December 25th, 1894 - Grimstone Residence

bad habits, my second chances always turn into three and four
late nights, all them back and forth fights finally turn into heartbreak war
I admit that I was immature and I was insecure
I took advantage for granted having my hand in yours

Daff hadn't slept much last night, hadn't been sleeping much at night at all these days, instead relying on naps throughout the daytime to get her through. Being on bedrest was awful, especially given the fragile state of her marriage. She felt a little trapped and like she was drowning in a ocean of her own mistakes, but at least when she couldn't sleep at night, she could make up for it during the day. She'd taken to doing so in the spare bedroom so Elias could come and go as he pleased without having to worry about waking her, but it was starting to feel more and more like her room, one she didn't share with her husband, as time wore on. Her books were in there, her sketching materials, anything to keep her occupied during the day when she wasn't supposed to be up and moving about too much. It worried her it was going to become permanent, but there wasn't much to do about it.

There had been no argument on her part about the bedrest when Nurse Moony had suggested it, nor when she was told she couldn't go to the Christmas party at her mother's last night. It had been quite the surprise when Elias had taken on her mother about the whole thing, but she wasn't about to interrupt. Apparently Daff hadn't done a very good job convincing everyone that it really was what was best. There had been too much upset and heartache this pregnancy for there to be any more undue stress placed on the baby so Daff simply had complied with what had been told of her, for once in her life.

It was early in the morning and she couldn't stand tossing and turning anymore, not managing to get any real sleep. The house was silent and still when she crept down the stairs quietly and carefully. After starting a fire in the hearth, Daff sat in her favorite armchair in the sitting room, the glow of the Christmas tree the only other light in the room, she had to wonder just how she had gotten here. She hadn't meant to make things this difficult or make anyone this miserable, but in the two months since the incident with Noble, things hadn't gotten much better and it was killing her not knowing what to do. Curling into herself, pulling the blanket over her lap up to her chin, Daff felt the familiar sting of tears at the back of her eyes. It was an everyday occurrence these days and she made sure she only did it was Elias was busy off in the workshop, but she was exhausted by it all. Tiptoeing around one another in their own house was awful, but Daff felt like if she did something, anything wrong, everything was going to irreparably shatter. She'd grown quiet, complacent and a little jumpy, entirely unlike herself, since October, afraid to upset the balance even further.

Resting her hands on her now very round belly, Daff sighed deeply. The baby would be here in just a little over a month and she felt like she was running out of time. Adding the stress of the baby wouldn't help anything and she desperately wanted to welcome the babe into a house that was whole and happy. The creak of the stairs saw her mopping up the tears on her cheeks with her sleeves quickly and sitting up a little straighter. She pulled the book on the table into her lap, feigning reading to avoid looking at him until she didn't have another choice. "I'm sorry, I couldn't sleep and I didn't want to wake you." She whispered, glancing in his direction cautiously.

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   Elias Grimstone

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It was turning out to be a quiet Christmas this year, in more ways than one. He had been glad enough to miss the Potts’ sprawling family affair, whether he had made an enemy of his mother-in-law or not; better not to have been there, and forced to make light of the less-than-wonderful winter he and Daffy had been having. He had wanted to fix it – he had been trying to take more care with her, give her space and comfort where he could – but the damage still felt as though it had been done, the repairs not complete.

And Daff had retreated into herself. His fault, he knew: if he had been more understanding, or given her the benefit of the doubt, actually believed she was happy (with him, in their marriage, with the baby she was carrying), maybe she would be happy by now. The bedrest hadn’t helped anything: even her agreeing so easily to the instructions was unusual. If Daff had been happy, she wouldn’t have been content to hide away from her whole life.

So he hadn’t managed to clear the air between them, and now Elias couldn’t remember what fresh air felt like. He hated this.

His stomach dropped at finding her curled into the armchair – it was no good sign that she was already awake and downstairs before him, and couldn’t sleep, had been afraid to disturb him. “You wouldn’t have,” Elias protested softly as he moved in towards the hearth, nearer to her. She was still being quiet: there wasn’t any need to whisper now, but even their silences felt fragile. He swallowed. He hated it.

“Because of the baby, or –?” Something else. He would be grateful if it had only been some ill-timed kicking keeping her up, and not a restless mind. If it was the latter, then – well, he felt guilty for it, and wished he knew what to do.

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look ANOTHER beautiful bee!set <3

Daff watched him quietly, smiling weakly at his protest. She had been uncomfortable, it was difficult to find a position that didn't make something ache these days. Her tossing and turning would have woken him eventually and then she would have felt bad. Turns out it hadn't mattered either way. The baby's favorite time to move her innards around was near midnight, which was when she'd woken up initially, but hadn't exactly gone back to sleep after that either aside from dozing here and there. Her mind was too busy. Maybe she was overtired, maybe the holidays were bringing up everything that was amiss, but she hadn't been able to settle and that was somehow worse than the discomfort. She was sad about not going to her family's last night, but she knew it was for the better. Between the bedrest and her sheer inability to keep her thoughts to herself around her family, it had been easier. It felt utterly isolating.

For now however, half the truth was going to have to do. "Uncomfortable." She hoped he just took it at physically and not the emotionally that she also felt. Daff didn't really know what to say to him anymore. It was all superficial and a lighter version of whatever was going on. She hadn't told him about the concerns had had originally had Nurse Moony coming to check on her and the real reason for the bedrest. The last thing she wanted to do was cause any more issues and worry him.

It was strange to miss someone when you lived with them. And she really, really missed him. She missed the easy laughter and the casual touches and the comfort of their first few months of marriage more than she knew how to put into words.

"Happy Christmas." It felt a little hollow, the 'happy' part, anyway. She had made him a Christmas present. All of the time to herself, stuck in the house, away from her business, her greenhouse, her flowers, had Daff trying to find something to occupy herself, so she'd gotten back into painting. She had only ever been good at watercolors. The heavier mediums were too hard for her, but she'd been reading up on enchanting paintings and Zin had helped. She wasn't even sure he would like it, but it was wrapped under the tree anyway. It was a painting of an oak tree, inspired by his first broom, that changed with the seasons; winter now with snow, a field of daffodils in the spring; wildflowers in the summer; bright leaves and pumpkins in the fall. It was small, easier to enchant, but so far had mimicked the weather like she'd wanted.

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Uncomfortable made sense, the way she looked and moved these days, but Elias still frowned, worried it was more.

If they had been alright, he would have sat on the couch and beckoned her over, to curl in beside him – but she was in the armchair already, and it had probably taken her long enough to get comfortable there. But it felt wrong to sit so far away from her, on Christmas morning, to face her from a distance, oddly formal opposite her. Instead, Elias sank down onto the rug, leaning against the couch and stretching his legs out towards the fire in the hearth.

He glanced up at her from here, marginally closer, and – he didn’t know if it was the flickering light from the flames, or that her eyes were shadowed from the lack of sleep, or if she had just been crying. He opened his mouth to ask her, but bit back the question, convinced Daff would only take it the wrong way, take it as an instruction to please stop. He swallowed.

“Happy Christmas.” She couldn’t even be unhappy in front of him now. He pushed a hand across his face and into his hair, as if he could somehow scrub out this reality and exchange it for another. “I’m sorry, Daff. I’d – really like it to be one.” Happy. Or was it just too late for the day already, when they had started off this low?

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look ANOTHER beautiful bee!set <3

Daff had busied herself with putting the bookmark back in the exact same spot it had come from, watching him out of the corner of her eye. Baffled by his choice of seat, she tried to school her features into something neutral. She was just so tired, it was hard to pretend when she felt exhausted in every sense of the word. Not sleeping, feeling like a prisoner in her own house, feeling like her marriage was crumbling, she had no distractions and couldn't figure out how to make it better.

She didn't miss the look on his face, or the way he ran his hand through his hair, exasperated maybe, and she sank back a little into the cushion, wondering what she had done now. She worried her bottom lip, mostly to keep it from trembling; her brows furrowed, because she didn't know why he was apologizing. Setting the book aside, back on the table, she noticed the shake in her hands and she quickly put them back into her lap, twisting her fingers into the blanket to hide it. As what he said started to sink in, Daff felt the tears again, and she blinked them back.

"Me too," she managed, barely above a whisper, not daring to trust her voice, peeking over at him uncertainly. Merlin did she ever. This wasn't how their first married Christmas was supposed to go. Their only one just the two of them. Next year they'd have a little one probably close to walking and it was almost impossible to picture right now. Missing out on her family celebration had been bad enough, but followed up with a silent morning of continuing to tiptoe around one another today felt unbearable. These thoughts had crossed her mind all month, but she hadn't known what to do with them. Broaching hard conversations felt like crossing an ocean lately.

Still, if they both wanted something better than this, maybe they could make it happen. Daff looked over at him more directly, expression soft and a little hopeful. "I miss you." She admitted. Occupying the same space was not the same as sharing it, not at all.

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“Not as much as I miss you,” Elias admitted, at once. It felt awkward to try and start mending things on Christmas morning – terrible that they had reached this low in the first place. Yesterday he had been half-convinced if they went to the Potts festivities, he would have been just as likely to break down there as Daff might have been overwrought; today he felt close to a breakdown at the quiet in this room, the forced closeness, the lack of all festivity.

And he felt – responsible, for the distance. He had told himself he needed time, and needed space, needed to clear his head alone. But then... it had grown harder and harder to revisit that conversation or the moment, or to comfort her about anything as the nurse insisted on her confinement; and by then Elias had begun feeling convinced he was only adding to Daffy’s stress.

But he had to try. He had said it already, but it felt worth saying again. Necessary. “I’m sorry, Daff. I really am. I never meant to make things difficult for you. It’s been –” he screwed up his face, lost for an adequate word. Hard didn’t seem to cover it, how these last months had been between them. Wrong. He shrugged, his back pressed uncomfortably against the edge of the sofa, and looked up at her – he didn’t know if her eyes had softened at him, or if was just the angle of the soft light on her, from the fire and the tree and dawn creeping through the window. “I want to be there for you.”

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   Daffodil Grimstone

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look ANOTHER beautiful bee!set <3

In watching him closely, she exhaled slowly, feeling a little of the tension drain from her limbs and a smile tug at the corners of her lips. She hated that he was apologizing for a completely valid reaction to her mistake, but she was relieved that he felt the same way she did. Daff had brought this on herself, she could hardly blame him. It had been one blunder after another since July, it felt like and she wondered just what was wrong with her. Here she had this wonderful husband who deserved better, and she kept falling into the past or her own head and screwing things up.

Awkwardly, she managed to scoot forward in the armchair and get herself out of it, bringing her blanket with her. There was no way she could sink down to the floor where he was sitting and ever get up, so she sat on the sofa instead, hoping he would join her. Her hips ached and her back hurt, but she ignored the discomfort, trying to find the most suitable angle to sit. "It's my fault," she sighed, just barely managing to hold the tears at bay. It wasn't so much that she was sad, she wanted to have this conversation, they just seemed to be at the ready all the time lately. She blamed the baby.

She felt better already just being closer to him and she thought through what she wanted to say as she settled into her seat. She'd imagined how this conversation would go hundreds of times, but she had never been able to come up with a concise apology. Daff had too much to apologize for but she was trying not to ramble, to be better with her words, and overcome the need to overexplain. "You deserved better," she started, already knowing he would try to disagree, but she hadn't been a very good wife this year and there was no going back to change it. However, there was a new year coming and new adventures and she hoped they could try again. Daff had learned from her mistakes; she wanted to actively work on fixing them. They'd missed out on too much in the last half of the year and she didn't want it to be that way any more. "I know I'm sorry doesn't change anything, and there isn't much I can say to make up for what I've done," there had to be some way to move forward though. "but I want to, because this is worth fixing." Daff would rather repeat the last six months with Elias than be anywhere else.

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The following 1 user Likes Daffodil Grimstone's post:1 user Likes Daffodil Grimstone's post
   Elias Grimstone

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He startled slightly when Daff started moving, getting out of her armchair; he could only watch, a breath stilled in his throat. She came towards him, and sat on the sofa instead. She was close enough to touch now: Elias could reach up for her hand, if he liked. There was room beside her – it might have been an invitation.

He might not have taken it but for the way she looked so sad, something abruptly welling in her eyes – so he shifted upwards, sinking into the space beside her, and draping on arm along the back of it so that he was facing Daffy, and so that she had more room.

And Daff’s counters made him want to protest, like they always did – but this time Elias bit his tongue and let her say them. He hadn’t much wanted to listen to her last time, so perhaps it was overdue. It still hadn’t been all her fault – he knew he’d overreacted, hadn’t forgiven her as he should. It had hurt him, though. He couldn’t bring himself to say that out loud, but it had bruised his feelings. “I forgive you,” he said – deliberately, slow and clear – “but I know it wasn’t all your fault, either.” She had not written the first letter, and hadn’t done anything actually wrong; he should not have expected easy happiness at her finding out she was pregnant, either.

“And I wish I could have – just trusted you, and what you said,” he added, biting on his bottom lip as he tried to figure out how to word it, the doubts that had been gnawing at him in the last few months. “It just – felt like you weren’t happy, that you might have regretted it all. Getting married.” And after all the time they had spent wanting and waiting to marry, the thought that it could have been a mistake had been hard to swallow. But she wanted to fix it – she thought it was worth fixing – so he would try to believe it this time, and do better by Daffy now too.

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look ANOTHER beautiful bee!set <3

Daff sighed softly in relief as he came up to sit next to her on the sofa. This was the closest they'd been intentionally, emotionally and physically outside of sleeping in the same bed in a long time. The knot that had been tied tightly around her heart started to loosen a little. She still didn't feel like she'd earned his forgiveness, but she took it for a positive step forward.

Gently she pressed the leg closest to him against his, missing the contact, especially now that they were so close. She hated that he felt like that, like she was anything but delighted by and grateful for their home and their life and their marriage. It hadn't been easy, but she really would have rather relived these last few months with him than without.

"I'm so sorry that I gave you that impression," that was the worst of it really, the doubt she had created in him. Daff was exactly where she wanted to be, even if she didn't deserve it. She tentatively reached out to take his hand. The need to explain herself was still there, but she didn't want to add anything else to this; she just wanted to move on and learn from this so that there was no more doubt. She thought for a minute, trying to put together the best way she could think of to soothe the worry before meeting his gaze once more. "But my biggest regret is not meeting you sooner, so that I could love you for longer, because I can't imagine my," she put her free hand on her very round stomach, "Our life without you anymore."

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