Who: James & Lily (knap) What: talking over their situation. When: Sunday evening Where: their unit, their room. Warnings: a little bit of sads?
Saturday had been unbelievably, truly awful. Part of that had to do with the fact that it had been much longer than a day in James's head; his time in the pensieve had probably only been about two days, but it had been so rough that it had felt even longer. And then he'd woken up from that strange nightmare state-- the nightmare where he and Lily and Sirius were dead, the nightmare where Remus died, the nightmare where Harry died and then lived without them all-- to find that it was still Saturday morning, that almost no time had passed on the compound at all. That he still had a full day to go before he could relax, and even falling asleep wouldn't necessarily be relaxing, because he might wake up to the same thing all over again.
A day in which he'd barely spoken aloud, unable to even voice any of the things he'd seen, lest he disturb the tenuous distance between his current emotional state and the one he'd been in during the dream. Remus and Harry had been in much the same state, until Sirius had returned from colour world; James had hoped, then, that the day would take a turn for the better. But by the end of it he'd still been utterly exhausted and emotionally reticent, and all he'd wanted in the world was to return to his own room, his own bed that he shared with Lily, to collapse and bury his face in her hair and hope that he would wake up the next morning feeling like he'd actually rested.
Except he'd returned to the room to find that Severus Snape's name was on his door. The sight of it stopped him in his tracks before he'd even entered the room, and he felt an upwelling of inexplicable anger; at the scientists, mainly, who had invaded his head with their nightmares, and then invaded his room with their experiments. It felt like his safe haven had been taken away right when he needed it the most, and he couldn't bring himself to even touch the doorknob.
Instead, he'd gone next door to Sirius. It had been the right choice for him, the best choice he could make in the impossible situation; in the room with only his best friend, he'd actually managed to sleep, and he'd gotten a much better memory this morning. He woke up from it feeling rested, and almost emotionally restored, except-- except he felt awful for the position he'd put Lily in the night before, and he felt worse when he realized that Snape (no, Severus-- he was going to have to get used to that) had taken his absence badly, too. That had been fairly simple to resolve, and he could fix things with Lily too, even if that would be a little more difficult.
He couldn't find her or Severus when he went to their unit, and he didn't know if they were still in the midst of their respective pensieve memories or whether they'd left for the day. He didn't get another real chance to talk to her all day, but he was determined to start this conversation by ending the day as he should have done last night, would have done if he'd been able to-- by returning to their room.
He was the first to get back from dinner, and sat down on the couch to wait-- for one or both of them, he wasn't sure which. But he wasn't going to avoid either of them, or their room, not anymore. Not tonight.