It's So Hard to Say Goodbye to Yesterday

They had just gone out for a date. Her parents still did that - had a night out all to themselves, just the two of them. It was nothing unusual, especially on their anniversary. The only problem was that they hadn't returned.

When she could no longer keep her eyes open, Ev had finally drifted to sleep on the sofa. Her dad would carry her up to bed when they got back home. He always did when she fell asleep somewhere other than her room.

She woke up on the sofa.

The fire had burned itself out and the cottage was silent and empty. Why hadn't they come home? Where were her mum and dad? The girl tried not to feel scared. She tried so very hard to stay brave.

Night came again. They still hadn't returned. Ev cried herself to sleep.

With the morning came knocking at the front door. The eleven-year-old had run to answer it. It wasn't her parents, though. It was an auror and he said... he said that...

Evelina had been taken to the ministry and steered through its seemingly endless corridors. They had stopped outside one of the many doors. It seemed like an important door. Ev wasn't really paying enough attention to tell why that might be. She was too numb.

She sat in a chair against the wall, nodding when the auror asked her to stay put. Where would she go, anyway? There was nowhere to go; not anymore.

Her parents were dead.

Ev tried not to cry.

Order was the key to keeping her control. Perhaps it may have thought it was too soon to be back, but in all honesty, Kallie had needed some semblance of normalcy, some way to keep control.

Just sitting around had been driving her closer to losing it. And she was tired of losing it.

Of course, that had been when it had been going to be just a normal workday. That day wasn't just a normal work day.

When they first knocked on the door - she had barely settled in, still fiddling with the papers on her desk - the woman had hardly thought about who it was as she gave them a tired invitation to enter. She had work to catch up on. She certainly hoped that whatever it was they had to say was quick, and important enough to interrupt her.

At least they had had the decency to get her before she had started her work for the day. They weren't interrupting anything but her calming routine.

"I'm sorry, Ms. Nikkala- Minister - to interrupt," the man was having trouble meeting her gaze as he stuttered out his words, "It's just that, well there was an incident last night concerning your daughter's w-"

Her back straightened, her eyes widened as she felt the familiar stroke of panic spark in her and burn into a full raging inferno in less than a second. It completely eclipse the confusion, and surprise that she should have felt hearing those words, "My daughter? What's wrong? What happened? Is she alright? Please tell me she isn't-?"

Her voice was sharp, each question coming out in rapid concession until the final one couldn't even be uttered.

The man was quick in assuring her that the girl was fine - making a distinction of being physically fine that the woman was too relieved to truly process. In fact the crushing relief she felt at that small fact, eclipsed everything for a long moment, well after the man had stopped speaking, and was staring at her waiting for a response to a speech she had not really heard.

Opening her mouth the women hedged for a moment, starting to bluff and then closed it again. It was then that the full weight of the words she hadn't realized she heard crashed down on her.

They were dead. Dead. The parents she had so carefully sought out, fought to make sure would raise her child right, give her a chance at a life Kallie felt she couldn't give were gone. Their faces, so kind and warm - she had almost wished at the time that they were her parents - flashed before her mind. Something sharp like real pain, real sorrow, stabbed at her heart. Gone. They were completely gone from the world. She had barely known them for more than a few months, but the woman felt as if she had truly lost someone.

Once that thought pass, the next came with it. Her daughter, her daughter in every sense of the word. She was her guardian now. That was what the man wanted her to agree to. That was what she had said all those years ago - if they ever really, really needed someone than they could contact her. If she didn't say yes now... Evelina, her daughter, hers, would go to the state, to some uncaring-

"Of course," she said before she had even completed that thought. "Anything, anything she needs, I'd always... always... of course."

It wasn't until the man had left, and she was standing alone in her office that the rest of this situation came crashing down on her. She'd actually have to be a parent now. She'd actually have to... she was older, but was she really more mature? More ready for this? Could she really do this? Could she really...

She'd have to.

Brock. Oh god what was she going to tell Brock? She couldn't just... and Eli. Eli. She'd have to go home and... and -

Panic was rising in her throat like bile. Kallie could feel it, slow and sickening, defying gravity as it oozed its way up her throat. Rising from her desk, she began to pace, taking deep calming breaths. This wasn't the time to panic. People needed her, her daughter needed her, and if she wanted to prove herself that she able to do this, able to not screw up, to show all her childish fears that they was wrong. This was her first step to getting that.

She could. Not. Panic.

Time seemed to stand still, and race forward at the same time. Kallie had no idea how long it had been until she heard another knock on the door and an Auror slipped in. Her dark gaze trailed to the man, her hand clenched with nerves.

Any words he said didn't really sink into her brain. Only one fact was in her head - her daughter was out there. The daughter that had yet to even be a day old the last time she had seen her. She fit so easily in her arms then. Now she was eleven, eleven - how could she- ?

"Minister? Are you ready?"

Her thoughts died, and she nodded her head slowly, "I'm going to have to be."

Through the office, out the door, and into the hall, and there she was. Evelina, her daughter. And she was as perfect as she had been that first day she had held her.

The girl had grown so much since then. It could have been practical to say that Kallie could have walked past her in the street, and never even noticed, but she couldn't help but feel... like there was some pull there. Maybe she wouldn't have known why, but something about the way that she held herself perhaps, or the shade of her eyes...

Or maybe just because on some biological level that no one could deny the poor, heartbroken girl on the couch was simply hers.

"Kultaseni*," the simple Finnish phrase that her brain had long attached to the girl, long before she had the name "Evelina" long before Kallie was even sure she was a girl, came out of her lips, soft as a whisper on the wind before she could help herself. She hadn't planned to push herself onto the girl.

She may have given birth to her, and she may be her guardian at the moment, but Kallie had given the title of "Mother" to another woman a long time ago - a woman who Evelina had just lost.

Still, practical thoughts were all good and well while she was alone in her office, but here now...

It was so much harder to take a simple step forward, and offer a kind - if completely nervous - smile.

It almost killed her to merely offer her hand out for a shake, when all she wanted to do was pull the small girl into an embrace she'd never have to let go of.

"Evelina?" She asked softly. "Hello. I'm Kallie Nikkala. It is very nice to meet you."

Spoiler:

Ev's head shot up at the familiar endearment. "Äi-*" The word died on her lips as her gaze fell on the stranger. Her expression clouded with confusion and fresh loss.

"I've 'eard of ye. Ye're the Minister," Evelina said, English shaped by an Irish accent. She politely reached out to shake the woman's hand. "'Tis nice to meet ye, too, ma'am. I don't know why I'm 'ere though..." Her brown eyes grew brighter with threatening tears and the child sucked in a deep breath in an attempt to keep them at bay.

Spoiler:

Kallie's heart skipped, froze and then tightened as she heard the start of the word on the girls lips. For a brief moment she could imagine - but then of course, she wouldn't be talking about her. The girl didn't know her from a stranger on the street.

She was a stranger.

And Kallie had no one but herself to blame.

"Yes," Kallie nodded, her lips forcing themselves into a slight laugh, "That is me - though just between us, the title sounds more impressive than it is. Its mostly just paper work, and babysitting everyone."

Her second attempt at a light laugh joke faded into just a grim smile.

"I'm terribly sorry for what has happened, Dar- Evelina. I lost my own sister when I was quite young, so I understand that saying that does not make it any better, but... If you ever wish to speak to someone I am-" her offer faultered. It was only going to confuse the girl. She knew nothing of this, she would just sound like a stranger being polite. "I am always glad to listen."

She was stalling. Kallie was getting so good at that these days. Why share news you do not wish to, when you can dance around the subject for as long as you wanted?

"Yes, well that's actually why I'm here. I can.. can clear a few things up for you. We can go into my office to speak if you wish - there are some comfortable chairs there, and I might even be able to find some makeiset somewhere. Or... we can stay here, of course, if you'd rather."

Spoiler:

Ev managed a small smile at the woman's joke, only to look down at her lap as she continued to speak. It was nice of the woman to offer to listen, but didn't she have more important things to do? She was just one little girl. Why would the Minister of all people be interested in her or what happened to her-

"Thank ye, ma'am, but I'm not allowed sweets before supper. My mum..." The girl scrunched her eyes shut, twin trails of tears coursing down her cheeks at the abrupt reminder of just why she was there. It took a moment to breathe past the painful lump in her throat again. Opening her eyes, she glanced across the room and back at the Minister.

"Can we go in your office, please?" Ev asked softly. "The secretary keeps givin' me sad looks."

"That's a very wise thing to do; Supper is very important you know," Kallie dind't really know why she was still talking. Something about the pain across the child's face - every expression seemed to be causing a similar reaction in her - she suddenly felt the need to just... distract for however long she could.

Before she'd probably have to go and make it worse.

"I use to get into a lot of trouble if I didn't eat dinner; still do, though I'm not as bad for it."

She followed the girl's gaze, and nodded understandingly. Nothing gave Kallie more adversion herself, when she was upset, was complete stranger's sympathy. She barely was able to handle those reactions from the people she did care about. Any worried looks she still recieved of late were enough irk her.

Ushering her past the other people, slipped inside her office, and closed the door behind her.

"I suppose, its nothing too fancy, or... different from the outside, but at least-" she shook her head. Evelina didn't care about her rambling - the painful truth was that she didn't even care about her, she didn't know her.

And yet she was supposed to somehow tell her, on the day that she had lost everything she knew... that she had to live with her, this complete stranger. And she was only a complete stranger, because Kallie had been too frightened to keep her all those years ago.

"Well, enough prattling," she waved her hand to the assorted chairs around the room, the most of which were by her desk, though there were a set of couches closer to the door as well. "I'm sure, you'd just like... anyways, please take a seat, and... we'll get through this."

She nodded her head slowly. Her eyes lingering on the girl, every emotion under the sun battling behind her eyes.

All she could think was.

This wasn't supposed to happen. She hadn't given her daughter up, given up everything only for her to be in so much pain barely anytime later. If this had happened....

What had been the point?

Ev stepped into the office, brown eyes sweeping the room. It reminded her a bit of her dad's study, though perhaps a bit more organized. There were certainly more chairs.

The girl seated herself, even as her gaze and thoughts wandered. When her eyes finally turned back to the woman, she blinked in surprise.

"Um..." Ev said, shifting a bit in her seat, "Ye're starin' at me." Being a rather astute child, the emotions playing in the woman's eyes did not escape the girl's notice.

"Ye don't have to worry about me," she reassured hurriedly. "M-me dad, he'd 'ave tol' me to be brave. Me mum, too. So that's what I'm gonna do. I mean, I'm still real sad an' I miss them an' I don't want them to be gone, but I'll be gran', see. I'm gonna stay strong, b-because th-they... they would've..."

And then the tears started again, sobs starting to wrack the little girl's body. "They w-would 'ave w-wanted me to be o-okay," Ev choked out, hands raising to cover her tear-streaked face.

Kallie ducked her head slightly, her cheeks flushing at being caught. "That's a very mature thing to do, Evelina; its a sign of a very strong love - I know they would be very proud of you."

A flick of her wand, and a handkerchief appeared. She handed it to the girl, resisting the urge to pull her into her arms, and instead laying her hand briefly on her shoulder, before sitting across from her.

This was it. There was no more avoiding it, Kallie just needed to suck up her pride, push back her worry at how she would react - her real parents, the one that raised her had just died. There would never be a time for her to say this, without seeming to be replacing them - and just do it.

She could only hope she could phrase this as tactfully as possible.

"Well, Evelina, there once was, years ago now, a young girl. She wasn't that much older then you really - you're eleven? Almost twelve yes? - she would have been seventeen, eighteen. I know it seems like a long age gap for you now, but in a few years... you won't believe it.

"Anyway, this young girl, she decided that she was old enough to play at adult, but she wasn't old enough to handle the consequences. She found out she was pregnant, but she was alone, and scared. So very, very scared - she had never been more scared in her life. She wanted to keep that baby so very much, but she had no idea how to be a parent, no idea at all. She was sure she was going to mess up that child's life, and she could not do it. So, she made sure she'd got the best parents she could imagine to look after her precious little girl, to make sure she grew up right, only..."

Kallie trailed off, her eyes, which had lost their focus for the moment, trapped in her past, focused back, glassy-eyed back at the girl in front of her.

Her little girl.

"I was that young girl," she bit her lip, dreading to say the next bit, though she was sure Evelina had already figured out where this was going (even if perhaps her traumatized mind wouldn't let her admit it), "And you were that baby."

Ev accepted the handkerchief, mopping up the tears staining her face. As the woman started her tale, the girl stopped crying out of sheer confusion, blinking up at her. Why was she telling her..?

As the Minister continued, the lump began to form in her gut. Pieces began to fall into place of their own accord. No. Ev slowly started to shake her head before the woman had even finished. No. Surely, she was jumping to conclusion. She couldn't be about to say that-

"No," Ev spoke her denial aloud, this time, expression growing stricken for an entirely different reason. "No, no no no - NO!" The girl shouted the last 'no,' jumping to her feet as she did so. "No! I don't - why are ye sayin' that? Why would ye?!"

Kallie couldn't quite look at her, she couldn't watch the confusion, and then the out right anger and denial that crossed Evelina's face at the truth. She couldn't do it - looking at it for a longer than a moment was going to be enough to break her.

Possibly beyond repair.

"I'm sorry, Kultaseni, Evelina, if I could... any other way, no way - not like this, I didn't want to tell you like this," Kallie's voice shook, almost sounding shrill, before she took a breath, controlling herself a bit. "I only... I do not wish to add insult to injury, but... now that- you need a guardian. I know I'm a complete stranger, but..."

"Stop it!" Evelina demanded sharply. "Just stop!" She raised her hands and pressed them firmly over her ears, fingers tangling in her hair. Her breathing came at an increasingly frantic pace, hitching now and then on a sob.

This wasn't happening. She didn't - it was just all wrong. Why now? Why did it... Did she have... Her parents were dead! They were dead, dead, dead and suddenly this woman was her birth mom? Suddenly, she had to stay with this... this... person who never even wanted her? No wonder she was so successful if she could just throw-

"Ei!" Ev screamed, switching to Finnish without noticing. It wasn't only her birth mother's primary language, despite how well Ev spoke others. "Ei ei ei! En halua sinua joko - Haluan vain minun todellinen äiti ja isä! Et tule koskaan olemaan äitini! Jättäkää minut rauhaan!"

Whirling about, she ran to the door and yanked it open, darting off down the hall. The girl slipped into the first room she came to and locked the door behind her. She was not the least bit bothered that it happened to be the men's toilet.

Spoiler:

Flinching, Kallie clenched her jaw to keep from crying out, to keep everything inside. Each word hit home even more so to hear it spewed in her native tongue, entrenching the vision even more that this girl was her daughter.

Even as she flung out the insistance that she was anything but.

She watched the girl leave, every fibre of her heart shattering as she realized exactly what she had never wanted to happened, had. Her daughter had figured she had gotten rid of her, just because she hadn't wanted her.

"Ei ei ei! En halua sinua joko - Haluan vain minun todellinen äiti ja isä! Et tule koskaan olemaan äitini! Jättäkää minut rauhaan!

Those words continued to haunt her as she stood alone in her office, and would continue to haunt her quite possibly the rest of her life. Her knees shook as she took a step after her, forcing her to stop. Evelina had probably made enough of a scene running out. Her following just as broken, wouldn't help any thing.

Five minutes later, her control thin, but present, using the heel of her hand to catch any stray tears, Kallie emerged from her office, the secretary, already knowing where she was heading, nodded her head towards the door the the girl had hidden behind.

"I'm not trying to replace them, I don't wish for that. If you don't want me, that is perfectly accept able," she had to pause, hold back the emotions that statement caused. "However, I did always want you. That's... that's all."

Swallowing, the woman nodded, turning her head to the secretary, "Block off this hallway, will you, please?"

Eyes straying to the door again, Kallie smoothed out her skirt, slide down the wall directly across from the door, and waited.

Ev had shot a glare at the door from where she sat on the floor, knees pulled tightly to her chest. Hadn't she told the woman to leave her alone? Perhaps being the Minister made her feel she was above that.

The more likely reason had to do with the fact that Ev was little more than a child, of course, but the girl wasn't exactly feeling charitable at the moment. Her very heart ached with her loss and she needed someone to blame. It wasn't fair or rational. It just was.

Curling in on herself, the little girl soon drifted into a fitful sleep. Ev woke sometime later with a start, tears tracking down her cheeks, momentarily uncertain of her location. She soon remembered and rose to her feet. The girl stood with her ear to the door for a moment, trying to determine who might be outside before she opened it.

Ev halted in the doorway, looking at the woman in moderate surprise. Had she been sitting there the whole time? Red-rimmed eyes narrowed suspiciously before diverting away from the woman entirely. She might not have had a choice in what happened to her now, but she could certainly choose not to talk to the woman.

Almost in a daze - not aware of how much time had passed, only looking up as her secretary suggested she should eat - Kallie almost jumped at the sound of the door open. It was only through great control that the noise only startled her into a slight widening of her eyes, and sever clenching of her fists, her current stress responce.

The girl looked at her for a moment before turning away. Kallie was immediately to her feet, any pain she had formally felt she had managed to lock in a small compartment of her mind, put away to be dealt with at a later time. Perhaps not the best coping method, particularly considering her tendency to forget to unlock the chest, but it was one the woman had perfected through out her life.

"Whenever you are ready, we can either return to your home to collect whatever you feel you need.. to take however much time you wish," Kallie pinched the bridge of her nose and sighed. There were probably so many things she was missing, comforting word or... but what did it matter? The girl wanted nothing to do with her. At the moment, the less she said, was probably better. "Or if you'd rather not... someone can always be sent for anything you wish."

Ev tensed as the woman stood, half-ready to vanish back into the men's restroom. When she didn't come any closer, the girl relaxed a fraction, listening silently. Her teeth worried her bottom lip at the mention of her home.

Home... did it even exist any more without her parents? Wasn't it just a house, now?

After a moment, her gaze moved down the hallway in response, fixing upon the chair she had been seated in some time before. Or more accurately, upon the trunk that still sat beside it. The auror had already helped the girl pack before leaving the Irish cottage in the first place. Ev was suddenly certain she didn't want to go back, anyway. It would just hurt and she hurt enough already.

Ev scuffed the toe of her shoe against the floor, observing the motion numbly. She wanted... she didn't know what she wanted, anymore.

Kallie resisted the urge to sigh, to let her shoulders drop - resisted the urge to close in on herself, let someone else deal with all these problems. It wouldn't be that hard, not really. There were many people (the ones that knew of where she had really been, that she had been gone at all the last few months) who thought she was pushing herself too hard. Wouldn't it be easy? To just let this be the last straw, the thing that pushed her over the edge.

Wouldn't it be easy to just give up on the world? Life? And let someone else deal with its problems?

The answer was, of course it would - but that wouldn't be Kallie. She never did what was easy, sometimes she wondered if she did things one way or another just because they seemed to be the harder way to do it.

So instead of sinking back down to the ground, instead of panicking, or letting herself pass out, instead of doing anything that would get her out of having to live through this, the woman squared her shoulders, and did what she was best at.

She took control.

"Then there is really no reason to remain here," her tone was brisk, though softer than usual. It held the command that she used in her everyday life, but it wasn't as strong as she'd use when she was ordering about a stranger. Forcing her clenched fists flat once more, the woman reached into her pocket for the item she kept there now all the time, in case of emergencies. The Portkey felt warm in her hand as she pulled it out. "If you think you need anything else..."

This time she did sigh.

"I know this is beyond less than ideal, that everything is-" the woman bit her tongue. A rant wouldn't help. She offered an almost helpless shrug. Her voice was raw as she spoke, almost broken, defeated. "I'm sorry."

The girl gazed neutrally at the woman, then slowly shook her head. No. She didn't need anything else. Nothing she could think of... besides her parents, of course.

Ev started to open her mouth, but pressed her lips into a thin line, instead. It's not you fault. The words were there, the encouragement just at the tip of her tongue. She couldn't say them, though.

She was a smart girl - she knew it wasn't the minister's fault her parents were dead. If they hadn't died, none of this would have happened. It was just that Ev couldn't forgive her for simply being what she was: the person who now had to fill the role of her beloved parents.

Ev probably would have despised anyone in that moment, birth mother or not.

Kallie nodded her head, biting her lip slightly. There wasn't really anything else left to say. Not really, all had been said, except-

"One more..." she frowned. Kallie wasn't entirely sure how to bring this up, how to say anything really. Maybe she should just leave it, but there was some part of her that denied that option. She had slighted Brock so much already, she needed to make one attempt to do so. "The man I- my partner at the time, his name was Brock Cox, he never knew. We broke up before I-before I found out. So, don't... he isn't me. I did not give him choices that I had."

Swallow she nodded her head. That rant might have done nothing, hell maybe it made it worse, but until she knew otherwise... she could at least say she tired.

Holding out the Portkey, she nodded again, "Then... I suppose we can go."

For a moment, Ev grew perfectly still, drawing in a sharp breath and unconsciously holding it for a moment. Mr. Brock was... The air came back out again in a long whoosh, her gaze fixed determinedly on the floor.

This was the worst day of her life. In fact, Ev hadn't know days could get so bad.

Finally looking up (but only far enough to gaze at the portkey), Ev chewed her lip. They were going... probably to another strange place with strange smells and strange things that was nothing like home. Her home.

Then, again, Evelina's home no longer existed.

She reached out and grabbed the portkey.