A/N: To my dearest reviewers, who has stuck with me this far: Thank you. This is the rewritten, update Wooden Words. I hope you enjoy it.
-much love, aicalas.

Chapter One
Homecoming
If I'm falling, falling apart for you

Dear Oliver,
It's day 33 of your not being here. That's two days longer than the month you said. But I suppose congratulations are in order. Good job on flattening France! I suppose we should have known that any team with robes that pink wouldn't be any good. Ha ha. That makes you ten-for-ten! Puddlemere United – undefeated! But Oliver...well...that was a week ago. Do you think you guys are coming home soon? I miss you. Just wondering when you'll come home. This place is so empty without you-

The front door creaked open.

With a clatter, I dropped my quill and spun. "OLIVER!" I shrieked and crushed the letter in my hand, running at the door. Oliver stood there, laughing, looking almost the same. Tall, well built with light brown hair, and sparkling brown eyes. "YOU'RE HO-" I was cut off, my excited yell muffled by his chest. Oliver laughed again. It was such a nice sound; this apartment had been so quiet. "Katie!" he gasped as he pulled me into a tight hug. I coughed. "Oliver...can't...breathe..."
"Oops." He released me, but held onto my shoulders, looking me up and down. "You look good! I'd have thought you'd be skin and bones...did you learn to feed yourself?" He grinned mischievously.
"Yes, I did!" I said, defensively, "I cleaned too! Everything!" Oliver's eyebrows raised. "Oh come on, Bell, you'll have to do better than that. I know you'd…you'd never-" he faltered, eyes taking in the spotless floor, the organized kitchen, even the matching pillows on the couch. He turned to me, grabbed my shoulders, mock-seriously.
"Who are you? And what have you done with my roommate? Hmm?"

I had been scrutinizing him for injuries or scars (I doubted he'd have told me about any in the letters home), and his interrogation took me by surprise. "Hm? What?"

Oliver grinned at my obliviousness. "That's more like her. I'm in one piece, Kat. You can stop playing the worried mother." He tapped me on the chin. I stuck out my tongue.
"What? No, I can't stop!" I poked him in the chest. "Once you're a mother, Ol, you're one for life. You'll understand that one day." I nodded sagely, mouth quirking. "You'll make a good mum, one day…" Oliver blinked. "Oh, Ollie, have they not been working you at all? Whatever happened to witty banter? You'll make your poor mother cry!"
Oliver opened his mouth, clearly trying to work through my mindless babble - no, scratch that, banter. Witty banter. Yes. I'd spent enough time alone that I no longer knew how to speak in even a slightly coherent manner. "Okay, I get it. You were too busy being a jock to spent time chatting. Come on, then. Tell me all about it!"
Oliver still looked a touch bemused, so I dragged him over to the kitchen counter, adopting my – rarely used - honestly-I-want-to-hear-about-your-quidditch-face. He didn't need any further invitation.

When he started going into the exact mechanics of each and every game- they had won all of them, I was so proud- I started making lunch, my mind wandering. It has been eight years I've known Oliver Wood. Eight wonderful, fantastic, amazing years. When I was a star-struck 1st year, I'd have never imagined in my wildest dreams, that I would, at 18. be sharing an apartment with him.

So many girls would kill to be in my place. Even though we're just friends. But that's okay, you know?

Ok, so that's a total lie. Oliver was my biggest crush in third year, and by fourth year it was all-out love. I was thrown into a week of depression when Ol first left for Germany (then Bulgaria, then Russia, briefly Japan, Italy, then France) a month ago. I need him near me, otherwise I go batty. Whether that's… just me, I don't know. So, I haven't done anything. I won't do anything. Being near him is enough. Listening to him is enough.
…even when he's thoroughly describing the sloth-grip roll he drilled me on for hours and hours as a 13-teen-year-old. Oh, Oliver. Droning on and on and…
"Katie. Katie? Katie. KATIE. THE STOVE IS ON FIRE."
"What? Oh- OH!." I flapped my hands at my flaming sandwich frantically.
"Katie."
"What? Get me some water, Ol, quick! Or – oh, shit." I'd been trying to smother the fire with a dishtowel, which had cheerfully begun burning.
"Katie! You. Are. A. Witch."
"Oh." I blushed. "Right." I tugged my wand out of my hair, flicking it. "Augamenti." I mumbled, sheepishly, watching the flames sizzle and die. I poked at my sodden, charred grilled cheese. "Damn. I was hungry…" I muttered at it, before glancing up at an exasperated Oliver. "How did you survive when I wasn't here?"
"Just fine!" I bristled, indignantly. Why did I always do the stupidest things only around him?
"Really."
"I didn't burn anything when you were away! Not one thing!"
"Mhmm."
"Oh, shut up."

Stupid distracting Quidditch stars.

xoxox

Oliver and I have lived together a few months now – and we've learnt to live with eachother. He accepts my generally oblivious clutter and slight tendency to make a mess. I've learnt to deal with his extraordinary tidiness, and his absolute control-freak nature when it comes to the TV remote. (Some days, I wish I'd never taught the silly pureblood how to use it…) We still bicker like kids, of course. When someone *ahem* insists on ironing his socks, I can't quite resist commenting. And I suppose I sorta see his point when he argues that I really ought to be able to see my floor at least some of the time. He puts up with my impromptu, only slightly off-key shower karaoke sessions. I very much enjoy our sock-clad sliding dance parties, but I wouldn't ever admit it as he whips me off the couch to bop to the sappy music he secretly loves.

In fact, Oliver and I get on pretty well. On nearly…every issue. There is only one thing we cannot reconcile – girls.

Okay, I've had boyfriends before – I had a fling with Lee Jordan, and a Hufflepuff named Greg I'd been tutoring. They were fun, a handful of months long each and we're all still friendly. ('A Hufflepuff?' Alicia had said, "Oh, Katie, you didn't.") It's not like I expect Oliver – funny, sweet, fanatical, wildly-popular-since-his-first-day-in-Hogwarts Oliver – to not have girlfriends. I know he's had girlfriends, will have girlfriends (if you wanted to know, he only had brief relationships with girls at Hogwarts – they tended to grow bored of the fanatical Quidditch talk. Molly McDonald, Sarah Coughlin and Chloe Clearwater – Penelope's younger sister, actually. I never liked any of them much.) and heaven knows being a famous Quidditch star will only make it worse. But I don't have to like it. But I've never brought a boy back home.
Oliver had this flat for three years before I moved in and I suppose he got into …habits. I spent most of my first year graduated in hiding during the war. I lived with the twins, and lost total contact with nearly everyone else. I told my parents – muggles, both, that I loved them, and I couldn't talk to them and please, please, go hide. I saw Oliver for the first time in those long months at the final Battle of Hogwarts. We were bloodstained and bruised and I'd never been so excited to see anyone. And I needed somewhere to stay, so he offered to share and here I was, six months on.
Look. I love Oliver – and I mean that. Love him as a friend, a companion, care about him – and I'm a little in love with him. I've…always been a little in love with him. And while his highschool flings hurt (they did. A lot. I contented myself that he was a fourth year, and I was a first year, that he was a fifth year and I was a second year, that he was a sixth year and I was a third year – no matter that I was old for my year. It never helped much.) I never really had to watch. By the time we were really good friends – my fourth and fifth years – he'd laid off the girls. I thought that since we were sharing an apartment – you know – he'd have the courtesy to not date anyone.

Well, I thought he'd want to date me.

But anyways. Some days – after big games, or parties or press conferences, a fully-drunk Oliver– drunk as only a 21-year-old Scottish boy can be – will come staggering home, a giggling blonde girl behind him. It's only happened a few times, so far – five, I think. And each morning, I stomp into the kitchen in a towering temper, to find a hungover Oliver, either wildly apologetic or entirely muddled and unable to remember what quite had happened. And every time I melt and can't be angry, just hurt and a little more fragmented.

I just can't understand why he does it. Except that he just can't care about me. I'm starting to think that's the only explanation. I just don't want to think it true.

Rewritten & updated! Please R&R!
Homecoming – Hey Monday