Evening, February 14th, 1892 — Hogsmeade Hospital

Melody had never felt pain as intense as what she awoke to in the unfamiliar hospital room. It was as though her body was thrown about in a hurricane the way it ached, even her fingers felt stiff and unmovable. Bandages were wrapped around her waist to supposedly help heal the large puncture wound she'd sustained. Worst than that though was the intense throbbing in the back of her head. No stiffness, stabbing or general ache compared to the state of her head.

Slowly, she pushed herself into a seated position to search for her wand or a bell to summon help. A sleeping drought or pain potion or anything, really, would be better than the nearly blinding pain she was in. Only, motion from the other side of her bed distracted her from her search. She wasn't alone, then. Mother was here or Maisie, perhaps. Maybe Dorothy had been recalled from school in light of her injuries.

Her heart began to race as she realized who exactly was besides her. Reuben Crouch, the man she once loved but could never happily be with. Where was her mother? How could Ben be allowed in here?

Drawing the blanket up higher on her chest, Melody blinked several times at him to ensure he wasn't some figment of her imagination. But, the more she tried to make sense of it the more her head ached. "Mr. Crouch?" She finally asked in a hoarse voice. "Where is my mother?"

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Reuben Crouch

  

Ben's first thought when he'd heard that Melody had been injured was a rush of relief that Nora hadn't been out with her. He felt guilty about it right away, but he was sure that if their positions had been reversed Melody would have thought the same thing. It could have been both of them, and Nora likely wouldn't have come out of it as well as Melody had — and Melody had not come out of it particularly well, according to what the healers told him. He'd flooed straight over as soon as he'd received the owl and gotten the debrief from the attending healer, but they said she would still be sleeping for a while. He'd sent an owl to the nurse watching Nora to explain the situation — not that it actually changed anything, since she'd been engaged to keep Nora that entire evening, but he felt she ought to know — then a cursory letter to Aldous, less because he thought Aldous would be concerned about his wife's wellbeing and more because it felt like the appropriate thing to do. He debated owling her mother, but ultimately decided against it. He'd written to her about Nora's birth, but she hadn't written back, and he'd never told Melody that he'd reached out. Having her show up at the hospital while Melody was still in a fragile condition probably wouldn't be the most ideal.

When Melody did finally stir, he was confused by her greeting — both by the unnecessary formality and her first question. Should he have written to her mother? Was there something about their relationship that had changed without his knowing about it?

"Your mother?" he repeated. "She, uh — I don't think she was in the cafe. No one's mentioned anything about it. Did you see her there?"

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Melody blinked in confusion, her grip on the blanket turning to white knuckles. The last time she saw Ben was on the rooftop when they said their goodbyes. Even now, the potion he gifted her was in the pocket of her dress to keep it safe from any of her family's snooping. For him to be here and her mother not meant something terrible had happened. Something disastrous. (Disastrous enough maybe to recall Mr. St. John-Black from his martial pursuit?)

"I don't know when I last saw her. It had to be this morning I would think..." she trailed off. Even if she had somehow arranged a rendezvous with Ben, it still didn't explain why he was here. Every meeting they'd had had either been accidental or secretly planned. Surely, he didn't mean to be caught and shipped off to Canada again? Ben was a great many things, but he wasn't foolish.

Frowning, Melody looked from him to the door and back again. "I don't understand what's happening. Why are you here? Were we at the cafe together?" She pressed through the growing headache.

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Ben's brow knit with confusion. She'd seen her mother that morning? So something had changed, then, if she was bringing it up so casually. Why wouldn't she have mentioned anything to him? Obviously he'd never gotten on well with her parents (even before the whole Canada thing), but there was no reason she would have had to keep secrets from him if she'd reconnected with her family. He would have been happy for her.

But — actually, that didn't seem like the explanation here. Ben couldn't put his finger on it, but something about this was off. Calling him Mr. Crouch, asking about her mother, not remembering whether he was there at the cafe or not... They hadn't had plans to meet there, she'd been meeting a friend. She knew that. There wasn't any reason for her to ask why he was here — she knew that too, or she should have.

"I don't think you saw your mother this morning," Ben said carefully. "Mel, do you... remember this morning? Like what you had for breakfast, or what you did, or anything?"

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While it was possible her mother and she hadn't crossed paths that morning, it was entirely impossible that Ben would know the difference. They hadn't spoken in at least a month now, or had they? Was he proposing some scheme to rescue her from marriage after all? It seemed wholly unlike him though, especially after the roof.

More importantly though, why was he inquiring after her breakfast of all things? And why was he being so familiar? "You shouldn't be here Mr. Crouch," she stated in a panic stricken tone. Even when everything had fallen apart with them he hadn't called her Mel. It was always princess or Melody or a sarcastic Miss Finch. Never Mel, never anything that close to intimacy.

"My mother will surely be here soon. You're risking trouble being here." She continued as she pulled one hand from the blanket to press against her temple. "I don't understand why you're here."

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The tone of her voice convinced him something was wrong even more than her words did. She was confused, and alarmed — emotions she had no reason to be feeling based on the facts as he understood them. Ben still didn't know exactly what was going on, but he was becoming increasingly convinced that Melody didn't, either. What she thought was happening, he wasn't quite sure. She thought her mother was coming, which seemed so unlikely it was nearly impossible from his perspective. She thought he'd be in trouble for being here — in trouble with whom? The healers had been the one to write him in the first place, so they knew that he was here. No one was going to begrudge him sitting by his wife's bedside, not even her family. They'd never liked him and never would, but at least they'd made their position on things moving forward quite clear.

"I'm here because you're hurt," he said in a level tone. He wasn't sure exactly what to say, since he didn't know what was going through her mind, but he didn't want to panic her any more than he already had. "And I care." At one point in their relationship this would have been a difficult thing to say, but things had been improving steadily since Nora was born; it no longer caused any hesitation before it left his lips. "No one's coming. We're not in trouble." He paused, trying to gauge whether this had calmed her down any or not. "Maybe I should get one of the healers. You seem a bit — dazed, still."

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MJ made this <3

"What do you mean no one's coming?!" She cried, her voice trembling and panicked. "My mother will be here. Why wouldn't she come?!" The pair had never been as close as Maisie and her mother were, but it wasn't as though they were estranged. Marianne Finch tended to her children when they were hurt and ill. She doted on them even. Melody couldn't fathom a scenario in which her mother would abandon her to the hands of an unrelated man.

He was so calm too, which caused her to panic all the more. "I don't understand, please help me understand." Tears of confusion and fear slipped down her cheeks. "Why are you here and she's not?"

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His gentle reassurances seemed to have had the opposite effect, and with Melody becoming more panicked by the second Ben was finding it harder and harder to keep his own head clear on this. Why didn't Melody understand? He'd thought that if she was asking about her mother perhaps it meant that something had happened to bring her to mind recently, and that stating no one would be swooping in to interrupt them would calm her down. Why was she hoping to see her mother right now?

"Because they wrote me when they checked you in," he said. He knew he had to offer her some kind of explanation to stem her growing panic, but he still wasn't sure how to do it without understanding where she was coming from. "Because as far as I know you haven't talked to your mother in a year. Because as far as anyone else knows, you haven't talked to her since the day we eloped. Why would she be here?"

He didn't doubt that Marianne Finch still had some sentiment for her daughter — how could anyone not, no matter what they had done prior to being disowned? — but he also knew that she cared deeply about appearances. He might have written her, to let her know how Melody was doing, if the situation was really dire. At no point would he have expected that she would come to the hospital, unless Melody was on her deathbed — and even that didn't seem guaranteed.

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Every answer he provided served only to leave her with more questions. The only reason the healers would write to Ben before her mother was if they were married, which made no sense whatsoever. Mr. St.John-Black, as loathesome as he was, was set to become her husband in a matter of weeks! So, if anyone was to be sent for before her mother it was him. Not Reuben Crouch or any other man for that matter!

But then he explained that she was, in fact estranged from her mother and had been since they ... eloped?!

"We ...? You ...?" Melody was unable to form the question she thought to ask. They couldn't be married, not when they said their goodbyes only weeks ago. Not when he had made it so clear that there was nothing remaining between them except for the distant hope of an affair later on. "I don't understand." She repeated for what felt like the umpteenth time. "We said goodbye on a roof. We said goodbye and I haven't spoken to you since. How can we have eloped?!"

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Said goodbye on a rooftop—? The hair on Ben's neck and arms stood up.

"That was two years ago," he blurted, before he could think better of it. He thought he'd heard somewhere that when people were having episodes of mental distress you weren't supposed to tell them anything that would distress them more, but he couldn't help but say something. To think that she had just lost all of that was making his head spin. "We've — we've been married for two years," he continued, something weak and unfamiliar sneaking into his tone. Was he making this worse by saying anything at all? What was this that he might or might not be making worse? How could she have still thought she was living at home? He'd heard about people forgetting pieces of their lives before, but wouldn't they at least know they'd forgotten something?

"I'm going to get a healer," he announced, standing up abruptly. Partly his haste was to ensure he didn't accidentally do any more damage, but partly it was because he desperately needed a few minutes to process this.

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MJ made this <3

No, that was impossible. People didn't just forget years of their lives, it simply didn't happen. "But, you never wanted to marry me." Melody helplessly whispered. How could she be married and not know it? How could it have all gone so horribly that her family no longer acknowledged her? Melody dropped the blanket altogether to bury her head into her hands. "You wanted us to have an affair." She continued. None of this made any sense.

She barely acknowledged his decision to leave, too caught up in her own confusion and fear to protest. If anything, Ben leaving made more sense than anything he'd tried to convince her of this conversation.

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