"Two roads diverged in a wood, and I--
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference."

The words struck, as they always struck, with venom made of ink and irony. He read them again, again, the poem in its bald and fading paper shroud, until the bitter throb deep in his brain turned numb and he felt himself go cold inside on the road he'd taken.

"Sevvie?" Vague motion just above his book caught his attention. "Sevvie, are you still awake?"

"Yes, Deirdre."

She gently pried the book from his hands. "Come to bed, love. It's nearly one in the mornin'." Firelight glinted off her glasses.

"I'm not tired."

"'Course y' are. You've got bags under your eyes." Gently, she stroked the thin, slightly sticky skin with her thumb, her long, pale fingers weaving their hold through his hair. Severus flinched away.

"You know I don't like it when you do that."

Deirdre scowled. She put her fists on her hips. "You don't have to eat me head off. I'll just leave y' be, then, shall I?"

Leave him be, yes. That would be satisfactory. Until morning, anyway, when his neck would be cricked from the sofa and his wife would sulk at him over the whole of breakfast. And, then, she'd cry. None of the horrid wails women made in stories, but low, soft, choked crying that let her try to hide her tears while his black heart crumbled. He folded his hands in his lap. "I'm sorry. Perhaps you're right, I am a bit tired."

The righteous quirk she wore whenever she won came to her lips. She held out a hand. "Come to bed, Sevvie, love. I want to give you a right seein' to."

Careful not to show the frigid dread that washed over him - again - he took her hand and pushed himself out of his chair with his other arm. Deirdre caught him as he pulled himself straight, and kissed him. He kissed her back, vaguely pondering the automaton he played far too well, and allowed himself to be led to the bedroom. Her cropped, black hair bounced in messy, shining bunches, and her glasses glinted when she looked back to give him a sly smile. The dull thud in his chest grew to a drumbeat at the sight of that hair. He reached up to stroke it. Too soft, far too soft.

Deirdre looked back and smirked. "If I didn't know better I'd think y' only married me for me looks."

Severus forced a smile. "And what if I did?"

She laughed. It was high and feminine and made something in his gut sink. "I'd say you ought to be the one wearin' these." She touched the horn of her glasses. "Now, you, on the other hand, are one fine bit of stuff." The finger that had touched her glasses trailed down his throat, his collar, his fabric-covered chest and all the way down to his navel. For an instant, he pictured someone else doing that, and a pleasant shudder pulsed through him.

Deirdre pulled him close just outside their bedroom door. "How'd I get so lucky that you'd wait for a Hufflepuff two years behind you?"

Severus smiled gently and ran a hand over her hair. "I'm the lucky one," he lied. Thirteen years had left him far too good at that. He bent to kiss her before the lie could rend his heart to pieces, and let his mind slip away - not all of it, but enough to keep him sane.

"Well done, Potter! Maybe next time you'll blow me up as well as our cauldron!" Severus wiped Insidious Indemnification Elixir out of his eyes and blinked angrily.

"Not my fault you don't know how to measure sulphur powder!" Potter peeled off his glasses. Circles of pale skin stood out against the dark green goop, setting off the deep, swallowing brown of his eyes.

"Sulphur powder doesn't cause things to explode like that. You were the one adding the saltpetre!"

"Then why's it smell like rotten eggs?"

"Maybe it's Snape." Black snickered wickedly; Potter joined him, as a matter of course. It was low, more a chuckle than a snicker, and deep, and had it not been so malicious Severus would have turned to jelly.

"Don't make me angry, Black," he warned.

"Or what? You'll curse me?"

"Yes."

Black stopped laughing, but if anything looked even less serious. "So you want to get me alone with that long, wavy wand of yours. Why, Snape, if I didn't know better I'd think you fancied me."

"Please. I'd sooner kiss Potter!" His upper lip curled in disgust. It still didn't change facts.

"What's this, now?" Professor McConnell bustled between the desks. He peered over his glasses into the cauldron of spectacularly failed elixir. "I say. That's a bit whiffy, isn't it? You'd better mop this up before it congeals. Added too much saltpetre, did you?"

Severus smirked smugly. Potter sneered. McConnell continued, "I'm afraid the two of you will have to come in later tonight to redo this. Otherwise, I'll have to give you a zero for the lesson."

"Professor!" Potter whinged. "Can't you just make Snape do it again? He's the one who kept distracting me while I measured."

"I did not! You ought to know how to use a set of scales by now. It's not my fault you're as daft as you look."

"Beats looking like a bloody anteater. How do you walk with that thing hanging off your face?"

"You know what they say about men with big noses," Severus purred.

"That they should keep them out of other people's saltpetre!" Potter wrenched the scales away from Severus and gobbed on the corner of his sleeve. He started rubbing the brass vigourously. First Potions lesson of the year and already Severus' good scales were ruined with Gryffindork spit.

Professor McConnell rolled his eyes. "Honestly, like a married couple, you two. Eight o'clock, this room, and at least try to be nice to each other." He shuffled back towards his desk, gargantuan arse swaying hypnotically (in a train wreck sort of way).

Potter's eye started to twitch. "Oh, fuck. Sirius, tell me he didn't just say Snape and I act like we're married."

"He didn't just say Snape and you act like you're married."

"You liar. God, I think I'm going to be sick." He clutched his stomach and, heaving over, made a great (if hushed) show of vomiting noises in their cauldron. Black bit his arm to keep from laughing. Tears of wicked mirth formed at the corners of his eyes. Lupin and Pettigrew looked on quietly.

"Grow up, Potter," Severus muttered sharply. Much to his disgust, the little display did nothing to weigh down the butterflies rising in his chest.

He realised he was naked, and that he was unhooking that infuriating harness Deirdre wore. She didn't need it. Her breasts were small and firm, and if they ever shrank she'd look like a boy. In the early days of their union, she'd joked once that he secretly wanted to marry a man. Severus only smiled and kissed her, and as always relied upon acting and wishful thinking, acting and wishful thinking. Voldemort or no Voldemort, he could never stop pretending to be someone else. It was either that or make Deirdre cry.

He pulled the contraption of fabric and wires from her arms and looked at her chest without really seeing it. Halfway closing his eyes, he knelt to take one pointed nipple in his mouth. It was too large, too bold and too broad, but he teased it between his teeth anyway. Deirdre moaned softly and ran her hands over his hair. "Don't ever stop doin' that, Sevvie."

He didn't speak, only shook his head solemnly. She didn't have to know what sort of bitterness rose in his throat. He looked up to find her eyes; they were too weak a brown, dairy chocolate rather than dark, and marred by flecks of green much as her nose was marred by freckles. She smiled. It was sad. Strength that could have freed him withered in his chest. "I'm goin' to miss you, love. Doesn't seem right, man and wife apart ten months a year." The long, pale fingers in his hair kept stroking, kept stroking.

He shook his head. She gasped and clutched him with both arms. "Take me to bed, give me somethin' to remember y' by."

He reached up to gently remove her glasses. Tenderly, he brushed back a bit of hair from her eyes. Too fragile, her features were too fragile. What he wanted was delicate, but not fragile.

He damned near shoved the cauldron to the floor. For the second time that day, Severus wiped Insidious Indemnification Elixir from his eyes and his face. "Next time, I'll add the saltpetre, shall I?"

"Still smells like the sulphur to me."

"Are you sure we're in the same year, Potter? Only, you act like one of the first years."

Potter's elfin brows went straight in a look of bored annoyance. "'Least I know how to be sixteen. You're, what, eighty?"

"Go play with the Whomping Willow, Potter. It looked lonely last time I saw it."

Potter's pink lips curled back in a grin. Severus arched an eyebrow. The space behind them felt quite full of helium. "Maybe I will, Snape. Care to join me?"

"Yes, right after I finish sawing off my gonads with a butter knife."

Potter's hands flew melodramatically to his chest. "Oh, were you going to give me a present? That's just what I've always wanted, your tackle in a box."

Severus sniffed. He started clearing up their cauldron and other assorted pieces to be scrubbed in the gargoyle's icy dribble. "So that's your game. You've only wanted to get in my pants all this time. As if I'd let you."

Potter made a noise. "A greasy-haired, big-nosed git like you? Spare me, Snape. I wouldn't even be here if you knew how to mix a potion!"

Severus turned his back and dropped the cauldron in the granite sink. "If Professor McConnell bothered to supervise his detentions rather than leave a note to leave a sample in the jar I think he'd agree that this is all your fault, Potter. I don't even understand why I'm here."

"Maybe you fancy me. Why else would you let me foul it up so much? Don't see you trying to mix it all yourself even if you're so high and mighty about it."

Severus stiffened. He turned his head by degrees to stare at Potter with a disconcerting twitch. He tried not to think about what was causing the twitch. "You have officially gone mad. Completely, utterly mad."

Potter fluttered his lashes behind those damnable glasses. "Come on, Sevvie, love, give us a kiss."

Snape turned his back. "No, thank you."

"You know you want to." Potter made kissing noises. Severus tried very hard to focus on scrubbing congealing sludge from the cauldron. If he turned around, he'd either slap that Quidditch-brained twit across the face, or do what Potter suggested. If he only slapped the intolerable arse he might be able to face himself in the morning.

"No, I don't. Now, if you'll kindly shut your mouth I'd like to be finished before breakfast tomorrow."

"Aw, and I was hoping you'd tell me to spread my legs so you could bugger me senseless."

A shiver ran up Severus' spine. He tried to tell himself it was revulsion, but the thought aborted, halfway formed, and Potter's words plummeted to his groin. It was no secret to him that he'd silently watched his nemesis since their first year. However, he had no intentions of bringing that dark habit into the open. "I'd rather eat dung."

"Oh. Sirius calls that a rimjob."

A phial shattered in Snape's hand. "I don't need to hear about your sex life, Potter!" he shrieked.

"What? Too much for your virgin ears?"

"No, simply disgusting and foul." The image of Black sweating and heaving and grunting on top of Potter, their limbs tangled and Potter's flushed face open at the mouth and crimped at the eyes as he was impaled, again and again, on Black's cock was... making him dizzy, and far shakier than he needed to be. He picked bits of glass from his palm, and let drops of blood flow pink in the icy water. His palm wept where other parts of him couldn't.

"Fucking Hell, Snape, can't you keep it to yourself?" It took a moment to realise that Potter was glaring at his blood. Severus blinked, and pulled out his wand to remove the last fragments of glass.

"Would you rather I gave it to you?"

"Why would I want anything from you? I'd go all greasy!"

"Another word, Potter, and I swear I'll shut you up myself."

"Prove it."

Severus looked at him, eyes narrowed. Potter's eyebrows were raised and indignant, his arms folded, wand clutched tight in his right hand. "You really don't want me to do that, James."

"Maybe I do, Severus. What do you say? Wizards' duel right here."

"Shut up, you arrogant twat."

"Ooh, insults now! You might almost pass for your age if you keep this up!"

"Blow me, Potter."

"You wish I would," Potter purred. "Weren't you supposed to have shut me up by now?"

"Leave me alone."

"No."

Severus looked at his cretin of a Potions partner. The dungeon's torches lit his brown eyes so they seemed to glow from within. Smooth, pale skin, almost as pale as Severus', delicate features, short, slender, powerful build perfect for a Chaser or even a Seeker. He tried to ignore the clenching feeling low in his stomach, and the lack of distance between them. That smirk was back, the one that said Potter had won. It would take so little to wipe it from his face. "Won't your girlfriend get jealous?"

"I don't have a girlfriend."

"What about Evans? Or do you only hang all over her to cover up the fact you fancy blokes?"

Potter cringed. "Shut up, Snape."

Severus smiled. It was a cold, wicked smile that he couldn't help around Potter and his pack. "I know what you want. You want a little kiss, don't you? You fancy me."

"Shut up, Snape! God, who in their right mind could fancy you?"

"I never said you were in your right mind. I only said you fancied me."

"You're a sick son of a bitch, you know that?"

Severus took his numb, half-frozen hand out of the stream of water. He stroked Potter's hair. Potter flinched and sneered. "Take your hands off me, Snape."

"Why? Would you rather I put my lips on you?"

"What lips? Oh, you mean those dried slugs on your face?"

Severus snorted softly. He wrapped his hand around back of Potter's neck and, before the twit could pull away, dived and kissed him. Potter struggled, but Severus wouldn't ease pressure with hands or lips. Fists beat against his chest. They hadn't the space to gain enough power to hurt. If it hadn't been his imagination, Severus would have sworn they hadn't the inclination either.

When he let go, James was panting. His eyes were wide, but rather than contracting in anger his pupils had dilated until the brown was nearly devoured by black. They stared at each other. Potter's mouth worked for a moment but nothing came out. Severus smiled softly; he could have sworn the shiver under his hand was of need.

"Let's do this and go," Potter muttered. "You measure the saltpetre this time." He staggered to their desk and sat down. Quickly, he cast a glance behind him, and Severus took his turn to shiver at the unexpected contrast of shock and lust glowing in Potter's face.

Lips pressed tight against his. Short, black locks twisted around his fingers, and a smooth body writhed sleek beneath his other hand. Were it not for the swell of a hip beneath his scarred palm, the high-pitched whimpers in his ears, the distant scent of rose and lavender Deirdre always wore, he might have imagined she were... if not someone else, at least something else. Severus pulled back. Her eyes fluttered open and she smiled; he smiled back. The worshipful glow in his own eyes was only compassion magnified far beyond its scope.

He shifted his weight slightly on his hips and she moaned. Slickness engulfed him, although he couldn't say precisely when it had done. Burying his face in the side of Deirdre's neck he shifted his hips again, again, losing himself in the regular rhythm, the bell curve pace. The moans became throaty cries, and when she contracted around him she called his name, "Severus!" in a way she never did at any other time.

"Deirdre," he groaned. James, he whispered in his soul. Not the wisest of choices, perhaps, but the only one he truly wanted to taste on the thin skin of his lips.

She smiled at him, a little shaky, a little flushed, her skin shining like pearls in the moonlight. A weak hand teased his hair. He grabbed it and pressed it to his mouth. Eyes closed, he imagined that, under the flowers, he could smell the aftermath of Quidditch practise.

Hands fumbled on clasps, fingers trembling and twitching as buttons and binds went the wayside. It was cold, so very, very cold under the Quidditch bleachers where no sunlight could touch. They made their own heat, flesh against flesh and cloudy breath on skin. Gryffindor's uniform didn't look so repugnant when it was tangled with the green-and-silver stripe of a Slytherin jumper.

Mouths hot and wet, dueling for hold, Severus felt the last of his clothes fall to the dirt. He kicked the shorts aside, was pressed against the rough, flat side of a support beam. "James," he moaned.

"Severus." The word, breathy and needy and from the throat of an angel, echoed in his chest and burst. Sparks pooled in his pelvis. He clutched a thin, beautiful face, delving deeper with his tongue. His hardness was answered with similar rigidity digging into his thigh. Gingerly, tenderly, with all the shaking curiosity of the purest of virgins, he let one palm fall to a pale shoulder, trace the curve of spine in a carefully muscled back. It came to rest against a smooth buttock.

"I want you," Severus said in a shaky voice. James pulled back just enough to look at him. The brown of his eyes nearly glowed in the dim light. Severus felt cold air against his teeth, sticky flesh against his torso, strong arms around his back and waist, broad Chaser's hands clutching him desperately.

"You have me." A strong flush had risen in James' skin, and it glowed like pink pearls. Severus carefully removed those bloody glasses, and suddenly the brown eyes were larger; they fixed on him as if there were nothing else of consequence in the world. James leaned closer, and Severus slouched against the post, legs parted just enough to let his Gryffindor (oh, the irony, the irony) press tight and close and even--

"Bloody Hell, James! Have you lost your fucking mind?"

They jumped. Black, gaping like the world had come to an end before him, stood there in his Quidditch robes. One gloved hand gripped his broom hard enough to shake. "I mean," he went on while James stiffened and Severus clutched him closer, "my god! I thought you might have fancied blokes, but... that's disgusting! Snape?"

"Severus, let me go," James whispered.

"No. No." He glared at Black. "Fuck off, Black. We didn't invite you."

"Bloody good thing you didn't! I might have sicked in your--oh, oh, god, James, why did you move? Oh, bloody fucking Hell, I'm--I didn't need to see Snape's tackle!"

James pulled away and quickly tried to gather up his clothes. Severus tried to grab him. "James--"

"Let me go, Severus! We'll talk later." He pulled his robe over his naked body and straightened his glasses. "Later. Okay?"

Severus tipped his head just long enough to kiss James gently on the lips. A tender flicker of pressure answered it. "Later."

"Later." James looked over his shoulder apologetically as a ranting Black dragged him towards the changing rooms. It was cold, so very, very cold under the Quidditch bleachers where no sunlight could touch.

"Severus?" A warm hand touched his face. "Are you poorly, love? Do y' need to stop?"

He shook his head, blinking in puzzlement.

"You're tremblin'."

"Oh. No, I'm..." he trailed off, and kissed her. Wriggling, he tried to bury himself deeper. Some part of him wondered if this was what James would have felt like, this hot, slick clutch of soft tissues and pulsing muscle. It would be a simple enough matter to find a man - a colleague, a wizard on the street, an ethically under-endowed student desperate for marks - but he could never cheat on his wife. He couldn't make Deirdre cry. She had little to fear - James was dead. James had been dead longer than anyone really knew.

Beneath him, Deirdre cried out softly. Her arms and legs wrapped tighter around him. Severus lost himself once again in the only body he'd ever known.

He yelped as he was dragged between the hedgerows. A hand quickly clapped over his mouth. "Shut up, Snape. We need to talk."

Severus' eyes narrowed. He wrenched himself free. "I have nothing to say to you, Black." Straightening his robes, he started to stalk back into the open.

"I wanted to say I'm sorry."

Severus froze. He turned his head slightly, eyes narrowed to slits. "Eh?"

"I, um, wanted to say I'm sorry. For you and James. I, um," he rubbed his nose on his sleeve, "I overreacted."

"Bravo! You've finally learned the subtle art of understatement."

"I'm trying to be nice here, Snape! Least you could do is accept it." Black folded his arms and scowled. The tip of his nose was red in the chilly air.

"Why on Earth should I believe you? Do I look that dim?"

Black was quiet for a moment. He coughed. "There's... um... there's more... you know Remus goes away every few weeks?"

Severus arched an eyebrow. "Please. If you're trying to tell me he and Potter have been having some clandestine love affair since first year I may have to write Saint Mungo's to pick you up."

"It only started at the beginning of term."

Severus blinked. "Liar."

"I'm not lying, Snape. Only... I saw the way you looked at each other. I mean, I don't like you, you're a slimy, devious bastard who'll do anything to get his own way, but... well, if you're what James says he wants, you're what he says he wants." Black shrugged. His cloak flapped in a sudden breeze.

"If I'm what he wants, then why would he be with Lupin?" Severus wrapped his own cloak tighter and started to storm off.

"Because Remus'll spread his legs for anyone who asks nicely enough. It--if you were to catch them, and show James how upset it makes you - don't look at me like that, you know it as well as I do - he'd stop."

"Or you could have simply set a trap for me. One less Slytherin in the world?"

"Snape," Black clapped a hand on his shoulder, "I'm not lying. Honestly. I'll take a truth potion."

Severus frowned. Mistrust waged war with curiosity and the gnawing, irrational fear that Black might not be lying. Regretting it, and pulling himself to his full imposing height, he peered down his nose and growled, "Tell me."

Black smiled. It looked sweet enough.

Time lost all meaning. Severus steadied himself on his hand and thrust hard, thrust fast. Deirdre cried out, and a few moments later tightened around him again. He didn't ease the force of his impalement, didn't pause to think who was beneath him, only wished again and again for different eyes of a different brown, different hair, coarser, thicker, different planes and precipices, different textures pressing into his flesh. It must have looked like concentration.

Severus had his wand pulled to annihilate the monster that had rent both boys to shreds. Blood dripped from its matted fur, from its claws, its maw. It paused. A low, languid growl formed deep in its chest. The werewolf sniffed. Severus trembled. "Av--"

Hands yanked him back before he could finish the curse. "Get out of here, Severus! He'll kill you!"

"James?" He barely noticed that he was being dragged back up the tunnel at top speed. "You're not dead!"

"'Course I'm not dead! You damn near were, though! For fuck's sake, what were you doing down--don't stop, you idiot! He's smelled you! Oh, fuck. Run."

"Why?"

"Do you want a full-grown werewolf on the grounds, you arsehead? Run! Get out of here, now! I'll take care of it!"

"But--"

James kicked him. "Do you want to die?" he screamed.

Severus ran. Behind him, he heard loud grunting noises, snarls, scuffles and shuffles and the sound of tearing flesh. He tried to stop, to turn back, but his fear propelled him just as it forced tears from his eyes. Out, out the tunnel, past the Whomping Willow, across the grounds, through the hedgerows, into an alcove where the castle itself would shield him from the knowledge that he'd just left the person he... loved?... to die.

In his stead.

It was an odd, high shriek that echoed through his soul.

"Severus!" she shrieked. It was high, panting, hoarse and rich and went on far, far too long. He felt his own body starting to react, his own bolt of fire start to build low in his body, and he silently mourned it. All he knew, all he had ever known, all he would ever know barring James' return from the grave.

"Severus?"

He looked up from his place by the wall. He blinked. "James?"

James nodded. His jaw was set, and he looked more than a little worse for wear. Light flakes of early-December snow marred the perfect blackness of his hair. There was a long scratch across his face. Blood had dried there in serrated dribbles.

"You're alive."

James nodded again.

Severus crawled to his feet and grabbed him in a painful embrace. "Don't ever do that again!"

"I have to. He's my friend."

Severus turned his head. He was staring at James' ear but that didn't matter. "What?"

"I'm not going to just give up my friends, Severus."

"What are you talking about?"

There was a pregnant pause.

Severus pushed James out at arm's length. "That thing didn't eat Lupin, did it?"

"Yes, it did. It eats him every month, and spits him back out when the moon sets." The soft, pink mouth was hard and bitter. The silken shimmer had faded from his chocolate eyes.

Severus took a step back. He eyed the blood on James' hands. "It bit you," he said hoarsely.

"Remus didn't bite me."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes."

They stood awkwardly for a moment. Severus reached out to take James' hand and stroke it. James yanked it away. "Don't touch me."

"Why not?"

"I don't like blokes touching me like that." A knife-edge of sadness was crushed by a hard determination that obliterated any trace of the living glow in James' eyes, in his skin. "Anyway, Lily wouldn't like it either."

"Lily."

"Evans."

"I know who Lily Evans is. I don't see what she's got to do with us."

"There isn't an 'us', Severus. Sirius and I had a long talk about it. I fucked up."

Severus' hands were suddenly very, very cold. His leather gloves might as well have been crepe. "You liar," he whispered.

"I was confused, okay?"

Severus narrowed his eyes. His heart felt like it was sliding down the wall three feet behind him. "What if he'd caught you with someone like Lupin? Or Longbottom?"

James shrugged. He didn't seem to have an answer.

Severus looked at him coolly. He blinked. "You'll have to excuse me, Potter. I have to speak with the headmaster about certain issues."

Potter didn't respond. Severus left him to it.

Deirdre cried out once more as he pounded into her in anger, in loss, in things all too easily excused as lust. She squeezed tight around him, and he groaned as the fire bolt burst in his pelvis, shot up his spine, paralysed him for countless seconds. He would have cried her name as she did for him, but he knew that it would sound like "James".

He lay there, panting and sticky with sweat, for the better part of a minute before he trusted himself to roll aside. She pressed against him, her dark head resting on his shoulder. "You're stunnin', Sevvie, love. Absolutely stunnin'." Her breathing was quick, and her voice a little raspy.

He kissed the top of her head, and put his arms around her. It was the last time, the last time until he came home for a few evenings over Christmas, that he'd have to do that. There was plenty at Hogwarts to keep him occupied, and she'd long ago ceased asking what.

It struck him, out of nowhere, that James' son ought to be starting that year. Severus had never seen him, not even a picture, but he rather imagined a spoiled, prissy, arrogant brat nursed on the Daily Prophet and sharing Lily's I'm-too-pretty looks. Fitting, really, for The Boy Who Lived. Forbid he look like James. As long as he - Harry, was it? - took after his mother, Severus could resent him in peace.

"I'd never want anyone but you, y'know," Deirdre murmured.

Severus started to open his mouth. He couldn't say it. He couldn't lie anymore that night. Instead, he said with not quite the meaning she would take, "I love you."

He felt her broad smile against his shoulder. "I love you, too." A soft kiss fell on his skin. "Why did you ask me to the Yule Ball that year, Sevvie?"

He hugged her. "Because."

She snorted. "You and your answers. It couldn't've been me looks, I know."

He gazed down at her, at the eyes too pale, the hair too silken, the body too curved and careless. He cupped her thin cheek, and for an instant pictured someone else there. "Don't be so sure," he said, and kissed her. She kissed him back, and his mind flickered.

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I--
I took the one more traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.