September was welcomed with more award shows that Lily was forced to attend by her team, despite her bodyguards growing increasingly worried for her. Lily was beyond emotionally distraught, drinking more and more with each passing day. Frank had forbade Alice and James from getting in the middle of the popstar's life.

"Babe, she's going to drink herself into a coma," Alice had argued, "we have to tell her manager at least."

"We're here to watch over her cameras," Frank reminded them, "don't even try to say a part of our jobs is mothering a woman who clearly doesn't want to be helped!"

"She's just scared," James had argued right alongside Alice, "she needs someone to step up and advocate for her."

"No." Frank put his foot down, "both of you will keep your opinions to yourself, especially you Potter."

Lily grew smaller and smaller, losing her mind. James had gone back into his shadow-like qualities at Franks demands, but he couldn't resist the urge to try and help her. Sometimes he'd offer her a kind hand into a taxi. He tried to smile at her if he caught her forlorn gaze. He just couldn't wrap his head around why her team didn't notice her withering away for millions to see in paparazzi photos.

The VMA's were a wretched affair. Sirius was out of town producing in Australia and offered his seat beside Lily for one of her bodyguards. Alice had her day off, and Frank never did the award shows. Even Benedict was out of town, making James the only one who accompanied the lonely pop star.

James helped her out of the car and onto the red carpet where immediately, people started screaming her name. Lily ignored the paparazzi, like she always did. James watched with a sense of pride for her character as Lily went right for a few of her fans in the stands on the outside of the carpet. Lily spent the entire pre-show taking photos and thanking her fans for coming. James stayed at her side, looking through the stands for trouble as she focused on listening to her fan's stories. He loved that she could recognize her fans, based on pictures she saw on social media.

"Brenna!" Lily hugged a brunette girl over the wall, looking genuinely pleased to see the young teen.

"You're my hero!" Brenna said as Lily took their picture with her jewel encrusted iPhone. "I love your cat so much; I want a black cat just like her!"

Lily retorted, "Juniper would be happy to know she has a fan."

Brenna nodded before she burst out, "I'm just so happy you're doing better after London!"

James watched her back stiffen, her fingers twitch, and her colored cheeks were fading. Brenna was still hugging Lily, lost in her own euphoria. James, who'd never interrupted Lily when she was with her fans before, took the phone out of Lily's frozen hand.

James passed the phone back to Brenna before placing a light touch to Lily's waist. Lily broke from her horrified trace, her eyes meeting James' concerned stare. Her eyes, dark, were like labyrinths of pain.

"Are you okay?" he asked her, not liking the way she swayed on the spot in her high heels.

She nodded, only looking away from James so she could wave goodbye to her fans. James' hand stayed light on her waist, pushing her towards the door. Lily finally looked at him as he helped her up the staircase into the theatre. Her eyes were a little clearer, but he could see the dangerous dark glare still swirling in them like fog.

"Do I seem happy?" she whispered to him as they entered the dark theatre.

James waited until they were escorted to the row where her seat was. He helped her maneuver the skirts of her gown and then sat down beside her in the seat reserved for Sirius. Since Sirius wasn't in town, he'd told James to take the seat. It was the first time he got to sit next to Lily at an awards show, normally he was farther away with the rest of security.

James leaned in to reply, "if singing doesn't ever work out, I'd say you have a solid career in acting."

The proximity to her was torturous. James memorized the rounded curves to her cheeks, the glowing green of her eyes, and the way her lower lip pouted out. The darkness of the theatre was making it dangerous to sit so close to her. He wanted to touch her so much, but he wasn't supposed to even like her. It would've been easier to hate her, instead of clearly feeling the sparks between them both.

Lily suddenly reached out to straighten his tie and collar. He froze the second her soft hands brushed his neck. Lily fixed his tie, which had apparently been twisted. He let air out of his nose as they stared at each other intensely through the darkness. There was nothing but a growing need to touch her growing in the pit of his stomach. She lowered her hand and flushed, staring at her lap, as if he was affecting her too.

James looked forward the rest of the night, only touching her again to help her back into the car on their way back home from the awards. Her fingers wrapped into his as she stepped into the car. As she settled her long black skirts around her legs, James slid in next to her, trying to look unconcerned by the touch of their hands.

Her hand had fit perfectly in his, like it was made for him.

How had he gotten to the point of falling for the woman he was supposed to be working to protect? She was an utter mess, totally out of his league, and yet he was crushing on her harder than some of her fans probably did. It felt like a lifetime inside the car with her. James sat beside her, as stiff as an iron wall, trying not to smell her charming lavender scent every time she brushed her fingers through her hair.

Alice met them at the front door. There was a wide smile on her round face until she saw their sullen looks. Alice stepped back, startled as Lily went right to the stairs and started climbing them to her room.

Alice closed the door behind James and hissed, "what the Hell happened?"

James hoped his voice was low enough. "Nothing."

"James," Alice sent him a worried look as they both made their way back to the control room, "you need to be careful."

"I know," he ruffled his hair with agitation, "I know, Alice, okay?"

Alice blinked with surprise at his agitated tone, "holy shit, you fancy her, don't you?"

James laughed darkly, "does it matter?"

Alice pressed him back with an arm, glowering, "you need to be careful."

"It's just a stupid crush," James took out his phone, dismissing himself from Alice before she launched into a full investigation, "the second she starts calling me a bastard, I'll be over it again."

He stalked away. Alice really knew how to make James feel like an utter idiot. He went to the living room and settled into one of the sofas, staring out at the great blue. The moon and the waves danced with each other in the shadows. The stars speckled the sky, a rarity in Malibu. Normally clouds or fog made the stars invisible. He stared out at the cosmos, wondering how he had fallen for a girl so utterly out of his league.

The first note of a haunting melody rang out like a hallelujah chorus. It's melancholy echo graced the whole house with its presence. James lurched up from his half-asleep stance on the sofa. Music filtered through the house. Lily was playing the piano. Lily was playing music, the first time since they'd met, he got an inside look at her writing style.

"Fame was all I ever wanted but the way I got it, well, it left me feeling haunted."

Her voice rose and echoed through the large home; the acoustics perfect for her deep tone. James followed its softened croon until he was in the doorway of the room that held her grand piano. She was still in her black gown, the folds of the dress flared out behind her. Lily's hair was falling in tumbled curls over one shoulder and her eyes loomed over the keys like she was seeing them for the first time.

"There are one hundred and one reasons I could give you to blame, but at the end of the day it's all just the same. If this were a card game, I'd play the ace, but the jokers would call the game."

"You know, for a while I didn't think you actually wrote music, and it was an act."

Lily looked up from her piano keys, her mouth half open with surprise. James had leaned against the door. She looked worried, her eyes fluttering to the keys, to James, and back again. He wondered if she was worried that he'd stalked her to the room or something.

"I heard your voice and I wanted to make sure you were okay." He explained.

Lily tilted her head. "Why are you awake, isn't Alice on shift?"

James shrugged, "I was just resting in the main room, waiting to give someone a call."

"Oh," Lily's lower lip jutted out, "calling Annie?"

James was almost one hundred percent sure he had never mentioned Annie to Lily. Not because he didn't want too, but because James was afraid that if he revealed anymore of himself to Lily, he couldn't stop his feelings from growing.

"How do you know about Annie?"

"I don't," she admitted foolishly, "I just heard you say her name a few times on the phone."

She was listening to him, he realized. Lily Evans was keeping tabs on him, just as he kept tabs on her. He hadn't given her enough credit. She wanted to know him, and the knowledge made him want to not give a damn and say to Hell with Frank's rules.

"Do you often listen in on my phone calls, Red?"

"No," Lily said, "I just overhear you sometimes when I walk by at night."

"You mean when you should be sleeping?" He crossed his arms over his chest. "Just like you should be sleeping now?"

Lily smiled as she motioned to the piano, "inspiration called."

The smile didn't reach her eyes. She just looked tired, like she did after she drank. Her day hadn't been particularly bad. James wondered if there were bottles of vodka up in her room, or if she was just so exhausted, she looked a little far gone. He wondered if she knew that she was slowly killing herself, doing the same shit every day.

James leaned up and off the doorway. He walked into the room, running his hand along the smooth black top of her piano. The soft lamplight lit up the space between them as a thick darkness swirled the room. He sat on the edge of the bench and touched one of the keys. It rang through the room, sharper than he expected, but he knew nothing about music notes.

"I just wanted to ask you…" His voice trailed off as if he didn't know how to ask her whatever he was thinking.

"Ask me what?"

He looked at her through his thick lashes, "it's kind of a personal question."

"What," she tucked her hair behind her ear and leaned closer to him to joke, "want to know all my songwriting secrets?"

"No."

James studied the way her hands were folding into her gown fretfully, like she feared what he wanted to ask her. If he had any sense of sanity, he would've left her there alone, but he was sick of pretending to ignore her. He was sick of seeing her so sad and alone.

"Why do you think you have to pretend that everything's okay?"

Lily leaned away from him, struck by his bold question. "Why?"

His eyes lifted back to her contoured face. He felt braver, knowing that she wasn't going to run. Whatever had fluttered between them in the dark at the awards show had promised him that much.

"Why do you keep up with this charade, if you aren't happy?"

"Can I ask you a question?" she asked just as bluntly, a coldness entering her eyes that James hadn't expected.

"Yes?"

"Why do you care?"

His eyes became two sizes larger.

Shit. Shit. Shit.

He had no idea what to say to her. He hadn't expected her to throw him down so quickly, when he expected her to give him some bullshit answer about staying happy. His gaze dropped to her lips before his brown eyes combed back up to her green eyes. He hadn't felt this seasick since he spent a week on a boat in Italy as a kid with his parents. Tentatively, Lily reached out with one hand. James saw she was going to grab his knee, as if to keep him at her side.

James shot off the bench and said hastily, "I don't care."

That was the wrong thing to say.

Lily pressed at a key on the piano sharply when she repeated bitterly. "You don't care?"

"No," he said, feeling stuck between understanding he couldn't tell her everything he cared about and keep their conversation from steering in a non-professional direction. "I do care, it's my job to care."

The was still the wrong thing to say, he determined, as a cool wicked frown appeared on Lily's face. Lily stood up too, sweeping past him in her black ball gown. She didn't hesitate to knock shoulders with him on her way out of the room.

"Sorry to make you work so late, then."

She was cold as ice.

"Lily!"

She ignored him and he groaned, his fist slamming down on the wall closest to him. He leaned his back against the cool wallpaper and slid down. His defenses erupted in his head, yelling at him to go after her and explain how he felt about her. He could let himself do that, not knowing how suffocating her life already was without him adding an awkward complication.

Lily would probably just call Moody and beg him to transfer James. Frank and Alice would never forgive him for leaving them with Mundungus if he got fired, they both hated the alternate bodyguard. Alice had threatened to cut off James' other leg once when he'd tried to leave her alone with the other guard.

James sighed deeply and pressed his fingers through his already messy curls. After another moment of brooding, he stood up and walked out to the sofa he'd abandoned. It felt wrong to look up the staircase, wishing he could just run up there and explain himself to her. James fell into the cushions of the sofa, crossing his arms as he looked back out at the water.

He was about to call Annie, determined to talk to someone about his unfair luck in the feelings department, when the girl on his mind suddenly called his name.

"James?"

It seemed she wasn't too angry with him then, if she was seeking him out so quickly after their battle of words.

"What?" He looked in the direction her voice was coming from.

"Does your family back home know that you're my bodyguard?"

James sat up, intrigued by her question. "Why?"

Lily was going to be the death of him, he concluded, when she finally appeared. She came to stand in front of him in nothing both a bath towel. A fucking bath towel. He bit his tongue and tried hard not to look at her long legs, the freckles that adorned them, and led up her thighs. His eyebrows shot up into his hairline when she passed him her pink bedazzled phone.

"Er, thank you?"

Lily rolled her eyes and leaned over to press the home button to turn the screen back on. James stared at the screen, not sure what he was looking at first. Then he saw she was showing him a website…or an article off of a website. His finger scrolled down, but his eyes fluttered up just to look at her once more. She looked perfect in everything, he couldn't help stealing a glance, before he focused on the article.

Lamarr's Mystery Man

September 10th, 2019

By Karen Smith, Gossip Columnist

The VMA show was filled with shockers, including when Miley Cyrus appeared with her new Hannah Montana throwback hairdo, but the biggest shocker of the night was captured on cameras all over the venue. Lily Evans was spotted with a new man. His name is unknown, something fans have been trying to piece together since photos surfaced of him at Lily's side consistently. The tall, surly looking bloke was sitting in a seat reserved for Lily's friend and producer, Sirius Black. Lamarr is photographed above, fixing the strangers tie while they wait for the awards to start. Black, who's in Spain according to Instagram, refused to comment when reporters asked him who the man was. Lily's managing office hasn't responded to calls. It can only be assumed that Lily Evans's relationship with Steven Roosevelt is over and she's replaced him quickly with this new ethnic stud. We'll see how long this one lasts. If you click below, you can see all the photos of Lamarr with her mystery man at the VMA's last night. Including the ones of him getting into the same car as her to go home.

James saw a photograph that he had to stare at for a few moments to process. It was darker, taken from behind rows of filled chairs. The photograph was two people staring at each other intently, while one person played with the edges to a necktie.

James' necktie.

He read the comments that followed below the photo, unable to help himself.

paredolian: wait does anyone know who he is?

warmforthewinter: are we finally getting free of Steven?

thisismegz: The seat was technically reserved for Sirius? Who is this guy? Why is she acting like she knows him? Did we miss something?

Lytefoot: as if she and Steven were ever really a thing lol

Casawholock: I found his LinkedIn; he's just her bodyguard. I think.

Just her bodyguard. James wanted to be sick at those words, because they were true. He was just Lily Evans' bodyguard. He was nothing more than her glorified baby sitter.

Lily fell into the chair beside him, putting her chin in her hands and her elbows on her knees.

"I told you that woman is a monster."

"Who's a monster?" James asked, looking up from the phone.

"Karen Smith, the gossip writer," Lily snatched her phone back from James. "She loves writing gossip articles about me for click hits on the internet. You might want to call your girlfriend back home and let her know that Karen Smith is lying."

She thought he had a girlfriend. Lily truly thought that he could hold down a girlfriend long distance. It was almost charming to know she thought that.

"Well, there's just one problem."

"What's that?" Lily asked sourly as she tapped her phone with a newfound fury.

"I don't have a girlfriend."

Lily wrinkled her nose at him. "Then who are you always talking too?"

James itched his nose. "Uh, my old gym buddy Annie probably. Or it could be my—my er—my family."

No need to bore her with the details. He'd just have to open a whole casket full of memories. He didn't even know if he could retell some of his story without crying. That would leave a good impression, if he cried in front of a girl he was crushing on.

"I'm not too worried, Red." James stood up and stretched, trying to seem unconcerned. "No one cares about me enough to look up random articles on the internet."

"It doesn't annoy you?" Lily asked.

James waved his hand through the air. "Well, it could be worse."

"Could it?" Lily stuck her phone in her pocket.

James stopped stretching to look down at her. "There are definitely much worse things to be in the news for, besides being your fake boyfriend."

"The press will go crazy the minute we step outside this house together."

"And you can tell them the truth."

"The truth?"

"I'm your bodyguard," James said, "and we have a perfectly professional relationship."

He walked out of the room his heart beating erratically. He kept imagining that picture now circling the internet. She'd looked at him like she loved him, or something.

"Perfectly professional relationship." He muttered, pressing his head in his hands, "God, I'm screwed."

She was still drinking every night. Alice, Frank, and James were all concerned when Frank found her throwing up in the bathroom. There was nothing left for them to do, expect pray one of her friends would notice.

It was Sirius, who finally raised the alarm. He'd come after returning to the United States, at James' insistence. Not that James would ever tell Lily that he was the one who convinced Sirius to make his first stop the mansion. It had been a plan he cleverly thought up with Alice while they had cleaned vomit off the bathroom floor.

James sat in the kitchen while Sirius and Lily started a movie in the sitting room. Alice sat next to him, on her computer. They were both incredibly still and quiet. Neither of them moved as they prayed Lily would get the help she needed from her best friend. Sure enough, the movie was only on five minutes before Lily entered the kitchen.

James watched her through his peripheral vision. She was opening another bottle amongst the twenty lining the counter she leaned against. Sirius entered the kitchen with perfect timing.

"What the hell, Lily?"

James felt relief shoot through him at the concern laced in Sirius' tone. Lily stopped twisting the cork off her bottle, looking up like a child caught with her hand in the cookie jar. Alice had looked up at Sirius's stinging words, hope shining in her eye too. James' eyes narrowed, as he gently nodded his agreement to Sirius' outrage. Sirius stepped closer to Lily, who hugged her current bottle to her chest like it was holding her up.

"Lily, put the bottle down." Sirius beseeched, reaching out.

"She's been drinking like crazy since we got to Los Angeles." James' voice joined the conversation. He'd even closed his laptop to include himself. "Even more so, ever since that prick called Steven showed up."

"James," Alice said with warning in her tone, "not professional."

"I'm just calling it like it is," James defended his words.

Alice kicked him under the table and hissed, "we already overstepped enough, let her friend handle this."

"We can help too," James hissed back, "it's not overstepping."

"What else am I supposed to do?" Lily's broken voice interrupted Alice and James. "I have to perform at the Emmys, and I can't even breathe half the time!"

"You're depressed, Lily," Sirius said, "you came back too soon, I think."

"I agree with Sirius." James offered casually.

Alice put her face in her hands when James spoke, annoyed by his involvement. Sirius took the wine from Lily's hand and turned to James, sharing a hurt look with James. Lily leaned dejectedly against the countertop. Juniper jumped up to the counter beside Lily. The cat daintily stepped over the dirty dishes and empty bottles to get to her mother.

"You knew about this?" Sirius sounded hurt, and James knew he'd have to explain how Frank had forbidden them from interfering with Lily's personal life. Sirius turned back to Lily, looking at her like she was under a microscope. "You've never been this big of a drinker, Lily."

"I know." Her tears were streaking her cheeks.

"She needs to see a therapist." James spoke up, out of turn, once more.

Lily's head turned to stare at James, like he'd grown two heads. Sirius looked at James as if he were barmy for saying something so stupid. Alice was rubbing her temples, as if she had a massive headache.

"Are you crazy?" Sirius asked James. "A therapist? One session and they'd sell all Lily's secrets to the highest bidder!"

James knew a therapist who couldn't give two shits about the money or the politics of Hollywood.

"I know one." James acted as if he were treading through fire as he walked over to Sirius and Lily. He knew he was overstepping, but he wouldn't be satisfied until Lily got the help she desperately needed. "She's good and confidential! She's worked with people like Lily before."

"Celebrities?" Lily asked cynically, "or drunks?"

"It's not like that." James defended his option. "Minerva McGonagall is a top-of-the-line therapist back home in England."

"I still don't think it's a good idea." Sirius said firmly, looking worriedly at Lily. "Lil is one of the most known pop stars in the world, she can't just talk to anyone."

Sirius rubbed his chin as Lily looked back down at her mess, a short sob escaping her lips. James saw the self-hatred flutter across her features once more. He hated for being the reason she looked so wrecked, but he was tired of sitting back and doing nothing. Lily deserved to heal from her trauma.

Sirius sighed and went over to Lily, pulling the alcohol from her hands and placing it on the table. He took Lily in his arms and hugged her tightly. Lily buried her face in Sirius's chest, her shoulders shaking uncontrollably. James wished he could be the one to hold her like that.

"I'm sorry, Lily." Sirius met James' jealous stare as he soothed her. "I know how you feel."

Sorry. Sirius; eyes seemed to say to James at the same time. I know, and I'm sorry.

"I just want to stop it." Lily blubbered, wiping her cheeks with the back of her hand.

"Stop what?" Sirius consoled.

"The award shows, the press, everything."

Sirius rubbed her shoulders, sending a glare to James as if to tell him that this was his chance. James took one small step, then another. His heart raced as he realized Sirius could see the real reason James had called in reinforcements. James had never expected to be such an easy book to read around Lily Evans, but everyone seemed to know James' feelings weren't entirely platonic.

James put a warm hand on her shoulder. Lily looked around, dead in the eyes.

"Minerva can do therapy over the phone, it can be private." James was desperate to get her to agree. "She was my—my friend's therapist. I can get you, her number."

Sirius shook his head at James, "she'd know who Lil was after one session, how many pop stars went through concert bombings recently, that you know of?"

"Ariana Grande in 2017."

"Fine, Grande counts," Sirius said, "but which one of them has a British accent?"

"Er, one has a British accent." James added confidently, "but just...trust me…Minerva would be a good person for Lily to talk too."

"You saw how quickly news about Lily spreads."

"Minerva won't tell," James amended, "I trust her."

"Can't you see?" Lily moaned, pulling Juniper into her arms. "I can't trust anyone!"

James winced, his hand left her shoulder, feeling stung by her pointed words.

She didn't trust him.

Meanwhile, Sirius just implored, "you can trust us, Lily!"

Lily tugged Juniper up to her face and buried her chin into the thick black fur, "I don't want to keep talking about this."

"You need to talk about it!" James snapped, without thinking.

"James." Alice finally stood up from her chair. "Outside. Right now."

Now he'd done it.

Alice led James out the door with a stern look, her hand gripping her phone tightly. Alice took him all the way to the three-car garage. Only one car sat inside, a convertible that she never drove. Alice crossed her arms as she leaned against the hood, surveying James with a serious glower.

"You know you're overstepping, even more than I agree with." Alice's voice was cool, calm, and collected. "Moody would not approve of this."

"Even you said she needs help," James exclaimed, "you can't pretend Alice, you can't pretend not to care for her!"

Alice's knuckles were white on the red paint color of the car, "of course I care, James! But at the end of the day, we are not here to be her friends!"

"Well maybe we need to be," James hissed, "she's tearing herself apart, and we're the only ones who are seeing the signs."

Alice's face was red from arguing. "We have done everything we can to help her, but she needs to help herself. You shouldn't be pushing her to see a therapist. You most definitely do not need to go and seek her out when she's alone."

"What?" he stumbled, and Alice laughed.

"You thought I didn't see you go find her when she was writing music?" Alice scoffed, "Please, I think you forget this house has cameras. I have seen everything between you two and, as your friend, I am imploring you to not do anything stupid. One wrong move and Moody will fire you, James. Frank and I both don't want to see you throw away your career for a girl like her."

James sobered, "right, because a girl like her could never—"

"I don't mean it like that." Alice's voice softened, "I mean that the probability of those feelings between you two ending well are pretty low."

He was foolish, Alice was right, but he wanted her still anyways.

Alice could see she finally got through to him and leaned forward to touch his elbow. "We'd be heartless shitheads, if we didn't care about her, James. You know that even Frank sees how she is suffocating here. I'm sorry that you feel like we should be doing more, but we are in deep shit if we start giving her advice and Peter Pettigrew finds out it was us."

James uncrossed his arms, "why are we in deep shit if Pettigrew finds out?"

"Pettigrew was very clear when we were hired," Alice said, "and explained that her bodyguards were supposed to act like flies on the wall. Under his word, we're not even supposed to talk to Lily, but of course you know Lily…it's very hard to not want to be her friend."

James let out a long breath of air, relaxing his tensed shoulders. He ruffled his black hair, pulling at the roots a bit, making his scalp sting. Alice rubbed her arms, looking genuinely sorry as she brushed past him, leaving him alone in the garage with his thoughts.

Sirius took Lily out for dinner, making her get dressed up and get out of the house. Sirius talked to Peter Pettigrew the next day on behalf of everyone in the house. Apparently, Sirius claimed she needed a vacation. Peter didn't think Sirius knew what was best for her. Instead, Peter told Lily to stop drinking, or Disney would get someone else to play their princess.

James hated that she was being treated like a child.

Sirius got rid of all the wine in the house. Lily's driver was on strict orders to take her to and from her recording sessions at Disney without any stops at the store. The first week was hard because the mood swings were back full force. James often heard her crying alone at night.

One night, after a long day at the studio, he was sitting in the room across of her bedroom. He was half asleep when he heard an ear-piercing scream from her bedroom.

James didn't even hesitate, throwing himself across the bed and tumbling to the floor. He rolled up, used his arm as a crutch and got to his knee. James catapulted up, through his door, and then across the hall, his body slamming against her closed door. James threw open her door with such vigor that it made her scream again, pulling her covers up to her chin.

"Are you okay?" He queried, alert, despite the sleepy way she'd caught him off guard.

"Fine," she gasped, wiping her tears from her cheeks, "I'm fine!"

"You don't look fine," he snapped, "what happened?"

"Nothing."

Alice's voice called up the stairs. "Is everything okay, James?"

All he needed was for Alice to come upstairs and see the scene of him, rushing into her room shirtless. Prosthetic-less. He was utterly powerless to her pain, he just wanted to make it disappear.

"Fine," James lied back down to Alice, "she dropped her guitar!"

He needed to change in case Alice came up the stairs. He scanned Lily carefully, noted she seemed stable, and closed her door. James hopped back into his room and changed quickly, including re-attaching his prosthetic. He grunted as he pulled himself to a standing position off his bed.

He walked over to her room, more carefully this time now that he was righted. He opened her door again, softly, and peeked in. She looked through her fingers at him, blinking warily. She was still crying, he noted, but she wasn't screaming. Then he checked her room, her bathroom, and her balcony. There was no one in the room with her, she was all alone.

Well, alone with her own mind.

James remembered night terrors of his own. Times, especially in the hospital, where he'd been forced to re-live Remus' murder repeatedly. James knew she had to be suffering from some sort of night terrors, at least based on her screams.

James went to her bedside and repeated his question, this time sympathetically. "What happened?"

"Sorry for waking you," Lily took a deep breath, "I just-"

"You what?" James could see it written all over her face, she was having nightmares. "Lily, you screamed like someone was trying to kill you."

Lily shook her head against her hands. "I have nightmares, I'm sorry." She took a shuddering breath. "I'm so sorry."

James froze. She was apologizing for being scared. Actually, sitting there soaked in her own sweat in tears, and she was apologizing to him. He wanted to reach out to her, to hug her, and tell her it was going to be okay.

Lily looked up at him and she sniffed while she wiped her cheeks. She was trying to force herself to look okay, James had done the same thing when nurses caught him crying in the middle of the night. James wished he could tell her the darkness, as smothering as it was, could be banished. He wished he could promise her the world would get better. He wished a lot of things for her, but he didn't know how to explain those wishes without sounding utterly in love with the woman.

Suddenly, Lily's fingers touched his wrist and James yanked his hand back from surprise by the skin-to-skin contact. He rubbed the spot she touched. Their eyes matched, all the, words evaporated out of his head. Instead, he was tracing the way her eyes were still welled up with tears.

"I'm sorry." She repeated, this time meaning it. "I didn't mean to wake you up."

"You didn't wake me up." He said, not breaking eye contact with her. "I was just—I was worried."

"I get nightmares," she confided, "it's nothing."

Minerva had once told James that if someone told him a secret part of their heart, something they tried to hide, to never ignore it. Lily had opened, told him about the nightmares she had been hiding for months. Not that she was particularly good at hiding her nighttime troubles. All her bodyguards, including James, had heard her crying on more than one occasion.

He asked carefully, "just how bad are your nightmares?"

"They're—" she faltered, likely falling back into one in her reel of memories.

The panic in her eyes, he'd seen that look many times himself in the mirror. Once upon a time, he had thought that Lily Evans would recover in Hollywood, amongst the glowing lights. He had thought she was vain and airheaded. He had thought many things, many cruel things about this woman, who was not so different from James.

"I know," he said when the silence became too loud, "I get them too."

Lily's hands fell into her lap. "Wait," her eyes were the size of dinner plates, "you do?"

James nodded wearily. He made his way over to her bedroom door, careful not to step on the clothes she had thrown around the room. He could feel her gaze cutting into his back. He should stay with her, but after admitting he had nightmares too, he was feeling bare in front of her.

"Want me to leave your light on?" He asked.

"James?" God, when she said his name, it was like a prayer every time.

His fist curled against the door frame. "What?"

"What do you get nightmares about?" she asked timidly.

James ducked his head, thrown back into a night where everything had exploded in front of his eyes. "They're not nightmares, so much as memories."

He made his way back across the hall to wherever he'd been when he heard her scream. James said something on his way down the stairs. Alice sounded reassured when she replied to him.

After that night, sleeping was something Lily eluded all together. James almost pinched Peter in the face after he commented on her tired eyes when he saw her during a meeting. Lily told him to fuck off, and miserably so. James felt a flare of pride when she'd cursed out her manager so bluntly. Peter sent James a glare, as if he were the reason for her outburst.

Peter and James seemed to butt heads at every turn.

James had taken to watching Lily closely the few days after her episode in the bedroom. Even when he was off duty, and Alice was covering the cameras at night, James didn't stray too far from Lily. She'd taken up an almost permanent residence on her sofa. She hardly spoke, hardly ate, and didn't sleep. By the fourth night of no sleep, besides tiny naps that left her sweating, James left the house in a hurry the second that Alice took over.

Alice: where r u going in a hurry?

James was barely out the front gates when he got the text from his friend. He'd taken the company car, which the three guards shared. He drove down the main road, ignoring Alice's text. The music in the stereo's blared loudly. He wasn't in the car five minutes before Lily's voice started echoing through the car's interior.

"How do I know these thoughts are justified? And not the least but fetishized in the middle of the goddamn night? God, let me get one thing right. Why can't I get one thing right?"

James switched the music off and rubbed his forehead with one hand. Even her lyrics were a showcase of how deeply she felt. She declared her feelings disguised as catchy pop songs on the radio. James realized she'd been asking for help for years, and no one close to her had taken the time to really listen to her. Everyone had seen her at face value, even her own family.

James would never make that mistake again.