Sometimes it felt like half a life. It was so hard to get a job, which meant no money and no new things, which made you look dirty and cheap and then you were unwanted in society anyway. It was a vicious cycle. Take one thing out and it stops everything else, breaking everything down slowly until all you do to spend your day was read and muse upon the world, slowly getting more and more depressed?
He couldn't drag anyone down into this life, and that's what he was doing to her, it broke his heart, especially how she couldn't understand that it was truly that way. It made it all that more harder to leave her, especially when she wouldn't let him.
"I don't care, Remus. I love you...you love me, right? That's all that matters." And then she'd sit in his lap, so light with her young weight and kiss his cheek after ruffling his hair playfully.
It was a hard life, but that's not what bothered him. When he had been younger it was the injustice of it all which had hurt him the most, how society could be so stupid...so ignorant! It was just unfair how he could be ostracised for something that he couldn't help, but he could control. If he wasn't a danger to anyone, why did it matter? Couldn't they see that it was society pushing them away which created the werewolves who hated the pure humans and attacked them?
No...what really hurt Remus now was that he couldn't live a normal life. And in turn, never could his precious Nymphadora. Neither could his friends, all through high school and then life…although it had helped Sirius when he had been in hiding...something which had seemed like a bad thing at the time.
"Don't mope about it..." Tonks pleaded, knowing instantly he was down when she arrived home from work (finally). The days seemed so long without her. "Forget that silly 'tradition', in so many homes the woman stays home and the man brings in the pay packet. So it's reversed in this house, who cares?"
"It's not that...exactly...I want to work, that's it. And I want to be able to buy you nice things...I want to live, 'Dora."
"You can." Tonks kissed his cheek gently, sitting beside him as he took one of her hands between hers and rubbed it to get it warm from the outside chill. "When we have our child you'll be busy...you'll have your life then." She smiled as she rested her other hand on her slightly bulging stomach.
Remus couldn't have been happier when he had heard their news, but at the same time he couldn't help hating it, just a bit, as well.
"I'm...not human..." he murmured. "And I could never be good enough for our precious child. He or she will never have a full father to look up to...is that any life for a child? A half life?" he paused. "I'm not human, Dora..."