Jily oneshots

Say When

Done by jamespotterthefirst on fanfiction.net

Lily

That particular September morning held no promise that the day would be different from any other. Her alarm blared through the tiny flat at exactly thirty minutes before it usually did. As expected, she pressed snooze three times before groggily dragging her feet to the shower.

She dressed, greeted her roommate, and chose tea over coffee— the same routine of every morning. It was an almost mundane start of the day to her, until she couldn't find her keys.

Had she found her keys, her day would have gone as it normally did: she would have carefully driven to work, arrived safely and on time to class with no interruption. But one of her best mates, Benjy Fenwick, had borrowed her car the previous night after Marlene McKinnon had loudly declared she was craving pizza. Lily had no recollection of exactly where her keys ended up in the excitement the arrival of food caused.

"Lils, Marlene's here to pick me up," her roommate called from the living room as she collected a few items on her way to the door. "See you at lunch, yeah?"

Lily, who was crouched down, searching for any sign of her keys under the kitchen table, called back, "Yeah!" Then, as an afterthought, she yelled, "Cas, have you seen my—" But the sound of the door shutting against its frame told her Dorcas was long gone.

After ten minutes of rummaging through the flat, turning drawers upside down and throwing cushions on the floor, Lily found them, tucked in between the cushions of the couch. She snatched them up with such force that the cold metal hurt her shaky fingers.

Not bothering with breakfast, Lily grabbed her book bag and darted toward the door. In her haste, she almost stepped on the flowerbed Dorcas insisted on having at the entrance of the building. They'll cheer up the place, she had argued. Lily had to admit, she was right. They made the dingy brick building look livelier somehow. Lily was grateful the door lock cooperated with her that morning, it had been protesting stubbornly for the past few weeks. The rain had also ceased and Lily sighed in relief. The last thing she needed was traffic, late as she was.

But of course there was traffic by the time Lily was actually on the road, far too much than was normal for the busy part of town. Cars trailed dangerously close to each other for as far as she could see, their drivers gripping the steering wheel tighter with each frustrated fraction of a foot they moved. Twenty minutes in, Lily let her head fall back against the headrest almost painfully, kissing her spot in one of the most coveted classes at the university goodbye. From what she heard from Dorcas, her professor had little to no tolerance for late arrivals.

"She's notorious for moving your empty desk out to the hall," Dorcas had told her after their pizza had been devoured by the four the previous night. "I'd wake up extra early if I were you, just to make sure you're there with plenty of time."

And Lily had waken up thirty minutes before, but what she had not factored in was pressing snooze for ten more glorious minutes of sleep each time. And of course, there was losing her bloody keys. She made a mental note to scold her friend Benjy for borrowing them so late at night, instantly dismissing the thought and reminding herself it was no one's fault.

They moved again, but just as before, their progress was irritatingly minimal. Lily clenched her jaw, her knuckles ghostly white against the grey swirl of clouds on her windshield. The car beside her jerked into a different lane rather recklessly, opening the way for her to mirror its rash move and merge into the faster lane. Without a second thought, she seized the opportunity, narrowly missing the car behind her. Feeling a shot of adrenaline course through her, she continued down the flow of moving cars, only to stop abruptly as her lane slowed down again.