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[ The feed turns on to flames in a patch of flowers, bright red in stark contrast to the healthy colour of the grass and roses about it, but they don't appear to be burning. Perhaps it's not a flame after all, but rather a particular head of hair - familiar to some, certainly - and then he begins to stir.

Up sits one Fred Weasley, bleary eyed and stretching with a yawn. He blinks a bit, taking in his surroundings curiously before noting the recording device and taking it with a vague sense of amusement. One more yawn and a lazy scratch of the back of his head, and then he speaks with a tired smile. ]

Not a bad place to kip, eh?

[ ooc; Fred returns to the City! He's just woken up in Xanadu, and he has no clue that he's been gone. This is completely open to 4th wall shenanigans of all sorts - only just don't tell him they're characters from a book, and anything from the age of the epilogue will be forgotten after the curse. I missed you all, and I love you. ;; ♥ ]

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[She makes a sound like an angry cat and Merlin is Fred lucky that this exchange is happening over the network instead of in person because she looks like she would like very much to hit him. Or hex him. Or both. Instead, Ginny bangs a fist on her desk and the camera jolts and her cheeks are as flushed as her hair. She feels a little like exploding. There's such a tumult of emotions swirling through her—anger, elation, fear that he'll leave again—and the default is the fire, because that is what she does best, but oh Merlin, she doesn't know what to do or say.]

No. No, I absolutely refuse to forgive you for leaving us for weeks on end without a word and saddling me with George and Percy and all the rest because I'm not meant to babysit my older brothers, I'm not and it's your fault!

[Her eyes flash, bright with her temper and if there's anything else, she refuses to acknowledge it.]

And while you're here and listening, go dig Harry up from wherever you both hid away and kindly slap him across the face for me, won't you? I'd do it myself to both of you but luckily for you, I'm still over here, and I'd like to know where you two get off for going home without us.

[Never mind that she was there when Harry went home, and she did get a goodbye, right, of course. She's too angry for rational thought.]

[ The instant her hand hits the desk, the world stops for a brief moment, from the several jokes and insults flooding his head as a means of covering his confusion to the habitual rise and fall of his chest as he takes in air he no longer needs. Everything simply stops. Ginny's visibly upset, which is not entirely uncommon in the Weasley family as they're all rather loud, but this is something different entirely. This is unfiltered, pure emotion which is a near unheard of feat among their family. He can see it in her eyes and in her face, hear it in her voice and feel it in his chest - that heavy, empty space in-between where lies that dreadful human affliction. ]

Gin --

[ But it's no use, she's off with a bang, saying things that make no sense but are all too clear (here now and there, too, because there is no denying what's fact) just the same. He left them alone, and she's always been the stronger amongst them but that doesn't make it fair. 'It's your fault,' and really, there is no denying what's fact. ]

Ginny, I --

[ Again, it's impossible to get one word in because when she's on a roll, she's on a roll and the hits never stop coming. Harry's gone too, then, and hadn't they all promised they'd stick together? Weeks on ends, they'd had to deal with what was certainly not of their own making but 'it's your fault.' ]

Ginny! [ Finally, she stops, however briefly, and Fred feels as though he might just explode himself, but with something entirely different than the fire coursing through his sister's veins. There's none of that to be had for him, but neither is there ice to chill him to his core. There's nothing, because 'you left' and 'it's your fault.' ]

I'm sorry.

[ Quiet and strained, broken on the last and Fred isn't entirely sure what's going on in his body anymore. His heart can't beat but it hurts as though it's being pulled in every direction; he has no need to breath but he feels like someone's punched the air from his lungs; but perhaps the most inexplicable of all, and the most profound, is a sudden hollow in his core, as though he's been detached from reality (because this isn't, not really). They're the words he's meant to say for months now, since Ginny's birthday and since the second of May and every single morning he's had since then, but he's never been able. Not until now. ]

I'm sorry.

[Ginny stares at him, the apology ringing through the air and cyberspace between them, eyes bright and blazing and colour high on her otherwise pale complexion. I'm sorry. And isn't that all she's wanted—needed—to hear? Isn't that what she's been searching for? Isn't that what she should be saying too? Because she's said hurtful things, their being true (even by a grain) doesn't excuse it at all, not to the conscience screaming at the back of her mind. What a thing to say, Ginny Weasley, to the brother you've lost more times than you'd care to count. What a way to greet him when he clearly has no idea, and it was obvious it wasn't a joke from the moment she spoke to him again, but she kept barreling forward with blinders on because she is so painfully Gryffindor.

So she stares at him, chest heaving as she catches her breath, heart pounding a tattoo against her ribs. And then her jaw tightens and her hands come up and she drops her face into them, fingers curling through the snarls of flaming hair where it tumbles over her shoulders and—there, right there, the bracelet. She's never taken it off, not for anything but a shower. Red and gold, the silver charm glinting in the sunlight through her window, twisting to flash their family crest to the camera. Fred's birthday gift to her, the Vow on it still unbroken somehow.

Ginny is silent for a few long moments, and then she speaks to her desk, eyes still hidden behind the press of the heels of her palms, and her voice is soft and tight with controlled emotion, but it's not without feeling.]

I know, Freddie. But you haven't got to be. Just... [She drags in a breath and pushes her hands through her hair, raising her head a little to look him in the eye.] Just don't do that again.

[ If his heart cared to beat, it might do so painfully at the sight of the bracelet, his bracelet. His hand immediately goes to his own wrist on instinct - bare, and it's like a good Bludger to the stomach. He never took it off, not even for showers (always good to keep an Impervius charm onhand), and its sudden absense strikes a chord somewhere deep in the Place We Do Not Speak Of.

It's been near common knowledge that things from the City don't leave with you, but what of those that don't have a home to back to?

Maybe it's back in his room, or left at the shop. Or maybe it's simply yet another sign of 'you left,' and now he's gone and mucked up even the smallest of things, the most important of things. The little things that kept them tied to together on a thread and an unspoken prayer. Merlin, does he hope it's back in his room.

At her request, he can't help but laugh dryly. An impossible request from an impossible man, because none of this should be. ]

Perhaps we ought to have bars on my windows, then.

oo1.

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