(Untitled)

[emptyyourself]

[Who:] Severus Snape, Mozenrath, Martha Jones, Arthas, and open to the warden patrolling level Zero (...and anyone else in Zero, actually).
[What:] Consolidation of three separate logs. Also, affected!Snape is affected by the event and lost his inability to work and play well with others.
[When:] Today over the course of several hours.
[Where:]

Comments

Noon / Afternoon - Martha's Room

[emptyyourself]

Snape returned to his room only long enough to assess the damage done before and during his altercation (fight, it had been a fight) with Mozenrath. The couch was lying at an odd angle near the door and one of the cabinets had been destroyed when he had leaped into it to escape being crushed by flying furniture. He had a good deal of cleaning up to do, once he had his wand restored. However, there were more important issues to deal with at the moment. He closed the door and stepped over broken vials to reach his desk.

Exactly as he remembered, there was a crumpled photograph and a scrap of paper. His younger self had smoothed them out, but even so, it was obvious they hadn't been well cared-for over the course of two years. He had forgotten they were in the drawer. He picked up the photograph and stared at it flatly for a moment, then glanced around the room. Somewhere amidst the debris was a rubbish bin with two more pictures which had, in a fit of pique, been ripped to shreds.

He pocketed both the photo of Lily and the scrap of letter with a frown and made his way out to find Martha. He would try her room, first. She was probably in her room - or he hoped as much. He wasn't certain this was a conversation he wanted to have in the infirmary.

[thegooddrjones]

Martha had taken the day off as soon as the port was over. She needed it, frankly. After tossing herself into work to avoid the pain of everything that had been said to her yesterday, she needed to simply be in her room and decompress. Decompressing involved a fair amount of being able to cry now that she didn't need to bottle it up and help everyone else.

She didn't want to, but she couldn't stop thinking of the things that the younger self had said. Even when he admitted that the things had been shoved into a drawer rather that kept, Martha couldn't deny that it was the little doubts that she'd had in the back of her mind. No, not doubts, they were worries that she fought hard to think on.

At some point during the flood, after visiting in zero, Martha had gone to Severus's room and collected Simpering Dustmop, bribing him with food from the door. The mess hadn't put her off, but the sudden feeling of being unwanted had. Now she lay on her bed on her side with both cats, past the crying stage and now into the stage of 'bloody hell, what happens now.'

[emptyyourself]

Of all the conversations he would have over the next several days - Arthas, in particular; what in hell had he been trying to do? - he suspected this would be the most difficult. Not only would he have to try and set things right after what his younger self had said to her, he would have to explain why those two items had been in his desk drawer.

Oddly enough, "this wasn't my fault" didn't cross his mind.

When he reached her door, he hesitated and very nearly lost his nerve. She hadn't tried to contact him - perhaps she didn't want to hear any apologies or explanations. He had to force himself to knock.

[thegooddrjones]

The knock had startled her, but she knew it would only be one person. Anyone else would have commented on the journal entry that she had made prior to see if she actually wanted company. Martha didn't want company, not right now. If she had company she would have to explain while she was feeling this badly and 'Severus's younger self is a wanker' probably wasn't going to be enough of an explanation, even though it certainly felt like it should be.

It didn't even cross her mind to try and send him away though. She shifted up on her bed, readjusting the cats that were with her so that she wasn't laying down and then she called softly. "Come in."

Whatever else happened, this wasn't going to be at all pleasant for either of them.

[emptyyourself]

Severus was starting to wish he had waited for this until after he had repaired his wand. He would never use it on her - not to harm her, anyhow - but the idea that he was walking into this unarmed caused him to feel more than a little unease. However, Martha didn't sound angry, so he was likely safe. He might have preferred her angry, actually.

He entered and closed the door quietly behind himself, with the distinct impression that he was waiting for judgment. They wouldn't be having the conversation he suspected was forthcoming if he had just...thrown out that damned photograph.

If he hadn't been under the effects of the ongoing flood, the first thing out of his mouth might have been, "I was an inmate for a reason. You should have avoided me." It did occur to him to say it, but some brain-to-mouth filter (one he had always had, hadn't he?) prevented him from actually starting off with that.

Instead, he said quietly, "I'm sorry."

[thegooddrjones]

It had crossed her mind at some point during her thinking that maybe she could have requested a new wand for him. However, it seemed far too personal a thing for her to do for him, and Martha had done far too much for him for his younger self anyway. She'd unconsciously braced for fight, but she didn't know what to say for a moment when he had apologized.

"I know you are." She said softly, and Martha held out her hand for him. Screaming didn't sound appealing, and she didn't want to get up from her bed. "It wasn't entirely your fault," she added, because she knew that it wasn't. He was a changed man, a better man than the boy was, and she knew that he would never say those things to her, even when he was at his angriest.

But that didn't mean he wasn't thinking them.

For a moment she was silent and then she added, "if you're wondering about the photo I had of Lily, I don't have it anymore. I kept waiting for you to ask for it, and then when you went home I thought it was wrong to keep it and tossed it over the side." Her tone was soft, and it was slightly distant, because she'd been wondering if he'd thought of it somewhere in here while they were together.

[emptyyourself]

He didn't move to take her hand, despite how much he wanted to. While there was no shouting, this wasn't settled.

His confusion showed clearly on his face at the mention of the photo she had. He had absolutely no idea what she was talking about. She had thrown the photograph over the side? What photograph? It took him a moment to remember her offer more than a year ago, when Lily had been aboard.

"I never wondered about it," he replied guardedly. The fact that she had brought it up was enough for him to be certain that this wasn't just about what his younger self had said. "I'd forgotten it, as a matter of fact."

[thegooddrjones]

It had been driving her mental for over an hour, and he had forgotten about it. Yeah, that was about right. Bloody hell a good part of her wished she could have gone back and sent someone else down to zero to check on him and everyone else there. Why did she feel the need to go and do everything herself? It was a bloody stupid thing to do, and she couldn't understand why.

Sometimes she was simply too masochistic for words, something that the flood was making her realize. After all, she had to have known that it would have ended badly, and that Severus had pictures of her in his room. Bloody stupid, Martha.

Alright, moving on because she couldn't go back and undo what had already been done, all she could do was attempt to fix it. "I know you love me, Severus. I know that he went through your things and found that. But I need to know, is any of what he said true? I..." her voice got soft for a moment. "I just need to know. Anything?"

[emptyyourself]

He studied her wordlessly, trying to decide how to respond to the question. Yes, some of it had been true - but not in the way it had been presented to her. He did love her - but the photograph was damning, to say the least.

"He - I was trying to hurt you. You weren't told those things for any reason save because I was angry and knew you had somehow replaced her." He suspected she wouldn't accept that as any kind of an answer, even as he said it. "I was eighteen and thought I knew better than everyone else - even myself, apparently."

[thegooddrjones]

Martha nodded, she knew that he had been trying to hurt her. The knowledge had prevented her from responding to the post in his journal that he had made, save to tell her inmate to stop. But at the same time, the things that he had said... it was almost like he had known about it, and that worried her. Of course he was a prat and a bully and that was part of the thing that bullies did: find what hurt the most and wield it like a battering ram, but she never would have thought that she was that obvious about it.

God, she hoped she wasn't that obvious about it.

"I know that. I know he was very keen on wanting to take you out of here. I know that he was rather wanting me to dump you, I think, but I need you to tell me if any of that was true, and I do not want to have to sit here and go through each horrible thing and ask one by one. So, please just tell me if it's true." Normally Martha would have been far more gentle about it, she would have taken each aspect in slow painful questions but right now... she didn't.

[emptyyourself]

She wasn't going to let this go - and really, he had no right to expect her to. He exhaled slowly, then responded, "Understand that everything he knew, he - I -"

This was going to be frustrating.

"He knew those things from reading my conversations with you. I don't have some secret journal hidden away with all my devious schemes to use you and abandon you." He stopped himself and looked away for a moment, trying to find some way to explain himself coherently. "I've not been lying to you: I have absolute no intention of leaving you. Ever. But yes, I want to go home. Of course I want to go home."

He paused, then added softly, "I simply want you more."

[thegooddrjones]

Martha was a time traveler, and she understood the difference between that him and the one who he was now, so she simply nodded, and decided not to mention how it was wibbly-wobbly timey wimey stuff, but she didn't think an argument about that was a good idea right now.

Despite the fact that she still had her amazing secret weapon.

Martha knew that he didn't have a secret journal, because if he did, his younger self simply would have pulled it out and showed him. It would have been one of the things she would have explained to Mozenrath if he hadn't grabbed her wrist and then tossed his journal. And then she nodded about him wanting to go home. "You know, there's no reason we can't simply live in both worlds. We have deals with the Admiral, we could do six months in one, six months in the other."

[emptyyourself]

"While I'm relieved to know where we live hasn't become something of a moot point, I didn't come here looking for a compromise." He wondered if she was at all distracted from her initial question by this new topic, but decided it probably wasn't the right course of action to avoid answering it in full. She had a right to know.

He drew the photograph and scrap of paper from his pocket; the damage done from months of being shunted to the back of a drawer by more important things was obvious. He eyed the picture for a moment, trying to find some emotion that wasn't the residual ghost of the agony he'd felt yesterday. Finally, he approached her and held out the items.

"I know what I need better than he did; this isn't it."

[thegooddrjones]

Martha didn't say anything to that, because while she did have the doubts, she also knew that most of what he'd said was false. It had never really crossed her mind that this conversation might end with them being done with one another. Maybe it was hopefulness, maybe it was stupidity, but Martha Jones needed Severus Snape like oxygen and she was certain that he needed her as well.

When he approached her, Martha did lean forward, shifting Boe from off her lap as she did so. She'd never see the items before, but she knew what they looked like in her mind after both meeting Lily and reading the books. For a moment, she wondered what Lily would say about this. About the two of them.

When he offered them to her, Martha took them silently for a moment, and just looked at them. She'd known that they'd been shoved into a drawer and forgotten, because the him that was had admitted it, but it was nice to see them for herself. "I know it wasn't you, Severus. I love you. I just... it was like he saw right through me into every little worry I ever thought. If you tell me that this..." Reaching out, she grabbed his hand and pulled him towards her. "Is what you want, then I'll believe you."

[emptyyourself]

Of course he'd seen right through her. It wasn't some preternatural sixth sense: she'd told him over the network all her fears at some point or another, and sitting in level zero gave one a very long time to read through all those old conversations. What he hadn't gleaned from them, he'd assumed based on common sense. Martha knew about Lily. Martha was in love with him. Ergo, Martha would be doubly afraid of losing him.

Rather than feeling relieved that she seemed to have forgiven him, he felt tired. Weary. He'd been forced to relive one of his worst nightmares, and was spending the aftermath of the flood cleaning up the messes his younger self had left behind. Story of his life.

He showed none of this to her, however. He touched her cheek with his free hand. "Would I be here if you weren't all that I wanted?"

[thegooddrjones]

"I hope not." Martha watched him for a moment, and then she reached up and pulled him down into the bed with her. It wasn't about sex, it was about wanting him close to her, it was about wanting to make this whole bloody thing go away. "I know better. I told you, no one makes you do anything, not even me." Well, she'd told the younger version of him.

Martha felt a bit guilty that she hadn't been able to stop Mozenrath from spewing the poison that he had while he was in the infirmary. She should have, but she didn't want to make things worse for them later by interrupting then. Really, she had no idea that he would have gotten that personal with the younger version of himself.

"I'm sorry. I should have pulled that journal away from him sooner." Martha touched her wrist where Mozenrath had grabbed it. "I really wish I could have spared you all of that you know. No matter how angry I was, I never would have wanted that for you."