A Downpour of Chivalry
or
"Cold, wet and lonely"

James could see her as he approached the bus stop. A misty haze surrounded the lone figure illuminated under the streetlamp, making her just visible through the pouring rain. As he drew nearer, his eyes widened slightly as he realised that her only shelter from the weather was a thin cardigan. It was soaked through, the white wool made transparent so that the pattern of a floral blouse was discernible even through James' fogged lenses and the sheets of water pelting down from the heavens.

He stopped two metres away from her, the usual distance of respect between two commuting strangers. She looked up as his feet came to a rest, giving him a tight-lipped smile of acknowledgement before drawing her fingers into her cardigan sleeves and wrapping the flimsy excuse for an overcoat tighter around her. Her shivers were obvious, and James felt a vague pang of annoyance. What kind of sensible person goes out on the coldest, wettest October day on record with just a cardigan? He gripped his umbrella possessively.

He looked down and scuffed a trainer against the pavement. He hadn't wanted to be out himself, but Sirius had been dumped his latest girl and had called James over to his flat. "To celebrate," he'd promised on the phone. "Rachel's been around too long. We'll get right royally smashed and get excited about the fact that we'll be spinsters by the time we're twenty-four. And anyway, I think I'm going to switch to blondes for a while."

James had arrived in Tottenham an hour later, to find that Sirius had apparently abandoned the bachelor plan. Rachel had returned and was thoroughly present, so much so that James hadn't been able to tell who belonged to what in the tangle of limbs on the couch. Not that he'd wanted to. He'd walked in Sirius more than his fair share of times over the years, and he knew that the best means of recovery was to simply walk straight out the way he'd came, without asking questions.

Except for how the bloody hell was he expected to get home, when the busses only came hourly on Sunday afternoons.

He appraised the girl now, wondering whether she was aware of that fact. She certainly looked miserable enough to be in the know, and kept peering down the street as though hoping some mysterious vehicle would arrive and whisk her into sweet, dry safety. She had red hair, which must have been incredibly bright on a sunny day, but which was currently plastered to her skull in a sodden tangle. As if feeling his eyes on her, she reached up to push her wet fringe away from her eyes, before looking at him sheepishly.

Yes, James thought, yes, I'm judging you. You're a right bloody fool to be out in this weather without so much as a plastic bag to keep you dry.

The girl averted her gaze back down the street. Arms wrapped securely around her torso, she bounced forward onto her toes, staring hopefully down the road for a bus that wasn't coming anytime soon.

James sighed exasperatedly. She looked like a pathetic, drowned kitten. Albeit a cute one.

"Look," he began, louder and harsher than he'd meant to. The girl spun quickly to look at him, arching an eyebrow. "I mean-" he resumed, before waving the hand not holding his umbrella in the air between them. "It's fucking pissing."

The girl snorted. "Well spotted."

"I just," James shuffled his feet, wondering why words seemed to be failing him. "God, you're making this difficult." Abruptly, he thrust his open umbrella at her. She hopped back a step, startled. "Oh, go on," James huffed. "Just take it." He shook it, spraying her with water. "Shit, sorry." A mixture of annoyance and amusement crossed the girl's face.

"Thanks, but it's alright. " She absently waved her hand down the road. "The bus'll be here soon, anyway."

James rolled his eyes. "No, it won't." He jutted his chin at the umbrella. "Take it." She shook her head, and James groaned. "Don't turn this into a competition. Look, we're both stood here in the pouring rain, and if you don't take the bloody thing I'll be forced to close it in protest. There's no use us both drowning today."

The girl gave a short, sharp laugh, and James straightened up thankfully as she withdrew her hands from her sleeves and took a step towards him. Her eyes, unbelievably green, smirked at him, before crinkling impishly. "No use either of us drowning, really." And with that, she grasped his umbrella over his own hand, hoisting it into the air and positioning it between their bodies so that it sheltered the pair of them. James whistled appreciatively.

"Well played."

She chuckled, and James liked the way it made her fingers vibrate against his own. "Thanks for the offer. I'm Lily, by the way."

"James," he reciprocated. There was a pause where the only sound was the rain drumming all around them. "So," he rocked on his heels. "Do we just stand here for the next half hour?"

"Shouldn't be too bad," said Lily. "I've been here for about that long already." James looked down at her, slightly appalled.

"You've been out here in nothing but a cardigan for half an hour? Why didn't you just go inside?"

Lily tilted her head across the street. "See that house across there?" If James squinted, he could just make it out. "It's my ex-boyfriend's." She waited a beat, and James waited for the punch line. "It was my boyfriend's house until about forty minutes ago, about twenty minutes before you arrived."

She didn't seem too bothered about it, so James nudged her side with his shoulder. "I've got to say, you do look the quite the picture of a dumpee. Cold and wet and lonely." Lily snickered.

"Oh no," she replied easily. "I'm the dumper. The cold and wet and lonely image is just to get strangers to lend me things." She looked up at him and smirked, and James thought that maybe it wasn't such a bad day to be stranded in the rain. "Why aren't you inside?"

"Well, my best mate's a bit of a tosser."

"So you're the dumpee."

"Oi!" James protested. "He didn't dump me; he's just … a bit preoccupied."

"Ah," Lily said wisely. "Preoccupied in the lack of clothes sense?"

James winced. "I'd rather not think about that, if you don't mind. The split-second insight I got was more than enough."

Lily laughed lightly, but didn't say anything more. They fell into a silence that was surprisingly comfortable, and James found himself hoping that she'd be on the bus for at least as long as he was. He was almost disappointed when headlights became visible rounding the corner, and was more than reasonably resentful of the way Lily's shoulders perked and straightened as the sound of tires grew nearer. A ghost of a smile appeared on James' face as he recognised the make of the vehicle: a beat up Ford that wouldn't be carting travellers across London anytime soon. He looked happily from from the car to the road, to the huge puddle in the gutter beside them, and reflexes sharpened from hours of football kicked in as he comprehended the speed at which the car was travelling and –

"Jesus," Lily mumbled against his chest. "Thanks for that, I guess."

"No problem … sorry," replied James with a measure of awkwardness caused partially by the speed with which he'd pulled Lily towards him and stepped her back from the edge of the path, and partially by the tsunami of water that had smacked him in the back. He shook the water from his hair, showering Lily with droplets. "Shit, sorry again."

Lily wiped the water from her eyes, before extricating the umbrella, which had been sandwiched between them. "Aren't you supposed to be keeping me dry?" she asked, a wry smile across her features.

"What can I say?" James was self-conscious, but he tried to return them to the banter they'd had five minutes earlier. " I'm a flawed human being."

"Hmm." She looked at him, raising an eyebrow.

"What?"

"Your arm, James."

"Oh! Shite. God, sorry. Sorry, sorry," he kept repeating it, even after he'd removed his arm from her waist, where it had been resting so comfortably that he hadn't even realised its whereabouts. He blamed the softness of that cardigan. It had to be cashmere.

Lily had gone slightly pink, and appeared to be fighting off a smile as she once again held the umbrella in the air between them. James blushed himself as he wrapped his fingers around her smaller ones.

He wondered why he'd never appreciated the rain before. There was something pretty fantastic, he thought now, about a torrential downpour. Almost definitely life altering.

"Why are we doing this?" Lily asked suddenly.

"What, practically holding hands in the pouring rain?" He smirked subconsciously, a valiant attempt at hiding the fact his brain was chanting a mantra of you prat you prat she probably thinks you're coming onto her why would you try to jump a girl you just met for chrissake.

"Yeah, that."

"Because chivalry isn't dead?"

"Neither is murder."

"Damn, you've foiled my plan. The speeding car was a decoy, just another step in the plot to kidnap you." There. Banter. If he could just hold his head together for five minutes-

"What's the next step?"

"If I told you, I'd have to kill you. Even sooner than I'm planning to." Lily's wrist twitched beneath his as she laughed, and James found himself glad she couldn't see his face, because his grin was embarrassingly large. "Anyway, who says I'm the murderer in this situation? You were here first."

"Just stalking out my prey."

"Ah, the damsel in distress. Prime murderer position number 13."

"Closely followed by the, 'help – my cat is stuck up that tree'. I was going to try that one next."

"How old are you?" He blurted it before he could reconsider the question, but once it had passed his lips he found he didn't regret it. Not entirely. And if she freaked out, he'd never have to see her again. He felt her head shift quickly, could just see her nose pointing in his direction, but he refused to look down. After all, he wasn't desperate. Not completely.

"Nineteen…" she said the word slowly, cautiously, but there were traces of humour behind it that he was glad to hear.

"Good, me too. I mean - not good, that sounds weird, but –" Lily snorted, and James rolled his eyes at himself. "I'm just glad you're not twelve, or something. Or twenty-five. You'd be telling all your business partners about the freaky teenager who molested your waist in the rain."

James felt an elbow poke his ribcage. "You're still the freaky teenager who molested my waist in the rain."

"A charming freak, nonetheless."

"Oh, certainly. Oi, you've got a leaf in your hair."

"Probably that blasted puddle." James' eyes closed involuntarily as two soft fingers brushed his temple. "Hmm, I might get a tree stuck in there next time." Lily scoffed.

"You're a terrible flirt."

"A terribly good one, I think you'll find. Damn. Bus is here."

Lily sighed exaggeratedly as it came to a halt before them. "Looks like the flirting stops now."

"Nonsense," James replied, slipping the umbrella from her grasp, closing it and tucking it under his arm in one smooth movement. He beamed down at her, wishing it wasn't so goddamn rainy so he could see her face a bit clearer. Though as it was, even with his limited visibility and the sodden state of disarray that was this girl, this nineteen year old Lily, he found he really, really liked what he saw. And liked every word that came out of her mouth. "We've got the whole bus trip to go."

A/N: From textsfromtitanfood's "It's raining and u forgot your umbrella so come over and stand under mine while we wait for the bus" au