Admission
When Charlie woke up, he saw Iris sitting next to his bed, wiping away tears from her face. She hadn't been crying long because nothing on her face was puffy or overly red. Still, he had wondered what had caused her to cry.
“Hey, what's wrong?” He asked, reaching his hand out the best he could towards her. His hand was wrapped up, but his fingertips peaked through the end of the bandage and to his shock, Iris reached out and gently grabbed his hand.
“I should have went with you.”
“To work?” Charlie asked at her random statement, wondering what she thought she could have done. Even knowing what he did now, he would have made the same choices to save Goldie's eggs.
“All those years ago, you asked me to leave Hogwarts with you.” She supplied, and he knew knew exactly what she was referring to. He honestly had not thought about that specific night in a very long time, but for whatever reason, Iris had. “I should have went with you.” Iris admitted to him honestly and he felt a shudder of shock. “I wanted to.” It wasn't lost on him what a large admission that was. While still not technically dating Ben, they would have been at least in the pre-relationship talk.
People will think we're having some sort of torrid love affair. Her words made more sense when he actually sat back and thought about everything in the broad picture.
“I... Thought you were going to say yes.” He told her. I wanted you to say yes.
“Did you mean it?” Iris asked him. “About leaving right then?”
“I did. I went to my room and packed, in the case you came back and changed your mind.” Charlie admitted to her. “I lived packed and ready to go until we graduated. Just in case.”
“Did you really?” She asked him, not expecting that answer.
“I just wanted you safe.” Charlie told her. Things were silent, the tension in the air was palpable. “Weather or not we want to address it... We had something, whatever it was happened, but asking you to leave wasn't about that, it was genuinely about you just living to see another day. I promised you that you would be safe, and that was the most important thing to me at that moment.”
“I think you were the only person that actually cared if I lived or died during those times. You were the only one who cared about my mental health.” Iris admitted to him. “I never said thank you.”
“You didn't have to.” Charlie shrugged.
“Well I'm thanking you now.”
A small knock caused their conversation to take a pause, and Chiara came in wearing a huge smile.
“I have great news you two!” She held up a piece of paper.
“Wow, paper. You shouldn't have.” Charlie joked, causing both ladies to chuckle.
“It's your discharge papers. We are thinking about getting you out of here and headed home to rest.” She explained to him as she approached the foot of his bed.
“Really?!” Charlie asked enthusiastically.
“Really.” Chiara nodded, “I think the best medicine for some people is to get out of the hospital and back home. You are one of those people. Now, I'm not saying go back to work! Your leg is still healing, even with the skelegrow, it's hard to heal femurs. Some Muggles never walk again after breaking their femur and you broke it in two places.” She scolded lightly. “As for your burns, Iris if you feel like helping with the bandages, I see see no reason Charlie can't head home tomorrow.”
“Teach me.” Was what Iris told her.
~*~
“Ok, just take it slow, you don't need to rush yourself.” Iris assured as she opened the front gate, before grabbing his arm to aide him across the cobblestone path up to the house.
“I'm not made of glass you know.” Charlie joked, but leaned on her for support anyway. Iris didn't say anything, and slowly walked with him up the path towards the front door.
“Do you think you'll be able to get up the stairs? I could just apperate us-”
“I need to try and get back to normal, and build my strength up.”
“Yes but you also don't need to push yourself to far.” Iris asserted. “You don't want to rip your stitches or your burns, they're healing really well and I don't want to set you back.” She explained to him. He didn't tell her, but going up the few steps were absolute agony. His leg was healed, but still sensitive from the double compound fracture. He knew that with Muggles when they broke their femur it took them months, sometimes years to get back to normal, and he needed to count his blessings that it had only taken him a couple weeks to get back on his feet. Then the tight skin from the burns felt like they were going to rip.
The entire situation was uncomfortable, including the part where Iris saw him at one of his most vulnerable places. He was always physically strong, that was one of the things he was proud of. He wasn't the tallest Weasley, or the most dashing, nor smartest in his opinion, but he was the absolute strongest. Now he just felt puny and weak. He knew he had lost some of his muscle mass in the weeks he was in the hospital, and he knew he would have to build them back up. Sadly loosing muscle was a lot easier then building it back.
The front door opened and he almost let out a sigh of relief when he saw that the couch had been all made up.
“If you want to sleep on the couch, I don't mind, but I can help you upstairs if you actually want to sleep in your own bed.” Iris told him as she helped him sit down on the couch.
“Right now, this is great.” He nodded, adjusting himself to get the most comfortable. Iris helped pull his leg up and sit it on the coffee table, and on a pillow. He had to snicker, he wondered if Mum had given Iris lessons on how to baby her children.
“Are you hungry? Thirsty?” Iris sat on the table and faced him. He almost thought she might be pitying him, but the look on her face was nothing but sincere wanting to make him comfortable. Her hair was in a looser braid, little bits falling around her face, and she was wearing a lavender blouse, a color she rarely wore but Charlie thought it suited her. She reached and grabbed his hand lightly and gave it a gentle squeeze, “let me get you some water.” She told him as she stood and headed towards the kitchen. Charlie looked around the front room, the bookcase was a butter yellow and he thought about something, deciding to ask.
“Is your favorite color still yellow?” He asked suddenly.
“You remember that?” She chuckled, as she turned on the sink to fill the glass of ice.
“I remember you loved daffodils, and one time I remember Ben and I had to go all over Hogsmead and Diagon Alley, then finally some Muggle town looking for this certain one he wanted to get you for your birthday, and it was yellow.”
“Oh that's right! It was a variety called Ferris Wheel.” Iris told him, holding out the water glass to him. “I still have them, most of the ones out in the field are descendants of those bulbs you two found.”
“Really?” He asked, a smile on his lips. “Could you show me?”
“Charlie, how about for my sake we go later?” She asked him. “I really am worried about you. I don't want you to hurt yourself by trying to hard to get back to normal so quickly.”
“Ok,” he nodded. “For your sake.” He tried being flirtatious, weather or not she picked up on it, he wasn't sure.
“Do you want your notebook? We can go over any questions you had about Goldie.”
“Oh yeah! That would be great!” He all but shouted. Iris quickly retrieved it and handed him his bag, and began to start telling her tale of meeting Goldie into great detail. He flipped to the page and saw her quick sketches on how to identify the babies and jotted down notes as she spoke.
He and Iris discussed names to go along with the babies and stuck with the precious metals approach, and shared a few laughs. Iris began reliving the story about when she and him had chased a Opaleye all over Hogwarts and the smile she had on her face made him smile.
It was in that moment, that the thought hit him like a ton of bricks.
His affection for Iris, the strong romantic side, that he thought he had been folded up and but in a box in the back of his brain so many years ago... Had in fact never really went away and a even more shocking reality gripped him. He could love her, genuinely fall in love with her now. He was being given the opportunity, and for the first time she seemed to be warming up to him.
He wondered how much of her bitterness towards him stemmed from guilt, after her admission that she had almost ran away with him all those years ago... Perhaps guilt was being expressed through rage, targeted towards him. If that was the case, he could understand it, he just wished she would express it to him so that he could better understand her and perhaps they could both find peace after loss during the war.
We can't help who we fall in love with. Andre's words echoed in his mind.