Never once hated him. It wasn't exactly a solid foundation to build a marriage on, but it was something. It was more than he'd had at the start of the night... if she was being honest. Things like this were tricky, as he knew from experience. She didn't even have to be intentionally lying to him in order to by lying; she could just as easily have been lying to herself.

But assuming he believed her, what next? Never hated him was a start, but it wasn't going to carry them through this shitshow. It wasn't going to get him back into her bed.

"But you've never loved me, either," he argued, resting his glass atop his knee.

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Years ago, Melody would have swore to anyone who listened that she loved Ben Crouch, that he was it for her. The man she dreamed of marrying. Then, they married by means she truly wished she hadn't done and thus began the reality of her life. Little by little she realized she loved an idea, a one sided picture of the three dimensional man. Neither of them had ever truly allowed themselves to be open to loving one another.

"I thought I did." Melody continued earnestly as she walked around the table so that there wasn't so much distance between them. "I want to still. We just ... we have to figure out how to get through this first." In a rather unladylike move, Melody leaned heavily against the table. At the very least, they had to figure out how to be civil towards one another. Anything else would be an unexpected bonus.

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That was a sentiment that Ben had expressed before, too. He watched Melody lean on the table. If he could just believe her when she said she wanted to try, the pair of them could button this up and go to bed... but try as he might, he couldn't find it in him to trust that what she was saying now would be true in the morning.

"Nothing I do ever makes you happy," he said. "No matter how hard I try. It seems like the harder I try, the less it works."

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"I don't think we know one another very well." She explained cautiously. They were both obviously aware of the other's faults and misgivings, but Melody would be hardpressed to say what Ben enjoyed outside of quidditch and Nora. Perhaps drinking, maybe socializing, though those two answers felt too vague to be a true passion of Ben's.

Melody thought to sit besides him on the floor, however one look at the growing puddle of firewhiskey had her quickly rethinking that plan. "Happy will come in time. We need to get through this first, if not for our sake than for Nora's."

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Bringing Nora back to the forefront of the conversation made Ben's shoulders slump. He started to pour another glass of whiskey, but stopped himself and set the bottle down by his foot.

"We were happy," he insisted. They had been, after Nora was born, hadn't they? Or had that only been him?

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The happiness he was thinking of wasn't built on a solid foundation. Anything could have sullied the peaceful routine they'd found themselves in. That it was her losing her memories was unfortunate to say the least, but it was never happiness that was built to last.

Still, she couldn't see how to explain that to him in his current state. "I know." She responded with a slight shrug of her shoulders, for there was nothing else to really say.

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Ben couldn't make sense of her responses. He couldn't make her happy because he didn't know her and didn't love her. Alright, fine, maybe she was right. But they had been happy. She hadn't argued that point, or told him he was remembering things through rose-tinted glasses. If they had been happy before, why couldn't they do it again? Why was it something she placed in the distant future, to be worked up to, rather than something they could reach out and grab if they wanted to?

"I hate that you wrote to him." Ben didn't specify who, but she would know. The first letter she'd shown him had made him feel like he was going crazy, but the whole thing came to a surreal awful head when Ben had met up with him on Sunday. "And before you— yeah, you were confused, I fucking get it. But you wrote to him for answers like you didn't fucking trust me. Like his opinion means more than mine."

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"I thought he might be able to provide some context." He hadn't, of course, and by the time Melody realized she shouldn't have written to him at all they had already ceased communicating. She was horrified to realize she had apologized to the man that treated her like livestock. Merlin knew any letter to him now wouldn't have been worded as kindly.

"It wasn't a matter of trust to me, though I understand how you could have come to that reasoning. I ... I felt like I was walking through a cave with no light to guide me. The answers you did give were vague and even more confusing without the understanding of how we wound up married at all." Melody moved from the table to sit a few feet from him as she spoke. Neither could reach out to touch the other, but at least she no longer felt like she was lording over him.

She could have explained her reasoning more, likely should have, but she instead remained quiet for another minute. They'd both made so many mistakes and had hurt one another so deeply that Melody wasn't sure that they could ever forge a bond of love. Still, in this singular moment when he was allowing himself to be vulnerable with her, Melody wished they could. "I'm sorry I hurt you. It was never my intention."

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Ben had known this would come back to being his fault again, despite his attempts to head that off. He'd handled everything wrong and given all the wrong answers, and therefore she'd run back to her fiance for guidance. It was all his fault, except it wasn't as though there was a manual for what to do when one's wife, with mountains of baggage, lost all her memories. He'd been doing the best he could. He'd made the choices he thought were best for her, and he'd been penalized for it, because now she'd hold it against him forever.

"I've never been good enough for you," he said, pouring again. His tone was blank; not an accusation, but a statement of fact. There were dozens of ways to measure to merit of a man, and Ben fell short of the marks she'd set on all of them. He wasn't rich and powerful, like her fiance was. He never knew what she wanted to hear when they were fighting. His best effort had never even come close to making her happy. Nora had done in minutes what Ben couldn't manage in years — and even that hadn't lasted.

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Without thinking of the probable consequences, Melody bridged the remaining distance between them and gripped his wrist holding the bottle. Alcohol had never solved their problems before, and it had become increasingly obvious he wasn't capable of realizing such facts in his current state of being. She held onto his wrist with enough determination that it was soon put on the ground besides them both. He would likely reach for it again if just to spite her, but at least she tried.

She struggled to formulate an adequate response to him, for she could just as soon argue the opposite. Ben had once loved adventure and mischief, both of which she had stolen from him in her haste. He sought romance and adoration, two things Melody hadn't ever given freely throughout the course of their marriage. All his life plans had been thrown aside for this new future they were doomed to share and she hadn't once stopped to see how he was trying. Melody frowned then, her hands folding and unfolding anxiously in her lap. Ben was wonderful when he had the motivation to be, it was she who was the lacking piece here.

'I want to start over,' she nearly said, only to realize seconds before speaking how terribly he might interpret it. He had called her a liar, after all, so why should he believe anything she was thinking to say now? Why would he even want to? She still had to try, not for their sake but for their daughter upstairs. Nudging his leg down, Melody straddled his lap so that he could look nowhere but her. "You're enough." Melody stated firmly, her hands coming to grip his shoulders. "You're more than good enough. I wanted to have a life with you for as long as I've known you, okay? We just need to work our way out of this rough spot, that's all."

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At first Ben thought she was just trying to take the whiskey away, and he resisted vaguely, but by the time she'd started moving towards him he was too surprised to put up any fight. The woman who hadn't let him so much as hold her hands in months was now straddling his lap and holding on to both of his shoulders. Ben looked up at her with large, watery eyes and wondered whether this was some kind of dream. Maybe he'd passed out at the bar and was currently sleeping it off in one of the rooms at the Broomsticks.

Working their way out of this rough spot was easier said than done. They'd been saying that, and things like it, their entire relationship. Still, it meant something that she thought they could work through it. It meant something for her to affirm that she really had wanted to spend her life with him, at one point. That in retrospect, she didn't view him just as one of several unfortunate decisions around that juncture of her life. Maybe he was dreaming it all up, but — it meant something to hear he was enough. Without thinking any more about it, Ben wrapped his arms around her torso tightly and buried his face against her chest, just clinging to her in the flickering gaslight.

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That he hugged her shouldn't have been as surprising as it was. The shock likely stemmed from months of being untouched by anyone but an infant. Even that wasn't quite as comforting as the feel of Ben's arms around her small frame, and Melody soon found herself embracing him in return with her head atop his head.

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Minutes passed where Ben did nothing except hold her, and thought of nothing except the warmth of her skin and the smell of her clothes.

"Will you stay with me tonight?" he eventually asked, still leaning his head against her chest. "Not to do anything. Just to stay."

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Ben's bedroom had always been his space. Melody went in only as required or if they needed to speak, but otherwise he had always come to her. For them to spend a night in his room was ... different, if not a tad uncomfortable.

Rationally, Melody knew she ought to refuse. He was beyond drunk and would likely not remember ever asking her into his space, and she needed time to fully process what exactly had happened tonight. But, as she ran her fingers lightly through his hair she found herself nodding. "Yeah, sure. I'll need to go to Nora a few times, but yeah. I can stay with you."

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