When Remus came back, Tonks was in the bath.
Andromeda opened the door at his knock. For several moments she just stood in the doorway and looked at him, as though unsure whether to let him in. He had planned it all out – what he would say, how he would say it. He had experimented in his head, trying out various words – regretful: not strong enough; repentant: too pretentious; devastated: at least it was accurate. But when he actually stood there facing her, with Andromeda standing on the threshold as if it were one and the same to her whether he stayed or returned to the wild night, the words all vanished. There was nothing he could say; nothing that would excuse abandoning his pregnant wife while the world stood on the brink of chaos. He felt had been a fool to think he could atone for his crime so easily, that he stood a chance of being accepted back. Despair wrapped around him, settling on his shoulders, in his chest, sucking the remaining warmth in him. He bowed his head.
And then Andromeda stepped back, giving him room to pass over the threshold and into the house.
"You look awful, Remus," was the first thing she said. He knew it was true. He had been reckless with himself in the weeks he'd been gone. He'd bathed and shaved, but paid little attention to how much he ate or when. He'd slept poorly too, anxiety and guilt snatching even those brief hours of respite from him. If he looked awful, it was nothing to the misery in his heart. Remorse pooled in his eyes under Andromeda's scrutiny. She looked so like Sirius right now, her probing dark eyes boring into him, with that very same mix of hauteur and sympathy. If Sirius had been around, he'd have knocked some sense into his friend; he'd no doubt have prevented him from leaving in the first place. If you walk out that door, Remus, I promise I'll hex you halfway to Timbuktu. He sighed helplessly. I've been a proper git, Padfoot, I know. I've made my bed and now I've got to lie in it. He took a breath.
"Andromeda -"
She cut him off.
"Nymphadora's having a bath. Her back was aching and I told her a nice hot soak would do her good." She pointed in the direction of the bathroom. "The door's unlocked."
Nodding, too grateful for words, Remus went meekly in the direction his mother-in-law had indicated.
He knocked softly on the bathroom door, heart pounding like it would burst from his chest. Would she shout at him? Would she be cold? Would she refuse to look at him, shut him out, pushing him away as he had done her?
"Tonks?" His lips formed her name but no sound emerged from his dry mouth.
"Come in, Mum." Her voice sounded strange – thick and somehow distant. He didn't correct her.
The handle was moist under his hand. Hesitantly, he pressed down on it and pushed the door open. Inside, the room was very warm, and steam had fogged the mirror, condensation trickling down like tears. Tonks herself was pale. She was lying back in the tub, which was filled with slightly pink, bubbly bathwater. The back of her head rested on one edge, her feet propped up over the tap on the other end. He saw that she had sparkly turquoise nail polish on her toes but it was coming off, and her hair was the mousy brown he remembered from the previous year, hanging limp, locks of it hiding her eyes.
He was shocked to see how much she'd grown in the weeks he'd stayed away. Her belly protruded out of the water, white and sleek. Seeing her lying there, big with their child yet somehow so small and sad and young-looking in the tub, all the reasons he'd given himself (and her, listed and left for her in that horrid note on the morning of his desertion) for staying away became meaningless, and his actions seemed more selfish, more unforgivable than ever. Swallowing hard, he said hoarsely,
"Hi Dora."
At last she looked up – turned her large, heavy eyes to his face and looked up at him.
"Remus?" She heaved herself up in the tub, wet hands gripping the sides, slipping slightly but finally sitting upright, the bubbles breaking as the disturbed water lapped in tiny waves against her pale skin. She looked and looked at him, staring as though she couldn't believe her eyes.
"Remus?"
And then in a swift movement he was kneeling beside the tub, holding her wet, shaking body, her cheek pressed close against his shabby old coat.
"God, Dora, I'm so sorry!" He murmured, one hand pressed against her damp hair. "I didn't want to leave, don't ever think I wanted that – I thought it would be better for you, for the baby – I fucked up, I know it." He was babbling, the words tumbling desperately from his mouth as he willed her to understand. "I love you so much and I didn't want you to have to share my ostracization, my stigma. I don't want that kind of life for you, or the child. I couldn't bear it - knowing I'd condemned you by marrying you – so I walked out on you to save you, but I couldn't even do that right, because I can't stand being without you. And now I've come crawling back to beg you to have me again." He paused to draw a shuddering breath and added, in a voice thick with tears, "I'm such a mess, Dora! How could you ever have wanted me?" And, as if scared by the portent of his own words, he held her closer and closer, anticipating her resistance and unable to cope with the thought of it.
But she was motionless in his arms, neither struggling nor clinging, only shaking very slightly as suppressed sobs wracked her.
Anything, anything! Driven to ever greater desperation by her silence, he tangled his fingers in her hair, pleading for a response, a reaction.
"Can you forgive me?" It was nothing but a whisper.
Finally she lifted her head, leaning back to look into his anguished eyes with her own tear-filled ones. He saw no anger.
"Remus, you idiot," she said, smiling though she cried still. "Has it ever occurred to you that maybe I like a mess? That maybe I want to spend my whole life with one? I said 'for better or worse,' and I meant it. I was a lot less ingenuous than you give me credit for. If you weren't so bloody chivalrous you might see that."
Something inside him plummeted, and then relief swept through like a deluge. Her eyes, red-rimmed, were soft; her face, stubborn and streaked with tears, was beautiful.
"I'm sorry," he said again, burying his face in her hair. It smelt of shampoo and warm, clean places and comfort and home and Nymphadora – his Nymphadora.
"I know."
And now her hands were on him, her fingers in his hair, sweeping it back from his lined, tired face.
"Remus."
"Hmm?"
"You're still wearing your coat." He pulled reluctantly away and gave her a wry smile.
"So I am."
"Take it off. And your shoes." He obeyed, too dazed from her ready forgiveness to ask why. He hung his coat on the door hook and kicked his shoes in the corner by the washstand, then kneeled again by the tub in his faded trousers and moth-eaten sweater.
"Good. Now get in here."
"What?"
Out in the living room, all was silent. Then from the bathroom a loud splash, Tonks giggling, some low-spoken words. Andromeda, sitting on the couch, smiled.
When her daughter finally emerged from the bathroom a half-hour later, wrapped in a purple dressing gown, her hair had returned to its usual fuschia. Still brighter, however, was Remus's face as he stepped sheepishly out behind her, his wet hair testimony to an unanticipated bath of his own. He was wearing one of Ted's old t-shirts which hung off his slender frame in folds, and what Andromeda recognized as Dora's favorite leopard-print boxer shorts.
Catching her mother's all-too-knowing eye, Tonks jabbed a finger in the direction of her bedroom said hastily, "We'll just be in here, Mum." As the unlikely pair turned and shuffled inside, Andromeda stifled a laugh.
Across the bum of Remus's shorts were printed the words: Born to be wild.
There was no doubt about it. Her son-in-law was back to stay.