Archive of Our Own ^beta

She starts by watching the door, a careful reconnaissance, catching glimpses of him loading flour and sugar out of the trucks. It had been Newt’s idea to pass on the eggshells, and he’d almost done it without telling her – but his thoughts had given him away, and Queenie had leaned over the breakfast table at the hotel where he was staying and taken his hand and tried not to cry.

Standing across the street from him is a constant experiment in trying not to cry. Queenie does it a lot. She never counted herself as one of those girls who let a boy disrupt the narrowly-normal fabric of her day-to-day, but she is of the firm belief that Jacob is her soulmate, a notion Tina regularly dismisses.

“You never would have met him if all of…that hadn’t happened.”

“That’s what makes it fated, T.” She leans forward over the table and sighs. “Don’t be angry just because he’s not here.”

“I’m not thinking of him, and you need to go to work.” Tina waves a hand. “Stop hanging out over there, it’s not safe.”

“No one’s going to go looking for him,” Queenie says quietly. “And no one’s going to come looking for me, either. You’re letting yourself get carried away.”

Tina closes her eyes, gripping the back of the chair before she says quietly, “They won’t let you be with him, Queenie. You need to let it go, for your own good.”

Queenie looks into her lap. Tina’s always taken care of her, and always known what’s best, but…

She thinks her sister is wrong about all of that.

Just this once.

On Tuesday, she quits her job.

It’s a bizarrely freeing experience, walking out of MACUSA and knowing she won’t be going back. She got it because of Tina, because she needed to be somewhere her gift wouldn’t cause any trouble other than a broken heart here or there. The feeling swells. Emboldened, she marches toward the bakery, unwavering in her stride, pushing open the door and—

“—your ideas from Mr. Kowalski?”

“I don’t know. They just come to me,” Jacob says. “Don’t forget this.” He gives the woman at the counter a smile and a wave before handing the storage key to a young man in the back. The store is full of the spotted, faulty memories of his time with Newt – Queenie had noticed that from the beginning. It had been the one thing that kept her coming back, the idea that Jacob had a memory of her, somewhere inside.

The store clears of its rush, and Queenie only stares.

It’s a moment before he meets her gaze, and in it, she thinks maybe she’s done all the work in one fell swoop. Jacob reaches for the odd little scar on in neck, his expression puzzled, eyes unsure. All of it brightens after a moment of prolonged eye contact, and suddenly he’s coming around the counter, to the wall of bread, and standing next to her.

“You, uh. You need help making a selection?”

Queenie flinches, just a bit.

She’d hoped for…for something else.

Not bread.

“Um. No.” Her brain is working in overtime, she can hear Jacob’s thoughts and the thoughts of all his customers and the thoughts of the woman walking her dog past the window – it all takes a moment to sort itself out, until she hears, so clearly –

Rain. Why do I remember rain?

“I saw your sign,” she hears herself say. “That you were hiring.”

“My sign,” he repeats, staring. Then: “Oh! Oh, that thing. Uh, yeah. Yeah I am.” He shifts a little giving her another foot of space. “You looking for work?”

“I am, actually. I just quit my job.”

“Wow. Bold move.”

“It was an office job,” she says. “I was…suffocating.”

Jacob’s face softens. Queenie hears the distant sounds of food being scooped into cans, metal lids being sealed, labels being printed.

“I hear that,” he mutters, shaking his head. He turns and heads around the counter, pulling out a sheet of paper and a pen. “So, uh. What kind of experience do you have? Cooking?”

“Just personal. I live with my sister, I cook for us all the time.”

“Nice.” He smiles, scribbles something down. “I need someone to do breads sometimes, and someone to help on the register or figure out what people are looking for.” Jacob clears his throat. He’s looking at her a lot like he did the first time they met, but it’s still…different.

So different.

“Look, if you’re not afraid of some hard work, I’m not afraid to take the chance,” he says.

Queenie smiles. “I’m not afraid of anything, Mr. Kowalski. And that’s the truth.”

Tina’s rage is imminent, but Queenie doesn’t take it personally. She knows it comes from the heart. From pure fear and anxiety.

“You did what?”

“You knew I hated it down there.”

“Queenie, you can’t just…just do that. You can just quit your job. We need that money.”

“We’ll have money,” she says coolly. “I got a new job.”

Tina opens her mouth, brain working in overtime. Her thoughts scream where where where until it all seems to catch up with her, and they both sit in silence, watching the other, waiting for someone to talk first.

“Tell me where you’re working, Queenie.”

“It’s none of your business.”

“Everything you do is my business, it has been for the last twenty years now tell me where you got a job.”

Queenie lifts her spoon again, dipping it into her soup. “You know where,” she says.

“Queenie, please tell me no. Please tell me you didn’t.”

“He’s going to remember.”

“Queenie.”

“He’s going to.” She pushes her chair back, standing up and looking down at Tina. “I’m not going to wait around for all of it to work out, or fall into my lap. I’m not going to wait for the man I love to sail back to me,” she snaps. Tina jolts in her chair. “There’s no one like Jacob. I’m not letting him go. I’m not letting any of this go.”

Tina stares into her lap, twisting her napkin in her hands.

“…I can’t help it that he’s gone.”

Queenie worries her bottom lip, immediately regretting her words as pain floods her sister’s thoughts.

“And I don’t…I don’t love him.” She stands, shaking her head. “I’m going to bed. Goodnight, Queenie.”

“Tina—”

“I think you should go back to Abernathy and ask for your job back. You and Jacob can’t be together. It’s…there’s no precedent for this.”

“Isn’t that how all new things happen?”

“To people who have nothing to lose. Queenie, this is your life we’re talking about. You cannot be with him, it is not allowed—”

“You’ve done plenty of things that weren’t allowed—”

“And I paid the price!” she shouts. “I paid for my mistakes, Queenie. I took the risks, and what have I got to show for it, huh?”

“You’ve got a job you love and someone who wants to come back to find you.”

Tina bristles before turning her back. “I said goodnight, Queenie.” Her door slams shut behind her.

Queenie sighs. “Night, T.”

“Register’s not too hard to work with. You just—” Jacob presses a few buttons, and the drawer opens. “Makes change for you, neat, huh?”

“Fantastic,” Queenie says, smiling. “This whole place is fantastic.”

“Yeah, it’s…yeah. I like it. I mean it’s what I always wanted.”

Silver shells built this place.

Queenie blinks, hard. “Thank you for giving me a chance.”

“Hey, we all need just the one, right?”

“Mmhm.”

He smiles. There’s something curious about him today, like he’s trying to say something –

I’ve seen you. I’ve seen you on a dozen corners and in a hundred dreams, I feel like I know you –

“Have me and you…have we met before?” Jacob asks, taking a small step back.

Queenie shakes her head. “Uh-uh. Don’t think so.”

“Huh.” He shrugs. “Must be thinking of someone else, then. Just…couldn’t shake the feeling.” He glances up and a handful of people wander in. “Right. Trial by fire I guess.”

“Oh, I can handle it, Mr. Kowalski.”

He chuckles before giving her a wink. “I’m sure you can, doll.” 

Queenie smiles. It’s nice to know some things don’t change.

It’s easier than she thought it might be to see him every day.

At least, that’s the lie she tells herself.

Tina avoids the discussion almost entirely – doesn’t ask how her work is, doesn’t ask if it’s going well. Not at first. Queenie has been the focus of her sister’s bad moods before – she doesn’t know anyone who can hold a grudge like her. After a few weeks of this, Tina finally looks at her over the paper and says quietly, “…Does it hurt?”

Queenie shrugs. “It isn’t all bad.” She pushes her oatmeal around in her bowl. “It helps he’s sweet.”

Tina smiles. “He’s a good guy.”

Queenie leans forward. “Are you going to stop ignoring me now?”

“I’m sorry for doing it in the first place.” She takes Queenie’s hand.

Please don’t get hurt.

“There’s always room for hurt, T. The world’s full of it.”

“You don’t deserve any of that. You deserve to be happy.”

Queenie smiles. “I am happy.” She supposes it’s good that only one Goldstein sister can read minds.

Tina seems to know anyway, but she doesn’t say anything. Presses her lips together and pulls back, shaking out her newspaper. And then – Queenie hears it before Tina’s body even reacts, the quick – Newt, before she closes the paper and tosses it onto the table, reaching for her scarf. “I need to go.”

“So soon? You have another hour—”

“I’ll see you tonight,” Tina says, and Apparates out of the house.

Queenie sighs, reaching over the table and lifting the paper, eyeing the little headline in the bottom right corner –

MACUSA Welcomes Newt Scamander Just In Time For New Years

“Oh, T,” she murmurs, and turns the page. Queenie realizes with a jolt it’s been more than a year, now. She’d only found Jacob’s bakery a couple of months back, after everything had gone through and she’d realized where he was. Time always seems to have a nasty habit of passing quicker than it should.

(She remembers Tina’s face, trying to carefully talk around Newt’s departure, Newt’s lingering would-be promise.

If Queenie thinks very hard, she can still remember Tina’s pulse beating in double time, and the feel the fingers grazing her temple, distant to her, but so raw in Tina’s heart.)

How would you feel if I delivered your copy in person?

“Usually I go classic strawberry, but the fig spread is fantastic.” Jacob takes another one of Queenie’s linzer cookies off the plate while he crunches numbers. “You can use the big oven back there if you wanna make a whole sheet of these. I think they’d go over real good with the customers.”

Queenie chews her lip. “You think so?”

“Sure I do.” Jacob smiles. He has powdered sugar clinging to his mustache, and just a smidge of jam on the corner of his mouth. Queenie breathes and turns to go into the back, setting the plate down on the long wooden table they use to roll out the bread dough.

Behind her, the bell rings, and Jacob’s warm voice booms out through the display cases, welcoming in another customer. Queenie shuts her eyes tight, tries hard to block out his thoughts, the thoughts of whoever’s come inside, but –

So it did work out.

Oh. Oh, she thinks. That’s Newt. Queenie abandons the plate of cookies and rushes to the register, and there he is, wearing his blue coat, clutching his brown case – newer, it would seem, more secure. Newt looks at her, cheek twitching ever so slightly as he says, “Ms. Goldstein. A pleasure.”

Jacob frowns. “You two know each other?”

“Ah, yes.” Newt smiles at Jacob. “Well. I know Ms. Goldstein’s older sister. We…we worked together, not so long ago.”

“Oh hey, look at that.” Jacob grins, going around the counter and extending his hand. “Jacob Kowalski.”

“Newt Scamander.” They shake.

Just the same, Newt thinks, and gives Queenie a soft smile. I thought I might find you here.

Queenie presses her lips together. “Did you need anything, Mr. Scamander?”

“Yes, actually. A loaf of white bread and a baker’s dozen of those interesting looking berry tarts.” Newt glances around the shop, seeming to finally take it all in. “What interesting designs, Mr. Kowalski.”

“You know, they’re just—” He taps his temple. “My gramma, she always told me I had a knack for this stuff.”

“She was certainly correct.” Newt reaches out to take the bread and the box of pastries, before dipping into his coat pocket for money. Queenie swears he takes out a few Galleons first, before finding his American bills. “Here you are.”

“Thanks so much, Mr. Scamander.”

“No, thank you. Both of you. It was so lovely to see you, Ms. Goldstein. Perhaps I will again later.”

“Sure thing, Mr. Scamander.” She sighs, watching him go. She wonders if Tina is prepared.

“Nice guy,” Jacob says, rather carefully. Queenie sees his thoughts right away, the sudden insecurities, the sizing up of Newt’s more superficial qualities, a personal tallying of pros and cons –

“He’s in love with my sister,” she says.

Jacob raises a brow. “Is he?”

“Well, I think so.” Queenie looks out the window – she can still see Newt at the corner, just before the crowd crosses the street.

“Your sister know that?”

Queenie shrugs. “I think she’s pretending not to.”

“That’s no good,” Jacob says. “Keeping your feelings all bottled up like that? Better to, uh, express yourself. S’what I’ve read, anyway.” He sniffs, seemingly placated for the time being. Queenie hears it again –

Rain. So much rain.

He thinks of rain every time he sees her.

Queenie drums her fingers against the counter, a poor imitation of drops on the window, and wonders if she’ll set the table for three tonight.

When she does go home, she’s surprised to find Tina already there, looking over a file from work at the kitchen table.

“No work at home,” Queenie says, prying the pen from her hands. “You promised.”

“I couldn’t stay there,” Tina mutters. “It was Graves’s first day back.”

Queenie pauses. In the aftermath of it all, when the dust had settled, they’d forgotten Graves, abandoned in the basement of his home, hairs from death. He’d been on paid leave for months – for a year, Queenie realizes – and had only just returned from a rehabilitation center overseas.

“Was it…”

“He was mostly the same,” Tina says. “Only…anxious, in a way I don’t remember. A bit softer. Quieter, too.”

“I suppose being held captive might do that to you.”

“I suppose.” Tina stretches, looking at the clock. “Should we order out? I can get us something from the diner up the street—”

“Newt came into the bakery today.”

Tina freezes, mid-stand, staring at the wall on the other side of the room. “…Did he now?”

“Uh-huh. Said he might see me later. I thought he would be here when I got back.”

“Mr. Scamander is staying at the Pegasus,” Tina says quietly. “MACUSA put him up. They’re still very sorry.”

“That’s a nice place. We should crash his dinner.”

“Yes, well—”

Someone suddenly knocks, and Queenie knows precisely who it is. She knows he’s holding a loaf of bread and a box of pastries. She knows he’s wondering if he should have left the case at the hotel. She knows he’s wondering if he should have come at all.

She knows he’s wondering if anyone is even home, or if anyone wants to see him at all.

Tina knows, too.

“Tell him I’m not here.”

“Absolutely not,” Queenie says, and strides to the doors, pulling them open with a smile. “Newt.”

“Ah, hello. Again.” He smiles sheepishly, gesturing with the bread in his arms. “I realized after I bought this today that it would be some time before I saw you again. It’s gone stale, I think.”

“I’ll sort it out,” Queenie says. “How’d you get past Mrs. Esposito?”

“Oh, I think she’s asleep. I was very quick,” he adds, eyes falling past Queenie. He thoughts land with a resounding thump, brain sending out a weak little, Oh. Oh it’s you.

Tina’s heart is hammering.

Shit shit shit shit shit –

“Well we can’t have dinner in the hall,” Queenie says, and ushers him in.

The entire thing is a rather solemn affair, until Newt says suddenly, “I have something for you. Well. For you both, actually.”

Queenie raises a brow. “Something for me?”

“Yes.” Newt smiles, dropping down to his knees and fiddling with something on his case before opening it. Queenie sees Tina flinch in her chair, but there’s nothing to see but a scarf and a few shirts, settled under two packages wrapped in brown paper. Newt hands one to Tina – “As promised.” – and the other to Queenie. “A bit of an incidental gift, actually. But I thought you could use it.”

“Hogwarts: A History. Newt you’re a monster.”

“Yes, well, I thought you might want to educate yourself.”

Queenie laughs, turning the volume over in her hands. “We don’t have one of these for Ilvermorny.”

“Perhaps you should write it, then.” Coming from anyone else, it would sound like a barb, but from Newt the sentiment is earnest, Queenie knows.

Across the table, Tina turns her copy of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them to the first page. The dedication page.

To my mother, and her inspiring talents. To my brother, and his unwavering harassment. To my father, and his unending patience.

And to New York, for everything else.

“This is…it’s…” Tina closes her eyes.

“What an interesting cover, Newt.”

“My publisher,” he says quietly, not taking his eyes off Tina.

I’ve made a terrible mistake.

He grabs his coat. “I should really be off,” he says. “I’ve disturbed your evening quite enough for one day.”

“You’ve done no such thing,” Queenie insists. “We’re very glad to see you—”

“Well I have a very early meeting in the morning, I really ought to go—”

“Perhaps dinner again, tomorrow. We can go somewhere. We can come to the Pegasus!”

“I…I have to leave tomorrow, actually.” Newt stares at his boots. Tina looks up.

“Already?”

“There’s been an odd discovery, just outside of Dorset. My brother thinks it has something to do with Grindelwald. Bones, something of the sort.” He sniffs. “He…needs me. Theseus doesn’t often need me for much at all, honestly. I assume it must be important.”

“Of course it is,” Tina says. She sets the book on the table.

“Well alright,” Queenie mutters. “But you’ll come back before another year is up, won’t you?”

“I will most certainly try,” Newt says. He keeps looking at Tina, who keeps looking at him. Neither looks at Queenie.

You haven’t changed, they both think.

Queenie wonders if that’s for the best after all.

Later, Tina lifts something from the table and sighs. “He’s gone and left his tie.”

“Oh, I did see him undo that at dinner,” Queenie says. “We’ll just keep it for him, for when he comes back.”

Tina blinks. “Right. Right, when he comes back.”

When she thinks Queenie isn’t looking, Tina goes and stashes the tie in a drawer in the kitchen, folding it carefully and placing it inside.

For when you come back.

And he does. Over the next handful of months, Newt comes back quite a few times, always coming by the apartment, and always seeming to leave something behind.

Queenie smiles, this time eyeing the mustard-yellow and grey knitted scarf that’s found its way draped over the back of the sofa one evening when she’s been out to dinner with the girls she used to work with.

“Newt was here?”

Tina looks up, a smile still lingering on her lips as she cleans the plates. “Hm? Oh, yes. He…stopped by, just before checking into his hotel. He may come for breakfast on Sunday.”

“He’ll be here that long?”

“Mmhm.” Tina licks a spoon still covered in chocolate pudding.

He promised to be.

“That’s good.”

“Isn’t it?” Tina smiles wider, now, suddenly happier than Queenie’s seen her in a while.

“He left his scarf.”

“Well.” Tina sniffs. “He’ll be back.”

Queenie stops, seeing something so clearly, so astoundingly sharp –

“He kissed you.”

Tina jolts the glasses on the counter, looking up quickly. “Queenie.”

“Oh he kissed you right there!” She points to the spot in front of the door. “And you kissed him back! Tini I’m so happy for you.”

Tina buries her face in her hands.

(Queenie replays her own kiss, sometimes. Over and over in her mind. The lingering feeling of Jacob’s hands in hers. The way he stood there, just before they Apparated out of the subway tunnel. The way she knew she didn’t want to see his face when he opened his eyes and all of it was –

gone.)

She lies in bed. And she breathes.

I’ve made the right choice. I’m doing the right thing. This is going to be just fine.

She gets up in the morning, and she dresses for work.

Tina is still warm, and happy, feet tucked under herself at the table as she thumbs through Hogwarts: A History.

“You’d be a Gryffindor,” Queenie says quietly.

Tina takes her hand, gives it a squeeze.

“So would you.”

Maybe it’s the idea that Newt’s still in the city, that he’s going to come back and kiss her sister again – maybe it’s the rain that’s starting to fall. Queenie isn’t sure. She goes into the bakery and finds Jacob whistling in the back, rolling out dough.

“Hey, Queenie.”

“Hey.” She sets her bag down and pulls up a stool across from him.

“You okay?”

She nods. “Yeah. Yeah, I’m fine.”

Jacob stops, wiping his hands off on his apron and coming around to the other side. He takes a seat a respectable distance from her, but he says, “You can talk to me, you know.”

I’m gonna figure it out, I’m gonna remember someday.

Queenie smiles.

I feel like I’ve known you all my life.

She wants to touch him. She wants to hold him.

(She remembers holding his face in her hands, the memory of the war rushing back to her, overwhelming her heart. She wants to say, You’d be a Gryffindor, too, but her hands are shaking, and –)

Jacob reaches out, carefully places one of his hands over hers. “You just…you tell me if I should stop.”

“You’re fine,” she says, and leans into his space.

He meets her there, foreheads touching. The radio blares. There’s flour all him, and now it on Queenie’s hands and now it’s on her cheeks and now it’s in her hair and on her mouth as he kisses her, slow and cautious at first, before he opens up and the whole of it threatens to swallow them both –

Queenie stops. She pushes, not too hard. Jacob breathes.

“Sorry,” he says. “God, I’m sorry—”

“We’ve met before,” Queenie says. “Me and you.”

“I knew it. I knew it.”

“The eggs you used to get your loan—”

Jacob’s face falls. “How do you know about that?”

“Because Newt’s the one who gave them to you.”

“That Brit who was in here?” Queenie nods. “What’s he got to…to do with us?”

“Those shells are special. Everything about Newt, and you, and how we met…it’s all special.” She moves closer. “That scar, on your neck—”

“It’s, uh—”

“Murtlap,” Queenie says (whispers). “Do you remember?”

“What the hell’s a…a murtlap?”

Queenie smiles. “Occamy shells. You know this!” She grabs one of the cooked pastries. “This is a niffler. You chased it across town!”

Jacob stands, now, moving away from her. “Uh, this…isn’t what I was talkin’ about.”

“What do you mean?”

“I thought we…I thought we might have met at Logan’s speakeasy or something. Like I just…”

“That’s not what you’re thinking. I know because I always know.” Queenie stands, moving toward him, but Jacob raises his hands. “Jacob—”

“This is…this is crazy, alright? What you’re talkin’ about doesn’t make sense. It’s all…it’s all magic, or something.”

Queenie nods. “That’s because it is.”

And, carefully, ever so carefully, she reaches inside of her coat, and pulls out her wand.

Statute of Secrecy, someone thinks.

She realizes it’s Jacob.

“You know,” she says.

“I don’t know nothin’ about that.” He points at the wand. “You’re crazy.” He steps back again. “You…you need to go.”

“Jacob—”

“I’m serious, lady. You need to leave and…and not come back.”

Rain rain rain rain –

His hands tremble.

Please don’t go.

“You need to leave,” he says.

Please help me figure this out.

“You really…you really need to leave.”

So.

She leaves.

On Sunday, Newt comes over for breakfast. Queenie tries to cook something, but she can’t seem to find her way around the kitchen – everyone’s thoughts are pushing through, and what she needs is quiet, to put the dampening spells she’d learned as a girl to good use.

Newt comes into the kitchen and says gently, “I do make a mean stack of pancakes. If you’d allow.”

Queenie smiles. “Nothing about you is mean, Newt,” she says, and surrenders her space.

After breakfast, she goes to lay down. The rain outside hasn’t stopped – slowed a bit over the night, but other than that, a steady downpour. Distantly, she hears gentle mumbling, things being lifted and cleaned. She allows her thoughts to wander and finds her sister to be impossibly happy before Queenie closes her eyes and drifts off again.

When she opens them, it almost noon, and Newt is gone.

“Did he leave anything?” she asks, padding into the sitting room.

“No,” she says quietly. “I don’t think so. And he’ll be gone for ages, he told me—”

There is a sudden, sharp rapping on the door, and Queenie goes to open it.

“Newt!”

“Hello,” he says, looking absolutely terrified. He drops his case with a loud thump, and turns to look at Tina. “I…I had to turn back.”

Tina sighs, folding her arms over her chest. “Really. And what did you leave behind this time?”

Newt stares, mouth working silently before he says, so quietly: “…You.” His voice trembles. “I’m sorry, but I can’t do it anymore.”

“…Newt.”

“I love you,” he says, “and if I have to leave you behind one more time without having said that, at least, then I’m not worth the trouble.” He moves to her, takes her hands in his. “I won’t live my life another second longer without you knowing precisely how I feel.”

Tina stares up at him, her hands held tight in his own. Queenie can read her so clearly, can hear the panic in her thoughts as she stares up at a man she’s loved since the moment he left her on that dock.

Queenie knows.

Queenie always knows.

And then –

He kisses her. And she kisses him. And their minds are completely empty, and Queenie is finally…alone.

She is suddenly and painfully alone.

So she goes, rushing down the stairs and leaving her sister there to embrace her joy, to throw herself at the horizon of a future she’s been longing for. Queenie bursts onto the street, nearly toppling over into the rain. It slides in sheets off the awning of the building, pouring into the drains. She breathes, closes her eyes and processes her own happiness and her sister’s, trying to understand where her pain fits in to all of this.

She keeps seeing Jacob’s face, as she parted from him in the rain.

Jacob’s face as she walked into the bakery for the first time.

Jacob’s face as he told her to leave.

Jacob’s face…

“I found you,” he says, laughing. “I, uh. I didn’t think I could.”

Queenie opens her eyes – and there he is.

“Jacob.”

“You know something? I dug real deep, and I remembered walking here. It was ages ago, but it happened.” He slides a hand into his pocket. “After you left, I felt awful, but you basically disappeared, I couldn’t find you.” He pulls out a sliver of a shell – blue on one side, pure silver on the other. “I kept this,” he says, “to remind me of where it all came from.” He taps his chest. “To remind me that I had it all right here, you know. Somethin’ sappy like that.

“You said all that stuff the other day, and I just thought that…that I was nuts. That you were nuts! But I was wrong.” Thunder claps overhead. “Listen, Queenie. I was…I was so wrong. I’m sorry. I don’t think you’re crazy. I mean, you must be, for trailing after a guy like me—”

“There’s no one like you,” she murmurs.

“You say that a lot, but—” He frowns. “Every time it rains, I remember a kiss. And every time I look at you, I...remember the rain.” Jacob shakes his head. “Lookin’ at you is a very confusing experience, let me tell ya.” Queenie laughs, and he steps closer. “But you…you already know this stuff. You can see it.” He taps the side of his head. “You can hear it.”

“I can.”

“So why’re you lettin’ me ramble?”

Queenie grins. “Because I just wanted to hear you say it.”

Jacob steps closer. “I remember,” he says. “I remember all of it.” He takes her hand, pulling her out from under the awning, and into the rain. “I remember every. Single. Part.”

He kisses her.

He kisses her as rain soaks through her blouse, as it drenches her hair and makes their lips slick. He kisses her, hands clasped tightly together, until Queenie presses herself flush against him and he winds his arms around her waist. He kisses her until they’re both gasping for air.

From above, someone shouts, “Good show, Mr. Kowalski!”

Someone answers, “You’re going to catch pneumonia!”

And Queenie says, “Let’s go inside.”

Jacob’s so happy to see Newt that he lifts him, right off his feet, and spins him ‘round, sending water flying everywhere.

“Newt, you’ve got no idea how long I’ve wanted to thank you.”

“They were just eggshells, Jacob.” Newt smiles. “All that you need was, ah. Right there.” He taps Jacob’s chest.

“Sap.”

“Yes, well.” Newt grins.

Jacob hugs Tina, too, and they all stand huddled together, the warmth of the fireplace surrounding them as they embrace the way it felt over a year ago, thrown together by chance.

Now together by choice.

Queenie is warm from head to toe, drinking in the thoughts of these people, the ones she loves the most in this world.

The one that sounds the loudest, the one that rings above all the other, strikes her like a bell –

Home.

They are all home.