A formal warning: This story will contain abuse, non-con/rape, death, dark themes, it will not contain graphic descriptions of such.

*****And I don't own HP, or the excerpts from the book/movie you see below*****

Short chapter, my apologies.

Remus felt terrible. The night Tonks had asked him to meet her, he still hadn't decided. After feeling the baby, he felt like he had to protect the two of them. However, he was still upset about what he had said to her.

Now, he was sure he really ruined his chance of fixing things. He hadn't been able to even entertain the idea of meeting with her when he still didn't know. However, as midnight passed, he began to realise slowly, he really wanted to return.

Once two rolled around, he realised he had managed to destroy his marriage.

She was right, he was a coward.

While he would have believed the baby would be better off with a father who wasn't a coward, the idea of Tonks ever moving on from him was something he didn't even want to entertain. He loved her, he hoped she still loved him.

A few days after he was meant to meet her, he went back to the house, but remained away until he knew Kingsley was gone. If Kingsley was there, things would not be easy.

Not that he expected Tonks to welcome him back immediately, she was probably very upset by the fact he hadn't shown up.

As soon as he saw Kingsley leave, he headed to the house. It felt appropriate to knock instead of simply entering. It wasn't his home anymore, not until she allowed it to be.

It wasn't Tonks who opened the door.

Instead, it was Sirius, and he didn't look too pleased to see Remus. "I'd ask you to prove yourself, but only the real Remus would be stupid enough to think he could show up here."

"Did she tell you?" Remus asked.

"It took a few days, but yes." Sirius said. "What's wrong with you?"

"A lot, apparently." Remus said. "Is Dora here?"

"Maybe."

"Sirius, I want to talk to her."

"No." Sirius said, crossing his arms. "She's been crying for two days. I may have caused it, but-"

"You caused it?" Remus demanded. "What did you do?"

"You never mind what I did." Sirius snapped. "I may have accidentally upset her, but she's been crying about you abandoning her. Kingsley's ready to go after you, he's really angry."

"Please let me talk to her."

"No."

"Let me talk to my wife, Sirius." Remus repeated.

Sirius straightened up, a clear sign he was ready to to do anything to keep Remus from entering the house. Remus had only seen Sirius behave this way once- back when Sirius had thought Remus was the spy and the two had argued, blaming each other. Three weeks later, James and Lily were dead.

Remus knew this wasn't going to work, so he left. The next day, he tried again, hoping perhaps Sirius and the trio had left again. They hadn't.

He tried everyday for a week, until he finally gave in and approached the house when Kingsley was there. As Sirius had said, Kingsley was very angry. Remus couldn't blame him.

Tonks really hated her mind sometimes.

She had been having issues getting comfortable at night every once in a while, and had taken the spare pillows from her bed(once Remus', now hers again) and had placed one between her knees and under her bump, the other behind her back. It helped, but then she always wondered why she felt like she was extremely big for the week of pregnancy she was in.

And, of course, her mind came to the worst conclusion- was she pregnant with twins? Could one be Remus', one be Rodolphus'? When she voiced this concern to Kingsley and Sirius, she realised it was a mistake. They were men, did they know much about this? Of course not, they just seemed confused. Kingsley, however, offered to contact Hestia to get her brother to come talk to Tonks.

When Leo arrived, he listened patiently to Tonks, and then he had said she really wasn't very big for this stage of pregnancy, and offered to do the gender reveal spell. If there were twins, two balls of colour would appear above her abdomen. If not, only one. She allowed it, but kept her eyes covered, because she still wanted it to be a surprise. Leo respected this, and only told her one ball of colour had appeared, but not what colour it was.

That made her feel a little better.

As she left her room with Leo, they came downstairs to find the living room full of boxes. She walked Leo to the back door and then returned to the living room. "What's all of this?" Tonks asked. Hermione was helping Kingsley and Sirius sort through the boxes, while Ron and Harry were nowhere to be seen.

"You need baby stuff, we finally got around to getting it out." Sirius said. "Kingsley said it was in the attic. However-"

"Alastor moved it at some point, it was downstairs." Kingsley said. Ron and Harry slipped by her, carrying another box each.

"How much stuff could a baby possibly need?" Tonks asked.

"Well, there are blankets, toys, clothes, bottles, pacifiers, the crib... one of these boxes has shrunken furniture from when we turned a bedroom into a nursery for you, and a lot of this stuff is probably the things we got as gifts from other Order members who wanted to help us out." Kingsley said. "And if you can believe it, it's not all here either. We gave some of the things we hadn't used to Molly when she had Ginny."

"Well, the baby isn't going to have a nursery for a while, so we really only need the crib." Tonks said. "As for everything else, I'm going to guess I won't need this much stuff."

"It's not all just from when you were a newborn, that's why we need to sort it." Kingsley explained. "A lot of this you won't need for a few months."

The next day, Sirius and the trio left again, almost a week and a half after arriving back. Sirius had said that they felt they were making progress if they kept moving, even if it meant they'd spend a few days camping.

That was the day Remus came home.

Whenever someone knocked, Kingsley or Sirius always answered, wands ready. Tonks had been upstairs in the shower when Remus showed up, and came downstairs partway through their 'talk'. Kingsley had sent her away again, and she returned upstairs.

An hour later, Remus knocked on her open bedroom door.

"Kingsley lectured me, he said it was up to you in the end." Remus said. "If you'll let me, I'd like to come home."

Tonks wanted to immediately say yes, but as she looked at Remus, she realised she could use this to her advantage. Sure, that'd be a rotten thing to do, but he definitely looked as if he'd be willing to do absolutely anything to fix their marriage.

She was right. Absolutely anything she needed, he was right there to do it or get it for her. When Sirius and the kids returned, the two of them argued and stopped talking to each other for nearly a week.

After a while, Sirius' stubbornness gave out and the fight was over.

Her birthday passed quietly. She wasn't one to generally celebrate anyway, so it didn't bother her.

By the end of February, Kingsley and Remus had managed to get the crib set up in their room, on Tonks' side of the bed. She was glad Remus was willing to do absolutely anything to help her, and some nights, gave up one of his pillows so she could have it between her knees and under her bump, while he spent a large chunk of the evening rubbing her back slowly. Sometimes, he'd trace circles on her abdomen, following the baby's movements.

While Molly had said she had trouble sleeping whenever the baby was active, Tonks had to admit she liked it. She found it relaxing to lay in bed, Remus tracing slow circles on her bump, the baby reacting every few moments.

By the time the crib was set up, she had softened towards Remus again. She figured a month and a half of coldness was appropriate. They sat down together and had a long talk. By the end of it, they weren't sure where their relationship would stand, but they wanted to work towards being together for the baby.

After all, they loved each other in July, surely they could love each other again.

One thing she didn't enjoy was false contractions. While they were painless, but sometimes stronger than other times, she sometimes felt mildly frustrated. Between her sore back, and these intermittent contractions, she wasn't always in a good mood.

She did appreciate the fact her body had to prepare for labour, but on the third of March, found out that wouldn't be necessary at all.