The first thing Regulus saw when he woke up was Lily Potter's eyes.

She was holding his good arm and he could feel immense amounts of love and a soothing peace coming from the place where her hands held onto his skin. It was like all the fear and anxiety and pain he felt was being vacuumed away and a gentle wave of "alrightness" flowed in where all the bad stuff was gone from.

The image of her sort of floated before his eyes, and she whispered, "It's alright, you're safe. James and I are right here."

He felt the smallest smile tug at his mouth - it took all his energy to do - and he closed his eyes and went back to sleep.

The second time he opened his eyes, James was asleep using the edge of the bed as resting place for his arms, which were his pillow, bent forward in the chair beside Lily, who was curled up in a little ball, her head fallen to one side, hugging her knees with one arm, the other extended out and splayed across James's back.

It must have been hours later for it had been daylight the first time he opener them and it was dark now. He tried at moving his arm and pain shot up it and he winced and inhaled sharply -- and precisely two seconds later, Lily Potter did the same thing.

Her eyes snapped open and she looked over at him, saw he was awake, and quickly sat up. "Regulus?" she whispered, "Be careful moving, sweetheart, you needn't hurt yourself!"

His mouth was incredibly dry and his head felt like it was splitting in two. He could only manage a few small groans in answer. He wasn't even forming words in his own mind really yet, everything felt funny and far off.

"Here you are," Lily said, and she was holding a tea cup of water to his mouth. "Drink, you'll feel better." She smiled as she poured the smallest sips into his mouth at a time and he took them in. "Very good, that's better, huh? It's okay, sweetheart." When he was done with the water, she drew the cup away, then gently wiped his mouth.

"Thank you," he breathed.

Lily nodded, "You're welcome, Regulus."

The sound of his own name made his eyes well with tears. "...mm names... Frrreddy... Jen..kins," he murmured. The words cane out blurred together, his mouth felt heavy and stuck together.

"Not to me."

He smiled weakly.

She smiled back.

And he fell asleep again.

The third time he opened his eyes, Lily and James Potter were gone, but the chair James had been in was not empty. 

Sirius Black sat there, awake and staring at some spot on the wall across the room, his face pale and nervous. He was absently tapping a rhythm against his thigh with his finger tips and bouncing his knee in anxiety, a gentle thumping of his boot heel against the tile below him formed a heartbeat in the room. His lips moved soundlessly and Regulus watched them, trying to decipher what he was saying.

Do you still feel the pain of the scars that won't heal? Your eyes have died but you see more than I. You're a star in the face of the sky...

Regulus couldn't take his eyes away from his brother's face. It was marked by a bit of acne about the chin and the slightest shadow of facial scruff about the jawline... His grey eyes were missing the thick black eyeliner he usually put on, and he looked more like Sirius than he had in a long while without it. Regulus could almost imagine they were knee to knee in the clubhouse back at Number 12.

Suddenly, Sirius's eyes dropped from the place on the ceiling and met Regulus's.

The heartbeat stopped and so did his lips and his finger tapping as he stared at Regulus, a fair amount of mild panic filling his eyes.

The two brothers stared into each other's eyes for what felt like an eternity. After what had to be a couple minutes time, Sirius drew a deep breath, and his voice came out low and gravelly, with a slight tremble to it. "I am... incredibly... pissed off at you."

Regulus felt a wash of shame and hurt fill him up from his toes to his nose and he closed his eyes. He wanted to hang his head, but being that he was laying down, he really couldn't, so closing his eyes replaced the motion. "Sirius, I'm sorry, I wanted to come before and I --"

Sirius's voice cut across Regulus's apology, "No stop that. It's not about that!"

Regulus opened his eyes again and met Sirius's. "Wait... what?"

"I - I told you that you weren't to smoke, that it would mess up your lungs, and what do you do?"You show up in Lyons, faking who you are, just to trick me into giving you a bloody cigarette? You ickle sodcake!"

Regulus stared at him, confused. "I --"

"Uh-uh. I don't want excuses. You'll be sorry when your bloody lungs look like burnt toast. Don't you go blaming me then, either, because I told you no and you didn't listen. Remember that part of it, will you -- Freddy Jenkins?"

Regulus's nose flared. "Well what about your own lungs?! You're always smoking like a blasted chimney!" He felt his cheeks flush and the very corners of his mouth tugged upward as he spoke.

Sirius's tone was firm and level. "My lungs are older and they are already good and toasted and you are a kid and you are not supposed to do the stupid things that I do just because I am doing them. You're supposed to learn and do better than me and be a better human than I am. That is the purpose of having an older brother. Now stop being a little blighter and learn from my mistakes."

"I'm sorry, it's just that you make such a lot of them it's hard to keep up," Regulus said.

Sirius smirked, "Why don't you just go all the way up shutfuck mountain, huh?"

"What does that even mean?"

"You know what it means."

"You don't even make sense."

"No what doesn't make sense is why you thought you had to cut off that mop of hair of yours and -- what the hell did you do to your nose?? -- and that that made you safer than just coming the hell home."

Regulus said, "I broke it. Well, it was broken for me, really, back on my birthday, and I just... modified it myself a bit further... Maryrose said once the biggest thing you can do to make yourself unrecognizable is change your eyes."

Sirius said, "Yeah well, you look stupid."

"Says you."

"So what have you been fooling about at these last three months besides stalking me in Lyons and getting eaten by werewolves?" Sirius asked. "Where have you been?"

Regulus opened his mouth, about to reply back, when the door pushed opened and Lily and James came in. Seeing he had more guests than just Sirius, Regulus tried at sitting up and he promptly felt as though the entire hospital room had spun about, his stomach knotted right up and he felt vomit rise up into the back of his throat. "Oh gods." Turning, he bent over the side of the bed.

"Oopsie daisy!" James cried and flicked his wrist to send the rubbish bin flying quickly under Regulus's face, and just in time, too.

"Oh no," Lily said, and she hurried, reaching over and patted his back.

"Oh, you're on a muggle drug called morphine by the by," Sirius said, "So you might feel queasy making sudden motion. You might not want to do any sitting up."

"Thanks," Regulus gutted out as James handed him some tissue. "You might've mentioned it sooner."

Sirius leaned back in the chair, "I mean, I might've had a chance to mention it if you hasn't been fighting me about whether your new nose is ugly or not."

"Sirius!" Lily snapped.

"What?! Look at it!" Sirius said, "He had the same glorious one as I've got and he's gone and bent it all out of shape."

"Seems an improvement to me," James smirked.

Sirius punched his arm. James punched back. Next thing the pair of them were fake muggle fighting and Lily rolled her eyes, "Oh my stars you two are sooo ridiculous!"

"Ooh, cat fight," Remus Lupin's voice suddenly said from behind James, and he ducked 'round the jousting boys. He looked over at Regulus, hands in his pockets, then looked away.

Peter came in right behind Remus and he scrambled over to the bed as Regulus lay back in the bed and winced at his arm movement again. "Welcome back," Peter said, and he lay a chocolate frog on Regulus's chest. "For when you feel more like having a treat, of course."

Lily waved a wand and vanished the sick from the bin, then moved the Frog to the night stand. "You have some color to your face," she said merrily.

"Yeah you look a lot better than you did yesterday," James said.

"How long have I been here?" Regulus asked, looking confusedly between them all.

"This is the second day," Lily replied. She reached and tucked his blankets closer 'round him carefully, and fluffed his pillow for him gently.

"Yeah another day and we were going to hand you over for medical testing," Sirius joked. "But the mediwitches said you were too weird to use as the normal sample, so we decided to keep you for now."

"Fuck off Sirius," Regulus said.

James guffawed, "Told you right off, didn't he?"

Sirius punched James again and the ruckus was about to restart but Lily said, "All right that's enough, both of you!"

"Yes Evans," James said, even as Sirius got in one last lob at him and James's glasses went askew.

"How long have you been awake?" Lily asked.

"Oh uh -" Regulus looked at Sirius.

"Maybe ten or fifteen minutes?"

Lily handed him a teacup of water. "James, poke out to the hall and see if his mediwitch is out there." She looked back to Regulus, "You're not in pain, are you? I know I could tell before when you were asleep, but it's harder with your occlumency up."

Regulus flushed. "I'm alright." He looked at the thick bandages on his arm. "How bad is it?"

"You have jaggedy edges," Sirius teased.

"It's a nasty wound," Lily said more gently. "You lost a lot of blood. They had to do some muggle surgery and skin graphing to cover it up, but they said it - it'll heal eventually."

Regulus hesitated, his eyes darted to Remus Lupin, "Am I - a -" he paused. Remus looked up and their eyed met. "You know."

"No, you're not a werewolf," Remus said.

Regulus breathed a sigh of relief. He felt horrid asking it with Remus right there. Like he was violating something or offending his brother in law, but Remus didn't say anything more. He looked rather indifferent.

James returned then with the mediwitch who smiled to see Regulus awake. She crossed the room. "Alright, Freddy, let's take a listen to your heart, 'ey?" She pressed her wand to his back and the heartbeat filled the room audibly. She reached for his wrist - and smiled, seeing the watch on his arm, counted seconds, then lowered her wand and the heartbeat went away.

"That's a nice watch," she said, writing down the result on a chart.

"Thanks," Regulus said, "My brother gave it to me."

Sirius was staring at Regulus - and at these words he spun about on the ball of his foot and stepped out of the room. Remus glanced at Lily and James, then stepped out after him.

"That was pretty cool how you did that heartbeat thing," Peter said, trying to prevent the instant tension that filled the room as the door closed behind Sirius and Remus.

The mediwitch smiled, then lowered Regulus's arm carefully. "Your brother must love you a lot to give you such a nice watch, Freddy."

Regulus nodded numbly.

"Let's take a look at your arm, shall we?" She reached for the bandages.

James watched her start undressing the wound then pointed to the door. "Erm, I'm going to just -- check on Sirius -- in the - hall." He ducked out quickly.

"Me too," Peter followed him.

Lily rolled her eyes and took Regulus's good hand. "Hey, sweetheart, why don't you focus on me while she does that? You don't need to look yet."

Regulus nodded.

Sirius was leaning against the wall in the corridor.

"Hey," Remus said. "You alright?"

"I don't know I can do this, Rey."

Remus rubbed Sirius's back. "You seem to be getting on alright in there."

"Seem, perhaps."

"Hey, I have the corner on being the grumpy, emotionally traumatized one today," Remus muttered. "Day after a bad moon rights and all."

Sirius let out a breath of a laugh.

"But if you want to go, we can go. I'm here for you, not him."

"I know."

James and Peter came out then, and Remus and Sirius both looked up. "Changing the bandages again," James explained. He shuddered. "Seen quite enough of that already."

Peter said, "I haven't even seen it yet and it's been too much for me already."

"I don't blame you, Pete," Sirius said.

Suddenly there was a commotion down the corridor and all four of the Marauders looked up at the same time to see a girl in Hogwarts robes rushing from the stairwell, her hair wild, chased by two mediwizards. "PETER!!" The girl shouted, "OH THANK GODS -  PETER PETTIGREW!" She rushed over but one of the mediwizards caught her by the elbow at that exact moment, stopping her in her tracks. "Peter!!"

"Who is that?" James asked, glancing back.

"Isn't that the waitress from downstairs?" Remus asked.

Sirius looked at Peter. "You know her Pete?"

Peter flushed.

"Tell them I'm with you!" The girl begged, trying to tear off from the mediwizard's grip.

Peter's face was so very, very red. "Hang on, let me go talk to her. I'll explain in a second." He hurried down the corridor as they started to drag her off.

Sirius looked at the other two boys. "Interesting."

"Yeah," James said.

"She definitely served me the tandoori we got a few weeks ago," Remus said.