This one shot is the product of too much dr. pepper, chocolate ice cream, and one very late night. ;-) enjoy!

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I'll forget about him by December, I promised myself. I had to. I couldn't bear thinking about James Potter any longer. He made me so upset that whenever I began to think about him I would completely forget what I had been doing previously.

I couldn't keep my flat clean. I couldn't concentrate at work and would botch the simplest of spells. I couldn't even remember if I'd washed my hair yet in the shower half the time. I had to forget about him, I couldn't keep this up. It was over.

It had been over for almost a month now. No visits, no owls, no contact whatsoever. But I couldn't stop thinking about him. Every night when I went to sleep alone I would feel that something was missing and wanted to ask him if he felt the same.

I had told him not to go, begged him even. I knew I couldn't handle him being gone to fight this war, but his damn sense of obligation got in the way. I told him it wasn't his war, but he always insisted that it was. A month ago, he finally came back after being gone for the Resistance movement for almost two months. He was different, less care-free, and I was scared to ask him what he had seen. I was scared to even talk to him, so I just held him as tight as I could wishing with all my heart that he would decide not to go back.

If I had just kept my wishes to myself he would have never told me to go. He would have never told me to leave him and I would have never thought to do it.

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He had been home two days and I was battling with the idea that he might leave again soon. I didn't even want to think of what had already happened to him, how could I bear to think of what was ahead of him? What was ahead of us?

I was lying in bed, staring at my ceiling, and he was just coming home from a walk when I realized I exactly how much I needed him to be here with me. Everyday, more reports of death and destruction came in the mail and I had been a wreck for the last months without him there to comfort me about what was happening.

I padded down the stairs to see him sitting at the table, drinking a cup of his customary black coffee. He looked up to see me coming and gave me a small smile, only a ghost of what his smile was before he went off to this horrible war.

“Good morning, Baby,” he said softly in greeting. I returned his smile and slid into the chair beside him, stealing a swig from his mug.

“Morning,” I whispered, studying his face like I had never seen it before. He seemed so distant since he came back, so much wiser in the way the world worked.

We were only two years out of Hogwarts; he wasn't even done completely with his Auror training. Why did he get himself into this? Why was he putting me through this?

“What's wrong?” I came back to reality at his words and saw his hazel eyes boring holes through me in curiosity. I took a deep breathe, gathering my thoughts of everything I wanted to say to him.

“James…” I started, feeling the weight of the sadness that had welled inside of me for so long coming to the surface. “Please don't go back.”

He looked at me in surprise for a minute, as if confused as to why I would ask him to stay. “You know I can't stay, Lily,” He replied finally. “Do you not understand that I'm fighting this war for you?”

“No, James, of course I understand why…it's just, I need you here, I can't stand being alone.” I looked at him in desperation, trying to make him understand what I was saying. I was shocked to see how his eyes suddenly hardened to me.

“Lily, quit being selfish,” he snapped sharply. “There are people dying out there and all you can think about is how you hate to be alone when you're not even alone. You've got Marlene and Alice, don't you?”

I was taken aback by the harshness of his tone and the tears that had been burning at the back of my eyes began to pool in them. “James, I'm not trying to be selfish,” I said quietly. “I'm just scared that the next time you leave you won't come back to me and I couldn't stand that.”

James softened for a moment from his stiff posture and took a deep look at me. He breathed heavily and I waited in the uncomfortable silence.

“Lily…I have to go, I have to fight these people. What they're doing is wrong and I couldn't live with myself if I didn't do something about it,” he said finally, wearing a tired look on his dearly familiar countenance. I couldn't stand this much longer, knowing that he would die one day if he kept fighting this stupid war. Why couldn't he just stay here and be safe?

I had known that that would be his answer all along. I knew he would never consent to stay with me and never allow me to go with him. He was just stubborn that way and though I loved him for it, I couldn't bear for him to be torn away from me again.

I sniffed loudly and looked away from him, determined not to show him exactly how close I was to losing my self-control and breaking down in tears. I had thought that I could be brave and be a Resistance fighter's girlfriend, bearing the weight that came along with it, but I couldn't. I wasn't strong enough for this.

“I know, James…it's just…” A tear escaped from one of my eyes and I blinked fiercely to hold the rest of them back. I will not cry, I will not cry, I will not cry, I chanted to myself determinedly. “I don't know if I can do this anymore.” My voice was just a whisper above silence as it formed those words and I wasn't even sure if he heard them because his face showed no sign of recognition for many moments. His eyes shifted to the ground and he slumped back in his chair into a dejected position.

“Then don't,” he sighed, standing up from his chair and walking into the kitchen out of my sight.

I rose and followed him after it was obvious he wasn't going to return to the table. I found him leaning against sink with his back towards me, staring at the cabinet where a picture of us on the day of our graduation from Hogwarts was hanging. We looked so happy that it was painful to think of what we were saying to each other now.

“I don't want to hurt you anymore,” he said slowly, as I walked in to stand behind him. “And I'm sorry if I ever did, I never meant to…I just wanted to make you happy.

“James…”I choked out disbelievingly. He couldn't be saying these things, of course he made me happy, happier than I had ever been.

“No, Lily…listen to me,” he stopped me before I could even think of what to say to him. “Go out and find someone who doesn't need to fight…someone who will never leave you alone like I do. You deserve that and I'm sorry I can't give that to you.”

He finally turned around to face me and his hand drifted to stroke my hair gently, just as he had always done. The tears that I had been trying so hard to subdue finally began to tumble down my face, dripping onto his hand that now rested on my cheek. His thumb rubbed my face in careful circles and he stared down at me with a regretful shade of brown in his always expressive hazel eyes.

“I don't want to find someone else,” I stated as firmly as I could, knowing it was true but still shaking with the fear of leaving James.

“You need to…you deserve so much better than me. You deserve someone who can spend every moment with you. You deserve someone that's work doesn't put him in life or death situations and as much I want to be with you and as much as I love you, that's not me, Lily, and it never will be,” he said softly. I knew he was trying to convince me of something that he, himself, didn't believe in, but that didn't stop it from being true. He never would be that man…but did I want him to be?

“Go,” he added hoarsely, seeing my face flicker with emotion. I looked up to see his own eyes brimming with tears, but he was much better at keeping them at bay.

And I went.

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So here I was, sitting alone in a new flat that I didn't even like because he had told me to go and I had. I cried for almost a whole month and I still did sometimes at night because of the sharp pangs of loneliness that were all my fault anyways. If only I hadn't said anything about it.

But I'll forget about him…yes, I'll forget about him. I was determined to. James Potter will only be a distant memory by December…maybe January if I had more trouble with it than planned. I would completely obliterate all traces of him from my life. I would even manage to forget the way his hair smelled directly after he had taken a shower and all of those witty comments that he always made.

I packed away all of the pictures I had of him into a box and stashed it in the corner for the time being and from that day on I tried to pile everything that reminded me of him into that same corner.

After almost a month, I realized that this solution would never work because absolutely everything reminded me of him and absolutely everything was making me miserable. I hadn't bothered to unpack much of anything that I didn't need for everyday life and I didn't plan to anytime soon. Let the stupid boxes sit there and look just as pitiful as I felt.

This wasn't the first time that James and I had broken it off but for more reasons than one, this time felt so much more final and serious than any break that had happened before.

I had always told myself before that I would forget about him and had never managed. It didn't look like I would be able to this time either. James was fixed into my mind forever, he was a part of me and I couldn't deny it. Something was missing in my life without and no amount of denial would fix that.

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It was mid-December and I had finally decided to unpack the dusty boxes that had been neglected for two months after I moved into this cramped flat. I had just placed the last few books on the shelf and pictures on the walls when a knock sounded at the door.

I started. No one had come to call on me since I had moved here…did anyone even know where I lived? I walked cautiously to the door, wishing fervently I could see who was on the other side before I opened it.

“Who is it?” I asked tentatively, hoping for an honest answer.

“James,” the person on the other side of the door answered after a moment. I knew it was him by the cadence of the voice and fought the urge to cry out. I leaned against the door in a moment of sudden weakness, my knees threatening to give out beneath me.

“Lily, will you open the door?” His voice pleaded through the door, he sounded upset.

I reached quickly for the knob and my hand shakily twisted it. The door swung open easily and I sank to the ground against the wall once it was open, not daring to look up at James, knowing that he was staring at me.

I probably looked a fright, hair piled a top my head in haste and clothes dusty from cleaning, but I didn't even make a move to fix either of those things. I kept my gaze fixed on the opposite wall as I heard him clear his throat. I sucked in my bottom lip and chewed nervously on it, knowing that I should speak but not wanting too.

I heard him shut the door and then felt him slide down to sit next to me. I didn't look at him until he sighed heavily a few minutes later. My eyes slid from the wall to his face, taking in the new scar that decorated it. I felt an incredible urge to reach out and touch it but I reminded myself that that was no longer my right.

My hand reached instead to grasp at my shoulder, rubbing at my neck.

“Here let me.” His words startled me, but his firmly familiar fingertips on my shoulders calmed me. I turned my back to him to allow him to reach my shoulders better and he rubbed them without further comment. After some time, his hands traveled to massage the rest of my back and leaned into his touch gratefully.

When he was done with my back he tugged gently at my waist and I scooted back to lie in his embrace. I buried my head into his shoulder, rubbing it against his warmness. His hand reached up and unclasped my hair so he could run his hands through its tangled locks.

My eyes, which had been dry from tears for a few weeks now, welled up all over again and I couldn't help myself from crying on his shoulder. I couldn't deny that I had missed him. I had missed him terribly.

“Lily...” he trailed off, his hand pausing. When he spoke again, his voice was laden with regret and sorrow. “I'm sorry for telling you to leave. I didn't mean it.”

He choked on the last words and to my surprise I looked up to see him crying. I sat up quickly and turned to face him.

“James, it's not your fault I left…it's mine. I was being selfish, just like you said,” I tried to reassure him. It was my fault, I had spent the last two months trying to tell myself it wasn't but I had always known that it was.

“No…no, it's not. I shouldn't have left in the first place,” he argued. I smiled sadly at his words, wishing fervently he would have said them months ago so we would have never had to go through such a separation.

“You needed too…you still need to fight. I just couldn't see that, but now I do.” I reached out to touch his face tenderly. “Now I do, James, and I'm ready to fight with you.”

“No.” He stiffened, meeting my eyes in determination. “You're not going to fight, Lily.”

“Yes, I am, James,” I responded gently, confidently. He looked at me desperately before moving towards me to take me up in his arms again. I returned his embrace just as fiercely as he hung onto me, I was so glad he had come back that I would have done anything to be him even if it meant walking onto that battlefield to fight this war.

“I know you are…I just wish you wouldn't,” he said understandingly. “This war is getting so out of hand and so dangerous that we need more people to fight everyday. Voldemort's forces are getting out of hand.”

He sighed and looked beyond me, suddenly seeming to realize we were sitting on the floor. His eyes traveled around the small living space, stopping at the kitchen and then moving on to look at the door to my bedroom.

“You know I sold our old flat,” he said after he was done studying the room.

“Why?” I asked, taken aback.

“It seemed so empty without you there whenever I came back to it…I ended up just boarding up with Sirius when I came back. Stupid old manor never lets you sleep though,” he grumbled, referring to the house that Sirius now owned that had been defaulted to him when his younger brother, Regulus, was killed.

I laughed at this and rose from the floor, my legs tingling with sleep. I grabbed at the wall for support and James grabbed onto my waist before my legs could give out on me. He stood patiently behind me while I regained my balance and when I did I clutched at his hand. I smiled at the familiarity of holding it.

“Dumbledore's forming a new organization in the Resistance forces…he's calling it the Order of the Phoenix. He wants us both to join,” James said quietly in an off-hand way. I nodded, knowing that more information about it would be offered later, but for now all I wanted was to just be with James with no talk of war or Resistance. I knew that he felt the same way; he was just always uncomfortable with silence.

“James,” I started with a sudden grin at my own idea, “would you like to see my bedroom?”

He returned my grin and squeezed my hand jokingly. He understood exactly what I meant but wouldn't let it go without one last quip before I opened the door.

“Of course, wouldn't miss it. But tell me, what color wallpaper did you choose this time?”

I never answered him and I'm not sure we ever got around to looking at the wallpaper anyways that night.

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Well, I hope you enjoyed…sorry for any mistakes, I don't exactly have a beta and I'm too lazy to go search for one. ;-)

If you review I'll be sure to post some other one-shots that I've written in the past! I've got lots of them!