Everything Is Eclipsed by the Shape of Destiny

“Because I BLOODY LOVE YOU!” he bellowed, his voice cracking towards the end. “That what ya wanted to hear? That I'm mad about you and I’ve been mad about you since I first walked into that bloody flat in Egypt? You haven’t a clue what you do to me, do ya? But now ya do. Now you know I love you more than anything and that the idea of you running around with Marceau, or any other bloke, literally guts me. Because I want to be that bloke, I want to be the one that’s not allowed to listen to the Beatles whenever you’re around.”

Most of what he’d just said went unheard by her. She didn’t hear the bit about him wanting to abstain from listening to the Beatles in her presence. She didn’t hear him say that he’d loved her since he first eyes on her in Egypt. All she heard was him saying – shouting that he loved her. Those were the words her mind focused in on. He’d said them before, but he’d thought she was sleeping. So to hear him bellow them, at the top of his lungs made her feel as if she were hearing them for the very first time. Her jaw dropped, eyes went wide and she was left gaping, completely and utterly shocked. This couldn’t be real. It couldn’t be happening. It was a dream. It had to be a dream.

There was no way that Bill would climb through her window at – what time was it? She glanced over at the digital clock on her nightstand, watching as the bright green numbers glared back at her. Eleven! It was eleven. No. Surely this was a dream. At eleven, Bill ought to have been in bed with his wife, not in her bedroom. With a shaky breath she looked back at him, half expecting him to have morphed into someone else. Since even in her dreams, she couldn’t properly be with him, but he was still there, staring at her with a look that made it perfectly obvious that this wasn’t a dream, that he was being sincere.

“Y-y-you love me?” she whispered, disbelief apparent in her voice.

Bill stepped towards her, his steps slow and hesitant. “I do.”

“Ah.” Emerson grew quiet, her eyes brimming with tears.

This wasn’t the reaction she was supposed to be having. In her mind, the moment that Bill confessed his love was supposed to nothing short of spectacular. She was meant to run into his arms, to throw hers around his neck and kiss him as if that moment were her last. But the thing was, in her mind – in that perfect scenario, Bill wasn’t married. And despite the fact that she wanted nothing more than to kiss him and to spend the night making sweet, sweet love to him, she couldn’t help but stare at the golden wedding band on his hand. She hadn’t been all that comfortable with being intimate with him behind Fleur’s back, when he was dating her. But she’d done it. She’d done it because she told herself that they were just dating, it was nothing serious. But to have an affair with him, now that he was married, well that was something different.

It may be old fashioned of her, but Emerson believed in marriage. She was of the opinion that when two people are married, they have to be faithful to each other, and if they don’t love each other enough to be faithful, then they should respect each other enough to get a divorce and not taint the marriage with an affair. Emerson didn’t want to be the other woman. She’d had a hard enough time being the other woman when Bill was dating Fleur, and it led to her having bouts of depression. She didn’t want to have to go through that again. She wanted Bill for herself. She wanted – needed him to get divorced so that they could be together and she could present him as hers.

“Then why’d you marry her?” she asked, her voice small, completely different from how it usually was.

“I-I thought you didn’t love me . . . wait, do you love me?” his eyes were firmly focused on hers. “Marie?”

“I'm fighting in war that doesn’t have fucking thing to do with me. What do you think?”

A massive grin broke onto his face. “Thought you were doing it because your, mum’s muggle born and ya wanted to protect people like her?”

“No offense to my mom, but she’s not the reason I'm here, risking my life.” Emerson’s nostrils flared, she was fighting back the tears. “All of this . . . it’s to make sure you’re alright. It’s so I can go to sleep at night and know that you’re alive. Even if that means knowing that you’re in bed with someone else.”

“That’s a hell of a lot of love.”

Emerson laughed. “Yeah, yeah, it is.”

“Marie, if you felt that way, why didn’t you drop a hint? Do something to let me know? I would’ve – I don’t know what I would’ve done, but I would’ve done something.”

“William,” the tears began to fall. “I slept with you, without being your girlfriend. I’d never done that before. And even after you got with Fleur, I kept it up, despite the fact that I felt like trash whenever you’d leave. Because I was willing to take the bad, if it meant having stolen moments of glory with you. Even if it made me a whore . . .”

“That’s not true!” he took her face in his hands. “Not what you are, ya never could be that.”

“I slept with you even though I knew you had a girlfriend. Even though I’d met her,” she closed her eyes. “But it was worth it. To be with you, it was.”

“Wish I could go back in time and change all that.”

“You can’t, can you?” she whispered, her eyes still closed.

“No,” his thumb began to caress her cheeks. “But I can change the future.” He took a breath before continuing, “I don’t love Fleur. Might care for her, but it’s not love. It’s not what I feel for you.”

Her eyes snapped open. “What do you mean, change the future?” she asked.

“I mean – I mean I’ll get a divorce. That’s what’s right, ain't it? Can’t be in love with you and married to someone else. Wouldn’t be fair for anyone,” he smiled. “It’ll be alright.”

“What will your parents think? Are they gonna hate me? They’re gonna think I'm a home wrecker. Merlin’s beard! Your mum’s gonna hate me. She’s –”

“Hey, hey, calm down. No one’s gonna hate you. Mum hates Fleur with a passion. Not you. Other day she told me, I should’ve ended up with you instead of Fleur. Sings your praises all day, she does.”

“You’re not just saying that to make me feel better, are you?”

Bill smiled and dropped his hands from her face. “Know better than to lie to you. Last time I lied, ya didn’t talk to me for nine days.”

“You kept count?”

“Might have . . . yeah . . .”

She thought that was fucking adorable of him. She’d always been the one that obsessed over when she last saw him and to know that he’d done the exact same thing, made her heart flutter with joy, but even though she was happy that he’d counted down the days since they’d last talked after that fight. She couldn’t help but be upset. If he cared about her enough to count how many days it had last been since he spoke with her, then he should’ve had the courage to tell her how he felt.

“You’re so annoying.”

“What? Why?”

“Because you were counting the days that we didn’t talk and you didn’t tell me you loved me! That’s so annoying of you. I mean. What the hell? You could’ve saved us so much trouble.”

“Me?” he gasped.

“Yes, you!” she said.

“Oi, I'm not the only one that could’ve said something.”

“Doesn’t matter, you’re still annoying. Adorable, but annoying nonetheless.”

“Adorable? Really?” he chuckled. “Wouldn’t have chosen that word for myself, especially not in these boots,” he looked down at his boots, then back at her. “Like to think I look tough, like a proper hooligan.”

“Hah.”

“Why the laugh?” he feigned hurt.

“Because I’ve never seen a ginger hooligan,” she declared.

“Then you’ve never seen the rowdiest hooligans,” he said very matter-of-factly.

Emerson shook her head, fighting back a smile. “You’re delusional.”

“A bit, but that’s not scared you off.”

“Not yet. But there’s still plenty of time.”

Bill placed his hand on her hips. “Not a very nice thing to say.”

“What are you doing?” she whispered.

“What does it look like I'm doing? I'm trying to set the mood here. You know, have a proper snog. Think it’s only suiting, don’t you?”

“You’re still married.”

“But you said you love me. And I love you. Doesn’t that mean anything?”

“It means we love each other but not that we’re gonna be snogging and shagging behind Fleur’s back.”

“But –”

“Bill, I respect marriage. And as long as you’re married, I'm not touching you. I may love you and it might take everything I have not to kiss you, but I'm not going to have a physical affair with you. An emotional affair is all you’ll get from me, at least until you get divorced.”

“I don’t get you. You’re alright with me getting a divorce, but you say you respect marriage.”

“You shouldn’t cheat on the person you’re married to. If you fall out of love with them and fall for someone else, then you should respect them enough to end things properly before being intimate or physically affectionate with another person. That makes sense to me. And, I really don’t wan my mom to think she didn’t raise me right. If she were to find out that I was doing things with you while you were still married to Fleur. Fuck. I wouldn’t hear the end of it.”

“Oh. Come on, Marie, you’re a grown woman.”

“Hah. Like that matters. You’re still afraid of you’re mom and you’re older than I am.”

“Only by two years,” he pointed out.

“Still older,” she said. “Besides, it’s not like the wait’s gonna kill me. I’ve been waiting years for this to happen. What’s a little while longer?”

“A little while longer can be forever, with things the way they are.” Bill argued. “What if something were to happen to you tomorrow?”

“Aren’t you forgetting something? I'm a shifter. Spells have to be thrown at me in high numbers. The only reason I was stunned was because there were eight Death Eaters. So if they want to kill me with magic, it’ll take that many and I'm sure there won’t be that many people around just to take me on.”

“And what if something were to happen to me?” he searched her eyes for a response.

“Nothing’s going to happen to you.” Emerson said protectively. “No one’s going to land a spell on you, Bill. Not as long as I'm around.”

There was something incredibly sexy about seeing her so protective of him. She was being dominant, taking the standard role that society dictate’s a male should have, and instead of being turned off, he was turned on. So turned on that he tried to land a kiss on her, but just as his lips were coming into close proximity of hers, she turned her face and he kissed her cheek instead.

“What did I just tell you?”

“Sorry, just sort of forgot what you’d said.”

“How could you forget that quickly?”

“It’s sort of hard to remember something when you’re turned on.”

She shot him a questioning look.

“You were being protective. Thought that was hot. Ya know?”

“I’ll never understand that mind of yours.”

“Thankfully for you, ya don’t have to.” Bill grinned. “Ya really love me though, right?”

“I do.”

“Can you say it then? Know I probably sound like a nancy boy, but I can’t help it.”

Emerson smiled and placed a hand on his chest. “I love you, you fool.”

“That’s good,” he rested his forehead against hers, eyes staring intently into hers. “Because I love you to and as soon as I get everything settled. You and me, we’re gonna go off somewhere far, where we’ll be the only ones around for kilometers and kilometers. Maybe in some cottage out there in Mexico . . . Would ya like that, Marie?”

“Bill, I honestly don’t give a fuck where we go. Just as long as we’re together, I'm set.”

Bill laughed softly. “Not hard to please, are you?”

“Not in location, but you better fucking woo me like there’s no tomorrow. Because your ass has to make up for putting us both through all of this,” she told him.

“Hah. By the time I'm done wooing you, people are gonna write a novel about us.”

Emerson’s eyes flickered down to his lips, watching as they were firmly fixed in that smile she loved so much. She wanted to kiss him. To throw him on the bed, but she knew she couldn’t do that. So instead she pulled away from him and told him it was probably time he head home.

“Come on, let me stay a little longer,” he pleaded. “We can cuddle. Hey! Don’t give me that look. Ya didn’t say anything against cuddling. Ya said we can’t snog or shag, but cuddling wasn’t taken off the table.”

“Go home.” she told him. “You’ve got a wife.”

“Not for long, though.” He shot her a cheeky smile. “And when I do end things with Fleur, ya won’t be able to deny me, my cuddling! And shagging, of course, can’t forget the shagging.”

“Go home, Bill,” she fought back her laughter.

Bill pouted. “Can I at least have a kiss on the cheek? I know for a fact that that doesn’t count as cheating. Everyone kisses everyone on the cheek.”

“Fine, here,” she pecked his cheek. “Now go. I had a long day over at the Burrow.”

“Did ya now? What were you doing?”

“Laughing at the twins’ attempts at wooing me,” she said. “I think they’re planning a summer wedding for the three of us.”

“Those two are off their rocker.”

“They are, but they’re really sweet kids.”

“Ya know I'm real glad you get on so well with me family.”

“So am I.”

Bill stared at her for a moment, silently taking in her disheveled appearance. “See ya tomorrow then.”

“Bye.”

“That really how we’re saying bye?” he stopped when he reached the window. “Shouldn’t there be a bit more to it?”

“I don’t know. Think this is the place where people are like I love you, bye.”

“Right,” Bill threw his leg over the windowsill. “Bye love, see ya tomorrow.”

“Bye amor (my love).”

Bill didn’t know much Spanish, but he knew that amor meant my love. And as he jumped out her window, he couldn’t help but feeling that his life was finally getting where it was meant to be.