[ Set following this. ]

The innings wore on and the game wound down, the competitive edge and frustration of losing eventually giving way to laughter and foolishness. The game of Puffs vs Stuffs was being held for charity and no matter which team lost the organization that they had all gathered to play for would win.

Cordelia tossed her glove into her bag before reaching up to adjust her ponytail in an attempt to remain nonchalant about everything. Neither she nor Fritz had really said much of anything to one another throughout the course of the game. It was like they were two people who had barely spoken-- maybe they’d never actually met before, if that’s the game they were playing,

She drew in a deep breath, drawing the air in slowly only to release it in a puff of breath that sent wayward tendrils of hair fluttering about her face. Tucking a strand back behind her ear she turned, approaching the man who’d been playing pitcher for the Puff’s. “You were good out there today-- struck a few of the Stuffs out, made some good plays. Sorry I didn’t get a chance to introduce myself sooner! I’m Cordelia Carden, nice to meet you.”

Cordy was smiling as she held her hand out to him in greeting, wondering just now noticeable it was that she was biting down on the inside of her lip, or that her heart was pounding in her chest. “Don’t suppose you’d be interested in going out for drinks to talk about-- about the game?”

---------

He was trying hard to play it cool, and by extension, not think about how long it had been since he had last seen her - or what had happened the last time he had seen her. Fritz had not expected to even want to play in the game at all, but he’d felt a desire to support Quenton and the CatFe, even if that meant putting himself into close proximity to the one person that he was struggling to come to terms with.

He was, unfortunately, not going to be allowed off this time, because she came to find him.

Fritz had been in the process of leaning over one of the benches, stowing his gear away, when he heard her voice. He didn’t straighten immediately, but paused, trying to calm the way his heart seemed to grow twice as large inside of his chest, Fritz momentarily closing his eyes.

He slid the glove back into his bag, straightened, and turned, a small smile on his face.

“Cordelia Carden, a pleasure,” he said. There was only a fraction of hesitation before Fritz reached out to take her hand, silently thanking the gods that there was no noticeable tremor to it. He gave Cordelia’s hand a brief shake, before letting his fingers slide away, physical contact still a barrier to overcome. “I’m Fritz St. James.”

She looked just as he remembered. Fritz took a breath and relaxed himself internally.

“A drink sounds lovely,” he said, and reached for his bag, sliding it over a shoulder. “Shall we?”


----------

Cordelia wasn’t entirely sure what she had expected out of asking Fritz out for a drink but it hadn’t been for him to agree. When he did she found herself pausing, blinking in surprise as his hand took hers. The touch was so brief, but it was something and if all it took to have her friend back was starting over, well…

A slight smile pulled at the corners of her mouth as she stepped back, stooping down to retrieve her own bag. The weight settled on her shoulder, shifting with her movement as she glanced up to Fritz briefly. She wanted to say so many things, but she was afraid the words would suffocate her if she tried and so she didn’t, stepping up out of the dugout silently.

“There’s a pub not far from here that puts together a pretty mean fish and chips. Their house cider isn’t too bad either, depending on what your preference is.” Normally she would have invited him back to her place for tea, but that seemed like far too intimate a setting for-- well, for whatever this was.

“Fritz is a charming name. Is it short for something?” She cast a quick glance in his direction, at least partially to make sure that he was still following along and she hadn’t suddenly started talking to herself. Just as quickly she looked away, eyes back in front of her in an attempt to make sure she didn’t run into anyone else in the process of slowly leaving the field. “My friends usually just call me Cordy.”


----------

There were too many options in his head for what to say and do; a confusing tangle of several possible outcomes and several impossible reasonings and nothing was actually forming the way it should have in Fritz’s mind. He was not used to feeling this way; and it seemed his time abroad, which he had thought would help the situation, had only managed to forestall them.

His hand was shaking a little. He ignored it, curled it around the strap of his bag as he fell into step beside Cordelia. “I do like a decent meal,” said Fritz. “Perhaps not a cider person, but I like a glass of wine every now and then.”

He gave in and cast a sideways glance at Cordelia, the golden rays of sun misting over her dark hair. A part of him - the part of himself that he always kept buried resolutely deep - had a strange and disconcerting desire to reach out and touch one of the glossy black curls, but he resisted.

The corners of his lips quirked up a little, in spite of the pressure in his chest.

“Frederick,” said Fritz. “Frederick Benjamin St. James. Too much of a mouthful, so Fritz it is.”

The smile formed a little more.

“Cordelia is a very nice name, though. Would you mind if I called you that instead?”


---------------

“Sounds every bit as stuffy as Cordelia Edena Carden,” she laughed softly, the sound light and bubbly and real. It felt good to laugh; to pretend for a moment that everything was just fine and that everything hadn’t gone to the birds after one Cinderella-like evening.

“You do get used to stuffy, though, when you’re brought up to be a socialite. My mother’s family very much protested the fact that I wasn’t given a second middle name.” There was a light quirk to the corners of her mouth that said she might have been teasing. Under any other circumstances, such as the social circles she might have grown up in, she might have used that bit of humor as a distraction to lightly loop her arm through his.

She didn’t, however, instead lightly plucking at the strap of her bag. “Frederick is a lovely name as well, but I do like Fritz… And you may call me whatever you’d like, as long as it isn’t ‘Dolly’. I’m afraid my grandmother’s the only one who’s ever called me that-- on my father’s side.” It was a little tidbit that she had never shared before, something that only those who were close to her knew. She was trusting him, or at least trying to show him that she still did; that she was still willing to.

“White or red? For the wine, that is… I tend to prefer a sweet rose myself.”

---------------

He had missed this.

He had missed the way she had laughed, the way she had talked. How easy it felt to be around her, how comfortable he was just knowing that she was there. It felt breathless and light and calm in a way he had never experienced before, and he wanted to hold onto it for as long as he could.

And he also wanted to run away from it as fast as he could, in the opposite direction.

“Oh, yes, very much so,” said Fritz with a laugh. “My family loved the mouthful names, I and my twin had very jumbled up names, if I may say so. I sincerely think that you should have gotten a second middle name, however, you could have been Cordelia Edena Victoria Delilah Carden, that wouldn’t have been stuffy at all.”

His name on Cordelia’s lips felt -

No he wasn’t thinking about that. “Fritz is much easier to say, so I’m glad you prefer it,” he said instead. “And I can’t possibly call you Dolly, although I really must hear the story behind that sometime. As for the wine…”

Fritz gave a small hum of thought.

“I prefer a white myself.”


------------------

“No, no, it would have been Cordelia Edena Victoria Edeline-Carden.” She spoke the word ‘hyphen’ with a roll of her eyes. “That would have been my maternal grandparents’ attempting to keep their influence as well as the family name.” Her mother, on the other hand, had been so in love, as the story was told, that she would hear none of that. They’d eloped in the end to get away from her maternal grandmother’s attempt to micromanage.

It was the sort of love story that Cordelia had grown up with foolish notions of; a perfect fairytale in a perfect world. Here she was now knowing that fairytales might be real, that magic and monsters and other world castles existed.... And she would give all of that up, any chance for being swept off of her feet or whisked away, if it meant having her friend back.

Hearing the emphasis he put on ‘Dolly’ brought a light flush to her face and she laughed again, trying to brush it off as more airy amusement. “My father’s mother came to live with us when I was younger, after her husband passed and living overseas alone was too much. She used to say that Cordelia was ‘far too serious a name for such a small child’ and so Dolly it was.”

Cordelia shook her head lightly once more, stepping forward to tug the door of the pub open, gesturing for Fritz to go on in ahead of her. Most places would close early for the fireworks later that evening. Many other people were already with friends and family around grills leaving the establishment pleasantly quiet with only a few patrons and the soft hum of music in the background. Taking the ‘seat yourself’ sign’ into account she tilted her head to glance up to Fritz. “Table or booth?”

------------------

Fritz turned his head to stare at her for a moment before he said, sounding almost impressed, “I rescind my previous statement. Your name, if it was that, would have been far more wordy than my own.” He gave a laugh, some of the tension in his shoulders beginning to ease. “And here I thought my own name was quite the mouthful.”

It was becoming a little easier to relax, a little easier to fall back into the familiar and warm reminder that Cordelia was someone Fritz cared for, that he respected and trusted. That he found comfort in, her continual presence, her strength and her gentleness, and her willingness to be patient with him throughout….well, everything.

He had too many years of conflicting, confusing emotions, a tangle of issues that he couldn’t unravel, and yet she was still here, after all this time.

It felt…

No. He wasn’t going there.

His smile, however, was genuine as Fritz glanced over at Cordelia. “That’s ridiculously adorable. I still can’t call you Dolly, but the reasoning behind it is quite sweet after all. No, for now, you’ll be Cordelia, it’s really a lovely name.”

And he had always called her that, only slipping into Cordy sometimes, which was a habit Fritz had yet to break, for reasons even he didn’t know. He stepped after her into the pub, giving the hostess a brief smile before he said to Cordelia, “A booth would be lovely, but whatever you choose will be fine.”

-------------------------

“It might be a mouthful, but it still falls nicely from the lips.” Her own smile was gentle as she lead the way towards one of the booths, tucking her bag onto one of the seats only to settle in beside it. She leaned over to pluck two menus from the caddy on the wall, setting one down on the table opposite her so that Fritz could look it over whenever he’d settled.

Not wanting to risk letting the silence settle in and overtake either of them, not willing to lose the comfort of the moment to awkwardness just yet, Cordelia continued their ‘getting to know you’ chatter. “You were pretty impressive out there on the field today, Fritz. You’ve played softball before? Or are you just a natural?”

It was so easy to get caught up in the other side of their lives that little things like this often went by the wayside. She knew that he painted-- or had, before he’d been injured. She knew about his taste in movies, the type of tea he drank… She knew a number of things, yet over the past couple of months while he was gone she’d only been able to think of the things she didn’t know.

What are you going to do if--

Her thoughts were,thankfully, interrupted by the arrival of their waitress. She didn’t need to let them drift down that route. She didn’t need to worry.

What she did need was a glass of water for the moment and a glass of their house cider to be brought out along with whatever entrees they decided on. “What are your thoughts on fried zucchini, Fritz?”

-------------------------

He took the menu that was offered and slid it towards himself, trying not to think too hard, or to overanalyze, or to try and work out the situation beyond what was right in front of him. Fritz’s heart felt too constricted still; it was difficult to concentrate, but he forced himself to, letting himself relax.

Breathe. Just think of the moment, not the future.

It was next to impossible, but he could try. Fritz let out a laugh.

“If by natural you mean natural mess at it. I struck out twice, perhaps a third time, I lost count after the first two,” he answered good naturedly. “But I mean, if you want to consider me a professional, I won’t object to being raised up a bit.”

His smile flashed across the table at Cordelia. “And what of yourself? Talk about a natural. As for the fried zucchini…” Fritz hummed in thought.

“Why not? I like regular zucchini, at least, fried can’t be that different, can it?”

------------------

“No, not all that different.” She laughed softly, glancing up from her menu to smile at him-- or maybe it was for him.

The remainder of their time at the pub was just as light and airy; more natural than things had been between them since she’d woken up on the sofa in his apartment the day after Valentines. Had it really been that long since she’d just been Cordelia and he’d just been Fritz? Did she even have words to voice how much she had missed this?

When the check came after dinner there was a slight fuss back and forth between who would cover the tab with the agreement finally working out that they’d each pay for the other’s meal. She offered to let Fritz cover the appetizer as long as she could leave the tip for their server and that was that.

It was only when they were outside, bags slung back over their shoulders as they stood side by side, that she finally turned to look at Fritz again. “... For what it’s worth, I’m glad you’re back, Fritz. I-- I had a good time today. Tonight. Maybe we could do this again sometime? Sooner, rather than later?”

------------------

His attempts at seeming calm were slowly melting into actually being calm, though it still felt, somehow, as though he was teetering at the edge of a cliff. Something in Fritz’s heart hurt; it was a quiet ache, something that had been building for far too long, and yet he couldn’t quite manage to tamp down on it, no matter how hard he tried.

Cordelia’s smiles hurt. Not because he didn’t want them, but because he did.

By the end of their meal, it was almost - almost - easy to forget his cares and his concerns in the first place. It was so easy to be with her, so easy to lose himself in the conversation, in her shining, bright presence, in her continued friendship and support. It was something he had missed dearly during his time away - and something he had tried not to miss.

It was impossible.

Out on the street, it was warm and balmy. Fritz had one hand shoved into the pocket of his pants, the other still holding his bag, and he turned to look at Cordelia, hearing the faint tension, the uncertainty.

He wasn’t good at this.

He was so very, very bad at this.

“Yes,” he said, and then took a breath, and said with a more gentle smile, “Yes, I’d like that very much.”

Fritz hesitated, then leaned forward and, very very lightly, brushed his lips over Cordelia’s cheek. It was barely there and gone, but it was something, and he leaned back, hoping the dim street lighting would hide the red tinge growing in his cheeks.

“Until next time, then?”

------------------

Cordelia had reached out to gently rest her fingertips along his wrist for a moment as he leaned in, eyes closing as his lips brushed her cheek. The gesture was so brief on both their parts, but the fact that it was there at all...

Her hand dropped back down as she rocked on her heels to step back. A gentle smile touched her lips and she nodded, looking up to him. "Until next time, Fritz."

Stars willing, 'next time' wouldn't mean months apart, wondering and waiting. It would mean tea time, dinner and movies, along with the occasional patrol. It would mean her friend had returned. That was what she'd wanted-- all that she'd wanted-- wasn't it?

Of course.