A/N: This is going to be a three or four part smut piece, which I'll try to update between "Thieves" updates. I've been sitting on this story for a while now, but I've been in a smut writing mood, so I'm going to continue this one for the next few weeks :) Hope you enjoy!

URGENCY

One day, she wakes up... and she's so sick of the routine.

Breakfast, washing up, watching him fly above her by the lake, lunch, washing up, ringing silence and deafening stillness, dinner... washing up...

Goodnights.

Too many goodnights.

They've been home almost a week, and she's been watching him climb the stairs to his room for far too long already. She wants to break them out of this. She wants him to be free with her, not to be afraid of doing or saying the wrong thing. Not to act as if she might break if he speaks too loudly.

It's too painful, looking up into his calm, pensive eyes and having him smile in that new, darkly gentle way of his before leaving her there, at Ginny's doorway, until daylight.

She wants nights, not just days. And she feels almost certain that he wants the same thing. He hasn't been coy or sly, hasn't hidden his feelings from her. He's only stamped out his own desires and covered them with this silence. Stillness.

Effing gentleness.

She loves this part of him. As much as she loves the rowing, red-faced, passionate part of him. But she's been missing something she's wanted for too many years. And now, she knows how to get it. Because she knows, today, how much he wants it, too.

There's the sickness as well. Or whatever you could call it, what had settled in her since the final battle. It's like her nervous system has been shot to so many tiny pieces that there is no hope of figuring out the proper order of things, or the way the puzzle fits back together. And she needs him. She is sure of something strange and unexplainable...

She's been shaking since they won. And she knows he can fix her.

So, she starts the day the way they always do. She eats breakfast with his oddly quiet family, helps his mum with the washing up, goes outside to read by the lake, feet dangling to run through the cool water as Ron mounts his broom, joining Harry high above her...

She eats lunch, helps Ginny with the washing up, and creeps into the sitting room to pretend to read while watching Ron beat Harry quite thoroughly at chess.

She eats dinner, joins everyone in washing up one last time... She returns to the sitting room, and drinks her tea ever so slowly...

And then, at half nine, she looks sideways at him, his beautiful profile glowing by the light of a lantern.

"I want to talk to you," she says, solidly, and he turns to look at her fully, eyes darting gently between hers.

Damn the gentleness.

His fingers caress his half full glass of firewhiskey.

"Come upstairs with me, and bring your drink," she demands, placing her empty tea cup on the side table and standing. And he follows her, wordlessly. She wonders what he must be thinking, if he's afraid she's ending what they haven't yet started.

Let him wonder, for a moment, she thinks, passing Ginny's room and going up another flight to the loo. She pushes her weight against the slightly open door, and she reaches back to grab his wrist, pulling him inside with her.

She isn't sure what's possessed her to have this discussion inside the loo. And that's when her heart starts pounding, when she's finally alone with him, in a tiny loo, shutting the door behind them... with his questioning eyes no longer soft and gentle, but burning with curiosity and a hint of fear. And she wonders if the echo she can feel of the beating of her own heart is actually coming from him...

"What's going on, Hermione?" he asks, voice low.

She stares at his glass, because she isn't sure where else to look. And he clearly takes it to mean she wants a taste. So he extends his arm to hand her the glass. And she's taken it before she's realised what she's doing. She takes a quick drink and clamps her eyes shut against the burning that makes its way down her throat. She hands the glass back to him and watches as his lips part... watches as he presses those lips to his glass, right where her own lips just were. And he takes a drink for himself...

"Come to Grimmauld Place with me... and shag me," she says, abruptly, eyes glued to his lips.

He chokes on his firewhiskey.

"Or don't you want to?" she adds, needing to hear him say it. Because she can feel it, has been able to for a while now. But it isn't like she knows exactly what it feels like, to be wanted. And she could always be wrong. Perhaps.

She has to know for sure...

He shivers, a wave through his whole body as he stares down at her. And not a trace of gentleness remains now. All she can see is a heavy, settling fog...

"Bloody hell. Yeah, I want to," he says, immediately, leaving nothing to question. She knows that when Ron says what he feels, what he really means, it isn't difficult to tell...

She grins, unable to stop herself.

"Then... will you?" she asks, voice somehow slightly less strong, even in knowing he actually does want exactly what she does.

"I..." he starts, eyes glazed slightly with desire. And she can see him trying to fight his way through, to the other side, where all of the words he knows are waiting to be strung together in a way that makes sense. "Yes. Yes, of course I will. Fuck..."

His ears glow with warmth, cheeks suddenly flushed. And she knows he can do for her what she cannot do for herself. She just knows. And her instincts, subconscious desires... they know what she needs, what will make things right.

"I think I need you to," she says, slowly, because it's all starting to make sense.

His eyes widen before he speaks.

"Why?" he asks. "Not that I'm questioning you. I'm just... curious." He swallows thickly, as if still comprehending the first words she'd said to him, telling him what she wanted... "Holy shit..."

"I've... fancied you for too long," she begins, another word for it a bit out of her grasp at the moment. "Wanted you for nearly just as long," she adds, because it's somehow easier to admit than the way she feels now... that way that she had felt for... how long? Well, it didn't matter. "And... I can't stop shaking. And I think you can make it stop."

He shivers again and lets out a heavy puff of air.

"God, I hope I can..." he breathes.

"You're shaking, too," she points out, his hand now trembling against his glass.

"Only just now," he rasps, "because you asked me to sh-shag you. Blimey..."

"I'm sorry," she says, automatically, because it feels necessary. And because she's still shaking, and she's beginning to tire of this conversation, wondering how many more words she'll need to say before she can apparate away with him...

"No!" he nearly shouts. "Don't be sorry. Fuck, I want you, too, you know... Quite a lot, actually..."

"Ron..." she says, slowly, smile returning as gravity seems to release a bit of its hold on her, making her oddly light.

"You needed to know that, didn't you. For sure," he says, shivering again. "You needed to know a long time ago."

"Can we go now?" she grins, anxious to leave.

"Now?" he echoes, eyes wide again.

She nods, unsure if she'd really be able to speak again... just yet.

He blinks and sways, clutching his glass tighter, no doubt to keep from dropping it.

"Oh, bloody hell," he sighs. "Yes, absolutely..."

And so, she takes his wrist, and he downs the rest of his drink in one go, grinning lopsidedly down at her as he places his now-empty glass on the countertop and shrugs. With one more deep breath, she closes her eyes, steps closer to him, and twists them away, disapparating.