With Hermione, Ron found quickly after the war, and after everything settled down, that some things didn't change. They started dating for real, eating out every so often, or enjoying a meal with her parents or his family. He even learnt how to use a telephone (Hermione taught him after she got him to say the word properly) so he could call her and hear her voice late into the evenings. Being together, he felt like he could do anything, be whatever he wanted to be, and help her do the same, even though they both knew she was capable on her own.

What Ron failed to grasp, throughout their dating, his asking her to move in, the engagement, marriage and even after she told him she was pregnant, was one tiny little detail.

[-][-][-]

Hermione followed him to the door, and kissed him after he put on his coat. "I love you," she said with her lovely smile.

"I love you too. And you too of course." Ron said, giving Hermione another kiss, and smiling down at her belly. It had almost been nine months - How time had flown. Hermione had been allotted time off work because the baby was due within the week, and she accepted glumly, not knowing what to do with herself other than clean and read.

"Come back, okay." she said as he stepped over the threshold.

All Ron could do was nod, and reply with his usual, "I always do."

Yet that day, that bright, happy Monday, he questioned his wife. All the way to work, Ron puzzled over why Hermione always asked him to come back. It was as though, in some distant part of her mind, she imagined the war was still going on. Ron had heard stories of his own parents exchanging the words during the first war, and again during the second.

Ginny explained that it was because their mother didn't want to be the woman left in the kitchen, looking out at the front lawn and knowing that her husband wasn't going to return to her.

Again, that didn't make sense. Ron loved Hermione far to much to leave her. On top of all the emotions he already held for her, they were going to have a child together. How could she think he didn't love her?

That evening, while they sat for dinner, Ron brought up the subject. "Hermione,"

"Hm?"

"Why is it, in the morning as I leave for work, you tell me to come back?"

Hermione looked at him, puzzled, before he saw the realization strike her. "It's nothing, just something my mum always says to my dad."

Ron's brow furrowed, but he left the subject alone, seeing clearly that she was silently asking that of him.

Afterward, he took over cleaning the kitchen and told her to go lay down. Hermione agreed, but while Ron began on the dishes, he could hear her voice float down to his ears as she climbed the stairs.

"I say it because I'm afraid you'll leave me if I don't tell you not to." he could detect the silent choke in her voice that meant tears, and Ron's heart cracked. She didn't know. After all they'd been through together, all the love he'd felt for her - expressed to her - she still didn't realize that he'd rather be nowhere but with her.