A Marauder's Guide to Falling Forever
PART FOUR
Written by alliegrl
Chapter Four
He had already opened his door when she popped up outside his apartment, and he held it open for her to enter inside after they had performed drying spells over their wet clothing. The place looked just the same as it had the last time she had stepped foot within it, but she admired it all over again. He was watching her carefully and she could sense the reserve he had about initiating conversation.
"So you wanted to talk," she decided to break the tension after she had roamed around the living room and dropped into one of the chairs.
"Not quite the 'hello' I was hoping for," he choked out. Though sadness still lingered, his obvious frustration was beginning to break through.
"Hello, Sirius," she said without a trace of a smile.
He let out a strange noise; one of anguish, frustration and something else Marlene couldn't quite distinguish. And then he flung himself across the room with very few strides, grabbed Marlene by the wrists and yanked her upwards from the comfortable position she had settled into.
Marlene had very little time to process his action before his grip around her arms forced her upright and her body thrust into what could only be compared to that of a very hard wall, rendering her breath away completely. His arms tangled around her, constricting her much like Emmeline had earlier in the evening but he did not pull away when she protested the strength of his grasp.
She stopped fighting him and instead let him smother her with his body, while her own betrayed her by clinging to him just as tightly. She surrendered to the unconscious part of her that yearned for his touch. She didn't realize exactly how much she missed the feeling of being near him until that moment. But yet...
"Sirius, –"
He let out a sob; shaky and transparent. His body quivered violently and he clung onto her even tighter, like he was somewhat afraid of what she intended to say. His desperation was more painful than Marlene could ever imagine, and the guilt she had tried so hard to push away hit her like a stun spell to the chest. She hadn't really anticipated this reaction, though it was obvious now that she should have.
"I thought you were dead," his voice mumbled into her hair amidst another repressed sob. She could feel the bob of his Adam's apple and scratch of his unkempt facial hair against her scalp. And yet, the feeling was more comforting than it was unpleasant.
"I'm sorry," she whispered back into his chest. It was a pathetic response that couldn't possibly make up for what she had obviously put him through. But Marlene didn't really know what else she was supposed to say. No words could ever express what was going on inside her head in that moment.
The concept of time became lost to them. She didn't know how long they stood intertwined with one another, but she didn't care to give it much thought. Instead she allowed herself to lose herself in his arms, thoughts of everything she loved about him filled her head and cast an intoxicating daze she never wanted to end.
But of course it didn't last nearly long enough to satisfy the empty hole that existed within her. When they finally pulled apart she was able to assess the emotional distress that was still present on his face. His eyes were swollen and the stain of his tears still trailed downwards softly. He didn't bother to wipe them away, indicating that he didn't care for her to see him in such a vulnerable state.
Marlene was surprised to discover that she was crying too. She hadn't realized it until the salty sting of tears pooled at the lines of her lips and she tasted her own sadness. Marlene pulled a hand away from where it held to his back so that she could reach up to touch his face instead. She used her thumb to push away a fallen tear on his cheek and he closed his eyes.
Sirius drew in a shaky breath. "Is this what it felt like?" his eyes remained closed and his voice was low.
"Hmm?" she didn't understand. Her eyes were suddenly trained on where her finger had trailed downwards to his lips. She felt an increasing need to devour him even though she knew it wasn't the right time. It seemed that she would never get over the infatuation she had where Sirius was concerned.
"When I was gone," he sighed. His eyes opened and he removed both of his hands from around her to cup her face. "When I disappeared over Christmas, or when I was gone for weeks at a time. Is this how you felt?"
"Yes," she stared into his eyes, not bothering trying to decipher the emotions they held. She didn't know exactly what he felt like, but she could take a pretty good guess that the feeling was quite similar to the ones she had held onto during his times away.
"I'm sorry," he whispered softly, and it sent a shiver down her spine.
"You don't have anything to be sorry for," Marlene could feel the trace of a scowl beginning to form on her face. He obviously noticed it too because he let the smallest of smiles tug at the corner of his lip.
"I do. I am. I didn't truly realize how my actions were affecting you," he insisted. The smile disappeared and Marlene wondered if she had only imagined it. "When you left without saying goodbye, when we didn't hear from you, or couldn't find you, and then as the weeks turned into months and nearly everyone had chalked you up for dead –"
His eyes cast downwards away from her penetrating gaze, and she could see the hint of tears beginning to form in the corners once more. It was devastating to watch him come undone like that. Because of her.
"I wasn't expecting this reaction Sirius," she admitted sadly.
"What? That I obviously care? I've been a mess." He suddenly sounded bitter and she flinched.
"I know you care," she felt embarrassed, "I just was expecting, uh, less tears and – more yelling."
"You thought I would be angry?" He looked back at her again, his face expressionless for the first time all evening.
"Yes."
"Oh I am." Suddenly, his brows began to furrow, like he was coming out of a daze. "I'm very angry Marlene. But all I care about right now is that you are here with me; safe, alive. Nothing else matters right now. Nothing."
His hands dropped from her face and Marlene felt an unwelcome surge of disappointment. She didn't want him to stop touching her. In fact, she wanted him to touch her more...
Sirius loves you. Remus's words passed through her mind and she desperately wished for them to be true.
Because she still loved Sirius. She had never stopped loving him, and she doubted that she ever would. They had such a complicated relationship which was easy to consider a failure in comparison to the one that Lily and James shared. But she and Sirius weren't Lily and James, and what they did have was nothing short of extraordinary in their own way.
Had. Past tense. Marlene didn't have that with him anymore. Not really.
Sirius moved away from her and took to the couch. He moved so that there was enough room beside him, indicating that he expected her to join him. She sat back down into the chair she had previously occupied instead, and Sirius did not reveal outwardly whether her distance bothered him or not.
"I know I did this wrong. I won't pretend to think my excuses are justifiable means for my actions, but I feel like I owe them to you anyways. Especially since an apology won't get me very far." She gave him a feeble smile which he did not return. His expression remained hard and unrelenting; it was clear he was expecting an explanation.
"I was lost, scared, and alone. Everyone had someone or something, and I just seemed to fail at everything all the time. You once told me that I was a force to be reckoned with when I was driven by anger, and somewhere along the way I just fell apart and allowed anger to surpass my misery.
"Dumbledore had expectations of me and I couldn't fail yet another thing. I felt like I had already lost everything, everyone. So I just – I," she hesitated, "I took off. I left without caring about how it would affect everyone around me. Maybe there was a small part of me hoped that it would hurt everyone like I had been hurting. That's terrible, I know. I'm not proud of it.
"But then I actually got busy with my mission and it was easy to forget about everything else. I felt free from my worries back home, and for once I actually felt like I had my own purpose. I realize I should have written and not avoided your efforts to find me. I don't really have a good explanation for why I did that, other than the fact I wasn't ready to come back to my old life just yet. I became a different person while I went away. I didn't want to stop being her."
"You don't have to be a different person, Mar," his voice was hoarse. "You are perfect the way you are."
"I needed to learn that on my own," Marlene said sadly. "I am sorry. I truly am."
His face relaxed noticeably and he let out a sigh. "How do we go forward from this Marlene?" he asked, and though he appeared much calmer, the frustration in his voice still lingered.
"What do you mean?" she asked slowly, because she wasn't entirely certain what it was that he was asking. Of course she had a pretty good guess, but she didn't want to jump to any conclusions.
"Us."
His stare was intent and unwavering, and she couldn't look away as she pressed him for further clarification. "What about us?"
"What about us? Really!?" Finally his anger became noticeably apparent for the first time all evening. "You walk out of my life for half a year and then just expect me to lose you again?"
"We aren't together anymore Sirius," she reminded him. The expression on his face flickered and he looked stunned as though she had slapped him.
"I suppose not," he said finally, sounding pained as though he was only just realizing the fact for the first time. "But I still love you, Mar. I wasn't lying when I told you that. You do know that right?"
"Yes," she answered, believing him. She felt weak. "I love you too. But that doesn't change anything."
"Doesn't it?"
"No Sirius," she sighed. He had told her that he didn't expect her to wait around for him, and she had told him that she would. Even though she still felt her promise to be true, she wasn't quite ready to head down that road just yet. "All we do is hurt each other. You were right to break up with me."
"I wasn't." He shook his head and his long hair moved with the movement. "I've never been more wrong about anything in my life."
"Sirius Black, admitting to being wrong?" She feigned shock in an attempt to bring an ounce of humor into the conversation. "I think I must be dreaming."
"Ha ha," he said dryly. "I'm being serious Marlene. In case you weren't aware, this isn't really a good time to be cracking jokes."
"It's the perfect time to be cracking jokes," she disagreed. "The tension in here is stifling."
"I'm not giving up on us, Marlene," he ignored her. "I won't make that mistake again. I didn't expect for you to wait around and I told you that, but I've spent every day since you left regretting how we ended things and not knowing whether or not I'd ever have the chance to tell you how I feel."
"Why do you have to make this so difficult?" Marlene groaned. It would be so easy to just fall back into a life with Sirius, but she was terrified that they would just continue to hurt one another.
"Because you just admitted that you still love me, and there's no way I'm going to give up that easily after that." Finally, he cracked a devious smile that transformed his face into a more familiar version of the boy she knew from Hogwarts.
"I need time, Sirius. I think we both do," she said softly, desperately trying to ignore the way her body responded to being looked at by him in such a way. "My heart still feels broken and I've only just started picking up the pieces."
He nodded politely, the smile unfaltering from his lips. "I can give you time." She watched as his fingers laced together behind his head, and he leaned back into his hands. He looked so darn comfortable on the couch and she felt the yearning to join him. His eyes flicked to the empty spot beside him as though he could sense her inner struggle.
"Dammit Sirius," she said with obvious frustration. The draw to him was too magnetic to ignore. "Stop looking at me like that."
His brows shot upwards. "It's either I look at you like that or I scream at you like Emmeline did. Remember, I'm still angry at you. I haven't forgotten. We'll have plenty of time to have that conversation later, unless you'd prefer to do it now."
"Well, you'd better do it before I see Lily," Marlene grumbled, suddenly remembering that Sirius was not the only one she would have to deal with. James would have definitely informed Lily by now, and she was shocked that she hadn't already received a howler from her friend.
"Why's that?" he asked, but the humor in his tone indicated that he likely already knew why.
She rewarded him with a small scowl of disapproval. "You know that she's going to hex me into tomorrow."
Sirius offered her a subtle wink and Marlene surrendered to the internal battle. She stood from the chair and moved across the small space that separated them, and into the empty seat on the couch. The warmth radiating off his body drew her into him and she tucked her head against his shoulder. He wrapped his arm around her and gave her a gentle, comforting squeeze.
"You know James and Lily are parents now," he informed her after he had stopped laughing. Marlene felt the sudden movement of her eyes bulging with recognition. She had completely forgotten.
"Oh she's really going to kill me," she wailed.
"Harry," he continued on without commenting. "They named him Harry. Looks like the spitting image of James, but just in miniature form."
A gigantic smile spread across her face and she giggled. "Great. Two James Potters in the world? Heaven help us all."
"As long as he doesn't find himself friends with his own Sirius Black he should be alright," his shoulders rolled with laughter.
"You and I both know James is the real instigator in your friendship." Marlene moved her head away from where it had been pinned against his arm to look up at him. "He's had quite the influence on you."
"Yes, and look at how great I turned out," he shot her a lopsided grin and her heart stirred.
But his short lived playfulness began to ebb away as they continued to stare at one another. The sound of her own heart pounding faster than normal filled her ears and quite suddenly she could focus on nothing else but the way his lips parted slightly at the center.
"I should really get home," she said quietly, not certain that she actually meant it.
Sirius didn't blink as he countered, "Or you could stay."
"I can't stay, Sirius," she sighed, even though the offer sounded appealing.
"You could, you just won't."
"That's right."
They sat together for a little while longer in silence. Marlene, unable to bring herself to leave and Sirius, who didn't seem any eager to push her out the door. And so they sat contentedly curled up together and unwilling to move. Marlene knew that it would be the last time for a while that she and Sirius would have any sort of physical contact. If they were ever going to work through their issues they would both need time to figure out how to be with one another in a way that didn't hurt the other.
"I don't suppose you're going to tell me about your travels in Europe?" he finally broke the silence.
"You know that I can't," she said with regret. She wondered how long she would need to hold on to Dumbledore's secret task before he would fill the rest of the Order in on it. Or whether he had any intention at all to do so. Lying to Sirius didn't feel good, and she realized that his avoidance to share things with her in the past must not have been easy. It was easier to see now that she had been a little more than unfair on him.
"I know," he said. "Can you at least tell me if you'll be gone again?"
"I don't think so."
His voice dropped lower, "If you do go, can you at least tell me this time? Please? I want to make sure that you stay safe. I don't know how to live without you in my life, Mar."
Marlene shifted her body to look back up at him. Sirius was looking off into the distance, evidently lost in his thoughts and made no motion to meet her conflicted gaze. How easy it would be to tell him the truth, to convince him that her mission was no danger to her and he needn't worry about her safety. But she couldn't do that. She couldn't promise that she would always be safe, nor could she talk openly about what she had been up to. Holding onto Dumbledore's secret made her feel extraordinarily lonely for the first time since she had departed London six months prior.
If they had any hope of a future relationship she knew that she would need to mean it when she promised him, "Of course, Sirius."
She only hoped that it would be just as easy to keep.
