Solitary

Solitary

By Ginnysdarkside

Sometimes it felt as if the cubicle was surrounded by nothing, suspended in some clear cool alternate dimension of grey walls and flickering yellow overhead lights. Certainly he could hear the others outside. The sounds of the other Aurors interviewing witnesses and talking about the latest victory of Pride of Portree were deafening in fact, but he could only stare at the inside of his cubicle and think. In here there is nothing.

It hadn't always been this way. There was a time when he would have been out there with the rest of them, talking, joking. He would roll his eyes at Moody's antics and help Tonks pick up the latest stack of files she'd knocked over, while she laughed her honking, stridant laugh. After work, the two of them would go out and get pissed at the pub until the wee hours, talking of the latest sting, the latest case they were working on. That was before. Now he came to his cubicle and did his job, and when he went home at night to his empty flat, he stared at the walls there and thought this is what it's like to be alone.

Not that Tonks seemed to notice. Not that any of them seemed to notice. They went about their daily lives, acting as if the defeat of Voldemort had been the world's best thing. And it was, he supposed. But he had spent his entire life preparing to fight and then fighting an enemy that did not exist any longer. What does the world do with a soldier who no longer has a fight?

So he helped round up the scattering of Death Eaters that remained. He investigated the usual wizarding crimes. And when he got home, he took his robes off, and removed the hook, and stared at the remains of where his right hand and forearm used to be. It was hideous, the stump, and he couldn't help but notice the looks the people in the other departments gave him from time to time when he'd see them in the lift. They'd avert their eyes and suddenly seem extremely interested in the inter department messages circling overhead. He would scowl and pretend not to care, thinking now he knew how Moody felt, stumping around with his wooden leg.

This is what it's like to be alone.

He would sit and stare at the rippling images on the posters in his cubicle. They had big black crosses across them now. Chalk another victory up for Kingsley Shacklebolt. Big lug. He always gets his man. He worked late, until the others had all left, and Dawlish, the last to go, would stick his big graying head over the divider, before heading home to his family.

"Working late, Shacklebolt?"

He'd look up at his coworker. "Of course. There's always something to do."

This is what it's like to be alone.

Tonight, he sat, writing with some difficulty, the quill gripped unsteadily in his left hand, the hook at the end of the right holding the fluttering edge of the parchment in place. He'd thought everyone had left, but when he heard soft steps and the crash of someone upending a rubbish bin, he knew she was still here.

He didn't lift his head. "Tonks. Something I can help you with?"

She poked her head around the edge of his cubicle. Today she was a blonde, with brown eyes and a tip tilted nose. There were streaks of blue in her otherwise normal looking hair. "Actually, yes," she said. "I was hoping you were free for dinner."

He regarded her with measuring eyes as he set his quill down, feeling a tiny sense of satisfaction when she looked away. "I have a lot of work to do here."

To his surprise, she stepped into his space. Most people were afraid to do that now. "Looks like it," she said. She leaned over his shoulder and flipped through the pages on his desk, one by one. "Seems to me this case went through last week, Kingsley. I think they can wait until tomorrow."

He tried not to think about the way her hair tickled the side of his neck or that he could smell her perfume, lavender, he thought.

"Why are you so eager to get me out of here all of a sudden?" he asked. "Shouldn't you be off somewhere with that boyfriend of yours? What's his name? Roger?"

Tonks gave him a big grin and pulled herself up to sit on his desk, cursing as she knocked over the inkwell. She cleaned up the mess with a wave of her wand and looked at him. "You have been out of the loop, K. That was months ago."

She kicked her large black men's boots against the side of his desk, and he didn't say a word as they scratched the front of a drawer. She pulled a lollipop out of her pocket and unwrapped it, keeping her eyes upon him. "So. Yes or no? See, I have nothing in my flat to eat, and I really don't fancy going out alone." The lollipop slid between her pink lips, and he felt a strange sensation in his throat.

"Can't you ask someone else? Someone who wants to go?"

Her large brown eyes blinked at him then slowly shimmered to a deep blue. "Yes, I could. But I'm not asking them. I'm asking you." A smile twitched at the corners of her lips, and she bit down on the lolly with a cracking sound, causing little splinters of pink candy to stick to her lips. She licked them with her tongue and said, "Rather cheeky of me, I suppose, but you looked like you could use the company."

A sound like a growl escaped him. "So that's what this is about?" He snatched up his quill again. "I don't need your pity, Tonks."

She stood up, and he was certain she would leave, but suddenly he felt her hands brushing his shoulders. He stiffened under her touch as her fingers moved up the sides of his neck. They caressed his skin, and he felt a sense of longing run through him. Her fingers gently tugged on the gold hoop in his ear, and he turned to look at her.

"Tonks."

"Kingsley." Her voice was soft, and her eyes turned dark with some emotion he could barely glimpse. When she smiled at him, he knew it wasn't pity.

Hours later, when he kissed her goodnight, and weeks later, when they would wake up in bed together in the morning, and years later, when he watched her sitting on a bench in Hyde Park waiting for him to bring her an ice cream, her hands on her gently swelling belly, he would think.

This is what it is.