Author's Note: Hey there everyone! It's been a long time since I updated this story and I'm sorry for that. Fortunately, since I have essays to write and midterms to deal with all that stuff I was supposed to be doing provided my mind with the opportunity of how to work this little oneshot out. Don't you love procrastination? In case none of you knew this, I participated in a drabble competition in July(which I took first place for the hard category and I'm a little proud of myself) and a couple of my drabbles were Ron and Hermione centered if you want to check them out. Let's see "Laundry" was the purest shot of fluff I have ever written, "Hollow" is my first attempt at Hermione's POV, there are also a few Harry and Ron bromance centered ones if no one knew those existed and might be interested to read me attempting to write my favorite characters in less than 550 words.
Away from shameless promotion and back to the present, this takes place after Chapter 11: A Little Chat. So if you aren't familiar with the plots of Chapters 10 and 11, you might want to check them out. Although it's one of my weaker chapters and I therefore cannot reccommend you read it Chapter 14: Funeral is relevant too. But I don't like it as well. This is an angsty chapter, but Ron is an angsty guy. Thanks to NiftyGirl for confirming my suspicions that Ron would in fact continue to stall. I have not morphed in JK Rowling since I last updated. I love reviews, and this is the part where I offer thanks to all of you who did review on the last chapter, so thanks to LillyMay77 and F Maurice. Can't think of what else I usually say in Author's Notes...
Enjoy!

Chapter 18: Someday

Roughly, he wiped his eyes with his scarred and burned hand. To better ignore the warm wetness that came away with it, he thrust it ungraciously back into the dewy grass underneath him. He looked out over the orchard where he had spent so much of his childhood. He had sat underneath this tree a thousand times over the years, and its rough bark was oddly comforting to him now. His eyes stung again and he forced them closed as if by depriving them of oxygen he could somehow prevent the tears from forming. The darkness of his closed eyelids was hardly comforting, but he refused to open them instead keeping his blind face pointed stubbornly across the orchard, away from his home and the disgustingly carved stone that he knew was located on the other side of it.

The war was over. Voldemort was gone and he no longer lived in world in every decision his best friend made would be dictated by that madman. The woman he loved would no longer be persecuted because of what she was. What was left of his family was safe. It was over.

But if it was really over, it seemed to Ron that he shouldn't have to keep reminding himself.

He supposed it was only because he had actually memorized the sound of her footsteps that he heard her move towards him through the wet grass. Her presence caused something to relax inside him, and only partially reluctantly he opened his eyes to watch her sit down beside him.

"Hey," she said quietly, pulling her mass of brown curls to sit on one worn sweater clad shoulder.

"Hey," he forced a tiny smile for her, because she was so breathtakingly beautiful and he didn't want her to feel helpless the way she had before.

"Your dad told me you might be out here." She explained, as if he had any cause to question her presence. "But if you'd rather be alone-"

"You're fine." He said as firmly as he could, hoping that she did not see the involuntary blush that crept from his cheeks to his ears as he remembered all to vividly the way she had slipped into his bed the night before and the conversation he had had with his father this morning in which the words "I love her" had been tossed around freely.

She seemed to relax at his permission and even offered him a slight shadow of the perfect smile that he had once feared never to see again.

"I hope I didn't wake you," he said awkwardly, entirely unsure whether or not their newest sleeping arrangements were supposed to be mentioned in the daylight or not. "When I got up."

"You didn't." she replied simply and Ron found himself scanning her face to see if it was a lie. At last he reasoned that if she had overheard what he'd told his father, she would say something and he let his eyes fall away from her face.

"How'd you sleep?" she asked when his focus was turned back to the grass below him.

"Better," Ron admitted, his cheeks moving upward in the first natural smile to cross his face in days. The action felt strange foreign to him, even though he could still remember all the laughs he and his friends and brothers and Ginny had shared over the years. "You?"

"Much better," he could almost hear the smile cross her face, whether because of her sleep or in response to his own he could not tell. He wanted to look at her, to see something other than pain and fear on her face again, but he hesitated.

"It'll be okay, yeah? Someday it will." It wasn't really a question. He knew enough about humanity and the world to know that life would indeed start again. He knew that someday the dramatic rise in his heart rate that Hermione caused in him would seem important again. He knew that eventually he would have to take Harry's side against something again, and the future would matter to him again. There'd be jokes again, and things to look forward to and something inside his head other than weariness and pain.

Hermione nodded. He watched her, wondering if the mythical 'okay someday' that she was imagining looked anything like his. He hoped it did. "Yes, it will."

"And I sort of hate that." He admitted, noticing regretfully as he spoke that it did sound just as crazy out loud as he'd feared. "I mean, he doesn't even get to be. Doesn't seem like I deserve to be okay someday."

"I know." She sighed, as if deciding at last to do something that she knew would be unpleasant. Next thing he knew she was kneeling directly in front of him, so close she could have rested her chin upon his bended knee. "Fred didn't deserve what happened to him." Her voice broke slightly over his name, but somehow her eyes held his captive and despite his gut reaction to turn from the mention of his dead brother, he stared straight back at her. "He deserved to have a long life surrounded by the people he loved, and it's a terrible tragedy that he doesn't get that. But it doesn't change what you deserve, Ron Weasley. You're a beautiful person; you're brave and strong and loyal and you're going to be okay and I'm not going to let you feel guilty about it."

He loved her.

Suddenly he remembered that she had kissed him in the Room of Requirement, and slept beside him, and that he had kissed her the morning of his brother's funeral and told his father that he loved her that very morning.

Cautiously he reached out and brushed a single curl away from her face. She did not flinch away from his touch. There were tears in her brown eyes, and he desperately hoped that his own were now dry though he suspected they weren't.

He could say it now; it would be easy really. He could just open his mouth and say it; he wouldn't even need to say it very loud as close as she was. He could whisper it probably, and she would understand. It was only three words, he could do it.

"You know how hard he'd hit us all right now? If he were here?" He didn't know why he'd said that, it certainly wasn't what he wanted to say. He wasn't even sure where his mind had found that thought, or the chuckle that accompanied it. Even to his ears he could tell that the laugh was born more from pain and pure nerves than whatever humor there might be in imagining what Fred would do if he were here.

"Pretty hard." She agreed, the tears in her eyes had finally spilled over as she spoke quietly, leaning forward on her toes to plant a kiss gently onto his forehead.

Disgusted with himself as he was for ruining a seemingly perfect opportunity, he took heart. Someday he would tell her, and if what Bill and his father and Harry and some strange feeling in his gut implied was right, she would be happy to hear it.

If this sort of thing kept up, someday had the potential to not only be okay, but pretty damn wonderful.