Be the Light in My Lantern, chapter 18 - FINAL CHAPTER OF PART ONE!
BE THE LIGHT IN MY LANTERN
Summary: In which Remus and Tonks fight battles, arrest criminals, befriend werewolves, overcome inner demons and, despite it all, find themselves a happy ending. A love story, and a story of the Order years. (At long last, my Remus/Tonks epic, which has been years in the making!)
Notes: Yes, the day has come: This is the final chapter of Part One! More notes about the upcoming Part Two are in the end note.
Chapter 18: The Aftermath
I walk the world with a skin so thin
I can wear no adequate protection
Everything comes crashing in
-Deb Talan, How Will He Find Me
Tonks woke slowly, a strange kind of surfacing out of the depths of sleep, not knowing where she was, not even sure in the first moments if she quite knew who she was. Gradually she struggled her way into an understanding that her body felt heavy, and that around her it smelled like hospital.
Hospital. She'd been here often enough, visiting Aurors hurt on the job, or recuperating from her own line-of-duty injuries. Tonks wondered what she'd done this time, and if it was a direct result of clumsiness, and if she was going to be yelled at for it.
The Department of Mysteries -
She tried to open her eyes, but they felt gummy and sluggish. There was pressure on her left hand, someone holding it?
Harry and his friends, in the Department of Mysteries -
Tonks struggled against the weight of her body, tried to lift her arms, and found that everything hurt. The hand holding hers squeezed tighter, and she heard the movement of someone nearby. She finally got her eyelids open and blinked into the greyish room. What time was it? Dusk? She managed to turn her head a little to the left, and saw Remus.
Remus.
It all flooded back, Snape's head in the fire, the dash to the Ministry, its eerie emptiness, the kids in the Death Chamber, Death Eaters, battle, Bellatrix -
Her mouth was bone dry, but she managed to croak, "Remus - everyone?"
The outside light that fell into the small room from one high window was faint, but it was enough to show her the ravaged lines of Remus' face.
Tonks struggled to sit up, but couldn't, pain in her abdomen pinning her to the bed. All she could do was demand an answer to the most essential question: "Who's died?"
Remus pressed his lips more tightly together, and turned his head away from her.
"Merlin, not one of the kids. Not Harry." How many people were there in the world who could affect Remus like this?
He shook his head, still not looking at her.
Tonks pressed harder against his hand. "Please. Tell me."
For a long moment, she thought he wouldn't answer her at all. Then he said, "Sirius."
But that couldn't be. Sirius was alive and in the heat of battle, grinning, thrumming with energy, alive -
"He fell through the veil," Remus whispered, still looking away, "when Bellatrix cursed him, and I had - I had to hold Harry back - or he would have -" He was gazing blindly in the direction of the window.
Tonks wanted everything at once: to scream, to promise Remus it wasn't his fault, to gather him in her arms, to sink back into her dreamless sleep where she hadn't known this and could pretend she still didn't know. But she couldn't do anything, because she couldn't even move her body, and her throat constricted around any words she might have said.
"Not your fault," she managed to croak out. She would not think about what he had just told her. She would only think of Remus, Remus hurt and needing her. "Please, Remus - please, look at me."
Slowly, he dragged his eyes back to her. "I would have gone after him," he said, his voice flat. "I would have gone after him if I hadn't had to keep Harry from going after him. I should have got him back. Or maybe I should have followed him."
"Remus," she whispered, "Stop."
He pursed his lips again and gently slid his hand out of hers, to worry the knuckles of one hand with the fingers of the other. Tonks felt the loss of his hand, cold where there had been warmth.
"Are all the kids okay?" she asked, feeling grief pressing down on her chest even as she forced herself to ask the necessary questions.
"Yes."
"And the others? Moody and Kingsley? Hestia?"
"Yes. Dumbledore came, and caught the rest of the Death Eaters."
"Where's Harry now?"
"Back at school."
"Did you see him - after -?"
Remus shook his head.
"I hope he's okay," Tonks whispered.
Remus laughed, a harsh, short sound that wasn't like him at all.
"Remus -" Tonks’ head pounded, and her ribs ached. But it was Remus’ distance that hurt the most.
He was still facing away as he whispered, "I can't - I’m sorry -"
She reached out for his hand, and again, he pulled away.
A Healer bustled into the room then, before Tonks could get Remus to come any closer to her. The Healer tsked at Tonks for being awake, and at Remus for getting her worked up, and tipped another potion down Tonks' throat that began to knock her out immediately.
"Remus," Tonks mumbled, as sleep dragged her down. "You too, you have to rest…" But she could tell he wasn’t listening.
When she woke up again, he was gone.
- - - - -
Tonks spent the next couple days in and out of a hazy sleep. She had a sense that her parents were there, often, and that Healers moved efficiently in and out of the room, but she always faded out again before she could focus on anyone.
The first time she regained real consciousness, Moody was sitting by her bed and holding a copy of the Sunday Prophet, still neatly folded. He thrust the paper at her and grunted, "Thought you'd want to see that," which Tonks understood to mean, It's good to see you and I'm glad you're all right.
Gingerly, Tonks slid herself up against the headboard of the bed, glad to find she was finally able to do so. She took the proffered paper and read, in screaming bold letters, "HE WHO MUST NOT BE NAMED RETURNS."
She double-checked the dateline and looked at Moody. "It took them until now to get this in the paper?"
"Nah, they had some articles the last couple days, but this is the first they've had the whole package in. Historical background. Local colour."
Tonks skimmed the main article, but there was nothing in it she didn't already know, except that there had been a mass revolt of the Dementors at Azkaban. That wasn’t exactly a pleasant thought, but it was hardly unexpected if Voldemort was now acting in the open.
Wait.
She looked up at Moody. "Voldemort…came out into the open? He came to the Ministry himself?"
"You missed quite a bit while you were out, kid. I didn't see it myself, but apparently he and Dumbledore had it out in the Ministry Atrium, and Fudge and a whole passel of Aurors arrived just in time to see. Which is a stroke of luck for us, really. The Ministry's finally on board, and the Aurors are hunting Death Eaters now. You've got your work cut out for you when you're back on your feet."
"Did we…did we at least get some of them?"
"All the Death Eaters who were at the Ministry that night, except Bellatrix Lestrange."
There was something about the way he said Bellatrix's name, but Tonks tried to push it away from her, postpone thinking about it. "And you got the kids out safely?" she asked.
"They're all fine. Granger was injured the worst of them, but even she's up and about. Shacklebolt had a few broken bones, but he's fine, Jones is fine. McGonagall and Hagrid are both back at Hogwarts."
Tonks closed her eyes, so she wouldn’t have to see Moody’s face when she asked. "And Sirius -?"
"Really is dead. I'm sorry, lass."
Tonks nodded, trying to put that fact somewhere far away, to be thought about later, when she felt somewhere near capable of coping with it. She nodded again, harder, and opened her eyes. "And Remus -?"
Moody hesitated, which was unlike him. "You'd best give him some time."
"Where is he? Is he okay?" Tonks felt fear shudder through her. If something had happened to Remus while she was lying here senseless -
“He’s unharmed,” Moody said, cutting into her worries. "The Weasleys’ve talked him into staying with them for a bit, but nobody sees much of him. Give him time," he repeated, more sharply, and Tonks thought suddenly of the long-dead wife Moody never talked about.
She steeled herself to ask the question she desperately wanted not to have to ask. "Who killed Sirius, Mad-Eye? Was it Bellatrix?"
"Yes."
Rage flared up in her, sharp flames of it leaping even higher above the grief already flooding her heart. How could her aunt hate them so much? How could anyone murder their own family?
She didn’t ask Moody that, though. She schooled her face into the hardened scowl of an Auror, flipped the newspaper to the next page, and continued reading the Prophet's sorry attempt at coverage of Voldemort's return. Moody sat by her bed as she read, keeping her silent company.
- - - - -
Tonks was released from St Mungo's on Monday, but Scrimgeour insisted she take the week off before returning to work. That gave her far too much idle time to think and brood, but at least it left her free to join the others when they met Harry off the Hogwarts Express on Thursday.
Scrimgeour had come by St Mungo's personally, his lips pressed tightly together and his visit brief, to tell Tonks she had a week's paid leave. "Injury in the line of duty," he had decreed, although of course she hadn't been authorised to be at the Ministry that night. He didn't go so far as to apologise for having gone along with Fudge's idiocy all year, but his rueful manner gave Tonks hope that in the future, maybe he'd listen more to those of them with sense.
Thursday morning, Tonks put on her most cheerful expression and her most cheerful hair and a cheerfully unprofessional T-shirt. They all owed Harry that much.
She met the others at King's Cross, outside the barrier that led to Platform 9 ¾. Moody was there in his ridiculous bowler hat; Molly and Arthur looked serious and had managed to dress more or less like Muggles. Fred and George turned up in outrageous dragonskin jackets that would have made Sirius proud.
Tonks winced and pushed that thought away, and had just time to check that her hair hadn't slipped from its bright shade of pink, before Molly engulfed her in a hug. Tonks hugged back, surprised but grateful.
Remus showed up last, just before the train was due. He looked terrible, his skin so pale it was nearly grey.
"Lupin," said Moody, who'd spotted him first, and extended his hand as Remus approached them.
Remus shook Moody's hand, then allowed Molly to put her arms around him. "I'm fine," he said, so automatically that Tonks knew he'd been saying it over and over for days, and never meaning it. She'd been doing the same.
So she threw herself at Remus and hugged him tightly, then released him again before he'd had a chance to do more than start in surprise. She saw a bit of life flicker in his eyes, then it was gone again.
"I'm glad you're all right, Dora," he said.
She wanted so desperately to get through to him, to get him to share with her what he was feeling, even if it was all horrible, even if it was all grief and rage. She felt the same. They shared the same loss, and yet Remus had never felt further away.
A train whistle sounded, and they all turned expectantly towards the barrier.
Ron and Ginny came through first, then Harry, then Hermione, and Molly embraced them all in turn. Tonks saw Remus visibly pull himself together, then step in to greet Harry, while the other kids were admiring Fred and George's jackets. Remus even managed a small smile as he explained to Harry why they’d all come - to instil the fear of Merlin in Harry's worthless relatives.
Though Remus, of course, was too polite to put it in those terms.
By now Hermione's parents had joined the group and things were getting rather chaotic. But Moody pointed out Harry's aunt, uncle and cousin, looking sorely out of place and annoyed about it to boot, and Arthur led the way across to them, Harry trailing anxiously behind the adults.
They did their bit threatening the Dursleys; Tonks couldn't help admiring how Remus managed to sound so very civil about it, and of course Moody was always wonderfully intimidating, even when he wasn't trying to be.
Tonks looked at them, her friends and colleagues, gathered here to make sure Harry had someone in the world looking out for him. It made it all seem a tiny bit more bearable. Sirius certainly would have approved - especially of the way the uncle jumped in fear every time Moody spoke.
They watched as first Harry left the station with his relatives, then Hermione with her family.
"We'll see you all tomorrow," Molly said, as she began to gather her family to her.
It would be the first full Order meeting since the events at the Ministry. The Weasleys had offered the use of the Burrow for meetings, while the ownership status of 12 Grimmauld Place remained uncertain. Apparently, Emmeline and a couple of the others had gone to Headquarters immediately afterwards to take out the most important documents, just in case ownership of the house really had changed hands. But no one had set foot inside since, nor were they allowed to do so until its legal status was cleared up.
The Weasleys were ready to go and Tonks looked round again for Remus, but he was already gone.
"Give him time," Moody's voice growled close to her ear, and for one moment all Tonks could think was that it was Sirius who should be there keeping up a running commentary, Sirius who should be the one giving her unsolicited Remus advice. It was all so unfair that it made her chest ache with fury, and for a precarious moment, Tonks felt closer to throwing a tantrum than she'd been since she was a small child.
But she wasn't a child, she was an adult and a member of the Order of the Phoenix, and there was a hell of a lot of work to be done.
So Tonks nodded to Moody, and to Molly and Arthur as they departed with their family, and she left King’s Cross with her head held high, ready to tackle that work.
- - - - -
END OF PART ONE
- - - - -
End note: And that's a wrap for the first half of this story!
The second half, covering the Half-Blood Prince year, will be along in a bit... The first draft is complete, and the revision of the first draft is almost complete. Then my beta will read it, then I expect to revise a bunch more before being satisfied enough to start posting. So it'll be a number of weeks, maybe even a couple months, before it's ready to start posting, BUT it's definitely coming along, and much faster than I'd ever hoped, too! Update: "Raise Your Lantern High" is the second half of this series!
Thank you so much for reading! Comments, feedback, thoughts all very much appreciated. (And again, this story is also on AO3 and FF, if you prefer to follow it in either of those places.)
Summary: In which Remus and Tonks fight battles, arrest criminals, befriend werewolves, overcome inner demons and, despite it all, find themselves a happy ending. A love story, and a story of the Order years. (At long last, my Remus/Tonks epic, which has been years in the making!)
Notes: Yes, the day has come: This is the final chapter of Part One! More notes about the upcoming Part Two are in the end note.
Chapter 18: The Aftermath
I walk the world with a skin so thin
I can wear no adequate protection
Everything comes crashing in
-Deb Talan, How Will He Find Me
Tonks woke slowly, a strange kind of surfacing out of the depths of sleep, not knowing where she was, not even sure in the first moments if she quite knew who she was. Gradually she struggled her way into an understanding that her body felt heavy, and that around her it smelled like hospital.
Hospital. She'd been here often enough, visiting Aurors hurt on the job, or recuperating from her own line-of-duty injuries. Tonks wondered what she'd done this time, and if it was a direct result of clumsiness, and if she was going to be yelled at for it.
The Department of Mysteries -
She tried to open her eyes, but they felt gummy and sluggish. There was pressure on her left hand, someone holding it?
Harry and his friends, in the Department of Mysteries -
Tonks struggled against the weight of her body, tried to lift her arms, and found that everything hurt. The hand holding hers squeezed tighter, and she heard the movement of someone nearby. She finally got her eyelids open and blinked into the greyish room. What time was it? Dusk? She managed to turn her head a little to the left, and saw Remus.
Remus.
It all flooded back, Snape's head in the fire, the dash to the Ministry, its eerie emptiness, the kids in the Death Chamber, Death Eaters, battle, Bellatrix -
Her mouth was bone dry, but she managed to croak, "Remus - everyone?"
The outside light that fell into the small room from one high window was faint, but it was enough to show her the ravaged lines of Remus' face.
Tonks struggled to sit up, but couldn't, pain in her abdomen pinning her to the bed. All she could do was demand an answer to the most essential question: "Who's died?"
Remus pressed his lips more tightly together, and turned his head away from her.
"Merlin, not one of the kids. Not Harry." How many people were there in the world who could affect Remus like this?
He shook his head, still not looking at her.
Tonks pressed harder against his hand. "Please. Tell me."
For a long moment, she thought he wouldn't answer her at all. Then he said, "Sirius."
But that couldn't be. Sirius was alive and in the heat of battle, grinning, thrumming with energy, alive -
"He fell through the veil," Remus whispered, still looking away, "when Bellatrix cursed him, and I had - I had to hold Harry back - or he would have -" He was gazing blindly in the direction of the window.
Tonks wanted everything at once: to scream, to promise Remus it wasn't his fault, to gather him in her arms, to sink back into her dreamless sleep where she hadn't known this and could pretend she still didn't know. But she couldn't do anything, because she couldn't even move her body, and her throat constricted around any words she might have said.
"Not your fault," she managed to croak out. She would not think about what he had just told her. She would only think of Remus, Remus hurt and needing her. "Please, Remus - please, look at me."
Slowly, he dragged his eyes back to her. "I would have gone after him," he said, his voice flat. "I would have gone after him if I hadn't had to keep Harry from going after him. I should have got him back. Or maybe I should have followed him."
"Remus," she whispered, "Stop."
He pursed his lips again and gently slid his hand out of hers, to worry the knuckles of one hand with the fingers of the other. Tonks felt the loss of his hand, cold where there had been warmth.
"Are all the kids okay?" she asked, feeling grief pressing down on her chest even as she forced herself to ask the necessary questions.
"Yes."
"And the others? Moody and Kingsley? Hestia?"
"Yes. Dumbledore came, and caught the rest of the Death Eaters."
"Where's Harry now?"
"Back at school."
"Did you see him - after -?"
Remus shook his head.
"I hope he's okay," Tonks whispered.
Remus laughed, a harsh, short sound that wasn't like him at all.
"Remus -" Tonks’ head pounded, and her ribs ached. But it was Remus’ distance that hurt the most.
He was still facing away as he whispered, "I can't - I’m sorry -"
She reached out for his hand, and again, he pulled away.
A Healer bustled into the room then, before Tonks could get Remus to come any closer to her. The Healer tsked at Tonks for being awake, and at Remus for getting her worked up, and tipped another potion down Tonks' throat that began to knock her out immediately.
"Remus," Tonks mumbled, as sleep dragged her down. "You too, you have to rest…" But she could tell he wasn’t listening.
When she woke up again, he was gone.
- - - - -
Tonks spent the next couple days in and out of a hazy sleep. She had a sense that her parents were there, often, and that Healers moved efficiently in and out of the room, but she always faded out again before she could focus on anyone.
The first time she regained real consciousness, Moody was sitting by her bed and holding a copy of the Sunday Prophet, still neatly folded. He thrust the paper at her and grunted, "Thought you'd want to see that," which Tonks understood to mean, It's good to see you and I'm glad you're all right.
Gingerly, Tonks slid herself up against the headboard of the bed, glad to find she was finally able to do so. She took the proffered paper and read, in screaming bold letters, "HE WHO MUST NOT BE NAMED RETURNS."
She double-checked the dateline and looked at Moody. "It took them until now to get this in the paper?"
"Nah, they had some articles the last couple days, but this is the first they've had the whole package in. Historical background. Local colour."
Tonks skimmed the main article, but there was nothing in it she didn't already know, except that there had been a mass revolt of the Dementors at Azkaban. That wasn’t exactly a pleasant thought, but it was hardly unexpected if Voldemort was now acting in the open.
Wait.
She looked up at Moody. "Voldemort…came out into the open? He came to the Ministry himself?"
"You missed quite a bit while you were out, kid. I didn't see it myself, but apparently he and Dumbledore had it out in the Ministry Atrium, and Fudge and a whole passel of Aurors arrived just in time to see. Which is a stroke of luck for us, really. The Ministry's finally on board, and the Aurors are hunting Death Eaters now. You've got your work cut out for you when you're back on your feet."
"Did we…did we at least get some of them?"
"All the Death Eaters who were at the Ministry that night, except Bellatrix Lestrange."
There was something about the way he said Bellatrix's name, but Tonks tried to push it away from her, postpone thinking about it. "And you got the kids out safely?" she asked.
"They're all fine. Granger was injured the worst of them, but even she's up and about. Shacklebolt had a few broken bones, but he's fine, Jones is fine. McGonagall and Hagrid are both back at Hogwarts."
Tonks closed her eyes, so she wouldn’t have to see Moody’s face when she asked. "And Sirius -?"
"Really is dead. I'm sorry, lass."
Tonks nodded, trying to put that fact somewhere far away, to be thought about later, when she felt somewhere near capable of coping with it. She nodded again, harder, and opened her eyes. "And Remus -?"
Moody hesitated, which was unlike him. "You'd best give him some time."
"Where is he? Is he okay?" Tonks felt fear shudder through her. If something had happened to Remus while she was lying here senseless -
“He’s unharmed,” Moody said, cutting into her worries. "The Weasleys’ve talked him into staying with them for a bit, but nobody sees much of him. Give him time," he repeated, more sharply, and Tonks thought suddenly of the long-dead wife Moody never talked about.
She steeled herself to ask the question she desperately wanted not to have to ask. "Who killed Sirius, Mad-Eye? Was it Bellatrix?"
"Yes."
Rage flared up in her, sharp flames of it leaping even higher above the grief already flooding her heart. How could her aunt hate them so much? How could anyone murder their own family?
She didn’t ask Moody that, though. She schooled her face into the hardened scowl of an Auror, flipped the newspaper to the next page, and continued reading the Prophet's sorry attempt at coverage of Voldemort's return. Moody sat by her bed as she read, keeping her silent company.
- - - - -
Tonks was released from St Mungo's on Monday, but Scrimgeour insisted she take the week off before returning to work. That gave her far too much idle time to think and brood, but at least it left her free to join the others when they met Harry off the Hogwarts Express on Thursday.
Scrimgeour had come by St Mungo's personally, his lips pressed tightly together and his visit brief, to tell Tonks she had a week's paid leave. "Injury in the line of duty," he had decreed, although of course she hadn't been authorised to be at the Ministry that night. He didn't go so far as to apologise for having gone along with Fudge's idiocy all year, but his rueful manner gave Tonks hope that in the future, maybe he'd listen more to those of them with sense.
Thursday morning, Tonks put on her most cheerful expression and her most cheerful hair and a cheerfully unprofessional T-shirt. They all owed Harry that much.
She met the others at King's Cross, outside the barrier that led to Platform 9 ¾. Moody was there in his ridiculous bowler hat; Molly and Arthur looked serious and had managed to dress more or less like Muggles. Fred and George turned up in outrageous dragonskin jackets that would have made Sirius proud.
Tonks winced and pushed that thought away, and had just time to check that her hair hadn't slipped from its bright shade of pink, before Molly engulfed her in a hug. Tonks hugged back, surprised but grateful.
Remus showed up last, just before the train was due. He looked terrible, his skin so pale it was nearly grey.
"Lupin," said Moody, who'd spotted him first, and extended his hand as Remus approached them.
Remus shook Moody's hand, then allowed Molly to put her arms around him. "I'm fine," he said, so automatically that Tonks knew he'd been saying it over and over for days, and never meaning it. She'd been doing the same.
So she threw herself at Remus and hugged him tightly, then released him again before he'd had a chance to do more than start in surprise. She saw a bit of life flicker in his eyes, then it was gone again.
"I'm glad you're all right, Dora," he said.
She wanted so desperately to get through to him, to get him to share with her what he was feeling, even if it was all horrible, even if it was all grief and rage. She felt the same. They shared the same loss, and yet Remus had never felt further away.
A train whistle sounded, and they all turned expectantly towards the barrier.
Ron and Ginny came through first, then Harry, then Hermione, and Molly embraced them all in turn. Tonks saw Remus visibly pull himself together, then step in to greet Harry, while the other kids were admiring Fred and George's jackets. Remus even managed a small smile as he explained to Harry why they’d all come - to instil the fear of Merlin in Harry's worthless relatives.
Though Remus, of course, was too polite to put it in those terms.
By now Hermione's parents had joined the group and things were getting rather chaotic. But Moody pointed out Harry's aunt, uncle and cousin, looking sorely out of place and annoyed about it to boot, and Arthur led the way across to them, Harry trailing anxiously behind the adults.
They did their bit threatening the Dursleys; Tonks couldn't help admiring how Remus managed to sound so very civil about it, and of course Moody was always wonderfully intimidating, even when he wasn't trying to be.
Tonks looked at them, her friends and colleagues, gathered here to make sure Harry had someone in the world looking out for him. It made it all seem a tiny bit more bearable. Sirius certainly would have approved - especially of the way the uncle jumped in fear every time Moody spoke.
They watched as first Harry left the station with his relatives, then Hermione with her family.
"We'll see you all tomorrow," Molly said, as she began to gather her family to her.
It would be the first full Order meeting since the events at the Ministry. The Weasleys had offered the use of the Burrow for meetings, while the ownership status of 12 Grimmauld Place remained uncertain. Apparently, Emmeline and a couple of the others had gone to Headquarters immediately afterwards to take out the most important documents, just in case ownership of the house really had changed hands. But no one had set foot inside since, nor were they allowed to do so until its legal status was cleared up.
The Weasleys were ready to go and Tonks looked round again for Remus, but he was already gone.
"Give him time," Moody's voice growled close to her ear, and for one moment all Tonks could think was that it was Sirius who should be there keeping up a running commentary, Sirius who should be the one giving her unsolicited Remus advice. It was all so unfair that it made her chest ache with fury, and for a precarious moment, Tonks felt closer to throwing a tantrum than she'd been since she was a small child.
But she wasn't a child, she was an adult and a member of the Order of the Phoenix, and there was a hell of a lot of work to be done.
So Tonks nodded to Moody, and to Molly and Arthur as they departed with their family, and she left King’s Cross with her head held high, ready to tackle that work.
- - - - -
END OF PART ONE
- - - - -
End note: And that's a wrap for the first half of this story!
The second half, covering the Half-Blood Prince year, will be along in a bit... The first draft is complete, and the revision of the first draft is almost complete. Then my beta will read it, then I expect to revise a bunch more before being satisfied enough to start posting. So it'll be a number of weeks, maybe even a couple months, before it's ready to start posting, BUT it's definitely coming along, and much faster than I'd ever hoped, too! Update: "Raise Your Lantern High" is the second half of this series!
Thank you so much for reading! Comments, feedback, thoughts all very much appreciated. (And again, this story is also on AO3 and FF, if you prefer to follow it in either of those places.)