A/N: This chapter is dedicated to BulletTheBlueSkyU2, who's constant and enjoyable conversation has been the driving force in the last two updates. Thank you, Kaylee, and enjoy.

-C

The following morning, Morrighan woke up with a sense of foreboding, and it didn't take her long to remember why.

It was January 11th, and the newspaper would bring horrible news. Unsure of why she was, Morrighan began to cry into the sheets, trying not to wake Sirius with her tears. Apparently, however, they had become so attuned to each other's presence that when she woke, so did he and he quickly wrapped his arms around her, turning her to face him and hugging her tightly to him.

"Love, what's wrong?" he whispered anxiously, wiping the tears from her eyes. "Did you have another nightmare? I thought they'd stopped."

"They did," she whispered. "You'll see what's wrong later."

His brow furrowed, but he continued to hold her, unquestioningly, until she was calm enough to realize that she was hungry and mentioned that it was about time for breakfast. He cast a heating charm on her because he liked it when she walked around in just a nightie, and she was wearing the blue one, which was his favorite.

They settled in and Sirius opened the Prophet and dropped it like it had burned him.

"Oh, love," he whispered. "You…you knew this happened, didn't you?"

There was no need to ask what he meant. Eleven Death Eaters had broken out of Azkaban and a Ministry worker had been strangled in his hospital bed by Devil's Snare (he hadn't gotten to that part yet, but he would one he kept reading). Morrighan nodded sadly.

"That crazy bitch," he spat at the paper. "Well, I guess this means the dementors have officially turned. I suppose we'll be having a meeting tonight."

Almost as soon as the words left his mouth, Remus tore into the kitchen, blinking briefly at Morrighan sitting in the middle of the kitchen in January wearing practically nothing, but then shook his head a little, turned to Sirius and said, "Meeting tonight, Tonks has just passed it along to me and I thought I'd let you two know, but I'm sure you've just seen the paper."

"Didn't need the paper," Sirius said gruffly. "I've got my own little Seer right here. She knows everything, remember?"

"I didn't tell you, though," Morrighan pointed out, getting up to make Remus a cup of tea and ignoring the fact that both men were watching her as she did so. "You didn't know what happened until you saw the paper."

She heard a slapping sound and turned to find Sirius had smacked Remus across the face, and Remus was blushing furiously.

"Erm, did I miss something?" she asked.

"Nothing," Remus said eagerly as Sirius said, "Yes."

"Um, right then," she said, handing Remus his tea, leaning over the table a little to do so, and noting that Remus's eyes flickered to her chest as she did so. Sirius smacked him again.

Ah.

"I'm going to get dressed, Sirius," Morrighan said as casually as she could manage. "Would you mind making me some toast?"

He looked as if he was going to protest, but he agreed, and she saw him glare viciously at Remus before she left the room. She came back several minutes later with a sweater dress on, and pressed her ear to the door to find out what they were saying in her absence.

"– love with her, Moony."

"Sirius, I know you've been alone a very long time, but there's no way you two would ever work. Be rational. She's young, she's talented, and she's beautiful. Once Albus can get her into the real world, she could have someone her own age, someone who can care for her, not an emaciated, war-scared old man who could be her father."

"No," he snapped. "I couldn't be her father."

"You're old enough that you would have been at school when she was born, so yes, Sirius, you were sexually mature enough to have been her father."

"STOP SAYING THAT!"

"Sirius," she said, rushing into the room, "don't worry about it. I don't think of you that way so shut up."

The boys blinked up at her.

"Remus, I love and adore Sirius," she said simply. "He's really not old enough to be my father in this reality, and even if he were it wouldn't change a thing. There's nothing about his age that means anything to me. Age is really just a number."

Sirius smiled a little and Remus watched them, shocked, as Morrighan sat on Sirius's lap, allowing him to wrap his arms around her and bury his face in her hair.

"I guess the secret's out now, love," she sighed. "Between Fred and Tonks and Remus, I doubt we'll be able to keep it quiet long."

"Well, yeah," Sirius said with a smirk. "Tonks is a gossiper, for sure."

Remus cleared his throat.

"I think you're forgetting," he said stiffly, "that Tonks and I are a part of a top secret organization. I think we can probably manage not talking if you'd like us not to talk. I'm afraid I can't speak for Fred, though."

"Fred won't say anything," Morrighan whispered, kissing Sirius's lips lightly and briefly. "He still feels bad about how he found out."

"Guilt is a powerful motivator," Sirius said. "Anyway, when do you expect this meeting will be?"

"After dinner sometime," Remus said. "Dumbledore's supposed to be coming. Between the breakout and Bode–"

"What?" Sirius cried.

"Ministry worker strangled by Devil's Snare in his hospital bed," Morrighan sighed. "L – er – someone sent him Devil's Snare disguised as a potted plant because he was getting better. He's an Unspeakable."

"Well, that's certainly big news," Sirius said darkly. "Are you going to be around today, Remus?"

"Yes," Remus said, clearing his throat. "If that's all right. I feel I've been neglecting Morrighan's studies and I thought we'd make a day of it…"

"Absolutely," Morrighan said earnestly. She knew Sirius would have wanted to spend the day with her, but it felt irreverent to spend the day having sex when such horrible things had happened while they were sleeping. Besides, she did want to be qualified when she finally was able to come out in the open, which Morrighan thought might be in a manner of months, if things didn't change too much by her efforts.

Remus covered most of her subjects by the time dinner came along. He had to lock Sirius out of the room, because he'd kept coming in and kissing her at random, seemingly unwilling to be parted from Morrighan for more than an hour.

And then there was the meeting.

Morrighan had never seen Albus Dumbledore as grave as he was that night, the whole of the Order of the Phoenix gathered around the kitchen table of Grimmauld Place, except for Severus, whom Morrighan knew was busy prying into Harry's mind in a Hogwarts office, making the poor boy angry, uncomfortable, and terrified. He had reported to Albus early that day, probably whilst Umbridge was "teaching."

"The dementors are under Voldemort's control," he said calmly, though his blue eyes were clearly troubled. "As you all saw in the papers, there has been a mass breakout at Azkaban, including some of the most dangerous prisoners. Morrighan," he said softly, "who should our greatest concerns be, of the group which has just broken out?"

Morrighan took a deep breath at being put on the spot, every eye turning to her. The greatest concerns? How about all of them?

"Erm," she said, fidgeting a bit, "Bellatrix Lestrange, obviously, and I guess Dolohov and Rookwood."

Sirius looked over at her questioningly, but she wouldn't tell him. He would want to know what his cousin would do, why she was such a threat, but Morrighan couldn't risk changing anything more than she had to.

And then she realized that she had to save Sirius, because she honestly didn't think she would be able to go on without him. It wasn't just what she wanted to do; she absolutely needed to do it. Listening to the meeting became more difficult after that realization. All she wanted was to curl up with him and kiss him senseless, to never let him leave her sight.

But the meeting went on.

"Bode," Arthur said imploringly. "What happened to Bode? He was in the hospital while I was, wasn't he?"

"Yes, but they didn't kill him randomly, Arthur," Morrighan said. "They weren't just killing him because he was a Ministry employee. Think of Sturgis. Someone Imperiused him, and they did the same to Bode, but they didn't know that only one about whom the prophecy is made can touch the prophecy, and he went mad trying to get it, so when he started getting better, they had to get rid of him."

They were all looking at her again. Morrighan had a hard time getting used to that idea.

"Yes, I think Bode suffered an unfortunate death after his recovery began, and we will certainly have to be more on guard," Dumbledore said with a nod.

The Order went on to discuss other things, but Morrighan had little care for them. She had always thought Order meetings would be this exciting, top secret briefing where the members planned their great war strategies and gathered the wisdom of Albus Dumbledore, but that wasn't how it worked at all. They were actually rather dull.

Morrighan found her mind (and eyes) wandering to Sirius, and how hard this might be for him, knowing his crazy, murderous cousin was out and able to cause trouble. He must have known it would happen eventually – after all, they had been talking about the dementors joining Voldemort for some time – but no one would have dared guess that it would happen so soon, for fear that they might be right. She could almost feel the tension in the room throughout the meeting, and a part of her very much wanted to go home in that moment and be in her old world, safe with her family.

But how could she go back to her old life, her old world, without Sirius? Now that she knew she could love and that it wasn't all an experience for someone else, could she really give that up, even to have her family back? Even to be safe and ordinary again? Did she even want to be safe and ordinary, really? Wasn't this what she had wanted since she was a little girl, to live in this amazing world?

Morrighan met Sirius's eyes and he smiled at her. She couldn't help but smile back. There would be no leaving Sirius, even if it made the most sense, even if it were possible. Happiness was more important than safety, and nothing in the world had every made her happier than being in Sirius's arms. She would track Voldemort down and kill him off herself if it meant she could spend just one more day with Sirius.

And when the meeting was over, Morrighan did all of her hostess-like duties with one eye on Sirius as he watched her openly over his cup of tea. She knew he was waiting for everyone else to file out, to leave them alone, as Remus had sworn to do. It was all she could do not to shiver in anticipation as she said goodbye to Professor Dumbledore, who was quite surprisingly the last to leave. She thought she saw a knowing twinkle in his eye as he said goodnight, and he certainly winked at her as he turned to go.

That man really did know everything.

As soon as they were alone, Sirius wrapped his arms around her and kissed her neck.

"Can we go upstairs, darling?" he whispered, and she nodded eagerly.

He never carried her anywhere, although many women would have found that romantic. Sirius had paid attention, however, when she had enumerated her fears to him in their earlier days together (although he couldn't understand the fear of penguins or mimes), and he knew her incredible fear of heights was doubled when someone was carrying her and she was at all alert. If she had fallen asleep, it would have been a sweet gesture for him to carry her to bed. Wide awake, it was a way to scare her out of her wits, so he simply accompanied her, his arm around her shoulders as they walked.

When they reached his room, he picked out a black nightie, one of his favorites, and handed it to her with those puppy dog eyes she couldn't have refused if she'd wanted to, and she began stripping down and changing. He stripped down to his boxers, climbed under the covers, and lifted the covers for her to join him when she was dressed in the scant amount of material he had selected for her. Sirius began kissing her neck, and she tilted her head back, giving him more access to the tender, eager skin. After several minutes, though, she felt something she hadn't before: teardrops.

"Sirius," she whispered, petting his hair, comfortingly, and he went from kissing his way down her neck to sobbing openly into her chest. "Love, it's all right. Shh…it's all right. Just tell me what's wrong, love."

"I'm so scared," he whimpered. "I don't want to lose you. I can't. I can't lose you. I – I lost so much in the last war and…I – I know my cousin. I know what she's capable of, and I know she's going to be anxious to prove herself, to kill me and Andy and Dora, and probably Ted, and I – I…. If she ever found out about you, she'd stop at nothing to kill you and I just couldn't lose you, Morrighan. I can't."

"I'm not going anywhere," Morrighan whispered, hugging him tightly. "I'm not leaving you. I'm not going to be killed. She's not getting me, love. Everything's going to be fine. I promise."

He smiled sadly up at her, kissing her cheek softly.

"I wish that was a promise you had the power to keep, darling," he sighed. "I wish I could be sure that we would make it through all of this alive, but nothing is certain. I know that from last time. The things you think are facts, unchangeable and undeniable facts are as flexible and fickle as the wind. I could lose you, and I might lose you, and everything I know could be a lie. If I pretend like none of that's true, it would be just like last time if the worst happened. But Merlin, Morrighan, I am going to spend every second of every day praying that I don't lose you, because I don't know what I would do. I couldn't move on this time. It would be too much."

She kissed his lips tenderly, softly, so lightly that their skin barely touched, but with all of the electricity of their most passionate embraces.

"It's going to be all right. You and I are going to be just fine, love."

And they curled up together, exchanging kisses and stories from their youths, only the happiest stories they could think of. They'd both had enough of sad for a good long while, although they both had plenty of sad stories to stay awake telling. Now wasn't the time. The war had truly begun.

When Sirius hand fallen asleep, his head resting on her chest and his arms wrapped childlike around her torso, hugging her to him, Morrighan petted him gently, her fingers running through his hair as she watched him sleep. The fear and worry he had expressed while awake had melted away from his face as he fell asleep in her arms, and although she thought the two events were probably unrelated, Morrighan couldn't help but feel a little bit proud at the thought that her presence might cause him the same sort of peaceful feeling his caused for her. Even while he was sleeping, she couldn't help feeling better knowing that he was near. It was something about his scent.

That night, she dreamed of her and Sirius, after the war, raising a dozen little black-haired children with her green eyes and his aristocratic cheekbones, living in a house in the country, somewhere not too far from the Weasley's. Sirius raised them to be a Quidditch team, and Morrighan taught them all about the Muggle world, and they settled down into a happy life. Remus and Tonks had a house next door with three children, Teddy being the oldest, of course, and Harry and Ginny were down the way a bit with their own three children.

She had never been the kind of person who dreamed of a life with children and a nice house, or even a husband, but she had never felt so much joy and peace in a single dream before, and in with Sirius in her arms, what else could Morrighan have dreamed of? The nightmares that should have come with the escape of Bellatrix, whom Morrighan was actually terrified of, would never have surfaced in his arms.

Still, he made a good point. Morrighan had focused so much on the deaths of the people she loved, the characters of this world she had grown close to before even meeting, and most importantly of Sirius. She had been focusing on what would happen if she couldn't save Sirius. But this was a war. People would die, even if she managed to save Sirius, and probably people she cared very much about. In fact, she was almost sure of it.

But Sirius hadn't been thinking about any of that and he raised a point she hadn't thought of. What if she died? What would happen if Morrighan Capilla, the girl who belonged to another world, died?