Don't expect anyone else to support you. Maybe you have a trust fund, maybe you have a wealthy spouse; but you never know when either one might run out.

"Lily, there's a letter for you." James handed her the paper envelope as he rounded the corner into their living room. She smiled a thank you and placed it on the coffee table. James frowned. "Aren't you going to open it?"

"Nah. I'll read it later. Probably not important." She waved it off and went back to reading her book.

James, instantly suspiciously at her far too nonchalant tone, plucked the letter up himself and began opening it. That got her attention.

"James, don't open that!" She leapt up from the sofa and tried to grab it out of his hands but she had piqued his curiosity and he used his height to his advantage. Holding the envelope above his head he ripped it open, ignoring her flailing limbs, and began to read the crisp print of the letter.

"Dear Mrs Potter, we are pleased to inform you that we would like to offer you the position of part-time waitress-" James stopped reading and looked down to see his wife had stilled against him. "What is this, Lily?" He asked, genuinely bewildered by the letter.

"It's nothing." She sighed and seemed to deflate a little before his eyes. "It's just a little cafe in town and I went down to ask if I could pick up a few hours of waitressing. Not a big deal. At all. So can we just drop it, please?"

James struggled with the concept for a little longer and couldn't hold in his question.

"Why would you go and ask the cafe for work?" He had once sworn that he would never understand women and it seemed that he never would.

"Just to pick up some extra money that's all." Lily's tone was defensive now and she looked like she really did not want the conversation to continue but James' brain couldn't relay that fast enough to his mouth.

"But we don't need extra money; that's the reason we were able to quit the Auror programme and work full-time for the Order. I thought we had talked about this?"

She was almost positive he didn't mean to sound that condescending but it infuriated her nonetheless.

"No, I brought up a part-time job and you dismissed it. We didn't 'talk' about it at all!" The flash of fire in her eyes was all the warning he needed and he instantly regretted bringing the topic up but knew he had to see it through to the end; had to know what she wasn't saying.

"Okay, okay. So let's talk about it now." His voice was calm, reasonable but he could feel his pulse pounding as his neck tensed. "You don't need to get another job because my parents left us their entire vault at Gringotts which could support us for 7 lifetimes. Do you want a job to keep you busy?"

Her emerald eyes turned to him with incredulity.

"'To keep me busy'? As if I won't have enough to do with the Order?" The fight seemed to leave her entirely and she slumped onto the sofa. "You don't get it."

"Then explain it to me!" His temper was wearing thin with this argument and he couldn't help the exasperated tone to his voice."Look, you wanted to talk about it so let's talk! Just tell me why you think we need all this 'extra money'!"

"Because I don't want to be left penniless when you leave, alright?"

There was a stunned silence and James blinked at her slowly.

"When I leave?"

"If you leave-" Lily noticed his visible wince and tried to rephrase her thought. "I mean-oh I don't know." She sighed and rubbed a hand wearily across her brow. She wasn't entirely sure how they had got to this point from a simple waitressing job but it was typically them. She felt the sofa dip beside her and then she was all but dragged into James' arms.

"Lily, I'm not going anywhere. I would never, ever, leave you. You're kind of stuck with me." He pressed a kiss to her hair and simply held her, willing her to believe him.

"I know." Her hands clung to the front of his shirt and she could feel the heavy thump of James' heart beneath her fingertips. "I just..I just plan, you know? I plan excessively."

A chuckle wormed its way through him as he recalled their wedding preparations.

"I know, sweetheart. I know."

They stayed in their embrace for a long time and, the next day, Lily wrote back to the cafe to apologise but she wouldn't be able to take the job because her 'circumstances had changed'.