Crossroads

Chapter 6 – Promises Like Pie Crust.

"Love, love of mine
won't you lay by my side
and rest your weary eyes
before we're out of time?

Give me one last kiss
for soon such distance
will stretch between our lips,
now the day's losing light."

As Much As I Ever Could – City And Colour.

*~*

"I wish you would stay home, Hermione," I told my wife as I watched her finish packing her bags. "We really need to talk, and I don't know… I guess I just have a bad feeling about you being away from home right now."

"I know, Ron, I don't want to go either, but I've got to." She sighed, closed her suitcase and with a swish of her wand, shrunk it to fit inside the pocket of her robes.

"It'll only be for a week. We've been away from each other for longer than that before." Hermione tried to smile, but I could see that she was just as conflicted about having to leave as I was about not wanting her to go. "I know we desperately need to talk about a lot of things, and we will. But I think some time away might do us some good, make us miss each other."

I miss you every day.

"Okay," I relented. She kissed me softly, her soft lips barely grazing mine. Her body was just within reach, tantalisingly close, yet so far away…

I didn't make a move to hold her longer – closer – and she slipped away from my grasp, like she had done so many times before.

"I love you," she told me earnestly, and the raw honesty in her eyes made me almost smile with relief. My Hermione, the one I loved, was still in there somewhere, and I missed her. I wanted her back. I needed her back.

"'Love you too."

"I'll Floo as soon as I get there. If the kids owl, tell them I miss them."

Do you miss me? At all?

"I will."

"Okay" – she gave me a long look, then a sad, wistful smile – "I really have to go now."

Couldn't you just stay with me?

I wanted to beg her not to go, to bicker with her until she forgot about that fucking convention, about her job, my job – about everything but us.

But, I choked – my lips wouldn't move, and my tongue felt too big in my mouth.

"Okay." I managed a tiny smile. "G'bye."

Please stay, Hermione.

But she didn't.

"Bye." Her eyes were liquid pools of brown, tears threatening to spill over. It was only for a week, I kept telling myself. She would come back, we would talk, and hopefully things would go back to normal. To the way it had used to be, before we had begun to drift away from each other.

I couldn't have been more wrong.

*~* *~* *~*

"I wish you would stay home, Hermione," Ron told me as I put the last stack of clothes in my suitcase. He continued to point out all the reasons why I shouldn't be leaving, and I felt terrible for having to do so, but I didn't have a choice.

I had made a commitment, taken an oath when I accepted this job, just like he had done with his. I was one of the keynote speakers at this convention, and I couldn't just suddenly drop the whole thing and leave them to deal with it, even though I desperately wanted to stay. But Ron looked conflicted between relief and anxiety, and I couldn't tell if he really wanted me to go or stay.

It was only for a week. One week, and I would come back. I would come back and we would go back to normal again. One week, and we could make this right.

"I know, Ron, I don't want to go either, but I've got to." Didn't he understand that? I hated to break my promises. "It'll be only for a week. We've been away from each other for longer than that before."

I tried to smile, but my face couldn't stand the deception – I was scared of going away, even if it was merely for a week, and Ron knew it.

"I know we desperately need to talk about a lot of things, and we will. But I think some time away might do us some good, make us miss each other."

Liar. You miss him all the time. But does he miss you?

His eyes announced his defeat before he had even given in. In fact, he hadn't even put up a fight. My heart constricted in my chest – did Ron not want me to stay? Was he looking forward to being alone, to being away from me?

Didn't he love me anymore?

I wanted to close this distance between us, to give him a searing goodbye kiss so unforgettable and passionate that we both could hang on to the memory over the course of the next few days, when we would be as physically distant as we were emotionally. No, I wanted to kiss him and never let him go.

But I changed my mind at the last minute. Everything in his demeanour told me that this kiss wouldn't be welcomed, that maybe it was too much, too soon.

What had he told me last night?

"I don't think I can easily get past that."

Tears threatened to spill from my eyes, and I knew I was very close to losing control. That awful fight and the hurtful words we had exchanged kept replaying over and over in my head, as if permanently engrained in my memory.

So, I kissed Ron as if we hadn't shared any kind of intimacy over the past twenty years, as if we meant almost nothing to each other.

I nearly lost it there and wept when he didn't even kiss me back, when he didn't reach out for me, or even as much as try to keep me longer in his arms with him, in our house.

He was still and unmoving. Unforgiving. Distant. He had been this way for a while, as I knew I had.

Didn't he know how hard I was trying?

"I love you," I told him, putting everything in those words, everything I couldn't tell him – how much I missed him, how much I hated it every time he came home late from work, how threatened I felt by Sarah. How I didn't want to lose him - not now, not ever. How I wanted to stay.

How much I wanted him to ask me to stay.

"'Love you too."

But he didn't.

"I'll Floo as soon as I get there. If the kids owl, tell them I miss them."

Do you miss me? At all?

"I will."

"Okay." I tried to smile again, trying to push past the foreboding feeling of impending disaster. Trying to push past my disappointment when he hadn't asked me to stay, hadn't kissed me like he used to, hadn't been… Ron.

"I really have to go now."

Ask me to stay, Ron.

"Okay," he told me, and I thought I was dying. Why wouldn't he ask me to stay with him? To forget everything about my job and go with him to some place where it would be just us, Ron and Hermione, someplace we could forget about the world, our duties, our promises, and just be us again?

I would follow him anywhere – whenever he wanted me to.

Instead, "G'bye" was all he said to me.

"Bye." My eyes filled with unwanted tears, and suddenly, I couldn't stay there anymore, so close and yet so estranged from him. Ron hadn't asked me to stay, so I couldn't be there anymore – there were people counting on me, needing me, like Ron and the kids hadn't for a long time. It felt good to be needed.

So I left, willing myself to stay positive. It was only a week. When I came back, things would be exactly the same.

I couldn't have been more wrong.

*~* *~* *~*

A.N: So y'all can thank my Mom for giving me a medicine that not only stopped the symptoms, but it also made me feel a whole lot better! Yay! Don't forget to review, dearest - I get sad whenever someone puts this story on favourites or alert and don't drop a word ;)