Author's Note: First let me thank everyone who had reviewed, alerted, or put this story on their favorites it means a lot to me. I'm so sorry I didn't post yesterday, I got busy with housework and writing that I just didn't have time, but I'll make it up to you all as this is the first of four chapters I'm going to post today.

Enjoy!

Disclaimer: Do I really need to say that I don't own them? I'm just playing with someone else's toys and do return them in the same shape I have found them (well that may not always be the case).

Sleep didn't come easy or last long for Severus, he found himself several times standing outside her bedroom door just to check that she was sleeping. When it was finally quiet he figured she had fallen asleep.

Before dawn he went back to the kitchen searching for coffee, finally finding it he made some before sitting at the table with a mug. His mind was racing with all that he wanted to tell her, it seemed that now he started he didn't want to stop until everything had seen the light of day.

~~^~~SSHG~~^~~

Hermione woke just as the first rays of sunlight were streaming through the window, she turned on her back groaning. She had no idea how long she had cried last night but she felt hung over and a lack of sleep.

She didn't know what to make of what Severus had revealed to her last night, only that it was too much and she had to escape. His words about having to build a wall against her struck a nerve in her, she didn't save him so he would owe her. She had done it because it was the right thing to do, nothing else. To hear that he had started to care about her but that made all the shit from when they were married what? Him fighting his feelings for her? He could have displayed it differently.

No, he was playing a game that had to be it. She couldn't be that easy, he must be board at the moment. That was it, he was just doing this to shatter her heart again. She wouldn't allow it, couldn't allow it. She would help with the grievance against Kaseload because the man lied, but she wouldn't get sucked into Severus' game.

She was sure she was going to have to think like a Slytherin to beat him at his own game, how hard could that be you just needed to think of yourself first. Be cold, cutting, and aloof. Surely she could do that for a day or two. She hoped she could anyway, she just didn't know if she was strong enough to do it. At least not where he was concerned. If she had one weakness it was Severus Snape, but maybe she could use what he was doing against him.

"No, I will not lower myself for him again." She said out loud. No she would just tell him she didn't want to hear him about his suppose feelings for her.

She dressed before leaving her room to the smell of coffee and bacon, she wondered if he left last night or stayed. Looking in the room across the hall her question was answered by the rumpled look of the bedding.

When she stepped into the kitchen she saw a sight she never in her life thought she'd see. Severus was dressed in only a white shirt and black slacks standing at the stove, he must have felt her eyes on him because he turned looking at her, she was struck by how striking he was then admonished herself for thinking that way to hear him say,

"Morning, coffee?"

"Yes."

She found a mug being placed into her hand as she sat at the kitchen table, moments later a plate was set in front of her of bacon, eggs, and toast.

When he sat across from her with his own plate he said,

"Eat up, I think we are going to have a long day ahead of us."

After she took the first bite she suddenly realized how hungry she was, skipping meals yesterday must have set her off because the other possibility was too farfetched to even think about.

Once they were finished and the dishes cleared he said to her,

"I'm sorry I upset you last night, that was not my intention. I was doing something that I told you I wouldn't, I said I wouldn't explain away what I have done to you but I found myself trying to. There was…. Is no excuse for the way I treated you."

"Let's just work on what the grievance."

"Not yet, I still want to tell you….."

"No I don't want to hear it, I don't want to hear about how much you loved Lily. I don't want to hear how you supposedly have or had feelings for me. I just want to work on this so you can go."

"Very wel….. No, I want to talk about it. I want to hear your thoughts on what I did."

"To what end? I can see nothing come from this game your playing."

"Damn it Hermione it's not a game, I'm not here to play with you or your feelings."

"That's all you've ever done. You don't say you care about someone then call them a whore and a slut, or the reverse in our case. You don't have hidden feelings for someone then abandon them when they need you, and I needed you."

Severus watched as she swiped at her face, he started to reach across the table but then stopped remembering what happen last night.

"I know, I don't know what to say."

"I don't want you to say anything, I just want to work on this grievance so it will be done then you can leave."

"I don't want to leave, I want….."

"You want? I spent five….." a thought came to her and she overrode her own brain to spit it out without censor. "Oh I just figured you out, you called her a mudblood which she never forgave you for but then everyone sat around when that truth came out saying, 'poor Severus, in love with a dead woman for twenty years.' Like it was some great feat, it's not. It's just you refusing to have a life of any kind, so what your first love didn't love you back it happens to all of us. Now I get it, you tear someone down before you can even admit you have any kind of feelings for them. You did the same to me, you just took it to the extreme and now are blaming it on some little man who lied."

Severus had stood while she was talking, pacing around the kitchen as she kept talking.

"Sure you have feelings for me after you tear me down to nothing, leave nothing, to what end? So you can play hero again? I'm not dead so you couldn't possibly love me, maybe you wanted me to do myself in then they could say 'poor Severus, never got over his mudblood wife.' But you are wrong it always is just a game with you."

Hermione was breathing hard by the time she was done, she watched his back as he had stopped pacing then he moved so fast that she didn't have time move, he pulled her chair away from the table then dropped on his knees in front of her placing both of his hands on either side of her on the armrest so there was no chance of escape. When she looked at him she saw the pain that was in his features and in that moment wished she could take it all back, when he finally spoke Hermione had never heard so much emotion in his voice.

"Don't ever say that, I…." she watched him as he swallow and in his next words she heard the emotion thick in his voice. "I don't ever want to think about you being anything other than alive, I'm so sorry that I made you think that. You are wrong, I told Lily that I loved her. She was the one who didn't love me, or so I thought for a long time now I'm not so sure it was she didn't love me, but that she bowed to her house wishes because she was tired of fighting them. You are so much stronger, if I had thought it would have made a difference the day you left I would have told you that I love you but I know what a bastard I had become, I'm sure you wouldn't believe me just as I am sure you don't believe me now either."

She watched as he stood turning his back to her, she swiped at her eyes. The words were out there and she couldn't take them back now, and she found that she didn't really want to. She wanted him to know how bad he had made her feel. She caught herself before she apologized for saying what she had, no she wouldn't do that either. She sat there staring at his back, she didn't know what to say. Finally she heard him ask her quietly,

"Did you really think that?"

"Think…" she had to swallow to get the words past her dry throat, "Think what?"

"To do yourself in, as you put it."

"I…."

"The truth."

"Once."

"When?" he asked though he was sure he knew the answer.

"The last time…. Last time I…. when you….."

"When you thought I laughed at you for not being able to have my child." He said finally saving her from having to say it.

"Yes." He knew she was crying again.

"I wasn't laughing at you, far from it. I could see how much pain you were in, pain that I couldn't brew something to make it go away and I had no idea what to do for you. I never meant to make a sound at all, and I'm so sorry that you mistook the sound I made for a laugh, for it was far from that." He turned to face her before saying, "I am weak, I couldn't stay watching you cry and know that I couldn't do anything about it."

It never dawned on Hermione that he would have cared enough to be upset that she was upset, before she could say anything he said,

"I watched as each time you became more depressed, I have only ever seen one other person that depressed. I didn't know what to do then either."

She looked up at him before saying,

"Your wrong, there was one thing you could have done but refused every time. I didn't need a potion, or anything but you to hold my hand."

Severus stared at her, would it have been that easy? Was that had been all she needed, to know that he wasn't going to abandon her to fate?

Hermione jumped up suddenly it was too much to be in this room with him, she needed to be wherever he wasn't right now. She started to walk out of the kitchen when he asked,

"Do you want me to leave."

She looked back over at him before saying,

"No."

Author's Note: Comments really do make me smile and brighten my day.

Also I wanted to let you know that I have a couple of Severus/Hermione videos on youtube, the link is in my profile.