Kaleidoscope || t. scamander

The Word 'Love'

"Roo." 

Roo blinked wearily, hand going up to rub the sleep out of her eyes before she looked towards the owner of the familiar alto.

Newt's gentle expression greeted her and she smiled softly as she tried to mask her tiredness away, "hello."

"It's past ten, Roo. You should probably go sleep." He murmured gently, a hand dropping onto her arm for comfort. 

"I will." But she made no move to get up. Instead, her eyes wandered back to the said unconscious auror, hand squeezing his as she watched his peaceful, resting face. 

She missed Theseus. Missed him each and every day. Two weeks had passed after they managed to conjure an incantation to pull out his curse and still there had been no sign of life. The gaping hole in her chest left by Adam still caused her to reel whenever she would think of him. It was hard to go places without thinking of him, almost like an automatic gut reaction. 

It would take time and she knew that. But it didn't help the situation right now. Not at all. 

Which is why she needed Theseus to wake up and get better. She couldn't bear the thought of losing him too. 

But it was no use tiring herself out and wasting away her health. She needed to be strong for him, because that was the least she could do at this point. 

She made a move to extricate her hand from Theseus's, when his hand suddenly twitched. 

Roo froze. Had she just imagined it or did he move--

"Roo? You alright?" Newt interrupted her train of thought. 

Her attention whipped up towards the auburn-haired magizoologist, "sorry. I'm just tired." 

He took her place and she walked back to the dormitory, trying not to let her eyes wander over to the said unconscious auror. Tina was already knocked out in the other room, still clothed in her outdoor clothes. Roo chuckled fondly, before slipping off her friend's coat. Tina snuggled more comfortably into her pillows and sighed dreamily. 

Roo took off her cloak before slipping on her pyjamas, crawling into bed and feeling the tiredness seep through her bones as she allowed her eyes to slip closed. 

The days were monotonous and dragged on forever, so much that Roo felt like five minutes lasted an hour. But she stuck to Theseus's side nevertheless, always making sure that he was comfortable, always wiping off the sweat accumulating along his brow and giving his chest and arms a quick rinse whenever she could. 

It was while she was busy giving him a quick wipe that she saw it again. His hand. 

Roo's body stilled. She didn't want to kid herself that she had seen something that was just her imagination playing with her. 

For a few silent beats, nothing happened. Nothing except for the steady breaths rising from Theseus's chest and for Roo's pounding erratic heartbeats that thumped so loudly through her ears she thought she was drowning. 

But then, Theseus's arm twitched again. 

His eyebrows pinched together. A groan fell from his mouth. 

Roo's knees felt weak as she scrambled over to his side and held onto his hand, her own fingers trembling with hope. 

"Th-Theseus?" She murmured breathlessly, eyes moving back and forth across his face as the rising panic curled through her stomach. 

The auror's fingers twitched once more and Roo swished her wand into the air, calling attention to the rest of the aurors. A second later, Newt and Tina burst through the hospital doors.