Lily looked out of the Manhattan high-rise apartment window. Decorated tastefully in a dark forest green and cream theme, she had been living. Well, not living. Breathing, perhaps. But definitely not living.
She had met plenty of dashing guys, she supposed. But as much as they flirted, and smiled, and winked, and took her out to fancy dinners at expensive restaurants, or just to see some new flick in a theater, and flaunted their cocky little accents, they didn't make her weak at the knees.
She tried to, don't get her wrong. She wanted nothing more than to just be able to forget her past and move on. But she couldn't move on, just as she couldn't go weak at the knees anymore. Something was different now.
Those six months had changed her.
She sighed and shook her head. Kicked off her shoes. Turned from the window to grab an aspirin or two and flopped aimlessly on the leather couch.
How did everything go so wrong?
James was living in a small cottage now, instead of the large mansion he had stood to inherit when he came of age. He had no need for the Potter wealth anymore. He had no woman to take out, to flirt with, to smile at, to dream of; he had no one to take to a fancy dinner at the most expensive restaurant Galleons could buy, or just to go to their spot and be together.
And he had no one to blame but himself.
A fact Remus, Frank, Alice, Peter, and Sirius had made sure to press in to his thick, stupid skull.
He downed another shot of firewhiskey and lowered his head back to the small and circular wooden table, grimacing.
It was a fact that didn't change a thing now, because she was gone.
How did everything go so wrong?
FLASHBACK
"Hey, Prongsie old pal! So, if you remember, I needed to talk to you..."
James groaned. "Not now, Padfoot."
Sirius gasped. "Not-not now? We only have two weeks until your stag party, you know? Not like the full moon stag, but your, you know, stag stag? We have to plan this, baby!"
James exhaled and twisted on the couch to face his friend. "I'm not having a stag party, Sirius...or a stag party either," he murmured as Sirius made to interrupt.
"No stag party? As in, no supermegafoxyawesomehot-night-I-always-promised-to-let-my-mates-plan-if-I-find-a-bird-crazy-enough-to-marry-me party? What is wrong with you, Prongs?" Here his tone turned teasing. "Oh...I see, Lily-lady doesn't want you to mess around with other women before your big night, huh, Prongsie?"
As depressed as James was, he still had to bite back a snort of amusement. Sirius' eyes danced with evil mirth as he smirked and awkwardly shimmied before dancing around the couch and striking a diva pose. James smirked against his will; same old Sirius Black. Literally. His laughter quickly faded into horror, however, when Sirius conjured a pink and sparkly feather boa and wrapped it around his neck. Sirius collapsed on James' lap and wiggled his eyebrows seductively. "Not that I blame her, of course, mate, because I would want to be the only one you bang too."
James was sure he was turning a delightful complement of colors when Sirius barked another laugh, Vanished the boa, and rolled off the couch, landing altogether non-gracefully on the floor.
"Ow."
James lost it then. He was already hysterical because of the events of not even three hours before. Combine his hysterical grief with his hysterical idiocy (if there was such a thing) and his even more hysterical urge to laugh at his...strange...friend, and there was the James Potter classic cocktail.
"But seriously, mate, where is Lily? Wouldn't she normally be out here, hitting me over the head and trying to get me to stop messing with her fiancee? You know, I think that after all of this she thinks you're only borderline straight or something..." Sirius mused as he popped up from the scarlet rug.
"Wouldn't have anything to do with you sitting on my lap wearing the pink and sparkly boa, would it, Pads?"
Sirius shook his head innocently. "What on earth gave you that idea, Prongsie?"
James smiled sadly and leaned back on the couch. "Lily's not here right now, Pads."
"Oh, she took that Healer job, right? How's she doing?" James looked at the floor, avoiding the anger sure to come. "I wouldn't know, Pads. I ended it."
Sirius knelt down and placed his hand on James' shoulder, surprised. "Why? What happened?"
And James told him. At the end of the tale, Sirius' eyes were full of fire that James could sense even as he avoided eye contact.
"You did what."
Sirius' voice was low and solemn and James had only heard this voice once fortunately for him. Sirius never was quiet when mad. He was quiet when outright furious. More than that, he was outright deadly when he was furious. No one at Hogwarts had ever seen the handsome Marauder angry. That was kept for the special, non-full-moon Marauder meetings in the Shrieking Shack. They would never have connected the sunny, overexcited prankster to this...machine.
"You did what?" Sirius asked again. No, he wasn't asking for an explanation, but James felt the best way to calm him down was to say it again and own up to it. "I-uh, I..."
Sirius shook his head. "No, I heard you. I guess I'm hoping you're just trying to pull one over on me. But you're serious." He didn't even pause to make a Sirius-serious pun like he would have under any other circumstances.
Sirius paced back and forth, pulling at his hair, muttering under his breath. "How could he-how could you-he just-never would have thought-what did he-what a jerk-stupid-prat-idiot-who would've-to deserve that? Nothing." He spun to James and yelled.
"NOTHING! She did nothing, abso-bloody-lutely NOTHING! You, Potter, are not the man I thought you were. What did she do, Potter? Tell me, what did she do?"
James couldn't move, he couldn't breathe.
"She took a job, Potter! She went on a bloody trip to get a better bloody job! She didn't want to rely on being rich because she never was rich! She would never be happy unless she was doing something useful, and she was, and you thought she was hooking up with every man in sight! Did you think you meant nothing to her, a promise, love meant nothing?
"You want to know what nothing is, Prongs? Your intelligence level! How could you be so stupid!"
Sirius had never been this mad. Not even in the special meetings under a quarter moon. Did he love her...no, he couldn't have...could he?
It would make sense, why he was always so protective of her, sometimes came over just to talk to her and not him...but had he just let James take the girl, because he liked her first, laid claim to her first? He knew Remus had a crush on her for quite some time, but had stood aside...and he, James, just threw her away like an old toy. No one could help loving Lily, it was a proven fact. She was everything. And James was worthless.
"I'm leaving, Potter. I can't do this, not with you. When the real James, the real Prongs comes back from his vacation or his siesta orwhatever the hell it is, have him write me a letter. Maybe I'll even answer it."
Sirius flooed back to his flat in a huff after mockingly bowing in James' direction, pretending to sweep a hat off his head.
Remus, Sirius, Peter, even Alice and Frank...nobody came by to see him for weeks.
END FLASHBACK
Six months, so terrible...such a waste of time. He had nothing left, another nothing Sirius had warned him of. No happiness, no sunlight, no sanity or sobriety. No laughter, no joy, no Lily.
It was all pointless without Lily.
So much time wasted...so many apologies never uttered. And he decided, right then and there in a fit of drunken genius.
Why waste any more time? Why not bring the old James Potter back?
He had caught Lily once already, he might be able to do it again. He slammed his shot glass on the table determinedly.
That was settled.
He was going after Lily, whether she liked it or not.
ONE MONTH LATER
Lily had another stressful day at the hospital, of course. Owls pouring in for loved ones, for enemies...jinxed owls in a hospital? Really, world?
"Utterly mad. Utterly barking mad. Utterly ridiculous..."
She flung open the door and kicked off her shoes, making her way to the minibar she owned and pouring herself a scotch. She made her way to the phone resting on the circular glass table beside the couch and weighed it in her hand. Making up her mind, she sat down, put down the alcohol, and dialed a number, putting the phone on speaker.
"Jenna, are you there?"
"Hey, Lily! It's been a while! What's going on?"
Lily sighed but grinned. "A while? It was yesterday. But...I need to rant so badly right now, do you mind?"
Jenna snorted. "With all the ranting I do to you, Lily, you're entitled. So, what's bothering you now?"
"Don't you know me better than I do myself?" Lily asked.
"Well, yes, but I hate to rant to people who understand, because they're the ones that can calm me down, and I don't want to lose all my righteous anger in the middle of a perfectly good rant."
Lily laughed. "Fair enough. It's work again. Let me tell you, if people think being an Auror is bad, Healing is not something for the faint of heart. You know that one patient I told you about, Linsey Adams?"
"Oh, the annoying bitchy one?"
"No, that was Moira Adams. What people are doing in this day and age naming their children Moira Agatha Lavinia Adams, I'll never know. It's atrocious and frankly a bit horrifying. I could never face someone with a name like that. But that's besides the point."
Lily shook her head. "Linsey Adams, however, good grief. She wasn't so much annoying and bitchy as she was...active."
"Active? How so?"
"She had a rather good-looking man in the room with her at all times who was supposedly her best friend. I, however, have firsthand evidence that they are so much more than best friends."
"You caught them doing the dirty?! Yuck!"
"Right? Seriously, we're in a hospital, we don't need to see that. So I throw him out of the room once he's fully clothed and make sure the orderlies are quite clear he's not to go anywhere near her room again. The looks they were giving him at that point, though..."
Lily and Jenna shared a laugh at the shame and embarrassment of being caught in such a position while in a hospital, and being told off for it to the people in charge of admittance, no less.
James was standing in his invisibility cloak in the corner of the room, waiting silently-for what, he didn't know. His plan had extended no farther than tracking down Lily and sneaking into her home. Which, as he looked around, showed itself to be very tastefully and modernly decorated. 'Just like Lily, always in good taste.'
Listening to her recount her stressful day brought a smile to his face. Her voice, even when ragged with the exhaustion of caring for even the most...wily...patients and long shifts, was the most beautiful sound he'd ever heard. Maybe even more than that. 'Absence does makes the heart grow fonder, after all.'
To be honest, he didn't know what he was doing here. He had left a note for Sirius and Remus, who had found it earlier than expected and had Apparated to his location and yelled at him for jeopardizing her happiness. That was a painful moment, but he managed to convince them that if Lily really was happier without him, as she very well could be, he would acknowledge he had no one to blame it on but himself and he would leave her to find a new man. Willingly. Because he loved her.
Would he? He liked to think he could love her just that much. But James Potter, after hearing that melodious laugh for the first time in six months, realized one thing about himself. He was a very selfish wizard.
After Lily had finished regaling Jenna with a few other tales, which extended to Abby Clinton (a sweet young girl, Muggle, dating a rather shy young bloke just graduated from dental school named David Granger, also Muggle), Miranda Aves (like a Siri-no, even Sirius was never that bad. Miranda was like a Jenna on a permanent sugar high), and Kenny McArthy, she was feeling much better about her position in life.
Made even better when Jenna asked her a question.
"So. You want to know what I think?"
"No, not particularly."
"OI! Evans!"
Lily giggled, drawing her knees to her chest and resting her feet on the edge of the couch (she had never used to allow feet on the couch, James thought wistfully from his little corner).
"But, really. I think that bloke you introduced me to, Thomas Hunter?"
"Handsome Hunter?" Lily asked breathlessly; James was jealous of the way the name Handsome Hunter rolled off her tongue so easily.
"The gorgeous, insanely perfect one with a deep voice and a tan of the gods? That guy. The hot one. Handsome doesn't cover it, Lilybear, and I think he likes you. A lot, IF you know what I mean. He kept looking at you, like...like, uh,"
Jenna lowered her voice to make it sound more gravelly and manly, "'Lily Evans, you sleeping alone tonight or can I Slytherin?'"
Lily burst out laughing. "Classy, Jenna. Hogwarts pick-up lines. Charming. And accurate, I'm sure."
"It is, though! So. Are you gonna date him?"
Lily sighed. "No, I'm not." James could have jumped for joy but strained his hearing to hear what Jenna said next.
"You need to forget him, Lily. I know you say you want to let it go, but if you really wanted it, he would be out of your mind by now. It's not good for you to dwell on could-have-beens."
Lily sighed once more. "I just can't put myself through that again yet, thanks. I want to forget, but I can't. I can't forget the last time I was committed to somebody they hurt me like that. I don't need that." She paused. "Maybe soon. Just not yet."
"Okay, then," Jenna said, "Just don't wait around forever. There are some good-looking, funny, intelligent guys out there who would love to date someone like you. Don't forget that."
"I won't, I promise."
Jenna's tone turned light and teasing again. "But when you do move on, don't do what Linsey Adams did, even though it's in your nature."
Lily raised an eyebrow. "What on earth is that supposed to mean? Why the bloody Merlin would I shag anyone in a hospital?"
James could practically hear the suggestive smirk and raised eyebrow in Jenna's voice. "On all fours, Gryffindors!" Jenna laughed.
Lily shook her head slowly. "I don't know why I even talk to you."
"Because you love me, silly!" Lily burst out laughing; the strain of not laughing at the pointed innuendo was too much to resist. "I know I do," she giggled.
"Hey Lils, I gotta go, the boyfriend's back for our date tonight. Talk to you later?"
Lily smiled. "For sure. Bye, Jenna." She hung up the phone and laughed again. "That's just repulsive, Jenna. Nasty."
James had to agree, though he was certainly grateful for the Silencing charm he had erected. Lily would certainly be scared by the maniacal laughter coming from a corner of her apartment where nothing stood.
But it was now or never.
Lily was laughing quietly to herself, laying flat on the couch, when she heard it. It was the sound a snake would make slithering against stone, wind brushing through leaves on a forest floor, the sound an Invisibility Cloak would make if you took it off in a certain way so as not to frighten your ex-girlfriend in her apartment...
Lily went deathly pale. There was no way he would be here. There was no way he could be here. Was there?
She sat up slowly, pulling her wand from the waistband of her jeans and looked around.
Refrigerator, minibar, attractive dork with glasses, television, bookshelf crammed with both Muggle fiction and old textbooks...wait.
The attractive dork with glasses wasn't a fixture in her apartment the last time she checked.
In a flash, she was standing in front of him, clutching his shirt collar and pointing her wand between his eyes, all the hurt and anger at his sudden reappearance on her face.
"What do you want, Potter."
"What do you want, Potter."
She was treating him like a criminal. His eyes were comically crossing, trying to see the point of her wand where it disappeared from his immediate vision - he knew better than to let Lily's wand out of sight.
She had always been attractive when angry. It was one of the reasons he tried so hard to get under her skin back in school, before she had finally seen the real him. Her eyes flashed and the air hummed with electricity and her hair went a tiny bit staticy (he found that adorable, of course) and good Merlin, she was feisty.
What do I want, Lily? I want to hug you, to hold you, to kiss you, I want you..."I just want to talk. That's all."
She narrowed her eyes. "And that involves breaking in to my apartment. In America. When you could just save the time and send an owl like most normal people would do." Her tone was cold and biting and harsh and worst of all he deserved every bit of it.
James chuckled nervously, running a hand through his just-rolled-out-of-bed hair. "Well, Lily, uh...you know I'm not really a normal person, yeah?" He decided that this wasn't an appropriate time for jokes. When he spoke again, his voice was soft and achingly gentle. "Lily, please."
Lily shook her head slowly like a person going against their better judgment and lowered her wand, letting go of his shirt and stepping back. "I can't believe I'm doing this, but fine. Let's talk."
OoO
Five minutes had passed in complete silence. Lily was nursing a scotch in her right hand, looking down at the golden color like it was the most interesting thing in the world. And James was watching her.
"You wanted to talk, James." She sounded dead. Defeated, for some reason. Like this meeting was killing her. James winced. Remembering their last "talk", it probably was.
"Lily...I was a fool. I was worse than a fool. I was a jerk. I was an imbecile. I was selfish and I was so, so wrong. I wasn't fair to you. I knew you wanted to be your own person, but-"
"But you just wanted me to be there for you? You wanted me to put everything I wanted on hold to make yourself feel better?" She was outright glaring at him. He didn't really blame her.
He sheepishly rubbed the back of his neck. "Well...kind of. I thought that - well, I mean - it seemed like- oh, blast it."
Lily was trying not to smile; he was the same James she had left behind in England with the rest of the bad memories. He was easily flustered, rambled when nervous, and never finished a sentence if his life depended on it.
"Lily, I thought - I thought you were leaving me. That you would find some other guy here and forget about me, and everything you left back home. I didn't want to break up with you - just the thought of losing you nearly killed me. Ask Sirius, ask Remus. These past - what - six months months, two weeks, four days, seventeen minutes-"
"And thirty-three seconds."
James stared at Lily. She was intently studying the remains of her scotch like it was the only other object in the room, clearly wishing he hadn't heard her. He couldn't have heard right. If he heard what he thought he did, she had been counting - or at least aware of - the time that had passed since he had made the worst decision of his life. What did that mean? Could it mean she had cared?
"What?" His voice was husky and hoarse.
"Thirty-three seconds," Lily mumbled, knowing it was useless to pretend. "Since I left, I mean."
"I know." He didn't feel alive. He felt like he was watching this scene in a dream sequence. This couldn't be real, she couldn't have missed him after he hurt her so badly - could she?
"James...I just don't know what to do. Do we pretend it never happened? Do we pick up where we left off? Or are you just here to apologize for that day and get on with your life without guilt?"
It was killing Lily to imagine him leaving this place without her, but it had to be asked. She couldn't live with the James Potter that had yelled at her for quite a stupid reason, but she yearned for nothing more than the old James, her Jamie.
"I can't help thinking about you. You're the first thing I think of when I wake up, and the last thing I think of every night."
James grinned to himself. She still thought about him - did he stand a chance after all? Lily continued and his face fell.
"I can't tell you how much I wish I could just forget it all. How much I wish it never happened. I hate the memories. I just want to move on."
Oh. Well, then.
"Right," James muttered. He stood up abruptly. "I'm sorry - just thought I should - well, I bet the blokes here are glad you're single and whatnot - I'll just, uh - go."
Lily was panicking inside. She wanted to move on - but what was there to move on to now? He was everything she'd ever wanted - it was so confusing.
"No!" she cried. "I mean - wait." He gazed at her appraisingly and slowly took his spot back. "You know something, Potter?" He shook his head silently, wondering why she still wanted to talk to him.
"I didn't mean it like that," she murmured. "I just meant that - well, the circumstances - anyone would want to forget - and it's not like I don't - I care - a lot, really, and-"
"Lily," he asked, a small grin on his face, "What are you saying?"
She blushed but looked him stoically in the face. "I'm saying I would only forget the split, and remember you, because if I can't get you out of my mind then maybe you're supposed to be there."
James beamed. "A second chance?" he asked, just to clarify. "Are you sure?"
Lily waved her wand twice; the first wave caused the furniture in the room to shrink and disappear, the second to send a suitcase flying out of what James assumed was her bedroom.
"You know, as much as I like my high-rise, I think I would be better off staying as far away from seductive American boys as possible. After all, I do have a boyfriend now."
A/N: Hello there! I've had this written for about a month and a half, I really have no clue why it took this long to upload.
So if you didn't get it, Lily, who was going to be married to James in a week or two, was previously offered a better job as a Healer in America. Go and try it, see if you like it. James found out that she was going to go through with it and he was scared that she was going to be leaving him behind for good. So before she could "push him away", he did that to her so it would hurt him less. IN THEORY, because we all know that James hurt like heck.
He misses her, realizes he made the biggest mistake of his life after she moved out, and he decides in a drunken fit that he's really going to try and find her and grovel and try and earn her forgiveness. A month later finds Lily at the close of a worrisome day in a hospital, regaling tales to her friend Jenna. James had previously snuck into the apartment with his Invisibility Cloak to wait for her. He reveals himself, and he and Lily have a heart-to-heart about what they really want, which obviously is each other.
Thanks for reading :) Please review! Also, who's going to go see Perks of Being a Wallflower when it hits theaters? I am! :D