WHO: Leon Stebbins & Jess Spinnet WHAT: Checking in with each other and being adorable. WHEN: sometime shortly after the battle WHERE: St Mungo's WARNINGS: N/A
Jessamine had lost track of the hours some time in the midst of transporting the wounded from Hogwarts to St. Mungo’s. Being back at work and stuck somewhere between the floor and her pharmacological window (short-handed as they were) exhaustion was quick to envelop her. And even as she fought it off, there was a time where it was necessary to admit that she wasn’t doing any good.
But at least there was magic. At the back of the space allocated for her work, she affixed a hammock and told herself that she would take two hours to get rest and keep moving.
… some hours later, she awoke with a start and fell out of the hammock into a smelly and confused heap.
Unsure of how long his break would end up being, Leon decided to make the most of it and went off his search of Jessamine. His girlfriend, who’d been so brave. Who’d come with him to help and to save whoever they could. His beautiful girlfriend who had just landed on the floor.
Leon bit back a chuckle. “Sorry if I surprised you.” He looked apologetic, but still a little amused. “I was looking for you, and someone told me you were back here.”
“Rowena’s --” Jess had begun a neat little oath and put the breaks on it when Leon arrived. Attempting to disentangle her limbs and brush the braids from her face into something like order, she gave him an amused little smile. “ -- er, hi. I meant to do that. “
A pause. “ … I was going a little cross-eyed on the floor and thought a nap would work.”
“Did it help?” Leon asked with a crooked smile. Even dazed and crumpled as she was, she still took his breath away. “Or did I wake you before it could?”
She got to her feet and looked about, neatly vanishing the hammock before reaching out to wrap her arms around him. This was the first moment of alone time they’d had since the Battle. And all she’d wanted to do was hold him.
“This helps.”
“Mmm,” he hummed, happy to have a moment of peace and quiet with Jess. There’d been moments at Hogwarts when he hadn’t been sure that he’d ever see her again, but they’d survived. With so many dead and injured, though, Leon hadn’t allowed himself to feel that gratitude properly until that moment.
“Yeah,” Leon agreed, bending his head enough to bury his face against her hair. “It helps.”
“ … even though my hair smells like dust and weird hospital shite and plants, you are still saying it helps. You’re definitely a keeper, Stebbins.” Bone-tired, even after her sleep, she wanted to lean her full weight against him and just melt against his chest. But she had to be strong. And that was probably going to mean throwing an Ennervate at herself.
“Besides the whole vigilante hero thing. I’m sorry I gave you so much grief about it. I think I understood it better at the end.”
“Hey.” Leon unhooked one of his arms from around her shoulders and reached to cup her cheek. “You’ve nothing to be sorry for. I get it.” He understood why that had been hard to swallow. Jessamine and her family had been through so much at the hands of Death Eaters as it was. He’d expected that it would be difficult to add one more worry.
“And you look beautiful. Even though your hair smells like dust and weird hospital shite and plants.” He couldn’t imagine anyone better suited for him than her, and after seeing her work at Hogwarts, putting her life on the line for what was right, he was even more sure. “I love you more now than I ever thought I could.”
That admission drew a raised brow from her -- “Leon,” began in warning, but ended with a laugh. “I’ll just have to keep above that measure.” Drawing back to wrap her braids in a ponytail at the base of her neck, she shrugged back into her white coat. “What’s next for you all?”
She took a breath. “And you know I love you.” She didn’t want to tell him that she could imagine them doing more than professionally collaborating. She could imagine them spending lifetimes together, knit by that love forged in the fire of their war. But instead, she winked. “I just hope my stupid bird didn’t fly away.”
Leon didn’t think it would be very difficult to keep above it, but saying so would have been incredibly corny, and he didn’t really think he needed to say it. It was enough that she knew he loved her, and would love her, no matter what the future threw at them.
“I’ll go check in on him when I have a chance,” he promised. He needed to check on Apollo as well, but he trusted that the cat knew how to take care of himself for a few days. “I think what’s next is… we fix our country. We’ve got a lot of work to do.” Beyond that, though, he had no idea. He assumed that those who had previously worked for the government would return. He had probably earned back his job at St. Mungo’s. But he didn’t know how the Order worked in times of peace. Did they disband? Wait for the next war?
“Time to narrow focus, to re-establish place and …” she smiled, holding his gaze. “Time to live your fucking life, Leon.” Not that neither of them were living it before, but she hoped this victory would give him leave to truly consider his own kind of happiness. And she wanted it to involve her.
“First thing I’m going to do is introduce you to my Dad. You should be scared.”
“Quaking in my boots,” Leon joked, though there was definitely some truth to that. Meeting her father was more intimidating than the narrowing-focus, reestablishing-place thing she was talking about. More intimidating than figuring out what it meant to life his life. He had a feeling he knew exactly what it was he wanted.
He leaned in to kiss her quickly. “I’d love to meet him. And I’ll have to bring you ‘round to my parents too.”
“Of course,” she said, squeezing her hand around his waist before she slid past him and pushed a beaker of a rose coloured liquid at a pair of waiting hands. “You’ll have to tell me what sort of flowers your Mum likes and if your dad is a sweets-guy.”
“Can do. And you can tell me what your sister would like. And your brother.” It wasn’t just her parents he wanted to make a good impression on, after all. When it came to Alicia, at least, he wanted to keep the good will going.
“Should I let you get back to work?” he asked, though he regretted it almost immediately. “And I’ll go look on Toot. So your mind can rest easy.”
“Um, but … you need to sleep and work and other things!” She didn’t want to pull him away from his patients. But the truth was, she didn’t want him outside of her grip, either. It seemed so silly and girlish but in this very short span Leon had become rather central to her sense of safety.
“I do need to work,” Leon conceded. Sleep and other things were at the back of his mind at the moment, even though he knew he needed to find time for that, too. There were too many patients and too many people to tend to. There were too many vulnerable people left.
He could tell there was more to it than that, though, so he lingered. “You know I’m not leaving, right?”
“I know, it’s just …” It seemed silly to verbalise anything. She leaned forward and kissed him lightly. “I’m just really glad we made it through.”
He held onto her tighter. There were moments when he hadn’t been sure they’d get through. On the other side, he was filled with gratitude that they’d made it, and that she’d been there with him in the end, too. “So am I.”