His anger, which had been so on the edge of wanting to break free and take itself out on Charlotte, was reined back in when she stopped apologizing and words that she'd never given heed to began to pour out. He had never once stopped to consider, in all that had occured over the last year, that she had been struggling to deal with it.

Having been an Auror for going on fourteen years, he had become insulated to much of life's hardships and shocks. It was survival more than anything else; learn to cope with the harsh realities life had to offer or end up a broken and bitter individual. He'd seen that play out in a few of his collegues lives. Men and women who had left the service disenchanted.

Studying Charlotte, now, he could see the relative of that ghost clinging with stubborness to her. He heaved a sigh just before she spoke of broken promises and his brow furrowed as he set down the half-empty bottle of Newcastle and leaned his naked back against the cool of the wall behind him.

"I did promise that, didn't I?" he said at length, his voice quite and a touch of disgust with himself very much evident. "But I never abandoned you, Char. You're here. That's proof enough, isn't it?" He was off the wall and taking a step towards her as he spoke. "I've hurt you. You've hurt me. Can we just accept that," his fingers brushed with feather light touch along her arm, "and acknowledge that we're both idiots? Idiots too far wrapped in our own needs to see clear for the other?" He reached up to tuck a strand of hair behind her ear, his thumb tracing along the soft skin of her jawline.

In a hoarse whisper: "I've needed you, Char. I've needed you like no one else."

His words were cut off as a shaky breath left him just before his lips pressed with full intent against those that he'd done little but to dream of for that last months. The hesitation in his movements gave way to his desire in the next, his arms slipping about her lithe form to draw her against him, his tongue tracing along her lower lip as he begged, silently, for her to give in to him.