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Who: Severus Snape [Beta], possibly Martha Jones. One-shot otherwise.
What: Decisions to be made. Lily drama. What else would it be?
Where: Snape-Jones Cottage in Sobek Croix
When: Immediately after Lily's first communication goes up.
Warnings: None as yet.

Severus stares at the CiD long enough for this to finally sink in. It takes a good five minutes. His mouth is too dry, heart pounding: this isn't fingerprints in dust or a letter left on his desk. This isn't the memory of her taking his place on the Barge. What he's seeing on the screen is Lily in real time, Lily alive, Lily here and within his grasp.

He doesn't know what he feels. Nervous, perhaps. Anxious. Agitated. Pressed to make a decision, though he can't, for the life of him, recall just what the other options are. So when he finally moves, it's a knee-jerk reaction because he can't think of any other way to face this. He goes in search of his coat, finds it hanging right where it's supposed to be (Because everything has its place in this household, doesn't it? And why is that? He brushes off the question like an errant fly.)

If he hadn't reached with his left hand, he would have Apparated to the Inn without a second thought. It was just by chance that he did, and similarly by chance that he saw that flash of red iron.

Oh.

Right.

His hand hovers over the coat for a moment, his attention captured by the ring, an accusation of a decision was been made for him (by him) years ago, before he ever married Martha. (I want this life.) That's quite a decision to stand by, he thinks, now that Lily is here.

Well, what's the alternative? Seeking divorce so he can - what? Pursue a married woman almost two decades his junior? One who has already rejected him twice? And what will that do to Martha? The question takes him by surprise, not because he doesn't think Martha's feelings ought to be a factor, but because he thought about them at all. He starts to explore the rabbit hole, considering just how this could affect her.

She'll be jealous; that much is obvious. She was jealous before. No matter what he decides, she'll be jealous and he will have to face that. Deal with it. Assuage her fears. But if he leaves - she'll be heartbroken. It isn't vanity which causes him to think that; he remembers the look on her face when he threw her out of their shared cabin on the Barge. After so much time spent reassuring her that he won't abandon her, this will devastate her.

Lily will be fine, he decides. Lily is no longer his responsibility; he 'finished', as the other Severus put it. Lily doesn't need him, and it's not his place to offer. Lily has a son here. She has Snape's younger counterpart. She has Charity Burbage and Hermione Granger and Nymphadora Tonks.

Martha has him. Just him. And more importantly, she wants him. That isn't something Lily can offer.

No, he'll leave that coat right where it is, sit himself down on the sofa with a glass of something noxious and strong, and not do a blasted thing about Lily Potter. For once, perhaps he'll even be happy about the choice he's making.

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He slipped his arm around her. This was easy; it was safe and familiar. He didn't have to think too long or too hard about how to behave. She curled up beside him, his arm went around her. She emptied her glass, he refilled it.

But what to do about Lily? How was that dynamic meant to work? Was he meant to avoid her at all costs, to pretend she didn't exist? Why was he even asking that question? Every time he came close to an answer, he showed it away. Violently.

"Not for lack of trying on your part," he replied. He gave her a side-long glance, expression unreadable, though not unkind. Better to focus on fond memories than on painful questions. "You produced a green swimsuit that never once saw use in the water."

A beat passed, and he added thoughtfully, his attention back on the glass in his hand, "We were - quite happy, you and I."

Good. Good, familiar patterns that had remained the same from when they'd first done this and he'd been certain that the two of them wouldn't last the hour out. His arm around her, her resting her cheek against him. It might have been any other night in their relationship if it hadn't been for the whirling that was going through her head.

What did he want to do about Lily? For Martha, that was the important bit. She could deal with Lily being here, being a part of her extended life, with seeing her and speaking with her as long as she knew that Lily Potter wasn't what Severus Snape wanted any longer. Yes, she remembered sitting in a closet in a world where he was a chef and she was a bounty hunter (and Molly was five. Bloody hell, she missed Molly.) "I want this life." But did he when there was the chance for the other one?

Even if there wasn't a chance for another one, given Lily and everything else?

But he was telling her a story by recounting memories, and Martha loved that. As soon as he mentioned a green swimsuit Martha saw a small bikini in her mind that definitely never would see water. It made her smile to imagine it. "Never saw water, huh?" In her head she added it to black dresses and stockings and garter belts and robes; it made sense really.

They had been quite happy, save for the fact that their going home was in contention, but she wasn't focusing on that. However, the 'were' made her worry, past tenses weren't something she wanted to think in right now. "We'll find our footing again," she said, mirroring what he'd said to her not very long ago in her mind, but was probably much more distant in his.

He remained silent for a long while, his jaw working as he turned her words over in his mind. It was something he might have said - something he often said in the aftermath of a fight. And it was always true. It hung in the air like a question, however, whether she meant it that way or not.

We will find our footing again if. If he didn't leave. If he decided Lily was not something he needed any longer.

Then, too, there was the suggestion that she had realized things hadn't been quite as good with them when he had been spirited away from the Barge. His attitude toward her since his return to Baedal had given her little confidence, he supposed.

Time to come to a decision: be here completely or go find whatever remains with Lily. He mulled it over, considering several things which seemed so insignificant and yet - so immensely important. The way Martha's pillow smelled. Her rubbish cooking. The secrets he had told only to her. The towels she left on the floor of the bathroom. How she set her alarm clock an hour early just to be with him each morning.

"I'm still quite happy. Aren't you?" he asked finally. And that seemed to settle things. At least, it left him with a feeling of relief: a decision had been made. Not going. It wasn't a smart gamble to make.

Martha was good about silence. She'd gotten very good at accepting it around her, at knowing how not to break it; at knowing that while there was silence there wasn't something else being said. Despite that the silence as he thought seemed very long to her. Morbidly, it felt very much like the silence that permeated intensive care wings when people wondered if their loved ones were going to live or if they were going to die.

Yes, that thought was shoved away, and she was going to decide that it had come as a side effect of being married to him.

However, in the silence she didn't pull away; there was no retreating from his chest or his embrace. Once she would have pulled away so that the decision would be made without her interference, because she knew how her touching him could be. Once she would have maintained a respectful distance as if her feelings didn't count in the matter. The relationship between the two of them had pushed that out of her; never again would she not fight for what she wanted.

His words made her smile; she knew that she probably shouldn't but that didn't stop the sharp upturn of her lips and the crinkling around her eyes. A very small part of her, tiny even, had expected that the decision would go the other way. There wasn't a verbal response; instead Martha just leaned over and kissed him soundly.

Well, it seemed on occasion he managed to say just the right thing at just the right time - and she seemed to know just what he meant when his words weren't quite the same as the idea behind them.

Lucky, that.

No, he was far too enmeshed with Martha now for Lily to even be a consideration. There was too much history, too much effort put into the relationship. Everything had changed too much for him to go back. It seemed like such a waste for little more than false hope.

When he finally broke away from her, it was to give her a questioning look and chide her. "I might be inclined to think you were concerned about my loyalties."

It happened occasionally, though more so now than it had earlier in their relationship. But right now she was very glad at it. It had been a chance to have things settled and straightened without needing to actually need the question or have it answered.

Well, almost. When he chided her, Martha just smiled at him, the one that was for him and him alone. She felt relieved; better. She felt better than she had since he'd come back and it showed all over her, especially considering how well he knew her.

"I love you, you know." The words were spoken quickly by way of response; acknowledging that she was, but that he'd soothed her fears by the mention of his happiness.

Well. That spoke volumes. She had doubted his loyalty, even if only for a moment. And why shouldn't she? She had good reason. And perhaps it was some sort of retribution from her Barge self, a repayment of his doubts about her.

Without comment, he tapped the side of his glass against the rim of hers with a satisfying clink - here's to that, then - and drained the contents once more. He set the empty tumbler aside, deciding in a peripheral sort of way that he had had quite enough in such a short period of time.

"You know, two days before our wedding, your mother, frightful harridan that she is, insisted you stay with her the night before." Storytelling, quiet and thoughtful. Another way to distract her, another way to pass the time. "We had such a row over it, Martha. You can imagine, I'm certain. Each of us in turn said things I won't repeat for the sake of keeping the peace. In the end, I nearly walked out, and I think you nearly let me."

"I made it to the door, had the blasted thing open, and - I thought, quite suddenly, the way one does when one has a very ugly epiphany, 'What if she isn't here when I come back?'" Not if he came back. When. It had seemed so certain then that he would, in spite of his ire. "'What if she isn't waiting for me to come around?'"

He paused there to let her think it over for a moment.

"Tonight, I nearly left again," he went on finally. He avoided meeting her eyes as he spoke, though his expression suggested he was more pensive than ashamed. "I spent so long thinking how I would react if I ever could see her again - just for an hour, perhaps, or even a moment or two - that I didn't think at all. Until I remembered that fear, of course, that you might not be here when I came back."

'When'. Not 'if'.

He shot a glance at her and added, "I didn't leave back then, either, by the by."

Edited 2012-02-11 22:04 (UTC)

It wasn't his loyalty that Martha was doubting; largely what she doubted was her own value to him versus Lily's value you to him. She didn't know how to explain that, and she didn't want too. Instead she just moved uncomfortably for a moment as he pressed his glass against hers. Draining her glass, she winced as the liquor hit her stomach, then she left it on the table with loose fingers.

There was an unexpected question of 'now what' almost around her. Funny how it had just felt like such a question had been answered. Too bad it hadn't been answered for very long. Martha snuggled back against him, trying to decide what to say, or if there was anything that she could say in order to somehow make it better.

She was relieved when he broke the silence to tell her the story, even though she frowned. Two days before their wedding, they'd had another fight. Four fights in their relationship, or was that one five. Martha imagined her mother putting her foot down about it and worse she imagined how she would have let her mother put her foot down about this. The need to please her mum had always been there, and it had been worse following the year that wasn't. It wasn't hard to imagine what had been said between the two of them; when they actually did fight, they knew what to say in order to be the very cruelest; indifference mostly.

'When I came back.' Martha took his hand at those words and she traced her fingers over it, following the lines from his ring and back up. She suspected that her counterpart had always expected that he would come back, just as she would have expected that he would have stayed with her later on.

"I think," Martha began, "that I might have been willing to let you leave because I'd known you'd come back. I mean, we're permanent, yeah?"

And now he would have come back after Lily. He would want to come back to her after Lily. She touched his cheek quickly, and then spoke very softly. "I mean it when I say always."

She might have let him leave, he thought, but she wouldn't have been thrilled with him when he came back. He shot a glance around the room, contemplating where they would be just now if he had gone and returned. Shouting, he expected.

No, this was most definitely the better option.

"I'm not certain how flexible marriage vows are. Not terribly, I expect. 'Keep yourself only for her' doesn't have the caveat of 'until you see Lily Potter turn up, and then the contract is invalid'." A beat followed this, and he shot her an uncomfortable, thin smile. It might have been a joke. Possibly. He didn't seem to find it very funny.

"I take the promises I make quite seriously."

Oh no, she would have been incredibly angry when he'd returned. There would have been shouting and tears and anger but she never would have denied him the entry back into their home.

She was glad that he hadn't left.

It wasn't funny to joke about their vows, but Martha's lips twisted upward a bit at the comment anyway. "Not really something you can plan for, is it? I mean, there's always going to be a bit of you that loves her." She said it very in a very matter-of-fact tone of voice that didn't have any anger or judgement in it. "She was a big part of your life for... most of it."

Again, truth; he'd spent the majority of an equivalency to Martha's lifetime living for Lily. "But I know you take your promises seriously, and I know that when you say always, you mean it."

The slight smile from her was almost a relief. Things would be all right. He could have kissed her for it, if she hadn't gone on talking. Instead, he sat staring mutely at her, expressionless, his unoccupied hand curling into itself on the arm of the sofa. Outward signs of inward repression. Fear. Guilt. He immediately forced himself to relax his fingers, but the damage was done.

It floored him. The last time they'd come close to talking about how he felt now for Lily, Martha had told him he didn't consider her needs. There had been a row. Oh, yes, they'd been under the effects of a breach, personalities altered slightly, but it didn't make it any less true in Martha's eyes. And so there had been a definite boundary drawn: Martha's needs did not allow for him to love Lily. That was what he thought she wanted, and back then he had been just desperate enough to ensure their relationship stuck that he...did precisely what he had taught himself to do over the course of a lifetime: he tamped down the emotion.

And now this exchange jarred him. It was as though she had known all along that he wasn't capable of letting go completely. She saw a weakness in him, and all the promises he made were a consolation prize.

Perhaps if she had been with him through the last year, she wouldn't be saying this now, he thought. But - then again. The last month had been no picnic. He suddenly felt quite useless and lost. How could he possibly make things right with her if Lily was here and this was how Martha saw him?

Martha couldn't help but see the repression in him. In some ways she could feel it as well; it was like the air had been suddenly sucked from the room. Watching him for a moment Martha moved. She untucked herself from his side and moved so that she was taking the familiar not a sofa position: straddling his lap and looking into his face.

One hand touched his cheek, and the other held his chin as she locked eyes with him, not wanting him to look away. Martha Snape-Jones would never see love as a weakness, and she didn't see him not being able to let go of that piece of his life as one.

"Sev, who we love, they're always a part of us. Just because we have new love doesn't mean that the old gets shoved away or whatever." One hand slipped down his face and rested above his heart, feeling his pulse beat through his shirt.

"There are always pieces of our hearts with those names on them. The pieces get smaller and other people write their names on much bigger ones." For a moment, Martha just traced a 'M' there. "It's alright that they're still there. She's still there. I know that you love me too."

She paused and then she added in voice that was low, but confident. "I know you'll always come back. And I know that you're mine and I'm yours." Simple really.

While he normally welcomed her when she did this, just now it made him particularly uncomfortable. Here they were, talking about how she knew he was still in love with Lily Potter, and she was straddling his lap. He wasn't certain how he ought to respond to this. He couldn't exactly get up and leave without dumping her unceremoniously to the floor. He didn't think arousal was an appropriate response, either. So he endured it tensely, hoping she moved off either the subject or his lap.

More problematic was the fact that he was so focused on what he shouldn't be doing, he was struggling to keep up with her logic.

It was sound, he supposed. He knew she still loved the Doctor. But that was different, wasn't it? Oh, and she made it all sound so simple. He would very much have liked it to be simple. Perhaps he was over-complicating things; he had a talent for doing that.

Finally, he simply replied, "I promised you I wouldn't leave." That settled things more than any other assurances they gave one another.

Martha would differentiate between loving someone and still being in love with them. While she would always love the Doctor, she definitely wasn't in love with him any longer. It certainly wasn't the case that he made her smile or made her heart do the little skipping bits that hers did when Severus looked at her.

If his still did once he'd gotten over the initial shock of seeing her and having her be alive, then they'd deal with this again, and it would probably have a much different (and more final) ending.

Right now she wasn't going to think about that. Right now it was old loves still having a place, and it was the two of them getting through this and over to things on the other side of this and trying to find footing that felt like it was less on mud.

"I know," she said softly. "And I love you."

He almost let it go with his usual flippant reply, then realized rather abruptly that she likely wouldn't take kindly to being called a fool right now. Then, too, he worried the words might ring a little too true. Oh, he had absolutely no intention of ending things with her - it hadn't even crossed his mind. His heart hadn't tripped over itself for Lily. Not the way it did for Martha, at any rate. (Shock and a surge of adrenaline were another thing, entirely.) But calling her a fool for loving him might be a self-fulfilling sort of prophecy; perhaps she would find good reason to agree with him.

So he remained silent for a long moment, his right hand finding her left, fingertips absently tracing the ring he found there. When he looked at things from a less emotional standpoint, he was really rather lucky. She was trying to comfort him, when clearly she should be the one in need of reassurance and comfort. She was being reasonable, understanding, and loving. For heaven's sake, she was straddling his lap.

"You started setting your alarm an hour early some six months ago," he offered finally. "Entirely my fault. I tried every day to convince you not to leave, and you thought you'd be clever and let me believe I at least won an hour of your time. I suppose it was a victory, in a way, but I never stopped asking. So that does beg the question: if I want you enough to beg you every day to stay, doesn't it follow that I don't want to leave, myself? As bad as-"

He faltered, chided himself for bringing it up - surely she would push for answers - but plowed right on. "As bad as it was at times, I hope you have the chance to live this last year as I have. Perhaps you'll understand when I say that you have me in a way she never did. We've gone through hell for one another."

He looked rather rueful there, and added, "Literally, if you take the same view of the Barge as I."

She didn't break the silence between them; there didn't seem to be any reason for that, and Martha didn't want to say anything that would undo what she'd already offered. She didn't know what she would have said if he'd called her a fool; but it likely wouldn't have inspired anything but a smile coupled with her normal response about being his fool.

Of course then it would be that there would be the little sadness on his face, and she didn't want to revisit that, especially now that this was going on. No borrowing trouble not when they had enough on their plate for twenty marriages.

But she smiled when he touched the odd mental ring that had once been a fire engine. The red metal wasn't something she'd trade for any precious metal in the world; it was still the most fantastic thing she'd heard of it.

The smile only increased when he mentioned the hour a day; yes, that seemed like something that she would do in order to make him happy; small victories and spending as much time as she could with him. Perhaps eventually Martha may find that problematic, but for now it was worth it.

The mention of the year made her frown, because she wanted that year; she wanted their wedding and she wanted the fights and she wanted the memories of them together on the beach. Not having them was something that bothered her to an absurd amount and a part of her just wanted to go to temples and beg that she be allowed to go back and have the year just so the two of them matched. Of course if it didn't work for the Malfoys (if they'd tried it; for some reason Martha wanted to believe that Lucius had), then it probably wasn't going to work for her.

If she'd not had the conversation with Sebastian about the Barge and purgatory then perhaps she might not have agreed with Severus, but in the end she decided on something simple: "It's all worth it you know. For me I mean. I wouldn't change any of it because of where it lead." To them, she meant.

He inclined his head slightly in a gesture that might have been agreement - or may simply have been acknowledgement. There were things he would change, but they weren't things from her past. Squabbles. The Mirrorverse. One very painful week not so long ago.

"The point is," he responded quietly, "I love you as well. The point is also that you are my wife, and I have paid a high price to be with you. What's more, you've had your own price to pay for me. I'm not stupid enough to dash out the door for a memory when each of us is clearly what the other wants."

He paused, then decided it was high time to address the elephant in the room and added evenly, "Now, if it's all the same: off the subject or off my lap. You can't possibly imagine how awkward I find this."

Martha just smiled when he said that he loved her as well. That was the point of it all, really. That was why this was worth it, and the truth was that the high price (and it was high, Martha would cede that) was something that she would bear over and over for this, and for them.

But the smile shifted to laughter when he mentioned they should be off the subject or off his lap. "Change of subject then, because I'm comfortable and I am definitely enjoying this wifely privilege."

Martha didn't want to talk about it anymore; she didn't want to think about it or worry about Lily any longer. There were other people who could worry about Lily: Sebastian, Hermione, Tonks... the other Severus didn't even enter into her head; she hoped he'd know better.

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