You're already awake when you hear the front door open. Well, “awake” might be too generous a word. You've been drifting in and out for what feels like hours, wrapped in a fog of pain and exhaustion.

The air in the bedroom is heavy with it, pressing against your ribs like a weighted blanket. Your body feels like lead, every nerve raw, every muscle clenched and aching. It’s been a long night.

A really long night.

The kind where sleep is just another thing your body refuses to cooperate with, where no position is comfortable, where you count the hours in the slow, creeping throb of your pulse in your joints.

You squeeze your eyes shut at the sound of soft voices and the rustling of a coat, hoping, just for a second, that he'll let you be. Not because you don’t want him. You do. But you also don’t want to be a burden, don’t want to be another weight on his shoulders, not when you know he already has his hands full.

The bedroom door creaks open. You don’t have to look to know it's him. You can smell the fresh air on his clothes, the damp scent of early morning rain. Remus, predictably, has already kicked off his shoes, he hates wearing them inside. Normally, he'd beeline for the bed, flopping on top of you like an overgrown puppy. Today, though, he's careful.

“Have you eaten?” he asks. He doesn't want the worry in his tone to be heard, but you know all his tells. The wavers, the whines. You know him. And he's scared.