Lily staggered up the stairs to her apartment building, praying for empty halls and a quiet evening. Just as she pushed her key into the lock, she heard a door down the corridor open, accompanied by a joyous bellow.
"Lils!" She pressed her head against her door for one, two, three beats before plastering on a fake smile and turning.
"Benji." Her response, while unenthusiastic, brought a broad grin to Benji Fenwick's handsome face.
"I, my dear Lily, have tickets to see the Weird Sisters this Friday night. One of them is yours, if you want it."
"What would this be?" Lily sighed, already knowing the answer, but rather hoping that it would change.
"A date. Who takes a friend to the Weird Sisters? Besides, you can't be busy again."
Lily paused for a second, putting on a thoughtful face for a moment. With each second that passed, Benji's face brightened exponentially. She finally inhaled, smacked her forehead, and exclaimed, "I don't think I can. I have to work Friday." That much was true, though she would surely be out in time for a concert. She just wouldn't be ready to stoop to such a level as to date her sleazy, flirtatious neighbor until she was an old maid who was desperate for love. Perhaps not even then.
His face fell, and she turned to enter her apartment. He called after her, "I'll come by at 8, anyhow. If you aren't back in time for the concert, we can just hang. Nobody should be alone at Christmas. It's a date!" She had hoped to close the door fast enough to miss the last bit, but she knew that he would inevitably come by her place. Maybe she should splurge and eat out that night…
Lily walked through her cramped, quiet flat to get to the kitchen. She made little cooing sounds as she filled a bowl with cat food, hoping that her cat would keep her company for the evening. "Daisy… sweet kitty… dinner time..." She wandered through the rooms, praying for her fluffy companion to appear. After a few minutes, she put the bowl on the floor and wandered back to the kitchen.
As Lily made her own dinner, she tried to ignore the echos of Benji's comment. Nobody should be alone at Christmas. Lily had thought the same thing ever since her parents had died, but it seemed less pathetic when it was only said inside of her own head. When Benji was criticizing her hermit lifestyle, something needed to change. The trouble was, Lily had nobody to talk to.
Well, that isn't totally true….
Lily trotted through the halls at St. Mungos once again. She shoved down the odd feeling that she got from returning to visit the stranger who she was pretending to be in love with, but figured she would have to explain everything to him eventually. They say that coma patients can hear stuff, right? This totally counts as a conversation, one sided though it may be.
She slowed down to a tiptoe as she neared the room, praying her assumption that it was empty would be proven true. She carefully peered around the corner of the doorway, and gave an audible sigh of relief when the only inhabitant was her James Dean.
As Lily walked to the foot of his bed, she was floored not only by how handsome he was, but how young he looked when he was asleep. He was normally so charming looking, and the he was a very different kind of appealing now. She wondered if everyone looked that way when they slept. She herself had never had anybody to ask, since she had never slept with anybody. Pathetic, sure, but Lily just hoped that it would seem romantic to her future husband instead of lonely.
Speaking of future husband…
Lily cleared her throat, praying both that he could hear her and that he would not remember how awkward this was when he woke up.
"Sirius, hi, this is Lily. Lily Evans. I, um, I'm awfully sorry about all of this. I guess everyone thinks that I'm your fiancee. I've never been anybody's fiancee before." Lily gave an anxious smile, forgetting for a moment that he could give no response. She searched for something more to say, finally settling on another apology.
"I really am sorry about this whole ordeal. This wasn't supposed to happen, you just got hurt and everything happened so fast… Not that I'm blaming you. Merlin, I'm terrible at this." Lily lowered herself into a seat next to him. "It's just, I pictured meeting my fiancee's family a bit differently, you know? I thought that I would have this great job, and a great home, and lots of friends. I thought that I would actually be in a relationship with the guy. I thought I would have a family for him to meet, too.
"Well, Sirius, even if you wanted to, I don't think I'd have anybody to introduce you to. I doubt Tuney would want to meet you. I mean, I like my life," she hurried to say. She didn't want him to think she was some loser, or some sad young woman who relieved her loneliness by pushing herself upon coma patients.
"I have an apartment. And a cat. I have an okay job. I mean, I'm a witch, so that's cool. I just always thought that I would have somebody to share this all with.
"Do you believe in love at first sight? Probably not. You've probably never had to, looking like that. I'll bet every girl has wanted to get with you, so you never needed silly fantasies. I guess I do. But it's just, I just really think that if somebody could just get to know me, and really see me, maybe it could be alright. Maybe he'd see, even just for a second, that I am the sort of girl he could spend a lifetime with. Somebody he could have that old person on the porch swing thing with. But he'd have to be that right guy. I thought maybe that guy could be you, but this is probably the universe interceding before you could even see me at all." Lily gave a bitter laugh. Once again, all of this sounded much less pitiful in her head. But she had wanted him to really know her, and this was her one chance to let a man see her without having to see his face when the interest faded away. Goodness, that would be mortifying.
"Have you ever fallen in love with somebody you've never even talked to?" Lily felt her chest tighten, and finally felt tears prickle in her eyes. Merlin, had she always been this pathetic? Did anyone else in the world ever have to stoop this low to have company around the holidays? Surely not. "Have you ever been so lonely that you pretended to have a relationship with a stranger in a coma?"
Lily laid her head down on his bed, making sure not to touch him. Even her probably perverted self needed to have some boundaries.
If she had turned around at that moment, she would have seen a very conflicted, sad looking Remus Lupin standing in the doorway of the hospital room. She would have seen him look back and forth between her body and his friend's before turning around to exit the room.
