Part Four

The crack of Apparation broke the steamy afternoon stillness of the cramped, shabby room at the Hog's Head Inn. Remus looked up from laying out tea on the table and just glimpsed Tonks' face, peaky and etched with lines, before she stumbled into his arms.

"Long day?" Remus' voice complimented her appearance, low and raspy from fatigue and overuse.

"Oh God, Remus..." His shoulder muffled her words. Turning her head, but keeping her cheek pressed close against his him, she went on, "All I did was tell about the battle over and over..."

"Same for me," said Remus.

Tonks hugged him tighter. "I'm sorry. It must've been so much harder for you to see all the people closest to Dumbledore than for me to talk to detached law enforcement personnel."

"Different," said Remus, thinking there could have been no comfort in addressing something so personal from a professional perspective. He did not deny, however, that his duties had been easy to carry out. He had Apparated and Flooed more today than he'd done in his entire life to date, making sure all the members of the Order of the Phoenix had the same information about what had happened the previous night at Hogwarts, and were on guard for whatever was to come.

Whatever was to come.

The future was frighteningly vague.

Thanking Merlin for the young woman in his arms, Remus dropped a kiss on the top of Tonks' head, then leant his cheek against it. He could be sure of her when nothing else at all was certain.

Her fingers clutched the back of his shirt, twisting the fabric. His hands slid up her back, and through her Auror robes he felt how tense her shoulder and neck muscles were. He kneaded them with the heel of his hand, and Tonks sighed heavily.

A movement of her head made him lift his. Tonks raised her face to him and said, "It was bizarre to talk about. I felt like someone else was saying those things, but it was me." She shook her head. "No matter how many times I tell the story, it doesn't seem real. Not at all."

"I know. Every time an owl comes, or I see a Patronus, I think this one will be from...from him...telling us what to do next."

"It was chaos." Tonks' shoulder muscles coiled even tighter as she spoke in clipped, frustrated syllables, eyebrows slanted sharply downward. "A great flock of chickens running about with their heads cut off. We got nothing done."

"There's not much to be done," said Remus, pressing his fingers into the knots between her shoulder blades. "Not immediately, anyway. For now all we can do is be on our guard until after...the funeral..." Merlin, it was the most impossible thing his mind had ever stretched to process, the idea of Albus Dumbledore being buried. "...and until the students return home. Then Minerva will be able to focus her attention on what Dumbledore would want from the Order now..."

Tilting her head, Tonks regarded him for a moment, as though she did not quite agree with his statement. Remus' arms went slack around her, and abruptly, she turned and looked at the table.

"Ooh, bangers and mash!" she cried, eyes round, haggard features lighting up as she took in the heaped plates. "I'm starved." She pulled out a chair, but stopped short as though struck with a sudden thought, hovering over the seat and shooting Remus a sidelong glance. "This isn't Aberforth's bangers and mash, is it?"

Remus let out a snort of laughter as he seated Tonks. "Takeaway from the Three Broomsticks."

"Rosemerta's not working?"

"She's in hospital. Tom sent a girl over from the Leaky to look after things while she recovers," Remus replied, taking the chair across from her. The table was so small that their knees touched under it. Remus didn't mind in the slightest, especially not when Tonks nudged his legs apart to slip one of hers between.

Tucking into her food, Tonks asked, "How's Aberforth? I Apparated straight in here. I should've stopped downstairs and spoken to him..."

"Back to his surly self," Remus replied. "Perhaps a little quieter. I'm sure his regulars will do him some good. Dung told me he'd come over and get good and drunk with him tonight. Somehow I think my sarcasm was lost on him when I told him how helpful that would be."

"Glad to see Dung's got out of Azkaban a reformed wizard," said Tonks. She covered her mouth as she realised she'd spoken with sausage in it. She chewed, swallowed, and washed it down with a sip of pumpkin juice. "You know I actually ate Aberforth's cooking once? I was having a drink last Christmas, and Dumbledore came in and bought me a Special."

Despite an inner jolt at the reminder that Tonks had spent last Christmas alone, Remus nearly choked on mashed potato as he laughed at the last bit. "Dumbledore had Christmas dinner here? What about the Hogwarts feast?"

"He ate at the school, but apparently he liked..."

Remus winced slightly at her use of the past tense.

"...Aberforth's turkey. I only had a bite," Tonks said, dabbing her sausage in mashed potato and popping it into her mouth. "But I'd horrible indigestion, all night, didn't sleep a wink...I wondered if it did the same thing to Dumbledore..." Her eyes bent, and she went on in a small voice, "Of course I was so angry at him, I almost hoped..."

Her fork clattered to her plate, which scraped across the table as she leant heavily on her elbows, head falling into her hands, fingers clutching at her hair. Remus stood and quickly rounded the table, banging his hip on the corner, and stood behind her chair. He rubbed her back in what he hoped was a soothing way, because he'd no idea what else to do or say.

"I got over being angry with him," Tonks said, sniffing, "but I never apologised. He always looked so sad when he saw me...I don't think he knew I was sorry, or that I trusted him. I wish..." She twisted round to look up at Remus with watery eyes, and laid a hand over his on her shoulder. "He really hated what he asked you to do."

Remus shook his head, and did not meet her eyes. Of all the things he'd cost her this year, this one brought one of the greatest burdens of guilt: he'd made her waver in her trust of Dumbledore, and destroyed any sense of closure she might have had about his death.

"If I'd understood what he asked me to do," he said quietly, "none of us would have had any regrets."

"No, Remus." Tonks clutched his hand. "You don't know that. You made mistakes, but so did I. And maybe Dumbledore did, too."

How many times had Dumbledore told Remus that he was as fallible as anyone? Remus had never believed him -- until this year, when his mission overwhelmed him and seemed so futile. But he'd refused to entertain the creeping fear that Dumbledore might have sent him on a fool's errand. He'd never have got along without Tonks, if he'd not clung to belief in Dumbledore. He'd had to believe he'd done right in giving her up.

If he had not given her up, how might it have been different?

So many questions, so many what ifs...It was dizzying, and impossible to focus on any one thing. The only thought that he was able to catch hold of, was how desperately he wanted to talk out their problems -- now, in this lull, while they'd time to focus on themselves.

"Thanks for this," Tonks' voice broke into his cacophony of thoughts, and he found her glancing apologetically at her barely-eaten dinner, "but I'm afraid I'm not very hungry anymore."

"Neither am I," said Remus, hollowly.

Beneath his palms, Tonks rolled her shoulders. "D'you reckon you could give me a back rub? I've got so much tension."

Struck with a sudden inspiration, Remus' spirits brightened. He leant over her shoulder and pressed a kiss her cheek. "Do you know what's a better idea?"

A few minutes later, Tonks was moaning pleasurably, with closed eyes, as she slid into a steamy bath. The bubbles glittered like foamy diamonds in the flickering light of a dozen votive candles in a rainbow of colours Remus had found in the bathroom cupboard.

"This is the real reason I don't care about too old, too poor, too dangerous," she said, lying back against the gently curved, inclined end of the bathtub.

Though he'd taken these concerns completely seriously for the past year, Remus found himself laughing easily at Tonks' teasing. Maybe it was because he knew they'd soon be thrashing out the issues that were so long overdue for talking though, and because he'd finally realised that Tonks joked about them precisely because she took them seriously.

"Why?" he asked, slipping out of his shirt and hanging it on the end of a towel bar, then unfastening his belt. "Because I cope with loss and guilt by transfiguring narrow, rusty claw-footed bathtubs into Jacuzzis for two, when you actually requested to sort things out naked in bed?"

"Mm. Although, you're a bit slow on the uptake. Mainly I wanted was to get naked with you, and Jacuzzi for two means you're s'posed to be in here with me."

Remus stepped out of his trousers as they slipped down to the floor, and didn't bother hanging them neatly with his shirt before he shed his underwear and climbed into the opposite end of the bathtub from her.

"No need to be cheeky now," he said, stretching one foot to pinch her bum with his toes.

She jumped slightly, sloshing water, and glared playfully at him from beneath doused fringe.

Trying not to grin, Remus gestured toward the double tap, flowing with pink and blue water. "I went to a great deal of trouble to reproduce the faucet from the prefects' bathroom."

For a moment Tonks admired it with a look of delight, but then she pulled a face and crossed her arms over her chest with a hmph that rivalled Mad-Eye Moody for grouchiness.

"Seems to me," she said, "you're just rubbing it in that you were a prefect and I wasn't."

"Yes." Remus shut off the water. "I'm known for my tendency toward being a smug git."

Tonks poked out her tongue.

"Will it assuage your hurt feelings," Remus asked, twisting to reach into an ice-filled bucket behind him, "if I offer you a glass of wine?"

The look of mock irritation on Tonks' face was replaced with an eager grin. "I was wrong. This is why I don't buy any excuses that you're unsuitable. Because you're so damn wonderful."

Remus was glad for the occupation of pouring wine, because it provided him a reason to duck his head and hide his reddening face. It was ridiculous to blush over the woman he loved calling him wonderful when his legs were twined with hers as they lounged together in a bath. Not that he wasn't the slightest bit self-conscious about that -- which was, perhaps, even more ridiculous, as they'd spent the morning doing much more intimate things than this.

But intimacy, Remus was fast remembering, came in as many varieties as Bertie Bott's Every Flavour Beans. There was the kind he'd revelled in last night, as they brushed their teeth together, which he was unable to pinpoint precisely why it was intimate because it was such a very little thing; there was love-making, which spoke for itself; and there was this, relaxing together in a truly private place, naked.

How many other forms of intimacy would he discover by simply sharing in the minutiae of every day life with Tonks? He felt overwhelming gratitude toward his lucky stars for giving him the opportunity to find out.

Which made it all the more urgent that they get their relationship sorted, so they could do so, unalloyed.

Handing her a glass of wine, he glanced at her lifeless brown hair, stomach twisting as he pictured how bravely she'd tried to mask her devastation after she'd failed to morph this morning.

They had to sort things so he would not see that look again.

But...where did he begin?

Tonks began for him. "When you broke up with me..." She traced her finger along the lip of her wine glass, "you said something about me realising someday I'd made a gigantic mistake. You can't have..." She took a quick drink. "Was that an excuse, Remus, or are you really afraid I'd...leave you?"

"How could I think that," Remus replied, rubbing his foot along the inside of her calf, "after this year?"

As she took another drink, Tonks' eyes darted downward, but were lit with a pleased expression as she smiled slightly. She set the glass on the edge of the tub, then, sinking lower into the bubbly bathwater, returned Remus' affectionate gesture and slipped her own foot along his calf.

"You couldn't be rid of me," she said."

"Thank Merlin I couldn't."

It was tempting, with their gazes locked this way, feeling the slick warmth of her blushing skin against his, to abandon conversation. Remus drew one knee up, and broke eye contact as he sipped his wine slowly.

"I'm not afraid you'd leave," he said after a while. "I'm afraid you'd stay."

Tonks' eyebrows collided, forehead wrinkling deeply above them. "That doesn't--"

"It's one thing to choose unconventional relationship roles," Remus interrupted. "You love being an Auror, and you're very good at it, and I know you'd want to continue with your career regardless of whether you were with me, or..."

Not wanting to continue along that train of thought, he quickly swallowed more wine.

"You'd continue with your work whether I could contribute financially or not," Remus went on. "But the fact is, there are no choices for us. The arrangement might work for now, but someday...you might want...other things than a career..."

By other things he meant a family. Children. But surely now, before they'd worked through everything, was far too soon for that discussion.

Though he still wasn't looking at her, he felt the intensity of her dark eyes on him, asking him to elaborate.

"No matter what you wanted," Remus said, "you'd have to keep working. You might be unhappy. And yet you'd stay with me."

The steamy air of the bathroom felt very oppressive, impossible to breathe in, during the eternity that passed before Tonks said, "And you're afraid I'd resent you."

"Can you blame me?"

"Not really." Water sloshed over the edge of the tub as she sat up and reached for her wine. "Not since I'm afraid of the same thing."

Remus put his glass to his lips as he processed this unexpected revelation, but did not drink. Lowering the goblet again, he asked, "You're afraid…I might resent you?"

"Because you don't choose not to work," she said. Her fingers clutched the stem of her glass so tightly that Remus half-expected it to break, and they would have wine as well as bubbles, in their bath. "God, Remus, you're such a powerful wizard. You're a fantastic teacher. Hell -- you're as capable as any Auror on the force. Maybe more."

As her words of praise tumbled out, Remus set his wine on the edge of the tub. It was dizzying -- wonderfully so -- to hear her, who he held in such high estimation, say these things about him; he didn't need a drink to take the edge off things when true euphoria came from knowing how Tonks saw him, from knowing he could trust her view of him.

Her lined forehead, however, dulled the pleasant feelings somewhat.

"Any time I've talked about my job," Tonks went on, gaze flickering downward, "especially my success...there's always a niggling thought that I'm rubbing your nose in it."

Remus leant forward and rested a hand on her knee protruding through the bubbles. "You've never made me feel that way."

"I know," Tonks said. "But I could do, down the road, especially if we've got..."

Cheeks colouring slightly, Tonks raised her glass to her mouth and sipped, as though to cover for the fact that she was turning away from a thought she did not want to voice. Especially if they had what? A family?

"Especially if we're struggling to make ends meet," Tonks said. "I know how much it bothers you not to have the means to do those traditional male things like take me out for dinner dates, or buy me gifts when you want to. I can only imagine how you might feel if we're scrimping for necessities on just my salary..."

It all came in a rush, her voice high and shaky. When she turned her eyes up at him, they shone, reflecting the candlelight. Drawing a deep breath, she said, just above a whisper, "Whether it's dates or groceries, Remus, I'd die if I took away your pride. I love you for your dignity."

At a statement like that, Remus couldn't help but hold his head up higher, and his shoulders more erect. He'd felt so many deep parts of him come to life in the past day, and yet here was another one he'd forgotten -- the pride he'd allowed to be snuffed out this year -- flaring hotly in his chest, burning away the self-loathing he'd fostered.

He'd been so worried about how his condition and its limitations might affect her, that he'd never considered her side of things. All that had concerned him seemed so trivial now, in the light of what had weighed on Tonks' heart; he'd convinced himself that she need things he couldn't give her -- things she'd never asked for -- when all the while her energies had been focused on how her livelihood made him feel. She feared making him feel unmanned.

He raised his hands to push her damp hair back from her face, threading his fingers into it. Holding her face in his hands, he kissed her firmly, then pulled back to look into her eyes -- the beautiful eyes that looked past the grey, patched exterior and saw the man he wanted to be, the man he was.

"You give me my dignity," he said.

Tonks smiled, but her eyes were grim. "That's a gigantic amount of responsibility. I hope I can be what you need."

Remus started to tell her of course she could, but he caught himself. She was taking a leap of faith as great as he was. His hands slid down from her face, into the water.

"Now you've mentioned it," Tonks said, tremulously, "it does scare me that I might want different things someday down the road. Does that mean we shouldn't be together? Because there's room for resentment?"

Remus shook his head, and leant it back against the cool marble edge of the tub. For a long time, there was no sound except for the trickle of water when one or the other raised an arm to take a drink, or the occasional drip from the faucet.

"I do love being an Auror," Tonks said at last. "I'm not sure I could ever give that up."

Not entirely sure where she was going with that, trying not to entertain the thought that her future dreams had changed during their year apart, or that they might have regressed after all, Remus sat up and wrapped his hands around her calves. He indicated for Tonks to put her wine down, then gently pulled her across the slick bottom of the bathtub toward him. He settled her between the V of his legs, knees bent out of the water, feet on either side of his thighs.

Running his hands up her smooth legs, to her knees, he said, "I would never ask you to give it up."

"I know." Tonks smiled, eyes soft, but after just a moment, her expression became grim, distant. "It's so dangerous, though, being an Auror. I was almost killed at the Department of Mysteries. Every time I go to work, I risk not coming home. Don't you think I wonder sometimes if that's something I should put you through?"

"Do you remember what you told me last year?"

"Last year?"

"When you were in St. Mungo's," Remus explained. "How you felt last night, about my near miss...That was exactly how I felt when Bellatrix hexed you. I'm sure you haven't forgotten how that battle got us thinking about how uncertain life was. You wanted us to make declarations of love. But I..." His gaze dropped.

"You wondered if it was selfish to be involved when it might mean leaving me alone and heartbroken."

Remus looked up and met her eyes. "And what did you say to that?"

Tonks smiled faintly. "I think I quoted some Muggle poetry about loving and losing being better than not loving at all."

"That's right." Remus caught her hand, and raised it to his lips. "You won me over with poetry."

Her chirping laughter echoed off the tiled walls. "You make it sound like I wooed you. Bit more like walloping you about the head with it, don't you think?"

Remus grinned and kissed her hand. "I'd say I find strong women irresistible, but really it's just you."

Her smile softened, and so did her laughter, as she girlishly -- almost shyly -- brought his hand to her mouth and kissed his knuckles.

She held his hand to her mouth for some time, gazing vacantly at it. Remus watched her smile gradually fade away into an expressionless line, which eventually became a deep frown, and her eyes hardened as she fixated on a thought.

"What about all my psychotic relatives?" she blurted, looking up with eyes glittering with conviction. "They know I'm in the Order. Thanks to Kreacher they probably know you and I are more than friends."

"Thank you for that very disturbing thought, Nymphadora. Kreacher as voyeur?"

In an abrupt shift of mood, Tonks' eyes became dark crescents as she grinned impishly. "Makes you glad we only just got round to having sex, doesn't it?"

Laughing low, Remus wished he could come up with a witty retort, but he found himself robbed of jokiness as he noticed pink nipples, shimmering with beads of water, peeking out from the suds clinging to her curves.

"No," said Remus huskily. Reaching out to curl his hands over her breasts, he teased the hardening nipples with his thumbs, admiring the contrast of their deep pigment next to his pale fingers. He squeezed her curves gently and leant in to brush his lips across her moist, supple ones; he barely tasted her wine.

"No, sweetheart," he murmured against her mouth, I think we should have been doing this a long time ago."

Laughing again, Tonks wrapped her arms around his neck, and Remus moaned in his throat as she pulled herself closer against him. What bit of her was producing the more exhilarating sensations, he couldn't decide: her small, firm breasts pressing against his chest; her bottom on his thighs, legs squeezing lightly around him; her tongue coaxing his mouth open and teasing the inside of his lips. In the end he gave up trying to compare and left it at every part of Tonks being so delightful that it didn't do her justice to think in this incoherent way.

In fact, Remus so thoroughly gave himself over to sensation, relishing the way she clung to him after she'd pulled her mouth from his, tucking her head under his chin, that at least a full minute elapsed before he was able to register that she trembled against him because she was shivering, and that he understood the language she was speaking when she said, "The water's gone cold."

Gooseflesh pimpled up on Remus' upper body as Tonks slid herself off his lap and hunched lower in the water in an attempt to keep warm. He turned on the multicoloured taps again, which this time poured out shades of purple. The running water, made more resonant by the tiled bathroom surfaces, kept them from talking, but Remus was content to recline against the curve of the tub and watch, smiling, as Tonks cupped her hands together and scooped up bubbles, holding them up and cocking her head at various angles to examine the translucent hues within.

With a pang, he remembered doing the washing at her flat, and how she'd morphed her hair to match the suds in the sink and given the term dishwater blond an entirely new meaning. For a long time afterward, it had been the thought he'd used to conjure his Patronus.

Was Tonks thinking of that now, as she admired the bubbles? Had this talk brought her any closer to regaining control of her powers?

Sudden quiet brought him back to awareness of his surroundings. Tonks was leaning over him, having just shut off the tap. Her eyes held his.

"Even you've got to admit, Remus," she said seriously, "if anyone in this relationship's dangerous..." In spite of all the distractions in between, Remus' mind recovered and immediately recalled where they had left off in their serious conversation. "...it's me."

"It seems a ridiculous notion to be afraid of you, when I bring Fenrir Greyback into the equation. But yes...we each bring a substantial amount of mortal peril into this relationship."

Sinking back into the water, Tonks nodded, once, as though they'd just struck a bargain; her expression was so matter of fact that Remus half-expected her to stick out her hand and shake hands on it.

But they were far from finished.

Remus caught her foot and massaged the arch with his thumbs. "What about the other ways I place you in jeopardy? Werewolves don't make the best dinner guests, you know."

As she regarded him with her lips pressed together in a straight line, Remus was unsure whether she'd caught the deeper implication behind his flippant words. Just as he was about to explain, Tonks spoke.

"Is there any way being with you could affect my life worse than the Order? I've jeopardized my job and my reputation well enough on my own, don't you think?"

Remus couldn't argue the point, but he silently held that it was not entirely the same. Her work for the Order, when brought to light, would, in all likelihood make her a war hero. Perhaps his could, too -- but he could not allow himself too much optimism about the attitude toward werewolves in a post-war Wizarding world, in which his kind -- his kind in their eyes, he amended -- had supported Voldemort.

"What about your family?" Remus asked.

"If Mum knew about the Order, I think she'd react quite a lot like Percy Weasley."

Remus just glimpsed a deep frown tugging at her features, when Tonks abruptly spun on her bottom, turning her back to him, and slid between his legs to lean against his chest.

"That might not be the best way to sit..." Remus' voice was tight as his arms automatically wrapped around her, fingers unable to resist stroking the sides of her breasts. She shivered against him, this time accompanied by a sigh that told him she very much liked what he was doing; and in turn, he very much liked the way her body moved against him. "I won't be able to continue speaking in coherent English for long."

"You can say my name during sex," Tonks replied, glancing back over her shoulder with a coy expression that did absolutely nothing to assist Remus with coherency. "I think you've got remarkable control."

Something about the last line was far less flirtatious than it sounded. Was she referring to his control over the wolf? She'd hinted at such a thing before. It was not something he particularly wanted to discuss at the moment, but other serious subjects pushed themselves to the front of his mind.

"There's another thing," he said. Her back and shoulders tensed against him. He didn't want to go on with the thought, which was sure to heighten her tension, but he had to. "With our Order duties..." He wondered vaguely just what they would be. "...we haven't the luxury of putting our relationship before duty. There will be sacrifices. It will not be easy. It certainly will not be ideal."

"This year was hell, but we made it through."

"You were angry at Dumbledore for most of it."

Immediately, as Tonks' head fell forward, cheeks crimson, Remus cursed his lack of tact.

"That's not really the same," she said softly.

Remus sighed and squeezed her middle in what he hoped was a reassuring way. "It's not really different, either, love. I know I handled our relationship badly in light of the assignment -- I should have had more faith. But even if I hadn't broken it off, can you honestly say you wouldn't have been just as frightened and hated the mission for my sake?"

For a long moment, Tonks said nothing. Finally she shook her head.

"But we wouldn't have had all that pain between us," she said with conviction, giving her head a defiant little toss; Remus smiled faintly at the jut of her chin.

"Even when I doubted Dumbledore," she went on, "I never stopped believing in what we were doing. And…and maybe I wouldn't have hated your mission so much if you hadn't got so bloody depressed and thought so lowly of yourself."

Remus pushed back a clump of damp, dark hair that clung to her cheek, and kissed her skin.

"Remarkable a witch as you are, Nymphadora..." He slid his hands upward once more, over her breasts. She snuggled back against him, and placed her hands over his, as if to hold them there. Remus loved the gesture -- not that he needed persuading to touch her.

It seemed wrong to go on with the thought he'd begun, but he had to.

"I am not convinced -- much as I've considered the idea -- that, if we had stayed together, I would have felt any less demoralised by how I lived. Coming home to you…" A chill shuddered up his spine, and he leant his forehead in the dip between her shoulders, as though close scrutiny of her pale, wet skin would block out the ugly, shameful memories of his life underground. "I don't like to think of it."

He half-expected Tonks to argue, and he honestly wouldn't have minded if she did, since the important thing was getting all this out in the open. He couldn't deny what a beautiful thing it was to have her defend him, to defend them.

But Tonks merely laced her fingers through his and, after an appropriate space of silence, said, "You're right. I'll have to try and deal better with whatever might happen. Do you…do you trust me?"

Remus slid his hands up to her shoulders and turned her to face him. His eyes moved over her -- literally naked before him, as he was before her. They were naked together.

His hands glided over the wet, warm skin of her shoulders, up her neck, and cupped her face. He kissed her slowly, thoroughly, then pulled back to look into her eyes, bright with breathless longing.

"I trust you with my life and my heart, Nymphdora."

She smiled, wearing that expectant expression once again. She had to want him to ask the same question, back to her. Remus wanted to, but hesitated. Could she really, truthfully, say she trusted him that much? He'd broken her faith.

Tonks' small hand reached up to settle on his neck. "And you'll help me do what I've promised?"

Remus' heart pounded; could she feel his pulse? She'd sensed his doubt, and expressed perfectly the idea to put his self-doubt to rest.

Relationships were about trust. Not because either partner was perfect -- though he was sure Tonks came closest to perfection of any partner in the world -- but because both partners could help each other to be trustworthy.

It was Lily trusting James to have grown up; it was Arthur trusting Molly to be content; it was Bill trusting Fleur to love the whole heart, and not loathe the disfigured face. The choice, which he and Tonks had discussed at length at the start of their conversation, was not the circumstance. No one got to choose circumstance; every couple he knew had found themselves in dire situations. All anyone ever got to choose was the person to go through those circumstances with.

And they did get through them.

"You'll help me keep my promises?" Remus asked.

Tonks leant in and answered with a kiss.

Lingering against his mouth she murmured, "No one's whole, Remus. We never have been."

"You make me whole."

She drew back, one eyebrow raised. "Is it such a great stretch to think you do the same for me?"

"Yes." Remus pushed her fringe back from her forehead and kissed the smoothness, so fair against her hair. "But…I'm determined to try."

Remus feathered her warm, damp face with the lightest of kisses, just touching the very tip of his tongue to her skin to taste her. Breathing in short, shallow gasps, Tonks parted her lips and turned her head, trying to coax him to her mouth. Remus kept on with kissing every inch of her face, and though she tried to give a little hmph of frustration, there was too much of a pleasurable sigh in it to make it really convincing.

But after a moment she pulled back, sitting back on her heels, and asked, "So where's the age thing come in?"

Not having quite recovered his faculties, Remus said, "Beg pardon?"

"We covered too poor and too dangerous. "What about too old?"

Her bluntness cleared the fog. Remus thought of Arthur Weasley accusing him of implying that Tonks was too young.

Guilty as charged.

"I was being a condescending prat," Remus admitted, not meeting her eyes. "I assumed that because you were...inexperienced...you had not considered all the complications. I treated this as a case of first love..."

"Well it is," Tonks piped in a voice that made Remus look at her again. "For both of us."

It was, she was right, and Merlin -- as much as he'd fretted this year about it, he honestly could not think of a thing more thrilling than being Nymphadora's first love.

The love of her life.

He took her hands, and when he spoke, his voice felt choked and tremulous with the joy that was swelling up inside. "Years don't matter. You are wise beyond yours. In fact, I think you may be the older of the pair of us."

The admission, while it smoothed Tonks' features with more relief, and continued to melt away a little more of Remus' doubt and guilt, did not come without a pang. His thoughts conflicted with what he'd said earlier, that he was not sure if being with her would have changed how he'd perceived himself last year. He'd no doubt their relationship would have been under tremendous strain -- but could it have been any worse than the strain they had faced apart?

Bearing up under stress was not at all the same as enduring pain. At this very moment they were both coming off a difficult day; but they'd come home to each other, embraced, kissed, shared a meal, and now a bath. Remus knew the peace, and the lightened load, would never have been attainable alone.

"I'm sorry," he said, curling their hands in toward his chest. "If…if we'd talked sooner, perhaps this would not have happened."

"Maybe not," Tonks agreed. "But maybe it would've."

They would never know.

The important thing was not repeating past mistakes.

"I'll do better," said Remus firmly. He raised her hands and dropped kisses on her knuckles. "I promise."

Tonks awkwardly moved onto her knees, slipping on the slick bottom of the tub, and he caught her waist to steady her as she straddled his lap. This time, when she leant in for a kiss, Remus eagerly pressed his lips to hers, as if to seal his promise.

"I think," Tonks said, flashing a suggestive smile, pressing her hips against his, "that I've no further use for your ability to speak in coherent English."

"What about my control you praised so highly, that enables me to pronounce Nymphadora whilst in the throes of passion?"

Her hand dipped into the water, disappearing among the bubbles, and rendered him utterly speechless.

To be continued...

A/N: Four down, one to go!

Thanks very much to everyone who commented on the previous chapter. Your feedback is so encouraging. This time, reviewers get a Remus to help them de-stress in any preferred manner including, but not limited to, candlelight bubble baths.