Unchained Melody | Rossian

        Friday, August 25, 1922  

❤︎⁠

---

"Rosalie you're taking ages. We're going to miss the first act if you don't hurry."

Margaret Driscoll was exasperated. She'd been ready to go for fourty-five minutes, sitting on the edge of Rosalie's bed, watching her friend change her outfit six different times. The black dress, then the red. Then the blue one because red was too provocative. Then the black one again. Then a pink one that came out of nowhere. It had been another two dresses before Rosie had settled on the cream with lace embellishments, all the while Maggie tutted that Cassian wouldn't give a good goddamn if she came in a potato sack, and could she just make a decision already?

"I know, I know. I just..." she studied herself in the mirror one last time. Did she need more blush? A different shade of lipstick? Should she have worn her hair up instead of down? "You act like this boy's never seen you before. He knows what you look like." Rosie sighed, dropping her shoulders. "I just want to look nice for him."

Maggie pursed her lips, pushing her long dark hair behind her shoulders as she rose from the bed. "If he's ready to see you, it doesn't matter. And if he's not, it definitely doesn't." Maggie smiled at her friend as Rosie nodded in silent agreement. "Don't be so nervous." She squeezed Rosie's hand before heading for the bedroom door. "He's your husband for crying out loud."

Rosie waited until the door closed behind her friend to unzip the cream colored dress and fling it off her and onto the bed.

Definitely the black.

---

Rosebridge Little Theatre
9:00 PM

The curtain fell to a fanfare of music and cheers. Not a single body remained sitting as applause exploded through the theatre, the young actors stepping forward one by one to bow and collect their accolades.

Rosalie was mesmerized. Aside from the show itself and all the work that had obviously gone into such a production, the girl could see Cassian in every corner of it. The comedic timing, the whimsy, the emotion behind every song. Every brush of paint on the props and set. The lighting, the music.

Her theatre boy had done it. For so long she'd watched him work and persevere when others doubted him. She'd looked out over empty seats with him and tried to see the vision he held. She'd sat at his feet with her head resting on his knee while he made edits to his scripts and helped him focus when his doubt got the better of him.

She'd listened to the stories he created, one after another, smiling through his ramblings, knowing that one day, he would finally see something he had made come to life.

Rosie had always believed in the magic that was Cassian McCormick, and as the lights shifted up to the rafters, a sense of enormous pride rushed through her, knowing that finally, everyone else believed in it now too.

“Ladies and gentlemen, a special round of applause for our brilliant director, Cassian McCormick! He didn’t hesitate to step in for his senior who’s regrettably absent this evening but will be thrilled to know how well our play’s been received.”

Tears moistened her eyes; her first glimpse of him up there, leaning against the railing. Her heart ached with a mix of longing and wonder, because there he was. Right where she knew he would always be, and she wanted nothing more than to tell him how incredibly proud she was of him.

Seeing him, for the first time in two months, gripped her with an emotion she wasn't sure she had felt before or could put into words if she tried.

"He looks great up there, doesn't he?" Maggie asked, reaching over with her gloved hand to gently wipe at Rosie's eye. Rosie nodded, unable to speak for the moment, and her friend smiled, "Are you going to go talk to him?" The theatre began to empty as the lights came back on, everyone hurrying to try and beat the rush of people. Some, parents most likely, hurried towards the stage to greet the children with flowers.

"Maybe," Rosie answered. "Can we wait here for a little while? It'll be easier if there's not a lot of people." Maggie nodded, wrapping her arm around Rosie and planting a kiss gently on her temple. "Don't worry so much. Everything will be fine."

---

Most of the theatre had emptied save a few stragglers who stayed behind to talk amongst themselves. Beyond the doors and into the lobby, the girls could still hear the loud excited chattering of the crowd. Every now and then a roar of laughter would filter through, signaling that it wouldn't be dying down anytime soon.

The longer she waited, the more anxious she became, her fingers twisting between themselves as she bit her lip. "Come on," Maggie finally said, taking hold of Rosalie's hand and tugging her gently to her feet. "Either you go try to say hello, or we blow this place and go out for drinks." She smiled, giving her friend a little wink. "I think I know which you'd prefer."

Rosie's hands shook as she exhaled, finally agreeing with a nod. "Yeah alright. Come on." With Maggie's hand in hers, the two girls wandered from the theatre, into the lobby, met with a crowd at least four people deep on every side. Maggie strained, popping up on her toes to see over them, and then smiled as she came back down and turned to Rosie. "He's there," a little glimmer shined in her eyes as she grinned, "So's the fireball."

Rosie couldn't help the smile that crossed her lips as she rolled her eyes. "Are you going to say hello then?" Maggie was back up on her toes, straining for a better look. "If he's lucky," she said coyly, "I've had my share of equally fascinating boys since then."

It felt like ages before the crowd began to thin, but slowly, one by one, every well-wisher had their moment to meet and shake the hand of the charismatic director who had pulled everything together.

Rosie couldn't take her eyes off of him. Cassian had always been handsome, with those beautiful dark brown orbs and curls that hung over them. His boyish grin and those freckles that pulled their weight in charm. That effortless way he talked to people and flirted and grinned, all the while hiding a sweeter, quieter, introspective boy that held Rosalie's entire heart.

Freddie saw her first. His smile grew wide with what looked almost like relief, and he nudged Cassian firmly with his elbow.

Maggie took her cue. She leaned in, whispering lightly in her friend's ear. "Go get your loverboy." She smiled, giving Rosie's hand a tight squeeze before letting her go, and slinking off to to the side to give her space.

Rosie didn't hear or feel any of it. She was locked in place, frozen, her bright blue eyes staring into the brown she'd ached to see. All the people that surrounded them faded away. It was just her and him - the love of her life that she'd cried for every single night she'd crawled into her empty bed.

And then, she was moving. One step and then two, and before the girl knew it she was rushing across the lobby, moving quickly between bodies as her heart pounded in excitement to be reunited with its other half.

Following this ~

---

"That younger Peter Pan of yours stole the show."

"Janus put a lot of work into his performance. He'll be one to watch in coming productions." The theatre's owner nodded along, pleased by the way the evening had gone and the way it had been received. It had been good. Good enough to make Patrick happy? Cassian supposed he would never know, but it had been good enough to earn him praise he could barely hear and the occasional pat on the back.

Standing there, the boy felt uncomfortable in his own skin. What had once felt natural – something he'd craved since his awakening within the theatre – now felt like hot coals being lumped on top of his head. This wasn't how he'd imagined it. Things should've been easier. The smiles he offered should've been genuine, and the compliments should've been like sweet nectar from the gods themselves. It had been tainted by his own careless actions. There was no one else to blame for the unsettled feeling that sat atop the devastation he was forced to keep at bay.

Beside him, Freddie performed as convincingly. None were the wiser that Patrick's little 'trip' would be a permanent one. No one asked too many questions. It didn't matter to them so long as they still received a show.

It was almost...insulting.

Their director should've mattered more and to more than just the small group of them. Others should've known so they could all celebrate his life and achievements. Reducing him to a dirty little secret for the sake of keeping the ship afloat felt...wrong.

With time, the crowds began to thin. Only a few hung around the theatre's lobby now, the embers of their conversations burning low. At some point, Janus's mother had to come to find him, wanting to thank him for giving her son a chance. He'd been gracious, but he knew. He wasn't the one who'd cast the boy. He wasn't even the one in his corner at first. Cassian didn't make Janus a star. He'd done that all on his own with the help of their real director.

"Let's get out of here," Cass muttered to his friend as a small group of stragglers made their way from the auditorium. His parents had gone ahead, understanding he needed to remain behind to settle a few things. He wished he'd been able to leave with them. "Before we have the millionth gent telling us what he thinks about our themes and choice of lighting." Everyone was a critic; not all of them knew what they were talking about. He was about to pull Freddie free of the small group that surrounded them when his friend nudged him firmly in the rib.

"What?"

Freddie nodded off toward the auditorium's left door.

Confused, Cassian turned to see what had been enough to catch the redhead's attention when he saw...her. His mind short-circuited immediately, forcing him to manually process the fact that she...Rosie...was...

But how?

He'd never told her about the play. Had she been there the whole time? In his bewilderment, his head whipped around, his dark eyes demanding answers from his grinning friend. Freddie merely shoved him, insisting loudly for the crowd to make room. Cassian's feet began moving long before he gave them permission to. He'd imagined this day many times. Like his promotion to director, it was meant to be different. He was meant to be composed and ready to sweet-talk her. There were speeches he'd revised in his head, but they all abandoned him as he propelled himself toward her.

Rosie crashed into him, knocking the air out of his lungs as they collided with a soft 'thud'. As quickly as her arms were around him, his were around her. Cassian pulled her tight, tucking her into him so he could rest his cheek against the top of her head. For the last week...this...this was all he'd wanted to do, but he'd forced himself to accept that he likely couldn't. Rosie hadn't come home, and even if she had, he'd been resolved to not burden her with this new tragedy. All of that left him as the scent of cherry blossoms moved to hold captive his senses.

"Wha...what are you doing here?" Was all he managed to say. It didn't make sense, none of it did, but the boy found himself praying it wasn't only a dream.

They collided.

In the moments that her feet had begun to move, Cassian had rushed towards her with equal fervor. It blew all of her trepidations out of the water. The uncertainty. The belief that he didn't feel the same way anymore. The worry that he'd reject her. All of it fell away, lost in the dizziness that consumed her.

His arms wrapped around her and Rosalie nearly crumbled. She clung to him, the soft scent of cinnamon and books greeting her with all the comfort it had always brought her. His warmth filled her, the soft thud of his heartbeat against her chest, and she nuzzled into his neck when he dropped his cheek to the top of her head. For weeks - months even - this was all she had wanted. She'd wanted the scariest, hardest parts of the separation to be over, and to be back in his arms where she belonged.

Nothing else mattered. Not the stares from those who remained in the lobby, not the way she fought every inch of herself to keep her composure, not even the way pain shot up her back with his tight hold against her bruises. Cassian was it, and he was here, holding her as though he'd missed her just as much as she'd missed him.

"Wha...what are you doing here?"

"I..." she couldn't get the words out. They lodged themselves in her throat and she held him tighter, afraid that if she let him go, he'd disappear. She'd rehearsed what she would say all evening if given the chance. How proud she was. How she hadn't wanted to miss this moment. How she wanted to be there for him on one of the biggest nights he'd had in theatre.

Every carefully chosen word had abandoned her the moment they'd locked eyes.

"I miss you. So much," she said, tears stinging her eyes, but she held them back. She didn't move from his embrace, but looked up to meet his eyes. Her hands cupped his face, her gaze looking over every inch of him. She smiled, as pride overwhelmed her, "And how could I miss my love's first directed show?"

She couldn't have. When Freddie had insisted, making the point that this wasn't something she'd want to miss, she knew he was right. All those years with Cassian, helping him where she could and watching all the little things he did to make his visions come to life...how could she have not come to see it all? It would have been something she'd have regretted long after all was said and done.

"I'm so proud of you, Cassian."

She knew he'd had help. No director pulled off an entire show without it. There were lots of moving parts and cogs that all created the bigger picture, but without someone to lead, none of it came together. She sunk back against him, wrapping her arms around him again, unable to let him go. "Do you have plans?" she asked carefully, "Maybe we can go somewhere?" She didn't dare hope, but the offer was there. Her fingers traced the contours of his back as she blinked again, holding back the tears as she nestled her face against him again.

"Please?"

"I miss you. So much."

He knew she did, intellectually anyway. Rosie had written those very words in their shared notebook, letting him know that she did. It didn't fill him with warmth; it didn't flood him with new hope. His wife had been missing him for some time now, but she hadn't come home. The concepts had grown to be mutually exclusive rather than correlative in the time they'd spent apart. Cassian had been forced to accept that one didn't automatically trigger the other. She said it now, and there was a part of him that dreaded it wouldn't mean anything. Rather...that it wouldn't change anything.

Cass held her tighter, trying to force himself to not think about what the next few minutes would hold. If all he had was this hug before she disappeared again, then he would bask in the sweet scent of cherry blossoms and force himself to accept that it was enough.

"And how could I miss my love's first directed show?"

His...first directed show.

She didn't know.

"I'm so proud of you, Cassian."

She wouldn't know, not without someone telling her. Would she still have been proud? Would this still have been a happy moment for her? Cass didn't think so. Like everyone else in the theatre, Rosie's joy at seeing him take the reins and lead a successful play was propped precariously on lies. There was a dull envy spreading through his muscles. He wished he hadn't known either. He wished that he'd gotten the same grace of showing up to the theatre after all cleanup had already been done and that he'd also been told Patrick was only off on personal business. Then, his joy wouldn't have been tainted by pain. His excitement wouldn't ever have gotten trampled by his grief.

"Do you have plans?"

It took him an extra few seconds to understand the question. In one night, he'd opened his first play and had his wife show up. It didn't help that those deep blue eyes were pouring into him, the way he'd longed for. How could he focus on anything else? His only dream clung to him, and his mind was already clouding with fears that she would soon have to let go.

"Maybe we can go somewhere? Please?"

Somewhere? Go? Them? Together?

The magic hummed inside him in a flash, his good sense kicking in within a second to prevent him from apparating them right out of the theatre's lobby, in front of all the muggles present. Cass eased away enough to look around them. When his eyes caught Freddie's, he gestured that he would be heading out before turning to the small crowd and excusing them with as much politeness and charm as he could manage while every inch of him screamed.

Without waiting for an official dismissal from the theatre owner, he snaked his arm around Rosie's waist and led her out into the warm night air. He didn't stop when they descended the steps; didn't stop when they got to the end of the street. He turned them into a narrow alleyway.

"Ready?" he asked, more to prep her than anything else. Cassian paused a moment before apparating them out beneath the stars. It was a field he'd stumbled into enough times, just outside the city. Close enough that he was confident he could apparate them there and secluded enough that any conversations they had could be well away from the prying ears of others.

Aside from the old road, there was nothing but grass running in every direction.

Rather than words, he pulled her tight against him, crashing his lips into hers the way he'd dreamed of for the last two months.

More silence. More words that went unreciprocated.

It didn’t pass Rosalie’s notice as she held tightly to him, her relieved expression twisting into something much more resigned. She hadn’t been subtle about any of it. When she’d asked for time apart, she’d been adamant that it wasn’t over. She’d told him she loved him, over and over until the moment he’d let her go in front of the Barlowe home.

How many times did she need to say it, only to feel the cold rejection of his quiet, to finally get the hint?

She knew she would have to accept it. Even as he held her just as tightly - she knew friends easily did the same thing. He’d held her like this in the days before they became anything serious; before they’d even admitted they weren’t ‘just friends’. Cassian holding her like this, even though it felt warm and safe and familiar, didn’t mean anything more than he wanted it to. Rosalie choked back a sob that threatened to burst out of her, keeping her composure in the midst of all the curious eyes watching them.

There had never been a moment during the two months where Rosalie had doubted how much she wanted him. There had never been a moment where she’d second-guessed whether they should remain together. He was her person, in every way. He was her lighthouse in a storm and the person she looked for in every face. Was it fair to place him in such a monumental position? It wasn’t a question she had the answer to, because until now, she’d never thought to ask it.

If he couldn’t be or didn’t want to be more, would she survive it? Could she wish him well, promise to try and be friends, and move on with her life? She supposed she’d have to find a way, but the idea of it all was so overwhelming, so unfathomable, that Rosie couldn’t put into words how much it would hurt.

Worst of all, she would know that it was her own fault. Should she have never asked for time? Should she have tried harder to stick it out, hold his hand and put on a brave face through it all? She had tried for so long, and thought…she had been a good friend, a good girlfriend, a good wife. But maybe she hadn’t been. Maybe she had been selfish in all of this.

If they couldn’t survive time apart to try and heal, were they really meant to be together? It wasn’t fair was it? To ask him to still feel the same about her when she’d left him?

No matter the reason?

He led her from the lobby towards the doors as she glanced over her shoulder for Maggie. It was no bother. The girl was already beckoning to Freddie from across the room with that devil’s grin she wore anytime she was up to something.

Rosie tried not to read too much into it when he led her quietly down the street and into an alley. Just because she’d asked him to go elsewhere with her, it didn’t mean their talk would lead him back to her. She knew she had to prepare herself either way, and be happy with whatever form she got of him.

Someday, maybe, she’d know how to be his friend.

He apparated them into a large open field, with nothing but the stars above them and a secluded road a little ways off. She didn’t recognize the place as anywhere she had been before, but Cassian obviously knew it well. Without so many people around and so many eyes watching, Rosalie felt the last of her composure leave her. Her shoulders fell, her face crumpling as she fought for words - any words….

But his lips captured hers before she could muster any.

Rosie’s body froze for a half second, her breath catching in her throat as his mouth moved against hers. He pulled her into him, and she let go, returning his kiss with the same fervor. Two months. Two months she had dreamed of him, and this, and everything good they were together.

Soft, warm, familiar. Everything she remembered and more. The taste of cinnamon flooded her senses as one hand came to rest gently on the side of his face, the other at the back of his neck. Her love poured out of her, drinking what felt like his in, never wanting the moment to stop.

But it had to, didn’t it?

Her lips slowed as she took a breath and pulled back only enough to be able to look at him. She wanted to tell him. She wanted to share how much she’d ached for him. How she’d missed him in every part of every little thing she did. How she’d thought of him constantly. How loving him from afar had hurt more than she possibly could have ever imagined.

How much she still loved him now.

But the girl didn’t think she could handle more silence. Instead, Rosie chose to forgo words, letting her kiss speak for itself as she brought her lips back to his.

He was going to hate himself in the morning.

Cassian could already see it, like every other bad decision he'd made since the start of the summer – like every bad night he knew he would suffer for the day after. His nervous system was ablaze with warnings to pull back, to separate, to not get himself so entangled that he'd be reduced to another useless puddle of flesh and bone when the sun rose. He couldn't afford it. The theatre couldn't afford it. When morning came, there were people around the ministry depending on him to have his shit together. In the evening, the others were counting on him to keep things smooth for the second night of the play. A complete shattering of his heart would make him less effective. It would make him in the way and little else.

But how could he let go?

How could he relinquish the warmth of her body pressed against his and return to the frigid cold? His clinging was paradoxical. The harder his nerves fired, the more impossible it felt to pull himself together and return to the performance of wellness.

He would have to, he knew. Whether he was ready or not, whether he felt he would survive it or not. That had been the theme of the last two months, having things thrust at him and having to come through the other end. This felt like that. It felt incredibly and terrifyingly like being offered a cool oasis in the middle of a desert with the knowledge he would soon have to start walking again. Worse? He didn't know where he was going. Before she'd left, Rosie had told him they needed it to get 'better'. That word had never left him.

Better.

Cassian had never resented a word more in the entire English lexicon. It stood there in the field with them, looming close enough to remind me that while he didn't know how much further he had to go, he wasn't there yet and might never know when or if he arrived.

He'd have to tell her, of course. If he didn't, he was only setting himself up for the inevitable turn when she would have to tell him that she still couldn't come back.

Cassian didn't want to worry about the next hour or where he'd have to take himself as the night grew long. Her lips were what the boy wanted to focus on. The way they moved against his, the way they matched his fervour as if to reassure him that he hadn't been the only one longing. Did he doubt it? He found himself unsure. Cass came to the chilling realisation, even as he kissed that, that he hadn't been sure of what she wanted or whether wanting meant anything. She'd said it – written it, too. He'd seen and heard it, but...it never made him feel better. Not like this.

This was the first real reassurance that Cassian felt he'd received since she'd left, and it had nothing to do with her words but with the way he felt her reacting to him, as if no time had passed and they'd never separated. Her hands still reached for him, settling in familiar places, and there was still a tenderness beneath the fire.

The moment she pulled away should've been the moment he seized to get them onto a path of communication, but he was busy catching his breath. At least, it was easier to tell himself that.

The truth was far less noble. Cassian wanted to delay the moment he disappointed her with his lack of progress.

It could wait until the next time she made a star appearance in his otherwise mundane world. Time was already fleeting, and he didn't know how long he had before she decided it was enough.

When Rosie drew near again, Cass leaned in to meet her.

They could figure it out...later.

She wanted to fade completely into Cassian, his hands, and the kiss that stole every last breath from her lungs. Her husband had always possessed the gentlest, sweetest touches with the ability to take her far from every worry and care she had. It was no different now as she felt herself losing the battle to keep her composure, her arm around his neck tightening with every move of his lips.

Her heart was breaking. Rosalie didn't know that a heart could break in so many different ways, until she'd been faced with what felt like all of them. A parade of tragedy, a never-ending spiral of hurt and ache and tears that never seemed to stop falling. As soon as she'd survived one, another came, shattering all her idealism and hope that brighter days were on the horizon.

There had been a time when dreams and hope lived behind blue oceans, sparkling with all the possibilities that not only the world, but love held for her. She could remember when that light illuminated everything she touched, everything she felt, now dimmed into a dull gray fog that never seemed to lift.

There were small moments of levity, little things that told her life moved on. But what sort of life would it be if Rosalie had to move on without everything she had ever wanted? What sort of existence would it be to know every dream she had had burned to ash in her hands?

Cassian was her greatest heartbreak of all of them. She was clinging to him, hanging on by what felt like the last thread between them, desperate for any sign that they weren't over, that this wasn't goodbye. That this kiss wasn't their final curtain call. She needed him. Good or bad. Broken or whole. No matter what it looked like, she needed the only man she'd ever love.

How was she supposed to move on without him? It was unfathomable, and just the thought tore Rosie from his lips as a sob finally broke her. Her shoulders shook, as the tears streamed from her eyes. She dropped her mouth into her hand, her eyes avoiding his as she became a complete mess in front of him.

She wanted him. She wanted her fingers trailing the buttons of his shirt. She wanted his hands tracing the contours of her face. She wanted to fall asleep beneath the stars with him, tucked close into his chest, feeling safe in his love and that he wanted her as much as she wanted him.

There was so much uncertainty, and Rosalie didn't know the answers to any of it.

She was rendered speechless, feeling his arms still around her as she cried, reconciling with the devastation she felt was coming, and the devastation she'd been experiencing every single day since he'd watched her walk through the Barlowes' front door.

"I...I can't do this anymore, Cassian," she said softly, her words broken between each sob that wrecked her. "I can't sit here and wait for you to tell me its over." She pulled away from him, her eyes finding his. "I don't want to be away from you anymore. It's killing me." Literally. She could feel the life draining from her with every second that passed.

"If you don't want me anymore, please just say it." She sucked in a heavy breath, feeling the panic take over as she realized what she was asking him to do. "I can't..." She broke down again, another deep sob shaking her. "I can't breathe."

And just like that, his night had taken another turn.

Cassian was forcefully pulled from the small bliss he'd managed to find in his wife's lips as a cold splash of reality slapped him across the face. Suddenly, they were back to that night in June. Rosie was crying, he was confused, and the boy had a sinking feeling that, unlike the last few minutes, he wasn't going to like where this was going. The curtains were slowly closing, and the oasis was drying up. What was left?

"I...I can't do this anymore, Cassian."

That.

That was left. They were back to the beginning of the separation, and all he could think to do was hold her the way he'd done when he took her to the Barlowes, even while he felt the fracture beginning inside him. There was no panic this time. Whereas before he had spiralled in his inability to see where he might go the moment she left, his body now knew the answer. It knew the taverns and the empty fields. It knew the shape of the people who would still require him to be upright and functional. It wasn't that her leaving wouldn't constitute a second cataclysm, but that the boy had learned to stand in the middle of a crumbling floor and pretend he wasn't seconds from disaster.

So he held her, despite the way his muscles went frigid. Like before, he didn't want to make it harder for her if she'd already decided this was something she needed to do. When he'd seen her run across the lobby to him and when her lips had responded to his, there was a part of him that believed the end could be insight.

If she didn't know whether she could do this anymore...then...maybe she wouldn't be ready to be home. His father had insisted he prepare for that – his mother, too, in her own sweet way. The distance could very well have shown her that return was the inferior option if that day came, as it seemed to right now.

And that...that was okay.

His composure tightened while hers continued to deteriorate, their responses sprinting in opposite directions. Cassian could be a comforter. It had long since been ingrained.

He leaned in, trying to catch her attention while he cupped her face, trying to use his thumbs to wipe at the fast-falling tears. It was a little harder with her hand at her mouth, but he did what he could. "It'll be alright," Cass said softly, wanting her to understand that her choices would be respected regardless of personal experience. If it was something she thought she needed, he would hardly make a fuss or try to turn it back on her. His feelings were his to deal with on his own time.

"I can't sit here and wait for you to tell me it's over. I don't want to be away from you anymore. It's killing me."

...

....

.....What...?

She may as well have been speaking German.

"Rosie...wha...."

"If you don't want me anymore, please just say it. I can't..."

There was pressure building inside his head at an alarming rate, and it made it difficult for him to process even the simplest sentences. Tell her...it's...over...? Didn't want who? Who was the one not wanting? Hadn't she...wasn't she the one who'd insisted separating was the only way they could heal? How had he become the one...who...who didn't want...

"I can't breathe."

"Shit."

His brain discarded everything that came before the frightening words. She couldn't breathe. She couldn't breathe. Shit. Shit. Shit.

"Hey...hey...look at me...in and out. Slow down." He tried to model the breathing he needed her to mimic, forcing in air slowly then exhaling those deep breaths as slowly. "In....and out....Are you with me? In....and out."

They should've stuck with the crowd. Chances were, one of them might have been a doctor.

How? How would it be alright? Rosalie didn't understand. He sounded so calm, so assured that without her, he would alright. She wouldn't be.

Rosie liked to think she had done a lot of hard work, and maybe she had. She'd stood up for herself against her family. She'd fought for her place to be respected. She'd learned that chasing danger didn't make her safe or feel any better when it was done. She'd learned how to be a faithful wife, even when her husband wasn't there to witness it. She'd fought some of her hardest battles with herself and had finally realized that she couldn't save anyone from themselves.

She'd grappled with her grief and found a small modicum of comfort in realizing that while her baby was never coming back, she could funnel that love and care into something else that needed it. She'd learned, most of all, how to be at peace with herself and how to be her own friend.

It didn't mean that she believed she would be okay without her husband. Rosie couldn't imagine a world without him, a life without him, or watching him move on without her at his side. Could he? Had he already started to? His kiss felt real, but it didn't mean he wanted anything more.

Merlin, why couldn't she breathe?

Her lungs seized as her throat closed up, spots twinkling in front of her eyes. Every nerve was on high alert as the girl fought for breath, her tears soaking her cheeks as she tried to calm down. She didn't understand how he could be so calm about this, when she was falling apart at the seams. Maybe he'd already accepted it, and she was the one lagging behind.

"Hey...hey...look at me...in and out. Slow down."

He thumbed at her tears, but Rosie couldn't let herself give in to the touch. She discarded it as nothing more than muscle memory. Cassian had seen her cry countless times before, and he'd memorized the ways she received comfort. It was sweet of him to try, but in the moment, when she felt her world crashing down around her, it felt nearly meaningless.

She tried to bring her gaze back to him, if only to lessen the humiliation she was bringing upon herself. If she could get herself to stop crying and panicking, then she could force herself to hear what he had to say.

He inhaled and she followed.

"In....and out....Are you with me? In....and out."

In and out. Inhale and exhale. She could...she could do that.

Another shaky breath in, and another out as she swallowed another sob that tried to break its way through. In....out. In...out. Slowly, her lungs began to cooperate, less shaky with each breath she forced in and back out. Her crying slowed. The tears still came, lessened, but there. She nodded, willing herself to quiet and listen.

He said it would all be alright. She supposed...yes...she supposed it would be. Nothing could hurt forever, right?

"I...I'm o-okay," she stuttered, wiping her eyes as she drew in another breath. "I mean...I'm not...but..." she shrugged. What more was there to say?

In.

Good.

Out.

Good.

Cassian kept it up, coaxing Rosie into his rhythm until he could recognise signs of her breathing evening out. When he saw her beginning to calm down, it helped to bring him down from his own internal panic. The pair had been through many things. None of them had ever resulted in his wife's respiratory system shutting down. Over what? He still didn't know. One minute, they'd been kissing; the next, she was talking about not being together. Before he could wrap his mind around any of it, the girl was sobbing and gasping for air.

There was a part of him that wanted to pry her eyes open, shine a light, and check whether her pupils were dilating the way they should. Rosie had never taken drugs, not that he knew of, and she didn't smell anything like alcohol, but the speed with which they'd moved from happy reunion to world-ending, full-body meltdown was honestly frightening.

Cass had never seen her so all over the place. If it had continued, he would've had no choice but to ask her what she'd taken. The fact she'd mentioned him ending things should've been proof enough that she'd ingested something.

"I...I'm o-okay, I mean...I'm not...but..."

In the aftermath, her words were able to take another lap around his head. Without her wheezing and desperate sobs, he could hear them a second time and a third. She was waiting for him to tell her it was over. She didn't want to be apart. It was killing her. He felt like he'd been transported to a twilight zone or some topsy-turvy dimension where right was light and up was down. But he understood – or thought that he understood – what was happening. It may have been a bold leap and he may have been overreaching in some ways, but he wasn't an idiot.

Cassian sighed.

He sank into the grass, patting the spot next to him so she could do the same. Rather than sit, he fell onto his back with his hands balled into fists pressing into his eyes. Even the sight of the stars had become too much. He'd barely slept in days and felt tired, but this wasn't just sleepiness or a bit of fatigue. The boy could feel it in his bones. Suddenly the months of staying away were pressing into him. His restraint. His resolve. They'd become lighter as he'd detached himself from the reality of her absence but, in a flash, had grown tremendously heavy again.

"What're we doing, gorgeous?"

It was a question he'd asked himself and sometimes asked her, though she wasn't around to hear it. When had they become this, and why was distance still the gold standard that they were now fighting against individually? "This is bullshit." Cassian lowered his hands to look at her, brown eyes boring their way into her liquid blue. "You're sitting there falling apart...like you don't know I've been wishing you'd come home every day since you left. That's not something you'd have ever doubted before. Whether I still want you? Letting it eat away at you?" They were things he'd never have imagined. For him, it was all extraordinarily simple. If she missed him, she should come home. Rosie could've walked back in the very night she'd left.

Would he have been hurt? Without a doubt, but there wasn't a world where he'd turn her away.

"No one said you had to stay away...but you," he continued gently. "Home's never changed. Me loving you's never changed. You still have my whole heart."

Meant in more ways than one. Cassian grew quiet for a moment, training his gaze instead on the heavens. The door had been opened. Walking through without all the right acknowledgement would slip too easily into dishonesty. She said she didn't want to stay away, but she didn't know.

"I haven't gotten better," Cass continued quietly. His brows knitted themselves together in consternation. "Whatever the fuck that means. I haven't stopped wanting you, haven't stopped getting palpitations whenever you're around. I don't..." the boy sucked in a breath, reaching for his earlier composure even as he felt his emotions spiralling. "I don't look back at the last two months and think...I'm better off. I'm...I'm sorry, but I don't. I don't know how much good it's done when you've come back wondering things you never left wondering. I don't think it's good when everything suddenly feels like a landmine, and I'm...I'm always so afraid that whatever I say...you'll think it means I haven't learned. And maybe I haven't. Shit. Rosie. I don't know what I've learned. I don't know if I've learned at all. I just..."

He pressed his hands into his eyes again, wanting to dispel the irritating sting.

"You wanted us to heal, and it was probably everything you needed. I'm glad. If you looked me in the eyes and told me you've done great and you're a brand new woman, I'd be so so...so proud of you. I just...don't think you can say the same for me. Of course, I want you home. I don't know if you'd be ...I guess I don't know if I've done enough to deserve that yet."

He sat but she couldn't.

While Cassian sank into the grass and flopped himself onto his back, Rosalie remained where she stood, arms crossing over herself for comfort as she stared out across the field into the darkness that swallowed the deserted road. Her body was still vibrating, her breathing still leveling out, and in the haze of it all, she didn't think she could allow herself to just settle as easily as he did.

"What're we doing, gorgeous?"

He called her gorgeous, the same way he'd always had, but something didn't feel right about it. In the same way 'dove' had left a bitter taste in her mouth when James had used it, 'gorgeous' felt entirely out of place in the moment. She was in pain. She was hurting. She was confused and angry and humiliated and...

It was a swarm of emotions that made it difficult to decipher one from the other. The soft word that always made her feel safe and at home now felt like ice on her skin, and she tightened her jaw, fixing her gaze on the dark horizon as her eyes stung from the tears that still rolled down her cheeks.

"This is bullshit. You're sitting there falling apart...like you don't know I've been wishing you'd come home every day since you left. That's not something you'd have ever doubted before. Whether I still want you? Letting it eat away at you?"

She didn't answer, but her eyes drifted down to meet his own, her eyebrows crinkling in consternation. Was it really that hard for him to understand? It wasn't like someone else had been silent on his behalf. It wasn't as though someone else read the words that she'd written and chosen not to reciprocate them. How was she supposed to know nothing had changed when the way he communicated with her had? She was supposed to infer that everything was fine despite his silence?

The kiss was supposed to erase all of that? She was supposed to ignore the hurt in her chest and the fear that told her something had gone terribly wrong in all of this?

"No one said you had to stay away...but you."

She shook her head, looking away from him again. So that was it. The problem was all hers. She could have come home whenever she wanted. He was just sitting around waiting for her while she was causing the distance between them. As though he didn't understand what she was trying to do. As though this was all for nothing and she was just being ridiculous while he was left behind.

Fine. She'd be the villain, if that's what he needed. She already felt it anyway.

Rosie wasn't trying to be immature or wallow, but it felt incredibly unfair to have the separation all laid at her feet when she had tried everything she could fathom before it had become her last resort.

"Home's never changed. Me loving you's never changed. You still have my whole heart."

Rosie swallowed hard, pacing slowly back and forth as she gave his words room to settle. It was what she'd wanted to hear. So why did everything still feel uncertain?

She paused her pacing, her looking down at him out of the corner of her eye as he said he wasn't better, didn't know what better meant or looked like. He didn't think the two months helped. He didn't think it had done them any good, if everything felt like this. It caused a rolling in her stomach, hot and acidic. If none of it had helped him, if nothing had gotten better for him...then what the fuck was all of this for?

What had he been doing all this time? Did she even want to know? Would knowing change the way she looked at all the strides she had made, all the time she had taken to really sit with everything that had happened and try to process things? She hadn't kept herself from Cassian to punish him. It had been agony, but she had done because she'd thought...he'd try.

He did try, didn't he?

"You wanted us to heal, and it was probably everything you needed. I'm glad. If you looked me in the eyes and told me you've done great and you're a brand new woman, I'd be so so...so proud of you. I just...don't think you can say the same for me. Of course, I want you home. I don't know if you'd be ...I guess I don't know if I've done enough to deserve that yet."

Rosie's arms fell to her side as she sighed and she finally gave in, sitting down in the grass beside him. She remained quiet, wiping the last of her tears from her eyes while she pulled her knees to her chest. Fireflies illuminated the field with tiny flashes of light, her eyes focusing on them, counting them off one by one while she gathered her composure to say what she needed to.

"You want to know what's bullshit?" she finally asked, her voice sore and raspy from the pathetic scene she'd just made. "Pouring my heart out to my husband for two months. Writing him love notes and stupid poems and he doesn't even respond." Anger swirled in her chest as she wrapped her arms around her legs and rested her chin on her knees. "You asked how we got to a place where I don't know that you still want me. What am I supposed to think, Cassian, when every time I tell you I miss you or I love you, you don't reciprocate? Am I supposed to fall all over myself? Just somehow know that I haven't fucked everything between us? I'm not a mind-reader."

She held her composure, pulling for her resolve to not let herself fall apart again, before she finally looked at him. "I didn't leave because you weren't good enough or because you deserved it. And saying that I'm the only thing that kept me away is so unfair." Another deep breath. She had to say the hard things. Even things that might hurt. Holding everything in to protect his feelings were what got them here in the first place. "That's not what happened. This is a mutual failure. Not just mine."

It would be easy to ask how they got here. It was just as easy to show the path. Rosie could draw it with her eyes closed. It was a path of tiny failures that started from the first time they'd kissed. It was a perpetual lack of communication and the struggle to protect each other from the worst parts of themselves for years.

"I chose to leave. Fine. If that makes me the bad guy here, then I own that. I'll be the villain if that's what you need. But I did communicate. I told you time and time again that this wasn't over and save bleeding my heart out all over the notebook, I don't know how much clearer I could have been."

She didn't know how to reconcile the two months in a way that would make sense for him. Maybe there wasn't a way. "If this time hasn't done anything for you, then I'm sorry Cassian. I don't know how to help that or make it different. I did what I thought was the only thing left."

He wasn't better. Did that mean he was still using? "I want to come home. I want to be with you. I don't think being away longer is going to change anything for the better. But..." She bit her lip, pushing herself to ask, "Are you still using?" And the even harder question. "Are you doing other things?" Girls? He'd never been a drinker or a smoker so she wasn't necessarily concerned about those. "I'm eating. The way I'm supposed to. And...I'm not doing dangerous things or..." She didn't want him proud of her. She wasn't trying to compare. "I just don't want you to think you have to worry about me or take care of me anymore. I can handle myself."

Her expression softened a bit. "If you're not okay, then I'd rather be here with you to love you through it, than be away. I just love you. That hasn't changed. But I don't think we can fix this apart. We're doing a shit job of it."

She preferred to stand. That was fine, too. Cassian tried not to think about it, deciding he already had too many thoughts swirling around his mind and didn't have the capacity to consider that she continued to enforce whatever distance was possible. Even together, the field may as well have been a green ocean keeping them on separate shores.

He scoffed softly at his own melodrama, thinking he should have been long past such fantastical declarations of injury. Rosie could stand if she wanted to, and the world would keep spinning as it had insisted on doing every other day.

He really hadn't learned.

Cassian didn't understand the shake of her head or the way she paced through his words. On too many occasions for him to remember, Rosie had always asked for honesty. In that moment, crushed beneath the weight of his entire summer, he'd given it to her. The result seemed to be more restlessness and more uncertainty. In the end, not such a strange pattern either. The truth, when he told it, never came out clean. There was always some hidden cost, some hidden meaning he wasn't aware of and some new battle he didn't know he needed to fight. It had always seemed like enough reason to keep it to himself, but this time seemed...important. As important as the night he confessed his addiction to his parents, he supposed.

Cass couldn't have her return blindly, expecting a brand new husband, more competent and durable and whole and healthy and healed, when fumes were all that held him together.

Then she sat, and the action didn't bring him the comfort he thought it might have had she accepted the invitation earlier. It didn't feel warm or open but like resolution.

"You want to know what's bullshit?"

They were already here.

"Pouring my heart out to my husband for two months. Writing him love notes and stupid poems and he doesn't even respond. You asked how we got to a place where I don't know that you still want me. What am I supposed to think, Cassian, when every time I tell you I miss you or I love you, you don't reciprocate? Am I supposed to fall all over myself? Just somehow know that I haven't fucked everything between us? I'm not a mind-reader."

He loosened the tie at his neck, granting himself a few extra seconds to absorb her words – to really take them in. The letters had meant a lot to her – the poems, the mini declarations. They'd been her tether, and that was reason enough for them to matter. "I didn't know what to say and didn't want to say the wrong thing. I was afraid that...that if I started answering the way I wanted to, it'd get to being a lot when you'd asked for space to heal." It was the simplest and most honest answer he could give. In the state he'd been in, one carelessly thrown 'I love you' could've easily devolved into pleas that she come home and pathetic ramblings from a young man who'd have sold every organ to make her return.

It wasn't what she'd needed, not when she'd been so adamant that she needed the time apart. "I was trying, and failing obviously, to not have you worrying about me when you needed to worry about you." Another beat. Another silence. "Then it started to hurt." What had started as hesitation had calcified into something he couldn't stand up to. "You'd write these pretty poems full of love and longing. You'd say you loved me...and missed me...but every day...you never came. It got too hard seeing them and knowing....thinking..."

That they didn't matter and didn't change anything.

Perhaps he'd sold himself short. He had learned that lesson—that love could exist without altering the things that hurt. "That felt like bullshit, too."

And saying that I'm the only thing that kept me away is so unfair. That's not what happened. This is a mutual failure. Not just mine."

Cassian shook his head even as he swallowed the sharp tick of anger that tried to rise.

"It's true." Whether she wanted it to be or not. "I asked you not to leave. I told you we could've done it together. I asked when you'd be back. You didn't know. The only thing you knew was that you had to leave. That is what happened, Rosie. Who told you you couldn't come back? Who looked at you and said your home had burned down and everything was gone. I know why you left. I love you and only want the best for you, even if that means your best could only be found somewhere else. I'm not mad that you left, but I won't sit and pretend we did it together. You left."

And he hadn't put up a fight. She'd been so sure. Who was he to stand in her way?

"Our 'failures' were our own. I had a lot of shit that I wasn't handling well. I made it easier to leave, but don't ever say I wanted it or sit here and tell me I'm the reason you never came back."

He'd cried. He'd begged. He'd asked to go somewhere else to figure it out. Nothing had worked.

I'll be the villain if that's what you need."

"No one's asking you to be a vill--"

"But I did communicate. I told you time and time again that this wasn't over and save bleeding my heart out all over the notebook, I don't know how much clearer I could have been."

He sat up, leaning over onto his bent knee while the other leg remained sprawled. "You could've come home. I love you; I miss you. What fucking good is it if...if you're still gone? If you still won't say when you'll come home? I didn't feel reassured. You keep saying you wrote like it was supposed to magically make me unthink everything I was thinking and not feel so alone and terrified. You keep acting like because it was on paper, actions didn't matter. They did! Every day that you wrote that but stayed away made it a little harder to believe that loving me could ever mean something. Don't you get that? They felt like placeholders when I wanted you!"

He couldn't hold a poem when his world felt dark and overwhelming. He couldn't read her disappearing words and dispel the grief, anxiety, and profound feeling of loss.

If he was too quiet, then she lacked enough action.

"If this time hasn't done anything for you, then I'm sorry Cassian. I don't know how to help that or make it different. I did what I thought was the only thing left."

He shook his head again, more adamantly this time. It still felt like they were talking past each other. "You don't have to be sorry. It was what you needed," because he'd told her very clearly that he didn't think it was what he needed, "and if it really did give you that, you have to believe that I'm happy for you. I'd never ask you to stay where you were unhappy or where you felt yourself fading, not for my sake. You deserve the world, Rosie." And he hadn't been able to give it to her. These were truths he'd had to grapple with. "You said you weren't sure, so I'm telling you now; the door's always been open."

"I want to come home. I want to be with you. I don't think being away longer is going to change anything for the better."

Something they could agree on.

"But...Are you still using? Are you doing other things?"

The question was almost laughable, producing a small puff of air in his cheek that he quickly released. "I've been dragging along a ship that doesn't belong to me while everyone applauds." He shrugged lightly, casting his gaze upward again. "First half of the summer was vials and friends and drinking. Work. Always work. The thea..." He cleared his throat, nearly choking on the memories of the earlier summer, when he'd follow Patrick around the theatre. It had begun to give him a sense of purpose and belonging again. The man looked at him with the same twinkle in his eyes that he'd looked at him with when he was 7 or 8. The same...the same....

Wonder.

He drew a shaky breath, doing everything he could to force the memories down. "Helped around the stage. Gardening with my mother, questionable fields when the night got too late. But I haven't...Freddie and I....we...we haven't had anything recently. It's been...it's just been harder. Too many other things."

He sniffed, strong-arming himself together. "But tell me about you. Eating's good. Got up to anything fun...interesting?" Cassian pulled his other leg up. "I thought I saw Maggie back at the theatre."

"I didn't know what to say and didn't want to say the wrong thing. I was afraid that...that if I started answering the way I wanted to, it'd get to being a lot when you'd asked for space to heal."

"That doesn't make it alright." It didn't. As much as Rosie could understand why, it had left her feeling alone and forgotten. She'd asked for time so they both could work on themselves - which she was discovering now meant just her working on herself. She didn't ask for his silence or for him to keep himself from her. "I never asked you to keep your feelings from me. I never asked you to leave me alone. Never. I asked you to write and..." It didn't matter.

"I was trying, and failing obviously, to not have you worrying about me when you needed to worry about you. Then it started to hurt. You'd write these pretty poems full of love and longing. You'd say you loved me...and missed me...but every day...you never came. It got too hard seeing them and knowing....thinking..."

"I'm sorry I made you feel that way." It was all she could offer, and it was offered in resignation. Should she have written nothing? Even knowing that Cassian was taking all of her words as a gut-punch instead of the genuine attempt to keep some sort of intimacy and communication between them, she didn't regret writing them. She had meant all of them, and though it hurt when he didn't reciprocate he could never say she hadn't tried.

"It's true."

"It's not."

"I asked you not to leave. I told you we could've done it together. I asked when you'd be back. You didn't know. The only thing you knew was that you had to leave. That is what happened, Rosie. Who told you you couldn't come back? Who looked at you and said your home had burned down and everything was gone. I know why you left. I love you and only want the best for you, even if that means your best could only be found somewhere else. I'm not mad that you left, but I won't sit and pretend we did it together. You left."

She dropped her forehead to her knees, realizing that no matter what she said, what she expressed, Cassian had a rebuttal to everything. There was no point arguing what he obviously saw as truth. She left. That was the crux of it for him. He understood why, but he still blamed her for doing it. It ripped at her heart. She had done so much self-reflection, trying to wrap her head around the cycles she continuously put herself through, and yet here she was pulling inward like she always had.

"Our 'failures' were our own. I had a lot of shit that I wasn't handling well. I made it easier to leave, but don't ever say I wanted it or sit here and tell me I'm the reason you never came back."

"I never said you were the reason I didn't come back, just that I didn't know if you wanted me to. I didn't come back because I was trying Cassian, to be better for both of us. So we don't keep falling back into the same bullshit that causes this." Her eyes bore into his. "I'm not saying I didn't fail at anything. I obviously did. But we're married and that means that we do fail together too. You can see that, can't you?"

He was opening up in a way she had never quite seen him before, and to be honest, it hurt. It felt like an attack. She knew it wasn't and it was just her defenses going up. Cassian had a right to feel however he felt, and to be honest she probably deserved a lot of his anger or the blame she felt he was wielding.

They were already things she'd already told herself. She hadn't been a good enough wife to him. She hadn't tried hard enough. These weren't thoughts that Cassian had instilled in her, rather they were criticisms she had for herself. Hearing all of this only exacerbated those thoughts, as much as she knew he needed to be able to say them and she needed to hear them.

"You could've come home. I love you; I miss you. What fucking good is it if...if you're still gone? If you still won't say when you'll come home? I didn't feel reassured. You keep saying you wrote like it was supposed to magically make me unthink everything I was thinking and not feel so alone and terrified. You keep acting like because it was on paper, actions didn't matter. They did! Every day that you wrote that but stayed away made it a little harder to believe that loving me could ever mean something. Don't you get that? They felt like placeholders when I wanted you!"

"What good is it? How about the fact that I'm still your wife, Cassian. Whether I'm in your face, or I'm a hundred miles away. I'm still your wife. You still have to be my husband. The relationship doesn't just end because its not in the exact form you think it should be! That's one of your biggest problems! If it's not perfect, if it doesn't look exactly the way you think it should, then it's worthless." She didn't care if he tried to throw that one back in her face. It was the truth. "Why does my want for time negate everything I've ever said and done? What have I ever done before this separation to make you discard my words as meaningless? I have given up everything..." Her words caught in her throat. It was the biggest insult he could have thrown on her.

"Over and over and over again," her fist hit her knee with emphasis, "I have stayed. I defied my family. I faced your parents in the hardest moment you can imagine. I have proven myself to you time and again, so don't sit there and tell me my words were placeholders or meant nothing because I didn't come back immediately. You weren't the only one who felt alone. I left physically, but you left emotionally."

Things were getting out of hand. They'd never spoken like this to one another, but maybe it was what finally needed to happen. Maybe they needed to have all of it out in the open so they could come back to each other on a more honest level. Hiding things and feelings had only ever caused problems. Maybe honesty was what helped to solve them.

"You don't have to be sorry. It was what you needed and if it really did give you that, you have to believe that I'm happy for you. I'd never ask you to stay where you were unhappy or where you felt yourself fading, not for my sake. You deserve the world, Rosie. You said you weren't sure, so I'm telling you now; the door's always been open."

She fell quiet, letting everything they'd said settle, before she finally turned to him. "You know you deserve the world too, right? Not just me. You deserve so much more than you ever allow yourself to believe. I'm sorry I couldn't give it all to you."

"I've been dragging along a ship that doesn't belong to me while everyone applauds. First half of the summer was vials and friends and drinking. Work. Always work. The thea..."

She heard the crack in his voice, and she found herself confused. What did he mean it didn't belong to him? What was going on at the theatre? She disregarded the drinking revelation and the vials. Drinking was...unexpected but the vials weren't. She supposed it was just another thing they'd have to navigate and there was no point arguing about it now.

He was emotional, and without knowing why, it hurt her to watch.

"Helped around the stage. Gardening with my mother, questionable fields when the night got too late. But I haven't...Freddie and I....we...we haven't had anything recently. It's been...it's just been harder. Too many other things."

She nodded, but she didn't understand. What other things. "Do you want to tell me about it? I'll just listen. No judgment if you're worried about that." Who was she to judge at this point? She'd singlehandedly ruptured their marriage. Had been galivanting in the Somerset countryside 'finding herself' and crawling her way out of the dirt while her husband spiraled into what sounded like a bigger and bigger mess.

She wasn't sure how she should feel anymore. Everything was confusing and hurtful and sad. None of it made any sense.

"But tell me about you. Eating's good. Got up to anything fun...interesting? I thought I saw Maggie back at the theatre."

The sniff didn't miss her, but she wasn't sure if she was allowed to reach for him or offer him the comfort she wanted to. "Nothing fun, really," she answered honestly. "I've been alone for the most part. Maddox and Julia are there of course but...no friends or anything. Just trying to figure out how to be alone with myself, you know?" Another beat as she hugged her knees tighter to her chest. "I don't know. I thought maybe...I was doing better. I felt better."

Maybe she'd just gotten really good at lying to herself.

"Maggie's just in for the weekend. Back to...Northumberland I think on Sunday." She shrugged. "First time I've seen her. I don't know. I've just spent a lot of time with my own thoughts. And Fawn I suppose." A small smile played at the corner of her mouth. "She's a baby demiguise. Maddox is letting me care for her."

The one ray of sunshine in all of this.

"That doesn't make it alright."

He never said it had.

"I never asked you to keep your feelings from me. I never asked you to leave me alone. Never. I asked you to write and..."

"You say that like telling you how I couldn't get out of bed for a week and kept waking up in strange places wouldn't have me whirling around in your head instead of all the things you left to fix." His wife was a carer. She was a worrier. She was a ruminator. Nothing made that more obvious than the way she'd just broken down so thoroughly over something she could've asked him in one calm sentence. It told him everything he needed to know. She'd been stewing. She'd been in her head – and that was without knowing anything he'd been up to. The moment she'd known 'his feelings', he had no doubt that it would've hindered whatever progress she had going on.

"I'm sorry I made you feel that way."

Cassian accepted her words for what they were, like he accepted all her other words. The boy wasn't in the mood to play detective or run deep analysis, cross-checking references to find out whether things aligned with the full moon. She was sorry. It didn't make him less hurt. He didn't intend to dwell on it.

Rosie could say it wasn't true, all she wanted; that didn't change reality or his willingness to keep going back and forth. He didn't make her feel like she would be welcomed back. Fine. He should've found a way to cherry-pick his feelings to ensure she still got enough out of him and felt cherished while he sorted through the rest. He would accept that. He hadn't been the one to send her away.

"I never said you were the reason I didn't come back, just that I didn't know if you wanted me to. I didn't come back because I was trying, Cassian, to be better for both of us. So we don't keep falling back into the same bullshit that causes this."

This wasn't the same bullshit. This was new, and it was ugly. They'd never had a conversation like this before, wrought with so many misunderstandings and with his nerves already so raw, he felt woefully unprepared. There she was, looking at him with eyes that implored him to understand, while she kept defensively side-stepping everything he tried to express.

I'm not saying I didn't fail at anything. I obviously did. But we're married and that means that we do fail together too. You can see that, can't you?"

"You've already said we were failing together. I've never argued with you; I've never tried to pretend otherwise." They'd been a mess, even before her father had shown up at their door. There were problems that felt bigger than them. Cassian was the last man alive to declare himself perfect. "We weren't in a good place. You needed time and space. I've already told you I don't blame you for either." His issue was acute and distinct. It was her insistence on implying that the door could be closed when she'd been the one to walk through it and the implication that he'd had a hand in the night they split.

Maybe, in some abstract 'your actions drove us here' manner. He could see that. But the act? She'd done that one on her own, and it was the one weight in the entire conversation that he refused to carry. Being something she'd needed didn't make it something he'd needed, too. That one was hers to bear.

What good is it? How about the fact that I'm still your wife, Cassian. Whether I'm in your face, or I'm a hundred miles away. I'm still your wife. You still have to be my husband. The relationship doesn't just end because its not in the exact form you think it should be! That's one of your biggest problems! If it's not perfect, if it doesn't look exactly the way you think it should, then it's worthless."

For the first time in their long and illustrious relationship, Cassian Thomas McCormick...was seeing red.

He couldn't tell whether Rosie genuinely didn't understand or was too deep in her defences to even try. All she cared about was that she'd written. To her, it should've been enough, a stopgap to keep the embers smouldering. He was trying to tell her that it wasn't. She'd told him why she'd done it, and he believed her. Cassian genuinely believed that Rosie was reaching out because that was how she managed to feel like they were still together and still in a good place. Why couldn't she understand that it wasn't the same for him? It didn't make him feel like something was still alive. It didn't make him feel like she was still his wife and still aching for him. He could've written back every flowery phrase in his vocabulary, and it would've reassured her. It would've given her hope.

He'd have done it for her if he'd known she was struggling. It wouldn't have made him feel better or closer or cared for or loved.

But it was his problem. He was seeking some form of perfection that even he didn't know he'd been looking for. Being unable to receive comfort the way she did meant he was too picky and ungrateful. He did still have to be her husband; he didn't still have to feel loved, and he didn't appreciate that she kept implying that this was a non-issue only arising because things hadn't gone his way.

"My letters weren't what you thought they should be, and you decided for yourself that they must mean something else." he said quietly, so quietly she would have to be carefully listening.

He hadn't filled the page with the declarations of a heart that had never known pain, and she'd decided for herself that he was trying to end things.

How were they different? She'd told him she was pregnant and he hadn't spun her around with glee. She assumed he must not have wanted the baby. He'd told her he was struggling and not as enchanted with their new life. Rosie had convinced herself it was a rejection of them. "Don't pretend you're not looking for some perfect scene, too."

Even now, she'd told him her intentions. He suspected he should've told her that it changed everything and that he understood – that her words were invaluable and had kept him afloat. They hadn't. There was no fairytale resolution. They didn't kiss under the stars. He told her that her intention hurt him, and she'd been arguing since.

"Why does my want for time negate everything I've ever said and done? What have I ever done before this separation to make you discard my words as meaningless? I have given up everything... Over and over and over again. I have stayed. I defied my family. I faced your parents in the hardest moment you can imagine. I have proven myself to you time and again, so don't sit there and tell me my words were placeholders or meant nothing because I didn't come back immediately. You weren't the only one who felt alone. I left physically, but you left emotionally."

....There she went missing the point, again. This time, she'd brought a receipt for the many sacrifices she'd made. Cassian grimaced. "You don't get it."

He rose to his feet. With an unbearable amount of adrenaline coursing through him, his body suddenly felt uncomfortably alive.

She didn't...she just didn't get it.

All the assurance she'd given before was what made her words so hollow after the separation. They'd always been accompanied by action. Cassian had never been one to take anyone at their word. It was Rosie who'd made the connection. When she missed him, she acted. In love, she stayed near; they tried to work things out. They talked even when it was ugly. When she left, she changed that reality but seemed entirely unwilling to admit that. 'I miss you' wasn't followed by a reunion. 'I love you' didn't mean reconciliation. She taught him that, too. How was she going to get offended that he'd learned the lesson she'd taught?

He stalked off a few paces, deciding it was better to walk off what he could rather than say something he would regret when morning came. He walked back, catching Rosie's gaze even as his legs hummed to continue moving.

"You know you deserve the world too, right? Not just me. You deserve so much more than you ever allow yourself to believe. I'm sorry I couldn't give it all to you."

He heard. He didn't reply. Cassian didn't know if he knew that and didn't want another existential question plopped onto his already tipping plate.

Cass walked again, this time in the other direction. There was something trying to erupt its way out of his chest, but the walking was helping in what small way it could. He walked back to her.

"Do you want to tell me about it? I'll just listen. No judgment if you're worried about that."

"Not tonight. I just...I can't. Not tonight." He was developing a sharp tension headache, and the earlier pressure had returned.

"Nothing fun, really. I've been alone for the most part. Maddox and Julia are there of course but...no friends or anything. Just trying to figure out how to be alone with myself, you know? I don't know. I thought maybe...I was doing better. I felt better."

"You don't sound so sure about it," he pointed out, not unkindly. Cassian was well aware of his own affiliation with the word, but not what it had begun to mean to Rosie.

"Maggie's just in for the weekend. Back to...Northumberland I think on Sunday. First time I've seen her. I don't know. I've just spent a lot of time with my own thoughts. And Fawn I suppose. She's a baby demiguise. Maddox is letting me care for her."

He managed the smallest of smiles. Nuturing as she'd always been, there was a sense of relief in knowing that she'd found something else to pour her time and affection into. "There's a story for the boys; replaced by a demiguise. Reckon it's more respectable than a dog or something. Will he let you keep her after?"

He was, quite frankly, done talking about himself and his feelings. It was a remarkably unpleasant experience that left him craving a bottle harder than he had all week. A demiguise made for much better conversation.

It was by far, the worst conversation she'd ever had with Cassian.

With every moment that ticked by, every word uttered that seemed to only fall flatter and flatter, the girl could feel her skin crawling. He seemed resentful. Not just about the separation but everything. Every explanation she tried to offer, every thing she said to try and express how she felt...he just seemed to be getting angrier.

He didn't blame her. He was glad she took the time. He wouldn't want her to stay where she wasn't happy.

Nice things to say, but none of them held any weight when he looked at her like that. When he spoke to her the way he was. Rosie didn't want to take his anger personally, but it was personal. She didn't know what had happened while they were apart, but this Cassian...the way he was lashing out...he'd never done that to her before.

She'd always asked him for honesty. Was this him being honest? Was this who he was hiding beneath everything else?

"You say that like telling you how I couldn't get out of bed for a week and kept waking up in strange places wouldn't have me whirling around in your head instead of all the things you left to fix."

She didn't know what to say. Guilt surged through her as she looked at him, her eyes welling with tears again. Tears she didn't think she had a right to at this point. He couldn't get out of bed...and strange places? "Jesus..." she murmured to herself, dropping her gaze from his as she tried to fathom it. There it was, wasn't it? He'd spiraled, just like she'd worried he would, and he'd kept it from her so she wouldn't come running back.

"Cassian - "

"You've already said we were failing together. I've never argued with you; I've never tried to pretend otherwise. We weren't in a good place. You needed time and space. I've already told you I don't blame you for either."

But...he'd just said their failings were their own. Maybe she was hearing everything wrong. She didn't know. All she knew was that this wasn't what she had wanted for them. She hadn't wanted this when she ran to him. She understood it was necessary, and all of this probably needed to be said for them to be able to move forward, but why did it feel like the end rather than a new beginning?

"Okay." It was quiet and earnest. There was nothing else to say. He didn't blame her for her reasons. What more could be said or argued or inferred? To Rosie's mind, nothing. It wasn't worth it. They were both desperately trying to be heard and missing one another again. She didn't want to argue with him. She didn't like the way this was going, or the way they were speaking to each other. She hated the feeling that he was resentful or angry with her, but she supposed she had earned all of that.

But she didn't know what Cassian expected her to do. For years, he'd hidden so much from her. She'd begged him over and over to open up, and when he didn't she'd had to learn to read between the lines and infer things for herself. His silence had often spoken louder than his actual words, and she didn't understand how she was supposed to have seen that this was somehow different? That rather than disinterest, she was supposed to understand that he was hurt and 'protecting her' from himself.

Again, he never gave her the choice in what she could handle. He decided for her, and she wasn't supposed to take his silence as anything but what he said it was. She supposed that was something she needed to work on too.

But blame wasn't helping. Trying to find fault in everything Cassian said wasn't making her feel better and it wasn't fair to him. In the two months she'd been away, Rosalie had learned how to embrace the quiet and make it her friend. While it seemed Cassian had been able to surround himself with noise and people and whatever else, Rosalie had been relatively alone. Maybe that was part of the problem. She'd felt so alone that his quiet just felt enormous, and she'd interpreted it the wrong way.

"My letters weren't what you thought they should be, and you decided for yourself that they must mean something else."

"Okay," she said again, even quieter, "I'm sorry." She could make the argument that her actions weren't what he thought they should be, so he decided they meant something else, but she wasn't trying to make this worse. She wasn't trying to get anything over him. She'd only wanted him to hear her, and she supposed he'd only wanted the same from her. She could admit she probably hadn't done a good job of it, but neither had he.

"Don't pretend you're not looking for some perfect scene, too."

When...had he gotten so mean? She didn't know what he meant by that, but it felt ugly and harsh and judgmental. Her lip trembled as she kept her eyes on the ground in front of her, her vision growing blurry by the tears that still threatened and then fell. "I never wanted perfect." She didn't. "I just wanted you." She'd said it before, in the moments when Cassian had struggled and found fault in every little thing about their life. Did she have a picture in her mind of what she wanted? Of course. She'd wanted a husband who was as joyful about their life together as she was, even when it wasn't ideal. She wanted a husband that smiled with her through the hard times, and one that knew her heart. She wanted a husband that could see how hard she was trying to make him happy, despite how woefully short she kept falling.

"You don't get it."

No. She supposed she didn't. Had she ever?

Rosie laid her cheek against her knees, swallowing against the swelling pain in her throat. "I want to," she managed, "I'm trying to, I promise I am." She'd have to try harder, but for the moment, all she wanted to do was crawl into her bed and forget this night had ever happened. He was pacing back and forth, but Rosie simply let him. She didn't understand how they had devolved into this.

He couldn't talk about whatever was bothering him and it was fine. She'd have listened and tried to offer any comfort if she thought he needed it, but she wasn't going to push. He was already on the edge, and she didn't want to see how much worse it could get if she kept on.

"You're right," she finally said, deciding her pride wasn't worth all of this. "I shouldn't have assumed anything. You have the right to feel the way you do. I thought the letters would mean something, because they would have meant something to me. I'm sorry." She was, and with that in mind, she guessed she had to let go of the idea that his silence was an affront to her. Even if she did see it differently than him, she had to believe in his intent.

"You don't sound so sure about it."

She didn't answer. She hadn't felt unsure until they'd started talking. It wasn't until everything started blowing up that she'd realized maybe she didn't feel better after all. Maybe she was still stuck in the same place she'd been before.

"There's a story for the boys; replaced by a demiguise. Reckon it's more respectable than a dog or something. Will he let you keep her after?"

She shrugged the shoulder that wasn't tucked in by her knees, staring off at the road as distant headlights came into view. "Yeah, she's mine. Not a pet or anything, but just something for me to take care of. She's helped you know? With the whole baby thing."

She sighed, straightening herself before she rose to her feet. In the dark, she couldn't make out the warm brown that usually lingered in his eyes, but she wished she could have, if only to comfort herself that this wasn't a catastrophic situation. "I'm sorry if I ruined your big night. Freddie just...I told him you wouldn't want me here, but he insisted." She sighed, looking over her shoulder. "We can head back if you want. It's okay."

Cassian...was tired.

Somehow, he'd managed to find himself infinitely more exhausted than when he'd first entered the field. One might have thought that, being so close to the end of his tether, there wasn't anything more for him to lose, yet seeing the tears in Rosie's eyes confirmed that he could, in fact, feel worse. It was another thing that hadn't changed despite how long they'd spent apart, another pattern Rosie refused to acknowledge, something she'd always found easier to be insulted by.

She was withdrawing again. She was doing exactly what he always told her happened whenever 'truths' or anything 'real' was shared while insisting it was what she wanted. The way she shrank said otherwise. The way she tried to acquiesce, as if he couldn't tell the difference, was a louder answer than any denial she could make. Cassian couldn't even say how they'd gotten there. She'd said she didn't want to be apart anymore, that she wanted to come home. That should've been the end of it. He'd only tried telling her that the door remained open, hoping she would see it hadn't needed to come to frantic tears to come back, and it had steadily spiralled from there.

On both their parts.

It felt painfully like moving back to square one without having accomplished...anything.

Did it matter after that? Did any of it? Was there a worthwhile trophy for whoever managed to 'win'? Was there some heinous punishment for the person who had to lose?

"Jesus... Cassian - "

"No. Please don't..." he said quietly. Cassian had only meant to give her a real example of why it hadn't been as easy as she'd kept insisting.

He had written back every single time she'd written, despite her convenient memory loss on the matter. He'd asked how she was doing and enquired about her days, trying to keep the connection in the ways he could. He hadn't been silent, only selective. Not soothing her the way she'd needed didn't mean he hadn't tried or had shut her out. Wasn't that her own argument with the letters? Why was it suddenly unacceptable the other way around?

But he'd known, and she'd just shown small signs of it, that too much more would derail and hijack the very space he'd been trying so hard to respect. It was an example, not an invitation into another hard conversation while his system was shutting down in real time.

"It's fine, really." These days, he left his bed just fine every morning; one foot at a time and with a reluctant groan, but he did it. It wasn't another thing for her to cling to and assign herself guilt for.

Nothing was working. The more he tried to assure her that he didn't blame her for needing to leave, the worse she seemed to fold. Cassian wasn't convinced by her meek 'okay'. He wasn't asking to be placated, only understood. If her words were meant to be taken at face value, then his needed to be allowed the same grace.

"Okay, I'm sorry."

Cass exhaled deeply. This was going nowhere. Rosie was apologising. She was agreeing. She was shrinking. The conversation had stopped being productive—if it could ever have been considered that—and had turned into a girl trying hard to erase herself. What did that leave him? Pouring into a wall of hurt and guilt? What good would that do for either of them?

"I never wanted perfect. I just wanted you."

He'd said the same thing. She'd accused him of having a problem – of demanding perfection anyway. All he'd tried to make her understand was that he wasn't looking for symbolic gestures or some right manner of grieving; he'd only wanted...her. He hadn't wanted the space; he hadn't wanted the time. Cass could see that things were spiralling, but he'd have preferred the imperfect to losing her.

It wasn't worth arguing either, not when the evidence continued mounting. She didn't want perfect, only him. He'd given her him, the pieces he could afford to give in the middle of his collapse. It wasn't the way she'd wanted or needed, and she'd withdrawn rather than accepting it was all he could offer and acknowledging that it was still effort. He hadn't been asking for a perfect life or a perfect wife, just that when things got hard, she stayed. The same could easily have been said for him. He should've been able to see that her writing might have been all she could offer. In his mind, it didn't mean they were both right or wrong; it meant they had different needs that they kept trying to pretend were the same.

"That's all I've wanted, too." He'd gone quiet again, unsure the words would even matter or that she could hear them for what they were. It had cut him deeper than she would ever know when she accused him of only ever accepting perfection. The wound still throbbed aggressively, long after the words had floated off into the night.

"I want to, I'm trying to, I promise I am. You're right, I shouldn't have assumed anything. You have the right to feel the way you do. I thought the letters would mean something, because they would have meant something to me. I'm sorry."

His pacing ended. Cassian moved before her, crouching so they could be at eye level. He brushed away the strands of hair that had fallen loosely in her face. Angry as he still realised he was, it had become difficult to watch her folding inward. "I'm sorry," he said, moving his hand to cup her cheek, his thumb lightly brushing against it. "You were only trying to make sure we were still okay," they weren't, "but I made that harder. I wasn't trying to shut you out, but it doesn't mean you didn't feel shut out."

That was all the truth they needed for that night. "If you say you didn't know you could come home, then I'm sorry for that, too. You needed me, and I should've been there. Come home."

"Yeah, she's mine. Not a pet or anything, but just something for me to take care of. She's helped you know? With the whole baby thing."

The whole baby thing.

Cassian went still. He was relieved to know that, in their time apart, Rosie had found something to help her with that grief. He hadn't had the first idea on how to help her over a hill that had seemed so steep, despite knowing how much she'd suffered. More and more, the separation was sounding like something she had needed. While gone, she was tackling real issues and getting to a better place. Funny how 'better' became more measurable when he could see it through her. It made sense when he found out the things she'd been up to – this thing, at least.

"I'm glad, really." He fell back onto his bum, feeling defeated even by the anger he'd thought for the briefest moment had been justified. How could he be mad about something that had done her even a modicum of good – more good than he'd have been able to offer?

"I'm sorry if I ruined your big night. Freddie just...I told him you wouldn't want me here, but he insisted."

Freddie...?

There was neither time nor bandwidth for the boy to figure out when or how his best friend had managed to have such a conversation with his wife. In the morning, he would find him, and they would have a talk. For now...

"You're assuming again." He ran his hand through his slicked-back curls, disturbing the perfect alignment and symmetry he'd managed for the evening. They gave way to his fingers, jutting out the way they had a mind to and in every direction from the path his fingers had combed. Cassian paused only long enough to ensure he'd removed enough of the intensity before he continued, needing his words to be gentle enough for her to hear him without propelling them into another argument about why she may or may not have had every right to believe what she did.

She didn't.

He'd never expressed a desire to not have her around. She'd created distance and then hated the shape it twisted them into. She'd thrown back every sacrifice she'd ever made for him, something he'd been fine swallowing, but here, she was doing the same thing again. In the history of their relationship, even at the risk of death, Cassian had never once opined that he never wanted her in his life or in his big moments. In the week and a half that they'd shared letters, she'd decided that that would take precedence over everything else he'd consistently shown her. Again, the shoe only seemed appropriate when it wasn't on her foot and he wouldn't accept it.

"Why are you assuming you've ruined my night and that I wouldn't have wanted you at the play? Why are you making it sound like I spent two months trying to write you out of my entire life when you've never once asked what I think? I did write, Rosie. I asked about you. I wanted to know you were okay. Why wouldn't I have told you if that was the case? How come you're so sure in your interpretations? How come only your years of sacrifice don't get to be overwritten by two months?"

He picked at the blades of grass, using them to replace the regulation his pacing was no longer doing.

"The night was shit long before the curtains went up. You don't have to decide that that was because of you. You don't get to tell me you ruined my night without asking what I think, and you don't get to tell Freddie or yourself that I wouldn't have wanted you there just because it's what you independently decided. Feeling it doesn't make it true."

"We can head back if you want. It's okay."

He turned his gaze to her, appraising her for a silent moment.

"I thought you wanted to come home."

In the time she'd spent at her cousins' home, Rosalie had had a few conversations with Julia. Never revealing, never the actual issues between her and her husband, but Julia understood well enough that they had been through soul-shattering experiences, and that was enough. In the moments when Rosie had broken down, Julia had tried to comfort and reassure her, reminding her that relationships - marriages - were hard work.

There were times, she said, when misunderstandings would arise. When it felt like the two of them would be standing on opposite sides of a gaping chasm. She said it was how they navigated their way across, how they handled one another when gentleness didn't come easy, that would get them to the next happy moment. She'd said there would be moments where it might feel easier to throw in the towel and walk away, but the marriages that lasted, the ones that found true happiness, were the ones that reached for each other when the distance felt impossible.

This wasn't easy. Feeling how upset he was, knowing how hurt she was...how did they fix this? Rosalie had no standard of measurement to know when things were too broken, or if they were salvageable. She had no idea how to fix something that felt so much bigger than the two of them, but she wanted to try. Where did she start?

"That's all I've wanted, too."

She didn't know what to say. Cassian said all he wanted was her. She was sure he meant over the past two months. She had no doubt now that that was in fact what he had wanted, but again Rosalie was looking back across the span of their relationship and the things that had led to the separation feeling inevitable for her. There had been plenty of times he'd expressed that he wasn't happy with their situation, or that he was struggling to find contentment. It was hard not to take that personal, and he didn't seem the grasp that nuance.

But he said all he wanted was her. It was hard to try and force herself to believe his words when the evidence spoke otherwise, but she supposed he saw it that same from his perspective. If she couldn't give him grace, could she really expect any in return?

He crouched down in front of her, her eyes flicking to meet his, a purposeful lack of expression behind them. Rosie knew she was reverting in real time. She could feel her instincts to protect herself taking precedence, but she fought through them, trying to make herself open and receptive. Cassian had never been able to just let her be when she was sad. He was a fixer, and her tears had always tugged at him. She wasn't wielding them to force him into a truce, or manipulate the anger he rightly felt. They were just honest. A physical manifestation of the pain and resignation she felt coursing through her.

"I'm sorry. You were only trying to make sure we were still okay, but I made that harder. I wasn't trying to shut you out, but it doesn't mean you didn't feel shut out."

His touch was gentle and soft, the first indication to her that maybe things could still be worked out. It was the first branch he'd offered her. Her hand went to the one on her cheek, resting lightly over it. She nodded, finding the words she wanted to say lodged stubbornly in her throat.

"If you say you didn't know you could come home, then I'm sorry for that, too. You needed me, and I should've been there. Come home."

"I should have come home sooner." She should have. It hadn't needed to drag out as long as it had, and Rosie could admit that part of it was because she didn't give Cassian the benefit of the doubt in wanting her home. She should have been direct and asked him, but she'd been so caught up in her own doubt and assumptions she'd made it impossible. Fear of rejection was a hell of a thing. "I was just afraid to hear you say no, if I asked, but that's on me. Not on you." That was fair, wasn't it? Each of their fears were their own, and while maybe she'd contributed to him manifesting some, or vice versa, they knew each other better than to let themselves spiral with realities that had never been true for them.

He wanted her home. He said it, outright and direct. It was what she needed, and of course she'd go home with him. It'd be hard, having to navigate the night after all of this, but her place was with him. They'd never figure any of this out separately.

The small smile returned when he'd said he was glad that Fawn had helped. "I am too." She was the sweetest little creature who had needed someone with a gentle touch to care for her. She was an illusive creature, shy and scared, who required patience and understanding. Rosie could see the parallels between the demiguise and herself and even Cassian. Where she offered patience and understanding so easily to the little creature, she'd found it more difficult to extend the same to her husband when clouded by her own hurt.

She owed him better than that, didn't she?

"Why are you assuming you've ruined my night and that I wouldn't have wanted you at the play? Why are you making it sound like I spent two months trying to write you out of my entire life when you've never once asked what I think? I did write, Rosie. I asked about you. I wanted to know you were okay. Why wouldn't I have told you if that was the case? How come you're so sure in your interpretations? How come only your years of sacrifice don't get to be overwritten by two months?"

She looked past him, forcing herself to listen first before going on the defensive again. He thought that she was assuming the worst, and maybe she had about the situation, but this was different. "I understand that it feels that way," she said softly, returning her gaze to him. "But I'm not assuming about your night. I said 'if', and I was trying to apologize for that if I did. But Cassian, you're not exactly forthcoming with things." It wasn't said with malice or even anger. "A lot of things I have had to assume, and that doesn't turn off because you're being direct and honest now."

She curled her fingers through his, squeezing slightly so he'd listen. "But I do need to give you that grace, you're right. I think sometimes when we're hurt, it's hard to not feel that first. It's sort of what we said before, that we're so desperate trying to protect ourselves and have our point heard that we're not listening to each other. I did that when I didn't see what I wanted in your messages." Should she have trusted that he still wanted her? That he missed her and loved her, when he hadn't expressed those things in the way he always had?

Maybe. But people were complicated.

"The night was shit long before the curtains went up. You don't have to decide that that was because of you. You don't get to tell me you ruined my night without asking what I think, and you don't get to tell Freddie or yourself that I wouldn't have wanted you there just because it's what you independently decided. Feeling it doesn't make it true."

"But you do understand that your silence leaves room for interpretation, Cassian? You never told me about the play. You never invited me. If I had some big event coming up and never told you or invited you and Maggie came and told you about it...what would you think? Why wouldn't you give me the opportunity to come and support you and show you how important these things are to me? If you don't say something, then I'm left to assume, naturally."

He had to be fair about this.

"I thought you wanted to come home."

"I do. This talk has been really hard though, and I don't want to push is all. I'll come home tonight if we both want it."

Cassian watched the expression leave her eyes. It was another old habit she was falling into. It was starting to feel like every area of growth that Rosie achieved was outside the realm of their relationship. Back together, she was already withdrawing, and now he watched her try to numb herself in real time while he was trying to reach across the chasm he recognised. This couldn't work if, even after coming back, she still pulled for emotional distance when things got hard while insisting he bring her the hard things.

She would have to choose which reality she wanted him following.

Because this was hard.

Without a doubt, without a question. If someone had plucked him from time and space and offered to have him either be hunted and beaten within an inch of his life by her father again or put through the two months she'd been gone, he'd have offered to break his own jaw to make Leo's work easier. The aftermath? The whirlwind reconciliation where they hugged and sobbed? The universe had already decided that they didn't deserve it. Instead, it had fed them venom, uncertainty and circular conversations that only increased his blood pressure. So Cassian wouldn't declare that she should stand firm and toughen up. Even in the best of times, Rosie had always shrunk and blamed herself when confrontations arose and he'd long since accepted that.

But if they were meant to be working through this, he needed her present, not drawing for a silkscreen and feigning indifference while she braced for him to hurt her more.

"I should have come home sooner."

She should have. It wasn't a vindictive point he wanted to hammer home. If it were, he'd have voiced the very confirmation. It was acknowledgement that, at least from where he was standing, the distance had done more harm than good. It had left him feeling empty and abandoned regardless of her intent and had left her feeling unwanted and unloved, regardless of his. Rosie may have come back healed in some ways, but he could see all the ways she still wasn't. He could also see all the new ways she hurt. His recovery? It had never gotten off the ground, but now it was laden with more wounds he would have to force himself past. Did she need to leave? It sounded that way. He was less convinced that she'd needed to stay gone.

"I was just afraid to hear you say no, if I asked, but that's on me. Not on you."

It was another symptom of the separation, a Rosalie that believed there could be a world where he turned her away. The pair had a long road ahead of them, fixing all these new wounds. He was glad that they were no longer trying to fix it on their own.

"I understand that it feels that way."

He didn't think that she did.

"But I'm not assuming about your night. I said 'if', and I was trying to apologize for that if I did. But Cassian, you're not exactly forthcoming with things. A lot of things I have had to assume, and that doesn't turn off because you're being direct and honest now."

Cassian shook his head. "You wouldn't have even brought it up or said 'if' unless you'd thought there was a possibility." Despite him giving no indication that she had, it had still crossed Rosie's mind that her presence had ruined something for him—at the very least, that it was possible. But he wasn't looking for another argument now that the temperature had cooled. He played with the fingers she'd curled into his. "How about this? We ask. I'm not always an open book. I've tried to be better," and seen for himself the distress and shut down, "but when I'm not, don't go putting puzzle pieces together on your own. Ask, and I'll do the same when I stop knowing for sure, too." Cass managed a small smile. "I think we can both agree that these assumptions aren't doing us any favours."

"But I do need to give you that grace, you're right. I think sometimes when we're hurt, it's hard to not feel that first. It's sort of what we said before, that we're so desperate trying to protect ourselves and have our point heard that we're not listening to each other. I did that when I didn't see what I wanted in your messages."

She wasn't wrong. He had been desperate to get across even the smallest ounce of his pain. Cassian had wanted her understanding that he wasn't okay and became too distracted to realise that she was trying to say the same thing.

"But you do understand that your silence leaves room for interpretation, Cassian? You never told me about the play. You never invited me. If I had some big event coming up and never told you or invited you and Maggie came and told you about it...what would you think? Why wouldn't you give me the opportunity to come and support you and show you how important these things are to me? If you don't say something, then I'm left to assume, naturally."

His silence became heavy.

They weren't the same thing...but only he knew that. This wasn't some big moment, and he wasn't celebrating some triumph that he wanted to proudly parade her through, but without knowing the rest...he could see why she'd take it that way.

His shoulders slumped. The hand that played with hers fell limply into the grass.

"It's not the same..." he heard himself whisper. "I know...I know what you mean, but...it's not." Had there been real triumph, he would have tentatively reached out. This was grief and turmoil. It was black and tar-like, sticking to everything unfortunate enough to run into it. There hadn't been some pride that he wanted to share, only shame and guilt. "This was Patrick's play. This was his work, his time, his...his vision... All they did was paste my face onto it." He pulled his knees close, hugging them tightly. "He's dead."

The word hung in the air, wrong and suffocating.

"I do. This talk has been really hard though, and I don't want to push is all. I'll come home tonight if we both want it."

He looked back up at her, confusion pulling his brows inward. 'If'? He'd already invited her home. She'd already said she wanted to come home. Where did the uncertainty remain? What was the hold-up that kept them sitting in the grass? It took him a real minute to interpret what she was trying to say. Hadn't he already been clear? Were his words not enough the first few times he'd said them?

Unless.

"You're not sure you want to?" The uncertainty wasn't on his part, but perhaps it was on hers.

"You wouldn't have even brought it up or said 'if' unless you'd thought there was a possibility."

"That's true." There was nothing really to add. It was true. If she hadn't thought that maybe she had ruined the night, she wouldn't have said it, but certainly, she thought, almost anyone would have worried that they'd ruined their husband's big directing debut with all of this. She didn't think it was an unreasonable thing to worry about.

"How about this? We ask. I'm not always an open book. I've tried to be better, but when I'm not, don't go putting puzzle pieces together on your own. Ask, and I'll do the same when I stop knowing for sure, too. I think we can both agree that these assumptions aren't doing us any favours."

She managed to return his small smile with one of her own. "Yeah," she said. It sounded easier said than practiced, but they owed each other that much. Hiding their feelings and bottling had only led to a massive breakdown in communication. Rosalie knew the road in front of them was long, with a lot of talks and learning about each other again. Things couldn't go back to the way they were and if she were being honest, she didn't want them to. While she missed their seemingly carefree days as young teenagers, wrapped up in dreams and romance, she understood their marriage needed to take a giant step into adulthood if it were going to survive.

Romance had only carried them so far. Love had only shouldered so much. Dreams had only lasted until they became unrealistic. Now, they had to do the work if they wanted this to last. If she wanted him, and wanted to continue building a life with him, she had to start being as honest as she had asked him to be. She couldn't be afraid of hurting his feelings, and he had to be willing to hurt hers if it meant they had the opportunity to work through harder things.

Festering had only made everything worse. "I think I'll handle it a lot better, if I know we're on the same page with that. So I'll ask if I'm not sure." She squeezed his hand again before he pulled away when she'd mentioned having to infer things when he held back.

"It's not the same...I know...I know what you mean, but...it's not. This was Patrick's play. This was his work, his time, his...his vision... All they did was paste my face onto it."

Well...okay, but he had stepped up and that meant something. He'd worked hard and made sure the show had still gone on and -

"He's dead."

The shock that came across Rosie's face was apparent, her lips parting as her eyes widened slightly. Patrick was dead? When...how? He wasn't very old, as Rosie remembered. He was so pivotal in Cassian's young life, grooming him into the actor and playwright he'd become. Cassian had always spoken fondly of him, how Patrick had believed in him and encouraged him when he didn't believe in himself.

"Oh love," she breathed, unable to maintain the space between them. It all made sense. How on edge he was, why he didn't seem as happy about this night as she'd always thought he would. He was grieving. On top of being away from each other and suffering that distance, he'd lost a man that was important to him. She nudged his knees down, climbing into his lap, as she wrapped her arms around his neck. She gently laid her forehead against his, letting the quiet fill any remaining space. Her fingers moved lightly against the nape of his neck, raking through the soft curls that hung there.

"I'm so sorry." She didn't ask how. It didn't seem important at the moment, and they could discuss it later. For now, her husband was obviously hurting and she wanted to soothe it in any way she could. She kissed him, just once, enough to remind him that he wasn't alone and while she'd be gone, she was here now. "Let me be here for you?"

"You're not sure you want to?"

There was no question in her mind if she wanted to. "I do want to." It was firm and final. She was going home with her husband and wasn't spending another night without him. They would figure everything out with time. Staying apart would only exacerbate the issues they were facing, not help them.

"I'm going home with you."

"That's true."

It didn't feel like it mattered. What was true, what wasn't true, who was right, who was wrong... It was dawning on him that Rosie was standing there—right in front of him—and all they'd managed to do when their lips had parted...was argue. It was almost laughable. With so much emotion sparking between them and so much hurt, it had been hard for his body to remember that this had been the only thing it had been craving since the night she left. Now, she admitted again that she agreed, but none of them felt like victories.

It went without saying that it wasn't the sort of night he was trying to have or the reunion he'd wanted with his wife. There were so many things going wrong. Finally, something had taken a turn for the better, and he scarcely felt like he could enjoy it.

"I think I'll handle it a lot better if I know we're on the same page with that. So I'll ask if I'm not sure."

"Okay," he replied with the same quiet as before. That, too, should've been a relief. The night's back and forth was enough evidence that they couldn't keep talking around each other and deciding what they wanted to believe. Ambiguity had had its own hand in stirring the pot, leaving Rosie unsure of whether he wanted her back and leaving him certain that she was working to finally pull away from him once and for all. It was so easy to see it all, in hindsight—easy to say that a letter or a quick visit could've solved things. It had been stupid, on both their parts, to stay away and to let the distance and silence fill them with thoughts that they should've known better about.

The truth could sometimes be that offensive.

It could also be that elusive while one was standing in the middle of it.

Agreeing to talk through their uncertainties felt like a real step toward making sure they didn't end up in the same place a year...two...ten years down the line. Cassian didn't know that he could keep surviving the figments of his imagination and, with the same conviction, didn't think he wanted to keep being misunderstood every time he failed to emote in a clearer manner. It was something they would both have to work on, but it was the better option, and that gave him what little hope that it could.

Cassian felt himself shrinking under her confusion, the knowledge of his own part in it weighing him down like an anchor at sea.

"Oh love."

It was sympathy he didn't deserve and exactly what he knew would happen if she ever knew. Rosie had always fallen into the role of comforter, always hoping to take away some of his pain. He deserved this one; he deserved to feel the way it rattled around in his bones. Forgetting was a mercy he didn't deserve. Patrick deserved to be remembered for the life he'd brought to the theatre and the many lives he'd touched. It wasn't enough to say 'he shouldn't have drunk things he didn't know'. It wasn't enough to slap his name on the side of a production and then tell everyone he was away.

How long could the man be 'attending family business' before everyone else would finally admit that he was gone?

Rosie climbed into his lap, and as she laid her forehead against his, he felt the final brittle walls of his defences collapse. His shoulders shook with a sob he'd barely managed to contain. Cass bit down on his lower lip, doing everything he could to keep a dam in place while pressure built behind its crumbling walls.

"I'm so sorry."

"It's...it's my fault."

"Let me be here for you?"

He wanted to...didn't he? For the last week, he and Freddie had been carrying the full extent of the knowledge on their own, and they hadn't been doing a terrific job. They never talked about it, never let themselves sit too long with it and just kept pushing forward because it was so heavy for them. The owner of the theatre had insisted it remain a secret because it was too heavy for the others. Now Rosie asked to be there and he could hear the old lines filtering in.

It was too much.

It was too heavy.

It was more than she could handle.

Cassian felt his hands wrap around her middle, holding her tighter than he meant to. Would it have been easier forcing himself back into some semblance of composure and assuring her things were fine? He...didn't think so. This time, it felt harder to let her go, ease back and smile than it did to hold her close and offer himself even a small moment to grieve the man he knew would never come back.

"I do want to. I'm going home with you."

He drew a shaky breath and then nodded. She was coming home. He wouldn't have to figure out what to do with himself for the rest of the night before forcing himself back together in the morning. The relief was staggering. It was hard for him to trust that this was his reality, but he wouldn't question it. They wanted to go home together, and his heart didn't have the capacity to consider anything else. "Thanks," he muttered. Cassian pressed his lips to her forehead, and with a pop, they were clear of the field.