"Give it to me."
"No."
He stares at her, mouth slightly open, and scrutinizes her with such intensity that she squirms. Hazel eyes pierce green. Suddenly she is self-conscious, and she doesn't know why. Clearing her throat softly, she holds out her hand again and mentally prepares to make herself seem sterner.
"That's quite enough. Hand it over. Now."
"My answer has not changed."
"James!" she says, now half angry and half imploring. She swears she sees a twinkle of mischief flash across his face before his expression of faux-seriousness is back.
"Come on, Potter. This is really annoying me. And you know what I'm capable of when I'm annoyed."
All pretense of seriousness is gone now. He chuckles but simply holds it higher above her head. The box is thin but long, pale blue and tied with a blue ribbon.
"Oh come now, Lily. Just let me see already! It can't be something that bad."
With a familiar smugness, he leans against the doorway of the Head's Office, stretching leisurely with it still above her. Damn him and his stupid height, she huffs in her mind and attempts to catch him unguarded by leaping up and trying to snatch it from him. But Lily has never been the athletic type, and James just laughs and pins her against the door with one hand.
There is barely an inch between them now. Lily knows that she can kick him and overpower him, or at least run, if she wanted to. Her heart is beating incredibly fast, and she feels her cheeks heating up. She should want to move away, but she doesn't. If it were any other person this close she would be long gone and he probably injured. She had a thing about having her personal space violated. But James had a way of violating her personal space even from miles away, and it scared her to find that she didn't mind all that much when he did it.
He stares at her again, with that clear, penetrating gaze; one that she'd always admired him for having. When James looked at you he didn't look at you, it felt like he was looking in you, and it made her uncomfortable and hot and bothered inside, and yet again, somehow she liked it.
"Why can't I just look in it?" he asks, and he looks so innocent, so unguarded, like a curious child, that it makes her smile.
"James…it's private. I – I just don't feel like I can show anyone yet."
"Oh." He says, and she can see he's thinking, because he runs a hand through his already messy hair. It's rather endearing, actually. She blushes at the thought.
"Well, here." He says, and holds it out to her. Squinting at him a little suspiciously, she takes it.
"If it means that much to you," he says, "I won't look in it. It is your box after all. I'll wait till you're ready to show me."
"T-thanks," she stutters, and suddenly she can't speak; her check is constricted and she feels strangled by this feeling, a feeling strange and entirely foreign but one so overwhelming that when she looks at James, she actually has to sit down. She can't breathe, and his words go round and round her head.
"If it means so much to you, I won't look in it."
"I'll wait till you're ready to show me."
And then it hits her; she will never be ready.
She'll never be ready to grow up. To graduate. To leave home. To face the dark and dangerous world outside. To fight, even though she knows she will. To love. To die.
And at the same time she realizes-she can't keep waiting until she's ready, she just can't. Because she'll never really be ready. And she can't keep everyone waiting because she isn't ready. James doesn't deserve to wait because she isn't ready.
She was on a cliff; with the place she wanted to be right opposite her. Between her and that place was a huge rift, a terrifying, deep gorge, a dark chasm. She could jump, and either fall in the chasm or make it to her destination.
All it took was a leap of faith. And it was up to her whether to take the plunge.
She jumped.
"James," she says, hurriedly as he starts walking out of the office, where she'd sat down. "James?"
"Yeah?"
"Um…would-I mean- do you want to look through this? With me?" she holds up the box, and when he looks up at her, that feeling is back.
"You don't have to do that, you know. I'm okay with not seeing it. You don't have to show me and-''
"I want to." The words tumble out, and the look on his face when he hears them is so, so worth it.
"Well, okay then." He says, grinning, that smug, mischievous smile reappearing instantly.
He sits down on the couch, their sides touching. With trembling hands, she unties the ribbon and lifts off the lid.
Letters.
The box is full of letters. Letters from a place far away and different, written in elegant, dainty handwriting with rich blue ink. Letters from someone she pretends not to care about, only because it hurts far too much to admit that she does care. It tears her apart inside.
Letters from Tuney. It has been years since she's called her that.
Gingerly, James picks one up, and his eyes scan through the sentences, widening slightly. Lily just watches his face, perplexed yet almost enchanted by the expressions that spread across his features as he reads what she'd easily say what is the most private, heartbreaking part of her life and thoughts. She watches in rapt attention as his expression changes from that of curiosity to anger and then to grief, as Tuney's correspondence with her started off as grudgingly friendly, to being full of anger and blame, to just plain spite and detachment. It had killed her to go through those letters, but some stupid irrational part of her just wanted-no, needed, to keep those letters. They were a part of her that she couldn't let go of, no matter how much she wanted to. No one knew she had them; not even Severus. The fact that she was letting James read them was proof that she really had jumped off the cliff.
Almost delicately, James puts the letter he read back into the box. He looks at Lily for a long moment.
"I never knew you had a sister."
"I never told you."
"Thank you." This came from him.
"No, thank you."
His eyebrows knit and he gives her a questioning look.
"What for?"
This is it. Lily takes a deep breath. Her mind is whirling.
She finally gets it. It's James. It's always, always been James. From the second she saw him on the train and turned her nose up at him, to when he turned her hair green in second year, and asked her out in fourth year. When she hexed him in fifth year, and she found him crying in sixth year, and later that year, when he found her crying. From the moment they became Heads, to when she realized that they were friends. And then the times when she stopped thinking of him as immature, and arrogant and stupid; and instead started to find him brave, and honorable and fascinating and fun (and rather handsome). Her life had had many ups and downs, but the one constant in it had been James Potter. Not her friends or family or even home – just James. He'd always been there, whether or not she'd needed him, and he drove her crazy in every way possible. And when everyone had left – Severus and Tuney and her so-called friends, James Potter had been there. He'd waited for her. And she didn't want him to wait anymore.
"Thank you – for waiting."
James turns to face her fully, and his eyes aren't just questioning anymore; they're urgent. He needs to know and he needs to know now, and his hands rake through his hair almost savagely and his mouth is a grim line. Her heart is beating so loudly she wonders why he can't hear it.
"Lily, what do you mean?"
"I mean that I'm very, very thankful to you for waiting for me all this time. From fourth year onwards, James, all you did was wait for me. And I hated it, at first. I thought, "Why can't he just get on? What's his problem?" But now…I-um well I'm glad you waited. And-and James…"
She doesn't know how she's speaking, her heart is in her throat. She feels like sinking into the ground. I'm terrible at this, she thinks. I'm stuttering, ugh, how romantic.
"I-really-really-like-you"
Wow, she screwed that up. Emotion was not her forte. James frowns, only in confusion, she hopes.
"Er-what?"
"James, I really like you, like a lot. Like in a more than friends way. Like in the way a girl likes a boy. A boy who's more than her friend, I mean. And-yeah, I like you a whole lot. And I'm sorry you had to wait this long for me to say it. And that's why I'm saying thanks, for waiting so long. But you don't have to like me in that way at all, I mean, you could just like me as a friend, you know, and I'd be perfectly fine. You totally don't have to feel the same, I just-just needed to tell you so-''
And then there is some kissing.
Lily doesn't know why, or when, or even how it happens. All she knows is that she is talking, and completely losing her head and rambling and thinking Oh Merlin he probably doesn't like me anymore what do I do oh Merlin and then James' hands are on her shoulders and his lips are against hers.
It takes her a while to figure it out.
She freezes completely in shock and her mind goes blank. And ten seconds later, she realizes that it's happening, it's actually happening.
James is kissing me. JAMES is kissing me. James is KISSING me. James is kissing ME.
And then she stops thinking again.
The kiss is explosive.
It's neither of their first kisses, but neither of them are very experienced either. But nothing in the world matters anymore because it's just the two of them in that moment, and the moment itself feels like eternity. James' lips are rough and chapped against hers and his hand moves up from her shoulder to cup her face and pull her close. And her hands move of their own accord to wrap against James' neck and twist into his hair, and he makes an incredibly attractive noise and pulls her closer and kisses her sweetly but hard; and he smells and he feels and he tastes so good, Lily can't think straight and she clings to James; the only fixed point in her otherwise giddy world. She doesn't know how long they sit there, and chaste kissing turns into full blown snogging, and there is passion and fireworks and at some point James takes her hands in his and just presses his lips gently against hers and sighs.
Lily is jolted back to reality. Her eyes flutter open and James is staring into them; the look in his eyes familiar yet something she's never seen before.
"That – you – I – we – James, does this mean-" her lips are swollen and she's out of breath.
He rubs the back of his neck, and almost shyly looks up at her. But when he speaks, his voice is confident, if a little hoarse.
"Urm-well, sorry 'bout that; couldn't help myself…" he muttered. He looks at her like he half expects her to slap him, and she probably would have, if she wasn't busy trying to figure out what this meant for her; for him; for them.
"Lily, I really like you too. A lot. It's you, Lily. It's always been you."
And finally the constriction in her chest has dissolved and she can breathe – not just breathe, she feels like singing and dancing and yelling and her heart feels ready to burst and she has never felt so happy in her life. She smiles up at him radiantly and he grins back and all she wants is to kiss him again. She has to admit, he is much better at the romance stuff than she is. But even then, she assumes a cocky pose and smirks up at him.
"Go out with me, Potter?"
He laughs joyfully and leans in again and whispers,
"With pleasure, Evans."
And then they kiss again.