Chapter 23
"Tina?" Newt called up the stairs a little hesitantly, looping his scarf around his neck. "Dearest?"
He was reluctant to leave without saying goodbye to his family, even if he and Jacob were just going to muggle London to pick up Aurie's bicycle and finalise the plans for the new bakery. He wouldn't be gone for more than a few hours, yet it would be the longest he and TIna had spent apart since Corvin had been born.
"Shhh," Tina scolded in a loud whisper, hurrying down the stairs with a firey look in her eye. "Corvin's taking a nap, and Queenie only just got Percy to settle."
"Sorry," Newt matched her staccato whisper, "I'm just waiting for Jacob to come down, then we'll be off."
"Queenie's worried about sending Aurie to the Prewett's, but Lou insisted. I think Jacob'll be better at leaving her there," Tina glanced up the stairs, her ears picking up the sound of Jacob's heavy footfalls on the stairs. "And by the time you get back, Hippolyta will be here with Helena. We've got a busy day, and seriously Queenie and I need you two to stop hovering."
"I don't hover," newt protested weakly, more to get Tina to snort and twinkle at him than any sense of true conviction in his statement. "Are you sure you don't want me to take the baby. You could have an hour or two off."
"And what happens in two hours when the little bird is hungry again?" Tina raised an eyebrow, her hands tucking the ends of his scarf into his coat more securely. "You go, get everything done, pick up your paperwork from the office and then come back and we can do the Christmas thing now Chanukah is over. I love you."
"I love you too," Newt smiled, leaning in and pressing a kiss to her lips, just as Jacob and Aurie appeared at the top of the stairs.
"Aw," Jacob mock whispered to Aurie, "You're Uncle Tina and Auntie Newt are so cute. Wait, no, other way round."
Tina chuckled, turning sideways against the bannister to allow Jacob and Aurie to pass. "You tell Lou that if she needs me to come pick Aurie up cuz she's struggling with the boys, she just needs to owl," Tina reminded Jacob, tucking Aurie's curls under her wool hat, knitted by her grandmother Scamander.
"She'll be fine," Jacob insisted, before hastily taking on, "I'm sure Lou knows that already y'know. We'll see youse later, Tina."
Jacob nodded significantly at Newt, widening his eyes slightly to say "let's get out of here, now". Newt smiled, and squeezed Tina's hand, issuing a final "Love you" before leaving with Jacob and Aurie for the apparition point at the edge of the property. Tina watched them disappear with a pop, and sighed a deep sigh of relief. She loved her husband, she really, truly did, but he was fussing so. For a couple that could spend months upon months with only each other for company, being trapped in their cottage was vastly differently to trekking mountainsides with the case for their home.
Tina crept up the stair to her sister's sitting room, finding Queenie laid across the couch with arms and legs akimbo.
"They're asleep," Queenie whispered, answering Tina's unspoken question. "Thank Mercy they're finally all asleep."
"It'll be harder with Helena," Tina sat on the table, fingers tangling in Queenie's golden curls, soothing her hair away from her face as their mother had done so many decades before. "We don't know what sleep pattern she's on, or even how much longer she'll be needing naps for."
"She's barely six months," Queenie answered bluntly, with the tone of weary experience. "Aurie still has naps and she's two years in three weeks. It's Aurie we'll have the problem with, I think, while the other's are sleeping we'll have to keep her entertained."
"You're kidding, right? We barely need to supervise Aurie in the case if the demiguise are there," Tina smiled indulgently, thinking about Aurie's quiet steadfast nature and how she hung onto Newt's every word, practically memorising the rules of the case.
"Yeah but what happens when we aren't living here any more?" Queenie asked, her voice tinged with exhaustion, her eyes drooping to sleep.
Tina's hand stilled, her throat suddenly very full. She was a fully grown married woman with children, with a fully grown married-with-children sister, she shouldn't have been worried about her sister moving out. They'd been living apart before, but then they'd weathered storms together, and having Queenie living somewhere else now seemed abstract, and absurd.
"Not going anywhere soon," Queenie mumbled, answering Tina's pain. Tina smiled tightly and kissed her forehead lightly, before leaving her sister to her nap. She checked in on Corvin, snuffling quietly to himself and clutching his baby blanket, before heading down into the lower floor of the house. With the littles asleep, and Aurie and the men out, the house felt unusually quiet. It was strange. Quiet. Too quiet. She set the gramophone to play gently in the background while she started piecing together the various notes and correspondences she had built up over the past few months, ready for the final write up of the next volume of her law book. It had been a while since she'd had the time to go through all the sheaf's of parchments, had the space to lay each page out and work out where the sections should go, what order it would be in.
It wasn't long before there was a gentle knock on the door, and Hippolyta was there, deep bags under her eyes and Helena asleep on her shoulder. Tina offered her tea.
"I don't suppose you have something a bit stronger," Hippolyta joked weakly, not really meaning it, settling Helena in her room and re-joining Tina in the sitting room. The tea had barely been poured when Corvin woke. Corvin had barely woken before Queenie appeared, her son's in her arms and settled in the corner of the room, the three boys making noises that only each other seemed to understand. And suddenly the room was filled with the quiet hustle and bustle that Tina had become so accustomed too. An hour later Jacob and Newt arrived home, an over-excitable Aurie "telling" everyone about her day in her limited grasp of language.
It was Christmas Eve, and all through the house, there was hustle and bustle and family life.