Hope
People keep asking her how she is doing, how Newt is doing, and what she’d give for them to just stop. But it’s better they ask her than ask Newt, that she knows for certain. She isn’t sure how he’d answer. What he’d say.
Newt has become unpredictable. Not in a mean or petty way, he just doesn’t quite react to things the way Tina has become accustomed too. But sometimes he replies a little sharply to thing, and he spends a lot more time alone, in the case, not even Tina welcome inside. It hurts.
And so Tina answers them with a tired shrug, a shrug that says “we’re doing as well as can be expected” but doesn’t enter into a conversation. It’s too painful. Theseus hasn’t been gone long enough. People nod, offer condolences, praise Theseus.
Tina had returned to work almost instantly, unable to deal with the cloistered walls, and the restless itch under her skin. She was simultaneously surprised and not surprised when Newt returned to the Department of Magical Creatures the day his last injury healed properly, leaving a nasty purpling bruise on his face. Tina had accompanied him to work that morning, staying close and glaring at anyone who thought they had the right to say that Newt shouldn’t be there. She stood guard until it was time to waddle to her own office, slide her growing bump behind her desk and worry with a quill till it was time to see Newt again.
She understands. Of course she does. Work is mind-numbing in a way that nothing else can possibly be. Queenie wondered aloud one night how long it would be till Newt cracked. They were all worried about Hippolyta, sequestered away in her house, holding her head held high but her manner icier than it had been the entire time Tina had known her. Diana looked as if a spark had died inside her, but Hippolyta had lost the entire fire and she was freezing from the inside out. Queenie spent her days helping Hippolyta with an infant daughter she could barely stand to look out.
“How long do you think we’ll last?” Tina asked Queenie one night, both of them standing at the window watching the shimmer that marked the magical garden below. “How long till we all break?”
“I don’t know Teen,” Queenie had whispered, a hand to her nearly fully expanded stomach, and a weary note to her voice replacing the cheery lilt. When did they start feeling old? “None of us know if we’ll survive tomorrow, let alone this war.”
And that was simply the truth of it. If the war spilled over onto British shores, as was becoming increasingly likely, then none of them would be safe. Anyone that stood up and fought would be counted amongst the dead. And they would fight. Like Theseus fought. It was a thought that dogged Tina, lying alone and uncomfortable in a bed that felt too cold, too big.
Newt wasn’t sleeping. The hours when he did slide into bed beside Tina, being careful not to wake her, he would press fingertips to her bump, to their baby. He would say nothing. She would feel his body shake and have to fight every instinct in her body to pull him against her and just hold him till he was cried out for the night. But she knew that if she did he’d run and hide in the case even more. She’d never really seen him cry. She’d seen tears bubble up and be brushed aside. But he didn’t outright cry.
Perhaps he needed it. He was hardly sleeping, wasn’t eating, could barely even look at anyone. Tina had tried to imagine how it would feel to lose Queenie. Hadn’t even been able to finish the thought. She hoped he would find himself able to talk to her.
Then, a normal night, the air cool through the open window, the sheets twisted around her body, Tina decided that she was done waiting for Newt to come to bed. Instead she slipped her feet into her boots without tying the laces, pulled one of Newt’s shirts over her arms to hang open over her long billowing nightdress. She hated nightdresses, preferred pyjama pants any day but her bump made keeping pants up more difficult.
She let herself out into the garden, crossing the yard like a wraith and let herself into their garden. Her feet took her softly to Newt, his focus elsewhere, his back to Bennie and Laurel’s tree, Hardy in his lap long fingers rubbing gently over the niffler’s fur. The direcrawls were all curled up together, fast asleep, at his elbow. Pickett had his leafy head snuggled up against Newt’s exposed neck. He looked exhausted. He’d been battling sleep for weeks now, terrified of what he’d find in the deepest recesses of his mind.
He only registered Tina’s presence when she puffed, lowering herself to sit on the floor, pressed up against the side the direcrawls weren’t sleeping. She was ungainly, but succeeded in making her way down without falling.
“What are you doing?” Newt sounded hoarse, a little panicked, hand reaching out to her stomach but stopping short just shy of touching her. Tina smiled a little sadly, reaching her hand out to his, and pulling it closer so it actually touched her, actually lay flat against their child. She tried not to notice how he flinched.
“Tell me about him,” she instructs softly. “Tell me about your brother.”
She doesn’t know if it’ll help but merlin knowns she has to try. She isn’t surprised when Newt pulls away, pulls back, looks hurt, looks angry, looks guilty.
“It wasn’t your fault,” she whispers to him, willing him to believe it. He’d done this with Credence too, blamed himself. He blamed himself for every creature they couldn’t save, every child that they couldn’t stop hurting. And now, he survived and his brother didn’t. “And Theseus would be the first person to tell you that. You wanna know what Theseus would say?”
“Not really,” Newt’s jaw was clenched, eyes shut, and he was poised to leap up and run, but he wouldn’t because Tina couldn’t follow and no matter how upset he was, he wouldn’t abandon her to try getting up unaided.
“Theseus didn’t want you there,” Tina reminded him, “And I’ve read all the report. Eight people died in that attack Newt, but if you hadn’t been there, how many more would have died? This is a war. People are going to die and they are going to be our friends, our family. And Merlin knows that Theseus would be telling you to… whatever the British equivalent of shake it off is, he’d be saying what’s our next move?”
Her eyes traced the hooded eyes, the deep purple bruises and the shadows that resided there. She wished she could remove the tension in his shoulders, but she couldn’t so she soldiered on.
“Esmerelda’s husband didn’t make it,” Tina pressed on. “Esmerelda was there, and she did. Yesterday she found out she’s having a baby. She cried in the restroom for an hour because Terrence will never know. That’s not your fault. We’re in the middle of a war. All we can do is mourn our losses.”
Newt’s eyes pinched shut, taking a deep shuddering breath, his hand finding hers and gripping it tightly. Tina matched the grip.
“It wasn’t your fault,” She reminded him again, pressing her forehead against his, willing him to believe her.
“I know,” She barely heard him at first, felt the softest breath stir against her chin. She waits, hopes he will speak, will open up to her, the way they’ve always been able too. “I feel guilty,” he admits, eyes closed, voice barely above a whisper, the admission feeling like it’s torn from his lips.
His free hand rest against her stomach, presses down slightly as if reassuring himself she is still there.
“How are you guilty?” Tina askes him, challenges him.
“Because I’m here…” he replies, “And Theseus is not… and… I’m glad I’m here.”
“So you, what,” Tina checked, “Feel guilty for being glad you survived? Newt Scamander if your brother were here he’d jinx you. He’d be glad you survived to fight another day.”
“I just...” Tina felt the tears on his face, could smell them, “…Sorry.”
“No,” she insisted, pulling him closer when he tried to pull away. “Never apologise for crying Newt, you hear? Never. It shows you got a heart. And I’ve been listening to you trying not to cry every night and I’m here now so you just cry, ok? You gotta cry.”
And then he is. And she is. And maybe it won’t be useful. But maybe it will.
……………………………………………………………………..
“Tell me about him,” Tina says softly, when their cheeks are rubbed raw from wiping tears, their bodies pressed together, her head against his neck and his hands on her stomach gently tracing runes against the cotton.
“He was a fierce warrior,” Newt started hesitantly, after a moments pause. Tina stopped him almost instantly.
“No, no,” she amended quickly, “Tell me about Theseus, tell me about your brother. Tell me about, I don’t know, pranks you played or, things that made him your brother and not just some random guy you met at Hogwarts and decided annoyed you enough to stick around. Not to sound like the agony pages of Witch Weekly, Theseus would want you to remember his life, how he was with you, and with his family not his achievements.”
“So, what stupid things did my brother and I get up to?” Newt checked, nose pressed just above Tina’s ear, breath tickling the side of her neck.
“I’m looking for warning, for what sort of stupid things our kids might get up too,” she offers as a weak joke, feels Newt stiffen against her back. It’s a moment before he relaxes.
“Things you didn’t know about Theseus…” Newt muses for a while. And Tina nearly falls asleep, Dougal and Jingyi having found their way to her side and ensuring she is warm from all sides. “Did you know that when mum was ill, last autumn, and you and Hippolyta banished us from her room-”
“You two were being annoying,” She defended their actions with an eye roll.
“Anyway,” Newt pressed on pointedly, “We both ended up in the stables, at home, just sat in the stall of a hippogriff… And Theseus and I talked about Hippolyta being pregnant. It feels like so long ago now. So bloody long. It isn’t even a year since then though…and, when we were talking, he was panicking about what ifs. What if something happened to Hippolyta in childbirth…what if something happened to him. And… back then I told him to not be daft. He would be fine. But if he wasn’t, we’d help Hippolyta because we’re her family.”
“We will,” Tina promised him, gripping his hand a little tighter, “We will help her get through this.”
“We didn’t just talk about Hippolyta that day,” Newt continued quietly, “He was panicking and I was calm and I said something along the lines of ‘you’ll have to be the calm one for me, when Tina and I have one’ and he said” Newt’s voice cracked a little. “He said by the time I’d gotten my act together he’d have years of experience, so he’d be fine. We never had me panicking, and him comforting. He didn’t have years. And I miss him.”
Tina twisted in his arms, wrapping her arms around him tightly, offering the only comfort she could, knowing her words were woefully inadequate.
Eventually, baby Scamander’s bladder gymnastics had them returning indoor, and returning to bed.
Newt slept the entire next day, and when he woke up, the light wasn’t fully returned to his eyes, but the dying embers had been rekindled, and there was hope.