Chapter Text
On a day when Lily's life hurls into the biggest heap of life-altering events, her car breaks down. It's not on its own a groundbreaking experience, but it ultimately becomes a reason why her, so-far idyllic, existence comes to an abrupt halt.
Lily Evans has been living a dream. Her version of a dream – to be precise, which is a version her sister would without a shade of doubt disagree with. Unfortunately for Petunia, Lily is at the point in her life where she's beyond caring what she thinks about anything.
Their last meeting, five years ago, ended poorly. The rift between them, steadily growing over the years, came to head when Lily, in bad temper, viciously broke her favourite vase, and Petunia, in clinical retaliation, broke her heart. They haven't seen one another since.
Lily won't deny missing her sometimes. The sister who entertained her with tales about fairies on bad days, who without a moment of hesitation pushed Jay Baker's sorry arse into the pod because in his nine year's old mind he thought that hair pulling is a good way to make friends.
Sadly that Petunia is long gone, and the person who replaced her became overtly judgemental and unnecessarily cruel, and Lily has no intention to keep people in her life who have no desire to be there.
She wants nothing to do with Petunia who claims her son is an abomination.
Maybe if she chose to remain in a loveless relationship, instead of spreading her legs in front of a doctor, things with Petunia would go differently. Or maybe she's just fooling herself thinking that Petunia needs a reason to act like a twat.
Harry's the sweetest little boy if anyone thinks otherwise they can frankly go and fuck themselves.
As far as Lily is concerned her son is perfect. Even when she finds herself complaining in the kitchen from exhaustion because his restless, never-ending energy went to overdrive that day and decided to make it hot for her. It's all a beauty of parenthood. She accepted it a long time ago, and she wouldn't take back a single moment.
She's always wanted to be a mum. Ever since the cotton-candy filled days she's spent playing with Petunia, holding the broken doll with spent batteries close to her chest, she felt that it's only a matter of time these childhood fantasies turn to quiet dreams of an adolescent. It took years before they finally transformed into the actual plan she was ready to set in motion.
She promised herself that she wouldn't make any rash decisions, not until she's absolutely certain she's ready for it, but when her career took an unexpected turn and within few months her part-time job as a copywriter landed her in a client chair of one of the biggest publishing houses in London, she knew it's her sign to go after what she really wanted.
She briefly considered asking one of her male best friends to aid her – she knows some unbelievably good-looking specimens and they would never pass an opportunity to have a wank, especially for a good cause – but the legal and moral complications of such choice were enough to make her quickly discard the idea.
Doctor consultations, countless hours of counselling, months of searching for the right donor, and now, almost four years later, every morning she gets to see the sweetest face in the world.
Harry is the best choice she's ever made. His one smile is worth all the too-polite smiles from everyone who hears about how he came to be, all the sleepless nights filled with worry, even all the Petunia's taunting and mocking she's ever had to endure.
Doctor Trelawney in her tiny sickeningly beige-coloured office all the way over in Birmingham prepared her for all the worst case scenarios – miscarriage, premature birth, OHSS, and after Harry was born, how and when to tell him the truth.
What she didn't prepare her for was meeting her baby daddy.
Choosing the donor was an illuminating experience. After all, sperm never regularly featured as an item on her everyday shopping list. The whole process felt beyond bizarre to her at first, she never even used a dating site, and she was basically asking a stranger to knock her up, but with Trewanley's help, she learnt to embrace this weirdness and focus on the endgame.
Perhaps calling the donor a stranger is quite an oversimplification. The website did provide her with eight pages of a very detailed description including numerous adorable baby pictures and heartfelt letters to the possible offspring.
Following doctor's recommendation, she narrowed her choices down to three candidates.
Candidate number one named Carl was standing at decent 180 cm and shared her blood type and eyes shape. He was thoroughly described as a calm and smiling young man. His deep brown eyes gleamed at her through the screen, and her mind spiralled down the road of dreams full of little babies with red hair and brown eyes. In his handwritten note, he put ardent words about what he valued in life and what he hoped his child will as well. Carl sounded like the kind of a bloke she'd love to date, but she wasn't looking for a date.
Barim, her second candidate, could boast about seven extra centimetres over Carl and his baby blues and dimpled cheeks kept her glued to the screen for much longer than any other donor. Barim was a very active fella who liked to spent his free time cooking, biking, doing trail runs, swimming and some more, enough to make her feel dejected about being so inactive for years. His ambition in life was to become a CEO at his own company and change the world. Barim was the kind of a guy who she'd vote for. Barim was a perfect choice, but ultimately not hers.
No.
She chose a guy who in his letter wrote a lengthy commentary to his rendition of Go the Distance from Disney's Hercules which she found recorded in his audio interview. She chose a guy who raged how underrated that movie is and how the only obligation in life his child should have is to possess a good movie taste; a guy who admitted that he had an insane crush on Megara and the muses (who didn't). She chose a guy who doodled little storks on his note. She chose a guy who called himself Prongs, who held an Art History Degree and looked like he immensely enjoyed a little mischief when he was a child.
She chose a guy she's about to meet. Again, apparently.
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Last week was filled with meetings, hastily ironed shirts and few anxiety attacks. She's never been without Harry for so long but she had to leave him with Mary in Scotland because the poor thing would bore himself out of his mind and drive her spare on the occasion.
She's partially glad that her car broke down. Otherwise, it would take her at least seven hours to get there, and that's few hours too many for her. She misses Harry like crazy and in her preference, the fastest way to get to him sounds best.
Lily doesn't fly all that often, something about being stuck in a metal contraption with complete strangers makes her heart unpleasantly lurch, but when she has no better option available, she prides herself on always managing to reserve a window seat, which in her humble opinion is the best seat anyone can get.
After spending more time than she should in the airports' bathroom, calming herself about the flight, Lily quickly broads the plane and goes to take her seat, 16E, only to find that there's already someone sitting in the window seat. Her window seat.
Perplexed at the sight before her she clears her throat, but the man keeps on scrolling through his phone as if he hasn't just committed the biggest faux-pas a person can commit on a plane.
It's personally one of her biggest fears. The mere thought of accidentally taking someone else' seat – whether it's at the cinema or a chair at a restaurant – makes her palm sweat, which is why she wants to deal with this as quickly and painlessly as possible.
However, all her humming and hawing evades the sneaky seat stealer. Prompted by the lack of a reaction, she lets out a faint theatre-worthy cough – she always knew those drama lessons would pay up, no matter what everyone said – and clears her throat again, in hope of eliciting any kind of a response.
This time she succeeds, and he raises his head so swiftly that it has her wondered if anything cracked in there.
For the first time, she takes in his appearance: bright hazel eyes twinkling beneath the shock of coal-black hair, stylish glasses perched on his almost too long nose, a left corner of his lips slowly lifts revealing a cute dimple that makes his face look more boyish. At first, he seems bewildered to see her standing there as if he didn't expect anyone else on this flight, but quickly his brows briefly frown and she sees the glint of recognition pass across his features.
"Evans? Lily Evans? Is that you?" he asks with a broad grin, and her stomach drops.
When she was booking the tickets her mind went through all the plausible disastrous ends of this flight, even an appearance of wild Adam Sandler who'd come to profess his love to some unfortunate soul, but it didn't foresee this one.
This is some Hallmark movie script coming to life.
She tightly closes her eyes, and momentarily considers pinching herself before opening them again, because this cannot be happening. She's certainly seeing things, she's overtired and stressed, her motion sickness medicine has some serious side effects.
But no, her eyes play no tricks on her, right there, on her window seat – 16E to be exact – there sits a man with an older, more structured, a few shades darker face of her sweet boy.
"Y-yes, this is she," Lily swallows, trying to push back the ginormous lump that seems to have lodged itself in her throat, and is making her sound like she's smoking cigarettes for breakfast. "I mean me. Evans, Lily Evans. Hullo."
She cringes at the vociferous sound of her own voice. "And who are you?"
The man responds cheerfully, "Potter. James Potter. We know each other."
That's an understatement, she thinks.
"We do?" she asks, glad to hear that her voice returned to a more pleasant tone.
"We sure do. We've spent a good portion of our tumultuous adolescent together," he says with a firm nod of his head.
Growing up in a relatively large town with a little over fifteen thousand citizens (as of 2014), Lily's not going to pretend that she knows everyone that has ever lived in Cokeworth. Still, he claims to know her, but his name – a very lovely name, masculine yet soft that she suddenly inexplicably yearns to whisper somewhere in the dark – tells her absolutely nothing; apart from the fact that it has been clearly too long since she had an opportunity to release some tension.
As a teenager, she's only been gallivanting in two places. As she excludes her smog-dimmed hometown, that leaves her with only one other option, that doesn't seem remotely possible to her.
She narrows her eyes at him, suspiciously, "Nice try, mate, but I went to girls-only school in Scotland."
"Called Hoggins, right?" he peered at her from behind his glasses. "Well, as it happens I attended Wards. Our schools were separated by this huge park. Don't tell me you don't remember The Forbidden Forest." At her silence, he urges on without malice, "I know it's been over a decade but surely your memory can't be that bad."
Lily watches him, puzzled, trying to put a name to a face, but all she sees is Harry.
It's been a decade since she finished school and only vaguely recalls something from that time. Noting her gobsmacked expression, he gives her a sheepish grin and shrugs, his face turning a faint red.
"I'm sorry, I just assumed you'd remember." He briefly pauses for a moment and looks up at her with an odd look in his eyes, "On second thought maybe it's better if you don't."
Unsure how to respond to that she takes the empty seat beside him, completely forgetting about the window situation.
She's not a fan of awkward silences, and she senses that if she won't say something now, they'll spend the next hour feeling uncomfortable about that meeting. She allows herself one quick glance at him. His strong profile eerily matches with the one of a little boy that undoubtedly is eagerly waiting for her at the airport. A rush of tenderness sweeps over her as her eyes trail over his sharp nose, down to his thin mouth softened by a touch of a weak smile, until they settle on his jaw and as it twitches, something jolts something inside her.
Embarrassed, she turns away only to find a petite flight attendant smiling at her knowingly. She returns her a mindless smile and giggles to herself at the ridiculousness of this entire situation. Her seat was brazenly stollen – she assumes – by a man who is a picture perfect of her son, and the aforementioned man claims to know her. He is also remarkably attractive, and she's managed to make him regret ever opening his mouth within the first few minutes since she's known him, or so she thinks if the way his jaw still clenches can serve an any indication; and the flight attended who believes Lily is some lecherous tart who is going to shag a stranger on her plane (which isn't an unfair assumption albeit still unrealistic).
Her chuckles must have drawn him out of his reverie because he snaps his head in her direction, raising his eyebrows in question.
Lily rubs her forehead, feeling abashed. Then she asks, "So, how have you been?"
He slings her a brilliant grateful smile, "Quite brilliant actually. After uni, I lived with my mum's family in Greece for a while. Recently, I started my own company. Now, I'm heading to Edinburgh for my mate's wedding. How about you?"
She broke off the engagement to her boyfriend at 21, she published a successful book at 23, she also learned how to pole dance recently. Oh, and she's pretty sure she artificially inseminated herself with his sperm at 25. So pretty normal.
"Good. I've never been to Greece or started my own company, but I did publish a pretty decent book, so there's that."
"Oh, really? Anything I know?" he asks, genuinely curious.
Lily's heart rate doesn't subside from its nervous gallop; the words are gushing out of her in a torrent, "I doubt that. It's a fantasy rom-com about a charming teacher and a witty scientist, there are some magical hijinks involved, multidimensional time-travel, that sort of a thing."
She watches as his eyes widen comically, "You don't mean The Animagi series, do you?"
"Yeah actually," Lily said, beaming up at him. "Wait, you know it?"
A smile twitches at his lips. "Are you having a laugh right now? It's my favourite series." He adds noticing her incredulous grin, "I'm serious here. Josef and Lucy are my next Anne and Gilbert."
She bursts out a loud unabashed laugh at this, drawing the attention of other passengers who started to fill out the plane.
"Alright, don't get me wrong, I know my books are good, but comparing them to L.M Montgomery's work might be a tad too much," she says winking at him.
He cackles a short chuckle and raises his hands in mock surrender, "Hey, I'm just expressing my opinion as a devoted fan."
"Well, in that case – thank you. I appreciate it."
"You're very welcome Lily," his voice soft and sincere, a comforting warmth to her ears.
Their chat is cut short when the plane prepares for the takeoff. She goes through her familiar routine when she feels her ears “pop” as they climb through the altitudes; deep breaths, counting down from thirty, thoughts focused on landing and Harry. Lily almost grabs James's hand as the plane bolts up in the air, pushing her back into the chair. Someone, few seats behind them, is using an inhaler, and Lily recalls she forgot to ask the doctor, who is also coincidentally enough Mary's father if Harry won't need one since she caught him breathing a little funny one night.
A well-known ding sounds through, letting them know the plane has reached the cruising altitude, and Lily's heart returns to a regular beat.
The hum of the engines seems like a calm melody to her now, so she closes her eyes, only to be startled by James who asks without preamble, "So, L.C.Monday is not a real person?"
"What?" she turns her attention to him, baffled.
"That's the name on the cover, and since I know you're the authour I was wondering if..." he trails off.
"Oh, no, no," she catches on. "It's just my pen name. My publisher thought Lily Evans sounds too bland, so I opted to use my mother's maiden name," she explains to him.
"Well, I think it's rubbish." He adds quickly, his hazel eyes boggling, "The publisher! Not your mum's name. Although I think Lily Evans sounds brilliant as well."
She shrugs, "Not to the marketing apparently."
"What does marketing even know?"
"You mean apart from how to make sales pitch using the right words? Not much I imagine."
She joins him in laughter. He has such a lovely laugh, deep and rich, the kind of a laugh she could listen for ages, but it soon dies out when he asks looking almost reluctant to bring it up, "Does this mean that L.C Monday's biography is also not real? There was some mention of living in Scotland, with a husband and kids..."
"Some of it is rubbish."
"Oh," he says, a strange expression flitting across his face. "Which part exactly?"
"The one about Scotland," she says wanting to gloss over the subject of family." And some others."
"Others?" he prods.
"They've got the numbers wrong."
"You've got husbands and a kid?!"
"No. No. Just a kid. And no husband. Not now, and not ever."
"Huh. Maybe one day," he begins. "Crazy things tend to happen in Edinburgh. I once found a pound under the dumpster."
"Really? Wow, lucky you."
"Shut up. I was a student back then, it was a fortune for me."
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Apparently, sixty-three minutes is James Potter's limit when it comes to sitting in one place.
After their aimless chat (he's still mates with the same people since he was scrawny eleven-year-old; he attempted to climb Mount Everest when she was in labour; he's also very much single which he very nonchalantly brought into the conversation only three times), they both decide it's the right time to get some work done, pulling out their phones and laptops.
Not more than five minutes later James proclaims he needs to get up to walk around and stretch his legs or he'll go stir crazy.
During the time he's gone, she's managed to check her e-mails. She's got fifteen unread ones. Twelve of these messages are somehow related to her work. There's one from her aunt Milla who keeps forwarding her every Saturday with some inspiring quote; she started doing that after Lily's parents passed, and it's not that Lily's ungrateful about the concern, but for God's sake there's just so much of Paulo Coelho a girl can take.
Since she left for London Mary's mum keeps sending her pictures of Harry – in the park, in the zoo, scraping his knees, eating ice-cream, beaming up at her through the screen; bless her for that because Lily needed her daily dose of that sweet face.
The last one is from Dom, but this one will remain unread, and later on, once they'll land and she'll get to Mary's, she will delete it while drinking her doubts away with few healthy glasses of wine.
"I hope you don't mind me asking, but is The Dad still around or did he make the biggest mistake of his life and left?" a voice comes behind her making her jump.
"No, he isn't, but it's a fair bit more complicated than that," Lily says as she tries not to put her hand to her chest and calm her heart to a steadier pace.
"His loss."
"His choice really." Legally speaking, at least until Harry is eighteen years old and gets the right to obtain contact the donor. And then Lily won't have to wonder whether she was correct thinking it was that bloke she met on a plane fifteen years prior.
James gives a noncommittal hum and his fingers start to drum a familiar beat before they disappear in his hair.
"Pleasure or business?"
"Hmm?" she darts her eyes back up from his fingers and notes how thick and dark his limbal ring is, how perfectly it outlines his hazel eyes making them even lighter, almost golden-like, drawing her closer and closer.
"Edinburgh. Are you just passing through?"
She shakes her head, "No, I actually am visiting a friend."
"Oh, that's fun," he slings her another bright, full-teethed smile, and she feels her insides churn.
His fingers make their return to the armrest with their insistent drum. This time there's no rhythm to it; it's fast and rough, borderline nail-breaking thudding, and as abruptly it started, just as abruptly it stops.
Frowning she looks up at him only to find him staring at her with a foreign intensity like he's trying to transmit his thoughts to her just by the sheer power of his stare.
He opens his mouth, but nothing comes out, instead, he closes his eyes, gulps some air and then he says in a rush as if he might actually burst if he holds it in for any longer, " Alright, it's been bugging me since I saw you, but I have a confession to make."
Lily's overactive imagination is having a feast upon his words; it set down candles, nice new tablecloth, and waits for him to sit down and eat her alive.
"School is not the only place I know you from," he cracks one eye open, the rest of his face twists in a grimace.
Oh, God.
He knows.
Somehow there's been a leak in clinic's database, someone decided to go all Lisbeth Salander on their firewalls and hardware (she admits she knows nothing about computers, apart from the most important action of turning it on and off), and he found out, booked the same flight as she, and... – and, and what?
He's not going to push her out of the plane, that's for sure because (point a) that's insane and bloody unlikely and (point b) even if he'd tried to, overlooking the fact she might be on the shorter side, she's scrappy and he's a lean streak of nothing (a very fit nothing with forearms to die for) so she could probably take him.
There's the possibility he was counting on snapping a picture of her getting frisky with a stranger in the loo after her inhibitions would go down thanks to stress-reducing liquor spree. Child custody solicitors love pictures like that.
Yet, there's something telling her he wouldn't do that. Lily is uncertain where this conviction is coming from – considering she's known him for a tad more than an hour, but somehow thinking ill about him feels unjust, and she's not the type of a person who judges others because her mind decided to go on a spiral.
"I don't know if you don't mention it because you're being tactful about the whole thing or you actually don't remember anything," he goes on, completely unaware of the turmoil he causes her. "But I can just sit here and pretend."
Her heart knocks frantically against her ribs like a fly in a room with no exits and letting it out is not an option, lest it will use the nearest window as an escape route, and she has no intentions in orphaning her son.
"Oh." This is all her brilliant, awarded mind gives her after she's been feeding with all the slimy oily fish and other beans and seeds for months.
"So how about I'll just say it, and " a deep sighing breath leaves his mouth and it is doing nothing to alleviate his tension or his twitch. "You let me apologise?"
Wait? Wha – apologise?
"Here it goes." He turns sideways in his seat as he speaks, " Notting Hill."
He says it with such a resign as if he's just announced that her husband didn't make it through the operation, and he did his best to save him.
"What?" she looks at him quizzically, then quickly recovers in the next heartbeat. "What are you on about?"
"Notting Hill. The one in London."
"Yes, I know where Notting Hill is." She did live there for a while after all. "What does this have to do with us?"
James squints his eyes at her as if he's assessing the authenticity behind her nonplus.
"You honestly don't remember anything? It couldn't be more than five years ago."
He continues when she shakes her head no. " During the year when I graduated from uni I was...let's just say going through some things. Nothing illegal, or anything, but it had me down for a while, so my mate Remus suggested I take a breather and in meantime, he set me up on a date with this girl from his study group – I think her name was Eva or something like that."
Lily imagines Eva as a bosomy blue-eyed blonde who is into charity work when she finds time between studying her shapely arse off to obtain a law degree and browsing through Lounge Lingerie website. Everyone loves Eva, she's kind, a right hoot when the opportunity calls, and she knows all the dirty jokes to entertain James's friend with when he leaves her with them going to the loo.
Fucking Eva and her stretch-marks-free body.
"He gave me her number, we fixed a time and a place. The day comes, I put on a new shirt, spray a fair bit of Axe, buy some flowers from around the corner, get to the Portobello Road half an hour early and I wait. And then I wait some more, one hour, two, three, enough to feel cold and pathetic – she doesn't come."
Eva also apparently serves part-time as a bloody idiot. How unfortunate.
"My first date in a while and I get stood up. I remember standing there with those stupid daisies, freezing my bits off and cursing Remus to Dante's hell for trying to help a lost cause like me," he smiles and gives a little shrug, and a sudden urge to hold him close to her bosom appears.
"However," the same smile that seemed so sad to her a moments ago, now looks more shy and affectionate. "Sometimes bad things end on a good note. As I'm about to give up completely and head home to wallow in solitude, I spot a familiar face in the crowd." He leans into her and lowers his voice "It was you by the way."
"But I don't –"
"Yes, I know you don't remember me from school – and trust me when I say it might be a blessing because I was an arrogant little berk in my youth – but back then, at Notting Hill, you either did remember or you were just kind enough to pretend that you did, when you saw what a deeply miserable sod was heading your way."
She cuts herself some slack for not remembering him from school, if memory serves her right there are roughly over four hundred boys at Wards each year, she has a right to not recall one face, even if it's incredibly fit one. Especially since she's spent her last few years at Hoggins experiencing the pleasure of Stefano Chaves's rugby-formed goods.
(Mmmm...Stefano...)
She asks him when The Notting Hill debacle happened. He pretends to think hard before answering. As soon as he answers something jolts at the back of her mind.
December of 2012.
A lot of things had happened in December of 2012. There was Mary who persistently tried to convince to do various questionable things under the pretext of the end of the world; there was Dom who clearly misunderstood the meaning of their post-breakup one night stand (a mess she can only blame herself for); and of course her book, her first published book, which completely out-of-nowhere turned out to be quite successful and ultimately set a new path in her life.
"I asked you on a whim if you'd like to accompany me on a walk around the Kyoto Garden, and you in all your generosity agreed. We've spent a truly lovely, beyond lovely, night together and when we parted I promised to call you, but I never did."
He bows his head ruefully, and his fingers grip the strands of his hair yet again and she's got solid plans to break those damn things if he does it again.
Finally, he looks back at her. "There's no explanation for such appalling behaviour. My mum would take all my gas money if she knew. So please, accept my apologies."
Is he for real? He's sitting there apologising for something that happened years ago, something that might not show him in the best light, but it's not the worst that's ever happened to her, meanwhile, she doesn't even recognise him.
Lily waves him off. " Don't be ridiculous, you've got nothing to be sorry for."
"But I –"
"No, I won't heart it," she states firmly. "It's been ages ago, and I'm a firm believer in letting bygones be bygones."
"Oh my God, really?" palpable relief shudders through him, and his entire body visibly relaxes in his seat.
She bites her bottom lip down to withhold the laughter that threatens to escape her at his reaction.
"Really, really. How does a fresh start sound like?"
A huge bright grin that appears on his face makes him look even more like Harry than ever, and something ugly twists inside her.
"It sounds brilliant. I love fresh things: fruits, air, sheets," he clears his throat awkwardly and cuts her a quick glance. "How about I'll start?"
"Hi, I'm James." He's smiling at her, his eyes soft, and his hand extended waiting for her to accept, "Huge fan."
She stares down at his limb like it has all the answers to ending of the Inception and she's not sure if she's ready for them.
His hand feels wonderfully right when enveloped around much smaller that belongs to her.
"Hi, I'm Lily." Mother of your son. "Nice to meet you."
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Lily escapes their little bubble under the pretence of his fidgetiness being contagious, and darts straight into the lavatory in hope that the coffee smell will make her thoughts more sombre from the daze that this flight has put her in.
She needs to reevaluate the situation she's in.
She was supposed to take her car and drive from London to Edinburgh to pick up Harry from Mary's. The old piece of junk graced her with its last breath just as she was about to leave the city, so forced to use an alternative form of travel – and Benjy's help with the car – she booked the earliest flight she could.
She was looking forward to spending an hour working on some drats, instead, she got...James.
Lovely James.
He blindsided her sitting there in the seat, she still believes belongs to her, and looking so much like Harry.
Now, come to think about it, maybe they don't look as much alike as she initially thought they do, maybe she subconsciously assumed they do because her brain recognised him from that night in Notting Hill, adding it all to the fact she hasn't seen Harry for a week (pictures and video calls don't count), and she can feel her mind deterring away from sanity.
If there only was some objective individual who'd look at her current predicament with a sharp eye and unafraid would blast her with a cold hard truth straight in the face, politely of course.
Unfortunately, she's stuck in a plane full of strangers, so there's no prospect of obtaining such a – oh, right; she's so clueless sometimes.
"I have an odd question for you," Lily accosts the same blonde attendant that was smirking at her as they were taking off.
She lifts her gaze, and tentatively smiles, "How can I help?"
"No, you don't understand, when I say odd, I mean odd," she accentuates, throwing a sneaky glance in James's direction that he easily catches as his eyes were on her since she left the loo.
"How odd exactly?" the attendant – Marlene, her reads tag – replies in a stage whisper.
She hesitates. "Enough for you to have a great anecdote for the other flight attendants," she says after a while.
Marlene perks up and grants her with a sincere grin, "How can I say no to that?"
"Brill." She starts, reaching for her pocket. "I'm going to show you a picture on my phone and you, subtly, looking at the man on a seat next to mine – subtly! Jesus, lady please," she implores as Marlene promptly turns around. "You'll tell me if the boy on that picture and him look anything alike, alright?"
She takes a deep breath and shoves her phone under Marlene's nose. There's a brief pause – a gut-wrenching pause – as Marlene studies the picture, briefly awing at her son (as she should because he's bloody adorable), then surprisingly inconspicuously glances at James and then back again at her phone, repeating the movement several times. At last, she stops and looks at Lily saying flatly, "As like as two peas in a pod."
A loud brush curse springs from her mouth, startling Marlene and earing her few less than pleasant glares from the other passengers.
She flashes them an awkward smile in acknowledgement, and promptly darts out of their eyesight.
"Fuck, fucking fuck fuck fuck" she realises starts to sound like a broken rubber duck. "Fucking Hercules, and the whole fucking Disney, and his fucking doodles!"
"Umm... ma'am, are you having some sort of a breakdown?" When Lily doesn't respond, the blonde carries on, "If you are, I'd kindly ask you to postpone it until after we land."
Lily stares at her, incredulous, "You'd kindly ask me to postpone it? Seriously?"
The girl sighs and draws a bit closer. "Listen, this is my last day on this job, I just want this plane to land, take my shit and drown my sorrows in the furthest pub from the airport as it's possible. So please, pretty please, go back to your seat and wait few more minutes. After we're on the ground I'll even buy you a drink myself and you can tell all about why you have baby pictures of other passengers, hm?"
Lily opens her mouth, aghast at the suggestion, but quickly closes it realising that the truth is even more madcap.
"Very well, but only because you helped me earlier," she responds loftily, and turns around.
"What was that all about?" James asks before she reaches her seat.
"Toilet paper is gone," she says wretchedly.
"Already? It's a one hour flight."
"Right? I was so glad when my car broke down. I thought I will see Harry sooner, but now I'm stuck in the air with no toilet paper."
"Is that your son? Harry?"
"Umm, yep. Harry," she says dropping her eyes.
"Why Harry?" he asks.
He doesn't need to know she named her son after a character in her favourite movie, so she lies. "It's a family name," she says, wringing her hands.
"No shit. Same for me. It was my grandpa's name. Never met him, but he was allegedly a stand-up guy. His name was actually Henry. But everyone knew him as Harry. Harry Potter. Sounds good, doesn't it?"
Dammit, it does.
She hums noncommittally waiting for Captain's announcement about the time and weather, and most importantly how much longer until they actually touch the ground.
She doesn't have to wait for long, soon a voice informs they are about to start their descent. She securely fastens her seat belt noticing from the corner of her eye James doing the same. Shortly after the No Smoking sign blinks indicating the landing clearance.
"Ladies and gentlemen," flight attendant's voice comes on over the intercom, "We have just been cleared to land at the Edinburgh airport. Please make sure one last time your seat belt is securely fastened. The flight attendants are currently passing around the cabin to make a final compliance check and pick up any remaining cups and glasses. Thank you."
Lily reaches to her jeans pocket to dig out some gum, usually, it helps her to alleviate the pressure that comes with the landing.
The plane touches down with a short jolt, and then the engines start to idle and the plane slows down pretty fast.
While they're waiting for the plane to decompress, Lily tries to stare down the Fasten Seat Belt sign into turning off, so she could check if Mary texted her that she and Harry are already at the gate. A light tap on the shoulder stirs her, and she turns to see James who is smiling gently down at her, "I was just wondering if there's anyone waiting for you at the airport." He continues when she raises her eyebrow at him, " Because my mate is coming to collect me, and I'm sure there would be no issue if you wanted to hitch a ride with us."
"Thanks for the offer, but my friend brings my son and they are probably already bouncing up in the anticipation at the gate, and by they I mean mostly Mary."
The sound of their laughter gets swallowed by the ruckus of other passengers leaving the plane.
As she pops open the overhead compartment to pull out her carry-on a sudden thought occurs her – within the next few minutes Harry and James are going to be in the same vicinity. James will for sure see Harry running up to her for a hug, and he'll take one good look at him and then he'll know, and then Mary, oh, God, Mary will lose her shit. Ever since the early days of the artificial insemination business Mary – an avid soap opera viewer – was convinced that Harry's dad will turn out to be some handsome prince of small European country like Genosha who in act of rebellion against the monarchy decided to wank off into to the cup.
"Are you alright?" James's concerned voice reaches her ears.
She looks up at him and wonders how different her life would be like if she had taken a bus instead. On the other hand, perhaps she was always meant to be in this place at the same time as he; perhaps this was fate's work all along – nudging her into inevitable; perhaps this will turn out to be nothing and they'll have quite a laugh about the whole thing.
"Yeah," she laughs softly biting down on her lip, "I believe it will be. No matter what."
James's quizzical look tells her he's not buying her offhanded lie but for now, he chooses not to press and sidesteps her to head towards the way out.
As she watches his head (and his rather firm bum) disappear from her eyesight, she realises she's way more excited about the incoming outcome than she initially thought.
It must be all that Irn-Bru Bars she ate in the hotel. Nothing makes her braver than a spoonful of sugar and chemicals.
With few deep breaths and smile on her face, she follows James out to into brisk Scotland's weather.