Ache
He was in so much pain.
Not the violent, imminent kind, or the kind that strikes with a blow. But the kind that slowly eats, digging deeper and more permanently into bone and muscle. He would slouch, night after night, outside their tent, huffing smoke clouds of warm air into the cold dark. Aching.
His head was throbbing, malnutrition and near starvation to blame, as vitamins and protein were depleted from him... from them all. But he wouldn't say a word to her. He kept his head up, a smile in her direction, hoping, somewhat irrationally, that all mistakes would be forgiven. That he would have paid enough for them... soon.
"Ron?"
He turned around to face her, startled by her appearance.
"Yeah," he choked out, stomach flipping a bit with the complicated, twisted ball of nerves he now carried... fear for her life, for her favour... for her love, if she could find any left for him at all.
Yes, he knew she'd loved him, in that sort of abstract way that he knew the circumference of his life was nearly meshed exactly with two others now... They were headed down one path together, the three of them. And without much else to distract them from their course, it was difficult to see life from the outside... away from the one they'd created here.
"You've let Harry sleep through half his watch!" she hissed at him as she crossed her arms, annoyed, over her t-shirt clad chest. He blinked, and he could faintly make out a badly faded design across the front of her shirt, embedded in over-washed cotton... familiar.
"I-" he started, with no direction. But she cut back over him.
"And this isn't the first time. You've been doing it all week, on purpose."
"So what if I have?" he bit back. "Harry's more impor-"
"Don't you dare!" she shouted over him as he winced. And she dropped to the cold ground next to him, glaring.
"Hermione," he continued, softly, after a worried glance toward the tent entrance, hoping Harry hadn't heard them and woken, "you know what I meant, and you know I'm right. I understand, it's kind of shit. But we knew that. I came back because I bloody well knew that, didn't I?"
A flash of hurt crossed over her before she clamped her teeth against her bottom lip and looked away, nodding once.
"I can't stand the thought of anything happening to you. I'm sure I'd bollocks the whole plan if I thought you might-" but he cut himself off. This wasn't helping. She didn't want this now. "But you know. I'm sorry."
"You're right," she said, almost inaudibly. "But come inside, will you?"
It wasn't fair, to relax his back at the thought of lying down, of listening to the softly shivering tree branches overhead as they mingled perfectly with the sound of her breathing deeply, so close, in her bunk beside him... the distraction of Harry removed as he took his watch...
No.
He hadn't paid enough. Not yet. Had he? Not for that.
They'd move the tent again tomorrow. Harry needed rest. And Ron wasn't even tired, strangely. Really, it was knowing that if he went in now, he'd only go for a selfish reason - the only time he had alone with her was while she slept...
But he was with her now, awake. Her eyes were glistening, he could see... even in the dark, as she stared forward, defeated.
She wanted this, for him. He might even call it worry, that crept so fiercely through the lines of her face... She needed him to rest. It was all she needed. And he'd always give up any fight for that.
"Shit," he said, roughly, suddenly. "Thinking's never got me anywhere, has it."
"What?" and she turned toward him, furrowed brow.
"Alright, I'll go back in with you." It wasn't so difficult, now that he understood. This was for her... this was all she could do for him. Simple, logical. Stick to the plans they'd made, their timetables. And she wanted to do it, sitting here until he gave in, even after the way he'd left them before...
She stared at him for a stretched moment. But finally, she stood, now averting eye contact as she brushed her palms down the thighs of her jeans.
Jeans? And it was nearly two o'clock in the morning.
"Hermione," he started as he stood to follow her, "weren't you sleeping at all?"
She sniffed, in a tiny nose-wrinkling way that he found rather adorable...
"Maybe," she said, because she probably didn't want him to know. And he followed her with a sigh, toes of his oversized boots scuffing through the icy mud.
She went through first, into the dark comfort of what had become their home. Her fingers pressed against the back of her neck as he stepped through the tent flap after her, and he realised then how much he wanted to touch her there, her hair piled up hastily with a broken quill... so much skin...
He was surprised, then, to find Harry already sitting on the edge of his bunk, feet dangling off the side as he yawned.
"Mate," Harry said, "you shouldn't do that again."
"Do what?" Ron grinned, and Harry laughed through his nose, rolling his eyes as he slid down off his bed, thumping to the floor.
"You're going to make Hermione sick now she's staying up half the bloody night to glance back and forth between the tent opening and her watch-"
"I did not," she mumbled as Ron bit his tongue with a mixture of pleasure and amusement. Of course it made sense now - she hadn't been sleeping. She'd been hacked off at-
"I'm taking an extra hour," Harry demanded as he shoved himself into his coat, pointedly nodding in Ron's direction to ensure that his plan was followed. "Hermione, go to bed," and he pushed through the tent opening, closing it fully behind him as he cleared his throat in the chilled air, no longer visible to Ron and Hermione.
But though her worried, near-tears expression made her appear exhausted, Ron could sense that she would not be sleeping just yet. Something weighed on her that he knew she would address as she met his eyes with so much sadness. He removed his cloak, tossing it over the back of a chair as he waited...
"I want you to stop trying to pay for it," she said, firmly, yet quietly. But her words seemed to echo around him, sinking in through calloused skin.
And it hit him then, what he hadn't realised before.
"I don't know how," he nearly whispered, apologising through creased forehead and squinting eyes.
She sighed, desperately, and began to pace the length of the tent, squeezing her hands into fists, repetitively.
"I know what you're doing," she said, and it was only then, as she spoke once more, that he realised she was crying. "I was s-so s-scared, Ron! No idea where you were or what might have happened to you. But if you've only come back for Harry, because you think you've got to d-die in his place... then I want you to go again! I wish you'd have never come back!"
A shocked little breath puffed between his lips at the harshness of her words. But he reminded himself what had come before. She was so brave, so strong, to do what she'd done for Harry without his help. He honestly wasn't sure he could have been the one, lingering behind, if their roles had been reversed...
And what was it she'd said? If you've only come back for Harry? How wrong she was to think that way.
But he suddenly recalled her disappointment outside, moments ago when he'd told her he'd only come back because he knew what he had to do. Because they both knew how important Harry was...
Could she honestly believe he hadn't thought of her? That she hadn't been on his mind, aching, every single night he'd slept away?
"I didn't mean that," he said, quietly, watching as she slowed her pacing and glanced over at him. "You misunderstood. Or... I just cocked up what I said to you so it sounded like I didn't care."
She stopped completely now, breathing through her mouth, cheeks coated in fresh tears.
"The shite truth is that I didn't think of Harry fullstop 'til I'd got to Bill's. The second I realised I couldn't find the tent, I knew you'd sodding left me, too. Blimey, you couldn't have known I'd regret it so quickly. But all I wanted was to find you and tell you how fucking sorry I was that I wasn't bleeding strong enough to last out here like you were. But you were gone, when I came back. Fuck, I know it wasn't your fault. You had to go."
He shrugged, helplessly, and she sucked a deep breath through her mouth as she stared at him, lost.
"I'm such a prat. And that probably makes it so much worse, that it seems like I didn't even give a damn about You-Know-Who or any of this horcrux shite. But... you know I did. It was that bloody locket, telling me bollocks I shouldn't have believed. It's a lot easier just to focus on what we're ruddy supposed to be doing here... than it is to-"
-throw her against the tent poles and snog until they could no longer breathe?
-tear off her clothes and shag her into a pile of melting snow?
-beg her to forgive him because he loves her and can't survive the war without knowing she'll be there with him, at the end?
"Are you going to finish that sentence?" she asked, in a small voice.
Of course he wasn't. He was much too afraid.
But she had moved closer, somehow.
Realistically, he'd have to say he didn't think he'd actually survive this. It had been that turning point, just before he'd heard her speak his name, inside his pocket, that had brought him back... changed. He'd accepted it, deeper than just knowing it, that if he found them, he would very likely never see his family again. Never do so very many fucking things that he'd once dreamt of doing. But this was worth it. So much fuller a life to be here with her, to die with them...
To die for Harry.
But she was moving even closer now.
And he couldn't resist a step closer as well.
"I tried so hard," she whispered.
"To do what?" he heard himself whisper back.
"To stop caring."
His heart caught in his throat. Stop caring about what? But asking the question, as well as he knew the answer...
She didn't want him to have to ask.
She wanted to stop caring about him. For the memories to fade, the hurt to vanish, the distraction of his absence to no longer make a difference...
She stepped closer again. A tiny, hesitant step. Because they were less than half a metre apart now. And this close, in the middle of the night... What could happen? What had they been trying to resist that didn't matter so much now?
He felt his feet shuffle forward. He shouldn't. But he knew that he would.
One more step, and he'd die for her instead. He only had one life, and it was supposed to be Harry's. When all along he knew it had always been hers... or theirs, at least. So he'd acted so strong, even to himself... even inside his own head while he'd plotted how he'd do it, in what moment he might take that one more step, in a very different direction.
In front of a curse. Off the edge of a cliff. Through a roaring fire. Drowning at the bottom of a lake.
Not toward her parted lips... his fingers stretching unconsciously out until they brushed her sides.
And fucking hell, it was his shirt that she was wearing, the faded pattern of a Quidditch keeper standing out so lightly against a mustard coloured background. It had once clashed so furiously with his pale skin and ruddy flaming hair.
And he wanted to say something. Anything that would make it all mean aloud what it meant inside his head. Why was she letting him do this? What part of her had given up?
She closed her eyes as he exhaled against her nose. And he felt his left thigh lightly press against her hipbone before he slipped his own eyes shut, her own hot exhale flowing between his lips with a shudder as he fit his nose to the side of hers, his lips a breath away from hers.
Frozen, he could have stayed just there for a million years, barely touching, like a torturous game of holding back just enough to drive himself mad.
A tiny, desperate, frustrated groan resonated from the back of her throat. Vibrating into him. He shivered violently, opening his eyes and slipping his hands to the arch of her back, palms feathering over the cotton of her... his shirt. And the buzzing in his ears intensified, each strangled breath full of every night he'd ever wanted to do this very thing but didn't have the bloody nerve. Infinite moments he'd let slip past because he knew he couldn't or shouldn't or... wouldn't.
Her hands crawled up his back and gripped his shirt, and he reached before before he knew what he was doing, hands trembling against her cheeks, slipping down to feather his fingers against the sides of her neck. The combination of desperate resistance and her fingernails digging sharply into his shoulderblades was making him so fucking dizzy that he might have been falling sideways, for all he could tell. He simply couldn't move closer. But there was no way in hell he could possibly move away. Though her eyes were still closed, he felt as naked then as if she was actually staring back at him, unclothed.
"Why?" he whispered, somewhat illogically, because what did he want her to say, really? What could she? He let out a laughing breath, causing the tip of his nose to brush backward, against hers, as she cracked open her eyes. "Don't answer that."
Maybe because for a second, it didn't matter what the answer was, because she wasn't telling him to stop. Maybe it didn't matter because he feared he wouldn't want to know.
She could die without another human touch, if she didn't get it from him. Just the cynical, self-pitying type of answer he'd learned to assume.
But her hands limped down, low on his back. And was it alright for him to be here, not to resist or stop what he'd always desperately wanted because he didn't want to admit the truth? That if he got much closer-
Bloody hell, he was already past that point, wasn't he. He was already too close to let go. Already too tangled to let her do exactly what he knew she'd do - she'd die for Harry, too.
His eyes filled with tears he feared more than anything. If she saw them now, would she question how he felt? Make him speak an ocean he didn't have the first clue how to confess?
But her eyes glistened, almost too close to see at all. And the tiny, nearly imperceptible shake of her head melted the wall of ice that had been crumbling, already.
She trusted him.
God, how it hurt to see it, to know she'd let him back to where he'd been before he'd left her... and sodding further. She shouldn't let her guard down. Jesus. He'd hurt her so deeply. Then why was she so ready to let it go? Not that it had been easy, or quick. But from the moment he'd felt her gaze too strongly, her feet inching across the ground here, beneath canvas and a softly pattering rain...
He felt pained, overwhelmed. He'd wanted this. He'd ached for her to forgive and forget what he'd done. And somehow, now that she wasn't rowing, ignoring his see-through attempts at her forgiveness, it was so much more fucking difficult. He'd not realised, before, that it would be. It was easier when she'd glare, when her heart was guarded, her words a bit more sharp. Because he deserved it. So, was he doing this all to himself? A punishment he'd inflicted and believed in so well that he'd missed those signs of her warming and regaining her place, so close to him?
But now, she was accepting.
And it did occur to him then - because he knew that he could do it - how had she been kissed before? Krum, McLaggen, some other secret sodding twat he'd never been privileged to know about? And he couldn't help how desperately he wanted to know, even as the idea of learning what he'd hate to be true ran masochistically through his blood. Good or bad, he wanted to know. Because this was bloody well new for him. And he'd spent months snogging someone else! But all that history, pain and even lust had been wiped completely clean. He was exactly where he wanted, where he'd somehow, in part unknowingly, been hurting so long to be. So, she could heal a bloody headache...
But through all the circling memories, desires and painful curiosities, all he could say was "I'm sorry," useless sodding words she'd heard from him too many times before.
And then she was letting him go, his own hands parting from her neck as if charmed to hover mid-air, swallowing a hazy feeling of drunkenness as she took that tiny step backward, the one that brought her face fully back into focus as his hands finally dropped, limp and trembling, back to his sides.
He could have done it. But he hadn't.
He couldn't explain how, but the thought now reverberated inside... that they were closer, so much closer, for never having moved that final inch, than they would have been otherwise.
They stood, trapped, hardly breathing.
"I hated you for leaving," she whispered, "but you know I forgive you."
He wanted to say anything at all that could express just how much it meant to hear her say it. But he lacked a single word to explain.
"You came back. You're alive and you're here. I think that's all that matters now..."
Could it really be everything? Shouldn't he have an infinite list of things to tell her, a source of never ending misunderstandings to set right?
But the only one that mattered was what he knew, right now, and the strength to say it.
"I'll never leave you again."
She sucked in a breath and flung her arms around him, a single sob against his neck as he wrapped his own arms around her, clinging as she sighed.
It was over. She separated from him with a sniff and a shy smile, wiping tears from her bloodshot eyes as she broke what had seemed inescapable. The corner of his mouth twitched up, and the feeling of nearly smiling was as new to him now as to have been the first time he'd ever done it.
"Alright," he breathed, and she nodded as she turned away, scooping her wayward hair up again and twisting it more tightly round her broken quill.
The ache hadn't gone completely, but it was welcomed now, a reminder of only the things he needed to remember. To carry on. They were together, the three of them. And maybe, just maybe, if they fought very hard... they could make it.