A/N: This is for All Sorts of Love Challenge, where I have used a Canon Pairing. It is also for Pairing Diversity Boot Camp using Prompt #14 Love Hurts.

Pairing: Molly Weasley and Arthur Weasley

Rated: K+

It smelt of death. It felt like ice. I could barely move as I walked down the hall. The desperate attempts to spread Christmas cheer a joke beyond words.

As a pair of Medi-Witches ran down the corridor I moved out of their way, the fake, tinsel like pine scratching me like knives. I felt sick and guilty as I moved closer. I told him everyday that I was coping for him, that it wasn't hard. But everything was just a complete lie.

The house was cold without him, every day he spent in here the more ice built around me. Every second he spent, the harder it was to keep back tears. When he talked about the end, I always changed the subject. I didn't believe he would get better, he was sick, but if I heard him talk so freely about something that hurt me so strongly, I was sure waves of tears would never stop falling.

I came to his room wiping away any look that may give away my cover and wandered in.

"Molly," he breathed so quietly I had to strain to hear him.

"Arthur," I replied as cheerfully as I could sitting a box of chocolates, with a useless bow on it, on his bedside table and kissing his forehead. "Have you seen a Healer today?" I asked sitting next to his bed.

"Merry Christmas," he said and I could tell by his voice that there was no good news.

"Merry Christmas," I smiled masking my fears.

"The Healer said that it won't be long," he breathed. I felt rooted to my seat, Arthur had talked about it, but there was never a confirmation from a professional before. I could feel the tears burning my eyes and I wanted to change the subject but they fell down my face and I lay my head on his chest crying harder then I had ever cried before. His hand moved up to my head and I could hear him trying to console me.

"Don't leave me," I cried desperately as if that would change the entire outcome.

"I am not leaving you," he breathed against my head.

"I can't live without you," I cried clutching at him as one last desperate attempt to keep him with me.

"I am here for Christmas," he said and instantly I felt the tears stop. He was with me, even though I couldn't bare the thought of him leaving me forever didn't mean I needed to ruin the last great holiday we had together. So I lay with him. I lay there while each of our kids came in and talked to him and listened to his heart beat blissfully in his chest. I didn't go home that night, and I didn't open any presents that year, because the rhythm of him living was the only thing I needed. And I was clutching on to it.