Disclaimer: Not JKR. Not making any money.

Lily's flat looked as if some Death Eater had blasted his way through all her possessions, but Severus knew she had just been packing.

"It's hard," she said, after he'd stepped through the door and re-activated the protection spells he'd put up the night he defected. "I can only fit so many things in my trunk."

"Just like Hogwarts," Severus said. Her trunk sat in the middle of the living room, and it was in fact the same one she'd used all through school: he recognized the fading, glittery stickers she'd put on it sometime around her first or second year, the jerkily-moving picture of Slughorn some Gryffindor prat had painted on the side. Lily came up beside him and slipped her arm around his waist.

For a moment they stood there, watching the badly-rendered Slughorn flicker across the trunk.

"So what do you have to leave behind?" Severus asked, because if they were talking about this then he wouldn't have to think about everything else.

"Clothes, mostly. Party dresses and fancy robes. Stuff I won't need." She shrugged. "Plus all my dishes and pots and pans - I won't need those either. Albus said he'd put the stuff I can't take in storage down at Headquarters, but still." She paused for a moment, pressing her face into his shoulder. "Right now I'm sorting out photographs."

"Don't take any of me," Severus said automatically.

Lily pulled away, looking up at him. The expression on her face nearly broke his heart.

"I mean it," he said. "The last thing you need is for some double-agent to report back to the Dark Lord that an Oppo - Order member's got a stack of photographs of a Death Eater."

"I don't even own a stack of photographs of you. You never let anyone take your picture."

"It's not safe."

Lily scowled, then wordlessly flicked her wand. A cardboard box came careening out the bedroom. She caught it in midair and dragged Severus over to the couch.

"Fine," she said. "Then help me pick which ones to take."

The box was only about half-full, and most of the photographs were Muggle ones anyway, unnerving in their stillness. Severus recognized her parents, arms looped around each other, eyes squinting into the camera. There was one of her repugnant sister as a little girl, sitting on a swing in the playground by Lily's house. Some Muggles he didn't know.

Lily set aside any photograph she found of her parents.

The magical photographs were all shoved at the bottom of the box, and there weren't many: mostly shots of her Gryffindor pals, dressed up and sparkling for the Christmas feast. One of a fourth-year Lily in Quidditch robes, the wind rippling her hair. One of him, turning his head away from the camera, putting up his hand.

He snatched it away from her.

"Wouldn't want to take that one anyway," she said. "I can't even see you."

"Who would want to see me?"

She gave him a strange, haunted look. He'd meant it as a joke - his nose and hair and all. But she just blinked twice, eye shimmering, and said, "I don't want to forget what you look like."

He felt as if someone had blasted him. Her gaze lingered for a few seconds longer, and then she turned back to the photographs. "Here," she said. "This is the one I wanted to take."

"You can't -"

"Oh, shut up." She held the photograph up to the light. He saw himself, maybe fifteen or sixteen years old, bony and scowling, pushing through the vines that hid the entrance to the clearing in the Forbidden Forest where they went when they wanted to smoke cigarettes and copy each other's homework. The light from the camera flashed, whiting out the image entirely - and then sixteen-year-old-him was glaring in surprise and annoyance, head shaking, lips moving.

Severus heard Lily's laughter inside his head. Her voice, ringing out through the woods: Caught you!

"I remember when you took this," he said. "You'd been trying to take my pictures for weeks. I wanted to hex you on the spot."

Lily-in-the-present laughed and tucked the photograph into the pile with the pictures of her family. "I know. That picture is precious."

"You can't take it." He reached across her lap, but she slapped his hand away.

"One picture," she said, "is not going to arouse suspicion."

"You don't know that."

"I know you're far too paranoid."

"And you think I don't have reason to be? Don't be stupid."

"Only if you won't be a git." She slipped the lid back on the box, tossed the box to the floor, picked up her stack of pictures. He wanted to stop her. If anyone saw, if they questioned her - even other Opposit- (Order! It was the bloody Order to him now!) other Order members were a risk. No one except Dumbledore and Lily knew his status as a double agent. Severus himself had difficulty believing it: he never fancied himself that idiotically courageous.

But he didn't stop her when she tucked the photographs inside her trunk. The way she looked at him as she said that she didn't want to forget what he looked like - he simply couldn't bring himself to do it. Even if it did make him a sentimental fool.

Lily dropped back down on the couch beside him, slipping her hand up underneath his hair. He shivered at her touch, at her fingers against the back of his neck, and thought about how he wouldn't get to feel her touch for a long, long time. Maybe never. He hadn't been alone with Dumbledore long enough to ask what would become of him after the war - and even if he had, he wasn't sure he wanted to ask. He wasn't sure he wanted to know.

The Dark Lord welcomed the Order's defectors, but he never trusted them completely, and Severus knew his plans for them after the Death Eaters' presumed victory was - less than pleasant. He had no reason to think the Order would be any different. Victors torture the conquered: Severus did not believe a hatred of the Dark Arts would be enough to curtail that particular fact of life. And he knew first hand the cruelty of the Other Side, long before he ever pledged his loyalty to the Dark Lord.

Lily kissed along his neck, pulling him out of his thoughts. She was the only thing that mattered. Lily and her baby, his baby, their baby. The Order would imprison and torture Death Eaters, if they won, but they wouldn't murder Muggle-borns.

And so he chose his side, for the second and final time.

"Sev," she whispered, and her voice was like a cool breeze in summer. "Sev, Albus'll be here soon."

"Then you should finish packing."

"I have." She nestled up close to him, her hand slipping inside his robes. "One more time? Before he gets here?"

Severus looked at her, at her flushed cheeks, her bright eyes, her tousled hair. She was going away. He knew it but he hadn't believed it. Not until now. One more time.

I don't want to forget what you look like.

"Lily," he said, because he wanted to feel her name on his tongue. "Lily, I love you."

She smiled. It was the most beautiful smile he had ever seen. "I know."

"Don't forget it."

"I won't." She crawled onto his lap, straddling him at the hips. Put her hands against the side of his face. Looked into his eyes. An invitation.

He looked, and inside her thoughts he found sadness and love, as he expected. But also hope.

"Lily," he whispered, touching her face, letting that hope wash over him in waves. "Lily, I - you can't put so much faith in me -"

"Yes I can," she said, and kissed him.