It's funny the things you remember about the pivotal moments in your life.

For Nymphadora Tonks, it was always the smallest of details she recalled. The day she found out she had received her letter of acceptance for auror training, she vividly remembered the book she was reading that morning: The Weird Sisters – A Biography. The day she met Remus Lupin, she remembered exactly what she had eaten for lunch – kidney pie and peas – before going to Grimmauld Place to meet the members of the Order. And the day Sirius died, the clock at Grimmauld had just turned to 11:42 when the call had come in from Snape that Harry and the other students had disappeared.

On the day Dumbledore died, she was wearing pink socks. Looking back on it now, in the aftermath of one of the worst nights of her life, she wasn't sure what had possessed her to wear them; maybe it was the almost desperate desire for her hair to be that color once again, any color but the mousy brown it had stubbornly held for the last ten months. Maybe it was because, Merlin help her, something about her needed to be cheerful. Or perhaps the black Docs she was wearing just complemented them so well. But now, standing out at the lake on Hogwarts grounds and trying to fully comprehend the devastating blow that had struck them all just hours before, they seemed petty, ridiculous and too cheerful for the events they had witnessed.

The small details. Like the socks, or the small patch of grass that had outgrown the others next to the pond she had noticed as she came in from duty walking the grounds, the delicate necklace Hermione was wearing when they met in the hallway. The scrambled eggs she had eaten for breakfast, the small stain on Moody's robes that he dismissed as left over from last night's dinner, the slight crack in the mirror she saw as she stared at herself in the mirror that morning, barely recognizing the drawn, too-thin features and limp, lifeless hair staring back at her.

Maybe this was how she processed things, how she dealt with life-altering events. For she knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that this night would be change her life – her world – forever. The horror of what had happened, here at the place where she had always felt safe, protected, was still sinking in through the numbness that had consumed her when Harry first broke the news in the hospital wing.

It's not possible. That was her automatic reaction, borne out of fear and the denial that comes with losing someone you cared for, someone who was your mentor, your friend, your hero. There was no way that Albus Dumbledore was dead. The most powerful wizard alive, dead. She tried to deny it, but the words died in her mouth as she saw the look in Harry's eyes. And she knew. She had never seen someone look that alone, that lost, at least not since…

Remus.

She glanced at him as he dropped into the chair next to Bill. The grief etched across his face was so deep, she wanted to reach across the space that divided them, both physically and emotionally, and smooth it away. That same look had greeted her when she woke up in St. Mungo's a year ago, when he told her in a broken voice that his best friend, her cousin, was dead. Gone. Never coming back. Now Harry had given Remus that same news, and the grief returned, fresh and new and very different. This man had been Remus' mentor as well as his friend, had accepted him for who he was, not what he became once a month. The pain she was feeling was nothing compared to his, because she knew that now he felt truly and completely alone.

I'm here, Remus, she promised silently, wishing beyond wishes that he could hear that, understand that, let her be that for him.

Then she went off and behaved like an idealistic, lovesick adolescent in front of the Weasleys, the children, Fleur, and even Minerva, and she cursed herself a million times for putting the both of them in that position.

She kicked a pebble into the lake, looking out over the waters and still feeling the humiliation and sting of his terse rejection. She knew she shouldn't have confronted him in that way, after he had just lost the man he looked up to more than any other. She didn't say anything she didn't mean, anything she regretted saying to him. However, she thought with a small, ironic smile, she may have chosen poorly when it came to timing. She snorted. What else was new?

Lost in her thoughts, she almost didn't hear the quiet footsteps come up behind her. However, when she became aware of a second presence at the lakeside, she knew exactly who it was without turning around. She would recognize that footfall, that distinct smell of woods and chocolate and cinnamon that was so him, anywhere she was. Again, those small details.

"Hi, Remus," she said quietly, not turning to look at him. She couldn't take another rejection from him, not tonight, not after making a bloody fool out of herself in front of everyone.

"Nymphadora," he replied in greeting, stopping just inside her peripheral vision and gazing out at the lake.

"Please don't call me that," she murmured, secretly glad he had used her first name. At least she wasn't Tonks right now. His use of her surname inferred distance, aloofness – things she certainly didn't want from him. Nymphadora, however, signaled exasperation, or a desire to goad her. Some emotion, at least, something she had seen very little of from him in the last few months. Excepting their two all-too-brief encounters during the past ten months – Merlin, had it really been ten months, not ten years? – he had virtually ignored her, refusing contact and rebutting her pleas for him to talk to her, be with her. Too old, too poor, too dangerous, my arse.

"What was that…display in the hospital wing all about?"

Tonks felt her temper ignite. Ignoring her own fears of being rejected once again, she whirled on him. " 'Display'? Is that what you call what happened in there? How dare you," she hissed through gritted teeth, getting in his face. "How dare you trivialize the way I feel about you! How dare you make it sound like I was throwing a bloody tantrum over some candies! You are an arse, Remus Lupin, if you don't know that every word I said in there was true!"

Remus refused to make eye contact with her. "I have told you a hundred times, and I'll tell you a hundred more. I'm too – "

"Selfish!" Tonks blurted, her cheeks flushed in anger and her fists clenched at her sides. "You're too bloody selfish, that's what you are. Too selfish to see that what you're doing is killing me! It's not to protect me, it's to protect your own bloody hide." Tonks stepped back, a little taken aback at her realization. "That's it, isn't it," she murmured, staring accusingly at Remus. "It's about protecting yourself. You bloody selfish coward."

Remus looked at his shoes. He struggled to find words. "I – I can't…you're right," he whispered. "I've lost everyone I've ever cared about, Dora. I can't give away my heart again. It's all I have left of myself, the only thing about me I can still find in this mess of what I've become."

"Bollocks to that!" spat Tonks as tears sprang to her eyes. "You haven't had your own heart these past months, Remus." She put a hand to her chest. "You've had mine, you idiot! And you've been ripping it apart! Damn you," she whispered fiercely. "You took my heart with you. I want it back if you can't take care of it. But I don't know how to get it. I don't know." She heard her voice crack, and she started crying in earnest.

Remus' arms came around her, and she wept into his robes. "Damn, she choked, "I h-hate being s-such a g-girl." She felt a rumbling chuckle in Remus' chest, and when she looked back up at him there was a sheen of tears in his eyes as well; she recognized that the rumble had not been laughter, but a sob.

She reached up and cupped his face in her hands. "I need something from you, Remus," she whispered fervently, looking intently into his eyes. "I need you to let me have your heart, too. And know I am going to take care of it. I love you so much, it makes me hurt. And I know you feel the same way. I know it in my soul. There will always be danger. I'm an auror, for Merlin's sake." She got a stubborn gleam in her eye. "But I'm not going to let you hurt the both of us because you're scared to be happy."

"Happiness has become such a foreign concept to me," admitted Remus. "It seems – I can't become attached to people. They end up leaving."

"Loving isn't easy, and I don't think it's supposed to be." Tonks gripped his hand in hers. "But it's worth it. Would you give up knowing Dumbledore, knowing James and Lily, knowing Sirius, if it meant you never had to feel the pain of losing them?"

"You are wise beyond your years," Remus murmured. "Of course not."

"Then why are you giving up on me?" Tonks said in a small voice. "Does what we had – do I – mean that little to you?"

He grabbed her shoulders, shaking them a little. "Don't think that," he said emphatically. "Don't for one minute think that what we were, that you weren't important." He hesitated, and finally gave in to what had been plaguing him for months. "I don't want to lose you," he said huskily. "I don't know if I could bear it. The others – I loved them, cared for them. But it doesn't hold a candle to what I feel for you." He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, letting it out in a whoosh, as if he had just released a heavy burden. He reopened them, a new determination lighting his gaze. "Losing you would hurt me beyond anything I've ever known. Being the reason for it would destroy me. It was so hard to leave you behind, but it was far more imaginable than allowing anything to happen to you." He reached down and slowly traced the line of her jaw with the back of his hand, his gentleness sending a thrill up her spine. "I've been such a fool," he said softly, realization clear in his voice and on his face as he shook his head slightly. "Thinking I could protect you. That I could protect myself." He smiled a little. "I still think you could do so much better than me. You could be with someone who could offer you so much more than this. So much more," he murmured, "than an old, selfish, cowardly, damaged heart."

"Let me fix it," she replied, turning her face into his hand. "Because you're all I've ever wanted, and needed. Please, Remus," she whispered, her eyes closing. "Be a Gryffindor. Be a Marauder. I need you to be brave for me."

She felt more than heard Remus sigh, and her heart soared. For this was not the sigh she was accustomed to hearing from him, one of sorrow that came before yet another rejection. This was a sigh of surrender, of relief, of release. "For you, Nymphadora Tonks, anything," he said, pulling her back into his embrace.

Euphoria. That was what she felt when he took her in his arms, holding on to her as if he would never let go. And as far as she was concerned, that was just fine. These arms, this man, were all she needed to feel for the rest of her life.

"Oh, Dora," he sighed, and she felt him shudder and pull her tighter, "I'm so sorry. So very sorry." She didn't need him to explain why he was sorry – for leaving her, for hurting her, for being too afraid of love. It didn't really matter anymore. She knew there were still things to discuss, fears to hash out and hurts to mend. But mend them they would – together.

"Show me," she whispered, pulling back from him and running her hands through his hair. "Please, Remus, I've waited a very long time for you to show me."

He brought his lips down on hers, and never had she felt more loved, more cherished. His touch was soft and reverent and his kiss was long and sweet. They stayed that way for a very long time, relishing the feel and taste of one another for the first time in what seemed an eternity. When they pulled back, and Tonks could focus on something other than the taste of him, she noticed Remus looking at her with a goofy, relieved grin on his face.

It took her a moment to realize why he was looking at her that way, but when she did she bit her lip and thought of her socks.

At that moment, that life-altering instant in time, she thought of her socks, and was very glad she had chosen pink. They would go smashingly with her newly matching hair.