Work Text:
He had had a dream when he was younger, as he went into university and stopped looking at girls to just have a good time. As his future shaped he wanted something more serious, he dreamed of that great love. Of having someone at his side as they worked hard for the career they longed for, of graduating alongside the girl he knew he was gonna marry. Of marrying the girl of his dreams and one day start a family.
And in his second year he thought he found her.
She was perfect.
Beautiful and smart and funny. Witty and quick and sharp.
She took life easier than he did, all his friends showed relief upon being introduced to her as his girlfriend, she would keep him from working himself sick again. Medicine was hard and he was a perfectionist, he took everything a little more difficult still. She saw it all more relaxed, she didn't need perfect grades to be happy, she loved life and fun and happiness.
In retrospect, it might have been his first warning sign.
--
They got married even before they graduated, young as they had been it had looked like a romantic thing, to be connected even before this second part of their lives started. They graduated not a year later, him with an honor's degree, her just so passing through but they were both happy. They moved into the house he had inherited from his parents, with them finally moving into the smaller apartment they had been wanting ever since their children had all grown up.
He started up in the hospital in the next city, loved the thrill between work in the big city and a home life in the very village he had grown up in. His ears were already hearing the tipper tapper of little feet on those old floors. His love wanted to figure out life still, wanted to weigh her options and he let her because he understood that her priorities had always been different. He lived after a plan, she lived in the moment and they still worked.
Or at least he had thought so.
She got pregnant two days after his residency had started, giving birth to a strapping boy who looked so much like him, another followed not even two years later. He rose in his career and she found her calling as well next to raising their boys, they were so happy.
--
For nearly a decade they lived a perfect life, good careers and boys who were little troublemakers but who were also smart and making him proud every single day of his life. And she surprised him with the news that she was pregnant again, in his excitement and his dreams of maybe a little girl to complete their little family, he didn't see how behind her beaming facade something began to form in her.
It was a difficult pregnancy, they nearly lost their baby girl twice and his love had to spent the last four months on strict hospital bedrest and even then their little princess was born too early. So small and frail and he loved every piece of her, as did their boys, so careful and gentle with their little sister when she was finally allowed home. Everyone doted on the new baby.
Everyone but her.
He told himself it was because everything had been so difficult, that it had taken a toll on her and she needed some time to recover.
Only... it didn't.
Their daughter hadn't even been allowed home when she told him she was going back to work and they were going to either get a nanny or an au-pair to take care of the kids. He understood it with the boys because at ten and eight, they were already able to take care of most things themselves on a daily basis, neither of them needed someone to feed them.
But their baby girl?
A stranger rocking her to sleep? A stranger soothing her when she was scared?
He took time off from work, had to fight for it but there was no way that he was going to let a stranger take care of his baby girl in the most important starting months of her life.
It was the first real disagreement they had, the first time they went into bed truly angry with each other and two months later as he rocked his daughter to sleep again in the night, looking over into the master bedroom he caught himself thinking 'I don't know you anymore.'
--
"Who is the prettiest birthday girl of them all?"
He smiled as he heard his oldest's voice sing-songing in the kitchen as he made his way downstairs on the morning of his daughter's second birthday.
"Say me, princess, you gotta say me!" His younger son joined the cheering and as he stopped in the doorway, watching his sons kneeling on their chairs to lean towards their baby sister who sat in her highchair, mighty unimpressed by their prodding as she usually was. His princess grinned though when she caught sight of him, grinning that nearly full set of all whites at him.
"Papa!"
"Pretty sure Papa is not our birthday girl, sis," his oldest frowned in confusion, unaware of his presence still. "Papa's birthday is in January, stupid." His daughter pouted and looked from him back to her oldest brother, someone had dressed her in her frilliest dress.
"Not stupid," she argued and wrenched her pudgy little hand in his direction, giving him away, "Papa!" His sons looked over and then scrambled to properly sit down.
"Morning, boys," he laughed and finally stepped into the room, walking over to the special little girl of today, "and good morning to you, too, princess." He picked her up and kissed the top of her head before hugging her close, smiling over her returning the gesture as good as she could. "Happy Birthday, baby girl!"
"Birthday!"
"Yes, it is," he smiled and set her back down into her chair, turning around to get the coffee started, as good as the boys were in making breakfast in the weekend mornings, he didn't let them touch the coffee machine. "Has your mother gone out to the bakery then?" He wanted to know, having woken up alone and not seen his wife's jacket in the entrance foyer either. When he looked around though his boys were exchanging a surprised look and then turned to face him.
"We thought Mama was still asleep," his oldest took up the explaining of their confusion, "when I went to get the paper I had to disable to the alarm system. And Mama doesn't turn it back when she drives to the bakery." He blinked at his sons, confused, in front of him his daughter was making grabby hands at the jam.
--
He found her letter five minutes later when he went to get his phone from his office.
It broke his heart.
It broke his sons' hearts.
And that was what made him so angry.
Not that she left him.
But that she abandoned their children.
That she abandoned their sons who didn't understand.
That she abandoned their daughter who would never have a single personal memory of her.
--
They got over it, with a lot of time, with a lot of holding together. It became them against the rest of the world, nothing could get in between that.
His parents, his siblings, his friends, they all encouraged him to marry again, to find someone so he wouldn't have to do this all alone but he knew that he couldn't let someone into his children's lives who could break their little hearts.
His sons never asked after their mother, old enough to know she wasn't coming back even though they just didn't understand. His daughter never asked either, content and happy with a Dad and two big brothers who would get the moon from the sky for her if she only asked.
They were happy.
So of course that was when she returned.
--
It was christmas four years after she had left, and they were celebrating Christmas' Eve with a special guest as his oldest had – with his father's permission – invited his girlfriend of more than one year to celebrate with them. Eighteen he was now, last year of high school, university plans already fully formed, he had grown up so fast.
He was returning from where he had grabbed another tray of hot chocolate and tea from the kitchen when the bell rang, making him stop in the corridor in sight of his children and the girl he was maybe already seeing as his future daughter in law. The adorable couple was curled up on the couch, their eyes on his secondborn struggling to keep his six year old sister from making another lunge at the presents under the trees. Their tradition said to wait until eight pm and it was still some minutes left to get there.
He set the tray down on a sideboard and then walked to the front door, he was certainly not expecting anyone but maybe one of the neighbours had a problem. He didn't want anyone to have a terrible christmas because of faulty electric lines in this rural area.
He opened the door with a "Merry Christmas" and then froze.
"Can I come in?"
"Come in?" He exploded in a snap and half closed the door already again to not let anyone in the living room see the intruder. "You wanna come in? Are you for real? You think you have any rights to turn up here and ruin our christmas?"
"I just wanna talk," his wife snarled at him – still wife, you couldn't divorce a ghost – and crossed her arms over her chest, "that too much to ask now."
"It's Christmas Eve. It's the time to be with your family and you made your stand on that remarkably clear four years ago!"
"Dad?" His oldest approached from behind, probably alarmed by the raised voices and he could so easily see how that no longer teenage face turned into a thundercloud upon seeing who had been interrupting their family time. "What do you want?"
"Hello, my son, I see that he has brought you up against me already."
"Already?" His son yelled and curled his hands into fists, "you've been gone four years! Do you even realize how much fucking time that is? You left in the middle of the night, Dad doesn't influence me in anything, I'm my own person, I can be pissed at you on my own account! And don't call me son, I am not your son!" Behind them a quiet little voice asked what was going on, he could hear the tears and he saw nearly red.
"I want that woman out of my house!" He declared loudly and then spun around to storm away, to get to the teary eyed little girl who was standing behind her brother's legs in the doorway of the living room. His oldest's girlfriend hurried past him and he could distantly hear how she calmed her boyfriend down at the same time as she angrily told this stranger at the door to leave. He ignored it, swept up his daughter who buried her face in his shoulder and then steered his younger son back into the living room.
"Why does she turn up now?"
"I don't know, son, I don't know, but I will not let this ruin my family night. Princess, do you know who would surely want to be down here when we open presents?" He turned his youngest's attention away from the argument still happening at the front door, "Tucker needs to be with us. We can't open presents without Tucker. Why don't you go and find Tucker real quick?" His princess nodded and then squirreled away from him, rushing off towards his office to find their cat, he knew fairly well that Tucker was sleeping upstairs in the laundry bin in the master bathroom.
It would keep her occupied for a while.
"I'm gonna make new chocolate."
"I'll help, Dad."
Nothing would ruin this christmas.
--
She had no place in their lives.
None.
Six months later when he finally got the lawyers to have her sign the divorce papers they all went out to dinner to celebrate.
He hadn't gotten the life he had dreamed about so long ago.
He had the house, he had the career, he had the kids.
So maybe he didn't have the wife but he was happy, and that was all that counted.