8
THE sound of a crackling fire and logs popping was enough to rouse Alice from a fitful sleep. The strangely comforting feeling of warmth greeted the dark-haired Auror as Alice slowly returned to the land of the living. Alice forced herself to blink, forcefully at first, trying to rid her eyelashes of the 'sands of sleep' that had accumulated there, as her mother was fond of calling it.
Her first guess was that she must have been asleep for quite a while, for the stubborn crusted gunk didn't want to be so easily removed from the corners of her eyes, and she had to scrub the rest away with a heel of her hand.
Alice let out a pained hiss through gritted teeth upon discovering the hand she was using to rub at her eyes was the one she had injured. Three times, now, if she remembered. She'd injured it herself in her anger when she'd smacked it against a log after she and Frank had argued. She'd accidentally landed on it when she'd fallen in her surprise at the mountain troll startling her so badly. And then again, she swore she thought she'd sprained it.
Alice gingerly tucked the tingling, wounded appendage back underneath the cover what felt like a blanket at first, but then the cool brush of leather against the skin of her collarbones alerted to the fact that Crouch had, sometime while she'd slept, given Alice his jacket.
Alice parted her cracked lips open slightly to try to speak to voice her concern, yet her throat hallowed and constricted, and felt terribly parched, and as such, she was unable to make much of any kind of noise at all, really. She let out a tired sigh and shook her head to herself.
If anything, the indicator that Barty had given her his leather trench coat as a means to stay warm, she guessed was an indicator that she was safe. For now. No enemy would trouble themselves to comfort their victim.
Especially not an Auror intending to arrest them. Alice stiffened as flashing images of her memories of what had almost happened to her earlier interrupted her brief moment of tranquility, thrusting her back in the clutches of a greyed, huge claw, and piercing yellow eyes.
Alice released a less than dignified whimper that one would not expect a young Auror less than a year into her line of work to make and buried her face in the makeshift pillow (a folded up blanket or two, from the feel of it).
A constrictive feeling clawed at her throat as it hollowed, rendering her feeling dizzy and almost unable to breathe. She reached up with her uninjured hand to tug away the collar of her shirt and jacket to try to force air back into her lungs, though a fat lot of good it did her.
Her shaking fingers met the delicate silver cord that hung around the column of her throat. A lovely, delicate necklace with a tree pendant that Lily had given her for her birthday this year following an Order meeting.
Finding her necklace still clasped where it ought to be, Alice let out a shuddering breath and gave herself a moment to relax, allowing her ties to her friends and family to ground her. She looked around haphazardly for Barty and didn't spot any sign of the Death Eater at first.
She couldn't decide if that was a good or bad thing.
"Barty?" Alice whispered in a hoarse, croaking voice, and was met with only silence. No response from Crouch. She furrowed her brows in a frown as she looked around to the left and right for any sign of him. None.
The horrid swirling vortex of vicious memories flitted through her overwhelmed mind within a few moments, leaving Alice Longbottom feeling breathless and tired.
Her sense of awareness had dimmed, and she stared into the depths of the fire without really truly seeing it. But then, before Alice was even aware of what was happening, her mind sprung forward as if on spring coils, and the dim world of this mountain troll's cave came rushing up to meet her. Sounds came through in crisp, visual clarity.
The fire crackling in its otherwise normal way as the logs popped and settled as the flickering tongues of the flames danced, the rustling of leaves outside of the trees of the Forbidden Forest clinging to their branches, and the distant echo of a water-logged voice. Was it Barty? Someone was talking.
The smell assaulted her flaring nostrils as her stomach swooped and churned. It smelled disgustingly of piss and troll bogies and Merlin only knew what that creature had killed in here to serve as its dinner, but it was enough to make Alice's stomach lurch.
Just as she was about to call out for Barty in the hopes of learning where he'd gotten off to, Alice felt a terrible wave of nausea overtake her. She didn't know if it were the musky odor of the remnants of the troll's meal, whatever it had eaten, or what, but at that moment, poor Alice could no longer keep down the contents of her stomach. She hurriedly rose to her feet and darted out of the cave's mouth for fresh air and privacy and threw up into a nearby bush.
Alice threw up everything in her stomach. Even afterward she heaved, bile continuing to rise painfully up in her throat. She spit and shakily wiped at her mouth with the back of her hand, wishing for a cool drink of water to wash the disgusting taste of vomit from her mouth.
"B—Barty?" She called out in a shaky voice, more loudly this time. Her courage was slowly building within. If she just reasoned with Crouch and explained to the Death Eater why he had to come back up to the castle with her, she didn't think the man would kill her for it.
She shuddered and straightened her gait. At least, she hoped not. Alice parted her lips and gasped for the cool, crisp air of the forest around her, beseeching it to fill her lungs, and willing her nausea to subside, even just a bit.
"Al?" came the unmistakable sound of Crouch's voice. Slowly but surely, Alice turned on her heels and soon found herself staring face-to-face with her old friend. Worry and bewilderment, coupled with a strange look that darted in his dark brown eyes that she first thought to be anger, darted across his handsome features.
Crouch raced to Alice's side, finding that all he could do was rub her back to try to supplicate his friend some.
"You're sick," he declared, concerned as he searched the pale brunette's face. He swallowed down hard as he wrestled in his mind whether or not to voice the Dark Lord's suspicions that Alice Longbottom was pregnant.
A lump formed in his throat as he took in the sight of the petite Auror. Though Alice was not his, could never be his unless something happened to her wretched bastard of a husband, Frank, he still found the short witch standing in front of him to be the most beautiful creature.
Alice wrung her hands to calm her trembling down. "I…" Suddenly, she couldn't find her breaths at all. "I haven't…" she could not even form a coherent thought.
Merlin, but why was talking around Barty so hard?
"Haven't what?" Crouch heaved a sigh as he saw Longbottom's distress and touched at Alice's arm comfortingly. He raised his dark eyebrows as he decided to coax the truth out of Alice by asking her a series of questions that would allow the witch to conclude on her own what her issue was. "Al, what is it?" he questioned, sounding concerned. He knitted his brows together in a slight frown.
Alice would have answered Crouch, though at the moment, the familiar waxy scent of the pine needles of the trees rustling in the canopies above their heads engulfed themselves around her, calmly lulling the frazzled young Auror into a sort of stricken hazy daze, and the purity of the fresh air of the forest around her.
She'd never really noticed it before, not that she'd spent much time in the Forbidden Forest as a student here at Hogwarts, but the air around them right now seemed so new and fresh, not at all like the smoggy air of London, polluted by the burping of the fumes of the Muggles' cars and buses. It was as if she'd never breathed real air before. Strange. To further explore this, Alice slowly fluttered her eyelids closed and inhaled deeply.
Alice let herself hold in the breath for a long moment while Barty could only look on in a stunned stupor. He had no idea what was happening to her, if her mind was already starting to unravel the longer they spent in here.
She released the shaking breath slowly, feeling an enormous amount of tension leave her muscles. Again.
In. out. Again. In. Out. Breathe. Just take a second. Good, she thought encouragingly to herself. Breathe…
Alice knew the memory of the mountain troll attack was far too vivid and fresh in her mind to look back at what had transpired earlier. Doing so would surely send her into a panic and with how she was currently feeling, she couldn't afford that. Not now. But… Alice frowned.
If not now, then when? When would she be able to confront this overwhelming fear that she was feeling?
Alice felt like she was utterly drowning in it, and she'd been feeling this way long before setting one foot into the Forbidden Forest. Ever since Dumbledore had ordered her more or less to be the one to apprehend Barty and bring the man in for questioning of his crimes.
And in the wake of such torrential aftermath, Alice Longbottom's fear was escalating to overwhelming proportions, running rampant and out of control in her mind. It was no longer possible for the Auror, as practical and pragmatic as she prided herself on being, to hide it.
She was breaking down in front of Barty, and there was no preventing it. Alice swallowed a lump in her throat as with great reluctance and even a little bit of hot shame that caused her cheeks to burn, Alice allowed her mind to collapse in on itself as she broke down into tears.
The walls she'd built around her heart shattered like fine china, sending shards of unbridled fear, and hurt through her flesh as her chest heaved as she gasped for air. The ground beneath her boots buckled and her knees gave way. She'd likely have fallen had Barty not already been clinging onto her forearm in a tight, iron vice grip.
With each memory of the mountain troll's attack, each piece of sound and visual remembrance that burned itself into her retinas, Alice's fractured heart, mind, and soul spiraled in an out-of-control whirlwind that Barty Crouch Jr. was witness to. He was sure he'd never seen anything like it.
Each harsh word the pair of friends had ever spat at one another, the one time in the man's life when she'd physically hit him for overstepping a huge boundary when he'd cornered her once and tried to kiss her, recalled in perfect clarity.
The last time they'd spoken, underneath the shade of an old, gnarled elm tree by the Black Lake, when Alice told Barty she wasn't in love with him anymore and was choosing to date Frank instead, struck her consciousness and body with bruising force.
Even now, Alice realized as a shudder wafted down her back as she looked at the man whom she'd once dated, was regarding her with a bitterness and resentment, yet worry and fear at the same time. The man in front of her was so complex, she couldn't figure him out. Alice knew Barty despised her, resented her, and maybe even blamed her for how he'd ended up here…
"Alice?" Barty's muffled voice reached her ears.
Alice's head jerked upwards, a startled cry ripping its way from her lips. Standing in front of her, so close that the tip of his nose almost touched hers, was Crouch. This time, however, his face bore the beginnings of a hesitant smile and not a look of bitterness and hatred like before.
His smile, though seemingly genuine, was strained, showing the crinkling and hardened edges around his dark eyes, and yet, for her, it was a smile, nonetheless. She supposed she ought to be grateful he hadn't killed her earlier. The flames of the campfire that the troll had lit were still going, though dimming as the time passed on by, flickering and dancing, casting odd shadows and yet, radiating warmth and safety. Barty had pulled her back.
Alice opened her mouth to speak, to try to say something—anything—that might supplicate him some, yet the words clung to the inside of her throat as it hallowed, her tongue refusing the words' release stubbornly, unwilling to come forth and let her say it.
Her vision stung and burned with a fresh bout of tears, spilling over, and cascading down the slow of her temple despite her best efforts to fight against the salty liquid in vain. Alice didn't think she had any room left in her to give a damn about showing false bravado or strength like she knew a true Gryffindor was supposed to do, nor did she care for a wooden, cheery, disposition.
Without even caring what it would look like, the only comfort she could summon forth to assuage her guilt was that she was glad Frank and Remus weren't here to see this, her arm shot out and her fingers curled into fistfuls around the material of Crouch's jacket he'd shrugged back into.
Hearing his startled gasp of surprise, Alice pulled the taller man close, her hands splaying across his broad, cold chest, and openly sobbed as she buried her head in his chest, feeling grateful that he didn't protest. She cried, tears of relief, for her seemingly only friend that truly understood her, despite their differences, in this dark and fearful world as Lord Voldemort rose to power, had managed to keep himself safe, and in terror too, for she remembered her original purpose for coming here. There was no telling what the Minister of Magic was going to do to him once Crouch was arrested.
It was for this reason that Alice allowed herself to cling onto Barty Crouch Jr. like a lifeline, tremors of fear and uncertainty and remorse moving through her in vast waves of agony and pain, rendering the brunette Auror feeling breathless and totally exhausted.
Alice couldn't tell if she'd ever be okay again.
"Alice, love…" Crouch rested his chin on top of her hair and murmured into the shell of her ear. He pulled back but still held onto her to study his love's face. He watched as her eyes brimmed with tears and there was the initial reluctance at first, the desire to pull away, but then Alice let herself wrap her arms around his neck like he was the only one that she had left in this dark world.
He breathed in the calming scent of honeysuckle selfishly. Crouch held her, Alice Longbottom's warmth spilling over through the layers of his clothes and dark leather trench coat. He patted her on the top of her short dark hair as she sniffled once or twice into his shoulder.
"Shh, Al, it's alright…you're safe…you'll be safe…" Merlin spare him, but would there ever be a time in his life when he would see the love of his life not shed tears?
The two of them remained intact like this a little while longer, with his imagination rolling back to their days as students, not all that long ago, at Hogwarts, before the mossy bricks of the school and time spent outside on the grounds, either near the edge of this very Forest, or at the bankside of the Black Lake, hoping to entice the Black Squid to come out with morsels of food they'd always nick from the kitchens of their own meals from the Great Hall. He was never convinced of what he truly felt for Alice was love or not, but now, Crouch was certain of it.
Crouch heaved a tired sigh, thinking that the time had come to let Alice know that she was expecting a baby. Merlin, but he never thought he'd have to be having this conversation with her. He'd always held out an inkling of hope that one day, the babe growing within her belly would be his, that his love would have chosen him.
"You said you were sick?" he gently reminded her, finally breaking apart, yet keeping a comforting hand on her shoulder. His deep brown eyes penetrated into hers.
Alice paused, biting the inside wall of her cheek as she looked up towards Barty, suddenly feeling apprehensive. Seeing Crouch's growing annoyance and almost anger, though for reasons she could not yet understand, made her even more nervous. "I…" she began breathlessly, biting down on her bottom lip and sticking it out into a slight pout. "I'm not sure," she confessed. "I haven't really, well…felt like myself for a while, Barty."
As Barty raised his eyebrows in surprise and alarm as he studied Alice Longbottom's increasingly growing anxious expression, Crouch realized that losing her mum at such a young age and devoting her life after graduating from Hogwarts to what she believed a noble cause as an Auror and throwing herself into her duties at the Ministry with a vigor, had left Alice completely unprepared for the more delicate aspects of witchhood.
Understanding that his apprehension and anger that she was carrying Frank's baby and not his, Crouch forced his breathing to regulate back to something that resembled normalcy and calmed himself and attacked the same issue that the private St. Mungo's Healer employed under the Malfoy's had behaved when lovely Narcissa had first learned that she was expecting a baby.
"In what ways are you feeling…strange?" he asked, still keeping one hand on her shoulder. "Are you feeling well enough to walk, can you come away with me, away from this cave?" he asked, peering over his shoulder to look towards the mouth of the cave that the troll had taken up refuge in. He crinkled his nose in disgust and then turned back to look at Alice and study her gaze.
Alice swallowed the nervous lump in her throat and painfully twisted her fingers together, toying with her simple yellow gold wedding band. "Well, I—it seems like I'm always nauseous. My stomach is upset all the time. I can barely eat anything," she sighed, looking exhausted.
"Have you vomited at all like that a lot?" he asked.
"Yes. I—I'm always tired," Alice continued, her face paling. "I can't remember being so tired, so often." Alice paused to look at Crouch, her thin eyebrows raising in alarm so high up onto her forehead that they almost disappeared into her hairline.
What little color was left in her rapidly paling face promptly drained as her lips parted open in shock.
"Oh, you don't think that…that I could be…?" she breathed, her hands instinctively drifting to the flat of her stomach. Her eyes widened in shock and alarm. Her face grew stricken with fear as inside her mind, she ticked off the days since she'd last suffered from her usually horrible bought of bad cramps.
When she would get them, she'd be bedridden for the first two days and almost unable to go to work, much less attend to her duties in the Order alongside Frank. The last she could recollect having them was a little over two months ago. She gasped in surprise. She wanted to shout in shocked disbelief.
She was almost certain now that what she'd thought had been some mysterious sickness, was in fact, the early onset of the signs of pregnancy.
"Have you mentioned any of this to Longbottom?" Barty growled, his eyes narrowing as he looked at Alice.
Alice shook her head, much to Barty's surprise, though he ensured his face remained neutral and impassive. She was beginning to feel more than a little embarrassed. "I—I haven't," she whispered, a pink blush speckling its way along her cheeks. "I didn't want to worry him in case that it was nothing serious. He's worried over me so much lately." She lowered her long eyelashes and wrung her fingers together. "I didn't want to make him fuss over me even more if it was nothing." She confessed. "Or…or get his hopes up," she groaned.
Crouch paused and studied Alice's worried expression for several long moments in silence, looking at his friend and unrequited love with shockingly warm concern. "I understand," he sighed, turning away to pinch at the front of his temples, as though fighting against a splitting headache. "When we get back up to the castle, Al, I want Madame Pomfrey to examine you. I'm sure you…your husband, he'd tell you the same thing."
Alice's face drained of color at that thought. "Is that really necessary?" she squeaked, her pretty features twisting and contorting with a pained embarrassment.
Barty found it difficult not to growl in frustration and roll his eyes at his love's stubbornness.
"Yes," he hissed, hoping that the tone of his voice and its sternness left no room for Alice to misinterpret his words.
When Alice did not immediately agree to the nature of his request, he let out a frustrated sigh and continued, hoping to make Alice understand.
"To make sure that everything is alright." He saw Alice's huge almond-shaped eyes that he'd come to love so much over the years widen even further, and he cursed himself, trying to correct his unintended call for worry. "I'm sure you're fine. I mean, just to be certain. You know it's the right thing to do, sweetheart," he said, and outstretched his hand, and helped Alice to straighten her posture and stand upright. "Come. I'm not taking no for an answer."
Alice stared at Barty's outstretched palm for a moment as though the Auror had never quite seen anything like it. She reached out with her own hand but stopped mid-reach and hesitated, biting down on her lip.
"Do you mean that?" Alice whispered hesitantly, slowly lifting her gaze to meet Crouch's. She desperately searched Barty's face for any hint that the Death Eater might be lying to her, to lure her into a false sense of security so she would let her guard down around him.
But there was none within the man's glistening dark eyes that she could see. Which gave her a little bit of hope.
Crouch swallowed a lump in his throat as he nodded.
"I do," he answered solemnly, not a hint of joking or deceit within his tone or in his dark chocolate brown eyes. "Shall I take you back?" he suggested, still keeping his hand outstretched and motioning to Alice with a curt jerk of his head towards his hand for the witch to take it.
She let out a tiny sigh and eventually relented, and almost effortlessly, slipped her hand into his and squeezed it. Barty stiffened and let out a content sigh.
Their hands fit together so perfectly. Almost as if they were like the missing pieces to a Muggle jigsaw puzzle.
Like they were made for one another. If only Barty could get his sweet Alice to see that she should be with him, then maybe… maybe there was still a chance for him. That he could get his love to change her mind after all. He hoped so. "Come," he repeated, his tone firmer.
She nodded and shot him a shy white smile that caused his heart to flutter relentlessly within his chest.
"I hope you know the way out of these woods," Alice groaned. "Because I think we're lost." She swallowed and shot Crouch a sheepish grin as a faint blush speckled along her cheeks, though her light smile did not reach her eyes. "I haven't the faintest idea of where we came from or how to get out of here."
Barty frowned as he began to lead Alice down a path. At this point, he couldn't really be sure, either. He could only hope that he was leading her in the right direction. Though, he had no intention of taking her back to Hogwarts once they reached the edge of the wood. No.
Instead, he planned to take her to a much more refined place, a place suitable for a pureblood witch of Alice's stature.
He planned to take his Alice home.