In Shadows & Sun

Truth and Tears

"I'm scared. So scared. "She said, her voice trembled. She wasn't sure where it came from, but something about his arms around her let her feel comfortable enough to be vulnerable and honest. She wasn't even sure what she was afraid of.

Going back to the man who'd broken her body or speaking the words she was about to speak to the man wrapped around that broken body now. She wasn't even sure where the thoughts, feelings were coming from but she couldn't fight them as she unravelled.

He shifted her so she was laid above him and he wrapped his arms around her, rubbed her back soothingly.

She laid her head on his shoulder. Breathed him in. His touch mad a tear fall. "He will do it again Lucius. If I see you. He'll know. Even if you don't leave me marked. I can't hide it on my face. He knows. "She'd suspected he had learned legillmency but never felt that familiar push into her mind. She realized one doesn't have to be a legillmency to read the look of love on someone's face- especially when it was your wife and her face never reflected that back to you.

"He won't allow it. He won't kill me. He loves me Lucius, but what if he hurts me again. He loses himself in drink and his fists find me. He tells me I'm lucky. Lucky that he needs to feel it, that he doesn't use his wand. I'd rather he use magic. "She whispered.

"He can't love you. Not if he's hurting you like this. He doesn't. It's not possible."

She sighed "I don't know. He did love me. I don't know anything anymore, nothing is real anymore. Nothing makes sense. I just know I can't live like this. I can't be a ghost for you. Living a half-life through the wee for the man who put me in this life, the one who broke all his promises to me. Existing, barely 6 days. Looking forward to one. One day with you. "

"It's my fault." He sighed.

"Partially it is. It can't be all your fault but...but you sit here and look at me broken. Broken for you. Because of you. You Lucius. He doesn't do this any other time. Just when he thinks we've been together. And you act like its nothing. "She began to sob and her voiced raised in anger. "I keep.... I KEEP being this person you want me to be. I play the part- whatever part it is you want me to play that day. 'Come to dinner and be the big sister'. "Come to some abandoned cabin or clearing near my house and be my secret little whore. 'Be my mistress, my girlfriend and go away with me. ' And then I'm supposed to be happy with you having a couple days with you giving me a fucking torturous tasted of the life I'm missing out on THE LIFE YOU PROMISED ME LUCIUS." She took a deep breath.

"And I'm supposed to leave happily. And if I God damned don't- if I don't play that part, and let me tell you I can't Lucius. Never, I can never pull myself from you because you belong to me – if I don't comply like a good little whore you chastise me and walk away. YOU ALWAYS WALK AWAY FROM ME!" Her pain was increasing from the sobs wracking her body but she'd barely noticed.

"Then maybe its best we stop seeing each other. " He whispered.

Her stomach twisted at his words and she lifted herself to look in his eyes across his face. "You're so cold. "She said after deep breaths quietly.

"And maybe you're right. You know what, he's there. You walked and he's there. It was bad for a while. The training mixed with you being finished with Hogwarts and so accessible to me – the fear of both combined and when he drank he couldn't fight it. He didn't mean it. He was just scared of losing me Lucius. I'm not saying this" she gestured at her body "is acceptable but if I loved him like he does me and the tables were turned... I can't say how I'd react either if he came back after obviously being away with the one person I asked him to stay away from. "