Sweatpants, Ice Cream, and Runaways
Chapter 13

This is the second to last chapter. Thanks to the 30(ish) people who reviewed the last chapter

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

One day had passed and Remus and Sirius were out of ideas on how to get Lily to stay.

"I'm going over to Kyra's now," Sirius said. "She's been pretty upset over this whole Lily leaving thing."

"I bet," Remus said, looking up from the newspaper. "Will Lily be there?"

Sirius shrugged. "Probably."

"Do you think if I paid Lily a hundred galleons she would stay?" Remus asked.

"Wow…we really are out of ideas on how to get Lily to stay huh?" Sirius asked. "Oh, and if I leave will you pay me a hundred galleons to stay?"

"No," Remus said. "I'd pay you a hundred galleons to never come back."

"Whatever makes me richer," Sirius joked.

Remus laughed. "Go find Kyra."

"Okay, see ya," Sirius said.

"Hey Sirius?" Remus called out.

"Yeah?" Sirius asked.

"See if she'll make me waffles," Remus teased. Sirius laughed as he closed the door.

"When I got home from work and you weren't in the kitchen, I feared the worst," Sirius said, looking up from his cake.

"What, that you'd have to make your own dinner?" Kyra teased and then looked down at Sirius eating her cake. "Looks like you've been doing fine without me."

"I don't need you per se," Sirius said. "I need your cooking."

Kyra rolled her eyes and kissed Sirius. "Why thank you, I feel so appreciated."

"So, where were you?"

"I was saying good-bye to Lily because she's going straight to the airport from her office."

"Oooh, okay," Sirius said with a shrug. "So are you---wait what?" Airport? Good-bye?" Sirius shook his head from confusion. "What?"

"Lily's going back to Australia," Kyra said. "You knew that."

"I know, but I didn't think it was going to be this soon," Sirius said.

"Well, she actually thinks James is right…whatever he said to her. She feels as if she had no right to come back and she feels that the sooner she leaves, the better," Kyra said.

"You idiot!" Sirius exclaimed.

"Well there's a way to get me in bed," Kyra said, rolling her eyes.

"No no, I mean, how could you let her go?" Sirius exclaimed.

"Oh yes by saying 'you idiot,' that's exactly what you meant," Kyra said sarcastically.

"She chose work over James once and look where that's gotten her. Look where it's gotten the both of them. When is she leaving?"

"Sirius, I don't thi-"

"When is she leaving?" Sirius said, raising his voice.

"The taxi will arrive in half an hour."

Sirius practically raced out there.

"So…the date's over?" Kyra called after him. "Wait Sirius! Her office is the other way!"

"Back so soon?" Remus asked as Sirius burst into the flat.

"Where's James?" Sirius asked, obviously out of breath.

"In his room…" Remus said slowly. "What's going on?"

Sirius ran to James's room and opened the door. "How long have you been lying around your room?"

"Five minutes," James said, "Give or take a week."

Sirius sighed. "You need to talk to Lily."

"What? Why? No," James said.

"Because she believed whatever the hell you told her," Sirius said. "And she's leaving for Australia in half an hour."

"What?" James exclaimed, jumping up from his bed, trying to understand if he cared or not.

"She's been planning to go back to Australia for a few days now," Sirius said. "And now she's really leaving. In about half an hour."

"Well that's what she does best isn't it?" James said haughtily.

"I don't care what she always does," Sirius said. "All you do is sulk and complain about Lily and now it's time for you to do something about it."

"Sirius, if she wants to leave then let her," James said, sitting back on his bed.

"Are you telling me that you are really going to let the girl you are madly in love with just fly half way across the country and you're going to sit here and let it happen?" Sirius asked.

"And are you telling me that you want me to give Lily another chance when all she's shown me is that she can run, lie, and make me feel like a complete idiot?"

"Yes!" Sirius cried out.

James sat there for a few seconds and then got up from the bed. "I must be crazy."

"Craziness is your best quality," Sirius said with a grin.

"What guy goes after a girl who treats him like dirt?"

"A complete idiot…now go get her!" Sirius exclaimed.

James looked up at Sirius and smiled. And then he ran out of there.

James ran as fast as he could to Lily's house and knocked on the door as hard as he could.

Kyra opened the door. "Okay James the point of knocking is not to break your hand off…"

"Yeah," James said, catching his breath. "Where's Lily?"

"She's not here," Kyra said. "She left."

"What?"

"She's leaving from work," Kyra said.

James gave Kyra a blank stare. "Okay that is something Sirius should have told me."

"Sirius?" Kyra asked quizzically. "What did-"

"No time to explain!" James called out as he started to run away.

Kyra sighed. "Why does everyone run away from me?" she mumbled to herself. "At some point I would like to be clued in!"

James laughed to himself as he sprinted down the block. He tried to avoid cars and ran a few more blocks until he reached Lily's work.

James got to the corner to see Lily look up at her office, sigh, and get into her taxi.

"LILY!" James shouted. Lily didn't hear him and told the cab driver where to go and James stood there as he watched her taxi drive away. James looked around for another taxi to get into and follow her to the airport but didn't see any at the moment.

Lily looked up at the flights and noticed that hers was going to board in a few minutes.

"Is anyone sitting here?" a voice asked. Lily shook her head. "So where are you off to?"

"Australia," Lily answered.

"Whoa, why so far away?"

Lily sighed, still not looking up at the person talking to her. "My job." Lily looked up into the blue eyes of a man who could be no more than 25. "Hello."

The man laughed. "Hi. My name is Johnson."

Lily smiled. "I'm Lily. It's nice to meet you."

"So Lily, let me ask you a question. Why are you really headed to Australia?"

Lily looked surprised. "What?"

"You don't look like a girl who is headed to Australia for work," Johnson noted.

"Well Johnson," Lily started. "What kind of girl do I look like?"

"Well you look like you're either getting away from something," Johnson started.

"Or?"

"Or you're going to Australia to get the death penalty."

Lily laughed. "Well I can assure you it isn't the latter."

"Okay, so what are you leaving?"

"It's a who."

"A he who?" Johnson asked.

Lily laughed. Johnson looked confused. "Sorry, you just sounded like a donkey."

"Did not!" Johnson defended. "That would have been he-haw."

Lily laughed and Johnson continued. "So, is it a he you're running from?"

Lily shrugged and then slowly nodded.

"Well that doesn't seem fair to him…or you."

"You don't know the situation," Lily pointed out.

"That's true," Johnson said. "But if you're running away from someone, that doesn't seem fair to anyone."

"It doesn't matter," Lily mumbled.

"It does to me," someone said from behind. Lily whirled around to see James standing a few feet away.

"James," Lily said, obviously very surprised.

"Is that the he?" Johnson whispered. Lily couldn't even bring herself to nod, she just stared at James. But Johnson knew exactly who he was, and got up to give them some time alone.

"What…" Lily trailed off, not sure of what to say. "What are you doing here?"

"You didn't say good-bye," James said.

Lily looked down and bit her lip but couldn't think of anything to say. James sighed and walked over to her.

"You can't go," James insisted.

"Why not?" Lily asked.

"Because I was just starting to get to know you…again," James said.

"James," Lily started.

"No, don't James me. If you leave you'll just be proving me right," James said.

"Um…the last time I checked, you liked being right," Lily said.

"Not when it means you'd be leaving," James said. "Lily, are you really going to leave and prove to me once again that all you do is run away when things get hard?"

"I'm not leaving to prove you right James," Lily said. "My job is in Australia. I-"

Lily couldn't say anything else because she was cut off when her flight was announced over the intercom and it was starting to board the back few rows.

Neither James nor Lily said anything but Lily looked down at her ticket number. "That's me," she whispered.

James couldn't think of anything to say but he swallowed the lump in his throat. Lily got up and started to walk towards the airplane.

"You told me you'd stay," James said. Lily turned around and James continued. "You promised me you wouldn't leave."

"No James," Lily said. "I said if you were good, I would stay."

"I was good," James insisted.

"I know…and all I did was lie to you and lead you on and…" Lily trailed off, looking off into the distance.

"But I was good," James repeated.

"James," Lily said. "You told me to leave. You told me I didn't belong in London anymore. You told me to get out of your life."

"And you listened?" James exclaimed.

"Well yeah."

"Well that was stupid!" James exclaimed.

"Okay so basically in the last minute, I've learned that you don't like being right and you don't like people listening to you," Lily said.

"Exactly!" James exclaimed. "Wait no…okay, something went wrong here." Lily just smirked. "I just thought you learned over the seven years of Hogwarts to completely ignore me."

Lily smiled but didn't say anything because her row number was called over the intercom again. Lily sighed. "I have to go."

James couldn't think of anything to say so he just watched Lily walk away. Lily looked over her shoulder as James called out, "Lily!"

Lily slowly turned around and just stood there. "So that's it?"

"What?" Lily asked.

"You're just going to leave?" James asked.

Lily sighed. "I have to."

James and Lily exchanged one more glance until Lily turned around and got into the line to board her plane. James sighed and turned around to leave but ran into Johnson.

"Oh, hi," Johnson said.

James looked up. "Um, hi?" James said, not sure why this stranger was talking to him.

"Sorry," Johnson said, sticking his hand out. "I'm Johnson."

"James," James said, sticking his hand out. "You were talking to Lily earlier, weren't you?"

Johnson nodded. "And you must be the guy she's running away from."

"She told you that?"

Johnson shook his head. "No, but it was written all over her face."

James nodded sullenly and then shrugged. "Well, she's still running away."

"Did you ask her to stay?"

"Of course," James said. "I told her that running away wasn't helping anyone and she needs to stop running away when things get hard."

"Okay…but did you actually say the words 'I want you to stay?'" Johnson asked.

James looked at him and then whipped around and ran over to Lily who was next in line to board. "You can't go."

"James, we've been through this," Lily said. "I ca-"

"I want you to stay."

Lily stopped. "What?"

"I want you to stay."

Lily looked from James to the flight attendant asking to see her ticket. She took a deep breath and then sighed. "I have to go," she whispered and then walked onto the plane.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

ONLY ONE MORE CHAPTER LEFT! if you review, i'll post it faster... (i have finals this week and next, so the more reviews I get, the faster I'll take a study break and post it)