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Alain felt his heart squeeze in his chest and he found himself swallowing hard. The way that she leaned into him, the emotion in her voice... he struggled to sort out all of the emotions he felt right then. Part of him felt like a failure for not having been there for her when she had needed him. That had been his entire train of thought before the massive gap in his memory. That was the last thing he remembered. His attempt to get to her side as fast as possible.

Frowning deeply, the werewolf trailed his fingers away from her hand in order to thread into her blonde locks. Turning his head slightly, he brushed his lips to her temple, the very first bit of affectionate contact beyond the simple touch he had given her earlier in the day.

"I was going to you," Alain said quietly, "The very last thing I remember is dropping everything at home and quite literally running in the direction of St. Mungo's," his voice trailed off a bit and the hand resting on her lower back trailed around so that he could hook his arm around her body and pull her more firmly back against him. "The next thing I remember is huddling back there," Alain took that moment to slowly turn them in the direction of the stoves. There was a small gap between the last stove and the wall. A small corner just big enough for a person to huddle into.

"The aurors were surrounding me, and I had no idea what was going on. I don't remember anything that the court alleged that I did. I don't remember feeling any of the anger that I supposedly displayed to my victim," he was saying very slowly, his gaze now fixated on the corner that he remembered cowering in against the aurors. His repeated questions of what he had done had fallen on deaf ears and he'd truly known nothing until he was put before the court. "But my wand showed differently," Alain whispered then, "I don't even remember leaving the house with it. I can apparate without it... could... apparate without it," he added as an afterthought.

Those terrifying moments where he had been sentenced were still burned into his mind. He had seen the papers since, they had taken the fear in his eyes in their pictures, the way he struggled against the aurors who dragged him out of the courtroom... and they had made him looked like a wild, deranged animal. The papers had speared his name to kingdom come. The photographs hadn't shown the tears in his eyes or the way that his lips formed the name of his wife. All he had wanted to know was if she was okay. Because no one had told Alain anything. For all he knew, she could have died, and he wouldn't have been there.

That part had broken his heart the most, especially when none of her family had made the effort to see or help him. Not even his own family had been able to make the trip.

"I didn't leave on purpose," Alain said quietly, "You have to believe me, Victoria. I did not hurt that man... I did not leave you... You know me. You know I am not that person."

554 words - VICTORIA GREYSON

What had he done that had made her so emotional? She had said that she had needed her wand, and his mind wasn't moving fast enough to understand. He was thinking of his wand at his side and drifting away on thoughts that the idea of using it made him rather sick to his stomach. The kind of sick he knew would also end with him trying not to panic alone in the guest room when they returned home that night. He couldn't touch it. He wouldn't do it.

Especially because he wasn't sure that he could even cast a spell, to begin with. Since he had returned from Azkaban, he hadn't used a single lick of magic. He took his potions on time, but instead of brewing them himself as he usually had, his mother had started to send them along. Alain had been absolutely relieved when the older woman had entirely understood how he felt about his own wand. It was a notion that he hadn't been able to tell Victoria, unsure of how, like everything else, she would take such knowledge.

But the thought struck him now that maybe he should. He wondered if she had intended for him to heal it for her and the plea for her own wand had been an opening for him to--

He was an idiot, wasn't he?

Approaching her slowly, his hand spread along against her lower back once more, his previous reservations about touching her gone in the moment. "Victoria," Alain said very carefully, "I think... you should," he finished slowly, his brows furrowing. "I have not been able to... touch my own want since I got back. Have you seen me do magic since I came home? The thought of using my wand makes me..." he slowly drifted off, dropping his forehead against her shoulder as he took in a very slow breath. One that would stop the trembling of his hands on her body. His other hand trailed up her arm, his hand cupping hers around her wand.

"It makes me feel sick to my stomach," Alain admitted quietly, "I can't touch it without falling into an absolute panic," his breath was a weak whisper now. Then he found his voice to be a little stronger, "I can't heal you as you want me to... but I can hold your hand like I am," the werewolf offered slowly, hoping beyond hope that such an offer would be enough. "I'm sorry... I can't do... so many things now," he tried to let humor lace his words, but it just came out pitiful.

Alain desperately wanted to be the man that Victoria had fallen in love with. That she had married on a beautiful spring day. He had dressed in the traditional Scottish garb of his former Clan family, glowing like the sun when he had set his gaze upon her. But things had changed. Whatever he had done to the man that had hurt her, something he didn't remember no matter how hard he tried, the consequences had destroyed him. The dementor's kiss was as terrifying as many before him had said.

524 words - VICTORIA GREYSON

This was what he had been dreading, slowly and reluctantly pulling his gaze from Victoria's form. Of course she didn't. A blatant removal of herself from all the help that she had given him. He silently figured she just didn't want to have much, if anything to do with him any longer. The distance between them was so wide it was hard to miss. Even a blind man could tell that they weren't close.

Not anymore.

He was starting to think that they never would be again. The fact that they hadn't gotten to fixing anything in the last nine months since he had been released from prison was making that more and more clear by the day. Alain was simply waiting for the shoe to drop. Or for him to come home to find all of her things gone. He was almost entirely sure that they wouldn't last to this coming Christmas.

Not like this. Not with neither of them saying anything of value that could change the tide of their relationship at that moment.

"Yeah," Alain said absently, not finding anything else to say to keep her there. Instead, he glanced around for a cleared off the table, setting his mug down and moving about to try and right the chairs in complete silence. After a few minutes, he found himself humming a tune. Any tune. Anything to break the deafening silence of the room and to keep him from finding more grief and debilitating fear. "Yeah, I suppose you're right," he said very quietly after a few more moments.

The fact that this room in itself was in such disarray made him the most frustrated. The most troubled and the most stuck. This had been where most life had been. Sure, the back had been lively and busy, with his arms and face nearly constantly covered in flour, but here was where he had been able to see the fruits of his labor in action. The joy that his food had brought people. It had been difficult not to feel absolutely elated at being in the cafe.

Almost as if someone had cast a spell on the whole of the building.

There was no spell now. It was just a cold room filled with broken furniture and shattered glass. Alain reached first for his wand and then stopped himself, his hand trembling slightly at the thought of touching it. So he simply went to the back to find a broom, dustpan, and to drag the bin back out into the main area. He started by sweeping up the remnants of their dishes and other crockery, keeping his gaze entirely off of his wife and focusing more on his task.

"You don't have to," he finally said after she finished speaking again, "I just thought..." then he shook his head and silenced himself, choosing instead to work rather than force them into a conversation that they weren't ready to have.

Even after nine months they still couldn't talk about anything. What was all of this? What type of reality had he come home to?

516 words - VICTORIA GREYSON

Alain let his gaze wander the small cafe, taking in the equally delapidated state of what was once a beautiful seating area with a deli counter. Pie plates had lined one of the counters and they'd let people buy a piece by the slice. Around Christmas, the mince pies had been their most popular treat. This place had once been burgoning at the seams with people coming in and out from dawn until close.

He kept his mind off the proximity of his wife's fingers, the mug in his other hand grounding him enough to keep him calm despite the slight increase in his heart rate. Taking an absent sip, he didn't really taste the liquid. It had never been his favorite, but literally anything was better than whatever they had been giving them in prison.

Muggles would have had a field day with the conditions of Azkaban. They all seemed so... intent on humane practices in their own little sphere of the world. The wizarding world was much different, it seemed.

Breathing out slowly, Alain let his blue gaze slide to Victoria, a very slight smile lighting his lips. She was always looking on the brighter side of things. It had always been like her hidden talent. Keep him calm and looking on the lighter side of things. Were she at her full frame of mind and had their marriage not fallen to pieces around them, she might have been even more forceful and adamant about it.

"I am still good with my hands... I think," Alain said softly, pulling his mug against his chest. The chairs, all made by hand by him and his brother, were in disarray. Some were broken and splintered and others were intact. He silently wondered if that was the best place to start. At least when he started to feel the dragging of despair and sadness he would have someplace to sit and watch his decimated Kingdom. From the hottest and most popular seat in the house too.

This bakery had been his castle. One of the few places in his life where we had ever felt in full control and where nothing could touch him. Who would have ever guessed that any of this would happen? Alain surely hadn't. Victoria had been blindsided by it.

"I think I'll start in this room," Alain said quietly, nodding more firmly to himself. Yes. This was the best place to start to rebuild. "Most of the good memories were made here," he admitted very carefully, "I want to put it back together before they all fade away into nothing." All because he missed the normalcy of his life. It was a wonder what over a year had done to this place. With his gaze still on his wife, he finally turned more toward her, almost forgetting the mug in her hand.

It took everything he had to ask her anything, but he thought it might equate to him offering the olive branch. "Would you like to help me?" he asked carefully, "This was as much your domain as it was mine."

516 words - VICTORIA GREYSON

Alain found his vision bluring the longer he stared at the ovens. He had paused for far longer than should have been natural. Far longer than what would have already tipped his wife off to his silent difficulty with making anything make sense. Nothing did. Not anymore. Not with their mutual insecurity in their own relationship. The silent insistance that he was a criminal despite him not remembering anything about doing the crime.

But he remembered every torturous moment of the time he spent paying for such a crime. His hands shook at his side and he momentarily considered throwing his wand across the room just to get it out of sight, out of mind. His wand had been used but he didn't remember ever touching it. His only worry had been getting to Victoria, so why had he come back to his senses here? Nestled among the ovens and struggling to make sense of how he had gotten there?

He barely registered his wife's voice until moments later, when he had turned to reply. And she was gone. Gritting his teeth together in a moment of silent frustration and unease, the man rubbed sharply at his face, having to let out a slow, easing breath. Victoria was not to blame for any of this. Honestly, he couldn't blame her for feeling the way that she did. If he had been in her position, and she had been the one who had been sent to Azkaban, he might have felt the same way? When was he going to snap next? When was he going to lose his temper? Would he hurt her when he did it? Did she really not know him as well as she had her entire life? These were the questions he assumed were constantly running through her mind.

Alain didn't want to leave things like that. So he took a moment to venture further into the kitchens, looking toward the sink and the stovetops that lined one wall. They used to cook small meals there. Deli items and hot drinks from scratch. They were popular and Alain had had to hire a cook just to make the drinks and a cook to make the food. It had been too much for any one person to take on. He could remember the joyful laughter of the two cooks, sisters, who had spent so much time in front of those stoves. He could remember the drink maker, her eyes bright and excited any time she came to him with a new drink idea. They were always a hit and Alain had adored the fact that the two young women had taken such a liking to the place.

The entire staff of this bakery had been like his family. The first Christmas that the place had been open, he had thrown a massive feast for everyone just to show his appreciation, along with sizable bonuses for the season. Now they were just memories marred by his dilapidated bakery.

Yet, the kettle was untouched and he spent a few minutes searching for a few of the unbroken mugs, washing them, washing the kettle, and then boiling water while he set about finding a tin of tea that hadn't gone stale and hadn't been strewn across the place by vagrants. Finding a simple earl grey, their most popular brew, he quietly prepared two mugs of tea, taking them both out into the main cafe area. "Victoria?" he asked quietly, spotting her easily but not wanting to spook her. "Here," he offered as he came to stand beside her, though not close enough to touch.

The offer of the mug of tea was a peace offering he truly hoped that she would take.

621 words - VICTORIA GREYSON