February 26, 1890 - Selwyn House, London

More than normal the house seemed oppressive, the walls pushing in on him, taunting him as if they knew they could cage him. The silence in the halls echoed against his mind and Daniel paced like a caged animal, the carpet shuffling silently under his shoes. It wasn’t as bad when Freya was around, her very presence could calm his frayed soul. Knowing her sweet smile might be just around the corner kept the shadows of his own mind from creeping ever forward.

Daniel paced downstairs, his robes swirling around his feet. The dim parlor greeted him, curtains still drawn. The house elves knew better than than to open them when it was only Daniel at home. Shadows suited him better than the light they let in. The light belonged to Freya, not to Daniel. A portrait of Daniel and Freya stared down at Daniel as he poured himself a glass of firewhiskey, the artist had caught Freya’s gentle smile but the playfulness that lit her eyes was nowhere to be seen. Instead her eyes watched Daniel, judging him for his actions. There would be no reprieve here.

Uneasy Daniel continued pacing, drink in hand. The amber burned down his throat, but provided a rare illusion of solace to Daniel on Freya’s absences. Daniel barely noticed where his feet led him until the bitter child of London’s winter air bit at him. Above the skies were as gray as his thoughts, the stone walls seemed closer together beyond the dead plants that Freya so carefully tended.

The garden was her space in their home, the one place that always reminded Daniel of his wife’s tender kindness, even when she was gone. Here the voices the oppression numbed, pushed to the side by the reminder that his wife would always return, that she would never leave him. He doubted she knew how much he needed her, how much she could push the shadows from his mind, but he knew that she wouldn’t - couldn’t - leave. They loved each other and surely that was enough.

The mere thought sparked the voices again, the troubled worries that had plagued him, the dark anxieties that whispered in his mind of her traitorous inclinations. Even the whiskey and the gardens could do little to calm them. Freya’s gentle voice was the only thing that could dispel his dark moods and as he looked at the gray branches of a leafless bush he began to count the months. Almost six since she had last been home. The weight of that thought tugged at Daniel’s consciousness, making him blind to the world around him. Near the bush a small shoot of green had sprung up, the first sign of spring after a long winter.

Freya Selwyn

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   Freya Selwyn

Whenever Freya returned from a visit with her ailing mother her first stop was to the greenhouse. Transitioning from Deanna's clingy possessiveness to Daniel's cool distance was an abrupt change, one she still wasn't accustomed to after years of dancing between the two. A few minutes (or sometimes a few hours) to collect herself before greeting her beloved husband served them both well. For Freya it was a way to accept his version of love, to further distance herself from her long abandoned ideals of what a marriage ought to look like. For Daniel it was the opportunity for Freya to shed the annoying habits she picked up from Deanna. An additional hour of separation harmed none.

The elves had strict instructions on how to care for the plants in the greenhouse throughout her absence, and she was pleased to find they had followed them exactly. Short of a few branches needing trimming (something Freya had forgotten to add to the list) all her beloved plants were in perfect order. The garden however…the garden was a disaster of epic proportions. Her carefully tended rose bushes were brittle and near dead from her abandonment of them several months ago. Deanna's illness had come on so abruptly this last time, requiring Freya to rush over without even packing her trucks nevermind being able to winterize the garden. It was simply yet another task she would now have to see to.

Freya noticed Daniel's presence immediately upon stepping from the greenhouse. A tender wave of familiarity washed over her as she gazed at him. Love or not, he was still her husband. He was still the first man to ever capture her attention as wholly as he did. Merlin knew their differences were vast, but Freya loved him in a way she would never truly comprehend. "Hello." She greeted warmly as she approached him. "I'm home."

  

Freya’s voice had all the warmth of the first sun after a long winter. When the days were long and the nights longer he’d try to capture the very essence of her words. The exact caress a phrase from her could illicit, but it always fell short. Nothing could imitate her words in his mind other than the woman who spoke them. They were a mere shadow of the vibrancy they could be. So many times he tried and failed. When his mind spun as it did he’d grasp for her voice among the others, cling to it in an attempt to feel her near his side again. A habit he reached for as he sat alone on the garden bench, the chill of the stone numbing him.

This time he almost captured her voice. The lilting, calming, essense of words that eased his soul. They were so real he could only look for her out in the garden, so easy to picture her in this place, kneeling among the plants. But she wasn’t kneeling, the words weren’t a voice in his mind.

Freya stood in front of him, her dark cloak stark against their surroundings, her blond hair like a beacon of sunlight in the dreariness of winter. “Freya.” The word came out a rasp, rough on his throat as if he hadn’t spoken in the six months she had gone. Daniel set his glass aside and stood up, taking a step toward her, he had to know she was real. Tentatively his hand reached forward, cupping her jaw. The skin was warm beneath his cold hand, he could feel the blood pulse through her neck against his thumb, the softness of her cheek as he looked in her eyes. Freya was real and before him. The voices faded, calmed by her very presence.

But it had been too long. Daniel’s icy coolness had him stepping back almost involuntarily. “You were away too long.” A chill crept in with his words, while the truth they were not intended to be kind. She had left him, here, alone, again. For what? Her mother? A woman who had a league of healers and servants to tend to her. Selfish woman. Did she love her mother more than him? Would she leave him if not for the vow? Daniel’s face hardened, his jaw tightened as the doubts threatened to plunge him back into the ice he’d lived in for the past six months.

  

For a singular, fleeting moment Freya felt beloved by him. His tender touch on her cheek, the look of shock and awe in his eyes - each of his movements in the immediate aftermath of noticing her left her feeling warm in the knowledge that he loved her, too. These moments were why she hadn't fought harder to avoid taking the vow. The love he so briefly offered was enough to sustain her through his dark moods.

It had to be.

His acts of love, though, lasted only as long as the blooms of her magnolia tree. Without warning, his hand had fallen from her cheek, his closeness widened by the river of his insecurities. How could he still not know after all these years how ardently she loved him? How she despised being without him? A slight frown flashed across her features before she adeptly schooled her expression into a soft smile. Freya had weathered through his moods before. She knew better than to add to his icy rage.

"I'm home now." She said softly. What was she to do? Not rush to her ailing mother's bedside? Leave Mama to the care of incompetent nurses? Freya would have had Mama come stay with her during her bouts of illness, but Daniel had banned Mama entering the house! Why was every argument always the same? "I missed you, My Love."

  

She was right, she was home. Daniel reminded himself. But she should have been home the whole time. They both knew that. It didn't need to be said as it had all been said before. Instead Daniel nodded his head. "As you should be." He murmured, his tone while cool, had a gentler lilt about it, a simple acknowledgment of the fact.

He let out a sigh, not willing to fight with Freya right as she returned home. "I missed you as well." Again the words held little emotion, only stating a fact. He didn't mention the house seemed full of ghosts and shadows without her, or the voices whispered in his ears.

"You're mother is better?" He asked perfunctory. Most of the time he felt that Deanna Benwick was actually quite well despite her instances to the contrary.

  

Once upon a time, Freya was confident in his love for her. When they were courting, maybe, or in the days leading up to their wedding. Or the happy days of their first year of marriage (happy, perhaps, only in her rose colored memories). Now, all there was left to do was be the loving, dutiful wife and hope Daniel one day saw and appreciated her devotion.

"She was still sick when I left." She answered softly, the unspoken truth of her vow hidden in her statement. Six months were all she could separate from him for. Despite her ailing mother. Despite any other circumstances that might arise. Only six months.

Freya reached for his hand, uncertain of whether or not he would consent to it. "Come, sit with me." The frigid air was a bit brisk, but it wasn't enough to send Freya running inside. She had faced colder weathers, after all. "Have you been well?"

  

Daniel's frown deepened, but he did not comment on Mrs. Benwick's health, he nodded, determined to put it behind them. He often felt Freya's mother haunting their marriage, her summons and illnesses beckoning Freya to her side with no regard for Freya's own marriage.

Freya's gentle hands claimed his own and he let her, allowing her to lead him to the bench he had sat upon so recently. As they sat he took in his wife's appearance. Her nose and cheeks red from the cold wind, her eyes shadowed with worry, her lips as red as a pomegranate. She hardly seemed to note the cold air that surrounded them, her attention solely on him.

But how did he answer? How did he tell her how tormented he was when she left? How did he tell her just how much she mattered? How much her presence brightened the very world around him? He didn't. Instead Daniel gave her a tight smile. "Well enough." As if that could ever explain it. "I am always better with you by my side." He added, his icy demeanor softening just a small bit with the admitted truth.

  

She kept his hands wrapped securely in her own. "Near or far I'm always by your side." Freya promised sincerely. There was no one else, nor would there ever be. Her devotion to him was equally matched to devotion to her mother. "I'm always yours."

  

---

Amazing Set by Stef!

As sweet as the sentiment was, it rung with falsity for Daniel. Her absence from his side all too frequent and all too long. The demons that haunted him during this times too recent to brush aside. But Daniel remained silent, instead bringing her hand to his lips to kiss. Her skin was cold against his lips. "And I yours." He promised, for who else in the world would ever take Freya's presence.

"Your garden has missed you." Daniel abruptly changed the topic, his gaze looking out at the gray space around them, he let go of her hand to gesture at it. The garden like his soul shriveled to almost nothing with out her there to tend to it.

  

The garden was in a sad state, but she wasn't in any mind to begin thinking of the preparations to fix it. The tedious hours of weeding and pruning felt overwhelming as she sat besides Daniel. Was it her own anxieties manifesting over being home or the darkness radiating from him? "It will heal." She said easily, staring at the now dead bush she planted in memory of her father. "Just as all things do."

"Shall we head in? We'll catch a chill if we're out here much longer." Freya asked after a minute or two.

  

---

Amazing Set by Stef!

That was what he loved the most about Freya, her ability to make him believe, if only for a moment that things would heal. There were days when he felt the wounds between them, deep and festering, but she would gently bandage them until they became only a faint memory of a scar. He gave her a slow smile, almost reminiscent of one from their earliest days together. In a rare gesture of love, he squeezed her hand in agreement. It would heal.

"Indeed, I wouldn't have you getting sick right after your return." Daniel agreed, although he hardly cared for himself on that accord, he so often felt sick and he did enjoy the stark clearness of the cold. He stood up, gently helping Freya to her feet. "After you." He bowed slightly as if he were courting her as he followed her inside.