starfishstar

COUNTING TIME IN THE LUNAR TIDE

Summary: Tonks hates waiting, but some things are worth it.

Characters: Tonks

Words: ~920

Notes: Written for the

rt_morelove Twelfth Night Tales, for prompt #17, "Style: no spoken dialogue."

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Tonks hated waiting. She was terrible at it. Her impatience was a foible well known to her colleagues, nearly as favourite a thing to tease her about as her unending clumsiness.

And now, a whole night of waiting.

Tonks pushed away a cold cup of tea and went to heat the kettle to make a new one, in the tiny kitchen of the London flat where she and Remus had hastily taken up residence now that Tonks had been recalled from her Hogsmeade posting.

Now that they were married.

Their wedding had been on a day just after the new moon, which had given them very nearly two weeks in which to be newlyweds before Remus' lycanthropy claimed him once again. These last couple days, Tonks had watched his body grow tense, his muscles tighter, his face greyer. There was something people who'd never spent much time around a werewolf probably didn't know, that the days before and after a full moon could be just as terrible, in their own way, as the transformation itself.

In the days before the full moon, Remus' body rebelled against him, slipping increasingly beyond his control as the moon waxed larger. He spent those days in discomfort and dread of what was to come. And in the days afterwards, Remus had told her, he was often nauseous, and his entire body felt as if it had been torn apart and then slammed inexpertly back together. Which, of course, it had.

Tonks flung herself down at the kitchen table and took another stab at reading some files Moody had left with her, then gave it up again. Her thoughts were with Remus, why pretend otherwise?

He'd looked so pale, when he'd left in the late evening light, his weary shoulders set with determination. Tonks had kissed his lips and then his forehead, and told him to stay safe, as if saying it helped at all. And she'd told him to come back home absolutely as soon as he was able, to let her look after him.

He'd refused to tell her at what safe location he would be spending this full moon, seeming to think that even knowing that information would be one step too close to danger for her. Well, she would work on him about that, in the months to come. And at least he'd agreed to return home to her directly afterwards.

Tonks paced their flat; just ten strides took her fully from one side to the other. She stopped at the window – yes, the sun had set now and the moon was coming up. At least the long daylight hours of summer meant this full moon night would be correspondingly short. Tonks had learnt so much more about the phases of the moon than she'd ever expected to know.

She rested her elbows on the window frame and her forehead against the cool glass. It still seemed so strange that in two years of knowing Remus, of falling more and more in love with Remus, this was the first time Tonks had been there to see him off before the transformation, and would be there for him when he came back. Two years ago, he'd generally been off somewhere on missions for the Order at the full moons, and last year he'd been living with a werewolf pack, far beyond the reach of the people who cared about him.

Tonks chewed anxiously at her lower lip, and reminded herself that this was better, even if it didn't feel much like it – Remus was still transforming into a wolf alone and in pain, but at least he had someone to come home to at the end of the ordeal.

It was always going to be like this, she thought, staring out at the darkening sky. Lycanthropy wasn't a disease that ever went away. Every twenty-nine and a half days for the rest of their lives together, Remus would have to leave and suffer, and Tonks wouldn't be able to do anything but wait here for him. She hated to know what Remus was going through and not be able to go to him. By marrying Remus, she knew she'd committed herself to a lifetime of sleepless, anxious nights like this one.

The waiting was terrible. But it was worth it.

Tonks pushed away from the window and in a sudden burst of energy made a circuit of the flat, collecting items she thought might be useful to Remus when he got back – hot water bottle with a charm that kept it warm for hours, blankets, those biscuits she knew he was partial to, an array of teas. A book she could read aloud to him, if he was awake but didn't feel up to reading for himself. Some reports that needed to be looked through, in case he felt frustrated by being bedridden and unable to help the Order.

It didn't seem like much, but Remus could tell her if there were other things he needed. He was the expert on recovering from full moon transformations, after all. Her most important role was to listen, and to help where she could.

Tonks piled her collection of items on the sofa, then sat down next to it and hugged her knees to her chest, resuming her vigil. Waiting, a terrible night of waiting, as the cold, luminous moon rose above London, just visible beyond the city streetlights. Waiting for the night to pass and the morning to bring Remus safely home.