Chapter Text
A dark tunnel underneath the city of Paris. Whatever had lured them here, the prickling sensations of something wrong, had lead them straight into disaster. A not so small group of wizards and witches out to cause mayhem. One very prominent face was among them, two for him actually; one pale as snow with eyes of different colours, the other a once familiar shade of milky tea and dark searching eyes.
The pleasantries had been all too short before the first curses were cast, and it all went downhill from there.
He felt the cold and despair just a moment before dark shadows swept in from above. Dementors. The reason they had agreed to investigate in the first place. Newt thought of the happiest memory he could find in him... not a hard thing to do after the past days of pleasure and delight. It was the happiest he had been in a long time.
"Expecto Patronum!"
He pointed his wand at the hooded shapes floating above them. White mist sprung from the tip, curled and took shape of a blinding white creature. It was not the one he had expected, though, but larger, so much larger... A smile grazed his lips when he realised what creature his Patronus had changed into.
A flash of light. A well-aimed curse hit him square in the chest as he had been staring in wonder. Blinding pain spread through his body, useless flesh he no longer had control over as he tumbled to the ground. He fell and fell and fell, watching the fight in front of him unfurl silently and in slow motion. Tina with her wand pointed at the opponent, engaged in fierce battle with one of the fanatics. The white corporeal shape he had conjured surged around both of them, kept the Dementors at bay. Stay with her, he silently begged his Patronus, keep Tina safe.
Unable to catch himself properly Newt finally hit the ground with a loud thud. His head connected with something hard causing a sharp pain to flare up behind his eyes and everything went black.
He blinked to consciousness with colourful flashes lighting up around him. Curses, hexes, spells flying more numerous than before. He still couldn't move more than his head, and even that only with great pain.
His bleary eyes located a Tina-shaped form not far from him, fighting fiercely and angrily. Other forms were moving, battling hazy dark shapes. A sort of relief came over him. They were not alone anymore. The French had listened to their warnings about Grindelwald.
A green flash of light in the corner of his eye. The Tina-shaped figure crumpled to the ground before his very eyes. Remained unmoving. No! Not her. Please, not her.
Newt tried to move, tried to reach her, tried to get back and fight for her. But his body still did not listen to him. Useless.
His head pounded and ached as the fight raged on around him. He kept his eyes locked on the lifeless heap not far from him... but she did not move again. A green flash. He knew too well what kind of curse came with it, the Unforgivable it belonged to. He had failed to protect her. He had failed her. Tina.
A wail of pain and desperation echoed around him before blessed darkness took him in once more.
It was daylight when he woke up again, head pounding and throbbing heavily. It took him a while to adjust his eyes and see his surroundings. A sparse clean room, white walls, white bed, pungent smells. Hospital. He was in a hospital.
The fuzzy edges of unconsciousness slowly receded and Newt was relieved to feel his body respond to him again. He lifted a hand to feel around his covered head. It was heavily bandaged and so was his chest where the unknown curse had hit him. The skin underneath the white gauze felt itchy and on fire... healing, then.
There were loud voices outside his door, voices he neither knew nor understood. His muscles did not want to cooperate much with him when he tried to sit up. He was still too weak, too exhausted. His eyes fell shut again as his head hit the pillow once more and sleep found him again.
He was woken by a healer. It was still light outside (or was it light again?) and sunlight shone through the small window into his room. The witch had come to check up on him and removed the bandage on his chest to reveal a new tender scar over his sternum, a flaming red mark that almost looked like a star when he glanced at it. His head still hurt too much to move it around much.
She smiled knowingly and gave him a dose of a healing potion. The insistent pounding in his head became more bearable after drinking the vile fluid, his thoughts a little less clear though. Sleep would soon drag him under again.
He was alone in his room and hazy memories had returned. The healer didn't speak much English, but his addled brain could manage enough French to ask the question he needed to have an answer to... the question he intensely dreaded to have answered.
"Ma femme?" he whispered before the witch turned to leave.
She answered him rapidly in French, too fast for him to understand a single word. Or maybe it was the potion that slowed his mind.
"I don't... Ma femme. Where is she?"
The healer thought on her answer for a moment, carefully sifting through her small English vocabulary to find something corresponding to her earlier explanations. Newt waited patiently, but filled with dread to hear his unpleasant memories confirmed. Tina was not here... an implication for nothing good.
"Gone, monsieur."
Newt swallowed heavily and quickly looked away from her friendly face as the desperation flooded over him again. Not a horrid trick of his mind, but a nightmare come true. He barely managed to keep his tears at bay until the door had closed behind the witch. His Tina... gone. His eyes spilled over with silent tears. She is gone.
This time the blissful darkness of unconsciousness crept up on him as a welcome relief. And Newt did not want to wake up again.
But wake up he did.
The sun had already set and his room lay in comforting darkness when his eyes opened once more. The throbbing in his head had stopped now... or maybe he did not notice it anymore over the heavy pain clawing at his chest, at his mind. Green light. Gone.
There were no tears this time, only utter emptiness. A void left behind by someone so cruelly ripped from his life. Tina was dead. The love of his life was dead, killed by a curse there was no protection from. An unforgivable curse.
Not two weeks ago he had vowed to give his life to save hers... and already he had failed her. A flash of green, a crumpling body, utter stillness as battle raged all around. Newt had seen her life end, witnessed her final moments. It did not make for easier acceptance of the fact. He was a widower now.
He had wanted to give her so much still. So much love and joy, laughter and happiness. They had only been at the beginning of their life together... and now it was all gone. The happiness, the joy and laughter, their future... not the love though. No, that would stay with him until the end of his days. However many those were.
The empty space around him was quiet and dark. Too quiet, too dark. He needed to go. Somewhere. Anywhere. Newt could not stand to be alone with himself any longer.
There was only one place he wanted to be... with Tina. But that wasn't possible. Not unless he joined her on the other side of life. And that he could not do. Not yet. Not while there is someone alive still depending on me. His creatures.
There was only one place he actually needed to be, and it was not this hospital.
He pulled back the blankets and slowly sat up on the side of his bed. His strength had returned since the first time he blinked awake but his head throbbed slightly as he moved. Nothing too bad to endure, though.
The small cubicle underneath the bedside table held the possessions he'd had with him when he was brought here. A shirt, trousers, shoes... his wand. He dressed as quickly as possible, then removed the layers of gauze covering him to feel nothing but a tender spot at the side of his head. So he was as good as healed anyway, no need for a bad conscience. He needed just to leave.
Newt stole out of his room and chose his path down a corridor to his right, passing no one on his way out.
He apparated straight into the small hotel room they had taken for their stay in Paris.
It was just as they had left it. There was the dress Tina had worn to dinner last night (or was it the night before? How long had he been out?), blue and black beaded fabric neatly folded over the back of a chair. Her heeled shoes stood right underneath it... ready to be worn again. Newt had to look away as a wave of grief crashed over him.
His old battered suitcase was exactly where he had left it. He took his wand to open it, then hastily went down the steps into his refuge, the one place that had always welcomed him. The well-known sounds and smells here calmed him, made him able to breathe again. It didn't feel like home, though. Not anymore. Home was with her... and she was gone.
He did not dare look at the picture he kept on his desk, the one in which she smiled so beautifully. He couldn't. Not yet. But he would... as soon as everyone in his care was tended to and he could loose himself in his misery for a while. Could he even bear returning to the nearly empty cottage? The place that was supposed to be theirs?
Newt shook his head and went out the door to find something to distract himself with. There was enough to be done here, his beasts must have been neglected for at least a day by now. They would be hungry and needy with no one but him to care for them. He staggered back against the door of the shed as a fresh wave of despair flooded his mind.
You need to stay calm, he told himself. They didn't need to know about it yet. They would notice the change soon enough. He took a deep, calming breath and tried again.
First he made his way over to the Wiggentree to find Pickett. He'd be rightfully put out for being left behind once again... The little Bowtruckle would be a good distraction to keep him from the darker thoughts hunting his mind with his ranting and chattering. But Pickett was not to be found near the tree, nor had he been in the shed or the angry chirping would already have started. Not another friend lost, please... not today.
He stood and stared forlornly at the branch of tiny green creatures for a moment, scratched his head in confusion. His hand shrugged back when it poked against the still tender wound by accident. Thankfully there was no blood on his fingers, only the sharp pain to pull him out of his morose mind.
Newt turned around to look for Dougal instead, his other trusty companion who was nesting just across in the bamboo forest. A flash of white was visible for a few moments, but his eyes were drawn to something else instead. Dark wavy hair, rosy lips, creamy skin... He shook his head and blinked a few times, but the wonderful/terrifying sight was still there. His mind must be playing tricks on him, a repercussion from the injury most likely.
"You can't be here," he muttered more to himself than the apparition standing between the bamboo trees. "No. You can't be real."
He turned on his heel and blindly left for another enclosure, anywhere but there. She can't... she is gone. Tina had been killed. He had failed to protect her from harm. He was alone again. Alone with his creatures. It had not been her. It couldn't have been. A hallucination, nothing but a trick of his mind. He had hit his head quite heavily when he had fallen to the uneven ground and imaginations were not unlikely after such a thing... after a trauma like this.
"Newt!"
And now he heard her voice, too. The lovely sound of her voice... The pain clawed deeper into him still. He would only ever hear it in his head now, her laughter, her singing, her little sighs and snores as she slept beside him. His feet had carried him to the Hippogriff meadow, a place of only small solace now. It was full with memories of her, too. Newt leaned heavily against one of the trees surrounding the grass, eyes closed, trying to control his breathing.
Keep it together, he told himself again and again. Take care of them. Make it to tomorrow. Keep calm and keep it together.
"Newt?"
There was her voice again, closer than before. He opened his eyes and saw her standing in front of him. Tina. Lovely Porpentina. His wife. His love. His soul mate, if there was such a thing.
This time he did not have the strength to face away from her, did not turn and run. She looked well and healthy, just as she would always be in his memories. Deep brown eyes, dark wavy hair, a slight flush to her complexion, rosy lips to kiss. If only the confused expression on her face would turn into that radiant smile of hers... then he could happily get lost in this illusion, hopefully never to return to reality.
"Hello," he breathed carefully, hoping she would not vanish just yet. Just one more smile from her.
"Are you okay, Newt?" Tina... even in his mind she worried for him. Rightly so it seemed... he was talking to a hallucination.
Newt slowly shook his head and managed a small smile at the thought. "What do you think?" was his only answer. He was not and he never would be okay again.
His eyes fluttered closed again as a slender hand touched his shoulder, slid up his neck to cradle his cheek. The oh so familiar touch he deeply longed for, warm and soft... just as he remembered. Newt moved his own hand up to cover hers, imaginary as it was. He couldn't help it, even if the fantasy would crush the moment he touched nothing but thin air.
His eyes snapped open when he did not touch his own skin though but the warm softness of another hand. "T-Tina?"
"Yes, it's me." The worry was still etched deeply into her face. "You are supposed to be at the hospital, darling."
"Tina." He leaned into her touch, felt the slight resistance of her hand against his skin. Merlin, this was not a conjuring of his own mind. This was real. She was real.
"You're here," he breathed in disbelief, in wonder. How was that possible?
"Of course I am."
"You're..." dead. Not dead. The heady sensation of intense relief flooded through him.
She finally smiled when his hand rose to gently cup her cheek and feel the warmth of her skin. Not dead. It glided slowly down her neck to where the steady beat of her pulse thrummed under her skin. Not gone. He slid his hand lower still to rest it over her beating heart.
Alive, it said with every thump, Alive. Alive. Alive.
In a quick motion he had Tina wrapped in his shaking arms, pressed her body wholly against his in a desperate attempt to be close to her, confirm the reality of her with all five senses.
"You're here," he whispered into the lovely skin of her neck. She smelled very faintly of her floral soap, of sweat and a little like his creatures. And entirely herself.
"Yes, I'm here." Newt softly pressed his mouth against the crook of her neck and kissed her there, tasted her skin and felt her lively warmth underneath his lips.
She sighed delightfully in response to it and with that sound something inside him sprung to life. A growing urge, a need to feel her close and closer, to never let her go again. Hold and have, keep and protect.
His hands eagerly trailed over her back, caressed her through the layers of clothing she wore. It was not close enough though for his liking. He untucked her blouse from the band of her trousers and let his hands wander beneath to feel only the thin material of her step-ins and her skin directly underneath. So wonderfully real against his fingertips.
His mouth pressed kisses to her skin, up and down her neck, across her throat, as his hands just felt her. They brushed against the swell of her breasts every now and then, before he finally moved to to cup it in his hand and brush a thumb across the lovely peak. Tina shuddered slightly at the touch, then tensed in his arms. And Newt froze in his movements, unsure if his advances were even welcome or not.
"If you don't want this, tell me now," he whispered shakily against her neck. "Because I don't know if I'll be able to stop myself later on."
It was the primal part inside him, it needed to touch her, feel her, have her for himself. And it wouldn't be easy to stop once he let that part of him take over... which would happen soon. He could barely hold it at bay as it was to wait for her consent, shaking just as much with restraint as with want. He needed to feel her.
There was a long pause after his words and he felt her breathe deeply, her chest pushing against his with every new inhale, before she loosened her grip on him. And Newt prepared to let her go again, as much as his inner beast was opposed to the idea. He wasn't wanted, and he didn't blame her for it.
But then she guided her hand up into his hair and kept him close. "Whatever you need, darling. Go on."
Newt exhaled shakily, a breath he didn't know he had held in. "I need you."
In another quick movement he switched their positions, crowding Tina back against the trunk he had been leaning on earlier. She chuckled lightly as her back hit the tree. He pulled the blouse off her before hungrily continuing his explorations of her body. His hand caressed her through the remaining fabric, teased the hardened nipples and the soft flesh around them until she sighed above him. His inner beast preened with pride at the every sound she made, and still needed more.
His lips trailed down her neck and shoulders, kissing the bare skin more and more fervently the further he ventured. But thin fabric stopped his way downwards and a disappointed sound forced its way from his throat. Naked. He needed her naked. Feel her closer.
His hands dropped down to her hips, tugged at her trousers until they were gone. A pair of warm hands moved between their bodies but Newt paid them no mind as he brushed the strip of fabric from her shoulder and down her arms, causing her underwear to slip and expose more of her delicious skin for him to lavish. His shirt was gone by the time he had her upper body exposed to him and soft warm hands trailed over his skin, made him feel alive as well. Touch.
Her step-ins fell in a heap around her feet as his hands travelled lower and pushed them past her hips. She was gloriously naked now and he pressed against her to feel her skin against his bare chest, her heart pounding against him, the pebbled peaks of her breasts. His hand moved down below her waist, trailed along the curve of her hips, her rear, her thighs. Touching and feeling to satiate an ever-growing hunger in him.
But Tina pushed at him, away from the rough trunk behind her as the more rational part inside him realised. Not here. Can't hurt her. With a low growl Newt hoisted her legs up to wind around his middle and soon took her to a more comfortable place, a patch of softer moss growing not too far away.
"Better," she chuckled when he had laid her down. A most lovely sight stretched out in front of him.
Instead of pushing him away she pulled him closer now. And all of him very much approved of this change. He covered her fully with his body, felt her heated skin against his own as their lips finally came together in a searing kiss. Hands danced over skin, hers and his, touched, teased, kneaded, held. It was unskilled and uncoordinated in its intensity, but neither cared much for finesse in the heat of the moment.
He rested between her open legs and his by now very much erect member pressed against her with only the uncomfortable fabric of his trousers between them. Off. They needed to come off. Nothing between them. No more separations.
Newt sat back on his knees and hurriedly fumbled that last offending garment open with one hand while the other kept in constant contact with her. He needed to feel her still, keep her close, not let her go. His eyes raked over her, naked and sweating and panting, deliciously flushed. So beautifully alive.
Their eyes met, for the first time since he entered the suitcase and found her, and her gaze spoke of a longing similar to his own. Closer. They needed to be one, united in a dance as old as time. Mate.
Gazes still locked he pushed his trousers down to his knees and Tina's leg came up to wrap around his hips pulling him back down again, forcing them closer together. A growl ripped from his throat as his hardness pressed against her slippery heat. She was trembling now, pushed eagerly against him.
"Please..."
Newt hooked the other knee over his elbow to open her up to him and took himself in hand to guide his length into her. A deep groan echoed through the meadow as they slid together and became one, accompanied by a loud gasp from underneath him. She was so tight around him, so wet and hot and so unbelievably... home. Mine.
She clutched at his back when he pulled out again, hissed when he made his way inside again. She didn't tell him to stop. He pushed into her again and again, feeling the life returning to him with every thrust, feeling Tina come even more alive underneath him, sighing and moaning in response to him. Mine.
He let his urges run free, gave in to what his inner beast demanded, life-affirming wants and needs. His thrusts grew more powerful as he got closer to find release, her grip on him grew stronger in return, her voice louder.
"Newt!"
His name spilled from her lips like a symphony, filled the empty space around them as she got lost in a wave of pleasure. He looked on with pride, so beautiful in the throes of passion, shaking and convulsing underneath his body, because of his body. She clenched tight around him, fluttered and quivered with every return into her. So wonderful, so otherworldly.
It only took a little more for him to follow, hard satisfying thrusts into that tight sweet channel at her core until something snapped in him. A wave of pent-up emotions crashed over him with his release, torturing him, finishing him entirely.
Tina felt his tears only moments before the sobs started, little wet tracks running onto her shoulder where his head was buried. They wrecked his body as he desperately clung to her, like a drowning person would cling to a lifeline.
"Shhh." Hand stroking up and down his trembling back she tried to sooth him, but to no avail. These were the kind of tears that could not be stopped. She only held him close, let him cry himself out, and mindful of his injury threaded a gentle hand into his hair. "It's okay, darling. Let it all out."
She was at a loss. Newt had been so agitated after seeing her earlier, had turned from her and just about ran the opposite direction. She hadn't been able to hear his mumblings, but he hadn't been okay when she had found him slumped against one of the trees and trembling visibly. He had looked at her as though she would vanish any second, then startled at her touch as if entirely unexpected before desperately leaning into it and not letting her go again.
Was this somehow related to his injuries? Tina knew that he had hit his head down in the catacombs and she had feared the worst when she had found her husband unresponsive in a puddle of his own blood. There had been so much of it. But he had been alive and the healer had made it clear to her that he would be entirely fine again in a day or two. A minor head injury.
Newt was supposed to be at the hospital still, kept under watch until the potions they had forced into him had done their work sufficiently. Wounded by a well-aimed curse, concussed and injured from the fall, some blood loss. They wouldn't have discharged him yet, tomorrow at the earliest she had been told. Yet here he was, naked in her arms on their meadow inside the suitcase.
He seemed to have needed this just as much has her, extensive reassuring contact between them. He had grown so much calmer after returning her initial touch, less agitated. Though he had gradually become more fervent instead, fervent and a little feral the longer he had had his hands on her. It had concluded in a rather raw and instinct-driven union. And now he was crying when usually he would feel joy and elation.
Tina had never seen him like this.
"Hey, are you with me again?" she carefully asked.c
His tears had run dry by now and he had stopped shaking with the sobs. Newt wiped at his face and took a long steadying breath before responding in a still shaky voice. "Yes."
"Good." She continued her soothing caresses along his back, gently stroked his scalp too knowing that he enjoyed the caress very much. He sighed in response and Tina felt a smile grow across her lips.
His hand now rested over the pulse point at her neck and he raised his head to look at her with still red-rimmed eyes. "You're alive," he whispered and a small smile tugged at his lips. "You... you're not dead."
Tina stared at him in shock. Dead? "Why would you think I was dead?" He had been lying unconscious in the dark, not her.
He swallowed and averted his eyes as they became glassy with a new wave of tears. "I saw you," he told her in a low voice, "falling to the ground with a flash of green. You didn't get up again."
"No." Tina pulled him tighter into her embrace. That explained his strange behaviour, then. Newt had believed her to be dead only to find her standing among the bamboo trees inside the suitcase. He must have thought her to be a trick of his mind... or her ghost come to haunt him.
"It wasn't me you saw falling, Newt. That wasn't me." Another Auror had been killed though, a witch looking only barely like her. His concussed mind may not have noticed the differences though. "I'm okay."
"You weren't there when I woke up," he continued to explain, "and I... I was told you were... gone."
Tina inhaled sharply. "Who said that? Who told you I was dead?"
"A healer," he admitted slowly. "Her English was bad though and I... I must have misunderstood."
She knew which healer he was talking about. A sweet woman, but very limited in her knowledge of the English language. Tina had been in a discussion with the British Ambassador in France when she came to tell her Newt was awake and had asked after her. But by the time she was finally able to go back to his room he had been deeply asleep again.
"I was there," she told him, "I found you and I stayed with you until the healers had to drag me away so they could work on you. I was only gone to talk to someone outside when you woke, darling." He nodded in understanding. "I've been at the hospital all day, watching you sleep and hoping you'd wake up soon. But our creatures needed to be tended to too, so I came here when they kicked me out for the night."
Newt smiled shyly at her words. "Our creatures?"
Tina nodded. "Yes, our creatures."
He gently touched his lips to hers in a short kiss, then rested his head back against her shoulder with an exhausted sigh.
"Are you okay, Newt?" Tina asked hesitantly. "I can't even imagine what it must have been like for you. I'm so sorry I wasn't there."
"I... I will be," he replied softly. "My mind is still... reeling. But I'm getting there. I think." He paused for a moment. "I'll be a tad clingy for a while. I don't think I can let go of you just now... it still feels like you might slip away at any moment."
So he hadn't just been desperate to have her earlier... he'd been desperate to keep her. Tina tightened her arms around him. "I'm not going anywhere, darling."
"Could you... tell me what happened? And how long..."
"It's only been a day. What is the last thing you remember?"
He thought on his answer for a moment. "A curse hit me, I came to a bit later and... thought I saw you die. Then I was at the hospital."
He'd missed most of the action then. "Well, the French Aurors came in shortly after the Dementors did. We managed to get some of Grindelwald's followers, though the man himself eluded capture once again. The prisoners are held somewhere with the French authorities I was told and they're waiting for a delegation from the IWC since it's not just Frenchmen that were involved." She paused for a moment, unsure whether to continue or not. "Two Aurors were killed, one more kissed by a Dementor after your Patronus suddenly vanished. That's when I... when I thought I had lost you. "
Newt's Patronus... it had been powerful, strong enough to keep a whole host of Dementors at bay apparently even after Newt had lost consciousness for a short while. And it had the most unusual corporeal form...
"Your Patronus is a Thunderbird," she continued with a smile. "I've never seen or heard anything like it."
Newt nodded against her. "Neither have I... it must have changed when I fell in love with one because it used to be a Basset Hound. Still was the last time I had need for a Patronus."
Tina chuckled, but quickly fell silent again. "Mine is a Bloodhound, you know. It didn't change after meeting you, but... it's gotten easier to conjure and feels quite a bit stronger."
She felt him smile. "Good. I wouldn't want you to change on my account... I love you just the way you are."
They laid still for a while, surrounded by the comfortable not-quiet of the suitcase. Until an earlier thought returned to the surface of Tina's mind.
"Newt?"
"Hm?" He sounded a little groggy, as if close to sleep.
"They didn't actually release you from the hospital earlier, did they?"
He slowly shook his head. "No. I... I couldn't stand to be there anymore. Alone and..." He didn't finish his sentence but Tina had an idea what had driven him to seek out the company of his creatures.
"Then you should go back," she said and quelled his low protest with soothing words. "At least for a last check-up, darling. You hit your head pretty bad, you know... not a sight I will forget any time soon."
Newt sighed in resignation. "I know... the throbbing is back, too."
"Then we should go now."
He shook his head again. "Please don't leave me alone again."
"No, I won't. I'll come with you and this time I won't let them send me home either... not after what they put you through."
It took a bit of sweet-talking and nagging, but she eventually managed to talk him around to get back to the dreaded hospital room. Thankfully, magic made the getting dressed and being presentable part of it a lot easier, since Newt was exceptionally clingy all throughout it and, as expected. wouldn't let go of her.
Tina finally apparated them back to the hospital lobby, where frantic personnel was already on the lookout for their escaped patient. Newt was returned to his room, checked over, got another dose of the ominous potion that was supposed to help his concussion... Tina climbed into bed with him once the healers were gone and let Newt fall asleep with his head resting on her chest, to the sound of her beating heart.
"I can't loose you," he murmured before deep sleep claimed him.
"Neither can I," Tina whispered in return and held him a little tighter. Yesterday had been far too close for her liking.