Work Text:
“What’s her name?”
The words fall through Eve’s lips gentle, tender, although she wants nothing more than to snap them out, than to let them rip through her husband’s skin the way their conversation rips through hers. More and more since Christopher became senator, she found the evidence of an affair – the scent of some citrusy, fruity perfume lifting from his pillow when they curl up together (nothing she has ever worn; nothing their daughter, Rowena, has ever worn); the softest shade of pink lipstick left on the rim of a now quite empty tumbler of bourbon (when she has taken the week off to help pass directing Haddington’s senior center over to her successor); and once – only once - a ruby red heel left kicked just outside of their bed (much too big to be one of her own). She picked the heel up – arrived earlier than Christopher expected because she’d wanted to be there, to see him – and, on hearing his footsteps thundering through their house, shoved it under the bed without a second thought.
Without a second thought then, but the thoughts grew and grew since.
Now, Christopher comes to her, just after Christmas, just before New Year’s, and tells her we need to talk in that unsure, anxious tone he has when he’s scared to say anything at all, and she knows – she knows.
Eve meets her husband’s eyes – he is so much taller than her that it is impossible to feel like she is taking the high ground here – and she asks, as soon as they return to their living room, as soon as Rowena is safely gone to a friend’s house, “What’s her name?”
The truth is? She asks because she wants Christopher to deny it, to suggest that there’s something else wrong they need to talk about, because certainly – certainly – it isn’t that. He wouldn’t leave her. He wouldn’t be distracted with someone else when he has never—
Christopher drops his gaze, refuses to meet her eyes. He moves to their couch, sits on the edge of one cushion, and leans forward, arms on his knees, hunched with the weight of the singular word he says before he can even say it: “Claire.”
Eve takes in a sharp breath.
Sixteen years, three months, and seventeen days ago….
“Just move in with him,” her mama said. Just move in with him, like it’s that easy to just ignore the way Christopher broke her heart two years ago. It isn’t like he explained anything. He just sat there, arms on his legs, hunched over, head hanging, and said it.
We need to break up. Then corrected himself – I need to break up with you.
Not I think we should, not I’m breaking up with you. I need to break up with you.
The shock of the moment hit Eve before sense did, just that little sort of oh slipping through her lips as she looks down at him, hands in her back jeans pockets, knowing that he said we need to talk but also knowing that every other time before that when she’d been terrified he was breaking up with her, he hadn’t, so there was nothing to worry about this time.
Of course, it would happen the time she wasn’t worried about it.
It wasn’t until later that Eve wanted to demand why, it wasn’t until she wasn’t anywhere around him that she wanted to beg him to give a reason for why he was throwing away four years of being in a relationship with her, it wasn’t until she was driving back to college with a car full of all of her things that Christopher decided he didn’t want anymore (and a heart full of all the things that he hadn’t given back (some of which he couldn’t, even if he wanted)) that she wanted to call him, to plead with him to change his mind.
She never did any of that.
She never knew why.
Just like Eve still doesn’t understand why, when she called him panicking over her pregnancy, that Christopher not only dropped everything to come sit with her but also felt the immediate instinct to ask her to marry him, even though they hadn’t been in a relationship for almost two years. As though he had the right. And she doesn’t understand why he’d chosen to return to Haddington with her, why he still wants to spend time with her, why somehow he wants to act like nothing ever happened when it did.
Not…not that Eve’s really complaining.
See, there’s this thing about pregnancy and hormones and her emotions rolling from one end of the spectrum to the other unpredictably, and Christopher has unexpectedly weathered all of that. He doesn’t mind when she snaps at him from out of nowhere (if anything, he seems to understand why she would), and he doesn’t mind when she starts crying for absolutely no reason (there is a reason, and it’s the way that butterfly just landed on the tip of her finger when she reached out for it, its tiger-striped wings fluttering gently before it flies away), and he doesn’t mind when she has to immediately stop for a potty break because that baby is pressing his feet directly into her bladder (which isn’t so much a hormone thing, it’s just a thing that happens), and—
Despite everything, when Eve stormed into his house that first time she needed to be absolutely railed, Christopher hesitated. Like he wasn’t a warm-blooded male who would take any opportunity to—
That’s the truth of it, isn’t it? That Christopher was never like that when they were together before, and he certainly isn’t like that now, and that’s part of why she still feels so safe with him? That really the one in their relationship who has always desperately wanted that sort of touch was, in fact, Eve?
Just move in with him because, honestly, Eve is there with him more often than she’s home these days.
But she still doesn’t—
“Why did you break up with me?” Eve asks, curled with her head on his bare chest, tracing a finger down his skin. “You never….” Her brow furrows. “You never told me.”
Christopher stares up at the ceiling, but he takes a deep enough breath in that Eve’s head lifts until she can almost look him in the eye, if he was looking at her and not up. He stays silent for so long that she fears he hasn’t heard her (or he’s ignoring her, which is worse), until he says, finally, “There was this girl.”
And suddenly Eve regrets asking him like this, curled up bare against him, with nothing between them.
“Oh.”
Honestly, Eve doesn’t know why she’s surprised. Like, that is one of the main reasons people break up – they fall out of love with their partner or they fall in love with someone new that they decide they love more than their current partner or they cheat on their partner (and Eve feels it, that thrill of fear, that Christopher might have been with this other woman while they were still dating) – and honestly, she should not be shocked that’s what happened this time, too.
“You loved her?”
Christopher lets out a chuckle. “Yeah,” he says, pushing a hand through his dark, shaggy hair. “I really did. I really did.”
Eve pushes herself up, sees the tears starting to pool under his eyes, and doesn’t wipe them away. She doesn’t want to ask, but she does. “She broke up with you?”
“No.” Christopher’s gaze finally meets Eve’s. “I broke up with her. You needed me.” He reaches out, runs his fingers through Eve’s hair, and says something that she’s sure is meant to make her feel better but only makes her feel worse, “I didn’t love her more than you, Eve. She was just....” He cuts himself off, looks away. “She was different.”
“And if….” Eve hates herself for asking, hates that she’s going to ask. “If I hadn’t needed you? Would you still be with her?”
Christopher doesn’t meet her eyes, and for a while, he doesn’t say anything, which should be answer enough. But, finally, he says, “I don’t know. Most likely.” He twists a jeweled ring around his right middle finger, one that has always seemed thinner, daintier, more girly than most guys would wear. “I wouldn’t have had any reason to leave.”
“Is that….” Eve’s eyes narrow as she focuses on the ring. “Is that hers? Were you going to marry her?”
Christopher shakes his head. “It wasn’t like that—”
Eve shoves him, voice rising, becoming shrill. “Is that hers and you’re wearing it while—”
“Eve, no.” Christopher sits upright and takes her shoulders with both of his rough hands. He meets her eyes, searches them. “It’s mine, Eve.” He raises a hand up, wipes away tears that she knows are starting to spill from her eyes because she always cries when she’s fighting with anyone, let alone Christopher, let alone over something like this. “I chose you.”
“Because I needed you—”
“Because I chose you.” Christopher holds her face so that she can’t look away from him. “I need you to hear me, babe. I’m here. With you. And you don’t have to ever worry about—” He presses his lips together. “You don’t ever have to worry that I don’t want to be here or that I don’t want you. Okay?”
Eve nods slow, and as she does, he lets her look away, and her gaze drops again to that ring, to the soft jewel in the center of it. “What was her name?”
Christopher isn’t like other guys. He doesn’t ask her why it matters, he doesn’t try to shove away the conversation, and he doesn’t try to pretend like she’s crazy for wanting to have it. He doesn’t say her hormones are making her act weird; he doesn’t suggest that she’s wrong for asking or being upset. He reassures her, and when she asks, he knows that it’s important for her.
“Claire,” he says slow, and she can hear in his tone how much he loved her. “Her name was Claire.”
Now….
Eve’s throat hurts from yelling. Her nails cut half-moons into the flesh of her palms, and she still doesn’t think she tightened them enough to punch the ever-loving crap out of her husband. He at least didn’t raise his hands to defend himself, he doesn’t ask her to stop, he just sits there and lets her attack him and yell at him until she’s done. Then he looks up at her with the saddest eyes she has ever seen him wear, sadder even than those months after she’d given Aislin up, and she growls out, “Don’t,” because she doesn’t want to feel bad for him when he’s the one who did everything wrong. She storms away from him, arms crossed, maybe just giving herself a moment to breathe before she goes back on the attack.
“I’m sorry—”
“Don’t,” Eve growls out again, glaring at him. “How long has this been going on? Did you ever – did you ever really break up with her? Am I just—” She sniffles, harsh. “What am I—”
“Eve,” Christopher doesn’t even stand, “I love you—”
“—don’t—”
“—but Claire’s….” Christopher takes a deep breath in. “She’s always here. I can’t just—” His fingers spread out, and he stares at them, not at her. “I can’t break up with her, Eve. She’s not—”
“I want to meet her.” Eve nods to herself, turns to Christopher, arms crossed, and she regrets it as soon as the words are out – because, honestly, who would that help, but she says it again anyway, doubling down on what is probably a horrible, horrible decision. “I want to meet her. This woman who is so much better than me that you can’t just leave her behind. She’s better than me, right? Let me see her, Christopher.”
He should hesitate, shouldn’t he? He should…he should not want his wife and his lover to meet. Any sane man would realize that’s a bad idea. But Christopher stands, presses his lips together, and then gives a little nod of agreement. “Okay,” he says. “It’ll…it’ll take a few minutes, but I can….” He swallows, hard. “I’ll go…I’ll go get her.”
Eve stares after her husband as he walks down the hall away from her, as he turns into the bedroom they have shared for…actually, not very long, because they’d needed to get a new house much closer to DC for his job as a senator, but they’ve been married for fourteen, nearly fifteen (two months, they are two months away, not even two months) years, and as he walks away from her, the weight of all of this crumples her, and Eve collapses, sobbing, onto the couch.
Eve hears the click-clack of heels on the hardwood floor before she hears the front door opening, before she hears the doorbell ringing, and that’s the first thing to suggest to her that something is wrong. She can’t imagine that Christopher kept his mistress living somewhere in their house – it’s not that big – and even if he planned on having this conversation with her, it shouldn’t have taken as long as it did for him to call this woman out of wherever he hid her – and, more importantly, he shouldn’t have expected Eve to want to meet her, shouldn’t have kept her here for however long she’s been here so that he can bring her out and parade in front of his wife this woman who is apparently so much better than her.
So when she hears that sound of heels coming from the same hallway Christopher went down, Eve glances up, brushes the remains of tears from her eyes, and looks. Really looks.
Blinks.
Looks again.
The woman in front of her – it’s Christopher, Eve can tell her husband from the worry in his blue eyes, from the concern furrowing his brow, from the curl of his lips as they press together – but it’s not Christopher as she’s ever seen him. Partly because he’s in the bright, ruby red heels she’d only found one of before, partly because he’s in a skirt and hose and a blouse that fits him better than most of the suits he’s worn (which is saying something, because those suits have a fantastic fit), partly because he has the most immaculate make-up she’s ever seen (better even than her own on her best days, which, again, is saying something, because Eve’s the wife of a senator, and she’s not bad at make-up), and partly because his hair is down – which, yes, notably, she has seen his hair down multiple times before – but never like this, never with the soft lilting wave that mimics her own, never in a way that appears—
Eve takes her husband in, and she examines him, and she glances back up, meeting his eyes. “I don’t understand.”
“I’m—” The woman in front of her swallows her nerves, sits on the couch next to her, and takes Eve’s hands in her own. “It’s me,” she says. “I’m Claire.”
Claire brushes her thumb nervously along Eve’s knuckles. She doesn’t look up. If anything, she looks ashamed. “Eve, I—”
Eve lifts her hand, cups her wife’s face, and brushes her thumb along her cheekbone. Claire’s said…a lot, in the past several moments, explaining as much as she could, answering every question Eve asked, and she hasn’t asked because her brain is still processing everything; right now, she’s reframing her understanding of her wife; she’ll have questions later. “Hey,” she says, finally. “Look at me.”
She sees it – the panic entering Claire’s eyes as she looks up, the way they widen as they meet Eve’s eyes, as they search her face. Claire knows Eve just as well as Eve knows her – more, probably, since Eve is just learning about this and Claire hasn’t needed to find out anything about her like this – but she doesn’t see anything that tells her to relax, she can’t read her.
That’s fine.
Eve crosses the distance between them and kisses Claire.
For a moment – just a moment – Claire hesitates (which is so like her), but then she shifts, her hands tightening on Eve’s, and curves closer, into her. She blinks, unable to meet Eve’s eyes when they part, gaze still lowered. “You don’t hate me.”
“You are my hus— my wife,” Eve corrects as soon as she catches herself. “You’re still you, and I love you. No matter what.” She brushes her fingers along the nape of Claire’s neck. “Just next time tell me before I think you’re having an affair—”
Claire blushes. “I thought—” She shakes her head. “I thought you would leave.”
Eve brushes her nose against Claire’s. “You are mine,” she says, “and I’m not going anywhere.”