St. Mungo's, 3 A.M.

It occurred to Remus, as he sat uncomfortably and watched the still figure in the hospital bed beside him, that he'd had no real idea what Nymphadora Tonks looked like.

She always claimed she used her true face with the Order, and younger members of the society who'd grown up with her said that was true. But how would they know in full? A Metamorphmagus could change anything so subtly one would never notice, even if it were simply covering a freckle or changing eye color. Everyone knew Tonks could, and sometimes did, change her hair color just for fun. Would anyone notice if she made herself an inch taller? Sleekened down knobbly knees? Hid an old scar?

What did she look like when she slept?

Remus wasn't sure anyone in their circle knew. He didn't really know anything about Tonks' love life, of course; she, like everyone else in the Order, tried to avoid such entanglements so no information was unduly shared. If anyone in the Order had been with her lately, they'd never said. It was entirely possible, Remus thought, that he was the first person to observe her like this in quite some while.

And the first thing that struck him was that she looked so tired.

Even in her medicine-induced sleep, lines of pain were drawn between Tonks' eyes, and the corners of her mouth would sometimes tremble, as if she were having bad dreams of what had just happened to all of them. Her hair, lately a spiky pink, was now instead a plain dark brown, lying flat and listless against her scalp. Several locks had actually been shaved away above her right temple, to allow the healers to treat one of the worst wounds from her tumble down the stairs -- one that had severely concussed her, although they'd assured Remus the damage was not permanent. He wondered still, an odd ache tightening in his chest as he thought about it, if they were right.

She'd make a full recovery, they'd said. She was doing very well already, in fact, one nurse had told him. But Tonks was so pale, and looked too thin, and her bandaged hand -- without its magically-applied nail polish -- looked so fragile, half-curled beside her cheek. And he didn't know if any of this was from her injuries, or if it was simply Tonks, unguarded for once, unchanged for the eyes of the outside world.

She looked terribly vulnerable, and Remus thought that ought to have made her seem younger, but instead she just looked older and worn.

He watched as she took in slow breaths -- still almost shakily, even in rest -- and couldn't help but reach for her hand, to gently clasp it in some small gesture of comfort.

The touch and the warmth at last undid what the healers had imposed. Her eyelids fluttered. Remus tried to draw back, but she reached out again and held on; her grasp wasn't strong yet, but she was persistent. He sighed.

"Nym...." he began, shook his head, and started again. He kept his voice quiet, partially not to disturb anyone beyond the room's not-quite-soundproof dividers, but mostly not to disturb her any more than was necessary. "Tonks."

It took a minute before she had stirred enough to reply. "Remus," she finally whispered. She was moving only a little, still sleepy and sluggish, and had to blink several times before she could focus on him at all. Then, after a moment, she tried to speak again. "Why're you here?"

He tried not to let his lips twitch at the question. Everyone in the Order had sent something for Tonks -- like that box of baked goods from Molly Weasley, sitting on the bedside table, or the flowers from Emmeline Vance, enchanted not to wilt. Almost no one had known exactly what to send, considering, but they'd all tried something.

Dumbledore, for his part, did know -- and had sent Remus.

"Nymphadora will need someone to explain to her what happened," Dumbledore had said quietly. "It'll take a light touch, as she'll be grieving too, once she knows. I can think of no one better than you for this, although I will understand if you need your own space."

Dumbledore may have given Remus a back door out of this, but Remus knew saying no would be impossible. Molly would fuss too much; Kingsley would be too detached; God only knew what Moody would say....

And who didn't know that Remus Lupin was something of an expert at loss?

So he clasped her hand tighter, rubbing one thumb gently over hers. "I came to make sure you're all right," he said, as he prepared himself to work up to the rest of it.

Tonks turned her head, frowning a little as if she weren't sure where she was. Remus glanced around with her as she inspected the room. It was dark, so the details were still enigmatic; the only illumination in the room came from faint moonlight through the window (three-quarters full, Remus knew without looking) and the portrait above Tonks' bed. Its scene was of a lighthouse beside a stormy sea. As the beacon rotated through the clouds, it periodically shone out into the room as well, highlighting Remus one moment, then a shelf of medical equipment the next.

"St. Mungo's," she murmured.

"You've been here a day," Remus said. "You had a concussion. And three broken ribs and a sprained ankle, but those have been taken care of."

"Uh. 'splains why I feel like an elephant stepped on me."

Remus smiled faintly at the joke. She saw it in the transient light and smiled back, then looked off into a dim corner, frowning again as if she were a little puzzled. "Would you like some more light?" Remus asked.

Tonks shook her head, very carefully. "Head still hurts. Dark's better."

"I'm sorry. I can call a nurse for something --"

"No." She took a deep breath and said abruptly, "What happened?"

He sat very still, his fingers laced through hers but moving not at all. It took three breaths before he felt he had enough to say, "What's the last thing you remember?"

She was still looking into the corner. "I was on the tier," she said in a small voice. "I was fighting Bellatrix -- everything was going on at once... and there was this flash of green...." She paused to catch her breath. "Ugly color. It was all I could see. And I think I remember falling." She put her free hand to one side. "I remember this hit." The hand moved to her head. "And this was the last thing."

Remus looked down at the bed. The sheets were an ugly color, too. Sort of an off-putting gray. Something ought to be done about that, he thought distantly, realizing it had only crossed his mind because he was trying not to think of what he'd have to say next.

"But what happened?" Tonks asked again into his silence. "Is Harry --"

Harry, he thought, not really bitterly. Everyone always first thinks of Harry. "He's fine," Remus said. "Perhaps not emotionally, but he's unhurt. They didn't get his prophecy either, for what that's worth."

"And the rest? What happened to... You-Know...." She waved her hand a little feebly.

Remus clenched his jaw, shut his eyes, and then let the tension pass, deciding to answer the questions in the opposite order, and somewhat obliquely. He had few remaining qualms about using Voldemort's name, but in this hospital, in case anyone else might be listening, he was sure it was best to avoid it. "He vanished," Remus said. "Apparated out of there, and took... Bellatrix with him."

Now that name -- that horrible name... Remus' voice caught on it like it was a barb in an open wound, and his shoulders shook at his own words.

Tonks didn't quite catch the severity of it, for she was looking at the ceiling. "My aunt Bella," she said with a wounded sort of smile. "In with the likes of him. Never even knew her, and look what she did to me...."

"You weren't the only one she hurt, Tonks."

Tonks turned her head. Remus looked back at her, unsure of where his words had come from, even less sure that he could keep speaking. But he had to. If he didn't, he might never be able to face it properly again.

In answer to her unspoken question, he said, "Everyone got out -- some wounded, but not so badly as you.... except for....."

She tried to sit up. Remus didn't have the concentration to tell her not to. He just kept seeing the image over and over again in his mind -- that jet of red light, and the contact, and the fall, his long, terrible fall....

"Remus?" Tonks asked, her voice beginning to quaver at the obvious pain in his expression. "Remus, who was it?"

The lighthouse beam fell across his face at just the moment he'd have wanted to stay in shadow.

"Sirius," he whispered. "She killed Sirius."

There was a little gasp. Remus knew it wasn't his, but somehow it seemed to encompass his entire existence; the renewed disbelief and shock made him want to clap his hands to his ears and howl out in pain.

But that would have meant letting go of Tonks, and he couldn't. He'd promised.

So he held on, and continued speaking.

"They were dueling." The words happened, somehow or other. Remus didn't think about them; he was focusing instead on their hands. He was distantly afraid he'd hurt her, but instead she was clenching hard enough to bruise. "He was... laughing at her... when she cursed him."

"And no one -- no one could revive him?"

Now she looked and sounded young, almost hopelessly so. Her eyes were huge, gleaming unnaturally bright under the still-rotating lighthouse beam. Remus held her gaze, and noticed despite it all that her eyes really were that dark shade of brown; no one would be disguising it at a time like this.

He thought of Sirius' blue eyes then, and shut his own before his unshed tears could betray him, too.

"He fell through the veil," he said. "There was nothing we could do."

This time, Tonks gave out a little moan of despair.

For lack of anything he could possibly say, and because he suddenly needed it desperately, Remus did something he almost never did, for anyone else -- except one person -- and reached out for Tonks.

She was shocked and stiff in his arms for a moment, but then she suddenly clutched at him, shaking in disbelief -- and in no small amount with the effort not to cry.

Poor Tonks, some small part of Remus' mind whispered. She didn't cry. She was cheerful, and bright, and even when she was bumbling and apologetic and awkward, she did everything she could to make amends and make everything okay. When the situation was serious, she merely got quieter, and toned her natural enthusiasm down into stable encouragement. No one usually thought this of her, especially when she was being clumsy and exasperating, but Tonks was almost singlehandedly responsible for keeping the Order emotionally afloat.

And she was so afraid of seeming too young or too weak in everyone else's eyes that she didn't ever let herself cry.

Even when she should.

"I'm sorry," Remus said. "I know you cared for him."

She gulped hard, the sound loud beside his ear. "He was -- the only person in this whole rotten family besides my parents that I could love -- and...."

That I could love....

Remus held on a little tighter, fighting the urge to bury his face in her shoulder... because he never let himself cry, either. Not since....

Mercifully, Tonks spoke up again before the memories could return.

"He was just trying to -- to do something -- he wanted so much to...."

"I know." He rubbed one hand lightly over the back of her neck, being careful where he placed his fingers; he could feel the warmth of a still-angry bruise behind one shoulder.

Someone should see to that, he thought, but then sighed, and mumured an all-too-familiar healing charm of his own. It slowly subsided.

Tonks, feeling the small point of relief, turned her head a little and eased into the crook of his neck. He could still hear her sniffling a little, but she took in a deep breath and asked, "What's the Order done about it?"

Still an Auror, Remus thought. "Not much. Recovery mode. Debriefings every day and endless analysis and planning and... they pardoned him, you know."

Tonks pulled back a little, after wiping her nose on his collar. "What?"

"The Ministry." He wasn't quite looking at her. "They've been told the whole story... had to be told, to explain what happened to her. Without a... body they'd never have known he was even there -- but they had to be told --"

"You told them, didn't you," she breathed.

He could feel some hint of defiance flare in his eyes. "I told them. And when Fudge blathered something about it being lunacy" -- he laughed at the ironic choice of words -- "Kingsley stepped in. Kingsley. Of all the people at the Ministry who should know about Sirius Black--"

He'd meant to say more, but the name -- it always came down to names -- stopped his throat.

Tonks suddenly looked stricken. "Oh. Oh, Remus. Are you--"

"Don't ask me if I'm all right, Tonks," he said quietly.

"Of course you're not," she said, looking appalled. "How could you be? Did they make you tell everyone?"

"Tonks --"

"You two were...."

"Tonks," he repeated, his voice gone ragged, and shut his eyes.

She let out a little strangled sound. "Stupid bloody Order and their stupid priorities and...."

"You can't let yourself get upset like this," he said, his voice sounding like it was coming from a long way away. "Please, Tonks."

She stared at him, chest heaving with the effort of trying to catch her breath, and then slumped forward a little, leaning her forehead against his. The gentle contact reminded him of another, and he swallowed hard, feeling too much like he truly was about to cry.

"I don't know how you do it," Tonks whispered. "You go through so much and you're still there for everyone else...."

"I'm not the only one," he said, sitting up a little, and, he knew, deflecting madly. He gestured to the opposite side of the bed. As if on cue, the lighthouse beam swept across the pile of gifts. "Your.... stupid bloody Order thinks you're a priority too."

Tonks turned to look. One curious hand reached to the cards, but set them aside; she couldn't read them in the dark. One, Remus knew, was from Neville Longbottom, delivered straight from Hogwarts' hospital wing. It had nearly broken his heart to see it.

Tonks fingered one of the rose petals in Emmeline's arrangement, lifted the box lid from Molly's gift... "Cookies," she said. She sniffed once, then again; her nose was a little too stuffed to smell properly. "Oatmeal, aren't they?"

"I made her add chocolate."

"You would." Tonks paused and lowered the lid. "You really do take care of everybody."

Remus thought of Sirius back at that house -- trapped, restless, angry, so frustrated at his inablity to help -- and of his own attempts to make it tolerable for him in any way he could... but Remus was hardly there; he was always gone somewhere for the Order, just when he should have been home for the person who needed him.

If he had been there more, perhaps Sirius wouldn't have --

He cut off the thought before it could finish, but the bitter despair lingered.

Stupid fucking priorities.

"I'm... I should let you rest," Remus said, under the weight of memories that were beginning to descend on him, despite his best efforts.

"Been sleeping all day," Tonks said, and her touch was altogether too gentle when she took his hand again. "What about you?"

He smiled, just barely. "A few hours. Not consecutively."

"You can't do that to yourself!"

"Now, you're the one who's supposed to be resting..."

"And you're the one who just lost your--" She cut herself off, suddenly horrified. "Oh, God. I shouldn't... I'm sorry."

Remus looked down. "No. No, it's all right."

There was a moment of uncomfortable silence. Finally Tonks said, smiling a little tentatively, "I thought you didn't want me to ask if it's all right."

"I didn't. But if I can make myself say it, maybe it will be." He raised his head. "You should know.... the first time I lost him, I didn't have anyone left. It... it means something, that you care."

She reached up to his face with her bandaged hand, and gently touched his cheek. It was a moment before he realized she was wiping away a teardrop.

"You need to sleep," she said, and she was crying too.

He watched her, silently. He was going to remember this, he thought. He needed it, for those moments someone in the Order -- Snape, usually -- got exasperated with her clumsiness, her youth, her "inappropriate" exuberance. This was Tonks, too, with her brown hair and her huge eyes and that birthmark on her chin she wasn't bothering to cover up, and she was always kind, and she'd go down fighting for you, and she deserved more respect than she got.

And he was so glad, suddenly, that Sirius had treated her just like a favored little sister -- he saw the rebel in her and appreciated it, and defended her when the others disapproved. She'd remember that, too. He'd make sure she did. They were both too hurt to smile about it now -- and would be for a long time -- but if Sirius' legacy to Tonks was to remind her to cheerfully flip the world off every now and then, Remus would be damned if he didn't remind her of it until she did.

After all, he was still a Marauder at heart, too. Even if he was once again the last.

The thought made him close his eyes.

He wished Tonks were old enough to know what he needed to remember, and remind him, too.

"I do need to sleep," he said, his voice sounding exhausted even to his own ears. "I think there's guest beds, somewhere."

Tonks looked down. "I used one, once, when Hestia was here...." She trailed off. "Wish you could stay."

The last was quiet, uncomfortable, as if she were asking something that she was afraid would sound inappropriate. Remus sighed a little and drew her hand down from where it had rested on his shoulder, but still held on. "I'll stay until you fall asleep," he said.

She nodded once and slid back down under the ugly gray blankets, curled up towards him on her left side, still holding onto his hand. She was silent for a long while, eyes still open, before she said, "I can't believe he's gone...."

He stroked her hair back, careful of the bandages, and, unable to say anything else, kissed her on the forehead before sitting back again and waiting.

Molly found them early the next morning, and stopped in the doorway, wordless at the scene -- Tonks awake and pink-haired and trying on a smile, and Remus asleep in the chair beside her, one hand still clasped in hers, while the lighthouse beacon above them rotated through a slowly brightening sky.