Tina is already sitting at the table of the Flamel's when Newt stumbles in. There's tea on the table, Newt can already tell it's the perfect temperature before he even flumps into the seat across from Tina, and he errantly thinks that Perenelle must have brought it with her when she'd shown up at the house shortly after they'd all staggered back.
"Can't sleep?" Tina asks, quiet and rough all at the same time while Newt pours a cup of tea for himself.
"It doesn't seem right to try," he says and Tina nods as she curls her fingers tighter around her cup.
"I used an enchantment to put Jacob to sleep," Tina says after several long silent moments. Newt peers up at her from under his fringe. "He asked of course, but I still don't feel right."
"I imagine he doesn't want to face the fact that Queenie went with him," Newt says. He refuses to say the name, think the name, of the man who took so much from them in one fell swoop.
"I imagine so." They both sip their tea silently, swallowing harder than usual around the lumps in their throats. "I don't want to face it myself."
"Theseus refused sleep aid. It seemed wrong to stay while he mourns," Newt says, and Tina looks up at him.
"You're allowed to mourn too," Tina says.
"Leta was Theseus' fiancée. Queenie is your sister and Jacob's love. Where does that leave me?" Newt asks plainly before he realizes his slip. "Not that I meant to imply that we have lost Queenie forever."
"No Newt I knew what you meant," Tina says, and Newt can tell that she means it, while she reaches over the table and catches his hand in hers gently.
Newt had told Theseus in the graveyard that he had chosen a side and he's sure that Theseus is under the mistaken impression that he had decided because of Leta.
He hadn't. He'd decided because of Queenie.
"We'll get her back," Newt says because there is no other option. Tina gives him a soft slight smile.
"That's where that leaves you. You love Queenie and at some point, you loved Leta. Everyone lost something tonight, permanently or no," Tina says, and Newt squeezes her fingers back.
"I should have dropped everything to try and find Queenie. Maybe I should have supported her and Jacob more. Maybe if I had encouraged them to move to England this never would have happened," Tina says.
"Tina we can't do maybes. We'll go mad," Newt says, and Tina gives him a bit of shifty look.
"You don't have any maybes about Leta?"
"Not anymore," he says truthfully. After Queenie had told him that Leta was a taker, and he'd come back to London to the discovery that Leta and Theseus were engaged, he'd realized that even before his Hogwarts expulsion Leta had been exhausting. "Queenie gave me some perspective after my last visit."
"I'd love her to give me some perspective," Tina says thickly.
"Me too."
"I don't know what we're going to do," Tina admits a few minutes later after they have both drained their tea cups. It suddenly occurs to Newt that they have banded together this way because they are similar; existing in agony and yet unable to cry about it for whatever reason. It's something he wishes he didn't have in common with Tina, though that list is painfully short.
"I don't know either. Consult Dumbledore maybe. But no matter what, whatever we do, from here on out we do it together," Newt says with a desperate squeeze to Tina's hand and he looks up at her properly. Tina nods fiercely.
"Together or not at all," she says and Newt smiles slightly and ducks his head to hide it, because smiling right now hurts. It hurts in a way that is both good and bad.
"How do you always know exactly what I mean?" He asks.
"Because I know you, Newt Scamander. Even when you are talking about salamanders," Tina says and Newt's head jerks up. He studies her carefully.
"I understand if you don't wish to discuss it after the events of today," Newt says slowly, and Tina shakes her head.
"It was the brightest spot of today." Newt ducks his head again.
"Jacob said I shouldn't mention salamanders," he admits guiltily.
"It was the most truthful compliment anyone has ever given me," Tina says softly. Newt is suddenly very aware of the fact that they are still holding hands and uses this opportunity to study her fingers.
"I don't believe many people would enjoy being compared to a lizard." Tina's fingers are graceful and the perfect comforting warmth.
"Newt you are your truest self when you are Newt Scamander, Magizoologist. The truest demonstration of your feelings would be comparing me to a creature that you love so much," Tina says, and Newt looks up at her, straight in the eyes so that she will know how truthfully he is speaking.
"You are not a creature," Newt says. He didn't mean to phrase it like that, but it reminded him of Leta's words in the crypt and he would not let that stand.
"I know," Tina says and somehow, mercifully she understands him again. Newt trundles along awkwardly anyways because he needs to say it plainly, so that there is no misconstruing of his words or intentions.
"I do love you though." Tina inhales sharply. "And perhaps it's unfair of me to say it now of all times, but Tina I don't want maybes with you."
"Oh Newt." She pauses, but her tone makes Newt think that this pause is a good one, not like others they've shared that night. "I don't want maybes with you either. I love you."
Newt skirts the table in half an instant so that he can sit next to Tina. He has no real intentions past that, its all he feels he deserves at the moment, but beautiful, wonderful brave Tina wraps her arms around him and pulls him in for a kiss.
"Was that alright?" Tina asks after they separate and Newt cups Tina's face in his hands.
"Alright? Yes, Tina it was-" Like the first time he'd rescued a creature all on his own, but a million times better, or the first time he'd flown on the back of a hippogriff, but better. And Newt truly wishes that he can put all these things into words, but Tina is smiling at him.
"It's okay Newt. You don't need words, you've always spoken best with your actions," Tina says, and Newt realizes all over again that she understands and ducks in to kiss her again and again and again, until the part of him that thought no one would be able to make sense of him is basically non-existent.
"I love you," he says again, because those words are easy somehow even though they shouldn't be.
"I love you."