October 8th, 1894 - Grimstone Residence
after this thread

It's always worse before the better, I suppose
And how far down, it's hard to tell
When to buy and when to sell
'Cause that comedown, it hurts like hell
And every thorn has its rose

Daff had done her best to mop up the tears for the walk back home. She'd debated going straight back, taking a long walk, or even going to Zinnia's instead, but she had vowed to tell Elias everything, and this affected him too, so she wasn't going to dance around what had just happened. He might be angry with her and that would be fair, but nobody could say she was a liar. He'd been in the workshop when she'd left an hour ago. All she had said upon her departure was that she was taking a walk, which she had, it had just been with a specific destination in mind.

The closer she got to home, the more her resolve crumbled. This was going to go poorly, she just knew it. There was nothing to be done about it though, he deserved to know the truth and there was no way she'd be able to hide her mood from him. He was still in the workshop when she'd returned, so she'd gone inside and started tea. If he had something important to finish, she wasn't going to interrupt him, plus it would give her a few minutes to get her head on straight and figure out how to go about this.

Things had been better lately. She'd mostly gotten over the anxiety about becoming a mother the rounder she got, the more excited she became. Even if she didn't have it all figured out, she would eventually. It wasn't an exact science, parenting, or marriage for that matter. Now though, she was exhausted emotionally and physically. Daff sank heavily into one of the kitchen chairs and put her head in her hands, elbows on the table. A fresh wave of tears bubbled up, but nowhere near as desperate or all-encompassing as the sobbing in Noble's workshop. The tears leaked out slowly, a steady stream of sadness that she had to let go of one way or another. It was done, it was over and though she had already moved on a long time ago, she still felt that sting of heartbreak all over again.

She sat like that for only a few minutes, expecting the kettle to be what roused her from her thoughts, but it was the opening of the door and she wiped away some of the tears that had fallen as she looked up at him. "I'm okay," she started with, because he would assume otherwise in her current condition. "But I need to talk to you." Her voice was quiet, resigned, tired. This was going to be miserable, but it had to be done.

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Elias Grimstone

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   Elias Grimstone

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He’d be lying if he said he wasn’t tired; it had been a long fourteen-hour day or thereabouts, a bulk order set to be finished, and all the finer finishing touches to be done before he was fully satisfied. So he was physically and mentally exhausted, hands and neck and shoulders aching, and hunger that he had ignored for so long that now his appetite was gone.

So he might have passed out in an armchair or bed in his clothes like it was the old days and there was no one here to judge him for it, but he could hear the faint chug of the kettle from the kitchen as he came back in, and the first thing he saw was Daffy, head in her hands. She looked up, the tear-tracks shining. Something in his chest twisted, and his mouth went dry. He wanted to reach out to her, but, well – I need to talk to you was never going to be anything good, was it?

Somewhere deep in his gut he had been half-expecting it, since her upset about the pregnancy, that one day the other shoe would drop. And he had tried to tell himself that she didn’t seem so miserable any more, that things were settling into place, that there was more anticipation than dread now – but maybe he’d been wrong.

Still – Elias nodded, brow creased in his own apprehension of this conversation. “Here?” he asked, standing uselessly where he was until Daff confirmed it. Maybe it was because of the last time she had cried here, but a kitchen table talk felt strangely damning.

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Wiping away the last of the tears, Daff immediately regretted bringing this up now. Elias looked as exhausted as she felt and all of the guilt resurfaced and she was doubting herself again. Daff used to be more confident, more sure of herself, but she had made so many mistakes in the last year or so that she never felt quite decided anymore. The stakes were so much higher, everything mattered more; this wasn't just her life anymore, it was theirs and she didn't think it would be quite this hard. It was all her fault things were off kilter, as always. She was the common factor in everything. Daff was starting to wonder if Elias deserved better than her.

Maybe they were about to find out.

"Ah, I think here is fine?" The kitchen was less personal than the bedroom and she certainly didn't want this hanging over their space. The sitting room would be fine though, she supposed. "But we can go into the sitting room if you want." The kettle whistled and Daff pushed herself awkwardly from the chair, wincing at the twinge of her protesting muscles. One hand supported her bump gently as she pulled the kettle from the heat. She set about getting cups and fixings ready to give him a minute to decide, anxiously aware of the silence in the meantime.

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   Elias Grimstone

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Elias looked at her. Her eyes and her nose were a little red, rubbed raw from crying. He felt a little distanced from himself, trying to escape his own concerns and look at the situation from afar. The kettle started whistling; she got up before he had registered it. He should have at least offered to make the tea.

He was still looking at Daffy’s back as she made it, at the way her stance had changed in the last few months with the added weight of pregnancy. Was this going to be about the baby, or the marriage, or something else? “No, no, here’s fine,” Elias agreed distractedly. Finally peeling his gaze away from the back of her, he tried to soften his expression and look a little more patient, to prepare himself for this. Better here than the sitting room, he supposed.

He moved some of the tea-things to the table for Daff, and pulled out a chair, forcing himself to sink into it in hopes that she would sit back down too, his jaw uncomfortably tight. “Are you – sure you’re okay?” She didn’t seem it, was all.

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look ANOTHER beautiful bee!set <3

Daff hated that tense sort of set to his expression and she wondered just what it was he was thinking. The rest of the summer and leading into now she had tried so hard to keep her pregnancy emotions more even than she had on his birthday. It was a little exhausting, but she had tried to ensure that he only saw the good things so that she didn't worry him and hopefully put any residual upset over her initial reaction to rest so there was no doubt lingering. She wasn't sure how well it was going, but at least lately, things seemed to be more normal.

She sat across from him with the tea, but besides setting it down, didn't touch it. There hadn't been much time to draft how she wanted to say all of this and so she was going to have to just choose her words carefully. "Something came up and I'm not sure I handled it the right way, but I received a letter from Noble." Daff wanted to keep any conflicting emotions from her face. The last thing she wanted to show her husband was any sort of remorse or regret or heartbreak over someone from her past. Daff did not regret where she was now, not at all. She didn't like that she had hurt people on the journey to get here, but that was something she was going to have to live with. Noble had played his own part in getting here too.

"It was out of nowhere, but it made me angry." Daff wasn't so sure she had ever been that angry before. "Maybe irrationally so, and when I went for my walk I wound up in his workshop throwing things at yelling at him." She only sort of felt bad about that. The jars could be replaced, but she had said some things in the heat of the moment that she probably wouldn't have said with some time to think. "I should have just ignored it, but I didn't and I'm sorry." What Noble had done wasn't fair and it was frustrating and she would have hoped he had moved on by now. To drag her back into something she thought was settled made her feel discontented in a way that it shouldn't. It still prickled at her now, but she hoped she had explained herself well enough. "I didn't want to hide it from you." Everything, the good and the bad.

---

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   Elias Grimstone

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Noble. It took him a moment before the name sank in – not because he had forgotten the man or his prior role in Daffy’s life, but because Elias had always thought of him as Greengrass, and her use of his first name felt too familiar, and jarring.

If he had softened his expression before this, the muscles in his jaw had gone tight again without his realising, clenched still as if to stop himself from grinding down his teeth. A letter out of nowhere – something that had made her angry. And she had been angry enough to go there to see him, throwing things. He forced out a breath, a slow exhale, trying to even picture it. He had seen Daff upset, but never overtly angry, he didn’t think – he didn’t want to imagine what might have provoked it of her.

And he wasn’t sure which part she was most apologising for, Greengrass’s part or her own; he wasn’t sure he wanted to know any more about it, what with the way it had made him feel already. His stomach was churning unpleasantly. But he ought to be grateful that Daff had told him, wasn’t trying to keep it to herself, and he had to understand why her anger had turned to tears, so – he forced himself to be present here at the table with her, their untouched tea between them. He reached out his hand a little further than his cup, halfway to holding hers – but he wasn’t sure if that would make things better or worse, yet. “No, I’m glad you told me.” He didn’t know if he sounded glad, and his eyebrows were still knitted, but he was relieved she was not pretending. “What...” Elias began, still weighing up the right question to ask, how to understand the situation in the right light. “What did he say, in the letter?”

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   Fortitude Greengrass

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If there was one thing Daff never wanted to take for granted, it was Elias' patience. She wondered just how far she had pushed him this time and she worried he would snap and it would be all her fault. At least she had made the right choice to tell him. Daff knew that she wouldn't have been able to keep the frustration from her expression for long and she hated to worry him more than anything else. She mirrored his movement, leaning onto the table with both hands, but unsure of how to cross the invisible divide of the table just yet.

She had anticipated this question of course, but she still balked at what to say, hadn't had enough time to sort out what exactly it was that had sent her off the deep end, but she was going to keep her promise. "The letter said he regretted letting me go," Daff wasn't so sure Elias wanted to hear that she had asked Noble to marry her, even though it had been before they had been together, and so maybe that should get skipped. It took some deliberate concentration to keep her tone even "And that he still isn't quite over how things ended." Hopefully Elias could read between the lines there because Daffy could not bring herself to tell him that Noble had basically admitted to still being in love with her.

Still, she dove into her own part into the mishap, trying to paint the clearest picture she could. "I had thought he had moved on and to find that he hasn't, to the point of sending the letter, surprised me as much as it made me angry." Daff could still feel a little bit of the leftover fury simmering. "I think that it was beyond unfair and just as out of line." Disrespectful even. Daff was far too happy in her life, far too in love with Elias for any possible chance with Noble to even be a fleeting thought. Still, she hated that it was making Noble so miserable and that it was partly her fault, but— "So I went to make it abundantly clear that was his choice and it was far too late, that I could not, and do not want to be a part of his life anymore." Daff had foolishly thought, in her assumption that Noble had at least begun to move on, that they might be friendly, but that clearly was not the case. She could feel the frustration and the helplessness welling up again and she shoved them down as resolutely as she could. There would be no more crying over Noble anymore.

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He retracted his hand from the table, and dropped it into his lap, because it had become a white-knuckled fist with everything he heard. He didn’t speak for a while, silent and unnaturally still, just let her talk. He didn’t know if the explanation helped anything, in spite of the snatches of things he had wanted to hear (out of line; too late; do not want to be a part of his life). It sounded – a little like she was trying to talk herself out of her actions, in the aftermath of them.

Because she had gone to see him. The letter had made her angry enough to go see him, possibly in broad daylight, to scream or cry or throw things at him. How was that, then, an old and buried thing? Elias couldn’t fathom it. She had said they didn’t really keep in touch, that she had broken things off with him, that Greengrass had been happy for her.

Well, obviously Greengrass hadn’t moved on after all. And – if Daff had moved on, she could have just ignored it, like she’d said.

Elias pressed his heels harder against the floor, because, stationary as he was, he felt almost dizzied by this. He felt angry, actually – and she had been crying, so he didn’t want to be; but he was, and he didn’t know if it was directed at Daff or at him – as if he was absorbing her frustration as it simmered from her into the kitchen.

He regretted letting me go, Daffy had said, of the letter. His choice.

“I thought it was your choice,” Elias said sharply. His brow was furrowed. “I thought you ended it. Not him.”

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This was going abysmally, as expected and she didn't even know what to do or say to get Elias to understand where she was coming from. He leaned back and it felt like any bridge they had started was crumbling. Daff pulled her hands into her own lap, pressing against the little foot that was trying to dislodge her lungs from their proper place. She'd only felt flutters before, but the actual kicks had been getting stronger in the last week or so. All of this upset probably wasn't helping. Why was everything that was supposed to be exciting about this pregnancy always marred by her mistakes?

"I did, initially." She had been honest about that. She had never lied to him; she said she wouldn't, so it would not happen. "I slipped up a few times, before we were together." She was going to have to spill it all now and let him decide what to do with it. "I thought I could fix it, fix him." Daff had always just wanted everyone around her to be happy. But she couldn't fix Noble's problems, no matter how hard she'd wanted to in the past. It wasn't something she could take care of and he'd known that, even if she'd been hopeful. "It's hard, watching someone you cared about deal with things beyond your control." It was coming out as a tumbled whisper, try as she might to hold back the tears, she could feel them stinging at the corners of her eyes. "He was adamant that I couldn't, so I gave up, that was his choice. You can't fix someone who doesn't want to be helped." Daff knew that now, looking back, there really hadn't been anything she could have done. Noble had made the right choice, even in making them both miserable. "And then there was you, perfectly patient, understanding. You were willing to fix what you didn't break. You were, are, exactly what I need even though I had no idea what it was that I needed myself." Daff wasn't sure how far she would have spiraled downward without Elias there to anchor her. The last thing she wanted was for Elias to think that this changed anything about how she fell in love with him, or why, or that she was in anyway unhappy because of him. It was her own fault, always and she knew she had to figure out how to fix that, and this.

Daff looked across the table at him now, gaze soft and pleading. "I know I messed up, again. I know I'm not easy to love and be married to and I'm sorry. I needed to know why now, why after so long and so much discord. I needed closure, I think. So that's why I went and it went as poorly as expected and I asked him to let me go again and he agreed. It's done, it's over and that is all, I promise." Daff knew Elias did not have an endless well of patience and she had already used up a great deal. She would do better, be better somehow, to make sure he didn't have to.

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   Elias Grimstone

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This was too much. He couldn’t just sit anymore – he pushed out his chair and straightened up, as if by standing or increasing the distance between them or looking anywhere but Daff that he could stem the miserable tirade coming out of her. He felt more overwrought for even just listening to it, a muscle tightening in his jaw at everything she said about him, and then, particularly, at the remark not easy to love. By then he’d had enough.

“I don’t – I don’t want platitudes, Daff, I don’t want you to –” he interjected, frustrated, waving a hand to mean, say all this. She had voiced things like this occasionally before, and he didn’t like her blaming herself for everything, apologising for herself – and he also didn’t like her giving him all that credit when he didn’t feel very patient or understanding right now. “I just want to understand.” If anything, the more she spoke the less Elias could believe it was sincere: they started to feel like words she had repeated to herself often enough to talk herself into this. Maybe it had followed that she had talked herself into thinking she loved him. She had been heartbroken, and helpless, and perhaps had needed him, or needed someone. She had needed him; she had wanted Noble Greengrass.

And maybe Daff had gotten closure from today. Elias supposed he must have some catching up to do, because to him the situation felt very far from closure. He had imagined the matter closed, and here it was, blown wide open again by one letter – like it was some festering, gnawing thing.

“Why now, then?” he added impatiently, if that was why Daff had gone to confront him. Was it that she was married now? Married and pregnant and supposedly settled? Why was this all still happening in the present? Why on earth had she agreed to marry him, if she hadn’t yet found that closure?

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Daff flinched when he pushed back from the table, and the tears immediately began to fall. She didn't know what else to say to get him to understand. "I don't know what else to tell you; I was wrong; I shouldn't have gone; I told you because you deserve to know, and I know it might change everything, but I promised you I would and so I did." She was crying in earnest now, hands shaking as she tried to muster up anything she could think to add that would help. She had this miserable twist in her chest that felt sort of like she was suffocating. She was losing him because she just couldn't leave well enough alone. Ignoring the letter would have been the right choice, she knew that, but she hadn't and now this is what it had gotten her. She'd just laid everything else out on the table and she still couldn't get it right.

Daff did know she didn't want to talk about Noble anymore, this was her fault and she desperately wanted to fix it somehow. "He didn't really tell me." There had never been a straight answer, when you love someone you should tell them was not a good enough reason, not when there was more at stake than ever before. Daff hadn't known Noble could be so selfish and she didn't want to be a part of that.

It felt strange to be sitting when he wasn't but Daff wasn't sure she could stand without wobbling or getting dizzy. "And it does not matter, Elias. I am where I want to be." Even if she kept making things harder. She would choose this over whatever unknown possibility any day. How many times had she told him that she loved him unlike anyone else before? What else could she do to get him to understand that? Daff was many things, but she was not careless with words. She had never lied to him, ever. She sniffled back some of the tears and pushed slowly to her feet. Her knees were a little shaky, but she wasn't dizzy. She wasn't brave enough to go more than a step or two toward him though, hands curled around her belly for something real, something meaningful to hold onto. "And I will do whatever you want me to that shows that. I'm sorry I haven't done a very good job of that lately, but please let me try."

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   Elias Grimstone, Fortitude Greengrass

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She was right about one thing – it was hard watching someone you cared about deal with things beyond your control. Because his chest felt tight, even when only watching her out of the corner of his eye. She was crying. That was usually reason enough to stop in his tracks, and try to comfort her. That was how it went with Daff – he tried his best to be an anchor through her emotions, and stamped down any of his to get her through it. And God forbid he ever needed a minute to decide how he felt about something.

Elias could feel himself turning more towards her already, set to do the same now; he was almost exasperated at himself, at the awful habit this had become. (Was he trying to do what she had done for Greengrass? Trying to fix someone who wouldn’t let themselves be fixed? Daff didn’t seem happy to him, whatever she said about this being where she wanted to be.)

He raked a frustrated hand through his hair, swallowing. “If it mattered to you it’s allowed to matter to me,” he contested sharply: if she had gone to Greengrass to demand answers from him, he wanted to at least know what she had been told; to not be left in the dark. He supposed he ought to trust her in all this since she had told him willingly, but – that was hard too. It was taking some digesting... and although he had wanted to know, he wasn’t sure how much he would be able to forget of it now, either. “Please stop crying, Daff,” he added, tone tired but ever so slightly softer. He might’ve folded his arms around her, but she was holding her bump and hovering a few too many steps away. Maybe this was better, after all: maybe the space between them would introduce some calm.

How he could feign feeling calm when he was anything but, Elias didn’t know – and he hadn’t intended to ask this until it was out of his mouth, and sounding more bitter than he had meant, as well. “Where does he live? Which house?”

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   Fortitude Greengrass

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look ANOTHER beautiful bee!set <3

Daff flinched and stepped away, back toward the kitchen counter until she bumped into it. She then immediately sucked back the tears, trying to stifle her irregular breathing and still her body. It took a lot of effort, but she said she'd do anything and she would, so she stayed quiet. He was right, she had deemed it some sort of important and this wasn't just her life anymore. He had every right to be angry, even if it was killing her to be the cause.

She took a minute to really look at him, saw the frustration and the maybe the disappointment, whatever it was he was feeling; she felt guilty. She'd gotten carried away talking again. After every time she had messed up she always rambled, trying to fix what she'd broken, to explain, to reason, but she never remembered to just stop and listen. When would she learn? So she hovered and she watched him. It pained her to see the upset she caused. She didn't know what else to do. Her fingers curled into the skirt of her dress and she could feel her knees shaking too. This was all just such a mess.

The question caught her off guard. Of all the things to ask her. She visibly paled as she stared at him. Daff knew she had a choice to make and it was going to make or break her marriage. "Elias," she started, eyes pleading. She felt a fresh wave of tears threaten again, but she shoved them back down, trying to wrap her head around what good that would do. There was only one thing she could do: she gave him the address. "It's a couple streets over from my mother's." she added, voice trembling and barely more than a whisper. She had dragged him into this unintentionally and now she was going to have to let him do what he needed to do. Daff just hoped they would be able to get through it.

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The tension between them did not seem to be easing. Elias didn’t know if that was inevitable, amidst the heightened emotions, or if he was holding onto it deliberately, stoking the fire. He hadn’t noted it before but felt something of it at Daff’s pleading tone, her stare. It gave him enough pause, to consider that maybe he had crossed a line. Maybe he was being unreasonable.

In fairness, he hadn’t actually decided what he was going to do with the information about where Noble Greengrass lived – by the shock on her face, he suspected Daff was expecting him to march there now. Which was, for that matter, exactly what she had done, so her apprehension felt bitterly comical now. He nodded, but didn’t move.

(Elias hadn’t yet ruled it out as a possibility, but if he was this irate at Daffodil then he didn’t know what he would do when faced with the real responsible party for this mess.)

“Thank you,” he said, flatly – but ever so slightly calmer. For telling him the address; for being honest with him, in spite of how badly this had gone; for stifling the tears enough that he felt like he could breathe. So much for the tea – he hadn’t drunk any of his, so he reached for the cups from the table and surrendered them to the sink. Which brought him up beside Daff at the kitchen counter, close enough to touch. He didn’t, but the temptation was there. Instead, he looked at her – not meeting her eyes, but he was looking at her face, at the puffy redness already blooming along her cheekbone, from the tears. “So it’s – over now?” he asked. Daff had said he agreed, that it was done already. He just wasn’t sure he believed it yet.

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look ANOTHER beautiful bee!set <3

Daff had been holding her breath, both in anticipation and to keep from crying. Tears still leaked slowly from the corners of her eyes, but she was hyper aware of setting him off now and managed to keep most of it back. She swiped impatiently at them with both hands before wrapping her arms around herself. At least he wasn't tearing out of the house to confront Noble. It would be... reasonable, but Daff was still terrified of how it would go.

She stilled completely as Elias came up next to her and for the first time since she'd met him, she slid away a little bit, too uncertain to know what to do. If he touched her, she would crumble, was barely keeping it together as it was, and he didn't want that, so she had to keep the distance. Emotions were running high; hers heightened by the pregnancy and his, justifiably intense from the situation, but she was entirely at a loss as to what else she could do. She hadn't found the right words to convince him, even in being honest with him, and so she really was just at the mercy of whatever it was he wanted to do next. She was sorry and she would do better, had put a full stop to any contact with Noble, but Elias had to decide if he wanted to forgive her, which was not a guarantee.

All she could do was nod when he spoke next, looking down to where she ought to see her toes, but only saw the swell of the baby growing inside her. She had to fix this somehow for them, but it would take time, she knew. She hoped she could. It felt like her heart was being squeezed and she would let it bleed dry if she knew it would help the situation, but at the moment nothing was clear on what was coming next.

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   Elias Grimstone

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Elias wouldn’t have had to be looking at her to sense her moving away from him. As she shifted out of range, he stiffened in place, some cold feeling at his back. It felt wrong that she had done that. He had done something wrong here, to cause that – if he had justified his anger to himself, he recognised his mistake now, viscerally. Daff didn’t want to be near him. Evidently, she didn’t trust him to be a comfort to her now.

And she wasn’t crying, but she wasn’t speaking either. Elias wasn’t sure if this was better or worse. But it was over, he had seen her nod; and he was choosing to believe that it was true. He wanted, desperately, to say something else – to put this back together before she slipped further out of his reach – but nothing was coming to mind, particularly. His head – he didn’t seem to be able to stop dwelling on it, however hard he tried.

“I’m sorry, Daff,” he managed finally – sorry for his anger and her sadness and for not being able to be the person she thought he was. He was disappointed in himself, for letting her down like this. But he just – Elias wanted it to feel over for him, too. The knowledge would settle in him, he thought, perhaps overnight: he might wake up tomorrow and realise he had made too much of this, that it was nothing after all. But it hadn’t settled now, and wouldn’t, not here in the kitchen where he could feel the pressure in the air. “I’m – going to go upstairs and wash,” he decided, still apologetic. He would have said she ought to as well, but he ignored the instinct and paced for the door. All he needed right now was a minute alone.

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   Daffodil Grimstone

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look ANOTHER beautiful bee!set <3