Bad Choices [aras]

[Deleted]

The past few days has been... difficult to say the least. They'd known she was having some complications with her pregnancy but the last appointment had set in stone her fears. If she carried the baby to full term then her life could be at risk. And the farther she went the higher those chances rose. There was only two options. Either she risk it and try to carry to term or she had to abort the pregnancy now. That decision was what led to Magdalena moving out of Nikolai's place with no plans or return. He wanted to risk it. Wanted to put her life at risk. Like hell she would! The fight that followed solidified their immediate break up and she was gone before dinner.

Now, here she was, in a hospital room by herself after the procedure. To be fair, she'd never wanted to be pregnant. Didn't want to deal with everything that came with it. Didn't want to be a mom. So, surprisingly she felt... okay. She wasn't regretting it. Maybe regretting not telling anyone but she wouldn't take it back. It was her choice, not theirs. After it all though they'd asked her if someone could pick her up, and keep an eye on her for the night. Just in case. It was in that moment she realized the error of her decision. Who could she ask?

A name slowly came to mind, and she found herself giving it to them without thinking. Only after did she realize just how he might react. Or rather that she didn't know how he'd react. To being told what she'd done or being asked if he could pick her up...

@aras

[Deleted]

Aras was surprised to be contacted by St. Mungo’s and asked if he could bring someone home. He was told that they weren’t even allowed to release the name of the patient to him due to various privacy laws, let alone why they needed to be picked up, but Aras supposed that the hospital wouldn’t ask him if it wasn’t serious. Aras was thankful every day that he owned the wand shop, but it was moments like this, when he needed to do something urgently, that made it particularly worthwhile. All he had to do was flip the sign and finish with one more customer inquiry, and then he was off to the hospital, still somewhat confused but determined. He didn’t know who would ask for his help in this sort of situation – it wasn’t like he had a lot of close friends anymore, and the friends he did had other people who they were closer to – but as he was led through the hospital, he found himself returning to one idea. Magdalena was pregnant, after all, and that necessitated hospital visits… but not observation. The Ravenclaw furrowed his brow, but immediately schooled his face into a more neutral expression when he was led to the door of the person he was supposed to be visiting. The door swung open, and Aras simply strode over to his sister’s side, not sure whether or not he was surprised that his intuition about his sister being correct. “Hello, Magda.” He greeted her with an attempt at a smile. Aras paused, looking around. “Where is your…?” Aras wasn’t sure what vocabulary to use – baby-daddy sounded so juvenile, but he still wasn’t entirely sure of the classification of the relationship between his sister and the one who had gotten her pregnant. In any case, Aras would have expected him to be there. The fact that Magdalena looked different didn’t even cross his mind.

@magdalena

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Thank heavens they didn't have Magdalena laid up in a bed. That would have made this whole thing seem far worse then it was. No, they'd let her change back into her street clothes after and she was sitting up in an examination room. If anything it looked like she'd just had a check up, nothing like what it'd really been. So when her brother came in? At least there wasn't anything to cause much worry... though being called in to take your sister home wasn't exactly your average request either. And Aras was keeping his expression so neutral Magdalena couldn't get any sort of read on him. "Hey." she answered slowly, her mind still trying to find some sort of hint at what his thoughts might be. As he started to speak, but didn't finish the statement she raised an eyebrow. "My what?" Only after asking did she realize what he might have been asking. Well, she hadn't been smiling before and she definitely wasn't now. In fact her expression turned quite dark. In the 'I don't want to talk about it' sort of way. "We broke up." she should have said she'd left him but that made it seem like it was one sided.

@aras

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Despite the fact they were in St. Mungo’s, Magdalena looked… normal. Average. Like she had just walked in from the street for a checkup or something. Something felt a little off, but then again, when had things between them felt right since Magdalena’s return? Aras wasn’t willing to stress about any of this until he had the full story, but he very much doubted that Magdalena was going to give it over easily. His sister asked him to finish his sentence – the one that he hadn’t known how to end without ascribing a relationship to his sister that he wasn’t sure existed – but then seemed to realize what he meant, and said that she had broken up with her… whatever he was. “Oh.” Aras said softly. “Is… everything alright, then?” It wasn’t quite the same as asking her why she was in the hospital, but Aras figured that the question he ended up asking was more all-encompassing, both asking about whatever physical ailment had landed her in St. Mungo’s as well as her emotional state after breaking up with the father of her child. Magdalena had already had to endure so much this past year, and Aras loathed the fact that the man had added more melancholy to an already less-than-ideal life.

@magdalena

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Aras didn't know. Of course he didn't, the hospital staff wouldn't have divulged her personal information without her consent first. Even to family. But that did mean that now it was left to her to tell him. What she'd done that morning. Why she was here now and why the hospital had contacted him. And for a moment? Magdalena felt the first flicker of regret. Because Aras had just been accepting the idea that she was pregnant. And Magi also knew that some people didn't exactly... approve of abortion. It was a topic that she'd never brought up in the past (that she could recall) so she wasn't actually sure what her brother's stance on it was.

Magdalena looked away from her older brother, unable to say what she'd done while meeting his gaze. "I had an abortion." she finally answered him after several moments of silence. Despite the momentary regret she still knew it was the right decision. She didn't want to have kids right now. Didn't even know if she wanted to have them in general actually. But especially not right now.

@aras

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Magdalena looked away from him, which made Aras think of… a lot of not-good things, actually. His stomach hovered in his throat for a moment before taking a vacation to his toes, only returning to its normal spot in its body when his sister said what had happened. What she’d done. She’d… had an abortion. Well, that made this whole ‘being called to the hospital’ thing a little clearer. Aras nodded. Asking about the details hardly seemed helpful in this situation, so he just kept nodding, and nodding, and nodding, until he realized it had been way too long and he needed to stop. He cleared his throat nervously. “If you need a place to stay more permanently, I can clear your room out.” He offered. Aras hadn’t been back in contact with his sister long enough to know the details of her situation, but he had known that she had been living with her boyfriend, and the fact that he wasn’t here probably meant that something had gone down between them, probably related to the abortion. “Do I have to sign something?” Aras asked, trying to distract himself with the minutiae of taking care of Magda so that he didn’t ask the wrong questions.

@magdalena

[Deleted]

Magdalena honestly didn't know how he might react. What he might say. He obviously hadn't been happy with her being pregnant in the first place, but he'd started to accept it a little. Would he be happy? Or would be be mad like Nikolai because she'd terminated the baby? So she waited in silence, not looking back until at her brother quite yet. At least... not until he spoke. Then she looked back at him, unable to mask the surprise at his offer. That hadn't been her plan or intention when she'd given his name to the hospital. She didn't want her brother thinning she was crawling back to him because she needed something. Especially not after everything that had happened. And yet... he'd offered. Not asked what her plan was now, which she hadn't been sure about to be honest, just.... offered. For a moment her lower lip quivered, both relieved that her brother cared enough to offer and that he was there in the first place. She swallowed the emotion pretty quick and forced herself to nod instead, silently accepting his offer.

Discharge papers was a welcome distraction from the abortion talk. "Oh, uh. Yeah... they..... In case something happens they don't want me to be alone yet." basically her brother would have to agree to keep an eye on her for a day or so. He seemed to realize that already but it was always better to ask. "Aras... can you?" his asking was agreement enough but she wanted to actually ask him. To do the right thing instead of just assume. She wanted to be a good sister and not just push things into him.

@aras

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Aras was trying his best to be a good older brother. He hadn’t been doing so great lately, though he was willing to forgive himself for that since he thought any older brother would have trouble with their kid sister getting pregnant. He thought that looking away from Magdalena, and letting her have her moment of weakness without him looking at her, was probably the good brother thing to do.

He looked back at Magdalena when she spoke, saying that if anything happened, the hospital staff didn’t want her to be alone. He nodded once, firmly. “I can close the shop tomorrow so that I can keep an eye on you.” It wasn’t like they got a lot of business outside of summer, anyways. Most of Ollivander’s revenue came from students purchasing new wands, though Aras also supplemented that income by selling wands to people who had broken theirs, or by repairing or tuning up old ones. In any case, one day of lost sales wasn’t going to cripple them by any means. Magda asked a question, and it took Aras a moment to realize that she was asking him if he could do what he had already declared he would do. Aras softened slightly. “The moment you walked back into my life, Magda, you agreed that you were okay with being the most important thing in my life again.” Even when he had been angry, and scared, it had been because Magdalena mattered to him, almost too much. “I can, and I will.” He said. “Can you call a nurse so I can get those papers?” He had a feeling one of the buttons by her bed could call the nurse, but he didn’t know which – Aras would leave that puzzle to his sister.

@magdalena

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It was so strange. Despite being estranged for over half a year here were the Ollivander siblings. Not necessarily back to normal but getting better. Making progress in getting back to how they were before all of this. Magi felt like a child again, where her brother had been more then just a brother. He'd been her friend, and almost a parental figure due to how much older he was. When her parents couldn't keep up with their energetic child it'd fallen on Aras. Despite Bein so far apart in age they'd been quite close. And maybe... maybe they could get back to that point. He was already agreeing to help her before she could even ask, no hesitation what so ever. So hearing him declare that she'd already agreed to bring important to him and seeing the way his demeanor softened... Magdalena's eyes stung for just a moment with held back tears. She wouldn't cry, but that didn't mean she wasn't a little emotional. She'd blame it on the left over hormones later but there was no denying that she'd missed her brother. "Aras.... thank you." she'd tried to say something in response but nothing had come to mind aside from gratitude.

But, it would probably be better to finish this conversation somewhere else. Nodding silently she glanced at the buttons by the bed, trying to find the one the healer had pointed out earlier. It made a soft paging sound after pressing on it and she slid off the bed. She'd already changed back into her street clothes so they'd be good to go once the discharge papers were signed.

@aras

[Deleted]

Aras just nodded when his sister thanked him. Once upon a time, he would have responded with something horribly sentimental – anything for you – but he wasn’t sure that he could promise her anything, anymore. He wasn’t the same person who had helped raise her, not after his addiction and his mother’s death. She also wasn’t the same little girl that he had raised; that much was obvious by her pregnancy and its subsequent termination. Now, the task fell on them to figure out how they fit together now – what the new order was, how they could continue on as siblings. When the nurse came into the room, Aras accepted the papers that he handed over, signing them with a flourish. Since Magdalena had already changed into her street clothes, all there was left to do was leave. “Let’s go home.” Aras said, offering his arm for his sister to hold, if she needed it. The word home filled him with a sense of warmth. It had been a long time since the apartment above the shop had been more than just a lodging, and he was excited to see what happened now that his sister was back. The world was looking up again.

@magdalena
(you can do one more or this can be the end~)