A/N : A big fat thank you to MsBinns for holding my hand thorough the whole process of writing this fic. Her thoughts and input helped improving this piece ;-) And if someone out there still isn't reading 'Australia', you clearly are missing out.
Their first night after the war is a blur for the both of them. They are so exhausted that they barely even remember how they reached the Gryffindor tower, let alone the couch in the common room.
She can't tell how long she's been sleeping, but when she opens her eyes, the room is quiet and dark.
Was it already night when we fell asleep? she thinks absentmindedly.
Ron's body is warm against hers, and she closes her eyes tightly. She breathes in deeply, taking in his presence next to her, thanking deities she doesn't believe in for allowing the both of them to survive the awful events of the war. Now all we have to do is live.
When she opens her eyes again, she finds him staring at her with so many emotions reflected in his eyes, she almost forgets to breathe.
So what now?
Live.
So she kisses him and doesn't let go of him until sunlight shines through the thick curtains of the common room.
Now we live.
...
She turns in the bed and lets her hand slide towards where his body is and finds it empty. She wakes fully in barely an instant, the end of the war too near for her not to. The bed isn't warm anymore, which means he's been up for a while.
She finds him in her parent's kitchen, staring emptily at the garden through the window above the sink.
"Ron?" she speaks softly as not to startle him, and walks towards him, her naked feet echoing on the tile of the kitchen floor.
He doesn't flinch, doesn't even move or say something to let her know he acknowledged her presence in the room.
She embraces him, flushing her body against his, burying her nose in the fabric of his t-shirt in between his shoulder blades and her hands circling his waist, holding him tightly against her. His body is stiff, but she can feel him slightly relaxing against her.
"Thank you," she whispers and his hands lace with hers on his stomach.
She breathes a sigh of relief.
"What for?" His voice is raspy and raw, the words spoken too softly.
"For coming halfway across the world with me. I needed you... I need you." And I feel bad for tearing you away from your family after F-fr...," she still can't say his name without feeling large unstoppable tears rolling down her cheeks and her throat tightening painfully. How can he even go through a day without crying is a mystery to her, she's been walking a fine line since the end of the war, so emotionally raw all the time. Fred wasn't her brother, he was his.
He's silent for a while and she feels him sniffling regularly, his body tremoring. But then he turns around and kisses her forehead lightly.
"You didn't tear me away from my family Hermione," he runs his hand through her hair pausing only for a moment before speaking again, "I wasn't going to let you go through getting your parents back alone."
After that, she takes his hand and leads him back to bed.
...
It's the little things she misses.
The way his hand automatically finds hers when they are close to one another. How his eyes light up when he smiles, although it's slower now, it's been since the war. Or when she steps in the shower after him, how she can still detect the smell of his shampoo in the air of the foggy bathroom while she just stands in the middle of the bathroom, eyes closed and inhaling deeply.
And now she stands in the girls showers at Hogwarts and she is hit with a sudden rush of nostalgia. She showers late, just a habit she's taken at the beginning of the year so she can be alone with her thoughts more easily. The girls bathrooms can be a crowed place.
But right now, being alone with her thoughts makes it worse.
They've just started the term after the Christmas break, and seeing Ron and everyone at the Burrow made her realises how much she misses them and him.
She forgot how it was. She doesn't understand how she could have forgotten, being beside Harry and Ron was all she knew while walking those corridors. But everything was so different since the war hit Hogwarts, or maybe it was just her, who was different.
Christmas at the Burrow, although painfully darken by the empty chair at the diner table, was all she needed and more. And now she's back, it's dark outside and she feels lonely and hit by a desperate longing of freckled hands reaching for her under the diner table.
Three days, she got back three days ago, she hasn't seen him in three days... How is she going to be able to go through that term. She feels the tell tale signs of her thoughts spiralling down, her body starts to shake and tears burn through her closed eyelids.
She takes a deep breath and wills the tears away. She managed to go through the first four months fine enough, she can do it again.
That night she lies in bed, and snuggles into the jumper she stole from Ron over the break. It still smells like him. She falls asleep with a smile on her face.
...
After everything they've been through, and even though the war ended a couple of years ago, the night of the anniversary of the battle, he doesn't come up to bed.
This is the worst of the nights they've spent since then, because they're together, but apart.
He hasn't even try to reach out to her. He just drowns himself in sorrow, while she's in bed by herself, cold and feeling useless.
Maybe they should be celebrating their first kiss, but they can't possibly do that tonight.
Not tonight, the night when Ron realised that he will now always be older than Fred. He, the youngest boy, older than his brother, whom will never get older.
That night, they are both alone in the dark.
...
After a particularly tough Auror mission, she is awoken by his warm body against her, grinding.
Although it happens more often that she'd admit to anyone, not that she is complaining, she knows he needs her presence to feel better, to forget.
They've known each other long enough to understand that these times are more than just sex.
His lips all over her exposed skin, his hands undressing her and she loses herself in him.
...
It's the evening of his 22nd birthday and they are rowing.
Pretty badly.
She doesn't recall how the argument started, just that she is completely infuriated by his attitude.
They made a point long ago of never going to bed angry. They've been angry at each other for too long too often in their past and it can't happen again. Not with what they have.
When they row like tonight, it ends up, more often than not, with one of them kissing the other hard on the lips, tongues continuing a different battle and bodies pushed against furnitures, clothes torn apart. They have mind blowing make up sex. Usually anywhere but in their bed.
These are the nights when they are less cautious about their surrounding and have been caught embarrassingly too many times by pretty much all the members of their families.
...
It comes out of nowhere, how can't it, they left the coldness of Malfoy Manor more than five years ago.
She didn't expect to forget and chase the nightmares away in one week. Yet, the nights when she can't fight the nightmares away, she is reminded of how vulnerable she was, how she still is.
She's gotten better at it. But there's just nights when she's just not strong enough and recalls too vividly the burning of the curse within her, when she remembers strongly how people she loved died.
When Ron is home, he shakes her awake and rocks her until she stops crying. But sometimes he is away on a mission or just working late and she has no one to anchor herself to.
When it happens on those nights, she grabs the closest book she finds, holds it comfortingly close against her chest, turns all the lights on and breathes unevenly, willing her dark thoughts to leave her distressed mind and her shaking body.
She can never go back to sleep afterwards.
...
It's the night before their wedding. They've been convinced by both their mothers that there is ancestral traditions to follow and that they needed to spend the night separated.
Hermione hates traditions.
They have been living together, sleeping together since the end of the war. They moved in their own place after she finished her 7th year at Hogwarts. They spent almost every nights since then, together. When they were apart, it wasn't normally by choice.
So why is this night different?
It's January, she is cold and painfully alone in her childhood bedroom. Even though she grew up there, the walls are unfamiliar now and she can't settle her mind. She is pacing in front the bed, looking at the alarm clock by her bed every minute, counting down how long she has to wait to start to prepare for the wedding. Surely 3:37 in the morning is too early.
When she looks at the clock for the umpteenth time, she breathes out a frustrated sigh.
"Raah! I can't do this!"
And she disapparates away, they've never been a traditional couple anyway.
...
Rose is crying.
She turns sleepily in the bed and playfully nudges him in his sleep.
"Your turn," she says groggily.
He doesn't answer and she doesn't know if he is indeed still asleep or if he is ignoring her.
"Ron, please," she implores him, shaking him slightly. "I'm the one who's going to have to stay awake to feed her, could you please go get her?"
He opens his eyes slowly and nods before dropping a light kiss on her forehead.
When he comes back less than a minute later with the crying infant in his arms, she is sitting upright, her nightshirt removed ready to breastfeed and he stops himself in the middle of the room.
"What?" He's looking at her with fire in his eyes and she takes it all in. The way he looks at her, how he sways lightly to calm Rose, how his hands hold their child protectively.
"That's a sight I just don't want to get used to," he replies shrugging and flashing her her favourite crocked grin, resuming his walk to close the distance between them.
She still hasn't managed to slow down her heart beat when he handles her the baby, her flush matching Rose's.
She feeds the baby and he kisses her shoulder, watching their child tenderly.
"You can go back to sleep you know."
"I know, but I don't want to."
Breathe.
He caresses the child's head softly, his hand travels up toward her chin turning her face to him before capturing her lips with his.
That night, they don't go back to sleep after Rose is put back to bed.
...
When she starts her second trimester pregnant with Hugo, all she craves is him. He doesn't recall a time she's been this randy but he's not going to be the one to stop her.
He wakes to her body on top of him, her hands roaming all over his body. Her lips underneath his belly button and going souther. And sweet Merlin she has him at her mercy within seconds.
It usually takes him less than a few minutes to just grab her by the hips, turn her over and pound hard into her. They come fast.
His kisses are languid and sloppy afterwards.
...
Hugo is born at 3:47 in the morning after a surprisingly short but tough labor, and he is the most gorgeous boy she's seen.
She is exhausted and worried about Rose whom even though she is been sent at the burrow right after she fell asleep, will be wondering where her parents went when she wakes up.
Right now though, it's the middle of the night and just the three of them. She watches Ron rocking the baby and walking around her bed at St Mungo. He's cooing to their son and suddenly she recalls the boy with dirt on his nose on a train those many years ago, the hero she kissed in the midst of a war and then again the next day on the velvet couch of their childhood home.
She remembers how she felt in that moment, and as she looks at Ron now, he is looking at her, openly crying and happy.
Now we live.