Drinkin' Problem

OPEN | Outfit

She had been running errands all day, and she knew that she had only spent a couple of hours at home before she had had a babysitter coming over to watch River, but every once in awhile, she just needed a night to herself. And she wasn't going to be able to do that actually on her birthday. Yes her birthday was still the same day. There was more than one baby born in the world on the same day after all. But Jac didn't want to be anyone else on her birthday. She didn't want to worry, or pretend, or any of that. For awhile, she thought that she just wanted to be her. But that was the problem, she didn't really know who her was. And so she had decided that maybe it was time to figure it out. Maybe it was time to figure out just exactly who she was going to be now. Because coming back to England had made it a lot harder to forget the past. It was a struggle she faced every time that she looked in the mirror. She knew that those eyes, those cheekbones, they had belonged to someone else. She knew that dying her hair, and cutting it off, that changing her nose, and the shape of her eyebrows, it could one day just not be enough. And she knew that she hadn't had to worry about Samuel looking her up, he obviously hadn't thought all that much of it. Spirit of the holidays and all of that, she had been a figment of his imagination. But he hadn't been a figment of hers. 

Jac knew that he hadn't been a figment of hers though, and she knew that there was always a possibility of running into him again. She hadn't kept track of him, she had no idea what he did for a living, if he was married, if he had kids, she didn't know any of that, and she knew that he didn't know any of that about her either, but that had been her choice. She was the one that had left, and she had become someone else. Someone that he hadn't even recognized, and part of her didn't know quite what to think about that. It was easier just let things be as they were, and not worry about them at all, and she didn't think that there was any real reason to get worked up over something that she couldn't change. Something that she might have had some way to control before, but there was no chance of that now. There was no going back, there was no changing the way that the years had gone, and she didn't want to. Not really. Changing things would have meant not going to Australia. It would have meant never meeting Ethan. It would have meant not having River. And if nothing else, she could at least say that River was the best thing that had ever happened to her. 

Tonight wasn't about River though. And it wasn't about Samuel. And it wasn't about her family, and the past, and everything that came with it. It wasn't about any of that. It was about the things that she had given up. It was about the life that she wanted to live. She was a professional quidditch player. She was in her twenties. She was... Well, not single, but tonight she thought that she could be. Tonight Jac didn't think that she was going to be anyone's mum. She didn't think that tonight she was going to be anyone's wife. Because Ethan had left. He had been gone, for over a year and a half now, and she had been good. She hadn't done anything that she shouldn't, but why? Why hadn't she gone on with her life too? They had planned on getting divorced. They had planned on making it all official. They could both move on with their lives, and be happy, and so she was going to. She wasn't sure if it was the second or third shot of tequila that had made her brave, but it didn't matter. She wasn't going to worry about any of that anymore, and so raising her finger to the bartender she pointed at the empty shot glass in front of her. "Another round please." As someone slipped into the stool next to her Jac smiled, "And a second glass for our newcomer friend. Shots on me." 

Drinkin' Problem

But I got no problem drinkin' at aLL | Outfit

Jaxon did not really know what to do with himself of late. The changes in leadership at the Ministry had made for some very big changes in society. On one hand, as a werewolf, this was a great thing. Durant had been absolutely insane. The way he had it out for lycanthropes--and the things he sanctioned be done to them--had brought out a side of Jaxon the good ole boy did not know existed. He had legitimately wanted to kill the man...and he’d never kill someone--get in a fight, yeah, of course...but never kill. He wasn’t that kind of man--or wolf. So, as a were, Jaxon had seen the Death Eaters rising against Durant in the light of the enemy of my enemy is my friend.

But, of course, the purists couldn’t just be just and fair leaders...they had to find a group to strip of rights. Leaders seemed to Jax to always just want to take more power and more power. Megalomania seemed to be a disorder contracted upon the acquisition of authority. Now, instead of the wolves, it was the muggleborns that were scared and hiding.

Jaxon could have been one of those stripped of his wand and his job. He thought he might be. But Marius Black was a Black---and that was his great-grandfather. The Ministry had accepted that bloodline as legitimate. Some testing was done that confirmed it--something about the magical signature the man produced. Jaxon did not quite understand it. He wasn’t the brightest about such things...He faintly remembered something about the way the trace worked and why his friends with wizarding parents could use magic over school breaks back in the day without getting caught, but he couldn’t.

The process had also put him on the radar of the new Minister of Magic---seeing as how she was a distant relative, but the seeker was yet to meet Lady Lestrange. He wasn’t sure he wanted to. Too much scrutiny of him would likely uncover his wolfy secret, which while he was still quite tempted to reveal, because creatures needed to be seen more positively by wizarding society as a whole, he still wasn’t sure he was ready to take that risk---coming out could cost him everything.

So, even though things had changed, it wasn’t really better. Jaxon still had a lot of worry on his shoulders--and he still had the responsibility to Puddlemere to go out a and see and be seen. The team’s PR director and his agent would be on his arse if the seeker didn’t keep himself on the pages of Witch Weekly and the Prophet. Free publicity, they called it...but it wasn’t really free when he had to pay for it with his time. In his early twenties, he had been much more about going out most every night and he still enjoyed it, but he felt it more the next day--had to actually stock hangover draughts these days...and while he used to never, ever go home alone, of late, there were nights where he left very disappointed blokes and bints at the pub and chose sleep over sex.

When Jaxon sauntered into Opium’s backroom, he scanned the room for a familiar face. He found a very pretty one sitting at the bar: a fellow seeker of the fairer gender. Taking the stool beside her, he chuckled at the woman’s commands to the barkeep."Well, damn, Jac, if I’d known you were buyin’, darlin’, I’d been here sooner," he flashed her one of his ‘you know I’m trouble’ grins. His dimple made its first appearance of the night, winking at the witch, as it made to tempt the witch. "I guess I’m playin’ catch up--" He drawled before knocking back the first shot sat in front of him swiftly. The other, he took and raised towards Jacqueline, Jaxon offered a toast: "To seekin’ the little golden delights in life."

Figuring out who she was had to be the priority. At least so long as it didn't take away from what she needed to be for River. She knew who she was there though. She knew that she was her mother. But figuring out who she was in terms of Jac, and Hannah, that was a lot more complicated. When she had been in Australia it was easy to just be Jac. To let go of the past. But that wasn't the case ehre. There were ties here that there werne't there. There were memories here. And she had been reminded of those today. She had seen what it had meant to be someone that she wasn't. She had seen what her life could have been, people that she could have remembered. But she didn't. She didn't remember any of them, or… Jac didn't know any of them. And they didn't know her. She had changed her hair, she had changed her nose. Her eyes were still the same, but she had tanned, and she had a gift that Hannah had always shied away from. That had been her secret. She had always hated to fly, or she had told people that she had. And instead, she had been great at it.

But flying was Samuel's thing. It was the thing that he had loved more than anything, and so she had claimed fear. She had claimed that she didn't want to learn, that it was terrifying, so that there was something that he could excel at. So that there was something that she wasn't good at, that he could teach her, that he could try and make her overcome. Because he had done so much for her. He had taken care of her. He had been brother, and parent, when their father had left, and he hadn't had to be. He hadn't had to do it all, to take that on himself, but he had. He had tried to be everything for her, and she had run from him. In the end, she had run from him, and she had built a life that no one would have dreamed. And she had done it as someone else entirely. She had done it as Jacqueline Lindsay, and she was proud of that person. She was proud of the person that she had become, but now it was a matter of trying to figure out if she had it in her to be both. If she could admit to her brother who she was, that she wasn't dead. Or missing, or whatever he thought had happened to her.

Because it was hard to look him in the eyes, and see the question, but he hadn't asked. He hadn't asked if she was her. He hadn't even asked if she knew Hannah. And she thought that that almost hurt. Being recognized, just for a split second, and then him writing it off as his imagination. Was she that easy to just write off? He had been everything to her, and then he had been too much. He had been over bearing, and he had been trying to keep her safe, and she knew that. But still. It had gotten to be too much, and it had gotten to the point where she had wanted out. It hadn't been the plan to run completely. Not in the beginning, and then she had needed to disappear for a while. She had needed to be someone else, and she had tried out different names, different aliases that she had made up along the way. Through all of the cities that she had stayed in. There had never been the same one twice. Until she had made it to Melbourne. Until she had made it to somewhere that had stuck. And she had been Jac.

Now she was both. She would always be both. And it was learning to live with that that she was struggling with. Drinking about it helped. Drinking about a lot of things helped, because really, her only identity that was real, was that she was River's mother. She wasn't anybody's sister. She wasn't anybody's wife. She was Jacqueline Lindsay. But who was that? Looking over at Jaxon when he slid into the stool next to her she chuckled a little bit. She hadn't been back in England long, but long enough that she had met some of the other players in the league, and he played for both Puddlemere, and England. "If you'd have been here sooner I would have smiled my way into you paying." She didn't know him, not well, but well enough. It was easy to learn about the other players in the league, and she had taken a little time to get to know who the seekers were. She wanted to know what she was up against, and obviously, he was one of the best. Shaking her head at his toast she waited for the bartender to set another one down in front of her and she picked it up to offer one back with a smirk of her own; "And catching hold of them before the other guy."