So sorry about how long it took to update. It's been so hot here that to sit in front of the computer, which radiates heat, made me feel sick. This chapter is basically just fluff. The ooey gooey kind. Like what's in the middle of a fresh baked brownie.

"Well, here you are," Mrs. Ogden smiled as she unlocked the cottage and stepped inside. "Mr. Tonks said you'd be staying for three days?"

She looked at the young couple behind her expectantly. The young woman was looking around the airy room avidly and it was her husband that answered in the affirmative.

"I think you'll find it very peaceful out here. Mr. Tonks and his partner always say they do." She said studying them. Mrs. Ogden was a great people studier and had always been so since she was a young girl.

She remembered meeting the young woman many years earlier when she had come with her Uncle to the cabin. She had just been entering teenage hood then and had caused quiet a ruckus when she poured some kind of green slime over her older cousins head as she was snogging her boyfriend behind the cottage.

She seemed more sedate now, but perhaps she was still reeling from the idea that she was now married. Mrs. Ogden knew that feeling well, having been married twice.

Well she certainly did well for herself, she thought as she handed the key to the husband. He certainly is a handsome looking fellow.

"All the linens are fresh and I've aired out all the rooms for you. If you need anything at all, don't hesitate to come ask me."

"Thank you, we will."

Mrs. Ogden beamed, "Well, I'll just leave you to settle in, shall I?"

Without waiting for an answer she exited the cottage leaving them alone.

"It smells very flowery in here." Nymphadora commented as the door closed behind Mrs. Ogden.

"I suppose that's what she meant about airing it out." Remus replied. Dora turned to beam at him.

"So," she said, her Grey eyes twinkling, "should we go check out the bedroom?" she raised a brow suggestively and Remus raised one in return.

"Aren't we forgetting something?"

She now looked confused. "What?"

"Well I was under the impression that I was supposed to carry you over the threshold. Unless we're disregarding all tradition."

She seemed to be considering it for a moment and her eyes swept over to the doorway that led to the master bedroom.

"Yes, well I suppose we could that," she said only a little begrudgingly. She was very eager to get the honeymoon started.

Remus shook his head, a smile teasing his lips. Tonks expecting him to open the door to the cottage and sweep her up there was surprised and somewhat unprepared when she suddenly found herself being carried toward the bedroom. She wrapped her arms around his neck, afraid that she would somehow cause him to drop her. "What're you doing?"

"Carrying you over the threshold," he said simply as he pushed the door to the bedroom open. "You didn't actually think that I was going to make us go back outside did you?"

They entered the room and he sat her gently on the bed, which was clothed in soft cream coloured linens.

Kneeling in front of her he carefully pulled her right shoe off. "How's the foot?"

Tonks laughed lightly. "It'll survive. I don't think Moody, alcohol and Dancing really mix well though. Although it was funny to see him jitterbugging with my mum."

Remus touched the bruise that was forming, putting the barest pressure on it. "Well, it was better than at Lily and James's wedding when he two stepped with McGonagall." He took the other shoe off.

He looked up at her pensively then. "It doesn't upset you-" he started to ask worriedly before she interjected by taking his hand and kissing the palm of it.

"That we didn't have a lot of people there?" she finished for him. "No. We had the people who are important to us and I really couldn't ask for more than that." She paused, a sad light coming into her bright eyes. "Well maybe I could, for you at least."

He reached up with his free hand and softly caressed her cheek. He knew what she meant, but for the first time in eight months he found that he did not want to think of his lost friends. Not in this moment and time. For once, even if it was only to be fleeting, he wanted nothing to exist except them.

"What's that look?" she asked as he rose slightly so there was a bare inch between their faces.

Remus shook his head and leaned in to brush his lips over hers. "Just admiring you."

He deepened the kiss, feeling her lips curve slightly at his admission. As the embrace intensified, she sunk back gently pulling him with her until they were both on the bed. Lacing his fingers through her soft hair he turned his ministrations to place a lingering trail of kisses on her neck, causing her to sigh.

"Well, then," she said breathlessly in to his ear causing a slight shiver to go down his spine. "If you don't mind I'd like to admire you for a while." Her hands snaked up the front of his shirt as she spoke and she nibbled softly on the skin over his collarbone.

They had slowly moved until they were fully on the bed, both their shirts now discarded somewhere along the way and with a strength that one would not think such a small woman would posses, she pushed him back until she was straddling him.

They gazed at each other for a moment, neither one speaking, simply just staring into the other eyes.

"I Love you," Tonks said, although she didn't need to. The look in her eyes said everything.

Remus pulled her down until their bodies were flush. "As I love you."

"Mrs. Lupin." Tonks gazed at her reflection in the lavatory mirror and shook her tousle haired head. It makes me sound too old, she thought. No wonder Sarah never wanted to be called that if she could help it.

"Nymphadora Lupin," she said slowly, but again she didn't quite like it. It was close, but still didn't seem to be what she wanted. Maybe I should just leave it till I'm more awake she mused.

Currently it was just after five in the morning. Outside it was storming, loud claps of thunder echoing. It had woken her, but Remus continued to sleep. Sometimes she thought he could sleep through anything.

Pursing her lips, she drummed her fingers on the rim of the sink. "Dora Lupin."She smiled slightly, but again rejected it. She wanted no one but Remus and her parents using that moniker.

"Nymphadora Tonks-Lupin." It seemed to roll off her tongue. Yes, she decided glancing at her reflection once more and unconsciously pushing down her hair, I think I rather like it. Of course at work she would still go by her maiden name, it would save a lot of questioning.

As Tonks reentered the bedroom, a flash of lightning illuminated it briefly. She couldn't help smiling when she saw Remus. In lee of her presences he seemed to have stolen her pillow and taken the opportunity to stretch his legs out into the middle of the bed. It reminded her of when she had teased that she wasn't a bed hog years ago when he had been reluctant to share a bed with her. She had since learned that it was in fact he who was the bed hog.

Not that she minded, really. A good shove in the side usually remedied the situation.

Not feeling the least bit tired, she never the less shoved his long legs over and climbed back into the large bed, lying on her side so that she could see his face.

Cally had told her once that men found it very disconcerting and a bit stalkerish to find a woman watching them sleep. She said she had tried it with Mark once to see if it was true and he had woken to demand if there was something on his face.

She didn't know if Remus knew that she sometimes watched him;she supposed he probably did. She didn't do it very often. But when it was still too early to rise and she couldn't sleep she would find her eyes tracing the lines at the corner of his eyes, the slight turn of his lips when he was sleeping well, the way that even in slumber his fringe still managed to fall over his eyes. When he slept he was vulnerable, all masks he put up gone.

As if sensing her gaze Remus's eyes opened, the sleepy haze making the gold flecks stand out more. "What's that look?" he echoed her earlier question, his hoarse voice soft.

"Did you know that there was a lot of girls that were jealous when we first started going out?" she asked instead of answering.

Her question was returned with a skeptical look. She laughed softly and kissed his nose. "It's true. Hattie Callaghan used to give me the dirtiest looks, she quiet fancied you."

He now looked confused.

"I'm just trying to remember who she is, I don't think we ever met, although she might be the one that Sirius referred to as Hattie with the legs. Or maybe it was Hattie with the eyes?" he shook his head. "She didn't really?"

"What, thinking of leaving me for Hattie Callaghan? I'm pretty sure she's married with three little nudgers by now." She said with mock irritation.

"Are we really having this conversation?" he raised a brow.

She smirked, "Yes, Mr. Lupin I believe we are." Her expression softened then, "I was just thinking, before you woke up, that it was just sinking in."

"What?" he wrapped his arm around her and she snuggled in closer.

"The fact that I get to be with you for the rest of my life."

"I know what you mean." He said after a few moments. "I never thought that you would actually ever want to be with me. I used to think that one day you would realize that you could do better."

"I don't really think I can." Thunder echoed again as she spoke but Remus had no trouble hearing her.

"No one else would put up with my eccentrics as well as you do. Honestly if I couldn't be with you I wouldn't be with anyone. " She was being very frank, more so than usual. She had never shared this particular feeling with him before, but in this moment they both felt secure. She wished that it would always be so, but knew that it wouldn't. Their lives didn't allow for that.

Remus didn't say anything, simply titled her face upward so he could kiss her softly. She knew he was saying that he felt the same way though.

"So if something happened to me, what you're saying is that you'd pine after me for the rest of your life?" he asked lightly a few minutes later.

Tonks laughed and settled her head on his chest. She could here his heart beating a steady rhythm. "Basically yes. Of course with my job, it's more likely something will happen to me, in which case I expect you to do the proper amount of Pining, say fifty years."

He chuckled. "Of course."

"I think I've done enough pining for a long time though. I mean there was the four years when you remained obtuse to the fact that I had a mad crush on you, and then there was the year we were broken up and then the four months that you were gone, so that's almost six years. I think we're good for a while yet." She said seriously, although he could tell that she wasn't.

"Well you have two years on me. So that' almost eight between us."

"Really?" she had always wondered when he had first started to like her in a way other than just friendly. If Sirius was to be believed it had gone on for a while.

He nodded and she raised a brow expectantly, looking up at him. He returned the look.

"Well?"

"Well what?"

She huffed, "You can't just throw that out there and nothing else. I want details! You know that I fancied you pretty much right from the moment we met, even if it was only a slight infatuation. Even after all these years I have no idea when it was for you!"

He seemed to be fighting the urge to laugh. She continued to stare at him in mock exasperation, waiting. Finally he sighed, although he was smiling.

"Honestly? Do you remember the day that we met under the tree and it was raining?"

"The day that I said you could call me Dora." She supplied. Again he nodded.

"You had just been asked out by Michael Collegian and weren't sure whether to accept."

"And you told me to," she said slowly. "Wait a tic, if you liked me then, then why didn't you ask me out?"

The look he gave her said it all.

"Never mind, I know why. So that was when?"

"It hit me when you were rambling on, talking a mile a minute about whether you should or shouldn't accept. I found myself wanting to tell you not to accept. In fact, if Peter hadn't come along then I might have acted against my better judgment for once and done so. But I think if I had, we wouldn't be here now."

She found that she couldn't disagree. "We probably would have broken up very quickly." She agreed. It had been after she found out about Remus's condition that her feelings had intensified. Before then it had still been a schoolgirl crush, and despite counting him amongst her closest friends she hadn't really known him. Not until that summer.

"Well I'm glad you didn't say anything then. I can't imagine myself without you, you know."

He kissed her forehead, "I do."