A/N This chap is actually quite different, post editing, although the story is still the same…

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Lily met Sirius Black at a dinner party, held by their co-worker Remus. They have both changed jobs since then, but at the time they were at opposite ends of the Ministry. Lily recognized him and sauntered up. This is what attracted him to her, he tells her now, that she approached him. Usually it was the other way around.

"Hey," she said, sticking out a hand. "Lily Evans."

"Sirius Black." He started to massage her knuckles but she withdrew, looking around the room. He waited, watching, as she leaned toward him with a small smile.

"You look familiar, Sirius Black," she said, softly so that he had to tilt his head toward hers. She brushed a strand of hair from her face. "Did I meet you by the copy room the other day?"

She laughed suddenly, dropping the whisper. "I've got to go. Say goodbye to Remus for me." She touched his arm and walked away.

He had said two words to her, but she is sure she was in love. Even now when all the masks have been packed away, she convinces herself of this. Not sure if it's to make herself hate him or not, his charm behind that slow grin.

She let him take her home eventually – not as soon as either would have liked. Progress, she called it. Games, he laughed back, when she felt she could tell him the whole thing. They were making everything into a funny story at the time.

This all changed when she dropped by one afternoon to find James, not Sirius, at the flat. Sirius was gone for the weekend, James said, inviting her in.

They talked. It had none of the fire, but a wonderful sense of co-dependency that didn't come with Sirius. Lily's mother told her to love James because of this. After her mother's death, Lily, to remove that damnable survivor's guilt, decided to marry him.

He and Sirius were on the national Quidditch team then. Sirius hadn't known about James in much the same way that James never knew about Lily's continuing relationship with Sirius; the lies being too easy for her to stop them now. Sirius left the team when he heard. It was a little harder to leave Lily, but impossible to tell James; they were all in too far to back out. Over their heads until even Lily, loved by two such men, could no longer enjoy the deceit. The love almost gone.

So it is with a certain sense of relief that Lily leaves Sirius at last. She even considers telling James, thinking that to trust Sirius in anything, particularly matters of the heart, might be foolish. James won't care; surely he doesn't love her. But then he runs to her saying Our baby, Look. Joy. Anticipation.

She's exhausted.