"The happiest man alive will see his own reflection," is what he was told. He yearned to be that man—the man who desired nothing, the man who needed nothing out of life, but himself. But there was no such thing, and he was no such man.

Death surrounded him, breathing down his neck. He wore a white turtle neck to secure a minuscule amount of warmth. The color of death's eyes dimmed his world. He wore black from head to toe for he knew no other color. Death caged him as a relentless warden. He wore buttons to never lose the feeling. Deaths' cape shrouded him. He wore one for he brought death.

A single word can do so much. It can break or fix things. Sometimes it takes just another word to reverse everything. Between Severus and Lily, words mean almost more than the emotions they have bottled up. Two-shot, AU. Forgive me, but Severus is out of character.

In a world, so imperfect and damaged after the war, there is a lone woman who had lost so much. Things used to be normal, they used to be joyful and pleasing. One event changed that, and now she's left to mourn for a man she could have very well called dead.

Severus Snape had only done wrong, until the very end. Yet he deserved a full life, a happy life, but most of all a life where there was no question of what was the dark and what was the light. He found himself in a place, so familiar, yet so different. He had so much to earn and so much more to work for. He needed Lily. He needed to change things. He would, or so he told himself.

It was a final plea—a dim light in the nearly impenetrable darkness. It would be heard, he would make sure of it. Severus would have rather given Lily his life, than have watched her walk away one more time.