These Little Things

Jack was tired honestly. Of… well, existing. She heard all these people she had graduated with talking about their time and they had been having a jolly good time. They did not start their summer being stabbed twice in one night and finding out they were responsible for dozens of murders of a malicious poltergeist that had tried to kill both them and their friends. They had not had to tell their family that they would never see them again. They had not had the last of their family murdered. They had not had their best, well, only friend tortured to the point of insanity. They had not stopped communicating with the last person they thought would ever abandon them.

So yes, Jack did not feel great lately. Chase was better, yes, but she was preoccupied with being totally head over heels with Calvin. Chase had assured Jack that they all loved Jack, but it was easy for someone who was loved to think that kind of love could replace all. Jack did not ever think she would ever need anyone, but that was before she had anyone.

She didn’t know what she was even upset over. She had just assumed that when Ari had walked into her life, he had not had intentions of leaving anytime soon. He had been with her through a lot. He had been one of the few to stick by her side when no one else wanted to, when no one else was even brave enough to. She had thought when he told her his biggest secret and she had not let it change the way she looked at him, she could maybe do the same. In fact, knowing that much had brought them closer. But when she had told hers, something she would have much rather hid from him, but she had felt wrong in doing so… Well… He said it had not changed anything. But how was it that they worked in the same Department at the Ministry and she had only seen him in passing, that he had not spoken to her, that she did not know anything about him presently, and doubted he knew anything about her. She would bet he did not even know she had given up a job offer to play Quidditch professionally, that she was joining the Order officially, that she had bought a house, that she was struggling and alone and friendless and that she really, really needed him.

But she doubted he knew any of this.

And maybe she was making something out of nothing.

Jack had been alone before and she would be alone again. She had the interns for her social needs, and she could treat them however the hell she wanted to and they could not say boo, not if they wanted to succeed in this business. She also had the creatures, dragons and rogue hippogriffs and griffins. She had the werewolves she dealt with. She had Chase… every once in awhile. She had Elliot, the Gytrash she had rescued. If she really needed help, she had Michael and Thaor, who always seemed up for protecting her, even when she did not want to be protected. She had the customers of WWW as well as the staff. She had the people she was making up to, telling them she was somehow connected to the murder of their family member and she would do whatever it took to make them feel at all better. She saw a lot of them. She was not completely alone.

But a friend would be nice.

Days like today made Jack order a bottle of scotch. Jack had never been a wine person, because she believed if you had hard problems, best drown them out with hard liquor. But she had noticed she had been becoming more accustomed to drinking wine, picking it over others, and realized this stemmed from her connection to Vito, simply the fact that every time she was dealing with really trying problems, he supplied the wine.

Jack was sick of her connection to Vito though. It did not define her. It was beginning to define her life, yes, but it did not define who she was. She was a person before she was Vito’s creator. She did not exist to make him exist. She now lived to make up for the fact that she had ever let him exist, had let him in the world, to kill, to hurt, to inflict pain. She was bearing that cross, she had that thorn in her side. Her days outside of work were dedicated to tracking down the families and friends of Vito’s victims and working to somehow makeup for what she… no. What HE had done. She was not synonymous with Vito, no matter how others viewed it. She would not allow herself to begin believing those lies, to buy in to her own darkest fears.

So she was doing whatever it took to prove to herself, and in a way to the outside world (though only two people knew of her true connection to the pesky poltergeist) that she in no way resembled Vito. She had created him. That was all. It did not mean that she was him. It did not mean they were one in the same. They were different, and she would not drink wine because Vito drank wine.

Jack drank scotch. That was what JACK did on her days off.

And boy did she need this day off. Alone, at the end of a bar, drinking her Scotch, free to dwell on her own thoughts. This was what Jack needed. She did not need friends, did not need her creation, did not need a moody werewolf who somehow managed to get past her angry exterior. I need three things, she thought to herself.

Me, myself, and I.

She nodded and then paused.

And scotch. Scotch is good too.

Aaron tapped his fingers lightly on the table in front of him. He wondered if he tapped it long enough if his fingers would start to engrave themselves into the table. Foolishly, he stopped for a moment and looked down. He saw exactly what he expected, no marks on the table. He smirked to himself for even believing that they would be there and then he went back to tapping his fingers again.

The lifestyle he had chosen recently was setting in. He had been seeking out the people he needed to so that he could get on with it, but so far he had not met or heard from anyone. It made him begin to wonder if they would ever contact him or if he was even worthy enough to join their ranks, then he laughed again. If there was one place he knew he would fit in, it was with the Death Eaters. They were nothing but a bunch of mindless pure blood extremists whose ideals Aaron could only laugh at.

But they had the power that he needed.

No one knew of what he planned to do, and he had no intention of relaying the information to anyone, even his closest friends. The plan was very intricate and would possibly last for years and any slip up, even on the smallest of levels, could prove catastrophic to his cause. Even his most trusted friends could damage him. Hell, he did not expect to even keep his friends after this. This did not deter him though, in fact, it motivated him to prove them wrong. That was what he did best after all.

He took a small sip from the glass of water that sat in front of him, and in doing so he spotted someone. Someone at the end of the bar who happened to catch his eye. Sometimes being alone in his own head was good, but other times it was nice to enjoy the company of someone else. And the woman throwing back scotch at the end of the bar seemed the perfect person to talk to.

Aaron was secretive and kept to himself a lot, but he still like to be outgoing from time to time and make conversation. He never really understood those people who could only be by themselves all of the time. Aaron would be the first to admit that company was always better than being lonely.

With those thoughts echoing through his head, he picked his water up and casually made his way across the bar and plopped himself down next to the woman. He made it known that he was coming to talk to her, mostly by sitting down and leaning against the bar staring directly at the side of her head with a smirk on is face. The first thing he did was observe her, albeit a little quickly. She was cute, although a little worn out. A working woman none the less, Aaron respected that.

"Drink enough of that stuff and it'll kill ya." He shrugged his shoulders and he grinned as he took another sip from his water. He drank alcohol on very rare occasions, mostly citing his tolerance as being extremely low. He liked to be in control of himself at all times, but if he took one shot of whiskey, he was done for the evening. "So there I was in the Leaky Cauldron, moping and being alone. Wondering what I was going to do and cursing everyone else that walked passed me." Not true.

He paused for a moment and then continued. "Then I look up and see you. Seemingly doing the exact thing I was. So, I figured the two of us could curse our bad luck together." He smiled warmly, trying to be as friendly as possible.

She was in the middle of throwing back the last of her drink when a voice so rudely interrupted her trance and her silent musings. The voice itself was not rude, neither were the intention if she really cared to think of the other perspective, but when had Jack ever been sensitive. That was why she and Chase always ended up warring. Jack was like a man in too many aspects- she just did not get feelings. She did not get them, understand them, know how to deal with them. And Chase, well, she was a just one big ball of feelings.

She looked up and slowly raised an eyebrow, lowering her glass to the table. "Oh really?" she asked, her jaw set. "In that case.." She rapped her knuckles on the bar and leaned for, looking down the bar a the bartender who was trying to flirt with a ditzy blonde, "Hey, man, another Scotch. Awesome." She sat back in her chair and reached up to mess up her short red hair.

Her green eyes slowly slid back to the man. She did not recognize him but she supposed that was normal. She was used to all of the students at Hogwarts and even there, she did not really care enough to pay too close attention to anyone. She knew her most common customers at Wheezes and she knew most of the people in her department, as well as some of the Order. Then there was Chase and Vito.

That was the extent of those she knew.

He continued on and she thought to herself The barman could not get me that alcohol any sooner. The drink slid towards her and she put some coins on the table- hard earned, sparse coins. Jack had left school with nothing, only her car and her books. No family, few friends, and no wizarding fortune like all of the purebloods. She had made all her money. It had taken being homeless for awhile, but she was making.

Though, he had described pretty well she had been doing. She looked up at him, her eyebrows together, not understanding this friendliness. "Did someone... drop you?" She was curious if the 'DON'T BOTHER' stamp on her forehead wasn't clear enough. "Can't stop you from sitting. I don't believe in luck though."

So she was a feisty one. Aaron grinned and made himself more comfortable. If there was one thing he was good at, it was putting up with people who did not particularly care for his company. Usually he would not have wasted his time with the woman and just gotten up and walked away, never to think about her ever again. But there was something about her, a fire that Aaron enjoyed but could not put his finger on.

She ordered another scotch and Aaron made himself more comfortable at the bar. He went from staring directly at her to facing the bar and leaning on his arms. He could sense that she really did not want his company but she did not tell him to leave nor did she make a move to leave herself. In is experience, that usually meant they were somewhat interested in what he had to say.

"Was I dropped?" He said with a grin and then made a face to mock thinking really hard. "I don't think so. My parents were very protective and would have never let that happen to me." He thought back to his parents for a moment. How over bearing they were and how conflicted their interests were. It sickened him that they were the only people in the world that he cared to impress. Only because they had never been impressed by him.

"It is funny you should say that because, in my experience, people who don't believe in luck are usually the luckiest of us all." He smirked and took another drink from his glass of water before observing it. He was running low and knew he wanted more, but did not want a full glass. He made a note to ration what was left of it.

"Whether or not you believe in luck is irrelevant." He shrugged his shoulders and started to lightly tap his fingers on the bar. Not loud enough to where anyone could hear him, just enough that he knew he was tapping. It was a quirk of his, he loved tapping his fingers. "So whats the occasion?" He said, pointing at the scotch she was drinking.

"Or are you just a serious alcohol abuser?"

He repeated his question, as though he needed to say the words to understand and she looked over and saw that he was joking. Wow, someone that could take a joke- even if she had not been too joking about it. That was rare nowadays. Everywhere she went had a trail of hurt egos and confused expressions because she simply refused to be nice. She had gone through three dozen interns at the Ministry because she did not know how to play nice.

At his words about his parents, she said, "Mmm," and continued to drink her Scotch. She thought about her parents and knew they would not even notice if they had dropped her. Well, to be fair, they were good parents for her first few years. Terrible people that did not understand her at all, but they were not ROTTEN. It wasn't until she got her Hogwarts letter that she stopped being their daughter.

"Funny, that's not what I've seen," she said. "The people who don't believe in luck know that you can't sit back on your ass and things will happen. You have to work hard and you have to sacrifice and then maybe something good will come of it," she shot a look over at him, as though daring him to challenge her wisdom on the subject. "And how can that be luck?"

He said it was irrelevant for her to believe in luck and she downed another drink of Scotch. He asked her why she was drinking or if she was just an alcoholic. She smirked and said. "My occassion is irrelevant," and she took another drink, smirking against the glass.

The grin could do nothing but grow on his face as she spoke. He understood where she was coming from, he did. He was great at looking at all sides of things, firmly believing that there is no way he can be correct about everything. It was something he had adopted from a young age, the ability to look at things from all angles. Nothing was ruled out to him and everything was possible if there was proof behind it.

He let her speak and he also watched her drink. He could not help but think of how many times over he would be drunk if he had decided to participate in drinking with her. By now he would have been close to naked and running around the place like he owned it. He smirked at the thought but then wrote it off.

"Don't get me confused." He said quickly, but not aggressively. "I believe in hard work just as much as you do. It is a must and no matter how lucky someone may be, they still have to work hard. But, imagine this." He made himself more comfortable and got more into speaking. "Two people are working equally hard on, lets say a house. Person A has luck person B has none. Person B has all of his work tools stolen on the first day. Then his house is raided by vandals, destroyed by the environment, blah blah blah." He stood quiet for a few seconds, wondering if his metaphor made any sense at all.

"Luck, fate, whatever you want to call it..... its real. I am sure you've seen it just as much as I have so it makes me wonder why you dispute it so much." He shrugged his shoulders and took a sip from his glass of water. "Who knows...." He said, drifting off and turning away from her and looking at the wall behind the barn.

"Maybe I am just crazy."

He smirked to himself and kept looking at the wall before he turned his head and looked at the girl, realizing he did not know her name. "Name is Aaron by the way."

Jack was actually surprised. He knew how to banter. And it was not like the kids at Hogwarts, who were usually reduced to responding with "Well, yeah, but... your mother!" At least he had some proof for his opinion. One could have all the opinions in the world, and some idiots would call them geniuses for having them, but without any sort of backing Jack considered your intellect void.

But this guy was not only backing his opinion, he was able to offer a scenario that almost, almost, proved his point. However, this was one of those unprovable theories- luck. Better yet, natural luck. Liquid luck was a little different. This, however, she had a rebuttal for. Luck was not something people had- and if it was, well, she had never had any of it.

"Here's the thing though. That might not be luck- Why was it he was stolen from and not the other? He did not work hard enough to get a spot where that would not happen. He was not diligent enough. He did not prevent that, so he did not work hard enough. I suppose you could argue luck is real, but you could argue against it just as well. But I think it's obvious that cursing your bad luck gets you nowhere. Here we are, discussing luck, and we have not even got to our names." He introduced herself and she gulped down a drink. "Jack," she said, in place of her introduction.

Her stubbornness was unmatched by anyone he had come across before, but that was what was so intriguing about her. Aaron believed in looking at all the angles while she believed firmly in what she stood for and no one could convince her otherwise. Noble, but extremely foolish. Of course he would not say that to her, enticing a fight at this point seemed to be a worthless cause anyways.

"We will be at odds forever then." He said with a shrug and a smile. She mentioned her name was Jack and he took it down in the ever growing list of names he had procured over the twenty years of his life. He was good at remembering names and even better at remembering faces. If he met someone, no matter how little they had interacted, Aaron usually remembered them.

"So Jack." He said quickly, sitting upright in his chair and once again turning his body to face her. "You don't believe in luck and you love to drink scotch. Let me guess..... farmer?" He grinned slightly at his own joke, trying to lighten the mood was something he was not really good at, but he tried.

She ticked her head at his words, replying with the words, "I guess so. What can you do, though? Que sera, sera." She typically was not so talkative, nor so philosophical. Words were not Jack's forte, because she found that words to often distracted from actions. Action was what kept the world from spinning to a stand still. Too many people talked about all of the great things they would never do. Jack was the one that put her head down and did it.

Except when she had alcohol in her. She noted the change and pushed to scotch away, reaching for the complimentary drink of water that was always set down before any paying customer. She gulped down two large swallows of the water to try and clear her head a bit. Yes, she had been rather talkative, hadn't she? And really, she had said very little.

The barman walked by and she leaned forward, saying, "Cola?" He jerked his head in acknowledgement of her order and she sat back. She looked over at Aaron at his next words, and smirked. Jokes- her first language. "No, not farmer. I work with the Department for Control and Regulation of Magical Creatures... So I do work with animals. But rather than pigs and horses, it's like dragons and werewolves."

"Pigs and horses, dragons and werewolves. It's all the same thing." He knew a few people who worked at the ministry, but not a whole lot. Meeting people was the last thing on his agenda so he really did not have many friends in the outside world. Actually, when he thought about it, he had no friends at all, just people he knew. He liked it better that way though, no one to bog him down.

"I was actually just given my license to be a wandmaker." He grabbed his glass of water and he lifted it into the air giving a mock toast. "All I have to do is find a building and then I can take care of all your wand needs." He chuckled and took a drink of water, realizing it was losing its chill. He hated warm water, so he sat it down and scooted it forward, hoping the bartender would realize it and give him another one.