Hello, my lovelies! Thank you for all reviews. Well, I didn't want to leave you waiting too long, so here's the next chapter a little earlier than I had planned. I'm predicting that there will be probably two more chapters after this one, so I hope you savor these last few as much as I will. Speaking of predictions, some of you have made some predictions throughout this story that might be answered in this chapter... Enjoy!

Chapter 18: Make a Choice, Sirius

Sirius rubbed his hand down his face and leaned back in his chair. With a sigh, he sat up so he could straighten some stacks of paper on his desk, but collapsed back into his chair just a moment later. It had been a long day, and he knew it would only get longer after he did what was long over do. It had been almost a month since he had left Priscilla at the hospital, and he had not seen her since. Today, he had received an urgent voice message from Priscilla telling him that she demanded to see him.

"Sirius, hi, it's Priscilla. I need to speak with you at your earliest convenience. You've avoided me long enough."

She was right, Sirius had to admit. He couldn't just never speak to her again. They were still husband and wife, and all of his things were still at their house, and… She was still his Priscilla, and they had quite a bit of unfinished business that needed to be dealt with. Since he had been staying with Remus she had called him and texted him about three times every day. His time was up.

Sirius looked up at the clock in his office above his door. 8:13. Yes, this day had been long. Other than the Riddle case and everything with Regulus, Sirius had had to work on one other important thing today. It had taken up a lot of his time. Sirius sighed and yawned. A moment later, the phone in his office rang.

"Sirius Black."

"Hi sexy."

Sirius smiled from ear to ear when he heard Remus's voice on the other end.

"Hey baby," Sirius said.

"I miss you."

"Oh man, baby, I miss you more than you know." The only thing that could make Sirius feel better at the end of a long day was seeing Remus.

"Well, I'm on my way home now." Sirius could hear the smile in Remus's voice. "Can I expect you for dinner, or is it going to be another late night?"

Sirius sighed. "Well, I should be able to head out soon, but it might be late. I've got to go back to my house." Sirius was met with silence on the other end, and he spoke quickly to reassure his lover. "Don't worry, baby. I'll come back to you. I've just got some stuff I've got to deal with with her." Sirius ran a hand down his face again. "She's been calling me and texting me nonstop, and I can't avoid her forever," Sirius said, repeating Priscilla's sentiment.

There was silence for a few seconds before Remus spoke.

"Will you be there for the night?"

Sirius shook his head even though Remus couldn't see him. Remus was scared Sirius was going to go back to his wife—Sirius could hear the fear in his voice. "No… Remus, no. When I told Priscilla I was done I meant it."

"That's your house—"

"I know, but I don't care. She can have it. I'm done… with everything."

There was silence for a while again. And again, Remus broke it.

"Well, I might have dinner with Severus tonight—"

"Remus—"

"It's fine, Sirius. It's not a big deal. He's just been asking me for a while, so I figure tonight's as good a night as any."

Silence.

"Well, I'll see you later tonight, Remus…" Sirius paused. "I love you," he said, quieter than he just had been.

There were a few seconds of silence before Remus said, "I love you, too, Sirius."

After Sirius hung up the phone, he felt his heart clench with his own fear. He was nervous about talking to Priscilla, although he could not exactly pinpoint why. His hands were trembling as he gathered up his things, and when he left his office, he knew he would need some encouragement before he entered the lion's den.

When Sirius reached James's office and knocked on his door, James finished what he was typing before he looked up.

"Hey, man," he said, a grin breaking across his face. His smile shrunk only slightly when he got a good look at his best friend. "You look like shit."

"I feel like shit," Sirius said as he walked into James's office and took a seat across from him in a chair usually reserved for clients. He set his briefcase down next to him and leaned back in the chair so that he could prop his feet up on James's desk. He put his hands behind his head and stared at the ceiling. James stared at Sirius's feet with amused incredulousness, and then looked at Sirius.

"Everything okay?" he said with a laugh in his voice. Sirius did not say anything, and the only sound for a while was that of James typing.

Finally, Sirius spoke. "Am I doing the right thing… With Remus I mean?" Sirius sat up and let his feet drop off the desk so he could look at James. Having been grinning at something on his computer screen, James's smile slipped and he looked suddenly very serious at the man in front of him. His brow creased.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, is my relationship with Remus a mistake?"

James regarded him for several moments. "Sirius…" he started slowly. "You know I can't tell you what to do." Sirius looked disappointed. "But I'll tell you what I see." Sirius titled his head and listened intently. "I see my best friend—the best friend I've ever had—and we've been friends for centuries." Sirius shook his head, and James smirked and continued. "Over the years, I've watched you. I've seen you make choices that have never quite been the choices you wanted to make. After high school, we took that year off and went to Germany, England, and Spain, even though you wanted to go to Italy, France, and Ireland. You went to Columbia for law school instead of NYU. In law school, you focused on corporate law instead of family law like you really wanted… You married Priscilla." James's frown deepened. "All of the choices you've made, you've made for one reason—your family. Your mother told you Germany, England, and Spain were more 'appropriate'. Your father told you that Columbia was the better school and that corporate law was the only field you could specialize in if you wanted to be successful at his firm. You chose her over Andy because you knew that was what was expected of you. Now… I don't know about you, but if every decision I ever made in my life was based on what someone else wanted or expected from me, I would go absolutely fucking crazy." Sirius looked down at the floor, and James finished his speech. "I can't tell you what to do about Remus, but I will tell you that in the time you've been with him, you've been the happiest I've ever seen you. And I won't tell you what you should do because for once, you should be able to make your own decisions."

The two men sat in silence for a little while, James staring at Sirius, and Sirius staring at the floor, apparently both deep in thought. James was right. He couldn't depend on James's help. His whole life had been decided for him, and now, Sirius was going to have to go it alone, knowing that at the very least, James would always be there to support him. That gave him an enormous amount of comfort. Finally, Sirius sighed and looked up at James who was still looking at him.

"Thanks, James," Sirius said. James smiled widely and bounced in his seat a little.

"Okay, now come over here and look at this," James said, grinning like a madman. Sirius slowly got to his feet, while James rambled. "She would kill me if she knew I was showing you this, but you have got to see what a freak Lily is." James turned his computer slightly so that Sirius could get a better look at the screen, and his eyes widened when he read what was on the online chat between James and Lily. Among some of the most crude language was a passage that read: "I'm going to straddle you on your couch, completely naked. I'm going to wrap my hand around your hard cock and hold it in place while I put my wet pussy right over the tip of your cock. Then I'm going to slowly take all of your throbbing cock into my pussy and—" Sirius stopped reading and took a step back, shaking his head.

"So, I take it you guys had sex?"

James laughed. "A couple nights ago for the first time and every night since then." James sighed and looked into space as if remembering. "Man, I wanted to take it slow, but I just couldn't resist her anymore. I had to have her, and boy did I have her. I mean…" James shook his head and focused on his conversation with Sirius again. "Anyway, we were chatting, and I made a joke about how she should talk dirty to me, and this is what she came up with."

"What a good sport," Sirius said, shaking his head. James roared with laughter.

When Priscilla heard the bell ding to signal that someone was coming up the front sidewalk of the house, she sat up straighter. She was sitting at the kitchen table reading a magazine while she waited for Sirius. About an hour earlier he had called to let her know that he would be by tonight to "sort things out." Needless to say, Priscilla was incredibly on edge. A lot would be said tonight, that she was sure of. It had been almost two weeks since Priscilla had received the phone call from the unknown, mysterious caller, and as a result, she had had almost two weeks to think about what she would say to Sirius when she finally saw him. At first she had been irrationally angry. A lot of the fine china that her grandmother had given her and Sirius at the wedding was destroyed as a result of her initial anger. Then she had been devastatingly sad. For at least two days she had laid in her bed and done nothing but cry. She hadn't eaten or spoken to anyone, and she had barely slept. After that, she became determined. After she finally got out of bed and made her way to her and Sirius's large bathtub, she had sat in the water that had eventually gotten ice cold until she had come up with the plan that she was now prepared to enact. Now, as she sat at her high kitchen table, Priscilla kept incredibly still after she made sure the papers that she had stuck into the front of her magazine weren't visible when she set the magazine gently on the table.

She heard his footsteps approaching the kitchen, and she felt her heart rate speed up. When he entered the kitchen, her stomach did a flip. He looked better than she had ever seen him. Since they'd parted ways he'd grown a bit of scruff on his face. It suited him. Focus, Priscilla, she told herself.

"Priscilla," Sirius said when he took a seat directly across from her at the table, setting his briefcase that had been slung across his chest down beside him. For a while, neither of them spoke. Neither really knew where to begin. Occasionally they would look at each other, but for the most part, each looked determinedly away from other. Sirius felt uncomfortable. Priscilla felt more anxious than she ever had in her entire life. He could tell that she was trembling.

It was Sirius who made the first move. Sirius began to reach down into his briefcase when Priscilla's voice stopped him cold.

"I know about him."

Sirius felt a nervous swoop in his stomach. Slowly, he sat back up and stared at her. "Know about who?" he asked, although he had a pretty good idea of who she was referring to. How could she have found out? He thought they had been incredibly discreet. This was going to make things significantly more difficult.

"It's the lawn guy, isn't it?" she asked. Her voice was quiet and as cold as ice. Sirius didn't say anything. "I always saw the way you looked at him, but I didn't think you would ever do anything about it. Not after…" Priscilla's hand shook as she moved it and pulled a crumpled piece of paper that she had apparently slipped into the folds of her magazine. She slid it over to Sirius. He eyed it briefly.

YOU LOOK SO FUCKING SEXY.

Sirius felt his heart clench. He knew he had been caught, but still, he had to work to contain a smile at the memory of the day he had pressed this piece of paper against the glass door and flirted with Remus. After looking at the paper, Sirius looked back up at Priscilla. He did not say anything. He was not about to deny or explain anything. He had made up his mind on the drive from the office to his house. Priscilla looked at him with a slightly tilted head. Her eyes were narrowed and she looked venomous. When she spoke, her voice sounded more venomous than she looked.

"How could you do this to me?"

Sirius felt a rush of anger pump adrenaline through his body. He felt his legs tense up as he leaned forward slightly. "Do what, exactly? You—" Sirius stopped himself. He had to calm himself down if he was going to be able to make any rational arguments on his own behalf. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Priscilla simply watched him and waited. "Don't play the victim, Priscilla. Please don't sit there with your typical scowl and pretend that you were just an innocent bystander."

"What could I have possibly done—what about me did you hate so much—that made you run into the arms of another man… again?"

"Damn it, Priscilla," Sirius said, slapping the table and causing Priscilla to jump. He took another deep breath, and they stared at each other, each wearing similar expressions of anger and anxiety. He had known that she would do this. Of course it was different now that she knew about Remus, but he knew she would make herself into the victim. No doubt, Sirius was not innocent—not in the least—but he was not pretending that he was. He had cheated, and he had done it more than once in their relationship, but Priscilla had certainly been no angel. She treated him like a child, she was highly critical, she was mean, and she was not understanding. A few months ago, she had told him with nothing but a shrug of the shoulders, "if you weren't such a sensitive baby, you wouldn't take it so hard," in response to him confiding in her that his father had belittled him in front of all the associates at the firm. She was selfish, and she had withheld her pregnancy from him so that she could use it as leverage against him. No, she was not innocent. And neither was he.

"I know you're gay, Sirius," she said after a long time in silence. Sirius did not say anything. He was not in the mood to deny the truth. "I guess I should have known after him." Sirius did not have to ask who she was referring to. "I guess I just hoped that your fling with him was just a onetime thing… a fluke."

"It wasn't a fling," Sirius said simply.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Priscilla said, eyes narrowed.

"I loved him."

Priscilla looked like someone had just punched her in the stomach. Her face visibly paled, but she never took her eyes away from Sirius.

"I guess I should have known that after I read this." Priscilla pulled out a second piece of paper from her magazine and once again slid it over to Sirius. Sirius felt his stomach bubble with anger when he looked at the letter Andrew had written to him months ago. His heart rate sped up when he looked at Andrew's slanted handwriting. He hadn't read the letter since a little bit before he met Remus, but he had never forgotten it.

"Where did you find this?" Sirius hissed.

Priscilla scoffed. "I found it in the table on your side of the bed. Where you held it dear, no doubt."

Sirius clenched his jaw in anger. "Don't," he said through clenched teeth.

"Or what?" Priscilla said, leaning forward. They stared at each other for a moment before Priscilla leaned back and folded her arms across her chest. "I don't understand why you were so mad about me not telling you about the baby."

Sirius shook his head and laughed sardonically. "Of course you don't understand," Sirius stared at her squarely. "Everything you've ever done in life has been solely for your own benefit. You were only nice to me when you wanted a baby, and you only wanted a baby so that you could show it off in your social circles. You didn't tell me about the baby so that when you finally told me, you would make me look like an asshole for fighting with you." Sirius paused and lowered his voice. When he spoke, his voice was thick with venom. "You knowingly married a gay man because he fit into the life that you imagined for yourself."

"I loved you, Sirius!" Priscilla shouted, her voice shaking with anger. "I married you because I've loved you since we were kids. And I stupidly thought that you loved me, too."

"I won't pity you, Priscilla. I won't," Sirius said, his voice still dangerously low.

"So it's my fault?" Priscilla asked without missing a beat. "I was so awful to you that I drove you into the arms of another man?"

"I did not say that Priscilla, and you know I never would," Sirius said, his voice raising. "We are both at fault for the failings in our marriage, but I never said it was your fault that I had an affair. It's not your fault that I'm gay, and it's not your fault that I was attracted to Remus—"

"Remus?" Priscilla hissed. Her neck and chest were becoming blotched as a result of her anger and anxiety. "Is that his name?"

"Yes."

For another long while, they simply stared at each other. Priscilla's blotched, porcelain chest was heaving and her hands were shaking. While he stared at her, Sirius noticed that she was pretty when she was angry—he'd always thought so—but he quickly dismissed the thought.

"Hey."

Severus tilted his head down and tried to get Remus to look up at him. The two men were sitting at one of Remus's favorite restaurants while Remus distractedly played with his food with his chop sticks. It was a low-key Thai restaurant on the lower west side, and it was where Remus and Severus had had their first date. Severus thought that Remus might protest this restaurant when he instructed the cab driver to take them here, but Remus had only smiled warmly and said that was his favorite place. It was a good sign, Severus remembered thinking at the time.

Since they had arrived at the restaurant, however, Remus had seemed incredibly distracted. He checked his cell phone constantly, looked around the restaurant anxiously, and he had already gone to the bathroom three times. He had ordered one of his favorite dishes, but had barely eaten a quarter of it. For the past ten minutes, Severus had been going on and on about the program and how happy he was now and how much better he felt. He thought that this at least would warrant some kind of response from Remus, but Remus only nodded occasionally, and Severus knew that he barely heard a word he was saying. When Severus had suddenly stopped his discussion and tried to get Remus's attention, only then did Remus finally look up from his plate.

Remus raised his eyebrows and smiled at Severus as if they had been having a normal conversation this entire time. Severus swept his long hair out of his face.

"Are you okay?" he asked Remus. Remus smiled warmly and moved one of his hands forward so that he could touch Severus's forearm. He gently fingered the tattoo of a snake coming out of the mouth of a skull while he stared intently at the graphic.

"I always hated this tattoo," he said gruffly.

Severus chuckled a little. "I know," he said. He looked down at the tattoo. "Hey, don't hold it against me. It was one of the first ones I got. A foolish mistake in my youth."

Remus continued to look at the tattoo while his fingers played across it. "Well, and you only got it because all your friends were getting the same one. Silly boy." Severus did not say anything, but he looked at Remus curiously.

"Remus?"

Remus pulled his hand away slowly. "I'm sorry, Sev," he said quietly, looking down at his plate. "I probably shouldn't have come to dinner with you tonight. I'm too distracted to be good company to anyone."

Severus looked at the man that he still loved so deeply, although he had always had a very poor way of showing it. But he was determined to make up for it now. "Do you want to talk about it?" he asked Remus.

Remus sighed. "Just stuff with Sirius… my boyfriend," Remus added, not sure if Severus would remember the name. He didn't want to say too much. He couldn't imagine that Severus would want to hear too much about his new relationship.

Severus nodded in understanding. "Yeah, I'm sure his wife is pretty furious."

The moment the words slipped out, Severus realized his mistake. At first, he thought that Remus had not heard him or processed what he'd said because he initially had no reaction. Then, Severus's stomach sank when Remus looked up slowly at him with narrowed eyes.

"How did you know he was married? And what do you mean she's 'pretty furious'?"

Severus held up his hands as if to show surrender. "Look, don't get pissed—"

"What did you do, Severus?"

"I was just looking out for your best interests. I didn't want you to get hurt again—"

"Yeah, again his right." Remus folded his arms across his chest.

"I-I… Okay. One of my friends in N.A. is a cop, and I asked him for a favor." Severus paused and took a shaky breath. "Look, long story short, I, um… I called his wife, and I told her about… about… you know."

Remus jumped up from his chair. "How could you, Severus?" Remus grabbed his jacket from the back of his chair and shoved his arms angrily into it. "You know," he said, looking up at Severus before he turned to go. "I honestly thought that a friendship between you and I stood a chance." And with that, he whipped around and walked angrily from the restaurant.

"Did you ever love me, Sirius?"

Sirius stared at her. The question caught him off guard. If he was honest with himself and with her, the answer was probably no. At least, not the way she meant. He had never, ever loved Priscilla the way he'd loved Andrew, and his love for Priscilla was not even the smallest fraction of the love he had for Remus. The comparison was almost laughable.

"Of course I loved you, Pris… I always will." Although he was telling her what she wanted to hear, he truly did mean it. His voice was clearly laced with agitation, but his face had softened at her question. She looked so miserable, and he didn't want to make her miserable. Despite everything, he cared about her. She opened her mouth to speak but he held up a hand to silence her. "How can you even question my love for you? I loved you so much that I sacrificed who I am—I sacrificed being with a man that I loved—so that I could be with you. Of course I love you." Sirius softened a bit more. "You're my best friend. You always have been. You're one of the few people on this earth who know me so well and so deeply—better than I know myself." He blinked slowly and took a deep breath before looking at her squarely. "But I am who I am, and I never had the ability to love you the way you wanted me to. And for that, I have no one to blame but myself. I should have never led you to believe that I loved you the way you loved me. It wasn't fair to you."

Priscilla's eyes were brimming with tears for the first time in this conversation. She had held back her tears because she didn't want to look weak, and she didn't want to make him pity her. But now, she couldn't stop the tears from falling. It was a kind thing to say, and she knew it was true, but she was not about to go down without a fight.

"What will your parents think? What will they say?"

There was a long silence while Sirius contemplated his wife. It was obvious to him that she was going through the stages of grief, and they had arrived at bargaining. The denial had lasted for years. Knowing that she knew him so well, he guessed her denial had been going on since before she had found out about Andrew. No doubt she had seen the way he had looked at men. There were times when he knew he had been less than discreet. The anger had been mounting throughout their rocky marriage. All the times she had snapped at him for no reason or found some excuse to be angry with him or criticize what he had done, she was just going through the second stage of grief. The fight they'd had a few weeks ago, her time at her sisters—all in response to her anger. Now, they had arrived at the bargaining stage. She was going to do anything to hold on to him. Although he knew she was trying to pull out all the stops, he had to admit to himself that he had contemplated the very question that she was now asking him. One of the main reasons why he had chosen Priscilla over Andrew was because he knew his parents would not approve (and that was putting it lightly). Being a Black, there were certain expectations—get married, get a good job, live in the best neighborhood, drive the best car—that were all meant to ensure that the status of the Black family would never diminish. Being gay and divorcing his wife were certainly not going to sit well with Sirius's family.

"If they love me, they'll understand."

Both Sirius and Priscilla knew that what he was saying had so many hidden meanings and underlying reservations. First of all, each of them knew that Sirius was trying to convince himself more than anything, and second of all, each of them knew that Sirius was also meaning this for Priscilla as well. Priscilla just shook her head.

"I know you're not that naïve," she said. "Your father is ready to disown Regulus if he ruins your case or if he ends up doing anymore jail time." She leaned forward slightly. "I know that no matter what you sit here and try to convince yourself of, you know that your parents are going to be more than a little disappointed. And I know that no matter what you try to tell yourself, you love them and you care about what they think. You care about the Black name, and you care about your parents loving you and wanting you."

Sirius did not say anything. He didn't know what to say. She was right. She knew him better than anyone—even better than Remus—and she was showing just how well she knew him right now. She continued.

"I know how much you care about them, and so…" Priscilla took a deep breath. "I want to compromise."

Sirius narrowed his eyes and clenched his teeth together. But he did not interrupt.

"I know you want to stay in your family's good graces." She raised her eyebrows as if she was asking for confirmation of this fact. He nodded. The plan he had established in his mind a few hours ago was quickly crumbling.

"I know what you want. I know everything you want, and I want to give it to you," Priscilla said. Sirius remained silent. "I want to be your wife—until death do us part—I want to keep everything good between you and your family because I know that's what you want. I want to have a happy marriage with you, I want everything to go back to normal… I want to give you children." Priscilla paused. "I know you don't want to hurt me, and I know you want children, and I know you want a normal life where you can be happy. I want to give you that, Sirius, so I'm willing to compromise," she repeated. She took yet another deep breath. "Stay with me. Stay with me, and you can have everything you want, and I can have everything I want. You may not love me like I love you, but I still love you the way I did when I first fell for you, and I don't want our marriage to end. Stay with me, Sirius. If you stay with me, you can have it all. Your family, children, a normal life," Priscilla closed her eyes, "and you can even have him."

Sirius, who had been looking down at his hands, preparing what he would say to reject Priscilla, suddenly shot his head up and stared at her.

"What…?" He looked completely incredulous. "What do you mean?"

"An open relationship," Priscilla said simply. "We can still maintain our marriage, but you can pursue sexual relationships with any men that you want… as long as you keep us both safe and protected. I don't need to know about anything or anyone. You can leave a few—let's say two—nights a week in order to satisfy your… desires… and then for the rest of the week, we maintain our normal lives as husband and wife."

Sirius could not believe what he was hearing. He blinked several times. What had gotten into Priscilla? Was she so desperate to keep him that she would go to these great lengths just to do so? And what she was offering… He would have everything he ever wanted, she was right about that—the normal family life that was expected of him, children, status, and Remus. It was too much to process. Priscilla broke his thoughts.

"So make a choice, Sirius. Lose everything you've ever known, or get everything you've ever wanted."

Preview for next chapter:

"We need to talk."