A/N: This would've been up sooner but I decided to rewrite the whole chapter. Heh. Wow! A record, this will be the most chapters I have ever posted! Anyways, as Dragon Voldemort so kindly pointed out, if this took place along the same time line as the HP series, there was no Osbourne TV show, which means there was also no Sponge Bob Square Pants in 1993. -Sheepish grin- therefore, let it be known that, seeing as I've already declared this an AU, it still is occurring around the time of PoA but pop culture wise, present time. Thanks Dragon Voldemort! Also, much like PoA, it will be a while before Harry and Sirius meet. But not too much longer!
Thank You's: Raven Mirage, AfireByNight, Nicole Black, Tropic, Lovevanillacreme, Emie Patapouf, Tomato Beatles Fan, Beach Phoenix, alastormadeymoody51, and Dragon Voldemort for reviewing Chapter 3. THANKS!
Side note: ยก Viva la queso de mozarela!
Chapter Four
Sirius's heart rate quickened automatically. He flung himself off the couch and down the hall. When he reached the door to Keira's room he flung it open. She was visibly shaken, sitting up in the middle of her large bed, tangled in sheets. Sirius entered slowly. "Keira, you ok?" he whispered.
His eyes widened when she turned toward him. Her cheeks were wet with tears that continued to fall and her nose was running but her expression . . . it was one of pure hatred. When she spoke, her voice was unusually low and hoarse, "get out of my house."
"K-Keira, what happened? Are you alri-"
"Get out of my house Connor." She was getting out of bed now, the same expression on her face.
Sirius held up his hands trying to show he was no threat. "Connor? Keira, I'm-"
"You self-righteous SON OF A BITCH GET OUT OF MY HOUSE!" Her voice was so full of emotion it alarmed Sirius but he didn't budge.
"Sweetie I-" He wasn't allowed to finish. With a slight yell, Keira kicked him hard in-between his legs and collided her fist with his jaw. With a rather high-pitched cry, Sirius crumpled into a heap on the ground. Keira, attempting to run out of the room, tripped over Sirius's leg and fell over him onto the floor.
"Sirius!" Keira exclaimed, struggling to get up. "Sirius are you ok?" He responded with a moan. Keira knelt down next to him and brushed some hair away from his face. "Sirius?" she whispered. He grunted. "What happened?"
He turned his head to look at her, "who's Connor?" Keira sat back and her eyes widened as her nightmare came rushing back to her. "You told me to leave, you called me Connor, and, the rest is obvious." He drew his knees closer to his chest so he was in more of a fetal position.
"Sirius I am so sorry! Let me help you!" she cried. She grabbed his hand and helped him to his feet. "Can you walk?" She asked gently, seeing he was still hunched over slightly.
"I'm fine." He growled, "Just go back to sleep." He winced with every word. Then, noticing Keira's concerned expression he said, "you have a nasty right hook."
"Sirius no, you're lying down in my bed and I'm going to get you some ice and some Tylenol." She commanded. She practically threw Sirius down onto the bed and then hurried to get the supplies.
"You don't need to do this." Sirius told her when she returned.
"It's my fault it happened in the first place." She pulled the hair away from Sirius's face and turned his head slightly to the right. "This will help." She said as she place an ice pack on his jaw. "Do you need some ice for . . . umm, your, uh-"
"No, it's fine." He grumbled, then his face softened slightly. Thankfully your right-hook is better than your kick." He smiled. "Now come here and tell me about this Connor person. You looked like you wanted to murder me." Keira didn't move. "Come on." Sirius grasped her hand and pulled her down onto the bed next to him.
"Sirius, it was just a stupid dream." She groaned.
"You can't fool me sweetie, I saw the look on your face when you said his name."
"Sirius, it was nothing." She was on the verge of tears again. Sirius took one of her hands in his.
"Look, I know we haven't known each other long but, I don't know, I feel rather comfortable around you. It's nice to have someone to talk to after being alone for so long. However, I understand if you don't feel the same. Don't tell me."
"Connor was my boyfriend."
Sirius smiled on the inside. Reverse psychology works every time. "And?"
"And, now he's not." Keira stated tonelessly.
"There was apparently more to it then that, seeing as you had a nightmare about the twit." Sirius thought for a moment, "and you were very upset when I asked you if you had anyone. Why?"
"Are you looking for my life story?"
"Yes, I suppose I am."
"Well before I start I might as well put that ice pack back in the freezer."
Sirius laughed as he handed it to her, "You're stalling." Keira flashed him a sly grin on her way out. When she returned she sat next to Sirius on the bed. "So, tell me a story about you and the Marauders."
Keira tried, and failed, to change the subject. Instead, Sirius put an arm around her and looked at her, patiently waiting for her to begin her life's story. "Ok, ok, I'll start from the beginning and I'll give it to you in a nutshell, err, I'll make it as short as possible. My family consisted of my dad, Nathan, my mom, Caitlin, my older brother Will, and me. My dad was a prick and my mom pretended to be oblivious. My father was always angry. I didn't know why then, and I still don't know now. He set these standards though, good lord, he expected Will and I to be perfect. We had to be good at everything and never make a mistake. Whenever we did something he didn't deem to be good enough, which was most of the time, he'd hit us." Anger flashed through Sirius's eyes but he stayed silent. "Will, being older and being a boy, got it worse than me though. That's why he eventually ran away."
"How old was he?" Sirius asked gently.
"He's about eight years older than me and I was nine at the time so he had just turned seventeen. He had been saving money since I was born." Keira paused for a moment, lost in thought. "My father scarcely hit me until I started school. That same year Will swore to me that he would get us out as soon as he had enough money. Unfortunately, though, he would've never gotten away if he had taken me with him. He flew to London you see."
"London? Why London?"
"Well, technically, we're from Ireland. My mom's Irish but my father's American. We lived in Ireland until I was five and then we moved here." A scowl formed on Keira's face and she looked straight at Sirius, "wanna know why we moved?"
"Why?"
"My family, on my mom's side, figured out that something was going on though they weren't sure it was abuse. My aunt Eileen, who used to baby-sit us, was beginning to make calls about having him arrested or something and my mom found out. We moved like a week after. My mom told me it was because there was going to be a war!" Keira snickered. "But Will knew the truth and set me straight. So, we ended up back here. So, yeah, Will caught a plane to London, probably went to live with some relatives there, and my parents didn't do anything to stop him. I haven't seen or talked to him since."
Sirius stared at her incredulously, "Are you serious?"
"No, I'm Keira. You're Sirius." She replied half-heartedly. Sirius didn't laugh.
"The brother that swore to get you out, the brother that protected you, took off without ever looking back, without ever trying to contact you?"
"Actually, no, probably not. I started to realize when I was about thirteen or fourteen that I was never allowed to get the mail. I think he must've wrote me and my father probably destroyed his letters so I'd never know he was trying to contact me." Sirius didn't look convinced. "Anywho," she continued, "my mom had a bad reaction to an anesthetic during some surgery she was having on her stomach and she died. That's when I was seventeen. My father, the pig he was, was already dating a month later. If you even call having one-night stands dating." Keira closed her eyes and willed herself not to cry.
"Bloody hell, I'm so sorry." Sirius whispered and lightly squeezed her hand. "You don't have to keep going if you don't want to."
"No, it's ok, I'm fine." She took a deep breath and continued, "I got good grades so I was able to get into Columbia University. It's a pretty good school." She added. "He wouldn't let me live there though, for whatever reason, but I had enough money saved up to buy this craphole." She giggled a little. "He hated that I was free from him. He died of a heart attack a few years later. I found out he had been addicted to some kind of prescribed medication, Valium or something. I ended up inheriting all of his money but for the most part I haven't touched it." She paused to look at Sirius. "You have no idea what I'm talking about do you."
Sirius tried to hide a smile, "well, not the specific Muggle details, but I get the big picture."
Keira returned his infectious smile. "Ok, so, yeah, I pretty much screwed up every relationship I've been in. Sirius," she said suddenly, "don't think any less of me ok?"
"I won't."
"Promise me?"
He took both of her hands now in his. "I promise."
"Ok, well, short version, before Connor I had only two serious relationships, meaning we'd been together at least a year. This wasn't until after high school. As soon as I realized we were getting too close, I'd screw it up. It's not like I said to myself, 'Keira, go out right now and screw up this relationship.' But that's what I ended up doing. I cheated on both of them." Sirius felt for her, shame was written all over her face. "When I first started seeing Connor I had already been seeing a therapist for awhile and I was different somehow, you know?" Sirius nodded. "So almost immediately I told him about my previous relationships. He didn't seem bothered by it. We had been dating almost a year and a half when he started getting . . . aggressive. I would not stand for that again so I threatened leaving him. He apologized, acting like he hadn't realized what he was doing. But . . . about a month after that, he freaked out on me. He accused me of having an affair with his brother. This was absolutely, not true. Chris and I were and still are friends but that was it."
"Chris is the man who wants you to do the story on me?" Sirius asked, stifling a yawn.
"Yeah. Oh! I forgot to mention, Connor and I worked together. Not a good idea, at least, not for muggles."
Sirius laughed. "Ok, so this, what do you Americans say... asshole," Keira smiled, "accused you of an affair. Did you leave him?"
"Yes. The second he accused me, that was it. I was done with him. He got pissed off though and somehow managed to get me fired. I argued with my boss but whatever Connor said to him must've been good because my boss didn't even want to hear about it. That's when I made a huge mistake." She gripped Sirius's hand tightly. "He had a brand new BMW convertible. I went into the parking lot, slashed his tires and keyed it."
"What does all that mean?" asked Sirius.
"Well a BMW is a pretty nice, fairly expensive car. I cut the tires on it so they were ruined. Then I took one of my keys and scraped a large strip of paint off."
"Good one!" Sirius smiled.
"I thought so too, at first. But that night I was already in bed asleep and he came storming in. I had forgotten to take my key from him. I was so scared Sirius, he looked so angry. He said I was going to pay for what I'd done to him." A few tears sneaked out of her eyes and fell down her face. "I screamed at him to get out but of course he didn't listen. I reached for my phone and he grabbed me. He started hitting me and it brought back all the bad memories of my dad too. I was all bruised up and had some broken ribs and a broken wrist. God, I was so stupid. I shouldn't have done that to his car and I should have run! Why didn't I run Sirius? I barely fought back."
Anger had boiled up in Sirius. How could anyone do such things to such a wonderful woman? "Sweetie, it wasn't your fault. You doing that to his car doesn't give him the right to hurt you, nothing does." Keira nodded in agreement and gave her a hug. She pulled away almost immediately.
"I'm ok." Sirius just looked at her. "Really, I am, I'm ok." She was choking on her words now. "I-I'm o-o-o-ok." The dam in her eyes broke and tears flooded her face. Sirius felt like his heart had just broken with her. He swiftly pulled her into a hug and held her while she cried into his chest. He stroked her hair. A glance over at the digital alarm clock told him it was nearing three in the morning. Carefully, Sirius laid back taking Keira with him. He laid along side her and she continued to cry into him.
"It's ok, let it all out." He kissed her forehead. "You're safe now," he whispered to her, "I am not going to let anyone hurt you. That's a promise."
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TBC...
Whew, done with chapter four! I felt like I should do a 'background chapter' I'm sorry if it was a lil boring. I've never written a chapter four before! lol.
I dedicate this chapter to Denis Leary for the mere fact that I watched him get roasted on Comedy Central tonight and it cracked me up and put me in a better mood. Hee-hee... And on that note, please REVIEW!