Disclaimer: This story is based on the books and characters created and owned by J.K. Rowling, Bloomsbury, Scholastic and Warner Brothers. No money is being made from this. No infringement on copyright is intended.
Summary: One-shot, pwp, RLNT. She knows that there is a danger in wanting too much from someone who has been denied human affection enough times that he is afraid to try.
AN: Another one-shot, pwp, RLNT but this time a little lighter since it's from Tonk's POV.
I just needed a dose of RLNT, life's been sad lately.
Another break from real life and Lonely Choices (my WIP- again shameless plugging. pls read and review that, even just to say that you didn't like it.)
The line I would have died to say the truth to you is from Sara Teasdale's In a Subway Station.
This isn't really a companion piece to Empty Names. (I actually wrote this before I wrote that.) However, thank you so much to those who read silently, those who reviewed, and those who placed Empty Names on their favorites.
sorry for the long AN and on to the story...
It's your love that I'm waiting on. It's my love that you're running from.
- Bob Marley, Waiting in Vain
Changing Stations
19:08
Tonks glanced at the yellow numbers, bounced her foot on her knee, tapped her fingers in an erratic tattoo, and every so often clucked her tongue in time. She had no plans of stopping until the batty old lady next to her gave her a look that would have made Snape envious and had effectively reduced her to a mass of impatient nerves with no outlet. People bustled around the bench she was sitting on, all eager to catch the incoming train, which she and Remus should be on, had he come on time.
19:12
The electric lights of the signboard goaded her further.
Remus was late.
Did she hear Remus correctly? He did say seven, right? Of course he did. It's just that the guy is so organized that this bout of tardiness- compounded by the low-level paranoia that all of them had these days- put her a bit on edge. It may be too soon to be worried, but it was completely out of character for him to be late.
Besides, Remus should know- nobody waits forever.
A friend told her that, this guy she became close to during Auror training. He had been a good friend- somebody who understood the inherent dangers of the job and the loneliness of doing something that very few people could understand and would probably be the death of them. And he was somebody she could joke with and get soused with alcohol with at the end of the day.
It happened during one of those evenings, after a particular stressful practical training session, when they were sent on a routine interrogation of formerly suspected Death Eaters. The said person had claimed Imperius and had gotten off the charges. When they interrogated him, he had threatened them with everything from calling the Minister to slicing them up and feeding them to dragons. It wasn't a fun afternoon.
They had drowned the memories with three bottles of claret between the two of them, after which her friend tumbled ungracefully onto the floor. At first she thought he passed out, then he grasped her hand (after the fifth try) and proposed.
It should have been funny, if the nature of the act wasn't so serious.
And she said no.
She explained that she was too young, that they were too drunk, that he was just too lonely, that they were too good as friends to destroy that.
What she didn't say was that she didn't feel the same way, that she was waiting for the quiet tingle at the tips of her fingers and the gentle tug at the bottom of her stomach. Call her a hopeless romantic, but she was waiting to be swept off her feet.
She also believed that she deserved more than a drunken proposal but she didn't say that as well.
In return, he had said, you may be mistaken with your idea of a relationship. Nobody waits forever, Tonks.
A year later, he was KIA and she is still wondering if he had died waiting.
19:23
They had taken to using the Underground once in a while because the Death Eaters, with their pureblood mania, seemed to have difficulty monitoring Order members when they use muggle transport. Despite immense magical ability, the Death Eaters couldn't fathom the logic behind the two hundred plus different stations with different trains and lines and times which muggles navigate with unconscious ease.
She stared glumly at the thinning crowd and resisted the urge to transfigure the man's lurid green attaché case into a snake or the woman's furry coat into a bear.
Remus, where are you?
She started to bite her lip as worry started to pool uncomfortably at the pit of her stomach and nag at the back of her mind. It wasn't an ordinary kind of worry but the type of concern that was starting to overwhelm her. And she wondered at what point had he changed from Remus the Order member and respectable senior to Remus the friend, confidant and shoulder to lean on.
It was the small gestures that started to get to her.
The way he always managed a smile at breakfast, despite the gruesome transfiguration the night before, or how he always inquired after their health. He always had a more concern for everybody else rather than for himself. Amidst his quiet protestations and self-effacing nature, she saw a brave man with a thankless life.
Then at some point, when he stayed up late to wait for her to return to Grimmauld Place, and when, bone tired and weary, she collapsed in his arms that didn't resist or push back but simply encased her in comfort and warmth, she knew how she felt.
She knew that the embrace was friendly. She also knew that he waited up for other Order members, too on their days of guard duty. But she had wanted that to be for her only. She had wanted to see that as a special gesture for her and her alone.
And suddenly, Nymphadora Tonks with her daring hairstyles and daring job and daring life was afraid. There was a danger in assuming too much, in wanting too much from a person who had been denied human affection enough times that he was afraid to try himself. She was afraid of reading too much into things, afraid of waiting for somebody who might never be ready to return what she feels.
19:30
Not wanting to scare him and not wanting to assume, she felt that she was always waiting for his move.
The old lady was gone, having taken the previous train and she resumed the role of human percussion with bouncing feet, tapping fingers and clucking tongue.
It wasn't enough.
She stood up and took to pacing in a very Sirius-like quality.
Another train passed by and she was still waiting for Remus.
Whenever the opportunity arose, she watched him and she saw and understood. She knew that he distanced himself from others because of many things: his lycanthropy, because of his financial state, because of his fear of losing since he has lost so much and because of his own guilt. Remus Lupin felt that nobody should be subjected to the same cruelties that he has experienced and that any commitment to him would condemn the other person to some degree of the same suffering.
Doesn't he see that she suffers too?
She is a metamorphmagus- somebody who immediately inspires distrust. As a man once insinuated at her, he would love to have her ability so he can cheat on as many women without ever being found out. And how many women had told her that they envied her ability to look like every man's fantasy.
But she didn't want a fantasy relationship, any more than she wanted every man she could lay her eyes on.
She just wants to be loved and to love in return. Just like he does, if he just allows himself to feel.
Doesn't he see that she can no more control how she feels than he can control the endless waxing and waning of the moon?
But then there were times that she hopes.
Like when she tripped for the hundredth time over the troll leg umbrella stand and he had been in the front hall, a silent witness. Concern in his eyes, he touched his wand to her bruise, muttered some pain relieving charm, helped her to her feet and kept his arm around her protectively but unnecessarily all the way to the room where the Order was meeting.
Later that evening, she lay in her bed, staring morosely at the ceiling. Her knee may be pain-free but she nursed a small indefinable ache in her heart.
Like whenever he was assigned to relieve her of guard duty, and he would always arrive thirty minutes before the end of her shift. It was almost a routine, how he would bring an extra jumper since she would almost certainly forget, and he would sit beside her sometimes talking, other times just waiting for her departure in comfortable silence.
Naturally, the next guard duty, she would accidentally-on-purpose leave her coat at home even if he owled her earlier to remind her. And despite that, he would always bring an extra jumper.
Like when he insists on playfully calling her Nymphadora, and how she always lets him get away with it because when he says it, the name isn't awkward or clumsy, but rather elegant and rolls off his tongue like poetry.
Then in her unguarded moments, she would allow herself to dream of him whispering her name with urgency and passion and she would dream of being given permission to utter his name in the same manner.
In her more rational moments, a thought sometimes passes through her mind, telling her that perhaps it is better if she stakes her heart and hopes on someone else, somebody who would actually say something or do something. Even if that somebody doesn't make her fingers tingle and doesn't cause a gentle tug in the bottom of her stomach. Somebody she doesn't admire or cherish as much as this man, because she doubts she'll ever feel this depth of emotion with somebody else. That's because sometimes, she fears her friend was right, that if she spends her time waiting for his acknowledgment, death might catch up with her before he acts.
19:36
Thirty-six- she glanced at the electric display again 19:37- no, thirty-seven minutes past seven and still no Remus.
She was getting troubled now. Remus was very importantly placed in the Order and Voldemort's followers knew that. She quickly deliberated if she should start alerting Order members then stood up to make for the closest disapparition point.
If something happened to Remus, she didn't know if she could...
"Tonks!"
The wait was over; he was here. Looking a little disgruntled, his normally ordered hair was slightly disheveled, and his usually clean if albeit threadbare coat had small splashes of mud at the hem.
The relief that bloomed within her, changed again into concern at his condition. Upon closer inspection, Remus wasn't just mud-splattered. The set of his jaw told her that something had happened, and it worried her that he could be sporting some unseen injury. It wouldn't be the first time the man denied being in pain.
"I hope you weren't leaving me." Remus said once he reached her.
"I was thinking about it." She replied haughtily.
The small twinkle in his eye dimmed and the apologetic grin on his face became strained. The subtle change in his expression made her regret teasing him.
"I'm really sorry. Dumbledore called me at the last minute. It seems Harry, Hermione, Ron and Ginny decided to pay an impromptu visit to Hogwarts. Since Albus was being interrogated by the education board at the time, he wanted me to watch Harry. I tried to contact you at your place, and at Auror HQ but it seems I missed you." Remus explained a little too flatly for her liking.
How many people feel that they need to apologize for doing the right thing?
"Oh, Remus, I'm not angry. Just worried at this." She gestured vaguely at his appearance. "And the children. How are they?"
He followed her gaze to the down to the mud splattered hem of his coat and pant legs. "Had a small skirmish with Dolohov, who had no reason to be in Hogsmeade at the time." He shrugged off her worried expression. "Harry and the rest are fine but I can't say the same tomorrow when they feel the effects of too much butterbeer and chocolate."
"And speaking of chocolate, I passed by Honeydukes." He reached inside his coat and pulled out a colorful foil wrapped confection. "I hope the chocolate makes up for the thoughtless tardiness."
She reached for the bar, which he didn't let go of immediately. The tips of his fingers grazed hers a bit, slightly hesitant, moving softly over her knuckles.
A quiet tingle started at the tips of her fingers and gentle tug started at the bottom of her stomach.
"Forgive me-" His voice was raspy, low and serious- "for making you wait, Nymphadora."
For a moment, she couldn't breathe. Cool, impertinent, carefree Nymphadora Tonks in the presence of Remus Lupin was always reduced to this. Looking down at their fingers, touching but not quite, and just beginning to intertwine, she thought: I would have died to say the truth to you.
Instead, she whispered emphatically. "My. Name. Is. Tonks."
"I know." He gave her an intense, inscrutable look then skimmed the tips of her spiky pink hair, traced it down the angle of her jaw and brushed the side of her neck, before breaking into a grin. "Nymphadora."
Tonks gave him a smirk, which lasted only a moment before bursting out in laughter. He gave her a small smile, which changed into a very uncharacteristic laugh, that started deep in his belly and reverberated straight to her.
His fingers slipped around her hand, dropping the chocolate into her pocket, before claiming her fingers between his own. He tugged her hand lightly and directed her towards the coming train.
It felt as if they were finally changing stations.
Amidst the tired, haunted people, the flickering lights and the faint rumbling of distant trains, the constant sound of her friend's chastising voice faded into nothingness as Tonks realized that her Auror friend was wrong.
Some people are worth waiting for.
AN2:
Was there anyone who read the first paragraph and thought they were eloping? just wondering...