The ghost of your disappointment is haunting him -- July 1997

Why was she so persistent that everything would work out?  Because it had to.  It was the only thing that was keeping us going.  Perhaps getting away from Father would help us in the long run become closer again.  I had just done some irreparable damage and I was unsure if I could ever truly come back from that.  "If you say so," I said, not entirely sure that was a great start to getting back to where we were - if that were even possible.

"I do say so." I gave him a small smile. "We will get back to where we were. I'm not saying it's going to be easy or that there's a quick fix for this, but if we both work at it, we can be where we were." I looked him in the eye as I nodded. "I know we can. We've gotten though so much worse before. I know we can do this." I wanted him to believe it as much as I did. If I didn't have Draco, who did I have?

I nodded at her slightly.  I was not sure if there was anything worse than this as to what we were going through, but I was not going to mention that aspect.  I looked at her.  "We'll have to... we've got to get along if we're going to Australia," I said, trying to be as confident about everything as she was.

"We've always gotten along Draco," I said as I rolled my eyes slightly, trying to lighten the mood. "And if we've got through everything that happened last year, even if we still are getting through it, I'm sure we can somehow get back to where we were." I smiled at him, hoping to give him some of my confidences. It's the only thing we had and the only thing that kept me going was the fact that Draco would be okay. "You know we could never stay like this for very long, I rely on you too much for that. That's why we've gotten along more times then not. We could never stay mad at each other and we're not mad at each other right now." I pointed out. "Well, I'm not mad at you at least."

"You better not think I'm angry with you, either," I told her.  I was not mad at her; what would I be mad at her about?  I sighed and shook my head, trying to hide the fact that it pained me to do so.  I stopped and waited a minute before saying anything else.  "Just because it's hard to let you in, doens't mean I'm mad at you.  It just means that I was by myself for so long... keeping things hidden from everybody..."

"You don't need to hid anything anymore though." I said gently. "I understand why you did but that's over now. We can start fresh and get away from here." I smiled at the though of being safe and not having to worry about Father. "We can be ourselves." I looked down, the smile slightly fading from my face. "I though you might be mad about my addiction." I admitted softly. I was still mad at myself for letting Draco down. He needed me and I wasn't there for him. I hated myself for that. I wasn't sure if I could ever forgive myself.

I knew I did not need to hide anything from her... yet I was.  I did not think it was a problem or anything - yet.  I was just finding ways to keep those piercing blue eyes out of my dreams and it came in the form of scotch at the moment.  I looked at Juniper.  "I wasn't angry about your addiction.  At least not at you," I amended slightly.  "I hated the fact that I had not caught on to what was going on sooner and I disliked Lincoln for letting you get addicted to that in the first place.  But I was never angry with you."  I wanted her to know that.

"It should be me you were angry with." I said softly as I looked down. It was my fault, I was the one who took the potion 'as I needed it'. Unfortunately, as I needed it was more each day instead of less. "But Lincoln help me in the end." I reminded him. "I understand though, if something like that happened to you, I would be angry with myself for not noticing it." I shook my head to clear it. "But that doesn't matter anyway. I'm okay now, you'll get better and we're both getting out of here."

I felt guilt tighten around my stomach when she said that.  This was not a problem yet, though.  I would not want her to be angry with herself about me drinking.  It was the only thing I could do to keep everything out of my head.  "You're right; it's over with.  Nothing like that is going to happen again, so... there's no point in discussing it further," I said, though it felt like I was lying through my teeth to Juniper.  And that was something I would have never done before.  I was spiraling out of control, it seemed, because I had gotten so used to keeping the truth hidden from everyone.

I could tell by the was he answered he was hiding something, we never kept secrets from each other, I hadn't realized I was addicted to the cure until Lincoln's intervention. He wasn't telling me something. I wasn't sure it was as bad as my addiction but he was leaving something out. I sighed as I tilted my head slightly, "Nothing like that is going to happen to me again." I replied slowly, hoping he would open up. I hated that he thought he couldn't talk to me about this. If I had realized how bad I had been, though, would I have came to him? Did I realize how bad I was and just choose not to accept it since I knew Draco wouldn't be able to help me this time? I shook my head slightly to clear it. Now was not the time to think about the past.

I nodded.  "Exactly," I said, attempting a smile at my sister.  I leaned back on my pillow, hoping that I looked enough like hell for my sister to not push the issue.  I wanted a drink, but there was no way I would get away with anything with Juniper watching me like a hawk like she was.  I turned my head slightly to look at her.  "June, everything is going to okay now," I assured her.

I raised my eyebrows slightly. I knew he was still hiding something from me but he had just gotten up and I didn't want to argue with him yet. "I'm always here if you need to talk Draco. You can tell me anything." I reminded him. "You don't need to push me away anymore. That's what I'm here for, I want to help you."

I looked at her and knew that she did not believe me when I spoke, but I was not ready to admit that there was anything wrong.  A few drinks here and there to get rid of my nightmares and soothe my memories was not a problem, was it?  I smiled slightly at her.  "I know," I told her.  "You've already helped quite a lot this past week."  I wanted her to realize that, too.

"Well I had to make sure you were okay. I wasn't going to leave you like that." I hoped he didn't think that I actually would. "And I didn't really do much. I just did whatever I had to do to make sure you survived, to make sure you were okay. I'm going to keep doing that too." Draco had to be okay, I would make sure of it.

"I knew you wouldn't," I said casually.  "Why do you think I told you how to help fix me up?" I tried to keep everything light.  It was a lot easier to hide my thoughts of what was happening around me when I kept things as casual as possible.  When Juniper wanted ot delve deeper, it was much harder to stay in control of myself.