Gwen had never been camping before, but she assumed it was not anything like what she and Lily had been up to for the past few days. Yes, they were sleeping in the woods living off of nothing but a Transfigured tent and two military-style cots, but did the normal camping experience take into account the added worry of whether or not one's betrothed had been taken captive by a murderous, bloodthirsty society intending to kill Gwen at the next chance they got? Or was this whole ordeal unique to just Gwen?

She was convinced she had been put in some sort of hellish purgatory, one she could never leave, one tailored specifically to her worst nightmares. Unable to leave.

Lily insisted many a time that it would do no good to try and track down the rest of the Order, that they had no idea where to go in the first place, that they had nowhere to return to anyway.

All of her points were reasonable and perfectly respectable, but that didn't stop the insatiable anxiety that ate away at Gwen and itched for her to find James.

By the third day, Gwen was growing testy, and her back was sore. She took this matter up with Lily immediately, like an impatient child trying to rile up her mother.

"We have to get out of here," Gwen demanded, shivering in the final light of the dying fire. The sun had begun to set and the autumnal cold was once again creeping in, and neither Lily nor Gwen had reached their wand out to replenish the flames. "I need to sleep in a real bed tonight, Lily. And I—"

"If you say you have to find James one more time," Lily warned, shooting her a sharp glare, "I'm leaving you here by yourself. I know you're anxious, Gwen. I am too. But there is nothing we can do."

     "That's a load of nonsense and you know it," Gwen spat, and she could feel another one of their now-familiar arguments bubbling up beneath the surface—it had been countless times now that the two witches would get beneath each other's skin and small fits would break out between them. "We could easily reach out to the rest of the Order, Lily! Why can't we go and find them? James and Ted are most likely in danger and you want to stay here for another week, holed up in our little cloth tent?"

     "If James and Ted are in danger—if—then the Order is probably already on it. Which would mean it entirely useless for us to go out there and endanger ourselves more!"

     Gwen scoffed, arms crossed tightly over her chest. For a moment, she debated hexing Lily to the spot and Disapparating to go find James, wherever he may be, but the idea disappeared the moment she'd had it.

     "You want to go," Lily said, almost reading Gwen's mind, "then go. But I'm trying to tell you there is no point—"

     "I don't care if there's a point!" Gwen exploded, throwing her hands in the air, her voice reaching decibels she never thought possible. "I don't care if it's unwise or unsafe or anything, Lily! I just want to find James, and if that means I put myself in harm's way, then so be it, alright? If I find him, which I'd bet I would, then he's back and he's safe. If he's already gone, then I've got nothing to lose either way. I just.."

     She exhaled a sharp breath, a wispy puff of steam leaving her lips, trailing off as Gwen stood in silence for a moment, eyes glued to Lily. She was no longer angry—just desperate for her friend to understand. Compelling her to see where she was coming from.

     "I can't sit here for another three days, not doing anything, while the rest of them could be out there. Looking for him." Gwen's voice was low again, and her tone shook, hand-in-hand with the glossiness that had overcome her eyes. She shook her head and swallowed a lump back down her throat. "I don't want to be useless in this war. If James is in trouble, then I must be, too. If James dies, I die. It's simple, Lily—I love him too much to leave him to the dragons."

     Lily regarded Gwen for a moment, lips twisted to the side contemplatively, arms crossed over herself. Finally, she drew in a sharp breath and dropped her arms to her side.

"That's dangerous," she said, lightly. "How much you care for him. They could use it against you, Gwen, you know. Use him."

Gwen's chest was tight, but she nodded definitively. "Perhaps they already are. Good on them, then; it works wonders."

     She was gone before Lily could say goodbye.

     War does the worst to people, and it brings out the same. Gwen was beginning to see it within herself more and more as the days grew longer.

                                         She wasn't sure of anything—where she was going, who she was looking for, why she felt so deeply in her gut that she needed to find James. She only knew that she must find him, at all costs, that they must be reunited before it was too late. Before Gwen lost her chance. She longed for James like her body did for oxygen—it was a scientific fact that she needed him, not a feeling or a hunch. She needed James horribly and it hurt to be without him.

     When she landed from her Apparation, it took a moment for her eyes to adjust to the darkness. She must've hit somewhere that had already been calibrated by dusk. There were only a fair few streetlights dabbled here and there, illuminating yellow patches of gravelly road and the edges of properties. All the houses, from what Gwen could see, looked the same, so she had no hesitation in presuming that she had landed in a Muggle neighborhood.

     Then, her Apparating catching up with her, she doubled over behind a bush and expelled the berries-Transfigured-to-turkey-legs of what she and Lily had managed for supper.

     "Ych a fi," spewed a disgusted voice from a few paces behind Gwen. "Dinner disagree with ya?"

     Hastily, she coughed out the last of her sick before spinning on her heel, wand raised. She found herself face-to-face with a short man, stocky and well-built. Only half of his body was visible by the light of the street lamps, and he was watching Gwen with a repulsed expression on his face.

     "Who are you?" Gwen asked, sleeving away the bile from her lips.

     "Why've you got a stick in me face?" the man countered, hands lifted and facing Gwen in defence. "Jus' wanted to check on ya, make sure you're alright, you know—bad neighbourhood, the like. Li'l dwtty like yaself, so late out—"

     "And what... what neighbourhood would this be?" Gwen kept her voice conversational, and she lowered her wand. "I seem to be a bit lost."

     The man regarded her from afar, through squinted eyes and with a judgmental scowl on his face.

"Budleigh," he replied, appraisingly. "What are ya doing, wandering around in the dead'f night like this? People like you, lassie, your lot's what be killin' us all off..."

"Budleigh," Gwen repeated, ignoring the jabbing comment in the second part of his response. She frowned to herself as an odd sense of recognition dawned on her. "Budleigh Babberton? Merlin's tits, I'm in Wales?"

"Don' know who tha' Merlin bloke is," said the man, and Gwen finally understood why she couldn't place a finger on the accent he possessed, "but yeah, tha's right. Heart o' Wales. You feelin' alrigh' there? Bang ya head?"

"Just a bit dizzy," she admitted, dismissively. She shut her eyes and held a shaking hand over them. "I'll be alright, though, so if you've got a.. a wife, or something to get home to—"

"You sure don' sound like ya from aroun' here," the man deducted, looking her up and down. "It's a bit dangerous out here. Whole family was killed the other day, the Whites, though Lord knows they weren't the brightest... Why don't'cha come in for a cuppa—?"

"No, no," Gwen said, trying not to sound too rushed in her denial. The thought of a Muggle family's murder was much too prevalent on her mind, and she had an inkling as to who had committed the crime. "No, thank you, sir. I should get home, then."

"Alrigh'," he said, however suspiciously, and with one more critical look he hobbled off toward the brick house nearest them—Gwen just managed to hear a "Nance, there's a mad woman in the front, waving a stick aroun'..." before the door slammed shut behind him.

     Gwen frowned. Welsh people were not welcoming; noted.

     Not that she'd ever intended on Apparating so far south as to get to bloody Wales, and especially not Budleigh, for that matter. The only Welsh person she'd ever met was from Budleigh Babberton: a particularly ill-mannered goblin that worked the till at Gringotts, and that man Gwen had just met was about the same temper as her previous encounter with the Welsh kind. And anyway, she'd only meant to hit Surrey, of course. Though she wondered how well off she'd be trying to Apparate back—if she'd missed her original mark by so far, what made her think she'd be able to get it the second time round?

     So she managed on the Muggle underground—a dingy old thing that was nowhere near where Gwen wanted to spend such a damp October night. Fortunately, the train was almost entirely empty, save for a few night shift stragglers or people just coming home from a night on the town. Some risk-takers were half-asleep, and Gwen envied their prowess at resting anywhere.

     Though on the other hand, she was so bloody exhausted, she figured she could sleep anywhere, so long as she was there long enough to shut her eyes.

     So her childhood home would have to do for the night.

     Her bedroom, along with the entire rest of the house, was untouched, just as she'd expected. Who, other than herself, would have visited? Her grandmother, maybe, but Hats was never one to wage war against awful memories, and it was no doubt that the Graham household was full of them.

Her bed was greeting her like an old friend, warm despite the autumn bite of the air and as cosy as she'd always remembered it to be. She settled in without any refrain and sleep swept her away before she could even set her wand at her bedside.

     She dreamt—unsurprisingly, yet still painfully—of her parents. She figured she could have expected such a thing, seeing as she was back where all the memories were, right in the belly of the beast. It still hurt, seeing their faces. She'd have expected that. A small part of her knew it would always hurt to think of them.

     She awoke in the morning abruptly, and she could not tell if the salty sheen across her face was sweat or tears or even blood. She hoped it was not the latter, but she had been out of commission for a good long while by now, and Merlin knew how long it had been since she'd had a good shower...

     So Gwen hopped in the shower for a bit. What was the worst that could happen, whilst she was taken? Not like the Order would be needing her anytime soon. She was freshly off-duty and would be for Merlin knew how long. If she wasn't so worried about James, she could have viewed it as a sort of holiday—but the thought of her lover's capture was an evident one, and she could not shake the nagging sensation at the back of her mind that she must get out there and search for him.

You don't know where to go, a small, sensible voice reminded her every once in a while. You don't even know if he's really in danger. Just lie low and wait for the Order to get back to you.

Well, that actually turned out not to take long, remarkably—by the time she got out of the shower, there was a small barn owl perched on the windowsill of her bedroom, a parcel tied to its little talon and eyes glaring through the glass beadily.

"Merlin," Gwen said to herself, hastily twisting the lock of the window and sliding it open. The owl hopped inside and landed on her forearm, extending its leg out impatiently. "You're in a rush, then, are you? Fine, fine, here.." She used her free hand to relieve the owl of its burden and let the letter fall to the desk beneath the window as she slipped two Knuts into the owl's pouch. "Cheers. Safe travels."

The owl offered a semi-affectionate peck to Gwen's knuckles before flittering awkwardly off into the morning, returning to whomever its sender may be. Gwen watched it off for a moment before turning her full attention to the unmarked envelope lying on her desk; she only hesitated for a moment before removing the message and skimming its content.

Graham

Sent best owl to find you on 14 Oct. Write back when it reaches, but don't say anything important in case letter gets intercepted.

Been looking for you since attack. No deaths since. Snuffles been going mad. Wormy practically pulling hair out. Sumer tucked away but safe—3rd page Witches Weekly. Still missing Firewhiskey. Everyone else fine.

29 Oct. Mark calendar. At the place you Peaked.

See you.
Maccy

Gwen blinked. Once. Then again.

Code names, in case the letter had been intercepted. A smart move, yet still hard to decipher without someone whispering in her ear what they each meant—all that came naturally was the sender, Maccy, a 'shorter' and inefficiently donned nickname from Sirius to Marlene. Snuffles, Wormy, Sumer, and Firewhiskey, though?

Wormy, after a moment, came to her quite easily: Wormtail. Peter. Which would mean Sumer and Snuffles could be James, Sirius, or Remus...

Gwen's brow drew together in sudden thought. Sumer—Remus—Sumer—Remus—

Gwen exhaled a short laugh as it clicked, and she leafed through the most recent edition of Witches Weekly to check the third page and confirm her findings—sure enough, the editors had been kind enough to include October's astrological chart, and the night Gwen had just spent in her childhood bed had been a full moon. Semur was Remus, recuperating in a safe, private spot from his transformation.

     Gwen scoffed. The best Marlene could do was spell Remus's name backward, and call it a day? Merlin, and she was supposed to be smart...

That left Snuffles, which Gwen had only once heard James refer to Sirius as, when trying not to alert any surrounding, prying ears as to his Marauder nickname. So Remus, Sirius, and Peter—Gwen could only assume, due to the nature of her fiery red hair, that Lily was Firewhiskey; they had not yet found her? Or, more likely, she had not yet made herself to be found. Because Gwen knew that the only way anyone would be able to find Lily was if she decided it was time to be found.

     Again, Gwen searched the letter. She re-read the same few words again, and again, and again—until the entire message was engrained in her mind, and yet she was still not satisfied. She would not be satisfied, she decided, until the letter changed its scribble to declare that James was alright.

     Because it did not mention James once, and that only brought a stronger surge of worry upon Gwen. Although she was sure that had been Marlene's intention, to soothe Gwen's anxious mind and reassure her that everyone was alright, but she had done nothing of the sort. Peter, Remus, Sirius, Mary, Marlene, and Lily were just fine.

     James, however, was evidently not; and Gwen would not rest until she knew for a fact that her lover was safe.

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just had a bomb ass quesadilla im on top rn. also the first war is like genuinely actually real rn and idk what to do about it bcus like we all know what is coming D: anyways gonna go dream about my quesadilla now