Dawn was breaking and a bitter cold wind caressed the bare surface of Remus's naked skin; scarred, dirty and now dripping with fresh werewolf cuts. In the thick fog he was lying half asleep, crumpled and motionless on the ground. His eyes were tightly closed until he violently shuddered. He then felt involuntary shivers continue throughout his whole body. His mind vaguely wondered...Where was his damn tattered clothing?

Another full moon had passed and he survived yet again. There were three elements that were the usuals to reassure him the night was over. The sensation of cold air was usually the first to awaken him and secondly the obnoxious chattering sound of his teeth rattling throughout his head. Thirdly was the sting of the new round of wounds across his body and the subsequent muscle aches.

His mind reached to remember where he had placed himself the previous night before the full moon struck but he only drew a blank. His eyelids felt so heavy and he couldn't quite open them yet. Was he in a forrest or a cave? Oh how he felt so damn mentally foggy as if the very fog around him was blowing through his head.

The cool damp dirt and prickling of grass beneath him told him he was not lying on a hard stone surface of a cave. The overall fatigue felt particularly heavy after this full moon. He wondered for a moment if the werewolf had been running the entire night. His legs were sore and felt like dead weights on the ground.

He weakly stretched out a hand in the air and with great effort made a dry swallow in the back of his sore throat. He whispered, "Acc…." but could not quite get the entire word out of his strained and recently overworked larynx.

Accio…Accio..Accio wand

He repeatedly the words urgently inside the walls of his mind while simultaneously concentrating as hard as he could on the mental image of his wand. Come on you blasted wand. Come to me now. God, how he hated lying there completely starkers and vulnerable to anything…and everything. Then suddenly when he was about to give up...

Thwack!

"Ugh!" he cried out in surprise when a long piece of wood suddenly whacked him across the cheek as if it had a mind of its own. Cheeky, he mused. A lateral swelling line of a welt from the impact began to rise up across his face.

He quickly snatched his wand out of the air with both hands, held it securely against his chest and rolled onto his back facing the sky. Then he exhaled a big sigh of relief.

His eyes slowly blinked and he could see dark, ominous grey clouds swirling in the sky through the layer of fog above him.

His head turned gazing around at his surroundings to try and orient himself. He appeared to be in a bit of a grassy clearing near a wooded area but he still felt quite disoriented. A few quiet moans and groans escaped his lips as he decided to crawl to the base of the nearest tree trunk to prop himself up.

He slumped his chilled back against the tree, pulled his knees up against his chest and was out of breath. The heavy fatigue made every movement feel so frustratingly slow. Gods. Just the crawl from where he woke up and then over to the tree trunk felt as though he had spent the day climbing the towers of Hogwarts by hand with no magic.

He summoned his hidden rucksack with a flick his wand. A smile of amusement slowly spread across his face as it never ceased to strike him funny the thought of it floating by itself across the woods; how comical that must look to any random onlookers.

Once it landed with a thud next to him he carefully took out his folded shabby clothing. He slowly pulled on trousers and his thin jumper over his head and then found himself out of breath once again from just the simple task of dressing. Merlin's beard his energy levels felt pathetic. He ignored the familiar metallic smell of blood oozing from the fresh round of cuts and just figured he'd deal with them later. However, the blood loss was making him somewhat light headed.

Remus squinted his eyes and concentrated hard on doing a visual sweep around the immediate environment. After seeing no threats he leaned his head back against the trunk of the tree to close his eyes for a bit of rest. He sighed and felt his body relax feeling less vulnerable and exposed. What he thought would be only a few moments of rest turned into hours. He had unknowingly drifted into a deep long slumber with the last comforting thought of his partner's smiling face on their last mission together.

Meanwhile, back at 12 Grimmald place…two days after the full moon:

"Sirius! Seriously?"

"You maize-wall go stalk him there:"

"Just tell me where he went, damn it."

"CORN-wall... you maize-wall stalk him in the forests and be sure to be all ears."

"Come on, just stop pun-ishing me with your ridiculous puns. Don't be daft."

Tonks said in annoyance at her cousin in a drunken stupor. Sirius was spread out on the sofa, his arm lazily tucked around a bottle of wine while his face looked back at her with a lackadaisical goofy grin.

"Ugh, I should really use those bloody wine bottles for target practice with Madeye one of these days. That would do more good for the cause than you getting smashed here."

Tonks paced the floor back and forth.

"Why is he not here yet?? He should be back by now!" She pleaded trying to quell the increasing tidal wave of anxiety welling up inside her.

"Mooney will be fine, he always is, he always pulls through, he's tougher than all of us…stop worrying your pretty pink head, Nymph Nymphy…OW!"

Tonks punched him in the shoulder.

"Don't call me that! You don't know if he's really fine, though."

Her eyes darted around and then she asked, "Do you have any chocolate?"

Sirius furrowed his eyebrows and solemnly asked, "Are you going to go levitate it around to find him? Wingardium Chocolatah!"

Tonks glared. "Shut up, you prat. Yes or no, do you have any or not?"

"Yes. Yes, um, there's some, what is it…oh, leftover chocolate biscuit cake in the cooler Molly brought to our last Order meeting. Mooney couldn't eat anything yesterday, no appetite at all feeling ill. You're welcome to have at it."

She nodded and headed out, "All right. That'll work. I need to go search for him. I can't just wait here doing nothing. I'll go mad. He really should have been back by now."

"Careful out there, cousin, send me a patronus if you need me."

Tonks rolled her eyes. "Believe me, I won't - I'll be calling on someone else for sure and not you in your sorry state. You can't be out anyway, remember? It's far too risky."

"Oh wait, Tonks!"

"What?" she replied spinning on her heel at the doorway.

"There's a bottle of dittany in the kitchen cabinet; just left of the sink."

"Oh, good. Right, I'll bring it. Thanks for that. Cheers."

"Nymphadooooora...you should remember something about forests in Cornwall.." Sirius called after her as she left the room.

"Wanker! Shut up you know I despise that name! I've had enough of your idiotic jokes. I have to go!"

Tonks put to work her very best sleuthing skills to locate Remus in the forests near southwestern England near Cornwall. When she finally found him, she saw his eyes were closed as he was still asleep slumped against the tree. She hurriedly jumped off her broom and ran towards him nearly in a panic.

"No no no," she muttered under her breath scared that she had found him too late. His face was ashen as if his soul had left his body.

"Remus? Remus!"

She shook his shoulders lightly. He didn't respond. She felt his neck for a pulse, got close to his mouth to feel for breath and watched his chest for rising or falling movement.

"You're alive, oh thank Merlin, you're still alive."

Without giving it a second thought, she grabbed his head and cradled it against her shoulder drawing him in for an embrace for a moment. She took in some gasps of air realizing she had been holding her breath. Breathe, just breathe...she reminded herself. He felt so cold and she squeezed him tighter. She leaned down and gave him a quick peck of a kiss on his forehead.

Then she noticed the sensation of something warm wet trickling through the fingers of her hand wrapped around his chest. She looked down and had the grim realization it was bright red active bleeding seeping through his scratchy jumper. For a moment she froze and wondered if the exposure to his blood endangered her at all with his lycanthropy. But then she quickly dismissed the thought.

"Okay...we're going to get you fixed up, right as rain, just lay down here."

She gently lowered him flat so that he lay supine on the ground. When she glanced back where he had been slumped against the tree trunk she noticed his wand had fallen on the ground so she quickly tucked in into his rucksack nearby. Tonk slowly eased the bottom edge of his jumper upwards and felt her heart sink at the sight.

A myriad of old scars were all over the surface of his pale chest along with new deep gashes from likely claw strikes against his own flesh.

"Oh Remus..." she whispered shakily.

She tried to comfort herself that the new wounds were at least not so deep that it exposed any organs or deep muscle tissue from what she could see. She paused to take in the overwhelming sight of it all. It was not a surprise but still a lot to take in all at once. Then she shook her head a little to pop herself out of the trance.

Stop the bleeding, come on, Tonks, you know what to do. Her auror training had given her plenty of knowledge on treating injuries but somehow her stomach at the moment felt like it was full of fluttering pixies.

Tonks waved her wand carefully and deftly over each of the new wounds.

Episky...Ferula...Episky...Ferula (repeat)

The wounds closed upon her healing spells she repeatedly cast over him. On the largest of the wounds she also applied the dittany. Her subsequent bandaging charm worked beautifully causing bandages to spin themselves around him where they were needed. After watching the white bandages for several minutes and not seeing any blood soak through, she exhaled a sigh of relief.

"That's better. We've got to get you back and out of here, Remus."

She spoke softly while trying to smooth down his unruly hair. She noticed the long swollen welt that was raised up along his cheek still red and angry. She held up her wand to it and whispered one more Episky. Then it faded away. Her fingers gently caressed the scruff of hair beginning to grow across his normally clean shaven face. Some areas along his cheekbone where there were old scars didn't have any hair growth around them. A finger lingered at his bottom chapped lip and for a moment she entertained the thought of kissing him. She dismissed it and continued to inspect him in other areas for any further post moon injuries.

She eased his sleeves up on each arm and treated some minor scratches. His hands were ice cold. Tonks pointed the tip of her wand at his hands and said the incantation, "Focillo." The Warming Charm produced a small puff of heat from the tip of her wand in a cone shape.

She took a moment to stare at his hands. It was hard to believe that these very hands turned into monstrous paws with claws he utterly despised once a month. Suddenly she noticed a feature at the end of his fingers she had never noticed before.

Upon closer inspection of his fingertips she noticed a pronounced discoloration of skin at the end of each of his fingertips. More scars...from where the claws burst through each month. Poor Remus. She felt a righteous, protective anger boil inside her at Fenrir Greyback for all the years of undeserved pain and agony he had caused. Pushing the thought aside, she attempted to wake Remus before attempting to get them both on her broomstick.

Tonks took out the portion of Molly's chocolate biscuit cake wrapped in tin foil she had taken along in her own rucksack. She held the cake under Remus' nostrils for a moment to see if she could rouse him back awake. No luck. She shook her head a little in disbelief.

"God, not even chocolate will wake you?"

She ate a few bites for a little energy boost and then swiftly packed it away again. She awkwardly pulled Remus' arms over her shoulders and then carried him to her broomstick on her back. It was the first time she had carried his full body weight and he was not as heavy as she expected.

On her broomstick he was slumped over her back like a sack of potatoes and she held his hands in front of her firmly while holding the broomstick with the other. Before taking off into the air she warned him, "You better not fall off on me."

She knew in his unconscious state he couldn't hear her but still liked to process her internal thoughts externally. Tonks flew slow and steadily back towards Grimmald Place. The ominous clouds Remus had stared up at in the sky earlier had developed now into full blown low lying rain clouds that began to drizzle. Tonks muttered curses she had forgotten to bring her goggles and a warmer coat. When she had left earlier in such a rush it made it hard to remember everything.

Suddenly she felt an annoying sharp biting sensation on her ears. It felt as though sharp needles were being poked into the helix tissue of her upper auricles.

"What the...?"

She let go of holding Remus's arms in front of her for a moment in order to reach up to instinctively swat away whatever was strangely attacking her ears. There was a blurred flash of blue in her peripheral vision.

Suddenly she felt Remus's arm slowly slip away behind her and his weight disappeared from her broom. Her broom jolted upward in the air in response to his sudden dismount. She heard a high frequency buzzing sound..almost like laughter.

"No! Remus!"

Immediately scanning all around below her, she couldn't spot him anywhere. Where did he go?

Looking around frantically in all directions she finally spotted Remus floating through the air hanging limply being carried by his ears by a group of sparkling blue pixies.

"Oh no you don't you little devils!"

Tonks dived towards them and quickly pointed her wand at them. One impish pixie flew strait towards her. She shouted,

"Glacius! Immobulus!

Cold frigid air shot out the tip of her wand at the pixie and then it became immobile. It shrieked in high pitched anger. Then it dropped downward in a slow uncontrolled spiral. She watched it drop with a satisfied smirk and then looked around for Remus again. She saw the group of pixies drop him on top of a tree.

"Remus!"

She pointed her wand at him, waved it carefully and screamed the incantation of the cushioning charm which slows down the speed of a falling object,

"Molliare!"

Remus's floppy body seemed to be moving in slow motion as she watched him fall downward bouncing from one branch to another. He floated lightly to the ground. Tonks exhaled a huge breath of relief and muttered, "Thank Merlin for that spell!"

She flew down to the ground and saw that he was beginning to finally wake up. Remus lifted his hands to his eyes and rubbed them. He blinked repeatedly and his hands moved to inspecting his ears.

Tonks quickly dismounted her broom and ran to him.

"Remus, are you okay?"

He looked at her and sleepily said in a hoarse voice just above a whisper,

"I dreamt I was being carried by my ears by Cornish pixies..."

He held out his hands to show her they were covered in smears of fresh blood that from where he had just touched his ears. Unfazed by it he smiled and asked,

"But it wasn't a dream, was it?"

She looked at him and shook her head quietly in confirmation.

Tonks felt a huge surge of emotions well up inside her. She didn't know whether to feel rage at those pixies for nearly killing him, embarrassment for getting him in this predicament or overwhelming joy that he was okay. She blinked away tears and told him,

"Hold still."

Pointing the tip of her wand at each of his ears, she said, "Episkey." The blood and bite marks vanished on both of his ears.

"Thank you," he told her simply and then with a slight grimace across his face eased himself up from lying flat on the ground. "I can't say I've woken after a full moon in this manner before. That's one for the books."

He glanced around the area and then it dawned on him that Tonks was being uncharacteristically silent. His eyes swept back around to her gaze.

"Are you all right?

Tonks shook her head and felt her eyes watering again. She flew herself forward and embraced him. Remus tensed up initially from years of unjust brainwashing he was an untouchable lycanthrope. But then moments later found himself relax as warmth ignited inside him at the feel of her arms around him.

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry, Remus. I was only trying to rescue you and fucked it up getting you nearly killed."

"Tonks...no, no you didn't, no need for apologies. You saved me. You handled it beautifully. I'm fine. I'm thankful. I'm the one who fucked it up choosing bloody Cornwall a known habitat for pixies for my transformation."

Tonks let out a little half laugh and half sob into his shoulder. She continued to hold him and he didn't let go.

"I think Sirius might have even tried to warn me when I left..come to think of it. But I was sure it was just more of his intolerable drunken jokes so I didn't listen."

"That's understandable."

"I'm so glad you're okay."

"Yes..." Remus replied with his fingers sliding away from resting against her back in the embrace and tapping lightly around his chest feeling the bandages she had applied earlier. "Thanks to you, I presume."

She pulled away and humbly nodded. Her hand came up and gently caressed the side of his cheek inspecting the spot where she had healed it earlier. Her eyes darted around his face further looking for any other possible scratches or injuries from his fall through the tree she might of missed. But secretly she wondered if she was just enjoying touching him intimately there.

"That's twice I thought I lost you today; once when I first found you and then the cursed pixies."

Remus felt his heart rate accelerating at her tender touch on his face. He took a deep breath. He silently thought about how she had seen his chest when she had applied the bandages...then felt a sinking sensation of humiliation.

He sighed and told her,

"You needn't put yourself at risk to come find me."

"But you were late. You're usually back at Grimmald place earlier after a full moon. Anything could have happened out here in these dark times. You're usually back the day after...not two days afterwards."

"I...probably lost a lot of blood and passed out. It happens."

"You were still bleeding when I found you."

He smiled at her and reached up to tuck a strand of bright pink hair behind her ear. Tonks noticed his eyes looking back and forth at her ears. He cleared his throat and said with his strained voice,

"Thank you for stopping it. Thank you for coming."

"Of course. I'm your partner, Remus. We have to look out for each other."

Remus held his hand up and mouthed the word Accio. His wand wiggled out of his rucksack and flew with a 'thwack' into his right hand.

"Right. It looks like the pixies nibbled a bit on your ears as well."

"Oh."

He stared intently at her ear and tapped it lightly with his wand until the bite marks disappeared. Then he repeated the same with her other ear. His eyes looked into hers and they were full of care and concern. He loved looking into her eyes and didn't want to stop.

"Better?"

She nodded and looked up into the sky for a moment. Her face darkened in anger.

"I didn't feel anything now but definitely felt them when they first attacked. God, I despise them more than ever now."

"Pixies are usually easy to deter with the Immobulus charm. Harry told me the Defense Against the Dark Arts professor the year just before me, Gilderoy Lockhart, once set loose cages of pixies in their class. Not surprisingly Hermione..."

Remus paused to cough and clear his throat. His hand lightly rested on his throat under his chin. He took a breath and continued,

"Pardon me, I meant to say Hermione, she bested them with the charm. No surprise. But now they apparently found a moment of weakness with us on your broom."

Tonks fished out her small water bottle out of her rucksack and handed it to him.

"Bless you," he whispered in gratitude and then took a substantial drink.

"Not at all. I um, also brought a bit of Molly's leftover chocolate biscuit cake for you."

She handed him the piece of cake wrapped in tin foil and his eyes widened. He unconsciously laid a hand over his stomach.

"Oh really? You're too good to me. Thank you. That sounds lovely."

"Do you remember where your broom is?"

She watched him eagerly eat the cake and repressed a laugh at him being oblivious to a chocolate smear around one of the corners of his mouth. An intrusive thought flashed in her mind to lean over and lick it off for him.

"I believe so. I left it inside a tree with a concealment charm. We shall soon find out."

"Thank Merlin there's a break in the rain but we should probably use this last bit of daylight to find it on our way back," she remarked eyes darting around the sky guiltily ask if Remus could see her intrusive thought. She thought she saw a flash of blue within some tree branches and wondered if more pixies were hiding nearby.

There was a part of Tonks that silently wished he didn't remember where he hid his broom so she could experience him holding her from behind on her broom. She liked him riding behind her.

"Would you care for any or shall I finish it?"

"Oh No. It's all yours. Please. Eat up."

Remus finished it in no time. He reached out and took her hand. He looked into her eyes and said,

"We should go. We're loosing daylight."

Tonks squeezed his hand and then stood. Remus continued watching her. She asked,

"Are you able to stand?"

Remus nodded and attempted to stand. However his legs wobbled unsteadily and she darted swiftly over to assist him.

"Grab onto me. I got you."

"Sorry, I guess I took that a bit too fast," he said with a tone of surprise at the wave of dizziness that swept over him so suddenly. He tried to focus his eyes which had grown blurry when he stood.

"It's okay, just a few more steps and we're there."

Each step felt so difficult to navigate towards her broom. He hated feeling so weak in front of her.

"Maybe we should just...fly strait back to...um, headquarters. I'm fairly certain it won't be found as it's inside a hollow tree trunk. I don't think I'm safe to fly anyway if I can't..."

"Right. I'm good with that and you can fetch it later. We really should get you back to rest."

She helped him mount her broom and then slid in front of him.

Remus hesitantly reached around her waist and asked, "Is it all right if I..."

"Yes, of course," Tonks replied and reached down securing his hands onto her. "Lean in all you want against my back, too."

She felt the corners of her mouth rise up in a smile. He was always so cautious in touching her.

Remus leaned in like a hug from behind and whispered in her ear, "Thank you, Tonks."