"You can't." She stumbled forward a few steps. "You can't leave me." James looked away from her as her defiant face finally crumbled. "You spent four years chasing after me, Potter, don't you dare let go now."
James couldn't – wouldn't – look at her. He couldn't let his resolve falter; he couldn't take her into his arms like he was dying to do.
"I have to go after Sirius – he's my brother. And he's been caught; they're doing Merlin knows what to him. You can't ask me to choose you over him." Lily felt as if every word he said was calculated to cause her pain – as if she didn't know what she should be doing.
"Then let me come with you. Or wait for the Order, it's just three days." She hated the pleading tone in her voice, but not nearly as much as he did.
"Three days is too long. Please don't make this about who I love more, Lily. Just let me go." She recoiled at the harshness of his words.
"I am not making this about me, I am making this about being sensible. If you go after him, you will get caught and you will die." Her voice, strong until the last word, broke.
James broke too, striding towards her and gathering her up in his arms. "I will come back. I'm James fucking Potter, when have I ever not come back?"
Lily dug her nails into the top of his arms, kissing him fiercely on the mouth. "If you're not home in two days, I'm coming after you. And woe betide you," she whispered against his lips, and then detached herself from him forcefully, turning and walking away. She didn't let the tears fall again until after the snap signalled that James had disapparated.
That night was torture for the both of them. Lily sat in her bed, staring at the wall; repeatedly thinking 'two days'. Remus, who felt the loss of Sirius as strongly as she did the absence of James, sat with her after he realised that she wouldn't move, and they laced their fingers together.
"They'll both be back before we know it. They will," Remus promised, and then fell silent. Lily presumed he was repeating those words to himself in the same manner she was, and squeezed his hand.
James spent the night leant against a tree, having to make do with a Disillusionment charm, as only Peter was short enough to fit underneath the cloak. He knew he should've been sleeping, as the strategizing was done, but his thoughts turned, unwillingly, to Lily. James tried not to be morose in his thoughts – he had promised Lily he would come back, these were not the thoughts of a man with a death sentence.
"Hey, Potter, this was a date wasn't it?" Lily called after him as he walked away from her.
His looked back at her in confusion. "I bloody well hope so."
"Then why're you leaving, haven't you forgotten something?" As soon as what she meant dawned on him, he strode back over to her, cupping her cheek with his hand and letting his breath ghost over her lips. Lily leaned into him slightly, closing her eyes, and James almost gave. Almost.
"I think you're going to have to work for it." He smirked as Lily's eyes flew open, anger and a little of something else burning in there.
"You're an utter arse, Potter," she told him, before fisting her hands in his shirt and pulling him against her, crushing her lips into his.
James smiled at the memory, and let sleep take him, knowing he'd be ready for tomorrow, whether he and Sirius got out alive or not.
Lily woke up on day two before dawn, and she glanced down at Remus, who still slept. He was curled tightly in a ball, barely taking up a third of the bed. She debated taking him with her; she knew how betrayed he'd feel – Peter was out on a mission for the Order, so he'd be alone.
She was halfway down the street when the pair appeared, and she was running, running, running towards them.
"Lily." James couldn't catch her as she threw herself into his arms, and he bit back a scream as she pressed his side.
Lily stepped back quickly, slipping an arm under his and sending her Patronus to the house to get help.
"You're alive, you're both alive." She didn't know she was crying until she tasted the salt, and she kept hold of James' hand even as Gideon and Fabian lifted him and carried him swiftly to the house.
She kept hold of it as they put him under, and Thomas Gilys cut into his side to take the fractured rib out of James' lung. She stayed with him all through the night, blocking out the sounds of everyone.
When James woke up, he found Lily curled into his good side, her hand tangled in his shirt with an iron grip. He looked to the bed next to him to see Remus and Sirius in a similar position, and the knowledge that they were alive finally sunk in.
He settled back down in the bed, pulling Lily closer to him.
"They're only eighteen, Dumbledore. Look at them. They shouldn't be fighting this war." Lily blinked her eyes clear, the sound of James' gentle snoring tugging the corners of her lips up.
"James needed Sirius to be safe; it has nothing to do with the war," Dumbledore replied, and Lily lay silent, waiting for more, but none came.
She felt James stirring next to her, and his eyes snapped to hers once he was fully awake.
"If you're going to yell, can it wait until later? Sirius has been through a lot-" He was cut off with a light kiss.
Lily ran her fingers through his hair, mimicking a gesture that she once found annoying. "You got back in two days. You cut it really bloody fine, but of course you would. You two are dramatic."
James rolled his eyes. "You got us. We turned up like this for the drama."
"You are not going out alone for at least six months, you hear me? It was only two days, but…" Lily broke off.
"It was awful." James' eyes were serious. "Lily, will you marry me?"
Lily resisted the urge to smack him in the chest. "I'm sorry, what?"
"I'll do the romantic stuff later. Right now, I am asking you if you want to spend the rest of your life with me." He cupped her face with his hand, and Lily covered it with her own.
"Of course, James." Her words ghosted over his lips, and then they were kissing fiercely, all the worry and the anger and the waiting burning through their veins as they tried to be careful, for the sake of James' side and the narrow bed.
"Well, that's not something I wanted to see the moment I woke up," Sirius commented drily, and a third constraint introduced itself – an audience.