April 24th, 1891 — Ari & Dio's Bartonburg Home

It had been a few days since she'd arrived home, and she'd found enjoyment in precisely nothing she was used to doing. Well, that was a lie—she had been writing to Ben Crouch, trying to decipher the little tidbits about him and their past that she worried she'd forgotten, and that was at least a little enjoyable. She felt in control while writing, which is something she didn't feel in control of while conversing; behind parchment and quill she could hide her expressions, her slowness in responding. She could redirect the conversation in a way she couldn't when someone was sitting across from her, and she could ask questions that she'd feel uncomfortable asking head-on.

But that was with Ben. This was Zelda.

Her best friend had, by Dionisia's assumptions, found herself on watch duty in the sitting room that day, which was something she'd grown used to over the past few days. Zelda's discomfort about her injury was not lost on her; she knew that family members of patients had their own way of coping with their loved one's injuries, and it wasn't always in a way that looked caring and concerned. The easiest way to avoid that was to avoid conversation about the injury entirely, prompting Dionisia to focus on the one other person in the room—Elliott—and a few questions that had continued swirling in her mind about him that Ben Crouch could not answer.

"I can't remember what it was like to hear him laugh for the first time," she said solemnly, unsure whether Zelda had either but wanting to let her sadness be heard nonetheless.

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@"Zelda Fisk"

  

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Zelda was a tiny bit hungover, and was trying to hide it by over-hydrating, because she was not supposed to be hungover, she was supposed to be sitting with Dionisia. And this made her feel a little trapped, because she was bad at this, but if she sat on the floor in her dress stacking Elliott's blocks then she could pretend that she did not feel weird about it.

"I don't think I was there," Zelda said, although she wasn't sure that was what Dio was actually asking. She put a block on top of her tower. "But I'm sure that'll come back." She wasn't sure, no one could be sure, but wasn't that the sort of thing people were supposed to say in situations like this?

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So Zelda hadn't either. She should have assumed that, given that Zelda did not live with them nor was she so regularly around the house that she'd witness those first few moments, but Dio had almost hoped she had. It would have given some confirmation, either that Dionisia had been present and presumably enjoyed it, or—

Her heart fell. Of course, most of her memories from the early days of Elliott's life were pushed together into one concise period of her life, and even before her accident she was sure not every little memory was so clear, but... there were some things she did know. She remembered the overwhelming sadness in the first few months of Elliott's pregnancy, and more importantly the feeling of loneliness—one she wasn't sure if existed as overarching theme of that time or a specific feeling for a specific reason. She remembered not wanting to see Elliott, not wanting to hold him; she just couldn't remember why or how long it had lasted.

"I don't know. It won't... not if I wasn't there," she admitted, finding it difficult to look in Zelda's direction much less look her in the eye.

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Zelda frowned at Dio. It was possible, she knew, that Dio hadn't been there — people didn't spend all day with their kids — but there was something sad about the sentence. "Do you think you weren't there?" she asked, eyebrows drawing together with something like concern.

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Dionisia didn't want to believe it. Looking at his now, she couldn't imagine not having Elliott there. He'd come to be a part of her life that she wouldn't be the same without—because where would she be if she wasn't a mother? Certainly not married to Ari, not in the comfort of his North Bartonburg home. She wouldn't be Zelda's sister, and she wouldn't have a huge family supporting her. She would still be at the hospital—or would she? There were no guarantees, and she couldn't begin to think what might have changed.

But somehow, even scarier or than the what ifs were the realities of the past.

"I don't think I was." The words left her mouth, a little too high-pitched, like she was horrified at the realization and yet no idea how to cope with it. She looked down at her son on the floor, who had looked up at her, clearly alarmed by the change of tone. Dionisia couldn't even offer as much as a comforting smile—another parenting failure, for sure—and tore her gaze back to Zelda, leaving her son to watch with curiosity.

"Do you - remember much?" she asked, nervously, "From that time, I mean. Do you - remember what I was like?" She remembered the sadness, the loneliness, all of that—but she didn't remember Zelda, not from that point. She couldn't remember what it was like for her.

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Zelda stuck a block in Elliott's hand, not because she thought it would make him unaware of the sudden change of tone, but because she couldn't think of anything else to do. She bit down on her lower lip. And then it got worse, because Dionisia was asking questions she didn't know how to answer — or, Dionisia was asking questions she didn't want to answer, because she felt so deeply guilty about the answer.

"I wasn't around a lot then," Zelda admitted, deliberately vague. She added another block to Elliott's tower.

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Zelda's words were deeply unsettling and did nothing to help her remember the things she was trying to about her son; rather, now she was questioning Zelda and what Zelda had been doing back then. The more Dionisia strained her mind the remember, the more frustrated she became, because everything was turning up blank whereas other things weren't. Dionisia had, over the past few days, managed to convince herself that her memories were not so bad—yes they were jumbled, and a little misplaced at times, but there were no sweeping areas of her life that she was absolutely clueless about, and usually just mentioning a period of her life was enough to bring back memories. Not this, though.

"What do you mean?" she said quietly. Nervously.

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The nervousness in Dio’s voice made it worse. She really didn’t remember, then, and Zelda wasn’t going to lie to her — even if a lie would have made them both feel better than the truth would. She swallowed and looked at Dio’s face, and leaned back against the couch from her spot on the floor.

”We weren’t — talking much,” she said, ”So I wasn’t around. But I should have been.” She had made a mistake, in holding that grudge for so long — but she hadn’t known how to let go of it, and she’d been so angry.

She had wasted so much time being angry with Dio and what if Dio’s memories never came back?

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"You weren't around much then," she echoed quietly, sadly. It should have come as a shock, but with her memories so empty and the lingering feeling of loneliness that accompanied what memories she did have, it only made sense.

"So... Who was there?" With her, at home, while Ari worked and Elliott was presumably being a fussy baby? Surely someone must have been there, because even now the thought of being left alone with an infant for the entire day brought with it a sense of dread and isolation.

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Zelda bit down on her lower lip again. She wasn’t prepared for this. Her head still hurt around the edges from last night’s alcohol, and besides that she was so bad at this, at being comforting or whatever she needed to be here, and she didn’t know what to say. It was worse to talk about it in admission, that she’d avoided Elliott because she was angry with Dio and angry with Ari and holding all these grudges inside.

”I don’t know,” she admitted, because she didn’t. Dionisia had other friends. Surely at least one of them had been better than Zelda had?

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She felt her chest tremble, like she might cry, but for some reason the tears never even threatened to come. Maybe it was because it was impossible to cry about memories she didn't have, much like it was impossible to mourn events in her life that had never happened. She thought back to her parents—a very important, defining moment of her life that not even a head injury could rid of—and how they'd tossed her out. She didn't mourn watching her sister debut or get married, because she didn't even know if her sister had debuted or married or if she was even alive. This was like that.

"So you didn't - check on me?" So she'd really been alone, hadn't she? She'd had other friends, but most of them were girls from Pennyworth or the hospital, and she was almost certain they hadn't come around after Dionisia had handed in her temporary resignation. They'd never been close like that—not like she was with Zelda.

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Zelda felt caught, like all the things she felt most guilty about were coming to haunt her. That summer after Elliott had been born she’d felt so angry, and trapped — she’d missed Alfred but was embarrassed every time she’d talked to him, and she’d missed Dio but had still been caught on that frustrated anger that stopped her from talking in the first place. She had been lonely. She threw herself into work to distract herself from her personal life, and now — now, she regretted it, and her throat felt thick, and she couldn’t leave.

She had managed to forgive Ari before she managed to forgive Dio, and she didn’t understand why.

”I should have,” Zelda said, ”I — I should have, but I didn’t, and I’m sorry.”

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"It's alright." The words left her mouth before she could really think about Zelda's answer, because it felt like an apology she should accept immediately. Zelda hadn't been there, but now she was, so why did it matter anymore? She was still struggling to fill the gaps from that period from her life, so what right did she have to judge Zelda for things she couldn't even remember?

Yet, the apology rang hollow in her heart, because the thought that Zelda hadn't been talking to her, hadn't stopped to check on her while she was nursing baby Elliott and dealing with the general overwhelming reality of post-birth life hurt.

And there was no hiding it from her face as she stared off into space, a little frozen in place.

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   Zelda Darrow

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Dio was saying it was alright but it wasn’t, because Zelda had been stubborn and selfish and Dionisia could have died on that boat and she still wouldn’t have been able to change anything about what happened.

And she knew that it wasn’t alright, because of that look on Dio’s face.

Zelda reached out, trying to grab her sister-in-law’s hand.

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Dionisia accepted Zelda's hand, warm and soft and everything that she needed at the moment, and she would have gripped it tight had she not been so caught up in the thought that Zelda—her Hogwarts best friend, the girl who had wiped her tears so many times, helped her through her fear of returning back to the orphanage each summer, and who, whenever possible, had taken her into her own home and hosted her like a sister—had decided one day that she did not want to visit Dionisia.

Dionisia, who had just given birth.

Dionisia, who had been so lonely—disconnected from everyone, because suddenly everyone whose opinions mattered were the ones she hadn't been able to tell the truth.

Dionisia, who had never wanted to be a mother at all, and who had no idea how to do it.

Dionisia, who had—apparently—gone through it alone anyways, because Zelda had not wanted to be there.

She turned her head in the other direction, the tears finally glazing her brown eyes over. She opened her mouth, but no words came out.

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   Ari Fisk, Zelda Darrow

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Dio wasn’t looking at her and Zelda didn’t know what to say — she should have lied, it was abundantly clear that she should have just lied, because she was supposed to be keeping an eye on Dionisia, not upsetting her. Her throat was thick. She had never really been held accountable for the things she had failed to do that summer, that whole weird year, but she still felt terrible about them. In January she had said I’m sorry I was so angry, and stubborn and that she should have been there, but that didn’t make up for it if Dionisia did not remember.

She squeezed Dio’s hand. Come back to me, she thought, and she wasn’t sure if she was wanting Dio to turn around and look at her, or if she was wanting Dio as she was before leaving for the Voyager to come back.

”I was wrong,” Zelda said, her voice thick — she had been wrong and there was nothing she could do to take it back, and Dionisia could have died.

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   Ari Fisk

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