Disclaimer: I do not own the Potterverse © JKR. She just lets me play with the action figures for a while!

THE AWAKENING

"Why are you waiting?" She glanced at him, her cinnamon eyes bright with the knowledge that would present itself in time, knowledge that she had, that she had and that he did not know that she possessed. Knowledge that should be locked within the depths of her mind, by her own will.

It was this knowledge that she had woken to, earlier that day. Disorientation had been the least of her worries when she found herself lying in a rather comfortable bed that was definitely not the one she had shared with him. Her small body was swathed in a rather garish hospital gown that all but swallowed her whole. I must be…in St. Mungo's?

Another astute observation, Miss Granger, his voice had admonished her slightly, and she rolled her eyes. She couldn't even escape him when she was alone. Fuzzy memories of crying and screaming made it's way into her waking state, and she shivered. Why am I here?

It had hit her then, the screams and wails of her dying parents, the smell of acrid smoke as she tried to get through the house fire, tried to save them. The leering face of one Lucius Malfoy as he thrust her back into the darkness, his smile dark with the knowledge of what he had just done to her body. The dark, sad eyes of Remus Lupin as he lifted her broken body off of the dungeon floor of Malfoy Manor, the look of pity Molly Weasley had given her as they sponged off the dirt and grime to find bruises so livid that her pale skin seemed to be given a new depth.

And then more recent memories of a sobbing Harry Potter holding close the body of a muggle girl that had been cruelly dismembered and left to die on his doorstep, of Ronald Weasley screaming in pain and fear as the Cruciatus curse flowed through his body. The look of dark promise in the eyes of Bellatrix Lestrange as she held Neville Longbottom by the throat, telling him that he would end up like his parents, a useless husk. The flat, cold eyes of Luna Lovegood as she lay in a pool of her own blood, the spacey look on her face replaced by one of sheer horror at what depraved act she had been put through before mercifully being allowed death. The words of the shallow and idiotic Minister of Magic as they lowered casket after casket into the ground.

With those memories swirling around in her head came more recent ones, ones of a worried Ron and Harry as they visited a despondent and broken man that sat in her room, day after day. Of droves of doctors giving their support, of Draco Malfoy offering to pay for her hospitalization. Of breaking down only to not ever think she would wake up. Of returning time and again to the world she truly belonged to, not this harsh, cold world in which she had watched people kill and be killed, in which she had done the same.

When she had awoken, he had not been there, and fear clutched at her heart. Maybe he had given up hope? Maybe waiting had been too much? She wasn't sure how she remembered everything that had happened, but part of her must have been aware of the outside world. When the nurse had shuffled in, she had not responded, but only because she was too into her thoughts. That, and she didn't want to alarm the poor creature who seemed nervous enough in her presence. Surely she hadn't been violent, had she?

No, she didn't remember being violent. But then, would she remember?

But, he had come in then, and had resumed his constant vigil over her. And for the first time in her life, Hermione Jane Granger didn't know what she should do. Alerting him to her state of awareness in such a rude fashion just wouldn't be plausible, he needed to realize for himself that she was alert, aware, and ready to go home and face the world she had left behind for so long.

As she asked her usual question, she noticed he had stilled. His expression was a study of one dejected and resigned to fate. "Because waiting is all I have left."

"Well, I hope you aren't going to wait all day to take me home." She answered softly.

He didn't seem to have heard her, at first, because his next answer was on his lips before he realized. "Life is har—what?" He turned to her, searching her face with obsidian eyes that shined suspiciously. "What did you say?"

"I said, Severus, that I am ready to go home."

His breath caught as he stared at her. "Home, as in...our home?"

"Home as in the home you promised me when you married me, Professor." Cinnamon eyes locked on his obsidian, shining in the half-light of the hospital room. "It's time. I'm ready to move on."

Her words rocked him to the core as he stared at her, almost unwilling to move, not wanting to break this new breath of lucidity, in case she should revert to her previous state. "Are you sure."

"Severus Snape, if you do not get me out of this room within the next hour, you will be sleeping on the couch, and that is final!"

Launching himself at her in a move that even surprised himself, he embraced her tightly, his lips seeking hers, the kiss hard and full of every bit of emotion he could pack into it.

And that was how the nurse had found them several minutes later, oblivious to everything but each other.

AN: I couldn't resist. I read Waiting again, and I just had to do a sequel, to finish it up. It just wasn't fair to poor Severus. He shouldn't have had to wait indefinitely.