AN: big thank you and love to girldirt for helping me with this one. don't know what i'd do without you <3

— • —

THE WAITING room of Dr. Mauve Bergman's practice was unassuming. 

Her practice was in the central business district, nestled above a dessert shop that doted an overwhelming arrangement of giant cupcakes in the windowsill. At first glance, there was no indication that the second floor was even occupied. The upper windows that looked down onto the street below had been tinted over, obscuring wandering eyes to what was held within. There was no front door, no sign – nothing. Just a simple brick building that seemed to only offer customary sweets.

It was only when Auden located a tiny, back door labeled M. Bergman, that she understood what was going on. It was meant to be anonymous.

She took the back stairwell to the waiting room and was met with cream walls adorned with abstract watercolors, succulents arranged on a glass coffee table, soft instrumental music from hidden speakers. The warm lighting should have been soothing but only made her more aware of the growing urge to throw up.

She checked her watch as she found a seat: 1:50 PM. Her palms were damp against the leather armrests as she cataloged every detail to avoid thinking about what was coming. She noted how the late afternoon light filtered through a skylight above. She smelled the subtle scent of eucalyptus. She heard the soft flutter of pages turning as the receptionist read a novel at her desk.

The door Auden had come through chimed, followed by the rapid steps of shoes climbing steps. Auden's entire body tensed before she looked up to see Cillian reach the top of the stairs, running a hand through his hair and slightly out of breath. The exertion of practically barreling up here had caused his cheeks to flush, but he looked better than when she'd last seen him. The dark circles had faded slightly, he'd shaved, his clothes were pressed. But there was still something empty about his posture that made her want to look away.

Their eyes met. And just like he had in the park, Cillian catalogued her appearance – the way her hair was pulled back today, away from her bare face. How she was wearing a sweatshirt and leggings, and not something more suitable that suggested she had come from work. This time, it seemed, their roles were somehow reversed.

"Hello," he greeted quietly, his Irish accent softening the word.

"Hi." Her voice came out smaller than intended.

Cillian took the chair across from her, leaving the entire coffee table between them. He took the time to glance around the room – anything to avoid looking at her – and Auden found herself following his lead. She would do anything, really, to make this go smoothly.

He thrummed his fingers against his right thigh. Auden fiddled her wedding band, still snug on her ring finger. Cillian coughed once, and Auden sniffled in response.

"Auden? Cillian?" Dr. Bergman emerged from her office, her frame shorter than her online photos suggested – maybe five-four, with graying brown hair falling in loose waves to her shoulders. She wore a burgundy cardigan over dark jeans, her face stoic yet calming. "I'm Dr. Bergman. Please, come in."

Her office was surprisingly spacious, with built-in bookshelves lining two walls and a single green couch positioned across from her desk. Natural light poured through tall windows, and there were more plants here — a fiddle leaf fig in one corner, trailing pothos on floating shelves. The overall effect was more like a cozy living room than an irrefutable space.

Auden and Cillian settled on opposite ends of the couch. She tucked herself into the far corner, knees angled away from him, while he sat rigid, forearms resting on his thighs as if ready to bolt. Dr. Bergman pulled her chair from behind the desk to face them, a yellow legal pad balanced on her knee.

"Thank you both for coming," she began, her voice almost a whisper. Auden found her ears straining to hear her properly. "Today is about getting to know you both, understanding what brought you here. There's no pressure to dive into anything too heavy right away."

She smiled at them both, then made a note. Cillian tracked the movement of her pen, his fingers tapping an almost imperceptible rhythm against his knee.

"Before we start though, I want to address something that might be on your minds, given the high-profile nature of this relationship." She looked up from her notepad then, "I work with several high-profile individuals, and everything discussed here is completely confidential. I'm bound by strict ethics, and I've never had a breach in my twenty years of practice."

Cillian visibly straightened, shoulders pulling back into the posture he adopted when the interview cameras were rolling. It was controlled, measured even, but his hands continued to betray him, fingers stilling.

"What about... I mean, if someone were to somehow..." He trailed off, frustrated with his inability to articulate his fears. Auden had seen this before – moments when his usual eloquence abandoned him, when constant scrutiny made even simple conversations feel like minefields.

"Are you concerned about information being leaked to the press?" Dr. Bergman's tone was matter of fact, without judgment.

"Yes."

Dr. Bergman leaned forward, posture open and reassuring. "I understand completely. All sessions are conducted without recording devices, I keep minimal notes, and those I do keep are secured both physically and digitally. My staff signs additional confidentiality agreements. Your privacy is paramount to me, and frankly, to the success of any therapeutic work we might do together."

Cillian blinked once, letting a beat pass before he nodded curtly. Auden recognized it instantly – he was responding the way he normally did when forcing himself to trust someone he wasn't sure he should.

"Why don't we start simple?" Dr. Bergman took a breath, "How long have you two been married?"

Auden stole another glance at her husband. Cillian's eyes were now fixed on the geometric pattern of the rug beneath their feet. She could practically see him calculating whether this was a test question and whether their answer would somehow be used against them later.

Her eyes moved back to Dr. Bergman, focusing on the empty area between her shoulder and the bookshelves beyond.

"Um, seven years," Auden finally answered, "I think."

Dr. Bergman's pen scratched against paper, unnaturally loud. "And Cillian mentioned on the phone that you both have a child together, yes?"

"Catherine. She's six." Auden's voice softened at her daughter's name – the first genuine emotion she'd shown since walking in.

"And your current living situation?"

Auden twisted in her seat, sweat budding at the base of her spine. In her lap, she felt her fingers twitch once, then twice, then a third time. She should've taken her meds. "We-We're separated."

Their therapist nodded, hair falling over her shoulder. She tucked it back behind her ear, showcasing a set of waterfall earrings. "How is Catherine handling things?"

The sound of Cillian's voice made Auden's head turn, just slightly, towards the noise. "She's managing." His words came out clipped, professional. "Kittie's been staying with me since Auden left."

"And how long has this current arrangement been in place?"

Auden felt her chest tighten, knowing they'd arrived at the moment she'd been dreading. "Technically, three weeks. But we only committed to it a couple days ago."

"I see." Dr. Bergman's expression remained neutral, but her pen stilled. Auden's answer hadn't made sense, and she knew it. "Can you tell me what led to that decision? Who initiated the separation?"

Her fingers buzzed, and she folded them into her lap, squeezing until the skin on her knuckles ached in protest. She could feel Cillian's eyes burning into the side of her face, waiting. He wanted Auden to be the one to admit it.

"I did," she whispered.

She couldn't bring herself to look at him, but she caught the way Cillian's breathing changed beside her — not quite a sigh, but a subtle shift in demeanor that symbolized he was somehow a few points ahead of her, winning some game she hadn't realized she was a part of. Vindication that Auden was the problem, not him.

"That must have been difficult, Auden," Dr. Bergman offered. "Can you share what was weighing on your mind?"

"I felt like I was disappearing," she answered, her voice catching. She coughed, clearing the nonexistent lump in her throat. "When Cillian was away working, I was drowning. I was managing Catherine alone, running the gallery, trying to hold everything together. But then when he'd come home, I'd find myself wanting space, wanting to be alone, which made no sense because I'd spend weeks just..."

Missing him. Auden's eyes drifted away, attention fixing on the harsh angles of Dr. Bergman's bookshelves. Strange how unorganized they suddenly seemed in such a put-together space. The spines weren't aligned properly, some jutting out further than others, creating an uneven pattern that felt almost thoughtful but —

"Auden?"

She blinked, her gaze snapping back to find Dr. Bergman's expectant face. Heat crept up her neck.

"Sorry," she murmured. "It was just this horrible paradox. I needed him, but I also felt like I needed to remember who I was outside of being his wife and Catherine's mother. I didn't feel like we were partners anymore. We were just... managing separate lives under the same roof."

Cillian's scoffed lightly. "So, you decided to manage separately."

The comment stung because it wasn't wrong. "I thought maybe space would help us figure out what we actually wanted instead of just going through the motions."

Dr. Bergman gave her an understanding smile. "How did you communicate this decision to Cillian?"

Shame. All Auden could feel was terrible, terrible shame.

"She didn't," Cillian answered for her, his voice flat. "She packed a bag, told me she had a flight to Chicago, and then just disappeared."

"I didn't disappear," Auden replied. "I'm sitting right here."

"You missed your flight," Cillian said, his voice tight with barely restrained frustration. "Which I only found out after your mother called me to explain how she'd talked you out of going to Chicago but that you still weren't coming home." His hands clenched in his lap, knuckles going white. "Meanwhile, I'm with Catherine, who's asking where her mother went, and I have no fucking idea what to say to a six-year-old."

The profanity felt like a slap against the calmness of the room. Dr. Bergman didn't react, but Auden flinched. "I just went around Ireland. I needed —"

"Two weeks," Cillian interrupted, his voice rising as he turned fully toward Dr. Bergman, as if Auden had ceased to exist. "Almost two weeks without a single word. Emma – Auden's mother – had to fly from the States to help with Catherine because nobody knew if she was even coming back." His jaw worked furiously. "Do you know what it's like to tell your child that their mother just... left? That you don't know when she's coming home?"

The guilt bellowed, clenching at her heart. Her nail dug into her skin, soft indents of crescent moons in pale flesh. "I was falling apart. I couldn't think straight. I needed to get away from everything."

Cillian let out a harsh laugh, shaking his head violently. "From us, you mean." When he finally looked at her, his eyes were blazing. "From your husband and your daughter. Because that's what adults do when things get difficult, right? They just disappear."

Dr. Bergman held up a hand, her voice dropping to that practiced therapeutic cadence designed to defuse tension. "I can hear that you both have very different perspectives on what was happening before the separation. That's quite common." She waited, letting the silence settle between them like a reset button. "But for right now, I'd like us to step back from that pain for a moment. Let's try centering ourselves."

She gestured softly with her hands, palms facing down. "Take a breath with me. Sometimes when we're in the middle of hurt, we forget there was a time before it."

Auden felt her shoulders drop slightly as she inhaled, the oxygen seeming to reach places in her chest that had been pulled taut. Cillian, however, remained on edge, his eyes faintly rolling.

"Better," Dr. Bergman reassured. "How about we go back to the beginning, to the part of your relationship that you both can agree on. Tell me how you met."

She looked away before their eyes could meet, keeping her gaze fixed on her lap. She could sense him calculating again, but differently now – wondering what version of their story she would tell, hoping maybe she'd remember it the way he did, or maybe he was wondering if she would twist that somehow too.

"We officially met while I was working at the gallery I own now. But I didn't own it then. I was just a curator." She swallowed hard, aware of how Cillian had shifted, his legs angled toward her now, but this time it felt less like he was listening for faults and more like he was listening for something else. Something he'd lost. "My boss knew Cillian through his ex-wife, who used to help run it."

Dr. Bergman scribbled, then looked up at Cillian. "So, this is your second marriage, Cillian?"

He sighed, a sound from somewhere deep in his chest, and shifted again, his legs returning to their original place. His knee bounced once before he caught himself. "Yes."

"And when you met Auden, how long had you been divorced?"

"Technically," Cillian replied carefully, holding up a single finger, "my divorce hadn't been finalized. But my first wife and I had been separated for a while."

He glanced at her sideways, gauging her reaction to his phrasing. He'd said "technically" on purpose, as if legal paperwork could soften what had actually happened.

"What was your impression of the situation when you met?" Dr. Bergman asked Auden.

"I knew he was separated, but..." She paused, flicking her eyes at Cillian. He raised his eyebrows expectantly. "I was young. I thought the hard part between them was already over."

Cillian's laughed in disbelief. "You knew the timeline."

"I knew what you told me," Auden reminded. "Which wasn't the whole truth."

"What would you have considered the whole truth?" Dr. Bergman pressed, her eyebrows scrunching attentively.

The question made her want to laugh – they would be here all night if she answered that one with the full truth. So, she settled on the version that had made their history more digestible.

"That his wife was extremely resistant to their separation while he was pursuing someone else."

Silence settled over them, and she felt her toes wiggle in her shoes, begging to release the energy building inside.

"Cillian, how do you remember that time?"

"We were separated," he said again, this time more firmly, though his voice carried a defensive edge. "Jenni and I both knew the marriage was over. Before I met Auden, the paperwork was already in motion."

"But she didn't know about Auden?"

His pause was telling. "Not at first, no."

"How old were you both at that time?"

"I was twenty-eight," Auden answered. "Cillian was forty-six."

Cillian ran his fingers over his bottom lip, crossing one leg loosely over the other. She knew he hated when people did the math, hated the eyebrows that would rise, the assumptions that would flicker across faces.

"What drew you to each other initially?"

Auden felt her face scrunch at this question. How could she explain what it felt like to be truly seen for the first time? To have someone look past the wary facade she'd built and still choose to stay?

"He was unlike anyone I'd ever met," she settled on. "Not because of what he did for a living — I honestly didn't care about that part."

Beside her, Cillian lifted himself off the cushion for a moment, re-adjusting his pants. The couch creaked softly as he sat back down, but this time he was facing her, nestled into the corner with his torso angled towards her knees and an arm slung over the back of the couch. The tips of his fingers stopped just above her left shoulder.

"I'd been alone for a long time," she continued, the truth feeling raw in her throat, no matter how much time had passed. "My father had just died. I had moved across the world to escape it, and I was... I was angry about it. About everything. About how absent he'd been when he was alive, about the fact that I was grieving someone who'd never really been there for me."

Dr. Bergman hummed in response, nodding to indicate she was still listening.

"I had this terrible temper. I was anxious all the time, snappy with people, just broken in ways I didn't know how to fix. And Cillian..." She let her eyes slide toward him. He was already looking at her. "He saw all of that. The mess of me. And he didn't run from it at first."

Cillian's face had softened, hand sliding from the top of the couch cushion as if he were going to reach out to her. But she saw the hesitation in his eyes, caught the way he stopped himself.

"And Cillian, what attracted you to Auden?"

"She was..." He paused, attention turning to Dr. Bergman, tone dropping into something more genuine. "She was real. Completely, devastatingly real. There was no performance with her, no presentation. She'd get furious about things that mattered, cry over things that broke her heart. She was – still is – totally different than my first wife."

And there it was again – though Auden kept her face carefully neutral. Less real. Less alive. Connor's voice from the night before crashed into Cillian's words, making her sick all over again. Two different men, years apart, but the same stupid fascination.

She could feel Dr. Bergman's eyes on her, attuned to the micro-expressions that might betray inner turmoil. But Auden had learned long ago how to sit still while the world shifted beneath her. How to nod thoughtfully while her mind reeled.

"She never tried to be anything other than exactly who she was," Cillian continued, warming to his theme. "Even when it would have been easier to pretend. Even when it made things more complicated."

Auden's breathing remained steady, her posture unchanged. But inside, something was cracking apart.

"That sounds like something you valued deeply," Dr. Bergman said to Cillian, her voice tender but probing. "Can you tell me more about what 'real' meant to you in that context?"

Auden watched Cillian's face as he searched for the words. Waiting to hear how he would describe the very quality that now felt like a cage she'd built around herself, bar by bar, year by year, without ever realizing she was the architect of her own confinement.

"She challenged me without meaning to," Cillian explained. "Not about work or success –  she challenged me to be honest about my own life. To recognize the places that felt damaged."

Auden broke then, smoothing the wrinkle between her eyebrows, trying to shield how his words hit her. Her fingers betrayed her — they trembled, brushing against her lashes, tickling her skin.

"If I'm being completely honest," Auden found herself saying, "I let myself jump into his attention as a distraction. Maybe because I was so young. But he'll be the first to admit that was the case."

But Cillian didn't respond.

"Age gaps can present unique challenges, particularly when spanning different life stages," Dr. Bergman noted. "Do you both feel that dynamic has affected your marriage?"

"No," Cillian answered immediately, voice sharp with frustration that seemed to surprise him. His shoulders went rigid, defensive. "Age has never been a factor. Like I said, we connected on a deeper level."

They shared a look then, Cillian silently willing her to agree, to present the united front they'd always maintained in public. His knee had started bouncing again, barely noticeable but it was there.

"Auden? What are your thoughts on Cillian's perspective?"

She didn't answer right away – her first mistake. Auden could feel Cillian's tension radiating like heat. She knew whatever she said next would matter, would set the tone for everything that followed. But therapy was about honesty, and if she was going to do this, she would do it right.

"I think it affected us more than we wanted to admit," she replied, forcing herself to meet Dr. Bergman's eyes. "When we met, I thought I was mature enough at twenty-eight to be ready for the life Cillian was offering. But we learned pretty quickly that I wasn't."

Cillian laughed bitterly, sharp in the quiet room. His hand moved to his forehead, fingers pressing against his temples.

"What kind of life was he offering?"

Auden twisted, uncrossing and re-crossing her legs. "Everything moved so fast. Within six months, I went from being unknown to this woman all over the internet. People knew who I was because of who I was with. His world became my world, and I didn't really have a choice. I still don't."

"You had choices," Cillian interjected.

"Did I? When photographers started following me to work, when Charles started treating me differently because I was dating you, when your ex-wife tried slandering me across every platform?" She turned to look at him directly. "Those weren't choices. Those were consequences I had to live with."

"Cillian, what comes up for you when you hear Auden describe feeling like she had no choice?"

He was quiet, jaw working this question like a tough steak that was hard to chew. "I wanted to protect her. I thought I could shield her from the worst of it if she just—"

Auden couldn't help herself. "If I just what?"

"If you let me handle it. If you trusted me enough to help you manage those situations." Cillian sighed, shaking his head. "But you fought me on everything. You wouldn't let me help. You never have."

"Help?" Auden let out a snort. "You mean control. You wanted me to smile and nod and let you make decisions about my life because you knew better."

"Because I do know better. I've been handling this world – this marriage –just as much as you, but you —" He stopped himself.

"I what, Cillian? I'm too stupid? Too unstable?"

Dr. Bergman intervened gently. "Cillian, when Auden describes struggling with external pressures, your immediate response seems to be wanting to fix or manage the situation for her. Can you sit with that observation?"

Cillian lifted his hands, gesturing Auden's way, as if her presence was enough explanation. "She was falling apart. Someone had to –"

"There it is," Auden almost smiled, her realization solidifying into truth by his confession. "You needed me to be falling apart so you could put me back together. But God forbid I actually fell apart because of something you did."

The accusation hung like fog. No matter how hard to you waved it away, it settled there anyway. Cillian's face went pale, then flushed red. "No."

Auden's wedding ring caught the light as she turned it. "You loved rescuing me from my anxiety, from my grief, from my anger at the world. You were so patient, so understanding. But the moment I started being angry at you, the moment my pain was connected to your choices, you disappeared. You stepped back when I needed you most. Because my pain was inconvenient. Because it was easier to withdraw than acknowledge that your world – the world you brought me into without asking – was destroying me."

Dr. Bergman's features shifted, her mouth pressing into a line of concentration. "Auden, you've identified something important about the dynamic between you two. But I'm curious - when you say Cillian needed you to be falling apart so he could rescue you, are you certain that's the complete picture?"

Auden's ring-turning paused. "What do you mean?"

"Sometimes we can be so focused on how our partner failed us that we lose sight of our own role in creating these patterns," she explained, her hands gesturing as she talked, with her pen still poised delicately between her index finger and thumb. "You've described Cillian as someone who stepped in to manage your struggles. But did you ever communicate that you didn't want or need that kind of help? Did you ever ask him to simply witness your pain without trying to fix it?"

The question landed like a pin finding the exact spot where a balloon was most vulnerable. Auden felt her certainty waver slightly.

Dr. Bergman continued, "It's possible that both things are true - that Cillian found identity in being your rescuer, and that you found safety in being rescued. Until the rescue became the very thing you needed saving from."

Auden bit down gently on the inside of her cheek, a dull pain filled her mouth and with it came the unwelcome memory of being seven years old, standing in the doorway of the living room while her father stared at nothing. She'd wanted him to notice her scraped knee, her bad dream, her loneliness. She'd wanted him to scoop her up and tell her everything would be okay. But he'd been drowning in his own grief for as long as she could remember him, unreachable when memories of her mother gripped him and forced him back behind his wall of silence.

So yes, maybe she had learned to find safety in being rescued. Maybe she had needed Cillian to be strong because she'd spent her entire childhood being the strong one, taking care of a father who could barely take care of himself. Maybe the little girl who'd made her own dinners and folded her own laundry and pretended she wasn't afraid walking home from school because her father couldn't pick her up had finally, finally found someone willing to carry her. Until carrying her became more important to him than actually seeing her.

It was a small grace, the relief that this response gave her. But even that was a luxury she wasn't allowed to find comfort in. Because moments later, Dr. Bergman shifted her attention. "Cillian, what do you see when you look at Auden in this moment?"

Cillian cleared his throat, eyes blinking as if he were suddenly awake. When he spoke, his voice was totally flat: "To be honest, right now, I don't feel anything at all when I look at Auden."

Auden's breath caught, and she watched as Cillian seemed to realize what he'd just said – not just to her, but to himself. His eyes widened slightly, as if he'd discovered something about himself that he hadn't known was there. The absence of feeling where love used to live.

"Then why did – why did you schedule the appointment?" Her voice came out more accusatory than she meant, desperation bleeding through her attempted composure.

"Because..." Cillian was no longer looking at Auden. His attention had turned inward, and she could see him processing this new understanding of himself with something approaching horror. "Because you asked me to."

The simplicity of it was devastating. He was here out of habit, out of obligation. Not because he wanted to save them, but because he didn't know how to say no to her requests anymore. The realization was written across his face. He was already gone, had been gone, and was only just now noticing.

"But I don't want you here because you feel obligated," Auden said, her voice breaking. She could feel herself losing him in real time, could see the exact moment he understood that whatever had once bound them together had already snapped. "I want you to want to do this. I want you to want to save our marriage because it matters to you, not just because I'm asking you to."

This is how I lose him, she thought, panic rising in her chest. Not through the slapping, not through the fighting – but through this terrible honesty. Through him finally seeing that he's already let go.

Cillian sat frozen, his mouth slightly open as if he'd been about to speak but forgotten how. His hands had gone completely still. For a moment he looked younger somehow, vulnerable in a way that made Auden want to reach for him even as she felt him slipping away completely.

But she could see it happening – the way he was processing this revelation, this new knowledge about the emptiness where his feelings used to be. His face was beginning to smooth back into that careful blankness, but now she understood it wasn't protection. It was genuine absence.

Dr. Bergman cleared her throat gently, breaking the spell. "I think we've covered a lot of ground for today. Based on what I'm hearing, I'd recommend we meet minimum twice a week, at least initially. There's clearly a lot to unpack here."

She twisted in her chair, dropping her notepad onto her desk. "I really encourage both of you to consider continuing with these sessions, though I understand this process can feel overwhelming."

She stood, signaling the end of the session. Both Auden and Cillian rose awkwardly, the transition from such raw revelation back to polite formalities feeling surreal. Cillian's movements were automatic, but there was something different now – not just distance, but a kind of bewilderment, as if he was as surprised by his own numbness as she was.

"Thank you," Auden managed. "We'll... we'll talk about it."

Cillian said nothing. He was already moving toward the door and Auden watched him leave and felt the full weight of what had just happened crash over her. She had slapped him, yes. But somehow, in trying to save them, she had forced him to realize he no longer wanted to be saved.

She lingered, suddenly feeling drained. The adrenaline that had carried her through the confrontation was ebbing, leaving her muffled and exhausted. "Is it normal for it to feel this difficult?"

Dr. Bergman's smile was kind but realistic. "The first session often brings up emotions that have been buried. It's a good sign that you're willing to engage with the process, even if it doesn't feel good right now."

Auden nodded, though she wasn't sure Cillian's storming out qualified as engaging. She made her way to the front desk, scheduled their next two appointments -- wondering if Cillian would actually show up – and took the steps back downstairs.

The parking lot felt too bright, too unforgiving after what just transpired. She could see Cillian in the distance, already at his car, shoulders hunched as he fumbled with his keys. Even from here, she could read the strain in his body, could see the way his hands shook as he tried to unlock the door. He was trying desperately to not break down here, in public.

Part of her wanted to run to him, to smooth over what had just happened, to kiss his pain away, to remind him that she could still be a source of comfort, rather than pain.

But Auden forced herself to turn away slowly, to let him have this moment of defenselessness without trying to fix it.