Author's note: This is the new chapter.

Remus had expected a little hole in the wall, with beer nuts on the bar top and an unknown substance sticking his feet to the floor. That was his image of America. But it was contemporary, cultured, with wide banistered patios running around the second floor in deep grained mahogany wood. The bar sat back off of a cornered boulevard, the end of which was paved in worn quaint cobblestones. A collection of a dozen small wrought iron tables dusted the area in front of the building, filled with lovely chattering people around Remus' age. They drank Bloody Mary's and ate stuffed mushrooms and calamari next to a small bubbling fountain under a large oak tree strung with tiny twinkling yellow lights. The air was warm but a light breeze coming in off the lake gave just enough coolness to the air to justify the worn chocolate brown hooded sweatshirt he wore over his thin t-shirt.

The occupant at the table nearest the entrance had her back to him. Curled around the legs of her chair and and around her feet was a large Irish Setter, its auburn hair glinting like autumn in the dappled light falling through the tree branches. A worn brown leather collar slung loosely around the dog's neck, attached to a dark blue leash that wrapped up around the table leg and around the woman's wrist. The dog raised its head inquisitively as Remus approached. Sinking slowly down beside the table, he balanced on the balls of his feet and extended a hand. The dog stretched out its long shining neck to sniff his fingers delicately.

"Told you not to talk to strangers," a woman's voice said from above him. He squinted up at the table's occupant, her form back lit and shadowed by the sun.

"I'm sorry," he said, and cast his eyes back down to the dog. He slid his hands gently underneath the dog's ears and ruffled the soft fur behind them. "But you're so beautiful," he said to the animal.

"And he knows it," the woman said. Remus chuckled and leaned forward to lay his cheek gently against the top of the dog's soft head.

"I had a dog just like that once," he murmured. Breathing in the humid dog smell, he leaned back, one hand trailing down to scratch along the animal's shoulder. "What's your name?" he asked it.

"Jem," was supplied from above. His smile broadened fondly to show all his teeth.

"To Kill A Mockingbird." He looked up. "It's my favorite book."

"One of mine too. But he's not my dog. I only named him."

Remus raised an eyebrow at the faceless form.

"He's not yours?"

"I'm watching him for a friend."

"A friend that let you name their dog? Must be some friend," he smirked.

"Just a friend, Remus, you prick."

And Remus laughed loudly, releasing the dog and standing up to take in the young woman's face. It was framed by long dark tendrils of hair that slipped softly across her cheeks and throat. Her black eyes were deep and almost pupilless.

"'Prick?' How very American of you, Fox."

"Yes well, Wisconsin will turn you to depravity more quickly than most places."

He slid into the seat opposite her, the remnants of his smile still feeling good enough on his lips that he let them linger, unwilling to part with them.

"You look well, Teagan," he said.

"Ever the flatterer."

"I like the hair. Glamour?"

"Hair dye, Moony. These muggle chemicals work wonders, you know."

"So I've been told," he said wryly. "A pureblood witch resorting to muggle mechanics like hair dye. Lily would be so proud."

The words flew from his mouth thoughtlessly and as soon as he said them he cursed himself. As if in slow motion he watched Teagan's face turn to stone and their nostalgic banter come to a grinding halt. His breath caught at the back of his throat and he reached across the space between them and took her hand.

"I'm sorry," he said softly. She gave a slow twitch that, after several attempts, converted itself into something near a smile.

"It's alright," she said. "I just haven't thought about her in a long time."

"Liar," Remus' voice was gentle. She looked at him steadily, and the hard sadness there had Remus' fingers twining around hers.

"I am," she said. "A liar."

"I understand," he said. She swallowed and tightened her grip on his hand. He pretended that the trembling he felt between their hands was from briskness in the air.

"I read, in the paper, about Sirius," she said slowly, and his mouth went dry. "I'm so sorry, Remus." He turned his lips slowly.

"Thank you," he said through a throat that was seemed coated with sandpaper.

"How are you doing?" It occurred to Remus that from almost anyone else, the question would have seemed disingenuous. But it was Fox, perhaps the only one really left that could pose that question and really understand what she was asking. He found himself wanting, in a way he hadn't with anyone in the last year, to be honest with her.

He studied the cuticles of her nails as his heart inverted. An image flashed up suddenly from memory, so vivid he felt the muscles in his hand spasm against her palm. It floated up insistently, like a beach ball that one tries, in futility, to hold underwater. He could see Teagan, her longer lighter curls, dripping wet, as she stood barefoot in the doorway of Hogwarts. Sirius' black leather jacket was draped across her shoulders. Her head was lowered but her eyes lifted to him and Lily, who was standing beside him, filled with apology. Sirius had her small form tucked securely into his side, his big hand wrapped around her arm just above the elbow. There was snow in his hair, making the jet black locks cling to his noble forehead with abandon. His eyes were on Remus, and though the set of his lips was mocking, his smoky irises conveyed nothing but reassurance. Remus remember that the relief that had surged through him had made him dizzy.

"I miss him," he heard his voice in the present say, and he looked up at Teagan's face. She covered his hand with her other one.

"He never really came back from Azkaban, you know," Remus said dully. "A few parts of him did, but it was as if most of him died that day with James and Lily."

There were a thousand things that Teagan could have said in response to that that wouldn't have surprised Remus in the slightest. She would understand the shared loss, after all, of their friends and of each other. She could have shut down, changed the subject, made some crude joke, as Fox was want to do, and Remus would have know that it was more out of respect for the privacy of his grief than due to any need of her own. Avoidance was not generally in Teagan's nature. Not generally. Which is why he also would have understood if she had lashed out, defended her own decision to run, reiterated that it had all been for nought from the start, as she had done so many times so many years ago. The memory of that was still quite vivid for Remus too. She could have stated simply and bluntly that what Remus had said was true. Of course it was true. Who could survive Azkaban with their identity intact? It was a miracle Sirius had survived at all, and insist that Remus had been chasing ghosts in trying to coax Sirius back from a land of living death in those months before he gave up the fight completely and actually died. She could have said what Albus and Molly and Nymphadora had all said- that Sirius was gone and Remus had to move on with his life, succeeding only, with those words, of making Remus withdraw further and further within himself to a place where Sirius still lived inside him, convincing him only that they did not, could not, ever understand.

But she didn't. She didn't say anything. She stared at his face, an indecipherable web of thoughts and emotions so evident that Remus could see them connecting and passing each other, like years turning over in her mind. Finally she, in a way that could only be described as tender, let go of his hand.

"Come on," she said and stood up. He followed her movements as she took out a dark green leather wallet, removed some bills that Remus could not recognize and tossed them onto the table. Her deft fingers untwisted Jem's leash from where it tangled around her arm and, slipping a hand briefly under the dog's jaw in an affectionate gesture, urged the animal to his feet.

"Where are we going?" Remus asking, standing as well.

"To take Jem home. You can meet Corie. Then I have to run some errands. You're going to come with me and you're going to tel me all about Lily and James' son."

She turned as if this were obvious and irrefutable, making a clicking noise against her teeth to urge Jem forward.

"And then?" Remus said lightly, lengthening his steps to get to her side.

"And then," she said, raising an eyebrow, "We'll go home."