Experimenting with a slightly different style on this one. Let me know what you think.

Written for a comment ficathon on LiveJournal. Prompt was Lavender and Seamus, "These scars will never fade." Does it tie in with my Pieces viewing of Seamus and Lavender? Well, of course it does. :)

Enjoy.

You Know These Scars Will Never Fade

He was the one who'd found her, lying in an ever-widening pool of her own blood, skin torn to shreds, chest barely moving as the life ebbed out of her. They said, It's too late. They said, There's no hope for her. They said, It's no use, Seamus. But none of that mattered. They saw a broken body on the edge of expiring, surrounded by bodies they were more likely to save. But Seamus saw her – his beautiful, golden, sparkling Lavender, and he'd be damned from here to eternity if he let that sparkle die without trying to save her.

He was the one who found her, and she knew she owed him her life. But really, that was just like Seamus, the stubborn Irishman. Tell him he can't do something, and he'd become three times as determined to do it. He used to scare her to death, that gleam in his eye, borderline manic, all the way fiery, unbridled desire to thwart authority. It would get him killed, she'd been convinced. Except that, in the end, it had saved her life.

He was no medic, had never been trained as one, had never gotten the hang of the simplest healing spells. And maybe that was the key, because he threw everything he had at her, spells that couldn't possibly work, spells that shouldn't have done anything, but somehow, in his desperation, he worked a miracle that couldn't be recreated, and all his mending charms and shield charms and protective charms wove together into a cobbled, tangled, magical mess of something that somehow kept her alive.

Seamus Finnegan kept her alive, that stubborn, contrary, wonderful man. From the moment Greybeck had attacked, Lavender had known she was going to die. Her wand was gone, and what spell could have touched him? Her teeth and nails paled in comparison to his fangs and claws, her adrenaline-fueled strength still weak and nearly non-existent beside his sheer weight and rippling muscles. And her frantic desire to stay alive was nothing next to his overwhelming need to see her dead. And on top of all that, there was the pain, the overwhelming, agonizing, all-consuming pain that enveloped her as tooth and nail ripped through flesh and skin and muscle.

It boggled the Healers who worked on her later, this magic that should never have been. And they tried to recreate it, to repeat what he had done, but it never again worked, and Seamus knew why. Those later attempts didn't have the desperation, the need, the love. With those three things, he kept her from death. He saved her life.

She felt her life ebbing away, the darkness descending, the pain receding, and though she knew she was dying, she could have sobbed with relief. Anything to end that agonizing pain. But then he showed up, and brought it all back. All of it.

And she hated him for it.

She didn't – she couldn't, not Seamus – but gods, how she wanted to.

She didn't really hate him; at least, he hoped she didn't, hoped it was just the pain speaking, the despair and desperation and never-ending, unbearable pain that caused her to lash out at him, shout at him, scream how much she hated him and wished he had left her to die. He had to hope it was just the pain, because the alternative didn't bear thinking about.

She hurt – constantly. She was on fire, everywhere, but especially her neck, her chest, her side. And sleep was no respite; the pain invaded even there. And when it didn't, he did, that monster, whispering in her ear, violating her body one more time, teeth bared and dripping with her blood, attacking her again, and again, and again. Spells and potions did nothing to lessen the pain; her wounds were cursed, and untouchable.

She slept for two weeks straight after the battle, in a private ward at St. Mungo's, bandaged so heavily she looked like a mummy. He was by her side almost constantly because he couldn't bear to be anywhere else. They'd tried to bar him at first, because he wasn't family, as if that meant anything anymore, but one of the Healers who knew who he was and what he'd done pulled some strings so that he could be there. When she woke in such constant pain as he couldn't imagine, he was there. As she cried, as she sobbed, as she raged, he was there. When she begged him to leave, begged him to stay, begged him to end the pain and let her die, he was there. He held her hand, mopped her brow, soothed her as best he knew how.

It was on one of her worst days that she saw herself for the first time. They changed her bandages, and she caught sight of herself in a mirror. She'd known she was injured, she'd known the injuries were severe. She'd known she'd been clawed and ripped apart. But she hadn't expected it to look so horrifying. She hadn't expected to see the angry red wounds that stretched from hairline to naval, great chunks of flesh missing entirely, showing little to no signs of healing even after a month and a half. She'd imagined her scars like the one Seamus bore, a thin white line across one eyebrow and cheekbone that made him look dangerous and rugged. She hadn't once imagined scars that would make her look like a monster. But that's what she was now – a monster. And she'd be damned if she'd let him see her like this.

And then came the day that she barred him from her room.

Before that day, he would have said that nothing and no one could have kept him from Lavender's side. But that was before Nurse Branson. Nurse Branson was kind and understanding and sympathetic while at the same time being coldly professional and not in the least intimidated by the likes of Seamus Finnegan. And so, when he came to her to announce, puzzled, that the door to Lavender Brown's room was locked, she responded by giving him a smile and saying, "Yes, Mr. Finnegan, quite right."

"Why is her room locked?" he pressed.

"She had a hard morning. She's resting."

"She's rested before without having her room locked."

To which Nurse Branson's calm and unflinching reply was, "Yes, she has. But not today. Today the lock is in place because Miss Brown wants no visitors and no interruptions."

Attempting a flirtatious smile, Seamus said, "But I am certain that Miss Brown will make an exception for me."

"And I am equally certain that she will not," Nurse Branson said with smile of her own.

"What, because you won't let her?" Seamus demanded, his hold on his temper becoming tenuous.

"Mr. Finnegan," Nurse Branson said, the shortness in her voice now matching his own as she kept continual pace with him, "concerned as I am for my patient's well being and health, I do very little that I am not directed to do by the Healers in charge of Miss Brown's treatment, or by Miss Brown herself."

"So it's the Healers who don't want me in there?" Seamus demanded, looking around angrily for the nearest Healer he could bully. Nurse Branson sighed.

"No, Mr. Finnegan," she said softly, even kindly, which put him on edge. "It is at the request of Miss Brown that you are kept from her room today."

Seamus stopped, frozen. "What?" he asked in a clipped voice after too long a pause in which he couldn't speak. "She said that to you, she said 'Keep Seamus out'?"

Nurse Branson was silent for a long moment, meeting his gaze all the while, then she said simply, "Yes."

"I don't believe you," Seamus said immediately. "What happened?"

"Mr. Finnegan—"

"Lavender wouldn't just shut me out, so what happened?" he demanded angrily, almost shouting. Nurse Branson frowned at him.

"Mr. Finnegan, if you cannot keep your voice to a reasonable level, I will have to ask you to remove yourself from the ward."

Anger roiling inside him, Seamus nevertheless took a deep, sharp breath and slowly counted to ten, as his Mam was always urging him to do. When he spoke next, it was in a voice of forced calm. "Nurse Branson," he said, "in the weeks that she has been here, Lavender has screamed at me, thrown things at me, told me she hated me, and begged me to kill her. But she has never, not once, barred me from her room. So I am asking you again. What happened this morning that was different from any other morning?"

Nurse Branson considered him for a long moment. Then she said, "This morning, Miss Brown was conscious when they changed her dressings."

Seamus understood instantly. "She saw herself?" he asked in a tight voice. Nurse Branson nodded. "She saw what she looks like now?" Nurse Branson nodded again. "You have to let me in there."

"Mr. Finnegan," she said, not unkindly.

"No, you don't understand," he said with renewed urgency, cutting her off. "Since she was old enough to smile, Lavender Brown has been the prettiest girl in whatever room she enters. She's always known it, and this past year, she's depended on it. And for that girl to see her face now, to see what she looks like under all those bandages – Nurse Branson, you have to let me in! She can't be on her own, not right now! She needs me to be there for her! She is vulnerable, and she is hurting, and she's at one of her lowest points, and—"

"And that is why you cannot go in there," Nurse Branson interrupted, polite and sympathetic, but firm and unyielding as well. "Mr. Finnegan," she said, when it became clear he would argue further, "take one moment, please, and listen to me, because this is important." Somehow, for some reason, he did as she said. "The prettiest girl in every room she walked into is sitting in that ward with that face, trying to come to grips with the fact that she is never going to be the prettiest girl in the room again, and the very last thing that she needs at the moment is a young handsome man with an intact face to sit in there with her and try to tell her that it's going to be all right somehow. Especially when that handsome young man is you."

Seamus stared at the nurse. "What?" he tried to ask, because it was all he could ask, the only question he could get through the shock in his mind at her words. "That – that makes no sense!" he was finally able to say. "I've seen her new face! I know what lies under the bandages, I won't flinch away from it! I found her, I saved her—"

"Exactly!" Nurse Branson said, now with her own urgency and intensity. "Exactly, Mr. Finnegan, don't you see?" But he didn't. Not in the slightest, and with a quick sigh, Nurse Branson explained further. "You have seen her at her most vulnerable, literally held her life in your hands, been exposed to every inch of her weakness, and she never had a choice in it."

Seamus continued to stare, no longer angry, just lost now. He didn't understand the nurse's words, but he knew they filled him with dread. "I don't — why should that matter?" he asked in a small voice, and received in return a look equal parts pity and exasperation.

"Because she was the prettiest girl in any room she walked into," Nurse Branson said patiently. "And she knew it. So she controlled, at every moment, how she was viewed. No one ever saw her at less than her best. Until you came along and saved her life. But no one likes being vulnerable. And being vulnerable in front of another person is hugely intimate, and the choice to share that intimacy with another person is one of the most important choices we can make. And she was robbed of it. But now, with this? That choice is back in her hands, and she has made her decision."

"And that decision is to shut me out?" he demanded, but it lacked his previous fire. "To announce that she doesn't want to see me?"

"It isn't that she doesn't want to see you," Nurse Branson told him then, still infinitely patient. "It's that she doesn't want you to see her. Not like this. And before you try to say that it doesn't matter to you," she said speaking over his half-formed words, "it matters to her. You have to give her this. You barge in there now, ignoring her wish? Then you'll be by her side while she recovers, but you'll never have a chance for more than that, because the inequality between you will grow insurmountable."

Seamus sat in silence, head in his hands, for a long many moments, then said, in a voice that shook with emotion, "I love her." He'd never said the words aloud before, but they'd been true for time out of mind.

"I'm well aware of it," Nurse Branson said kindly if pointedly then. "Do you think I have to give this speech to the ones who aren't in love?" she said in reply to the question he hadn't asked.

"What if," he said quietly then, and a part of him recognized how bizarre the situation was, that he had gone from trying to bully this woman to pouring his innermost fears and worries to her in so short a time, "what if she decides she never wants me in that room again? What if she decides she never wants to see me again? I worked impossible magic to keep her from the dead. I can't lose her now, not like this."

"It is my personal and professional opinion," Nurse Branson said quietly, but with an iron strength that cut through Seamus's momentary despair, "that that will not happen. She needs time, to acclimate herself to what has happened, to get her head above water, to recognize that she needs you as a part of her life. But I have no doubt that she'll get there. And don't worry," she said then with a hidden smile. "If she's still barring the door against you after it's reasonable to do so, I will play my trump card of keeping her from doing anything to interfere with her recovery. And it is my belief that you are necessary to her recovery. Just as I believe that she is necessary to your recovery."

Seamus's head snapped up at that, and he stared at her. "My recovery?" he repeated. Nurse Branson fixed him with a level gaze.

"There are all sorts of ways to bear scars, Seamus," she said, and her use of his first name cut through his despair. "I can see the ones you bear as easily as I can see hers. Funny thing about scars, though. When they're still wounds, when they can still be poked at and prodded at and can still cause you pain, you think they'll never fade. That they'll always be as garish and glaring as they are now. But I've been a nurse here for 27 years, young man, and you know what? I've never once seen a scar that didn't fade. Yours will. So will hers."

"How do you know?" Seamus asked, almost desperately as everything he'd been through and seen in the past year suddenly rose up against him, threatening to overwhelm him.

"Because mine did." And only then did he see the thin white lines threading the back of her hand, the marks just barely visible on her neck above her collar.

"You fought in a war?" he asked with new respect. She gave him a half smile.

"A war vastly different than your own," she said quietly, "but yes. A war all the same. If I got through it, then so can you. And so can she. Two things that will help, though?" Seamus looked to her expectantly. "Say those three all-important words to her, not just to strangers in the hall." She quirked an eyebrow in his direction and he colored. "And share your brokenness with her. Intimacy for intimacy. Heal alongside her, Mr. Finnegan."

Seamus was silent for a long time, and when he finally spoke, the words were not what Nurse Branson was expecting. "If I might ask," he said quietly, "what is your first name?"

"Sheila," she said with a smile.

"Thank you, Sheila," Seamus said with real gratitude. She nodded once. That was all. But it was enough.

It was three days before Lavender Brown let Seamus Finnegan back into her room, and Seamus never knew if Nurse Branson had had anything to do with it or not. But she gave him a smile as she ushered him in, and the first thing Seamus made clear to his beautiful golden girl was how much he loved her, even now, especially now, with the marks of her strength so clearly written on her face. And when she cried after that, it was for a completely different reason.

He held her tight and he told her he needed her and he bared his soul in a way she had never seen him do before. And when he showed her his real scars, she knew what he was sharing with her. And so, for the first time, she cried out her fear that the pain would never end, that the scars would never fade, that she would be a monster for the rest of her life, alone and unloved. And through it all, he was there beside her, sharing her fears, but sharing also the reassurances that they would face them together. "They'll fade, Lavender," he whispered as he held her close, with one long glance toward the door. "The scars will fade. I have it on excellent authority."

The road they'd been given to walk would never be an easy one, but from that moment on, they would walk it together, and in the end, that would make all the difference.

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