16 June, 1892 — Late — Ben's House, Swallowbury

Ben had just been looking for a distraction when he'd gone to The Three Broomsticks tonight, but what he'd gotten was anything but a distraction from his situation with Melody. Dionisia didn't understand — through no fault of her own, because no one understood — but he'd listened to the advice she'd given him anyway. It wasn't what he wanted to hear, but it was too similar to what Melody had been hinting at for weeks for him to discount it entirely. Talk to her, huh? Tell her everything? He doubted it would end well, but what choice did he really have? It wasn't as though this was sustainable. He'd been trying to sweet-talk her for weeks, to convince her that they could be happy, and she hadn't budged an inch. If she was really this resolved, then he didn't know what to do to fix it. He still felt that this would be the worst possible thing for the pair of them — for their family — but at this point, between the frustration of the past weeks, the indignity of the meeting with St-Whoever-Black, and the alcohol he'd consumed tonight, he was thinking fuck it, why not? This would detonate any hope they had of ever being happy in the future, but at least then it would be conclusive. That was better than limping along and holding out hope for some better tomorrow that wasn't ever coming.

He flooed in to the parlor and tripped over a side table before he managed to get the downstairs light turned on. He didn't know what time it was, but it seemed Melody and Nora were already asleep, and the housekeeper had long since left for the day. He lit the gaslight in the dining room with shaky hands, then went to find a bottle of firewhiskey. He set it down on the table with a glass, then headed up the stairs to knock on Melody's door.

"Hey, wake up," he muttered through the door. "I wanna talk."

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Melody Crouch

  

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Melody's memories had returned in full force nearly two months ago, and she still hadn't fully processed her embarrassment and frustration from the entire situation. While she could now somewhat understand Ben's adamant reluctance to keep their past behind them, she couldn't quite understand how he could rationalize leaving her wholly in the dark. His actions felt like another betrayal, especially when she considered how lost and lonely she felt throughout the two month period of having no memories. Melody hadn't wanted to fight with him, she didn't have any intention on placing the blame of their failed marriage on his shoulders or anything of the likes. She had only wished to fill in the gaps, and Ben thought it better to lie, omit and avoid whenever possible.

They'd gone back to how things were before Nora was born. Melody was disheartened to have lost the closeness they'd gained, but what was she to do? Ben still thought her to be the same reckless, insolent child despite every piece of evidence to show otherwise. After all, she hadn't fled or done anything to harm Nora. Merlin knew how close to death she'd come with her pregnancy and still Melody remained steadfast in her role as wife and mother. But, as always, Ben was determined to see the worst in her. To despise her and hold her every mistake over her head for the rest of their lives.

She had just returned from the nursery when she heard Ben's commotion downstairs. Sighing, Melody rolled over in bed and turned back to her book. Ben would stumble up the stairs eventually, she knew,, for in their two years of marriage she had never found him unconscious anywhere in their home. However, tonight seemed to be the exception to the rule as Ben was soon knocking on her door.

She forgot about the undone buttons on her chemise until she had opened the door. "It's late." Melody informed him as she reached for the robe hanging on the back of her door to shrug on. "Can't it wait until morning?"

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Ben huffed. "No," he said, and debated leaving it there. There wasn't a good reason that it couldn't have waited until tomorrow, except that he was thinking about it all now. There was a sort of momentum from his conversation with Dionisia that he didn't think he'd regain if it were interrupted... which was a convoluted way of saying that he didn't think he'd be willing to have this conversation sober. But he wasn't going to admit to Melody that he wasn't brave enough to face all this in the light of the morning, or that he thought he'd lose his nerve.

He took a step back and glanced over her, half dressed and shrouded in darkness. He hadn't bothered to bring the light with him, but there was a bit of moonlight coming in from the nearest window that left her silhouetted. "I'm going downstairs," he decided. "You can come or you can go to sleep. Up to you."

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Well, at least he hadn't pushed his way into her room. There had been times throughout their marriage where Melody wondered how he was fulfilling his needs and whether or not the time would come when he would no longer tolerate her rejections. He hadn't ever, of course, but surely in time his affection would wander? After all, Ben had been a rake once, what was to stop him from reviving his old ways?

She frowned as he walked down the stairs. The urgency had her curious, but nothing had ever been this urgent in the wee hours of the morning before. What couldn't wait? Melody paused for a minute, her back now pressed against her door jam. Merlin, was he having an affair? Was that what was so urgent? He hadn't required her permission before fathering a son, Melody highly doubted he'd inform her of any other mistress in the wings. More shockingly, Melody quickly realized she had no desire to know.

She considered ignoring his request to talk and retreating to her book. To do so would be the final nail in the coffin of their marriage. If she shut the door tonight there would be no hope, no peaceful environment for their daughter to be raised within. Sighing heavily, Melody tied her robe tighter and headed downstairs. Even if they were never happy again, they had to at least negotiate a peace for Nora's sake.

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Ben dropped into the chair at the dining room table and turned his attention to the whiskey bottle. He poured himself a glass, focusing more than he should have in order to keep it from spilling over his hand. By the time he'd finished, Melody was downstairs. Okay, so we're doing this.

"You wanted me to talk about how things were, before," he began. "So let's talk about it. Let's talk about whatever you want to know." He suspected she'd change her mind once the conversation actually got underway, but that was up to her.

"You asked me why we got married," he said, taking a drink. "Should we start there?"

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Oh. Not a mistress then.

Briefly, she wondered if alcohol was behind this conversation and whether he should be consuming more. This was a sober conversation in her mind, or at least one she'd want to have full memory of. Any kind of haziness would further contribute to their miscommunications, wouldn't it? Surely, Ben realized the importance of remembering this conversation when he woke up.

However, Melody could tell by the look on his face that walking away now wasn't an option. Not if their marriage was to ever produce anything vaguely positive. With that in mind, she sat opposite him and folded her hands neatly in her lap. "Because I overheard a conversation that would have ruined me days before my marriage and committed a felony by drugging you against your will." She then answered bluntly, although her tone was obviously remorseful. "And there's not been a day since then that I haven't regretted it."

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Ben stared.

She wasn't supposed to know about that. She was supposed to have forgotten. He knew that she'd been getting bits and pieces of her memories back since the accident, but this was the piece. How had it never come up? Admittedly, Ben hadn't wanted to talk about it, either. Even when they'd both been fully aware of the events that lead up to their elopement, it wasn't something they'd talked about. But if she knew that then she had to know everything, or at least have been able to paint a clear enough picture to fill in the rest of the gaps. That was the cornerstone that the whole rest of this bloody mess was built on.

So why had she still been treating him like he was committing some grievous crime in not sitting her down and explaining it all to her? If she knew what it was he wasn't talking about, she would have also known why he was avoiding the subject. He'd been doing what he thought was best for her, to avoid reopening old wounds — and meanwhile, she'd been writing letters to her former fiance.

The whiskey glass made a sharp noise as he lowered his hand to the table a touch too quickly. "What the hell sort of mind games have you been playing?"

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"I only remembered a month or so ago." Melody responded as a way of an explanation. She certainly hadn't remembered when she stood in his bedroom pleading and crying for answers that never came. It was only after a particularly depressing refusal of his advances that she remembered the closet and the chaos that followed. And by then he had already returned to not speaking to her. What was she supposed to do? Obviously, approaching him about the events of that night had never gone well before. Why would it have been different then?

She looked from him to the wall opposite the doorway. "You left me in the dark, Ben. I didn't know what was wrong but I knew something was and you just ... " Melody broke off, not wishing to continue playing the blame game they seemed to always resort to. Instead, she paused for a moment to recollect herself before continuing, "by the time I remembered we had already returned to the way we were before Nora was born. I didn't know how to tell you that I knew."

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All Ben could think was that this was a fairly convenient excuse to be coming out with at a time like this. He took a swig of his whiskey.

"Why should I believe you?" he spat. She hadn't told him that she'd remembered this until he'd brought it up in a drunken conversation in the middle of the night. If he hadn't, would she have ever mentioned it, or would she have just continued letting him believe they were on different pages about everything? What else had she been lying by omission about, throughout this entire saga of the memory loss?

And what was more: if she remembered, why was she acting like this? Things had gone back to the way they were before, she said, but to Ben's mind they hadn't. He'd still been trying. He was frustrated that she kept rebuffing every attempt he made to be nice to her, but he was still trying. He thought all of her hostility had boiled down to resentment over the uncertain nature of their elopement. If she didn't have the context, she might reasonably have assumed that it was his bad decision-making that had led them to this position. She might have even thought that he'd been the manipulative one, of the pair of them. If she knew...

"I — I tried so hard to make you happy," he sputtered. "And you — you didn't know how to tell me," he echoed, dumbfounded.

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"When have you ever tried to believe me?" Melody fired back. Every disastrous argument had begun over one mistaken situation or another. Never once had either of them given the other the benefit of the doubt, and that was the cusp of the whole thing. Even back on the rooftop before they married they'd been on two entirely different pages — him offering an affair of all things and her adamant refusal to ever make a cuckold of her husband.

She shook her head in disbelief. What, if anything, had he ever done to make her happy? Pretend as though their marriage was fine? That was just as much for his reputation as it was her own. Keep their sordid past to himself when she had begged him to just tell her? That was his relentless need to avoid conflict. Nothing he'd ever said or done to her had ever been out of the kindness of his heart. There was always a hidden meaning, always some kind of master plan in the works.

"When I tried to ask you about it you refused to discuss it. Then, the only time we saw one another after was when you were trying to seduce me, as if any time we've ever had sex has uncomplicated our relationship. What was I supposed to do? Shout in the hallway 'hey! I remember that time I ruined your life, can we talk about it now?!'" Reaching across the table, Melody grabbed the whiskey bottle and took a long drink from it. If he was determined to make this some kind of drunken argument, then she was done trying to maintain some kind of composure.

"Do you have any idea what it was like suddenly waking up married to a man I had once dreamed of marrying but who swore he would never do any such thing? And then, when I did start remembering you continued to evade my questions as though that wouldn't lead to more confusion! What about that was about my happiness? How was leaving me to feel lost and alone the gentler, kinder option?" She stood from the table then, the bottle still clasped tightly in her hand. Even at their happiest they had still never worked through or discussed their issues. Everything was always lurking beneath the surface like the squid in the bloody Black Lake.

"No. I hadn't known how to tell you, because I've never been able to tell you anything without it being a source of contention."

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Ben resented deeply the loss of the whiskey bottle. He ground his teeth together as she stood up with it, trying to decide if he wanted to wrestle it back from her or just let her have it and get a new one. One might have said this wasn't how he'd imagined the conversation going, except it was exactly how Ben had imagined the conversation going. He hadn't foreseen this particular twist in the road, but he'd known that nothing good could come up dredging up the past. There were a few more sparks at the moment than he'd anticipated, but he'd always known this conversation was going down in flames.

"Yeah, clearly not bringing it up was better," Ben said, with venom. He decided on a fresh bottle of whiskey and pulled himself up from the table to retrieve one, which opened the distance between the two of them even further. He downed the remainder of his first glass so that he could handle the top of the new bottle without spilling it.

"I was treating you like my wife," he continued. He filled the whiskey glass from the new bottle, over-filled it and spilled whiskey on his hand and the floor. "I was trying to do nice things for you, and tell you you looked nice. And it wasn't about sex, it was about you feeling like I loved you. I was trying to make you happy. I've been taking care of you. There's a lot of shit I haven't done because I've been trying to take care of you. And I — I was willing to just swallow that," he said, voice cracking slightly. He took a drink. "The — being the only one who knew. It's not — it wasn't fucking easy. It wasn't like it was the quick way out. But I was going to spend our whole fucking lives being the only one who knew so that you wouldn't have to live with it, because I — because you were supposed to be happy."

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"And when did the renewed interest in being a doting husband begin?" Melody questioned pointedly, her hand with the bottle raising carelessly so that whiskey spilled onto the floor. He certainly hadn't acted like a loving, caring husband before she approached him. If anything, he'd avoided her then too. "Was it before or after I walked away that night?"

Frowning, Melody took a drink of her whiskey. Ben hadn't kept the secret to himself like he so proudly was proclaiming, for Arthur fucking Pettigrew knew at the very least. Sometimes, Melody wondered how much Aldous knew with how coolly he treated her, but he was too collected for her to ever have a solid read on him. Those were people who would protect him and likely never tell, but it was just one more risk added onto the mountain they were already running.

Everything was a risk, and the consequence of which was Nora's future.

She turned quiet then. All they were doing was going around and around in circles with nothing to ever come from this. She placed the bottle back on the table and gripped the back of her chair. "We need to find a way through this for Nora." Melody told him as calmly as she could manage despite her racing heart. "How do we get through this without hating one another in the morning?"

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Ben knocked back the rest of his firewhiskey. His head was starting to pound, but he didn't plan to stop drinking. He kept his eyes on his glass as he answered, already pouring again. "We're always going to hate each other."

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"I've never once hated you." Melody said sincerely. As much as she wanted to, she had never been able to look at him and not remember his easy smiles or the way she'd fallen for him as a young debutante. Those younger, unbroken people were still here somewhere, weren't they?

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For some reason, this statement affected him. It wasn't the truth. When he'd been trying to knit things back together over the past few months, he could practically feel the resentment rolling off of her. They'd had some vicious fights — fights in which he'd stormed out, or where she had. Once she'd even run back to her mother, despite their estrangement. He knew the facts of their relationship, because he'd lived them, but still this protest made him feel a little weak in the knees.

Or maybe that was just the alcohol. He gave up on standing and sat down on the dining room floor with his back against the pantry door frame. The firewhiskey he'd spilled on the floor was soaking into the knee of his trousers. Ben pointed at her with the hand that held his glass. "Liar."

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Melody had never experienced Ben as drunk as he appeared to be at present, leaving her entirely unsure of what to say or do. Would he be receptive to her helping him as he stumbled? Would he at least allow her to help him up the stairs and to bed? Ben was nearly a head taller than she and likely near double her weight, but she could hardly leave him on the dining room floor at the end of this ...

All thoughts of which left her as soon as he next spoke. "No. I've been furious and hurt — definitely heartbroken a few times. But no. I'm not lying, I've never once hated you."

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