Title: Love
Author: chipmunki
Warnings: sex implied and rare swears
Summary: AU Severus and Lily have loved each other since they were children, but Severus still called her a mudblood and Lily still had sex with James. So when Severus finally speaks his heart the rose was never going to be free of thorns.
"It's not that easy, Sev," Lily gasped, another sob wracking her frame. She looked skinnier than before, but just as luminous as Severus remembered her. He wanted to pull her close, keep her safe, keep her his.
His hands stilled, though, as he reached for her. Her eyes, there was something different in her eyes. She looked… guilty. Sad and so happy at the same time. How was it that he could know her so well, know her thoughts and her every emotion through the tiniest movement of her face and yet not know how to share the feelings that blessing gave him?
"Why not?" he asked, "Why can't we just be happy? I can make you happy!"
Like James never could.
"I'm pregnant!"
It burst out of her, like the child would. Lily's child was not his.
He imagined it. A life raising someone else's child. The growing up looking like a stranger, or worse…
"Whose is it?" he asked. His voice was quiet, careful, like a man walking a tightrope with no wand and no safety net.
He studied her, drawn to her stomach, to where the robes lay completely flat. It was like someone else's spawn, their prodigy, their dreams and hopes were not growing in her stomach. Her silence alerted him and he jerked his head up from its stare at her stomach to glare into her green, green eyes.
"Whose is it?" he hissed.
"James's" she sobbed.
Severus's heart broke in his chest.
His head went to places it should not. James's hands on her breasts, his fingers tracing up her thighs and his mouth on hers. His cock inside of her! The thought of them, in bed together, in the raptures of sexual intercourse, it sickened him!
She sickened him.
How she could have given in to that imbecile, that bully, that arrogant, horrible bastard. Especially when she knew what he had done to Severus. How could she have touched him.
He lurched up from his seat, tripping across the room to stand on the other side, in the shadows, head in hands, trying to hold the tears in.
Oh God she was never going to be his.
The dreams he had held in his heart since he first saw Lily's flame coloured hair and grass green eyes shattered. He was never going to feel the thought of her lips, or the thrum of her hummingbird heart against his chest. None of that for him. Nothing.
Suddenly the sound of sobs met his ears. Lily was crying.
He could not help himself, he moved to her. Just like always, anything she wanted anything she needed and whim and every fancy. If he could get it for her he would. It was like his arms were around her because they were made to be around her. He took in a great heaving sob of air. It was just like he had broken the surface of the ocean after being under until there was no air left in his lungs. His face felt wet. But he had no idea when he started crying. He breathed in deep the smell of Lily' hair, her scent and her soul, and he tried.
"A baby," he said, "A baby,"
And he imagined Lily's face after just seeing her child for the first time, the burbled words, the pictures stuck on the walls that had both him and Lily scribbled with crayons. He imagined that maybe the baby would call him 'daddy' and he could love him or her like his own. He imaged that the baby would have Lily's green eyes and her red hair too. Or maybe black hair, like Potter's, but he could pretend it was like his instead.
He imagined they could be a family.
He only had to say it was okay.
Severus pressed a kiss into Lily's hair. "It's alright," he murmured, hardly believing the words were coming out of his own mouth, "I love you. I could love the baby too."
She shuddered in his arms, and her face raised to his. There was hope in her eyes, pleasure and relief. He had never considered that she would ever love him like that. Just seeing her eyes, he knew that he had made the right decision.
He closed his eyes. A tear leaked down the side of his face, and he felt Lily's shaking hand brushing it away. The warmth of it astonished him. The warmth of the kiss she pressed against his lips.
"Thank you, Sev," she murmured against his lips, "I love you so much,"