WHO: Lily Potter, James Potter, & Adelaide Jordan
WHAT: ]]]:
WHEN: Sunday afternoon
WHERE: St. Mungo's

It had become troubling. Since when had this baby thing become troubling?

Maybe she was just impatient. That would be the easy answer, that Lily was impatient and irritable and that made her suspicious, which made this thing troubling. But honestly, it had been like, four months that they'd been trying and four months in which they hadn't had any success. Four months---well, she didn't even know if it was longer than normal, but it definitely wasn't perfect. Perfect, that's what it wasn't, and what wasn't perfect wasn't the Potters. It was just a rule of nature.

Their invisible child wasn't playing by the rules.

But back to the troubling.

Troubled, whether it was precedented or not, was what Lily had been feeling lately. Of course it was probably all fine and there was some silly joke by some silly deity that nothing had happened yet, but she wasn't about to go along with it and be stubborn for nothing on the off chance that it wasn't. That was horrible to think, that it wasn't, and that something could be going wrong, but really... when did she not expect things to go wrong these days?

So there she sat, next to her husband in the middle of a room in St. Mungo's. She had to smack his hand every once in a while to stop him from picking up things and remind him that he didn't work there anymore, but other than that, all she was doing was sitting. Staring at the blank wall across from her with a neutral look on her face. It was maddening, but what did you say when you were waiting for something like this and trying so hard to hide the nervousness that was threatening to eat your sanity right up?

"I'm putting ten pounds on this being your fault."

Oh, that.

Did every healer have to know his name? Had he even met half of these people? Oh, no, it was probably the fact that the top intern of the year dropped out of the program for not other reason than to 'save the world.' Of course Cervantes had told them, James had heard the mutterings as he walked in, and it took all his energy not to snap back. Of course there were some friendly faces, Smeth, Laura (Yaxley, he still couldn't believe that), and it was a good feeling to be back into St. Mungo's.

Of course, the nagging feeling that it was his fault that they weren't pregnant was keeping him from enjoying any bit of it, and James had to keep in mind that there was a good chance they were just being impatient and silly. Because he had seen this before, young couples coming in after maybe a month of attempting, concerned that there was something the matter. James wouldn't dare say that they were being silly, but in his mind, they were just going to get the same speech he'd heard the healers say over and over and go home and tease and have some more sex and keep on trying.

"Dollars? What are these pounds you speak of?" James muttered under his breath as he leaned forward to pick up a Quidditch Weekly, flipping through the pages. Fucking Catapults were on the brink of elimination. "If you want to put some real money on that, I'll double your wager."

He leaned back with a yawn, doing his best to act nonchalant about the entire issue, though his insides were twisting horribly. They'd survived torturing, they'd survived abductions, and they'd survived Marauder invasions of their home; they could have a bloody kid.

"Pounds, James, the Muggle version of Galleons," Lily answered with an impatient sigh. She didn't mean to snap at him, really, she didn't. It was just that this situation was feeling more and more tense by the minute and--and so there wasn't really an excuse for snapping at James, but she wished she hadn't. As for the whole blame argument, however... that had been going on for ages in their house, that was nothing. Ironic, really, when you'd think that would be what Lily should feel guilty about, rather than snapping at her husband for no reason.

Taking a deep breath, she turned her head (which had been lazily leaning on the wall behind her) towards him and frowned. "Sorry," she apologized. She sounded tired, but sincere nonetheless. "Either way, I'll raise you laundry duty for a week to say it's your fault."

Where was the bloody healer, anyway?

"I know what pounds are, Lily," James said with a roll of his eyes, flipping through the magazine quickly, having already read the issue but needing something to calm him with, "But as I do not use pounds, I do not see the point in betting with them."

James spotted Healer Jordan coming down the hallway and his voice caught in his throat. He was just as nervous as Lily was, and dropped his head back to the wall as she apologized and raised the bet. His arm quickly slipped up and around her shoulders, putting his lips to her ear,

"Make it two," he whispered before kissing her ear and looking up at the healer with an expectant look. James had inwardly (and almost outwardly) groaned when they were sent with Jordan instead of Patil, knowing she wasn't going to be as gentle with any bad news they might receive, but, at least he knew he was going to get all the facts.

"Your results indicate that the intensive trauma both of your bodies have been through," the healers knew of James' winter kidnapping and Lily's from Hogwarts, and as soon as she began the rest of the results began to formulate in his head. Why hadn't he thought of this before, "has corrupted your reproductive organs; they're working, but not at full capacity, and the combination of the two damaged systems creates a hostile and almost infertile environment. There are potions to take, but---"

"Chances of a successful pregnancy are slim, I'm sorry," James muttered, looking down at his lap, having overheard that phrase far too many times for his own good. Funny how he'd never expected to be told the same thing.

It seemed to have come out of nowhere, this news. She had just walked up and said it and that was that and they weren't going to have a baby. They weren't going to have a baby.

No matter how Lily thought she'd prepared herself to hear this, she couldn't have ever prepared enough. Even though she had been worried, even though the prospect of this was what had brought her to drag James in here, the reality that there really was something wrong, that they really were messed up and that it was going to be impossible (well, near impossible, but that was nothing, that was just medical speak for the .000025% that overcame the odds) to get pregnant... it was stunning, and absolutely devastating.

For someone who had been the one to have to be talked into the whole baby thing in the first place, Lily had grown quite attatched to the idea of having a baby with James. She had been ready, she thought, and ready now for nothing. All because of Voldemort.

There he went again, finding some way to fuck up their lives, their dreams. Fucking bastard.

She leaned forward, putting her elbows to her knees and running her hands through her hair. Lily closed her eyes tightly, taking a second to stave off the slight burn of threatening tears, before raising back up--composed, but horrible. "Maybe it's better, then... Maybe I was right the first time. Maybe we shouldn't have been trying in the first place." One less orphan for the world, after all.

"Again, I'm sorry…"

James looked back up at Healer Jordan, nodding slightly; she actually did look remorseful, which was something he'd rarely seen from her. He recalled that she had a young son at home, so she had to know the feeling---not that James could, because he couldn't give Lily a son. His jaw clenched as the healer turned away and tried to ignore Lily's words, for they stung more, amazingly, than their medical results. If he hadn't brought up the idea of having a baby, they wouldn't be here right now, having their hearts broken because of things they had absolutely no control over. If he hadn't been stupid and had gotten starry eyed at all the newborns in the maternity ward, he'd never have gotten Lily excited, only to shove the biggest disappointment of their lives down her throat.

His tongue raced over his teeth as his eyes watered, every muscle in his body tightening as he squirmed in the seat, unsure of what to do. He couldn't respond to Lily, he could barely look at her, the guilt was consuming him---James didn't know what to do; part of him wanted to go after Voldemort for ruining their lives, and another part wanted to disappear over to Sirius' and mope and be miserable because he couldn't handle the guilt. But, he couldn't leave Lily, no matter how much he wanted to at the moment (adding to the guilt, how could he want to run away--) and his arm tightened around her shoulders. He had no fucking idea what to do.