Oliver Kent was clean the day Wally Grant showed him how to drive a motor car - and had been for several months. They were at Ollie's house, shortly after having gotten back together for the hundredth time in their on-going cycle of break-up, reunite, break-up, and reunite. They'd been spinning 'round the same pattern for years - though this latest go around had felt different.

Mainly because Oliver knew that this go 'round was the last one they could spin. He had promised Wally that when they'd kissed and fallen back into it. "I can't keep doing this, Oliver," Wally said. "I love you  but I can't keep crashing with you, you understand, yeah? You've got to get better or I've got to walk away and it kills me to say it, you know it does..." And Oliver had really meant it when he had sworn to Wally things really were different and he really wasn't going to relapse this time.

So far, so good. Oliver was doing great. They'd come through the one year anniversary of Halloween, and Oliver had not broken down, and Wally saw that as a sign that maybe it really was different this time. Maybe...

So there they were, spending a day together, goofing off on a Spring day in early 1983, the radio on in the car and Wally was showing Oliver how to drive like a muggle. Cars were fascinating to Oliver, less so to Wally whose dad drove a taxi 'round London. Oliver laughed with fear and anxiousness as Wally showed him the clutch and the gears, pointed out the windscreen wipers and the headlamps.

"You ready to turn it on now?"

"No."

"Put the key in the ignition - right there. That's it. And turn it. Go on, you can do it. Okay harder than that, though, you'll hear the engine turn over."

Oliver gasped in shock and delight when it roared to life. "Oh my gods," he said.

"Now take off the brake."

"But then we'll move!"

"That's the idea isn't it?" Wally laughed.

With shaking hands, Oliver released the brake and lifted his foot up and the vehicle moved forward, lurching, and Oliver's knuckles turned white against the steering wheel.

"It's easy," Wally said, "Like riding a bike."

"I haven't done that."

"A broom, then."

"No riding a broom is much easier! They aren't a ton of rolling metal on four rubber wheels. How's the rubber not crushed by the car anyway? Doesn't it seem like the car's too heavy for it's own wheels?"

"The wheels are alright, Ollie, relax. Go on, press the gas."

"But then we'll go faster!"

"Yes but we shan't be passed by a slug in a race at least. Go on, Ollie. There's nothing scary about it - look you've got practically a mile of drive way ahead of you before you're even close to the road and we can always back up if we need to."

"What, go backwards? Hell!"

The funny thing was that once Wally got Oliver trained real well, there was no getting him out of cars. No, it wasn't the most practical transportation for everyday things of course, but it was fun and Oliver found himself buying his very own motorcar and going for rides simply because it was a joy to do it. Their dates became rides without a destination, traveling about England and stopping anywhere they saw something that caught their fancy. Cardiff, London, Bristol, Liverpool, York... Loads of places. They found cafes and shops and pubs and clubs and landmarks and cozy inns and seaside cliffs... And with all the time in the world on their hands since Oliver's pay from quidditch was grand enough that he could afford to go wherever whenever he wanted, so long as he was back home in time for practices.

Sometimes Dexter came, sometimes not... But it was nearly always Wally. Wally's work schedule was the only thing in the way.

"You should quit work," Oliver complained one day when Wally was on the tellyphone and refusing a day at the shore.

"I can't," Wally laughed. "Some of us have to work - like a real job, not all of us get to play quidditch all day."

Those days were the hardest.

Those days were the ones Ollie paced around the house, circling through his own mind, fighting with himself that four hours of high wasn't worth seven days of detox, that four hours of high wasn't worth losing Wally.

But the pain won't go away, a voice inside him hissed, not until you take care of it.

I don't even have any of the stuff in the house, he reminded himself.

But you have a motorcar, the voice said. And maybe you should have some. Just in case. In case you need it. In case the pain becomes too much and you have to have it...

Wally couldn't know. Wally couldn't see. Wally would leave it he found out. So the bottle was poured into a flask and the flask was stuffed under the mattress, hidden away where it wouldn't be found.

The bottles were easy to find. The pills were harder.

But he managed those, too, and he told himself that he felt better just knowing he had them on hand just in case. He probably wouldn't ever need them, he told himself, but just knowing they were there...

And honestly, Wally didn't need to worry about just one sip here or a single pill there, right? That wasn't even enough to effect anything, Oliver was fine, he was thinking straight and he could have walked a tight rope over a canyon if he had to he was that steady, honest.

The proof was in his game. He was on track to be MVP in the NWQL his rookie year - a very impressive feat - and his new trainer and coach was thrilled and boasting over him constantly. People were cheering him from the stands, his replica jerseys flying out of the merch stores, posters of his likeness going up all over the UK. He had deals with quidditch supply companies for advertisements and interviews with magazines and loads of exciting things.

But the most exciting of all was the moment Wally surprised Oliver with a prank.

All Oliver's Cannons jerseys read GRANT instead of KENT one morning.

"What have you done to my quidditch robes?!" Oliver demanded, frustrated, digging through them, "Did you get every last one of them???"

Wally smirked. "I did."

"What am I supposed to do with loads of GRANT jerseys???"

"I dunno."

"Put them so they're right, Wally!"

"You know, it took a lot of work turning them over to Grant instead of Kent - why don't we just change your last name instead?"

"Change my last ---" and when Oliver turned 'round it was to find Wally on one knee.

Proposing.

With a prank.

Like an imbecile.

The best imbecile.

Ollie's imbecile.

Oliver really did feel like a most valuable player then.

Wally always made him feel better.

Better than the medicine, better than the drink.

And so even the small sneaky sips and popped pills stopped for a time following the wedding.

For awhile, Oliver was strong and good and he thought maybe he had finally kicked the habits for real and absolute.

And he won the MVP, as everyone expected.

He remembered the end of the game that year as a blur of confetti and shouting, of dancing on the pitch under the bright lights and the stars and Wally wrapping his arms around him and their kiss, which had been doused with celebratory spray of a bottle of shaken champagne. The photo of them had been on the front page of the Daily Prophet the next day and on Quaffle Talk's next issue and in the pages Witch Weekly and Teen Witch gossip columns.

Suddenly, everywhere Wally went, he was being asked questions about Oliver, too.

Suddenly, the pair of them were being stopped on dates and their door was being knocked on, people trying to get inside scoops on their relationship. They needed a publicist to help handle all the requests for photos, interviews, and appearances. Luckily, they had a friend from Hogwarts who had gone on to specialize in that.

Then one day, Oliver was invited to a grand party and he was talked into a single flute of champagne. Just one drink, that's what he told himself, just because it was fun and everyone else was drinking it and he didn't want to be the weirdo that didn't drink - they'd all notice, after all - all eyes were on him. So he drank it. And there was a photo in the paper of him with it and Jasper's eyes were concerned when he stopped by the ice cream parlor the next day.

"You need to be careful," Jasper warned.

"It was just one drink," Oliver said.

"Just one drink can ruin everything," Jasper said firmly, "It starts off as just one then it's just two. Then it's only when you're out with this particular group of friends, or you're celebrating something. But soon you're celebrating anything you can dream up and then it's everyday and the next thing you know you've blurred the lines so much that there are no lines left."

"You're over thinking things," Oliver said, rolling his eyes.

Jasper had sighed, "Will you trust me on this one thing, Oliver? I know all about addictions..."

"You know all about your addiction," Oliver had grunted, annoyed. "I'm not you."

Jasper had frowned, "I'm just trying to help. I've been where you are, and it's a slippery slope... and I don't want you to end up like I did before your Uncle Toby confronted me..."

"Jasper, c'mon."

"Jasper?" Jasper looked at him, hurt in his eyes. It had been years since Oliver had called him anything but Dad.

But Oliver hadn't corrected it. Instead, he let it go altogether and he started coming 'round less and less to the ice cream parlor until it became something he only did for press - it looked really great to volunteer to go with his family-owned business to visit orphan kids and children's hospitals all about London, after all. Oh what a good, kind, generous man that Oliver Kent is, people said, and again he was splashed on the pages of all the newspapers and magazines...

It was on one of those excursions when he'd met Colin.

Quiet, sitting apart from everyone else, playing with blocks even though he was older than the age that usually did play with blocks by themselves, Colin had stared at Oliver with wide eyes that were a cross between excitement and fear. 

"Colin's a freak," one of the other boys Colin's age had said. "Colin doesn't talk and weird stuff happens around Colin when he's upset."

Oliver had sat with Colin and played blocks quietly while Jasper and Michael and Meg did all the volunteer work that the papers would later make sound as though Oliver did all alone.

Michael was mad that Oliver didn't try to correct the papers.

"You don't care that it never once mentions Fortescue's? Never once mentions Mum or Dad?"

"What do you want me to do about it?" Oliver demanded.

"I don't know, get your blue-haired friend to help fix it?" Michael snapped. 

Oliver rolled his eyes, "Declan isn't the one who omitted you, Michael, it was the reporters that were there. Don't blame Declan because he forgot to put your name in the article."

"I don't care that it doesn't mention me, but Mum and Dad put a lot into doing that stuff, bringing the ice cream to the orphanages... You know how important it is to the kids - we used to BE those kids, Ollie, and Mum and Dad don't ever get recognition for it and they ought to. It'll help raise awareness, too, so people will maybe put the change in the giving jar more, and --"

"Okay! Okay, just get off my back about it. Merlin's beard..." Oliver had raised his palms, "I'll do what I can do, alright?"

But he hadn't bothered - and then he got distracted.

Distracted because he couldn't get Colin out of his mind, even days after the visit.

So he'd gone back. This time on his own for real.

Gone back just to play blocks with Colin some more. But by then Colin was over the blocks and was playing with crayons, so Oliver had laid on the floor on his stomach coloring silently with Colin all day... and when he gotten up to go home, Colin had given him a hug.

"Colin is one of our more special residents here," the caretaker, a nice woman with rosy cheeks had said gently, when Oliver asked about Colin. She hesitated, trying to choose how to say what she needed to. "He doesn't like a lot of interaction. He's prone to outbursts and fits sometimes. But mostly if we let him play his way and don't try to make him conform, he's alright. The doctors say he might have Autism. It's a new condition. Or, you know, one they've newly started studying, that is, ent nothin' new under the sun, really, isn't there?"

Autism. 

"He needs a home that can afford to pay for the doctor visits he needs."

"How much are the visits costing the orphanage?"

Oliver made sure the visits were covered.

And yet he still couldn't get Colin out of his mind.

So he told Wally about him.

"Autism?" Wally had said, confused, and they'd spent the afternoon together at the library, researching it before going to visit Colin again, where the three of them played a very quiet game with some flashcards they had to turn over and try to match. Colin enjoyed the game at first, but got frustrated eventually and they changed to another game, one Colin showed them, silently, where they were organizing blocks by shapes and colors into very intricate piles.

The only words Colin said the whole time was to tell them there were 52 blocks that belonged in the red pile. "I've done this before, there are 52. 52 red blocks," he said and then he'd fallen silent again, moving the blocks into piles while Wally and Oliver tried at helping.

"He's smart," Wally said when they were in the motor car, going home, after visiting Colin.

"Right?" Oliver said. "But the other kids - they call him freak and stupid. They don't understand him is all."

"Exactly," Wally said. "He needs people who understand him."

Oliver looked over at Wally.

"Keep your eyes on the road," Wally commanded.

Oliver turned forward again.

But even in the seconds he'd been turned to look, Oliver had seen it in Wally's eyes, what they were both thinking.

"You see, Mr. Kent," the agent working on the adoption said when they submitted their paperwork, "There's... a significant amount of press about your, er, past, you see... and... before we could assign custody of the boy over to you, we'd need proof of sobriety for at least 90 days before we could even submit the paperwork."

"I can do it. I've been sober for way longer than that already. I can do it," Oliver nodded excitedly.

So he'd reported for testing every time the agency asked - and they asked at random intervals so there was no way for him to ever fake a test and get a false reading.

There were very frustrating times.

Oliver failed once and got drunk at a party and he and Wally had a shouting match the next day. "If you're not serious about this, maybe we shouldn't be doing it," Wally had said, heart broken.

"I am serious!"

"You can't be drinking, Oliver!" Wally shouted, "Not even once. It's a slippery slope and --"

"Shut up, you sound like Jasper!"

"Jasper?" Wally said, surprised to hear Oliver call Jasper by his name, rather than by Dad, like he had since Meg and Jasper had been married.

"Yeah so what if I call him Jasper? He's not my real father. And he'd do well to remember that," Oliver muttered, frustrated.

Wally's brows knit together.

But for the most part, Oliver didn't drink, and he didn't use any of the pills he had hidden.  Because of the one set back, their 90 days had turned into almost 130 days but finally the paperwork had been submitted and finally one day they got the envelope and finally one day they got to bring Colin home to the house, where they'd fixed up a bedroom special for Colin in his favorite color of red.

Jasper took a month before he told Jasper and Meg about Colin, before they'd gotten to come and meet their grandson. Jasper brought ice creams in small little containers, all sorts of flavors, because he wasn't sure which one Coiln liked best. It turned out he liked the buttered popcorn that Jasper had specially renamed Potter Popcorn in memory of James...

It was that visit when Jasper found one of the stashes of Oliver's pills, accidentally, tucked into an old ice cream dish at the top of the cupboard, where Wally wouldn't have looked but Jasper had pulled the dishes down for the tasting occasion. He pulled Oliver aside.

"What are these?"

Oliver flushed. "I forgot those were up there."

Jasper had stared into his eyes for several moments. He could see Oliver was lying about having forgotten they were there. "Ollie," Jasper said, shaking his head, "Please. Don't do this," he said. "You've got so much to lose here."

"I'm not doing it," Oliver said, trying to take the small box of pills back, but Jasper had moved his hand out of Oliver's reach. 

Oliver glared at him, "Don't you trust me?"

"With these? No." 

"With this -" Oliver waved his hand at the wall, indicating the family that was outside the room where they were talking, indicating his life, indicating all the happy things, indicating Colin.

Jasper stared right into Oliver's eyes. "I trust you to want what is best for them. But you have to trust me to help you and to let me protect you from making a bad choice."

"I'm not going to make a bad choice --"

"Then why do you need them?" Jasper asked.

"Just in case the pain flares up..."

"Oliver."

"...you never know when I might need --"

"Oliver!" Jasper snapped.

Oliver met his eyes.

"We both know that pain was in here... and in here." Jasper tapped his head and his heart. "We both know it was because you lost -- because we lost -- our very, very dear friend. We both know that. That pain... it can't be treated with these." He shook the box of pills. "You have to give these up. If that pain comes back, you have to face it head on. You have to face it properly. Not with these - not with drink. I can help you. Mum can help you. Our friends at recovery, they can help you..."

But Oliver wouldn't go to recovery.

"I mean, if you do, it'll be all over the papers," Declan had said one night, when he was over and hanging out with Wally and Oliver, watching Wally play chess with Colin, silently.

"Exactly," Oliver said, "And I'm not using so there's really no purpose except to make me look like shite in the public eye."

Declan had shrugged. "There are worse things you could be caught doing all over the papers than going to a recovery program." Declan looked over at Wally and Colin. "And I'm not sure how it effects --" he waved his palm at them. "Isn't the agency keeping tabs still?"

"Yeah, exactly," Oliver said.

Wally and Colin got on so well, they were so close, and Wally was always reading about ways to communicate with Colin that were unconventional, ways to help him that encouraged him and built him up. Wally was the one that figured out when Colin's frustrations brought on his temper, holding him close to his chest in a very, very tight bear hug, compressed the temper out of Colin so that his screaming, crying, and punching would slow and stop and he'd go into a limp mess of tears that Wally would comfort and comfort and eventually Colin would fall asleep clinging to Wally's chest.

Yet somehow he called Oliver Dad first.

It took almost six months before he did.

But by a year out, Colin was talking quite a lot, and sometimes even singing when they went for drives in the motor car, which they did a lot because Colin loved the motor car. He loved it so much that he played with little toy cars, pushing them about in the carpet in his bedroom, organizing them into piles by color or model, and he would hold onto them in his fists and carry them about, running his thumbs over the wheels when his anxiety acted up. And when he was frustrated, they sang Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go while they hugged him tight and compressed the temper out so that eventually they could calm him down just by singing it.

They called him Jitterbug as a nickname.

And Colin loved them so much.

And Oliver was happy.

And the pain stayed away.

Until October as the anniversary neared.

"You're limping," Wally observed that morning.

"My leg hurts."

Wally frowned.

"'Tis but a scratch," Oliver said, smiling sadly, thinking of James.

"Oliver."

"Really, babe," he said, "I'm alright."

Wally hesitated, took a deep breath, then said, "Oliver?"

"What?" Oliver looked up.

"I know you have pills hidden around," Wally said. He paused, then, "If you really are in pain, you should take one. Just one, mind."

But Oliver shook his head. "I'd rather have the stiff leg than risk losing control."

Wally had pulled Oliver into a hug and kissed him so gently. "Thank you," he said.

Which was why Wally knew - knew without a shadow of doubt - that Oliver was clean that night when they went for the drive in the motor car on Halloween night - all dressed up as the three musketeers. 

They were singing in the car when the light rain had started.

And it was the stiff pain in his leg that made him slightly slow to react when it was the driver of the other motor car who was drunk, not Oliver.

"The really painful irony of the whole thing," Oliver said to Jasper that day in 1994, when they were finally, finally talking later, "Is that if I'd used them properly to begin with, if I was able to trust myself with them, and I'd taken a normal dose, just one of the pills that day, just enough to ease the real pain that I actually had... the accident might not have happened."

Tears were flowing down Jasper's cheeks.

"But Dad, it - it really was an accident."