Why? "Why?" he had asked, not for the first time by a long shot but something about the way he said it made Tonks feel like perhaps this time he would be prepared to accept an earnest answer.

"Because you're funny," she said, "and kind and witty and endearing and beautiful."

Remus scoffed.

"What's that noise for!" demanded Tonks, "You are beautiful Remus, simple as."

"Tonks, look at me," frowned Remus, as if he were concerned for her cognitive function.

He made a sweeping gesture down his body and then raised his hands up and out again in a flourish, palms open towards Tonks.

"Remus, you are the most beautiful person I have ever met… No! Shut up and listen. Anyone can have a perfectly sized nose or just the right amount of muscle or perfectly shaped eyebrows or flawless skin. Anyone can pull off designer robes and professionally styled hair. That's not beauty Remus. When you can change all that stuff at the drop of a hat perfection begins to matter less and less to you. And before you say anything no this is not some 'inner beauty' cliché, if you don't already know that you're beautiful on this inside then you're even more of a clot than I thought. What I'm saying is that all that stuff's not beauty it's just prettiness, and prettiness is just so, so dull. I've always been attracted to people with interesting features Remus, both in their personality and in their looks."

"So my looks are 'interesting' are they?" laughed Remus, "well that's a polite way of putting it."

"Oh shut up Remus I'm trying to be serious here. I'm trying to be all deep and inspiring and stuff and you're really not helping."

"I'm sorry, I'll sit quietly and be deeply inspired shall I?"

"That would be wonderful," said Tonks in matching mock patronisation, "and you better let me finish or I'll make your face even more interesting."

"Don't worry Tonks, I know how to take a threat," said Remus, "I sit still and shut up."

"Good… Damn you now I've lost my train of thought."

"I have interesting features apparently."

"Right, yeah. Well what I'm trying to say is that I know you don't like your scars, but…"

"Or my wrinkles or my grey hair or my pathetic skinniness or…"

"…Or your wrinkles or your grey hair or your pathetic skinniness or this or that or pretty much everything, how's that?"

"About right."

"Good well I'm glad we've got that cleared up. So, I know you don't like your… everything… but to me everything about the way you look tells me that you've lived. That you've actually properly lived life, even though I know it's been hard and I know all too well when there were times you would have rathered not to. And I know that it's for that same reason that you hate all the scars and the wrinkles etcetera, etcetera. Of course it's easy for me to stand here and say this because I didn't have to do the living. They're not my scars or my wrinkles or my grey hairs, I don't have the memories and the experiences to go with them. So I know that really I have no right to like them. But I do. I wish that you didn't have to go through all the bad things that come with them and obviously if I could stop you getting ill and hurting yourself and getting hurt by others then I would do that without a second thought. But that would be the only change I would make. If I could stop all that right now I would, but I wouldn't get rid of the scars or the wrinkles or the grey hairs… I mean, I'd waste no time in joining forces with Molly to tackle that pathetic skinniness, but that would be it. Tell me Remus, if, all else being equal, if you still got sick and transformed just as you do every month, and the only difference is that your wounds don't scar, tell me, would that make you feel any better about yourself?"

"It'd mean I could wear short sleeves in public," shrugged Remus.

"But wouldn't it be much better to learn… not necessarily to like how you look… at first, but to be comfortable with it, to appreciate your body for what it is and for what it's got you through and try and take care of it as best you can?"

Remus stayed quiet, which Tonks took as a sign that at least he was thinking about what she was saying.

"Look, bodies are awesome Remus. They do so much for us and we don't love them enough. We don't love our own enough and we don't love each others' enough, but I love yours, and until you learn to as well I'm just going to have to love it twice as much, whether you like it or not. I'm going to love the way you get more wrinkles when you smile, I'm going to love the way your hair's greyer underneath so when you're tired and stressed and you run your finger through it suddenly there's loads more of it and then they all ping back it's browner again. I'm gonna love every scar you've given yourself over the years, every wound you've healed yourself because you didn't have anyone to help you. And when the war is over and I can go back to work we'll be able to get wolfsbane every month, and we'll learn to cook really nice food I'm going to buy you a pair of hotpants and we'll go down the beach with the baby and… and I don't know quite what my point is any more except that one day we're both going to be happy Remus. We're going to be happy and healthy and proud of who we are, because of and not just in spite of our experiences, and we're going to appreciate ourselves and appreciate each other and our baby is going to grow up in the most loving family it could possibly wish for. And it won't be perfect, but at least it will be interesting."

Remus was looking away from her now, finding the far corner where the walls met the ceiling very interesting. She could only see the edge of his face but she saw the measured rise and fall of his chest and knew he was holding back tears. And she knew why. She knew that it hurt him to imagine a future where all the things he had never allowed himself to hope for had happened. And she knew that he had every reason not to get his hopes up for all those things. She knew that she had no reason to think that she might make it through this war alive, let alone happy and healthy with a loving family. But she also knew that you had to imagine those things. You had to have hope, at least in her experience, even if your hopes are unrealistic, and who's are anyway? Hopes are things that you have to work very hard towards, and even if you get some of the way then that's an achievement is it not? And they had made it some of the way. They were alive, they were together, they had a baby on the way, sure they were in hiding and Tonks had to stop going to work and Remus's health was deteriorating and Voldemort was gaining power every day, but not every step can be a step forward. So despite how much it hurt her husband, Tonks felt justified in pushing him to hope for things he had never thought he deserved.

She hugged him, draping her body over his bony shoulders, kissing the side of his face, which was wet and hot and salty, stroking his hand which grabbed her desperately. She lowered her chin down so it rested in the crook of his neck, wrapped her arms carefully around his torso so as not to aggravate the bruises and lacerations which still hadn't quite healed there (powdered silver was hard to acquire these days and cost the bloody earth when you came across it).

Remus struggles against her hold and she thought for a moment he was going to storm off and go to sulk in the bathroom, but instead he loosened her grip enough that he could turn around and face her.

"I… I love you," he whispered. His eyes red and puffy, his face pale and blotchy, the rings of tireness under his eyes more pronounced than when he had woken up this morning.

Tonks brought her hands back down over his shoulders and began unbuttoning his shirt. She stopped when she had enough room to slide her hands inside and run them over his chest.

He flinched as their skin made contact.

"What?" she asked.

"Your hands are like icicles," he breathed.

"Well you'll just have to warm them up then you big woos." she teased, and continued to slowly moved the palms of her hands, ever so softly, over his chest.

"Well to can play at that game," smiled Remus, rolling up Tonk's t shirt and placing his hands on her tiny baby bump.

They sat there like that, on the bed, facing each other, feeling her smoothness and his roughness, scars and bumps and bone and muscle and fat and skin. He closed his eyes and she kept her's open to watch as his face relaxed and a slight smile settled like dew on his lips. They hugged each other closer, hands running up each other's back. They pressed together so that she could feel his shaky breathing. His forehead sunk into her rounded shoulders. His mouth travelled down her arm, kissing her toned biceps as he unhooked her bra with only a little difficulty and soon his hand was lightly caressing her tender breast hers carefully moved up and down his ribs which had taken so many beatings and been repaired so many times that she could feel the slight jaggedy unevenness of them beneath his skin. And then his both his hands were on her stomach again, eyes still closed, luxuriating in her softness and roundness. And then suddenly his eyelids snapped open and his hands stopped moving, and so did Tonks's. She had felt it too.

"It just kicked," laughed Remus, "the baby just kicked!"

Tonks nodded, grinning madly.

"Our baby just kicked!"

Tonks broke into laughter as well as Remus repeated himself for the third time. And together they rolled over sideways so that they were lying on top of the covers, facing each other, hands still continuing their lazy paths over each other's bodies. Laughing with tears in their eyes at the fact that all three of them were here, and solid, and living.