AN: I enjoy writing for pairings and characters that tend to get overlooked, and this is one such example, because I don't think there's too much out there for Augustus and Violet. This will be multi-part. I'm just not entirely sure at the moment how many parts there will wind up being. We shall see! I don't own Professor Layton, but I hope you enjoy the story. Thanks for reading! Much love!

A Boy and a Girl

Escorting Violet places had become a part of Augustus Reinhold's daily life, more or less. They had known each other since they were children, back when he had pulled on her braided pigtails to get her attention, and throwing a snowball at the back of her head in winter was supposed to be a clear indication that he liked her. It made sense to him, why didn't she get it?

Pity it had taken her this long to get what that stupid snowball had meant. Back when he had thrown the thing, she had screamed at him and chased him down the street, trying to hit him with her school satchel. Fortunately, she had always missed.

But at least now they were on speaking terms, and quite good ones at that. She had certainly grown into herself, becoming a lovely and well-mannered young woman. There were no further chases with voices screaming and schoolbags waving. And neither of them were children anymore, which meant that he understood that pulling her hair would not garner any affections. He had to be a gentleman, or at the very least, he had to be nice.

That morning it had rained, and so he had been given an opportunity to be the aforementioned nice gentleman by holding an umbrella for her on their way to school. He had then been the subject of an extremely raised eyebrow by their teacher upon his rainsoaked arrival at the schoolhouse.

The rain had stopped, fortunately, but it was still quite wet outside as they walked home from a day of classes. He was quietly thankful for small blessings like that.

But he saw another opportunity to be a gentleman, something he had once heard his mother describing his father doing. And that opportunity came in the form of a large puddle on the sidewalk ahead of them. He told her to stop and asked her to hold his books for a moment. She did, although she gave him quite a confused look as she took them.

Now with his hands free, he quickly removed his jacket and carefully laid it over the puddle in front of her. That done, he offered her a hand to step across it.

Violet looked at him blankly for a moment, then took his hand with an amused smile and stepped over the puddle, treading very lightly on his jacket as she did so. Once safely on the other side, she waited while he picked up his coat (which was now sopping wet) and slung it over his arm, seemingly uncaring for his sleeves. He opened his mouth as though to say something—

But before he could get so much as a word out, a car drove by and ran across a very deep puddle in the street. The resulting splash sprayed them, soaking them both through to the skin. They both instinctively threw their hands up to shield themselves, but it was a vain action and a foregone conclusion.

For a moment, they both just blinked at each other. Then Violet managed a smile and held his books out to him. "I'm sorry, but I think they might be a little damp…" she said softly.

It was one of those moments where all you can really do is laugh. And years later, after they were married, young Flora was regaled with an amusing story that told of the precise moment when her father fell completely in love with her mother.