A/N - SO - i've gotten quite a few subpar reviews on this chapter. apparently snape was out of character, it was confusing in changing venues & lexie isn't a very good match for him... pensive stare... hm... i'm not sure how to fix all of that - but i'm going to make an attempt to correct it... any suggestions?! i think its rather too late at this point... while i realize my hiatus has been rather extensive.. i didn't think it had effected my ability to write well. anyway - taking suggestions on how to correct this mess of a chapter! ha ha - thanks again to all who reviewed!

Chapter 2

Pain, searing pain. Fire, stabbing and burning through every inch of sinew, every muscle, bone, nerve ending. Excruciating, blinding pain. Death seemed a welcome thought when in comparison to the level of pain he was enduring at that moment. And it was certainly not the first time that Severus Snape had wished himself dead.

It seemed as though a heavy London fog had settled in around his head. Thought was clouded by the pain threshold that had been breached long before. He tried to remember where he was… but it was no good.

He was certainly lying on the floor. It was cold, hard… stone. His face was wet, sweat, perhaps? Blood, more likely. His mouth was bone dry. He couldn't swallow. It was dark, damp and chill.

He willed his eyes to open. They twitched several times before they obeyed. Slowly, his dark lashes fluttered open and he squinted into the dark. He was in a stone room. There were no windows, no furniture. A dungeon. And he felt right at home.

He used his arms to try to push himself into a sitting position and failed several times as his hands slipped in something wet and tacky on the floor. It was only after his third attempt that he realized that it was his own blood. He wiped his hands off on his already blood-soaked robes and repositioned them on the floor to have another go.

Just then a door banged open over his shoulder and he was suddenly and unpleasantly swallowed in a blinding white light coming from the outside corridor. His eyes reflexively snapped shut and he raised his arm to block the invasive light out of his eyes, which had become accustomed to the dark during his long stint in this foreign dungeon cell.

When he lowered his arm, he spotted a silhouette in the doorway. Then two. Before he could force his brain to determine who they were, he was being hoisted, unceremoniously to his feet, which promptly collapsed under his weight. The two figures hauled him back upwards where his feet dangled uselessly beneath him, like those of marionettes.

He remembered later, having wondered where they were taking him. And hoping that it was to his death. "Just make it quick…" he thought. "End this hell."

When his two captors let him crumble to the floor, thought returned. He looked up and directly into those horrible, bone-chilling, red slits of eyes, that belonged to the only person who could make this evening any worse than it already had been… The Dark Lord.

Voldemort surveyed Snape for some time, circling around him like a vulture over prey. He noted the blood spilling from the nose, mouth and forehead of his spy and was privy as to how Snape had come to be in this condition.

"Severus…" the Dark Lord said in his high-pitched, whisper of a voice, like the wind rattling through the dead trees of winter.

Snape cringed.

"You did not return to me when I called…" he trailed off.

Snape did not answer. 'Just make it quick…' he remembered thinking.

Voldemort raised his wand and Snape closed his eyes, preparing himself for the peace that death would soon bring.

But it was not the end for Severus Snape. Though, he soon found rest.

Some hours later, Snape awoke in a much more comfortable place than the last time he had regained consciousness. The pain was mostly gone, save for the throbbing pain in his head, which he could only assume was attributed to the high level of duress that he had endured that night, which had lasted an eternity.

In contrast to the cold, stone floor, this time he found himself on a warm, soft, feather bed with a cushy, cream colored comforter and a sea of pillows. There was soft, pale white moonlight spilling gently on the bottom of the bed and out over the shiny hardwood floor. It was heaven.

But he was not alone. A steady, fine-boned hand laid a cool cloth on his aching forehead. He was barely aware that the cloth had not moved independently. Moments passed before he heard the trickling of water and felt the cloth being replaced on his chest. This seemed to bring him to his senses. He opened his eyes properly and looked up at the other. A woman. Young. Dark hair, dark eyes… moving gracefully as she turned the cloth over on his chest. She spoke softly to him. Her tone was soothing, yet, somehow, disturbing at the same time.

"You're going to be fine… everything's going to be alright Professor."

His dark brows knitted together, Professor?

"Here…" the figured twisted around on the bed and retrieved a glass filled with water. "Drink this… it'll help."

Snape pushed himself up on his elbows in order to get a handle on what it was that he was seeing.

His eyes must have shown his shock, for she spoke again.

"You don't know me…" It was not a question.

"You were dead…" he gaped. "I read in the Daily Prophet…"

"Oh… I was never dead." She laughed a hollow, empty, cold laugh and placed the glass on the bedside table. She licked unnaturally red lips sensually and leaned over him. Her face was bony, pale, sallow looking, not unlike his own. Corpse-like, he would venture to say.

"I was presumed dead…" she corrected him.

Snape couldn't believe his eyes. His mind was racing, trying to remember, word-for-word, what he'd read in the Prophet, over a year ago.\

"… body could not be located… Ministry workers had no clues in the abduction… presumed dead…" It was choppy, and confusing.

"Have you missed me?" she said slyly, straddling him with her arms, trapping him, like a spider to a fly.

He pushed himself backwards on the bed, up towards the headboard and into the sea of pillows.

She traced a line down his jaw with her sharp, blood-red fingernails. His hand shot up and caught her by the wrist. But instead of repelling her, it seemed to have had the adverse effect.

She smiled widely, "Oooh… I always knew you'd like it rough!" she said excitedly, moving to climb onto him.

But with as mighty a shove as Snape and his weak body could manage, he threw her from him. "Don't touch me, Miss Zaizen."

Natasha Zaizen flopped onto her back at the end of the bed, looking as though he'd slapped her. "I thought…" she said, looking at him in confusion.

"You did?!" he said in mock astonishment. "You actually thought?! What an accomplishment! And what, pray tell, did you think?" he spat, getting to his feet.

She followed suit.

"Well… I thought now that Lexie's been dead-"

She never finished her sentence. He had seized her by the throat and whirled her around into the wall. Her skull smashed into it with a sickening crunch.

"Never, talk about her. Do you understand me?" he said through bared teeth, clutching her tightly around her throat, and toying with the idea of choking her to death right there on the spot.

She was trembling uncontrollably, but managed a nod.

He sneered at her for a moment longer. Some things, some people would never change. He had always been repulsed by Natasha Zaizen, and it looked as though he always would be.

He snatched up his traveling cloak from a nearby chair, and paced swiftly, purposefully, to the door, leaving Natasha sinking to the floor next to the bed. He found his way to the front entrance and let himself out into the warm June night. It was then that he realized… today made exactly one year since Alexandra Bane had been dead.