FIC: You Forgot It In People (Ted/Andromeda)
TITLE: You Forgot It In People
AUTHOR: eudaimon
RATING: Adult
PAIRING: Ted/Andromeda, with Ted/Marlene McKinnon and Andromeda/Emmeline Vance.
WORDCOUNT: 5647
NOTES: This fic has been four months coming. Four. Bloody. Months. Four months ago, I wrote a fic called Semi Automatic, in which Andy cheated on Ted with Lily Potter. Then I realised I'd got my timelines wrong. Anyway. At the end of Semi Automatic, Andy left Ted. This is what came afterwards. Ted is something of a project of mine, but he wouldn't be Ted without the input of orlanstamos. Without her, Ted would not have occured to me at all. This fic was supposed to be for C at the end of her finals. Instead, it's just a thankyou for Ted, with love.
(none of this, not even Ted Tonks' Rolling Stones t-shirt, is mine. Okay, Julie and Patrick are mine, but they're also hers)
On Monday, they woke up and one of them was crying. Ted lay on his back in the warm bed until he realised that nobody was going to comfort Dora except him. He'd watched Andy get dressed this morning but thought (hoped) he might have dreamt it; blue light before dawn, stockings with black seams and then she whispered his name He rolled out of bed onto his feet trying to recall whether or not he'd also dreamt a last kiss before her dreamt of her turning her back on him to paint her lips in the mirror.
Naked, he padded into Dora's nursery, scratching scars and tattoos, places where he'd left little pieces of himself behind. As he eased his squalling daughter, nearly one year old, her dirty nappy, out of her cot, he murmured. Even in his twenties, he still felt the vague sickness at waking up in an empty room.
"Such a noise, Dora Dragonfly," he tutted, going through diaper changing motions, not feeling quite right somehow, tracing incomplete, warm shapes in the air.
-
Dora sat in the middle of the unmade bed, blue and silver stripes which Len had sent gnawing at a rubber bouncing ball while Ted went through t-shirts which Andy insisted on hanging up. It was beyond Ted why you'd hang t-shirts, just plain t-shirts, blue and grey and black, the odd one khaki green, all strangely wrinkle free. Barefoot, jeans riding low on his hips, he dragged a t-shirt over his head. They had taken a bath; Dora's short hair had dried quickly, stood up in soft pink spikes, but Ted's hair hung damp in his eyes.
"Shall we go to the shop, Dora Dragonfly? Shall we go for a walk?" Dora nodded, yes coming out muffled around the ball.
Ted bent down to snag his trainers out of the bottom of the wardrobe, and froze. He'd read about people freezing, but had never seen anybody do it. He froze, when he realised.
She'd taken all of her shoes. He had fallen asleep while she was doing her makeup and sometime between that and Dora crying, she had taken all of her shoes. There were six sequins lying on the bottom of the wardrobe. He gathered them in the palm of his hand and sat down on the edge of the bed, absently aware of Dora chattering in the background. Andy had a lecture today, he knew that. Why would she need her dancing shoes?
Dora started to grumble on his hip as they wandered the house, looking for a note, a crumb, anything. She couldn't have left six sequins behind by way of explanation, could she? Andy wouldn't do something like that -- Andy was a list maker, not a taker of risks. She had taken one risk in her life, she said, and it had turned out but that didn't mean a dangerous life was for her. She let Ted have the dangerous life, on the understanding that he bought all of the pieces of himself home every time. And she would put him back together. That was how it worked. Going through the stack of postcards and bills on one of the mantelpiece, Ted joggled Dora on his hip as she grumbled and pulled at his hair. She grumbled a rainbow, balanced on his hip, as he flicked through pages for Andy's handwriting which was at both angular and the most beautiful thing.
He found it, finally, in the last place he looked. That was Andy's saying...it'll be in the last place you looked, which was usually true, because the last place he looked was usually the right place which is where she'd put it begin with. It was pinned to the wall of his shed. The pin had gone straight through Andy's forehead, a picture taking when she was eighteen, before they got married. He ran the fingers of his free hand over the edges of the envelope. With his hand against her back, Dora sat in the middle of the bench and hugged a scuffed miniature football that Edgar had sent against her chest.
"Look, Dora," said Ted and felt his throat tighten. "Mommy left us a letter." Dora chattered and butted his arm with her head as he opened the envelope. A single sheet of paper folded twice, its edges perfectly aligned which shouldn't have surprised him. Which didn't.
Dear Ted,
I'm going away for a while, love. I'm sorry I can't stay. I'm sorry for the things I do.
Andy.
"Well, look at that, Dora," said Ted, folding the letter away carefully, pinning it to the board nowhere near Andy's face.
On Monday, they took two baths. Dora Dragonfly splashed and squealed and scattered ducks. Ted bent his head and cried against his daughter's tousled hair, and then he played ducks as well, played along.
On Tuesday, they painted pictures; Mummy and Daddy and Dora. They wore old shirts; Ted wore a Rolling Stones t-shirt, yellow letters on purple, a hole near the shoulder, and Dora wore a vest and her nappy and got paint everywhere, not least of all on Ted.
"Paint to the elbows, Dora Dragonfly,” He muttered, wiping her hands on a dish-towel. "It's supposed to finger-painting, dear girl. It is not supposed to look like one has dipped the baby." Dora made a high pitched squawking, slapping the paper with both red hands. "Okay, Dora, I'm sorry. No babies. Not a one."
When the doorbell rang, they went as they were, covered in paint. It was summer outside the little house; Dora wasn't cold. Benjy Fenwick was standing on the doorstep, tatty tweed and green cotton even in the sun. Ted stood aside to let him into the house. Dora made a red hand print, five perfect fingers, along Ted's jaw, waved her painty fingers at Benjy but he stepped back, grinning.
"Social call, Fenwick?" Said Ted, shifting Dora from one hip to the other.
"Wish it was, mate."
In the kitchen, Ted made coffee, still holding Dora. Good daddies learn to do everything one handed. Benjy sat at the table and worried at a hang nail and then he drank coffee while Ted washed Dora's hands with warm water and Fairy Liquid, while he extricated her from the vest gone crusty with dried paint. Once Dora was dressed in the ballerina frills which Julie had stitched, a little red t-shirt, Ted sat down to his own coffee.
"Why do you insist on dressing that child like an idiot, Ted?" Said Benjy, smiling.
"Like an idiot is the only way that I know how to do things, Benjy."
They drank coffee in companionable silence, while Ted tried to keep painty brushes out of Dora's little hands.
"You said...you wished it was a social call," said Ted, once Dora had gone still and quiet, sucking her thumb, her head a neat warm weight against his chest. "Andy, right?"
Benjy put down his coffee cup. He couldn't look Ted in the eye.
"She...She's staying with us. She didn't bring as much clean underwear with her as she'd like. She's really sorry about Em."
Ted smoothed Dora's tousled pink hair and didn't look up.
"Em? As in Emmeline Vance? As in your girlfriend, Emmeline Vance?"
He heard the wind go out of Benjy.
"You didn't know."
"I think you'd better go now, Benjy. Dora could do with a bath."
"But..."
"Now, Benjy. If you wouldn't mind."
After Benjy left, Ted sat at the kitchen table for a long time until he realised that Dora had gone to sleep leaning against his chest, the soft sucking sound of her thumb in her mouth, a warm weight, a centre.
On Wednesday, they went to see Granddad Tonks in Daddy's rattling car. He'd had the car since he'd learnt to drive, a clapped out Morris Minor in a faded green. He tinkered with it on the weekends which, like the workbench in the shed, was largely useless but made Ted feel better. It was a beautiful day to drive up to see Patrick at his little church up near Birmingham. Dora bounced in her safety seat, sang off-key and wrong-worded with the radio as the country went by, spilled by. An hour and half up to Birmingham and the sky was very blue over farmland and motorway bridges. Ted felt better the further he got from London. He'd been born in Liverpool, brought up in Leeds, went to Hogwarts. It had been London since he was married but a bloke like Ted Tonks didn't really fit in London. He only lasted there because of work and Andy.
His dad's rectory was far bigger than two people needed; his dad lived at one of the house, and Julie lived at the other. The decoration met halfway. Ted had keys, he'd always had keys, they he came less and less. He let himself into his dad's hallway and stood quietly for a minute while Dora waved her hat in the air. His dad's house smelt of churches; incense and polish.
"Dad? Is that you, Dad?" Julie came clattering down her stairs, hair scraped back into a ponytail, wearing her glasses. "Ted! When did you get here?"
"Just this minute. We crept in while nobody was looking, didn't we, Dora?" Julie beamed, holding out her hands, taking Dora from Ted, smothering her little face, flushed from the heat, with kisses.
"Hello, Dora. How are we? I see Daddy has managed to get you in a dress and hat that match. Clever Daddy! Daddy has finally learnt to tell his arse from his elbow...isn't he a marvel, Dora? Yes he is."
"Lay off, Julie, would you? Is Dad around?"
She studied him for a second.
"Yeah. He's in the church. I'll give the little lady some lunch, shall I? How's that sound, Dora?" Dora nodded, chattering contentedly, her fingers curled between the strands of Julie's beads. Ted smiled, leant in to kiss Julie's check, to drop a peck in Dora's hair.
"M'gonna see Dad, Jules. Don't kidnap Dora in my absence."
"She's my niece, Ted. I don't need to kidnap her. And don't call me Jules, Ted."
Patrick's church was small and pretty, red bricks and stained glass which cast colours across the floor. A woman was polishing the pews as Ted walked in, a lady with flowers on the scarf over her hair. His dad was sitting on the steps to the chancel, his Bible in his lap, his glasses on the end of his nose. Ted walked down the aisle, his trainers making no sound on thick carpet. Patrick didn't look up until Ted was nearly at the stairs. When he looked up, he beamed.
"Hello, Ted! You didn't say you were coming."
Ted sat down on the broad steps beside his dad.
"Me and Dora felt like a drive..."
"You bought, Dora! Wonderful." Patrick beamed. "Andromeda working?" Ted opened his mouth to say yes, she has a lecture and then she's down at Kent the day after tomorrow. He closed it just as quickly.
"I don't know, Dad."
"These things can get beyond us."
"No, Dad. I don't..."
"Son?"
"She...left me, Dad."
They sat in silence for a moment. Ted seemed to spend a lot of his life sitting in silence. Suddenly, he missed Dora's noise.
"Do you know why?"
"I know why."
"Son, God moves in mysterious ways, and..."
"I thought I might take Julie out for the afternoon, Dad. If you can watch Dora. S'so long since I was at home."
"Right. Right, of course. I'll take Dora. She can...help me write my sermon."
"Thanks, Dad."
"God bless."
-
He took Julie for a drive, paid too much to park in the city centre and they walked passed the shops and Julie held his arm. He felt fifteen again, only, Julie would never have held his arm when she was thirteen. He liked it. He felt like feeling close to someone, and being close to Julie was like being close to himself, more or less. He was little when his mum died (had it been twelve years?), but Julie reminded him of his mother, of a gone time. Julie at twenty, laden with charms that meant nothing, long braids in her blonde brown hair.
"Pretty girl," he said, and kissed her behind her ear. They might almost have been lovers, almost, only he wore a wedding ring and she didn't. It hadn't occurred to him to take it off.
Julie stopped at a shop window, almost pressing her nose against the glass to look at a pair of shoes, red shoes, open toed. They were the kind of shoes that Andy would have worn, was still wearing in Sirius' house, going about her life without them. Even with jeans, which she wore rarely, Andromeda wore beautiful shoes.
On Thursday, coming home from Granddad's, they found some sort of down and out on the step. On closer inspection, it turned out to be Uncle Ed, who had been waiting all day. He was wearing a jacket despite the heat, the same old bloody jacket as he'd always worn, even though Caroline hated it.
"How do you not die of heat exhaustion? How has that jacket not killed you by now?" Edgar had relieved him of Dora, was bouncing and talking to her solemnly. Her hair had glowed bright blue with excitement as he took her.
"I am just that brilliant...formidable...whatever" said Edgar, solemnly, the effect ruined, somewhat, when Dora yanked at a fistful of his hair.
They ended up drinking on deckchairs, the long stretch of the lawn like summer and Andromeda's roses. What Ted grew were green beans which needed caning; he had tried tomatoes, but they needed too much watching and there was always something else which he wanted to do, read, explore. He was away too much in the summer. Bad things happened on beautiful days and somebody had to roll with the punches; risk their own neck for the sake of the world. It wasn't so much the world that Ted Tonks was risking his neck for, just two beautiful girls. All the heroes were such handsome boys and Ted had never thought of himself as particularly handsome, easy on some eyes. Edgar had got more handsome - gone was the fresh faced youth, the wannabe spy, and in his place the hero. Edgar had stripped off his horrible coat and discarded it, sat in his deckchair and sipped beer in the warm evening.
"I understand, you know," said Edgar, finally. "Well...better than Len does, anyway."
"Hmm?"
"Len. I understand, Ted. What you're got here an' all. I can understand why you wouldn't want to leave, most of the time."
Ted felt a sudden bloom of love for Edgar Bones, who had been his friend since he was thirteen and Edgar was eleven...Edgar who had been a groom's man at his wedding, who had stood beside Len at Dora's baptism, his lips just barely moving as Patrick Tonks ran through the service again, grasping at unfamiliar words. Len had worn a flowered dress. He had loved them both for so long.
"Didn't stop you though, did it, Edgar..." Sometimes, surrounded by his brave friends, Ted Tonks felt like a little bit of a coward, grubbing for a living in the dirt. Andy always smiled and told him that just because he was on his own risking a broken neck didn't make him any less brave.
Edgar shrugged and drained his beer.
"Yeah, well...I never did feel as brave as you pair looked."
"You were though, mate. You are."
They drank in silence after that.
At some point near midnight, off the lawn by then, Ted opened his eyes, grasping for a slipping bottle before it fell.
"I fucking hate her, Ed," he mumbled, alarmed by how close to tears he suddenly felt.
"No you don't, mate," said Edgar, manhandling him to his feet, an arm across Ted's back, under his arms. "You don't hate her anymore than you ever hated her. Come on, old man...let's get you to bed and I'll check on the little lady before I go."
Ted laid his head against Edgar's shoulder and let himself be carried.
-
On Friday, they started slowly. They manhandled the big TV set up to the bedroom, set it on Mummy's chest at the end of the bed and watched cartoons and the news in a nest of duvets. Ted slept for most of the day while Dora played teddy bears and wooden trains. When they got hungry (when Dora got hungry), Ted shuffled about in striped cotton pyjama trousers and slippers which reminded him of his dad. At eight or nine o clock, just as it was getting dark, the doorbell chimed. Ted went to answer it still in his pyjamas. He took Dora on his hip - he was so used to taking her everywhere. Bellatrix was standing on the doorstep, a bottle of champagne cradled against her hip where Ted held Dora.
"Heard that your pretty girl has finally come to her senses," she said.
He shut the door in her face.
After he'd put Dora down for the night (didn't want her to spend too much time near to all of that poison), he opened the door and found Bellatrix still standing there. Suddenly, he was ashamed of still being in his pyjamas, of having spent the night drinking with Edgar, of being left. In her silks and velvet, her tumbled black hair, she looked so like Andy that it hurt.
"Invite me in, Ted."
"Why should I?"
"Because you're a good man, aren't you, Ted."
He did, even later, faced with the weight of everything that later came to pass, he wouldn't know why...
In his kitchen, Bellatrix took off her shoes and inhaled the bubbles from Champagne. Even her shoes looked cruel, pointed toes and steel heels. She'd unlaced her neckline...her tits swelled above the satin of her bra. He noticed these things because of how much like Andy she was, scarlet lips and stockings with black seams. When she slid her foot up his inside leg, he noticed that it was the same shape as Andy's had been, up in his lap for him to rub while she marvelled at the details of Muggle soaps. When Bellatrix slid across her lap (how did he get to here?), he weight was so similar to Andy's weight...unlike Andy's, her lipstick had a bitter, waxy taste.
"What're you going?" He managed, his mouth smudged bitter by hers.
"Seeing why it was so easy for Andromeda to move on...They don't considering you actually married, you know...Mummy and Papa. They never did...They threw a party...good riddance to you and your Mudblood bastard."
And that was it, all he needed. He dislodged her from his lap in an ungainly tangle of limbs, half hard (don't think, don’t think).
"I think that it's time you left." When he wiped his mouth, the back of his hand came away bloody with lipstick.
"You're missing out," she spat and he lifted her by her arm, dragged her down to the front door. He realised that he'd forgotten her shoes but he left her on the path in her bare feet, scratching at the front door with her talons while he went to fetch them. He resisted the urge to spit on her which made him throw up when he swallowed back the impulse. He threw up on the stripped boards in the hallway and after he cleaned that up he stripped off his pyjamas and crawled into bed, feeling less of a good man than he had before.
On Saturday, they told stories. This little piggy went to market, this little piggy stayed home as a result of rehabilitating case of the measles, this little pigged was caught up in a Revolution not of his own design, this little piggy made fabulous lady's hates, this little pigged went wee-wee-wee...all of those little piggies, Dora, who fought th good fight and never came home...
"That's my t-shirt," said Ted, opening the door.
"So it is," said Marlene McKinnon, Ted's t-shirt and scarred leather, disintegrating denim and long silver earrings...Rockstar godmother, academic revolutionary, historian. Ted Tonks had had two girlfriends in his life and one of them he'd married. Len loved history, all manner of history, but she had loved Ted Tonks first of all.
"Heard that Fenwick's done his usual trick and fucked everything up."
"Wasn't his fault."
"Still. Fuckwit in the world, right?"
Ted nodded.
"You have better let me come in."
"As if I'd do anything else," he said, standing aside to let her back in for about the second time.
For a while they sat and talked and Dora sat on Len's lap, sucking her thumb, looking between them with wide, tired eyes. She'd been about to go to bed and then her favourite godmother had turned up and waylaid that. Ted could help but think back to the hospital wing at Hogwarts, a fall during a Quidditch match and the sudden shock of all that blood. Never wished that it had gone differently (so happy and everything happens for a reason), but it had hurt in unexpected ways, watching Len hold Dora for the first time, her hand ghosting the top of Dora's head, Dora blindly rooting against the curve of her tit through the faded cotton of her shirt.
"We would have had beautiful babies," he said to her.
"Say what you like about Andromeda," said Len, smiling, kissing Dora's sweaty hair, "She makes beautiful babies..."
-
He wasn't sure how it happened. He slipped. They'd been sitting in the lounge, heads bent together, almost whispering. There was one lamp on. He kissed her. It was his fault. It was nobody's fault. They'd done it all before, and it was so easy to slip back into, her mouth on his, his hands pushing through the soft, tousled fall of her long dark hair. Her body gave and moved against him in familiar ways; nothing about her surprised him and, as her tongue flickered against his, he felt sixteen again, that bed in the attic above the common room, no babies, no sorrow and nobody being left.
It was easier than it should have been. They'd had enough practice. He pushed her back on the couch, fumbling her shirt upwards, finding her braless (she'd never worn bras when she could help it). He kissed from the corner of her mouth down, licking her pulse, squeezing her tits together to lick and suck at her nipples. In the back of his head was a little voice that was shouting and screaming and stamping its feet. Len moaned and spread her legs around him. It didn't occur to him to stop. Len took off her long silver earrings, dropped them on the carpet. She sucked on his fingers one by one, ignored the finger that held his gold wedding band. He rocked against her hip, squeezing her tit with damp fingers before running his hand down her side, between her legs, palming her through denim. She pushed up against him, her cunt against the palm of his hand, nipping at his bottom lip.
"Ted...what're you..."
"Shhhhhhh," He whispered, pulling at the buttons of her jeans, rubbing his fingers over lace, already damp, working her knickers aside to rub his fingers against her cunt. In her teens, she had shaved there. Now she didn't, and he found himself almost relived by the small difference. He pushed two fingers into her, settle his thumb firmly against her clit. She rippled underneath him as he fingered her roughly, almost unaware of the little sounds that she made; Marlene always did like it rough, a bit of a push and shove and anyway, he was the one who'd be left, again. Before he realised she was coming around his curled fingers, and he was pulling out too soon, pulling her hand down between her legs and making her keep rubbing at her clit, making her fingers slippery to the knuckles as he pulled her jeans further down, as he pushed his own down around his thighs, leaning against her, on top of her, kissing her again as he pressed against that heat, that wet, and...
And Dora was crying and he stopped. Breathing hard, he looked at Len, swollen lips and wide eyes and when she cupped his face with both of hands, one of them had wet fingers.
"I can't do this, can I?" He said.
"No, sweetheart, you can't." She smoothed the side of his face fondly and suddenly the fact that she was naked, almost naked, beneath him made him blush. Who was he kidding? He was Ted Tonks and he was a good bloke, a good husband and may not have deserved any of it and it may all have gone to shit, but that didn't change who he was did it, not really.
She kissed him before he got up, but it was a chaste kiss. He'd loved her since he was eleven years old.
He padded up the stairs, bare feet, his underwear pulled up but his jeans still undone, sagging low on his hips. Though Dora was screeching, he went into the bathroom, washed his hands with cold water and soap. It didn't seem appropriate to go to his daughter with fingers that smelt of sex or the possibility of sex. Dora hushed quickly when he picked her up, barely awake, startled by a dream. He tucked her back in, bent to kiss her forehead, smoothing back soft pink hair.
On the couch downstairs, Len was full dressed, lying on the couch, watching the lights in the road. She looked up when he walked into the room.
"All's well?" He nodded sitting then lying down between Len and the back of the sofa. She reached behind her, drew his arm around her waist, and it reminded of him of the bed that they'd had at Hogwarts and how in love with her he'd thought that he'd been.
He fell asleep like that, comforted by her closeness and the way it took everything back.
On Sunday, he woke up and Len was already gone but Andy was there. Dressed in all her black she blended into the shadow in the lounge, curtains open, grey morning. She was wearing her hair tied up. She'd kicked off her shoes, and was rubbing her bare feet as she watched him.
He sat up. Len had left a blanket draped across his waist. He wasn't awake yet. His head pounded.
"How did you get in here?"
"I live here, Ted."
"Mmph."
He got up without looking at her, padded into the kitchen. He put the kettle on the stove, needed coffee, needed to think. He couldn't think with her near to him. He never could, really, but usually he didn't mind. Usually he didn't mind how much of his head took up. She followed him after she'd put her shoes on...he heard her heels clicking on the black and white tile.
"How've you been?"
"How do you think I've been, Andy? On my own with Dora all week?" He spooned coffee into his mug, three spoons, made it strong. Andromeda was sitting at the table, her head cradled in her hands.
"I would have thought you'd enjoyed that...you and Dora. She always pines when you're not here."
He slammed his mug down on the counter. He almost didn't notice when the coffee spilt on the back of his hand.
"I'm not here because I'm working, Andy. It's not the fucking same. At all. It's just not."
"I didn't mean that...I meant..."
"Honestly, Andromeda? I don't care what you think, just at the moment...Because you didn't just walk out on me, you walked on Dora and she doesn't have a choice, Andromeda, she just loves you. I have a choice and I still love you...You wanna know what kind of choices I have, you ask Len McKinnon...And I don't care what you think Andy, because I've had a horrible week and now my hand hurts and you left me, Andy. You left me."
He realised that he was shouting about halfway through and couldn't stop. When it was gone, out of him, he felt deflated, rubbed his burnt hand on the front of his shirt and couldn't look at her. At the table, Andy was silent. Dora had started crying upstairs. Ted couldn't remember the last time he had raised his voice in his own house.
"Go and see to your daughter, Andy," he said, turning away. "And stop looking at me like I'm going to hit you. When have I ever..." He shook his head, and opened the back door, arguing for a moment with the key in the lock before the spring morning and gravel under his bare feet.
-
"She has a cold."
He was bent over the car, not doing much, just getting his hands dirty. The engine made no sense to him. His dad always had said that cars were like pretty girls.
"A bit of one, yeah."
"When did she get a cold?"
"You care?"
"I've put her back down with some medicine...maybe she'll sleep."
"See?" He turned to look at her, wiping oily hands automatically on the seat of his jeans. "You can do it when you want to."
"I missed you," said Andromeda, holding herself away from him in her silk skirt, her hair gracefully twisted. "I never stopped thinking about you..."
"Emmeline wasn't that much of a distraction then? You know Len used to fancy her?"
"You're ugly when you're trying to be cruel, Ted Tonks. It doesn't become you."
"Well, I'm fucking sorry, Andy, but I had to find out from Benjy fucking Fenwick for fuck's sake. You couldn't call me?"
"I was ashamed of myself, I..."
"Sweetheart, I was ashamed of you too."
When Andy kissed him, it came as a surprise, but not the same kind of surprise as kissing Len had been. Later, he'd realise that it had felt surprising because, somewhere in the back of his head, he'd never expected it to happen again. When her mouth slid off his, they were breathing quicker, his oily hands bunching her sweater in the small of her back.
"I thought that you were going to hate me," she whispered. She wasn't wearing any lipstick; her lips felt clean and dry and good against his own:
"Oh, baby...I wanted to tear you apart. It's not the same thing at all," he said.
When they were teenagers, before they were married and put away childish things, they'd fucked on the bonnet of the car, took picnics deep in the country side and fucked on a blanket over sun-warmed metal. It had always seemed sacrilegious to think about just fucking a girl like Andy...you were supposed to take your time over a girl like Andy, worship her, tits and hips and thighs and the whole lovely width of her. He did not want to take his time. He wanted to press against her harder than he ought to, hear her moan and remind her. Ted Tonks was a gentle man, but he'd had his share of scrapes, shrunk in the heat of underground to be his most useful size. Ted Tonks knew things and most of all, what he'd learnt with Len McKinnon, who'd been a fiery roaring girl, a biter, was the exact way to properly handle a woman.
He ruined her skirt, pulling it up with both hands, pushing her back against the hood of the car which was cool in the morning, damp from spring. Underneath was more silk, grey like dawn, and he pulled at it with his hands. In the movies, this part was easy; girl's knickers as flimsy as their virtue, but Andromeda Tonks had an iron will. Her knickers held, as Ted pulled at them with both hands and sore, finally torn them down the front, enough to rub his fingers against her, enough to spread her legs and slide a finger into her, as rough or rougher as Len before her, making no mistake that he was there, that was under siege now and he meant to come in.
She ended up on her back, fingers pulling at his shirt and his hair as he fucked her, as he rocked her on the bonnet of his old car, buried in her, leaning over her. He didn't kiss her until almost the very end. She wrapped herself around him and clung to him, ruined knickers and her hair spilling down one side of her face and her tits bouncing against his chest until the very end, after he'd come, when he pressed her back and kissed her and realised that he was crying again.
"Don't ever do it to me again, Andy...don't you ever..."
"I won't, love. I won't. Never again."
"I wanted to tear you apart, Andy."
"I know, Ted. I know."
They clung to each other, not just Andy to him, but both of them, until he picked her up and carried her inside. She didn't weigh that much. He didn't realise how much he'd missed her until he felt how little she weighed in his arms.
On Monday, they woke up and one of them was crying.
Ted opened his eyes as Andy got back into bed with Dora in her arms. Dora snuggled in between her parents and they linked fingers over her head.
“Do you have to get up?” He murmured. He felt, rather than saw, when Andy shook her head.
“No lectures until tomorrow."
Ted smiled, wrapped his arm around his sleeping daughter, fell back to sleep clinging to everything that mattered in the world.
AUTHOR: eudaimon
RATING: Adult
PAIRING: Ted/Andromeda, with Ted/Marlene McKinnon and Andromeda/Emmeline Vance.
WORDCOUNT: 5647
NOTES: This fic has been four months coming. Four. Bloody. Months. Four months ago, I wrote a fic called Semi Automatic, in which Andy cheated on Ted with Lily Potter. Then I realised I'd got my timelines wrong. Anyway. At the end of Semi Automatic, Andy left Ted. This is what came afterwards. Ted is something of a project of mine, but he wouldn't be Ted without the input of orlanstamos. Without her, Ted would not have occured to me at all. This fic was supposed to be for C at the end of her finals. Instead, it's just a thankyou for Ted, with love.
(none of this, not even Ted Tonks' Rolling Stones t-shirt, is mine. Okay, Julie and Patrick are mine, but they're also hers)
On Monday, they woke up and one of them was crying. Ted lay on his back in the warm bed until he realised that nobody was going to comfort Dora except him. He'd watched Andy get dressed this morning but thought (hoped) he might have dreamt it; blue light before dawn, stockings with black seams and then she whispered his name He rolled out of bed onto his feet trying to recall whether or not he'd also dreamt a last kiss before her dreamt of her turning her back on him to paint her lips in the mirror.
Naked, he padded into Dora's nursery, scratching scars and tattoos, places where he'd left little pieces of himself behind. As he eased his squalling daughter, nearly one year old, her dirty nappy, out of her cot, he murmured. Even in his twenties, he still felt the vague sickness at waking up in an empty room.
"Such a noise, Dora Dragonfly," he tutted, going through diaper changing motions, not feeling quite right somehow, tracing incomplete, warm shapes in the air.
-
Dora sat in the middle of the unmade bed, blue and silver stripes which Len had sent gnawing at a rubber bouncing ball while Ted went through t-shirts which Andy insisted on hanging up. It was beyond Ted why you'd hang t-shirts, just plain t-shirts, blue and grey and black, the odd one khaki green, all strangely wrinkle free. Barefoot, jeans riding low on his hips, he dragged a t-shirt over his head. They had taken a bath; Dora's short hair had dried quickly, stood up in soft pink spikes, but Ted's hair hung damp in his eyes.
"Shall we go to the shop, Dora Dragonfly? Shall we go for a walk?" Dora nodded, yes coming out muffled around the ball.
Ted bent down to snag his trainers out of the bottom of the wardrobe, and froze. He'd read about people freezing, but had never seen anybody do it. He froze, when he realised.
She'd taken all of her shoes. He had fallen asleep while she was doing her makeup and sometime between that and Dora crying, she had taken all of her shoes. There were six sequins lying on the bottom of the wardrobe. He gathered them in the palm of his hand and sat down on the edge of the bed, absently aware of Dora chattering in the background. Andy had a lecture today, he knew that. Why would she need her dancing shoes?
Dora started to grumble on his hip as they wandered the house, looking for a note, a crumb, anything. She couldn't have left six sequins behind by way of explanation, could she? Andy wouldn't do something like that -- Andy was a list maker, not a taker of risks. She had taken one risk in her life, she said, and it had turned out but that didn't mean a dangerous life was for her. She let Ted have the dangerous life, on the understanding that he bought all of the pieces of himself home every time. And she would put him back together. That was how it worked. Going through the stack of postcards and bills on one of the mantelpiece, Ted joggled Dora on his hip as she grumbled and pulled at his hair. She grumbled a rainbow, balanced on his hip, as he flicked through pages for Andy's handwriting which was at both angular and the most beautiful thing.
He found it, finally, in the last place he looked. That was Andy's saying...it'll be in the last place you looked, which was usually true, because the last place he looked was usually the right place which is where she'd put it begin with. It was pinned to the wall of his shed. The pin had gone straight through Andy's forehead, a picture taking when she was eighteen, before they got married. He ran the fingers of his free hand over the edges of the envelope. With his hand against her back, Dora sat in the middle of the bench and hugged a scuffed miniature football that Edgar had sent against her chest.
"Look, Dora," said Ted and felt his throat tighten. "Mommy left us a letter." Dora chattered and butted his arm with her head as he opened the envelope. A single sheet of paper folded twice, its edges perfectly aligned which shouldn't have surprised him. Which didn't.
Dear Ted,
I'm going away for a while, love. I'm sorry I can't stay. I'm sorry for the things I do.
Andy.
"Well, look at that, Dora," said Ted, folding the letter away carefully, pinning it to the board nowhere near Andy's face.
On Monday, they took two baths. Dora Dragonfly splashed and squealed and scattered ducks. Ted bent his head and cried against his daughter's tousled hair, and then he played ducks as well, played along.
On Tuesday, they painted pictures; Mummy and Daddy and Dora. They wore old shirts; Ted wore a Rolling Stones t-shirt, yellow letters on purple, a hole near the shoulder, and Dora wore a vest and her nappy and got paint everywhere, not least of all on Ted.
"Paint to the elbows, Dora Dragonfly,” He muttered, wiping her hands on a dish-towel. "It's supposed to finger-painting, dear girl. It is not supposed to look like one has dipped the baby." Dora made a high pitched squawking, slapping the paper with both red hands. "Okay, Dora, I'm sorry. No babies. Not a one."
When the doorbell rang, they went as they were, covered in paint. It was summer outside the little house; Dora wasn't cold. Benjy Fenwick was standing on the doorstep, tatty tweed and green cotton even in the sun. Ted stood aside to let him into the house. Dora made a red hand print, five perfect fingers, along Ted's jaw, waved her painty fingers at Benjy but he stepped back, grinning.
"Social call, Fenwick?" Said Ted, shifting Dora from one hip to the other.
"Wish it was, mate."
In the kitchen, Ted made coffee, still holding Dora. Good daddies learn to do everything one handed. Benjy sat at the table and worried at a hang nail and then he drank coffee while Ted washed Dora's hands with warm water and Fairy Liquid, while he extricated her from the vest gone crusty with dried paint. Once Dora was dressed in the ballerina frills which Julie had stitched, a little red t-shirt, Ted sat down to his own coffee.
"Why do you insist on dressing that child like an idiot, Ted?" Said Benjy, smiling.
"Like an idiot is the only way that I know how to do things, Benjy."
They drank coffee in companionable silence, while Ted tried to keep painty brushes out of Dora's little hands.
"You said...you wished it was a social call," said Ted, once Dora had gone still and quiet, sucking her thumb, her head a neat warm weight against his chest. "Andy, right?"
Benjy put down his coffee cup. He couldn't look Ted in the eye.
"She...She's staying with us. She didn't bring as much clean underwear with her as she'd like. She's really sorry about Em."
Ted smoothed Dora's tousled pink hair and didn't look up.
"Em? As in Emmeline Vance? As in your girlfriend, Emmeline Vance?"
He heard the wind go out of Benjy.
"You didn't know."
"I think you'd better go now, Benjy. Dora could do with a bath."
"But..."
"Now, Benjy. If you wouldn't mind."
After Benjy left, Ted sat at the kitchen table for a long time until he realised that Dora had gone to sleep leaning against his chest, the soft sucking sound of her thumb in her mouth, a warm weight, a centre.
On Wednesday, they went to see Granddad Tonks in Daddy's rattling car. He'd had the car since he'd learnt to drive, a clapped out Morris Minor in a faded green. He tinkered with it on the weekends which, like the workbench in the shed, was largely useless but made Ted feel better. It was a beautiful day to drive up to see Patrick at his little church up near Birmingham. Dora bounced in her safety seat, sang off-key and wrong-worded with the radio as the country went by, spilled by. An hour and half up to Birmingham and the sky was very blue over farmland and motorway bridges. Ted felt better the further he got from London. He'd been born in Liverpool, brought up in Leeds, went to Hogwarts. It had been London since he was married but a bloke like Ted Tonks didn't really fit in London. He only lasted there because of work and Andy.
His dad's rectory was far bigger than two people needed; his dad lived at one of the house, and Julie lived at the other. The decoration met halfway. Ted had keys, he'd always had keys, they he came less and less. He let himself into his dad's hallway and stood quietly for a minute while Dora waved her hat in the air. His dad's house smelt of churches; incense and polish.
"Dad? Is that you, Dad?" Julie came clattering down her stairs, hair scraped back into a ponytail, wearing her glasses. "Ted! When did you get here?"
"Just this minute. We crept in while nobody was looking, didn't we, Dora?" Julie beamed, holding out her hands, taking Dora from Ted, smothering her little face, flushed from the heat, with kisses.
"Hello, Dora. How are we? I see Daddy has managed to get you in a dress and hat that match. Clever Daddy! Daddy has finally learnt to tell his arse from his elbow...isn't he a marvel, Dora? Yes he is."
"Lay off, Julie, would you? Is Dad around?"
She studied him for a second.
"Yeah. He's in the church. I'll give the little lady some lunch, shall I? How's that sound, Dora?" Dora nodded, chattering contentedly, her fingers curled between the strands of Julie's beads. Ted smiled, leant in to kiss Julie's check, to drop a peck in Dora's hair.
"M'gonna see Dad, Jules. Don't kidnap Dora in my absence."
"She's my niece, Ted. I don't need to kidnap her. And don't call me Jules, Ted."
Patrick's church was small and pretty, red bricks and stained glass which cast colours across the floor. A woman was polishing the pews as Ted walked in, a lady with flowers on the scarf over her hair. His dad was sitting on the steps to the chancel, his Bible in his lap, his glasses on the end of his nose. Ted walked down the aisle, his trainers making no sound on thick carpet. Patrick didn't look up until Ted was nearly at the stairs. When he looked up, he beamed.
"Hello, Ted! You didn't say you were coming."
Ted sat down on the broad steps beside his dad.
"Me and Dora felt like a drive..."
"You bought, Dora! Wonderful." Patrick beamed. "Andromeda working?" Ted opened his mouth to say yes, she has a lecture and then she's down at Kent the day after tomorrow. He closed it just as quickly.
"I don't know, Dad."
"These things can get beyond us."
"No, Dad. I don't..."
"Son?"
"She...left me, Dad."
They sat in silence for a moment. Ted seemed to spend a lot of his life sitting in silence. Suddenly, he missed Dora's noise.
"Do you know why?"
"I know why."
"Son, God moves in mysterious ways, and..."
"I thought I might take Julie out for the afternoon, Dad. If you can watch Dora. S'so long since I was at home."
"Right. Right, of course. I'll take Dora. She can...help me write my sermon."
"Thanks, Dad."
"God bless."
-
He took Julie for a drive, paid too much to park in the city centre and they walked passed the shops and Julie held his arm. He felt fifteen again, only, Julie would never have held his arm when she was thirteen. He liked it. He felt like feeling close to someone, and being close to Julie was like being close to himself, more or less. He was little when his mum died (had it been twelve years?), but Julie reminded him of his mother, of a gone time. Julie at twenty, laden with charms that meant nothing, long braids in her blonde brown hair.
"Pretty girl," he said, and kissed her behind her ear. They might almost have been lovers, almost, only he wore a wedding ring and she didn't. It hadn't occurred to him to take it off.
Julie stopped at a shop window, almost pressing her nose against the glass to look at a pair of shoes, red shoes, open toed. They were the kind of shoes that Andy would have worn, was still wearing in Sirius' house, going about her life without them. Even with jeans, which she wore rarely, Andromeda wore beautiful shoes.
On Thursday, coming home from Granddad's, they found some sort of down and out on the step. On closer inspection, it turned out to be Uncle Ed, who had been waiting all day. He was wearing a jacket despite the heat, the same old bloody jacket as he'd always worn, even though Caroline hated it.
"How do you not die of heat exhaustion? How has that jacket not killed you by now?" Edgar had relieved him of Dora, was bouncing and talking to her solemnly. Her hair had glowed bright blue with excitement as he took her.
"I am just that brilliant...formidable...whatever" said Edgar, solemnly, the effect ruined, somewhat, when Dora yanked at a fistful of his hair.
They ended up drinking on deckchairs, the long stretch of the lawn like summer and Andromeda's roses. What Ted grew were green beans which needed caning; he had tried tomatoes, but they needed too much watching and there was always something else which he wanted to do, read, explore. He was away too much in the summer. Bad things happened on beautiful days and somebody had to roll with the punches; risk their own neck for the sake of the world. It wasn't so much the world that Ted Tonks was risking his neck for, just two beautiful girls. All the heroes were such handsome boys and Ted had never thought of himself as particularly handsome, easy on some eyes. Edgar had got more handsome - gone was the fresh faced youth, the wannabe spy, and in his place the hero. Edgar had stripped off his horrible coat and discarded it, sat in his deckchair and sipped beer in the warm evening.
"I understand, you know," said Edgar, finally. "Well...better than Len does, anyway."
"Hmm?"
"Len. I understand, Ted. What you're got here an' all. I can understand why you wouldn't want to leave, most of the time."
Ted felt a sudden bloom of love for Edgar Bones, who had been his friend since he was thirteen and Edgar was eleven...Edgar who had been a groom's man at his wedding, who had stood beside Len at Dora's baptism, his lips just barely moving as Patrick Tonks ran through the service again, grasping at unfamiliar words. Len had worn a flowered dress. He had loved them both for so long.
"Didn't stop you though, did it, Edgar..." Sometimes, surrounded by his brave friends, Ted Tonks felt like a little bit of a coward, grubbing for a living in the dirt. Andy always smiled and told him that just because he was on his own risking a broken neck didn't make him any less brave.
Edgar shrugged and drained his beer.
"Yeah, well...I never did feel as brave as you pair looked."
"You were though, mate. You are."
They drank in silence after that.
At some point near midnight, off the lawn by then, Ted opened his eyes, grasping for a slipping bottle before it fell.
"I fucking hate her, Ed," he mumbled, alarmed by how close to tears he suddenly felt.
"No you don't, mate," said Edgar, manhandling him to his feet, an arm across Ted's back, under his arms. "You don't hate her anymore than you ever hated her. Come on, old man...let's get you to bed and I'll check on the little lady before I go."
Ted laid his head against Edgar's shoulder and let himself be carried.
-
On Friday, they started slowly. They manhandled the big TV set up to the bedroom, set it on Mummy's chest at the end of the bed and watched cartoons and the news in a nest of duvets. Ted slept for most of the day while Dora played teddy bears and wooden trains. When they got hungry (when Dora got hungry), Ted shuffled about in striped cotton pyjama trousers and slippers which reminded him of his dad. At eight or nine o clock, just as it was getting dark, the doorbell chimed. Ted went to answer it still in his pyjamas. He took Dora on his hip - he was so used to taking her everywhere. Bellatrix was standing on the doorstep, a bottle of champagne cradled against her hip where Ted held Dora.
"Heard that your pretty girl has finally come to her senses," she said.
He shut the door in her face.
After he'd put Dora down for the night (didn't want her to spend too much time near to all of that poison), he opened the door and found Bellatrix still standing there. Suddenly, he was ashamed of still being in his pyjamas, of having spent the night drinking with Edgar, of being left. In her silks and velvet, her tumbled black hair, she looked so like Andy that it hurt.
"Invite me in, Ted."
"Why should I?"
"Because you're a good man, aren't you, Ted."
He did, even later, faced with the weight of everything that later came to pass, he wouldn't know why...
In his kitchen, Bellatrix took off her shoes and inhaled the bubbles from Champagne. Even her shoes looked cruel, pointed toes and steel heels. She'd unlaced her neckline...her tits swelled above the satin of her bra. He noticed these things because of how much like Andy she was, scarlet lips and stockings with black seams. When she slid her foot up his inside leg, he noticed that it was the same shape as Andy's had been, up in his lap for him to rub while she marvelled at the details of Muggle soaps. When Bellatrix slid across her lap (how did he get to here?), he weight was so similar to Andy's weight...unlike Andy's, her lipstick had a bitter, waxy taste.
"What're you going?" He managed, his mouth smudged bitter by hers.
"Seeing why it was so easy for Andromeda to move on...They don't considering you actually married, you know...Mummy and Papa. They never did...They threw a party...good riddance to you and your Mudblood bastard."
And that was it, all he needed. He dislodged her from his lap in an ungainly tangle of limbs, half hard (don't think, don’t think).
"I think that it's time you left." When he wiped his mouth, the back of his hand came away bloody with lipstick.
"You're missing out," she spat and he lifted her by her arm, dragged her down to the front door. He realised that he'd forgotten her shoes but he left her on the path in her bare feet, scratching at the front door with her talons while he went to fetch them. He resisted the urge to spit on her which made him throw up when he swallowed back the impulse. He threw up on the stripped boards in the hallway and after he cleaned that up he stripped off his pyjamas and crawled into bed, feeling less of a good man than he had before.
On Saturday, they told stories. This little piggy went to market, this little piggy stayed home as a result of rehabilitating case of the measles, this little pigged was caught up in a Revolution not of his own design, this little piggy made fabulous lady's hates, this little pigged went wee-wee-wee...all of those little piggies, Dora, who fought th good fight and never came home...
"That's my t-shirt," said Ted, opening the door.
"So it is," said Marlene McKinnon, Ted's t-shirt and scarred leather, disintegrating denim and long silver earrings...Rockstar godmother, academic revolutionary, historian. Ted Tonks had had two girlfriends in his life and one of them he'd married. Len loved history, all manner of history, but she had loved Ted Tonks first of all.
"Heard that Fenwick's done his usual trick and fucked everything up."
"Wasn't his fault."
"Still. Fuckwit in the world, right?"
Ted nodded.
"You have better let me come in."
"As if I'd do anything else," he said, standing aside to let her back in for about the second time.
For a while they sat and talked and Dora sat on Len's lap, sucking her thumb, looking between them with wide, tired eyes. She'd been about to go to bed and then her favourite godmother had turned up and waylaid that. Ted could help but think back to the hospital wing at Hogwarts, a fall during a Quidditch match and the sudden shock of all that blood. Never wished that it had gone differently (so happy and everything happens for a reason), but it had hurt in unexpected ways, watching Len hold Dora for the first time, her hand ghosting the top of Dora's head, Dora blindly rooting against the curve of her tit through the faded cotton of her shirt.
"We would have had beautiful babies," he said to her.
"Say what you like about Andromeda," said Len, smiling, kissing Dora's sweaty hair, "She makes beautiful babies..."
-
He wasn't sure how it happened. He slipped. They'd been sitting in the lounge, heads bent together, almost whispering. There was one lamp on. He kissed her. It was his fault. It was nobody's fault. They'd done it all before, and it was so easy to slip back into, her mouth on his, his hands pushing through the soft, tousled fall of her long dark hair. Her body gave and moved against him in familiar ways; nothing about her surprised him and, as her tongue flickered against his, he felt sixteen again, that bed in the attic above the common room, no babies, no sorrow and nobody being left.
It was easier than it should have been. They'd had enough practice. He pushed her back on the couch, fumbling her shirt upwards, finding her braless (she'd never worn bras when she could help it). He kissed from the corner of her mouth down, licking her pulse, squeezing her tits together to lick and suck at her nipples. In the back of his head was a little voice that was shouting and screaming and stamping its feet. Len moaned and spread her legs around him. It didn't occur to him to stop. Len took off her long silver earrings, dropped them on the carpet. She sucked on his fingers one by one, ignored the finger that held his gold wedding band. He rocked against her hip, squeezing her tit with damp fingers before running his hand down her side, between her legs, palming her through denim. She pushed up against him, her cunt against the palm of his hand, nipping at his bottom lip.
"Ted...what're you..."
"Shhhhhhh," He whispered, pulling at the buttons of her jeans, rubbing his fingers over lace, already damp, working her knickers aside to rub his fingers against her cunt. In her teens, she had shaved there. Now she didn't, and he found himself almost relived by the small difference. He pushed two fingers into her, settle his thumb firmly against her clit. She rippled underneath him as he fingered her roughly, almost unaware of the little sounds that she made; Marlene always did like it rough, a bit of a push and shove and anyway, he was the one who'd be left, again. Before he realised she was coming around his curled fingers, and he was pulling out too soon, pulling her hand down between her legs and making her keep rubbing at her clit, making her fingers slippery to the knuckles as he pulled her jeans further down, as he pushed his own down around his thighs, leaning against her, on top of her, kissing her again as he pressed against that heat, that wet, and...
And Dora was crying and he stopped. Breathing hard, he looked at Len, swollen lips and wide eyes and when she cupped his face with both of hands, one of them had wet fingers.
"I can't do this, can I?" He said.
"No, sweetheart, you can't." She smoothed the side of his face fondly and suddenly the fact that she was naked, almost naked, beneath him made him blush. Who was he kidding? He was Ted Tonks and he was a good bloke, a good husband and may not have deserved any of it and it may all have gone to shit, but that didn't change who he was did it, not really.
She kissed him before he got up, but it was a chaste kiss. He'd loved her since he was eleven years old.
He padded up the stairs, bare feet, his underwear pulled up but his jeans still undone, sagging low on his hips. Though Dora was screeching, he went into the bathroom, washed his hands with cold water and soap. It didn't seem appropriate to go to his daughter with fingers that smelt of sex or the possibility of sex. Dora hushed quickly when he picked her up, barely awake, startled by a dream. He tucked her back in, bent to kiss her forehead, smoothing back soft pink hair.
On the couch downstairs, Len was full dressed, lying on the couch, watching the lights in the road. She looked up when he walked into the room.
"All's well?" He nodded sitting then lying down between Len and the back of the sofa. She reached behind her, drew his arm around her waist, and it reminded of him of the bed that they'd had at Hogwarts and how in love with her he'd thought that he'd been.
He fell asleep like that, comforted by her closeness and the way it took everything back.
On Sunday, he woke up and Len was already gone but Andy was there. Dressed in all her black she blended into the shadow in the lounge, curtains open, grey morning. She was wearing her hair tied up. She'd kicked off her shoes, and was rubbing her bare feet as she watched him.
He sat up. Len had left a blanket draped across his waist. He wasn't awake yet. His head pounded.
"How did you get in here?"
"I live here, Ted."
"Mmph."
He got up without looking at her, padded into the kitchen. He put the kettle on the stove, needed coffee, needed to think. He couldn't think with her near to him. He never could, really, but usually he didn't mind. Usually he didn't mind how much of his head took up. She followed him after she'd put her shoes on...he heard her heels clicking on the black and white tile.
"How've you been?"
"How do you think I've been, Andy? On my own with Dora all week?" He spooned coffee into his mug, three spoons, made it strong. Andromeda was sitting at the table, her head cradled in her hands.
"I would have thought you'd enjoyed that...you and Dora. She always pines when you're not here."
He slammed his mug down on the counter. He almost didn't notice when the coffee spilt on the back of his hand.
"I'm not here because I'm working, Andy. It's not the fucking same. At all. It's just not."
"I didn't mean that...I meant..."
"Honestly, Andromeda? I don't care what you think, just at the moment...Because you didn't just walk out on me, you walked on Dora and she doesn't have a choice, Andromeda, she just loves you. I have a choice and I still love you...You wanna know what kind of choices I have, you ask Len McKinnon...And I don't care what you think Andy, because I've had a horrible week and now my hand hurts and you left me, Andy. You left me."
He realised that he was shouting about halfway through and couldn't stop. When it was gone, out of him, he felt deflated, rubbed his burnt hand on the front of his shirt and couldn't look at her. At the table, Andy was silent. Dora had started crying upstairs. Ted couldn't remember the last time he had raised his voice in his own house.
"Go and see to your daughter, Andy," he said, turning away. "And stop looking at me like I'm going to hit you. When have I ever..." He shook his head, and opened the back door, arguing for a moment with the key in the lock before the spring morning and gravel under his bare feet.
-
"She has a cold."
He was bent over the car, not doing much, just getting his hands dirty. The engine made no sense to him. His dad always had said that cars were like pretty girls.
"A bit of one, yeah."
"When did she get a cold?"
"You care?"
"I've put her back down with some medicine...maybe she'll sleep."
"See?" He turned to look at her, wiping oily hands automatically on the seat of his jeans. "You can do it when you want to."
"I missed you," said Andromeda, holding herself away from him in her silk skirt, her hair gracefully twisted. "I never stopped thinking about you..."
"Emmeline wasn't that much of a distraction then? You know Len used to fancy her?"
"You're ugly when you're trying to be cruel, Ted Tonks. It doesn't become you."
"Well, I'm fucking sorry, Andy, but I had to find out from Benjy fucking Fenwick for fuck's sake. You couldn't call me?"
"I was ashamed of myself, I..."
"Sweetheart, I was ashamed of you too."
When Andy kissed him, it came as a surprise, but not the same kind of surprise as kissing Len had been. Later, he'd realise that it had felt surprising because, somewhere in the back of his head, he'd never expected it to happen again. When her mouth slid off his, they were breathing quicker, his oily hands bunching her sweater in the small of her back.
"I thought that you were going to hate me," she whispered. She wasn't wearing any lipstick; her lips felt clean and dry and good against his own:
"Oh, baby...I wanted to tear you apart. It's not the same thing at all," he said.
When they were teenagers, before they were married and put away childish things, they'd fucked on the bonnet of the car, took picnics deep in the country side and fucked on a blanket over sun-warmed metal. It had always seemed sacrilegious to think about just fucking a girl like Andy...you were supposed to take your time over a girl like Andy, worship her, tits and hips and thighs and the whole lovely width of her. He did not want to take his time. He wanted to press against her harder than he ought to, hear her moan and remind her. Ted Tonks was a gentle man, but he'd had his share of scrapes, shrunk in the heat of underground to be his most useful size. Ted Tonks knew things and most of all, what he'd learnt with Len McKinnon, who'd been a fiery roaring girl, a biter, was the exact way to properly handle a woman.
He ruined her skirt, pulling it up with both hands, pushing her back against the hood of the car which was cool in the morning, damp from spring. Underneath was more silk, grey like dawn, and he pulled at it with his hands. In the movies, this part was easy; girl's knickers as flimsy as their virtue, but Andromeda Tonks had an iron will. Her knickers held, as Ted pulled at them with both hands and sore, finally torn them down the front, enough to rub his fingers against her, enough to spread her legs and slide a finger into her, as rough or rougher as Len before her, making no mistake that he was there, that was under siege now and he meant to come in.
She ended up on her back, fingers pulling at his shirt and his hair as he fucked her, as he rocked her on the bonnet of his old car, buried in her, leaning over her. He didn't kiss her until almost the very end. She wrapped herself around him and clung to him, ruined knickers and her hair spilling down one side of her face and her tits bouncing against his chest until the very end, after he'd come, when he pressed her back and kissed her and realised that he was crying again.
"Don't ever do it to me again, Andy...don't you ever..."
"I won't, love. I won't. Never again."
"I wanted to tear you apart, Andy."
"I know, Ted. I know."
They clung to each other, not just Andy to him, but both of them, until he picked her up and carried her inside. She didn't weigh that much. He didn't realise how much he'd missed her until he felt how little she weighed in his arms.
On Monday, they woke up and one of them was crying.
Ted opened his eyes as Andy got back into bed with Dora in her arms. Dora snuggled in between her parents and they linked fingers over her head.
“Do you have to get up?” He murmured. He felt, rather than saw, when Andy shook her head.
“No lectures until tomorrow."
Ted smiled, wrapped his arm around his sleeping daughter, fell back to sleep clinging to everything that mattered in the world.