Work Text:
You had gotten halfway through the day before you realized just what day it was today. Valentine’s Day. It had never been the most celebrated holiday in the York household. But like so many things after the accident, you couldn’t help but see it in a slightly different light this year. You’d never felt the need to celebrate Valentine’s Day before, because it had just seemed silly with a dedicated day for showing your love for each other when the evidence of that love had always been there. Now, you would have given anything for a day with your husband, to get to love him and spend time with him again. But that was impossible.
If Dave had realized what day it was, he’d made no show of it, for which you were very grateful. You didn’t think you would be able to handle being a spectator to Dave’s internal struggle to figure out whether he was expected to get a Valentine’s Day gift for the wife he didn’t remember loving.
He’d made you breakfast, but that was nothing new. He always did on the mornings when he woke up before you. ”Makes me feel useful,” he’d said when you’d told him that it really wasn’t his job to feed you all breakfast or to pack the girls’ lunches for school. And there had been such desperation in his eyes to let him do something, that you hadn’t had the heart to tell him no.
It was Sunday, but you had still decided to get a couple of hours of work done. Your energy was a fickle mistress these days and you had to catch her whenever she appeared, regardless of whether or not that was on a Saturday or Sunday. It still didn’t make up for all the weekdays you’d spent crying and getting absolutely no work done.
The girls were playing nicely upstairs and you could hear the muffled sound of the TV in the other room. Dave was probably watching something.
”Hey.”
Or not. You jumped at the sound of his voice behind you and almost knocked over your mug of coffee.
”Jesus, Dave!”
”Sorry…sorry. I just wanted to see if you needed a refill,” he said with a small smile and nodded towards your mug.
”You’re not my butler, Dave,” you said and immediately felt like shit as the smile slipped from his face.
”I know. I just… I’ll leave you to it, then.”
He’d disappeared the way he’d come before you could figure out how to apologize.
~~~~~~~~~~~~
A few hours later, you and Dave were standing in the hallway and if he had been upset with you earlier he seemed to have gotten over it because now he was smiling again - that soft smile that made your entire insides twist up in painful knots.
”Are you sure you don’t mind doing this?” you asked him, not for the first time.
”I don’t mind doing this,” he repeated, just like he had the other times you’d asked.
”Because I can cancel if…”
”I have watched them before, you know,” Dave interrupted you. He was right. Dave had looked after the girls plenty of times when you had gone running errands or visited your parents. He was great with them and you knew that you had zero reasons to worry about his babysitting abilities. Yet, there was this tightness across your chest and an unreasonable urge to lock the doors and windows around the safety bubble that was your home. If you were completely honest with yourself, this whole thing might be more about you doubting yourself rather than you doubting Dave.
This thing you were going to would require you to be a normal person for a few hours, and you were terrified that you had completely forgotten how to be just that. Normal. You could fake it, for the amount of time it took to go grocery shopping, but this was for much longer and would require you to actually interact with people.
”Yes, but not for bedtime,” you continued, fully aware you were grasping for straws. Dave was aware too and he reached out to place a hand on your shoulder. You froze and he pulled it back, but let the assuring smile linger.
”You’ve left us enough money to order pizza for the whole block, and I know where their pajamas and toothbrushes are. They’ve already picked what movie we’re gonna watch, and Full Metal Jacket is a great movie!”
”Dave…” you sighed, feeling a slight tug at the corners of your mouth, despite yourself.
”We’ll be fine,” Dave said, and even in his sweatpants and worn t-shirt, there was a certain air of authority about him. That was something you recognized from before. ”And I have your number if I need to contact you. Now go.”
He pulled your coat down and helped you into it. He didn’t actually push you out the door but you suspected that was only because you stepped outside on your own.
As you walked towards the taxi waiting on the road, you felt like there was a rubber band attached to your back, straining and wanting to pull you back into the house and back to Dave and the girls.
~~~~~~~~~~~~
When you returned home a few hours later, the house was dark, save for the lights in your bedroom. You must have forgotten to turn them off before you left earlier.
It was later than you had planned to be home, but once the worry had finally settled after leaving, you had actually been able to breathe easier. Pretending to be normal hadn’t felt as suffocating as you thought it would.
It was completely quiet inside the house when you stepped through the door. It seemed Dave had gone to bed as well. You hung up your coat and took your shoes off before silently tiptoeing upstairs.
You were on your way to the girls’ bedroom, to give them each a kiss goodnight when a soft cough came from inside your bedroom. You frowned slightly and made your way over to the doorway where the dim, warm, light spilled out into the hallway.
What you saw when you looked inside, had your breath catching in your throat.
The girls were both asleep in your bed, hugging a plush toy each, and curled up on either side of an equally fast asleep Dave. He was fully dressed, sitting half-propped up against the headboard, with his chin resting against his chest and his legs crossed at the ankles. There was an open book resting on his stomach.
Seeing them like this was a first but at the same time it was not a first and as the memories assaulted you like daggers thrown at your heart, you had to grip the door to steady yourself.
You hadn’t seen him properly asleep since he came back, but now… when he looked like this, he could have been your husband. And you wanted it so badly that it felt like the pain was eating you up from the inside.
You should wake him up and get him to help carry the girls back to their beds, or at least leave them alone and go sleep in Molly’s bed for the night. But you were weak and so so tired, and right at this moment, you didn’t care if it wasn’t real. You wanted your family.
So when you moved, it was towards the bed and not away from it.
There was an open spot next to Alice, where you fit perfectly. She stirred only slightly and turned to hug you when you lied down next to her. The movement set off a small chain reaction and, as Alice curled up against you, Dave’s head snapped up with a sharp intake of breath. He looked around but stilled as his eyes landed on you. You watched each other in complete silence, both frozen still, like a human that had just come across a deer in the woods and was afraid to scare it away. Except you weren’t sure who was the deer and who was the human in this scenario.
In the end, you were the first one to move, perhaps aided by the two glasses of wine you’d had tonight. Slowly, you reached out to take his hand, where it was resting heavily on the open pages of the book he’d been reading to the girls earlier. Your touch was tentative but Dave didn’t pull away, instead spread his fingers so you could slide yours between them. You ran your thumb along his, and he mimicked the movement. His hand felt just as warm and strong as you remembered.
”Will you stay with us?” you asked and you knew, as the words left your mouth, that you weren’t just asking about tonight or about the bed.
Dave watched you and his eyes were unreadable in the dim yellow light. This was not the first time you’d asked him to stay and as the seconds ticked by, you braced yourself for the same kind of rejection you had gotten the last time you asked.
When Dave let go of your hand, it took all your willpower to hold back the sob that clawed its way up your throat. But despite no longer holding onto you, Dave didn’t move away. Instead, he reached above his head to turn off the light. In the sudden darkness, you heard rather than saw, him shift and move down from the headboard to lie down properly.
There was a moment or two of complete stillness before you felt his fingers brush over your knuckles, as he took your hand again.
He didn’t say anything, but as his hand tightened around yours and placed it over his heart, you felt that was answer enough. At least for tonight.