It was hard to be angry with him now, when Tonks heard his words for what they were: not attempts to convince her, but to convince himself that he didn't deserve what she most wanted to give him.
"Remus."
And she clambered over the back of the sofa, depositing the coffee on the second-hand end table that stood alongside. Tonks didn't go to him, not right away, but let her arms fall limp to her sides, fingers arching against the fabric of her pajama bottoms.
"Remus, I'm not like any of the girls I went to school with. I'm a Halfblood thanks to the Blacks, who'd kill me if they could, and I'm a Metamorphmagus, and I know that doesn't make me as different as you are but it's not like I'm normal. I know you think you're... you're protecting me, that you think my life will be worse with you, but you know just as well as I do that our lives get worse everyday that You-Know-Who is out there, that he can take away what we love no matter how hard we fight for it."
Tentatively, like she might a dog who'd been kicked one too many times - for if Remus was anything, he was a man who'd lost more than she'd ever had - Tonks stepped forward, one hand going lightly to his cheek as she had the first night she'd touched him.
"So there's nothing you can ever say that will make me stop fighting for you, Remus."