{{I didn't edit—so forgive any odd errors! Enjoy.}}
Olive's body hurt.
Not her head. It had been better, a dull sort of throb like a deep bruise that was beginning to heal. Her body hurt, ached. Her soul splintered with something heavier than pain.
Guilt.
It was guilt. Eating away at her like a corrosive potion. It had been there since her appointment at St. Mungos, because when she was asked what she remembered, if she remembered a single thing about the night her memory had been damaged...she lied. Through her clenched teeth and a wobbling smile. She'd lied. The one night she was supposed to forget, the night she had begged and screamed to have disappear from her mind, was beginning to clear like fog in the morning sun.
George is quiet as they walk down Diagon Alley. He'd been quiet since St. Mungos too. At first she was scared that he was upset, that he was beginning to realize what a liar she was. But he's gentle when he grabs her hand, soft spoken when he murmurs that he'll get the door despite the take-away bags in his other arm. And Olive wants to help, wants to apologize profusely for being so blue today. She wants to beg for forgiveness in anticipation of finally telling the truth. Instead she offers up another strained smile.
George doesn't buy it. She can tell. He surprises her though. He has yet to ask any sort of invasive question beyond what she was in the mood to eat. And when she'd sheepishly admitted she'd been craving the pizza from the place they'd gone on their first date, he had only smiled and nodded.
Now, he guides her through the darkness of Weasley's Wizard Wheezes. His hand stays on her back, like he knows that she's exhausted. She must look it. She hated healer appointments. She hated it all, and pretending like everything is fine feels like she's trying to swim with cobblestones attached to her ankles.
George swings open the door to his flat, murmuring something she can't quite hear as he scoots by her to walk to the kitchen. Olive moves to help, but ends up lingering in the doorway.
She looks around the flat, coming to a uncertain sort of realization.
Something is different.
Her brow furrows, fingers pressing against her mouth as she pieces together George Weasley's flat. It was difficult, feeling like there was something off when she wasn't certain she could even remember what it looked like the last time she was here. Like playing a game of I-spy.
From what she could recall, nothing was truly out of place. The same neatly stacked books on a shelf, the same knickknacks positioned just the way they always were. She knew he liked things a certain way, because if she thumbed a chess piece just slightly off it's respective square, George would put it back when he thought she wasn't looking. She could remember that, where his decor was meant to go, what pictures hung where. She could even remember that the gramophone they hadn't worked up to listening to together was still sat statuesque in the corner. The same. It was the same.
But different. Something was different.
Her eyes slide from the kitchen, across the walls, sweeping over the rug. It hits her right in the chest, knocking the air from her lungs. It's obvious now.
The sofa.
Olive blinks, and then she blinks again. There, sitting like it had been there forever, was a brand new sofa.
A green sofa.
Olive hurries over, reaching out and touching the moss colored fabric. Its dark, earthy, and the feeling so soft against her fingers that she wants to melt into the cushions. Green. George, the very person that couldn't look at the green painted door across from his bedroom, the person that had avoided her eyes, the one that seemed to sneer at the beauty of all of the green that surrounded the Burrow. That George, her George, had gone and purchased a green couch.
"Now I won't have to see you look ill every time you look in this room."
She spins to face him, her heart leaping at the forced nonchalance in his voice. Merlin, he was trying to play it cool. She could see it in the way he quickly goes back to fixing their plates instead of looking at her. His cheek is twitching, his ear flushed pink. Oh Merlin.
Olive's lip begins to wobble, her hand clamping down on the back of the new sofa. He knew she hated that old bloody sofa he had, and while she would be ashamed at her discomfort over what his old funiture had seen, she can't help but feel comfort. George knew her. He knew her well enough to get rid of that awful thing that he and Angelina Johnson had snogged and shagged on. He bought a new one, a green one. And he didn't want to make it a big deal.
She wants to be able to not make it a big deal. But when he glances up at her from where he's putting her pizza on a plate and offers up an awkward smile, Olive bursts into tears. Embarrassing, floods of emotion make rivers of her cheeks and trail down her scar to drip onto her shirt. Horribly embarrassing. She hates how easy it is for her to cry when people are nice. But a different four letter feeling has distracted her from that self hate.
George freezes, his eyes going round and brows hiking up his forehead in shock. His face softens in a hurry, and then he huffs out a laugh, cajoling gently from the kitchen, "Ollie."
She can't stop, her hands slapping over her cheeks while her eyes continue to drip like a leaky faucet. She tries to wipe them away, to press the heels of her hands into her eyes to force them to stop. But they just keep coming. George bought this sofa, because he knew she would like it. George hates green. He hates green, but he bought this anyway.
He sets down her plate on the table and makes his way over to her, still blushing furiously while he pleads gruffly, "Merlin, don't cry. It's just a couch, Ollie."
It isn't. It isn't just a couch. Olive hides her eyes behind her hands, voice cracking as she cries simply, "George."
It's all she can manage to say. Tentative arms wrap around her, waiting to make sure it's okay. Olive rests her head against his chest, exhausted and emotional. Just when it was getting to be too much, he did something like this. Something so sweet, so George. Her heart threatens to burst when she feels him rest his chin on the top of her head.
"If I tell you I got new blankets as well are you going to keep crying?"
A gurgled sob is her only reply, her body melting into his warmth. He chuckles quietly, untangling himself from her just enough to reach for something. She keeps her eyes squeezed tight, humiliated by her outburst. Something soft settles around her shoulders, and she doesn't fight him when he gently sets her arms by her sides so that he can bundle one of his new blankets around her. She nearly chokes when she opens her eyes and sees that it's a familiar shade of purple, like the ice cream she'd given him when he'd passed out in her shop. She's certain her eyes are in the shape of love hearts when she returns to staring at the green couch. She wipes her tears with the blanket.
George smirks slightly, "If you like the old one that much I'll just go—"
"Don't you dare, George Weasley!"
He laughs at her horrified stammer, nodding once and hugging her tight around the shoulders. They rock back and forth on their feet, Olive's eyes drying and her breaths returning to normal. Her cheeks warm when she hears softly from above, "C'mere."
She lifts her head all to eagerly, catching his lips in a kiss that feels different too. It feels different, because on her worst days, George reminds her that life is good. That life can be good, even if it may not feel like it. Even if she forgets it from time to time.
He's so gentle, pressing his mouth to hers carefully so as not to bother her irritated scar. She presses closer, glides her tongue just barely over his lower lip and smiles when he groans in warning, "Olive."
"George," She whispers, pressing her lips to his jaw and leaving them there for a moment as he rocks them back and forth. She nearly starts crying again, her throat wrapped in thorns that seem to tighten with each inhale. She swallows as best she can, deciding to be brave. Her body leans into him more, her head throbbing as she says shakily, "I just have to make sense of it all, George."
She doesn't say anything more. Admitting that much has her lungs curling inward and rejecting her desperate attempts to breathe in for six beats and exhale for five. Those breathing techniques had helped so much when she had been frustrated by her empty mind, by her inability to make sense of the future. But now that she was beginning to remember the past, they seemed frivolous. Breathing seemed frivolous.
And below it all, was a simmering agony over the fact that while she would never be able to remember dates and times and first kisses, she would be forced to relive the memories she so badly wanted to destroy.
A sharp puff of air leaves her against George's chest, her fingers tightening in the blanket wrapped around her as an auditory memory assails her mind.
"Please! Please!"
She knows it's her own voice, her own screams. Perhaps that was the difficulty in remembering it all. She was partially to blame.
"Ollie. Look at me, please."
Her scar burns, aches just as her fingers twitch to scratch at it. It was horribly ugly, she felt horribly ugly. Lying was ugly, memory was ugly. Green...sometimes green was ugly. But when she lifts her eyes to see his, his eyes streaked with Gryffindor gold that made her feel brave, the same eyes that picked out that sodding green couch, she feels anything but hideous.
George smiles gently, the movement stilted and awkward, not because he was unsure. He simply was relearning how to smile, how to give someone else a sign that he wasn't angry or grieving or in pain. His lips stretch up further on one side, lifting his cheek and causing the crows feet around his eyes to deepen. He inhales slowly, six whole beats. She breathes with him. Together, they exhale.
"I have to make sense of things too, Olive. And while I sometimes wish that you would let me help you make sense of it all...It would be rather hypocritical of me to expect you to. I think we've both just been doing things on our own for a while, but I don't want you to think you have to. I want to help you, I want to know you. But I'm happy to wait. As long as you'll let me."
Olive blinks at him, her cheeks warming and eyes watering. She nods quickly, unable to say how much it means to her to know that he's right here with her, "You're here."
George chuckles deeply, the noise rumbling through his chest and smacking straight against her heart. He grins, dipping his lips down to brush against hers as he whispers, "I'm here."
Olive grins too, and for the first time since Harry and Ron said names she wasn't yet prepared to hear, she feels herself relax. She kisses George, kisses him like she means it. Kisses him so that he knows that while she may not remember ever feeling this way before, she knows exactly what this feeling is.
His quiet moan causes her cheeks to heat up even further, and Olive can't resist teasing, "You know you're getting shagged on that couch tonight, right?"
He laughs, the purest sound to chase away the last of those shadowy memories that hurt her mind and heart and soul. Olive laughs too, pulling him down onto the plush cushions that hold the potential for new memories. Ones she can make with George. No memories of Angelina, none of Blaise Zabini or Draco Malfoy. None of the cloaked figure she couldn't yet identify in her dreams. New. New and fresh and full of joy.
Green could be ugly.
It could also be breathtakingly beautiful.
{{thank you so much for waiting patiently!!! I had horrible writers block—and was kind of recovering from finals/graduation/birthday celebration! I love you all and yes—we will soon get to Olive's entire backstory. I just love a slow burn (: xoxo}}