he can’t shake the feeling   that something has shifted out of place.  like a glass left teetering,  suspended for a brief moment before the fall.  tense,  things have been.  strained.  even his own denial has not allowed him to keep ignoring this new space between them.  a space that he doesn’t know what to do with.  it will fade,  he thought in the early days after his capture.  but on and on the weeks went until he found it had grown twice as big,   nurtured by their mutual avoidance.
   so familiar this picture has become:   james busying himself and lily readying herself to go.   still,   each time she leaves he can’t help but feel that she is running away from something.   the order is at a standstill.   meetings have no direction as they try and regroup,   try to figure out where to go from here.   and though james has kept his attendance to only those of strict importance,   lily has thrown herself that much deeper into the effort.   most nights he has to remind himself this is still a war.   there is still work to be done even if he can’t bring himself to sit vigil for hours on end,   feeling useless and failing to produce a solution.   not when he’d rather be here.  Â
   he is taking his time with the dishes if only to have something to do,   but when he doesn’t hear that soft crack of apparition he knows it has reached a tipping point.   so james finds himself setting down a half-rinsed plate,   wiping his hands on the dish towel that’s slung over his shoulder.
   ❛   since you asked,   i’m just going to say it,  ❜   a last attempt to grin and bear it and send her on her way as he’s done countless times these past weeks.  there is an undeniable stiffness in the way he approaches her,  hands coming to rest on either arm.  still james tries to make a show of this.   he twists his face up in something like pity for the last one to be let in on the joke.   ❛    i don’t think alastor bakes those biscuits.  so.   there it is.   ❜   he knows lily sees through this flimsy attempt,  and as he looks down at her james feels for the first time in a long while like he can take a full breath.
   with an exhale he leans in to kiss the top of her head,  not bothering to mask the creases in his brow when he pulls back.   ❛   you can miss just one,  you know.   ❜   he is struck by the sense that this is the wrong thing to say;   as if he’s suggested she give up altogether,   as if he’s told her they should forget the war and do nothing else for the rest of their days but take harry for long walks on the countryside.   it’s a ridiculous thought,   so grotesquely domestic that it causes his mouth to twitch upwards just slightly before he loses confidence.   he squeezes her arm lightly in question.    ❛   what’s happening here,  lils?   ❜
ONE SMALL BREATH, falling from her lips as if in relief, or maybe in frustration, at the fact that they kept dancing around whatever issues lay between them. The biggest issue, perhaps, was that they so very rarely had issues. She didn’t know how to confront him, and he didn’t know how to battle her. Their stubbornness was a strength, as a family, as a unit, but what happened when they were on opposite sides of the battlefield?
What happened when their truths no longer aligned?Â
So, Lily lets the words rest between them just for a moment, before pulling away to look up at him. It almost hurts when the words finally do pierce through her skin. Almost breaks her, if she weren’t already feeling so broken by it all. Maybe it makes sense, that he doesn’t understand how desperate she is to help. How desperate she is to win this war. How desperate she is to feel as though she’s a person again, and not just a pawn in Dumbledore’s dusty game.
“Missing one is a dangerous spiral,” she says, voice soft but still stern as she meets eyes full of concern. Lily pulls away from that; away from the idea that she is something that is meant to be concerned for. There shouldn’t be concern there. How can he not feel the anger in her bones? “Moody needs the help, and missing one feels like it tips some sort of scale. It means they go on a mission I’m not there to approve. They’re kids playing at war heroes and they don’t understand-- They want to help, and I love them all for it but none of them...”
Lily shakes her head, knowing she’s rambling. It doesn’t make sense, her need to want to help. The way that she feels as though she’s the only one who can really do something about the situation. So instead, taking a step back she meets James eyes and shakes her head. “You were in Azkaban, James. You were there, and I was here waiting for them to bloody do something. I had to scream and shout and finally it happened but if I hadn’t been there you wouldn’t be here.”
Her voice cracked and a part of her knew that the dam had been opened. There was a sadness building its way up, crashing into an anger that would never quite go away. Lily hid behind the wall; strong words and barbed wires easier than feeling that pit in her stomach. That dark hole where fear resided. Still, never one to back down, Lily held her ground, blinking away tears once more. “I can’t let that happen again.” To you. To us. To Harry. To anyone.Â