW, WEASLEY!" Flaviu snarled. "I swear to every god, if you've done anything already..." Something very large crashed against the warded door, and the force shuddered through the rest of the building.

"Oh, for fuck's sake, let him in before he hurts himself," she groaned dejectedly.

Sasha released the ward, and the door flew open. Flaviu tumbled arse over teakettle into the room. But instead of getting to his feet, he scrambled over to Freya. "Please tell me you didn't!" he cried.

"I told you I wouldn't do anything rash," she said coldly, glaring at him.

"Oh, thank God!" Flaviu sagged against her. "Promise me you won't! Swear it!"

Charlie began to consider what was becoming a very obvious conclusion. Flaviu's the father!?

"I will make no such promise!" she cried angrily. "It's my body. My life."

"It's my child!" Flaviu growled, confirming Charlie's suspicion outright. When Freya rolled her eyes, he shoved himself up to his feet, away from her. "It's at least as much mine as it is yours!" he shouted.

"Possession is nine-tenths of the law, as the proverb says," she sneered.

Her hostility was somewhat surprising and made Charlie think she must be under enormous strain at the moment. While Freya could be short with people, it usually stemmed from an innate sense of efficiency. He'd never experienced vindictiveness from her, nor considered her the type of woman who could be categorized as bitchy.

Charlie took Sasha's forearm and gently pulled him along as he crept backward out of the room toward the dorms, intending to give the couple what modicum of privacy they could. Unfortunately, a creaky floorboard betrayed their escape.

Flaviu spun around, pinning them with his panicked gaze. "Help me convince her!" he pled to his fellow men.

"Yes, by all means stay," Freya snapped, "and listen to his ridiculous ideas, all of which will ruin my life."

Reluctantly, Charlie and Sasha held their ground.

Flaviu turned back to her. "If I could carry it for you–"

"A pointless argument for a man to make," she snapped. "You cannot. As I said, this matter affects my life, my career." After a short pause, she continued in a quieter, almost fearful tone. "Ghenadie told me when he hired me that if I ever got knocked up, he'd sack me!"

"That was before he knew you!" Flaviu argued. "He knows your worth... we all do now. He wouldn't sack you." He knelt again, forcing Freya to look at him. "And if he tried for this, we'd mutiny," he swore.

It was a false boast – and Charlie suspected everyone in the room knew it. Freya had certainly earned the respect of her fellow keepers, but whether or not any of them would lay their own jobs on the line for her... especially now that she was pregnant... Well, being a keeper was a damn dangerous job, even when you were "off" duty.

"My worth," she agonized. "What is my worth if I can't do my job?"

"You have value beyond being a keeper!" Flaviu insisted, and the rest of them nodded and made sounds in agreement.

But Freya only glared back at Flaviu. "Don't you dare lie and say something manipulative like you love me. At least fight fair about this," she growled.

Flaviu straightened up but remained on his knees. "Not love. No," he agreed. "But there is respect... and genuine affection..."

Charlie suspected the list was about to get longer, but she was having none of his mildly flattering spin. "Bah! There is convenience. We fuck not because you are particularly attracted to me, nor I to you. You're just... there. And me the same."

Charlie was somewhat surprised to see Flaviu approach her with a tenderness he'd never witnessed from the man before. He gently took Freya's head in his hands and tilted it to look at him. "Why do you always belittle the connection between us?" he asked softly. "So what if it isn't a madly passionate affair? Why does it have to be anything more than it already is for us to have this baby?"

"Because I don't want it!" she said, battling a sob by clenching her teeth. "I've told you and everyone else a million times over I never wanted to be a mother."

Flaviu went from tender to pissed off in record time, and he shoved himself away from her again. "So don't be!" he barked. "But I want to be a father! And this is my chance."

"You can't honestly tell me you couldn't find some cunt in the village to bear you a bastard," she bit back bitterly.

"Is that what this is about? Illegitimacy?" he spluttered. "You want to get married? Fine. I'll marry you."

Freya clutched at her temples. "You don't understand!" she yelled. "You're not listening to anything I say!"

"Then make me understand!" Flaviu yelled back. "Say something that makes sense!"

Charlie was made terribly uncomfortable witnessing their row. While his parents had frequently argued, often quite loudly, they'd always at heart been respectful of each other's point of view. He supposed that was the difference between a couple in love and one that wasn't.

"Easy for you to say," she shouted. "You don't have to give up a decade of your life for this!"

"Nor do you!" Flaviu countered equally loudly. "That's what I keep telling you! You don't want to be a mother? Fine. Then don't. Let me raise the child."

"You can't," she spat, unimpressed. "Not by yourself. Who will care for it when you and I are working from dawn to dusk? Or all night long? You can't even feed a baby, Flaviu, much less raise it. This is madness."

"I'll hire a nursemaid," he countered. "From the village."

"Will you go live with her and the baby at the end of the day, then?" she demanded. "If so, then how will you work? You know as well as I do how often we get called out at night. Or do you imagine she will live with us? What village woman would ever agree to live in a keeper's hut? Especially one with another witch already in it? Do you see how stupid this plan is now?"

"We'll work something out," Flaviu insisted, undeterred by Freya's logic. "Maybe the baby can stay with her, and I can stay with you..."

Sasha shot Flaviu a withering look. It was easy to see what he thought of the manner in which his bastard cousins were raised: living with harried mothers, barely scraping by while seeing their absentee fathers only on the rare occasions when they dropped into town on leave from the rez. It certainly left something to be desired.

"What's the point of having a child if you're just going to ship it off for someone else to raise?" she cried.

"I don't know!" he roared. "All I know is I want my son!"

"And if it's a girl, will this tempest be for naught?" she hissed, furious. "Where will you ship her off to?"

"Of course not. I will cherish a little girl as much as a boy." His quiet yet fervent and unhesitant assertion was undeniably heartfelt, and brought Freya up short. He sensed a weakening in her defenses and, instantly adapting his tactics, pressed his advantage. "Please, Freya," he begged quietly, plaintively.

"Being a keeper means everything to me, Flaviu," she said, meeting his quiet plaintiveness with her own. "It's all I ever wanted. It's what I was born to do. It's who I am. How am I supposed to give that up?"

"I'm not asking you to give anything up," he insisted.

"Aren't you? You won't treat me any differently when I'm pregnant out to here?" She held her arms out in a loop before her stomach as demonstration, pausing to let the all men in the room think about the repercussions. "I am your partner, sworn to risk my life alongside yours."

The look on his face silently conceded her point. "Maybe while you're pregnant, yes, you should take it easy. I could work with someone else for a while. Boian and Romolo, perhaps..."

"And after the baby comes... what am I to do then?" she asked, tearily, bitterly vindicated he'd finally seen how things would inarguably be changed for her. "You say you want to raise it without me, that you'll hire help. Am I supposed to just pretend I'm not the child's mother while you and some other woman or string of women raises it? While I stand aside and watch?"

"But you just said you didn't want to be a mother," Flaviu countered weakly as Freya's arguments began to sink in.

"Will we lie to this child, deny my own kinship?" she pressed, her voice hoarse with sadness. "Or tell it the truth, that I never wanted it but its father guilted me into having it? Which of these alternatives is the lesser of two evils, do you think?"

Flaviu's whole body sagged with the weight of her argument. "I don't know."

Freya's tears flowed openly now. "Never mind the rest of you will think me either a heartless bitch or a stupid, unlucky whore, no matter my decision. Even if you can make some arrangement for the child to be cared for by a nanny of some definition... this is not a family, Flaviu! A dragon reservation is no place to raise a child! Parents are supposed to put the welfare of their child first."

"Your solution is to end its life before it's even begun," he moaned angrily, tears coursing down his own cheeks as well. "How does this promote its welfare?"

She simply shook her head, unable to answer.

Charlie's heart ached for them both. An unfortunate accident – as conscientious as Freya was, he had no doubt precautions had been taken but must have failed – now threatened to ruin both their lives. He couldn't see any solution to the quandary that didn't involve heartbreak for everyone involved.

"Give it a little more time, Freya," Flaviu counseled. "Maybe... you might give this a chance. Maybe you might change your mind. Maybe you might fall in love... no, not with me, but with our child. Maybe we might make an odd little family together, the three of us."

She shook her head, skeptical but too tired to fight any more. "You have such a fond remembrance of your own childhood here?" she asked dubiously.

His expression darkened. "We don't have to repeat all those mistakes."

She snorted disdainfully. "No, we can make new, even worse ones."

He knelt before her again, his hands resting on her thighs. "Our family will be unique, this is true. But that doesn't mean it will fail. Not if we try, really strive to do the best we can."

"It's too much." Freya buried her face in her hands. "I liked how things were between us."

He stroked her hair gently. Softly, sadly, he said, "Freya, for God's sake... we can never go back to that. Not after this."

"I know!" she wailed, throwing back her head and refusing to look at anyone. "I'm damned no matter what I decide!"

Flaviu tried to soothe her, but she pushed his hands away. "If I choose to terminate this pregnancy now, you'll never forgive me," she lamented bitterly, finally looking him in the eye. "And with a partner who hates me, I might as well quit. Then what chance will I have to get another keeper job at any other reservation, eh? Think Ghenadie will write me a glowing recommendation?"

Flaviu swallowed, unable to muster an honest argument.

She looked away again. "And if I keep this baby, I give up my life here. My work. The only thing I truly love in this world."

"You might gain a new love, Freya," he urged. "That of a mother for her child." Gathering her into his embrace, holding her not lovingly, but as a sympathetic friend (not that any fellow male keeper would have tolerated such intimacy), he murmured, "I swear I will do everything in my power to enable you to continue as a keeper... as my partner. I'll take any oath, make any sacrifice. I promise you I won't ever leave you or our baby behind."

After a very long, tense pause, Freya gently disentangled herself from him. Her face still tear-streaked and splotchy, she was nevertheless for the most part composed. Her voice resolute and calm, she said, "I will think about it."