Death is inevitable, though it seems that life is as well. The world didn't care. The world doesn't care if a hundred people die or if a soul worth a hundred lives died. People still go out and drink. Just as passing into whatever world lies after the current is absolutely certain, so is the fact that the dimly lit pub occupying Hogsmeade was full of it's usual rowdy customers.

Nymphadora Tonks agreed this was a better alternative. Drunk wizards lying in the ditch outside, covered in their own vomit and witches making impulsive decisions they'd regret the next day was a better alternative than a quiet pub. If you're going to drown your sorrows, at least make it look fun.

"I don't know why you agreed to this." The witch remarked. Her leg was shaking furiously and as much as she wanted things fixed, fleeing out the door felt like a wonderful option at the time. The pair were sharing a table in the corner, away from the majority of the noise, but it was comforting to know they weren't completely alone.

"And I don't know why you invited me here." The man sitting across from her retaliated.

"Yes you do." Tonks told him. "Tonight's gone to absolute shit, and I thought I might as well get hammered and share the hangover." In all honesty, Tonks had still yet to decide whether she wanted to drink until she didn't feel anything or stay sober and try to soak in the surreality of what was happening.

"I appreciate your consideration." He said dryly.

"And I appreciate you tolerating me." The man shrugged and took a sip of his drink. His silence was unnerving and frustrating, eating into her with every stupid remark or confession she'd ever made. It felt like she could actually explode just wondering why she didn't keep her mouth shut to begin with. "I want you to know that I don't have an ulterior motive." Tonks blurted out.

"Sounds like something a person with an ulterior motive would say." He tried to joke lightly.

"Remus," She swiftly grabbed her drink, and in a moment, downed it with only a small cough to follow. For a moment, her voice went coarse as the drink burned her throat and her chest. "I just want to talk. I don't want anything to come of tonight... I mean, yeah, I do. I want you to not hate my guts and never want to speak to me again."

"I don't hate you." Remus shook his head.

"News to me." Tonks stared down at her empty glass. Her stomach was churning and she thought she might actually throw up.

"I don't hate you, Nymphadora." He said, though with more emphasis. She remained quiet, however, Remus knew she had heard him. "Were you... under the impression that I did?"

She began to stammer. "I'm... well frankly, I'm surprised is all... not because I think you're the kind of person who would just hold onto vendettas..."

"Do you think I'm holding a vendetta against you?" Remus asked earnestly, reclining back against his chair.

"No! I mean, I don't think you're a rude or a bad person or... you're not exactly what I'd call confrontational. Direct with your thoughts. If you had told me right off the bat that you wanted me to fuck off, I don't think we would be having this conversation." Tonks stared at the man's face with her eyebrows wrinkled together. "I'm confused. I'm... a lot of things, actually."

"What sort of things?" He inquired.

She became tense and her shoulders hunched over, taking an uneasy breath as if she was trying to hold onto it in her lungs. "I'm embarrassed. I'm humiliated about the fact that I've been so absolutely stupid, I'm humiliated about the fact that I've made you look bad, I feel absolutely childish trying to explain myself, I'm frustrated because everytime I think we're getting somewhere towards a normal relationship, it's like it gets all fucked up again and then I don't know what to think! On top of all that, we're practically at war right now and I have to live with the guilt that I'm the reason I'm alive and Padfoot isn't!"

Remus had to take a moment to comprehend everything she was saying, breaking it apart in his head, piece by piece. "It's not your fault he's... gone." He told her in a low voice, crossing his arms.

Tonks was becoming more agitated with impatience, leaning over the table with an answer-demanding gesture. "And?"

Remus gave a shrug, shaking his head. "What?"

Had he not heard anything she had said to him? Her hands fell flat on the table with defeat. "Do you not remember anything?" Tonks asked desperately. "I flirt with you, you tell me to back off, I back off, but you keep being forward, and then you wonder why I tell you I'm interested in you? You keep initiating something you claim to not even want!"

"You know this isn't about anything either of us wants." Remus firmly informed her. "This is about your safety and your security. You'd be bloody insane to think we could have future together."

Tonks was outright miffed at him. "So when you kissed me last November you... what? Were trying to... isolate yourself? This doesn't make sense! You're lying and you can't even do it properly enough to choose a side!"

"I'm not-" The angry look in her eye was enough to stop him from continuing. "I just want what's best for you."

"And how do you know what's best for me exactly?"

"Because I know damn well it's not m-"

"Can I get either of you something else to drink?" A voice interrupted their conversation. Madam Rosmerta was standing between them, almost in an impatient manner.

"Oh! Um, another Firewhiskey, please." Tonks tried to put a smile, but it just came across as weak and phony. The innkeeper nodded and turned to Remus who simply shook his head politely. For a moment as Madam Rosmerta went to fetch the drink, the two were plunged back into their initial empty silence.

"If we're done, let's be done." Tonks told Remus firmly. "If we want to make this work, then let's make this work. One or the other. No more of these mixed signals and chickening out as an excuse."

Remus didn't reply.

"I love you." Tonks mouth hung open as she searched for the right words. "...and you're probably the best thing that's ever happened to me. It would be one thing if said you didn't feel the same thing. It's another thing when... when all you do it reopen wounds." She had to fight strenuously through her words. "You said you didn't feel the same way about me, yet you were always pairing up on missions with me. You said this wasn't going to be serious and then you kissed me. Remus, I've put my whole self on display for you to pick apart and you've slapped it back into my face. What do you want from me? Am I going crazy? Are you just wanting to use mebecause I don't think you've as much as looked me in the eye since February."

"Feb-" He paused. There was an awkwardness to him, but he got his eyes to lock onto hers. Behind his tough facade, all Tonks could do was hope for a sliver of empathy behind them. "February. Right."

Tonks waited for a response. "Did that mean nothing to you?"

"It..." Now he was stepping on eggshells. He became fixated on watching her eyes. Remus had always loved her eyes. Even when they were unnaturally purple or such a pale blue that it could make her look blind, when they were round or slanted, bloodshot or crying, or such a deep brown that he knew had to be her natural appearence, he found himself getting lost staring at them. "It... was..."

"It was what? Spit it out, awful, strange, impulsive, what was it? Was it me? Was I weird or something? Did I offend you somehow?" She asked urgently. "Awkward? Nice? What-"

"Terrifying." He blatantly confessed.

"You- okay. Um," Tonks seemed to relax a bit, though her face still indicated a frustrated confusion. This wasn't the worst response she was expecting by far, but it floored her nonetheless as the least expected response. "What do you mean by... 'terrified'?"

"I am terrified of you." Remus finally said aloud. As soon as he did, everything else came pouring out in reply. "I have these walls built up and they do a pretty damn good job of keeping my bad emotions at bay. But then you came along and started hacking away at them and now I feel like I'm never going to stop until you've picked at every single one of my bad memories."

Tonks's face softened sympathetically and she tried to reach her hand out for his, but he wouldn't grab it. "I'm not trying to hurt you." She shook her head. "You never had to tell me any of that, and I'm sorry if I was pressuring you, but I'm only to help you and to listen to you."

"I don't like trusting people." Remus confessed. "There. Now it's all on the table. I'm terrified of what kind of a person you make me."

"What kind of person do I make you?"

"Not... intact. Collected. I feel like I'm reckless and you wouldn't even stop me. It feels like I'm always making the wrong choices."

Tonks shook her head again, appalled. "Remus... you aren't... you're not out of control. You're very much in control right now and you're... sort of using it to stomp on me. Please, give me a chance with you. You're not reckless. Opening up to people doesn't automatically mean you get hurt and I won't hurt you."

"Seeing anything happen to you might be enough to make me snap." Remus explained. "I'm never going to live with myself if you got hurt. Watching you suffer like this has been tearing me apart the last few months, but at least I know you're not starving on the streets, homeless and unemployed. Worse yet, bitten or seriously maimed."

"You aren't going to bite me. You aren't going to hurt me. I'm not going to end up homeless and honestly, seeing how the Ministry is working at the moment, I'd let them fire me."

"Nymphadora, I've been homeless before." Remus told her stiffly. "I've wondered when my next meal was and wondered if I'd even make it a night out in the cold. Hell, I've been damn near mugged for nothing." He finally reached out and took her hand, squeezing it gently. "I won't let that happen to you."

"It's not going to happen, Remus, if you'd just give me a chance." It was a bit too dim to tell if she was actually crying or if the light was reflecting off her eyes, but her voice indicated that she was in fact crying. "I want to make things work. Please. And for the love of Merlin, stop calling me Nymphadora."

"What would you like me to call you?" He suggested.

"Dora. Just Dora." Tonks replied. Her fingers were clinging onto his hand. "I just want a proper chance. I just want you to hear me.""I hear you." Remus told her.

"Then why won't you just let me have a chance to make this work?" Her voice sounded like it was begging. "I want this to work, but you have to help me. I can't just drag you around something happens."

They were sucked back into the void of quietness, not quite looking at each other, and not quite ready to say anything. Tonks was waiting sort of impatiently for him to say anything to her or give her any sort of clue as to what he was so pensively pondering. Her mind was racing at all the things he could say, but the way his finger mindlessly rolled over her hand, made her even more antsy to demand he say something, anything.

"Where... where do I begin?" Remus finally asked. The question sounded half-baked as if he couldn't quite get his thoughts sorted together into a sentence. On top of that, Tonks could tell he was feeling not much more than embarrassed, something they seemed to have in common.

"Begin?"

"How do I..." His eyes shifted sideways. "I'm not very good at this. I don't see how you find this endearing in any way." Tonks perked up a bit. She let go of his hand to take a drink from her glass, even trying to give him a small smile. Remus looked up at her. "Tell me about yourself."

Tonks stared at the man blankly, almost in surprise. "What?" Was all she could muster up. None of bustle of the Three Broomsticks stopped, but all of a sudden, it felt like the whole room was silent. Trying to talk to him made her tongue feel like cotton as she tried to spit out anything that made half sense.

"Tell me about you." Remus posed a second time, taking a drink from his Firewhiskey.

"About- me? Um, well... what is there to say, really?" She asked, her fingernails drumming on the glass. What time was it anyways? Looking at her watch, it wasn't as late as she anticipated, at least. The place was going to open for a good while longer. Time seemed to move differently now, both moving too quickly for her to keep up and yet so slow that the night was dragging on forever.

"I feel better knowing I'm not the only one flustered." He snorted a laugh and took a sip of his drink. "I believe it's appropriate to say I have to capacity to flirt about as well as oh, any other fifteen year old boy, I'm sure. You picked a real good one, didn't you?"

"Careful," She warned with a small smirk. "I did that with Firewhiskey once and I swear to you the inside of my nose was blistered with burns for three days. That stuff's really got a kick to it."

"You didn't." He smiled. His glance shifted away again, but this time in a more bashful way. "Of all the people in the world and you picked me. That's a mystery I'll never be able to solve. Really, what did you say to yourself? 'Hey, get a load of that old bastard over there'."

Tonks tilted her head and smiled. "Stop doubting yourself. You hear me? Your my old bastard and I wouldn't trade you for all the money in the world."