Chapter Text
Monday 9th December
It was exactly 1000 days since Lily Evans had seen Pandora Rosier in person.
God, she had seen her though. Social media, huge adverts in central London, even on national television. She had executed that perfect balance between an indie style and an ‘alternative’ following, and hall-of-fame stardom and sold-out concerts.
No matter how hard anyone tried, Pandora had never been the kind of person who could be pinned down. Less like a wisp of smoke and more like the northern lights, a magnificent dance that could never be touched, only gazed at in awe at the sheer impossibility of their existence.
But once upon a time, Lily had managed to capture this marvel, encased it in a glass jar that had nestled itself inside her heart. For a time, she had held onto Pandora in all her impossibility and truly believed she could dig her nails in and keep her there forever.
That time was now long gone, slipped out of her eager grasp and high into the sky where Pandora belonged, a rising starlet. The one who had made it out, and in doing so finally had her dream. And Lily wasn’t at all bitter about it.
She wished she could say that, after all this time, Pandora double-crossing her mind was a rarity. But Lily’s brain had granted her no such luxury. It could be something so simple she saw that instantly transported her to a time when things were simpler, when Pandora was hers and the biggest worry the two had about their relationship was whether they could spend as much time together as possible and still pass their exams. This evening, it was the bright spark of Christmas lights that adorned almost every house and Lily’s street as she walked home from the train station, some gold and some silver and some every colour imaginable, that had thrown her back into memories she would rather push away. The lights and decorations were always Pandora’s favourite part of Christmas, so much so that once, in their early days around this time of year, Lily had brought the two of them to the light show at some grand, up-market botanical garden, where they covered the trees and shrubs and winter-withered flowers with festive lights for the public to enjoy. The image of her then-girlfriend’s face beaming with joy, lit up with both reflections and wonder, burned in her brain, an irremovable and painful tattoo.
That familiar ache was back. It seated itself in her heart, filling the gap that the jar had left, its contents lost to the wind.
The cutting evening breeze whipped at Lily’s scarf and loose hair as she fumbled with the small metal gate in front of her family’s terraced house. Her face, flushed by the cold, stung as it was hit with the sudden warmth of the house when she opened the door, ready to relax after a tiring and entirely fruitless day of research, and she was yearning for a few moments alone where she wasn’t ordered around like a barely spare pair of hands. This hope immediately died as, instead of peace, she was met with a swath of chaos.
Old-school Christmas songs blared from a speaker in the kitchen, which combined with the crashing of metal pots and pans created a cacophony of noise that made Lily’s already tired and aching head hurt even more as she slipped off her shoes and padded down the hallway. Maggie, their elderly golden spaniel, seemed to be hiding in the lounge, her face buried in her bed as she tried to drown out the noise. A part of Lily really wanted to join her.
She entered the kitchen somewhat cautiously, unsure of what to expect. Now she was closer to the source, a faint burnt smell drifted towards her, an ominous warning to what she may find. Initially, the kitchen seemed to be unoccupied, but then her mother’s distinctive head of silver-blond hair made itself known just above the island countertop.
“Someone call Bake Off, we’ve got next week’s star baker lined up!” Lily laughed as she joined her mother in the no man’s land of deep orange terracotta, flinching at the wave of heat that wafted from the open oven. “Seriously, is everything ok?”
Her mother got to her feet and shut the oven with only a small hint of frustration, and brushed the stray hairs out of her face that had escaped from her ponytail. “Nothing, nothing to worry about.” She waved her hands in a futile attempt to stop her youngest from worrying. “The potatoes might just be a little crispy and I’ve definitely not made enough gravy and I haven’t even started to think about dessert yet, but still nothing I can’t handle.” She said hurriedly, bustling past Lily to get to a different cupboard in search of who knows what. As if everything was perfectly in order, she continued to talk, “How was your day darling? Did that lab manager keep giving you a hard time?”
Lily didn’t really hear her as the pieces fell into place that jogged her memory.
Dinner. Her sister Petunia, who had been practically glowing from the excited honeymoon period of her first serious relationship, had invited her boyfriend, Vernon, and his parents around for dinner. And if Vernon’s parents were anything like him, Lily would soon wish she was as far from the house as possible.
In an attempt to hide her disgust, she mimicked her mother’s swift change of subject. “No, no problems I couldn’t handle. I’m still not trusted with anything actually interesting, and I mean I don’t blame them, but how am I supposed to learn if nothing ever happens?” Since starting her uni placement year at a highly esteemed biochemistry lab, Lily felt entirely expendable at work. After so many years of being a shining star academically, of being leaps and bounds ahead of most of her peers, she had found it difficult to adjust to an environment where she was the novice tailing behind. Day to day, she was surrounded by people who had been in the profession for years, very few of which had time to bother with the student who lay in wait for any scrap of knowledge or excitement thrown in her direction.
Her mum pulled her into a one-armed hug and kissed her forehead. “Well either way you’ll be out of there before you know it. I swear, give it a few years and I think you’ll be running the place. Now, if you get started on some brownies for dessert, we just might cobble this meal together before everyone arrives.”
❅─•─❅─•─❅
About two hours later, Lily found herself sitting between her parents, picking half-heartedly with her fork at the burnt roast potatoes on her plate, trying her absolute best to bite her tongue and not say something she’d regret, or more something that would make Petunia not speak to her for a week. Or at least, speak to her less than she already did.
A month or two ago, when Petunia had first introduced her new boyfriend to the family, Lily had immediately made it clear that she was not a particular fan of his. There was something about his manner, about the way he spoke both to and about the lovestruck Petunia that just didn’t sit right with her. It had pressed on the bruise that was the sisters' already strained relationship, one brought about initially for reasons even Lily herself didn’t think she would ever truly understand. And just as she had predicted, Vernon’s parents were just as bad as him.
“All I’m saying is that fine, I don’t care how someone wants to live their life, but from a grammatical perspective it doesn’t make any sense! ‘They’ is a plural pronoun, always has been always will be. What, you expect me to address someone as multiple people? It’s just not how our language works, it’s ridiculous!” Mr Dursley (Lily had been introduced to him with a first name, but refused to put in the care to remember it) was complaining, mostly to himself. Both of her parents were silent, her mother clearly unsure of what she was supposed to say, and her father resorted to his usual tendencies of when faced with conflict, which was to not make a sound and hope the problem went away. The three Dursleys were nodding smugly to each other, but Petunia’s eyes were fixed on her sister, daring her to take the bait, to cause a row that Lily would be entirely blamed for by the other woman.
Lily thought her tongue might be bleeding by now for how long she had been biting it.
It had been like this almost the entire meal, with Mr Dursley and his carbon copy of a son steering the conversation into their lectures of misinformation. And each time, Lily had planned out carefully crafted counter arguments within her head, and each time she’d been the one who had to control herself. Her face was starting to get too warm, her hands wouldn’t stay still and she was met with the urge to escape. She had promised both her parents and herself that she wouldn’t cause a scene, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t lie through her teeth to slip away
“Oh god, I’ve just remembered I’m late to meet someone,” She stood up abruptly, ripping the table’s focus away from the rambling old man, who had probably moved on to insulting a different group of people by now. In response to the confused expressions she was met with, she briefly explained, unsure of where her words were coming from, “My friend Mary’s back home and this was the only night she was free to meet up. So sorry!”
Mary wasn’t home yet. She had been travelling around Europe, part of her time spent exploring and the other half teaching English to primary school kids. She would come home only a few days before Christmas, and Lily’s mother knew that. Lily caught her eye, the slightest shake of her head making her mother’s confused expression melt away. The both of them know this was for the better. If the Dursleys thought this was rude, Lily would happily continue their previous conversation another time and show them just how rude she could be when she wasn’t on her absolute best behaviour.
Grabbing her coat, hat and scarf, Lily pulled the front door open and was hit with the unpleasant reminder that it was, in fact, December, and the weather had only worsened since her journey home. She hesitated momentarily before turning around to grab the keys of her and Petunia's shared car. Both of them had learnt to drive in the small, dented silver vehicle, but she barely drove it anymore, instead taking the bus and train to work because her sister needed the car to get to her own job. Regardless, she confidently pulled out of the driveway, grateful that the car had not been stationary long enough to collect a wintery sheen of ice on its windscreen.
She didn’t really know where she was going, only that it was away from a place she could cause damage.
A deep-buried, entirely subconscious part of her brain taking over, she found herself en-route to the local park and its festive display of lights that the local community threw together every year.. A place her and Pandora used to run to a lot; after school, early in the morning or late at night, whenever one of them needed to escape. Lily had spent her whole childhood going to that park with her family, and yet the first time Pandora had brought her there it was like she was seeing it with new eyes, hidden beauty that revealed itself with Pandora’s gentle encouragement and careful eye.
But she was definitely, most entirely, over Pandora Rosier.
She parked the car somewhat carelessly on a stretch of tarmac that usually served purpose as a small car park and followed the footpath into the park. Almost every tree was swaddled in lights and outlines of various Christmas-themed characters were scattered along the edges of the path. Evening hadn’t quite given away yet to night, but it was late enough that most young families here to see the spectacles had returned to their warm homes, and the park was almost deserted.
Her feet dragged on the gravel path as she took in the decorations as if they weren’t almost identical every year. There was something comforting, however, about the predictability of it all. Lily had never been one for change: it was one of the reasons she liked the traditional parts of Christmas. In almost every other aspect of life, she had thrown tradition to the wind, but would never be able to let go of the simple family rituals that came around each year, the things they did just in their house and like no-one else. They brought back memories of her and Petunia being the epitome of sisters, when their biggest argument was who got the next turn with a new toy.
Lost in thought, she would’ve passed a certain bench without noticing anything out of the ordinary. Would have, at least, if someone hadn’t called her name.
“Lily?”
She knew that voice. She had heard it soften around her name for so long and was impossibly familiar with how it lilted up at the end. Pandora Rosier.
She turned instinctively, both mind and body so practised in appeasing every word that left that worshipped mouth.
That simple act of listening had once been one of love. So many acts of love she had wasted, she wasn’t sure how many she had left – left to give to someone who would take them and run in the distance, over the horizon with Lily’s heart as her hostage.
There was nothing she could do but let her eyes fall onto Pandora. She was sitting on the bench, wrapped in a navy material coat, the kind that everyone in romantic Christmas movies wear, that’s neither waterproof nor warm, rendering it entirely useless. Her blonde hair fanned out over her shoulders, the shorter bits curling round to frame her face. Lily could only stare.
“Pandora.” Lily wasn’t speaking. Her words were tumbling out her mouth, completely detached from her brain. “You came home? It's..” She wanted to say something like ‘it’s nice to see you,’ the kind of thing you would say when an old friend showed up out of the blue. An old friend perhaps, but maybe not an ex-girlfriend who had left you stranded two and a half years ago, completely disregarding the world and future you had built around her. Like Lily had said, she was completely over it and definitely not bitter at all. Still, the words didn’t quite feel right in her mouth, even if she wasn’t completely sure where she stood on the matter. “It’s been a while.” One thousand days exactly. Lily severely doubted that Pandora even knew that. What a cruel trick of fate this was to round this heartbreak out on an even number. To keep giving Lily the perfection she strived for anywhere but where she wanted it.
“Yeah…” Pandora trailed off. “Come on, sit down! I want to know what you’re up to these days.” She continued. Her friendliness felt forced, a poor attempt to smooth over the awkwardness, but still she spoke and moved with caution, as if to a wild, unpredictable animal. That caution entirely undermined the performance she was putting on, and Lily could read that plainly on her face. A selfish part of her wanted her to be the only person to read her that well, the only one to truly know her. After all, she doubted any of the singer’s shiny new friends knew the same Pandora that she did.
Lily didn’t know why she listened. If she wasn’t so caught in the moment, she could have snorted at how ridiculous this was; the pair of them catching up like old friends, grievances released like water under a bridge. If only Lily could let go that easily.
“I’m, uh, doing biochem at Bath, on my placement year at the moment and working at a research place.” She said hesitantly, keeping her information as impersonal as possible - this was an automatic response she gave to anyone: her parents’ friends, old teachers she ran into, people she had just met. During bouts of anger and sadness, she had planned out what she would do if she saw Pandora again: yell at her, beg her to come back, the whole lot of it. She had written letters and speeches and tore them to pieces when the pain was raw. And now all she could do was sit there and pretend none of it had ever happened. Pretend like she didn’t desperately want Pandora back. Even after everything she had done, Lily still stubbornly clung to the love they once had. “You?” She didn’t want to hear about how great Pandora’s life was, about all the friends she made, the people she had dated and the fans that adored her. But she asked anyway, a reflex of good manners.
Pandora smiled to herself, the reason for which Lily was not made privy to. “It’s been better, it’s been worse.” She turned her head to look at the other woman, and it was only now that, when the gently shifting lights caught her face, Lily could see the red stains about her blue eyes. Her face was free of tears, but the marks they made remained. She didn’t know how she hadn’t noticed sooner.
A part of Lily would always fight to return things to how they were, even outside of this specific situation. And so she gave into the instinct to help a loved one in pain, even if she believed that love to have died a long time ago.
“Pandora? Are you alright?” Lily said, leaning in closer and placing a comforting (and purely friendly) hand on her arm when the other girl tried to turn her head away.
“Yeah, yeah I-I’m fine. Just been dealing with some shit at work recently, that’s all.” Pandora hesitated, clearly just as unsure of how much to share in this unusual situation. “I made some mistakes and now I’m having to deal with the consequences – nothing I can’t handle – but my dad keeps asking me about it and he doesn’t– he doesn’t understand any of it. So I’m out here and my phone’s off. I just… needed a break.” New tears brimmed in her eyes as she met Lily’s concerned gaze.
Running away was nothing new for Pandora. There had been a few occasions when they were still in school where she would just disappear. It was never for very long, usually following an argument with her parents or a particularly bad day at school, but she would just run. The first time it had happened, the pair were just getting to know each other, testing the waters between friendly classmates and something more. Under the guise of needing to consult on some class work with Pandora, who hadn’t been there that day or the one before and had stopped answering Lily’s texts, she tracked down her twin brother, Evan, and abruptly questioned him on his sister’s whereabouts. At the time, she couldn't quite pin down the reason as to why she was so concerned, but that, of course, later became evident. She had been so caught up in herself that Evan’s shrug made her fly into a fit of rage, enough so that she’d been ignorant to the dejected look in his eyes, or how his display of nonchalance was purely a facade. He wasn’t careless, he was just coping. And Lily would soon learn to. And so Pandora kept on running, until one day she ran out of Lily’s life altogether.
She had been pulled out of the conversation by her own reminiscing, her mind still a restless tide controlled entirely by Pandora’s moon. “Oh, okay.” Lily choked out. She so badly wanted to respond vindictively, comment on how sticking around to deal with problems was not exactly Pandora’s area of expertise. But she couldn’t kick someone who was already down, especially someone she used to love.. Maybe still did, a little bit, no matter how hard she fought against her own heart.
The silence dragged on slightly longer than it should have. A part of Lily cursed herself for sitting down in the first place and not running at the first sight of her ex. But a second part, perhaps a younger, more naive part, was still trapped in that magnetic field around Pandora, drawing Lily in mercilessly until she was so close she couldn’t pull away. That part didn’t want to fight the magnetic pull, and it had destroyed Lily before and would again if it got the chance.
She had to get out before it was too late.
Even now, sitting on that bench beside her, Lily couldn’t help but notice how vulnerable Pandora was to the elements, with nothing covering her head or face. She wanted to offer her scarf or hold her freezing hands until they were warm again. In summary, Lily needed to get a fucking grip on her weeping heart.
These were dangerous thoughts, ones she needed to cut the flow of as soon as possible. “I just remembered I’m supposed to be at a family dinner tonight.” She said abruptly, jumping to her feet and already starting to walk away. “Petunia’s got her boyfriend round. I just really need to go.” At least that part was true.
Pandora might have said goodbye, but Lily couldn’t – or didn’t want to – hear it. Her feet carried her without hesitation back to her car and, once she was in its protective bubble, she may have broken just a little. But only she needed to know that.
❅─•─❅─•─❅
Tuesday 10th December
In comparison to yesterday, Lily’s day was perfectly normal and entirely uneventful. She went through the motions and thought of Pandora far too many times (she already did on a regular day, but last night’s encounter had her train of thought veering dangerously towards destruction even more frequently).
And so the hours passed, each unremarkable to the next, until the early evening, when Lily was met with a slew of notifications on her phone, which she had been ignoring in favour of finishing her book. Confused by the complete anomaly of the situation, she investigated immediately. The number of followers she had on her public Instagram had skyrocketed, not particularly high but a significant change from what they had been days before. Not only that, but she also had a large handful of instant messages, which she opened somewhat cautiously. The first that caught her eye made her heart trip a little, as if it had momentarily forgotten how to work.
Pandora.
It was a very old personal account of hers Lily had forgotten she still followed, since it was pretty much never active. She looked away for a second and took a deep breath before clicking on it, hoping that the two rarities could be linked somehow.
xpanda_rx: hey lily, it’s pandora
xpanda_rx: you probably weren’t that happy to see me last night and i’m sorry i just turned up out of nowhere like that. but i also know that i fucked up again and this time you’re paying the price which is why your account’s gone crazy
xpanda_rx: i know you deserve an explanation so here i am
xpanda_rx: last night in the park, someone must have walked past us who recognised me. it’s insane how that managed to happen because we were practically in the middle of nowhere and we weren’t there for very long, but anyways. it happened. somehow people have found your insta because they think we’re friends, or dating or whatever.
xpanda_rx: god i’m so sorry
xpanda_rx: i told my team what actually happened but they keep trying to convince me to use it cos honestly their plan would fix a lot of problems
xpanda_rx: but i can’t do that to you, not again after everything
lilyflower13: it’s fine.
lilyflower13: could you tell me what the plan is? maybe i can help.
lilyflower13: you seemed pretty upset yesterday
A part of Lily knew that she would regret this. But some kind of morbid curiosity kept her engaged. She kept her replies curt, trying to distance herself from this inexplicable feeling that was taking over her. For too long Pandora had been a distant force that still toyed with her emotions, like a puppet master who could tug on a string with a flick of her wrist and send Lily’s mind into turmoil. But now she had a chance to capture her, to just cling for her for a little longer, and her subconscious refused to let go of what it so truly yearned for. Lily just couldn’t let go of her love that easily.
xpanda_rx: we pretend to date
xpanda_rx: please don’t say yes if you don’t want to i wouldn’t even think about putting you through it if you weren’t completely on board
xpanda_rx: it would be over by early jan
xpanda_rx: my team think i need to market myself better and more as a queer woman because i haven't dated anyone publicly yet. i know it’s bullshit but every time i bring up how uncomfortable faking it makes me all they do is say how lucky i am that i have a management team who let me be out at all cos not everyones that lucky
xpanda_rx: like i said please don’t do anything you’re not up to. you don’t owe me anything
Lily was an idiot. A foolish, lovesick idiot who clung to optimism. And she was desperate: desperate to do something about this love that still felt like it was clawing at her insides, even though its talons had been filed blunt after so long. It was too much to bear, but maybe a little bit of pretending, a snippet of fantasy, would free her. She always knew it would never go well. It was more the fact that she didn’t care if it meant more time within Pandora’s general vicinity, and more time to try and win her back. Lily would make sure Pandora knew that leaving her here was the worst decision she had ever made.
lilyflower13: i’ll do it
lilyflower13: i’m always up to help out a friend
If she could underline that final word a thousand times and make it bold she would, but even Lily knew that wouldn’t make it any more true.