That morning, Newt woke up when he heard ______'s voice standing at the door of the room. "Mister Scamander?" she called out, her voice bouncing through the nearly-empty room. At first, Newt didn't reply, just realizing he was waking up. "Mister Scamander, are you awake?" She asked again, this time in a lower voice.

Newt rose this time, stretching and opening his eyes. "I'm awake," he replied in a sleepy voice. "What is it?"

"Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to wake you up," ______ began. "I just wanted to tell you that I made some coffee and cookies, and that I'm heading off to work, so you'll be alone for a while."

As she said this, Newt looked up and down at what she was wearing. Not a businesswoman, he thought. She's not dressed formally enough. Shaking that thought from his head, he nodded. "Thank you. Coffee and cookies you said?"

"Yeah, I don't have too much time in the morning to make much else. You can make something else too if you want, I don't mind it." ______ told him, then her eyes drifted to the walls of the room, where the clock was. "Well, unless I want to be late, I really should get going to work. Sorry again if I woke you up, I'll see you tonight, Mister Scamander!" She left the doorway, jogging a bit to make it to the door.

"I'll see you-" Newt began, but he got cut off when he heard the sound of a door closing. "...tonight, ______." He scratched the back of his head, looking over at the clock. It was roughly about 7:30, and he couldn't think where she'd work that would want her there so early. As soon as he thought about that, another thought came into his head.

Pickett probably was still on her.

As panic spread in his head, he shot up from the bed, running to the doorway. "______!" he opened her front door and poked his head out, seeing if maybe she was still in sight and heard him. No such luck.

Someone had heard him though.

The door across from ______'s flew open, and an old woman stood in the doorway, an oven mitt on one hand and her ungloved hand on the knob. "What's all this shouting and slamming doors for?" she asked, then looking at Newt, "Who're you?"

Newt averted his eyes away from hers, looking past her head to the right. "A friend of ______," he told her, still not looking at her. "Do you, erm, do you happen to know where she works?"

"A male friend staying the night?" the old woman raised an eyebrow. It was so improper, so unheard of, so strange. Men usually never stayed at a lady's house, it was impolite. What was also strange to her was that it was ______'s apartment. She couldn't remember a time where she ever had visitors, never mind friends who stayed the night. She shrugged, deciding not to pry too much into the matter. "I don't know where she works, sorry."

"Oh, would anyone else know?" Newt asked, desperate. He didn't want anything to happen, and he feared somebody would do something.

"No, ______ usually keeps to herself in that apartment," she told him. Then, after a moment, "I hope you're treating her well."

"Excuse me?" Newt asked. The statement surprised him so much, he looked over at the woman to see if she had as serious a face as the tone in her voice.

"I'm old, not daft," she said in a matter of fact tone. "I know what a male friend staying the night usually means. ______, you better be treating ______ right."

Newt's eyes widened. He almost started saying, 'No, no, it's not like that! I'm just staying at her house until I can-,' but he knew he wouldn't be able to finish the sentence. So, instead, he just decided to agree with the old woman. He nodded, giving her a smile. "Don't worry, ______ is fine as long as she's with me."

"Good," the old woman smiled. "Now please, keep it down, and don't slam doors. I always have to tell her that." She turned on her heels and returned back into her home, the door behind her closing gently.

Newt sighed and headed back inside ______'s apartment, closing the door quietly like the old woman wanted. He had no way of getting to her, making sure Pickett was okay.

Making sure she was okay.

He trusted her, it was the rest of the world he didn't trust. Who knows what would happen?

Meanwhile, ______ was already blocks away from her apartment, walking into the workplace she hated more than anything else: the factory. She worked at a Shirtwaist factory, among hundreds of other women and immigrants, some as young as twelve years old. Many people came to New York to work at factories, usually as a last resort when they couldn't get any other job. ______ was in the category of not being able to get another job. Try as she might, no one ever wanted to hire her. It was like she was cursed.

Pickett was still tucked inside her jacket pocket, staying out of sight. Even this morning, she couldn't convince the little Bowtruckle to stay with Newt, so she had given and decided as long as he stayed hidden, it would be fine. Not much could go wrong, right?

She clocked in at the counter and headed ten stories up before she got set up at her machine. The job wasn't too hard from the outside, it just looked like sewing. The workplace, however, was less than ideal. From the inside, as soon as you stepped in, the doors were locked. They kept it that way to keep employees from taking unauthorized breaks. On top of that, there were at least one hundred people in one room at a time, and so it got dreadfully hot. Even in the dead of winter, everyone was always sweaty. The ones by the window were lucky, and the ones near the middle sometimes suffered heat exhaustion.

She sat at her machine for hours, and the time soon passed into the afternoon. Everyone was given a ten minute break, and the first place ______ headed was outside. She didn't have a lunch, and so she didn't bother trying to find something to eat. It would take up too much time, and by the time she got to food, she would've had to get back to work. Stepping outside, Pickett picked his head out of her pocket, looking like he was just as hot as she was. ______ looked down at the little Bowtruckle. "I know, it's dreadful in there. We're halfway done though, eh?" she told him, and Pickett looked up to her with his beady eyes and moved in a way she comprehended as a nod. After they were good and cold, ______ and Pickett headed back inside, back up the stairs and back to work.

She sat at her machine, and after two hours, something happened to her that never happened to her before.

As she was sewing up the back of a shirt, the large sewing needle on the machine got her in the hand. She immediately stopped her machine and pulled her hand back, letting out a small yelp. She looked at her hand carefully, and saw that there was a sizeable gash on the back of her hand. She cringed and held it carefully, blood getting on her skirt and on her sleeve.

She stood up from her machine and went to the foreman, hoping he'd know what to do. This had never happened to her before. "Excuse me sir," she spoke, getting his attention.

"What are you doing away from your machine, miss?" he asked her, his voice laced with venom.

She swallowed, it made her nervous to continue. "I accidentally cut myself on the machine," she told him, holding her hand out for him to look at.

He didn't even glance at it. "So? It happens all the time. We can't treat every cut. Get back to your machine."

______ was shocked. "But sir-"

"Get back, or else you're being sent home without pay for today!" he shouted at her. She went quiet, heading back to her machine.

Or, at least she headed that way until he looked away from her.

Even though she knew the chances were low, she headed over to one of the doors in the room. Maybe by some luck, one of them would be open. She just wanted to headed to the bathroom to wash her hands off, surely they didn't expect her to sew with a bloody hand. The first door didn't work, but she didn't drop all her hope, there was three other doors.

After trying two more doors, each being locked, she sadly headed to the last door. Unbeknownst to her, Pickett had been watching and listening to everything, and having worry for her, he decided to try to help. Crawling up her sleeve, he managed to sneak out of her sleeve and get to the door before her, picking the lock. Before she could spot him on the knob, he was off again, and crawled up her clothes to get into her jacket.

Miraculously, no one had seen him.

She turned the knob, and she was finally happy when she got lucky (unbelievably lucky) and the door was open. Slipping through the door, she headed out into the hall.

She had no idea the foreman had finally saw what she was doing.

She headed down the hall and into the bathroom, running the sink and putting her hand under it, watching the blood flow down the drain. It stung so harshly she had to take her hand off a couple times. She stood there until it seemed to slow its bleeding. I need to get this bandaged when I get home, she thought to herself. Doing the best she could with what was in the bathroom, she headed out.

Only to be face to face with the foreman.

She let out a small yelp in surprise, and the foreman had an angry, yet condescending look on his face. "I thought I told you to go back to your machine," he spat in her face.

"I needed to clean my hand," she told him in a small voice. "I couldn't work with-"

"I'll be the judge of what you can or can't work with! Now how'd you get out, hm? We keep all those doors locked."

"One of them happened to be unlocked," ______ explained.

"I lock all of those doors personally," the foreman told her, getting madder. "Are you saying I messed up on my job?"

"You must've-" ______ began, but she didn't get finish before the foreman put a hand on her shoulder, pushing her against the wall. It didn't take much force considering he took her by surprise.

"Listen here, I know how to do my job, and I don't need lip from some woman," he shouted. "Now, go back to your machine before I send you home with no-"

This time he didn't get to finish his sentence.

Pickett, who had once again been listening and watching the entire time, had crawled up ______'s sleeve and scratched the foreman down his arm, and he let out a pained yell and drew back, releasing ______. She stood there in shock, and as she knew what caused it, she looked accusingly down her sleeve, and Pickett hid himself from her stare. Worried about losing her job, she turned to the foreman as he began to yell.

"How dare you!" He yelled out, keeping his words short and he held his arm in pain. "Go home! Go home, go home, go home! No pay!"

"Sir, I didn't mean to..." she trailed off, but as he glared up at with even more anger in his eyes than before, she instead chose to give up and head down the flight of stairs, tears threatening to spill over in her eyes as quickly as they appeared.

She stepped out, and this time, the cold made her heavily shiver. "I'm sorry Pickett," she spoke while on the walk home. "It's not your fault, sorry if I made it seem that way somehow."

Once she got to her apartment, she climbed up the stairs tiredly, entering her apartment, closing the door behind her. "Don't slam it!" she heard a voice from the other room, and Newt walked into the room. "The old woman across the hall... ______, what's wrong?"

Newt could tell something was wrong. ______ looked sad and tired, and she was back earlier than he expected her to. ______ took a breath, steadying her emotions before telling him, "I didn't really have a good day at work."

Newt looked to her hand and noticed that it was bleeding, and though she tried to make a makeshift bandage, it wasn't working too well. His eyes widened, and he drew close to her. "What happened?" he asked, taking her hand and slowly taking off the useless "bandage."

"Um, I injured myself on accident," she kept her words vague. She winched when he touched her hand. It hadn't completely stopped hurting, and she was sure she ruined her blouse. Luckily, none of it got onto her one good jacket.

Newt looked up at her with a worried expression, like she had once looked at him when he was scratched down his arm. "______," he said her name so gently. "Where are you working where this happened and all they gave you was a poor excuse for a bandage?"

______ bit her lip. She almost didn't want to tell him, it was shameful to say you worked in a factory. Right when decent jobs were on the rise for women, she was still stuck in what was close to slave labor. She decided to tell him anyways. Maybe since he was a foreigner, he would find it as bad as most people did. "A shirtwaist factory," she told him slowly.

Newt looked at her with apologetic, knowing eyes. He remembered a while ago that there was a huge disaster over in America when a factory caught fire, it was said to be the biggest fire in the country, and it made news in Britain too. Newt looked at her hand and took out his wand, and ______ looked at him questioningly. "Stay still," he reassured her. "I'm not too good at it, and I've never done this before, but I'm going to try to heal your hand."

"Well, that makes me feel better," ______ said in a quiet, joking tone. She trusted Newt, and even if the spell didn't work, she didn't see how anything could go wrong. How wrong could a healing spell go?

Luckily, she didn't have to find out the answer to that question.

Newt held his wand very carefully over her hand. "Episkey," he said in a low voice. Her hand stung for a moment, and then watched as the skin seemed to attach itself back together.

"Well, that's better than getting stitches," she stated, looking at Newt and smiling. "Thank you."

Newt smiled back at her. He could tell she still seemed upset, and not wanting to pry too much as to make her even more upset, he thought up another solution. She always seemed so happy and interested when he spoke of the wizard world, so why not show her a few examples of magic to maybe lighten her up?

"Do you want to see some other magic?" he asked her. "I'm a lot better at practical magic than healing spells."

______'s face lighted up at the thought of him showing her some more magic. "Sure!" she exclaimed, her eyes lighting up again. Newt smiled, and as his eyes fell to her lips, he looked away.

"Well, let's start simple," he told her. He thought for a moment, trying to come up with a spell to show her. Then, it came to him. He turned to her again, holing his wand upwards, the space between them not more than a few inches. "Stand back," he told her. "Things can get hot." He made himself smile about his own joke before he whispered "Incendio."

A line of flames shot out of the wand, and ______ let out a small surprised yelp before laughing. "I get it now," she said, still laughing and shaking her head. The line of flames turning into a small one, like the wick of a candle. Newt smiled and blew the fire out.

"For my next trick," he began, mimicking a magician. Except this wasn't tricks, this was real magic. That thought still made ______ smile. Magic was real, and Newt was showing it to her. He was trusting her with what she thought was probably the biggest secret on the planet. He was no magician, he was a wizard.

And he was amazing.

"I'm going to need an item." He turned to the table, and seeing a book resting on it, he pointed his wand. "Accio," he said, and the book zoomed towards him before he safely caught in in his hand. ______ watched him intensely, and Newt turned to her. "Hold out your hands," he told her gently.

She held out her hands, figuring he was going to give her the book. "Palms up," he directed her, and he gently took her hands, turning them over. His hands were very different from how they were yesterday. They weren't cold anymore, or even chilly, they were warm. As he touched her hands, he remembered how soft he thought they were, and just touching them made an unnoticeable blush come to his face.

He placed the books on her palm and pointed his wand. "Wingardium leviosa," he whispered, and ______ stared in amazement as the book floated out of her hands.

"Wow," was all she could manage. And as the book gently made its way back into her hands, she set it down and turned to Newt. She smiled at him, and everything that had made her sad earlier seemed to fade away. "Thank you, Mister Scamander," she said, looking into his eyes. "For making me feel better."

Newt made eye contact with her, and as she thanked him, his blush became slightly noticeable. "Please," he began. "Call me Newt."

______'s smile grew wider. "Thank you, Newt." She looked over at the clock. After getting home from work early, and walking, and talking to Newt, it was already 6:30. She turned to him.

"Can you help me make dinner?"