Archive of Our Own

April.

“It’s going to be fine,” Ciaran tried reassuring her and Maura shook her head, leaning against the counter. She avoided looking at her brother, didn’t want to see the pity in his eyes. God, she pitied herself enough. Her feet and back were killing her after running around all day, trying to organise everything whilst simultaneously chasing after Elliot to remind him that Yes today is your birthday, but you still have to do your homework.

“It’s going to be awful,” Maura contradicted her brother, and cleared her throat to get rid of the lump tightening there, “and awkward.” She smoothed the shirt over her belly that looked like she was growing a watermelon by now, “I haven’t seen either of them in weeks- I just- It’s going to be awful Ciaran.”

Her brother sighed and glanced out of the window, then his posture changed, and he turned back to her. “But you’re going to smile and pretend it’s okay because it’s Elliot’s birthday and here they come.”
He’d spoken fast and quiet and Maura felt her stomach drop. She shot her brother a pleading gaze.
“I’ll open the door,” Ciaran shook his head, “You need to get it together. You invited them.”

“I’m trying,” she hissed and grabbed the plates to carry to the garden where Elliot and Daniel had begun to set the table for the birthday dinner. “Elliot, Nina is here,” Maura called, and Elliot dashed past her inside to greet the new guests.

It was easier to only mention Nina, saying Eyk’s name still made tears well up in her eyes and Maura was so sick of herself for crying over someone who had chosen to leave her.

Daniel shared a quick glance with her, and Maura lifted her shoulders helplessly. She was aware that Daniel wasn’t a big fan of Eyk’s behaviour, and she really couldn’t blame him.

There was a bitterness in the fact that Eyk had wanted to separate after everything they had gone through. After Maura would deliver their child any day and was beyond terrified of being alone with Elliot and his sibling. She would need to move to a smaller apartment soon as well, there was no point in holding on to the sunlit rooms of this house, as beautiful and warm as it was, it was also empty.

Maura felt a lump form in her throat, and she quickly looked away from Daniel to place the plates on the table. Six plates, just like back when they had still been a happy family. Everything about this felt like a satire of her old life.

“So… that’s it?” Maura’s voice was hoarse and Eyk could see the telling shine in her eyes, the expression of utter disbelief. He almost felt regret. “You’re giving up?”

Eyk’s heart cramped, and he reached for her, but Maura flinched back, his fingertips barely brushed her sleeve. This wasn’t the first time that she didn’t let him get close. It had become a sort of depressing habit, especially not after the many fights they’d had over the last weeks. And still, it all hurt.

“I’m not giving up,” Eyk tried, but he knew it sounded like a lie. Maybe he was giving up. “This isn’t healthy anymore. For neither of us, Maura.”

“But…,” the incomprehension on his wife’s face was agonising. She didn’t understand what had happened, how he was feeling. How he had been feeling for weeks now. Months, maybe. “I really tried to help-” Maura’s voice broke and Eyk closed his eyes as a sob slipped past her lips. He couldn’t stand seeing her like this, knowing full well that it was his fault. “I thought my study would-”

“Do you not get it?” Eyk suddenly felt angry. Anger was good. He could work with anger. Anger wouldn’t make him cry, wouldn’t make him want to take back his words and Maura in his arms, wouldn’t make him want to assure her that he would always be there. “There is nothing you or your studies can fix! I just don’t remember being happy with you.”

Maura pressed her lips together and the next sob died in her throat. She looked up at him. The light caught in the tear tracks on her cheeks and in her eyes, the clear blue hue dulled, almost a little grey. “What do you mean?”

“I…” Eyk paused as the anger disappeared as quickly as it had come and was finally replaced by regret. He didn’t want to hurt her. But was there a way of breaking up with someone that didn’t hurt? “I don’t remember you, Maura, and I tried so hard- I just- I can’t spend the rest of my life looking for answers that I won’t find.” Eyk ran a hand through his hair, then rested both palms on the kitchen counter, took a deep breath. “It’s not enough for me and one day it won’t be enough for you either. All I know about us are the fights we’ve had over the last weeks.”

Maura tried not to remind herself of how many times she had walked into Nina’s room, just to look out of the window, trail her fingers along the furniture she had left behind. She was terrified of the dust that would settle and how her scent would slowly leave the room until it was nothing more than a hollow shell of a life left behind. She would grow out of all of this, the fairy lights, the stuffed animals, the flower-patterned bedsheets, the purple carpet. And Maura wouldn’t be there to watch it. She wouldn’t be there to get to know the young woman Nina was growing into.

With Eyk it was even worse. At the beginning, it had really just felt like he was on another research trip with no phone service and would return to her soon. Maura had slept on his side of the bed, had traced the lines of his shape of the indent in the mattress. For as long as she could somehow justify not washing the sheets, she had soaked his pillow with her tears, the salty taste and his scent turned bitter, eventually. Every now and then, she had thoughtlessly wanted to slip into one of his shirts, opened the closet and found his side empty.

Even the thought of how incomplete her home felt, how he had taken his pictures, cleared his desk, how there was only one towel hanging in the bathroom now, one robe, how two seats at the dinner table continuously remained empty, made Maura want to set herself on fire. She wanted to feel something other than the excruciating pain of knowing they hadn’t recovered from the blow of his memory loss. She hated knowing that she couldn’t make him happy.
Voices tore her out of her spiral and Maura looked up, spotting Nina on her way across the grass to greet her. Perhaps it was ridiculous, but she was convinced the teenager had grown at least two inches since she’d last seen her.

The girl fiddled with her bracelet, like she always did when she was nervous. “Hi Ma…ura,” Nina looked uncomfortable, and the air turned to glass.
Of course she wasn’t Ma anymore. Just Maura. She had seldom hated hearing her own name this much. Losing Nina felt like she was carrying the dead weight of her own heart around with her every minute of the day.

“You said we would always be a family,” Nina cried and Eyk looked over at Maura, who seemed about as helpless as he felt.

“And we are,” his wife insisted, but Nina cut her off, jumping up from her chair. It fell to the ground with a clang, “You said I would never lose you! You PROMISED me!”

“I know.” Maura was trying not to start crying, Eyk could tell by the way her voice trembled that she failed miserably, “And I’m sorry Nina, but your Papa and I…” she paused and looked over at Eyk for some help.

His brain supplied nothing but silence.

The resigned dull and sharp disappointment in her eyes ached in Eyk’s ribcage. He knew she had just lost a considerable amount of respect for him.
“Sometimes people fall out of love,” Maura continued, her voice pressed, and she wiped her tears with a fleeting gesture, “Forcing something will hurt our family. But that doesn’t change anythi-”

“Bullshit,” Nina yelled between two sobs, “It IS hurting our family and it changes EVERYTHING! You PROMISED!”

“Hi Darling,” Maura’s voice was strangled when she put the last plate down and pulled Nina in a lingering hug. She gave in easily and squeezed Maura a bit harder than usually. “How are you doing?”

“I’m good,” Nina lied, and her smile looked forced, “How’s the baby?”

So, she didn’t want to talk. Maybe this wasn’t the moment anyway. Maura had tried to keep in touch with her, but it felt like Nina was slipping through her fingers, like time had run out for them. Each time Maura asked if Nina wanted to meet up, the girl found a way to back out and eventually, Maura gave up. There was no point in trying to pressure her into something she wasn’t ready for. Something she would perhaps never again be ready for.

Maura didn’t take the time to mourn the plans she and Nina had made, the places she had wanted to take her daughter, the things Nina had wanted to show her. Instead, she tried to focus on being present and engage in the smalltalk they both dreaded.
“A professional football player for sure,” Maura answered her question and tried to smile back, “I get kicked a lot, but I’m taking that as a good sign.”

“Oh, maybe I can take them with me to football practice when they can wa-” Nina stopped and shrugged lightly, looking away to let her gaze wander over the garden, blinked twice, “Or maybe not.”

Maura was at a loss of words for a second. “Uh-”

“Nina!” Elliot yelled, saving his mother the pain of trying to comfort Nina while not even being able to comfort herself. “Come look at the dino books I got!”

Nina hesitated and Maura quickly resorted to her trained smile. It almost hurt her cheeks, it felt that unnatural. “Go on, he’s been talking all day about how he wants to show you his gifts.”

“Kay.” Nina nodded briefly and turned to join Elliot, leaving Maura with a strong sense of dread behind.

She inhaled deeply, tried to enjoy all the spring scents flooding her, the gentle warmth of the sun in her hair, on her skin. This particularly warm and beautiful last day of April should have made her happy, but instead it made Maura sick.

She turned to go back inside and stopped on the threshold. Eyk was already in the kitchen. He looked better than even before leaving for the Arctic. Healthy, like he was getting enough sleep and drank enough water. Like some weight had fallen off him, like he’d just returned from a relaxing vacation. There was something about him, the calm he radiated was pure and warm- he looked happy.

Her ribs ached, and she held her breath to regain control over the pain threatening to eat her from the inside. Eyk was happy and it was because he had left her.
To Maura, it still felt so right seeing him standing at the counter, filling a glass with water, moving without any sense of insecurity. He belonged here, with her. With her and Nina and Elliot and their baby she was expecting. She took another step inside, and the floorboard creaked.

Eyk looked up and blinked, suddenly awkward. Did he know that it killed her that she was the reason for this? That her insufficiency had been the cause of their falling apart?

“Hi.” The lightness in his tone was like like a punch to her gut and Maura had to muster every last shred of willpower to move further towards him.
The worst thing was that nothing had changed for her. She had tried to unlove him, to hate him, to pretend she didn’t care, to make peace with the fact that it was over.
But to no avail. She still loved him. And how she loved him. More than her heart could take. So much, she was going to bleed to death over the pain of it. And yet, it hadn’t been enough.

“Hi.”

“Please, Eyk,” Maura was crying again. She was crying a lot lately, Eyk realised. The pregnancy was certainly one of the reasons for that, but it was mostly him who made her cry. He loathed himself for the sense of liberation he felt upon the thought of being gone, of starting anew. In a life he would fully remember.
“You have to see what that is doing to our family.”

He’d never heard her beg him like that. Like her life and happiness depended on it, like she didn’t know what to do if he didn’t give in. “You have to see that this family was dysfunctional before, Maura,” he had raised his voice in the desperate attempt to get through to her, to make her understand. “You and I, we are near constantly fighting. We’re fighting again, right now!”

“Stop yelling at me,” she sobbed and Eyk took a deep breath.

***

“How- how are you doing?” Eyk cleared his throat nervously, “How’s the baby?”

He glanced at her belly and Maura crossed her arms in front of her chest, somehow trying to protect herself from what his gaze did to her. She shouldn’t still be feeling warm, she shouldn’t still care whether and what way he looked at her. But there he was, with his magnetic pull that drew her in, with his smile, his scent, his voice, his touch, all of him that she missed so dearly.

“She’s doing well. Kicking a lot,” Maura opted for a neutral tone and swallowed dryly. She didn’t know for how much longer he could do this. For how much longer she could stand here, her entire body aching to be in his arms.

“She?” Eyk’s eyes widened a little with surprise, “She’s a girl? Why didn’t you tell me?”

“You could have been there for the big reveal,” Maura replied, a little sharper than necessary, “I texted you the date and the time of the check-up a few weeks back.”

“Oh I-” Eyk put the glass down and his pained expression made her regret her choice of tone, “That totally went over my head, I’m sorry.”

“Mhm,” Maura didn’t move from her spot and was glad the counter was between them now. Distance was good. She wanted to leap at him, not sure if she wanted to shake him and yell at him, or kiss him until she lost her mind entirely. “Will you need a reminder for the birth too or will my first text be enough?”

“Maura,” Eyk sighed and rubbed his face, “Don’t be ridiculous. Of course I’ll be there. We said we were doing this together-”

“Together?” Maura echoed with a hollow voice, and the last weeks’ tiredness sounded in her tone, “I am the one who takes Elliot to bed every night while he’s sobbing. I hear him cry even when I’m downstairs. You couldn’t even respond to a stupid text.”

“I needed time,” Eyk defended himself, but his voice was quiet, he didn’t get loud like he had used to when still living here. Maura didn’t know what to make of that. “And I eventually forgot, and I am sorry. But had you told me Elliot needed me, I would have been here in a heartbeat, you know that.”

“I don’t,” Maura said openly and met his gaze, “I don’t know if you’re here and what conditions your presence entail, I don’t know what’s going on, I’ve been trying to do this alone for weeks and it’s not-” going well.

“I don’t want Elliot or Nina to be unhappy, Maura,” Eyk said quietly and moved closer to the counter, “Or you. And I’m sure with due time, we can figure out how to make this work. Co-parenting and all.”

Maura huffed in frustration, trying to ignore the way her eyes blurred. She couldn’t look away from him. “And yet it didn’t once occur to you that this might have been a bad idea? Separating Nina and Elliot? Splitting up at all?”

This was neither the time nor the place for this discussion, Maura knew this, but she just couldn’t help her overflowing emotions, she couldn’t keep it together when he was so close to her, when she still felt the ragged edges of the hole he had torn into her heart when leaving.

“So this is it,” Maura breathed and Eyk put his last bag down next to the door. He looked over at her and his throat tightened painfully.

“I thought you were at work,” he brought out, tried to stay calm, tried to hide the torment he had put himself under. This was all his own fault. He had wanted to get the rest of his things while Maura was gone so he didn’t have to be faced with exactly what was currently happening here.

“I didn’t want to make it easy for you.” Maura was defeated. The words broke from her lips like a shattered shield. “I know you’re leaving either way, but God I hope it’s difficult. I hope it hurts you.”

“It does,” Eyk rasped and shook his head, “How could you ever think this was an easy decision to make?”

Maura didn’t reply, instead she stepped closer and handed him one of his shirts. It was the one she had worn visiting him in the hospital just after the accident. “Here.”

He took it from her hands, their fingers brushing. Eyk hated how the touch still sent an electric shock through him, how he still longed to take her hand and warm up her cold fingers. “You can keep it, you know?”

“No, I can’t,” Maura replied curtly, and stepped back again, bringing some much-needed distance between them. She met his gaze with seemingly no difficulty, without anything but resignment in her expression. “Tell Nina she can come over any time she likes. I don’t want her to think I don’t want her here.”

“I’ll tell her when she talks to me again,” Eyk mumbled.

Maura shook her head lightly. “Well then. Bye.”

It felt ridiculous to end a relationship with this simple word. Bye.

She crossed her arms in front of her chest and Eyk placed his keys to the house on the shelf next to the door, then picked up his bag.
“Maura-” he began, searching for something meaningful to say, but when he looked up, Maura had already disappeared into the office and shut the door.

Maura heard steps behind her and turned her head to find Daniel entering the kitchen. She avoided his gaze and instead looked at her hands, which were clutching the edge of the kitchen counter.

“Hi Daniel,” Eyk extended his hand and Daniel looked at him, then at his hand, then back up at his face. He didn’t move an inch for a few seconds, and just when the tension became near unbearable, he stepped to the side to grab a bottle of water and go back to the garden.

“Well… I guess I deserve that one.” Eyk sounded defeated and lowered his hand, following Daniel with his eyes.

Maura thought he had perhaps been a little hard on Eyk, but of course she wouldn’t say that. Instead, she shrugged and inhaled sharply when she felt a particularly hard kick, her hand immediately moved to the spot where she had felt the very tiny and very strong foot.

“What is it?” Eyk circled the counter with two steps and placed his hand over hers like it was nothing, “Are you alright?”

Maura looked up at him and could only focus on the warmth of his hand, on the concern in his eyes. She wanted to be held. She wanted him, no matter how broken they were. She loved him, no matter how wrong it was. But it wasn’t enough. Her love wasn’t enough to fix the hole in his memories. Even though it had taken her time to admit this, she could see it so clearly now. They were both too broken to fix each other.
“I’m fine,” Maura said slowly and took half a step back. She couldn’t stand being close to him while knowing it just couldn’t work. “Please don’t touch me.”

“Sorry,” Eyk lifted his hands and stepped back, the look of hurt so evident on his face, Maura wanted to scream. Wherever she turned, she was either met with anger, or sadness, or regret. And always pain. So much pain.

She just wanted him back, throw all caution overboard, figure out a new way to work with this. She loved him and he loved her, Maura knew this. She so desperately wished it was enough to figure it out.

“So, what do we do now?” Maura heard herself ask and Eyk looked up. Maybe they could try again. Start anew, in a few months maybe. When they had both brought some order into their separate lives, their divorce wasn’t finalised yet anyway. As of now, she was still his wife and Maura wanted to keep it that way. Perhaps she was delusional to hold onto this, but she couldn’t live another day knowing he was out of her reach, knowing they still loved each other, knowing she would never feel anything like what she felt with him.

“I don’t know.” Eyk sounded tired and shrugged helplessly.

Maura didn’t realise she had started crying again until Eyk reached out to wipe a tear from the side of her face. Her vision had blurred, surely, but she didn’t even feel the salt water on her face anymore.

“Maura, please-”

“I miss you and Nina,” she whispered so quietly, she barely heard herself over the sound of her thudding heart, “I want you home. I want to figure this out. I want my family back.”

“I miss you and Elliot too,” Eyk’s eyes had a telling shine to them, and Maura searched the light in his gaze, searched what she had always held on to.

“Then come back,” Maura was begging him, again, “Give us another chance. Please. I don’t want to raise another baby alone. I don’t want to lose Nina. I-” Maura interrupted herself when a sob tore itself from her throat. The sound hurt and she pressed her lips together, shaking her head.

“I don’t want to hurt you, Maura,” Eyk placed his hands on her shoulders and sighed wearily, “I don’t find pleasure or joy in doing the right thing if it hurts this much.”
The right thing.

“Can it be right if it hurts this much?” Maura lifted a hand to wipe her tears away, but it was pointless. “Elliot asks for you and Nina at least twice a day. I don’t know what to tell him-” she tried not to sob, but the undignified whine still came out, “He- he asks me to read to him, but I can’t get the voices right-” Maura broke off when she saw Eyk’s expression, “You’re not coming back, are you?”

Eyk exhaled slowly and put his hands on her shoulders, pulled her in, almost hesitantly, until she was right in front of him. “No, I’m not coming back.”

Maura lowered her head and tried to blink the new tears away, they dripped on her shirt. Eyk put a hand below her chin, making her look at him.
But instead of going in for a hug, like Maura had expected, he kissed her.

When she had recovered from her momentary shock, Maura didn’t even have to think about kissing him back. It wasn’t a beautiful kiss. It was desperate and dark, and they clung to each other like their shared breath was the only chance to survive. His hands were in her hair, thumbs tracing her jaw, tilting her head back to deepen the kiss. It was painfully familiar, and Maura needed more of it. More of this darkness that was slowly beginning to consume her. She wanted to feel anything but the grief that was eating her alive.

Eyk pulled away after a moment that didn’t last nearly long enough, and his hands slipped from her face back to her arms.

Maura met his gaze, and a sinking feeling spread through her. He regretted this.

“Why would you do that to me?” she whispered, overcome by her own emotions, overwhelmed with her sadness she saw mirrored in his eyes.

“A proper goodbye kiss.” Eyk barely enunciated his words and slowly let go of her, Maura almost reeled with the loss of contact. This wasn’t enough. It would never be enough. She still wanted him, and she doubted she could ever stop.

“Why?” Maura was close to tears again, “Why goodbye?”

“We need to let it go. You need to let it go,” Eyk responded softly and took a step back, leaving Maura feeling more lost and alone than she ever had before. They were nothing but a memory now