I apologize for how long this took to write, but it's nice and long for you. Enjoy!

LPLPLPLPLPLPLPLPLP

Age Twenty Two, Choice

Lily Potter was sitting in her room of the magically enlarged tour bus, awaiting the bus's arrival in her town. She couldn't wait to fall into her own bed after missing it for a year. She was itching with impatience, though she was also attempting to be content with the fact that she was sitting next to her tour manager, Samuel, with her head on his shoulder. For the last six months of the tour they had been somewhat of an item. They weren't anything official, but there were definitely strong feelings between them. He had considerable lessened Lily's feelings of loneliness; now she had someone to share her happiness with.

The last year was officially deemed the craziest twelve months of her life. She traveled all around the world, meeting fans and eating new foods, giving interviews and living out of a suitcase. The bed where she currently sat is where she slept. The tour bus was magically enhanced, but it was still rather close quarters for the amount of people that had resided in it. Lily had come to love every single person living on the tour bus with her. The nine of them were practically a family…except for Samuel, who was practically her boyfriend. He had never actually asked her out on a date, they had just started talking more and more frequently, and that eventually led to kissing, which eventually led to spilling their hearts out to one another and depending on each other.

Lily hated to make people feel awkward, so she and Samuel did not act like a couple in front of any of their bus-mates. They all insisted that they were not uncomfortable with the situation, but Lily felt they were all lying. Thus the reason she and Samuel were sitting in her bedroom, rumbling along as the bus passed over the bumpy roads if Scotland. They were only a few hours away from Lily's cute little flat over the scrumptious little bakery. She was nearly bouncing with anticipation. She missed her family terribly. They last chance she had gotten to see her friends was the first day of her tour, in Greece. She had seen her parents more recently, however, when her tour bus rolled through England. Still, she missed everyone terribly. She had not laid eyes on Scott all year. There were so many stories she had to share with all of the ones she loved.

Marcy poked her head into Lily's room. "We were thinking of going out for a last celebratory bang. Are you two up for that?"

Lily was exhausted, but she nodded. "Sounds brilliant," she said. "I'm starved." With a smile, Marcy's head slipped out of the door.

"What comes after today, Lily?" Samuel asked. He sounded sad.

"What you do mean?"

Samuel lived in England, that's what he meant, and Lily knew this. This was going to be an awkward situation. She had been expecting this conversation, but she had not been looking forward to it.

"Lily, I'm so grateful that I got to be your tour manager," he said. "I don't want to lose you tomorrow just because the tour is over."

"You won't lose me, Sam; we don't live too terribly far away. There's always Apparation," Lily countered. She had actually never given any thought to this subject. Her mind was too preoccupied with everything else that had been happening in the last year.

In the spare time she had found while they were traveling the world, Lily had begun a second book. It was an account of Voldemort's terrible effect on the Wizarding World. As the bus went from country to country, she was able to find and interview people who survived the terrible war and Voldemort's wrath during the time when Lily's father was fighting him. She had even discovered some of the survivors when her father's father was alive to interview. Piles and piles of notes were wrapped in rubber bands and stuffed under her tour bus bed.

"Lily," Samuel practically whined, dragging her name out. "You know Apparation is not nearly the same as spending every single day with you."

"I know, Sam," Lily said, lifting her head from his shoulder and looking at him. "But what do you expect us to do?"

"Well…" he began. "I know all of your family is back in England, and I know how you miss them terribly, so I was wondering if maybe you wanted to move in with me?"

Lily sat there, blinking at him like a brainless idiot. She had no idea how to respond to that. To her, life at the moment was perfectly wonderful, and she was fully prepared to follow where it took her, but she did not expect it to take her back to England. She did not want to leave her charmingly small flat above the Mendlesson bakery. She was so looking forward to returning there later today, and she wanted to live there until the next world tour swept her way. At age twenty-two, she was not ready to move in with her not-even-boyfriend whom she was neither in love with nor extremely well acquainted with. They had, after all, only known one another for a year. Living together would introduce all sorts of new problems, such as sleeping situations. She had already lived with a boyfriend once in her lifetime, and that was out of necessity. Even that necessary situation did not go so well. That was not something she wanted to repeat. Plus, the way Sam had posed the question, he was thinking about this situation as a long-term one. Lily did not think he would expect to sleep on the couch while she occupied his bed.

"Lily?" Samuel asked, bringing her back to attention. "Um, what do you think?"

"Sam, I don't think that's the most brilliant idea," Lily said tentatively.

Samuel looked crestfallen all of a sudden. "I think it's a good idea. Lily, I-I love you!" he exclaimed.

When Tim had admitted his love for Lily, she had felt his genuine words and felt guilty. Samuel, on the other hand, did not mean it. Tim had wanted to spend the rest of his life with Lily. Samuel did not.

Lily sighed. "Sam…" Her voice sounded strained to her. "You don't love me."

He appeared bewildered. "Yes I do Lily."

"Sam, you may love me at the moment, while I'm young and famous and vivacious. You don't have the kind of love for me that means you want to spend the rest of your life for me."

"But—"

She held up her hand and continued. "You won't want to grow old with me and take care of me if I become a vegetable. You won't want to care for me if I get sick or wait for me if I travel for months at a time. You won't stick around if we argue or do all of the chores when I'm too tired. You won't want to stay up late when the baby is crying. You won't like it if I become successful and you lose your job. You won't want to drive the children to daycare. You won't want to put up with their crayon pictures, or the first time they pick up your wand and accidentally blow up your favorite gadget. You won't like it when I forget to do the grocery shopping, or when I go on a shipping spree.

"You don't love me, Sam."

His face had been growing more flushed each second she talked at him. "You can still move in with me," he mumbled. "I'll learn to love you that way."

"I'm sorry, Sam, but I really don't think it would work. There's always Apparation," she repeated.

The dinner the nine bus-mates partook in was a rather awkward affair. Samuel was skulking the entire time, and he took his seat down the table from Lily. Lily, however, had as much fun as she possibly could, since it was the last night of her amazing year-long tour.

When the tour bus dropped her off four hours later in front of Mendlessons' sans luggage (she was going to pick it up at Marcy's office tomorrow), a smile was threatening to break Lily's face in half. She had already cried about the end of her very successful tour, and was now fully prepared to be at home. She struggled to put the key into the lock: a glass of firewhiskey, giddiness, and fatigue were all slowing her progress. The front door swung open to reveal a living room lit with candles. Lily was very puzzled. The Mendlessons had been caring for her flat while she was supposedly away visiting her family, (this was her excuse for Muggles), but she did not think that they would have filled her home with scores of candles.

She progressed cautiously through the house. The only light given off was from the candles, and Lily saw a bottle of wine on the kitchen counter as she passed the small, flickering lights. Entering the bedroom, she found the culprit who had festooned her flat.

Scott was curled up in her bed, fully clothed, atop the blankets. There were a few candles in here as well, burning down to their bases. Lily looked at his sleeping form fondly. Out of all the people she had missed while away, Scott was the one that she had longed to see the most. They had not talked on the phone, exchanged a letter, or seen one another since she left a year ago. She had the urge to jump on the bed and squeeze the life out of him, but decided to let him sleep.

In Switzerland, Lily had met a man that reminded her so strongly of Scott that she almost called him by that name. He was one of her fans, and had approached her wishing for an autograph. When he smiled at Lily, she had been so strongly reminded of her friend that a pain was struck through her body and she longed for home. Now, here she was, faced with Scott, who she was still not entirely over. He would always be her first love, whether he liked it or not.

Lily herself was fatigued and ready to sleep for about a week. She would talk to Scott in the morning—or next week—when she woke up. She pulled the only pair of pajamas she hadn't taken with her from her drawer and carefully exchanged her travel-worn clothes for the silk outfit. Sliding into bed next to Scott, she realized that she hadn't blown out any of the candles, but she let it go; Scott must have put a spell on them so that they would not burn anything down. He would not make the mistake of letting anything start a fire in her apartment again.

Thinking of the fire made her miss James. He had come to the rescue a little later than the rest of her family and friends, but once he had made it to her side, he hadn't withdrawn his support until her flat was completely refinished. He had supervised all of the renovations, whipped the construction workers into shape, and made sure everything was perfect before Lily moved back in. She had gotten a chance to see him when her tour stopped in Los Angeles, but it wasn't a long enough block of time to fully catch up with him. Plus, she had not gotten to see Jordan for an extended period of time. That was one thing she did not like about her tour, and yet loved about it: she never spent very long in each city. Therefore, she could never talk to one person for too long, but she also was able to meet too many people to count.

Now she was home. Finally. All she wanted to do was go to sleep. She did not want to think about the events that had transpired with Samuel today. She was afraid that after all the two of them had been through during the past year, they would not be friends again because of her denying his love.

Scott shifted in his sleep. "Lil, that you?" he mumbled, stretching out his arm over her body.

"Hey, Scott," she grinned.

"Hey!" He was more awake now, and pulled her closer to him in an embrace. "I missed you."

"I missed you too," Lily replied, squeezing him tightly. "I have so many stories to tell you."

"I have some stuff to tell you too."

"Well save it till morning. I don't want to disrupt your sleep."

Scott ignored her, however, and continued with what he had to say. "I made you a welcome home dinner."

"Aw, I'm sorry," Lily said regretfully. "We all went out to dinner since it's our last night of the tour."

"I get it. It's all right. The main thing was that I came here to welcome you home and to tell you something that I've been stewing over for months."

Lily had already had her fair share of serious conversations for the day. Boys weren't supposed to be comfortable talking about their feelings, were they? What was going wrong with the world today? As much as she loved and missed Scott, she would much rather fall asleep right now and listen to his soul-bearing tomorrow. However, she would humor him. She hoped this would not take too terribly long. "What is it?"

"I've been waiting for you to come back forever, Lilikins. I didn't realize that I would miss you so much." He seemed to be waking up as each word came out. "I've been through so many girls this year it's outrageous. And I couldn't tell you about any of them because I didn't know how to contact you or anything. It's been killing me. I've been feeling really lonely, at any rate, which is why I've been dating so much. Don't laugh at me for telling you all of this, please. It's taken me long enough to build up the courage to tell you this fucking touchy feely stuff." It sounded as if he was growing angry with himself.

"Scott, you know I won't make fun of you, you silly goose. If you want to wait until tomorrow to tell me this, I'll understand. I know you're tired and you're disappointed that I missed your carefully prepared dinner."

"No, no, Lily, listen. I've got to get this out. I didn't realize I missed you so much. You're such an important part of my life. I don't want to risk losing you in any way. I thought that I was fine with being best mates, Lily, but I'm not. I need more than that in my relationship with you. I am in love with you. It's not the love I had for you back at Hogwarts; no, it's so much stronger and more mature. You're the best person I know, Lily Potter, and I want to spend the rest of my life with you."

Lily sat up, shocked to hear this. This was the second time today that a man had told her that he loved her, but she knew that Scott meant it. He meant it with all of his heart. These sentiments brought up long-harbored feelings for her. The butterflies in her stomach began and warmth spread through her entire body. Her response to him was genuine and automatic. "I love you too, Scott. You don't know how long I've been waiting to hear you say that to me and mean it in the same way that I do." Excitement and adrenaline were filling her veins, bubbling in her body.

Scott sat up too. The candlelight showed how nervous and yet how happy his expression was. He reached into the pocket in his slacks and pulled out a box. Lily's body went rigid.

"I want to spend the rest of my life with you, Lily Potter," he repeated. "I want to grow old with you and live with you and die with you and have a family with you…obviously not in that order." He chuckled nervously. "I was planning on doing this in a much more romantic setting, but…will you marry me?"

He snapped open the box and revealed a gold band with three small diamonds. Lily's breath caught in her throat. She could feel the tears springing to her eyes, blurring her vision of the beautiful ring. "Scott, I-I…" This was so entirely sudden. She had just had a tiff with her not-yet-boyfriend this afternoon, and now Scott, her lifelong friend, her ex-boyfriend, the man she had not seen or spoken to in a year, was asking for her hand in marriage. "Yes," she practically whispered. "Yes, I will marry you."

The nervousness vanished from Scott's face and he leaned forward, kissing Lily for the first time in five years. He slipped the ring onto her finger and kissed her again. Lily looked down at the gold band. It was two fingers away from the ring he had given to her six years ago, for her sixteenth birthday. Their relationship was full of twists and turns, but now it was finally going to stabilize and turn into something Lily never could have imagined.

She was getting married.