Even though I have midterms, I'm giving you the present of a chapter! So you should give me the present of REVIEWS!

LWLWLWLWLWLWLWLW

Age Twenty Six, Fight

Scott had not made dinner, done the laundry, washed the dishes, emptied the dustbins, or cleaned up the living room. No, when Lily came home from work, she found him stretched across the sofa, sipping redcurrant rum and listening to the radio. The house was a mess and his colleagues were due at their home in three hours for a dinner party.

Lily threw her bag heavily next to him upon the sofa. It had not been a stress-less day, and she did not want to have to do a ton of work for Scott's co-workers. "I don't think it's a very good idea to drink before your guests arrive, Scott," she said, not trying to hide her annoyance.

"I've had a bad day," Scott said shortly.

"Well so've I, Scott, but it is not my work mates coming over tonight. I asked you to finish up the cleaning for tonight; I still have to finish the cooking."

"Don't you just have to cut the pork?" he said. "Hasn't it been in the oven all day?"

"Fine Scott, I'll just be a good wife and do everything for you and your mates while you sit on your fat arse and drink yourself into a coma," Lily said, her voice getting louder with each word.

They never used to fight. Out of their eleven year relationship, they had not fought until a few months ago. They had not begun to fight until they started trying to have a baby. About five months ago, they had both agreed that things were settling down enough to bring a baby into their lives. Thus, Lily had figured out her best days for conceiving and they had attempted to make a baby. It hadn't worked, and it still wasn't working. They had been having sex more than usual, but it was just sex, it wasn't making love. It was sex for a baby, not for intimacy. It made her feel used, almost. Afterwards, they never cuddled or talked. Instead, they just fell asleep. Still, she was not pregnant, and they each blamed each other for this, though neither would admit it. This was why, Lily deduced, the fighting began. Now, they fought about every little thing.

Lily had started to almost dread coming home, because she knew that a row would begin as soon as she walked through the door. She had been working ten to twelve hour days at the bookstore in order to avoid him. Guilt had started to set in over the last couple of weeks, but all of it left when she entered the house to encounter Scott on the sofa, completely unprepared for his business mates. Did he honestly expect her to do everything?

"This is my first glass, Lily, I am not plastered," Scott said defensively. "Calm down, I'll get everything done."

"I have been at work for the last eleven hours, and I asked you to get those things done so that I could finish up what needed to be finished up when I got home. But no, I guess that tiny list of tasks was too much for you."

"I'm sorry if I don't do things to your tight little schedule," Scott said, nearly sarcastic. "I'm sorry if I can't do anything right!" He stood from his place on the sofa to be at her level.

"What the hell are you talking about?" Scott had a way of intimidating her because of his height. Usually, she backed down or walked away, but this time she was not going to do that. This had gone on for too long; she wanted them both to admit the real problem that had been causing all of this nonsense.

"You think it's me, right? It's me who can't have a baby?" He was yelling now, so Lily raised her voice as well. She really hoped that he had only had one glass of rum. Otherwise, she knew he would be unreasonable. At least this was the root of the problem.

"No, Scott, I don't think it's you! I think that we should go to a healer and figure out who it is. We could be trying for years to have a baby, and I don't want that to happen! I want to know if we have to adopt!"

"What if I don't want to fucking adopt?" Scott cried. "What if I want to have my own baby by my own wife?"

"You can't always get what you want, Scott!" Lily replied.

"Maybe you should listen to yourself and realize that I will do that stupid list of chores in my own time!"

"Fine, I will stay out of your damn way!" Lily told him.

She had never been one for conflict. The only person she had actually ever had fights with was Albus, and those were mainly him picking on her. She did not like confrontation, and had never initiated it until recently. She hated to row, especially with her husband, and she wanted it all to stop. If only she could get pregnant, everything would be all right, and her anger would not be building up to monstrous proportions right now. She fingered the locket at her throat, wishing for some peace.

"Why the hell couldn't you have decided that earlier? Then we wouldn't be fighting!"

"Okay, it's all my fault, right? Every problem we've ever had is all my fault! Maybe you should take some responsibility for yourself every once in a while, and think about the fact that you could be the impotent one!"

The rage was now glowing in Scott's eyes. Lily had just insulted his manhood, and taken a great blow at his ego. She had known that statement would get to him, but it was how she really felt about the situation, and honesty was one of her better character traits.

"It is NOT me!" he countered. He was angrier and louder than Lily had ever heard him.

"How do you know? Do you have some baby you fathered wandering around there?" As these words came out of Lily's mouth, she became slightly afraid of the answer. There was no other answer to how he knew for sure it was not him, but she realized that he was probably just defending his ego.

Instead of answering Lily's question, Scott just took a giant step closer to her and stared down at her. He raised his arm as if to hit her, before gritting his teeth and getting control of himself. In that time it took for him to lower his arm, Lily turned from a loud, bickering wife to a scared bunny. Her first reaction was to run away, and that was what she did. She turned around, ran out the front door, and into the middle of the neighborhood to the designated Apparation point.

Eight months ago, the bookstore had begun to take up less and less of Lily's time. She had been able to hire more managers as things got off the ground, and she had begun to prepare herself to have a baby. Since Lucile had Alexandria, she had less time for her best friend Lily, even though they now lived much closer than Greece. When the bookstore began to calm down, Lily visited her friend and goddaughter more often in preparation for having her own baby. She had also finished her next book, which was due to hit the shelf next January.

The first place she could think of to Apparate to was her friends'. She knocked on the front door, nearly shaking and in tears. Garrett opened it a second later. "Lily," he said concernedly, ushering her inside. "What's wrong?" Lily didn't answer, she was too angry. "Lucile!" Garrett called over Lily's head into the house.

Lily had presented the house to Lucile and Garrett as a present for the baby. It was a modest sized estate, but the important thing was that it had enough room for the three of them, plus another baby if they chose to have one. They had both been grateful and surprised when Lily handed them each a key ring and the deed to their new, fully-paid for house. Lucile had cried in her excitement. She had started furnishing the place at once, since they had all of that extra money they had saved up to buy a house.

Lucile, with Alexandria on her hip, came rushing to the living room. "Oh, Lilybaby, what's the matter?"

Her head would not clear. All Lily could think about was the image of Scott raising his arm. She knew that she had offended him by calling him infertile and accusing him of not telling her about having a child. That was going a little too far, she knew. Still, he had nearly raised his hand to her. He would never hit her, she knew that, but it was still frightening all the same. She tried to gather herself so that she could explain to her mates why she was so frazzled. "Scott and I…we had a row," she managed to get out. She clutched her head, which was beginning to hurt.

"You've been fighting a lot though, haven't you?" Lucile said softly.

"This one was…everything exploded," Lily half-explained. "I just left."

"Here, don't talk about it now, baby. Let's get you into the bath. Calm down first, talk later. Garrett, can you take Alex?"

Garrett took their child from his wife's arms and Lucile took Lily into the toilet and turned on the water in the bath. "Now you just stay right here and calm yourself, Lily doll." Lily slipped into the bubble bath after Lucile closed the bathroom door behind her. The water was nice and hot, and after Lily soaked for a few moments, her head began to untangle itself. It was just a little fight. At least she and Scott had gotten all of their feelings out into the open. Now all that needed to be done was to figure out if they could or could not have a baby. The important thing, Lily thought, was that they determined what to do together…If Scott still wanted to be together. Fear suddenly gripped at Lily. What if she had gone too far? What if Scott wanted a baby so badly that he would not be with her if she could not have one? All of this fighting had to be just a stage. They would get through it together. This was not allowed to break up their marriage.

Lily tried to steady her rapidly increasing breath. Outside of the toilet, she could hear Lucile talking to someone, and she strained to listen; the conversation seemed to be about her. "I just called to tell you that she's here, and she's all right," Lucile said. "I don't know what you did; Scott, but it really upset her. I've put her in the bath, so she hasn't told me what happened yet. By the way she was acting, that fight was something cataclysmic…Oh, so you want to see her, that's good, so it wasn't too terrible, then?...No, no, don't come over now, give her some time to calm herself. Enjoy your dinner party. I'll see you later…I love you, Scott. I hope you didn't cock-up too badly." The conversation ceased, and so did Lily's fears of a broken marriage.

In her fifth year at Hogwarts, Lily had come down with a terrible fever for a week and was confined to the hospital wing during that time. Scott and Lily had just started their relationship, and Lily had not expected him to do anything to support her recovery, except perhaps give her a Chocolate Frog or a bouquet of flowers. Instead, he had sat by her bedside during all of his free periods for the entire week, watching Lily in her delirium. Lucile had, of course, done the same thing. While Scott had cooled Lily's head with a face flannel, Lucile had held her hand and glared at Scott. That was the week that Lucile came to hate Scott. When Lucile had been the only one at her bedside during that week, she repeatedly told Lily how Scott was too good to be true, and how she should be careful around him because he just wanted to get into her pants. She ranted the entire time Lily was in the hospital wing, though Lily only heard the parts Lucile mentioned when she was awake. Eventually, Scott had picked up on Lucile's disdain, and so the two of them ended up vying for Lily's attention for weeks after she got out of the infirmary. They were both so good to her, they always had been, and they both looked out for her, even while they disliked one another.

She knew in her heart that Scott would still be with her when the night was over. They could and would get through this, just as they had gotten through everything else.

Lily knew that Lucile wanted to talk to her about what happened, but she did not feel like talking to anyone but Scott. She did not want anything to befuddle her or any other opinions to sway her. Thus, she only removed herself from the bath when she heard the doorbell ring. Her body was all wrinkly from the long time she had spent in the water, but that was not really her biggest concern right at the moment. All she wanted to do was resolve matters with her husband so that she did not dread coming home every day. This quarreling nonsense had to stop.

As soon as she was dried off and dressed, she left the toilet and went to face Scott. He was in the sitting room, talking to Lucile in hushed tones, obviously waiting for Lily too make an appearance. Lily timidly went over to join them. To her surprise, when Scott turned around to face her, he looked worried instead of mad. Without a word, Lucile gave Lily a small, encouraging smile and left the two of them alone in the room.

Arms crossed, Lily leaned against the doorframe, looking at her husband without emotion. She did not want to be the first one to speak, or the first one to apologize, for that matter. Even though she had insulted him, he was the one who had nearly raised his hand to her.

"Hi," he said apprehensively.

"Hi," she replied.

"Er…that was quite a row we had," he said.

"So what else is new?" Lily said sarcastically.

"Lily…" Scott's voice faltered. "I know we've been fighting a lot lately…I just wanted to apologize for…everything."

She knew he meant what had happened earlier. She also knew that he had just let his temper get the better of him. "I know you'd never hit me, Scott, I just got scared."

"I know you know," he said. "I'm so sorry, Lily. I never want to scare you; I don't know what happened to me. I guess all of these arguments have just been building up and I exploded." He looked down at the floor ashamedly.

"I don't even want to come home anymore," she admitted.

He picked his head up and looked at her, shocked. "I didn't realize we were doing so badly," he said. "It's all this baby stuff, isn't it?"

"I suppose it is," said Lily. "I think that we both blame one another because we don't want to admit that it could be our own fault. We're pushing each other away when what we really need to do is handle this together."

"I know."

At that moment, Lily felt a more intense wave of love for her husband than she had felt in months and she took a step towards him. Uncrossing her arms, she said, "I love you, Scott, and I don't want to lose you over this. If we can have a baby, we'll have a baby, but if we can't, we'll have to figure out what to do from there. We. Us. Together."

Scott enveloped her in an embrace and held her close to his chest. Lily buried her face in his chest and breathed in the scent of him that his dress shirt held. She knew that it would probably be more difficult to stop the rows than just saying they were going to stop, but at least they both acknowledged the problem and were willing to work together through everything. He was holding her more tightly than she was used to, but she took that as a good thing. Tears were threatening to fill her eyes.

He rested his chin on the top of her head. "We're going to stop fighting," he said decisively, his deep voice vibrating through her body. "And the next time we have a problem, I don't want it to take you running out of the house to realize we need to do something about it."

LWLWLWLWLWLW

Reviews are wonderous!