《 Skip a Beat 》

Mooncalf Musings

Tina threw them into the air again, and they both watched as the baby in her lap sprang through the foliage to catch particles in its mouth, eyes shining like two gigantic moons.

"Sure."

Tina drew her wand, which she'd become fiercely fond of over the past few days, almost as much as her old one. A smile quirked on the side of her mouth.

It was powerful, too. She could feel it in the wand's core- it was honed purely for skilled use, and Tina felt right at home with it.

"Legilimens."

And the mooncalves around them blew away like mist. They were replaced with a new image, a new surrounding...

A ship's horn blew somewhere in the distance.

"I'll send you a copy of my book, if I may," offered Newt, eyes flickering between her and the ground, as if afraid of hearing her response.

"I'd like that."

Tina watched, from a third-person point of view, as Newt- Newt from almost exactly a year ago- lifted his hand and tenderly tucked back a stray curl of her hair.

From her strange position looking on over at the scene, Tina could feel herself blushing, even after a year.

As the images of them a year ago began to fade away, Tina was reminded that she was using the legilimency spell to read his mind. All his memories.

He thinks about it too?

The rest of New York Harbour slowly faded out, only to be replaced by another image... a newer one.

Tina knew this one all too well. Thought about it almost every day.

"I can't leave you- leave you to die," she heard herself choke out, her raw voice echoing all around her.

The image swam into vision- like ink tumbling through water. But Tina didn't need to see it to know what it was.

"Yeah. Yeah, you can. There's only one thing I regret anyway."

Oh gods. Gods, she could see everything now. Just the same way it was.

His leg, a mangled, bloody mess... the bone twisted up halfway... Tina couldn't look. Not again. Not again.

"What?"

Her own figure leaned over Newt, crying silent tears that dripped over his broken body. She remembered all too well.

Not again.

She couldn't even watch when he leaned up and kissed her on the cheek for the first time.

Not again.

It must've hurt him so much just to move that far-

"Sorry, the spell was so strong. I suspect it's the new wand, it's unbelievably powerful. It took me a while to-"

"Can I hold your hand?"

And there it was. Laid plain and simple before the two of them, the words spiralling out of her mouth before she processed what she was saying.

Newt paused his rattling on, daring to meet her gaze with a look of surprise. Or maybe he just did it by accident.

"Of course."

He took her hand in his first, before she intertwined their fingers, resting them in the soft grass of the mooncalf habitat.