"He's fine. He's in pretty bad condition but he'll be fine."

Noise. Sound. Voices.

Ron flutters into consciousness slowly, the world a haze. Everything feels blurry; his mind, his body- everything. Like he's forgotten how to think straight.

He can make out voices (or at least, he thinks they're voices, he's not completely sure.) Words that seem to drift from each other as soon as they're said, sentences stringing apart, their meaning lost.

Nothing makes sense. Where is he? How did he get there? What the hell happened to him?

His head. Oh god, his head. He can still hear the voices, vaguely- faint buzzes of echoes of people.

Water. Water would help him.

Gathering all his strength, he makes a noise somewhere between a groan and a whimper, his throat feeling as if it's being torn out of his body as he does so.

There's more noise, more movement. Something cold and damp is placed on his forehead, the person behind the gesture brushing his hair from his face in an almost tender way.

"Don't move, okay?" says a voice, soft and vulnerable. Catching the words as soon as they come, Ron begins to nod, but his head disagrees with the action, making him squeeze his eyes tight against the blinding pain.

"I said don't move!" The owner of the voice carefully repositions his head, presses the damp washcloth against his forehead again. "Just lay still." It whispers, calm and reassuring. "Fleur's gone to find something for the pain, she'll only be a few minutes."

This time Ron doesn't nod, but he does use all the remaining strength of his muscles to grip the hand he has found to be in his.

"Hermione?" his voice is a croaky, fragile thing, and it makes him wince to speak, but he has to hear her, has to know she's there.

"It's me." She squeezes his hand back. Gently. "You're okay now, we're all okay now. Try not to speak." There's emotion in her voice; Ron thinks she may have been crying. He wants to reach out to her, to comfort her, to hold her in his arms and tell her that it's all okay now, that he's okay and that she's okay and that everything is going to be okay.

Except that it's not and Ron is delusional if he thinks he can convince either of them otherwise. His body still sort of feels like it's on fire, and his limbs are so weak that he doubts they'd be able to support paper.

So instead he tries to focus on their intertwined hands, her thumb stroking the back of his palm; or her fingers threading themselves through his hair, down his face, resting against his cheek.

This isn't so bad, he begins thinking, maybe we can just stay like th-

A loud noise. Pain. Ron winces, and Hermione's grip on his hand tightens. "Shhh, it's okay, it's just Fleur, it's okay."

He feels another hand take his, colder than Hermione's, and together they help ease him into a sitting position. His head feels like it's going to burst, but Hermione whispers soft reassurances to him, and soon it dies back down to a dull ache. He can almost use her voice to drown out the hurt from behind his eyes.

Something cold is pressed to his lips. "Drink. You will feel better." Fleur's voice, somehow both gentle yet demanding at once. Ron allows the thin liquid to be poured into his mouth, and doing his best not to gag on the rancid taste, he swallows.

"Good." Fleur says then, "You should try and open your eyes soon, let zem adjust." She shares a quick, whispered conversation with Hermione and then Ron hears the door open and close; she's gone.

Hermione's hand is rubbing his back, between his shoulder blades, and her other is clasped within his. She doesn't say anything. Ron doesn't really expect her to.

Now that his head feels clearer and he can think properly, Ron finds himself even more confused than he was in the first place.

He opens his eyes.

At first, he has to squeeze them shut again, the light sending more shoots of pain directly through his skull. Hermione's presence is gone from beside him, but it returns just as he's about to call out. "I dimmed the lights." she says, quietly. "I thought it might help."

Ron swallows the emotion he feels at the tenderness in her voice and opens his eyes again.

She's there; safe and sound and alive, amber in the orange glow of the light. His heart does a dance of relief in his chest and even his head slows down enough to appreciate the fact that she's sat in front of him, breathing.

For a while they stay like that, trapped in the other's gaze, but then Hermione moves. Slowly, as if asking for confirmation, she goes to hug him. Ron raises his arms as high as he can stand and wraps them around her small torso, burying his face in the matted curls at the base of her neck.

Breathing in her scent, resting his fingertips on the small of her back as if seeking for confirmation that she's real, Ron closes his eyes and lets the moment wash over him like a tidal wave. In return, Hermione clutches him like she's afraid he'll fall through her fingers at any second; he can hear her quiet sobs into his hair, feel her soft lips pressed to his forehead, and he thinks: This isn't fair.

It isn't fair how close they came to losing each other. It isn't fair that he was only a few minutes away from never seeing her smile again, never hearing her laugh again, never holding her hand in his again.

It isn't fair how broken they've all become since the start of this fucking war, and it makes him angry to think about because she doesn't deserve this, none of them deserve this. They're just kids, for fuck's sake. What do they know about fighting a war that shouldn't be theirs to fight?

At the start of the war, Ron had vowed to himself that he would do his best to keep her safe. And he had, in a way. When he'd called out back at the Manor, it hadn't been a conscious decision. He wasn't aware of ever having made it, it was just a reflex, a reaction- something necessary to keep her safe.

He can't remember ever being as terrified as he'd been when the words left his lips, but he knew as soon as he'd said it that it was the truth; that nothing could ever make him take it back.

Sometimes it scares him, how much he loves her.

Hermione's sobs turn to sniffles above him and she lifts herself out of his arms like she's tearing herself away from a dream. He lets his arms fall to his side as she takes his hand again, giving it a gentle squeeze. "It doesn't hurt too badly, does it?" she asks, concern dripping from her every pore.

"Nah, it's manageable now." He tries to smile, but his throat burns when he speaks; he feels like he's recently swallowed fire.

Hermione catches this, for her brow furrows and she scours the bedside table for her wand. "Fleur says you can have some more pain potion in a while, but water will have to do for now, okay?"

Ron hums his agreement, not trusting his voice when the promise of water is so close. Hermione casts the spell non-verbally and brings the glass of water to his lips; his hands shake too much to hold it still. He sips greatfully, the water acting like magic as it runs down his throat.

"Thanks," he says, voice stronger although still hoarse, as Hermione places the now empty glass back on the bedside table.

She smiles at him, a strained smile that makes his insides itch. "You're sure you're okay?" She asks, "You don't need anything else?"

Ron shakes his head, the movement feeling a lot more welcome than it had done just moments prior. "It's okay, 'm good."

"Right then." Hermione says and starts fiddling with the frayed hem of her sleeve. "That's good."

She looks scarily close to crying again, so Ron tries to change the subject, "Hermione, uh, where exactly are we? And uh, how did we... get here?" He finds that the more he uses his voice, the easier it becomes.

She doesn't reply, staring intently at the floor below.

"Hermione?" he speaks quietly into the thick air that surrounds them. "Are you okay?"

Her head snaps up to look at him and she nods with vigour, an act that is betrayed by the tears falling from her eyes. "I just..." Her voice is quiet, Ron has to strain to hear her, "I thought I was going to lose you back there." She says, and then the tears come faster, spilling down her cheeks like raindrops down a windowpane.

Ron doesn't know what to do, what to say. He feels like he's been stepping around Hermione for so long that any form of physical intimacy feels out of place, and this, well- this may just be the most vulnerable they've been to each other in a while. "I'm okay," he says, trying to cheer her, "It'll take more than that to do me in, don't worry." She doesn't laugh at his weak attempt at humour and the smile drops from his face like a rock.

"I could hear you screaming. I could hear everything and I've never been so scared in my entire life. You could've died!" Hermione wraps her arms around herself; the action reminds Ron of how small animals curl into themselves to hide, and he wonders if that's what Hermione's doing: hiding.

"It's over now." He points out gently, wanting to tell her what she needs to hear. "It's over and we're fine. I'm fine."

Hermione looks at him skeptically through her tears. "I don't want to fight anymore." she says softly, and it's such a blunt statement, so real and honest that he feels a shiver up his spine. "I wouldn't be able to bear it if I lost you."

Ron gulps down the heavy feeling that's settled itself in his throat and takes her other hand in his. "You're not going to lose me. You're not going to lose anyone, okay? We'll all be fine. I promise."

Hermione turns away from him, "You can't promise something like that."

"Then I'll do my best to make sure it doesn't happen." he vows.

"No!" Hermione raises her voice and Ron startles. "No. I don't want you putting yourself in danger for me anymore. Please."

Ron stares. He watches the way her lip tremples as she fights to regain her composure, the way she closes her eyes to stop anymore tears from escaping, the way she still manages to look beautiful depsite all the flyaway hairs and dirt on her face.

"Okay." he says, fully aware he's making a promise he can't keep; has no intentions of keeping. "I won't."

Hermione nods once, satisfied with his response, and then he expression changes. Softens. "You should lie down." she says, holding the back of her hand to his forehead. "Get some rest."

Whilst Ron can't deny that he feels tired, he also doesn't feel right resting when so much occurred in the past few hours. The throbbing in his head is gradually building back up, like the echoes of a hangover, and really, sleep would be a great bliss.

Hermione fluffs the pillow supporting his head and lets him use her shoulder for support as he lowers himself down onto the bed. Smiling weakly at him, she runs her fingers through his hair, smoothing out the long bit of fringe at the front and down the sides of his face. Her touch feels nice, comforting; it feels like home in a way that home hasn't felt for years.

"Just try and get some rest, okay?" she whispers, "Fleur said it will do you some good to sleep for a little while."

Ron murmurs in agreement, his hand still entwined within hers, reveling in the simple comfort of her presence.

It's enough. Right now, sleep seems like the only viable option. His bones ache, he feels weak, and his head feels foggy. He's already tired just from having talked to Hermione for a while, and now- now he almost can't wait to drift into slumber.

There's still things that don't make sense, still things he's confused about; but it can wait.

He focuses on Hermione, and soon he is lost to his unconscious.

The next few days pass by in a blur. He spends most of his time sleeping or in bed. It's getting rather tiresome, but Fleur insists that his body needs time to heal (a fact that he can't really argue because without the liberal doses of potions he seems to take a dozen times a day, Ron's not sure he would be able to think clearly, let alone get out of bed.)

Hermione stays with him most days. Sometimes they make small talk (although is it really small talk if it feels like the largest thing in the room? Ron's not sure.) Sometimes Hermione will talk and he'll just listen, drawing strength from her voice, and sometimes they don't talk at all. They definitely don't talk about the Manor. Ron has tried to bring it up a couple of times (he still hasn't got the full story about what happened- just fragments that he's tried to fit together like some twisted jigsaw puzzle) but Hermione becomes distant whenever he does, so he's stopped trying.

There are times when he's in too much pain to really think clearly- when noise bounces around and shakes his skull, when the light infiltrates his eyes and makes him dizzy. Those times, Hermione will hold his hand and help him bear through it. It's not exactly ideal but he figures that as long as she's there, he'll be okay.

Harry has come up to sit with him a handful of times. He doesn't come often, and when he does, he doesn't stay for long- but Ron understands. He feels an ache somewhere in his chest whenever he thinks about what Harry must be going through.

The first time Harry ventured into the small room where Ron rests, it had been early in the morning sometime after Dobby's funeral. Ron was awake (his sleeping schedule is pretty fucked up- courtesy of Bellatrix and all the potions he now takes,) and whilst Harry had never actually said the word 'sorry' it was clearly written all over his face.

Ron had wanted to say it then. Tell him how it wasn't his fault, stop him from blaming and beating himself up about it, but the words had gotten stuck in his throat. Harry had took Ron's hand in his own without saying a word and Ron just knew it wasn't the time for talking. They could talk later, he decided, fully aware that later was an indeterminate date that would most likely not occur.

Dobby's death had taken a lot out of Harry (well, all of them really.) Ron remembers the elf's funeral as one of the only times he's been out of this bed since they arrived at Shell Cottage almost four days ago. Fleur had assisted him in walking down to where Harry had laid Dobby's grave, a well flowered area to the rear of the modest garden. He had sat down next to Hermione and leant against her shoulder for support, he remembers they exchanged some words, although what the words were he has no clue. Luna had then said a piece about Dobby, followed by Harry. When it got to his turn, he simply took off his shoes and laid them on the elf's grave. Dobby always liked clothes.

Hermione was shaken, and Ron was forced to remember S.P.E.W; maybe it hadn't been such a bad idea after all.

Harry had seemed vacant after that. Always with a faraway expression, like he was looking at things none of the others could see.

Ron hates seeing them like this and knowing there's nothing he can do to help. Whenever he's around Hermione, she's too busy nurturing him to worry about herself, and Ron can't seem to reach through to her. Harry's the same, although Ron has seen very little of Harry recently.

He's worried for them.

Nightmares haven't had the chance to come yet. Ron thinks they would have done- if he wasn't intentionally drinking the bottles of dreamless sleep potion that Fleur hands him before he drifts off.

"I'm sorry, Ron, but you've already used it three nights in a row, any more would be very bad for your 'ealth." She'd said in a soft tone, like she was scared he'd break. (He's really starting to get sick of that- people treating him like he's fragile, but what can he do about it? Nothing.)

"That's fine," Ron had replied, attempting a smile that tried to convey what he was feeling. An 'I'm fine, don't worry about me.' sort of smile. He's not sure it worked because Fleur had simply given him a pitying look before ruffling his hair gently and leaving the room.

The fire is back; he's in pain again. It courses through his body like flames, and when the scream escapes, it vanishes.

Ron bolts upright, breathing heavily.

Just a dream.

He searches around the room for some sort of clarity. He's shaking, and his heart is pounding and he feels like he can't breathe.

"Ron?" Hermione's voice, just out of reach. He tries to find her, but between the foggy state of his mind and the dim light, she is nowhere to be seen.

"Ron, it's okay, you're just dreaming." Her voice wobbles. Ron concentrates on the figures in front of him, tries to find their outlines, convinced one of them must belong to her.

"Hermione?" he calls into the silence.

There's a hand on his shoulder. Ron almost throws it off before recognition sets in. "I'm right here, Ron."

Someone turns the light on and the world comes into view again.

Hermione is kneeling beside his bed, bushy hair all over the place, concern etched deep into her features. Behind her stands Harry, Bill, Dean, Luna, and Fleur.

Hermione turns around to exchange words with them. Ron grabs her hand, trying to silently communicate what he doesn't have the strength to say: *Stay with me. Please.*

The others leave, and Ron is scared Hermione will stand up and join them- but she doesn't. Sitting herself on the side of his bed, she squeezes his hand, running her fingers over his wrist.

"You're okay?" she asks, quiet and concerned.

"Mm, just a bad dream."

"Do you... Would it help to talk about it?"

"I... Er... No. I'm fine, honestly." He tries to smile at her but she raises an eyebrow sadly, "Maybe tomorrow, okay? I promise I'm fine."

Hermione nods, but it isn't hard to see she doesn't believe him. "Do you want to try sleeping again?" she asks instead.

"No!" He exclaims before thinking it through. "I mean... not... not yet."

Truth is, he just doesn't want Hermione to leave. It's something he can't explain but when she's here, he feels safer.

He squeezes her hand again, willing her to understand that he just can't do this alone; not now.

She squeezes back, and a heavy silence settles.

"You should've let her take me instead." her voice comes out of the stillness, small and afraid, but it send jolts up Ron's spine just as much as if she'd yelled.

"What? Hermione I could neve-"

"I'm serious, Ron. I've treated you like nothing but a piece of dirt these past few months and then you offer yourself up in my place? I don't deserve that."

"Hey hey, wait a second. You had every right to treat me like the arse I was those months. I left you, for fuck's sake! I deserved to be treated badly! If anything, I owed it to you."

Hermione is quiet. Then, "That's why you did it then? Because you felt like you owed me?"

"What? No! I said that becase it was true, because I care about you, and because if anything happened to you I'd never forgive myself!"

"Oh, Ron." Hermione speaks, quietly so, and even in the dark he hears the telltale signs that indicate tears.

"It's okay. Hermione, it's okay now."

"It's not!" She cries, "It's not okay! You can't just put your life on the line for me and then say it's okay because it's not!"

"Hermione, I don't understa-"

"You think I don't care about you either? You think I could forgive myself if anything worse had happened to you?" Here, she pauses and takes a deep breath before continuing, softer, "You think I'd be fine without you?"

For once, speech doesn't come easily to him. He'd known that she cared about him, obviously, but the rest? Truthfully, Ron had thought he'd fucked up with Hermione when he left. He knew there was probably no redemption from that night, and he thought Hermione would've taken the same view... but now...

When he left, it seemed like an ending of everything that they were, everything they could've been.

Maybe it's not over yet.

"No, I... I just... Fuck Hermione, I don't know what I thought. I mean, I wasn't really thinking about it anyway, was I?"

"What do you mean?"

"Well, it's not like I sat there and thought 'I should yell out and sacrifice myself for the girl I love' or anything, I told you, it was just something that happened! I didn't think about it before I did it, I just... did!"

Hermione had gone quiet.

"What?" Ron asked, bemused. "What's wrong?"

"What you just said..." she trailed off

"What about it? I swear it's true, honest."

"No, no, before that..."

"What?"

"You said... you said 'the girl I love'."

"Oh." He waits then, "I did?"

Hermione nods.

"Oh." He says again. Way to go Weasley, he berates himself, if it wasn't fucked up before then it definitely is now. "Shit. Uh, I didn't mean... Well, I did, but it's not... I don't expect... Uh..."

"It's okay." Hermione's voice interrupts his rambling, "It's okay, I... I know."

Ron's head snaps back up from where he was staring at the floor, "Yeah?"

"Yeah." She smiles at him, but it's not like the pitying smiles he's gotten so used to from her these last few days; it's soft and caring and it makes him feel like there's so much more to life than whatever moment they're living in right now.

For the first time in a long time, he feels okay.

"Right. Well, er, that's... That's good then." He says, more to fill the silence than anything else. She knows? But then... does that mean..?

Ron's brain is off at 200 miles per hour, so he misses it when Hermione speaks. "Huh?"

"I *said*, you should probably try and get back to sleep now."

His first reaction is to protest, to rebel against the tone her voice has taken on, how the intimacy of just a few seconds ago has disappeared without a trace.

But merlin, is he tired.

"Yeah, probably best."

"Would it..." Hermione begins, but trails off; he can see the doubt written all over her features, even in the dark. "Would it help if I stayed?"

It would. He's so certain of the fact that he wants to scream it out, hold on and never let go.

"I guess, yeah. But you don't have to. I don't want you to stay up because of me."

Hermione gives him that same smile again, "I won't, don't worry. I'll sleep in here for tonight."

Ron blinks. "Okay but... there isn't a bed." He thinks she may be sleep deprived. Either that, or she thinks he's going to let her sleep on the floor.

"Well, there's your bed? I mean, if it's okay with you, of course. If not I'll just..."

But he never found out what she would have done because he shuffled to the other side of the bed so quickly he almost fell of the edge. "Thanks," says Hermione, almost a whisper as she cautiously climbs in next to him.

It's hard to tell with the lights off, but he's almost certain that she's blushing. (He knows he is, he can practically feel the heat radiating off of his ears.)

Their bodies aren't touching, but Ron feels as if electric is running through his veins anyway. It's strangely intimate, sharing a bed. He turns to his side and watches as she does the same until they're facing each other.

"Thanks." he says, a whisper.

"For what?" Hermione asks, her eyes alight with... something he doesn't recognise. Concern? Care?

Love?

"For, y'know... staying... with me."

"Oh," she says softly, smiling tenderly at him, "Yeah. No problem." Hermione reaches her hand out to him, and he claps it within his own, bringing them to rest inbetween their bodies. Her face is the last thing he sees before he closes his eyes and drifts into sleep.