This story was written for Cinnamon Badge who requested I write something in the theme of "The heart has reasons the mind knows not."

Thank you so much to Moltobene1925, AngelEyes09 and VioletJersey for a SUPER QUICK beta turn around. I couldn't do it without them. And thank you Jimmy Buffett for my title.

Hope you like it!

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“We'll disown you,” his father said firmly, and that should have been enough to stop Draco in his tracks.

Once, it would have been enough. But not now.

“Fine,” Draco shrugged, his hands in his pockets, wishing he had thought to pack a few more valuable items. At least then they could pawn them. “She's used to living without a vault full of galleons.”

“But you aren't,” his mother reminded him, her eyes red but dry.

“I'll adjust,” he assured her. At least he could sell the cufflinks he was wearing. That would give them enough money for a few months. “If you won't give me your blessing, I'm leaving.”

“You're making a huge mistake,” his father told him through gritted teeth. “You'll see. Once she realizes you don't have money, she'll leave you. You'll be back here begging us to take you in.”

Draco highly doubted it. Ginny never even accepted the gifts he tried to give her if they looked expensive.

“Please, Draco,” his mother pleaded. “Think about what you're doing. Think about all that you're giving up. She can't be worth losing all that.”

“She is,” Draco told her, smiling sadly at his mother. He would miss her, but hopefully his parents would come to their senses soon and he would be allowed back in the Manor. “I love her.”

“But why?”

The question caught him by surprise, although he refused to let it show on his face. “Because,” he answered slowly. “She makes me want to be a better person. Her happiness means more to me than anything in the world.”

“See,” his mother hissed, turning to his father. “I told you.”

Draco looked between his parents for a moment, but there was no sign of relenting. “Alright then,” he said. “I'm going.” He extended his hand to his father, but Lucius turned away from him. It hurt, but he would never let on. “Mother?”

Narcissa reached out and engulfed him in a tight hug. “If it doesn't work out,” she whispered in his ear, “don't hesitate to come home. But if it does... be good to her.” He felt something drop heavily into his pocket. “I love you Draco.”

“I love you too, mum.” He didn't look back at his father as he disapparated from the grounds of Malfoy Manor.

It wasn't too bad, at least not at first. Ginny's parents didn't disown her or even threaten too. Instead there were just a few late night arguments about their living together while unmarried and then the general consensus of the Weasley family not understanding their choices, followed by one last desperate (and most likely alcohol fueled) speech by her brother Percy, of all people.

Draco sold the cufflinks for a good price and found he and Ginny a flat in London that was bigger than they needed and more expensive than they could afford for very long, but Draco was certain he could find some sort of job. Ginny was playing second seed with the London Longfellows and she brought home a steady salary.

But they quickly learned it wasn't enough.

What had started as happy, domestic bliss filled with too little sleep because they were too busy exploring each other was turning into sleepless nights as Draco worried about how they would pay the mortgage the following month and whether or not he should tell Ginny that his last interview had gone terribly when the man told him he had no marketable skills.

While his father had been training him to take over Malfoy Holdings, it was mostly just learning to read specific charts and financial statements that applied to their company. Apparently there weren't too many companies who were looking to hire successors off the street.

Draco would lay awake at night and stare at the tall ceilings that he had thought so important just a few short months before and wonder if he should contact his family. Perhaps his father would at least hire him to do something. Anything. Anything that brought home a paycheck, he would do. But he knew that even if he managed to swallow his pride, his father would not.

His father would not allow his only son, the only heir to the Malfoy estate, to work in the mail room, sorting and delivering owls.

His father would not allow it, but for Ginny, Draco would do it.

He woke up early that morning, despite hardly sleeping, and went to the Muggle market for fresh strawberries, barely fumbling at all with the strange papery money. He returned to their flat to make waffles, only burning a few, with strawberries to serve to Ginny in bed.

When she sat up, delight glowing in her chocolate eyes, he wished he could give her the world, if it meant she would look at him like that every day.

“Mmm,” she said sleepily. “My favorite.” She stretched her arms out to wrap him in a warm hug. “I love you.”

“I love you too,” he told her, smelling the sweet flowers of her shampoo. “More than anything.”

“I know,” she said before digging in to her breakfast.

After she left for work, Draco slowly dressed in a nice pair of trousers and a button down shirt – short sleeves, no tie, no cufflinks. Staring at his tall form in the mirror, he decided he looked presentable; he wasn't over dressed, but he hoped his appearance said Hire me! You won't regret it.

He used his wand to wash the dishes and put them away, ran a cleaning charm over the carpet and wooden floors, used a dusting spell, and then sent the laundry to wash itself before he left the flat. Cleaning charms were one of the two only useful things he had learned from Ginny's family. He hadn't asked, but he watched them carefully when they ate their weekly meals with her parents. If he wasn't working he was going to take care of their home so that Ginny didn't bear the burden of that as well. And when he got a job – today, he hoped – he would still do them.

The other thing he'd learned in the three months they had been together was how to cook a small menu of easily made meals. He hadn't mastered that yet, but he was certain he could figure it out with time; after all, Ginny complimented him when he would branch out a bit and experiment with some of the dishes. Today, though, he was going to figure out how to get a job.

When Ginny came home that evening, tired and defeated looking, Draco ushered her into their elegant dining room that held a second-hand table her parents had donated to them.

“Breakfast and dinner?” she asked with a smile that didn't quite reach her eyes. “I'm going to get used to this, you know.”

“As you should,” he said, kissing her cheek.

As much as Draco wanted to tell Ginny the good news, he remained quiet, determined to find out about her day first.

“It was good,” she said slowly, stabbing at her broccoli with her fork. “At least training was. I went to drop my practice clothes off at the cleaners though, after wards, and they told me that my bill hadn't been paid.” She was staring at her plate. “I thought you paid it last month.”

Draco swallowed hard. He had completely forgotten about it. Even if he'd remembered, they didn't have enough money to pay for it. “I forgot,” he admitted. “But-”

“I think we need to move,” she said finally, setting her fork down and looking up at him. “We can't afford this place, and bills aren't being paid and-”

“I got a job. I start tomorrow.” He wanted to see a spark in her eyes, but there was none. “We'll be okay.”

“What is it?”

“A waiter, actually,” he confessed. “At a Muggle restaurant.”

She frowned, her freckled skin wrinkling around her eyes. “How'd you manage that?”

He shrugged airily. “There may or may not have been a little magic involved.”

Finally her chocolate eyes began to shine a little. “Draco!”

“I needed it. I can't just sit at home while you work.”

That night they made love like they had the first night they had slept in their new home – slowly, as though time did not exist and they were the only two humans in the world who mattered.

“I love you,” Ginny whispered in his ear, her words matching his rhythm. “I love you.”

But the job was exhausting and Draco was terrible at it. He had to use magic more often than he preferred. Plus, the money wasn't very good. Weekends were better than weekdays, but that meant being away from Ginny. He was picking up double shifts, triples sometimes just to make ends meet.  He came home at night tired, sore, and in no mood to do the laundry, dishes or clean the loo. He did it anyway.

As tired as he was, sometimes he would lay awake in bed and think about the wedding ring set his mother had slipped in his pocket the afternoon he'd left the Manor. He could sell that for enough money to pay off the mortgage on the flat. That would make life so much simpler. But the rings had been in the Black family for generations, and whether he'd been disowned or not, that meant something. He wanted to see that ring on Ginny's freckled hand. So Draco just worked harder.

“We need to sell this place,” Ginny announced to him one Saturday afternoon. It was a rare occasion that they were together long enough to actually sit down for a meal. Ginny had practice all week, and Draco worked nonstop nights and weekends. “We should get a cheaper place.”

Draco glanced up from his soup, confused. “Why?”

“Because I'd like to see you again.”

He didn't like the lonely look in her eyes; it made his heart heavy within his chest.

“I'm asleep when you come home, I'm gone before you wake up...” She sighed deeply. “We don't see each other. We don't do anything except work.”

When Draco arrived at the restaurant late that afternoon, their head chef had quit. Up and left after being offered a better job. Draco knew an opportunity when he saw one.

The pay didn't end up being that much more, but the hours were less. His coworkers weren't all thrilled that a waiter with no commercial cooking experience had been placed in charge of the kitchen, but he had Ginny's mum to thank for his cooking expertise, although he'd never tell anyone that. Besides, he liked cooking food far better than he liked serving it.

But then there was Ginny's first game of the season, and she actually got to play. It all happened so fast Draco barely remembered it. Thankfully she hadn't been so far from the ground when a Beater from the Harpies sent a ball her way, sending her flying from the broom. A routine check by a Healer showed that nothing had been broken and there should be no permanent damage, but it did turn up something else that no one expected.

“Why are you crying?” Draco asked her, when they lay together that night in their large bed. “This is good news. Great news.”

When she finally rolled over to look at him with puffy red eyes and a runny nose, she shook her head. “We can't afford a baby, Draco! We can barely afford ourselves. We pay our bills and have no money at all left over for anything else. We never get to do anything besides work and come home to sleep.” She allowed him to wrap his arms tighter around her. “Besides, do you have any idea how my mum is going to react to me being pregnant when I'm not married?”

As he had done for so many nights in the eight months they'd lived in their flat, Draco laid awake and stared at the ceiling.

That morning he made scones for Ginny, cut one open and placed the engagement ring inside before taking it to her in bed.

She had cried and then hugged him and then cried again before getting in the shower to prepare for a meeting with her coach. Draco hoped she didn't cry throughout her entire pregnancy. He wasn't use to seeing her so weepy. It wasn't until he was halfway to work that he realized she hadn't actually answered his “Will you marry me” question.

It took a few lies here and a bit of magic there, and within a week, Draco was offered a head chef position at a better restaurant. He'd be working nights and weekends, but not during the day, and his salary would double. He could do it. He would do it.

He didn't have the courage to ask Ginny if her answer had been yes or no until the new job was a sealed deal. He quit his other job a day early so he they could spend some time together. He cleaned out the last of their savings, assuring himself that it would be okay since he started the new job tomorrow, and surprised Ginny with an impromptu trip to the shore.

He could tell it was on the tip of her tongue to ask him how they could afford the new swimming suits, the cost of the public apparation points and the meals they would have to pay for, but she didn't. Instead she smiled happily as she dug her toes into the sand and let Draco apply sun-blocking charms to their skin.

“You never did tell me yes or no,” he told her, after they had spent enough time splashing in the water to have their skin grow wrinkly.

“About what?” She wrapped her arms around his neck and locked her feet behind his back, letting the water hold her up.

“The ring,” he said, his stomach knotting unpleasantly. Maybe he had been wrong to assume that she wanted to get married since she was pregnant. Maybe she just didn't want to be pregnant.

“I said yes,” she insisted with a laugh, waving her left hand in his face. “I've been wearing the ring.”

Suddenly he felt like an idiot for not noticing. “I just didn't hear you say yes.”

“I'm sure I did,” she told him, still grinning. “But if I didn't, I'm sorry. Have you been worrying about it?”

“No,” he lied quickly. “I just wanted to know if we should start planning or not.”

“It's hard to tell with you,” she said, nuzzling her face against his neck. “I'm never really sure how you feel about things.”

That was a relief, although he wouldn't have dared tell her that. Sometimes he wondered if all that time in school spent keeping his emotions in check had been for naught, because Ginny kept him on his toes. He didn't want her knowing how much he worried.

It was getting hard to concentrate with her mouth moving across his neck, but he managed to focus long enough to tell her, “I got a new job. At Harryhauesen's. They needed a new chef.”

“Really?”

It was disappointing that her mouth was no longer attached to his neck, but the look in her eyes was worth it. He nodded. “And it comes with a nice big raise.”

She pressed her lips firmly against his, and he could taste the saltiness of the ocean and the cherry flavor of her chapstick and the lemon-mint of the drink she had just had. It hit him suddenly, not unlike the wave that had knocked him over when he'd had his back to the ocean, that he was going to be a father, that Ginny was going to be his wife, that things were going to be okay. Better than that, things were going to be wonderful. This was why he had given up everything his parents were trying to hand him on a platinum platter and worked his arse off – for Ginny, for the baby that he would meet in about seven months – because he loved her. His mind couldn't have explained why, but that didn't really matter much to his heart.

Ginny's belly grew bigger, her mum constantly fawned over her, they married in a quiet ceremony at the cottage where her brother and Fleur lived, and Draco enjoyed his new job and the changes in his wife. He had never seen her so sexy and she seemed to feel the same way, wearing tighter clothes than she ever had, and strutting around their flat mostly undressed.

Draco took her to eat at his restaurant one evening, when she was due in just mere days, because he knew they wouldn't have a meal out again for a while, not with a newborn arriving any day. His coworkers gushed over Ginny and told her how wonderful Draco was in the kitchen, and he just sat back and absorbed it all, plastering a smile on his face that clearly said I deserve all this. The truth was, he didn't feel like he deserved someone as wonderful as Ginny, and it wasn't until the past month that he felt like he actually was the best choice for head chef.

When they left the restaurant, full and happy, Draco looked up to see his parents on the sidewalk across the street, frozen in mid-stride and staring at them.

“Draco,” Ginny nudged him, one hand on her enormous belly and the other clutching his arm, “go say something.”

“I can't,” he told her, the words choking in his throat. “My father said... Let's go.”

But Ginny kept glancing over her shoulder as they hurried away, and he knew from her expression that his mother was crying.

He tried not to think about it, tried not to let it ruin their perfectly good evening, but Ginny's stricken expression and unusually quiet demeanor kept him from it.

They sat snuggled on their couch, Ginny sitting between Draco's legs and his hands on her belly, feeling the baby move, happily kicking.

He wondered if they were going to have a son or a daughter. He wondered if the child would mind growing up with only a poor set of grandparents and parents who had to work hard for what they had. He wondered how much his mum would be devastated to know she wasn't going to get to hold her only grandbaby. He wondered what his father really thought of it all.

Once of his hands wandered up to her breasts and cupped it lightly. They were so much bigger now and suddenly he wanted nothing more than to take her to the bedroom and bury his face in them, but before he could move there was a knock at the door.

“I'll get it,” she said softly, struggling to get to her feet.

“Stay here,” he told her, kissing the back of her neck before disentangling himself from her. It was probably her mum again, he thought with a sigh, with another excuse of just being in the neighborhood. But when he opened the door, it was the thin and weary figure of his mother he saw before him.

Five days later, Draco was snuggled down beside his wife, their brand new daughter sleeping happily between them. Despite the fact that the hospital room was full of Weasley's of all ages, his parents seemed to fit in with little effort, as everyone fawned over the new addition to the family.

“I can't believe it's a girl,” Molly announced to no one in particular. “The first female in the Weasley family in seven generations had a girl. It's a miracle.”

“The Malfoy family hasn't had a girl in generations either,” Lucius said, his words dreamy. “It is most certainly a miracle.”

Draco kissed his sleepy Ginny on her cheek, before running one finger across the soft skin of their new daughter. “A miracle.”

She nodded. “Is that what we should name her?”

“Maybe,” he answered, unable to take his eyes off his small family. “But let's sleep on that.”