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Newt loves Leta, and Tina can hear it even when he doesn't say a word.
*
There's a picture of a woman that Newt keeps mostly hidden.
She's beautiful, and sometimes makes Tina's old teenage insecurities surface at the most inconvenient of times.
Tina has never been beautiful, or gorgeous. She's pretty on occasion, when she bothers to be, but mostly she knows she has the kind of face people see once and then forget later.
In the end she taught herself to be satisfied with it, to not crave prettiness and perfection so desperately, she taught herself she didn't need to look beautiful.
She wanted to be an Auror, not a beauty queen.
(It was fine if men looked at her once and never looked back.
It was fine if the boys at school only had eyes for her sister, and never for her.
It was fine.
And if sometimes those felt more like lies than assertions, then that was fine too.)
Maybe it was because of how it seemed Newt was able to love every and any kind of creature out there, even the ones that were frightening and hard on the eyes, but when Tina found out the girl he'd loved for so long was a girl who looked brilliant and beguiling, it shocked her.
Newt, for as long as she's known him, was a man unlike any other.
Tina's only ever encountered men with steely gazes, cutting smiles, fierce strength.
Newt was filled with a compassion she assumed most men were unable to possess.
Something about him spelled so clearly to her that he was special, that he was different.
But when she sees that picture, that girl smiling through the frame at her, it is like she is pulled back to earth again, like all her carefully crafted illusions of him shatter in a moment. Newt was gentle, and kind, and soft, but he was a man like any other man. And what man could resist a beauty like that?
(There is a bitterness in her mouth, and she pretends it isn't disappointment.)
*
Newt leaves.
(Tina resolutely ignores the fact that her heart is probably packed in that suitcase and he brought it back home with him.)
It takes Tina a moment to remember just exactly what life was like for her before Newt had stepped into it.
There was the normal chaos (the normal kind of messes that came with her job), and then there was that special Newt brand of chaos.
She learned to love the Newt version, all the adventures and danger and genuine excitement.
And then she learns to get used to being without it again.
Her life had never felt like it was never enough before.
Now that Newt had stepped in, and then stepped out, though? Now it suddenly felt as if there was something missing.
She has dinner with Queenie and it is not the same.
She knew it was strange, because to begin with it had only ever been dinner with her and Queenie, but now it feels there are too many empty spaces, too many empty chairs.
It makes her miss him, though it is the last thing Tina wants to be doing.
So she throws herself into her work. She works and works and works, and for a while she is able to forget Newt all together.
(There is even a new man, someone who looks at her sometimes like he thinks she's amazing, like he thinks she could do anything.
He has none of Newt's softness, or his quiet peacefulness.
Maybe that is why Tina says no when he asks her to dinner.)
Then there is the magazine. There is the magazine and the picture. There is Newt and his fiancée.
Tina cannot help but stare at it, scrutinising every detail, every little movement.
Leta Lestrange (his fiancée) has one hand on his shoulder and a champagne glass in the other. She looks the epitome of an upperclass woman. A pretty smile, an elegant dress, impeccable hair.
Tina would've felt better if she thought Leta was as snobby and stuck up as the other rich girls she's met. Leta however, doesn't quite look the part.
She's dressed sleek, clean and graceful, but Tina can see in her eyes, the way Leta looks at Newt, she can see that this is a woman with heart. Leta smiles and looks at Newt with such pride, such care, that Tina thinks no wonder they're engaged.
Newt, on the other hand, has his eyes cast to the floor, a small frown on his face.
Tina knows Newt, that's how she can tell he's upset by all the attention, uncomfortable with all the eyes on him.
She can see too how he's leaning in just a bit to Leta's touch, an action that seems so familiar, something done completely unconsciously on his part, as if he's been doing it his entire life.
She realises with an ache somewhere deep in her that he might've been waiting for it the whole time, to come back to Leta and to feel her touch again.
("Queenie," Tina whispers, her nails digging into her palm, "what does it feel like when you're with Jacob?"
"Oh," Queenie replies instantly, eyes alight, breathless, "Tina, it's wonderful. It feels like coming home."
Tina thinks she might never know that feeling.
Then she worries that Newt probably already does.)
*
Seeing Newt is, for some reason, always like a punch to the gut.
He pops up, unexpected, like a whirlwind of trouble, and robs her of her breath.
Tina has lived an entire life outside of Newt, away from Newt, and yet when he shows himself in front of her again, it's easy to fall back to his side like a habit.
They can communicate in glances, speak words without having to say them, and Tina thinks she might be developing an addiction to the thrill that comes attached to one Newt Scamander.
"This is Leta Lestrange." Newt says suddenly, to an elderly woman who looks mostly bored and unimpressed. "And I'm her-"
"-Fiancé." Tina cuts in, choking the word out like it physically pained her.
Newt gapes a bit at her when she says this, but there's this look in his eyes like he's thinking I wish.
That hurts just as much.
And moments later, when they're alone and in the dark and he confesses it's his brother that's her fiancé and not him, Tina doesn't even have the energy to be relieved.
(In her mind she can pretend Leta being engaged to someone else makes a difference, but in reality she knows it doesn't change a damn thing.
She knows too that even with her being here, holding Newt's hand as they run, filling his thoughts with her image, it will not make a difference.
For once she is sure this isn't just about beauty. Newt is not in love with Tina, and it is not because she is not as beautiful as Leta.
It is everything else.)
When Tina is actually, finally, face to face with Leta, she is at a loss for words.
Leta is a vision, a real, living and breathing vision.
She thought she would've felt jealous, seeing her in the flesh. She thought she would feel miserable and envious and lesser.
She doesn't. Though she almost wishes she does.
Leta is, instead, helpful and quiet and sweet. A little troubled, a little sad, but tolerant and kind.
(She refuses to think Leta is competition.
Leta deserves more than that, she thinks.
Leta is a woman like Tina is a woman, with pains as real and as hurtful as Tina's.
It is not Leta's fault that Tina sees Newt in her dreams. It is not Leta's fault that Tina thinks she might love him if she let herself.
It is not Tina's fault either, that sometimes Newt looks at her as if he believes he could love her more than he ever loved Leta.)
*
"I love you." Leta declares.
It is not grand, or brave, it is just spoken like truth.
Leta is looking at both Scamander brothers, but Tina knows who she is really saying it to.
Newt knows it too, because he falters, he stumbles like he might tip over, eyes glistening and mouth parting as if to beg her not to go.
The flames rise, try to swallow her up, but then Newt is breaking through so fast Tina blinks and almost misses it, and then they are suddenly emerging from the other side, a little singed but mostly unharmed.
(It was never a competition, but Tina feels the sting of her loss anyway.)
In the end, when the flames have been put out and the night is silent once again, Leta is whole and alive but maybe a little lost, maybe a little broken still.
Theseus is talking to somebody, seemingly determinedly trying to avoid looking in Newt and Leta's direction.
Tina can kind of understand that, but can't help herself when she leans closer to listen in.
"It's not fair." Newt whispers, firm. "You can't just- just say that now, after all these years..."
Leta's shaking, hands trembling as she grips her dress firmly between her fingers. "I was prepared to die then, Newt."
He flinches when she says that, frowning heavily. "I know. I know. I couldn't let you."
Even though her hands are unsteady, she still reaches one out to grasp his tightly.
Tina decides she's had enough at this point, and turns to walk away.
(She can imagine how it plays out.
Leta realises there are more important things than trying to seem like she was more for people who would wish she was less, realises with a startling clarity that nothing is worth losing Newt forever.
Newt realises Leta could've died, realises that he should be selfish with his love for once before it's too late.
Theseus breaks off the engagement, because in the end he just wants to see Newt and Leta happy, and if that's with each other, he'll break his own heart to see it through.
Tina learns to unlove Newt, and though they remain friends, nothing is quite the same anymore.
It's a happy ending they all deserve, that much she knows for sure.
It's just not what she wants.)
*
"I'm sorry." Newt says.
Tina fakes a smile. "You've got nothing to be sorry for."
"No, no, I do." He insists. "We- it could've been us. Maybe it should've been. I'm sorry that I... that I let it end before it ever started."
She'll miss him, she knows this much. She looks at him in front of her, eyes sad, mouth smiling, and she curses the skies for not letting her have him.
"It could've never been us, Newt. You love her. You've never stopped loving her. There was never any space for me there."
Newt opens his mouth then, like he might argue, but then shuts it firmly, as if he knew better.
Tina sees all of this and thinks it was inevitable.
Leta and Newt, they had history. The kind of history that stretches so far beyond their eyes they're not even sure where it starts anymore. The kind of history he can recall on a lonely night that'll wrap around him like a warm blanket. The kind of history that haunts a person.
Things like that weren't so easily erased, especially not when both Leta and Newt were holding on so desperately to those memories, as if they were a lifeline.
Tina and Newt, they had New York. They had moments and sparks and a rush of something sweet like fireworks and cotton candy. Nothing as permanent, nothing as deeply rooted.
It did not take a genius to figure out which of the two was the obvious choice.
"I'll... I'll think of you." He offers, like it might make her feel better.
(Sad thing is, it does.)
"Good." She says, and it feels painfully like parting words, like final words.
(She'll be fine though, she knows.
She's an Auror.
She's strong.
A little bit of heartbreak won't kill her.)