Remus Lupin drank two cups of tea that morning, holding the chipped cup in his hands, drawing heat into his palms. It was summer but Remus was always cold. He tried to read, but the book he'd been in the middle of wasn't holding his attention, so he pushed it aside, deciding he could find out another time what happened next to Arthur Dent and Ford Prefect. 

So instead of reading, to try at distracting himself, he decided he ought not to show up at the meeting empty handed. He was fairly certain that it was traditional to sit and wait at these sort of rendezvous with a rose or something, and the only rose he had was the very old, very fragile dried rose from Freddie Mercury. That was so delicate, though, and barely held together even with a good amount of magic and careful handling - he did think briefly about bringing that along, but thought better of it, for preservation's sake, and left it on the mantel. He'd have to stop somewhere and get something.

So Remus got dressed, taking special care to mend the holes in his jumper and oxford. He looked at himself in the mirror, and got a comb and put a bit of sleekeasy onto the bristles, dragging it through his hair, trying to get the stuff to situate just right. "Bloody hell, why don't you cooperate with me?" he hissed, yanking at the curls at the top of his head, trying to get them to settle properly and stay where they belonged, but the nasty things just kept falling onto his forehead. "Fine, stay that way. One day, I'll shear you off. I know the spell to do it, you know, you little buggers."

Remus put the comb down and stared into his own eyes.

His scar seemed extra silver and he wished it had faded a little bit, like everything else about him had in the last twelve years. But quite the opposite, he now had the fresh, deep pink section that had been reopened across the very bridge of his nose and the new vertical slash over his cheek.

Glancing at his watch and realizing all this getting ready business had barely taken him fifteen minutes so far, and therefore he still had quite a lot of time before noon, Remus busied himself by going into the closet and digging about under several moth-eaten boxes until he found an old storage box tucked way into the back. The box once belonged to Sirius, or Remus supposed it really still did, and it contained the suit he'd worn sixteen years and some number of days ago, at their wedding. Carefully, Remus opened the box, blowing off the dust from the lid, and took out the pistachio green tie that lay inside, neatly folded all these years. 

He watched himself in the mirror as he wrapped it 'round his neck, tucking it under his oxford collar, which peeked out from under his jumper, and carefully did the tie up at his throat.

 He still didn't look ready.

Not ready for Sirius Black.

Then again, he doubted whether anything he could do would be enough to make him look ready for that, much less be ready for that.

"There's nothing to be done for it," Remus murmured. "He gets what he gets and if he doesn't like it, then I suppose he ought to have chosen a better-looking gent when he had the chance... like that Ravenclaw boy - bleeding murder, what was that bloke's name?" 

For the life of him, he couldn't remember, but he remembered the many discussions they'd had about him. James had even once admired the bloke's arms.

"Hell. Now my mind is going, too," Remus muttered, taking the keys from the hook by the door, grabbing his briefcase, and stepping outside.

The train seemed to take forever.

He popped into a little market down the road from the flat where they'd shopped all the time once. It was bigger and cleaner, more corporate now than it had been back then, the posters in the window printed on finer paper and hung with little suction cups, rather than strips of tape. The doors were automatic and slid open as he stepped up to them, rather than waiting for him to pull the handle.

Directly inside was a giant display of pineapples.

Remus paused, staring at the brown fruit with their big green crowns and he laughed as he picked one out, carefully selecting the one with the best crown and clutching it as he walked about the store.

The market was laid out the same, though most everything else had changed about it. It was different enough to show time had passed, but not enough to erase the memories of what had been. Sirius had danced down these aisles so many times, singing whatever rock song happened to be playing over the speakers overhead. They'd had an argument here in this one, standing in front of the cans of the Batchelor's mushy peas with their then-brand-new barcoded can labels. Now the labels were completely different on those mushy peas, but he couldn't help but appreciate that the radio was playing Love is All Around - though this version now playing was some new pop band covering the original version of the song that Sirius used to sing, which was by The Troggs - the very men who had sang their song - Wild Thing.

Funny, Remus thought, how all things come back around as new again.

He paid for the pineapple and made his way 'round to the park, glancing at his watch to find he still had an hour left to wait. He settled down on the bench facing the curry shop, holding the pineapple on his lap, looking about, and waited.

It seemed forever, that last hour.

He must've looked at his watch a hundred times.

11:10. 

11:13. 

11:19. 

11:22. 

11:34. 

11:36.

11:39.

Every glance made his anxiety increase.

11:42.

11:48. 

He could barely breathe as the minutes crept on.

11:53.

11:56.

11:58.

11:59.

12:00.

Remus looked up. 

His eyes roved about the street, looking down the way of the market, then up the other direction, toward the Waterloo station. He shuffled forward on the bench, trying to see a bit further down the road, his eyes picking over the faces of the people passing by on the street. 

12:02. 

His grip tightened on the pineapple.

12:04.

12:06.

12:11.

Remus's hands shook.

He sat back on the bench heavily, eyes going rather unfocused, and put the pineapple on the seat beside him.

He didn't realize he was holding his breath until he sighed and bent forward, covering his eyes.

Everything in him started to fall apart, one little chip at a time... He'd been so sure he was right... so sure he'd done the right thing, followed the clue the right way... been clear in his response in the paper... maybe Sirius missed the ad somehow, maybe the laddu hadn't been enough of a hint for the location...

Maybe Sirius had been caught.

Maybe he was being transported back to Azkaban this very moment.

There were a hundred reasons why Sirius Black didn't show up, he told himself. It doesn't mean anything. It doesn't mean he didn't want to. It didn't mean --

"I like your pineapple."

Remus looked up.

Sirius Black stood before him, not ten paces away, holding a pineapple, too. He wore torn up jeans, with safety pins through them, and a hot pink t-shirt that said "I'm Lost and Returning to Remus Lupin" on it.

Their eyes locked, holding each other's gaze for what felt longer than all the time Remus had been waiting since he'd seen him last, but really only lasted about fifteen seconds before Remus was on his feet, taking the ten paces in a couple of quick strides... Sirius threw the pineapple onto the grass and opened his arms wide as Remus closed the gap and with a soft thump of their chests meeting, their arms entwined around one another and Remus gasped in relief as Sirius Black clutched onto him.

"What the bloody hell are we going to do with two pineapples?" Remus said into Sirius's neck as he pressed his face into the cleft where his shoulder met his neck, his freckles lining up with that old fading tattoo.

"Have ourselves a snack as well as make a portkey, obviously," Sirius murmured, and he held Remus back just as tightly as Remus laughed, his shoulders shaking against Sirius's grasp. "Of course I chucked mine so it may be smashed, so it may be a matter of choosing one over the other in the end after all." Sirius's fingers traced down Remus's spine, giving him shivers.

"I started to think you weren't coming."

"I was debating whether I ought to find a way to get my hands on a record player and make our reunion into a big musical number - like the opening credits of The Muppet Show only bigger and gayer and more fantastical... But it's absolutely impossible to book Kermit the Frog on short notice. You know he's in full length feature films now?"

Remus laughed. "Yes, he's quite the star."

"And besides that," Sirius added, grinning. He stepped back and tugged down the bottom hem of the shirt. "I had to make my shirt, didn't I?"