Remus sat stroking Sirius's hair away from his forehead. He'd fallen asleep on the Potters's couch, the cat curled up on his stomach, his head in Remus's lap. Remus stared vacantly at the brickwork that surrounded the hearth of the fireplace, and waited, glancing every now and then at the clock on the mantel.

It had taken hours to get Sirius to sleep.

His eyes traversed to the deflated owl-shaped balloon that lay on the floor, a victim of Roger's sharp claws. Remus felt rather a bit like that balloon - over-exhausted and deflated, not to mention like an utter piece of rubbish.

He had the worst feeling, and he was really, really, really dreading the moment that floo would light up and Lily and James would come through to confirm everything he was feeling. If he was right, and he really hoped he wasn't (but he already knew he was), then him and Sirius were both about to learn a very, very hard lesson on holding their tongues and walking away from anger-driven situations.

He couldn't believe he'd let his mouth run off like he had. Had he finished the sentence? That was the worst part. He wasn't sure if he had stopped himself or not from finishing the sentence.

Not that it really mattered. Even a fragment was more than enough.

And he'd known from Regulus's eyes that the end of it hadn't been an enigma, either.

He would have been better off if you had died.

What sort of horrible, piece-of-shit thing was that to even think - so much worse to actually speak it, and how dare he blame the moon. How dare he blame anything except the callouses and scars on his own body acting out...

Monster.

"What the fuck is the matter with me?" Remus whispered, shaking his head. "I'm a terrible human being."

Remus looked down at Sirius.

He was so scared the news would wreck him. Despite the past three months of Sirius boasting to any of the Marauders that would listen about how dead to him Regulus was, he had gone to Mungo's with very little hesitation... so Regulus hadn't been as dead to him as Sirius had wanted everyone to think.

The hearth flashed green sparks and Remus drew in his breath as Lily appeared.

The look on her face confirmed every single one of his worst fears.

James, Lily, Remus, and Sirius sat around the table in the Potter's dining room. Lily was holding both of Sirius's hands across the table, his knee bouncing with nervous energy, his boot tapping out that same heart beat as he's done sitting beside Regulus's hospital bed before. He stared at the table, memorizing the grain, and didn't move, even when Roger came and rubbed his body against Sirius's legs.

James wasn't sure how much of what he had seen that he ought to tell Sirius. After all, he worried if Sirius knew what Dumbledore had done that Sirius would flip out and who knew what kind of manic thing he would do in the heat of the moment? James worried about the backlash. So he carefully picked through the story of what Mopsus had said, leaving out the entire saga with Dumbledore, simply assuring Sirius that Mopsus had promised Regulus was not among the inferi in the cave, and telling Sirius about finding the watch at Fingal's cave.

James held the watch out to Sirius. "When you press the knob to make it glow... Regulus will know you're thinking of him."

Sirius paused his foot tapping and reached across the table to take the watch.

"There's also apparently a letter for you. At your parents house, and apparently Kreacher will help you to get it."

Sirius stared at the watch, his eyes welling up, and he held it across his palm.

"He said to tell you he loves you."

Sirius's jaw shifted as he forced emotions to stay in.

"And he knows you love him, too," James said gently.

Remus suddenly got up and paced away, ducking into the kitchen.

Sirius hung his head. "He said?" Sirius murmured. He looked up at James.

James nodded.

"Like Snuffles," Sirius barely breathed.

James nodded again.

Sirius's eyes closed tightly shut and his grip on Lily doubled.

James saw their hands clutching and he could see Lily just itching to talk to Sirius, so he got up. "I'll go check on Remus." He trotted out of the room, following after Remus, who had made his way clear out the kitchen door and into the little area Lily had already started calling her garden, where he was shrugging his way into the sleeves of Sirius's leather jacket with shaking hands and tears positively streaming.

"Stealing a man's leather goods is never the way to go, Moony."

Remus looked up, then reached into Sirius's pocket, rummaged a moment, and came up triumphant with one or Sirius's cigarette packs.

"Oh gods yes," James said, and he followed Remus further out into the back yard before he stopped and lit the tip of his cigarette.

"You never smoke," James noted as Remus shook a second cigarettes out of the pack and handed one to James.

"Yeah, well, it's been a particularly terrible few days," Remus answered. But he also didn't light it.

James nodded. He took a long inhale of his own cigarette and puffed out his cheeks, holding the smoke in his mouth before letting it back out again.

Remus watched in silence a moment as the smoke streamed out of James Potter and into the night and James closed his eyes. Remus could see the weight of a thousand things hanging onto James, weighing him down.

"James?"

"Moony?"

"Let go."

"What?" he turned to look at Remus, but before he could, Remus had tucked the cigarette he wasn't smoking over one ear and reached down to rub the tension in James's shoulders, his hands on his shoulders and his thumb on the back of his neck and kneading the tension that sat there, practically visible on James's skin. James breathed in sharply in surprise. Remus didn't usually initiate a lot of physical touch, and it was the sort of feeling that hurts at first, then the muscle tension goes out and it just feels incredibly good so James sort of went stiff at first, then felt his whole body unclench and relax a bit. Remus kept at it as they stood there, and James continued his cigarette, staring off across the field behind the house toward the pond and the trees afar off.

"Did I tell Regulus that it would've been better for Sirius if he actually died?" Remus asked.

"No," James said.

"Did I start to?"

There was a long pause.

"He knew how it ended, though."

"He was a smart kid," James murmured.

Remus nodded.

"Which is why I am sure he knew you didn't mean it."

Remus said, "I don't know why I said it. I was just so frustrated... Sirius has been such a wreck these last few months... you lot don't see the whole of it, there's stuff I see in him that you lot don't..."

"I know," James murmured. "We all have different things we allow others of us to see... Blimey, it was a lot easier knowing everything about one another when it was about two feet between each other's beds, huh? I miss that old dormitory so much sometimes. I miss having you lot right there within arm's reach."

"Me, too." Remus was quiet. He was thinking about the March moon and the time James was there for him. "You're a good friend, James. You'll always be. I love you."

"Thanks, Rey... I love you, too."

"You think Sirius will be okay?"

"Yeah, I think Sirius will be... it'll take time, but these things do. He's lucky he's got you."

"And you. And Lily, too.

"And Peter," James added.

Remus nodded. "I saw Peter in the hall back home before I came to see Sirius earlier. He was keeping to himself, mostly, but I could feel the tension there, too... He feels responsible."

"How is Peter, of all people, responsible for what's happened?"

"For talking to Oni Lamm. If she hadn't shown up when she did, well... things would've gone differently. If she hadn't shown up, Sirius and Regulus wouldn't have fought the last time. I wouldn't have said what I said. Regulus might've not have left. He might not have gone to the cave or at least gone alone and Regulus might not have ---" Remus trailed off.

James bit onto his lower lip, then shook his head after a moment of thinking about it. "It's not Peter's fault. He did what he thought he had to do out of compassion. I don't blame him for talking to Oni Lamm in a way. I mean, it was clear on that girl's face that she cared about Regulus. A little messed up her being betrothed to Sirius, then going and falling for the wrong Black, but I don't think it's like he betrayed Sirius or anything. If anything it was Regulus he betrayed, but seeing as Regulus didn't specifically tell any of us not to talk to anyone else, it doesn't really count for that, either, technically..." James paused, then, "You can't fault a guy for doing what is right, I suppose, and in a grey area like that, sometimes what's right and what's wrong blurs a bit and --" James paused. "Remus, Mopsus isn't a bad guy."

"What?"

"I know, bit of a pivot, but he's not really all that bad. I know you think he's a horrid person, and I know it's because of your dad you feel that way, but -- maybe he didn't steal time away from your dad for himself. Maybe he stole time from your dad for someone else."

Remus's hands dropped away from James's shoulders. "Well Mopsus oughtn't be playing around with other people's lives. Just as Peter oughtn't be telling other people's business all about the place. It doesn't matter if they think they're doing what they ought to do out of compassion or if it's not technically betrayal or not technically murder," he said. "Grey is just a shade of black, James."

"So is white if you want to go that way, then," James murmured.

"That's like saying light is made of the dark," Remus argued.

"You can't appreciate light without dark," James said.

"But it isn't made up of it."

James sighed.

"I just think we need to keep an eye on Peter... pay attention that he isn't scurrying off and meddling in things he ought not to be. That's all. And as for Mopsus... well. I don't think we can trust him fully, either."

James murmured, "I'd trust him with my life, Rey."

"Peter or Mopsus?"

"Yes."

Inside, Sirius sat still at the table, and Lily waited. Sirius was staring down at the watch in his hands - he just stared and stared and stared at it. He couldn't bring himself to press the button for the glow. It felt too soon. Too... hypocritical. Like he shouldn't be allowed to. He had too many things he didn't say before, things he did say before, things he knew he needed to work out in his head before he'd be ready to press it. He also knew the moment he did it that he would burst into tears, and all that emotional stuff was all just sitting inside him waiting for the opportunity to come exploding out and he wasn't sure he could ever, ever stop once it started. His fingers carefully traced the blank face.

He remembered when he'd bought it, this watch. It was over summer, before he even knew he was going to see Regulus for his birthday. Certainly Mother had some special trinket of a thing for Regulus - probably Orion's watch, a huge gaudy thing with planets and golden numbers that spun about and all sorts of magical properties that Sirius couldn't remember the significance of. Regulus wouldn't even want any piece of crap watch that he, Sirius, could afford.

But he'd done it anyway.

Because he'd seen this watch in the window of a muggle shop. They'd had a little poster advertising it. A Casio QS-15. It was a bit better than forty pounds in muggle money and Sirius had emptied his pocket on the counter in Gringott's to convert the galleons to quid to go and give it to the muggle at the shop. He'd shown Sirius how it lit up. "It lights," the shop keeper had said, "For easy seein' it in the dark."

"Well, my brother spends a lot of time in dark places," Sirius said, "So it'll be good for him to have a light up watch, see." And he'd carried it home tucked in his leather jacket pocket.

He'd been merry that Regulus would have a digital watch, bought at a muggle shop by his gay blood traitor brother. He never thought, in a hundred times of hashing over the scene in his head, that his brother would be as excited as he'd been. And bloody hell it was a damned watch - yet everyone seemed to notice it to give him the opportunity to brag about it.

It must've been the way Regulus held his arm with pride that incited people to say, "Nice watch." Or maybe he bewitched them to say it, just so he could say, "Thanks. My brother gave it to me."

Sirius just wished he'd gotten a wind-up one for Regulus now. One he could restart.

He closed his eyes.

He lowered his empty palm to the table and he felt Lily take it... felt some of the pain in his chest stir...

Lily could feel the love magic stirring more than she could see the memory it produced, although the memory was strong, too.

The memory was so vague, it was like looking at a faded photograph in which the picture is slowly being lost to time, the color slowly leaving it behind. It was tucked so far down in Sirius, buried under a hundred other memories, shoved off so deep...

Everything around it was chaos - whether it was the chaos of Sirius's mind or if there was something happening around him at the time of the memory, Lily couldn't quite tell, though it did feel like perhaps there was shouting or fighting or something dark lingering around the memory's peripheral.

But the focus wasn't at all on that, so it became hazy and far away. Instead, the focus was right there in Sirius's arms... the eye of a storm, the center of a vortex... a baby. A baby in the lap of a very small boy, only barely more than a baby himself.

The baby stared up at Sirius, with a face so much like his own, grey eyes meeting grey eyes, and Sirius's short arms wrapped around the little form that lay in his lap. He wasn't all that much bigger, really, but the way the older brother wrapped himself around the younger one, his chest concave, shoulders hunched, was all protection. He just sat there on the floor - all the mass of chaos swirling around him like the billowing robes of a dementor, protecting that baby with every once of energy he had in him.

The entire world might've imploded, but what mattered was that baby.

Lily looked up and met Sirius's eyes.

Tears were coming down his face and he plopped his forehead onto the table. "I failed him, Lily," Sirius cried. "I promised I'd take care of him and I failed him..."

Lily got up and came 'round the table and she pulled Sirius into her. He fell toward her, face in her neck. "I love you Sirius" she whispered into Sirius's hair. "I love you so, so much, and I know there's a million things you'd do differently if you could... I know, honey..."

I told you you'd be sorry, didn't I? Achlys whispered.

Sirius gasped.

You knew what it was like to lose him once already. You got a second chance and you still mucked it up.

And you'd muck it all up again a million times over again, wouldn't you?