THE GALLERY was already buzzing with activity when Auden finally arrived, almost an hour late and feeling frazzled. The familiar smell of coffee and the faint chemical tang of polished wood floors should have been comforting, but today it just reminded her of how much she was behind.

As the front door chimed, Brigid looked up from where she was crouched beside a display of ceramic sculptures, her hands carefully adjusting the angle of a glazed vase. She rose slowly, her red hair catching the morning light streaming through the skylight above, one hand pressed against her lower back as if she'd been in that position too long. She wore a pair of high-waisted, houndstooth trousers and a ribbed long-sleeved black top that made her pale skin look like porcelain. It took everything in Auden to not feel self-conscious about her own appearance.

"There she is," Brigid said with a grin that faltered slightly when she got a good look at Auden's face. She straightened fully, brushing dust from her palms against her thighs. "I was starting to think you'd finally taken a personal day."

"Very funny." Auden set her bag down with more force than necessary beside the reception desk, the leather hitting the polished concrete with a sharp thud. She was already reaching for her phone with jerky, agitated movements, her fingers fumbling with the lock screen. The display was full of notifications – missed calls, text messages, gallery business that had continued without her while she was negotiating wet school uniforms and marital tension. "The Mitchells are still coming at ten-thirty?"

"Confirmed an hour ago. They're very excited about the potential Morrison pieces." Brigid's tone was light, but she moved closer with measured steps, her canvas shoes silent against the floor. Auden could feel her friend's eyes on her, cataloging details the way she always did – the mismatched outfit, the barely-controlled hair, the obvious exhaustion under her eyes. "Everything alright?"

"Fine," Auden said, waving one hand dismissively while her thumb slid frantically through an email from Catherine's school about upcoming parent-teacher conferences. Her other hand unconsciously worried at the strap of her bag. "Just a chaotic morning."

Brigid stepped away from the sculptures, her movement fluid as she gathered her hair with both hands, fingers combing through the copper strands to twist them into a low bun. "Chaotic how?"

Auden kept her eyes fixed on her phone screen, scrolling past increasingly urgent-looking subject lines. "Cillian tried to help with Catherine's morning routine. It didn't go as planned."

"Ah." Brigid nodded knowingly, securing the updo with a flimsy elastic band that had been resting on her wrist, the motion so attuned it barely required thought. "The dreaded spousal assistance."

Guilt crept up the base of Auden's spine like cold fingers. She bit her lip, shoving her phone into her back pocket with enough force that the denim stretched. A flash of memory surfaced unbidden – Brigid staying late two months ago to help prep for the Henley exhibition opening because Auden had to rush home when Cillian couldn't make it home to reprieve the babysitter. Then there was the time Brigid had covered the entire weekend shift when Cillian's "quick business trip" had stretched into five days, leaving Auden scrambling to manage both home and work.

"He meant well," Auden said, the words feeling hollow.

"He always does." Brigid muttered as her hands fell back to her sides, fingers flexing as if working out a cramp. "But you look like you want to murder someone, so I am assuming his help wasn't as helpful as he thought."

Auden forced a laugh, but that, too, came out hollow, echoing strangely in the high-ceilinged space. She reached to pick up her bag again, slinging it over her shoulder with a sharp tug, then motioned for Brigid to follow her down the hall. Her heels clicked against the wood in an irregular rhythm as she walked too fast, her friend's softer footsteps keeping pace behind her.

"It's nothing," she tried to reassure – more so to herself – as they walked, their voices carrying in the quiet space between the white walls lined with a haphazard display of artwork. "Just the usual adjustment period when he's been away for a while. He forgets how we do things."

She felt Brigid's gaze boring into her backside. This wasn't the first time Auden had made a comment like this to her friend, and she could practically hear Brigid's internal sigh.

"How long has he been back?" Brigid asked, her voice carefully neutral.

"Three days."

Brigid's footsteps faltered, causing Auden to glance over her shoulder. Her friend had stopped mid-stride, eyebrows raised and arms beginning to cross over her chest. "Three days and he's already stressing you out this much? That's got to be some kind of record."

Auden exhaled, her shoulders sagging as she turned to face forward again, shifting her attention to the tips of her scuffed heels as they came to a stop in front of her office door. Her hand hovered over the handle, fingers trembling slightly. She shook them once, in a way that Brigid couldn't see, the shaking ceasing.

"It's fi –"

"I'm just saying," Brigid cut her off, her voice gentle but firm as she moved to stand beside Auden rather than behind her. "I told you this last time. It might be worth having a conversation about expectations when he's home. You shouldn't have to manage everything yourself and then clean up after his attempts to help."

The words hit closer to home than Auden wanted to admit. She remembered Brigid saying almost the exact same thing six months ago, standing in this same hallway after Auden had spent a morning apologizing to three different clients whose appointments had been disrupted by another domestic crisis. And before that, countless smaller moments – Brigid bringing her coffee when she was too frazzled to leave her desk, Brigid staying late to help with inventory when Auden's home life bled into work hours, Brigid's increasingly worried glances when Auden showed up looking like she'd been through a tornado.

She felt her face twist into a grimace. Without a word, she pushed open the door to her office and stepped inside, her movements sharp and defensive. The familiar room – sandy walls, natural wood desk, arranged plants that were half dead due to her inconsistent watering habits – felt like another place where she was failing. She moved to her desk with jerky steps, dropping her bag onto the floor beside her chair before focusing intently on the black computer screen, jiggling her mouse with a quick flick of her wrist to keep her hands busy.

She half-hoped Brigid would simply leave, but when she risked a glance toward the doorway, her friend remained there, one shoulder leaning against the frame, arms crossed, wearing the expression Auden had come to recognize as Brigid's I'm not letting this go look.

"We're fine, seriously," Auden insisted, though the words sounded unconvincing even to her own ears. She clicked randomly through desktop folders, anything to avoid eye contact. "Marriage is about compromise, right?"

"Compromise, yes," Brigid replied, pushing off from the door frame and walking into the office. "Martyrdom, no."

Martyrdom. The word hung between them, pointed and uncomfortable, seeming to take up all the oxygen in the small space.

"It's not – " Auden stopped, the protest dying in her throat. Her hands stilled on the keyboard. It's not like that, she wanted to say.

But wasn't her marriage exactly like that? Taking on more and more responsibility, making excuse after excuse for why things weren't working, convincing herself that this was just what marriage looked like after the honeymoon period ended? And worse – dragging Brigid down with her, making her friend complicit in covering for a situation that was clearly unsustainable.

"I know you love Cillian," Brigid sighed gently. She settled into the chair across from Auden's desk, her movements fluid and relaxed – everything Auden felt she wasn't these days. "Christ, even I love him. He's a good man, and he adores you and Catherine. But Auden, you've been running yourself ragged for God knows how long, trying to keep everything perfect. When's the last time he actually stepped up without you asking?"

The question dangled in the air, full with implications Auden didn't think she could examine. Doing so would only cause her to spiral, and she could already feel the familiar tightness in her chest that signaled the beginning of an anxiety attack. She thought of all the times Brigid had watched her unravel, had helped her put the pieces back together, and had never once complained about the extra burden Auden's mental state placed on their partnership.

"We're working on it," she lied, her voice thin and strained. "Really. Every marriage goes through rough patches."

"Rough patches," Brigid echoed, her tone carefully neutral but loaded with doubt. She leaned forward slightly, elbows resting on her knees. "Aud –"

"The Mitchells will be here in an hour," Auden interrupted, her voice sharper than she intended as she dropped heavily into her office chair. It squeaked loudly in protest, the wheels rolling slightly under her weight, the sound jarring in the tense quiet. She gripped the armrests tightly, her knuckles white. "I need to review the Morrison file before they arrive."

Brigid held her gaze for a long moment, concern clear in her eyes. Then she nodded, understanding that the conversation was over for now. "Of course. The file's on your desk. Oh, and speaking of Morrison – " She paused, seeming to weigh her words. "The call yesterday went well. There was a mention of new pieces being released for sale."

Auden's stomach dropped. The Morrison estate rarely released new works, and when they did, galleries fought for the privilege of representing them. Wayland Morrison's paintings had been climbing steadily in value since his death three years ago.

"Who was on the call?" she asked, trying to keep the panic out of her voice.

"Wayland's son is handling the estate now. Conner Morrison. He said he'd try calling back today. He seemed pretty insistent on talking to you directly." Brigid shrugged, the gesture both apologetic and pointed. "But I know these opportunities don't wait around. I think we should act fast."

His son. Auden had a vague memory of meeting Wayland Morrison once, briefly, at an opening years ago, but not his son. His father had been a quiet man with paint-stained fingers who'd died far too young of a heart attack.

"Did he leave a number?"

"It's in the file. Along with photos of the new pieces he's looking to place." Brigid stood, heading towards the door, giving Auden the space she'd demanded, but the concern in her eyes remained. "They're extraordinary, Auden. The kind of work that could really draw a crowd. At least, that's what Charles said when I emailed him the photo's yesterday."

"We really need to stop consulting him," Auden told her, "He's suppose to be enjoying retirement."

Brigid laughed, the noise light and airy. "Try telling him that. He still emails me like four times a week with gallery mockups."

As Brigid returned to the gallery floor, Auden listened to her feet recede down the hall. It was only when the noise ceased that Auden riffled through the stacks of colorful files on her desk, until she located the one labeled MORRISON in bold sharpie.

She cracked open the baby blue folder, finding the photos paper-clipped to the inside cover, and when she saw them, her breath caught.

They were landscapes, but not like anything Wayland Morrison had painted before. These had a raw intimacy to them, as if the artist had been painting his own emotional geography rather than physical terrain. Mountains that looked like sleeping bodies, their peaks softened into the curves of shoulders and hips. Skies that seemed to breathe with slow, deliberate inhales, clouds stretching and contracting like lungs. Water that moved with human longing – rivers that curved like embraces, lakes that held the stillness of held breath, waterfalls that cascaded with the urgency of tears.

The color palette was different too, warmer and more vulnerable than his earlier work. Bruised purples gave way to flesh tones, harsh blues softened into the gray-green of intimate conversations. There was something almost confessional about the brushstrokes, loose and urgent in places, as if he'd been trying to capture feelings that moved too quickly for careful technique.

They were beautiful and heartbreaking all at once – the kind of work that made you forget to breathe for a moment before pulling you completely under.

Auden stood slowly, her fingers reverent as she lifted each glossy photograph from the confines of the file. She laid them across an open space on her desk with the care of someone handling love letters, each one delicately positioned against the other so she could see the full scope of the series.

The morning's chaos seemed to slip away from her mind like a retreating tide, replaced by the familiar thrill of discovering something extraordinary. Already, she could visualize exactly how she'd hang these in the front gallery. She could see the way the light from the skylight would catch the painted water, how the scale would draw viewers closer, make them complicit in Morrison's emotional revelations.

She found a scrap of paper, a phone number written in Brigid's slanted handwriting. Beneath it: "Conner Morrison - Call ASAP or I will kill you personally xx."

Auden chuckled, reaching for her phone. But as she looked at the number Brigid had left her, all she could think about was yesterday – about missing this call in the first place because she'd been dealing with Cillian's return, about all the other calls and opportunities she'd probably missed while trying to pick up the pieces of her life.

She didn't know what motivated her next – maybe it was the paintings, the way they seemed to transport her to some otherworldly fantasy full of serenity, where people actually connected with each other – but before she knew it, Auden was scrolling to Cillian's number.

She should apologize for snapping at him in front of Catherine, for the way she'd slammed the door when they left, for being the kind of person who couldn't gracefully accept help even when it was offered with love.

The phone rang once, twice, three times. Each ring stretched like a held breath, like the pause between lightning and thunder.

Pick up, she demanded in her head. Pick up for once, goddamn it.

But it went to voicemail.

"Hi, you've reached Cillian – "

Auden didn't leave a message.

She didn't even shoot him a text.

Because even though she could hear his voice, Cillian wasn't really there. He never was anymore, not in the ways that mattered. He was physically present but emotionally absent. They existed in the same space, shared the same bed, raised the same child, but lived in parallel worlds that never quite touched.

The truth settled over her like Morrison's painted skies, beautifully tragic in its resolution.

She wasn't fine. Her marriage wasn't fine. And the more she tried to convince herself otherwise, the more exhausted she became, the more she felt like she was drowning in the effort of keeping up appearances.

Auden had never been good at losing, even when losing might be the only honest thing left to do.

· · ─ ·✶· ─ · ·

The call to Connor Morrison went better than expected. Wayland's son had the same thoughtful cadence as his father, though tinged with the dutiful formality of someone still learning to navigate his role as executor of such a budding artistic legacy. He was enthusiastic about the new series, asking thoughtful questions about placement and pricing that suggested he understood both the emotional and commercial value of his father's final works.

The rest of the day fell into a surprisingly smooth rhythm. The Mitchells' appointment went well, with Brigid handling the technical details while Auden focused on the story behind each of Wayland's pieces and her vision for the opening. They closed two sales with them post-show, and scheduled three more viewings for when they had the pieces in-person.

Catherine's pickup was – thankfully – uneventful, her daughter chattering about a science project on butterflies during the drive home. Auden was pleasantly surprised when she arrived home to a clean house, the smell of bleach and Clorox wipes almost overwhelming.

And for once, Cillian actually arrived just after dinner, appearing in the kitchen doorway with his shirt unbuttoned and an apologetic smile, asking if there was anything left to heat up. When he offered to handle Catherine's bedtime routine without prompting, Auden seized the opportunity to retreat to her home office. Next month, she was giving a visiting lecture to Art History students at Trinity, and she had done nothing to prepare for it. She told herself all she needed to do was draft notes, all while listening to the familiar sounds of bath time drifting down the hallway.

Nights like these were a rarity, one that she knew to never take lightly.

Yet as Auden sat there, she couldn't help but stare at the cursor blinking mockingly at her from a blank Word document. Auden narrowed her eyes, willing words to appear – something profound about the intersection of contemporary art and social media, or at least something coherent about the digital age's impact on gallery spaces. Instead, her mind felt like cotton wool, thick and useless.

The sound of splashing water came from the next room, followed by Catherine's delighted squeals.

"You're moving too much," Cillian's voice carried through the house, warm with laughter. "How else are we supposed to get you clean if you keep splashing me?"

Auden's fingers hovered over the keyboard, but the sounds of their joy felt like a barrier between her and any coherent thought. She should be grateful that Cillian was here tonight, that he'd come home in time for Catherine's bath routine. She should be relieved to have an hour to herself, to work on the presentation that was due.

Instead, she felt like an outsider listening to her own life through a wall.

Her hand moved to the mouse almost without conscious thought, closing the document that held nothing but a title and today's date. The desktop appeared – organized folders with names like "Gallery Proposals" and "Exhibition Notes" and "Catherine School Photos." Her cursor drifted to a folder she hadn't opened in months: "Wedding Round 2."

The first photo that appeared made her breath catch. Cillian in his morning suit, his hair shorter then, his face bright with nervous excitement as he waited at the altar. The photographer had captured him in profile, looking toward the church doors, and there was something so hopeful in his expression that it made her chest ache.

She clicked to the next image. The two of them at the altar, his hands holding hers, both of them grinning like teenagers . Her dress had been simple – vintage lace that had belonged to her father's mother, a woman she never got the chance to meet. Cillian had already seen her, decorated and done in her dress, only twenty-minutes before that. Yet still, Cillian remained unchanged, still in awe at how she looked.

More photos: the kiss that sealed their marriage, the walk down the aisle, the reception in the gallery's garden. And there, in so many of the images, was two-year-old Catherine in her flower girl dress, a confection of pastel green tulle that she'd insisted on wearing for weeks after the wedding. Her auburn curls were adorned with baby's breath, and she was clutching a basket of white rose petals like a treasure.

Charlie appeared in the later photos, ten years old and gangly in his page boy outfit, his smile a little uncertain but genuine. He'd been so worried about whether or not he would be in the wedding, and Auden had gone the extra effort to ensure his place was there, beside his father, the whole time.

Auden scrolled through image after image, each one a testament to a happiness that felt almost fictional now. There she was, dancing with Cillian in the garden as fairy lights twinkled overhead. There was Catherine, passed out in Charlie's arms while he sat at one of the reception tables, both of them exhausted by the day's excitement.

They had looked so complete. So possible.

"Daddy!" Catherine shrieked in a fit of giggles.

Auden's vision blurred, and she realized she was crying. It wasn't some dramatic sob, but the quiet tears of someone who had lost something without quite noticing when it slipped away.

She wiped her eyes quickly and closed the photo folder, her heart hammering as if she'd been caught doing something shameful. The search bar appeared before she could stop herself from typing: "couples therapy near me."

The results filled her screen, and her finger clenched against her mouse as she scrolled without reason. Pages of smiling therapists and clinic websites promising to "rebuild your connection" and "save your marriage." She clicked on a random link and found herself reading about communication breakdowns, intimacy issues, and the warning signs of a relationship in crisis.

When partners begin to feel like roommates rather than lovers... she read. The gradual erosion of emotional intimacy often begins with small disconnections...

Auden pressed the back button. Then the next article, a blog post from thirteen years ago by a woman named Ethel.

My husband and I had been married for thirty-six years before I realized I needed help. Many couples wait too long to seek help, allowing resentment to build...

Mindlessly, Auden opened a new tab and wrote "signs of failing marriage," then immediately felt guilty for even typing the words onto the screen. The sound of her pressing the backspace button sheared through her eardrums. She tried again: "how to know if your marriage is over." She didn't like the sound of that either. The third time: "emotional distance in relationships."

Auden's phone buzzed with a text from Brigid, her finger hovering over ENTER.

[BRIGID]: Morrison wants a meeting next week, in-person. Sounded excited in the email, you must have been convincing on the phone.

She was about to press the button when the office door burst open. Catherine tumbled in, her hair still damp from the bath, wearing her favorite pajamas covered in unicorns from the night before.

"Mummy," she announced, her voice bright with mischief. "Daddy's being a monster."

The page was gone in an instant, her words disappearing into the ether, the search never answered.

Cillian appeared in the doorway a second later, his shirt soaked through with bathwater, his hair tousled from the apparent chase they were indulging in.

"I told her not to come in here while you were working," he huffed, slightly out of breath. "Catherine, come on, let's leave Mum alone."

"It's okay," Auden said quickly, wiping at her eyes with the pads of her fingers. She hoped her face wasn't as red as it felt. "I was just... taking a break anyway."

If Cillian noticed her tears, he didn't mention it. Rather, he gave her a crooked smile. "She's properly wild tonight. I think the chocolate milk went to her head."

Catherine giggled, jumping on the balls of her feet before dashing towards her mother. Auden let her climb into her lap, her body warm and smelling of lavender bubble bath. The lingering water in her hair dripped lazily in small droplets, landing onto the spandex of Auden's yoga pants. She watched as it spread, forming a dime-sized circle.

"Me and Daddy are going to watch a movie if you want to come too."

"Oh, sweets, I have work to finish," Auden murmured as she placed a kiss onto her damp forehead. Catherine's face fell so dramatically that she was forced to reconsider. "But I suppose I could take a little break."

"Really?" Catherine's eyes widened, the single dimple in her cheek popping as she smiled up at her. "Can we watch my favorite?"

"The mermaid one," Cillian translated for her. He leaned against the doorframe, his eyes glittering with genuine amusement rather than the strained patience she'd grown accustomed to seeing there. His shoulders were relaxed, no longer carrying the defensive tension from this morning.

It struck her how different he looked when he wasn't bracing for conflict – how much younger, more like the man she'd fallen in love with. His sleeves were rolled up to his elbows, revealing the lean muscles of his forearms that flexed unconsciously as he shifted his weight against the frame.

He looked so good when he was unguarded like this, when his features weren't tight with frustration or carefully arranged into that placating expression he wore when he was trying to manage her moods. The laugh lines around his eyes were visible again instead of the worry lines that had become his default, and his mouth was soft with the kind of easy smile that drove her mad.

Seeing him in this way – relaxed, present, genuinely engaged with their daughter's bedtime demands – she could almost remember why she'd said yes when he proposed to her after only being back together for two months. She could almost remember what it felt like when they were a team instead of two people constantly disappointing each other.

"Okay," Auden replied.

"You sure?" he asked, his voice gentle,

"Yeah, why not," she sighed, and meant it.

As they made their way to the living room, Catherine skipping ahead to set up the television, Cillian fell into step beside her. He touched her shoulder delicately, a ghost of a sensation grazing against her skin – the kind of gentle, tentative touch that almost made her flinch.

Auden turned to him, caught off guard by the unexpected intimacy.

"You okay?" he asked quietly, his voice dropping to that soft register he used to reserve for their most private moments. "You seemed... I don't know. Upset, when we walked in."

The concern in his eyes looked genuine. Her chest tightened with a mix between hope and resentment. So he had noticed. After all those months of feeling invisible, of wondering if he even saw her anymore, he had actually noticed. And for once, he was giving her an opening instead of deflecting or disappearing into his phone or finding some urgent task that needed his immediate attention.

This was her chance – maybe the first real one they'd had in months – to tell him about the photos, about the articles she'd been reading. About how everyday, the desire to leave grew intense, gripping her mind like a sickness she couldn't shake.

About how she'd been feeling like she was drowning while he seemed to float effortlessly above it all.

But even as the words formed on her tongue, another part of her bristled at the timing. Where had this attention been this morning when she was falling apart? Where had it been during the countless other moments when she'd needed him to see her, really see her, instead of the efficient manager of their household that she'd somehow become? Now, when she'd finally found her footing again, when she'd had a good day at work and felt like herself for a few precious hours, now he wanted to probe?

"Just tired," she said instead, her voice devoid of any emotion. "Work's been crazy."

Auden turned back before he could respond, fixing a smile on her face as she joined her daughter in the living room.

Their movie night didn't last long. Catherine had nestled herself between her mother and father, placing her head in the hollow of Auden's lap and her feet tucked into the side of Cillian's thighs. As the opening credits rolled, Ariel's voice flooding the room, Auden let her fingers run through her daughter's hair. Fifteen minutes later, Catherine's breathing had deepened into the steady rhythm of sleep.

"She's out," Cillian whispered, reaching for the remote to lower the volume.

"I'll carry her to bed," Auden murmured, starting to shift carefully so as not to wake her.

"No, let me," Cillian insisted, already standing. "It's your turn to take a bath. Go relax."

He stood over her, bending at the waist as lifted Catherine effortlessly. Her head fell naturally against his shoulder, completely unphased.

"I'll join you when I'm done," he murmured quietly, his voice barely above a whisper as he met her eyes over Catherine's sleeping head. The words were careful, tentative, as if he was testing the waters of a language they'd forgotten how to speak. "If you'd like."

He was asking for her permission. There had been a time when asking wasn't necessary. But now, his request was just a ghost of easier times when such offers had been the obvious assumption. When joining each other in the bath had been unquestionable rather than negotiated, when touching had been a given rather than an authorization on a contract.

Auden nodded once, not trusting her voice, not sure if the tightness in her throat was hope or grief or some complicated mixture of both

Back upstairs, she filled the deep clawfoot tub with water hot enough to pink her skin, adding the same lavender salts she used for Catherines baths. She watched as they dissolved into purple clouds beneath the surface.

She stripped off her clothes, kicking them to the side before she sank into the water with a sigh that seemed to come from her bones. The heat wrapped around her like an embrace, and for the first time all day, her shoulders began to relax.

The water lapped gently against the sides of the tub as she shifted, trying to find a position that would ease the knots in her neck. Auden closed her eyes and let her mind drift, trying not to think about anything at all. Not the Morrison estate opportunity. Not the presentation she still hadn't written. Not the way Cillian's voicemail greeting had triggered such a bitter response in her heart.

The bathroom door opened quietly, and she heard Cillian's footsteps on the tile floor.

"She went down like a dream," he said with a chuckle. "Barely stirred when I tucked her in."

Auden opened her eyes to find him standing by the sink, already pulling his shirt over his head. She let herself linger on his bare chest, taking in the dark hair that spread across his skin and noticing how it had grown in slightly thicker. She couldn't remember the last time she had really paid attention to the body that had once been as familiar to her as her own.

Something fluttered in her chest – it was part recognition, part longing, part the strange disorientation of seeing someone intimately known rendered suddenly foreign by time and distance. They still had sex, perhaps more frequently than many married couples, but it had become something else entirely. It was merely a vehicle for their own resentment. Quick, angry encounters in the dark where they used each other's bodies to fight battles they couldn't voice, where touching became another way of withholding, where pleasure was stolen rather than shared.

But she realized now, watching him in the soft hazing steam of the bathroom, that she hadn't appreciated the way he looked in years. Hadn't appreciated the curve of his shoulder blade or the way his hands moved with unconscious grace. Their intimacy had become so hollow, so mechanical, that she'd forgotten he was beautiful.

It was like looking at a photograph of a place you used to live, recognizing every detail while feeling like a stranger to it all the same.

He caught her watching him in the mirror and smiled, his cheeks turning a slight shade of pink. "Room for one more?"

She shifted forward in the tub, making space behind her. The water displaced as he slipped in, his longer legs bracketing hers, his chest cushioned against her back. His arms came around her waist.

"This is nice," he whispered against her hair, and she felt his chest rise as he inhaled her scent.

She leaned back against him, letting his solid presence anchor her. "Mmm."

His hands moved in slow circles on her stomach, over the pearl etchings of her pregnancy marks, and she closed her eyes again, trying to sink into the moment. This was what she missed – not just the physicality of him, but this quiet companionship, the way they used to be able to exist together without needing to fill every silence with words.

Cillian lifted an arm, brushing her hair away from her shoulder before he pressed a kiss to the side of her neck, then another, his lips warm against her wet skin. The gesture was tender, unhurried, and she felt her body begin to respond despite her emotional exhaustion.

"I missed you today," he said quietly, his breath tickling her ear.

"You saw me this morning," she replied, but there was no edge to it. In the warm cocoon of the bath, surrounded by his arms, the morning's frustrations felt distant.

"That's not what I mean."

His lips traced a path from her ear to her shoulder, and she shivered despite the hot water. His hands moved higher, skimming over her ribs, over her breasts, and she felt herself melting into his touch. This was familiar territory, safe ground they could both navigate.

But as his kisses became more insistent, as his hands began to map her body with increasing urgency, something strange happened. Her left hand, which had been resting on the edge of the tub, began to tremble.

At first, she thought it was just the heat of the water, or perhaps the way she was gripping the porcelain. But as Cillian's mouth found the sensitive spot where her neck met her shoulder, the trembling intensified. Her fingers shook against the tub's edge, small movements that seemed to echo through her entire arm.

She tried to still the tremor, pressing her palm flat against the porcelain, but it only seemed to make it worse. The shaking was visible now, unmistakable, and she felt a flutter of panic in her chest.

"Auden?" Cillian's voice was suddenly concerned. His hands stilled on her body, and she realized he'd noticed. "What's wrong with your hand?"

"Nothing," she replied too quickly, pulling her hand away from the tub and tucking it against her stomach beneath the water. "It's nothing."

But he'd seen it. She could feel his body tense behind her, his attention shifting from desire to worry in an instant.

"That didn't look like nothing," he said. "Are you okay?"

The tremor was spreading now, a fine shaking that seemed to originate somewhere deep in her nervous system. She pressed both hands against her stomach, trying to hide the movement, but she could feel Cillian's eyes on them.

"I'm fine," she insisted, but her voice came out strained. "Like I said, I'm tired. Too much coffee today."

It was a lie, and they both knew it. He could always – always see right through any lie she threw his way.

"Aud," His voice was soft, careful. "Talk to me."

The tears came silently, sliding down her cheeks and dropping into the bathwater. Her mind was reeling, trying to process what was happening. His touch – Cillian's touch, the man she'd promised to love forever – had triggered some revulsion in her body. A warning. A rejection. As if her nervous system was finally admitting what her mind had been trying to deny: that he was the source of her problems.

The realization slapped her hard across the face. Her body knew. Even when her heart was still trying to protect him, to make excuses, to convince herself they could work through this – her body knew that staying was killing her slowly.

And the guilt of that knowledge was crushing. Here was this good man, this father to her daughter, this person who loved her enough to slip into a bathtub and hold her when she was falling apart, and her traitorous body was telling her to run. The same thought from this morning – that brief, terrible fantasy of just walking away – crashed over her again, but stronger now, more insistent.

She jerked away from him, sliding as far away as she could. Water splashed over the edge, falling to the ground and trickling to their clothes in a pile on the floor. Auden pressed her shaking hands to her face, trying to stop the tears, but they kept coming. Silent sobs that caught painfully in her throat as she tried to reconcile the love she still felt for him with this new, terrifying awareness that loving him was also destroying her.

"I'm sorry," she whispered against her palms, the words muffled and broken.

"Hey, hey," She felt Cillian's arms wrap around her again, and there was no more room left for her to move away. Auden was forced into submission as his voice, gentle with concern, came again. "You don't need to apologize for this morning. I know I made everything harder. I should have asked before I – "

"No," she said, but it came out as barely a breath.

He didn't understand. He thought she was apologizing for snapping at him about making her late, for making a scene, for being ungrateful for his help. But she wasn't apologizing for that at all.

She was apologizing for wanting to leave him. For the thought that kept getting stronger instead of weaker. For the way her body had just told her, in the most primitive language possible, that the man holding her was the thing she needed to escape from to survive.

"I'm sorry," she rattled again.

"Hey, it's okay," he reassured. "It's all okay."

But it wasn't, because really, she was apologizing for the part of her that was already planning on how to do it.