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The weather outside hadn't had the common decency to be as dark as Tonks' mood had been for weeks, instead hovering in the careful neutrality of grey clouds, dark patches streaking through them that suggested a storm was nigh. Though the area underneath her eyes wasn't puffy and dark, a tell-tale sign of lingering sleeplessness that she had carefully banished, there was a certain lacklustre edge to her appearance that seemed all too obvious when she looked in the mirror. There was a distinct absence of brightness from her gaze, and though she altered her skin tone just enough to pass without receiving odd second glances, there was no denying that her face was still paler than it ought to be, and there were other signs, more obvious still. Even though she was due to be on duty soon for the entire night, her thoughts wandered far beyond the confines of the Order headquarters; given over to the sting of missing Sirius, far too aware of the chair opposite her where he should have been sitting, wearing a shamelessly victorious grin on his face after thrashing her at chess (they had been evenly matched, most of the time). Equally empty was the seat beside her, where Remus would have sat, speaking softly and advising her every now and then, glancing over the top of a book in quiet amusement. The seat that he usually kept long after Sirius had gone to attempt sleep, insomnia and the need for closeness driving them both. The pang of realising how empty the room was without them left loneliness in its wake, an emotion she hardened her heart against quickly before it could become anything else. Too late, because her thoughts moved from the ongoing melancholy of losing Sirius to focus more completely upon Remus.
She couldn't ever remember being so angry with someone before, even if it didn't last, and that almost hurt more than anything else, more than all of the remembered moments that verged on something more than friendship put together. Moments of catching Remus looking at her, of his touch, of confidences shared. Sadness was a persistent dull ache that Tonks had become used to far more quickly; twining with the ongoing grief for Sirius' loss that she had already been carrying, that they had both been carrying like a physical weight, still carried now. The other emotions that she felt were far sharper, like holding a forest fire that hovered at the base of her throat, one that she couldn't release at any cost because it might just burn down everything in its path if she did. It was hard to breathe around it, and every mission that she had taken was welcome because it meant that for a while, she didn't have to think her way through all the tangled mess that resided in her head and her heart. She just had to do what was asked of her, and there was a simplicity to that which being alone with her thoughts no longer gave her.
If Remus had rejected her outright on the grounds of not feeling the same, she would have understood that better than she understood this, the limbo that they had been left in, because that, she could make sense of. If it had only been that, Tonks could have drawn back to lick her wounds and slowly mend the bridge of their friendship. But he hadn't said that, hadn't said that he didn't care for her at all. Too old, too poor and too dangerous were objections that Tonks understood from his perspective but disagreed with profoundly, hadn't had the chance to even explain why because he had cut off that last conversation on the matter before she could. Fragments of what he had said, the way that he had looked at her lingered like splintered glass, still embedded into her days and days after he had spoken the words aloud.
I care about you. More than I should, more than I've ever had a right to.
I'm one of the most mistrusted things alive.
There are plenty of other people, better people.
Yes, he'd left, walked right out of the front door into the typical London downpour and Disapparated before Tonks could follow, blindsided and ears ringing with the sound of his voice. No, he hadn't denied that he cared for her. He'd done the exact opposite, and in some ways, having confirmation made what he had chosen to do next worse, because she knew that she was possibly at least one of the multiple reasons he had done it. Her eyes stung at the corners every time she thought of the moment that she had arrived at the next Order meeting to find him absent, still reeling from the news of where he was going. It had taken everything in her to remain in check when the situation had been explained to the group, even though she had already known precisely what volunteering to return and spy among the werewolves would entail. Remus would disappear beneath an alias formed to protect his identity, and his contact with the Order would alter considerably.
The anger had washed in soon after, only intensified by the absolutely crippling sense of fear that came with it. Anger was the easier option at first. It had kept her going. It was far, far better than watching him actively choose potentially martyring himself over trying to figure out what it was that rested between them, over believing that they could build something real. If Tonks had believed that to be his only reason for doing it, then nothing would have stopped her from going after him. Since she knew instinctively that that wasn't the case, even if it was a contributing factor that made her sick to her stomach, it forced them to a stalemate in which neither one of them could win. She suspected that he had known that would be the result, agreed with him that there were some things that had to be put first. This was war, and nothing about it was fair, and he could die and she would never know until it was too late. Now she wasn't angry, only hollow and aching, as though the cost of holding back the forest fire had been that it would burn her down in exchange for preserving peace with others.
A few days after Remus had left on his mission to the werewolves, a group of Aurors at the Ministry had been placed on a rotational duty to keep rogue Dementors in check and prevent them from harming the general population. They were instructed that the information was to be kept classified, and Tonks had had to bite her tongue after exchanging a glance with Kingsley. They had known on some level that the news had been coming, had figured out the problem themselves weeks before: that the Ministry no longer fully commanded the Dementors, because there wasn't enough power to rein them in when compared with a Dark Lord largely content to let them feed where they would and sow chaos. What only Tonks had known shortly after they took on the new responsibility, however, was precisely how bad the timing was for her personally. At home in her flat that night, she had sat and focused on all of the things that had previously worked for her construction of a Patronus, knowing how important it was that they be cemented in her mind, ready to be called upon at a moment's notice. Rather than individual memories being used one at a time, however, her technique had always been closer to a patchwork quilt of them; a composite memory made up of several that she kept carefully stored, pulled from various parts of her identity to create a stronger foundation for the charm. It was a trick that she had learned from reading up on the charm in more detail, one that had seemed almost too obvious, because a person's happiness was nothing so simplistic that it could be narrowed down to a single source, nor was it always consistent.
Bright pink, the colour of raspberries. Her parents' proud smiles. The way that sunlight filtered through and over autumn leaves in Hyde Park, the ground carpeted with them. The satisfying tiredness that permeated her muscles after a good workout on the Ministry training equipment. The day that she qualified as an Auror and Mad-Eye's gruff expression of approval. The radio playing in her kitchen on a Sunday morning. The taste of Honeydukes' chocolate fudge. The first time that Sirius had acknowledged her as family and tipped a cheeky wink in her direction ('We Blacks have to stick together, if we're to properly shame the family name!'). The scent of books in the Hogwarts library. The low yet eloquent hoarseness of Remus' voice, speaking poetry by firelight with private warmth offered only to her, the way that-
Her concentration had stuttered painfully out like extinguished sparks the moment that her thoughts had landed upon Remus, and immediately her thoughts had turned on her, racing away from the composite and into each and every small fragment of him that she had held close. Tonks had already known that love was what she felt. Now, she received the proof of it, in a form that she couldn't hide from or deny, even if she had wanted to, and it was like salt in the wound. Her Patronus had changed, the wolf curling protectively around her waist where she sat on her bed. And there was no way to keep it private, not with the methods that the Order used to carry messages, not unless she deliberately kept it from fully taking corporeal form. And the Order, or at least Kingsley and Moody, would have to be told, because a wolf distinctly did not resemble a jack rabbit in any respect, and they had had to disclose their Patronus shapes previously for all the obvious security reasons. The thought of the two becoming hybridized had pulled an exhausted ghost of a laugh from her that no one was around to hear, one that all too quickly became tears that left her torn between loss and anguish that felt like knives.
After a gruelling round of Dementor duty sometime in early September, Tonks had staggered back to Grimmauld, exhausted and not even willing to apparate as far as Brixton because it meant dealing with the wards on her flat. When she had stumbled into the guest room designated as hers, she'd found him sat on the bed waiting for her.
The urge to take him by the shoulders and shake him hard had been the first thought in her head, even as she observed him, drinking in every detail. There had been a bruise high on his cheek, and his eyes were hollowed with dark circles identical to those that she kept hidden. His posture was tense, taut with stress, and Tonks hadn't even had the energy to argue with him or demand what he was doing on the bed that he knew full well she slept in. "Move over if you're going to crowd up my bed. I need to sit down." There had been no heat to the words, just weariness.
He had moved without comment, had looked at Tonks with those damned sincere eyes, regret and longing and so many other things heavy in them; things that he usually kept shuttered carefully away from all but her. Just like that, in the span of seconds, the world felt as though it had realigned to where it should be. She'd fumbled in her pocket for the chocolate she'd been issued before her shift and bit into it, felt warmth begin to come back into her limbs. That done, she'd flicked her eyes to his face again, had to keep herself from searching the lines of it over and over to make sure that he was actually there. It would have been easy to let all of the accusations her mind had run over in previous weeks spill out, let them lash and hurt him. Faced with him, she couldn't do it, because all that she had wanted to do was reach out and touch him, let him touch her. Though Tonks was focused on his face, she had seen his fingers curl against the fabric of his trousers by the knees, where his hands had rested. No, not easy for him either, the need to touch and affirm the connection neither of them were capable of ignoring entirely.
Tonks hadn't said anything, had just reached down and started unlacing her boots. Those dispensed with, her robe had been chucked unceremoniously onto the floor after them, leaving her in a t-shirt and soft grey sweatpants. When she'd made the motions of beginning to curl into the blankets, Remus hadn't said anything, just sat there observing her as though he could never look at her enough.
"I'm not going to change my mind." Her words had been soft, but they'd seemed loud in the small room.
"I'm-"
"Too old, too poor, and too dangerous," she'd interrupted. "I know. I know that's how you see yourself. But I also know precisely what and who you are, and I see you in other ways. I've known for a long time. I don't care about those things, and I'm not going to change my mind."
"Tonks, please." There had been a certain taut desperation to the way that Remus had said her name, not for the first time, and it had nothing to do with him trying to stop her from speaking. Instead, it had been a request for mercy that he obviously didn't feel he deserved, one that said he knew perfectly well what it was she felt, that it wasn't one-sided. His hands, clearly not in synchronicity with whatever was going on in his head, had reached out and touched her face, thumbs brushing tender into the tiny soft hollows just beneath her ears, the space where throat and jawline met. It had been close enough for him to kiss her, would have been more natural for him to close the distance than hold it, the slow catching of breath chasing the tiny space between them. Instead, he'd rested his forehead to hers, and they'd ended up falling asleep together.
When they'd woken the following morning, there had been a settling, an acceptance of sorts in relation to their circumstances, because they had few other choices left to them and it hurt too much to remain constantly in conflict. So instead, a tenuous truce that remained so long as neither of them dragged up things that they couldn't do anything about right that minute.
Letting him leave had been one of the hardest things Tonks had ever done.
The sensation of his forehead touching to hers and how it felt to fall asleep wrapped in his arms had been added to her composite memory almost without her permission. It was a slender stripe of hope that had grown thinner the longer that she clung to it, worn almost threadbare as weeks turning into months of separation had fallen between them, broken only by short interludes that were never long enough. The days and nights had begun to spill into each other, repeating themselves until Tonks wasn't always sure of what day of the week it was, the time defined by fighting and missing him and still grieving for Sirius (my fault, I should have killed Bellatrix) and fighting some more.
Five days ago, Tonks' hair had turned brown, and refused to change, no matter what she did. Too many questions asked, too many questions that weren't asked, assumptions made, and all of that combined with Remus' continued absence had driven her to confide in Molly Weasley over a cup of tea that she had barely tasted. To tell someone, even if her hands shook and she could barely find the words to articulate how she felt, had felt like the only way she could keep holding it together.
It was October, almost November, and every night kept getting longer.