The first thing Tamis Raynor’s still sleep-muddled mind became aware of was that she was suddenly, pleasantly warm. Abnormally warm, given the time of year.  Spring was upon them with a vengeance, but the damp chill of April kept the nights brisk and the mornings frosted. And for the immensely petite woman, who had the cold tolerance of the reptilians she was so often compared to, the change was enough to jostle her awake.

Her second realization was that the new personal furnace was very, very heavy.  Constricting. Uncomfortable -- almost painfully so. Her own weight sagged further into the mattress under its influence as she blinked fully into awareness, adrenalin an apt stimulant. 

She had fallen asleep on her back. A rarity. And... There was more than two hundred pounds of half-giant slumped overtop her; his warm breath puffing against the crook of her neck with every exhale of his gentle snores, tuffs of dark hair tickling her cheek.

She was trapped.

“Archer.”

She strove for calm. Tamis Raynor was always calm. And there definitely was not an indignant pitch in her delivery. Tamis Raynor was never indignant. Not even when pinned to the bed by the dead weight of her unconscious boyfriend.

Peering at the dark sky poking through the curtains told her little of the hour.  She twisted her neck the other way, the artificial haze of the muggle streetlights below that window casting enlightenment on the grandfather clock in the bedroom. Four in the morning. Not much earlier than she normally woke up to head into the Office. Earlier than Archer normally did – or most of the Ministry.

Got up before he did. Went to bed after. She was not avoiding him. Not really.

His internal clock must have predicted when she usually roused and, denied the usually resistance of her side-sleeping form, rolled over to claim the rest of the presumed vacant bed.

Not vacant. And he was still heavy.

“Archer. Get off.”

More forcefully this time and accompanied with a firm slap to a muscular forearm. She was awarded with a snort and a grunt and a face nuzzling further into her neck. How an Auror with as many years under his belt as he had managed to sleep like a bloody rock was beyond her.

Straining an arm out, she changed tactics, reaching for her wand on the bedside table – fingers stretching, nearly brushing. She wiggled, trying to gain leverage to reach just a little further, then she could just levitate him off of her… and her fingertips tapped the wand, rolling it further away from her.

 “Radley.”

A solid sleep was notoriously hard to come by.  In his line of work, it always seemed like something came up just as you were falling into that place of deep sleep.  How he managed to do it the previous evening was beyond him.  Perhaps it was just the cumulative nights of a lack of sleep that really sunk him into the mattress and knocked him out.

Granted, he’d conked out by himself – that had been becoming less and less uncommon, which bothered Archer to some degree, but he sort of understood.  He had to, really. 

There were always going to be things he didn’t understand about Tamis, and even more than that, there would always be things about her that she wouldn’t let him know until she felt comfortable enough to.  Despite the fact they had been together for quite some time and he saw the interior of her apartment far more often than he saw his own, she was still going to keep him in the dark about things until she was ready.

He hadn’t really gone to sleep thinking about it (he wasn’t sure he thought about anything before passing out), but somehow he started dreaming about it, and that was strange.  It didn’t make much sense, it was like an out of body experience, but she just kept saying his name and looking at him, which was weird. 

He couldn’t find his voice to talk back though, and she got angrier when he didn’t answer her.  Archer tried to open his mouth, but his voice was stuck in is throat.  She had started to walk away in his dream and his feet were stuck to the floor.  That was frustrating. 

He was about to move when he felt something – like a harsh slap and he grunted, jostled from sleep.  “Huh?” he lifted his head, short-ish hair askew and eyes blurry as he did.  “What? I’m awake,” he groaned and rolled over with a huff, turning his head to look at the clock.  “It’s not time to get up yet,” he closed his eyes again and grunted.  He did not want to be awake.

Just as she was weighing the merits versus malefaction of utilizing anatomy conveniently in proximity to her knee to get his attention, the mass of muscle and sinew above her shifted. 

Uncomprehending brown eyes stared through her with ignorance born innocence, tufts of hair in bedridden disarray. For a moment her expression softened, a tenderness and affection that might have lingered if she was not still preoccupied with the fact that he weighed more than twice what she did. The necessity for air saw to that.

Yet, when he finally complied and rolled away, flopping back onto his side of the bed, the Auror had to squelch the irrational disappointment at the lost of contact.

The Dark Wizard Hunters of Level Two were never quite able to leave their work at the Office. It was easier when one could pretend. Return home to a loved one vastly more ignorant of the threats and wrong doings currently plaguing their society. The counter argument being that, while easier, that was not necessarily healthier. In Level Two marriages and relationships, the respective parties could at least openly confine in one another. In theory, it had validity.

Except, in practice, the Auror Corps tended to be an emotionally constipated lot at the best of times.

Tamis Raynor had not become their Head for her impressive people skills.

An astute individual who had all the details might be able to conclude that the Head Auror’s professional demands were the alibi. She handled her responsibilities remarkably well. A hallmark of her character. That, whether or not she was consciously aware of it or not, she had been subtly retreating from Archer Radley the moment Tait Aldridge’s murder investigation reopened.

Where another woman might have teased Archer for their early morning predicament; taken advantage of an opportunity for a lighthearted interaction and stolen a stress free moment. One they frankly both could have used. Instead, Tamis huffed in annoyance over his continued obliviousness – chucking a pillow at him and sidling him a glare for good measure, albeit more put-upon than heated.

“I am aware of that,” she grumbled.

There were precious few situations Archer could think of that he would enjoy waking up early for.  Since this fit none of those qualifications (he might have announced that if he got a more positive vibe off of her), but she was grumbling and her attitude seemed to bring his straight down. 

“Then why are we up?” he opened one eye, even the light fron outside of the window seemed to irritate his eyes, but it did cast a rather fetching glow over her.  If he was in a mind he would usually be in, he would also comment on that, but he’d just been woken out of a very strange dream – and though Tamis was not the warmest of human beings, she was also not usually the iciest he’d ever met (at least to him). 

Shifting, he rolled on his side, resting his face in the side of his arm and grunted, that seemed like a lot of work in actuality.  “Aren’t you exhausted?” he asked in a slightly stronger voice, now that he was pretty damn awake. 

He wasn’t sure he’d get back to sleep anyway, so he might as well ask.  It wasn’t as though Tamis would go back to sleep.  If anything, judging by her latest trend, she’d be up and out in a couple of minutes and then he wouldn’t see her until they were in the office, and even then, only tangentially for part of their day, and then he’d leave and the process would repeat. 

Honestly, he was getting a little tired of it.  Not that he had any plans to end things or anything like that, but there was only so much a guy could deal with before it came to a head in a big way.   

Why were they up? She snorted at that, but refused to deign it with an answer just yet.  The shadows around him shifted again, and she felt more than saw him prop up on one elbow, elevating him above where she lay still flat on her back.

But the timbre of what he said next caught her attention.

Her gaze settled on him, searching for hidden meanings in his words. ‘Exhausted’ could mean so many different things. The shallow lighting was no more revealing to her as it had been to him, however.  She snaps at him and that is how he responds. Lifting a hand, she pinched the skin between her frustrated, furrowed brows and took a deep breath.

Archer did not rally against her. He was too stubborn to protest. If she decided to keep something from him, he let her; feigned ignorance when they both could clearly read the subtext. He never pushed. Never emotionally cornered her. He never had. She was both grateful and exasperated for that. Hufflepuffs.

It left her thinking about the anniversary of once-fiance’s death almost exactly five months ago. Jonas Trevelyan had rallied. Put his foot down. Refused to be shut out. But Jonas and herself were more similar than either cared to admit. He demanded to be apart of her life. Out of some misplaced sense of responsibility or a martyr complex, they would probably never know.

Archer. Archer would never do that. If wanted to keep him, she had to put the effort in. And it had been an asinine level of effort for nearly half a year.

Building a wall, keeping people out, the ginger Auror has claimed it would keep her from getting hurt again, sure. But she would die alone. She had thought she would always be okay with that.

Was she not exhausted, Radley had asked?

Letting her arm drop, her eyes sought his again, stormy with consideration as she took in his features looming above her. Always looming. The man was too tall. Finally she let out the breath through her nose.

“You are, too,” she said simply.

And it was true. It was written in the way he had fallen asleep last night.

After a moment of staring up at the ceiling she added, “and you are bloody heavy.”

“That’s not a complaint I’ve heard from you before,” Archer ventured with a little bit of a smirk, shifting his face to try and see her better: no luck.  Of course it was hard to see, but he could imagine she might have had a little look of indignation on her face, but he could only rely on his memory of how she responded to such things, since she’d been avoiding him recently.

Archer really knew it wasn’t about him, at the very least. 

Whatever was going on with Tamis he could only guess was related to what he’d discussed with Jonas ten days ago (wow, it was really ten days ago, that went fast).  He couldn’t say he wasn’t a little upset, but then again, it was in his nature to be steadfast rather than act hastily.

However he felt about the issue, his feelings ultimately didn’t matter as much as hers.  It was her trauma-skeletons in the closet.  He just had to deal with them until she was ready to.  He’d have guessed after a decade or so she’d be able to, since she was keen on confronting dark witches and wizards at the drop of a hat, but apparently personal demons didn’t come into play in that scenario. 

“You couldn’t have just stayed asleep for a little while longer?” he flopped back onto his back and rolled his shoulders back with a grunt.  Today was going to be hell on Earth, he could already feel it. 

Just because the Head Auror was typically socially inept did not mean she did not understand them. She just often did not know of a response that did not involve shackles (… … she decided not to share that observation with Radley). She could feel the tension and frustration radiating off her significant other as he flopped back down on the bed, jostling the mattress passive-aggressively.

Part of her wished he would lose his temper with her. She deserved it. And it would give her an excuse to justify her latent hesitation. Pushing him further away, a voice, with a suspiciously Cornish accent, supplemented in the back of her mind.

This was very much about Tait Aldridge. But not for the most obvious conclusion. It was more than fifteen years that her one-time fiancé had been in his grave. The reemergence of his unsolved case -- the return of her not-mother-in-law to her life, blaming the Ministry for his death, and thus, indirectly Tamis herself. It was not about feeling like she was betraying him for her relationship with Archer Radley, but the survivor’s guilt and responsibility she was not sure she could put to rest.

Archer was the first person since Tait she had allowed this close. And it terrified her that she could lose This again. The Case just rubbing fifteen years of dulled emotion back under her nose of exactly how much loving someone that much could hurt when you lost them. They were both Aurors. Raynor was under no delusion.

Was it worth it?

She sat up as he laid back down, swinging her legs over the edge of the bed, the hand that had previously been pinching the skin along the bridge of her nose, running through hair that could use another cut. There just had not been time for such frivolous things lately.

His words struck the spark her temper had been waiting to kindle. He, after all, had been the one that woke her up; unconscious or not. “Nothing is keeping you from going back to sleep,” she snapped.

And instantly she regretted it, tightening her grip on the edge of the mattress and biting the inside of her cheek.

She let out a long shaky breath. “I apologize,” strange for a woman who never did just that. “That was undeserving.”

Well, Archer’s distant hopes that Tamis was going to come around were dashed as soon as she swung herself up and ran her hands through her hair after aggressively shoving her legs off the bed.  He couldn’t see much, but he knew she did that when she was frustrated.   

It probably wouldn’t take an auror to figure that out anyhow.  He fought the urge to roll his eyes at her when she snapped.  A lesser man would have immediately snapped back, but Archer wasn’t that type of person.  He knew Tamis, he knew the way she was, it didn’t change how he approached things… which really, he didn’t. 

He was the type of guy who was going to deal with things later, when it cooled off (though it was pretty frigid right now). 

More surprising though was when he thought he heard her apologize.  Reaching up, he wiggled his pinky in his ear to make sure he was hearing correctly – apparently he was.  Her posture would only be half so rigid as it was if she wasn’t admitting something she didn’t want to admit. 

That had Archer sitting up (albeit slowly) from his position on the bed.  “What is the problem?” he yawned, tilting his neck to pull the muscles, unwittingly causing his bones to crack as well.  “I mean, did I do something?” he asked with a slight frown, scratching the back of his head – hair sticking up in multiple directions as he did. 

“No,” she replied without turning, gaze fixed on the carpet somewhere below her feet dangling over the edge of the bed. And it was true. This was not Archer’s fault. She let out a slow steadying breath, running another hand through her hair, snagging on, and disentangling a knot.

The bed dipped toward him as he sat up as well and Tamis dug her fingers tighter into the edge of the mattress to  compensate. Moods were tense everywhere. Dementors had that effect. Picking a fight was not particularly how she wanted to start her day.

She might not have a choice in the matter. If she was planning on telling him the truth. At least one of the truths. One that she had not consulted him on. Raynor sat there for a while longer in silence. Not ignoring his question or trying to avoid it, simply contemplating how best to answer it.

In the end, she had always been a very concise witch.

“I accepted the promotion.”

Not waiting for his reaction, she pushed against the edge of the bed, hoping the small distance to the floor and padded barefoot through her compact flat and into the kitchen. Squeak was still sleeping, one of the house-elf’s pointy ears twitching mid-dream, so the Auror opened the cabinets herself until she found the cups.

Tea. This was going to require tea.

 For some reason, the fact that it wasn’t something he did really didn’t make him feel better.  Archer was completely willing to take responsibility for something he did, but when it wasn’t him… First of all, he was awake much earlier than he would have been happy with on a regular day, but now he was on the receiving end of a colder shoulder than usual. 

Rubbing his hands over his face, he willed himself to lower one leg out of the bed, hands coming up from his cheeks to try and tame the wild strands of hair that decided to poke out every which way.  Of course, he had also noticed the raging stubble that he’d have to take care of at some point.  He was a little too perturbed at the moment, however, to make his first stop the bathroom.  “Then what is it?” he asked gruffly, crackling of morning throat evident in his speech. 

”I accepted the promotion.”

Tamis did not even give him time to react.  She was up and out of the room with speed not conducive to morning.  Archer felt a sort of blankness that, once he really mulled the words, turned into a burn of frustration.  There was no question in that – it was a statement.  She was telling him what she was doing, not asking. 

Not that Archer expected a big input on a decision like that – but, he should have at least heard it first.  Grunting, he put his other foot on the floor and pushed himself out of the bed – stiff limbed and tugged on the t-shirt he’d left draped over the open drawer on the bedside table.  “Tamis,” he didn’t even bother whispering at this point, he wasn’t really in a whispering mood.   

“Unfortunately for you tea does not have the power to obliviate,” he remarked dryly, standing a safe distance away, crossing his arms over his chest.  She always did this – tried to walk away or figure something else out.  He waited for her to at least not be furiously digging for cups.  “When?” his voice did not waver and he figured he didn’t need to specify.  If she didn’t know what he was referencing… well… there were a lot bigger problems. 

Tamis. It was more of a growl , rumbling from the general vicinity of the bedroom. The true threat was not in its delivery, but the use of her full given name. Squeak, well, squeaked, head piping up from her hammock with uncertainty. Raynor  had finally found the cups and kettle and had moved on to investigating the mechanics of the stove, her movements carefully calculated and methodical. Fiddling with knobs as if she actually knew how to use them, posture t00-relaxed given the tension in her shoulders moments earlier.

By the time the floorboards creaked under Archer’s heavier feet, Squeak had braved wandering over to aid her Mistress, flipping a couple switches until a flame ignited beneath the burner. Despite all self-preservation instincts, Tamis kept her back to the Senior Auror, opening and closing several canisters until she was satisfied with the herbal mixture. She both heard Radley draw closer and read it in Squeak’s tells — whom was now darting her eyes nervously back and forth between the the wizard and witch in the room, uncertain.

The house elf had grown fond of the man in the intervening years. Even if he was only halfblooded. No doubt, her loyalties were split.

“It could, with the proper herbs,” she pointed out, with the same would-be ease, setting the kettle on the burner. A reminder that before she had become an Auror, Raynor had been a healer; a herbalist training on the potion and plant poisoning floor.

When. It was less question, more command. Without anything left to occupy her hands with, Tamis finally turned to face all six feet and three inches of righteous, arm-crossed frustration standing at the mouth of the kitchen. He had put a shirt on. The stance could have been intimidating, but the bed-tousled locks detracted from it.

She leaned back against the counter and -- not quite tall enough to prop her elbows on the surface -- crossed her arms as well, chin lifting slightly, forcing her grey eyes to meet his darker brown. His emotions were locked tight behind them, but she was having trouble reading them. He was wearing his Auror Mask.

Not that she was doing much different.

“Half a week ago.” It had not been when she had started avoiding him, but it certainly had contributed in the past few days. “I asked the Minister to wait on the official announcement.”

Normally, Tamis’ dry humor held some appeal to Archer, but right now he was not in the mood for laughing at her snarky comments.  Squeak didn’t even comment, which was uncharacteristic for the normally very vocal house elf.  Archer’s eyes were, however, fixated on Tamis who hadn’t even turned around yet.  She was too busy pretending she knew what she was doing. 

She was wasting time. She was avoiding him. 

This was not a new pattern.  Archer was a patient man, perhaps to a fault, particularly with her.  They had too much history and knowledge of one another for that.  Well, at least that’s what he had thought.  He certainly treated their relationship like that on his end.  Apparently, the other person involved was treating this with the same mentality. 

Finally, she turned to look at him and Archer did not feel his expression soften – as it usually would in the morning.  This was more than just a mild irritation that she’d put her cold feet near his or had taken too much blanket. This was a large life choice that she clearly hadn’t thought it was important to share with him. 

Archer had consulted her when he considered Senior Auror.  Hell, he consulted her on whether he was going to wear the red tie or the grey tie with his uniform.  Archer was a communicative person, for the most part.  So, the fact that she’d waited a half-week – who knew how long she’d actually known about the offer, which ticked in his mind as something to bring up, she just didn’t bother to tell him. 

 He didn’t even know where to start.  He let out a deep breath and shook his head.  The fact that she had her head tilted up and she was trying to meet him head on was even worse – it was like she didn’t even see what the problem was.  “Was I supposed to find out in the Prophet?” he asked with eyebrows raised, “or maybe Pratt or Trevelyan would let me know?”

He let one of his arms fall to rest on his hip and the other rubbed his face again – eye crust was pulling at his inner eyes.  “Seems as though they know a hell of a lot more than me recently anyway,” he pointed out – maybe a little more accusatory than he intended, but it was out there nonetheless. 

“I know you aren’t exactly a woman of words, Tamis, but…” he dropped his chin to his chest, shaking his head from side to side as his other hand met his waist.  “Merlin, this is ridiculous.”   

With nothing left to use as a distraction and the towering mass of Archer Radley occupying the only way in or out of the kitchen, Tamis was efficiently cornered. Forced to face her emotionally stunted issues, she had been overcome with a rush of numb acceptance. Numb ,but not indifferent.  She knew she should have discussed this with him first. How much this affect him and the parameters of their relationship. But if she had done that, if she had delayed her decision to the Minister… she would have never agreed to the promotion.

In two years, Raynor had survived twice as many bosses. With the rise in Dementor activity  and decrease in answers from the Ministry, Tamis Raynor might not agree with the Minister on many fronts, but she could understand the necessity of a united front. And stability. Particularly from Level Two. Rumors of the Head of the MLE being a cursed position were not entirely unfounded. Tamis had begun to wonder herself. It put Archer and herself in considerable more dangerous… and brought more scrutiny on their personal lives. She had not been able to afford to be selfish.

Knowing now that Tait might have been investigating corruption in the Ministry thanks to information Charisma had brought forth… the answer had been simple.

He was angry. He had a right to be angry. She knew he would be, so she planned to let him rally. Yell and holler. That was why she had asked the Minister to —

“The Prophet?” She interrupted, her calm facade broken, and voice taking on a ludicrous quality. But Archer kept on talking — and her eyebrows shot up to her hairline, not even to bother to hide the shock from her normally very carefully controlled expressions. Jonas? Pratt? Archer was not notoriously level headed in the interrogation room and this. This sounded too much like him hunting for a confession.

Her jaw ticked, her own temper rising, but he clearly was not done yet.

“Damn it, Archer, of course it is ridiculous,” she snapped back, pride wounded and defensive in the face of his reprimand. “That did not escape me. I asked for that time to tell you, and the Aurors, before the paper released it, in that order.” Her jaw ticked again. The kettle started to whistle fainting and Squeak was practically bouncing from foot-to-foot, wringing her hands. Tamis ignored both. “Pratt? Trevelyan? Merlin’s Beard, Archer, they are more your friends than mine.”

She could not keep the defensiveness out of her tone, the tightness of worry. She had… been spending considerable amount of time with Jonas lately, reviewing the journal. He was safe to confine in, easier, on topics when it came to Tait Aldridge.  Was Archer — jealous? He spent more time with the men in the Corps that she did, by far.

A suspicious quality had taken residence beside the guilt in her eyes.

“That’s half of the problem, Tamis,” Archer cut back after she said she asked for time to tell him.  Honestly, didn’t she see that?  “You think it’s okay to just tell me!” he threw his hands out like he was showing her the obvious.  There was something wrong when she only intended to tell him – and seemed to be doing so as only a footnote before anyone else.  Honestly, the rest of the corps could suck on ready to hatch ashwinder eggs for all of his cares in this moment.

Archer knew what was going on. 

He wasn’t jealous of Jonas in respect to Tamis’ actual loyalty to him, hell, even the confidence she had with him over Aldridge’s death was not the source of Archer’s agitation.  He had understood her reticence to share with him about that case – but… combined with this breaking news. 

There was just a point where a person’s patience was run its thinnest, and Archer had rapidly neared that point in the past couple of days.  “You don’t only answer to yourself, Tamis,” he explained sternly, unable to find the words to really express how he wanted to be considered.  He knew she had no obligation to include him (it was not as though they’d made each other fully accountable for the other – that was a step neither of them were ready to take), but obligations aside – it didn’t mean he didn’t want to be included.

Archer may have been more communicative than Tamis ,but that did not mean he understood exactly how to have this conversation.  His history would suggest he was not always the best at expressing his emotions either.  Despite the obviousness of them, he didn’t quite know how to make the point. 

She seemed to have no problem making a point though and Archer frowned: her observation would have been correct if he didn’t know better. 

He was deeply invested in his work, and by extension with his colleagues, but Archer understood that this was different.  The fact that she sounded incredulous at this line of talk, well – he practically snorted.  The burst of air from his nose was punctuated by another shake of his head.  “I’d have thought that too,” he replied tersely, “but you know as well as I do that’s simplifying things.  Isn’t it?”

The line of Tamis Raynor’s jaw ticked as she finally diverted her gaze from Archer’s, glowering a hole through the cabinetry beside her; teeth clenched. From the bedroom, the grandfather clock struck the bottom of the four o’clock hour, but it was lost in the steadily, growing whine of the teakettle. Her fingers left white impressions where they grasped her upper arms.

“No,” she agreed, much calmer than she felt, “I am answerable to the Wizards and Witches of England.”

Answerable to more than just herself? Tamis Raynor had been alone since she was six years old. She had Squeak, a guardian that was barely recognized as sentient at the time by Societal standards. She had Tait, briefly. The fact of the matter was, Tamis was used to being alone -- she was comfortable with it. It was what she had with Archer that scared her. Independence was thrust upon her at an early age. He was right. When it came to these decisions, she did not even consider that he should have been included in that. But she did not expect him to understand. Archer Radley came from a large and close family. More relatives than she could name or hope to count.

It was not the first time the differences in their backgrounds had caused a fuss.

But, whether Raynor knew it or not, he was right; there was more to it than that.

“The answer would not have changed. Could not change. It would have been pointless to delay giving it,” she said quietly.

Four Department Heads in two years. Raynor’s soon-to-be predecessor had barely lasted five months. Tamis had run out of excuses to say no to a promotion. And in light of leads in Tait Aldridge’s investigation, one that could turn Internal, the answer had become easier.

And yet, she had struggled to tell Archer about it. All of that history resurfaced. She was so afraid of losing what she currently had, she kept pushing him away.

But his frustration. The riling anger. It was fraying on Tamis as well. She did not take reprimands well, especially if they had merit. He was towering over her, glaring at her like a child over something she could not change.

“What would you have me say?” She asked, or began to. But he cut her off, blowing air like an agitated bull. All of this talk about Jonas and Pratt. Telling them things before him. Ice slivered down her spine, and when she snapped her gaze back to his, the cornered apprehension there was becoming more akin to betrayal.

Simplifying things.

“Is it?” Her tone was tight, matching his. “Enlighten me. What do we both know?”