Chapter Text
“I won’t do it again” Walter says, the first time.
Barbara nods. It’s still a shock. There’s a red spot on her cheek from where he slapped her and a little pain, but it’s not bad. Not really. They were having an argument. It got a little heated. That was all.
“I just want to protect you,” he says. “I know you can look after yourself, but there’s some things out there that are beyond your comprehension.”
She wonders why he doesn’t explain them, then. But, she supposes, it’s like asking him to not make stories out of his past deeds—transgressions—to entertain dinner guests. Some things are just not in his skill set.
Barbara can forgive that, yes?
Most days they get along just wonderfully anyway. All sunshine and clear skies. He offers her compliments for almost everything she does. After each and every work story, he praises her good heart or her quick decisive mind. In the beginning she enjoys it. It’s been years since anyone has made her feel, feel flattered like this. Her heart leaps for joy that someone she finds as attractive as Walt views her this way.
But then a small something will come along. A minor situation, like a coworker giving her a deserved critique, and he’ll immediately jump to her defense. State how perfect she is (compared to him). At first she thinks he’s joking, but then she’ll realize he isn’t.
That night, his kisses seem a little less sweet.
It’s then that she begins to realize just what she means to him.
“For, without you, there is no world.”
He would never (intentionally) hurt her, but he’d let the world burn for her.
She sees the results. Feels them. He thinks she doesn’t know, but she’s a ER doctor. The first time one limped into the emergency room, she didn’t believe it. But then, the story repeats. Again and again.
Anyone who insults her, who looks at her the wrong way, ends up getting hurt. In pain.
People start getting extremely careful around her. They don’t know. Not really. But they do.
One by one her friends leave. She’s fun, they say, but she comes with a massive shadow.
Things happen around her.
When Barbara finally confronts Walter about it, he gets angry. She flinches. That makes his eyes go wide. He takes her in his arms and soothes.
“There are some things that are hard for me,” Walt whispers. “After so many centuries of the same, change is difficult. But I want to. More than anything. For you, I want to.”
It’s a sentiment everyone she talks to now (the ones who didn’t leave; Nana, the Nunezes) finds deeply romantic. A man is willing to alter himself, his very being, for her. She should be flattered.
She says she is, but sometimes she’s not.
Change is good. A man recognizing past toxic behaviors and changing his ways is good. She does like that part.
Yet, they always seem to find themselves back at the start, where she has a red mark on her cheek and unshed tears.
She learned not to cry. That only makes him want to comfort her, to soothe and smooth things over.
Like they never happened at all.
Like something inside doesn’t still hurt.
He never actually apologizes, Barbara realizes. His explanations are golden, air-tight. But, for all he rationalizes, he never actually states the words, “I am sorry.”
At first, she brushes it off. He’ll learn, in time. But the more time goes on, the more she wonders. There are so many instances that go by where he could have learned. She brings it up each time. She hopes.
Please, please recognize just how much you’ve hurt me.
He responds by making clever quip after clever quip and changing the subject.
That’s a change he excels at.
She’s learns to stop stating her discomfort when he does. He just gets mad then.
“Barbara, you have to understand, that this is hard for me. I can’t just change overnight after centuries.”
“It’s been three years, Walt. I just want—”
“I will do better, I promise.” He puts his hands on her shoulders. Turns her head to face him when she looks away. “I promise. I love you.”
She’s the center of his world. Something everyone finds deeply moving and romantic. She did too, at some point that she now can’t place the exact date of. That has to count for something, yes?
The old habits, the ones she adopted when James was still around, come back easily.
Barbara breaks down sobbing when she realizes she wished Walter never come back through that door.
He finds her, comforts her, whispers she’ll never disappoint him.
She does.
He’s not the jealous type. He’s protective. She stays out later than she expects getting drinks with old friends—a few who don’t know—to catch up. It feels good—freeing—that she doesn’t have to monitor what they (what she) says.
He comes after her and reprimands her for making him worry. She thinks he’s teasing. He’s not, but she’s too drunk to notice the difference.
The next day he gives her a lecture. The next time he drives her and picks her up.
She begins to walk on eggshells.
No one notices that for his loudness, she falls more and more silent. Not that there’s many left to notice.
She has to be the center of his world. For, without her, what’s to stop him from destroying it? Who would he become if not for her? If she fails to be what he wants her to be? What even is that?
This is her job. Her role. Support him until he changes (whenever—if ever—that happens).
Changes into what? she wonders but doesn’t say, because she doesn’t want to. If she has hope that things will be good in the future, everything now will be worth it.
When he proposes, he puts the binding spell down between them. He wants to be connected to her again.
She panics.
He doesn’t understand why it bothers her. That’s in the past, he apologized (more or less), they’ve moved on, yes?
She tries to explain trauma to him. He scoffs.
“How can someone as wonderful as you be weighed down by such things, Barbara?”
The eggshells crack.