EPILOGUE...

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"Dad?"

The whoosh-click … whoosh-click … whoosh-click of the oxygen mask sounded so severe in the silence.

"Lily flower?"

Tears had sprung to her eyes as soon as she'd seen him and they fell freely now. When he'd finished moving the mask away from his face she reached for his hand.

"Dad…" choked out Lily quietly, as her cold fingertips wrapped around his warm palm, avoiding the grey clip on his finger that was checking on his pulse rate.

The doctor had been a friendly looking young man…very young…too young? Lily had sat in the small room she'd been ushered into wondering how long the doctor in front of her could possibly have been qualified…a distraction from the topic of his hushed voice, and the reason she'd been urgently called to this beige looking muggle hospital that smelt mainly of disinfectant and faintly of the urine it was trying to mask.

The words 'liver failure' were vaguely familiar ones to Lily…she knew sort-of what it meant but she didn't really know much more about it. Muggle type ailments were so scarce in her world that she hadn't really needed to worry herself with them.

"…due to prolonged liver damage caused by excessive drinking," the polite young man in the creased looking shirt had said. Lily had noticed the stain of something possibly pudding related on the crooked tie hanging askew from the doctors collar…distractions, distractions…

She'd been sat in the room for just about seven minutes (the big white faced plastic clock on the wall had said so) before she was aware she was being urged out of it. She'd registered that someone had hugged her…that comfortable smell, the safe reassuring arms, the murmurs through her hair…

But none of it had truly sunken in…it hadn't hit her until he'd said her name.

Now she fully understood the situation. Seeing him she knew why the doctors had been so sincere with their words, so hushed in their manners; she knew why it had been such an urgent message.

James' hand had been silently on her shoulder and in that clinical almost foreign place she felt like she loved him that little bit more.

The oxygen mask was blowing air at nobody as her father attempted to speak, though it was obviously very difficult for him. The pneumonia he had caught whilst being so ill was hampering his breathing…

"Lily, I'm sorry…"

She shook her head holding back the sob. "Don't dad, please."

It was obviously so painful for him to speak so they sat in silence for a while, Lily perched on the side of the hospital bed, still holding his warm clammy hand. Eventually her father spoke again. "How's your life, love?"

Her life?

Her life..?

Sometimes running…sometimes hiding…sometimes fighting… her life in a world racked with war and those that would murder her in a breath if they could?

She couldn't tell him all that. Not then…not then with him looking so torn open from a war he'd been fighting of his own, against his own demons. So she told him what she felt she could. The part she knew he'd prefer to hear. The truth about the one part of her life she'd never change, not for the safest life in the world…not for anything…

"I'm going to be getting married soon dad." and for the first time since she entered that hospital, she smiled.

"Married?" he choked, his eyes darting to where James was stood behind her, supporting her like he'd promised he would.

"This is James." she rubbed James' arm as he stepped forward to make himself more visible to the bleary eyed muggle with so many tubes leading in and out of his body.

"It's in a couple of weeks." added James courteously though Lily knew her husband-to-be could never forgive her father for the way he had treated her. "I'm sure Lily would love for you to be there, sir.

If it were possible she could have fallen in love with James all over again in that moment.

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Her friends insisted they support her at the funeral…

...her family…her new family.

Moony and Wormtail were both so loyal, so loving. Always finding a way to lighten the mood when all seemed too bleak, always eager and willing to eat Lily's cooking…

…Padfoot. Her dear wayward brother Padfoot. Who would want for another sibling with Padfoot in their life? He insisted he call her his little sister, though there was only a few months age difference between them. She felt safe with him, and worried about him constantly, though he was obviously capable of looking after himself.

And James Potter…her soon to be husband…her reason for strength and courage. The one person that had never given up on her; never walked out on her or raised a hand in her direction. The one man she knew she would never be able to function properly without.

She felt blessed. Blessed that she had these wonderful people in her life.

…And finally there was the last piece of her family puzzle…the piece she'd not told anyone about yet…she automatically put a hand to her stomach and her heart swelled in equal measure of joy and grief as they all walked slowly from the windswept graveyard by the litter ridden canal where her father had just been laid to rest.

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:'(

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