Here is yet another update- you all have no idea how much your support means to me! Enjoy (and please review)!
Grace tilted her head back and smiled, enjoying the warmth of the summer sunshine. She was standing in the garden at Grimmauld Place, surrounded by the gentle hum of insects. The air was perfumed with the sweet smell of honeysuckle. The scent reminded her of Regulus- he had kissed her right here, beside the pink azalea, on the night of their engagement. Oh, happy memory!
As she stood there, enjoying the scenery, a new smell invaded her senses. One she knew. It smelled of boot polish, ink, and sweat. It smelled of Regulus.
She turned around in surprise to see him standing behind her, his grey eyes regarding her above a lopsided smile. He looked the same as he had the day he disappeared- frozen in time, still young and handsome. Grace took a step towards him carefully. "Reg?"
He placed a finger on her lips to silence her. "I've missed you, Gracie," he said simply. Her veins sang with heat as the sound of his deep voice reached her ears. He dropped his hand and traced one fingertip lightly down her wrist. When he looked up at her, he was astonishingly close. "Grace," he said softly. "It's been so long. Tell me you've missed me. Tell me you haven't forgotten me."
She fought the tears welling up in her eyes at his words and shook her head vehemently. "I could never forget you," she insisted.
He slid an arm around her waist and nuzzled her neck. "Prove it," he breathed. His words were hot against her skin.
Grace sighed and tilted her head back, allowing her husband to place soft kisses along her shoulder. He laid her down gently in the grass and slid one hand smoothly up her leg. "I love you," he told her as he resumed kissing her.
"I love you, too," she replied, tugging impatiently at his robes. She couldn't wait to feel his hands on her again, those shy, long-fingered hands that were so coordinated when grasping at a Snitch two hundred feet in the air, but which were hopelessly clumsy on her skin. She loved the awkwardness that still pervaded their lovemaking. Reg was hers, and she was his, and nothing would ever change that.
However, when he touched her, it wasn't the same. His caresses burned like fire, but they were rough and passionate and practiced- not shy and gentle like they had always been. She reluctantly pulled her mouth away from his and grabbed his wrist, examining the skin on his palm in alarm. He had never had calluses. Regulus Black would have been ashamed to have such marks of low birth on his skin.
She sat up, suddenly aware that she was not in the rose garden at all. She was in bed, and it was dark, and- someone was in bed with her. Regulus, but not Reg… She reached out instinctively and pushed his sleeve up on his left arm, desperately hoping to see the Mark there. But it wasn't.
She looked up to see Sirius regarding her strangely. "Is everything alright, love?"
Grace thought she was going to be sick. She struggled out from underneath Sirius' weight, darting down the hall and into the bathroom as quickly as she could. She just made it before she retched violently.
Long fingers stroked her hair back from her face as she curled up on the floor. Sirius' touch was cool against her flushed skin. "Gracie? What's wrong?"
"No," she said forcefully.
Sirius sat back on his heels and tilted his head to one side. "What?"
"No," she repeated. She wasn't entirely sure what she was refusing, unless it was the entire situation she now found herself in. Naked on the floor in the bathroom, with Sirius kneeling beside her, still in his shirt and trousers, looking concerned and deliciously ruffled. She looked up at him with wild eyes. "What just happened?"
Sirius looked slightly panicked now. "You went to bed almost an hour ago," he told her, with an air of explaining that two plus two most certainly equaled four. "I came in just now, and I kissed you good night."
Grace looked torn between feeling horrified and relieved. "That's all?"
Sirius shifted his weight, now distinctly uncomfortable. "Well, no, but-" When Grace stared at him with wide eyes, he shrugged. "You told me you loved me, and then, you know, other stuff happened, and then you sort of pushed me-"
"I told you I loved you?"
"You don't?" Sirius' expression was reminiscent of a dog that has just been kicked.
Before she could answer, Grace found that the rest of her dinner was insisting on coming up. She retched into the toilet again, and Sirius did the gentlemanly thing and held her hair back. She felt her skin burn where his fingers touched her, and she wanted nothing more than to shove him away from her and run- as far as she could. Why did this keep happening?
"You were still asleep, weren't you?" Sirius asked, stroking small circles on her back soothingly. He sounded resigned. "You were dreaming about my brother again."
Grace was infuriated that she had nothing left to bring up. Her stomach turned over, begging for release, but there was nothing she could do. She sat back and looked at Sirius. "Yes," she admitted, her voice trembling.
Sirius stood suddenly and ran a shaky hand through his hair. "Alright. Well. I'm going to- I'll be on the couch, then." And he walked briskly out of the bathroom, his shoulders slouched in defeat.
Grace curled up on the bathroom tile and cried.
Reviews make me keep up this rather punishing pace! ;)