It was pretty clear from the second she walked in that Dorcas was having an off day.
Lily first noticed her behavior during the pre-mission debriefing from Alastor Moody that morning, seeing as Dorcas was constantly looking around instead of paying attention. It was out of character for Dorcas, but Lily let it slide as it was a simple, straight-forward mission. Besides, Moody was quite boring as he droned on with a sudden yell of "CONSTANT VIGILANCE!" thrown in every few minutes.
Dorcas also seemed a bit preoccupied on the way to the portkey, but nothing too out of the ordinary. She nodded along to the conversation, so she was clearly listening well enough; when they landed and Dorcas tripped over her own feet and stumbled along for a couple meters, Lily chalked it up to the same first mission jitters she herself had experienced.
The final straw, however, was Dorcas misreading Frank's hand signal telling them to hold their positions. She had, instead, rushed into a room full of confirmed Death Eaters. All on her own.
Cursing, Lily scrambled in after her with Sirius on her tail, counting on the element of surprise to stop the Death Eaters from Apparating away. Besides, everyone knows that any follower of Voldemort would love the chance to take down an Order member if it means they could rise in rank. The rest of the team was already mobilized, thankfully using the screw up to their advantage.
"Heads up, love!" Lily heard Remus call out to Sirius, tossing a stunning spell at a Death Eater that was sneaking up on her.
"Cas!" Lily turns as James calls out, just in time to see someone point their wand at Dorcas' head. But before either could react, Lily's already muttered "Confundus!" in the direction, and dragging her lover back out to the woods. Lily grins, knowing that James has probably already captured the Death Eater while they were still shocked.
(It's the little things, really.)
Unfortunately, she doesn't get to bask in satisfaction for long. She's suddenly thrown off her feet with a groan, and sees Frank rush after the attacker. "Lily!" Dorcas rushes over. "Lils, are you alright?"
"Shit, darling, worried about little ol' me?" Lily smirks, diffusing the tension. "You good?" Dorcas nods. "Good, good... well, we're going back to base. Sirius!" She turns at the sound of Lily's voice.
"Yes, honey-bear?"
"You got this covered?"
"Of course," Sirius says, throwing a nonverbal bat-bogey hex over her shoulder. "Takin' Cassie out?" Lily nods. "Alright, see ya later, loves!" She turns back to the fight, side by side with Remus.
"Lily, really, I'm fine-" Dorcas stops as Lily puts her hand up.
"Nope, don't wanna hear it. You're not hurt, yes, but you will be if you can't get your head into the game. I'll Apparate us back to headquarters and you can explain to me why I shouldn't have Dumbledore bench you, alright?" Dorcas nods, eyes downcast. Lily takes hold of her hand, takes a step and—
The pair are back at the base for the Order of the Phoenix, taking their respective seats next to each other at the long table. "Start talking. What's going on with you today?"
"Nothing," Dorcas says tightly. She won't meet Lily's gaze, even now that they're alone. "I'm fine." Lily sighs.
"No, you're not fine. You're unfocused; sloppy. Sloppy won't run with Dumbledore and Moody, alright? Sloppy'll get you killed, darling. Now, really, what's going on."
"Right, no, I know that. My mind's just elsewhere, I've been waiting for a letter-"
"A letter?!" Lily gapes, in genuine disbelief. "Dorcas, you've been begging James and Frank to let you come on a real mission for months now, and when they do you spend your time, what, waiting for your copy of Witch Weekly?"
Dorcas' arms are around her middle now. Her voices shakes as she barely whispers, "No. Minnie."
Lily frowns in confusion. "Professor McGonagall? Your mum?" Dorcas nods in confirmation. Her lower lip starts to quiver, and Lily remembers finding the girl when she was in first year, crying in the bathroom stall because she'd just gotten the news that her mother, Persephone, had died.
"This morning she- she found a lump in her breast and-" Lily takes in a breath of realization at the same time that Dorcas lets out a shaky breath, a single tear falling down her cheek, making her dark skin shine in its path. "-and she went to Mungo's today to get it checked out. It- it could be nothing, of course, fatty tissue or something. But... it could also be cancerous. I mean, her mum died of breast cancer at like fifty or something. So I took this mission, to try and take my mind off of it, but I just couldn't stop thinking about it. At first, the mission was the perfect distraction, but in the end..." she trails off, and Lily fills in the silence.
"It ended up distracting you too much for the mission to take your mind off everything..." Lily takes Dorcas' hands in her own, as broken sobs fall from her lips.
"I just- I can't lose her too. I've lost everything, everyone, if I lose Minnie, I don't think I'd be able to live anymore!" The sobs rack Dorcas' body as Lily pulls her in for a hug, pressing a kiss on the top of her head.
"Oh darling, no. Don't worry. Hey," Lily pulls her face back up, forcing Dorcas' eyes to look into her own. "You've still got me. You've still got all of us, yeah?" Dorcas nods, and a large tawny owl flies in through the window, straight for Dorcas. She rips open the letter, when suddenly her cries get louder as she presses a hand over her mouth and—
"She's okay! Oh, she's okay, it was nothing, oh thank Merlin..." Dorcas leans back into Lily's hold, allowing her to take the letter and read it over herself only after having read it several times back just to be sure that she wasn't hallucinating.
"See? I told you, Dorcas. You've still got her, darling." Lily kisses her head again, pressing her cheek against her as they just sit and hold each other.