Asleep

He is having another of his nightmares. Thrashing about, twisting the sheets around his ankles. When he bumps up against her, hard, she jerks awake. It only takes her a few moments to realize what is wrong.

The room around her is brightly shadowed, a mixture of the black of night and the silver moon streaming through the large window. It casts its light on him, spreading creases along his face, which increase the intensity of his appearance.

"Hey." Her voice is sweet and low, she holds his arms and strokes his face. "Hey, shh, it's OK."

He continues to convulse, eyes closed and moving rapidly beneath their lids. His teeth grind and it unnerves her, but she only brushes his hair from his face.

"Severus." She continues to stroke his face, arms, chest and hair, murmuring quietly, hoping to coax him awake.

He gasps loudly, suddenly, upon waking, gulping for air. She moves back to allow him room to breath, but her soft hands don't leave his face.

"You were dreaming," she tells him soothingly. He is drenched in sweat, cold and sticky.

"I'm sorry," he says, gazing at her with wide and horrified eyes. She only smiles and gets out of bed, crossing the room to the washing basin. She soaks a cloth and returns to him, a silvery blue vision in her white nightgown. She kneels above him and bathes his face in the warm cloth.

"I had another one," he tells her as warm water trickles down his temple.

"Close your eyes," she whispers, and leans down to kiss his now warm forehead. She sets the cloth aside and pulls the blankets up tightly around them. He is warm and safe.

"What did you see?" she asks, nestled underneath his chin. She ignores the viciousness with which he holds her to his chest. Like he had lost her in a previous life.

"You don't want to hear," he replies. Then- "The usual things."

She sighs a small sigh, sending warm breath across his chest.

"I'm sorry."

He closes his eyes and relishes the smell of her hair, the silky feeling of it on his face, tickling his upper lip.

"Me too." They lie silent for a while, but neither of them are ready to sleep again. These episodes often shake them both.

"I lost you."

She raises her head to look down at him.

"What?"

"In the dream. I said something stupid and cruel and I lost you. I feel sorry for it still."

Lily smiles.

"How often are you going to have dreams like that before you realize-"

"That wasn't everything. I lost you, and then I killed you."

Her smiles falters, although she retains her light expression.

"Sev..."

"You don't understand. I was... so stupid. I didn't listen, I didn't know-"

"It never happened," she asserts smoothly, giving him her best serious look. "I'm here, you never lost me. In fact..." she moves so that she lies on top of him. "I'd like to see you try." He feels overwhelmingly safe and invincible under her weight. Soothed.

He wraps his arms tightly around her and holds her firm. She rests her head on his chest.

"I'm sorry, just the same."

"I know you are. But really... after everything you've done, for the Order, and the wizarding world, and, and me, you don't have to be sorry for anything."

He turns his face upward to look into hers, soft and smooth and glowing. Her eyes search his for any trace of guilt, so that she might alleviate it.

Satisfied, she rests her head back down and sighs deeply. Still, something eats at him, like he's forgotten something.

"You married Potter," he blurts. He feels her exhale, exasperated, onto his chest. "You married him because I was too cowardly to say-"

Her gaze is suddenly sharp and unyielding. She refuses to listen to this.

"You are so many things that are good and wonderful, Severus. You aren't a coward."

"Lily-"

She silences him with a kiss, stern and firm and comforting. She kisses him into forgetting, like she always has, with her fingers on his face her toes curling around his.

The day he returned to Spinner's End, spent and dirty and tired, from three years of deceiving and killing and being afraid every moment of every day, from the day he came into his kitchen, she was there, sitting with a cup of tea.

"It's not for me, it's for you," she said, sliding it toward him. He took a step toward the tea but was relieved when she stood up into his arms. He was too tired to cast any spells, and far too tired to sleep, but the way he held her in that moment one could have sworn that he had the strength of ten men.

Now it is her with the strength. His depletes from time to time, plagued by nightmares and guilt and the faces of people he'd been forced to murder for the 'greater good.'

She is there, though. She holds him and kisses him and makes him laugh again, when he thought he never would have.

"I'll wait for you," she'd said, upon hearing of his and Dumbledore's plan. She'd shown up on his doorstep, in spite of his request to be left alone- she'd never listened.

"I'll be here when you come back. So you have to come back," she finished, gazing fiercely at him, satisfied with the order. She knew he wouldn't dare disobey.

And yet, as he trudged slowly home, his boots caked with mud and his limbs limp, his mind wobbling under the stress of three years of deception, he didn't expect her to be there. He hadn't spoken to her since the doorstep, and had experienced too much of life's cruelty to expect her to have been so noble.

They spend their mornings basking in kitchen sunlight, the kind that streams graciously through the windows and bathes everything in a warm yellow glow. The kind that warms everything, even in the winter. They sip tea and she makes him toast. Sometimes he cooks eggs, but they're often runny.

She touches him over a dozen times a day, every time she rises for the kettle, walks by him as he reads, before she leaves the house and as soon as she returns. Kisses, brushes of the fingers, stroking his hair.

For three years, he had only dreamt of this kind of happiness.

He remembers when food hadn't any taste, when she thought of him as nothing more than a friend.

"Best friends," she had granted him kindly one summer. "You're my best friend."

He reaches up to rest a hand in her hair. Her breathing is even and slowing; she's slipping back into sleep. The rhythmic rise and fall of her chest against his lulls him as well, but he shakes it off.

"Lily," he says abruptly. She wakes and looks at him, blinking sleepily.

"Not yet," he whispers, running his thumb along her face. He isn't finished drinking in her smells. He doesn't want to lose her to the reality of sleep.

"It's OK, Sev." She leans down to kiss him. "Go back to sleep. I'll be here when you wake up."

He watches her roll off of him and snuggle under the blankets. He feels overwhelmed with fatigue and his eyelids droop. He reaches toward her, to drape an arm around her and pull her close, but his eyes close as his hand rests on her shoulder.

He sits up. Fumbles for his wand in the blackness and lights the tip. Stone walls surround him in his overlarge four poster. Lesson plans are spread out around him. The candle on the bedside table has burned out.

It takes him a moment, then he draws his knees to his chest and rests his chin on them, knowing he's alone again. Remembering it was a dream. Remembering he is alone and hating the trickery of sleep.

It is when he dreams of him and her and their life together that haunt him more than any of his past victims. It's the silkiness of her hair against his cheek that makes him feel sicker than any of the gore and blood of his memories. Her touch burns and pains him. He loses his temper and thrashes about for a few moments, angry and wishing- willing her to hold him down again and whisper soothingly into his ear, to lie on top of him once more and tickle his chin with her hair.