One Year Earlier

"What do you mean he doesn't remember me?" Lily implored as mediwizards and Healers rushed passed, seemingly unaware that her world was teetering on the brink of total disintegration. "Only me?"

"Not only you," Remus quickly amended. "He doesn't remember…well, anything. They had to tell him his name. All he knows is he's a wizard and he's in the hospital. That's it."

"Is it…" Lily paused, taking a steadying breath before asking the question she wasn't sure she wanted answered. "Is it permanent?"

"No," Sirius interjected with the air of consoling a small child regarding the monster under her bed, but his expression lacked confidence. He was worried, too. "I mean, they don't think so. It'll take time, of course, but…they expect things will come back to him on their own. Eventually."

Lily wasn't sure who he was trying to convince more, her or himself.

One Year Later

"Ungh," Lily groaned into her pillow. She was woken up by the sounds of food cooking and music streaming through the wireless – and Katherine singing along in too high a pitch, of course. It's not that she wasn't used to being woken up by Katherine's obsession with large, extensive breakfasts, but she'd rather hoped that she'd be able to sleep in today. Or maybe just keep sleeping right through the entire week. Rolling over, Lily was hit with bright beams of light peeking through her curtains. With a sigh, she burrowed under her covers in avoidance.

She'd made it eight months. She'd packed everything she'd owned and busied herself with a fake life. She had fake friends, a fake job, and no real fiancé who couldn't even remember her name. And she'd made it eight months before that too was snatched away from her.

"Right, Lily, this is James," Caradoc said as he walked back into the living room. "He works in potion supplies as well."

Lily nodded, now knowing what 'potion supplies' really meant. James smiled at the introduction, but Lily kept her eyes focused on Caradoc. "Wow, really?" she said, unintentionally dryly. "That's…interesting. Listen, um, I'm gonna take off now, so thank you for walking me."

Caradoc frowned slightly, and whether he was noticing her shaky hands, wavering voice, or just the fact that she seemed on the edge of tears she didn't know. "Oh sure, no problem. You can apperate from here, if you'd like."

"Oh I'll just walk actually," she replied, trying to duck out as quickly as she could. "Fresh air and all that. Thanks for the drink." She turned and made for the door.

"O-okay," Caradoc replied, clearly confused. "Good night, Lily."

"See you around, Evans."

Lily tensed up at the voice, trying to find some line to throw out. But somehow even a simple "yeah, sure" seemed too much for her, and she left instead.

Just thinking of last night caused frustration to prickle at her eyes and tug at her throat, and she took a steadying breath to get a grip on these newly resurged emotions – she'd spent so long choking them all down and now it was all she could do to keep them from exploding out of her. Burying herself even deeper, she decided that she would not be getting up today.

Until a knock on her door changed that.

"Lily?" The door opened and Katherine poked her head in. "Lily, are you up?"

Reluctantly, Lily pulled herself out of her cocoon. Peeking out ever so slightly, she answered moodily, "I am now."

Katherine's face immediately slipped into a grin. "Good, because you have a visitor." When Lily only looked confused, she added, "A male visitor."

Lily sat up rather quickly. "What? Who?"

"Well I don't know, do I? You never bloody bring anybody over." She leaned against the door frame as Lily got dressed. "Oh, but finally. You didn't hook up with him, too, did you? Lily Evans, did you walk into an orgy last night?"

"Merlin, Kat, no!" The excitement on Katherine's face didn't wane at that admission. "I didn't hook up with anybody, I told you last night."

"Well, I was trying to forget that, wasn't I? I mean you have to admit, two blokes make the whole thing a bit more spicy."

"I don't want spicy," Lily replied, pulling her shirt over her head.

"Yeah, I know I know," she said with a few waves of her hand, as if her friend's less-than-scandalous behavior was somewhat of an inconvenience. "Anyway, he's on the couch." Katherine made her way back to the kitchen as Lily left her room, heading out to meet this mystery guest. A part of her suspected Caradoc, even though he had no way of getting her address and Katherine would have recognized him, because she didn't really have any idea of who else it could be.

As it was, this second reappearance of her past wasn't nearly as shocking as the first.

"Evans," the man said, standing up to his full height as she entered the room and pushing a bit of his too-long black hair out of his eyes.

"Sirius," Lily responded, her voice betraying none of the idle panic resonating throughout her.

They stood there for a minute, just staring at each other. Several thoughts seemed to pass through Sirius' mind in the silence, each one flittering ever so slightly across his face, while Lily's face, in stark opposition, seemed devoid of any emotion at all. It was Sirius who broke the stalemate.

"It's fucking great to see you, Lily." Lily remained silent, standing in the same spot as when she entered the room. After a moment, Sirius seemed to give up waiting for her to respond and walked forward to envelope her in a hug. Lily put a hand on his arm, but otherwise remained still.

"How did you find me?" She asked not because she was particularly concerned - after last night it didn't seem all that impossible, in fact it was almost probable – but because it seemed the sort of thing she should say in this situation, and she certainly wasn't in any position to come up with anything original.

Sirius pulled away, looking at her one last time before nodding. "I, uh, was in James' room last night. We were working on some stuff for the Order." Lily's face darkened at the mention of James and Sirius seemed to take notice, pushing forward quickly. "I thought I heard you talking, but I couldn't believe it. I figured I was hearing things; after all, it's been so long. So after you left I transformed and went to go look. Once I saw it was you, I followed you here."

"That's stalking, and it's illegal," she pointed out.

Sirius shrugged. "Desperate times and all that."

"Desperate?" Lily inquired dubiously.

"What, you thought you could just up and leave and it wouldn't affect anybody?" For the first time since he'd arrived, Sirius seemed a little irritated with her. It only lasted a second before it vanished, and Lily wondered whether she only imagined it simply because she was expecting it.

"Are you here to yell at me?" Lily asked, despondent.

Sirius shrugged. "Not yell, check."

"Check what?"

"Do you really need a list? That you're well off, that you're happy, that you're alive." This time, Lily was sure the irritation was there.

"Well, I'm alive," she replied brusquely.

"Thankfully. You do realize you're a bit of a target, right?"

She did. Being a muggleborn ex-order member, she knew that she would be on any Death Eater hit list. So she'd been careful. She'd found flatmates to whom she had no previous connections and made sure they, in turn, had no connections to anybody else involved in the war. She'd gotten a job at a muggle antique shop in order to avoid a large magical population, and she'd made sure that both of those locations – her flat and her job – were on the side of town opposite from her old life. The only thing she'd kept was her name, simply because she couldn't bear to lose that too.

"I can take care of myself," Lily said, more for her own benefit than Sirius'.

"That doesn't mean you have to." He stared at her, waiting for her to say whatever came next. Somehow she doubted she'd be saying what he wanted to hear.

"That's easy for you to say," she countered, just barely above a mutter, "he remembers you."

Sirius sighed. "Lily, no he doe-"

"Did he say anything?" She cut him off, finally letting the question she'd been holding back burst vulnerably off her tongue. "After I left. Did he…I don't know, bring me up at all?" Did he think I looked familiar, her mind added silently, but she didn't need to say it out loud. The look Sirius gave her showed he understood.

Another sigh. "Lil-"

"Right," she interrupted again, straightening up. "Of course not. So if that's all, feel free to show yourself out." And with that she turned and made her way back to her room. It was rude, but Lily didn't care and Sirius didn't stop her. It was too much. She needed to be alone. She slammed the door behind her, breathing heavily. She made her way over to her vanity in two large strides and gripped the edge tightly. In the mirror, she saw wild red hair and equally frantic eyes. She saw flushed cheeks and chapped lips. She saw panic and despair and hurt and anger.

She saw herself from one year ago.

And so, closing her eyes and breathing deeply, she began to focus. Her name was Lily Evans. She was twenty years old. She shared a flat with Katherine and Emily and worked in a small muggle shop. And she repeated the mantra until that life was the only life that existed. Slowly, she washed away the past 12 hours, just as she had done to those two months in St. Mungo's all that time ago and every persistent memory that's popped up since then. It was almost easy by now. Almost.

"Lily?"

Lily straightened and turned, a practiced smile on her now calm face. "Yes?"

"Is everything all right?" Katherine looked concerned, and suddenly Lily realized that it was entirely possible for her to have heard that entire conversation.

"Of course, why do you ask?" She grabbed a hair brush before sitting on the edge of her bed, occupying herself with her morning-crazed locks in an attempt at nonchalance.

"I heard your door slam. Thought you might have gotten into a bit of a tiff." Seeing that Lily wasn't enraged, she abandoned her cautious post by the door and jumped onto the bed beside her friend.

"Oh, no," Lily negated with a smile. "Just slipped out of my fingers." Katherine nodded, seemingly satisfied with that answer, but Lily could sense what was coming next. She was going to ask who Sirius was, how he knew Lily, and what he was doing here, and Lily didn't have an answer (besides truthful ones, but she had no interest in giving those) for any of those questions. So Lily did what she'd become a near expert on over the past eight months – she diverted the attention away from herself.

"But you've made breakfast," she exclaimed, rising from her seated position. "That's perfect! I never get a chance to eat your breakfasts." She left the room, calling back over her shoulder without bothering to check if she was being followed. "What have you made?" She entered the kitchen to find Emily groggily eating something that looked like a cinnamon roll. She smiled at the redhead as she entered.

Katherine entered behind Lily and said, "Er, well you don't normally eat breakfast…."

Lily frowned. "What do you mean?"

Katherine pointed to the pan of rolls. "They're cinnamon apple."

Lily paused. "Oh." Lily considered just eating one to throw off any lingering suspicion that might have arisen due to her 'mystery man's' appearance, but found she just couldn't handle that right now. Not on top of everything else.

"That's okay," she said with faux brightness. "My shift starts in a half hour anyway. I'm sure Mr. Peterson would love me coming in a bit early to help out." She retreated to the living room, where she grabbed a jacket off the coat rack and made her way out the door, ignoring both her 'just-woke-up' look and her friends' curious glances.

She knew she was foolish to hope that her relocation would never be discovered, especially considering the talents of those who would want to find her. But she had to hold on to something, have hope for something, because what she was running from was just about as hopeless as it gets.