A/N: The first in a series of Jily college AUs for the November Fanfiction Challenge.

Darkest Night

1:06 am

It's past one in the morning when Lily starts packing up her books, tucking them, along with her exhausted laptop, into the open pocket of her backpack. Her eyes are starting to flutter closed of their own accord and her muscles are trembling from fatigue. She's been studying for nearly thirteen hours straight, as evidenced by the four large, empty cups of coffee scattered in various locations across the wide table that she had staked out just after lunch…Lunch. Her stomach growls at the memory. Is it possible she hasn't eaten anything since before noon?

Her foot catches on the leg of her chair as she drags her backpack up onto her shoulder and she nearly falls to the ground, too tired to maintain her balance. She'll be all set to go for this midterm exam—that is, if she manages to wake up in the morning. Right now, her prospects are looking low.

The wind beats relentless gusts against the wall of glass windows that span an entire side of the Student Academic Center, keeping time with Lily's slow, steady heartbeat as she trails towards the front of the building. No one is left inside, not even a janitorial squad, which Lily finds strange. Normally, someone is at the front desk until at least two in the morning.

She's just rounding the corner to the exit when a door opens to her right and someone steps out.

"What the bloody hell are you doing here?"

Lily screams and stumbles again, this time catching herself on the door handle to keep from tumbling to the floor. Quickly, she scrambles back onto equal footing and backs away from the stranger.

"Jesus, you scared the shit out of me," she says, holding a hand to her chest.

"Why are you standing out in the bloody hallway made of glass?" the stranger says again—a tall, lanky boy with specs and a messy head of dark brown hair.

"Erm, because the architects saw fit to build it this way?" Lily suggests, inching sideways and towards the exit. She peeks behind him and sees that he's come out of a janitor's closet. Lily feels a little spark of panic light in her chest. What was he doing lurking in a supply closet?

"No I mean—" a crack of thunder sounds outside, making Lily jump again. God, she really needs to get some sleep.

"Never mind," she interrupts, hitching her shoulder strap up further and turning away from him. "I'm just…going to go."

She feels a hand close around her wrist.

"Hey, what're you—" She protests, fear suddenly coursing through her veins. "Let go of me!"

"You need to not go outside," he says firmly, not pulling her forcefully, but rather keeping her in place.

"Okay, look, you're really freaking me out," Lily says calmly, trying not to let her voice shake as she tucks a lock of red hair behind her ear. "I'd appreciate it if you'd let go of me and let me go home."

"Let you go home?" the boy responds incredulously. "Are you—have you…?" He halts his speech for a moment, and drops her wrist from his grip. "You haven't heard, have you?" Before she can respond, he continues, recognition sparking in his eyes. "Of course you haven't heard. You're the bird who's been taking up the best table in the corner for the past countless hours, completely wrapped up in that monstrous textbook."

Lily rubs the joints of her wrists between two fingers—not because he hurt her, but because every part of her is on high alert from this encounter and her skin is crawling with the peculiarity of it all. She tries to ignore everything he just said that could scream stalker.

"Haven't heard what?" she asks, just as another gust of wind hits the windows. The glass rattles threateningly behind her, but Lily doesn't dare glance away from the boy in front of her.

The stranger sighs and runs a hand through his hair, eyeing the windows behind her nervously. "There's a tornado warning across the entire campus and eight surrounding communities. A tornado warning, as in, there are almost certainly tornados twisting all around us as we speak in the middle of a glass hallway. So would you please, for your own sake and safety, join me in this very secure, concrete janitor's closet?"

"There's a what?" Lily asks incredulously, a new sort of panic pressing outwardly against her ribcage.

This time, the boy just looks exasperated. "Now I know why you need to study for so long."

"Shut up," Lily snaps, but moves towards him. "And why did you even come out of there?"

"Everyone else left nearly an hour ago before the storm got so bad. I didn't think it was a big deal—you didn't hear the announcements?" he asks.

She shakes her head, realizing the gravity of the situation and trying to figure out a plan. "Okay…how about…how about you go back in there and I'll just go somewhere else. I wouldn't want to disturb—"

"Don't be an idiot," he says curtly. "Besides, I'd rather not die alone, if it's all the same to you."

Lily rolls her eyes, but—for some unknown reason—doesn't argue. "We're not going to—" a flash of lightening illuminates the entire hallway, streaking through the sky with a violent brilliance.

"Fine," she concedes quickly, urging him forward with a wave of her hands. He, of course, holds the door open for her—in the middle of a tornado, for God's sake—and gestures her in first.

"You better not be some sort of serial killer," Lily mutters as she passes him.

"James Potter," he replies, annoyed. "Pleasure to meet you, too." He swings the door shut behind the both of them and clicks the lock closed.

1:47 am

Lily sits on the hard, cold ground of the tiny trapezoidal closet, wringing her hands together nervously.

"Storms make you nervous?" James guesses lightly from where he sits against the opposite wall—that is, barely two feet away from her. He's wiping his glasses clean with the hem of his fitted red t-shirt.

"I was about to walk home in it, if you'll recall," Lily says tightly, pulling her knees up to her chest.

"Ah. Nervous because you still think I'm going to murder you, then."

"Something like that."

"You know, I'm much less likely to kill you if you tell me your name. Statistically speaking."

Lily looks at him flatly for a few moments. "Lily Evans," she says finally.

"Lily," he says contemplatively, studying her face as if trying to match it to the name. "I'm James."

"So you've said," she responds, picking at an invisible fleck of something on her leggings.

A slow smile spreads across his face, and Lily furrows her brow at him.

"What?"

"Nothing," he says, shaking his head, but the smile doesn't disappear. "Just…nothing."

2:43 am

Her phone dies when they've been sitting in silence for nearly an hour. She was hovering between the weather forecast and the university's announcement page when she noticed her battery was at three percent. And by that time, it was too late. The screen had flickered once and then shut down completely, leaving a thread of dread wrapped around Lily's heart.

She tries to keep from studying the boy across from her, the way his foot taps against the ground incessantly and his hand drags constantly through his hair. He catches her watching him every couple of minutes, though, and she looks away, her cheeks burning. She doesn't see, but he smiles every time.

For what seems like hours, there's nothing but silence save the sound of the storm pounding on the glass windows, and then—

"Hungry?" James asks her, smirking.

"I—no," but her emphatic denial can't quite drown out the sound of her stomach protesting yet again.

James reaches into his backpack and pulls out a smashed, crinkly bag of Cheetos. He tosses them over the short distance and into her lap.

Lily picks it up, fingers the glossy plastic edges. "Thanks."

3:33 am

"You can sleep, you know," James says as he watches her eyes droop over and over again. The lights went out for the last time almost twenty minutes ago, leaving them in the faint glow of single emergency light above them. "I promise I won't move a muscle from this spot."

Lily snaps her eyes open. "No, I—I don't want to. Just in case we…you know."

"Die?" James suggests, his words scored by the sounds of reverberating thunder and howling wind that is only somewhat muffled by the concrete walls and heavy door.

Lily cracks the smallest of smiles. "Yeah, that."

"What're you studying?"

"Sorry?"

"You can't fall asleep if you're talking to me," James tells her. "So what are you studying?"

"Biology," Lily says, too tired to even care that she barely knows this boy sitting in front of her. "Medicine, specifically. But these classes are kicking my ass."

"That's what you were studying, earlier? Biology?"

Lily nods, patting her backpack where the heavy textbook sits. "Biogenetics 560."

James raises his eyebrows. "That's advanced."

Lily shrugs. "It's not like I'll be passing. The test is in…" she presses a button on her phone, but the screen remains black. Lily sighs. "Do you have the time?"

He presses his own phone, and the display lights. "About 3:30."

"The test is in five hours and forty-five minutes and I haven't gotten a wink of rest. I won't be passing."

"I could quiz you," he offers, pushing his glasses up to the bridge of his nose. He does that a lot, too, Lily's noticed. He's all sharp angles and manic habits.

She lets out a dry laugh. "I definitely don't want to be studying biology when I die."

James smiles in return. "Fair point."

"And you?" she asks hesitantly after a few moments of silence. "What are you studying?"

His lips tighten into a straight line, and his foot taps harder. "Business and economics."

"You seem thrilled."

He doesn't meet her eyes. "It's a good path."

"But not the one you want to be on," she guesses. From the way his shoulders stay tense and his body rigid, she knows she's right.

"Why do you want to be a doctor?" he asks instead of responding.

Now it's Lily's turn to tense. She looks down and fiddles with a strap on her bag. "It's a good path," she echoes. "It's the right one—one I actually want to be on."

His eyes rise to meet hers now, brown and gold and warm and less than three feet away from her own. She feels her breath constrict in her chest, and an errant wish runs through her head for the closet to be bigger.

"You're going to be a good doctor," he says matter-of-factly. "You're intense."

"You're going to be a horrible businessman," she says, and he looks at her in surprise. "Too nice," she elaborates, and he laughs.

4:08 am

"What're you doing?" Lily asks groggily as James stands, avoiding her toes carefully as he steps towards the shelf that sits beside them.

"My phone just died," James says, "which means imminent doom for the both of us, because the warning was just extended an hour from eight in the morning to nine. And the only signal we'll have is when all of those windows shatter. I refuse to sit around and do nothing."

"So you're going to…what, run in place?" Lily asks. James shoots her a look.

"No," he says slowly, starting to unscrew the bottle caps on the rows of chemical bottles that sit upon the shelves. He reaches over with his other hand and tosses her a roll of blue painter's tape. "We are going to distract ourselves."

"From certain death."

"Yes."

"By?"

"Why, by playing checkers, of course," he says, as if it's the most obvious thing in the world. "Tape us up a makeshift board on the floor, would you?"

5:17 am

"This got old faster than I thought it would," James says, rubbing a hand over his face and knocking his glasses askew.

"You thought you'd be able to endure more than an hour of my superior checker skills?" Lily asks smugly, and James throws her a look. The bottle caps sit scattered across the immaculately strips of tape that join to form a grid. Some are dotted with blue pen ink, while other remain starkly white to indicate allegiance to either player. Lily puts a hand over her mouth and yawns.

"Ah, no falling asleep, remember?" James says. She shivers and nods. "You're cold," he says unnecessarily.

"If I'm warm, I'll fall asleep," she tells him.

"You're cold because you're tired," he argues, already shuffling on his knees across the small space between them. He tugs his backpack along with him and plops himself down next to her, wincing as his butt hits the familiar, cold concrete.

Tugging down the zippers on his bag, he pulls out a hooded sweatshirt. "Here," he says, offering it to her.

"Are you sure?" she says, too tired to refuse outright.

"I haven't been wearing it, have I? Cold tolerance of a polar bear, I swear."

She snorts, taking note of his long and gangly limbs. There's hardly an ounce of fat on his body. A body that is now pressed beside hers, shoulder to hip to foot.

"Thanks," she says, taking the sweatshirt from him and shimmying it over her head. Her nose is immediately filled with the scent of cinnamon and espresso and the residual warmth saturates her skin. She can't help the sigh of contentment that escapes her lips.

"Better?"

She nods. "Better."

5:43 am

"Lily?"

"Mmm?"

"Are you okay?"

"I—yeah."

"Lily."

She squirms again, wincing as she moves.

"I just…"

"What?"

The discomfort in her stomach increases, and her mind flashes to the four large cups of coffee she drank hours ago.

"I drank a lot of coffee while I was studying," she says, wiggling around a bit more, trying to ease her discomfort.

James puffs out a breath. "We can't go out there," he says, and Lily's mind focuses in on the sounds of the storm that hasn't abated in more than five hours. It's become so constant that she had been tuning it out.

"I…really have to, James. The restroom is right down the hall. I'll be back in a moment."

He makes a noise of protest as she moves away from him and stands, stretching out her muscles and joints painfully.

"Lily—"

"If the windows haven't broken yet, they're not going to now," Lily says shakily, clearly unsure.

"Says one of two people who have the worst luck in the world."

"I'm going," she says firmly, but it comes out weaker than she'd like considering her pale skin, shadowed eyes and exhausted voice.

"I'm coming with you."

"No, I—fine," she relents as he opens his mouth to protest. Mostly because she really needs to go, but also because she's too tired to pretend like she would rather go alone.

They stand in front of the door together. As Lily reaches forward to open it, James grasps her hand, folding his large fingers around her smaller ones.

She glances at him out of the corner of her eye, and he nods. She throws open the door, and they run.

5:59 am

"It has to have been, like, at least a full twenty-four hours by now," Lily says resolutely from where she is once again curled next to James in the janitorial closet. Their sprint to and from the restrooms had been exhilarating ("I'm demanding a separation of at least five stalls," Lily had insisted, standing in the men's restroom (it was closer) with her hand still linked to James's. "Done," he had agreed, letting go of her to take the farthest stall from the bathroom entrance, at least eight doors down). But Lily's adrenaline crash had spiraled her down even harder, and it was becoming increasingly difficult to stay awake.

"Did you see how dark it was out there?" James asks her, adjusting so that she could lean further into him. "There's no way it's past six."

"Maybe it is," Lily says. "Maybe it's nighttime again and I missed my test and I'll fail out of the class and out of school and be left on the streets."

"Always the optimist."

"Like you've known me for more than five hours."

"I thought it was twenty-four."

"Shut up."

James chuckles and she can't help but smile from the way the vibrations rumble through her body soothingly.

They're silent for a while, and then Lily speaks.

"What do you really want to do with your life?"

"I told you, I'm studying business and econ—"

"I know what you're studying," she says, staring down at his gray sweatpants. "What do you want to be studying?"

James lets out a long sigh and then inhales deeply. "Physical therapy," he says, and Lily can't help but be surprised. "Specifically related to sports injuries. I loved sports when I was little—football, to be exact. But I blew out my knee my junior year of secondary school and my dad thought that it was prime time to stop kicking a ball around and start taking over his company."

Lily splutters. "Your family owns a company?"

"Yes."

"Would I have heard of it?"

James pauses. "Yes."

"Which one?"

"I'm not telling you."

"What?" she asks, looking up at him. Her face just is just inches away from his. "Why not?"

"Because."

Lily snorts. "Oh, great answer. Very articulate. You know, if we die I'll never know."

"It'll be my biggest regret," he says dully, and she can't help but laugh.

"Fine. But just so you know, you're stupid."

"Just because I won't tell you the name of the company—"

"Not for the company, idiot. For doing what your dad wants, even though it makes you miserable."

"I'm not miserable," James protests weakly.

"Yes, you are. Or at least, you will be if you have to work in the corporate world for the rest of your life. At the end of the day, your dad will want you to be happy. And when he realizes thirty years from now that you're not happy, he'll never forgive himself. And you'll never forgive him, either. That's kind of a shoddy relationship to have with your parents."

He stays quiet for a long time, considering her words. And then—

"How do you know you'll be happy? How do you know medicine is the right path?" he asks her.

"Do I need a reason?"

He considers her face in the dark. "No, but you have one."

Lily doesn't respond for a while, disconcerted at the way he's able to open her up and see inside so effortlessly. He's about to change the subject, certain he overstepped somehow, when she responds.

"My parents died," she says suddenly. "Three years ago, two months after I was accepted into this school. Car accident. My dad—they told me he didn't stand a chance. An instant, painless death. But my mum…the first responders got there in time. They got her to the hospital and into surgery. They thought she was going to be fine, but she never made it off the table. Unseen complications, or some rubbish like that."

"I—God, Lily, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have—"

"No, it's fine. Really." She shrugs, her shoulder pressing briefly into his side. "I didn't get to say goodbye to either of them, so it took me a long time to…move on, or whatever. But once I did, what I wanted out of my life was pretty obvious."

"Giving other people the chance to have their parents."

"To say goodbye to them when they're ready to, at least," Lily amends, and James stays thoughtfully silent.

"I'm really sorry," he repeats.

"I know," she says. "Me too. But you should really tell your dad."

"Maybe if our luck changes and we get out of here, I'll tell him."

She swallows down another yawn and scoots closer into his side, sharing the warmth of his sweatshirt as she settles her head against his shoulder.

"Keep calling our meeting bad luck and I might start to get offended, Potter," She mumbles into his shirt.

"Don't fall asleep on me, Evans," he says, his voice laced with something close to affection.

"I would never."

9:52 am

A bright, unwelcome light wakes her abruptly, streaming directly through her eyelids with a piercing agony. Lily winces and shifts uncomfortably, feeling James's arm slip lower where it's wound tightly around her waist.

"What are you two doing here?" a stern voice demands, and Lily lifts her head from James's head, jerking fully awake.

James comes to as well, shaking his head wearily and squinting through his haphazardly placed glasses.

"What?" he asks groggily, dragging his fingers across the small of Lily's back as he extracts his hand and straightens his specs.

"We got caught in the storm," Lily answer automatically, not even sure to whom she is speaking. For all she knows, she's dreaming. Her eyes are still half-closed in order to avoid the painful light. "Please, sir, can you shut off that light?"

The man chuckles a deep, throaty laugh. "I'm afraid not. That's the sunlight, and I'd say it's about time to be thankful for it."

"The sun?" Lily says, still dazed from weariness and so little sleep—wait, when did they fall asleep? "What time is it?" she asks, her eyes snapping fully open.

"Just about ten o'clock," the man, who Lily can now see is wearing a fluorescent jacket that says police. "It's about the soonest that we could—"

"Ten?" she asks frantically, scrambling clumsily to her feet. "Ten? God, I am so screwed. I slept through my midterm and I have to go and—"

Behind her, James rises to his feet as well, reaching down for her bag and handing it to her.

"Whoa, whoa, miss," the officer says, his body still blocking the doorway as he holds up his hands. "Slow down. Classes have been cancelled for the next two days."

"What?" Lily breathes as the policeman moves from her exit to reveal the large, floor to ceiling windows.

Outside, the world is chaos. Trees are entirely uprooted or tipped over, and destruction leaves it's mark on cars and buildings for as far as Lily can see. Several of the large windows are cracked from the impact of any number of objects.

"Holy…" James says, stepping out behind her.

"Was anyone hurt?" Lily asks breathlessly, and the officer shakes his head.

"Thankfully, they were given enough warning to get to a safe place," he tells them, and Lily doesn't miss the look that James shoots her. "The damage is mostly superficial, as well. But the clean up will take a couple of days."

"We can go back to sleep?" James asks mindlessly, and the policeman seems to notice their condition for the first time.

"I can't imagine why not," he tells them. "You two must have had quite the night. How about I walk you out of the building and you tell me how you ended up here."

James and Lily nod, grabbing their bags and trailing behind the guard. Lily lets James do most of the talking, ignoring the jabs that he sends her way in the process ("And I swear, she was about to just walk out the door, casual as anything). Finally, they make it through the front doors and out into the blinding sunlight.

"That's quite a tale," the officer says. "And those are some unlucky circumstances you ran into."

James turns to gaze at Lily with a smirk on his face, adorably rumpled and sleep-deprived as he looks at her, really looks at her—without adrenaline pumping through his body or a life-threatening natural disaster on their hands—for the first time. There are freckles that are scattered across her nose, which is a perfect kind of beauty, he thinks.

"I think that depends on how you look at it, officer," James says, and Lily's cheeks color.

"Thank you for finding us," Lily says, looking back at the policeman.

"You kids get some rest now, all right?" he says, before walking off towards his squad car.

When Lily turns back, James is grinning at her stupidly.

"Not dead," he declares, spreading out his arms in victory and raising his face towards the sky.

Lily rolls her eyes. "No, not dead."

"And I believe I just slept in a very confined space with a very pretty girl."

"You're a ponce when your life isn't being threatened, you know."

"No, no," James declares, shaking his head in disappointment. "It's too late for ridicule or rejection. You've already seen my soft side. Now you won't be able to stay away. You're in too deep. You'll have to deal with me."

"I beg to differ," Lily says. "I actually don't have to deal with you at all." She turns away from him, but he calls out to her.

"So, meet you back here in ten hours?"

"What possible reason would I have for doing that?" she wonders, turning around again to face him.

"Because I'm a whiz at biology, and you have a test to study for," he takes a few steps closer to her. His face grows more serious, but there's still a slight smile on his face. "Plus, you need to help me draft a statement to my father. You got me into this mess of a promise, Evans, and you're damn well going to get me out. You owe me that much."

"Owe you for what?" she demands, amusement dancing across her features no matter how hard she tries to tamp it down.

"Why, for saving your life last night, of course."

"Pardon me?"

"Oh, please," James says. "If it weren't for me, you would have walked out into a tornado."

"And now I'm thinking I would have been better off."

"Admit it, I'm the luckiest thing that ever happened to you."

Lily looks at him closely, scanning his face with her green eyes. "We'll see, Potter." She turns away a final time, shaking her head incredulously in the process.

"Ten hours?" he shouts from behind her.

"Only if you're lucky," she calls back, hiding the smile that spreads across her face at the sound of his laughter.