AN: if it's okay, I'd like to plan on adding in bits of the epilogue plot line in every few chapters or so. I'm hoping to be posing more often in general. Hope you're all staying safe.

Tonks wasn't answering the door.

"Nymphadora! You better no' be dead in there!" Dwight called. No reply. He cautiously looked in the front window to see if anyone was visible. Of course, it looked like no one was home. She wasn't dumb enough to let her house be unlocked with Alohamora, but he knew where her spare key was in case of emergencies.

The house was cryptically quiet and all of the lights were off, which only made the entire situation more worrisome. Dwight drew his wand and walked as silently as he could through the hall. Even if things were a little blurry, he knew how to make himself composed, how to be as still and alert like an auror. He kept his eyes open for any sign of life. One bedroom door was open.

"Hello?" A voice came out of it.

"Tonks?" Dwight sighed with relief. "Though' you migh' be dead in here."

Tonks was lying flat on her stomach at the edge of the bed. She had dragged the cot up against the side of the bed so that she could slip her hand through the bar. A tiny baby was swaddled in the middle of the bed, his fist clutching her finger in a fist. "I thought I was supposed to be on mandatory leave."

"Yeah, but I hadn't heard anythin' since you left the hospital." He murmured. "How's the kiddo?"

"Good." Tonks replied.

Dwight sat down on the edge of the bed. "He got his daddy's eyes?"

She shrugged. "Maybe. Too hard to tell. They're a little dark though, so they'll probably turn brown."

"An' his hair?"

"Very blonde. I wasn't expecting that, but that'll probably darken eventually too. It's funny that I didn't get another metamorphmagus. He's just a perfectly normal kid." Tonks turned her head to get a good look at the man. He was still in his navy blue robes. "What, did you decide to come visit me on your lunch break or something?"

Dwight chuckled and shrugged. "I 'ad ta see how you were holdin' up. It was that or jus' goin' home."

Tonks turned back to the baby. "Well I hope you found your answer."

"Are you hurting? Do you need painkillers or somethin'?" He offered, his hand grazing across her back.

"No, I just want to sleep, but I can't. I can't make myself fall asleep." Tonks sighed. "I don't want to be alone anymore. This place feels way too big for me. Teddy comes by sometimes to see the baby, but then it gets all quiet again. It's killing me to be here."

"Hmm."

"He's so quiet. I think he's going to be a good baby. Just like his brother." She withdrew her hand, wrapping her arms around herself, her eyes squeezing shut. "Quick question, what exactly was your plan? Strolling into my home armed like that?"

"What was your plan? Ya didn' even draw yer wand." Dwight smirked.

"I thought it had to either be you or Harry or Teddy." She remarked. Tonks lifted her head. "Do you have to leave soon?"

"Hmm?" Dwight said. "Nah, I don' think so."

"Then kick your shoes off." She said hoarsely, sitting completely up.

"What did ya say?" Dwight leaned over to hear better. She didn't respond. She simply leaned forward and threw her arms around him.

"Don't leave. Please don't leave me here." Tonks said firmly. "I just... I need someone. I need to be with someone, I can't keep being alone like this."

"I'm... I'm sorry that this is happenin' to you. Here, know what," Dwight kicked off his shoes and his outer robes. She stayed close to his chest and he laid her down in his arms. His fingers brushed through her hair. "Ya just... need a warm body in yer bed. I know how ya feel."

Tonks squeezed around his middle harder. "It's not supposed to be you, you know." She mumbled, barely audible. "I just want Remus back. I can't keep going to bed every night thinking about how he's not here. It's giving me nightmares all over again... I keep hearing his voice, but he's always too far away... he's always yelling at me, it's making me afraid..."

"So you want me to be him for a li'l bit." Dwight cleared his throat.

She groaned, still buried in his chest. "No, I don't. You can't be him. You don't even smell like him. You smell like..." Her chin turned up towards his face, her eyes squinting. "Cinnamon." She hid her face once more. "And you wear too much cologne. It doesn't hide anything when you still smell like... cinnamon."

"Seriously, do ya need help wi' anythin' aroun' here?" He asked, still holding her tightly. "Lena'll be on break for Christmas soon. Teddy and his girl'll probably be at their place snoggin' each others' faces off. But I can still help with a load of laundry or make ya some food."

"You can't cook for shit." Tonks teased. "And your house is a mess, I'm not going to have you clean mine."

"Then I can wash a few bottles if ya need 'em."

"I might take you up on that." She yawned. Just as both of them got comfortable on the bed, Henry coughed from his cot beside the bed and let out a whine. "Hang on, darling, I've got you." Tonks promised. She pulled herself up. Dwight was particularly worried that she might be slow to respond to him. "Goodness, that was quite a bit of fuss over nothing. You've already eaten, and I know I already changed you. I think you just want to be held, don't you? Here, Dwight, do you... want to hold him?"

Dwight nodded rigidly, sitting up to get a better look at the baby. "Yeah, alright."

"And this wasn't even as small as he was when he was born." She said lightly. Henry had wiggled out of his swaddling again. He made a tiny protest as she picked him up. "When you came to see me in the hospital, I didn't actually think you'd stick it through for me."

"Oh please, I've seen people ge' blown up ta bits befor' you were even born."

Tonks rolled her eyes. "No you didn't."

"Geez, well I'd rather take crucio o'er whatever that was that you did." He was stiff and unmoving as she handed him the baby. "Ya know, I didn' realize they made 'em this small."

"Elena was half this size when you got to hold her." Tonks said reassuringly, sitting down on the bed beside him, wrapping her arms around his upper arm. She closed her eyes and buried her face in his shoulder.

"His brother 'n' sister'll be good to him." Dwight nodded. "He'll be a good kid. Jus' fine, even withou' his daddy aroun'."

"You think?" Tonks said. She moved his hand over. "You have to support his head really good or he'll get floppy."

"Did I hurt 'im?" Dwight said worriedly.

"Nah. They're pretty tough, you just have to watch their heads."

A smile spread across his face. "Hey Tonks, 'ave you e'er dropped any o' them?"

"Like on accident?"

"No, on purpose." Dwight teased.

She chuckled, still hiding her face. "Let's see, Remus almost dropped Ted coming down the stairs one time. I was pretty good about keeping them in one piece, I think. I kept a pretty good grip on them most of the time."

"Tha's pretty shit of you." He elbowed her.

"I'm not gonna drop this one!"

"Yeah, ya only say tha' now." Dwight sighed.

"Am not!" She elbowed him back.

xxxxx

The auror office was turning into a nightmare. Things always ramped up around Christmas time and it felt like none of them even had time to sit down.

"Mum?" Elena remarked, sticking her head in her mother's office. "Huh. She must be busy." The girl walked over to desk and made herself at home.

Delphi was slowly walking behind her, carefully taking everything in. "Damn, this place is bigger than anything I could've imagined..." She said to herself, still turning to look at things on the walls. She found something interesting on the desk opposite of the one Elena was sitting at. "Wow, look," She held up a picture frame. "Is this...?"

Elena leaned over the desk to get a closer look. "Oh yeah. That's my godfather, Harry. He shares the office with my mum. That's him and his two boys, Albus and James, at a Holyhead Harpies' game last summer." Delphi cocked her head, examining the photo intensely.

"Is it ever weird? Having a celebrity in your family?" Delphi's voice was cold and curious.

Elena shrugged. "Maybe? I dunno. I literally only remember when we're out Christmas shopping or something and someone takes a picture of us."

"Must be awkward." Delphi scoffed. "You um... you know, with aurors around you all the time. No wonder, I mean... no offense, but I'm not super comfortable here."

"I don't get it. What are you asking me?" Elena said quietly.

"I dunno, I mean, isn't it weird hanging out with your mum when she has her badge on or something? Like... do people ever say anything?"

"Not usually, erm..." Elena was playing with her hair. "I still don't get what you're saying. Say something like what?"

"Well, you know, like the A3B movement? Or something about auror brutality? Haven't you read about that stuff in the Prophet?" The other girl pried.

"I mean, sure, I've heard of that, but like..." Elena was shifting uncomfortably. "My mum hasn't killed anyone like that, she's not violent, I don't think. I've never heard anything about that kind of stuff happening around here. Not recently or anything."

"I dunno." Delphi sighed. "I don't trust aurors."

The door swung open to a loud bang. "...Harry, I'm telling you right now, I don't want that... thing, and I don't want that thing anywhere near me. Take it up to Hermione." Tonks exclaimed, sliding through the door and throwing files down on the desk in front of her daughter with another auror at her side. She abruptly looked up at her. "Elena?"

"Hi, Mum." Elena frowned, tilting her head. "You're looking rough."

Tonks winced. "Oh why thank you Elena."

"I just meant that it looks super busy." Her daughter said sourly. "Did you forget that I was coming home today?"

"No." Tonks replied, equally as frigid. "Your brother was meant to pick you up from the station."

"Well he didn't." Her daughter quipped. "Delphi can apperate, so she brought me. I just came to see you. I can't visit my mum?"

Tonks turned to the other girl and was seemingly fixated on her face. "I haven't met you, have I?"

Delphi shrugged. "Nope."

"You guys are friends?" Tonks asked. She turned back to her work, looking through papers on her desk.

"Uh, yeah. Don't you read my letters?" Elena scoffed. She bent her head down to look her mother in the eye.

"What? Do you need money or something? We're really busy right now." Tonks said irately. "I'm going to need you two to clear out."

"Um-" Elena stared at her. "Not even a hello? This is the first thing you say to me? We can't even talk? We're not going to bring up the elephant in the room?"

Tonks huffed. "What? The baby?"

"So we're just not going to talk about it." Elena crossed her arms across her chest.

"He's with your brother." Tonks tilted her head challenging. "Which means I don't know where he is right now because he was supposed to be with you."

The two were caught in a staring contest. "Fine." Elena said, slowly standing up. "See you at dinner. You know, if you plan on showing up anyways." She got to her slowly. "Come on, we better go."

xxxxx

"Teddy, I'm sure she's fine." Victoire coaxed. "Please sit down, you're going to give yourself a stroke over this."

Teddy's hair had become a worried brown colour as he paced his living room. His brother had managed to sleep through the entire trip to and from London, but decided to wake up and cry as soon as they came home. Victoire couldn't get him to calm back down, but Teddy's frantic pacing did it. He was growing a permanent furrow in his brow and his hair was subconsciously changing between colours. "Mum's going to kill me when she gets home."

Victoire hook her head. "She knows how erratic your sister can be, I'm sure she'll understand. I mean, you waited for two hours and she was supposed to look for you and you had the baby with you and..." She tried to rationalize. "This isn't your fault, Teddy."

"Mum's going to have to fill out a missing persons report, and-and what if I was supposed to report her as soon as she went missing? That was hours ago!" Teddy exclaimed. He adjusted the baby onto his shoulder. "Oh my god, what if someone took her?"

"Teddy, I'm sure no one would take her." Victoire reassured. "I'm sure... look, it would be more like her to have run off somewhere and not told you. Maybe she didn't even get on the train? Maybe she flaked at the last minute."

His eyes kept checking between the front door and the side window, waiting for an owl to come with a message. She wasn't at Shell Cottage, she wasn't at Grimmauld or at the Burrow... where else could she have gone? He had sent the owl to Hogwarts to see if she was still there. Teddy shook his head. "I don't know. I don't know. I don't know!" He said. "What if something bad happens to her? I can't help her. She can't even use magic!"

"She can, if she's really in danger."

"I just can't stop imagining that she's in a trunk somewhere or in someone's basement." Teddy said.

"Teddy, I'm sure..." Victoire was searching for something to tell him to make him feel better. "You know she's going to ignore you if she's upset about something. This is a lot for her right now. Maybe she knows that you'll worry about her and that's all she wants."

Teddy looked around. "I just wish mum would hurry up, she would know whether or not this is serious."

"Teddy, you know your sister can be..."

"She can be really stupid sometimes?" He finished. Victorie stood up and stopped him from pacing, placing her hand on the baby's head, frowning. "God, she could be in someone's basement somewhere, she could be dead somewhere or drinking or something..."

"Or she could be pissed over nothing, sitting in her dorm, already asleep and ignoring you on accident." Victoire reminded him. She pushed herself up onto her toes, kissing her fiance. "You know how she is. She's probably fine. You're doing exactly what you need to do and we're going to find her safe. You had to come home and it's okay. You're being a good big brother."

Teddy took a deep breath. "I... look, I'll be honest with you, I don't know where Elena draws the line."

Victoire shook her head. "Hmm?"

"What I'm saying..." Teddy lowered his voice. "Lena can be a wildcard sometimes, but you don't think she would do anything... over the line? I mean, I've watched her get drunk, I've probably enabled her to do a few things, and she can cause trouble, but like... she's never talked about doing things that are like... extremely dangerous? Like..."

"Like?" Victoire pressed.

"Messing with the wrong people and getting herself hurt."

"She's not that stupid, Teddy." She replied, stroking the side of his face. "She can handle herself enough."