Silence

By BabyBee

Note: Let's all sing the copyright infringement song: I don't own them, I just take them out from under the Goddess' bed and play with them while she's asleep.

Pairing: Remus/Sirius anybody don't want to talk about that, leave now.

Rating: PG13 only because of hints of slashiness. Nothing graphic. I don't go there.

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I wait for him in silence. His will be the next human voice I hear. I like that. Somehow it's only appropriate.

I received Dumbledore's owl last night. But I didn't need it. I knew. The werewolf always knows, they say. I knew. I could feel him. He's far away, yes. But closer now than yesterday. Closer.

"Forgive me?" I asked. But in reality, it wasn't necessary. He and I … well we knew. There was nothing to forgive. Only silence to erase.

Oh but I touched him. Held him in my arms for just a moment. I wanted to hold him forever. Maybe I will, now. Or at least for a long time. Long enough to heal the cuts in my heart and the breaks in his. Long enough to ease the distance between our skin that has hurt far worse than any transformation I have ever been through.

The air is cool in the early morning. I like it. It is sharp and clean and clear, like the taste of his lips on moonlit nights just before we lost ourselves in change. We always kissed before the moon crested. One last time. James laughed and said we were insane. Maybe we were. I know we were young.

We're not young any more.

No. We're not young any more. Azkaban has taken more from us that we could ever imagine it would. When we were young.

After his escape, as I held him so briefly, I felt his sorrow through my fingertips. I felt his insanity threatening. He tried to shed it like a dog shaking off water. But I felt it. Still, in the months since then, perhaps he'll have rid himself of the Dementor's touch. Or not. I don't care. All I want is this: the weight of the years lifted by the words not spoken, but known just the same. He'll lift the silence from my heart. This I know.

I drink tea. A weak and useless drink according to my beautiful dog star. There is coffee, waiting grinding with the small hand grinder I once bought him. He'll make it thick and strong like they sometimes do in the streets of Istanbul and drink it out of tea mugs instead of demitasse cups like those more intelligent of beings. Said once it put hair on his chest. Well, with that I cannot argue, though I suspect genetics had a hand. But I drink tea. Perhaps, when he has broken the ice that surrounds me, I shall allow him to warm me with coffee-flavored kisses as he once did. When we were young.

I close my eyes on birdsong, sweet and sharp. I can almost see him, running through the woods, chasing small animals to stay alive. Running towards me. Coming home. He is a big dog when he transforms. Larger than your average wolf. I am not your average wolf, though, and he matches me for size. But he is taller and bigger than I am when he is human. I like that. I can slip into his arms and feel his warmth surround me. How I wished, all those years, that I could absorb him into my warmth and fracture the ice for both of us.

We are still encased in it. But as he nears, I can feel it start to break, like icebergs calving from the great fields in Alaska or Greenland. When he is in my arms again, I suspect that it will shatter like glass and the roar will deafen us. I reach for that moment, knowing full well that there is nothing I can do to make it come faster. That belongs to him, my lover, my mate, my beloved. My Husband.

So I wait. I drink my quickly cooling tea and wait. The morning slowly dawns. I am getting stiff from non-movement. But my heart quickens. He comes. Closer now.

Closer.

The silence is almost over.

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