CHAPTER TEN

The darkened silhouette of the woods behind his and Dora's simple cottage exuded an eerie, intimidating aura as Remus slowly approached the edge of the woods where it happened. He did not want to go back to where his wife's accident happened, he didn't.

But more than his fear, he wanted to take away the power of the painful memory for the hurt that he knew would haunt him and plague his every waking thought and his nightmares unless he did something about it, to prove to himself that he could choose to move on, as Dora had suggested, and together, both of them would be stronger for this.

Lily had once told Remus during their seventh year at Hogwarts that the most beautiful of memories were the worst, cutting his insides as if they were shards of glass.

These woods behind his home where he had grown up had once been his refuge, his safe haven where he had disappeared three nights a month for his transformations under supervision from his father Lyall Lupin when he'd been a boy and couldn't handle his transformation, and he recollected scratching and biting himself, just to numb the pain.

Just standing at the edge of the woods like he was doing now filled him with immense pain and a sadness Lupin knew that he would never fully shake from his senses.

And how could he be expected to, given everything that had happened to Dora?

She had been discharged from St. Mungo's a week ago now and was currently soundly sleeping. Her recovery was going surprisingly well, all things considered. Nothing that Calming and Sleeping Draughts couldn't handle, and Lupin dutifully applied the disgusting smelling ointment to Tonks's scars on the column of her throat to minimize the pain for her, so he hoped, and hopefully in time reduce the amount of scarred tissue.

He had snuck out here, leaving her undisturbed to sleep in peace, needing air. Memories, unbeknownst to his wife, were the soul torturer of his heart and mind. Remus, try as hard as he might, could not escape them, nor hide from them. His thoughts and recollections, what little the Mad Beast could recall of Dora's Turning, was the worst kind of monster. Lupin ground his teeth and licked his lips to moisten them, though it brought no benefit. Only a dryness to his throat and constant swallowing of nothing.

Lupin was scared of what his past held if he was being completely honest with himself. All of the memories of the worst days of his lycanthropy that never seemed to escape him, even on a good day. They were like hot needles, pricking, searing his skin.

He could not yell or fight back, as much as he wanted to. He just had to take it and endure the pain as the picture of sweet Dora's face just before she was viciously mauled and attacked by him flashed through the tortured forefront of his mind and he gagged.

What had he done?! This…this was all his fault. All his fault, no matter what Tonks and the other She-Wolf, Norah Jameson, told him. Remus knew what he was. A Beast.

Lupin had experienced pain before. But nothing would ever quite amount to this. Remus could neither hide nor run from the relived memory of Tonks's maiming. His memories of the attack, Dora's Turning, were indeed his worst enemy and the thing that was most likely apt to destroy him if he let it, and Remus was finding it immensely difficult in resisting not letting his memories, his heartache currently get the better of him.

Her face. How terrified Tonks had looked of the Wolf when the Beast had tracked her scent, drawn to the truly intoxicating and sweet scent of her blood, and the sweat on her brow that had smelled to him like mo. Lupin squeezed his eyes tightly shut, growling.

He simply could not get these ghastly images out of his mind in this moment, no matter how hard he tried, but then again, he had come to the site of Dora's accident solely for this purpose and this alone. To learn how to control his grief and emotions.

That was why he had come here, after all, though he could not help wondering why Merlin had forsaken him so if this was to be his plight in life going forward. Even with a wife whom he loved dearly, more than his own wretched miserable existence, and coupled with the fact that the two of them were to become parents to a baby in nine months, a fact that still terrified Remus, though he tried to ignore the twisting coil in his gut at that prospect, the worn man's face as he stood at the site where it happened held a grief-stricken expression, dried tear tracts on his pale cheeks.

The silence in these woods was more than deafening, and it caused a feeble ringing to feel his fatigued eardrums and overtook his wolfish hearing until it was the only thing that Remus could focus on at all.

Lupin froze as the light autumnal breeze ruffled his slightly wavy light brown hair gently, pushing his bangs back away from his forehead as he heard the trees whispering. He was jumpier over the last two and a half days following Dora's Turning into a werewolf, and rightfully so. His lips held a thin line that seemed to deepen by the second.

The thought that tortured him right now as he stood, and he swore, he was sure, yes, he was certain of this as he gingerly knelt into a crouch on the forest floor, that he could still see faint traces of Dora's blood, now dried, cracked crimson on the earth's soil, and on a few scattered fallen leaves, was why? Why had Tonks gone in search of him? By doing so, she had put her own life and the life of their unborn baby at risk, in danger, and now…she was…like him.

A She-Wolf, a fully-fledged Wolf. Because of him. It felt as though his already damaged heart were now destroyed, and Lupin swallowed back the bitter acidic stomach bile as the disgusting stuff slowly crept its way from the lining of his stomach and up into his throat, until he thought he might be sick.

The distraught husband stood in the forest clearing for what felt to him like hours, but the sun above the sky, hidden behind the clouds though it was, looked not to have risen any further, and his nostrils flared as thick thunder clouds rolled, black and purple, looming in the distance. Lupin let out a haggard breath and felt his knees give out.

He shot out an arm to catch the worst of his fall, feeling his knees dig into the grit of the earth, his throbbing hands falling into his calloused hands. His breaths hitched, dying in his throat, a relatively poor attempt to calm himself down. This was his fault.

Remus was sure he had not received a full night's rest in days, not since…before. Deep purple bags were prominent underneath both his eyes, and Remus flinched as he heard a heavy sigh escape his tired form. He had fallen asleep last night in her arms, not wanting to even so much as twitch to avoid accidentally grazing against one of Dora's injuries, specifically her neck, and he had enjoyed basking in the warmth his wife gave.

Though now that he was out here, and she was inside, he missed the heat Tonks provided him. Were she feeling better, perhaps he might have initiated a slow bout of lovemaking to his wife, though he insisted on waiting until Tonks was well enough.

His mind became rushed by the horrible memory of seeing his wife's face following his changing back to normal when the Mad Beast within him would lay dormant for another month, at seeing her crimson lifeforce sticky near her throat as it left her body.

He grimaced, tearing his eyes away from the site of her attack, suddenly unable to remember why he had come out here. His shaking hands found their way to the top of his head and he seized on tufts of his light brown hair and tugged on them so hard that he felt the roots scream in protest. Lupin breathed scattered breaths while his gaze actively averted staring at the blood-soaked forest floor beneath him, now a permanent reminder of what he really was, despite his best attempts to conceal the truth from those around him. The poor alarmed husband blinked rapidly, desperately trying to quell that memory.

Remus slid his hands down his face, clutching at his shirt, breathing in…out…in… nice and slow, like Dora and Molly had told him to do whenever he felt one of his panic attacks coming on, but his exasperated lungs simply couldn't get air.

Tonks's attack haunted him daily and nightly, but Merlin's Beard, what he had done to his poor sweet wife! The flashing images as the days passed had only gotten worse.

"Rem?" A soft voice behind him spoke up, and Remus flinched and stood, straightening his posture. He did not even have to look to know that the voice belonged to that of his wife, that she must have woken up and noticed him missing and came looking out here for him.

Lupin felt himself stiffen, not bothering to look over his shoulder, not even when he heard the crunch of Tonks's footfalls as she stepped on fallen leaves and twigs, nor when she set a gentle hand upon his shoulder and gave it a squeeze. His gaze remained fixated on the site of her attack, unable to tear his eyes away.

"Remus." She called his name again, which caused Lupin to summon every shred, every bit of the man he knew himself to be, the monster that he was, and everything in between. He waited for her. No, scratch that, he ached for Tonks to call his name again.

And yet, he could not manage to answer her. And then, there she was, in front of him, an accusatory look on her face and her lips pursed into a thin line, biting her bottom lip. "You should be resting, Remus. You've not slept much at all these last few nights."

Lupin could not answer his wife. Though finally, he found his voice, and when he did speak to Tonks, his only words were, "I—I should," he grumbled lowly under his breath. "But…" At last, he swiveled his head towards her and looked at Dora, and even now, after almost a full year of marriage, he was still surprised at how much her simplistic beauty could render him breathless, how it always felt like when he looked at her, he felt lightless, his chest constricting, and his throat hollowed as his gaze landed on her hair.

A rich plum color this morning, and she had taken to wearing it loose and wavy, letting her layers cascade gently down to just past her collarbones to hide her scarring.

"Why are you out here? It's cold, you could get sick," Lupin heard himself protest and furrowed his brows. He made to rest a hand on her shoulder to give it a light squeeze, though she turned away at the last possible minute and ducked her head, out of shame.

"I—I could not sleep. I wanted to see you," Tonks murmured hoarsely. Remus could swear he almost heard her smile. "I needed to…to make sure you were all right."

"I—I'm fine," he answered, flinching as he recognized his voice sounded clipped and hard and came out perhaps harsher than he meant to, for he lifted his gaze to meet Dora's eyes searching his for the unspoken truth, and immediately, wished she wouldn't.

He did not want her to see him like this. "I—I'm sorry that you couldn't sleep, love. You are the one who needs rest, Dora, not me. Don't worry about me, I will be fine. You're still healing, you don't need to be out here exacerbating yourself like this, darling. I can give you a Sleeping Draught if you need one. Come on, we should go."

Tonks frowned as she heard the soft shuffling of movement and before her husband could turn on the heel of his shoe to leave her here in these dark woods in tranquility, her arm shot out and she grabbed onto Lupin's shoulder in a firm vice grip, preventing him from taking another step forward.

"Don't," she pleaded, sticking out her lip in a pout. She lifted her chin and met Remus's wide, unblinking eyes with her own. She glanced down at her left hand, where her gaze lingered on her wedding band and had wrapped into a firm vice-grip about his arm, though she made no move to relinquish it.

"Do not leave me out here alone in these woods by myself, Rem. Please…don't." She hardened the edges of her voice just slightly, and there was a hint of steel in Dora's voice that told Remus he must listen to his wife, and listen well, or he'd suffer for it.

Lupin blinked, still feeling confused by the sudden shift in his wife's countenance. Just a second ago, she had seemed concerned for his physical and mental well-being and now, she was waving her wand until a pile of soft, goose feather down blankets appeared and she spread them out and sat down cross-legged on top of one, patting the spot next to her, silently communicating with him to join her here in the forest behind their house.

He did as she asked without saying a word, feeling like his heart was pounding so damned loudly against the confines of his chest, that damn stubborn corded muscle of mass and veins that pumped blood within, so loud, he was sure that Tonks could hear it.

Though if Dora did or not, she gave no indication to Remus that she had heard. In truth, he was wondering why she was sitting out here on top of a blanket, in the cold.

She could easily get sick, she was still healing, though was making remarkable progress, it still did not ease his concerns for his wife or that of their unborn child.

It seemed to take Tonks an eternity to find her voice, and when his wife did finally raise her head and look Remus square in the eye, her tone was softer, much more subdued, and uncertain than before. Tonks breathed in a deep breath and made to say her piece, and Lupin thought the wisest course of action at this point in time was to listen. She emanated a tense exhale through her nose and glanced down at her hands, which were resting idly in her lap, though Tonks had begun to fidget with them, nervously playing with her pinkish-tipped fingers to keep them warm from the breeze.

"You won't admit it to me, but I know you still blame yourself for my accident," she began uncertainly, cringing as she spoke the words, and she heard Lupin give off an audible gasp of surprise and flinched, turning away, though Tonks decided she was not having it as she ground her teeth in annoyance and reached out a hand and firmly cupped the man's chin in her hand, tilting his head slightly upward and forcing Remus to meet her gaze. "I wish that you could know that it was not your fault, Rem. You aren't to blame, and I would never ever find you at fault for this," she murmured, brushing back a lock of her hair to reveal the scars on her neck.

Remus winced, light brown eyes shimmering with unshed moisture, though he did not blink, and he did not dare avert his gaze from his wife. But still, Lupin could not help asking, and did not bother to quell the question as it tumbled unchecked from his lips. "And now?"

The second his statement left his lips, Lupin cursed himself and could no longer contain his barely racing heart or his nearly frantic breaths. Whatever it was that Tonks wanted of him, why she had followed him here to the forest behind their cottage, he had not anticipated they would have a conversation of this caliber.

Tonks, meanwhile, pondered over Remus's question, suddenly feeling uneasy. She turned her head away and instead focused her attention on the weirwood tree during her process of thinking and allowed her mind to ruminate. She huffed in frustration and rested her cheek in her fist. People, especially those amongst the rest of the Order of the Phoenix and at the Ministry, had just openly assumed that her opinion of her husband and the details surrounding her accident were his fault and that though Tonks would not dare say it out loud, that she blamed him.

But they could not have been further from the truth. Though she knew this now not to be the case, however, now that Lupin himself was asking her the same question, Tonks could not help but feel a bit perturbed. Though it spoke volumes of the man's character that he was asking her, as his wife, for the unvarnished truth, not caring how blunt she would be in answering. Tonks was well aware that there were few people in all of Great Britain who could directly ask such a question to her, though the man did not seem afraid.

Perhaps it was because of this and given the nature that she was his wife, which caused Tonks to decide to answer her sweet husband honestly. More important than that, however, Tonks wanted to answer Remus honestly.

Tonks paused for a moment to ponder her best choice of words, finally turning her head back around to regard Lupin, who, she could tell, was growing impatient by her lack of response, though not one to forget proper edict, was not about to comment on it, for which Tonks felt immensely grateful for.

"You have saved my life now at least a total of four times, Rem," she stated quietly, having to tick them all off on her fingers. In truth, it was probably more than four by now, considering the number of times that her Aunt Bellatrix had her in her sights (May Merlin bless that witch's soul, never!) And now, from herself.

Tonks's brows furrowed in a slight frown as she waved away thoughts of her accident for now and forced her mind to refocus her attention on the question that her husband had just posed to her. She sighed and continued speaking.

"It is no easy feat, to help care for me as I've been healing now these last several days, but you've stayed right by me every minute," Tonks began hesitantly, fully aware that Lupin never once averted his gaze from hers as she spoke. "You love me." There was a pause. A beat and Tonks swallowed down hard past the growing lump in her throat as it hollowed and constricted, feeling like it was cutting off much-needed air to her passageways, and she felt dizzy all of a sudden, though she swallowed again and forced herself to continue. Remus needed to hear this, whether he wanted to or not. "You will not allow yourself to feel it, Remus. It does not take a genius like Dumbledore to see that you have been burying your pains of life behind…this," she murmured, gesturing with a curt wave of her hand as she noticed his forced smile.

Tonks watched as Remus flinched at her cold words, knowing they were true, though she did not back down from her resolve. If anything, it strengthened.

And finally, Tonks emanated a tense exhale through her nose as she asked the one question of her husband that she knew she needed an answer to, though there was a larger part of her brain that was terrified to hear the man's response, she had to.

"Do you hate me, Remus? I—I know I shouldn't have left our house that night. I should have…waited for you, like you said, a—and none of this would have happened to me. To you. Do you hate me?" She swallowed as she heard the faltering crack and dip in her voice, and for a moment, though she could not bear to look the man in the eyes, to see his pained expression and look of rancor within his eyes.

But neither could she bring herself to pull away. So, here she sat, trapped in his gaze, and waiting between these two very different worlds. The world of the woods behind their home, and her entire world which was seated next to her, waiting for them to reconcile, or at the very least, come to a mutual understanding with each other as husband and wife. Tonks wasn't even aware that she was biting down hard on her bottom lip, hard enough for the delicate skin of her lips to crack and bleed.

At least, not until Remus reached up a hand and swatted her own hand away as she started to pick out of it out of restless agitation and utter nervousness.

"No," Lupin answered immediately, drifting one of his hands to fall overtop of hers as she saw no other choice but to rest them uncomfortably in her lap. "I could never hate you, Dora. Ever. I hope that you don't hate me, either."

There was another beat. A pause in his wife's response was admittedly nothing that Remus could have hoped for, but then—

"How, Rem?" Tonks breathed, her steely grey eyes wide and round as she desperately searched Lupin's eyes for any semblance of the honest truth, though she knew he was not lying to her at this moment. Lupin had never once led her astray, forced her to do anything that she was not comfortable with during her healing process, except for making her eat eggs.

Something that her stomach was having a hard time keeping down these days, though they were a good source of protein and calcium, so she ate what little she could manage to keep down within her churning stomach without too much complaining.

"How what?" Remus asked, blinking at Tonks, feeling dazed and confused as to how their conversation had ended up shifting and taking this sudden turn.

Tonks made a noise that sounded like a sniff and shook her head in disappointment, a lock of wavy plum hair bouncing slightly as she did so. "How could I possibly hate you, Remus?"

The very concept of such an idea seemed to greatly disturb Dora, for her already pale face worsened as what little color was left within her rosy cheeks drained and she looked stricken suddenly, her lips agape in shock and she looked as though Lupin had slapped her. "Because you, out of all of them, were truly the best of them? After the horrible way that I treated you when I—when we first met, you still treat me like I am someone on a pedestal, a queen, or something? And yet, you still find yourself at fault for what has happened to me, but you aren't. You. Are. Not. Remus."

Remus ran his tongue over the wall of his teeth as he struggled to think of an apt response to the question his wife had just posted to him, but Tonks was not quite finished yet, and as a result, he had no time to formulate his next sentence.

"Oh, but Remus, you are a difficult man to hate. I see that now. You have saved my life, more times than I can count now or even care to admit. You are a good man," she murmured, glancing down at their now-joined hands as they rested in her lap. "Kind, even to those like me who do not deserve your unfailing kindness nor your mercy," Tonks scowled, a dark look crossing over her features, and Remus knew without even having to ask her that she was thinking of how he had stopped her from almost killing her Aunt Bellatrix, saying that she would have regretted it if she had. "Even when you do not have to be, and that is the thing that makes you beautiful."

Tonks shook her head and sighed, and when she lifted her chin, Lupin was surprised to see the beginnings of tears prick at the corners of her eyes, stinging and blurring her vision. "But you are incapable of seeing yourself as I do, Remus."

Stillness filled the air between them as Lupin could not help but stare at his wife, at an utter loss, perhaps for the first time in his entire life, his mouth open, though nothing was coming to him as he struggled to think of something—anything—to say in response to his wife's statement. Never once in his life had someone spoken to him in this regard, not even Lily had said such things to him in the years when she'd still been alive.

Remus raised his eyebrows at Tonks, they shot so far up onto his forehead that they almost disappeared into his mop of light brown hair. His first natural instinct was to brush off Dora's remarks and deny everything she had just said, but the darkening look resting in Tonks's gray orbs as they darkened in color, almost cerulean in color the more upset that she got over this, warned him against it.

In fact, in the year now that they had been husband and wife, Remus could not for the life of him recall ever seeing such a strange look on Dora's face. Intermingling on her features was a potent mixture of sadness, uneasiness, sincerity, and…something else, a foreign emotion he didn't know what she might be feeling at this moment, here with him, under the elm tree.

If he was being completely honest with himself, it both frightened him and held him captivated and enthralled by her gaze, unable to tear his gaze away.

"You have sad eyes, Rem," Tonks pointed out, a pained expression on her face. "You see yourself as immoral, something not right because of…this," she murmured, gesturing to her husband's scars on his face with a curt wave of her hand. "This…horrible anger that you feel, you keep it bottled within, this coldness that is not like you at all. It's all directed towards yourself, and this world that both of us live in that treats neither one of us as fairly as we deserve. You do not care for yourself."

Remus looked away and lowered his head in shame as her words hit him like a chunk of ice or a dagger pierced straight through his heart, twisting in his chest as a fiery heat. Tonks bit her lip, able to tell that her husband did not want to accept her words as fact, though he must. Tonks heaved a small sigh of frustration as the young woman realized what she'd just said wasn't enough. She dared to scoot a fraction of an inch closer on the spare blanket she had conjured, and if she were any closer by this point in their conversation, Tonks would practically be straddling his lap.

She was briefly tempted to. "You feel powerless, Rem, because you don't know how to fix this," Tonks spoke, raking her fingers through his hair in the way that she knew he always liked of her to do, and she bit the inside wall of her cheek as a shudder of…something traveled down Remus's spine, though he made no effort to remove her hand. Tonks wasn't at all surprised when his hands gripped onto her waist tightly, though the glower he shot her suggested he looked like a defensive caged beast ready to sink its claws into her flesh if she dared to cross this boundary did. "You punish yourself for your condition, Remus, and mine," she whispered, reaching up a hand to card back a stray lock of his hair that had fallen in front of his eyes. "You still do. But you cannot help that Greyback attacked you. As such, it makes you feel as though you lack purpose in this world. But we all feel like this at times, Remus."

"Like what?" Lupin asked, furrowing his brows into a small frown.

Tonks's voice had faltered halfway through her speech to her husband and trailed off, because she had soon come to the realization that she had, in fact, been speaking of herself. Quick to recognize her sudden mistake, Tonks turned away and sighed. They were much alike. They both felt the same things. Wanted the same thing.

At least, she hoped that they did. Tonks emanated a tense exhale through her nose and swiveled her head back around to regard Remus, whose light brown eyes had darkened with such intensity, glistening with some unspoken emotion that she wasn't sure what he might be feeling at this moment. "You have…you've been burying your pain, Rem. Let yourself feel it," Tonks whispered by way of responding to his question.

"Pain?" Lupin repeated, sounding as though he could not believe her words. "Who said I was in pain? Did—did someone in the Order say something to you? Was it Sirius?" Lupin spoke again, his voice solemn and bordering on the edge of disbelief.

Tonks merely proceeded to say nothing and instead offered a sad smile and rested her cheek in her hand. "You did not have to say it. Your expression speaks for yourself. You have sad eyes, Remus." A pause in response was nothing she could have hoped for, as Lupin closed his eyes as if he were fighting back against something terrible and losing. They stayed closed as if he could not bear to look upon his wife next to him.

Tonks felt her brows knit together in confusion as she processed the hurt she felt inside at the man's silence to her what should have been an obvious statement, but could not understand for the life of her why she felt so disappointed by his sullenness.

"Tonks…" murmured Lupin, his fingers on her waist tightening slightly, sending a spiraling heat through Dora's system. "After…after what happened in the woods, with your…accident, then…you must know that I…" His voice trailed off in silence.

Tonks felt her eyes widen in shock as she looked up, Remus still continuing to keep his eyes closed and his jaw clenched shut with the effort to restrain himself from doing…something, though what that was, she didn't know.

Was he…was he talking about what she thought he was talking about? "Know what?" she whispered hoarsely in response, and Remus John Lupin was no fool.

Far from it. He was perhaps one of the cleverest men in all of England that Tonks had ever met. He knew Tonks was not ignorant of the fact that ever since that moment in the woods, when she'd regained consciousness, when his affirmation of love had brought her back to him, back to life, there had been that look exchanged between the two of them, though no words were spoken, and it was then that something had changed.

And all the anxiety Lupin had felt for the past several days had inevitably led up to this moment, the two of them alone, and uninterrupted for a change of pace.

Lupin's gaze drifted down towards her lips, he realized tonight Dora wore a different expression, and it hit him square in the chest, this painful realization that Remus soon recognized that his greatest fear had perhaps come true. She did feel the unimaginable foreign thing that had churned inside of him now for weeks, that she did not blame him for all of this. He leaned in a little closer, their foreheads touching.

Dear Merlin above help him, he couldn't fight against the thoughts that were going through him. This wasn't right, it was too soon, she was still healing... but his senses had been seduced by his wife, and he was no longer thinking straight. Her very smell was flooding his senses now...

But he had no chance to ponder over this before Tonks promptly closed her eyes and pressed her lips against his. Lupin froze at the unexpected intimacy, the line she had just crossed, his light brown eyes wide and unblinking in shock. She leaned up and captured his mouth without warning, giving him virtually no time to think or react, but they fit so perfectly together, it was like they were made for one another, and he could swear he heard the Wolf within the confines of his chest practically growling in pleasure, and Lupin could not help but let out a sigh, thinking that he really did love her.

Whenever he made love to her, sweat gleaming on her skin, her delicate hands curled into fists and her eyes screwed tight, he could never quite get enough of it.

Slowly, he ran his hands down her glorious body. Her skin was so flawless, smooth, and perfect, soft on her hips as he spread her thighs with his lean fingers and the first moan escaped her lips, the sound half-muffled. He lowered his lips to hers, capturing her mouth in a greedy kiss.

"It's been a few days, Dora," he whispered, a smirk on his handsome features. "I've missed our time together, love," he said tenderly and quietly. His wife opened his mouth to speak, but he stopped her. "Shush, don't speak, just let me..." he commanded, raising a gentle finger to her lips, shushing her. "Are you...feeling up for this?"

She nodded, though she offered no verbal retort. He continued with his efforts to please her, leaving a gentle trail of kisses down her neck and to her collarbones, hearing her whimpers and feeling her body shift beneath his. Tonks's breathing became uneven, cracking, twitching slightly as he drew away, rolling her head to one side, exposing the curve of her neck, the beautiful shell of her ear, shuddering as he gently nipped her earlobe and whispered promises to her, promises of what's to come in their moment.

Tonks made a muted little sound in the back of her throat but this time, just this time, he does not listen as he claimed her for himself and himself alone, his ire and wrath that had been pent up towards the Wolf that he knew he was, that he still, despite Dora's words, blamed himself for what had happened to his wife, coming out in the form of aggression as he nipped and bit, and loved his wife harder than he meant to, hearing her small cries of pain, though this did not slow his movements, his hands wound tightly on the edges of the blanket before drifting to the back of her head, finding purchase in her hair, his fingers entangled in her wavy tresses, his own hair falling in his eyes and shading everything. His wife panted for breath, her body reacting to his touch, moving in sync with his movements.

For a moment, he stayed over his wife, his arms trembling slightly. He raked his hand down her thigh gently, feeling her tremble as his touch left a static frenzy in their wake, as he leaned down and kissed her gently.

"Love me, Rem?" she whispered, with a smile forming on her face that he can't help but smile back at and return lovingly.

"Always," he promised lovingly, leaning down to kiss her again. "I wouldn't have it any other way. I'll always love you. Until the world ends, and after."

And that, Tonks, supposed as she nestled her head into the crook of his chest as she felt Lupin pull the second spare blanket over top of them as she closed her eyes, listening to the slow rhythmic beating of his heart…that was good enough for her.