16 June, 1892 — Three Broomsticks

It had been a bad week for Ben. Since his encounter with Whosit-St-Whatever-Black, he'd been locked in a pattern of destructive thoughts. Despite recognizing them for what they were, he seemed incapable of breaking out of them. No matter which way he sliced it, this sorry state of affairs just seemed like the truth.

Melody didn't love him. She'd admitted as much. She probably never had in the first place, because she'd never really trusted him. She certainly didn't seem inclined to start trusting or loving him now, given how cool she'd been to all of his advances since her accident. He needed to make her happy if he wanted to convince her to stay, in the long term, but she seemed determined to be unhappy. Any time he tried to do something nice for her, the only thing she was interested in was bringing up the past and trying to rehash old fights. She wasn't interested in letting sleeping dogs lie, and it seemed like she only remembered the bad things from their marriage. To be fair to her, there were a lot of very bad things mixed in to their history, but there were good things, too. There were things that Ben thought merited her at least giving him a chance, and either she disagreed or she didn't remember them.

The fact that she had apologized to her former fiance, the one that she had described as awful and horrible to Ben before they'd eloped, still stung. The fact that she'd contacted him at all rather than talking to Ben about what she was thinking or feeling hurt. Looking at all the facts together, it seemed as though Melody held that American in higher regard than she did Ben, and that — well, hurt was an understatement. It did more than sting. He didn't know how he could recover from it. It made him feel small and angry — like all of the things he had done to try and make their marriage work over the years, all the sacrifices he'd made for her along the way, had been for nothing. None of that mattered to her anymore — only the fights.

He hadn't lied to Melody about where he was going tonight, but he had lied to the housekeeper whom he assumed would pass the word along. Working late, he'd said. It was a Thursday during the social season, so that was more than believable. Really, he intended to drink the hours away and not go home until his mind was pleasantly blank and his wife was asleep.

"I don't expect eldercurrant rum to fix all my problems," he said with a grim smile at the person standing next to him at the bar, as he waited for his order to be poured. "But it's a tasty way to waste an evening."

---

The dust had settled from the events from the previous year. Her head injury healed, her relationships repaired to the best of her ability, and the tension between her and Ari diffused by the mundanity of everyday life, it was easy to move forward and pretend that the tightness in her own chest wasn't there. She was a mother, she told herself. She was always going to be stressed. Although Elliot was three now, speaking in full sentences and capable of hearing reason, he was still little—the stress was normal.

Or at least that's what she told herself every time she sat with her extended Fisk relatives for a meal... or when she visited the healer for yet another checkup... or when she sat in front of the mirror with Elliot while trying to tame his hair, all too aware that he was beginning to develop more distinct features that were clearly not inherited from her or Ari.

It was for those reasons, among others, that she'd recently allowed herself to stay out a little later, using the evening as a time to herself. No Ari, no friends, none of the household staff, no Elliott. Time that was completely her own. Except for tonight, it seemed, because none other than Ben Crouch stood beside her while she sipped from her own drink.

"You don't have to tell me," she said with a grim smile, clinking her fingernail against her own glass. "Not rum, but still sweet." It was silly, she thought, to stand in the middle of a pub and talk to him like this—like they didn't share a child, like that child hadn't seen him in so long, like they could ever do more than stand in the middle of a public place and pretend they were strangers. It was stilly, but maybe it's what she needed. Maybe it's what he needed, too.

She kept her eyes on him even as she sipped from her glass, not exactly expectant but... curious.

---

Maybe it was ridiculous, but Ben felt like he recognized the look she gave him over the rim of her glass before he recognized her. He couldn't have ever forgotten Dionisia, but it had been nearly a year since they'd last seen each other — longer since he'd seen Elliott. He'd seen her husband more recently than he'd seen her, and how absurd was that?

Did she wonder why he'd stopped writing to her? By now she had to know, if she'd ever been curious enough to pay attention when his name came up in conversation. Nora was nine months old now and Melody had been pregnant nine months before that. Dionisia had to know already, but he still felt vaguely guilty at the prospect of saying anything about it.

He was standing at a bar next to a woman he'd had a one-night fling with, and feeling guilty at the idea of mentioning the child he'd had with his wife. How batshit insane was that?

"Hey," he said with a withered half-smile. His buoyancy had fled like air from a balloon that had been pricked when he saw her. He had been feeling awful and trying to cover it with glib humor; now he was just feeling awful.

"Didn't expect to see you at a place like this," he said. He didn't have the energy to pretend that they were strangers, or to care if they were overheard.

---

She knew that look on his face. She'd seen variations of it on other people's faces last year when she was struggling with bouts of confusion and melancholy. It was guilt that wasn't meant to look like guilt. If it had been a few weeks earlier, while she'd planning for Elliott's birthday and the thought had passed through her mind that Ben hadn't bothered to send so much as a letter, she might have told herself that he should have that look on his face. But the time had passed, and Dionisia had drank enough to soothe whatever hard feelings she might have had.

"It's why I come," she said quietly, glancing over her shoulder briefly before turning her gaze back on him. "Nobody expects me to be here, so it's the last place they come looking." Not that anyone ever looked for her anymore. The first time she'd gone out for the night, breaking her routine of putting Elliott to bed and spending the rest of the evening in the sitting room across from Ari, she'd left a letter. She'd done so the second and third time, too, but after that she'd expected everyone to understand.

"Should I take it you're hiding, too?" she asked quietly, the corner of her mouth pulling up into a half-smile similar to his own. She didn't think Ben could really hide in a pub—not with his job. Nevertheless, she couldn't imagine why a married man—and father—would be drowning his problems in a pub if not to hide.

---

Ben shifted his weight. "Not hiding. Just drinking," he said, but he wasn't sure it was entirely true. Maybe he was hiding a little bit, too, but he wasn't hiding here any more than he was hiding at home or out around town. There were certain things he just never got to talk about, no matter where he was or who he was with. Not even Art or Aldous knew the full story. If they ever sat down together and shared what they knew between them they would come close, but the chances of that happening were ridiculously slim. Ben would probably have to turn up murdered to get Aldous and Arthur working together on anything.

"Sometimes there's a lot to drink about," he admitted with a shrug.

---

Dionisia's brows creased as she looked to the swirling golden liquid in her glass. At one point it would have been easy to just ask him—Is it your wife? Your baby? Did you have a rough day at work? They'd had regular visits for the sake of Elliott, but she'd been beginning to feel like she'd known him. Time had passed, though, and she didn't know where he drew his boundaries, so she glanced back up at him and then to the bartender who approached to fill his glass.

"I know what it's like," she sad, not meeting his eyes as she brought the glass to her lips again. "Some days it feels like the people who should know me best don't see me anymore." Ari—good, sweet Ari, who had never once gave her any reason to doubt his devotion to their little family despite everything else—had never really seen her, and she didn't think he ever would. Zelda had, at one point, but it hadn't been the same in a long time, not even after they'd reconciled. "But I guess that's easy when nobody knows the whole story." She looked at him then, a knowing look on her face. That he could understand, at least.

---

Ben stared at her as the bartender filled his glass, a little shaken that she'd hit the nail directly on the head. She might as well have known everything already, because that was exactly how he felt. Like Melody didn't see him any more, and she wasn't interested in trying.

"Yeah," he said, softly at first and then with more conviction. "Yeah."

He picked up his glass and swirled the liquid around for a second, but didn't take a drink. This felt a little surreal all of the sudden, like he was having a dream about meeting Dionisia at a bar instead of actually living it. "Do you — want to get a table, or something?"

---

Dionisia wasn't sure how deeply her words resonated with him, but it seemed they'd been enough. She lowered her glass back onto the counter and turned in her chair so her body was facing his. She glanced around the room again, scanning the visible faces. It wasn't as though she wasn't allowed to be here, but she really didn't like the idea of someone she knew—someone who knew she was married—seeing her with Ben and jumping to conclusions. She and Ari may have had an understanding, no matter how innocent her intentions were tonight, but the rest of society would always assume the worst. She didn't see any familiar faces. No former coworkers, no healers she recognized, none of her friends' husbands. She looked back at Ben, a tentative smile on her lips, and nodded.

"Is over there alright?" she asked, motioning towards the back of the pub where the tables remained in the shadows and out of the direct lighting.

---

"Yeah," he agreed, without fully looking at where she'd indicated. "Anywhere." He probably should have been approaching this more cautiously, given how easy it was for rumors to start about someone like him. Once someone had a reputation, everyone was always looking for ways to confirm it, and society had already cast him in the role of barely-reformed rake long ago. It might not have bothered him to have rumors spreading about him, and at this point he honestly didn't know whether or not Melody would care, but the potential impact on Dionisia should have bothered him more. Maybe he was already a touch tipsy, since the rum he'd just ordered at the bar hadn't been his first. Maybe it was that he still felt a little like he was dreaming this whole thing. Whatever the case, the notion of consequences — of any variety — barely crossed his mind as he moved to the table she'd selected.

"I'm sorry I stopped writing," he said in a rush as soon as they'd sat down at the table. At the time he'd thought she would understand, and even as recently as a few months ago he still would have defended the choice... but a few months ago, he and Melody had been happy. It made sense to have traded away something temporary and unsustainable with Dionisia and Elliott in order to focus all his energy on Melody and Nora. Now he was left feeling like the storybook character who agreed to a deal with a leprechaun thinking they'd walk away with a pile of gold, only to turn up with empty pockets an hour later. He'd neglected the budding relationship he had with Dionisia and with his son, and for what? For Melody to not even want him to touch her anymore? So that he could pour his energy into trying to convince his wife they were happy while she wrote letters to her former fiance?

---

Dionisia made sure to sit with her back turned the rest of the room and propped her elbow up so she could lean her cheek against her palm. It wasn't a foolproof way to keep her identity hidden from any prying eyes, but it made her feel more secure.

Unfortunately that feeling disappeared the moment she settled in. Her heart dropped into her stomach, and she felt her chest tighten uncomfortably. She stared at him wordlessly, her mouth parted in surprise, and she only closed it once she began to realize how long it was taking her to respond.

She wanted to tell him that he should be sorry, that she'd risked a lot to allow him to have contact with Elliott. She'd lied to her husband—she'd let Zelda think less of her. Of course she hadn't done it entirely for Elliott; she was also angry that he'd abandoned her. He owed her nothing, but for those brief few months when he'd visited it had felt like she wasn't entirely alone, that she'd had someone who saw her.

But here and now, while they were both drinking away their feelings and all that time had passed, she only gave a sad little smile and a nod. "You had a baby, a new family to worry about," she said, acknowledging it aloud for the first time to him. It's what she'd told herself all those months, when she still half-expected him to suddenly write one month and ask to see Elliott. She could understand that. She'd told herself she could.

---

Ben's gut twisted uncomfortably. He wasn't comfortable talking about Melody and Nora with Dionisia, but more than that... it felt wrong to hear his child and his family — Melody — lumped into one sentiment like that. Of course he couldn't correct her, because there was nothing wrong about what she'd said, but... Nora was one of the best things that had ever happened to him, and Melody wouldn't let him touch her anymore. Holding Nora was the best way to be hopeful about the future, and all Melody wanted to talk about was the past. They just shouldn't have been under that same umbrella term of family.

"I was stupid," he said, shaking his head. He leaned one elbow heavily on the table and took a drink, then rested his cheek against the knuckles of his closed fist. "I thought things would be different. For a while I thought they were different. But I should have known that — well." He stopped himself before saying anything too incriminating about his relationship with Melody, but then wondered why he'd bothered. What charade was he still trying to hold up, at this point? If Dionisia knew he was coming out to pubs to drink the night away, she would already know there was trouble in paradise, so to speak.

Ben shifted back in the booth, rubbing both of his thumbs over the bottom edge of his glass and examining a smudge on the side. It wasn't as though she was going to tell anyone. She'd have to explain how she knew him first, and of course she would never.

"My wife hates me," he admitted. "And I don't think there's anything I can do about it."

---

She could understand that. She wanted to understand that. Before his wife had given birth, Elliott was the only child he had. After having a legitimate one that he could freely acknowledge, why risk ruining his marriage by visiting his bastard and the woman he'd conceived him with? The words sounded bitter in her own mind for all she knew it was unfair. She'd probably have done the same—no, she would have. For all the anger and hurt she'd bottled up on Elliott's behalf, she couldn't pretend like she wouldn't protect the child that was hers over one she could never have.

But apparently it hadn't worked out for Ben. She leaned further into her hand, her fingers smoothing over the creases that began to form on her forehead. "But I thought..." She trailed off, unsure how to phrase her words without coming off as judgmental. She wasn't, of course, because she was the last person who could judge anyone for the circumstances of their marriage, but she didn't want to break the bridge between them before they could start to repair it. "Have you always felt this way?" she decided to ask instead, "Or did something happen recently?"

---

Ben hesitated. He tried to read her thoughts in her reaction, but he couldn't tell exactly what she was thinking and subsequently he didn't know how much to say. He didn't want to lie to her. He couldn't tell her the truth. '

"It's... complicated," was what he settled on. "Recently it's gotten... more complicated. She — Melody had an accident a few months ago and she forgot a lot of things. And the things she did remember didn't... well, without context it doesn't..." he drifted off and waved his hand vaguely over his glass. There was no way to explain any of this, he realized, but he also couldn't just shut up now that he'd started. He'd have to find a way to muddle through it. "So it's been — hard. Things have been hard before but at least then it felt like we both had all the cards on the table. Now she's on a totally different page." He was mixing metaphors, but he was tipsy and edging towards drunk; that was allowed. Dionisia would know what he meant.

---

He stumbled through his words, making complete sense and absolutely no sense at the same time. She probably had the least context of everyone regarding Ben's marriage. She'd actively avoided articles and gossip about him and Mrs. Crouch in the time she'd known him, not wanting any mean-spirited rumors to impact their budding friendship. She'd only ever heard that they'd eloped rather suddenly, which she'd always assumed was a testament to their love rather than... complications, but now she was rethinking that, too.

"Last year I — there was an incident at sea, and I hit my head, too. Everything was fuzzy for a while, and I wasn't sure how I was supposed to feel about everyone around me. I lost some things that I'm not sure I ever got back," she explained, letting her palm slide off her cheek and onto the table in the space between them. "Has the healer indicated that she would ever remember things... as they were?" The mediwitch—that dormant but ever-enduring part of herself—wanted to hear a list of symptoms, to examine it from the medical perspective, but she knew that wasn't what Ben needed.

"What I mean to say is... have you talked to her about the way things were before?" Ari had done that for her. Loyal, patient Ari—he'd talked her through her accident, through their past and their family. Maybe Ben was too scared—or maybe he had tried, and nothing had changed.

---

Ben flushed and shifted his attention to some indeterminate point off to the left. Talking through everything in their past was what Melody always wanted from him, but it was the last thing Ben was going to do. How many times now had he kept repeating the same pithy comments when she asked? We're in a better spot now. We got through things. We've been happy lately. None of it was what she wanted to hear, but it was all he was willing to give her. She seemed to think that he was keeping things from her, but she didn't understand. If he'd had the option, Ben would have chosen to forget those things, too. It wasn't fair to dredge them up again once they'd finally moved past it.

"I don't want to talk about the way things were before," he admitted. "I just wanted us to be happy now. But it's like she's determined not to be happy. No matter what I do, she's so focused on the past. If she wasn't sure how to feel, I think I could handle that," he said, echoing Dionisia's explanation back at her. If that was the case, at least he could try and win her over gradually. That was more or less how he'd started, after her accident — but as her memories came back, things had only gotten worse, never better. "But I think she's made her mind up on me."

---

She gave a sad smile in understanding, trying to catch his eye even as he seemed determined not to meet her gaze. "If you want her to love you, you need to let her see all of you," she said, her voice soft and even. She didn't want to upset him or anger him, or make him feel like she wasn't on his side. She was. "I remember what it was like to have a poor grasp of the past when I was like that. It's impossible to move forward when you don't have a solid understanding of what you're moving on from. I couldn't do anything for weeks when I was like that. I felt stuck." She'd withered away in that sitting room, unable to care for Elliott or herself. Everyone had come to her, sitting with her and trying to give her some semblance of normalcy while she worked through the fog in her head.

"Do you love her?" Dionisia asked, tilting her head to the side, watching him. She assumed he'd say yes, because she didn't have any reason to think Ben didn't love his wife with how hurt he seemed, but she was looking for anything in his body language that might say something that he wouldn't admit aloud.

---