**Author's Note: This story got a little bigger than I meant it to! My apologies for how long it took to finish; I'm working on NaNoWriMo. Thank you for all the wonderful reviews and continued support. Keep an eye out for the final part of the trilogy, a D/G piece called "House Unity: Unified"
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN - The Time for Questions is Past
She had shut the door in his face.
She'd done it gently, sure, but it didn't change the large, unbreachable slab of wood that had come between them.
He was dying for her, just a touch, just a sight, just a taste.
Rob Wesley had gone head over heels, and the hell of it was, he couldn't even tell her because she wouldn't… bloody… see him.
Sitting on the walk in front of her house, Rob tried to comfort himself with the knowledge that his sister was in there, and she was probably the reason he couldn't come in. Surely it wasn't Lucia's decision.
Inside, Lucia knelt in front of Genevieve, an array of pins held between her lips as she scrutinized the overlong skirt of the billowing grey dress.
She'd found it among her mother's things, things her father had asked her to take away long ago. She hadn't been able to part with them, hadn't been able to throw away her mother's clothes just for the sake of a little comfort, a little forgetfulness. So she'd stowed them in her room, knowing he'd never find them, and suspecting one day she would need them.
Now, Lucia knew the dress had found its proper owner. She would do it for Genevieve, this broken-hearted girl who needed so much… even if it meant giving up something of her mother's.
She wasn't afraid to forget anymore. She wasn't afraid of what her mother had left behind.
Lucia tried not to smile at Rob's shadow passing back and forth in front of the window-if she smiled, she'd surely drop her pins. He was pacing in front of her house, for heaven's sakes. It was really flattering. She wanted to let him in, but she was helping Gen, for one thing, and the girl hardly looked up to answering her brother's questions.
And besides, there was only one more day until the masque.
He could wait.
"My brother isn't here to find me." Gen made the statement while peering out the window, barely restraining the urge to stand on her tiptoes to better see her brother walking back and forth and staring at the front door. She looked down at the silent blonde girl kneeling at her feet, pinning up the hem of the dress, and wondered how she'd missed that particular tidbit.
Lucia and Rob. It seemed… right.
It seemed right in a way she and Drake hadn't, Gen thought, and felt a small spark of anger directed solely at herself. She'd been a fool, and a blind one. She hadn't even noticed the actions of her friends, of her brother.
And noticing his actions now, Genevieve blinked back tears.
That was a man in love.
When Lucia didn't answer her, Gen risked pinpricks by bending down and laying her hand to Lucia's head, making her look up. "He's lucky you'll tolerate him," Gen said, smiling softly.
And Lucia smiled back, knowing she was really the lucky one.
~~~
"It's not as though it's a wedding, Lovey. I can see you before the bloody masque."
Friday had come, and Rob Wesley's patience had passed. For once, he was making time, and this lunatic woman wouldn't take three minutes out of her day to talk to him.
It was maddening.
And still he couldn't take his eyes off her.
"You're seeing me now, aren't you?" Lucia gave him a half-smile, tired of the façade but not willing to destroy that which she'd so carefully built, the intrigue she hoped she'd produced.
She didn't really know why, but she wanted to hang onto him for a while. She wanted him to want her just as much as she wanted him.
Thinking that, she cringed.
A sentence like that would look absolutely awful in print.
"Speaking of print," she said aloud, making him look at her as though she'd lost her mind. "I've something for you."
"Don't go kissin' my arse now," he muttered, but he stopped even as she did, as she rummaged through her bookbag, her long hair curtaining her face. Unthinkingly, he reached out and tucked her hair behind her ears, getting it out of her way so she could properly look in the bag.
Her eyes skipped up to his, a pretty, serene blue, and he cursed inwardly.
He was getting to be just as bad as a bloody woman.
And the worst of it was, when she looked up and caught him staring, he just didn't give a damn.
"Here," she said, handing him a copy of the paper she'd pilfered from the newsroom. They weren't to be distributed until last hour, but scooped or no, she'd wanted him to have one.
She just didn't want to be there when he read it.
"Sneak preview," she said, and found her voice a bit shakier than she'd have liked. "I've got to run to class. Don't look for me after school, Robert, I've preparing to do for tonight."
A distraction, then. A feint, if you will, he thought, staring at the paper in his hands and her retreating form.
She'd given him the paper to keep him from stopping her.
Clever, ridiculous, beautiful girl.
He started to shake the paper open, and stopped when he saw he needn't have. His photograph took up a quarter of the front page, and the headline "Have You Seen This Man?" blazed just under the masthead.
Odds are you really haven't, the subhead ran.
You see him every day, in the halls, on the field, in the classroom. You know who he is, what he does, and what he stands for.
But does the student body of Holforth really know Robert Wesley?
If they don't, it's truly their loss.
First bell rang, and Rob stood in the hallway, transfixed by the words she'd written about him.
~~~
She bolted as soon as last bell was over, her stomach a complete mess of jumbled nerves and no food. She'd been
unable to eat, camped out in the newspaper office, afraid of what he'd thought of her article, afraid she
wouldn't be able to pull off the evening's festivities, just plain afraid.
He'd made her accept him and his place in her life, and now she just didn't know if she'd be able to go back to before, even if she wanted to.
And she didn't. Not even a little.
The halls were unusually quiet after last bell as students stayed behind in their classrooms or stood by their lockers, reading about the young man they'd simply stopped seeing.
And Lucia ran past them all, unseen, unheard, unnoticed.
She had a masque to prepare for.
~~~
She channeled her nerves into helping Genevieve. She was beautiful, Lucia thought without a touch of envy. Stunning. It was sad, Lucia thought, a waste that she'd not have the man she wanted on her arm.
But she looked just as good without him, if a bit lonelier, a bit sadder. "I'll be right along," Lucia said after putting the finishing touches on Genevieve's hair. "I'll just need a few minutes to get into costume." They'd already done her hair, and though Gen had really wanted to know the purpose of all the work they'd put into it, Lucia wouldn't tell her.
And that was okay, Gen thought, slipping out of Lucia's house, holding the skirt of her dress off the ground as she ran toward the school, feeling like Cinderella.
Lucia watched her out the window, then turned and looked in the mirror.
It was time to make mediocrity into mystery.
~~~
He was pacing again.
If he had to guess, Rob Wesley would say he'd covered more miles pacing in the last week than he had running laps around the field in practices. It was bloody ridiculous, all the waiting he'd done for her this past week.
He'd only been at the masque for ten bloody minutes, and already five people had stopped to talk to him about her article.
He'd read it three times over, the last time as he was trying to tie the thing around his neck that was currently strangling him. He'd gotten distracted, reading her words, reading the him she'd written. She'd made him so much more than he would ever see himself as.
And now, all he wanted was her hear with him, because the simple fact was, he felt like the person she'd written when he was with her.
When he'd paced one side of the floor to exhaustion, he thought a cup of punch was in order.
She was ten minutes late.
"Missing your Bond girl?" One of his teammates clapped him on the back-Rob was really starting to hate that particular habit-and made him spill his punch on his hand.
"She's coming," Rob said stiffly, wondering idly if she'd decided to leave him solo. He didn't know why she would, but then again, he didn't know why she'd been acting so bloody weird all week, either.
"You're not wearing a mask," the athlete said, shaking his head, the mouthpiece flapping wildly off the American football helmet. "But for the record, I think you'd make a great Bond."
Rob grinned tentatively, patting the fake gun in his right pocket.
And then she walked in the door.
~~~
They didn't recognize her.
She couldn't really get over it, over the people who were whispering and asking who she was, the wide eyes and the curious stares.
People didn't look at Lucia Lovejoy like that. In fact, people usually didn't look at her at all.
She felt exposed, naked, but she'd put herself in that position. She wanted to be the person who could be with him, and she thought she'd done that.
No one would recognize this young woman-thin rows of long, blonde braids hanging down her back, held away from her face by a jeweled band, her powder-blue top leaving most of her stomach exposed, a single blue jewel secured in her navel. Her skirt flowed all the way to the floor, touching the tips of her painted toenails. And underneath the veil covering her nose and mouth, Lucia was smiling.
She looked exotic. She looked worthy.
And when she walked in the door, she spotted him immediately, the beacon of his hair, the classy black suit, and she felt her confidence falter.
Then his eyes met hers.
~~~
He was glad he'd spilled the punch and put it down.
If he hadn't, he might have choked.
It was the eyes that gave her away, the soft, uncertain blue underneath the long lashes she'd painted black.
She looked bloody… freaking… amazing.
Rob walked toward her, straight past someone trying to talk to him, wondering how the hell he was supposed to touch her, talk to her, looking like that, as crazed as he'd been for her all week.
He settled for putting his hands to her waist, kneading the soft, warm flesh there with his big, calloused hands. "You're going to kill me," he said, putting his lips to her ear and smelling something exotic and flowery in the soft spot behind her ear.
Things were going to get ugly quick if he didn't get some control over himself.
Lucia took in a shaky breath, stirring her veil when she felt his hands on her skin. She'd felt foolish until she'd seen the look in his eyes, pure hunger.
Now she felt validated.
"I wanted to be a good Bond girl," she said, putting her hands to his chest. "Did I do okay?"
Music was playing, but Rob really didn't think he was going to get his feet to move. He'd trip. He'd fall on her. He'd break her. "Okay? No. You passed okay some while ago."
He stared at her, unable to stop, until she cast her eyes aside, blushing.
And something in the look made him think of the young woman with her pen and notebook, and he put his hands to the sides of her face, forcing her to look at him.
"The article?" he said. "How do you see that? How did you make me so… important?"
Not negative, not ridiculing. Complimentary.
The questions she'd asked hadn't ever mattered, because she'd seen him before that.
Lucia put her hands to his wrists, uncomfortably aware of all the people looking at them. "You are important to me," she said, not trusting herself to say anymore.
She closed her eyes, feeling dizzy. There was something… something here. Her ears popped and she grasped his arm, steadying herself. "Rob, did you-?"
"Ihavesomethingtotellyou," he said in a rush, the words running together. It seemed urgent, now, to tell her what he'd been waiting to tell her all week, what had hit him like a cold down pillow square in the chest when he'd read what she'd written about him.
"Something's happening," she whispered, her fingers digging painfully into his biceps, but her eyes were wide and excited, and she didn't seem scared.
Something was clicking back into place.
Brave and beautiful and dragons and danger and carriages and castles, the train to school, mustn't miss the train-
"Rob," she gasped, looking in his eyes. Where had Gen gone? She'd just been right there, dancing with someone dressed as a derelict… "Rob!"
Not Rob…
He shook his head, so intent on his confession he didn't feel what was happening around him.
"Lovey, damn it, would you just listen to me before I botch it all up? It's not easy for a bloke-a very confused one at that-to tell a girl he loves her when she's on about something else entirely-"
He lifted her veil and kissed her before she could say anything, and Lucia sunk into it, feeling her head spin and the ground tremble slightly beneath her feet as his lips parted hers, his tongue lapping gently over her lower lip before he settled in again.
Here, she thought, bringing her arms around him. This is right.
"Love you," she whispered between kisses, wondering why she'd been scared of it at all.
This could never take away, only build.
The noise began with her whisper, growing to a roar, plateauing in a clamor of voices that hadn't been there only moments before.
Guess the team caught on to Lucia, he thought, breaking away, trembling, breathless, putting his forehead to hers and letting the veil drop back between their lips, their breath strained through the sheer fabric.
And then he opened his eyes, found himself-
In a castle? What the bloody hell?
At Hogwarts, with Luna Lovegood in his arms. Her eyes were still half-closed, and through the veil, he could see her lips lifted in a faint smile.
Casting shocked glances around at his classmates-his Hogwarts classmates-Ron moaned uneasily.
He'd been hallucinating. Dreaming. Perhaps he'd been bitten by a spider. Panicked, he stepped back, slapping a hand to his forehead to check for fever, his eyes bugging with disbelief as he took in the sight of Loony Lovegood.
She was hardly wearing any clothes. He could see her navel, for Merlin's sakes, and a hell of a lot besides. And she was just standing there, swaying as if nothing had happened.
"Luna!" he shouted, oblivious to the laughter around him, oblivious to his sister rushing past with Draco Malfoy, oblivious to everything but the way the dotty bird in front of him was acting.
She opened her eyes, dreamy now, and felt completely at peace, unfazed by their apparent transport. This was why things had felt off.
Now they were home.
Ron shrugged off his jacket-the nice suit had come with him, he saw-and covered Luna with it, noticing the stares they were getting. The students seemed confused, but the faculty-
Well, he noticed Snape was glaring down the hallway at something, and Dumbledore was looking quite pleased with himself.
"Ron!"
Harry and Hermione all but skidded to a stop beside them, and Ron tightened his arm protectively around Luna, not even thinking about it.
He'd marvel over that particular instinct later.
"You're back!" Hermione looked at Ron, barely glanced at Luna, then looked back at Harry. "We were right!"
"What the hell is going on?" Ron exploded, not quite able to wrap his head around everything.
He'd played a game, something like Quidditch. He'd gone to classes, done homework.
He'd kissed Luna.
His parents-but already they were fading from his memory, leaving Arthur and Molly stoutly where they should be in his mind.
"Where were we?" he added when Harry and Hermione did naught but look at one another. Fed up with their silence, he looked at Luna. "Why aren't you saying anything?!"
"Ronald," she said finally, sliding her hand down to squeeze his reassuringly, "Stop asking so many questions."