7. The Question

Let me be your ride out of town
Let me be the place that you hide
We can make our lives on the go
Run away with me…
– The Unauthorized Autobiography of Samantha Brown –

Andromeda hated the hospital wing.

It wasn't that the mattresses were lumpy or that the smell of antiseptic was suffocating or that Madam Pomfrey was overbearing (well, not much, anyway), but the thing Andromeda really hated about the hospital wing was the fact that you couldn't run away from your visitors. And one of the last people Andromeda wanted to see after a particularly heated duel with Lucius Malfoy was his betrothed.

But there she was – Narcissa Black, loyal daughter and consequently estranged sister – hovering at the side of Andromeda's bed, her usually composed self ever-so-slightly rattled as her pale eyes refused to meet the pair of dark ones across from her.

Finally, when the silence hung too heavily between them for Andromeda to stand, she said, "What are you doing here, Narcissa?"

The youngest Black flinched at the harsh tone of her sister's voice, which used to be so much warmer, more affectionate, and she used to call her Cissy and they used to love each other.

"I'm sorry Lucius started that fight," she said to the bedside table.

"Not like I wasn't expecting it," Andromeda replied coolly. She was a bit surprised that Narcissa had apologized, let alone shown up at the infirmary in the first place, but the pain in her ribs was still too pressing for her to pay much mind to anything else. "Anyway, I'm sure he's even more sorry. He's at the end of the ward, you know; passed out cold, if you'd like to see him."

Narcissa's jaw twitched. "All thanks to your Hufflepuff friends."

"Not that I'm ungrateful for his help, but Marcus Smith is hardly my friend," Andromeda snorted, thinking of the fight he and Ted had gotten into not too long ago. They'd patched their relationship up just fine, and since then both Marcus and Andromeda had made more of an effort with each other, but that didn't mean it was all smooth sailing. Still, though… "He just knows where his loyalties lie."

"Unlike some people I could mention." Narcissa's tone was bitter as she spit out the words that were coated in unspoken accusations.

"Is there a reason you're here?" Andromeda snapped, her own cool exterior faltering as her anger piqued.

Still refusing to lock gazes, Narcissa's voice lost some of its resolve, too, when she muttered to the table, "I wanted to make sure you were all right. Just because you forsake the family for a Mudblood doesn't –"

"Ted," Andromeda cut across her, her own voice like steel now. "He's not a Mudblood, his name is Ted. And I'll have you know that I didn't forsake anything. It was our dear mother who cast the first curse and then proceeded to tell me she never wanted to see me again."

Silence hung between them once more, this time broken by Narcissa when she said, "You did it first, though. Don't you see that?" She was almost desperate but kept that, for the most part, to herself. "If you'd just kept away from that – boy – then none of this would have happened. I thought you were only snogging him, I thought that I could get through to you, or Bellatrix could. I thought there was still time, but you wouldn't listen, and for what?"

Pale blue eyes met soft brown ones then, and there was a note of finality in the gaze.

"For what, Andromeda?" Narcissa wanted to know. "We loved you, and you gave that up for just some bloke."

"Well, I suppose that's the difference, then, isn't it?" Andromeda said. "You loved me, past tense, and 'just some bloke' happens to love me for good."

Before Narcissa could so much as articulate a response to that, the bloke in question had pushed open the doors to the hospital wing and was hurrying up the ward to Andromeda's bed, his face painted with a mixture of worry about her condition and relief that she seemed to be more or less as she always was.

"Jesus Christ," he breathed when he reached her. Completely oblivious to Narcissa's presence, he sat down on the mattress and his hands ghosted over Andromeda's face, her neck, her hands – wherever bruises lingered on her skin, Ted's fingertips touched. "Are you all right? Marcus found me, said you were here. I didn't know what to think."

"I'm fine, Ted," she told him, waving away his concern. Apart from the pain in her ribs that Madam Pomfrey had assured her would cease, she felt just as fine as she said. "I'm doing better than Malfoy, that's for sure –"

As those words fell from her lips, Andromeda looked up to see her sister's reaction, but was met only with the empty space where Narcissa once stood. She looked down the ward then and saw the hangings around Lucius's bed fluttering closed, a sheet of platinum hair catching the light for only a moment before those hangings hid it. Andromeda felt a pang in her chest at the disappearance, but there was nothing to be done for it – there hadn't been, not for a long time now – so she put it out of her mind and turned back to Ted with a reassuring smile.

"I really am okay," she reiterated, as his face was still lined with worry. "I've been on my guard for months and it paid off. Surprised it took this long for any of them to pull their wands on me, but I guess things are getting worse outside; they've got to blow off steam somehow, and I'm an excellent target, apparently."

"Bloody wankers," Ted muttered, anger flashing behind his eyes. What he wouldn't give to have been in Marcus's place, to jam his wand into Lucius Malfoy's throat for marking Andromeda's skin… "I'm so sorry I wasn't there."

Andromeda shook her head. "Don't be. If it had been you, you'd be so much worse for wear than I am." She ran her fingers through his hair, reveling in the feel of it because it meant that he was all right, that he was safe from what she'd been through. "It's not worth it, really."

Ted closed his eyes and released a long, unsteady breath as he leaned into Andromeda's touch. As relieved as he was to see her in one piece, he'd rather not see her damaged at all; she'd already been so emotionally broken, and now here she was, reaping the physical consequences of her family and former friends' betrayal. He wanted to fix her, as much as she would let him, and he wanted to be there to support her while she put her own pieces back together, too.

"Andromeda…" He caught the hand that was still running through his hair and pulled her towards him, capturing her lips with his in one fluid motion. His free hand went to hold the back of her neck, clutching at loose strands of her long hair, tilting her head to deepen the kiss as he nudged her lips apart to taste her. She tasted beautiful and he never wanted to let that go.

"Marry me," he said as soon as they broke apart, hardly giving either of them a moment to breathe before he made the request. "Just –" he kissed her again, hungrily, frantically – "marry me."

Shocked at the question and still breathless from the kiss, Andromeda blinked a few times, trying to catch up to this turn of events. "You – wait – what?"

"Too much?" Ted guessed, a nervous but understanding smile crossing his face. He knew that perhaps he'd gone a little too far, but he couldn't help but say it out loud just as soon as the thought had crossed his mind. "Was that too much? D'you want me to back it up a bit?"

"You want to marry me?" Andromeda said, confused and not quite sure she'd heard him right. It was like the first time he'd said he'd loved her all over again – it was fast and it was crazy and it was wonderful and it was taking her a moment to process it all.

"Yes. That." He leaned back a bit and nodded, as if he were assuring himself; he'd already said it, so he might as well go down with the consequences with at least a semblance of his dignity intact. "That was the idea."

Andromeda just continued to stare at him, dumbfounded and dry-mouthed. Her eyes flicked once down the room to those closed curtains, making sure that her sister hadn't overheard any of the exchange, and then her eyes were back on Ted and she declared, "You've got some kind of death wish, Ted Tonks."

"What is that, a threat?" Ted teased her a little to relax the paranoia that she was going to turn him down. "Because you could just say no, we don't have to get violent –"

"You want to marry me," she interrupted. She was sure of it now, but what she wasn't sure of was that Ted fully comprehended the risks. "Did you forget who I am, or…? Because I'm not quite following."

"Does it matter who you are? 'Dromeda, your – family – what do they matter anymore? They cut you off, they let you go, and I never want to do that," Ted said, his tone shifting from disgusted to soft, reassuring, as he entwined their fingers and squeezed. "I want to be your family now."

Ted waited then, watched as Andromeda's eyes flashed with surprise, concern, love and want and need, and he was desperate for her to say something, anything – yes, no, sod off, yes, yes, yes, he needed that yes…

"You want to marry me," Andromeda said again, breaking through his frenzied mantra. It was a statement, not a question, this time. She was still dazed, but it was sinking in and the words warmed her bones, sent tingles along her muscles and nestled contentedly into her stomach.

Ted resumed his nodding. "I do, yeah."

"Okay. Well." Andromeda sucked in a deep breath and mirrored his erratic nodding. "I want to marry you, too."

"Oh." Ted's eyebrows shot up and so did his heart. "Well. Good. That worked out, then."

Andromeda smiled and Ted laughed, and he kissed her again and then they were both laughing, light-headed with relief and an easy-heartedness that was so rare to them – to everyone, really – nowadays. All thoughts of duels and hexes and bruises, of the bed at the end of the ward and forsaken families, were banished from their minds as their fingers tangled and lips continued to collide.

Once, for just a moment, Andromeda's old family motto flashed again in her mind's eye, and her smile only widened as she kissed her Muggle-born boy. He flicked his wand and the bed hangings slid around the metal rod, enclosing them in muted afternoon light. He pushed her back into the mattress, his mouth eager against hers and their hands hurrying to unfasten buttons before the nurse could catch on to what they were doing.

Ted's hands traced the contours of her body, and there it was – the Black family crest, flitting into Andromeda's field of vision –

They stifled laughter with kisses, and she felt so much better, like she was so much more, than Always pure.