Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter.

Author's notes: Inspired by the song "Please Be Patient With Me" by Wilco (which I also do not own, but used some lines from ;)) Reviews are extremely appreciated, but please, for the love of god, no reviews trying to help me with my grammar. I'm perfectly aware of the rules of English grammar, and do not need further instruction. I don't have a beta reader and while I read over my stories and edit them, I prefer to focus on editing content than on grammar so occasionally small mistakes slip by. I am aware of this and apologize, but in the words of nico "Please don't confront me with my failures, I had not forgotten them." Otherwise, reviews are completey loved and appreciated. Anyway, thank you for being "patient with me" ;P and please enjoy!

Worth The Wait

Hermione Granger had never before been so completely, absolutely humiliated.

"I am so sorry," she whispered sincerely as she knelt down beside the man who had just gotten sucker-punched in the face so hard he was now lying woozily on the ground.

"What are you apologizing to him for?" Ron demanded loudly; still standing, still furious. He rubbed his now aching fist. He had expected that punching the stupid bloke might make him feel better, but watching Hermione drop to that arse's side instead of standing beside him sort of just made him want to punch him 10 more times.

Hermione ignored Ron completely, still trying to tend to the fallen man, desperately attempting to help wipe away the specks of blood issuing from his nose with a napkin (while also repeatedly reminding him how sorry she was). The man brushed Hermione off him and got to his feet as quickly as he could. He wiped his nose with suit jacket and pulled his briefcase from around the other side of chair. At a loss for words, he simply shook his head slowly at Hermione before exiting the coffee shop.

Unfortunately, the scene that had been created did not leave with him. Ron, still furious, didn't notice the stares. Hermione, however, was completely aware of them; in fact, they made her even more furious.

"God dammit, Ron!" she yelled, tears beginning to well up in her eyes. "It was a job interview!" Tired of being the center of a scene (as was starting to become usual), she stood up and stormed towards the door.

As Ron's righteous indignation melted away, the judgmental eyes all around him suddenly became visible. His cheeks turned red again, but this time from embarrassment, he turned just quickly enough to catch Hermione's wrist as she walked away. Instead of turning back to him like she had in the past, she continued to the door. Ron trailed along, letting go of her arm to pick up her coat from the rack next to the exit. It was snowing outside, after all.

With her first step outside, Hermione let go of all the reserve she had fought to keep and broke into hysterical tears. She sat down on a ledge and closed her eyes.

Ron draped her coat over her shoulders and sat down beside her slowly. His blue eyes gazed out into empty space and the cold air showed Hermione just how heavily he exhaled when he sat. He knew he had messed up again.

After a moment, he spoke. "He said I was making you play hard to get."

That had been the comment that set him off, after all. Not to say he wasn't angry when he tracked her to the café and saw her sitting with some handsome, suited young man...but when he had walked up to them and asked her in no uncertain terms if she wanted to introduce him, her boyfriend, to this guy she snuck out to have coffee with, and that wanker coolly and coyly responded, "So this must be the one that's been making you play so hard to get." Well, what was he could he do but deck him?

Hermione shook her head. She took a few breathes before answering to regain her composure. When she spoke, her voice was so solid and feelingless that it scared him. "I told him I couldn't take the job if it meant 100 hour work weeks or traveling all the time. I told him about all the jobs I've already had to turn down for the same reason. I told him that I couldn't be far away or working all the time because I was in a relationship with a person that meant a lot to me, and I didn't want to put that in jeopardy."

The two fell silent again, neither one looking at the other. Ron searched for something, anything, to justify his behavior in the least bit…to make himself seem redeemable. "You could have just--" he started.

"No, Ron," Hermione said solemnly but with stunning quickness, "I couldn't have just told you. You would have gotten defensive and said not to use you as an excuse. You'd say you'd be fine on your own, and that I should do what I want."

Ron stayed silent, not because he wanted to, but because as much as might hate to admit, she was right. He wanted more than anything to speak, but what could he possibly say?

Every person has a breaking point, and as the silence continued it drew Hermione closer and closer to hers. When she could take no more, she silenced the silence with tears. She leaned her head instinctively into Ron's chest, and he automatically moved his arm over her shoulder, pulling her closer to him.

The serenity of their surroundings was a sharp contrast to the chaos taking place in her mind. Through half of it rushed a thousand different instances of what had just happened. Ron questioning her about every boy she spoke to; every time he picked a fight with a guy who so much looked in her direction. Through the other, all the things he did to make it seem like that didn't matter: nights reading by the fire where he seemed content just to lay stroking her hair; the way he still turned pink and held her hand a little tighter when any of their friends teased them; how happy he seemed when he kissed her.

She never expected to say it, but somehow, admist all the flashing facts, images, and memories rushing around in her head, one truth slipped out.

"I can't keep doing this," she whispered, eyes opening wider as she suddenly became aware that what she was saying was true.

Around her, she felt Ron's whole body stiffen. From her place near his chest, she could hear his heart beat so much faster.

"Hermione," he said, in a groan so low she couldn't be sure if he had spoke it or if she had just heard her name reverberating inside his chest. "I--please--it was just--I won't--"

His fear had a strange way of making her feel justified. If he knew this was an end worthy sin, maybe it really was one.

"You will though," she said, speaking not because she wanted to, but because some sort of gradient of truth forced it from where it was so plentiful inside of her into the empty truthless air. "You always do, no matter how many times I talk to you about it, no matter how many times you swear it won't happen again."

Ron, again, was dumbfounded. She was presenting him not with opinion, but with cold hard fact. It was the same as if she'd said, "You have red hair." Yeah, so he did, but what was he supposed to do about it?

"I'm trying," he mumbled, fiddling with his big, awkward hands and hating them just as he was starting to hate every part of himself. "You know I'm trying."

"But I don't.." She didn't want to start crying again, but she couldn't help it. "If I knew that it wouldn't matter so much. But how am I supposed to believe you care about me when you don't even trust me?"

"Hermione." She had never heard her name said with such desperation. He seemed to be tearing up too, sharing her frustration with himself. "It doesn't mean that I don't care…if anything it means…I'm partially there. I don't know how to deal with feeling like this. I care so much...I just don't know how to handle it. It's because I care that I keep…messing up."

Hermione had not been expecting so mature an answer from someone that had just punched another man in the face in a fit of jealous rage. She didn't know how to respond, so she stayed silent.

"I want to say I won't do it again, like I always say…but really 'Mione….there's nothing I can do to make this easier on you. It's just the way I am. I'm going to keep messing up, I'm going to say things that make you angry, and doing things that make you wonder why you ever kissed me at all. That's it, that's the truth, for what it's worth." With his last sentence he made sure to look straight into her eyes, wanting her to know for sure that even if he couldn't be perfect, at least he was being honest.

"Is that it then?" Hermione said, voice cracking as she realized, perhaps for the first time, exactly what she might lose in the next few moments. "We just stop trying? Concede that we just can't change enough to be together, regardless of…" she stopped herself before saying love. It was a term she had resisted saying to Ron before so that she wouldn't become vulnerable. Now, when she was more vulnerable than she maybe had ever been with him, she wasn't about to use it. "Regardless of the fact that we care about each other? We're just done?"

"No!" Ron said. He seemed shocked and offended. "Merlin no, Hermione!" He turned to her and immediately (and unexpectedly) kissed her, hugging her so tight she thought her bones might break. "Do you have any idea how good that feels? I don't want to loose that--I don't want to lose you."

She gripped his bony hand tightly in her own and moved closer to him. "I don't want to lose you either."

They sat there for a moment and though they had both spoke truthfully and though maybe that fact, a mutual wanting, should have been enough, for Hermione, it was not. She had started the conversation not because she wanted to, but because she had to. Of course she didn't want to lose Ron, but they hadn't found any solution, if anything they had just confirmed the problem.

Her body stayed tense in his arms, unable to relax when she didn't know what happened next. Ron knew her well enough to know she wouldn't be content leaving things this way.

"You know the day I came back? With Harry…and the Horcrux…and the sword?" His voice was small, fragile, and most of all, unsure.

She nodded.

"Harry ever tell you what the Horcrux was? What it turned in to for me?" He had made Harry swear over and over again that he would never tell Hermione, but he wasn't sure if now that they were dating, Harry had thought it fair game.

"It turned into something?" she asked curiously. If the situation hadn't felt so serious, Ron might have smiled at how excited she seemed to learn something new.

"Not turned really…I guess just showed…" Now that he was nearing the moment of truth, he was losing his courage. He felt as foolish and silly as he had the day Harry had found out about what affected him most. But he knew he had to proceed; he had to explain his actions to her somehow if he didn't want to lose her. "It was you…well, not really you, but…well, I didn't know what it was at the time…but that's not the point…it wanted to do what would upset me most, make it so I couldn't destroy it….and it showed me you and Harry, to-together. You said…something about…how could you possibly choose me over him…and…"

Hermione's determination faded in the face of this revelation. Automatically she forgot about everything else and hugged tightly onto Ron. "Oh Ron! I-"

"It's…don't…I…I just mean that's how bad it is, you know. That's why I stayed away for so long…because I thought you had chosen Harry over me, and I couldn't handle it." Ron was red now, a shade that showed his mix of embarrassment and frustration.

"Isn't that sick? You just--I just--I don't know. I keep thinking that it's because I love you, and maybe that's what love is like. But is it? Can love really make people act this stupid?" His fists were clenched tightly.

Hermione, surprised, opened her mouth to speak.

"Rhetorical question! Rhetorical question," he muttered quickly, afraid she may say something that might accidently further his anguish and humiliation. "I don't know why I told you that at all…I know you want me to have some kind of solution or something I can promise you…but I can't…as much as I want to…"

He looked sadly into her eyes, which still seemed to be waiting for something, and felt the heavy gravity of his own inadequacy. He stroked the side of her face gently. "I know there are a million better boys for you out there, 'Mione. Boys that wouldn't act like big bloody gits all the time. Smarter boys--handsomer, richer….boys that could give you everything, because you deserve it….and sometimes I think that you should just go out and find them and stop wasting your time with me…but then I think, yeah, all those boys can do a lot of things a lot better than me, but Hermione, I swear, none of them can love you as much as I do. I know that for a fact, I've got them beat on that, at least."

Hermione was crying now, full force, no attempts to hold back the tears. She wanted to launch into her own speech about how much she loved him too, and how long she had, and how she thought he was the best of all the boys, but he looked determined she knew she best let him go on.

"So I'm going to try, 'Mione, the best I can, to not make mistakes…and I'm going mess up a lot probably, because that's how I am, but I'm going to get it right someday, because well, because I have to. But for now…for now….I'm gonna need you to be...patient with me." He exhaled and suddenly felt exposed, the cold he had forgotten about suddenly seeming to saturate his skin. "Can you do that, Mione? Can you please be patient with me?"

In one brief instant, Hermione snorted out a laugh and hoped Ron understood that when she threw herself at him and kissed him so ferociously passersby shielded their children's eyes, what she really meant was, "Of course."

After all, she thought, feeling his grin in his kiss, aren't all the best things worth the wait?

Fin.