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“We have a 21-year-old male, laceration from the right pectoral muscle to the lower left abdomen, heavy bleeding,” a nurse declared, pushing a gurney through the doors of Lily’s emergency department at St Mungo’s.
She’d been so busy these days. Not only was there a terrible war raging on with no end in sight, but also, more and more Healers were quitting as the working conditions worsened. Lily couldn’t find it in her heart to leave, though. Helping people was her passion. She had to do her part in fighting for their cause, even if she was overworked and underpaid.
Understanding the urgency of the matter at hand, Lily wasted no time pulling back the man’s crimson-soaked robes. She used her wand to cut open his shirt to reveal the nasty gash pulsating blood out with every beat. They finished pushing the man into an empty room, and Lily turned to the nurse. “Get me Blood Replenisher, Pain Potion, Essence of Driftnil, and Dittany, stat.”
He left the room, and Lily returned to the wound, trying her usual tricks to sew the muscles back together and cover the bones she could see under the mess of red. It wasn’t working. She attempted a few more spells, all of which refused to stitch up his flesh. “Come on…” she muttered under her breath, racing the clock for his life.
“Evans?” A low croak broke her frustrated concentration.
Her eyes panned up to look at her patient's face. “Potter?!” She couldn’t believe she hadn’t noticed it was him before. Suddenly, she felt her face flush and became hyperaware that her non-wand hand was resting on his bare stomach. You’re a Healer, for fuck’s sake. This is your job. No need to get weird about it now…
James’ face went from pained to dazed to cracking into a lazy, shit-eating grin in rapid succession. “If I’d known all it took to get you to take my clothes off was getting gutted, I may have done it sooner.”
James sodding Potter: on his possible deathbed and still hitting on her. She tried not to notice how pale his usually tan skin was… and hated herself for even remembering his usual complexion in the first place.
He winced. “Please don’t kill me as retribution, Evans.”
Lily scoffed, returning to her wandwork, flicking her wrist wildly. “Of course not. I’m a professional, Potter. I took an oath to help all my patients… even if that patient happens to be you.”
James smiled before cursing as another one of Lily’s spells failed. “Thanks, Evans. You’re a lifesaver,” he said through gritted teeth.
Lily rolled her eyes and noticed his go wide as he groaned.
“Oh no, that was horrible.” His right hand came up to slap himself in the face.
“Sorry, I’m doing my best here; try not to move—”
“No,” James cut her off. “I meant I’m sure you’ve heard that line hundreds of times. This blood loss is making me terribly unoriginal.”
Lily had to smile at his obvious embarrassment and ability to remain flippant in the face of imminent peril.
“Just let me die,” he sighed dramatically.
“No can do, Potter. I have a record to uphold.”
The nurse came back and dropped off the supplies at the table next to her, then went to work setting up some machines to monitor James’ vitals.
James smirked. “Of course you do. Well, I’m finally glad you never gave me the time of day at school because you were ‘too busy studying,’” he said weakly.
Lily wiped her brow, angrily uncorking one of the potions and dripping the brown liquid onto his lesion. It hissed and emitted purple smoke. “Well fat lot of help it’s doing me now. What did you get hit with?!”
James was fading. She had to figure this out, and fast. She quickly grabbed the Blood-Replenishing Potion and brought it to his lips, cradling the back of his head. Her nurse did a quick spell to clean the blood off his glasses, and Lily was rewarded with an unhindered look into James’ hazel eyes. She’d never really given him proper eye contact while at school. He was always staring at her, but whenever she held his gaze for too long, she’d get hot and flustered in places she didn’t particularly like to admit. She never liked his power over her body’s reactions, thus had worked extremely hard to avoid him altogether. It had made her feel like a silly schoolgirl that he affected her so… even when she’d actually been a silly schoolgirl.
James mumbled, “Death Eater… silent spell.” He sipped slowly, his head getting heavier and heavier in Lily’s palm.
Her adrenaline kicked into overdrive, and she felt her heart racing, willing herself to be better, be smarter, to save him. Then it clicked. Death Eater. She knew this curse. She’d seen her former best friend attempt it on a cat—and sobbed and sobbed until she got him to tell her the countercurse. It had been the end of their friendship as well as the poor cat’s life since she hadn’t acted hastily enough.
Like hell Potter’s going out the same way as that cat, Lily told herself resolutely. She put his head back onto the pillow and urgently began her incantation, relief flooding through her as she finally started seeing some progress. James groaned, but she watched as his muscles slowly mended under her masterful work. Lily let out a secret sigh of relief.
James’ coloring started returning to normal, even as his breathing remained laborious. She allowed herself the chance to study him, telling herself internally that it was her frigging job. His eyes had fluttered closed underneath his thick lashes, and his mouth relaxed, leaving his full lips slightly parted. His strong jaw looked even more defined than how she remembered it at 18. She silently wondered what else had changed in the three years since she’d seen him last as her eyes wandered back down to his chest.
That has… I mean, she knew he had been ripped at school while he was playing all that Quidditch, but these were the muscles of a man. His new scab rippled over his abs, and she lightly skimmed her fingertips over it, half remembering she should be working on trying to prevent scarring.
“So what’s the diagnosis, doc? Am I gonna die?”
Lily pulled her straying fingers back like she’d been burned, blushing profusely at getting caught ogling his body. When she looked up at his bewitching eyes, she saw he was smirking oh-so smugly. Damn boy has always known he is hot as hell.
“Yes,” she sniped back at him, utterly humiliated that she’d all but confirmed her physical attraction to him. “But not today.”
James laughed, then immediately grimaced as the action put strain on his new, tender skin. “Jeez, Evans, you can’t do that to me.”
Lily quickly uncorked the Pain Potion.
“Joking about a patient’s death doesn’t scream professionalism. I may just need to have a chat with your ethics department…”
The edges of Lily’s lips pulled upwards slightly. “Well, that’s what you get for being so bloody dramatic.”
Lily helped James’ head up once more, threading her fingers through his hair and bringing the concoction to his mouth.
He drank greedily. “Mm, that feels amazing,” he sighed.
“It should. It’s for the pain.”
James licked his lips, drawing Lily’s eyes to them briefly—stop it—as he swallowed his dose. “Not the potion. Your fingers in my hair.” He winked at her cockily.
Lily couldn’t help but snort as she grabbed the Dittany again, hoping it would work now that she had removed the dark magic from his body. “You never give up, do you?” she asked, fighting her smile, but she knew James could see it anyway.
“Nope,” James admitted freely. ”Who knows? Maybe my brush with death has made me even more bold.”
Lily poured some Dittany onto a cotton ball and dabbed it lightly on his scar, bending over his chest to reach the top end. “Merlin have mercy on us all,” she mumbled. She felt his warm gaze linger on her as she continued her work on his body. “You know, this won’t look half bad after I’m done with you. Plus, chicks dig scars,” she added playfully. She snuck him a glance and saw his toothy grin.
“Duly noted, Evans.” His eyes finally wandered down to his own body before he gasped exaggeratedly. “My nipple!”
Lily jumped back, spilling some Dittany in the process. “What?”
“My nipple! Where’d it go?” James asked in a tizzy.
Lily’s brow scrunched. “Well… you came in without it. I mended the wound, but I didn’t recreate anything that was already missing.”
James painfully got up onto his elbows, looking down at his pecs mournfully. “My poor nipple, magicked right off…”
Lily held in a giggle. Act professional, act professional, you idiot. “James, it’s not that big of a deal. It’s not like you need them.”
James let out a sharp exhale, looking up at her. “Spoken like someone who still has both of her nipples.”
The nurse gave a snort from the other side of James’ gurney, awkwardly reminding both of them that he was, in fact, still there.
“Look, you’re making Greg uncomfortable,” Lily said in mock exasperation. “Greg, could you please go see if Healer Patel is still here?” She turned back to James. “He specializes in more cosmetic spellwork. I’m sure he could conjure you up a top-notch nipple.”
The nurse left the room, relieved.
James grinned deviously. “What, Evans? Too strange to give me one yourself?”
Lily felt her cheeks burn as she went back to applying the liquid to his scar. Damn this man and his effect on my soul. “Knowing you, you’d somehow go back in time just to show it off to me and rub it in my face.” There was a quick beat. “Metaphorically.”
James’ grin grew wider. “Probably literally too. I was a bit of a git back in Hogwarts, wasn’t I?”
Lily got down to rubbing his abs. His delicious, unfairly defined abs. “Just a bit.” She smiled despite herself. This conversation, what she was doing—it was all too much for her to deal with after only four hours of sleep and who knew how many months—years?—of her dry spell. “Honestly, I’m surprised I never heard from you after school ended.” She felt like she was revealing an awful lot with this small statement. Noticing implied caring.
James thought she sounded sort of sad. “I needed to take the hint at some point, didn’t I? I mean, I could hardly be a good Auror if I was secretly a stalker myself.”
Lily bit her lip, nodding her head. She’d never admit it, but it wasn’t until after she graduated, and he was finally out of her hair, that she realized what her friends had always known. She sort of fancied the arsehole. However, at that point, it was far too late, and she had much too much dignity to go running after him, confessing she had been a fool. Lily missed his constant attention. She missed his quips and their quarrels. And now, looking down at his hard, perfect specimen of a body, apparently she’d missed out on a whole lot more too.
“I never thought you were a stalker, Potter…” she whispered.
James cocked his head to the side, analyzing her. He reached out and put his hand gently upon hers, stilling her ministrations temporarily. “Thank you.” He gave her an earth-shattering smile. “For saving my life.”
“Any time.” Her emerald eyes got lost in his for a moment, but then she pulled herself out of his irresistible influence. She pushed a stray red lock that had escaped her ponytail back behind her ear with her free hand. “On second thought, take that back. Don’t do it any time. I don’t think I could handle that much stress in my life.”
James gave her hand a squeeze, drawing her gaze back towards him. “Sorry I gave you a scare there, Lily.” He said her name reverently, like it was his favorite.
She was so confused. What changed? Was it really just a sharper jawline? The maturity she heard in his voice? The way he was looking at her in the same manner he always had—like she was his whole world and he’d do anything she asked? Or was the thought of actually losing him forever when she’d never even given him, given them, a real chance what had finally done her in?
Before she knew it, she’d brought her lips down to his and captured him in a sweet kiss. She gasped when she realized what she was doing, trying to pull back, but he kept her there, tracing his fingers up her cheeks and into her hairline as he kissed her with everything he had until she felt weak in the knees. When their mouths eventually broke free, and they were leaning forehead to forehead, she saw James’ shit-eating grin return.
“What?” Lily asked breathlessly.
Mischievously he replied, “You were right: chicks dig scars.”