《 Skip a Beat 》

When things get ugly

It happened too fast.

There was a sickly audible snap that sounded around the amphitheatre, followed by a gut-wrenching scream.

Tina knew who the scream belonged to. She'd never heard him scream, but somehow, she could tell.

She broke off her duel with Rosier, flinging the joint spell into the ceiling, which cracked at the impact, but held firm. Tina wasted no time in bolting past Rosier, knocked unconscious by the force and now sprawled on the ground.

On the other side of the arena, Newt didn't lay in an overly alternative position: he'd been forced to the floor by his broken leg, snapped by Grindelwald's curse just moments earlier.

He shifted an inch and immediately regretted it. Searing pain burned down his right leg and he felt his head spinning.

He could see the damage now.

He regretted that, too.

It looked ghastly. A cut on his temple was sending blood sliding down the side of his face, becoming matted in his hair, but that was the least of his worries. When his gaze travelled further down, he had to blink a couple times to take it all in.

Newt's right leg barely looked like one; it had become a mangled, bloody mess. And in the centre of the broken skin sat a bone jutting straight out of his knee at an inhuman angle, half-twisted up in torn skin and blood. A sickly white spear, in contrast to the slashes of red.

He groaned and dropped back onto the floor, the movement sending fire through his veins.

Newt didn't care that he was about to die. He was going somewhere better anyways. His only hope was that everyone else found safety and peace... sometime after this.

Grindelwald raised his wand.

"It seems your... friends," he sneered, casting a pointed glance at each of his companions peppered around the amphitheatre; Queenie and Leta had banded together, fighting off two acolytes, Theseus had cast a protective shield around Jacob, and was now battling like a cornered bear against another of Grindelwald's followers, and Tina... Tina was nowhere to be seen. Newt only hoped she had found a way to escape.

His attention snapped back to the dark wizard himself, grinning like a snake down at him.

"It seems that your friends... are a little preoccupied. Pity."

He trained his wand on the struggling Magizoologist again.

Newt scrunched his eyes shut and braced himself for the final impact. The killing blow. The last strike.

But it never came.

There was a strangled yelp, and Newt opened his eyes again.

Grindelwald was frozen, face-down on the floor. He'd been stunned. Then, out of the shadows, emerged a figure. Tina.

She couldn't quite believe what she had just done. It had been one year, and she'd attacked another person. But this time, it was different. This time, he'd gone for Newt... and got him too.

She lingered in the shadows for a second longer, amazed that she'd stunned him. Then her gaze snapped to Newt, and the world shattered from beneath her feet. Her heart kicked into overdrive.

Tina skirted around Grindelwald and dropped to the floor beside Newt's broken body. She leaned over him, inspecting the damage, wondering how on earth they'd fix it.

Tina shook her head.

Don't give yourself the benefit of the doubt.

Of course they can fix it.

You'll force them to fix it.

She looked back to him, her chocolate-brown eyes meeting blue-green ones.

"Newt... Newt don't die on me..." she murmured softly.

Newt managed to crack out a smile, sending fresh blood from his split lip trickling down his mouth. Tina was alive. She was safe. And... she'd come for him. To save him.

"Don't tell me what to do... I'll die whenever the hell I want."

Tina didn't smile.

Newt wiped away the blood on his lip with a quick whisk of his tongue and stared back. Tina started again.

"It's okay, we can fix it. Your leg isn't completely ruined-"

"Nah. I'm done for."

He choked a laugh again.

"But you...," he brought his hands up to her shoulders, wincing slightly at the stab of pain that shot through him at the movement. "You have so much of your life left. Go, Tina. You need to run before he gets up again."

Newt ignored her shocked expression.

"I can't leave you- leave you to die," she choked out, tears forming in her eyes.

Newt was shaking his head again. A bone cracked somewhere in his body.

"Yeah. Yeah, you can. There's only one thing I regret anyway," he whispered, silver lining his own eyes. He dropped his hands by his side again. Tina monitored every movement, curiosity blooming.

"What?" she breathed, barely audible, but he still heard her.

As the words left her mouth, Newt leaned up and kissed her on the cheek- lightly... as much as he could manage. Tina didn't recoil, and though her surprise was visible, she didn't object.

He pulled away, too quickly for Tina's liking, though she'd never admit it, and exhaled quietly. Tina held his gaze.

She could've sworn he smiled- gently, but playfully, as if he was satisfied with his life- before falling to the ground and going limp.

And that smile was the thing that finally snapped whatever held her tears back, and a teardrop fell, glimmering, over his broken body.

BAM

Told you I'd be getting into the thick of things. I know it's a really fast- moving chapter.

This is sort of inspired by Cassian's uhm- near death experience in A Court of Wings and Ruin by Sarah.J.Maas. No spoilers here, thanks. I wanted to write something where Tina saves Newt, because we've seen a lot of scenes in the movies where Newt saves Tina and I thought... well, y'know what I mean ;)

And!! Newtina!! YAy!! I know!! He kissed her!! Weeeell, you know... a l m o s t . hehe

Just for the record, the last sentence in this chapter is my favourite in this whole fanfiction. I've already written a lot of it on Onenote (it's an app) on my laptop, so I'm just copying and pasting chapters whenever I can.

Something else... I had a sentence in this chapter that went a little like this "Searing pain burned down his right leg and he felt his head spinning."

I just wanted to say...

SORRY FOR THE NEWSIES REFERENCE!!!!!! Go and look it up the poOR GUYS HEAD IS SPINNINGGG lol thank to How2BanIntrovert for educating me in the art of musicals.

ONE MORE THING!

I'm really bad at naming chapters. You could probably tell if you read my last fanfiction. So the chapter names will sound like a nice, fresh bucket of cringe has been dumped over my laptop. And brain. Help.

Cateye992, out!