Lifeline

You did some bad things but I’m the worst of them

How dare he come crawling back.

She’d thought they both understood. The burden of hunting Horcruxes was too much for one person to bear, and the only way it worked was if both of them helped to bear it. Nobody had to do it alone, and nobody had to be the only one propping Harry up. There were two of them to share the load, to take the weight of it on their shoulders while the other had respite.

If he couldn’t be strong any more, he should have let her take it on, not stormed away. He wasn’t supposed to walk out.

Not on her.

There was too much to say, and none of it she wanted to tell him. She didn’t want to speak to him. She wanted to scream, to hit him, to pour out all her rage and fear and anguish until he knew exactly how badly he’d hurt her.

Until he understood the full cost of his absence.

What had happened with the sword in the pond and the Horcrux on the day Ron had returned had apparently resolved things between the boys. She could tell Harry was pleased and relieved to have Ron back, and she didn’t even resent him for the implication that her company alone had not been enough. His company had not been enough for her, either. And Ron…

Ron was happy to be back.

He played it off around her, acting somber and remorseful as he should be, but she wasn’t fooled. She knew him better than that. He was glad to be back, and she knew it wasn’t just for Harry.

She should have hit him a few more times that first day.

I begged you to come back. And you didn’t. You left me. And I had to leave you behind when I never would have left you.

And now he was back, and all her sadness had been spent during his absence, all the tears accumulated while she was wishing him back, that she had nothing left for him but rage. She was wound so tight with anger at what he’d done that she thought she would burst with it.

Ron was doing everything he could to make it up to her, to show her he was sorry he’d left his friends. She didn’t want him sorry he’d broken their trio, that he’d left them. She wanted him to be sorry he’d left her, for words he’d never come out with but she’d sensed nonetheless. She was angrier for the damage he’d done to their unspoken feelings for each other than she was for his walking out on saving the world.

Harry would save the world, and they were supposed to help him do it, but she needed to have him to come back to at the end of it all. And he’d left her.

Since he’d come back, he kept trying to apologize whenever they were alone. Words weren’t enough for how badly he’d injured her when he’d left. She would have said nothing could ever be enough, but a week of his continued presence made her realize that wasn’t true.

He wasn’t saying the right words, the words she didn’t know but needed to hear, but he was there, he’d come back, and that was starting to smooth down the jagged anger his leaving had done to her.

His apologies to her outside the tent while Harry was asleep inside were becoming a nightly ritual. He was determined to get forgiveness from her, forgiveness she wasn’t ready to give, words neither of them had ready. There was too much to say, and all he could say was sorry.

He ran a hand over his face as she stood with her arms crossed tightly over her chest. “I said I was sorry, I don’t know what more you want to hear.”

That you were lost without me, that you were bereft, that your world was destroyed because I wasn’t in it, that you needed me as badly as I needed you. How could you leave me when it’s the end of the world, you absolute arse.

“I don’t know. It’s probably too late to say anything,” she snapped. Her emotions had turned to old rubber, too brittle and neglected to do anything but crack and crumble when they tried to stretch.

Ron looked at her in silence, and then he grabbed her arm and yanked her close, folding her into a tight hug. She covered her face with her hands, leaning against his chest while the pressure from his embrace sealed her broken parts back together. She let him warm her and make her whole again, both of them completely still. He gave her back the strength she’d lost with him gone, reminding her the burden was once again shared.

He didn’t let go of her when she looked up at him, her eyes bright with unshed tears. She flattened her palms on his chest, his arms still locked around her.

There was so much to be said that she didn’t know what to say.

“I’m so angry,” she said on a whispered exhale.

“I’m sorry.”

“It hurts.”

“I know.”

She put her head back down on his chest again, her face turned to the side, and stared blankly into the distance while his chin rested on top of her head. His hold on her hadn’t loosened, as if he knew she wasn’t done being put back together again, or maybe he still needed his broken edges softened too. The warmth of his arms around her, his hard and tight embrace, soothed the scalded parts of her anger so the grief could blend in, diluting both.

I was lost without you, I was bereft, I was destroyed without you, I need you as badly as you need me.

You came back to me when it’s the end of the world.

You absolute arse.