Disclaimer: Everything belongs to Rowling, of course.
Author's Note: Written for the R/T ficathon.

His Resolution

The café's lights were too bright, for one thing. They washed out of the streaked windows and turned the sidewalk a greasy yellow color. He avoided standing in that illuminated stretch of stone and instead smoked his cigarette safely out of range, a few meters away from the entrance with his back propped against the cold building front. Bright lights. And it was a slow night, looked like. That was another.

It was a small diner that had failed miserably in its attempts to look old-fashioned and inviting and had gone straight to gaudy. Some of the letters had long since burnt out in the neon sign, and his lips gave a faint twitch of amusement. The Dunstable Café was now Th unstabl Café. He wondered for a moment if she'd picked this place specifically for that reason. It wouldn't have surprised him.

Remus flung the cigarette into the street, thought about simply lighting up another one and waiting to see if she'd give up and leave, but the cold made the idea seem less appealing. This whole mess, and the fact that he was slipping inside the swinging café door, he decided to blame on the November chill. Except the irritating tinkling bell overhead. That he would hold the staff responsible for.

Inside it was, at least, warmer, and he had a few glorious seconds of being in the door before not actually noticing her. The kitchen emitted metallic clangs as pots were dropped and forks and knives rummaged through. He had time to make eye contact with a woman who poked her pudgy face around the corner of the kitchen door, and to feel several pairs of eyes on him as they glanced up from their plates of deep-fried somethings, and then he was stuck, and there wasn't going to be any walking out the exit or playing wait-and-see, because she'd spotted him, and she looked him over for what felt like a very long span of time until reverting back to a tattered newspaper.

"You've got a cut above your eye," she said in greeting when he stopped in front of her table. And then she went back to her coffee, tucking a strand of hair behind one ear idly. There was no foot-tapping or soft humming, or any of the things he'd come to associate with Tonks. Instead, she folded the newspaper and nodded to an empty chair. For a moment his mind reeled.

She's walking at his side, squinting in the face of the evening sun. Her exhalations aren't something he's used to--not here, at least, and he doesn't think they've ever been alone long enough to notice the little traits, but when she lets out a breath it's a soft and comforting sound. She glances at him, finally picking up the conversation where it has wavered off.

"Well, everyone goes through phases, don't they? I mean, I did. Used to rip my jeans on purpose; dance around to Duran Duran in my bedroom. Mum had a right shit over it. Muggle music blaring in her home and all. What would the neighbors think?" She wiggles her eyebrows a bit, grinning, and gives his arm a nudge. "So, humor us then. What embarrassing things should I know about you?"

Her smile is a genuine one, not at all forced or strained, unlike those Molly gives him in the kitchen, or the quietly exhausted attempts at lightheartedness he's seen from Harry during his stays at Number Twelve. He likes that smile, as he likes her--both make him feel less weary. Whatever she is in his head--it changes so frequently--girl, woman, he doesn't know for sure which he's settled on now, he is intrigued by her, if not infatuated with her. And he regards her with eyebrows slightly raised.

"Generally one doesn't hand out embarrassing details. At any rate, I have none."

"You're a lying bastard, Lupin. And you can't play that card. Try again."

The grass is damp from earlier showers, and their feet slide a little on the hillside. Nearby two boys are scuffling on the ground, muddying their clothing and faces, their father oblivious (intentionally, Remus thinks) to the fray. Remus wonders if it was a good idea, taking her here. It's all rolling landscapes and ancient monuments and so typically English, but she seems content enough, despite the glances and murmurs from plump elderly women perched on benches along the trail. She either doesn't notice or doesn't mind the stares, but he reckons that with magenta hair she's rather accustomed to it. He's surprised by the ease with which a smile of his own appears and shakes his head.

She's winning. He's talking again.

"Right, well, what do you want to hear about? Most of my stories involve juvenile pranks gone wrong, countless detentions--"

"Detentions? And I had you pegged for the quiet, bookish type."

The corner of his mouth quirks up. "Comparatively, yes. Although I was obligated to scold James and Sirius from time to time. They took to calling me 'Nanny' for a bit."

Tonks looks at him and laughs, sliding her arm easily around his. The casualness of it catches him off guard, and he jerks a little at the contact.

"Jumpy" she murmurs, but doesn't withdraw her arm. He's discovered, in the time he's known her, that this is simply the way she is. She drinks after him, gets too close in crowded rooms, asks him unabashed and straightforward questions without letting him retreat. But of course, she does this to everyone. It's just that lately he's been the target.

She brushes against him for the umpteenth time and he wonders what the repercussions of kissing her would be.

"That a souvenir from playing spy?" she asked, and it jarred him back from contemplation. He slid down into the chair, giving her a confused look.

"What?"

"The cut, Remus."

He touched his forehead and frowned at the resulting sting. "I suppose so. Why--" Remus cleared his throat, shifting in the chair a little.

"Well I'd taken to wondering whether or not you were actually alive. You've dropped off the planet for the last couple of months."

"I've been busy. Everyone has."

"Have you written Harry at all?"

It struck him as a strange comment, but then, the whole situation was strange. She'd changed since he'd last seen her. Her wrist bones protruded from the skin in an unhealthy way, and her cheeks were a bit sunken. He watched the way her fingers wrapped around her coffee mug, and muttered in the negative. No, no he hadn't written Harry. He'd been neglecting a lot of things lately.

"Didn't think so," she murmured, and then dropped the subject. She was grasping at straws, and kept glancing back and forth between her hands on the hot mug and a smudge of something vaguely reminiscent of marmalade on the wall. It was all painful to watch. His stomach sank lower, if possible.

"Tonks--" and when her eyes shot up to his he saw too many of things he wasn't comfortable dealing with. Fear. Confusion. Desperation. And she held that gaze until he couldn't handle it any longer and had to spread his hands on the table, steal a glance away to another café patron at another booth. It was awkward, being under that kind of scrutiny and saying her name when he hadn't spoken to her in so long. But then, he'd never been fully comfortable with the surname routine. Found it all bordering on ridiculous. And yet, she'd always insisted. Sometimes he used to ignore it and let her pretend to be infuriated, but things were lighter then, and she'd never really been in a strop about it. For the millionth time he wondered how it was that he was there, sitting across from her under sterile fluorescent lighting. He gave in to a sigh.

"Better we don't see each other after this…not for a while. No more contacting me through Dumbledore; I've enough to keep covert as it stands. And spending too much time away from--" and he paused here, stared hard at the tabletop, and then finished, "well, it could cause suspicion to arise. I don't need that. " And maybe, he thought afterward, that it hadn't come out just the way he had wanted it to, because she drew in on herself a little and her cheeks burned red. Words never ended up the way he wished them to. Remus tried again, voice lowered.

"No one needs that. Added worries."

"Ta, Remus" came the retort. "Now I feel mine have been significantly reduced."

He blinked. He should have had that second cigarette.

"So why here, then?" she asks, as they pass underneath the sprawling branches of a tall elm.

"I come here occasionally. To think." He shrugs. "It was this or the Fan Museum."

His comment has produced the desired effect. She laughs again--so easily, it seems--and he takes in the noise greedily. There's been a decided lack of humor in his life lately. And she seems so ready to smile, to joke. He stops and looks at her-- blue coat and messy pink hair standing out against the greens and browns of their surroundings, and opts to take the risk of doing what he's been toying around with in his head for the last couple of weeks. He kisses her.

She doesn't respond. Not initially. And he has the horrible oily fear in his belly that he's misread the signals, taken it too far, and then he feels her fingers slide slowly into his hair and her lips part under his and he can't deny the relief rushing through his body. She's not a tall woman, and he realizes somewhere along the line that she must be standing tiptoe this way. He bends his neck down further, and she teeters, grabs onto his coat sleeve for balance. The truth is that he likes her clumsiness. He knows it bothers her--he's seen the embarrassment creep onto her face when she's knocked or dropped or slipped, but it's genuine, that awkwardness, and she doesn't know how graceful she is when she isn't trying so hard to be.

When he draws away she states, pulling him closer by his coat front, "About time, Lupin."

"Do you really think, you daft bastard, that I'm worried about myself?" Her jaw stuck out in a way that reminded him that she was, inescapably, a Black, and her nostrils flared in indignation. "I'm worried about you---why else would I want you here? Just because you severed contact with me like some glorified martyr fighting the good fight doesn't mean I'm going to pretend you don't exist."

Several heads had turned, but to her they were nonexistent. Some things never changed.

"It's for the best," he replied, although it sounded weak, even to him, and judging by the expression of disbelief on her face it did to her as well.

"For whom, Remus? For you? Seems that way to me."

"No-"

"Then what? For fuck's sake why can't you see that I feel all of this--" she made a sweeping gesture to herself, sloshing some coffee onto the tabletop--"for you? And you know what? If I could make it go away I would, but I can't. It doesn't just disappear. And all you can do is sit there and tell me it's for the best." Her eyes darted up to the ceiling and he could see her trying angrily not to cry. And so he did the only thing he could think of and reached across to where her hands were resting on the table, taking one in his own and running his thumb over her knuckles. She squeezed back fiercely. When she lowered her eyes to his he saw that she'd managed to control the tears.

"Why isn't it enough?" she asked, and he hated himself. He couldn't speak for fear that everything he was thinking would overspill into the air and so he sat silently, her hands shaking in his. A second later she was standing, leaving his hands empty and grabbing her coat from the back of her chair. He registered the sound of Muggle coins hitting the table and of her shoes thudding against the floor, and then the tinkling of the bell as she exited the café.

"Look, we have a crowd," she whispers, and he cranes his neck to see the same gaggle of women from earlier, now frowning in disapproval, a few shaking heads. Tonks winks at him and then pulls him into another embrace, moaning loudly, "Oh, Uncle Reginald, what will Auntie say!" and his ears burn as scandalized sputters ring out behind them. She kisses him again, laughing against his mouth, and her lips are warm--he's forgotten how this feels, to want, and he moves to brush his lips against other skin, beneath the dangling thrift store earrings, the hollow of her throat. She exhales in small breaths against his ear and he no longer cares about outraged audiences. Let them watch. She smells like the outdoors and tangerines and let them watch.

Remus pressed her against the cold alley wall, lips trailing over her neck as she arched into him and wound her fingers deeper into his hair. She wrapped a leg around him, trying to pull him closer, and her breath escaped suddenly as his hand slipped beneath her shirt, finding her breast. He'd caught up with her three buildings down, and hadn't given her much time to react. It was freezing but it didn't matter. She closed her hand over his, moved against him, and his moan cut off the stream of garbled words he'd been murmuring into her lips and hair. Her fingers sought to undo his belt but she looked at him, eyes dark, their breath rising up in front of them and evaporating.

"Don't stop saying it," she said hoarsely, and his belt buckled loosened.

"I love you," Remus breathed. "I love you." And in his mind, but it can't work. He kissed her again.