I'm Lost In Time

Charles knew that someone was going to kill him just for being there. He didn't care. It maybe post curfew and dark, but important meetings don't conduct themselves.

He waited. He sat there in the Great Hall and waited.

Tshering sneaked out of the Housing quicker than she thought she would. Perhaps it was just the matter of her planning this meeting for days on end, an she had it all memorized in her head.

Sneaking into the Great Hall, the Ravenclaw pursed her lips until she could make out a silhouette in the dark. She smirked, slinking past the desks to sit own next to him. "Why are you up so late, Prentiss?" she asked, a tone of mock shock apparent in her voice.

Charles turned around. He saw Tshering right in front of him and he laughed. Finally, she was being nice to him. Or at least she wasn't yelling insults to his face.

"I don't know," he jokingly replied. "Perhaps it's to meet you here? Or because I'm bored?"

"Geez, Charles," Tshering snapped, though her mouth was still curled in a smirk, "of course you're bored." She crossed her arms, laughing.

A part of her soon felt absolute joy. The sort of joy she hasn't felt in an entire year. And those moments had long since faded in her mind.

"Yes. I do get bored easily," Charles agreed. He then put an arm around Tshering, hoping she wasn't going to kill him for doing that. "How are you?" he asked, his voice gentle. "You haven't been doing anything stupid, right?"

Tshering felt Charles put his arm around her, and she dared to rest her head on his shoulder. Her head buried in it, she murmured some words, mostly to herself. Even she couldn't make much sense of what they were.

Her fingers reached for his hair, and she turned her face up at his, "Nah, nothing out of the ordinary. Can you say the same for yourself?"

In her state of mind, Tshering was too tired to yell at him and kick him like she would if she were less fatigued. However, she was fatigued and moreover, she was extremely annoyed. She wasn't going to make herself more annoyed by screaming at anyone and having to explain to them that she disliked them.

OF course she didn't dislike Charles. If she did, then she wouldn't be talking to him at all now. But she was. She was lying on his shoulder, and she closed her eyes.

"There's nothing, Charles," she whispered, shaking her head, "there's nothing for me to talk to you about, okay?" She blinked back tears. "I-I'm sorry... I just had a shitload on my mind a lot, okay?"

Tshering, for once, managed to contain her temper. Mentally patting herself on the back, she merely sighed and opened her eyes, swallowing her fear. she bit her lip, her heart pounding. Was she going to tell him what she was going to tell him? About what she really felt about that conversation in the Room of Necessity?

Her eyes slowly blinked, opening, closing. She breathed in, out. In, out. An awkward pause settled between the two companions. Eventually, Tshering merely managed to clasp Charles's hand in hers, as if she was making some sort of secret vow that was never going to be broken.

"O-Okay," the Ravenclaw croaked, coughing one more time to clear her voice, "do you remember... the Room of Necessity?" She shook her head rigorously. "I... I... well... you know what?" She breathed in, "Ich liebe dich."

Charles had never heard Tsheirng speak German before, so it surprised him to hear her speak German. Her accent was absolute crap, but her harsh, abused voice was still there. He could detect it.

"You do?" he asked. He pulled her closer to him, so now she was practically sitting on the floor with her head on his lap. "I know, it's a hard thing to admit," he whispered, still not believing his ears. "At least you admitted it, Tshering. Ich liebe dich auch."

He knew that deep in his heart that they could never be together. There was too much between them: the distance, and their affections for other people. He wasn't going to tell her that, though, because her heart was broken enough.

Tshering let her head rest on Charles's lap, and wrapped his arms tightly around her back just because... she needed that support. She continued to hold her breath, because she was to scared to let go. Breathing was vital to most people, but to Tshering it was anything but that.

Merlin knows why she decided to let go of her breath, but she did. She felt the tide roll in, and held Charles ever the closer to her as the tide spread out all across her robes, making her look as if she was drenched in water.

"I..." she began, "I missed my chance. I missed my effing chance to be with who I'm sure is the only person that I love in the world and I did nothing about it." She stomped her foot on the ground. "I did nothing, you hear me?! I did no effing thing about it!"

Tshering heard Charles's relaxing voice speak, absorbing it into each and every cell of her body. To her, his voice was the only Calming Draught that she would ever need for the rest of her life, even when she was on her deathbed and she had no one else that would care. He did that to her - something no one else ever did.

It took her a while to assess the content of his words, but when she could fathom them she stopped crying to the point where it was reduced to sniffles, and she was looking up at him with a bundle of contradicting emotions that were apparent in her eyes. She merely stared up at him as her tears formed a clot in her throat, so she coughed quietly to clear it.

"T-Thank you," she whispered, her voice still shaking with tears, "f-for... b-being honest with me." She blinked back more tears.