"James! For the love of-"

Renata gritted her teeth together as she pressed her hand into her hip that was suddenly searing with a burning pain. After a few moments of dancing in place, squeezing her eyes shut, and biting down as hard as she could to keep herself from swearing all over the kitchen, Renata opened her eyes and let out a loud breath. Glancing down she glared in the direction of the drawer that had been left just slightly open at the end of the counter. A surge of annoyance raced through her body as she did her best to remain calm. However, it was one thing if it had been the first time that James had left the drawer open, unfortunately though, it was not.

For some reason, James had developed a habit over time to never fully close something, whether it was a door, drawer, cabinet, and sometimes, even the lid to a jar. In the beginning, Renata never said anything especially when she first started working with James and Harry, simply because she believed that James had so many other things on his mind that he often neglected small things. Yet, after Renata hit her hip on the open drawer countless times as she entered from the garden and rounded the corner of the kitchen counter or how many times she went to grab a jar only to have the lid slip right off and have the bottom part of the jar fall to the ground.

So many times she bit her tongue, swallowing her words of irritation, but that afternoon, it seemed it all caught up to her. Of course, one could argue that she should have been used to it, that she should have been more careful with where she was walking or what she was grabbing. But it wasn't only a matter of the pain she felt, but there had been times where Harry and some of the other ones had run into a drawer that James had left open. It was one thing for Renata to know better, but no one could expect three-year-olds to be mindful of James' bad habit. 

James came out of the bedroom where he had been getting dressed for the day, a smile on his face as he walked into an unexpected warzone. The smile quickly faded as soon as he met Renata's eyes as he could see the intensity paired with her hand resting on her hip.

"Uh, what's wrong, Ren?" he asked, taking no step further to get closer to her. He figured it was best to keep his distance until he figured out what was wrong.

"How many times do I have to tell you to keep the drawers closed?" she asked him.

"Oh," he said with a chuckle before he took to lightly knocking himself on the forehead, "sorry about that. I forgot-"

"No, this isn't something to just laugh off, James," Renata cut him off, not appreciating his laughter when she was still in pain. "I've told you countless times to close the drawers over when you're done going through them. The same with the doors to the cabinets and cupboards! But you don't listen-"

"It's not that big of a deal, Renata," James said, " I just figured it was a little quirk of yours to keep things closed, but it's not that big of a deal-"

"It is when I slam my hip into the drawer on a daily basis or when I have jar slam down on my foot because you refuse to put the lid on all the way! It's not a big deal to close things when you're done with them! I've asked you numerous times to do it-"

"And I told you that I forgot-"

"Well, should I put a note on your forehead permanently to act as a reminder?!"

It was mostly the pain talking for Renata as she raised her voice near the end, but it was hard to ignore the throbbing of her hip. She had gone to reach for her wand initially, but the fact that James wasn't taking responsibility for his part in not closing things had led to her grow even more annoyed than before.

"And I don't know why you're the one who is annoyed," she grumbled, " especially when you're in the wrong."

"Who said I was annoyed?" James questioned as he bit the inside of his cheek."

"I can feel it," Renata replied, " remember?"

As the two adults bickered near the kitchen, Harry poked his head out of his room, his teddy bear in hand as he watched. He had heard Renata raise her voice initially, but she had quickly returned to a lower tone as yelling accomplished nothing besides delivering a sore throat. However, as he observed from the hallway, he could see that they both looked angry with each other.

"Well, I don't know what you want me to say, Renata," James threw out her full name rather than the affectionate nickname, " I already said sorry."

"Well, maybe next time when you say it you can say it like you mean it rather than just laughing it off because I assure you every time I hit one of these drawers I'm not laughing!"

James realised he was in the wrong with his laughter the moment she brought it up, but at the same time, he was annoyed with the way that she was speaking to him that if he attempted to apologise at the moment, it was going to come across snarky. That would only lead to further problems and Dr Mullins had informed him that if he felt like he couldn't do something right away, there wasn't any problem with taking a step back and trying again later.

Without another word, he looked away from Renata and started towards the front door to leave, which left Renata confused. She didn't realise that he was leaving until he closed the door behind him, leaving her at the flat with Harry. Part of her was furious that he had just walked away without saying anything else, leaving when he was in the wrong, however, as she stood there for a couple minutes longer, she came to the conclusion that she had been quite harsh.

The pain had fuelled her to become angrier than she ever would in any other situation and perhaps jumping at him so early in the day when the morning had started off relatively well. He probably felt a bit attacked, especially with her tone and that led him to become annoyed in his own defence.

"Mummy?"

Quickly turning around, Renata saw Harry standing in the doorway of the living room looking in her direction. In his hand, he was carrying his teddy bear, his eyes wide and watery behind his frames before he looked in the direction of the front door where his father had left out of. The pain in her side suddenly subsided as her focus was no longer on it, as she knelt down before calling Harry over.

"It's alright, Harry, come here."

For any couple in a long-term relationship, no matter how perfect things seemed to be, there was always a little dose of reality that served as a reminder that things were never perfect. It was inevitable that every couple get into an argument over something, even if it was over something silly. Renata didn't like arguing and she was certain that James didn't enjoy getting into fights either, but with people living under the same roof, it was bound to happen. Not to mention, when Renata had first moved in with James and Harry, she didn't dare voice anything that irritated her in the slightest, simply because she wanted James and Harry to heal and be happy.

But since they were in a relationship, it was all about getting accustomed to the other one, their habits, whether it was something they liked or disliked. This wasn't their first argument as a couple and it wasn't like Renata didn't do things that irritated James either, it was just the side of a relationship, the ugly side of it at least. It wasn't anything that they couldn't get over, they would just be huffy with each other for a little while and then they would apologise to one another later on.

However, Harry didn't understand that arguing sounded harsh and didn't look like anything nice, one would believe that something was terribly wrong during the earlier exchange, at least in the eyes of a little one.

Harry raced over to where Renata was kneeling and threw himself into her arms, looking quite fearful. His expression left Renata to feel slightly guilty because she was the one to start the argument that morning.

"Mummy, where did Daddy go?" his eyes continued to go back and forth between her and the door. It seemed his fear stemmed from the idea that his father wasn't going to come back because he was upset about something. The problem was, Harry didn't know what his father was upset with and earlier Renata had seemed angry as well. In his young mind, he had to assume that maybe they were upset with him, maybe he had done something wrong without realising.

"He just went outside, Harry," Renata told him, " he had to go for a walk. You don't have to be sad, he'll be back soon."

Harry didn't look very convinced as Renata was trying to make it sound like nothing was wrong, she had a smile on her face, but it didn't look like her usual smile when she was happy or excited about something.

"What do you want to do, Harry?" she asked him in attempts to distract Harry from what had happened earlier. "Do you want to play a game?"

Curse his mother for knowing him all too well, Renata knew that Harry would never be able to resist the idea of playing a game. But it seemed like the perfect idea to give them the distraction that they both needed at the time. However, Harry didn't want to play one of his usual games in his rooms and he didn't even want to venture outside to play. Instead, he came up with the idea that he wanted to take a bath and not just any bath, an adventurous bath on the high seas.

Renata laughed as Harry brought her into the bathroom and directed her over to the tub before pointing at it. He made his demands clear before she obligated with a nod of her head and turned the water on to adjust the temperature. Carefully setting his teddy bear on the closed toilet seat, Harry made sure that his teddy was properly seated so that he wasn't missing any of the action. In a flash, Harry had taken off all of his clothes and climbed into the tub to enjoy his water adventure. Meanwhile, Renata used her wand to get all of Harry's water toys that consisted of ships that he often liked to splash around with.

Harry's adventure out at sea was the perfect distraction that Renata needed at the moment as she helped him fight off the angry sea monster and she didn't care how wet her clothes became in the process.

Seeing the smile on Harry's face, reminded her of the smile that had been on James' face when he walked out of the bedroom earlier that morning before they got into the argument. Hearing Harry's laughter reminded her of the little laugh that James had let out earlier, hoping that it would smooth the situation over. Knowing that the morning was somewhat wasted due to an argument that wasn't even that big of a deal left Renata disappointed with herself. She knew that James could have been there, right beside her on the floor of the tub, joining in the sea adventure with Harry.

And looking back on it, it wasn't really a big deal, the pain could have been easily taken care of with just a simple wave of her wand, but she had blown it out of proportion at the time.

Harry remained in the bath until the water was cold and even after that, he remained in the water a little while longer. However, when his adventure out at sea finally came to an end, Harry looked positively exhausted and Renata was fairly certain that the Boy-Who-Lived was due for an afternoon nap. Helping him out of the tub and to his room to get dressed, Renata pulled out some comfortable clothes for Harry to wear and during the time that he was getting dressed, Harry let out several yawns before he sat down on his bed.

"Mummy, I'm tired," he said in a soft voice, looking up at her while Renata placed his glasses off to the side.

"I can see that," she smiled, bringing him to actually lay down in his bed, " why don't you take a nap? You'll get some rest and when you wake up, we can play some more. How does that sound?"

"With Daddy?"

Despite being young, Renata was convinced that Harry was so much more aware than the average child his age. The way his eyes met hers after his question, it seemed to be his way of telling her that she and James were to reconcile before he awoke from his nap. Perhaps she was giving too much credit and it was only her mind cooking things up since she felt guilty about the fight anyways.

"Yes," she said with a promising nod, " with Daddy too."

Her words of reassurance seemed to settle Harry enough that he took to snuggling his pillow as he closed his eyes, a hint of a smile on his lips as he began drifting off quickly. Renata remained with him for a few extra minutes until she was sure that he was asleep. After a couple of minutes, she realised that Harry's teddy bear had been left in the bathroom and that was no place for Harry's toy to remain. Not to mention, it had been sitting on the toilet and while the bathroom was kept clean, just the thought of the teddy bear remaining there didn't settle well in Renata's mind.

She stood up and left Harry's room quietly to retrieve the teddy bear, taking her wand to disinfect it before she returned it to her son. Yet, just as she was walking out of the bathroom, the sound of the front door opening brought her attention in the opposite direction of Harry's room. She walked down the hall, still carrying the teddy bear in her hands until she reached the doorway of the living room to see that James had returned.

In his left hand, he was holding a small bouquet of weathered-looking flowers that seemed to have been sensitive to the cold air outside. His hair was plastered to the sides of his face, a sign that it was raining outside as per usual and as he stepped further inside the home, he gave a shake of his head, bringing droplets of water to hit the floor. For a moment, it seemed he didn't realise that Renata was standing right there watching him, however as he noted the silence of the flat, he started to look around.

Once he spotted her, James seemed to take in her wet appearance as well as she had neglected to dry herself off after Harry's bathtime. In her hand, she was carrying Harry's teddy bear with a slight frown pulling downward on her lips. In his mind, he assumed that she was still upset with him and since he had taken to walking out earlier during the middle of the argument, he couldn't really blame her.

"Ren, I'm sorry about earlier," he began, taking a step towards her direction, " I-"

"I'm sorry too!" she quickly blurted out, catching him off guard. James definitely wasn't anticipating an apology coming from her and he didn't even understand why she was saying sorry in the first place. After all, after leaving the flat, he realised that if Renata had kept doing something in the home that caused him pain often, he would more than likely find himself more than annoyed too. She had every right to be upset with him and he knew that he had to try harder to just keep up with the simple things that she requested of him.

She was asking him to keep drawers closed when they weren't in use, that wasn't a complicated request in the slightest.

"What are you sorry for?" James questioned. "I'm the one who was in the wrong, Ren."

"No, but I made a big deal out of something so small," she admitted to him, " I mean, it wouldn't kill me to just double-check things, you know?"

"Just like it wouldn't kill me to just close things properly like I should," James said, " so really, it's my fault. You've told me on more than one occasion and earlier, I shouldn't have laughed, especially since you were in pain. I don't even know why I laughed in the first place, I didn't find it funny, I guess it was just nerves. I didn't mind getting in trouble when I was in school, but getting in trouble as an adult...throws me off. And I always hate arguing so I guess I get really defensive relatively fast."

He made his way over and offered the flowers, grimacing at the sight of them as he didn't realise what poor condition they were in initially.

"And I got you flowers to say I'm sorry, although if this is my apology, it's a poor one," he said scratching the back of his head. "They looked better when I bought them, but I guess walking around out there for a little bit didn't help them."

"They're beautiful," Renata said as she took the bouquet in her free hand, "thank you."

"Are you alright though? Are we alright?" James asked her in a worried tone, still noting her wet clothing. Surely she couldn't have been that upset to cry that hard, but he couldn't be sure. Reaching out his hand, he touched the top of her blouse that seemed the dampest, bringing Renata to peer down.

"We're fine, James," she replied softly, " like I said, I overreacted. I guess there is just something we can both work on, that's all. That's just wet from Harry's bathtime, we travelled across the seven seas today in battle."

"I'm sorry I missed out on that," he said, " but I'm sure there will be other adventures. Where is Harry? In his room?"

"Yes, he's taking a nap, I was just about to bring his teddy bear in there while he was resting since he left it in the bathroom but then I heard you coming in."

She let out a small sigh as she looked down at the teddy bear before looking up at James again. "We have to be careful about any arguments we have, James. Harry is quite sensitive to it all, he was upset after you left, he doesn't need to see such things because he doesn't fully understand them. He doesn't understand that you'll come back, all he does is pick up on our emotions."

"I know I shouldn't have left, but Dr Mullins told me that sometimes if I can't face the problem right away to just take a breather, go for a walk, and then come back to it-"

"And that's great advice, but for Harry's sake, it's best not to leave looking like you're angry. You can tell me that you need to walk away...just say you'll be back."

For a moment, James had to wonder if Renata was speaking for Harry or if she was voicing her own insecurities about him walking out earlier. Did she not believe that he would come back, did she think he would remain angry forever? Perhaps that was the impression he had given off without realising when he left earlier, but that certainly wasn't his intention at all. Maybe Renata wasn't really used to arguments taken place between couples, probably because she had grown up in the "perfect" environment under her parents' rule.

When he didn't respond right away, Renata looked away from him once more. "Well, I should probably just return Harry's teddy to him," she said in a small voice before turning back down the hall.

"Ren," he called after her, only letting her take a step away from him, " Ren, I'm sorry I left like that. I apologise to you and Harry, and maybe he doesn't understand, but you know I would never leave you like that, especially over something such as a small argument like that. You know that, right?"

"Yes, I know...it's just..." she looked over her shoulder, " since I can feel your emotions, on top of my emotions, and then Harry's emotions on top of that...I...I don't know...just scares me sometimes. Emotions are powerful forms of magic on their own, the joys of being an Empath can sometimes work as a curse against me and my mind. Sometimes I can't tell the difference between what someone else is feeling versus what I'm feeling. I'm sorry-"

"No, stop apologising, Ren, this whole thing has gone beyond what it needed to and it's my fault. I should have listened the first time you said something about the drawer or the lids on the jars. It's not like it would kill me to close them properly, I'm not sure why I leave them open all the time...I don't even know where that habit formed to be honest. But I promise, I'll do my best to remind myself to close them but let's just drop this and go back to enjoying the day. It's nasty outside, doesn't mean it has to be like that in here..."

She nodded her head and for a moment, both of them were quiet and still before the same idea overcame both of them and they quickly went in for a hug.

No apologies were muttered, but they both could feel the final apology exchanged between them silently as they held onto one another. James pressed a kiss to Renata's forehead before releasing his hold finally, allowing her to go return Harry's teddy bear. He claimed that he was going to go throughout the home and make that that everything was closed and sealed properly, leaving her to chuckle as she walked towards the room.

However, as she approached the room, Renata paused in the hallway where one of the frames holding a photograph of his parents remained.

It was one of Fleamont Potter that Renata had passed numerous times, the inventor seemed to be hard at work on a potion he was brewing in what appeared to be the private office of his old home. And yet as Renata leaned forward to get a better look at the photograph, she could see that every single drawer of the man's desk was open and all the lids of the ingredients were off or loose as well.

And as Renata continued on to Harry's room a couple of minutes later, she had to wonder something to herself.

How many times did Euphemia hit her hip on the drawers and how many jars did the woman drop on her foot because of Fleamont?