A/N: Hello, potential reviewers (I hope)! Before you start reading I'd like you to know that this story is quite AU in two different ways. First of all, Lily and James are much older than they were before they were murdered, so either that hasn't happened yet or it is not going to happen at all (I don't really know; this is just a one-shot so I don't have a proper detailed plot planned out for it).

Second – and according to me, this is not so AU – their relationship is not quite as perfect as everyone seems to think it should be. Really, who knows how they worked things out, how can people assume that they had no difficulties? I think that they obviously would have, and since it doesn't specify in the books, I don't think it makes it so AU.

I'm terribly sorry for the awfully long author's note, but I just had to let you know.

"I hate you!" I screamed. "I hate you! You BASTARD!"

I couldn't take it anymore. As I stood there on the other side of the bed, staring across at the man I had been sleeping with and next to for years – all the while not having a clue what I felt about him – I finally decided I couldn't take it anymore. Emotions were pouring out of me like a torrent of fierce rain streaming down from parted grey clouds; I was maddened, crazed, demented in my anger. My anger at myself for not recognizing the feeling in my heart when he touched me, when he kissed me, when he caressed me.

"What the hell IS IT?!" I yelled at him, not realizing he had no idea what I was raving about. "What is it? TELL ME!" I roared, picking up another one of my shoes from where it was lying on the floor and preparing to launch it at him. "TELL ME!"

I stopped then, and it felt as though I was frozen in time. Then the clock began to tick again, but so slowly, so unbearably slowly.

I looked at this man, this man I had been with for so long, this man who frustrated me so much. I watched him, with his incredible hazel eyes round with surprise, guilt, confusion. His thinning black hair, as messy as ever from my attack, his round glasses – the ones he had always worn since I'd met him – perched lopsided on his nose. His broad shoulders, now rounding slightly with age, hunched in case he needed to duck. I watched him raise his hand in a gesture of supplication, as if in slow motion, and open his mouth. I saw his lips form words, and it was difficult to hear them over the rushing in my ears, the loud ticking of the clock, but I knew what he said. I just knew.

"Lily. Lily, listen to me. You have to stop. You have to calm down."

And in the pause that followed he almost thought I had calmed down. But his next words erased any feelings of cool that might have been creeping up on me.

"I love you." It was a simple sentence, just three words, and uttered so quietly, so softly, so lovingly. So honestly. He told me he loved me, and then the world began to pick up pace again. I looked at the shoe in my hand for a moment.

He told me he loved me, and I threw my shoe at him.

"Lily!" he shouted, ducking to avoid the flying shoe. "Lily, what's the problem?"

"YOU!" I yelled at the top of my voice, feeling the anger flow out of me. "YOU are the problem, you idiot, you ass, you stupid nice beautiful loving amazing person! I HATE YOU!"

And suddenly he regained his composure, put away his shock as he always did, as he had always helped me do. And that was what he did then. He helped me, like he always did.

"Lily."

"I hate you, I hate you, I hate you, I hate you, I HATE YOU!!!"

"Lily, no you don't."

"YES I DO! I HATE YOU!"

"Lily."

"WHAT?!"

"You don't."

"I DO!"

"You don't," he repeated calmly. "You don't. Say it."

"YES I DO! JAMES, I HATE YOU! I HATE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I HATE YOU!"

"You don't hate me."

"NO! I LOVE YOU! I LOVE YOU, JAMES! I love you! I love you…I love you…"

And I collapsed into a heap on the floor, sobbing in agony, sobbing with the realization of it, sobbing that I had finally figured it out. I hated him. I hated him so much. And yet I was completely in love with him. And slowly the pain turned to relief, as he came around the bed and kneeled next to me, as he laid a hand on my back and stroked it, as he lifted my chin and kissed my tears, as he placed his lips on mine and made me kiss him, as he showed me that he loved me and I loved him.

"There. You've said it. You've just said it for the first time," he mumbled through my lips. "You've just said it for the first time."

And I could feel tears of joy come to his eyes and begin to pour out onto his cheeks, and we were both crying and kissing, from joy and relief, from release and love. We were both crying and we were both kissing. Both crying and both kissing.