Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Tina’s gotten her hair cut. Her coat isn’t the same, either. Darker, heavier, made of leather. 

She’s still wonderfully familiar. No, that isn’t the word. Is there a word for knowing someone briefly in person, and growing closer and closer in writing, and finally seeing them again?

Newt decides that there should be, because he feels a pull stronger even than what he’d felt on the docks, as though he’s seeing both her and each word that she’s written him in the past months. 

Each word that she used to write, until she stopped a month ago.

She stands on a street corner, waiting for cars to pass as she exits MACUSA onto a side street.

He takes a breath to call her name.

"Watch where you're going!"

"Sorry," Newt glances at the back of the man who'd run into him, gripping his case tightly.

"Newt."

Newt looks up. Tina. She'd heard his voice. He stares into her eyes, and is lost.

She takes a halting step closer.

"Tina," he says. It's a relief to voice her name.

She looks down, clearing her throat. "What are you doing in New York, Mr. Scamander?"

He nearly flinches. His name is an angry, hurt word on her lips. Why? Is she...has she decided he's not...he's been to rambling in his letters, too--too muddled. Does she not know how much he-that he-

What had he said in the last one? The thing is, I usually find people so difficult to talk to. Or write to. But sometimes the littlest thing happens, and I pick up a quill to tell you about it, and it’s so easy to do that I hardly notice. It’s quite strange. 

The Auror Department had also been meddling in Beast Division matters again the last time he wrote her. A bunch of careerist hypocrites. 

“I, erm—“ Had Tina thought—but he hadn’t meant her. If she would just let him explain that she’s different. She’s always been different, ever since MACUSA threw them into that cell together. 

Her pain about his creatures, her tears when Graves had sentenced them, her shaking voice as she called the executioners by name, the peace in her eyes in watching memories of her parents, her fierce defense of Credence. Usually, the better he knows people, the less he likes them. The more blinkered they seem. But every minute he’s spent getting to know Tina, he likes her more.

Merlin’s Beard, why couldn’t he have said that in the letter? Or complimented her eyes?

He fumbles inside his pocket and produces a copy of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. He holds it out to her wordlessly.

She stares into his eyes. Hers are glassy. He swallows, and looks down. “I should’ve written to tell you that I was coming, I know, but—“ He trails off. He has no excuse. He hadn’t know, with her silence, what he should say.

She looks into the distance, at the men and women traveling home around them. “It’s been quite the sensation since it was released.”

“Yes, er—I know—“ he agrees uncomfortably. The book is an awkward weight in his hand.

Her fingers finally close around it, and draw it away. “You didn’t have to, you know.”

He glances at her as the weight of the book leaves him. Had he misunderstood, somehow, on the docks? And her letters, before—they’d all but invited him, hadn’t they? I’ll show you the next time you’re in New York and Fall is a much nicer time in the City than winter. She doesn’t seem unhappy to see him, though. Not exactly.

She slides a palm across the cover. “It was wonderful.”

He deflates at first to find his gift unnecessary, then warms at the idea that Tina’s already read it. “You bought it?” He looks up, and when their eyes meet, electricity jolts through him. 

She nods, and looks down. “Weeks ago.”

“I’m sorry I couldn’t make it sooner. The Ministry denied my travel permits, you see, and they only just—“

“Did Leta come with you to New York, then?”

“Leta? No, no Leta’s in London with Theseus. My brother. The officials mistook me for him at MACUSA briefly, though I’m not sure you’d remember, what with all the—”

“They must have a lot to prepare for the wedding.”

“Yes, I think. They do.”

She nods, eyes sliding from his. “Thank you for the book, Mr. Scamander.” She blinks. “It was nice to see you again.” Her voice breaks over the words, and she turns to walk away.

“Tina. Tina?” He comes to a halt. He should leave her alone. Should he? If she doesn’t want him around anymore, then—but he has to at least try to explain. Make sure she knows how much he—if he has any chance--

He follows. “Tina? Tina.”

She spins around.

“Look, I know that in my last letter, what I said about aurors—“

“Mr. Scamander, I should get home. I have files to go over for work. Even though I know you think my work is—“

“About that.” He frowns. “Aurors are—they can be—but I didn’t mean that you were—“

She blinks, and a tear falls from one eye. He stares. She swipes it away almost angrily. “I care about my job, Newt, but I’m not a hypocrite.”

He blinks. The words had sounded more like a question than a statement.  And she’d said his name. “I don’t think that you are.”

She presses her eyes shut and opens them slowly, her face drawn.

“Tina, is everything alright?”

“Queenie’s—she’s—and Jacob—“

“Jacob? But he was supposed to have been obliviated.”

She laughs, a harsh sound. “It didn’t work. Queenie went back to see him and he remembered. They’d been seeing each other for months in secret before I found out.” She swallows, glancing up at him, and his heart pounds. “I told her it was a bad idea. Against the law. They’d throw her in prison if they found out. Obliviate him. What kind of life would that be for—Anyway, she didn’t care for it. We haven’t spoken in weeks.”

“Oh, Tina.” He takes her hand. She stares at the place where their palms touch. Her fingers brush his skin. He presses his eyes shut. It’s almost too much. His letter, he realizes, eyes flying open. “I didn’t know…” How much he’d strike a chord.

She looks down, taking a breath as though to steel herself for something, and pulls her hand away. “You and Queenie both said the same thing to me, really. An auror first.” And Newt senses she’s quoting her sister’s words.

He tries to think of what to say. Mostly he just wants to hold her hand. Touch the mark on her lower lip where her teeth have worried the skin. Merlin, Newt. He wishes he could understand, but she’s being so confusing. Speaking to him, and touching him, and pulling away.

Tina clears her throat, looking down, then back at him with determined eyes. “But that’s enough about me, Mr. Scamander. I haven’t congratulated you.”

“On the book? Yes, it’s done quite well. Though I’m not certain that I’ve enjoyed all of the press.”

“No I meant—“ she seems to gather herself, taking a deep breath and looking up, “—on the wedding.”

“Er—thank you.” When he glances at her, she’s biting her lip. “Although being best man may not turn out to be that much better than book signings.”

“Will you—what?” Her voice is high, breaking.

“Theseus decided that I should be best man. Hilarious, really, if you think about it.”

“Theseus.”

“Yes, as I’m his only brother, he says. Don’t know why he couldn’t find a mate from school who would actually enjoy it.”

“But—“ Tina steps closer, until he can see every flicker of light in her eyes. Merlin, he could stare at them forever. “Newt, did your publisher send you to New York?”

“My publisher? No.” He stares at her, perplexed.

“Then why—“

“Tina I—“ he swallows, forcing himself to say the words. If she’s not—then he’ll leave, and all those things he wants to tell her every day…he can simply tell his creatures, like he always does. He hadn’t wanted to be close to another person again after Leta. And he doesn’t miss it. Most of the time. Some of the time. Intimacy with humans is for other people, not for him. 

Except when he’s holding that photograph that he tore from the paper, and wishing that the newsprint didn’t flatten the fire in her eyes. (Wishing that it were really her.) Newt stares at her, forcing himself to hold her gaze. “I came here to see you.”

She looks up and stares. Tears glisten in her eyes just short of falling. He frowns. Why can’t he ever explain himself clearly? “You—“ she breathes. “You’re not marrying Leta?”

“What? No, of course not. She’s marrying Theseus. Why would you think that?”

Tina shakes her head, and he almost thinks he can spot a flush of color on her cheeks. “Queenie gets this magazine. It had an article. A photograph of her at one of your book signings. It talked about the engagement ring. The kind of house you were going to live in. I overheard you and Queenie talking about her picture, last winter, and I thought—“ Tina shakes her head. “You’re alright with it?”

“Of course. They’re happy. They suit each other. And I’m—I have…” She looks warm, hopeful, a smile tugging free from her lips. And she’s so very close to him. She’d thought he was marrying Leta. Does that mean that she still—He feels like he’s flying on a hippogriff. Or perhaps watching a dragon egg hatch. It’s made her happy. He’s made her happy. Newt stares at her eyes. Breathtaking. “Your eyes really are—“

Tina tilts her head, leaning closer.

“I read your book in one night—“

“I have a picture of you, and—You did?” he breathes.

“You—“ she gasps.

They stare at each other, and he pushes on, reaching into his coat pocket for the photograph. “It’s—it’s just a picture from the paper, but—“ He swallows, trying to catch his breath for the intensity of her stare. “It’s interesting, because your eyes in newsprint. See, in reality, they have this effect to them, Tina. It’s like fire in water, in dark water. And I’ve only ever seen that—I’ve only ever seen that in—“

“Salamanders.”

Newt stares. She’s--she’s--Slowly, they smile at each other.

“Newt, your last letter…”

“Yes. Sorry. I don’t think you’re—you’re not.” He sighs, frustrated with his own clumsy words. “You’re wonderful.”

She shakes her head, smiling still. “No it’s—wanting to tell me about little things. Things that shouldn’t matter.” Newt glances at her. “I’ve often thought the same.”

“Oh.” A smile tugs at his lips.

“I only stopped writing because I thought that you and Leta…”

Newt shakes his head and laughs, a soft, uncertain thing, tears filling the corners of his eyes. 

“What?”

“It’s just that I’ve been mistaken for Theseus before but…never quite like this.”

She smiles tremulously. 

The wind pushes a lock of hair into her face. He reaches with a steady hand, his chest warm and tight, and watches the dark hair curl against his fingers as he lifts it from her cheek.

Her smile has morphed into something more serious, but no less tender. “Tell me about Queenie?” He offers. “Only if you want.”

“I was about to go for a walk. Would you like to join me?”

Newt opens his mouth to agree.

She nods toward his left arm. “—only if you’ve replaced the locks on that case.”

It takes him a moment to see the glint in her eye, and hear the hint of a smile in her voice. “Yes, definitely. Promise.”

Tina stares at him, and her hand moves slowly, purposefully, until it brushes his coat, plucking off a tuft of dark fur.

“The niffler,” he says with a sigh.

She shakes her head, and he soaks in being here. Her voice, and her eyes, and the tangible warmth of her presence. The letters had been wonderful, like reading books and field notes about a new creature, but this, he thinks, like seeing that creature in the wild, this is so much better.

Chapter Text

Muffled voices carry from the other side of the wooden door. Newt shifts his case to his left hand, hovering for a moment, and knocks softly.

The talking stops.

“Queenie, what?” He hears Tina say. He squeezes the handle of his case. She's right there. Just on the other side of the door. Of course she is, he chides himself impatiently. Why you came.

“It's…” Queenie’a voice trails off.

“Who? Queenie, who?”

“I'll get it.” Queenie’s light footsteps grow closer. The door swings open.

Newt looks up. Queenie’s smiling at him. That’s good right? Smiling is good. He looks down and fumbles with his case.

“Come in, come in.” Queenie steps aside and beckons him into the apartment.

“Who is…” Tina walks around the corner and into the entryway. She stops short when she sees him. “Newt.”

He looks up into her eyes and for a moment can do nothing but stare as his heart seems to try and clamber out of his chest. Her gaze widens, her teeth catching on her lip, and a smile spreads across his face.

She looks down, her lips pressed into a tight line as she tucks her hair behind her ear.

He falters. “I'm sorry I didn't have a chance to write. I meant to, but then the Ministry—and I thought I'd better leave you see, before they decided…” he trails off. He really should've written. It's not done, is it, to simply appear across the Atlantic unannounced? Merlin, he hadn't even thought about it as he’d scribbled out directions for Bunty and tucked Tina's copy of his book into the case. He should've…he should’ve checked with them, at least given them some notice…

“Oh, don't be silly, honey.” Queenie looks back at Tina, a silent conversation between sisters he couldn’t hope to understand. Her voice grows warmer than it had been at first. “We’re glad you're here.”

Newt glances hopefully at Tina, who has crossed her arms over her chest and seems to be looking at some point on the opposite side of the room. She clears her throat. “And when did you arrive in New York, Mr. Scamander?”

Newt startles. But her letters had been addressed to Newt. Why is she…her eyes finally meet his for the space of a breath. They are somehow both dark and bright, and he’s almost certain that there's a hardness in them. This is that’s a section 3-A Mr. Scamander Tina. Not Tina from the docks. Not Tina stepping into his case with eyes so enthralled that his hand had itched for a pencil and sketch paper, though he’d known he’d never do them justice.

“Just…just this evening,” he manages. Is she…is something wrong? She seems…something. Worried, or upset, or…he hasn't received a letter in over a month, which had only increased his urgency in obtaining a travel permit. To make sure she's alright. To understand why. Her hair is different. Short, and with fringe falling on her forehead. He has a sudden impulse to touch that fringe. To make her smile. Would it make her smile? It hadn’t made her smile on the docks. But it had been almost better, her expression in that moment almost a year ago.

“She's alright,” Queenie says softly. “Mostly.”

“Queenie,” Tina warns.

Newt jolts, reminded yet again that his thoughts are not private here. At least when not masked in his accent.

“I’ve gotten better at that since last year. Guess I know you,” Queenie tells him.

Newt blinks.

Queenie turns to her sister. “He's worried about you, Teen.” Newt swallows as Tina’s expression darkens ever so slightly. Merlin, how on earth is he supposed to make sense of this. “No, ‘course he is.”

Newt pulls his gaze away to find Queenie studying him. He shifts under the scrutiny, trying to reign in his thoughts. Is she ill perhaps. Or has something happened at work? Maybe he misunderstood on the docks. Maybe she didn't want him to come. He swallows, hurt and just a little angry. Oh Merlin he'd really thought—

“Oh, honey.” Newt bites his lip. “No. She’s just been outta sorts lately.”

Newt looks to Tina. “Why?” He studies the features he can see, the stubborn set of her jaw and her delicate lips and elegant chin. The hair curling about her cheeks. His mind is drawn to the newspaper clipping tucked in his pocket. He’d remembered to reverse the sticking charm and remove it from the lid of his case on the walk to the apartment. It's close isn't it, but there's something about her eyes in person that newsprint can't quite show. Life. Fire.

“You kept it.” Queenie interrupts his thoughts, her voice strangely softened, less bright.

Newt jumps.

“Don't read his mind,” Tina says. There’s something in the way she holds her arms around her, shoulders squared. Firm and impassive, or trying to be, but there’s a quiver in her chin. “You didn't have to come, you know, Mr. Scamander.”

Newt frowns, hand tightening reflexively on his case.

“No, she didn't mean it like that. I can't help it, Teen,” Queenie adds. “You're both bein’ loud.”

He swallows. “I wanted to. I very much wanted to…see you…both…again.”

Tina stares at him, arms crossed. “I thought all aurors were careerist hypocrites.”

“Er, yes,” he flushes. “About that. I didn't mean—”

“Didn't mean what Mr. Scamander?”

Newt fishes in his coat pocket, pulling out a slim volume wrapped in brown paper. “I brought you a copy. As promised.”

Tina hesitates, then takes a few steps closer and lifts it from his hands, careful that they never touch. Her palm slides across the rough surface, and for a moment he is mesmerized by watching her carefully ease off the twine and paper and remove a burnished new copy of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them.

“A bunch’a people were talkin’ about your book at work the other day, Newt.”

“Were they?”

“ ‘course they were,” Tina agrees, her posture suddenly less like that of a cornered creature. “It's—the book is amazing, Newt.”

“We’re real proud’a ya,” Queenie adds.

Newt deflates a little. “You've read it?”

Tina looks at him without speaking, her slim fingers still gripping the volume.

“I meant to come sooner, you see, only—“

Tina clears her throat. “You had other obligations.”

“Not really.” Tina stares at him, her brow furrowed. “The Ministry wouldn’t let me travel. Something about destroying the city of New York.”

Tina’s lip turns up into a smile. “Oh, they objected to that did they?”

“Rather a lot.”

She gestures to his case. “And do they know you've brought that?”

“Yes. Technically. Er—rather,” he smiles to find her looking at him, some of the weight of before lifted in her teasing, “may not have mentioned every species.”

“Just a few then?” Her eyes dance, and his chest soars rather too high to fit inside his body.

“Well…”

“I meant to ask. The entry on Pogrebins. We learned about them in training, but have you ever actually…”

She stops. “Tina?” He asks, his smile faltering.

“Teenie I told you that wasn't true, of course he doesn't think you're—I still think there's gotta be more to it than—’course you're confused how to—well if you're going to be stubborn about it.”

Newt looks between the sisters, perplexed.

“I'm gonna go make us some cocoa,” Queenie announces. Newt looks down awkwardly as she walks off, shifting his case between hands.

“You can set that down Mr. Scamander.”

“Right! Right.” He gently lowers the case to the floor, feeling strangely weightless without it.

Pickett pokes his head out of Newt’a pocket in the newfound silence and chirps with delight. “Oh. Oh, yes, Pick, that's Tina.”

Tina looks up curiously.

“He remembers you,” Newt explains, holding his hand against his coat for Pickett to climb out.

“Could—I…?” Tina holds out a hand, and Newt reaches to transfer Pickett to her, forgetting until the last moment that it will involve touch. He forces himself to remain still as her hand brushes his. Pickett climbs over happily, and Newt moves away, smiling as Tina carefully balances the bowtruckle. His hand doesn’t quite feel like skin, though, at the moment. Well, perhaps a bit like the time he’d spilled an entire vial of murtlap essence onto one foot.

“I don't…have to stay. Here, that is, I mean. I could find a room…” he sighs at his clumsiness. “I'm afraid I'm not very good at this. I don't have friends.”

Tina’s eyes find his, wide and warm and shoving his heart rate up a good few beats. “Yes,” she says softly. “Yes, you do.” She touches him arm. No, not murtlap. Dittany? No, it isn’t one burning jolt. It’s like fireworks. A stinging, sparkling, lively thing that hurts almost, but in a wonderful, exhilarating way. Newt thinks he does well not to combust.

“Here we are,” Queenie announces as she returns, passing out mugs of steaming cocoa. Tina’s hand quickly falls away.

“I meant to say. Congratulations, and all.” Tina's posture is steady as usual, her shoulders back and her chin high. But her voice wobbles. The niffler does that, when he’s trying to scare off a creature from his treasures that’s actually bigger than him.

“Er—” he thinks for a moment. Right. The book. “Thank you.”

“I should've asked.” Tina stares at Pickett. “When's the wedding?”

“Er—June. How did you hear about that?” Merlin's beard, are the newspapers in America running articles about Theseus now? He pictures several that have run in the Prophet back home, still at a loss to understand why wizards and witches take such an interest.

“We do get news on this side of the pond, Mr. Scamander,” Tina says, sharp again.

He looks at her, puzzled.

“Oh—“ Queenie says. “Oh, Teenie.” Suddenly she’s smiling between the two of them.

“What?” Tina snaps at her sister. “Queenie, will you just say whatever it is.”

“Ask him.”

The sisters stare at each other for a moment. “Ask him what.”

“You know.”

“Please don’t—” Newt cuts off his own frustrated voice. Ask him what? He feels cut out of some secret in most conversations, but this one—

“Sorry.” Queenie frowns at him, tilting her head.

Tina gathers herself up. “Leta didn’t come with you?”

“Leta? No, why would she?”

“I just thought, with the wedding’n all.”

“But the wedding’s in England. Mother is beside herself about it. Her oldest son and a June wedding at the manor. Absolutely insisted I agree when Theseus asked me to be best man, and—” he realizes he's rambling and stops.

“You—” Tina squeaks.

“I mentioned him in my letters. Theseus. Did I not?” That must be the confusion. “My older brother, Theseus. He’s an auror, head auror actually. Insufferable, really. Not that aurors are—Not that you are—“

Tina stares at him. Her eyes are a little wild. He could touch her fringe couldn't he? Just a little brush, to get it out of her eyes.

“No, Sweetie. He’s not upset about it. Not like that.”

Newt glances at Queenie and swallows heavily.

Tina takes a step closer. “You’re not marrying Leta?” Her voice is nervy, grounded with warmth.

He shivers. He's missed it. Imagining her voicing her own letters hadn't been the same. “What?”

“The magazine, it said—“ Tina’s voice trails off. “Oh. Newt I'm so sorry.”

“Whatever for?”

“You and Leta—”

“Oh, no that's...” Newt shakes his head, shifting through his jumbled feelings on the matter. He'd been hurt at first, but more by the way they’d already grown apart than  any disappointments more tender. “I used to think I—once, I might've—I haven't thought of her in that way in a long time. Especially now I've—” met you he wants to say.

Queenie beams at him, and now that he's finally caught some thread of Tina's thoughts, the look bolsters him.

“You've thought I was engaged?”

Tina nods. “When I saw the article last month…well, you and Queenie’d talked about her, and you have that picture in your case…”

“You stopped writing back a month ago.”

Tina blinks. Her hand lingers at the end of her hair, her teeth digging into her lip. “Yeah.”

“I thought I must've annoyed you—”

“You could never—not like that. I—”

Newt’s vaguely aware of Queenie watching them, and for half a second he wonders if she'll explain. But no, he thinks, he wants them to do this on their own. Understand each other. “I've missed your letters.”

“You have?”

“I don't think I've checked for owls so often. Well. Perhaps when I was studying their routes in the Scottish Highlands but that was—why did you stop?”

“After I read the article I didn't think it was appropriate for me to—for a young woman to be writing—not one who wanted to—when you were writing for a different reason—”

“Entirely appropriate. I mean. Inappropriate. That is. It would've been appropriate, for how I feel about you. Er. It is appropriate.”

Newt jumps at a soft, indignant squawk. “Pickett, I'm sorry!” Tina rebalances him, a flush spreading over her cheeks as she levels her hand out again.

“Tina could I…” he steps closer, her gaze settling on him.

He gulps as she lifts Pickett up to crawl back into his pocket, her hand pressing into his chest. Still not combusting. That's good, then. Her palm flattens against his chest. His breath hitches. “Newt,” she whispers. “Look at me.”

Slowly, he lifts his head. She smiles at him, and he searches her eyes for a moment, sighing with relief.

Cautiously, he brings his hand up to cover hers, stroking his thumb across the back as her fingers curl into his chest. Merlin, her eyes are breathtaking. “You were asking me something.”

“Yes, right, I was. Might I—” He wets his lips and her eyes follow the movement. “That is, would you mind. No that’s not right. Would you—that is, may I kiss you?” She smiles. Yes, he thinks, falling into her eyes, salamanders.

“Yes,” she whispers.

“It's perfectly alright if not, I—yes?”

“Please.”

They stare at each other for a moment, and then his eyes fall shut and he leans into her. The kiss is a short, fumbling, inelegant, perfect thing. Energy fizzles through Newt’s skin. He pulls back to see her smiling softly, her fingers brushing hair from his forehead. He sighs and gives in to the urge to run his fingertips along her jaw, feeling with wonder that she leans into the touch.

Queenie, he realizes, must have slipped away to a different room.

A loud, gruff snort from the ground beside them startles them both. “Oh that'll be Horatia. She's probably hungry.”

“Do I wanna ask what—”

“Just a hippogriff I'm looking after for Mum. She bent a wing and can't keep up with the herd.”

“You brought a hippogriff.”

“Well, yes. Just one. Well not quite. Two, I think. Yes, two definitely.” It’s very hard to think with Tina’s fingers dancing across his cheek.

She hesitates for a moment, then returns his smile with a grin.

The pads of her fingers graze his neck. He fights the urge to purr like a satisfied beast.

“Would you like to come meet her?” Newt considers it for a moment, then reaches to tuck her hair behind her ear, tracing its shape and shivering when she takes in a sharp breath. “She's magnificent.”

“I’d love to.”

Newt smiles, then spins to the case, tugging her with him. They're pressed close together as he opens the clasps, and Newt cannot resist reaching for another peck. Her hand grips his, her lips soft and pliant and her gasp sending a jolt of energy up his spine.

“I’m glad you came Mr. Scamander.” Queenie calls from the next room.

They freeze, Newt’s blush spreading quickly across his face. Tina kisses his forehead, her fingers threaded lightly into his hair, and okay, he might still combust.

“The case?”

“Yes, right. The case.” Newt agrees, squeezing her hand, and turns to climb down.

“Newt.”

He stops, looking back at her.

“I’m sorry.”

He tilts his head, confused. “Whatever for?”

She looks at her hands, tangled up with his. “I should’ve trusted you. I should’ve—“

He doesn’t know what to say, other than it cannot possibly be her fault. “I was a bit surprised when I received your first letter. Not because—but I thought you may not write to me. That’s what people have always done, you see. Say they want to. And then—“

She listens carefully, eyes wide.

“You’re always surprising me.”

“Who wouldn’t write back to you?”

Newt huffs out a rough, short sound, not quite a laugh.

“Except me,” Tina concludes.

“No, no, that’s not at all what I meant,” he rushes to explain, frustrated with himself. “You—you’re—I thought that maybe you didn’t want to, and knowing that you did is—“ He threads their fingers together. “Don’t be sorry. I’m happy.”

Tina smiles. “So am I,” she whispers roughly. He thinks he’ll have to try again, to sketch her right. Maybe tomorrow.

Chapter Text

“Evening, Queenie.”

“Teenie. You’re still up?”

Tina slips a finger between the pages of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them to mark her place. She doesn’t require legilimency or her auror training to see that the sister she half-raised had meant to sneak into their apartment unnoticed. She raises an eyebrow, not bothering to verbalize the question Queenie’s already heard, the continuation of a fight that’s been building for weeks.

“So what if I was at the bakery? He remembers me, Teen. We’re in love.”

“Queenie.”

“Don’t look at me like that.’

“Like what?”

“Like you’re the—the wise one who has everythin’ figured out.”

“I never said that. But the law is—“

“And what about it? What if there was a law that said aurors couldn’t—couldn’t marry anyone who’d ever been arrested! What would you do then?”

Tina’s fingers clench around the book, her stomach flipping with an unsettling combination of excitement and hurt. For a moment, she’s stepping into MACUSA with her hand around Newt’s arm, and then his hand is on her cheek, featherlight and delicate and burning, and then she’s staring at that damned photograph in the magazine and bundling up the well-worn pages of his letters and tucking them far away in the back of her wardrobe, out of sight but hardly out of mind. She softens just a little, and realizes that Queenie has been studying her intently. “That isn’t the point.”

“Teenie—“

“It’s fine. I told you. I don’t want to talk about it.”

“I wanna be with Jacob.”

“You can’t.”

“I am.”

“Queenie,” she snaps.

“Why can’t you just be happy for us?”

“I promised Momma and Poppa I’d protect you.”

“Well, I’m all grown up now. I think you can stop.”

A stab of panic shoots through Tina’s throat. “What if you—“ she lets Queenie into the fog of worries, arrest, a baby with Queenie’s blond hair taken from its mother’s arms, Jacob’s memory wiped of the family he once knew. Their parents, sick and dying, and the sisters crying into each others’ shoulders.

“That won’t happen to us,” Queenie finally says, her voice softer.

“You don’t know that.”

“You have to take risks sometimes.” Tina’s mind flashes to her work, and Queenie shakes her head impatiently. “Not like that. You’ve never had a problem with that. With your heart.”

Tina blinks. She’d though she had. Just this once, just a little. And then he’d gone and—She cuts herself off from that line of thought, frustrated with herself for being distracted. It’s so infuriating sometimes, arguing with a legilimens.

“It’s okay to be hurtin’.”

“I’m not.”

“Tina.”

“I’m not.”

Queenie stiffens at her sister’s tone, and in a breath she looks angry again, taller and stiffer and ready to fight. “Well, I think you are. I think you’re jealous.”

Tina’s stomach lurches. “That isn’t fair,” she protests, knowing her unsteady voice has betrayed her, and knowing that with Queenie, it doesn’t matter anyway. It isn’t related. Her and Newt. It’s not.

Queenie scoffs.

This thing with Jacob is dangerous she thinks to her sister, throwing force behind the words. You’ll just get hurt.

“Or maybe we’ll just be happy. That’s what happens when people are right for each other. They say so.”

How would you feel if I brought you your copy in person? Tina shoves Newt’s voice away. “I don’t want you to get hurt. Either of you.”

“And you’re hurtin’ us in the process. Can’t you see that?” Queenie tugs her shoes back onto her feet, wrapping a scarf around her neck. “You know I love you, but you’re wrong about this.”

Tina stares. “Don’t—“

“Don’t what?”

“You’re being reckless. Just like when we were little girls. You aren’t thinkin’ straight.”

“You gonna turn us in, Auror Goldstein?”

“No, never! Queenie—“ she pleads. Tears fill her eyes as she watches Queenie’s spill over. “I love you, too. I want you to be safe.”

“It ain’t fair, y’know? You and Newt coulda been happy. You coulda written him a letter, explained how you feel. But me ’n Jacob—“

Tina flinches. “That’s not—you can’t—“

“I can. And I will. I’m goin’ back. At least one of us should do this, not eatin’ pastries and memorizin’ books instead.“ She nods to the copy of Fantastic Beasts still clutched in her sister’s hands, and a fresh rush of hurt and doubt and frustration floods Tina’s stomach.

Queenie’s rushing to the door, Tina following after. “Wait, wait—” She wipes her tears hurriedly, and more replace them. She reaches for Queenie’s arm just as her sister’s hand closes around the doorknob.

“I’ll see ya later.”

“No—“

Queenie shoots an angry look at her sister and throws open the door, rushing into the hallway.

Tina takes a breath and hurries after, halfway to the stairs when she hears a muffled oof, the clatter of Queenie’s shoes and something else hitting the wood floors. “Oh, well isn’t this just perfect,” she hears Queenie say sharply. She hurries around the corner to see Queenie’s heels disappear at the bottom of the stairs.

“Queenie, Queenie,” she tries again, sharp but quiet to avoid waking everyone on the floor, but the steps grow distant, and a moment later she hears the whoosh as her sister disapparates.

“Tina.”

Someone else reaches the first landing. Newt. Queenie must’ve stumbled into him.

For a breath, all she can think is how very beautiful he is. That always seems to be the right word for Newt. Beautiful, from his scarred hands fumbling with the handle of his case to his curled shoulders. The confusion pulling at his lips, and the messy flop of hair across his forehead and his eyes. Morrigan, his beautiful eyes searching all over her face. Why is it that whenever she looks into Newt’s eyes, her hands ache to touch him? “Tina,” he says in a low rumble, and his voice is beautiful, too, “are you all right?”

She realizes suddenly that there are tears on her cheeks, and that her hand is stiff and cramping from holding onto a book. His book. She dashes the tears away, allowing the book to fall completely shut and wrapping her other hand around the beautifully embossed leather.

Newt’s eyes follow her movements. “Is that—?”

A shrill voice suddenly fills the hallway.“Miss Goldstein, is that you?”

Tina blinks as their gazes tear away from each other to the stairs. She hesitates a moment. “Yes, Mrs. Esposito.”

“Was it one of you girls rushing down the stairs a few minutes ago and making all that racket?”

“Of course not, Mrs. Esposito.”

“And you’re quite alone?”

Tina glances back at Newt, who is already looking at her, eyes wide open and kind. The thrill of his gaze and the hurt follow in quick succession. “Always,” she calls back, hating the way her voice breaks around the word. Her heart pounds, and she waits a few breaths before looking into Newt’s eyes again. “Well, come in then, Mr. Scamander,” she says softly. She tries to school her voice and expression into something more neutral and friendly. From the confusion filling Newt’s face as he follows her into the apartment and she presses the door closed, she’s not sure she succeeded. She sets the book on a nearby table, the spine facing away.

“What’s happened with Queenie? Is everything all right?”

“She’n Jacob...”

“Jacob?” he repeats in surprise. “But he was obliviated.”

She laughs humorlessly. “Didn’t work. He and Queenie were seein’ each other in secret for weeks before I found out. We argued. We have been a lot, Newt. And then tonight, she saw him again and came back and I—“ she swallows hard.

“You said in your last letter that she’d been disappearing in the evenings.”

“Yes. I didn’t know—Newt she’ll be arrested. You saw what MACUSA’s like when they think the Statute of Secrecy is violated. They’ll wipe his memories. But I never meant for her to just…leave.” She wraps her arms around her stomach, looking down.

“Queenie will be back. She loves you. And, she knows how much you love her.”

Tina bites her lip. “I hurt her.”

“Tina—“

“I didn’t mean to.”

“Of course you didn’t.”

And before she’s noticed that he has moved, Newt’s hand has landed on hers, warm and rough and grounding. She gasps and looks up to find his eyes trained on their joined hands. His thumb sweeps over the back of her hand like a whisper of a breeze, and she tries not to want, but he’s here and touching her and lifting his head to look at her and Mercy Lewis she does.

His breath is close enough for her to feel as he stands before her. “You hurt each other. Creatures who care about each other do it all the time, especially the ones who are close. And they always come back. You should see the baby nifflers when they play.”

Her resolve momentarily spent, she allows him to tangle his hands with hers. “You have baby nifflers?” she whispers.  

He grins. “Many of them. They get into all sorts of mischief.”

“I’d love to meet them, I—“ Reality sinks back in.

“Tina?” he prompts gently.

She wonders, briefly, if her sister had been right about her. “Queenie won’t listen to me. She thinks I’m—“

“What?”

Jealous. Afraid. She’s holding his hand, she realizes, and he’s engaged to someone else—else, she thinks, shoving angrily at her own words. He’s kind to everyone. It doesn’t mean that—but she’d thought it had on the docks all those months ago, and in his letters, with his stories about his brother and parents and creatures and his gentle questions. But he hadn’t told her about Leta, had he? Just that paragraph about aurors, and then a week of silence, followed by the publication of international bestseller Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. And she hadn’t received even a brief note to excuse his absence. Queenie had always thought there was more to it, but how can there be when—“Nothin’, Mr. Scamander.” She drops his hand and backs away, brushing at her eyes until they’re clear. “Sorry, what a welcome to New York, huh?”

“Please don’t be sorry.”

Their gazes catch again, and she wishes her chest wouldn’t lurch each time. Except that she doesn’t, because as much as it hurts, it is a living, breathing, wonderful thing.

“I forgot to congratulate you.” Her chin tries to move as she fights to be still. Friendship, she reminds herself. He must not have thought of her like—like she did. But then why had he kept writing like…

“On the—on the book?”

“No, on...” She trails off as he lifts a small parcel from his coat.

“I did bring—if you’d still like—it seems that perhaps you don’t need it anymore, if you bought it.”

Tina glances to the copy on the table. “ ‘Course we did, Mr. Scamander.”

His eyes fill with confusion and hurt and just a tinge of regret that she cannot fathom. If he’d wanted to bring her his book, why hadn’t he before? “I did try to—but the ministry…” he looks at his shoes, scuffing a mark on the floor.

She aches for his confusion. “It was wonderful.”

“Really?” He brightens, and her heart soars.

When he looks at her like that, she cannot bear to— “I read it.” She clears her throat. “I loved it.”

“I’d still like you to have this. If you want it.“ He holds out the parcel wrapped with simple brown paper and twine.

She closes a hand around it gently, almost reverently, and pulls at the knot, easing the brown paper off of the cover. The American edition must be different, though, because while her copy is the standard dark blue of many wizarding books, this one is a vibrant blue-green. She smoothes her fingers over the glittering words of the title. And then, moved by some impulse she does not understand, she lifts the cover to peer at the frontispiece. For Tina, it says. Thank you.

“It was your copy. I set it aside for you. My publisher decided we should use the standard blue leather, but the first few were like this.”

Tina thumbs the smooth, glossy leather. “This is one of the first copies?”

“The very first.”

“Oh, Newt, I couldn’t—“

“—I want you to.”

Tina blinks and searches his eyes. His gaze flits from her to her shoulder, the ground. “For what?” she asks.

“Mm?”

“Thank you for what?”

“Oh, for—“ he glances down, then boldly back into her eyes, “—for everything, Tina.”

As if she could ever walk away from the way he sees the world. Her heart pounds, and she wonders if he knows how much that sounds like both a benediction an a goodbye. “I didn’t do anythin’.”

“That’s not true.”

“Nothin’ you have to thank me for, Mr. Scamander.” The words are sharper than she’d meant them. “Besides, aren’t all aurors careerist hypocrites?”

“I didn’t—“ he takes a rushed step forward and then gasps, his case clattering to the floor.

“Newt!” She’s cupping a hand around his elbow before she’s thought to move, dropping the book and reaching down to fix the clasp that had fallen loose with his stumble. She rights the case. There is no mistaking the wincing pull of his face. He’s in pain. Why hadn’t he told her? Because you didn’t give him a chance, she tells herself. Because you were too busy with yours.

“It’s nothing.” He sounds a little breathless, but his face has relaxed as though the worst of it is over. “My shoulder. I was just finishing with the nundus when I got the owl from the Ministry. I didn’t have a chance to handle this before I left.”

“You took an international portkey with an open wound?” Of course he did.

“I thought they might change their minds.”

“Why would they?” Newt stares at her with a depth that makes her stomach flip.

“I’ve been denied for months.”

For months. But then, why had he been trying to come, even if—Tina shakes her head.

“I’ll see to it in a bit.”

That gets her attention. “Newt.” She gestures toward the kitchen in a way that she hopes leaves no space for argument.

He sits in the chair that she pulls up next to the table. “It’s quite all right, Tina.”

She gathers up a porcelain bowl and clean towels, pointing her wand to fill the bowl with steaming water while she retrieves essence of dittany from the potions cabinet. “You’re in pain.”

“I’ve had much worse.”

Tina glimpses him as he hunches forward in the chair, avoiding contact with the left side of it. This throb of want is worse than before, because it is not his hand on hers or his voice close to her ear that she misses. She wants to smoothe his furrowed brow. She wants to gently touch the straining muscles in his neck and throat. She wants to take his hand between hers, and ease his careworn face into her neck, to be the one who comes down into the case when he’s hurt to bat his fumbling hands away and heal the wound. He’s the kindest person she’s ever met. Someone should take care of him for a change, and she had so very much wanted—wants—Tina shakes her head. “Now, where was it?”

Newt looks up at her, momentarily lost. “Oh. My shoulder. The left one.”

She nods, dipping one of the cloths in the water. He flinches trying to lift his coat and jacket out of the way, and so she takes over, calm in the minimal healer training that aurors receive, right up until the point that she realizes her hands are tugging at Newt Scamander’s shirt. Thank Paracelsus that the wound, though deep, is only just beneath his clothes to the side of his neck, and with his heavy overcoat drawn from his arms and his already-open bowtie tugged free with Newt’s good arm, she can move his jacket and waistcoat and shirt far enough out of the way without removing them. And bent as he is, he cannot see her cheeks flush at the glimpse of scars and muscles running down toward his chest. He had placed a small patch of cloth over the wound before, which she removes, replacing it with one dipped in steaming water and working out the dirt so that it will heal properly. “Sorry,” she breathes when he flinches.

His eyes slide shut as the muscles of his jaw and neck work against the pain. “ ’s all right.”

She dips the cloth back into the bowl, wringing out the warm water.

“I’m sorry I didn’t make it to New York sooner.”

She stills with the cloth hovering over his shoulder, then continues with her task. “You were busy,” she says, her voice a mix of hurt and hope.

“Not—not really.” He shifts under the touch, her hand brushing the side of his neck. “This was my fourth attempt at a travel permit.”

“Fourth?”

“The Ministry weren't keen on my travel, you see. ‘Personal reasons’ was a little vague for them after last time.”

Tina bites her lip, trying to calm the treacherous, hopeful pounding of her heart. She rinses out the cloth once more. “Did you need something for the wedding, then?”

“The what?”

“The wedding.”

“Why would I come to New York for that?”

“I just thought—why come to New York, then?”

He sounds even more confused, now. Hurt, almost. “I came to see you.”

“But—I—“ The right words will not come. With a wave of her wand, Spellbound magazine sails into the room, falling open on Newt’s lap.

“Beast Tamer Newt to Wed,” he reads. “What? But, Tina, I’m not—” His eyes skim further down the page. “To Leta? But she’s marrying Theseus, not me. You thought I was engaged?”

“You’re not?” She almost does not recognize her high, soft, broken, hopeful voice.

“No.” His voice is warm and dark and makes her shiver. “I had the book like I’d promised, and the Ministry wouldn’t let me come, and then you stopped writing and I thought...“

“Newt,” she whispers.

He fumbles to his feet. “I just wanted to see you.”

“You—“

He raises a hand to her face, the backs of his fingers skimming across her cheekbone, his eyes watching the movement with utmost care. She gasps a hopeful, stumbling gasp as he thumbs away a tear.

“But you and Leta—“

“We’ve changed, Tina,” and now she suspects he’s saying her name merely for the pleasure of its repetition, and she couldn’t argue. “For the better, I think. I hope. And we were never—she wasn’t—“

Tina cups his jaw. He leans into the touch.

And then gasps and turns the other way.

“Oh, Newt, your shoulder. I’m so sorry.”

“It’s all right.”

She reaches for the dittany. A few drops stitch the wound tighter, another murmured spell clearing the stains from his shirt.

“Thank you,” he says softly, his eyes finding hers. He must’ve been in some pain before, no matter what he’d said, because they are suddenly clearer than they had been. She could fall into them for hours. “You read my letters.”

She laughs. “Queenie teased me that I’d read them so much I’d have them memorized. I’m sorry I stopped writing.”

Newt reaches for and squeezes her hand, his other thumb sweeping across her cheekbone. “I thought perhaps what I’d said about aurors—“

“That wasn’t why I--Newt, I stopped because you’re wonderful. And I thought that you were—that I couldn’t—“ They stare at each other, only a breath apart, and then Newt bends to drop his forehead to hers. “—do this,” she concludes. Her eyes flutter shut, and on the other side of that pounding heart and those empty hands is a hushed and pleasant calm.

Their hands wander slowly, his from her cheek, to her neck, tracing the shape of her ear and burrowing into her hair, and hers against his pulse and down to his shoulder just at the edge of his shirt to soothe his new scar. Their joined hands tangle as well, fingers tracing and bumping as though to learn each other.

“I came to New York because I’m falling for you,” he whispers between them.

She smiles and wets her lips, feeling not so much like she’s soaring, but rather like she had when he first pulled her into the shining sun of his case. “That’s good.”

“It is?” Her thumb sweeps across his neck, feeling him swallow.

“Mm.” She takes a breath, wishing she could tell Queenie that she’d been right, at least a little. “Because I’m falling for you, too.”

“That’s—that’s very, very good.”

She laughs lightly, and then he does, and their breath and the sound mixes between them.

“We’ll find Queenie tomorrow, hm? And you can talk to her.”

“Yeah.”

“Would you like to meet the nifflers? Although I warn you, they can be quite the little rascals.” He fingers the chain of her locket. “And you might leave this up here.”

Tina moves her forehead against his. It feels at once thrilling to be closer than they ever have been before, and as easy as though they have stood like this a hundred times. “In a little while.”

“Yes,” he agrees, fingers brushing the side of her mouth until it becomes a delicate smile, “then.”

Chapter Text

Tina in London

a/k/a New in New York version 4.0, a/k/a the one where Newt doesn’t go to New York at all.

Find it on a03 here, and please leave a comment.

Tina looks again at the letter clasped in her hand.

Not that she needs reminding of Newt’s address. She’s had it memorized for months.

The letter has served as a bit of a talisman this whole trip, although she knows that’s silly. Newt probably didn’t keep her letters to him.

Still, his letters were beautiful, brilliant, tender—at least, she’d thought so—and perhaps she’d needed something familiar to cling to. She seems to have fewer and fewer anchors these days, and she doesn’t care for the feeling.

What would Queenie say if she knew Tina were in London?

The truth is, Tina doesn’t know. Unlike her mind-reading sister, she’s never been so skilled at knowing how Queenie would react to big things.

She hopes Queenie would know that she wants the best for her, always. She hopes Queenie knows that they can argue, but that Tina will always love her more than anything.

Queenie had made it very clear that she wanted Tina to give her some space, and Tina—feeling puzzled, hurt, frustrated, guilty, sad—had let things stand for a few weeks. She’d assumed that Queenie and Jacob were still in New York somewhere, until she’d been straightening up last week and had uncovered a receipt for two tickets to Southampton dated from a few weeks earlier. The decision to take a few weeks’ leave and book her own Atlantic crossing had been a bit impulsive, but her determination hadn’t wavered on the ship, nor on the train to London. Now that she’s actually walking through the city, though, she’s begun to wonder if this was the right thing to do.

She’s spent the week trying not to consider this particular point of her travels too closely. That is, the part when she knocks on Newt Scamander’s door. Even though much of the trip—the sights and sounds of the docks, the blue-grey sky—had reminded her of him. Nearly everything these days reminds her of someone. It’s an old ache, as an orphan, to see Momma’s old baking dish, or Poppa’s pocket watch, and feel their absence. Now, she sees Queenie’s empty bed, a sink with only one set of dishes, a letterbox that used to make her light up with expectation and now makes her feel sick. London is not haunted in the same way, but she does wonder with each hotel and restaurant she passes if Queenie and Jacob have been there, and the thought of walking Newt’s street; knocking on his door…

She doesn’t know her sister and Jacob’s plans, but surely their next step from Southampton would be to come here and see Newt?

And so, that must be hers, as well.

She’s just stopping in to and ask after Queenie and Jacob, isn’t she? It doesn’t have to mean something, it doesn’t have to be—But it feels like a sad reversal of what she’d once thought would happen; Newt on her own doorstep with a book in his hand.

She checks a street sign and turns left, still clutching that letter. She forces her hand to relax. She doesn’t want to smudge the ink. She laughs at herself at that; why does she wish so much to preserve them? They aren’t—they didn’t mean what she’d thought.

He could’ve moved, couldn’t he? She’d brushed the thought aside on the ship, but it’s true. Lots of people move when they’re planning to marry. He wouldn’t uproot all his creatures, she thinks. But then, wouldn’t he? For Leta, mightn’t he do lots of things? Perhaps Leta would never ask that of him; perhaps they truly are a brilliant match.

Merlin, what if Leta answers the door?

You’ve thought of that, she reminds herself. And so what if she does?

I’ll go in, ask him what he knows, keep a hold of myself, and leave them alone as quickly as possible. We are friends aren’t we, after a fashion? I hope we are. He’d want to help. What should she call a person who’d made her world look different, brighter? Who she’d thought might be…

She wonders if this habit of arguing with herself is a symptom of Queenie’s recent absence; an attempt to fill the void of a sister who used to hear so much.

She is happy for Queenie, despite what her sister may think. She wants Queenie and Jacob to be happy. But she also has to protect her, and if MACUSA ever found out about Queenie and Jacob, the pain that it would cause them—

It’s dangerous. Queenie has always followed her heart with complete disregard for any danger. She’s always let people hurt her rather than cut herself off.

Tina’s never been like that. Not even before Momma and Poppa…

She and Newt had written about that once. He’d said that he hadn’t noticed until he’d come to New York and met them all how lonely he’d been.

Perhaps being lonely is easier than I’d realized. Not becoming lonely, I mean, but tolerating the state of it. Do you think it’s possible to be too good at being lonely?

She’s often thought about those words.

What would Queenie have to say about her visiting Newt?

Tina’s not sure. It’s so mixed up with everything else about him. The book that never came. The visit that never was. The warmth she’d thought she’d felt in his letters; words he’d written that puzzle or comfort or hurt or feel treacherously like hope when she recalls them. Queenie’s confidence in his feelings, and then suddenly…not.

No wonder Newt stopped writin’, the way you are to be around. You’re just jealous that Jacob wants me back.

Tina squares her shoulders, blinks back her tears, and tries to push away the memories of that last, horrible fight. They’re never very far.

She can do this.

She finds she’s grasping the letter and her map tightly again. She forces her muscles to relax, reminding herself not to think about anything past the neatly written address. (The elegantly scrawled Dear Tina and the long paragraphs that follow. He’d written about what his brother was like growing up, about the English seaside and the magical beasts that live there, and he’d asked about Ilvermorny and the forests nearby and whether she might, at some point in the future, like to walk there with him. She can try not to think of it all she wants, but like the street name and number, his letter has long since taken up residence in her memory.)

She is what must be only a few doors away from his house when a man with a familiar gait and a mop of curly ginger hair rushes out of an alley and up one of the stoops.

“Newt,” she says without thinking.

Newt freezes. He whirls around, squinting at the dark street.  “Tina.” His voice is warm, soft, tender. Like it had been at the docks the last time they’d seen each other. She doesn’t know what to make of that.

His cheeks are faintly flushed, perhaps from the cold. He’s beautiful. That is the word for Newt. She could study his face for hours. She wants to touch the shadows under his eyes. She wants to ask if he’s had trouble sleeping, and why.

“You’re. But,” he stammers, looking down. He twists his hands together. “You’re in London.”

For one treacherous moment, her heart soars. He’s smiling, almost laughing. His eyes briefly meet with hers. He looks happy.

Then, she remembers.

The anger and hurt rush back like a gust of wind, casting aside everything else in their path. “You’re observant enough to be an auror, Mr. Scamander. Even if we are too hypocritical for you.”

He flushes and looks away.

Tina’s eyes widen. She regrets her sharp, impulsive words, and especially her bitter tone. Newt is easy to wound, even if he pretends not to be; even if other people don’t see it. She doesn’t want to hurt him.

His voice is rough. “I didn’t mean—“  He sounds frustrated and angry.

She aches to touch his hand, lift his shoulder, apologize.

He is still everything she’s known. Kind and intelligent and extraordinary. Stubborn, gentle, observant, vulnerable, beautifully well spoken when he’s given the time of day. A little bit careless sometimes, but not malicious.

He hadn’t set out to hurt her, he mustn’t have, and that should count for something, no matter what’s changed.

She’s not sure she wants the answer to that question, of what’s changed. Because what if that answer is, for him, nothing? The idea of being jilted, thrown over for someone else, hurts, but in some ways, the alternative is worse. Because if he hasn’t changed his mind about her; if she’s wrong about the warmth she’d felt during his last days in New York and in his letters, then that means he’d never considered, never even thought…

Well, Tina Goldstein, always showing up where you’re least wanted. Always second to the childhood sweetheart whose picture he carries, because he’d never even thought of her to begin with.

He’s still slouched to the side with his eyes trained on the ground. It reminds her a little of how he’d seemed when they’d first entered her apartment; that curled up look of someone who’d thought that what he could generally expect of people was that they’d hurt him. She has a right to be upset, she thinks, but she doesn’t want to be the reason for that look, not ever. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have—I didn’t mean it like that.“ She closes her eyes.

“Would you—would you like to come in?” he offers haltingly.

She wraps her arms around her stomach, fighting for control as her heart lurches hopefully. “Yes, I’d—“

For a second, his hand barely grazes her arm. He pulls away just as quickly. Her skin feels hot where they’d touched, even through her shirtsleeves and coat. Newt is not wearing gloves. His skin looks red and cold and she has the insane urge, even as his hand disappears into his pocket, to cover his hand with hers and warm it.

She looks up, desperately wanting to see the expression on his face; equally afraid of what she might see. But he has already turned away.

She follows him inside.

-&-

“I have a few beasts to tend to in the menagerie, if you don’t mind? Coming with me, that is. If you’d like.”

“Sure,” she agrees softly.

He nods.

For a moment, she watches him follow what must be a routine. He tosses his coat in the vague direction of a stand, where it floats to rest by magic. He drops a few letters onto a side table, and flicks the switch of a light. He throws a hand out to her, and for a breath, she thinks he means for her to take it.

Then, with a crush of confused disappointment, she realizes he’s offering to take her bag. Don’t be silly, Tina. She shrugs off her coat and hands it and her bag over to him, thanking him softly. Their hands brush, just slightly. Sparks skitter up her arm. His hands are cold, as she’d thought. She blinks slowly. Touching him had felt like this in New York, but she feels it even more, now. The time apart, perhaps? Or perhaps it’s that back then, she hadn’t yet grown to feel for him as much as she does—

She cuts off that line of thinking.

“This way.”

He leads her through a small kitchen. It looks practical, clean, if not quite tidy. There are little signs of the life lived in this home—a newspaper spread across the table; a kettle and tin of tea leaves out beside the stove; a dirty mug in the sink. Just one, she thinks, so perhaps Leta isn’t here?

They continue through a combined dining and sitting room. The dining table looks hardly used, which doesn’t surprise her—Newt hardly seems the type to host dinner parties, or to bother with eating at a table when he’s all alone. The chair and sofa are mismatched and worn, but cozy. The sitting room has a small writing desk. Is that where?—she’d sometimes tried to imagine where he might sit to write his letters. There is a small stack of unopened letters. Hers? No, they are not the right shape or size.

The only photographs she sees are hanging on the edge of the room, near the menagerie stairs. One is of a couple on their wedding day, clearly taken a few decades ago—his parents?—and a second is of the same pair, aged by several years, with their hands on the shoulders of two young men. One is obviously Newt, and the other looks very much like him, but taller and with slightly sharper features. That must be his brother. She stares at this younger Newt, smiling at his familiarity.

‘The stairs are just here.”

She spins to find Newt already descending the stairs. He’s described the menagerie to her, but he’d always brushed it off; he’d made it sound small and utilitarian. As she climbs down after him and sees the complex work area at its front, and the myriad environments that branch off in different directions—icy mountain, mossy lake, grassland, forest, desert—she thinks that it is anything but.

It’s a wonder. She’d expected it to be somewhat larger than the case, but the structure they’ve entered is massive and beautifully crafted.

The breath she takes as she steps onto the floor must be audible. “You built all this?”

“I did,” he says casually, as though it were an insignificant thing. He’s pouring some kind of grain or seed into a bucket, then tossing leaves on top. “I’m still working on better charms for the sky in the forest enclosure. But the charms for climate and sound work alright, and that’s the most important part. Well, the climate is. The sound is for the neighbors. Well, it’s so they don’t report odd noises coming from the wall at all hours.”

She laughs softly. “It’s incredible.” She touches the wall beside her.

“Thank you.” He smiles, and she feels the warmth of it in her chest.

Another picture tacked to the side of the stairs catches her eye. It was put up hastily, without a frame. She would guess that Newt’s parents provided him with the two framed photographs upstairs, but this one he must’ve arranged himself. It looks like a clip from a larger photograph in a newspaper, and inside it she can just make out the figures of Jacob, Queenie, Newt, and herself standing outside the subway station in New York. From a news report on the obscurus incident, perhaps? She hadn’t seen this one, although she’d scoured the papers available to her for any useful information.

She brings a careful hand up to touch it. The tiny figures of Queenie and Jacob are close together, perhaps talking, and she is a few feet ahead of them, looking into the street. Newt is off to her side. She remembers this moment. She’d been giving Queenie and Jacob a moment alone, grateful for their escape and yet hurting to know they would soon part, and crushed that they hadn’t saved Credence. She’d never known that, while she had been looking into the street that day, Newt had been looking at her.

“I got it from The Daily Prophet.”

Tina startles slightly. Newt has turned back to her.

“They had an article about New York a few days after I got back.”

She removes her hand from the picture almost regretfully.

He heads off to deliver the feed to a couple of creatures in the nearby grass.

Why does watching him go about such an ordinary task make her ache with want? Not yours, she reminds herself.

She looks around, half expecting to see pictures of Leta. Surely they must be down here, if they weren’t upstairs? This is where he keeps precious things. (Is that newspaper photograph precious to him?)

Tina watches him work for several minutes, hovering at the margins. He asks once if she’d mind bringing him a few herbs from a nearby storage shelf. She does. After that, he begins to hand her odds and ends to carry while he fills feed bowls and inspects habitats. Occasionally, he says a few words about what he’s doing, or where a creature came from. Mostly, they work in silence, speaking only when Newt asks her to fill a bowl with water or hold a small, furry body steady while he checks to see if a wound has healed. Once, he holds her hand to guide her as she tries to return an injured kneazle to his bed. She must be imagining the way his breath trembles.

He’s…wonderful. Kind and careful; strong and gentle. He’s so alive here, in ways he isn’t anywhere else.

As they return to the workshop area beside the stairs, she sinks heavily onto a bench. Perhaps she shouldn’t have come. She doesn’t want to want like this.

‘Tina? I should…”

“Yes?” Her heart pounds. Is he going to tell her about Leta now? Perhaps he does feel that he owes her some explanation. She feels a hypocrite that she suddenly doesn’t know if she wants one. Everything with Queenie is still so raw, and she’s not certain she’s ready to hear him say that he’d enjoyed their letters well enough, but he’d always loved Leta, and—does that make her selfish? That she wants a few more minutes, one more evening to want…even if it would be better to get this over with, some shaky part of her wants to hope that…

“No, nothing,” he says softly, carrying on with his work.

She looks at her hands. Perhaps it is selfish.

That’s one of the things Queenie had called her a few weeks ago.

Selfish.

Newt’s voice breaks through her thoughts. “Tina, are you alright?”

“Yes, I’m—“ It’s very hard to lie to him. “No it’s. I was hopin’—I thought maybe you’d seen Queenie’n Jacob? I’m tryin’ to find them.”

“Ah.” He looks away. “They were here, about a week ago? Just for one night. They said they were going to travel a little, and that they’d stop by when they returned to London. I thought you might be with them, but then Queenie said that you—”

“—weren’t talkin’?” she finishes. “Yeah.”

“She didn’t say much, only that you were concerned that she and Jacob were together, even though it’s illegal in America.”

Her hand moves to her locket. “She started goin’ to Jacob’s shop,” Tina explains. “At first it was supposed to be once or twice, only to see how he was doin’, but then I found out she was goin’ every week, then twice a week, talkin’ to him.” Her voice sounds distant to her own ears, the story flowing out of her. “They’ve been seein’ each other, in secret, for months. I told her I thought they should stop. Not because—I want her to be happy. Of course I do. But Newt, if MACUSA ever found out—they could get married in secret in a No-Maj court, but if it got out, they’d show up one night and take him away. Obliviate him. If they had children, they’d be taken, too, obliviated, and sent to live with other wizarding families, and they’d never know who their parents were, or why—it’s cruel. I hate it. But I can’t protect her from it. She thinks I don’t—she said I must not want her to be happy. That I care more about the rules than I do about her. And she left. I haven’t seen her in weeks.” The tears she has been fighting break free.

Newt sits on the bench beside her. Alongside the pain of everything that’s gone wrong with Queenie, and the worries that led to their fights, a fresh worry occurs to her; one she hadn’t even considered before. Newt had made his thoughts on American No-Maj marriage policies quite plain. Will he be as disgusted with her as Queenie had been?

His hand settles on top of hers.

She reaches to wipe her tears, only to find that Newt’s already thumbing them away. The gentle touch of his hand on her cheek sends a shiver down her spine.

She wants to pull away, so that the memory of this doesn’t hurt later, and she wants to stay and let herself forget. She wants to press her face into his neck and set down some of this weight she carries, just for a moment. She wants to understand how she’s supposed to stop wanting. “I guess I coulda raised it differently, but I’m scared for her. It’s dangerous, and I couldn’t just not say anythin’. When I found they’d bought tickets to England I thought—I don’t want to lose my sister.”

“Of course.” Newt strokes her hand slowly. Eventually, he says quietly, “Tina, I’m sure she knows how much you care about her.”

“You think so?” Even to Tina, her own voice sounds pleading.

“Yes. I do.” He tucks her hair behind her ear, and she is lost, as always, in the way he seems to like being around her, just as she feels around him. Despite everything, that feels real. “Forgive me, Tina. Did you travel today? You must be tired. I should’ve asked if you wanted to rest or…”

She wakes from the daze of his touch. “I’m alright. I’ve only been on the train today. It wasn’t long. I shoulda—I’m sorry, I shoulda written to ask if I could come, shouldn’t I?“

“Not at all,” he says. “I’m only glad you’ve come.”

Their gazes catch, and the warmth in his makes her stomach jolt. She has to remind herself that she isn’t here for this; that he doesn’t want…

She realizes that her hand is still beneath his and carefully begins to extract it. Queenie would say it serves her right, trying to come here when she knows he doesn’t…

That isn’t fair, though. Before that last, awful fight, Queenie had often jumped to Newt’s defense.

During that fight, among so many other things, Tina had suddenly learned how much she had come to rely on her sister’s judgement. Even when his book had come out, and he hadn’t come; even when she’d first seen that stupid article, she’d allowed Queenie to give her hope. He’s crazy about you, Teen, she’d said. Had all of that been a lie to spare Tina’s feelings? Had Queenie thought, all along, that Newt didn’t…Queenie wouldn’t lie to her like that. At least, she doesn’t think she would.

He stands suddenly. “I’ll finish up. It’s just the nifflers left.” He nods to the menagerie. “And I could make us some tea?”

She sniffs and wipes the last of her tears away. “Do you need help with the nifflers?”

He shakes his head. “I’m almost done.”

She nods, a little deflated, as he wanders off.

Dougal appears by her side a few moments later.

“Hi, how are you?”

She laughs softly as the demiguise offers her a hand. She takes it. His fur is soft. He pets her hand, and his eyes glow. He tries to drag her from her seat.

“What? What is it?”

“He’s probably worried that you’re upset.” Tina looks over to Newt, who has returned to the menagerie entryway, and is watching them. He looks away.

“I’m fine,” she tells Dougal. “Thank you for lookin’ out for me.” The demiguise tugs her hand once more; then, his shoulders sag, and he lumbers away. She watches the creature go, curious.

“Tea?”

“Yes, thank you.”

Newt retrieves a kettle, teapot, teacups, and a jar of tealeaves from a nearby shelf. He piles tea leaves into the teapot, and for a moment, it feels like New York in the days before his departure. The butterflies in her stomach whenever she’d found him looking at her. The fascinating creatures she’d met. The quiet stories they’d shared. Her jittery nerves as she’d opened the letter from Picquery that had reinstated her as an auror.

He waves his wand, and a small folding table and chair fly over and set themselves up before her. Their teacups follow. He sits and sets the tea to pouring. She watches his hands engulf the cup even as he’s holding it so delicately, and looks away.

Her first sip tells her that he’s remembered exactly how she takes her tea. Just a little splash of milk, and a pinch of sugar.

“Did you—“

“I wanted to—“

They both stop, and when he nods she presses on. “I wanted to—about what I said to you outside. About aurors? I didn’t—I shouldn’t have—I’m sorry. It was unkind, and it wasn’t fair.”

He’s looking at his teacup. “I was a bit harsh it my letters.”

She thinks of the subway full of aurors ready to destroy Credence, and the meetings she’s been in since. She thinks of Newt’s case and the blame placed on his creatures. She thinks of her own readiness to turn all of them in. She’d meant well, in some ways, but she hadn’t even been open to the possibility, hadn’t imagined—“You were right,” she finally says.

He looks at her. “I never meant to—I didn’t mean to include...“

“What?” she prompts after a silence of several moments.

“You.”

“Oh,” she breathes.

Newt sighs.

He springs up suddenly. “I nearly forgot. I have something for you.”

He hurries off and returns a few seconds later with a cloth-wrapped book bound with blue silk ribbon. She takes it carefully. “Your book.”

He nods.

She traces a finger along the knotted ribbon. “I read it again on the ship. It was—it’s wonderful.”

“You’ve bought it already?”

He sounds disappointed, and somehow that irks her. “It’s been out for three months.”

He drops back into his seat.

“I know. I was hoping—I would’ve sent it to you, but I was hoping they’d let me travel.”

“Your publisher, you mean?”

“What?”

“You must’ve had a busy schedule. I’ve seen in the papers—it’s sellin’ great, isn’t it?”

“Yes, but that’s not—I mean…”

“It’s fine, Mr. Scamander. You didn’t have to.”

“I wanted to.”

She clenches her hands, annoyed at the treacherous way her heart is jumping in her chest. He sighs, and when she looks up he’s fiddling with his teacup. “Congratulations. It’s wonderful that the book’s doin’ so well.”

“Thank you. All the media attention. It’s not all been positive, but—I hope it’ll change how people think about magical beasts.”

“I’m sure it has.” She clears her throat. “It worked on me. Knowing you, I mean, not the...” She hopes they’re happy memories for him, too.

“Yes,” he breathes, smiling softly into his tea.

Tina steels herself. She has to ask before she leaves, and truly, they really aren’t friends if she can’t bring herself to ask about the important things in his life. “How’s Leta?”

“Well enough, I think.”

She looks at her tea. Her stomach turns. “Is the wedding soon?”

“June. I didn’t mention in my letters? I thought I had.”

She glances up, startled out of any indignation, and says flatly, “You hadn’t.”

He stands and takes down a pile of papers from one of the shelves on his nearby writing desk. He looks through the stack, and with a jolt she realizes that the handwriting on many is familiar. They’re her letters. All of them, or close to it. He’s kept them.

He seems to find what he was looking for, and offers her a stack of three pages that have been written through on both sides. They’re addressed to her.

“You never sent this,” she observes unnecessarily.

“I was writing it when you…stopped.”

Her stomach drops. She looks at him almost pleadingly. “We couldn’t. I couldn’t, anymore…”

His voice trembles. “Why not?”

Oh, Morrigan, it really never did occur to him. He’d thought their letters to be between passing acquaintances. It seems he never had been interested in—How can she explain that—She feels small and stupid. “We were…At least, I thought they were…somethin’ they weren’t.”

His eyes fill with tears, but he looks almost angry. “Oh.”

She searches his face. Her auror senses are screaming that she’s missing something, but she cannot fathom what.

“Queenie also said that you were seeing someone else? An—an auror.”

“What? Oh, I, that is, I guess…” One sort of date weeks ago, and suddenly Queenie’s telling people they’re seeing each other? But why—someone else?—Had he cared for her, once? Is he unhappy with Leta?

A loud clatter makes them both startle.

“Dougal?” Newt jumps from his chair to steady the writing desk that the demiguise had knocked into. The pile of papers that he’d retrieved flutters to the ground around them.

Newt begins to pick them up. Tina goes to help, and finds herself reading the familiar opening of a letter she’d written to him months ago. The creases are well worn, as though the letter has been read more than once.

Newt faces away from her, gathering her letters carefully. She’s reaching for one that’s slipped beneath the desk chair when she catches sight of some other papers on his desk. She knows his handwriting too, of course, but it is the address that she notices first. Dear Tina, one begins, and then she sees a second page with the same address, and a third. She stands without thinking to get a closer look. The dates range throughout the past few weeks. She trails her hand over one of the pages, feeling his eyes on her. “You didn’t send these, either.”

She glances back at him. She doesn’t think she’s imagining the way he looks at her, wary and eager all at once. “I couldn’t stop writing. I had so much more to say, and I wanted…I’ve never felt like this around anyone, and you’re so…you’re remarkable, and I…”

She touches the neat, familiar loop of the T in her own name. “But. You’re—You’re gettin’ married.”

“I’m what?”

“To Leta. You’re getting married to Leta?” she squeaks.

“No, I’m not.”

“You’re not?” Her chest is tight.

“No.”

“But the weddin’.”

“Leta and Theseus’s wedding?”

She tries to take this in. Her head is spinning. “Leta and—“

“My older brother? Theseus?”

“The magazine said you and Leta were engaged.“

“Those rubbish magazines are always getting things wrong. Last month one of them claimed I lured Teddy into my case and keep him confined, as if anyone could tell Teddy where to live and...that’s what I was trying to say. I told Queenie they got it all wrong and…mixing up two Scamanders is the least of their offenses, really, although in this case I…” he trails off.

“I don’t understand,” she whispers.

“I know you’re seeing someone else. I’m happy for you. That you’re happy, I mean. Not that I am. No that’s not what I mean. I…”

“I don’t understand.” She’s trembling even as she fights it fiercely.

He closes her hand around a piece of paper. Is it possible that their letters have meant everything to him that they have to her?

Dear Tina, it says. I wish I knew why you’d stopped writing back. Whatever I’ve said, or not said, I never wanted us to stop writing. I wanted to tell you this in person, but it seems the Ministry has no intention of lifting my travel ban. You see, I’m falling in love with you. If I’d Would

The letter stops there, with several false starts. She gasps and looks up to find his gaze, but he is looking down. She takes a step closer.

He begins to ramble. “The Ministry wouldn’t let me come, you see, I applied five times, and—“

So he had tried to return to New York, just as Queenie’d said, but that’s not the point anymore, because, “—you love me?”

“What? Oh, yes, of course.” He glances up, and suddenly she sees his behavior tonight in a new light. He’s been wondering about many of the same things as her. He’s been wondering if she was here to break his heart.

Carefully, she brings her hand to cup his jaw. She doesn’t force his gaze to hers; just holds gently, her thumb slowly caressing his skin. He leans into the touch, still looking at some point past her shoulder.

“You can say it, you know. If you don’t—if I misunderstood.“

“What?”

“You said you couldn’t continue with our letters the way they were. If you don’t want—we don’t have to—I never meant to make you uncomfortable. If you want—“

“—Newt—“

“—we can—“

“—Newt,” she repeats gently, and he falls silent. She finds his hand by his side and threads their fingers together.

His shoulders fall.

When he does look at her, she tries very hard to let him see beyond the armor she’s piled on these past weeks, to the way her eyes want to be when she looks at him. Carefully, deliberately, she brings his hand to her lips. He melts, like an injured person who’s been given a potion for the pain. “Newt,” she whispers. He looks hopeful, and a tiny bit wary. Now that she understands, she is frustrated with herself for making him doubt. She pushes herself to speak, even though these words have scared her since long before she met him. She’s always crashed right into things that scare her, that’s who she is, but Queenie’d been right, not with things like this. She promises herself that she’s going to start. “I love you, too.”

She can feel his body jolt beneath her hands. He huffs out a moaning, happy sort of sound. “You—”

She laughs. His smile and his joy feel like sunlight spilling into her chest.

“But—you stopped writing. You said we couldn’t write like that anymore. I thought—”

She runs her thumb back and forth along his jaw. “I meant—When you stopped talkin’ about visitin’ in your last few letters, and then your book came out and you didn’t come…and then I saw that magazine.” She huffs in frustration. “I thought I’d misunderstood. I thought you’d decided—I thought the letters’d been somethin’ else to you. I was just someone you’d been on an adventure with, once. An auror you disliked a little bit less than the others.”

He brings his hands to her neck and cradles her face gently: brow furrowed; calloused, gentle fingers brushing her skin.

His eyes find hers. And now that she’s allowing herself to look, she can see it. How he looks at her. Much as he had on the docks, and on his doorstep a few hours ago—in that photograph on the wall behind them, too. Warm, relieved, tender, hopeful.“I tried with the Ministry so many times. When Queenie and Jacob walked in, I looked for you. You weren’t there. I thought you must not want…”

“Want what?” she prompts when he doesn’t finish the thought. Her voice is low and warm.

He blinks slowly and swallows hard. “Me?”

She kisses him. He lets out a short, stunned gasp that turns into a whimper. His lips are chapped from winter, but still somehow soft. He smells of grass and soil and fresh winter air, and he is warm and close and gentle, and kisses her back with the sort of single-minded attention he gives everything that matters to him. His fingers press into her neck and jaw. Mercy Lewis, it feels good. When she pulls back, his soft moan of protest goes right to her gut. She takes his hand and kisses his inner wrist, and his fingers flutter against her palm. “We were both wrong then.”

“Yes.” He begins to cry. They are quiet, happy, relieved tears, the release of months of tension.

She draws him into her arms. They hold each other tightly, with Newt’s face pressed into her neck, and his arms tight across her shoulders, and hers wrapped around his waist.

She laughs wetly into his shoulder. “Newt?”

“Mm?” His voice vibrates against her skin.

“Did Dougal knock into your desk on purpose?”

“Hm?”

“He wanted me to see the letters.”

“Oh. Oh,” he says again. He lifts his head, looking amused. “I think he did.”

They laugh together.

He kisses her wrist. Her eyes slip shut. “Tina—the auror Queenie mentioned?”

She opens her eyes. “Mercy Lewis, I went to lunch with this boring guy once and now Queenie’s goin’ around tellin’ you that—I didn’t even like him. I was just tryin’ to prove somethin’ to myself.”

He strokes her jaw with his thumb and shifts closer. “And what was that?”

“That I, um—” it’s very hard to keep a train of thought when Newt is touching her like this. She had been trying to prove a lot of things, really. That Newt hadn’t broken her heart. (A lie that Queenie had tried not to let Tina tell herself.) That she still deserved this, even if not with him. That somebody might want—“That it was possible for someone to…like me, the way I’d hoped you…did,” she finishes.

“Why wouldn’t it be?”

He asks the question so innocently, like he really doesn’t understand. And the thing is, he doesn’t. He’s been in love with her all the while, waiting for her to write back. It’s going to take her more than a few minutes to reconcile this knowledge with everything she’s been imagining these past few weeks. “Tina Goldstein,” she repeats Grindelwald’s words, “always showing up where you’re least wanted.”

“I’ve never been so happy to see anyone on my doorstep in my life.”

She laughs tearfully.

This time, he kisses her. He rests his hands on her waist and coaxes her just that little bit closer, then slides his palms up and around her shoulders. This kiss is slow and deep. Her breath shudders from her lips. As they begin to part, they chase after each others’ lips for one more kiss, another. And Tina steals a third, because she can, and he wants her, and he always has.

They turn slightly as they catch their breath. Tina notices of a paper tacked to the side of the letter desk shelf, which she hadn’t been at the right angle to see clearly before.

“Is that—is that me?”

He turns to follow her gaze to the newspaper clipping, then promptly blushes and ducks his face into her neck.

“It is, isn’t it?” She cradles his jaw and lifts his head.

His expression is suddenly serious. “Tina? Are you alright?”

She guides his mouth back to hers.

-&-

Tina wakes to the sounds of the menagerie—a splash of water here, a croak there. She must’ve drifted off while Newt was closing up for the night. She’d offered to help, but he’d been right to observe that she was dead on her feet. She’d settled down on a camp chair to watch, but she doesn’t suppose that lasted more than a couple of minutes before her exhaustion caught up to her.

There’s a blanket spread across her lap that hadn’t been there before. Newt brought her a blanket.

“Hello,” he says softly.

She turns to his voice. “Hi.” She stretches muscles cramped from the odd position.

He studies her. It’s a nice feeling. It makes all of this feel very…real.

“I’ve made up my bed for you.”

“Newt, I couldn’t.”

“I hardly sleep there.”

She raises an eyebrow. “Then where—”

“Down here, mostly. In the shed. I have a cot.”

She tilts her head.

“Promise. I don’t need it.” He smiles at her. “You offered me yours, once.”

She smiles back. “I suppose I did.”

He sits on the floor beside her. His head is close enough that she can thread her fingers into his hair, and so she does. She combs through his hair slowly. “Have you thought of what you’ll do next? About Queenie, I mean.”

She hadn’t thought that far, except with vague hopes of some sort of lead. She’d hoped to learn whether they’d settled in London, or headed to the continent to travel. Queenie’d always wanted to travel.  “I was so preoccupied , I didn’t even—they’re coming back, you said?”

“They said they’d be back in London in a couple of weeks. I’m not sure where they went—they mentioned Paris.”

“I can try the train stations in the morning, then. Perhaps someone saw them. People always seem to remember Queenie.”

He hums in agreement. “When did you tell MACUSA you’d be back?”

“I left things a little vague. Graves’ll cover for me for a few weeks at least. This was more important.”

“Middle-headed,” he murmurs.

“Hm?”

“It’s the three heads of the—”

“—Runespoor,” she finishes.

“Yes.” He glances at her, clearly pleased she knows the reference. “Most aurors aren’t, but you’re middle-headed.”

She laughs softly.

“I know you’ll want to try and find them, but you can stay here with me, if you want. Until they come back. You can always stay here.”

“Thank you.”

He leans into her hand.

“Tina?”

“Mm?”

“You’re in London.”

She smiles at the wonder in his voice.“I am.”

He looks away. “When you stopped writing. At first, I thought I’d been too harsh about aurors. Or said something that—”

She turns to see his profile.

“But then I thought perhaps you hadn’t—you see, people seem to like me, sometimes, but then it turns out that they didn’t. Don’t. And I thought—“

“I was one of them.” He’s explained so plainly, but she can feel the pain behind it. She pushes his hair back from his forehead. His eyelids flutter as though nothing’s ever felt so good. “I’m sorry,” she whispers.

He relaxes into her touch. “Don’t be. I’m—” he looks at her. His expression is giddy. “I’m happy.”

She laughs. “Me, too.” Her face falls. “I just wish Queenie…”

“We’ll find her. You’ll work things out.”

“You think?”

“Mm.” He slides his palm down her forearm, then lifts her hand into his.

Tina fights a yawn.

“You’re tired.”

“It was a long trip.”

“Not that sort of tired.”

She squeezes his hand in assent. “I am.” She takes a deep breath. “I’m better than I was.”

He rubs circles into her hand with his thumb.

“Can we stay here for a few more minutes?”

“Of course,” he agrees, settling in beside her chair. “As long as you’d like.”

-&-

(Across the room, Dougal watches them, satisfied. He may have only helped them along by a few minutes, but every second was worth it.)