Summer
The Spring slowly blossomed into Summer, the sky bright and the weather warmer than it had any right to be. Queenie had grown into her pregnancy with her usual grace, finding a firm and honest friend in Hippolyta, who had settled into motherhood a little uncomfortably. Baby Helena was a thin, solemn looking infant, with ice blue eyes and hair turning russet. Tina struggled with her own ever-expanding bump.
First, having to expand her robes to fit had caused more than one fit of tears, with Newt taking her by the hand and depositing a lapful of nifflers and demiguise while Queenie finished the alterations. Secondly, she had hated the fact her chest had increased, feeling bruised and heavy. And then, after she’d passed the fifth month, her stomach had suddenly gone from a nice gentle curve to a protruding mass that skewed her balance and had her falling over her own feet. Which, coincidently, she could barely see.
Queenie glowed with pregnancy, Hippolyta had spent eight months looking ill, and Tina? Tina couldn’t even walk straight half the time. She spent half her time frustrated with her baby, wanting it to hurry up and be born so she could have her body back. The novelty of being pregnant hadn’t really taken a hold of Tina before it had passed. She was useless.
Newt disagreed of course. He’d happily spend hours talking to her stomach, a soft smile quirking his lips and making Tina’s heart fill up even more. But he also was adamant that he would be treating Tina as close to normal as possible. As the pregnancy had progressed, Tina had been forced to concede some ground, but he hadn’t gloated, he’d just proven how amazing he was and offered her some ground in return.
The other half of her time was spent in absolute amazement, watching how her body changed to accommodate their baby, talking to him (she was certain it was a boy) and marvelling at the strange bubble like feeling he caused inside of her. It was amazing, but it was also inconvenient and irritating and sometimes the only way she could calm herself was to sit down on the floor of the case (getting up often required a huff and a call for assistance) and groom various creatures. Bennie had taken the baby with a healthy amount of scepticism. Dougal and Jingyi hovered whenever she was in the case and Charlie liked to stay in a top pocket away from the possibility of impending earthquakes in the waist high pockets.
Newt’s understanding that Tina’s fierce independence wasn’t going to abate simply because she was pregnant had lead to a few pointed comments and raised eyebrows in the Ministry. While Tina bristled, Newt would calmly explain that Tina knew her own boundaries and she was her own person. Marrying him hadn’t taken away who she was after all, and if Tina wanted to go to work and do paperwork, then Tina was perfectly within her rights to go to work and do paperwork. Thank you very much, good day.
The auror office was in a state of tense calm when Tina arrived that morning, mid summer, six months pregnant and wearing a loose set of shirt robes that made her feel like a ship at full sail, but anything heavier caused hot flushes so full sail would have to do. It was a hot and humid summer, and no amount of hastily cast cooling charms were helping. It was times like this Tina missed MACUSA. At least their weather department knew how to cast a cooling charm.
Tina wove her way carefully through the close quartered desks, one hand resting atop her stomach as if willpower alone could prevent her from knocking something over. She felt huge, and she was barely six months. Her healer had been worried that the bump was too small. Tina simply didn’t understand how her skin could stretch much more before it simply gave up. Her new off-centre of balance didn’t help with her spatial awareness, and it was only the quick hands of Donald Marcus that prevented her sending a floating pile of parchment into a messy whirl around the room.
It was with a sigh of relief that Tina knocked on the partition to Pettigrew’s office, greeting him with a wan smile and settling herself down into the chair with a huff.
“Morning Scamander,” Pettigrew carried on scribbling furiously, his nose so close to the parchment there were specks of ink on his ratty nose. “How are you this morning?”
“Still pregnant, still hot, still really hungry,” Tina rattled off the same answer she gave him every morning with a grin. Pettigrew chuckled, gestured to a plate of bakery goods. Tina helped herself to a pastry with no guilt, even though Jacob had been baking more than they could ever eat, still trying to decide if he wanted a bakery in a city or in one of the local towns. He had his eye on Birmingham. Or maybe Poole, a little closer to the Scamander’s themselves.
“My wife said that being pregnant is like having a hot water bottle under your skin,” Pettigrew offered, setting his quill down. Tina snorted, whether in agreement or disbelief even she couldn’t work out. Men liked to try telling her how she must be feeling, but from Pettigrew it sounded like he was asking if that was an analogy he could understand.
“What’s on the docket today?” Tina changed the subject, sucking the jam off her thumb before taking another bite of the filled pastry. “I mean, am I stuck filling in reports still or am I actually doing intel collation?”
Intel collation was by far the better part of the job. It wasn’t her favourite part, but it fulfilled her requirement to stay in the office and out of the field, while actually making use of more than her filing skills. At present, it felt like the pot of gold at the end of the Irish rainbow.
“Intel and paperwork,” Pettigrew slid a manila file over the desk to her. “Mr Scamander want’s everything recorded in time for an operation tonight. We need a comprehensive list of times, dates and names.”
“By five?” Tina hedged, glancing over the paper in her hand and trying to discretely wipe off the smear her thumb had left behind.
“Earlier, if possible,” Pettigrew corrected. He slid his glasses back onto his nose and picked his quill up again. A silent dismissal.
Tina stood up, feeling the still alien stretch in her stomach whenever she moved, and removed herself to her desk to get stuck in. It wasn’t as easy to get lost in the data trails as it had once been. For starters, her baby liked to bounce on her bladder occasionally, or to demand food. Sometimes, Tina would get up for no other reason than an absolute necessity to stretch out her long limbs. It wasn’t usual to see her gently pacing the small space behind her and her partners desk, absently reading a file as she executed a clumsy turn.
She was just finishing the final line of her recommendations when Newt appeared by her desk. She held up a finger. He waited patiently for her to finish, his briefcase tucked under one arm and Pickett poking a leafy head out of his pocket. She signed her name with a flourish and no small sense of relief, and settled back with a satisfied sigh, her hands rubbing gentle circles to the top of her stomach. She felt a little flutter in return.
Newt murmured a hello, ducking his head down to press a kiss to Tina’s forehead.
“Well, I’m all finished,” Tina declared proudly, flipping the file closed and tapping it with her wand, sealing the document for Theseus Scamander’s eyes only. “How was your day dear?” she teased.
Newt chuckled, half shrugging as he perched on the edge of the table, his long bowed legs stretched out, a veritable trip hazard if ever there was one.
“Oh you know,” He sighed, “The usual. My white paper got rejected.”
“Again?” Tina asked incredulously, “All you’re asking is for them to extend the dragon reserve in Wales!”
Newt smiled, shrugging. He didn’t understand it either. He reached forward, twining his hand with Tina’s. She smoothed the skin on the back of his hand absently.
“So, what are you gonna do next?” She asked curiously, her forced paperpushing role making her wonder how other departments coped without the thrill of the field.
“Keep trying I guess,” Newt said absently.
Tina suddenly gasped slightly, letting go of Newt’s hand and pressing it against her shirt, sliding it over her bump to let Newt feel the baby kick.
“See, he knows when daddy’s talking,” she teased, eyes bright. These were the moments she loved about being pregnant. Feelings like this. Newt’s face lighting up after a bad day because their baby (their baby!) was kicking and he could feel it too.
“She’s going to be a daddy’s girl,” Newt insisted, eyes brightening, gently pressing his hand against the tiny foot threatening to break through Tina’s skin. Tina knew full well he was only calling the baby a “she” to be contrary. So long as baby was
healthy neither of them cared what the gender was going to be. Some mothers of pureblood lines spent the duration of the pregnancy sick with anxiety over whether they were having a boy to carry the family name. Not them.
“If you say so,” Tina snorted.
Their little bubble of domestic contentment was broken by the sudden influx of people, the noise levels rising rapidly as memos and patronuses spilled into the room. Tina pushed herself up, Newt next to her, one arm around her waist to steady her balance.
“What’s going on?” Tina called sharply to a passing junior.
“Attack in Brittany Ma’am,” The freckled faced youth called over his shoulder. “Mister Scamander is calling an emergency brief. We’re going out.”
He looked like he was going to be sick. Poor kid had never been in a wand fight outside of training before. Tina felt sick to her stomach and for the first time in months it wasn’t because of the baby.
“Come on,” she ordered Newt, gripping his hand tightly and joining the throng of people waiting for Theseus to start talking.
“Right,” Theseus commanded the room easily, the immediate area falling silent as he spoke. “We’ve got reports of a huge attack on the French. They’ve requested International Confederation support and the Minister has just signed off on a support mission. The attack is over, the auror camp out of Brittany needs support, and it needs help. And it needs it now. All those on the Recon Team, I want you out, now. Get your brief from Pettigrew as you go. We’ve got Healers being mobilized as we speak.”
A group of people split off instantly, collecting files and disappearing into the early evening. Tina took a deep steadying breath, grateful for the comfort of Newt’s hand against her spine.
Slowly, as more issues were ordered, the room thinned, but Tina still found it hard to drawn in breath. Newt’s hand had progressed from soothing her back and the discomfort of her standing for so long to gripping her hip tightly. He was afraid.
She was too. They were afraid of what this new development would mean. Not for them. They wouldn’t be fighting this battle, but for the wizarding world.
Grindlewald was getting more and more powerful by the hour, let alone the day. But for some reason, despite his power, despite his toppling nations across the continent, Grindlewald hadn’t made a move on Britain. The fog that had descended over the mainland curled at the edge of the channel, never moving an inch forward, or conceding an inch back. It worried them, low words spoken over clasped hands in bed, worries about what the future would look like for the child, whether they would live to see it grow as they would inevitably be called away to fight.
Theseus paused in his efficient issuing of instructions to read a note, his face losing what little colour it had. His eyes snapped up, finding Newt and Tina leaning at the back of the room, and Tina felt her skin turn cold.
“I will be leaving with the next,” Theseus announced firmly, “This battle may be over but the war is not, and Merlin knows we need all the intelligence we can get.”
He sounded exhausted, halfway defeated to Newt and to Tina. But maybe to the others he sounded inspiring, a general willing to fight alongside his own men. Theseus dismissed the room. But as the remaining aurors stepped out to keep Britain floating while the majority of their force were overseas, Tina and Newt approached Theseus.
“What are you thinking?” Tina snapped, tired and skittish. “Hippolyta needs you to stay safe!”
“I am doing my job, Tina,” Theseus snapped back. “You know some of the men I sent were fathers. Some of the women are mothers. I tried to send those without families. But I can’t. So, if they go, I go. It’s just a clean up operation.”
“Then you won’t mind if I come too,” Newt said conversationally, his voice broking no argument. Tina snapped her neck round to look at Newt, their eyes fixing for a few long seconds as Theseus argued vehemently against this. It was a look loaded with promise, confidence.
Tina nodded sharply, turning back to Theseus just as his argument developed into “-you’re not trained and Tina needs you.”
“Newt goes with you or you don’t go,” Tina declared firmly, crossing her arms. “I know he’ll always come back to me, no matter what. So. Take Newt.”
“No,” Theseus refused yet again.
“Theseus,” Newt pressed on, “You’re exhausted, and you haven’t slept in months and not just because of Helena. I am coming, and you have no choice in the matter.”
Theseus’s eyes, so like Newt’s in colour only, flickered between his brother and his sister-in-law, both of them fighters to the core, both of them staunchly loyal and both of them willing to follow him to the fight. He couldn’t win. If he said no,
Newt would come anyway. His brother was stubborn like that.
Tina could see the exact moment Theseus gave in, watched as his shoulders fell slightly before he nodded his assent with a fixed jaw. He didn’t like it, but he would accept it.
“Good,” Tina stated firmly.
“We leave in ten,” Theseus said, turning away, “I’m going to say goodbye to my wife, I suggest you do the same little brother.”
Then he was gone, leaving Newt and Tina alone in the room. Within seconds, their hands were on each others hips, reminding themselves of how the other felt.
“Stay safe,” Tina ordered quietly, cheeks slick with tears she felt she could only partially blame on hormones. Newt’s cheeks matched hers.
“Always,” he promised, his hand coming to rest on Tina’s bump, where the baby was fidgeting in agitation. “Look after yourself, and the baby. Promise me Tina, whatever happens.”
Tina nodded, not trusting herself to speak.
“And look after our creatures,” He said, his voice breaking, “Merlin I love you Tina.”
“You come home,” Tina repeated, “You’ve got a baby to meet and help me give some awful name to. So you come home Mister Scamander.”
“Quite right, Mrs Scamander,” Newt gave her a watery smile, pressing his forehead firmly against hers, drawing comfort from the embrace. “I love you Tina.”
“I love you Newt,” Tina whispered, “Come home.”
Seconds later, and Newt was gone, leaving Tina pressing a hand to her stomach to quell the agitations of her baby. She took a deep breath, wiped her cheeks and made her way home, to update Queenie and Jacob. And maybe then, maybe then she’d sit in their garden and worry about whether her socially inept but brilliant husband would make his way back to her in one piece.