call it even
Chapter 3: it always leads to you
A/N: i know it’s been 8 million years, but I finally finished this fic. This is the final chapter- I hope you like it and thank you to everyone who reads my fics, it means so much to me. You can also read this chapter on AO3 here
“Did you really need to involve him, Hermione?” Ginny asked with exasperation, looking from her sister-in-law to her brother and back. “I mean, really, does our sisterhood mean anything to you?”
Ron looked affronted. “What about our siblinghood?”
“When have you ever valued that, hm?”
“Well, it doesn’t matter, because Harry told me everything, anyway,” Ron informed her, crossing his arms and leaning back into the sofa. Hermione patted his knee with sympathy.
Ginny scoffed, thinking about what ‘everything’ might entail; though she supposed Harry was smart enough to glaze over what Ron didn’t need to hear. “Did all of us really have to be this interconnected? Nothing can be private, especially with you three.”
“What he’s trying to say, Ginny,” Hermione tried interjecting. “Is that he cares about the both of you very much and just wants to see you both happy. Isn’t that right?”
Ron grunted some semblance of an agreement with her sentence.
Ginny rolled her eyes and sighed. “Sure, fine.”
“Have you spoken to him since…?”
“A bit,” she admitted. “But not about anything serious. Just soccer, and what the plans were for tonight…” She checked her watch. “Honestly, he should be here any minute.”
“So, do you know what you’re going to do?” Hermione asked, and Ginny felt a tinge of guilt at the hope in Hermione’s voice. She knew how badly they all wanted them together. But the few days apart had given her no clarity, really. Harry’s words rang in her ears, bouncing off the walls of her brain again and again and landed nowhere, just hanging in the air like an echo that won’t quite quit.
“No,” Ginny admitted honestly. “I think...I don’t know, I think I’ll have a better idea when I see him, maybe.”
Ron laughed, and when Ginny turned to give him a nasty look, she noticed he was looking at the door, and Pig let out a small bark of excitement and started to run. Despite being a senior dog at this point, he moved rather quickly when he saw his favorite people. Ginny watched as Harry leaned down to greet Pig. Pig jumped into Harry’s arms and began to lick his face happily. Harry stood up cradling Pig to his chest as her mother rushed over to give him a hug and kiss on the cheek. She watched them speak, Harry telling Molly he had wine in the bag draped over his forearm, which she took from him and told him he shouldn’t have. Harry waved her off, telling her it was the least they could do as he scratched behind Pig’s ears.
She watched him smother her dog with love and talk with her mother like they’re family, feeling a swooping sensation in her stomach as his eyes caught hers.
Molly leaned over and whispered something quietly to Harry. Harry smiled and whispered something back. Her mother put a hand on Harry’s cheek, as she did to Ginny and her siblings. Just then James and Lily entered behind him, James speaking loudly about how difficult it was to find a spot that was actually large enough for a successful parallel park.
Harry passed Pig to Lily and began making his way over to them at the sofa. Hermione and Ron stood up to hug Harry and chat while Ginny stayed on her recliner. She pretended to look at her phone while the three of them talked. When they all suddenly began speaking in more hushed tones, she chanced a glance and saw all three of them turned away from her, huddled together exchanging words quickly. She rolled her eyes and stood up noisily, her heels clicking against the hardwood floorboards as she crossed the room towards the kitchen door, pushing it open and not looking back.
Her mind raced as she reached for a glass. How was she going to face him again? How many times would they have to revisit this issue? She cursed herself as she poured herself some wine, thinking she could just compartmentalize everything, let herself be his for a weekend, and then turn it all off again. If she was honest with herself, she could never really turn it off, but she’d gotten pretty good at just shoving it away, pretending it didn’t permeate throughout her bones. But the act was getting old.
As she lifted her head to take a sip she saw him enter the kitchen. He was wearing an emerald green knitted sweater that she hadn’t seen before, and it made her angry because it brought out his matching emerald eyes and she could swear he was saving it as a weapon to make her even weaker for him than he knew she already was.
“Hi,” he said, offering her a sheepish smile.
She took a large sip of her wine before responding with the same greeting in return.
“How are you?” he asked, his voice gentle.
Despite his obvious sincerity, she couldn’t hold the sarcasm back from spilling off her tongue, as if the wine had set it free. “Oh, I’m just perfect, thanks.”
He frowned, looking her in the eyes, daringly, like he wasn’t scared at all. She stared back and pretended she wasn’t, either. “Ginny,” he said.
But she was scared, desperately so.
“Don’t be like this. I thought we were ok.”
“We are ok. We’re great.”
“You’re a bad liar.”
“You don’t know my track record.”
“I know all your records,” he said, a slight smile at the corner of his mouth, trying to pull up the rest of it. That made her look away because her face wanted her to smile back but she couldn’t. “Come on, Gin. I know I just got here but I think it’s stupid to drag anything out. Let’s just talk, please?”
She sighed, took a large sip of her glass of wine, then nodded. “Fine. Come on, then.”
Ginny turned on her heel and went towards the staircase to climb up to her room. She didn’t look back but she could feel Ron’s and Hermione’s eyes on her. She heard Harry follow behind her. As she stepped into her room she kicked off her heels and sat on her bed. Harry carefully closed her door behind them. He then walked toward her, sat next to her, and cleared his throat. “Ok, are you ready to hear my proposal?”
Her heart dropped into her stomach. “Your proposal- ”
“No, shit, wait, not like that- I should have said my plan, I mean my proposed plan.”
She exhaled, putting one hand on her chest, then using the other hand to punch his shoulder. “Ever heard of thinking before you speak? Might help you out a bit there next time.”
“Sorry,” he mumbled, attempting and failing to hide a smile.
“Idiot,” she muttered, rolling her eyes.
“I’ll finish out the school year here in Tupelo,” he began. “And then I’ll move out to L.A. for the summer and try to find a position at a school there before the new school year starts-”
“Hold on, hold on,” Ginny interrupted, already feeling exasperated. “You can’t do that, Harry.”
“And why not?”
“Because I’m not going to let you give up your job security just to follow me to L.A. when we both know that the headquarters for the USWNT is constantly changing anyway and you’ll never be able to stay settled in one place!”
“I don’t mind that, Ginny,” Harry told her earnestly, grabbing her hand. “I don’t mind because the one place I want to be is with you, location irrelevant.”
She felt her face flush, a rush of emotions flashing through her body. “You really mean that?”
“Yes.”
Ginny wanted it to work, more than anything. She wanted Harry at her side again; he was her greatest comfort, her brightest source of light. Everything had felt so dim since she left him behind. But she had to be sure he wouldn’t feel like he was being held back so that he wouldn’t resent her down the line. She still felt uneasy about the logistics of it all. “But I travel a lot.”
“I have enough experience missing you already, it’ll be nice to shorten the amount of time to just a weekend or so.”
“But your friends won’t be there.”
“I’ll make new ones.”
“But-”
“Please stop it with the ‘but’s,” he pleaded.
She squeezed his hand in return. She spoke softly. “But you love Tupelo.”
“But,” he emphasized. “I love you more, Gin,” he told her, eyes blazing. “I always have.”
She already knew this; it was hard not to feel it. But hearing him say it aloud- for the first time in a couple of years now- unlocked something in her she didn’t know was shut. Her eyes began to water and before she could even think properly Harry had wrapped his arms around her in a tight embrace, one hand coming up to cradle the back of her head as she planted her face into the crook of his neck.
It turned out thinking against Harry’s warm skin was much more productive than she thought it’d be. Looking back at their history, Ginny usually leaned against Harry as a way to stop thinking altogether and just feel. But this time, it was like the touch of his skin created a clear pathway in Ginny’s head.
She lifted her head and kissed his lips, which seemed to catch Harry by surprise, but he quickly recovered and kissed her back. When she pulled away he held on tighter to her, as if he thought she was going to flee. But she stayed right there, putting a hand on his thigh reassuringly. “You make it so difficult,” she told him in a whisper.
“Make what so difficult?”
“To walk away,” Ginny responded. “To stop loving you. I never stopped, not for a single day. I still love you, you know that, don’t you?”
He exhaled sharply in relief, smiling ear to ear. “I was hoping you did. It’s nice to hear confirmation though.”
She smiled back, squeezing his leg. “Don’t move to L.A.,” she told him with conviction. Harry was about to protest but she cut him off. “No, stop, just listen. Don’t move to L.A. It sucks there, I hate it, I hate it so much.”
“Come on, Ginny-”
“I’m not done,” she said sternly. “I think… I think I want to move back home. Here. Well not in this house, obviously, probably my own place, or a place for both of us, it doesn’t matter to me-”
“Hold on,” he interrupted her, his face scrunched up in confusion. “You want to move back to Tupelo? Why? I thought that was the whole thing, that you needed to get out of this small town…”
“And I did,” she reminded him. “But ever since I left, my heart just keeps pulling me back down the same road…and it always leads to you. And here. I mean, everyone I love is here. My friends, my family. Pig,” she added with a smile.
“Pig, most importantly,” Harry agreed.
“I’d have to fly in and out of town a lot to go out for practice and matches and everything, but other players do it, too. It’ll be fine. And I don’t want to stay in Tupelo forever, or for that long even necessarily, but… but I love you and want to be with you and if you’re willing to compromise and figure things out along the way then so am I,” Ginny finished, looking up at Harry nervously.
He was looking back at her so tenderly, putting a hand on her face with similar gentleness, sighing as he moved his thumb across her cheek. “I want that too, so much…but I don’t want you to regret doing this, or for you to feel like you’re trapped here and resent me for it.”
“I could never resent you,” she said firmly. “Well, I could never permanently resent you. I mean, did I resent you for not texting me last year? Sure, but we can move past that now, I think.”
Harry rolled his eyes dramatically and they both laughed. And they kept laughing just for the thrill of it. Ginny felt the tension leave her body, the both of them gasping for air, contaminating each other with their laughter. “It wasn’t even funny,” Harry choked out.
“I know,” she said as she leaned her head against his shoulder trying to catch her breath. He rubbed her back soothingly, their breathing becoming regulated together.
Once they had stabilized, Harry lifted her chin up with a finger. “Are you really sure you want to do this?”
“Would I ever do something I didn’t want to do?” she challenged him.
Harry’s signature grin was illuminating his face. “Never.”
She smiled back. “Well, that’s that, then. We’ll sort out the details before I head back to L.A. later this week and go from there, ok?”
“What’s there to sort out? You come live with me in my apartment as soon as you’re ready to move back and we actually, finally start our lives together. There, all sorted.”
“Just shut up and kiss me,” she said, grabbing his face and allowing him to do just that. Harry kissed her back and she knew this was the right choice. She felt all warm and safe and excited and joyful as he continued to kiss her, running a hand through her hair as the kisses grew more fervent.
He abruptly pulled away, Ginny groaning at his sudden absence. And then she saw that he was running up to the door to lock it. She looked at him curiously as he returned to the bed and smiled. “You know what comes with making out in your childhood bedroom? Ron barging in. Just wanted to take some preventative measures.”
Ginny laughed, and Harry spread many quick kisses over her head, neck, and cheek before pushing her down on the bed and hovering over her. “Hey.”
“Hey.”
“I love you.”
“I love you, too,” she told him, her heart full, grateful that she wouldn’t have to live without him anymore. Harry, the person who knows her soul more than anybody, the only one who can tell which smiles she’s faking, who has a special smile reserved just for him. “It feels really good to say that to you again,” she admitted. “And to hear it.”
“I love you,” Harry repeated emphatically, before showing her just how much he did.
The thing about having sex in your childhood room when all your friends and family are downstairs is you have to be quick and quiet about it, so around thirteen minutes later they had rebuttoned and zipped everything they were supposed to, Ginny used a makeup wipe to clean the lipstick off of Harry’s face and neck, and as if on cue, Harry’s phone lit up with a text from Ron: Does it really take this long to have a conversation about getting back together or not?
Then another that simply said: two minutes.
Ginny snorted at her brother’s attempts to police them. “Some things really never change around here, do they?”
“At least not with Ron,” Harry sighed, pocketing his phone and grabbing Ginny's hand, his warmth emanating all through her. “Alright, let’s get this over with.”
