something just like this [Cade]

[Bianca Alia Rivera]

10 July 2029

Bianca had spent the last several minutes doodling in the margins of a budget report when a few words floated through the last ten percent of her brain that was listening to this meeting – “…Rivera’s one night stands.” Of the many dreary, mind-numbing, occasionally interesting, and sometimes insane weekly meetings that the Minister held with all the Department Heads, Bianca couldn’t remember having ever been accused of that before (or frankly anything more personal than complaints from another Department Head about the size of her department, but that was just budget envy from International Magical Cooperation).

Moving into her usual ‘shoot first, ask questions later’ approach (which was a very comfortable attitude for Aurors to take in their professional lives), Bianca immediately fired back. “Who slipped a babbling beverage into your coffee this morning?” She paired this with one of her practically famous glares towards the Head of Human Resources, a department she unfortunately had a lot of contact with. He barely missed a beat before sliding the newspaper in his hands across the table to her, and the heads of all the other Department Heads swiveled to follow the movement as she snatched up the tabloid and scanned the page he’d opened it to. “So this is the kind of trash you read…” Bianca trailed off as her eyes finally caught the article he’d been referring to, and she could feel the full depth of her surprise and embarrassment in that she suddenly couldn’t control the furious blush that rose to her cheeks. Very uncharacteristic of her, but what else could she do?

Because worse than the catchy headline (ugh) or the convoluted swirl of speculation that the author dove into, Bianca’s eyes were glued to the picture (which of course was worth a thousand words). She remembered the exact moment that it was documenting. She’d just returned from a ten day trip abroad for work and left straight from the Ministry to meet Cade for a date night in a mostly Muggle area (where they were supposed to have privacy!). So maybe she’d been a bit more affectionate than usual, after almost two weeks apart. Still, the only thing that ran through her mind as she stared horrified at the picture of the two of them together – thank Merlin the photographer hadn’t caught everything that happened after.

She looked up again to find everyone watching her, with a wide range of expressions on their faces. “With a reporter!” the other Department Head continued as if he hadn't just dramatically paused to let Bianca soak in the big-time move he was making right now, “Who knows what kind of information he’s been milking her for?” It was a combination of those words and the look on his face that told her he was enjoying this that finally snapped Bianca out of her shock and into full-on attack mode. Her temper started to simmer as she glared at him. “He’s not a one night stand, and we don't talk about work,” she snapped, her hands curling into fists as she clutched them in her lap. She might’ve left it at that, but the Minister was looking at her doubtfully and her temper finally gained full control of her mouth. “He’s my boyfriend, and we might’ve swapped lots of things but never Ministry secrets. Investigate if you want. Have fun wasting department resources on nothing.” The chair made an uncomfortable grating sound as she suddenly stood up, completely sure she'd say even worse if she didn't leave right now.

As she stormed out and slammed the door shut behind her, Bianca felt her brain catching up to the conversation as she processed everything she’d said. Her face was flushed for a different reason as she kept a breakneck pace out of the building and twisted so she could Disapparate and appear at the first place she could think of. It was a sign of how much the British liked to read trashy gossip rags that a million pairs of eyes followed her as she stormed down the corridor at Prophet headquarters. People had gotten somewhat accustomed to the sight over the last few years, but they stared again now as she stormed into Cade’s office and shut the door behind her. She slumped against it for a moment in relief before realizing she still had the article in her hands. Bianca could still feel how red her face was as she looked over at Cade. “It’s out. Everyone knows.”

cade owen woodward

[cade owen woodward]

And if you and I
can make it through the night

July 10, 2029
Bianca Alia Rivera

Nothing interesting ever happened on a Tuesday. And Cade’s entire career had so far supported that fact. Sighing heavily, he rolled up his sleeves while leaning on his desk, reading yet another article regarding werewolves and HOWL. It was a hot topic as of late, albeit an important one. Cade personally had no issues with werewolves, and he did not know many of them. He had to take into consideration that the Prophet appeared fair and impartial without advocating for the ostracization of their fellow witches and wizards. More importantly, he had to ensure that nothing printable in the tabloids made the paper. He wanted to maintain the quality of the content.

The work often could appear boring and repetitive, but only a few other things made him feel alive. Cade enjoyed his editor work but missed the days of chasing leads and a story, scribbling hurriedly in his notebook while walking and asking questions simultaneously. Bianca often lamented the same. Her role as a department head was far different than the simplicity of Auror’s work. Their jobs existed at different ends of the spectrum of truth and justice, but that also allowed for many parallels. Time didn’t seem real when Cade remembered that not three years ago, Bianca had stormed into his office, smoke billowing out of her ears and that fiery look in her eyes that always sent his heart racing.

The corner of his mouth turned up as he began to wax nostalgic over the good times and how the bad times had brought them closer. But it was always a delicate game. And as his mind wandered, he almost didn’t notice Bianca storming down the corridor to his office. And now it felt a bit like déjà vu to all the times she stormed in here angry over a story on the front page or finding an excuse to visit him. However, the look in her eyes was far different from any look he was accustomed to. Cade’s brow furrowed in concern. The panic in her eyes reminded him of the first time he’d asked her for dinner three years prior. The paperwork on his desk was now forgotten. His eyes tentatively glanced at something he couldn’t quite read in her hand. ”How?” Was all he could ask. She would only panic over one thing—them.

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[Bianca Alia Rivera]

Her first instinct had been to put a wall between her and the rest of the world, and Bianca had run on autopilot as she stormed out of the Ministry and walked the familiar path to Cade’s office. With that mission accomplished, she leaned on the door and released the breath she’d been holding. There hadn’t been enough space in her brain for other thoughts except for the complete certainty that she needed to see Cade before saying any other stupid things in anger. The panic that this exact scenario would happen one day had seized her and seemed to be putting extreme pressure on her chest, a fear that she’d been nursing for three years.

It was hard to believe that so much time had passed since they’d started dating, but that was the nature of their relationship. They continued their usual lives in public, and let things develop when they were alone together in their own bubble. There’d been this unspoken understanding that it couldn’t last forever, but Bianca had never taken the time to plan for what would happen next. That would mean confronting the reality that her counterparts at the Ministry would be suspicious, or mocking, or accusatory. They’d jump to the natural conclusion that she was being used and was willfully unable to see it (and wasn’t that exactly what she’d just been ambushed with?). But that was one of the things she disliked about being a Department Head – her life wasn’t private anymore, and most of her decisions (personal and professional) seemed to be put under a microscope for examination and criticism. By her own department, by the Minister, by the public. The only other person who’d be able to understand the extreme pressure of this scenario was Cade, and she swallowed heavily as she stared across the room at him.

He’d seemed relaxed a second or two before she’d all but slammed the door shut, but he was sitting at attention now. “Marchbanks ambushed me in front of the Minister,” Bianca said heatedly, her shock turning into anger as she thought about the smug head of Human Resources. She’d complained about him repeatedly to Cade at home, and the familiar anger helped to center her after feeling so off-balance since she’d first laid eyes on the article. It didn’t quite answer Cade’s original question of how, but it showed at least where her mind was dwelling. She couldn’t quite shake off the looks the other department heads had aimed at her, and Bianca squeezed her hands anxiously at the thought. It was only then that she realized that she was still holding the tabloid article in her hand.

Finally moving from her original position at the doorway, Bianca crossed the room and joined Cade at his desk. She shoved the tabloid towards him, as if by pushing it away she wouldn’t have to look at the scandalous headline again. Bianca couldn’t sit still, and twirled a lock of hair anxiously as she watched him read through the article. He’d always met issues more calmly than she did, and he could put people at ease very quickly. Their different approaches had always blended well when they’d worked together, since it meant he could get things done that she couldn’t. It was one of the reasons she’d first started to notice him. Really notice him. “There's too many people to Obliviate,” Bianca said moodily, leaning back in her chair. Most incidents that came to her desk could be handled according to a tried-and-true procedure, but as usual – she felt unequipped to deal with troubling developments in her personal life. The secret was out, and Bianca couldn’t even begin to process all the ways their lives were about to change.

cade owen woodward

[cade owen woodward]

And if you and I
can make it through the night

July 10, 2029
Bianca Alia Rivera

Marchbanks. Cade heard that name so often that he even frowned at the mention. He had little interaction with them personally, but they were disliked by association. Fortunately, he was not forced to remain impartial on that opinion. Heads of Human Resources at the Ministry of Magic did not often end up front page news at the Prophet or even worth a mention in the Prophet itself. Still, the mention of the Minister left Cade shifting his weight between his feet. That meant it was likely this information would reach the ear of Cade’s immediate superior—the Editor of the Daily Prophet.

It was not a position Cade expected to become vacant within his lifetime. Even making it to Senior Editor at this point felt like quite the achievement, but at the end of the day, the Editor had the final say on everything. Typically, that meant a final approval on articles regarding sensitive events or topics, such as a new Minister or something particularly scandalous, such as the Burke headlines years before. Consorting with the Head of Magical Law Enforcement was not a good look in terms of questions regarding Cade’s judgment of what he allowed to print in the paper or what information he might share based on the content he read from his journalists.

Bianca moved forward and pushed the tabloid across the desk. As a career journalist, Cade’s instinct was to light the item on fire and not touch the trash with his bare hands. But he didn’t need to. It was all on the cover. With a heavy sigh from his nose, Cade closed his eyes and ran a hand through his hair. He remembered that night—but even in hindsight, he couldn’t see where they had really slipped up. For the moment, he remained quiet, eyes focused on the tabloid moving photograph, but his mind shoved aside anything related to HOWL and werewolves to concentrate on the matter at hand.

Cade picked up the tabloid and paced to another part of his office, quickly skimming the words written about them. The speculation was disorganized, although it did a good enough job toeing the lines that would have crossed them into Quibbler territory. Finally, he turned and slowly paced back to his desk, where Bianca sat. ”We hadn’t done anything different…” Not terribly different to other date nights, and this had been going on for three years at that point. ”This is mostly speculative, but an accusation in print is as good as face these days.” Cade had the thought that perhaps the stars had aligned for someone, and they’d been recognized, or someone had tailed either of them.

Finally, he dropped into his chair and tossed the tabloid onto his desk. At this point, Cade normally had words of assurance for Bianca or some kind of counterpoint, but at the moment, he wasn’t sure what path to take. The problem he saw, in his mind, was that defending themselves would reveal new information and perhaps dig a bigger hole. Cade saw it—because he’d watched enough barristers question people in such fashion, and as a journalist, he’d done the same. Cade looked up at Bianca, he saw the worry in her face. The anxiety crept up into her shoulders and the way her eyes changed when her heart and mind clashed. ”We always knew this was inevitable.”

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[Bianca Alia Rivera]

It felt like either the chair had been electrified or Bianca had just downed several cans of the horrendous energy drinks she’d once kept at her desk in her Auror days. Either way, she couldn’t sit still and tapped her leg anxiously as she watched Cade pace and read through the article. Even if he was skimming, he took much longer to glance over the details than she’d had. Bianca had stared at the headline, stared even longer at the picture, and then moved into attack mode. She didn’t particularly want to know what had been written about them, because the fear churning in her stomach told her it would either be eerily close to the truth or a frustrating tangle of lies which probably couldn't be unwoven. Whichever it was, Bianca was steadily inching closer to the desire to burn it (if only because directing the same spell at Marchbanks was unfortunately illegal).

“Of course it’s speculative! What happened to actual journalism?!” Bianca exploded, barely waiting for Cade to finish his sentence before she stood up suddenly and started to wear a hole into his carpet as she paced furiously around his desk. “Checking sources, corroborating info? We could have been doing anything!” It was a moot point, of course. All those buzzwords were only relevant for journalists who wrote in accredited publications (or at least, were people interested in maintaining a certain kind of professionalism to their name). It didn’t stop other hack writers from dabbling in gossip and selling rumors to anyone willing to pay for it. But Bianca needed to redirect her anger somewhere, and the ‘enemy’ was just too vague and nameless at the moment. There were too many potential directions to fire at, and that left her in an uncomfortable position of not having an easy person to blame. She hadn’t even caught the name of the article’s author, since she’d started seeing red shortly after reading the headline. Bianca held a hand out for the article again. “Who wrote this? I want to see,” she demanded hotly.

Cade still seemed focused on what they could’ve done differently, but Bianca didn’t spare it much more thought. A lot of seemingly random things seemed to happen no matter how prepared or talented you felt. Bianca had tortured herself in the past by wondering why something had happened, or what she could’ve done to prevent it. After her own injury, and her father’s death, and the Hogwarts fire…now she tended to look more at the immediate present. What she could actually do, besides adding this no-good cheat to every no-fly list in the UK or Europe. Cade had dropped back into his chair, but Bianca didn’t join him at the desk. It was unnerving to see him discomposed, or at least at a loss for the right thing to say. He was usually quite good at talking her down from the tree of anxiety she always seemed to climb into, but this time he seemed stuck with her on the branch.

What he said was completely true, but it didn’t reassure her. Inevitable didn’t suit her tastes, even if he was right. She winced at the words and ran her hands through her hair again. “I might’ve…um, let my temper get away from me,” she mumbled. It wouldn’t surprise him, or anyone of course, but it was something that needed to be said. Part of her new transparency initiative, since she'd promised Cade to be better about communicating. Her heart rate was still through the roof, but she felt a little trickle of remorse at her inability to hide her emotions. But at least Cade should have all the information, even if she was embarrassed to admit it. “And I might’ve…confirmed it. To the Minister. That we’re dating.” It was the first time in a long time that she’d said it out-loud (because after explaining the situation to Cade’s parents, what was the need to say it out-loud between them at home?). Some of the anger drained away as Bianca spun on her heel to look at Cade and study his reaction. They were past the stage of denying it, but Bianca worried about what sort of consequences might come up at work. Hers and his. It seemed impossible to imagine just pretending that nothing had changed.

cade owen woodward