Filling Moody in on what had happened proved less of an ordeal than Remus had initially feared. It put Moody into a towering rage, but thankfully it was all aimed at the proper parties. There was only one minor argument, when Moody decided that any further investigation into Boskin's death wasn't worth the time and energy.

"It's a dead end, lass, and I'm sorry for that. He came to the attention of the wrong people, the very people we're trying to find anyway. You want justice. We all do. The best way to see justice done is to fight smart and focus what manpower we have on the bigger picture."

To say that Tonks looked unhappy about it was a gross understatement, but she stopped arguing. Shortly after, Moody left on another errand, and Tonks excused herself and got up from the kitchen table. Remus didn't like the look on her face, a worrying mixture of misery and exhaustion. The very fact that she wasn't hiding it worried him more.

To his astonishment, she Apparated away.

He shot out of his seat at the kitchen table and, ignoring the confused look from Sirius, Apparated himself to the hallway outside her room just in time to hear a thump inside. He rushed in to find her on the floor by the bed. A small trickle of blood started to run from a cut on her forehead where she'd hit the corner of the bed frame.

Good sense once again deserted him in a rush of fear and fury.

"What the hell were you thinking?!"

"Stop shouting at me," she gasped, trying to push herself up. "You're always shouting at me."

"Stop doing idiotic things like that and I'll stop shouting at you!"

Her attempts to get herself up muddled his own attempt to help, and with a frustrated grunt he bent and scooped her up, staggering a step before depositing her on the bed even as she swore at him.

"I'm not a child, Remus!" She pushed his hands away.

"You're right, a child probably has more sense!"

"Shut. Up." She curled herself up on her side with a little hiss of pain. "I had a perfectly good reason for Apparating instead of climbing up all those bloody stairs, which I would explain if you would stop acting like my father for two seconds together!"

That barb struck home. "Well, seeing as how I'm practically old enough to be your father-"

"Oh, for God's sake, you complete and utter twat, will you just stop!"

It was the thready note in her voice more than the words themselves that made him bite back further argument.

He pulled out his wand. "Hold still a minute, I'll take care of that," he said, pointing at the small gash on her head.

She reached up and seemed surprised when her fingertips encountered blood. "Oh."

He took his anger and throttled it down as he gently pushed her hand out of the way.

"Hrm," he frowned after casting the healing spell.

"What's wrong?"

"The wound isn't closing properly. Hold on."

He cast it again. Only after a third attempt did the edges of the cut knit together, leaving a half-healed scab. "That's...strange. I'm not much of a healer, but that should have taken care of it the first time."

"Don't worry about it, it'll heal on its own."

He reached out and gently touched the wound with a finger. Just that small pressure split the very edge on one side and a tiny bead of blood appeared.

"Remus, you're tired. I'm tired. Just leave it alone," Tonks leaned away from his hand. "I'll be fine."

He sat down beside her, tired and worried and wondering why she kept avoiding any discussion on her health. "You're determined to give me a heart attack, aren't you?"

"Yes, that was my intention all along," she retorted. "Maybe try not to get your knickers in a twist every time I get hurt."

"I do not get-" He took a deep breath and reached for calm. "All I'm saying is that you don't have to actively seek out situations where you end up bleeding on the floor."

"I'm going to punch you so hard as soon as I'm stronger, I swear," she muttered. With a groan, she pushed herself up to sitting. "Self-awareness is a beautiful thing, you should try it sometime. You do get upset. I'm not sure where this overprotective thing you've got going on came from, but tone it down a little. I get hurt all the time. I'm an Auror, it's practically in the job description! And I get hurt even when I'm not on the job, in case you forgot about my amazing ability to trip over thin air. I didn't fall just now because I fainted. I'm just clumsy."

"I'm not being overprotective!" The objection rose to his lips even as Remus recognized how ridiculous it was. He was. Wasn't that his whole reason for avoiding her in the first place? An intention, he had to admit, which seemed further and further out of reach the more time he spent with her.

"Right. I suppose you lose your shit every time Kingsley gets hurt. Always yelling at anyone who does something dangerous. It's not like you have a reputation for being the calm, rational voice in the Order." Her voice dripped sarcasm.

However true the accusation was, her tone put his back up again. "I'm not going to apologize for trying to keep you from killing yourself! You take too many risks!"

"What, are you going to follow me around every minute of the day? Shadow me at work? Wrap me up in cotton wool? Do you really think I'm that incompetent? How do you think I got my job? I didn't sleep my way into the position, no matter what people say."

That took him aback. "Wait, what? Who said that? Did someone-"

"I'm a decent-looking young woman. There was always going to be some low-minded twat who thought that," she rolled her eyes. "Like I care. I earned my place and they know it. That's not the point. I don't need you to be my white knight, remember? I'm not some princess in a tower. I'm the white knight."

A quiet growl filled the back of his mind, and his hold on his emotions slipped a little further. "I'm not saying you're incompetent, I'm saying you're still recovering and you're pushing yourself too hard! Look at what happened today! What if I hadn't been there?"

"You asked me, in case you'd forgotten! And what if I hadn't been there? Who's to say they wouldn't have gotten the jump on you if you'd gone alone? Nothing went wrong. The only issue was whether or not I could Apparate without passing out, which I did! And another two times since then!"

"Barely!"

The problem was, he didn't really have a point, did he? He was arguing from a gut reaction to seeing her collapse. To pulling her from yet another burning building. To holding her while she was in too much pain to speak. To watching her throw herself at danger over and over again. It wasn't Tonks that he was angry with, not really, but how could she not see? It was infuriating how little she cared about her own welfare.

This argument was as pointless as the others. They were both reacting to the terrible events of the morning and given their history, he knew should just leave, or at the very least shut his damned mouth and give them both a chance to calm down and process everything, but he couldn't. He needed to make her see.

He latched on to her own suggestion for lack of something concrete to throw back at her. "Can you honestly tell me that you're physically ready to go back to work?" he demanded.

"Yes!" she said, stonefaced, but her gaze unexpectedly broke away, and he knew she was lying.

He pressed his advantage. "You're not, and you know it. You're willing to endanger everyone around you just for the sake of...what? Your pride? They're going to be relying on you. You're not ready."

She recoiled as though he'd struck her. "Just watch me," she said through lips gone as bloodless as the rest of her face. "I've been told enough times in my life that I couldn't accomplish what I went after, and I proved them wrong every single time."

He was making a complete mess of this. "I'm not saying you can't do this at all, I'm just saying to wait!"

"I already told Moody that we can't afford for me to wait! Innocent people are dying out there!"

"Innocent people are going to die no matter what," he argued, putting some force into the words. "Nothing you can do is going to stop that. You can't save everyone-"

"I can still save some of them-"

"-and you can't save anyone if you're dead!"

The glare she leveled at him threatened to burn him to a cinder.

He scrubbed his hands through his hair, swearing. "You drive me insane."

"The feeling is entirely mutual," she muttered, drawing her legs up into her habitual pose of resting her head on her knees, turning her face away from him. "You're as bad as Molly. Worse. Leave me alone."

Watching her huddle into herself, he felt his inner turmoil subside a little, enough to see that they would butt heads over this until the end of time and he would never convince her. He'd accomplished nothing. If anything, he'd made her dig her heels in further.

"Please," he said quietly. "Ask Scrimgeour for more time."

"No."

"You don't have to be strong all the time!"

"No."

She turned back to him, her face radiating defiance, but underneath it was something else, a faint trembling of her arms and shoulders that made her defiance even more perplexing. What was she so afraid of?

Something told him that was one question he didn't dare ask. She was already shutting him out.

He sighed and stood. "I'll let you get some rest." As he reached the door, he turned to look back. She was still in the same position, curled into a tight ball. Her loneliness struck a chord inside him. Was this what his friends had faced, this impenetrable wall of fear and self-imposed loneliness?

He knew what James and Sirius would do, standing here. They would go back in and rally her somehow, start knocking those walls down. But that was never something Remus had known how to do. It had been done to him, and he would be grateful for it for the rest of his life. If only he knew how to return the favour.

But the thought of making a misstep, of making things worse, held him back. However wrong it felt to leave her here wrapped in her own misery, indecision and his own fears drove him out the door.

The moment the latch clicked shut, Tonks surged off the bed, stumbling and catching herself before she fell again. The physical and emotional toll of the morning was pressing down on her, but lunch had helped, and the adrenaline beginning to pound its way through her helped more.

Remus meant well. She recognized that. But if anyone found out what was wrong...she just couldn't let that happen. She'd get through this somehow. And if she wasn't strong enough yet, well…there were ways around that, weren't there?

She went to the door, locked it, and then stood biting her lip for a few minutes, solidifying the plan in her head. There was no way she was going to go off half-cocked at this point, not after everything Remus had said. She did take risks, he was right about that. What he got dead wrong was how she did it. Calculated risks, that was what made the difference.

Today had taught her something useful. Apparition might hurt, but it wore her down a lot less than physical exertion. So long as she Apparated somewhere where she could recover safely for a few minutes, then it shouldn't pose a problem.

This would be so much easier if she could Apparate out of Grimmauld. Having to use the front door made everything more complicated.

She shoved some money in her pocket, made sure her wand was secure, and Apparated down to the dining room. As she'd expected, it was empty, although it took a little while to appreciate that fact, as she braced herself, panting, on the edge of the table.

It took less time than before, though, and it seemed to her that it hurt less too. That was a cheering thought.

A quick peek out the door showed an empty hallway. No voices, no movement. She let herself out the front door, briefly cursing all the numerous locks, and then down the steps, a brisk walk to the alley, and…

The little iron bench along a side street near Diagon Alley appeared in front of her. It was sheer luck that she didn't fall and smash her face on the cobblestones, but she made the few steps to the bench and collapsed onto it, breathing hard.

Elation burned away the pain. She'd done it. No matter that the few wizards and witches passing by were giving her suspicious looks. Let them stare. Confidence, a sense of freedom and no small amount of relief surged through her, bolstering her waning energy.

Clouds were rolling in again, threatening rain again later this evening, but as Tonks stood and began making her way toward her destination, she thought of Boskin. He'd been fond of interesting cloud formations. He might feel, as she did now, breathing in the fresh air and feeling the sun on her face, that despite everything, there was still some beauty left in the day.

A/N: I hit some massive writer's block with this chapter. I'm still fairly unhappy with it, it didn't go where I wanted it to despite reworking it a number of times, but I didn't want to take any more time over it. My apologies if it falls flat.

Thank you as always to everyone who has read and reviewed! Hopefully the next chapter won't take so long.