*Summary: She wanted to smack herself as soon as the words were out. James was already pulling his hand away like he'd been burned. But Lily had watched way too many muggle soap operas, and she was far too practical to let this particular cliche play out.
I should be working on my multi-chapter? What multi-chapter? Shhhhhhhh. (I'm having so much fun with one-shots, you have no idea how many half-formed blocks of dialogue are getting worked out on my laptop right now.)
(Published on AO3 and under the same username)
St Mungo's, present
.
I'm fine, you idiot.
Call off your dog, Potter, I'm trying to sleep.
...I didn't mean that, Black, get your arse back in here.
These were all of the things Lily wanted to say in the moments after blinking awake to the stark bareness of St. Mungo's.
She was the only body in a row of deserted beds, and furthest from the door. Probably why the three dullards standing over her weren't bothering to keep their voices down. Well, two dullards. The tall smudgy dullard was twisting his long, thin legs around the plastic chair he was perched on and protesting loudly. Probably because the sharp, black-clad dullard with casually expensive hair was currently tilting the seat sideways to dump the first boy out of it.
"Sirius, there are at least ten other chairs within arms reach that I am not already sitting on!"
"I want this this one. This one has a cushion."
"You're a wizard, you dick, see if you can find a solution!"
"Shit, you're right," with a flourish, the second boy drew a long, thin object from his back pocket. Almost instantly the first boy was flung from his coveted perch to skid a few feet across the scuffed linoleum.
"You know that's not what I meant, arsehole!"
The final inhabitant of the room slouched silently in a plastic chair, head propped on an arm, glasses askew. He could have been asleep (kind of like Lily had been, until the circus act beside her hit the buffers.)
Clown #2 was currently perched primly with a smug grin, twirling his wand tauntingly. ("Language, Remus.")
Lily closed her eyes. Her head hurt, her chest hurt, her body hurt. Mostly a dull ache, the kind you got rolling out of bed the morning after an intense workout. As if she ever voluntarily worked out. This caused her to snort, which caused her to cough a bit. Maybe a bit more than a bit.
The dolts surrounding her bed took this with a touch more concern than necessary (sure, possibly, hypothetically because she'd been lying unconscious in a hospital bed for an undetermined amount of time), and Sirius promptly- threw himself on top of her? Lily squirmed in protest as he reached for something frantically, his armpit squishing her airways.
"I think she's having trouble breathing… Remus? Where's the fucking call button for that daft healer, Remus she just made a noise and I think-" As he leaned further over to better jam the panel on the wall, Lily was smothered by two hundred pounds of boy. His ratted muggle hoodie smelled like smoke and damp.
"Mmmphhm!"
"Sirius move she's trying to say something-" with a grunt, Remus finally heaved him off by his hood. Sirius choked as Lily sucked in sweet, sweet air. Her voice came out scratchy but irritated.
"I was trying to say the only thing making it difficult to breathe is your mass Black."
The tall boy grinned and ducked his head, trying (unsuccessfully) to look annoyed. He murmured something along the lines of "She's fine." While Sirius quickly moved on to craning his neck and complaining about the speed of service ("She could be dead by now, where is that bint"), Remus stilled, letting out a relieved breath. Lily couldn't help but notice his fist was still clenched at the nape of Black's neck like his hood was a lifeline. File that away for later.
She was so distracted by the unexpected normalcy of watching the two banter, she missed the third occupant quietly approaching until he stepped in front of her, the back of his robes blocking her vision. She couldn't see his face, and his voice was low and measured as he slipped something shiny into his pocket.
"Peter can't make it back until tomorrow. Moony-"
"Will not," Sirius gripped the tired boy's upper arm tightly, "be taking any sort of shift for the next twenty four hours because he is going to sleep," he shook him briefly for effect, "before he keels over."
Remus rolled his eyes in protest. "Yes, that seemed like a major concern for you when I was resting in your chair."
"See! Worthy of major concern. His own words."
Now James rolled his eyes. "That's just where I was going with that; Moony, you're headed back. Give the Order an update. Go to bed. Sirius, you can follow to check up on him in a few… I've just got, I mean as soon as I've... I'll just…" For the first time he sounded less confident, but the two marauders must have given some sort of non-verbal acknowledgement Lily couldn't see through James because they turned and cheerfully bickered their way into the hall.
"It's not even physically possible to sleep for twenty-four hours-"
"You could use twenty-four years mate, you look like shit."
"Oh, and you look smashing yourself-"
"Why Moony, that's just the sweetest thing to say-"
"I swear, James is going to have to put you on watch,"
Their voices trailed off and Lily braced herself for the anger she could see tensed in James' shoulders. Instead, he stood still, reaching to run a hand across his face. Lily was working up the courage to reach out and grab his hand, but she could feel the awkwardness in the room as thick as soup. Very angsty, very awkward soup. Lily didn't much like soup. She especially didn't like whatever soup they'd tried to feed her last time she was in St. Mungo's, it was questionably coloured and full of soggy lumps trying to pass for vegetables. Trying to poison her more like-
Her train of thought was abruptly cut off when the source of conflict himself, fellow creator of said soup, dropped into one of the chairs placed near the bed. His eyes rose to meet Lily's. His hand ran anxiously through his hair before settling to pick at the hospital blanket. Lily kept opening her mouth trying to catch words, but just ended up swallowing more awkward tension. Stupid hand. Stupid mouth. It was James, what a brave soul, who broke the silence.
"You've been out almost a full day. Concussion, they'll keep you overnight, but once they run a psych eval in the morning you should be good to go," he ran his other hand through his hair for good measure. "How are you... does anything hurt?" With that he subtly began scanning her body as if pain was a visible entity and her aches and bruises would light up like a board game buzzer. A light…
There had been a light? A bright light, behind her eyelids, and a small room, and... shit the only way she'd be here right now in this bed with all her aches and bruises and James Potter leaning over her was if...
"I'm fine, but what- I don't remember- Dumbledore didn't?" She couldn't bear to finish her question. She didn't want a list of symptoms, she wanted to know how badly she'd mucked things up. James' eyes widened.
He gripped the bedsheets in a fist and launched to his feet. "That's what you're worried about? The mission? Lily you almost died!" Cocky. As if towering over her would cow her into being a more compliant patient. Lily tried to make him see that this was not crisis averted, this was the worst case scenario.
"And I definitely set us back months! I became a liability! I only wanted to help and I made things so much worse, please, please tell me we didn't lose track of two high-level Death Eaters because of me! I wasn't worth it, it was my stupid mistake-" James grabbed one of her wrists (impressive feat really, they were flailing around aggressively to emphasize her very reasonable points and he had to reach a bit) in a crushing grip. His stare intensified, and Lily started wondering just where that healer had gotten off to and hadn't Sirius pressed it enough times to cause at least mild concern and how long did it really take to answer a summons anyway?
"Don't. Just don't. You're worth so much more than that, Lils," he hesitated a moment, grasping at words, "...and you know it or you wouldn't have sent the message in the first place. We've all made mistakes. Don't be a martyr."
Oh, like hell. As if she'd just popped it off at the first sign of danger. As if he could've endured three hours of torture and held back (he could have) from sending a message they weren't even supposed to respond to (she'd been hoping so hard they would, and praying they wouldn't). As if she were weak (she was). Her fury built into a nice bonfire that would have launched so nicely into his self-righteous face, and then he'd lob something back, and they'd wake the next morning on an earth that revolved around the sun again where no one told anyone they were worth so much more than very important things. A world-righting bonfire.
But James had to go and interrupt it by dumping his bloody soup of feelings all over. "Did you…" he swallowed hard, "did you mean what you said? Back there, when you were- you know."
Oh. Oh.
That.
Right.
Ten hours earlier
.
I can't walk, you idiot.
You've got more nose hairs than brain cells if you think I'm going anywhere quietly.
If I could reach my wand you'd be dead by now.
These were all of the things Lily wanted to say as the irritated wizard tugged at her hastily bound arms impatiently. Lily had never felt less like a Gryffindor in her life.
The spell had come out of nowhere. She was embarrassed, but most of all she was frustrated.
She's promised Dumbledore she could handle this. It was only a couple students, after all. She'd grown decently close with Annette the last couple months of school after Annette's father was murdered by death eaters, and their family had revised their neutral position in the war.
Conveniently, her father had been a master in occlumency and covering magical tracks. Mr. Bexley dealt in secrecy. Lily had begged and pleaded for months for the Order to sanction a recon mission to meet with Annette and her older brother Armon, who was set to inherit his father's clientele (along with all their dirty laundry).
A perfect plan, really, until Armon and his sister had decided to stun and abduct her. This debacle was going to make lunch infinitely more awkward.
The tall wizard had quickly manhandled her into a nearby abandoned shop, presumably to floo somewhere more contained, but Lily grew up watching muggle news. Every Friday while Tuney was out with some bloke or other, she and her mum would curl up with some greasy chips from their favorite shop and put on a murder special.
Maybe too many murder specials. She had spectacularly faked a stumble, tried to bash his nose in with the back of her head (easier in theory than practice), and ended up with an arm around her throat. His voice had been calm and even as he jabbed a wand into the hollow at the base of her neck. "Don't. Try that again." He'd tried to swing her forward but overcalculated, and rammed Lily's head into one of the wooden shelves. Pain exploded behind her eyes.
Oops.
She wasn't even awake long enough to hear a location. But she did remember waking disoriented. Trying to scramble to her feet. Pain. A girl with an annoyingly shiny braid lightly shoved her back to the ground. Annette. Her green eyes met Lily's. Meeting gone wrong. Abort. Abort- except they took your wand, of course they took your wand-
"You shouldn't move, you have some serious head injuries."
"Yeah, thanks to your charming brother!" Lily's voice was more of a shriek than the irritated sarcasm she'd been aiming for. Try again. She sucked in a breath. Small room, no windows, one door, stone floor. Locked eyes with her captor.
"Don't act concerned, you snake." Annette crouched down, twirling her wand between Lily's eyes.
"Then don't pretend we weren't doing the exact same thing. 'An organization that tries to prevent deaths like your fathers'? 'We could make a difference for good, Annie!' You were using me for my family and my information," Annette straightened and backed away to lean on the far wall. "It just turns out that we need you, too."
Lily clenched her fists as the door swung open and Armon slid in. "They killed your father! And you're still working with them?"
Annette only huffed out a tired laugh. "No. They didn't." She motioned to her brother. "Go ahead. Lily, I don't want to see you get hurt. We just need a few names-"
"They don't tell me anything! I don't know anything!"
"I know! I know, Lily, that's why we need you to send a message. Let them know what we want in exchange for your safe return. And you're going to need to sound a bit… desperate." Armon lifted his wand and Lily's muscles began to spasm.
They were still twitching three hours later when Annette conjured her patronus a third time. The armadillo uncurled from its shining shell, and its owner waved it over with a flick of her wand.
"All right Lily, let's try again. Just as we told you."
She'd recorded it. Finally. Her red hair was slicked with sweat, and she was scared of becoming another body. Scared of losing her mind. She told herself over and over again that Dumbledore would never release sensitive information, not for her, all she had to do was record this message and the pain would stop. The pain would stop. It had to stop.
Lily leaned in to give the translucent figure her final plea: the message James would overhear just twenty minutes later, panicked and furious.
All we ask, (Lily's voice cracked) is that you remove your tail on Rabastan Lestrange and Walden Macnair, as well as their families, within the next twenty four hours. We are not unreasonable. As soon as these points are met, we can guarantee the safe return of your agent, Lily Evans. If our demands are not met... Lily paused, shooting a glare at Annette (and her perfect hair), before hastily squeezing her eyes shut to whisper, "I'm so terribly sorry Marlene, tell Alice, and James that I was a fucking idiot when it came to how I felt about him-"
"That's quite enough." Annette flicked her patronus away from Lily and back to her palm before whispering what was presumably a destination and sending it through the wall. Lily slumped back, miserable and spent.
St. Mungo's, present
"Did you mean what you said? Back there, when you were- you know."
Bugger. Borrowing one of Sirius' favourite words: how, in this entire cluster-fuck of a situation, had the imbecile managed to focus in on the one thing that wasn't an immediate emergency?
(All right, maybe she just really didn't want to talk about it. She hadn't really expected to live long enough to deal with the consequences of it now, had she?)
Lily twisted her fingers and James tentatively slid his hand down her wrist to still them. What would this change? Despite Marlene's snide remarks and raised eyebrows, Lily liked how things were, working with the Order. She and Remus had always been friends, but now she shared her favourite muggle radio programs with him and he taught her to cook something new every Wednesday.
Now she had Peter, who was shy and quiet and sometimes lost in his head, but who really just needed someone to talk to. He was so scared, and Lily practiced dueling with him over the weekends to build his confidence.
Now she had Sirius, who dyed her hair blue and found ways to make increasingly inappropriate innuendos, but also taught her swear words and insults guaranteed to piss off Petunia while trading cigarettes for information on muggle "motor-sickles".
Now she had James… or, well, didn't have him, he wasn't a thing she could have, but she had a something with him. Things were almost back to normal; he still pulled ridiculous pranks with Sirius, though not as often. He still ruffled his hair, more out of habit than purpose. He still teased her when she got too wound up or intense, but every time they reached a peak, the point where he would usually ask her out, he stopped. Dropped off. Sometimes complimented her, but never crossed this new imaginary line someone drawn when Lily wasn't paying attention. It was good though. More than good.
There was a small pub nearby headquarters that Lily had slunk off to one afternoon after yet another Order meeting that made her feel intensely useless. She had glanced around the street warily before ducking inside, and immediately heard a familiar voice from a booth near the door.
"Oh, how the mighty have fallen. Day drinking, Evans?"
He must have seen her hesitant approach from the window. She had plopped down across from him with a chuckle. "Now isn't that just the pot calling out the kettle?"
James had leaned in as if telling her a juicy secret and raised an eyebrow. "I think it's actually 'don't throw glass stones into the black pot', dear."
That pulled a real laugh out of her. "You're wasted already! And mixing your metaphors terribly."
He tapped his nose conspiratorially. "Mildly tipsy, my lovely Watson, and I know I'm right. Now drink up and tell me your secrets."
They'd spent a few afternoons like that, and the alcohol moved them quickly from muggle television ("I really never should've introduced you to that,") to feeling restless stuck in the futility of the war. Lily brought up Petunia once. James admitted to deep guilt over doting parents and more money than he knew what to do with, while his best friends were gifted with shitty relatives and Remus and Peter barely scraped by.
That and a thousand other moments ran through her head. The way this played out would change everything.
Did she mean it? Should she mean it?
"James, look, I thought I was going to die- and I'm so glad I didn't, but I never thought we'd actually have a chance-"
She wanted to smack herself as soon as the words started spilling out. James was already pulling his hand away like he'd been burned. Stupid soup. She realized by the look on his face that he'd taken what she was saying in the exact opposite way that she'd meant it, as he so often did (always willfully misunderstanding, that one) and tried to speak up again, but the bloody healer chose that moment to finally bustle in.
All smiles and sunshine, she picked up Lily's chart and started flipping through with cheery commentary, but Lily couldn't process any of it. That was it. The end to this whole, sorry ordeal.
James was going to nurse his feelings, brush this whole thing off, and go back to being polite and cordial. There would be no more afternoon meetings, no more wondering if he'd ever get the guts to ask her out again, wondering if he even wanted to, no more tactless hints from Sirius nudging him to take things further. No more walking her home. No more opening up. And Lily would be left pining away for four months at least before she could even begin to fix some of the damage she'd done.
She had watched way too many muggle soap operas to let that particular cliche play out.
Her arm shot out with surprising speed and clamped down on his forearm. "No, listen," the nurse startled at her forceful tone and looked up, but Lily focused in on James. "That's not how I wanted to say that, I meant, I mean, I did think I was going to die. And I never thought we had a chance before that, because I was such a tosser all those years. And… well you were more of a tosser, really. That's irrelevant. But in that moment, I thought… I guess I thought to hell with it, if you still feel even a fraction of what I do for you, then it's worth it. I guess you're right, a part of me hoped it would work out and I wouldn't have to be some pretentious dead martyr. And now I'm not dying, but that doesn't mean I take it back," She paused, but quickly realized that meant James would be able to start saying things, which she was entirely unprepared for.
"And now I'm just going to keep talking so I don't have to stop and hear whatever you're going to say, because that's, well it's terrifying, so-"
James' face was attached to his neck one moment, and the next it was attached to her face, which was a bit of a shock. His face was also still very much attached to his neck, which was good (very good) because his neck was soft and nice to touch. Unfortunately, just as Lily discovered this he leaned back and grabbed her exploring hand with his own.
"Do you mean it? You're not just saying- do you really mean it?" His eyes bored deep into hers. Idiot.
"Nah, I thought it would be a good laugh for me and Sirius when he gets back on watch, yes you wanker I mean it! Do you still, I mean-"
He poked playfully at her cheek and cut her off. "You've got beautiful dimples, did I ever tell you that?" There was a humph from behind him.
"Well, I never!" That was the nurse, flusteredly slinging the chart down and striding out the door, muttering under her breath. Apparently she was not used to being ignored in favour of dramatic and sudden declarations of feeling and public affection.
Lily and James stared after her for a moment, slowly made eye contact, and burst into peals of laughter.
They were drowned out by a shrill voice from the hallway, "Well I never either," Sirius mimicked. "Seriously, I thought it'd never end. Remus and I had to keep re-placing bets, because you're both so bloody stubborn you kept outlasting them."
"Well yes, but this time I was right on time. Hand it over, Padfoot."
"I'm sorry, do you think I'm made of money? I'm still waiting on that bet with McLaggen to come through!"
"You don't have the money, do you?"
"I will have the money."
"Oi!" Lily interjected. "Peanut gallery! If you're going to eavesdrop, you might as well do it from in here!"
Sirius sulked in dramatically ahead of his smug companion. "I don't even like peanuts."
"You're supposed to be sleeping," Lily directed this at Remus, who started a dramatic, innocent shrug, but was violently bumped to the side as the much less cheery, much more disgruntled nurse shoved her way to Lily's bedside.
"And SO ARE YOU!" She whirled on James. "I've let you post your thugs outside the door (the scrawny aforementioned thugs smirked at each other behind her back), I've let you severely abuse the emergency call button, and I've let you dramatically pace a hole in the floor of this room! But I will not stand for you disrupting my patient any longer! GET OUT before I hex you into one of those beds myself!" Sirius and Remus were already hightailing it for the door, but James must have had the misfortune of looking hesitant, because the irate healer grabbed his arm and began dragging him out behind her.
Lily let out a shocked chuckle, and James twisted to make eye contact with her over his shoulder one last time before he was forcefully shoved out. His mouth twisted into a wide, incredulous smile as the door slammed.
The healer commenced bustling around, trying to look busy checking things. Lily touched her grinning lips and realized neither of them had even said it. Hadn't needed to. They'd just known.
I love you too.
A/N: Thanks for reading! Not sure I'm happy with the ending. (Is anyone ever?) Shout out to Jon Bellion, I listened to this story's namesake for like three weeks straight and just- "What if all the things I've done were just attempts at earning love? 'Cause the hole inside my heart is stupid deep." Tell me that's not these two idiots. Look me in the eye and tell me. (I also know little to nothing about actual concussions that hasn't come from fanfic, so as you'll notice I tried to mention them as little as possible.)
Cheers! -Lucky