November 16th 2015, 11:37 AM
James
The next day, James found himself growing restless. His mind wandered as he fulfilled his interning duties, which resulted in many side effects and screw ups, the most popular of which was delivering the wrong prescriptions. Sirius had quite the laugh as he was scolded by secretary lady for giving medical marijuana to the clinically insane. He was aware lack of concentration working as a nurse was potentially problematic, but he couldn't help but think about where the dying girl was.
James later learned from Secretary lady, (after nearly an hour of pestering,) that the dying girl was in fact, not really dying. Though he couldn't much shake the nickname, probably because that was the only way he knew her. As the dying girl with the pretty face. James tried to explain this to secretary lady, but she wouldn't budge. "All I want is her room number," James pleaded, holding his hands in a prayer.
"Are you her emergency contact?" She sighed, holding her hands on her hips. "Well, not technically.."
"Do you even know her name?" Secretary lady scoffed, raising her brows in question. "Uhh, no."
"Can't help you kid," she shrugged, pushing her glasses further up the bridge of her nose and diverting her attention back to the black plastic keyboard.
"Please, let me just go check on her. That's my job right? She must be hungry. Just cut me some slack, secretary lady." He begged, falling to his knees on the linoleum carpet, attracting a few odd looks from other nurses. "Molly," secretary lady glared halfheartedly at him over her spectacles, pursing her glossy cherry lips. "Is that her name?" James asked hopefully, his face lighting up. "No, that's my name. I'd appreciate if you'd stop calling me that."
James groaned, dragging himself back up to his feet. "You are mean, Molly the secretary lady."
"And you have a creepy infatuation with a coma patient," Molly huffed, her voice slurring on the last few words as she came in realization of what she'd revealed. "God, dammit."
"She's in a coma?" James asked with a bitter frown.
"A deal breaker, is it Potter?"
Sirius
"What in hell is that?" Sirius scoffed, his dark eyes flickering with amusement as he looked over Remus suspiciously, who sat in bed reading. "Uhh, To Kill a Mockingbird," Remus mumbled, holding up the novel cover, cautious not to let his eye level leave the page. "Not that!" Sirius waved him off dismissively, setting down the grilled cheese and tomato soup platter and jogging across the room, fingering a bulletin board overflowing with Polaroids of empty skies. "That. What is that?"
Remus' face paled green, finally dropping the precious book to his knees when a little girl appeared in the doorway, eyeballing Sirius like a meal. She opened her mouth to scream, but no sound came. Instead she puckered her lips, stalking slowly towards Sirius, unnervingly slow. Remus tried to warn Sirius with his eyes, but he didn't know what he'd done wrong.
You could tell by the way she walked that she was weird, different. From the too-big boots to the choppy pink hair, cut a little above her chin. Even at the speed of a snail, she stumbled and paused and like an army vet with a set of prosthetic legs and a past full of land mines. She stared, brown eyes bulging and his extended pointer finger but said nothing. Eventually Sirius caught on, mouthing "oh" and letting his wrist fall. The girl's shoulders slackened and she smiled up at him, lacking in 2/2 of her front teeth. "Is this yours?" He asked, slaughtering the moment of blissful relief in Remus' eyes. "Uhu," she nodded aggressively. Smiling even wider with the recognition of her mental masterpiece.
"What's it for?" He snickered, turning back to gawk at the tens, maybe hundreds of the same light blue sky. Remus cleared his throat, gaining no attention from him, or the girl, who'd already started squealing with the corners of her lips stretched ear to ear. "It's for the whales, for when they come back."
"What whale-"
"Can you please go ask Molly for a new tank, this one feels empty," Remus coughed for emphasis, his glaring eyes never leaving Sirius. The thin boy with the sandy blonde curls was stood now, fists balled at his sides.
"You just got a new one," the little girl moaned, shooting Remus an irritated look, "I'm talking to my new friend." She diverted her attention back to Sirius, the smile fading back in as she rocked on the balls of her feet. Any other time Remus would have been jealous. "Why would you take empty pictures?" Sirius asked the girl, but now stared directly at the light haired boy, his expression totally indifferent as he silently pushed him closer to the edge of break. Eager to see what dramatics had his panties in such a bunch.
"They, they aren't empty," she scoffed, looking at him like you would a psychopath but her voice betrayed her, cracking with a tired insecurity near the end, like she'd heard this many times before. "I take pictures of the beautiful yellow whales outside of my window," she said slowly as if trying to convince not only him but herself, gesturing her head to the wall made up of only overlooking glass furthest from the door.
Sirius forgot of the light haired boy's presence in the room, staring down at the doughy eyed little girl in bewilderment before turning to glance over the overlapping collage once again, this time his gaze snagged on the several thick purple envelops stacked neatly on her nightstand, no doubt more pictures. She flinched when he untucked the thin paper, pulling out a stack of backgrounds missing their models. "Here, this one is good. See?" He held up a yellowing Polaroid of Tonks maybe three years younger, holding out the camera to capture her and an older blonde woman with graying hair and the very same chocolate brown eyes. "This is your mum, yeah?"
Tonks made a grab for the photograph, crumpling the negative in her fist. "That shouldn't have been in there." She spoke to her boots, bobbing her head with each word. Remus looked far more concerned with Tonks than angry with Sirius at this point. "I-I like the whale one's better anyways," she lifted her chin up fearlessly, making herself tall. "Don't you think?"
Sirius smirked, kneeling down past her level, but she refused to let up, with her spine held straight as a board. "You have quite an imagination."
July 11th 2012
Tonks
Baton Rogue, Louisiana
three years prior...
Louisiana wasn't always the best place to spend the summer, or your life. But to Andromeda and Ted, it was heaven sent, to Nymphadora Tonks, it was the only home she knew. July was the worst of it, all of her photographs came blurry from the humidity and the adults decided everything for her. How she wore her hair, when to sleep and that her birthday party should be spent in the scorching heat of the Jackson's farm just off Alegra Lane.
She wouldn't tell anyone about the BB handgun tucked into her waistband, it was for her own safety, after all. She tended to see bad things on the Jackson's farm just off Alegra Lane. Bad things no one else saw. Her mom told her it was all in her head, that it was normal for children her age to be imaginative, but she wasn't so sure. She hadn't felt normal in a long time, a long time, that is, through the eyes of a seven year old.
"Dora!" Andromeda called, interrupting her invested scouting through the fields, one that would almost definitely result in ticks. She waved her daughter over towards the patio while Ted ignited the eight candles placed neatly in the strawberry cake, spread with mounds of pink icing. Tonks hated strawberry cake spread with mounds of pink icing more than she hated being called by name, but she supposed it was to be photogenic rather than enjoyable, the pink icing the exact shade of her hair.
She dragged her sneakers, dirty and damp from the swampy ground through the scorched lemon grass in hopes no one would notice. Her parents smiled kindly, sitting her down in front of the strawberry cake, which was not only making her stomach churn at the thought of it's spongy surface coming in contact with her taste buds but, much much much uglier up close.
Relatives crowded her with digital cameras expectantly, no one said anything for a minute, the only audio the distant roar of crickets chirping in union somewhere in the swamp lands. Her mother squeezed her shoulder, a silent reminder of what she was supposed to do. Parting her lips in an O, aunts and uncles and everyone leaned in so far with their lenses the sun barely shone through, holding their breaths. But before exhaling onto the flickering blue flame, Tonks had a better idea.
Not smiling in the slightest, she brought her thumb to her lips, licking a line up the calloused pad of her finger. Then she looked up at every lens, still not smiling, and extinguished each and every candle in pinches, holding up her thumb burnt black to the cameras but no one snapped a picture, lowering their lenses in disappointment and stepping down. Tonks smirked. 'Right, well," Ted cleared his throat awkwardly, shooting Tonks a look but she only widened her grin in return.
He cut the cake, and Tonks' smile twitched, faltered, then fell in horror. She fell back in her seat, kicking against the water-stained mahogany planks with her dirty sneakers until her back hit the exterior of the house. She opened her mouth to scream but no sound came, only whimpering hyperventilation. "Dora!" Andromeda gasped, rushing to the side of her daughter, the back of her hand held against her brain.
"Why, why would you do that?" Tonks exploded into sobs, still kicking at the patio. "Do what, sweetie, do what?" She shook her head, eyes tearing up. Relatives were leaning over the tabletop to watch and whisper, Ted had dashed to her other side. "Do what?" Ted demanded, holding her hand in both of his. "T-t-t-the cake!" Tonks sobbed, squeezing her eyes shut tight.
She felt the absence if her parent's worrying hands and opened her rapidly blurring eyes, letting the tears spill. Ted and Andromeda were looking right at each other, before turning their attention back to Tonks, this time their expressions projected equal parts fury and disbelief. "The cake?" Andromeda wiped angrily at her cheeks. Her voice was raspy and a little humorous but mostly bitter. "This, this is about the cake?" Ted rubbed his temples in irritation.
Tonks nodded, confused with the sudden and dramatic decline of affection being thrown her way. "You're doing this because we didn't get you chocolate? You're crying because we made strawberry?" Tonks' eyes widened with realization of the misunderstanding. "What? No, I-"
"We worked so hard on that cake!" Andromeda dabbed at the corners of her eyes, refusing to look at her. "Mom, I didn't mean-!"
"Eat it!" Ted stood, furiously butchering a slab of strawberry cake onto a glass platter, forcing it in her direction. The sudden burst of aggression made her flinch. "Eat it, Dora!"
She shrieked, once again scrambling away from the cake, from the slice of cake crawling with slimy pink worms! "Can't you see them?! Can't you see the worms?!" Tonks whimpered. "What worms?!" Ted stomped, "Dora, just grow up! There are no worms, you make these things up a-and it scares everyone, so just grow up already, okay?" Andromeda's voice cracked with her heartbreak.
"Just eat the cake! Just a bite, and you'll see there are no worms," Ted nodded, his voice considerably calmer as he inched toward her. This time, Tonks did not scream. This time, Tonks drew the cold metal from her waistband her fingers had been lingering toward the past few minutes, and she aimed the barrel of the gun at Ted Tonks.
The shrill screams of relatives reminded Tonks of their presence. She'd done it, she'd really done it, pulled the trigger, shot her dad. Tonks screamed, dropping the gun at her feet as the glass crunched against the rubber soles of her sneakers.
Present day
Tonks found herself tearing up, then crying, then sobbing. Sirius backed up, startled, Remus ran towards her. "Imagination?" She repeated, venom laced in her soft insecure voice. She stared at Sirius so hatefully she suspected she might burn a hole, right through his transparent aristocrat skin. He didn't say anything until Remus picked her up, her head held against his heart and her legs wrapped around his waist. She wished she'd stop crying, she really did, there was still more she had to say.
"I'm sorry," he mumbled lamely, his eyes fixated on her shaking shoulders and muffled sobs but he spoke singularly to the curly haired boy. He only shook his head in return, looking at him in disgust until Sirius couldn't take it anymore, so he left, dazed and confused about what could possibly be so wrong about such a lovely, innocent word.
James
He'd done it. He found her. And it was true. He didn't know why he'd peaked through every dorm on the first three floors to do it, but he had. And there she was, laying as good as dead here in room 181, but she wasn't dead, she wasn't the dying girl either as far as he knew. She was okay, over there in the hospital bed, and him over here, with his nose pressed up against the glass just like he had the first time he saw her.
He supposed he wanted to know what happened, but is wasn't just that. He wanted to know her. She was the first he'd ever seen of death, the first he'd ever thought of it. This girl, his age, could have died. Not like the numbers you saw in the newspaper, not a causality of war or a revenge victim on investigation discovery. He'd watched her, he puked over her, he saw her in flesh and blood and bones. And now he wanted to know what kind of icing she ate on her birthday cake, how she felt about spiders. Her in the entirety.
He knew the doors were left unlocked, but he was still working up the courage to turn the knob. Do it, do it before someone sees you, before Molly the secretary comes and drags you away to clean bedpans. He took a deep breath, you've done crazier things than break into the hospital room of a coma patient! And so he did it, he turned the knob, he walked in, and get this, nothing happened. No Molly, no explosions, nothing.
He didn't realize he was holding his breath until his face went red, and he laughed, laughed at himself for what he's done, went through 181 dorms to find her, a girl he didn't know. Maybe I should turn myself into the psych ward. But he didn't stop, he inched calmly toward her until he was sat in the blue plastic chair to her right. Her breathing seemed steady, something he assumed was a good thing. He felt instantly guilty for avoiding learning anything about health.
He didn't realize he'd apologized out loud until he heard himself, his forehead tinting pink. Look at yourself James, a nervous wreck in front of a sleeping girl. Sirius would be so ashamed. His stumbled back, hell, he almost fell out of his chair when the corners of her lips twitched into a smile. He waited approximately thirty seconds, trying to tune out the blood pumping in his ears before he spoke. "H-hello?" She was still, the curve of her lips still held up. He would of missed it if he wasn't listening so intently, but yes, her lips parted. And she said one word, very clearly one word.
"Severus?"
A/N
First off, thank you guys for all the awesome reviews! :)
I'm pretty satisfied with the clip from Tonks' background, I wanted to show how her parents were nice people, but exhausted with Tonks "acting up" when really they just didn't understand. (If you haven't already guessed or missed the beginning of Tonks' POV in chapter one, she is a schizophrenic,) meaning that she interprets reality differently and has trouble separating what's real from imagination, thus the worms in her birthday cake, and the hair dwelling ants, and the golden morning sky whales. I swear, there will be no glorifying Severus, this fic is purely Jily, though I have some interesting angles with him and Lily you'll learn of soon enough. Thanks once again! I'll be sure to update regularly.