Disclaimer:see previous chapter. this was a hard chapter for me to write, i hate angst, but it had to be done. don't hate me too much.

Tonks was sitting on her bed, trying to figure out if she really needed to take another pair of socks or if she could get away with the 50 pairs her mother insisted she take with her to school. You'd think I was a child or something; she mused as she stared in to her half empty trunk. She really should get all her stuff together or she would be running around the next morning like a lunatic trying to get everything she needed and her mum would have that I told you so look on her face. Yes, she should definitely get a move on.

"Dora! Remus is here!"

It can wait, she thought, throwing her socks over her shoulder and hastening out of the room after making sure her shirt and pedal pushers were in order.

When she reached the landing her parents were standing talking to Remus. Andromeda frowned when she saw her daughter was wearing her boots, completely disregarding the rest of her outfit but she refrained form saying anything. Her hair though... no she'd let that be for now too.

"I wasn't expecting you." Tonks said, smiling. Remus returned the smile, but she noticed he seemed strained, and his eyes were guarded like they hadn't been for a long time.

"I don't have long, I wanted to see you though before you left. Do you mind if we go for a walk?"

Tonks could feel something was wrong even as she assented and they left her house. The sun was setting, painting the sky pink and red. Usually the colours comforted her, Twilight was her favourite time of day, but now it just made her feel ill. She didn't even reach out to take his hand like she usually would, feeling irrationally that it would burn if she did. She did not miss the fact that he didn't reach for her either.

They walked until they reached the park that they had apparated into the night that Remus's parents had been killed. He stopped walking after awhile and simply stood there looking at the sky. They had been silent the whole time and even now they remained thus. Tonks watched him as he looked up at the sky as if he wasn't really seeing it. They were standing close together, yet it felt like a distance was developing between them, one that radiated from him, pushing her away.

Gently she touched his shoulder, but when he finally looked at her she pulled away. Looking into those eyes that she had loved since first seeing them, she knew. And the knowledge slowly began eating at her.

"What's up?" she asked trying to infuse lightness into her voice. She wasn't all that sure she had succeeded. "You've got that brooding look again."

Remus didn't smile like he usually would, he simply sighed and ran a hand through his hair.

"I've been thinking. A lot recently actually."

"About what?" she asked warily.

He looked at the sky again. "About when we first met, how fragile you seemed. How strong you really are. You have a certain quality that is hard to express in words. Moody says its spunk, but that doesn't seem to really cover it." He still stared up at the sky as if he was unaware of her piercing gaze on him.

"You're strong too." She said softly.

He shook his head. "No, I'm not. Not like you. I try not to be afraid you know, I know it won't get me anywhere, just as I know there is no use in pretending."

He looked at her now and for just a moment she saw a vulnerability in his eyes, a wave of emotion that was begging to be let free. Then it was gone and it was like he had put a wall between them. Involuntarily Tonks wrapped her arms around herself as if for warmth even though the evening was still rather hot.

"What're you saying?" It came out in a small voice and she wanted to kick herself for sounding like a child.

"I'm saying that because I know that you are strong you can handle the truth. We've been living a lie Dora, a fantasy that I wanted so badly to believe. But it's time to stop pretending. I love you more than I ever thought would be possible. You've made the past three years the best of my life, and I'll always be grateful for that."

"No." she interjected her eyes prickling. "You can't do this Remus. Please."

Remus didn't seem to here her. "I have to leave Dora, I have to go away and there is a good chance I will not be coming back. I can't put you through what you'll have to go through if you stayed with me. Even if I did come back what kind of life would we have? I can never marry you; I could never ask you to subject yourself to a life on the fringes of society. It's better this way."

"Better?" she gasped wanting to grab him and shake some sense into him. "How is it better?! I love you. And you just told me not even a minute ago that you loved me. How is being apart from the person you love most make sense? How is that justifiable when you have a choice?"

She wanted him to get angry to show that this was hurting him as much as it was her, but he remained impassive.

"Just because you love someone Nymphadora does not mean you should be with them. Life isn't like that. Some people don't deserve love, some people are meant to be alone. Sometimes when you love someone you have to let them go even if it hurts, because that is what's right for them."

He turned away then. "You're young and I know you'll find happiness Dora, you have your whole life ahead of you. I won't be the one to hold you back. Goodbye, Nymphadora."

He began to walk away and she stood there stunned. What had just happened?

"Remus!" she called desperately. "Don't do this. Don't walk away from me! Please." She added quietly. "Don't leave me."

But he neither turned nor seemed to here her, even though she knew he could. He simply walked to the street and disapparated with a single pop.

Tonks sank on to a near by bench and held herself for what seemed like eons. Why did this happen? She kept asking herself. What did I do that was so wrong that he has to leave me? All her old insecurities came crashing down on her. She was too obnoxious, too fat, too imperfect, too everything. She wasn't enough for him. But even as these thoughts pushed there way into her head she knew that he felt these insecurities too. Not the same ones, but demons of his own. She knew that he had never thought she was imperfect, never thought she wasn't enough. It was just her mind being silly.

No, he thought he wasn't enough for her, hadn't Sirius warned her that this might happen? But, Merlin she had begun to hope that he was wrong. Hadn't three years shown him that she really did love him? She knew that he loved her, it was in his eyes, the way he would say her name, the gentleness of his touch. The way that he would kiss her giving her all of him and asking for nothing in return.

And where was he going that he might not come back? Was it for the Order? It must be, she surmised as she watched the stars come out. But where?

As she sat there feeling as if her heart had been ripped out of her chest, stomped on and put back in repaired shoddily with duct tape, a resolve came over her. She would not give up on him. She had every faith that he would come back from where ever he was going, despite his fears, and that he would come back to her. She would wait, even if it would be the hardest most painful thing she ever had to do. She would not let Remus Lupin go.

Because she knew that they belonged together, knew that she loved him whole-heartedly. She knew that despite his fears, and apparent lack of emotion that he needed her. That he loved her.

It was this thought that helped her get up the next morning even though she felt like curling into a ball and hiding in her bed. It helped her kiss her worried looking parents goodbye and get on the train. It made it easier to listen to Cally prattle on about how Mark Finnegan kept owling her and how she was sure that he wanted to ask her out even though he was rumored to be dating a chaser from the Harpies.

It helped her to accept her friends pitying look when she told her that Remus had broken up with her.

I will get through this, she kept telling herself. It was something that she began telling herself everyday, it was the only way she could get through not knowing what was happening to him.

There will be another chapter very soon. I don't want to leave them on the isle of heartbreak, i don't like leaving things like that. so update soon.