(Untitled)
In his life, Bill's lost a lot of things. He's lost gemstones and portkeys and girlfriends and directions. He's lost keys to doors and telephone numbers and ideas and clothes and business cards and money, but he's never lost family, and elderly little-known aunts or uncles don't count
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He stops to think, then: so much of what she says is true for him as well. He never wanted marriage or family except as an abstraction, an ideal for some day in the future. When he and Fleur had their argument and fell distant, he assumed that was it: there went that particular fantasy.
But he also remembers waking up that morning so many months later with her in his arms, wondering what they were doing: was it right? Was it wrong? Could it possibly last? They were so different: he was older, she was naive. He was a flirt but she... well... he knew what she was, and laboured under no different pretensions. She couldn't possibly love him and him alone; his lust for adventure would conspire to tear them apart.
And yet here they are, impossibly together, impossibly wed, impossibly pregnant, impossibly bound to each other for the duration of this lifetime. "You," he says softly, lifting her face so he can look into her eyes, "are a constant source of comfort to me. We're odd people, you and I. We might not be the typical family, but we're who we are. We're poverty and royalty; we're human and veela; we're British and French; we're here and at the end of the universe; we're... well, we're Fleur and Bill, no more, no less, and we'll love and care for our children as only Fleur and Bill can. It will be fine, you'll see."
Strong, Bill. Be strong, be British. We never admit to our fears.
"I love you, you see. Call me a fool if you must, but I've got a stubborn notion that love is the glue that holds everything together."
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"You are going to be a wonderful papa, did you know that?" There is so much pride in her voice. "I love you."
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It looks as if someone's been studying his French. "Come. Let me do things for you: brush your hair, make you dinner, buy you flowers. Those types of things." After all, it's the simple mechanics of everyday living that helps people to move past their personal grief. And the arrival of twins is something to celebrate, not something that should hang heavy with circumstance.
"Charlie. Rose. Ben. Amarante. You have thirty seconds to decide." Laughing, he squeezes her hand. "I'm teasing, my love. Come. Let me take care of you."
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