A/N: A very, very short oneshot out of the list of prompts I've given myself. Let me know what you think?
"Self-righteous, arrogant, smarmy, bleeding arse!" The slamming back door breaks the dawn stillness, sending several birds fluttering back to their perches in fright. With a huff, Tonks hurls herself to the ground, scattering the sand atop the bluffs that overlook the sea. The water sparkles dully in the hazy light, and despite the frustration roiling up inside of her, Tonks has to concede the tranquility of the morning.
They couldn't have picked a more beautiful place.
Wedding band chilled in the November morning air, Tonks's hand falls to her abdomen, where flutters of movement have not yet evolved into fully-fledged kicks. Damn it, she curses herself. This — this life they have built, are forging together — is perfect. A war is being waged, and sometimes it's easy to believe that she's on the losing side, but this — she has parents who flutter over her like nervous chickens, a husband she loves, a beautiful home, and a baby still safe and warm beneath her ribs. She should be happy, Merlin curse it, and she is, but she's torn, and it's really not surprising at all.
Sometimes she thinks that it has something to do with the way that she was raised; the half-blood child of a Muggleborn and a woman of perhaps the most infamous pureblood family currently in existence. She grew up with house elves and I Love Lucy, Tylenol and ancient blood magic. She's heard the stories of her father as a child in the family mechanic shop and listened to her mother refuse to divulge the bittersweet terrors of growing up in the House of Black. She has been doted upon by Pop and Nana Tonks, and had nightmares of a family reunion with Cygnus and Druella.
She has fought to make a place for herself in every aspect; she has altered everything of herself to get what she needs — like a true Black, she supposes — but she can't possibly deal with facing that.
She's a child of two worlds, neither of which she truly belongs to; she belongs to the sweet spot she has made of life, and Remus understands, bless him, but he doesn't understand. He has had to do the same, to fashion happiness for himself out of warped circumstances, but his background isn't rent with conflict as hers is. Then again, they both know what it is to be the odd man out. They had both been shunned, he by society as a whole, and she by its halves, each finding something to despise in her blood.
Maybe he knows more than she gives him credit for.
She's almost not surprised, a minute later, when soft footsteps in the dewy grass announce Remus's approach, almost as though he sensed her train of thought. When he has successfully traversed the snail-infested garden path, he comes to halt behind her and hovers there, several feet away. He's patient as always, waiting for her to make the first move. She doesn't turn around.
"You're right." It escapes her as a garbled mumble. She hears him shift.
"What am I right about?" he responds. As always, his voice is level; calm and kind.
"It is foolish of me." She, too, shifts a little where she's sitting; her lower back has begun to twinge. "It's foolish of me to presume that I can . . . forever ignore it. It's too easy to hide it from everyone, I suppose — myself included. I guess we have the same problem in reverse; mine's too easy to hide, and yours . . . yours you can't conceal at all." She feels, rather than sees, him smile.
"I guess," he repeats, and she finds herself smiling slightly, too. Abruptly, she turns, looking up to meet his eyes through the morning haze, and pats the piece of grass beside her encouragingly.
Obligingly, he folds himself to the ground beside her.
"You know that I wouldn't turn away from you," he says mildly. She nods.
"Yes," she replies, and she does. It's a simple matter of whether or not she's willing to face it. She's only seen her true face once before; it happens when she's shocked and rendered momentarily unable of keeping up the facade. She's been changing since the moment she was born; she's not even sure she can do it on her own.
She turns to him, and his eyes are attentive. Something else lingers there, too — curiosity. She doesn't blame him. Only her mother knows, and she has done her best to valiantly ignore it considering the circumstances.
"It would be really great if you didn't flinch," she murmurs before closing her eyes. With a slight flutter of her eyelids, she feels the pink bob, the blue eyes, and the crooked nose ripple and morph.
When she opens them again, it's to see Remus regarding her with a slight smile. After a moment of slight shock, she returns it crookedly.
"So that's why," he murmurs, his grin kind and knowing. Tonks nods, feeling the wild dark curls brush her shoulders in the wind as she watches her husband's expression through heavily lidded eyes.