Ready?
"How many wars will it take us to learn that only the dead return?" – Andrea Gibson
"Here," Molly says. She hands Teddy what looks to be a scrapbook, bursting at the seams with papers and photographs.
"Thanks?"
"It's an old photobook that I've been saving for a while," she admits. "Your…your mother made it. Before she died. I've been waiting to give it to you, and, well, now seems like the right time. Your mother and father had the most beautiful love story I've ever heard, Teddy."
Teddy takes the book in his hands and runs his fingers over the top. As he very gently blows the dust off of it, he notices some writing on the lower right hand corner.
To Dora, with love on our wedding day, to look forward to a future.
Remus
"Thanks, Molly." She probably says something else, but at the moment he can't hear her because his feet are absentmindedly drifting down the hallway towards a place where he can be alone. The night before his wedding, what's he's been waiting for and anticipating for a year, now seems small in comparison with the treasures that could lie between two dark red covers fastened with a button strap.
As he carefully sits on the guest bed and opens the cover, he notices another inscription is written inside.
To Teddy, with love. We'll be in your heart forever.
Mum and Dad
He slams the book shut and sets it across the bed, staring at it as though it was his Care of Magical Creatures textbook, liable to attack at any minute. Despite all of the things he's been waiting for, maybe that can wait a little longer.
As he haphazardly rolls off the side of the bed to go downstairs and get a midnight snack, the book falls off the bed and an envelope flies out. He picks it up hesitantly, opens it, and immediately feels like he's violated his parents' privacy. Something inside him doesn't care, so he pulls the letter out anyway.
My dearest Teddy,
As I write this to you, I should hope that you will never have to read it. But I suppose that if you are, I have gone off to war and am gone forever. Please don't cry—I only did it because I love you. You were a miracle for your father and me, and we love you very much. Never forget that we will always love you. I made this scrapbook for you so that someday, when you're old enough, you'll know your father and me more and perhaps we won't feel so far away. I hope you can forgive me for what I've done. I love you very much.
Mum
His mum. She wrote him this letter. She wants him to see this.
He steels his nerves, climbs back on the bed, and opens up the scrapbook. It makes a reassuring cracking sound, the sound that old books make, and immediately he can smell home.
The first picture he sees is one of his mum and dad, smiling and laughing. His dad is wearing an ill-fitting suit, and seems to be awkward but happy. His mother is beaming, and hardly ever takes her eyes off of Remus. His aunts and uncles are passing in and out of the picture, glancing inconspicuously at them.
"Ready?" Tonks asks. He laughs nervously.
"I guess so."
"Don't worry. Please, love. I'm happy. You're happy. We're together."
"Oi, mate, finally!" Fred says, giving Remus the thumbs-up as he walks through the kitchen to get an apple from the kitchen.
Remus blushes ever so slightly. "Shall we go?" Tonks nods as her hair turns bright pink, and they head out the door, waving to the Weasleys.
"Thanks, Molly!" Tonks calls over her shoulder.
"Wait!" Molly shouts. "One picture, please?"
Remus protests, but Molly wins. She always does, really. Eventually she corrals most of the children and manages a picture of the two. It's their first picture as a couple; the first picture that Tonks ever puts into her scrapbook.
Teddy smiles. Their first date. He's never really thought of his parents as people before—just myths; legends whom he's supposed to live up to. They loved each other. Molly has told him the story of how they weren't supposed to fall in love. But they did.
Across from the picture is a bill from a restaurant and a dried flower. Teddy gently flips the page and sees a picture of his mother in a wedding dress with his grandma.
"Are you nervous?" Andromeda asks as the wedding photographer clicks away in the background.
"Of course not," Tonks tells her mother, laughing. "We're not performing, Mum. We're getting married because we love each other and we want to spend forever together. Speaking of, I don't want to be late to my own wedding." She picks up a small bouquet of red roses and turns around to smile one last time at her mum. "Ready?"
She is the most beautiful thing Remus has ever seen. Later, he swears he never cried when she walked down the aisle, but everyone knows he's lying. He's fallen harder for her than he expected, and they've become a love story. The photos of Tonks with her mother and Remus with Tonks are two of Tonks's most precious posessions. Her hair turns brown every time that she sees them—brown, like Remus's. Brown, like a normal life. The life she's determined to live.
Teddy takes the wedding program out of the pocket opposite the picture, flips through it, and tucks it neatly back into its place. There are a few dried flower petals underneath a sheet of plastic. He runs his finger over the picture, tracing the outline of his mother's wedding dress. Suddenly, he feels the loss of his mother more keenly than he has ever felt it. It's a hole inside of him, threatening to overtake him. Quickly, he flips to the next picture—his mum is ice skating and his dad is holding her hand to steady her.
Tonks's hair is a shade of coral-red that sticks out from all of the white around her. She's dressed all in red, too—unabashedly being herself. As Remus glides gracefully across the ice, she laughs hysterically.
"I didn't know you could skate!" she teases him.
"We all have hidden talents, Dora. I'm sure you have an inner ballerina somewhere inside of you." He spins around just to show off.
"Alright, time for a picture."
Remus grumbles. "Why?"
"For the scrapbook!"
"I'm starting to regret that I ever gave you that thing."
Tonks flags down a nice looking young girl. "Will you take our picture, dear?" she asks. The girl, though taken a bit off guard, nods and quietly takes the camera handed to her from Tonks's unusually large pockets. Remus, for a minute, takes the opportunity to embarrass Tonks by trying to teach her to skate around the rink. She fails quite abysmally, but she has the time of her life doing it. The girl gives the camera back, restraining her amusement at their antics, and skates away. "Thank you!" Tonks calls after her.
Remus goes off around the rink again while Tonks watches; gripping the railing like it's her lifeline. On his next pass, Tonks holds onto the railing and pulls him in. He is caught off guard and almost slips, but manages to catch his balance. She kisses him abruptly, and they warm each other's frozen lips.
She breaks away, mumbling "I need hot chocolate. Freezing."
He laughs. "Come on, love." He skates to the rink door and holds out his hand. "Ready?"
She trusts him enough to let go, and knows that he'll be there if she falls. He grabs her tight and doesn't let go.
A pair of ice rink tickets, one hot chocolate-stained, are taped next to the picture. Teddy manages to turn the corners of his mouth up, imagining a time when he could have gone ice skating with his parents. He feels his eyes begin to water, and so he loses himself over the next few pages. He briefly pauses at the picture of his parents in their new house, and then his breath stops.
His eyes rest on a picture lying across from a birth announcement. His birth announcement, in fact.
Tonks is holding Teddy, her eyes welling with tears and laughter bubbling in her heart. "We did it, Remus," she whispers as her son sleeps. "We did it."
A friendly nurse peeks her head into the room. "Congratulations," she says with a warm smile. "Would you like a picture?"
Tonks shoots a triumphant look at Remus. "We'd love one," she replies, and motions for Remus to hand her the camera. He begrudgingly does so. After the nurse leaves, they sit in silence for a while, staring at the person they created.
"I…he's so small. I don't know if I can do this." Remus puts his face in his hands.
Tonks reaches out and puts her hand on Remus's cheek. "I know you can do it. You're going to be a wonderful dad."
He takes her hand and kisses it softly. "Thank you, Dora."
As if baby Teddy has sensed the moment is too perfect, he picks that time to wake up and let out a wail. Remus looks at Tonks, and Tonks looks at Remus, and they sigh.
"Ready?" he asks her.
"Of course," she says. Together, they face the newest chapter of their lives, however scary it may be. And they can't wait. Waiting, they have decided, happens when you're not ready. And they're more than ready to live their life as it was meant to be.
As Teddy flips to the last page in the book, his eyes shift to the date written on top of the page. May 1st, 1998. One picture takes up the left page, and on the right is the pocket where Teddy's letter should have been.
Andromeda sets the camera on the counter and looks down lovingly at the table where her family is seated. Remus is eating breakfast while Tonks is playing with Teddy's hands and toes.
"He's so big already," Andromeda says, smiling.
"And his hair has changed five times this morning, too," Remus notes, chuckling. "He definitely gets that from me."
Tonks smiles. "This is where our life begins, Remus, the rest of forever. We don't have to wait anymore. This is it."
Remus reaches over to tickle Teddy's foot, and the boy giggles. "I know. It doesn't feel real."
Andromeda picks up her purse. "Well, I'll be back in an hour. Don't get in too much trouble, you two."
"Love you, mum," Tonks says.
"Love you, dears. Goodbye, Teddy!" The proud grandmother waves goodbye to her daughter, her son-in-law, and her grandson—two of whom she will never wave goodbye to again.
As if the universe wants to prove they spoke too soon, a weasel Patronus bearing Arthur Weasley's voice makes their whole world crash down around them. Then all of the sudden, Teddy is crying, Remus is about to leave, and Tonks is still holding onto a dream that was supposed to be perfect.
"Ready?" Remus asks, grinning. "This time we win, Tonks. This time we win. Stay here, take care of Teddy, and I'll see you when it's over." He kisses her softly and then pulls away. "I love you."
And then he is gone.
"No," she says, too late. "I'm not ready this time."
A note, hastily scribbled, is left on the counter for her mother; a sealed envelope is placed into a bursting scrapbook. Everything is ready. She is not. But she won't wait to live any longer. She'll live with her husband or not live at all.
When they are lying together, much later, on the grounds of Hogwarts, they are not dead. Only the dead return—the ones who weren't quite gone. And in a war, there were plenty. But hand in hand, smiling, two of many really aren't dead. They're just living forever, because they refused to wait for forever to find them. They're ready.
A/N: Written with the gracious benevolence and advice of Nayla, Joanna, Paula, and Liza for The Last Ship Standing Competition using the action, quote, and word prompts. Also written for the Archery Challenge in Camp Potter with the mandatory prompt of waiting and the optional prompt red.
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Allie