❝rebellions are built on hope❞

Emmeline sighed, turning towards Benjy, wiping away her tears, her eyes fluttering closed when she felt his hand reach to cup her face. It was amazing how such a small gesture could bring her so much comfort. “Yeah, we’re partners.” She said, giving him a slightly wobbly smile. She couldn’t imagine doing this job without Benjy, sure he annoyed her 99% of the time but she also knew that she would do anything for him, and he would do anything for her. “Benjy I don’t know what I would do if…” If I had lost you, she almost said but the lump in her throat kept her from fishing her sentence. 

She winced slightly at the feeling of the towel rubbing away the dried blood, and she knew that she would probably have an ugly wound across her forehead that no makeup could cover for the foreseeable future. “A jinx. Crushing it. Transfigure objects into birds.” She rattled off the answers easily enough but she had to concentrate to work through her blistering headache and fatigue. “I’m fine really, nothing a goodnights sleep won’t fix. Besides I’m young and spritely, you’re the one who should be worried, Old Man.” She said, trying to tease him like she would any other night. She just needed to not think about the fact that they had both been near death tonight, that they had gotten lucky, and that someone on their side sold them out. 

“We need some sleep,” She mumbled, pulling herself out of Benjy’s grasp, pushing down the feelings that being close to him brought out in her. “And a shower. Separately of course. I mean, not that you would think that we would shower together, I just mean–Fuck.” She was suddenly happy for the blood covering the blush spreading across her cheeks. Emmey was not one to stumble over her words, it must have been the exhaustion. Yes the exhaustion, not the feelings that she definitely did not harbor for her partner.

“You shower, I’ll make tea.” She said, quickly trying to busy herself in her small kitchen, trying to find a clean mug among the piles of dirty dishes. “Do you take cream?”

        benjy wanted to pull her into a hug, but it somehow seemed like a bad idea at the time, she would probably punch him and make fun of him, so instead he just listened, and gave her the kindness of not acknowledging the change in her voice, a kindness he was sure emmeline would never give him, she would’ve pointed the sappy tone and possibly give him a new nickname. “alright, not bad vance” he said grateful to have something else to focus on, “you remember your lessons” but really it meant it’s good to know that you were not damaged beyond repair, he gave her a small smile and tried to continue his diligent work with the towel. 

        every time he looked at her face, her eyes, he found it harder to fight the urge to pull her down, not even to kiss her, just to engulf her in his arms and try to make her feel like things would be okay, that they would eventually be better. but he cleared his throat, and pretended to be hurt by her word, “hey you wish you’d look half as good as me when you are my age” he scoffed, “that ugly scar is already gonna make things hard for you” he said with a smirk, “we need some dittany” benjy added almost as an afterthought, not that a scar would make emmeline any less beautiful, benjy shook his head, since when did he had those thoughts? 

          had he said that out loud? benjy thought as he felt emmeline’s warmth slowly move away from him. if he had dwelled on that any longer he would’ve missed the words that spilled out of emmeline. there were so many great things he could’ve said to make fun of her, but he felt himself blush, the smeared blood on his face and chest hopefully covering that up, but emmeline had placed an image in his head that had left him out of words. “shower, tea, sleep. sounds like a plan” he said not having much fight left in him to refuse, he knew he should’ve suggested she showered first, or tell her not to worry about tea, but he had to feel that cold water hitting him. 

          he stood up from the couch and had to fight the dizziness that engulfed him. he could do it, it wasn’t that bad, he could make it to the shower, and then things would be better. “uh, lemon’s fine, a bit of honey if you have some” he said as he walked towards the bathroom. “sure you’ll be fine without me for a few minutes?” he asked turning back to look at emmeline one last time before walking into the bathroom, he poked his head out again, “i’m gonna leave this door open, in case i umm... faint” he said swallowing his pride, “try and resist the urge to peek” he added trying to sound less wounded. 

         the water felt amazing against his bruised and battered body, every inch of him ached, and he finally allowed himself to give into the pain, he forgot his need of a cold sobering shower, instead letting the heat sooth his aching muscles. there were definitely undignified sounds being made, but he could do little to control them. “em?” he called out, “you are the worst host ever! i’m going to grab whatever towel i find!” he warned her. his shirt was a goner, having being ripped apart, not that there was much left after the blood had soaked it. but he had intended to scourgify the rest of his clothes, except his wand was nowhere in sight. “fuck” benjy said by once again having to swallow his pride, he tied the towel around his waist and walked towards the kitchen, “please tell me i didn’t lose my bloody wand...” he pleaded to emmeline, to the universe.

“No Benjy, I’m not singing.” She said with a slight chuckle. “Trust me, you wouldn’t find my singing beautiful.” Her heart skipped a beat at the the word ‘beautiful’, and feelings that she kept hidden deep inside her heart began to stir. Most of the time she tried to ignore the way Benjy could make her heart skip, or how much she loved the way her name sounded on his lips. If she felt anything more than irritation and friendship for Benjy things would get messy, and complicated and she didn’t do complicated. She did one night stands and easy, emotionless hookups and if she allowed herself to fall for Benjy, that wouldn’t be easy and it certainly wouldn’t be emotionless. 

She let out a sigh of relief when his eyes focused on her, his voice become just a little bit clearer. Suddenly it felt like the weight of the world had been lifted from his shoulders because Benjy was going to be okay, and that was everything. She started shaking slightly, the shock of the evening washing over her. “Oh thank Merlin.” She exclaimed, her head falling into her hands and she took a few ragged breaths that she didn’t realize she had been holding. He was going to be okay, he was safe. They were safe. 

“Don’t worry about me.” She said, pressing her hands against his shoulders, making him lay back down on her second hand sofa. She had forgotten about her own injuries, and she suddenly became painfully aware of the pounding going through her head, the ache in her back and shoulders and the dried blood covering the left half of her face. “I’m not the one who’s suffering blood loss.” She said, her hand instinctively reaching out to stroke the side of Benjy’s face, just to remind herself that he was here, solid, alive and warm. 

Tears began to prick at her eyes as she looked at Benjy, battered and bruised. She had gotten so close to losing him tonight, hell she had gotten close to losing herself tonight. “Please don’t be a hero next time.” She choked her words out, her voice cracking slightly. She turned away when the tears began to fall down her face, not wanting to see Benjy see her cry. “Promise me you’ll save yourself next time. Okay?”

“yeah you might be the one with the concussion” benjy said under his breath, but he had a feeling he had no notion of the volume of his voice right now, it could’ve been just his normal tone. as the pain became clearer so did his mind, he had been letting himself get carried away by the blood loss, almost allowing himself to go to sleep. he was so tired, felt like every bit of him ached, but now as the adrenaline was washing off, and the pain was causing his sense to sharpen, benjy finally understood the gravity of the situation. how could the death eaters know they would be there? it was clear it was a trap, someone had set them up, but who? had one of their own betrayed them?

lost in his thoughts benjy almost missed that something was going on with emmeline, her hand on his face made him feel something he had not expected. her words felt heavy, how could she even ask that? did she really think so low of him? but he just shook his head, “hey, hey look at me” benjy said in a soft voice, reaching out for her arms, turning her towards him “emmeline, listen to me, we are partners okay?” he let go of one of her arms and reached for her face, softly bringing it closer to his, tears had began to form in the corner of his eyes, “no one gets left behind, we are in this together” benjy let go of her other arm and grabbed the towel she had brought, he held her face in place and started to clean the dried blood from her face. 

“what kind of spell is flipendo?” benjy asked, not even giving emmeline a second to answer he said, “what is the best way to extract juice from the sopophorous bean?” and finally without missing a beat, “what does avifors do?” he knew she was probably going to think he was crazy but he really needed to do a quick assessment of  potential concussion. it was clear they both needed further medical attention, but someone had set them up, there could be a spy within the order, they couldn’t trust anyone but each other.

She gripped his face in her hands, turning his head so that she could look into her eyes. “Listen to me, you arrogant ass.” Her voice was firm and commanding. “You are going to pull through this okay? Do you understand? I can’t do this without you.” Part of Emmeline hoped that Benjy wouldn’t remember this part of the mission tomorrow, he would never let her live down her confession. 

“Alright, hold on tight.” She said, wrapping her arms around him. She shut her eyes concentrating on envisioning her small little apartment, the peeling floral wallpaper, the stuffed teddy bear she still had on her bed, even the dirty dishes she had left in the sink this morning. It was the safest place she could think of, and it would give her the space to heal Benjy the best she could before a healer could look at him. She was sure that the Death Eaters would be watching St. Mungo’s, they would have to wait for a few days before taking him in. 

She felt the familiar nausea that came with apparating before opening her eyes and being greeted by her familiar little room. She barely had time to breathe a sigh of relief before she heard Benjy moan. “Did you get splinched?” She asked, worried, the last thing he needed was more wounds. “Come on I need to look at you.” She said, ripping his shirt away, happy to see that there was no new injuries. 

“Okay this might hurt.” She said, rolling up her sleeves and taking out her wand. When you worked in a bar  and played enough Quidditch you learned a few healing spells, she was actually quite good at some of them but this would be a feet. “Please don’t hate me for this.” She mumbled before casting Vulnera Sanentur, hoping that it would do the trick. 

“How does it feel?” She asked, once the worst of it was done, quickly fetching a wet dish towel to wipe the sweat and grime off her of partner. Please be alright, she thought, I don’t know what I would do if I lost you.

Now Benjy definitely knew the blood loss was getting the best of him, because when Emmeline took his face in her hands the thought of how it would feel like to kiss her started to dance in his mind. Blood loss. He will continue to blame the thought on him almost dying much later when it comes back to haunt him. He could little but nod, nod and hope he his face had not betrayed him, merlin she was beautiful, was it the light, the almost dying, or the way she kept insulting him despite the deep gash on his side?

Benjy felt her arms around him and he swore he couldn’t stayed there forever, he tried his best to hold on to her, the injury had not been that bad, why was he bleeding so much? It didn’t matter, once they were out of harm he will figure it out, they will figure it out, which judging by the fact that the most he could muster was to bury his face on her shoulder, Emmeline would figure it out.

While he trusted Emmeline with his life, it was a relief when they managed to apparate without any splinching, or that’s what he thought, the pain of his original injuries not allowing him to feel much else, he let out a groan, “I- I don’t think so...” he managed to get out, closing his eyes briefly, sleeping would be so nice, he wanted to sleep. And then he felt Emmeline’s hands on him, ripping his shirt, as the soaked fabric was being pulled away from his skin he let out another pained groan. 

Benjy could barely follow what Emmeline was saying, he just tried to nod not knowing if that was the right thing to do, the pain forced him to close his eyes. “Are you singing?” Benjy asked in his daze, “...beautiful” he managed to say, eyes still close, the voice of Emmeline carrying him through. The singing stopped and he realized she had been casting a spell, he felt much better, “yeah I’m fine... I’m better...” he said in ragged breaths. “What about you? You were also hurt, your head, your forehead” he said trying to sit up but unable to do it, pain shooting through him. 

She howled in anger as she watched  a Diffindo spells hit Benjy, the blood rushing from his shoulder quickly, staining his jacket. She tried and failed to move her locked limbs, wanting nothing more than to blast his attackers into oblivion. From the corner of her eye she could see the Death Eater who had hit her with the body binding spell stalking towards her stiff body. She felt fear prickle his skin, and prepared herself for a world of pain before she saw a tree flying through the air, hitting her would be attacker.

She would never admit it but in that moment Benjy was quite literally her hero. She didn’t like the idea of being his damsel but she couldn’t deny that she would seriously owe him if they got out of this alive. 

Her relief was short lived, and she gasped as another cutting spell hit him, this time hitting his side. If only she could move, she would tear this whole forest apart until she found every single death eater and ripped them apart. She watched as he stumbled towards her, ignoring the wounds on his side and shoulder, until his was hovering above her frozen body, brown eyes meeting blue. “Benjy” She breathed, feeling relief at being by his side again. 

She sat up like a shot once her body was unbound his spell, grabbing her wand and blasting the last standing Death Eater – the one who had gotten Benjy’s side – with the first jinx that came to mind before turning back to her partner. “Yeah I’m great, thanks to you.” She said, ignoring the blood that was still dripping down her face from the cut on her forehead. She reached out for her partner, needing to be close to him, not wanting to be separated again any time soon. “How about you?” She asked, examining his wounded torso, gulping slightly at the sight of his blood. She stripped off her jacket, before pressing it to his side. “Can you hold that tight for me?” She asked, taking his hand in hers and placing it on her now stained jacket. 

It was _a lot _of blood, too much of it. She wouldn’t be able to heal it all by herself here, and she was sure that more Death Eaters could be showing up at any moment. She turned back to Benjy, her hand still covering his where it held on to the jacket. “We have to get out of here, now.” She said urgently. “Can you apparate?”

Benjy never expected anything less when he decided to fight this war. He knew the risk, he knew how much was a stake. He knew that keeping innocent people safe was the most important thing, the only thing that mattered -that and putting evil people away- but right now, right now all that mattered was her. funny how your priorities change as you suddenly find yourself bleeding out. Maybe it was the blood loss, of the adrenaline still coursing through him, or the way his heart had felt when he saw her hit the ground, but something had changed in him, and he couldn’t figure out what.

Emmeline sat up and Benjy let out a sigh, if it wasn’t because he was feeling so weak he would’ve reached out and hugged her, but he could do little to keep himself from fainting, he didn’t even realized there was still a death eater left, but Emmeline had taken care of it, and everything was a blur. “I’m fine, I’m fine” he said nodding and trying to pay attention to her instructions. 

As part of his auror training he had been taught how to treat wounds while on the go, but they never taught him what to do when the injury was your own and your body wanted nothing more but go to sleep. So he tried, he let Emmeline place his hand over his wound, before laying down. It felt so good to just lie down and sleep. He closed his eyes briefly before being brought back by Emmeline’s voice, she sounded worried, he didn’t want her to be worried.

“I- uh... I” Benjy was convinced he could apparate, he sat up but felt everything around him spin, “I think so” he said trying to steady himself, hand still firmly placed over his wound, “I think my body can handle apparition, but I don’t think I can do it, you have to do it for the both of us...”