There were snowflakes everywhere, whirling around in a pattern impossible to follow. Sort of like life itself, she supposed. One minute the snowflake was about to fly away and the next, it was piled on the ground, melting and deforming until they were all one generic blob. That was how Tonks felt now. She stamped her boot down on the virgin snow so that the surface was marred with the round contours.
"I'm sorry," she whispered to the snowflakes. Then realizing how absurd she sounded, she simply collapsed down into the snow and cried. Tears turned to ice and the icy blue sky turned inky black before she looked up.
It was the first day of winter. Usually at this time, she would be curled up on the couch with tea or hot cocoa, watching the snow fall. She would give anything to be in the arms of who she loved right now. Tonks had come to realize that she wasn't meant to be single anymore. She pushed back a lock of mousy brown hair and sighed. Sighing was something she did a lot lately. Sighing and dreaming. And working, of course.
A snowflake landed on her scarf. Devoid of emotion, she watched it melt and found a perverse pleasure in watching something so small and helpless die. Now she felt like a monster.
His words rang through her ears. They hadn't spoken in a month but she still remembered his exact words. "We can't be together, Nymphadora. The stars have spun us off into different paths. You are better off without me." She had responded, "What if the stars have spun us on the same path, you just haven't realized it?" He had gotten serious, looked her in the eye. "The stars may define your path, but the moon defines mine."
"Fuck you!" she yelled to the moon that hung over her head. Another sob rose to her throat and she did nothing to subdue it.
A hand reached for her shivering body, wrapping it in warmth. Tonks looked up. There he was, graying and worn, holding her and making everything feel okay again.
"Oh, baby," he murmured. "You're freezing. Come on, let's go home."
He picked her up and Apparated them both back to her flat. Tonks was still frozen. Her teeth chattered and she was shivering uncontrollably. She was immobile from the cold. Realizing this, Lupin calmly began to undress her. He conjured up steaming water in her bathtub and helped her inside.
When Tonks had thawed out, she wrapped a towel around her body and went out to the living room. Lupin was there, drinking a cup of tea. He gestured to the mug next to him.
"Let me go put some clothing on," Tonks said.
"Good idea," said Lupin, ever the gentleman. "I'll make sure your tea stays warm."
Tonks returned to her bedroom and pulled on her fluffy white bathrobe. A few seconds later, she was back in the kitchen.
"So pray tell, why were you sitting alone in a snow bank yelling obscenities to nobody when I found you?" Lupin asked.
Tonks blushed. "You really want to know?"
"Yeah, I would."
"Because I missed you." There, she had said it. Not like he didn't already know.
"And sitting in a snow bank helped with that?"
"No! Don't you get it? I was in a snow bank because I didn't have the strength to go on any further. Dammit, Remus, I can't live without you. I thought you knew that by now! See this?" She gestured to her limp brown hair. "I lost my powers because of you. I lost everything. There's no point in going on anymore. I wish you had let me freeze and then I wouldn't feel anything anymore!"
Crying again, Tonks stood up. Before she could go any further, Lupin grabbed her hand.
"Let go of me!" she spat.
"No. Not until you listen to me."
Realizing how futile her struggle was, Tonks sat back down.
"There's a part of me that wants to listen to you, to just sit down and watch the snow fall and hold you in my arms. But I can't. The bigger part- the intelligent part- knows that it wouldn't work out. There's no way. In a week or a month, you'd regret it and want to leave. I can't do that to you, and I can't go through the pain of losing you."
"You're losing me right now. Without you, I die. Can't you see that? I've become a shadow of who I once was. One day, hopefully soon, I'll die and then you will go through that pain anyway. Only this time, you'll feel regret, too, because you could have saved us both."
"You don't mean that. You can get over me and move on. Lord knows you deserve that."
"I don't want to move on. I just want to fucking die."
This time, when she ran to her room, Lupin didn't stop her. Sighing, he returned their mugs to the sink, grabbed his cloak and left. Sighing was something he did a lot lately. Sighing, and working. Sometimes dreaming, as much as he tried not to. Presently Lupin came to a clearing. He collapsed onto the bench and stared into the distance. It was snowing. He watched the flurries fly in all directions, sometimes sticking to each other and sometimes not. There was hypnotic allure in doing nothing but snow watching. He wondered if, half a mile away, it was snowing by Tonks's window. Shaking snowflakes out of his graying brown hair, Lupin tried to clear his thoughts. Today they proved to be impossible to clear. A certain pink-haired witch could do that to him. Well, not pink haired anymore, he corrected himself. He had taken the pink hair away the day he stole her heart.
With nothing better to do, Tonks got dressed and went outside. She wandered around the deserted streets, looking enviously through brightly lit windows. Sometimes, she saw the outline of two silhouettes, presumably huddled together and watching the snow fall. What she would give to not be alone anymore. The black of night contrasted against her pale, exhausted features as she collapsed down onto a nearby bench and sobbed into her hands.
Had either been in a reasonable state of mind, they would have known the other one was sitting less than a hundred feet away. One might have even gone to comfort the other. As it was, they sat there, together and alone, hands in faces, and watched the snow fall.
Probably I will make this into a full-fledged story, because as we all know, I'm a sucker for RLNT fics. Hope you all enjoyed it, review and stuff if it's worth your while to do so. And keep checking back for updates (hopefully to come soon)