Chapter 4
Answer

It may take some time
to patch me up inside...

Evening comes, but James can't tell. There's no sunset, no golden light slanting through the castle windows and climbing up the walls. Outside, everything looks just the same as it did that morning. The gray clouds are still chasing each other across the endless gray sky, and the sun never emerges from behind them.

All day in his classes, James hunches over the desks with his shoulders set in a stiff line. He tries to concentrate on his lessons, tries to distract himself from the anger in his stomach and the fear in the back of his mind, but whenever he starts to take notes, he presses so hard on the parchment that he breaks quill after quill. With Lily and the sun both being kept from him, his life seems empty of light and warmth.

Where is Lily? What happened to her? Why can't I see her? He wishes more than ever that he still had the Marauder's Map; it would make him feel so much better just to be able to see the little dot labeled Lily Evans in the hospital wing.

At least he doesn't have to wait long to go looking for her. The winter day is short, and night falls early. As soon as it does, James pulls on his Invisibility Cloak and slips out of the Gryffindor Common Room. After six years, he's a pro at moving through hallways and up and down stairs without making a sound, and he arrives at the hospital wing in no time. Even though he's been dying all day to see Lily, once outside the entrance, he hesitates, afraid of what he might find. Please let Lily be all right, he prays silently. Then he takes a deep breath to steel his nerves – like he always does before a Quidditch match, except this is bigger than any Quidditch match – and pushes open the door.

The sound is soft, but it wakes Lily from her deep sleep in the hospital bed. The dreamless sleep potion was so powerful that she slept for most of the day, oblivious to everything – the people hurrying through the castle around her, the cold winter winds still moaning outside its walls, the memory of what happened last night. It feels good to be so numb, but as soon as she hears the sound, it pulls her out of her dark, comfortable stupor.

Lily stirs in bed. She knows the sound as soon as she hears it. James's footsteps across the floor. She's been half-waiting to hear them, even in her sleep. Pushing herself up, she sits in silence for a moment. This is the last of something between her and James, this moment when he still doesn't know. For better or worse, their relationship is about to change. Quickly, before she has time to get scared and back out of telling him, she calls his name in a whisper.

James lets out the breath he's been holding in a huge relieved sigh when he pulls back the curtain and sees her sitting there. His sigh is so strong that it's almost a wind, and as it blows across her face, Lily closes her eyes for a moment. James closes the curtain behind him and sits down on the edge of her bed, and they embrace. Her skin is warm, and when he touches it, the icy cold fear that settled in his chest when he found out she was sick begins to melt. James is talking a mile a minute – "What happened? Mary said you were really sick. Are you okay? I came by earlier, but Madam Pomfrey wouldn't let me see you, and I could've killed her." – but Lily is only half-listening. In her mind, she's rehearsing what to say, how to tell him.

When they pull apart, James looks at her, waiting for her to talk, but Lily looks away, down at her arms resting on top of the sheet. He follows her gaze – Blimey, she's pale – and sees smeared ink on the inside of Lily's arm, as though someone had written something there. Lily takes a deep, shuddering breath, almost a gasp, and the sound is so loud that it seems to echo off the walls. James feels a cold sweat trickle down his back.

"I think the best way is to just say it. So, um, I'll just say it. Okay. I'll just... I'll be blunt." Lily's words are soft and fast, like it pains her to speak, but they're perfectly clear. James understands every word of what she says next. "What happened to me is I had a miscarriage."

In fifth year, James took a bludger to the head during a Quidditch match. It didn't hit him hard enough to knock him out, but it made his head ring with pain – a shrill noise like a thousand tiny bells – and his sight started swimming until he didn't know which way was up. That's what it feels like now. His head is ringing, replaying Lily's words over and over, until everything else is drowned out. He's so shocked that if someone asked him his name, all he could is stare blankly.

Vaguely he realizes Lily is waiting for him to say something – anything – but his mind is reeling with so many questions that he can't put two words together. He won't bother asking if he was the father, because who else could be? He won't ask how far she was, because they only did it once. Late October, just after the first frost, a regular make-out session had kept going until their bodies clenched together, hot and sweaty. Finally words seem to come to his mouth of their own accord.

"I didn't know – Why... why didn't you tell me you were..." The part of him that isn't too shocked to think straight is horrified at what he's saying. It sounds too accusatory, but Lily seems to have been expecting it, because she doesn't let him finish.

"I was going to tell you, I wanted to tell you." Her words are a jumbled-up rush now, like she's been wanting to say them for a long time. "But – oh, it feels so stupid to say this, but I didn't know right away. You can skip your period because of stress, you know? And I thought that's what happened. I didn't know I was going to have a b..." She stops on the word. She can't bring herself to say baby. "I didn't know until I was, like, two months, and then I wanted to keep it to myself for a little while to get used to the idea. Then I kept waiting for the right moment to tell you, but I just... It just happened so fast."

James is still speechless, taking it all in. He counts backwards from October, and another wave of shock slams into him, mixed with guilt this time. Lily had been carrying their baby inside her for three months, and he was never any the wiser? He racks his brain, trying to remember if there was a new roundness to her body that he hadn't noticed. Had he been stressed over schoolwork and Voldemort gaining power (he adds the stress of having a baby to that, and his heart aches at how Lily must have felt) that he hadn't even realized she was pregnant?

"I wish you would've told me," he says softly, shock turning to sadness. There's so much death and destruction in the world now that the hope of new life, the joy and wonder of imagining himself a father, would be worth the risk of grief. He only feels sorry for Lily, who never had a choice, who suffered this far alone. He wants to tell her how sorry he is, but he can't find the words, so instead he whispers, "Scoot over."

James climbs into bed and lies down beside Lily, his body curling protectively around hers, his right arm tucked under her head, his left arm draping softly over her waist. He kisses her, very gently, on the back of her neck, hoping his kiss will say it all. James's skin is cool, and when she touches it, Lily feels the burning sensation that's been in her belly since last night start to melt. It's as if she's been stuck in this hospital wing for years, as if her body's been hot and sweaty for years. She can't wait to get back to her classes, to walk the chilly hallways and stone staircases in the early evenings, to put all this behind her.

I meant to update this sooner, but real life has been hectic lately.