Reunion

[Casey Carlin]

Out of Character:

Uuuuugh I accidentally pushed the back button so I had to start all over so sorry if it's crappy .

Although Casey Carlin had been traveling like crazy since she'd graduated from Hogwarts New Zealand, she hadn't been to Bondi in quite a while. In the past three years, Casey had traveled to Japan, France, England, New Zealand, and even Australia. Though her visit to Bondi back then was completely different than the reason she was here today.

Truthfully, Casey didn't know whether her surprise host would still be living in Bondi, but she had a feeling Izaak Finch wouldn't desert his paradise anytime soon. Then again, she hadn't spoken to him in three years, who knew, maybe he had changed? She had; though some change was for the better, some for the worse. The Veela girl was still as promiscuous as ever, but given her situation she had to do what she could to make ends meet. Traveling wasn't cheap, especially not for someone with no real career, or work she could call a steady job.

Finally though, the blonde girl had given up on her travels, she'd given up on her search. One late night in England, when she almost decided to go visit her family, she realized that the person she needed to visit wasn't her family, but her best friend. It was he that was more connected to this situation than her family, who had no clue.

It had been a rough three years for Casey, full of overwhelming panic, fear, desperation and heartbreak. Now that she had come to terms with her situation, she needed closure, and she needed to feel whole again. This was why she was back at Bondi, searching for the only person who could understand her right now. Casey walked up to where she knew the home to be, taking a moment to compose herself. She fluffed out her hair out of nervousness and brushed over her dress once more. Throughout her travels she had gotten more casual and had stopped worrying about her appearance as much, because she was too preoccupied with other more important matters to care about her own well being. But she supposed that having Veela blood in her helped boost her appearance anyway no matter how poor the outfit.

Still, for this special reunion, she knew she had to look decent. Finally, Casey stood at the doorway and knocked carefully three times with her right hand. Beside her, a tiny hand let go of her left hand and the five year old girl hid behind Casey, only brave enough to peer through the Veela girl's legs.

 

[Izaak Finch]

Izaak Finch stood before the open fridge and bore his azure eyes in to the scarce and stale contents that had been left to sit on its shelves; Chinese takeaway he’d never gotten around to finishing a week ago, a half empty carton of sour milk, a hand of bananas turned black by the cold, several bottles of premium beer and something that looked like a pickle sitting in the very corner, but Izaak really could have sworn that it had been sausage last time he had looked. Granted, he didn’t visit this fridge often (that much was obvious), but still. The twenty-three year old wrinkled his nose in disgust, suddenly his peckish hunger was no more so instead he fished out a longneck bottle of beer and shut the door in a hurry. Note to self: clean out the freaking fridge. But Izaak knew that he wouldn’t get around to it today, nothing ever got done on days like today. Twisting the lid off of his beer and tossing it onto the breakfast bar, Izaak sucked down a long draught of the bitter beverage and wandered up the stairs of the house he had used to call home.

If things had been different that night, if he hadn’t leant over the center console to kiss her, if he had just keep his head clear and his eyes on the road then Izaak Finch’s life would be nothing like what it was now, more different than even what the wild working of his dreams could conjure. There were photos everywhere of his former fiancée, so much so that for a long time after her death Izaak couldn’t even bare to take one step into their home for the fear of being haunted by her beautiful, smiling face. Time had healed his earth-shattering heartbreak, just like everyone had said it would, and slowly but surely Izaak had found his feet again. He had remembered how to get up in the morning, how to make himself breakfast and what it was like to sleep at night without horrific nightmares playing through your head the very moment you slid your eyes closed. He had learnt how to lean on friends and family and had weaned himself from their support when he had felt that he was ready. Now he had scored a job competing as a professional surfer and was being paid money to travel around the world just to do so. And Izaak had done the one thing that he thought was never going to be possible, he had fallen in love again and with a girl that had been his sunshine through everything. That was not to say that he didn’t miss Alexis or their daughter still, he missed them a lot and not a single day went by when he didn’t think of them, somewhere up there above him. But that was just it, Izaak was still down here, he still had a life to carry on and he knew that Alexis wouldn’t want him throwing it all away when he still had so much left to give.

But on days like today, Izaak was excused from powering forward. This morning he had gone down to the cemetery to lay fresh flowers from his sister’s shop on their graves. He had sat down next to them and spoken for all of an hour about the world they no longer belonged to. He had told them he loved them, and that he missed them and had wandered back to the house that once upon a time they had all called home. Days like today were the ones in which he’d take a step back and let the throes and the lights of life pass him by. Tilting the bottle to his lips once more, Izaak sipped at the beer and eyed off the door opposing him over the brown-tinted glass. He knew what lay behind it, he knew it probably wouldn’t be good for his health to open it up and fall into the dreams of yesterday but the twenty three year old could not help himself. His free hand reach out and twisted the door knob until the door swung backwards, opening up to a menagerie of plush toys and pastel walls. There was a cot that had never been slept in, a changing table that had never been used, a shaggy brown teddy that had never had its ear chewed on by a gurgling infant. Izaak sighed longingly and plucked it out from the corner of the cot that would have been his daughter’s. He ran his thumb over its velvet soft ears and the black plastic beads of its eyes in wonder, imaging a little girl with strawberry blonde locks and big blue eyes dragging it down to his bedroom in the early hours of the morning and wrapping a tiny fist across the door when she got there. It all seemed so real that the images began to materialise to his senses. He was sure he even heard the knock ringing in his ears. That wasn’t possible was it? Nor did he think that anyone would come knocking on the door to this house either, most people just visited him in his apartment down the street nowadays. Curiously, Izaak poked his head out from Ella’s room and decided that maybe he should see it anyone was at the door. His feet picked up and jogged down the stairs of his house, tucking the teddy in to the same hand that was holding his beer as he did so.

Izaak didn’t know who he was expecting at the door, maybe Leah, maybe Melodie... Alianne? But who appeared to him as he pulled it open was most definitely not who he was expecting at all. The man could not seem to function for the disbelief that swept through his body, all that he seemed capable of doing was widening those oh so azure eyes of his and gaping at the young woman before him with his mouth wide open. “Casey?” He finally managed to whisper, softly as if speaking any louder might shatter what he was sure was a mirage before him. The best friend he had not seen for three years was now standing upon his doorstep, without a call, without an owl, just a whole lot of surprise. “Oh my god.” And with that Izaak rushed forward into her arms and held her so tightly against him as if he was attempting to make up for all the hugs he’d needed from her over the past few years but had never managed to find. Over her shoulder he sighted a tiny blonde girl, perhaps about the age of four or five. She looked painfully familiar but Izaak could just not seem to place his finger upon why. But his attention diverted back to Casey as he posed a question he’d been needing the answer for, his tone weighty and meek and subdued with hurt. “Why did you leave?”
​

 

[Casey Carlin]

Between each millisecond of each knock, so many different scenarios ran through Casey's head. What if Izaak hated her by now, after all she hadn't even attempted to contact him in three years. What if he wanted nothing to do with her? What if he simply didn't live here anymore? Who did she think she was just simply walking up to his front door as if nothing had happened, nothing had changed in their lives when in fact, everything had.

As Casey felt a small child's body press against her from behind protectively, Casey had half the urge to just turn around right now. It was as if somehow, the child's fear had been transferred onto her. Though before they both knew it, and before Casey could act upon her usual attempt at running away from things, the door had swung open, revealing the Izaak Finch she remembered perfectly as if he had been kept still in the apartment not to be taken out until she returned. The only difference she seemed to be able to point out at first glance was that he seemed older, which was expected. It made her wonder if she looked older? She still felt exactly the same, though somehow she felt motherhood had aged her.

Casey stood there transfixed on the guy she had been privileged to call her best friend for many years - was she still allowed to call him that? Before she could question that any further, or even scold herself for being a terrible friend, Izaak uttered her name in disbelief. The twenty year old had barely smiled in response before the older boy was already enveloping her in a hug. Well, I guess there was her answer? Casey willingly accepted the hug, squeezing him tightly in response to his death-like grip.

However it seemed his sudden action had frightened the little girl accompanying Casey and she had let out a small squeal of surprise. Casey released Izaak and immediately the girl was clinging on to Casey once again, one arm around her leg, the other hand tugging a fistful of dress. Usually Casey's undivided attention went to her, however at this moment, her sea green eyes, which paled to a dull grey with the outfit she was wearing, were glued to those azure of her best friend's. She smiled a little at the thought of that, being able to call him that still, at least she hoped. However the next few words the left his mouth caused the corners of her mouth to drop lightly in sorrow.

The Gryffindor girl at heart felt her dressed being tugged at as the tiny hand tightened its grip and Casey instinctively reached down to replace her dress with her hand. She looked down at the small blonde girl and smiled at her encouragingly. "Izaak, you remember your niece Autumn, right?" Casey said, now guiding the little girl forward from behind her; it seemed that as long as she held Casey's hand she seemed to have regained a bit of confidence and looked up at Izaak with the same pair of shockingly blue eyes. This was the only way Casey knew how to answer Izaak's question.​

 

[Izaak Finch]

If one thing was certain between all the lost time and the missed memories of the pair of long lost best friends, it was that Izaak most definitely did not want to let Casey Andrea Carlin go. He was afraid almost that if he did, she might dance just out of his reach again and then be lost forever in hidden corners of the world she was used to running away to. He sunk his head lower onto her shoulder and into the perfect blonde locks of her hair and breathed in that smell, familiar even after all these years. Izaak couldn’t help it but to wish she had been there when he’d needed that sort of familiarity the most, when nothing ever seemed like it could fit the way it once had. But as he pressed her tighter against his chest to the point where he was surprised she was still managing to breathe, Izaak sighed into the embrace and thought, if nothing else, at least she’s here now.

The squeak of the young girl that had hidden herself behind his best friend did not go unheard by Izaak but he would be lying if he said that the break of their embrace didn’t disappoint him. To make up for three years the former Slytherin wanted a multitude more cuddles from Casey Carlin than that. As impatient as he was though, Izaak knew that she’d dish them out like candy should he ask for them and vice versa. So comfortably he settled into her gaze and for a moment thereafter swept his brightly burning blue eyes over each individual feature he had cut so clearly into his memory before she had gone away. Casey looked the absolute stunning part of a young woman now, his friend was even more beautiful than the bubbling graduate he had seen three years ago, if that was even possible of a girl that could have had the entire world at her feet with just one smile at the mere age of fifteen. She had certainly sent Izaak panting that one drunken night all those many years ago. But there was something more about her, something wiser in the sea green of her eyes. Responsibility shouldered her, especially in the way that she curled her hand around the one so tiny in comparison that belonged to the blonde girl taking refuge in Casey’s dress. There was something so hauntingly familiar about the child. Was she Casey’s daughter? No, no. Even if Casey had had a daughter this couldn’t possibly be her, the girl wasn’t young enough. But who on earth was she then? Izaak managed to answer his own question even before his friend had begun speaking. Because as he caught a glimmer of azure in those big doe eyes of hers, everything came flooding back. Bella, he thought at the same time that Casey coaxed her forward and introduced her to him as his niece.

A hand clapped over his mouth as he hummed in disbelief, if it hadn’t been an out of body experience before then it certainly was now. Now Izaak Finch loved surprises, he was a sucker for them in fact, but even this felt wildly odd to him. Was it possible to feel over-the-moon ecstatic and gut wrenchingly awful all at the same time? The Lannings were no more part of his life than Casey had been over the past three years. Sure he had thought about them, he always did, Bella was his half sister of course. But she had virtually dropped off the face of the Earth, and now he figured that Autumn had been with Casey all this time and, oh... This was all too much, in only the very best of ways though of course. Izaak sunk to his knees before his niece so that he was no longer towering over her but seeing her eye-to-eye. “Of course, how could I forget Autumn.” He spoke jovially, more so to Autumn than to his best friend in answering her question. “But you know, you were this little the last time I saw you.” Izaak grinned and gestured to about half of his niece’s height with a lighthearted sparkle bouncing in his blue eyes. He reached out to playfully tap the child’s nose and as he stood up, he wondered if she’d grown up anything to be like her mother. The resemblance alone was uncanny and it was sad that the young man had not noticed it sooner. Returning his azure eyes to Casey once more, Izaak gave a smile – one that said that the pair had a whole lot of things to catch up on. His life had been turned on its head in three years, he could only imagine what would have happened to Casey’s. “Is Bella... Wait, you know what? Let’s go inside and we can catch up there.” With the hand that had not been grasped around the beer and his late daughter’s teddy, Izaak reached out to Casey and offered her up his open palm so he could lead her and Autumn inside. It really was a rare occasion for him to invite anyone into this house, there were so many photos of he and Alexis everywhere, so many memories tucked away onto each shelf and buried beneath every cushion, it was almost sacred to him. But Casey and Autumn were an ever so special exception.




​

 

[Casey Carlin]

The moment the question left her lips, Casey inhaled silently, holding her breath, afraid and anxious of Izaak's reaction to Autumn. It wasn't just that she was reintroducing niece and uncle that had her stomach in knots, or the fact that explaining how Autumn happened to end up in her care was a long, painful story for Casey - it was the fact that Autumn's growth was living, physical proof of exactly how much time had passed between the pair of best friends. Casey kept her eyes on Izaak for his reaction and was able to exhale in relief when he hadn't let the small moment of surprise overcome him.

She smiled as she watched him kneel down to Autumn's level and speak to her in a playful manner. She knew Izaak would accept Autumn, even by the mere sight of her, she nearly resembled Bella exactly; but it was a nice, welcoming feeling to see Autumn reunited with her uncle, the uncle that should've been there for her as she grew up. Casey nearly chuckled to herself as she thought of the tiny blonde girl nearly overcoming her terrible two's - that was when Casey had first gotten her and there were nights when she cried laying awake at night not knowing how she, they, were going to survive. There had been moments when she wished Izaak were there to help, other times when she was glad he didn't have to witness her struggling, and then certain times when Autumn's case of "terrible two" syndrome was so bad it was funny that she wished he would've seen for a laugh.

Now the five year old girl stood before him, giggling happily as he tapped her nose. She wrinkled it playfully and pretended to act shy by hiding behind Casey again who merely rolled her eyes exasperatingly. It was then that Izaak spoke to her again, his first words being about Bella. Why wouldn't they, she was his sister, Autumn's mother, Casey's girlfriend. It sounded so complicated, and at times was, but it wasn't anymore. That was all done with, and before Izaak continued with his question, he invited the two blonde's in. Casey smiled at him gratefully, not sure if she was thankful that he'd invited them in or that he stopped talking about Bella, that he had known to stop the question short.

As the twenty year old took her friend's hand, with the other instinctively around Autumn's guiding her in, they stepped inside his home. Immediately, Casey felt the difference of Izaak Finch. It hadn't been easily noticeable outdoors on the front step when all that she saw, or wanted to see, was the old image of her blue-eyed best friend preserved in time as if nothing had changed. But now as she took a closer look in a different setting, she felt the difference, and saw it. There was a sense of sadness deep within those blue irises...was it loss? Casey couldn't pin it, but there was an emptiness in his eyes and within his house; it no longer felt like a home.

Casey was distracted from her thoughts and only had time to give Izaak a fleeting questioning look before Autumn pulled away from her and said, "Teddy!" as she reached forward and pulled a teddy bear from Izaak's hand, now only clutching a bottle of beer. "Did you get it for me for my birthday?" Autumn finally spoke to her uncle, "I'm five now! Mommy says I have to go to school now," the tiny blonde said, revealing the reason Casey had chosen to show up today of all days. Autumn squeezed the teddy bear that had given her the courage to speak up finally and revealed her hyperactive self. "Autumn give it back," Casey chided her, shaking her head with a small chuckle as she said her sorries to Izaak. Autumn pouted and reluctantly handed over the teddy bear, trying her hardest not to stop her feet in protest.

It was only as her daughter handed back the stuffed animal that Casey noticed Izaak's hands, free of an engagement or wedding ring. The last time she had seen him he had been engaged to Alexis, the girl who's face smiled back in photos lined throughout the entire house. "Izaak, where's Alexis?" Casey asked cautiously more than calmly. Autumn, now upset with no birthday present, had begun to wander the house.