Knee Deep

Keiran noted once more that hardly anything his wife did anymore could surprise him. He made no comment when she pulled away, and kept any remarks he had left to himself. That didn't stop him, however, from pointedly casting dark looks at any male who so much as look at Millie with something besides an absentminded expression. That included any interested glances as well as anything remotely resembling an internal dialogue about ridiculous English types.

Keiran's looks certainly included the waiter who caught her attention and dropped compliments like a tree dropped leaves. He immediately and silently thanked Avery for teaching him bits and pieces, as well as the research that had allowed him to catch on to how words sounded. Figuring out the spelling took little effort from there, leaving Keiran to glare at the back of the waiter as he led them up the steps to their table.

Menus given and pita halves placed, the couple was left alone for a bit to contemplate the options before them. So distracted was the husband on their walk, he didn't manage to catch the name of the restaurant until Millie had already got them seated. Cursing under his breath, Keiran raked a hand through his hair and read over the menu items in an attempt to pass off the added frustration he'd just found.

'Sunsets,' a local tavern with stairs leading up to the first deck and a perfect view of both the castle turret and the water, was listed on many sites as the very best place on the island to catch the legendary Santorini sunsets. Having seen this information, as well as having heard about it from the Ivanovs, it had seemed almost too idealized. Nevertheless, the fact that their time in Greece was both their first trip together as well as during February (and thus including Valentine's Day), meant that in his attempt to do right by her and make up for any past grievances, one Mr. Hayes had booked a table. And now, his brilliant (though sometimes unhelpfully so) wife had somehow managed to find the damn place ahead of time.

Pushing away his disappointment as best as he could, Keiran decided that he'd just bring her back anyway when the day came. He could just claim it was because of the Saganaki - which was rumored to be the best in Greece - and just drag her along regardless of their having been before.

Glancing across the table, Keiran's gaze fell on a seemingly hiding Melissa Hayes. Although he deflated a bit at the sight of her - he really hadn't meant to hurt her - the irritation of earlier still gnawed at him. Keiran knew she didn't quite deserve to have any anger directed at her; she hadn't exactly intended for his mind to get so very lost in her words. But, now what? Were they supposed to spend the meal in silence while those around them chatted? That wasn't fair to her - even for someone like him who wasn't overly talkative, it sounded uncomfortable. That, then, raised the question of how to explain to her what was going through his head.

Millie had to have known that he wouldn't want to make a scene - hotheaded though he was, sometimes. Setting down the menu, he reached over and, as gently as he could, pulled hers from her hands so she couldn't hide behind it anymore.  "Millie," he started as he set the laminated page down between them. "Look, I want to explain why I'm angry but if you're not up for talking or don't want to listen right now, it's fine. I can wait. But I don't think I'll be able to drop it."

Amongst the seemingly endless supply of seafood on the menu, the hiding place had at first appeared to have worked and no further discourse took place for many a passing moment, much to her quiet delight. The last thing that Millie wanted to do was rise and snap at her husband. She hadn’t been angry in the first place so she saw little sense in stirring the feelings within herself. No, she would have rather just let it pass like the ebbing and flowing tide. Keiran would either sleep it off or remain moody until then and Millie was desperate to guide him towards the former. Then in the morning she’d make sure she rose first and her plan was that she’d sweeten him into forgetting his anger and they could press on to the ruins or to the beach and spend time together trying to come up with backstories of the horrendously annoying bat and ball players or go swimming.

Unfortunately, before time could elapse enough, the menu was eased gently from her hands and Millie found herself completely exposed. She dropped her arms down beneath the table and averted her eyes obstinately, throwing them out over the water. His words were softly spoken but were not absent of the irritation that he felt which lingered deeply beneath the surface. He called her ‘Millie’, though. It was a progression from the way he used to call her ‘Melissa’ when at a loss, desperate to be formal yet still personal. Millie, however, set her teeth on edge the way her full name used to and she looked at him testily out of the corner of her eye. She lowered her lids so both rows of eyelashes met in a kiss but the couples were ripped apart as she turned her gaze fully on her husband.

“So talk,” she responded brusquely. “I’m not refusing to talk or listen to you but I am refusing to argue with you.”

Millie picked up the jug that had been set down for water and poured out two glasses worth, refusing this time to meet Keiran’s gaze. After setting down the jug she picked up her glass and cradled it in her hands, setting up a pretence of inspecting the design as a way of concealing herself from the conversation somewhat. She didn’t want this confrontation as much as she knew Keiran needed to talk. She rode on the crest of a calm, loving wave that didn’t encounter troubles beyond that of mere trivialities. Keiran was genuinely upset it seemed so that didn’t qualify as a triviality. Millie felt she had leave to be concerned.

“I love you, Keiran,” she murmured, tipping her gaze up to meet his. “I didn’t mean to … upset you I was ... I was only playing.”

Keiran nearly wanted to get up and pull her into his arms when she shifted about in her chair. He wasn’t quite sure how much good a hug would do, though, when it wouldn’t explain or fix the problem. No, as much as he would have liked to do so, it just wouldn’t help the situation. He had no reason to believe she would even let him, anyway, after she had brushed him off earlier. Though he knew it was his fault, even at the time, the combination of events after his attempt to wake her seemed to have piled up into one long string of hurt.

Millie’s words seemed a little clipped, but Keiran couldn’t find it in him to blame her – he hadn’t exactly done any better when he had addressed her. He was rather lucky, he mused, that he hadn’t decided to call her ‘Melissa,’ when his previous times had been nothing but bad news. She likely would have just up and whacked him right then. Or just left him sitting there. Neither were appealing options.

Before he could organize his thoughts and decide how to start without seeming too frustrated or put out, Millie did so for him with her apology. His eyes softened at her words, watching her even as she avoided his gaze. “I love you, too,” he answered gently, half wondering in the back of his mind if anyone around was paying the two of them any mind. “That’s why I got so angry.”

Leaning over the table so he could lower his voice even further, Keiran paid no heed to the fact that she didn’t seem to want to look at him. He wasn’t about to sit there and have this conversation while others listened.

“We decided to take this trip ages ago, Millie. But it doesn’t change the fact that it’s the first time in months that I’ve had to properly spend on you. I’ve been far too busy – since the school, I think – and when the twins came along I didn’t want to steal your time from them.” Shaking his head, Keiran frowned at the menus stuck beneath his forearms. “But now that we’re here and I do have time, you don’t seem to want it. Not unless it involves lying around in bed. Usually I wouldn’t mind so much, but why did we bother coming here if we were going to do the same things we would have done at home?”

He wasn’t sure he was getting anywhere with his words – they felt very round in their release, but Keiran couldn’t even remember if he had actually talked in a circle or if he just was so intent on getting it right that he felt he undoubtedly missed something or messed up. Picking up the glass she poured for him, Keiran sat up properly and waited for her to retort that maybe she hadn’t wanted to go at all. Or tell him he was doing something wrong and make him all the angrier. The last thing he wanted was to ruin their trip, but if she wasn’t going to enjoy it he didn’t quite see the point of being there. Millie had never quite struck him as someone obsessed with the idea of traveling, but he had rather hoped that if it were with him it would have worked out regardless.

(WARNING: Expletives use)

The useless excuse that was laid out was one that incited more irritation in Millie than she would have thought possible. She set down her glass and leaned forward, wondering whether Keiran had always been that dense or whether that had been an allergic reaction to fatherhood and the Healers had forgotten to give him some potions for it. She wondered whether he saw the world through rose-tinted glasses or whether lying in bed was such a deplorable act after a few hours in cramped, cold quarters with nothing to do but sleep and try to stomach something you wouldn’t even feed to a dog. She couldn’t believe, either, that he had the nerve to accuse her of not wanting to be on holiday when she had been the one to make sure they were all packed and ready to go in the first place. Had she not even bothered, then perhaps that would’ve been evidence of her not wanting to go but she’d packed a day in advance so they could get up and go that morning. She’d put the effort in yet how dare she sleep.

“You have time do you?” She inquired airily, sitting back and crossing her arms over her chest. “Lucky me, then. I’m so glad you’ve deigned to give me your time and your energy because that is all I have been desperate for these past, what, eight months. I don’t know. Yes, you’ve got me. I’ve been sat at home pining after you all of this time and now we’re here… gosh. I have the gall, don’t I, to spurn your attempts to lavish me with your presence. I should be truly grateful, shouldn’t I? How dare I want to sleep after travelling? You got your sex, didn’t you? You had your prize so what was so wrong about my desire to sleep? Oh wait, of course… because you have gifted me your presence – thus I must perform to you mustn’t I?”

Millie leaned forward, painting her expression with a look of utter delight. If anyone in the restaurant was to look round then there would’ve been no indication of an argument taking place. Rather, the complete opposite in fact and those who did look smiled a little in their direction, unaware of what was actually emerging from betwixt Millie’s lips – a terrifying tempered rage which would precede the inevitable departure of her person. She was sick of the passive aggressive third degree. He would get his own, now – and her medicine was a lot more difficult to swallow.

“So, you’ve been far, far too busy have you? I am so sorry, my love, but what the fuck do you think I have been doing this whole time? Sitting on my arse? I’ve been helping your mother. I’ve been raising our children because clearly you’re fine to sow the seed but you can’t be bothered to tend to the plant because, you know, it might infringe on my time with them. It might occur to you … I’m not sure but this is quite a radical idea. You’re their father. So, you’re a parent too. So that means you parent. Shocking. Try it sometime because I could really use the hand. Amongst helping your mother and looking after Kelly and Liam … I go to college four days a week so excuse me if I fail to accommodate you because you are the busy one. I’ve had coursework. I’ve had books to read. I’ve had exams. Somehow, in between all of that I manage to sort your shit as well. Who cleans the clothes? Irons them? It’s not your mum anymore, Keiran. It’s me. So excuse me if I need some rest. How dare I, you know?”

Millie picked her bag up off of the table and paused for a second. She placed her hands on the table and leaned over, looking at him pointedly, piercingly and without so much as mustering a blink to tear her eyes from his face.

“Don’t you dare speak to me like that again Keiran Conall Finley Hayes – otherwise it will be the last thing you ever do I swear by Godric. Perhaps, instead of thinking with your dick you should've used your head you should have married Avery and spent your days with her so you could’ve escaped this torrid law. Then perhaps you would’ve not had the imposition of children and come the end of the law you could divorce her or shag her some more – up to you. Who knows, the option could still be open to you. I heard she’s a good kisser.”

With that final dagger stabbed into his chest, Millie straightened up and swanned through the restaurant. The waiter from outside was stood by the door, his face a picture of concern, but Millie merely smiled before jumping down the steps and turning, striding back up the road, paying attention to the signs that indicated where the beach was. She couldn’t go back to the villa without breaking in and that was the last thing she could do in that dress. She didn’t want to wait for Keiran either. She needed somewhere to cool off and the ocean was icy. But of course, the footsteps behind her were Keiran’s. She wouldn’t get to be alone.

Well that was definitely not right. She certainly didn’t get to march off into the night in a foreign country by herself. Not when she was angry. No, last time – and Millie clearly remembered that – it certainly hadn’t worked out for the person in question. Glowering at the table, Keiran pushed his chair back and shoved his way through the people between him and the exit. They sure as hell weren’t coming back here, reservation or not. If they were even going to make it through the holiday, that is. His footfalls were undoubtedly heavy enough to catch her attention as she started down the steps leading to the waterline.

Didn’t she get it? None of this was pinned on her, exactly, so much as the wrong choices he had made in the past year. A job he hated because he refused to work for the Ministry had led to his inability to be home when she was away. When he was home at the same time she was, Millie almost always ended up getting up to something with the twins. He wasn’t complaining – it was bloody adorable, quite frankly. But it meant that he, who wanted his kids to know exactly how important they were (he wasn’t going to let them end up like Avery with all of her fears and wrong reactions to things), didn’t know how to. His wife so clearly had it down, but whenever he saw that, and noted how little time he’d been able to spend with them, Keiran couldn’t quite find his footing. Thus, his attempts to understand the kids as well as the basics of fathering had often been done in the few moments he had alone with them. Why embarrass himself in front of her when she seemed to have it all in hand without him?

It all went back to the explanation he gave the Christmas before last, when Aiden had been killed. It didn’t matter if Millie or anyone else told him to change. He had been the same way for over twenty-five years and there wouldn’t be some overnight change. Not after he failed to keep her from the problem with the Ministry and their school. Or after he’d failed to find a job that didn’t suck, royally. Yes, it was his fault. But she really hadn’t seen his attempts? His frustration when he couldn’t do right by her?

Hell, if this was what he got for trying…

No, he couldn’t just let her leave. His steps fell more quickly as they reached the turn off for the water, trying to discern what she would or would not allow. If she thought he was just going to let her leave like that she was mad. She had to expect some sort of retaliation, verbally. Clearly she wouldn’t be letting him close enough to touch her.

When they reached the waterline, Keiran waited until she had picked a spot to head over and stand a safe distance away, hands in his pockets. Looking out over the water felt a bit more comfortable than looking at his wife, but that certainly wouldn’t help. Thinking back to previous arguments, Keiran knew that he had to keep the conversation focused on him and his wrongdoings. Starting off with something directed at her wouldn’t work. Indeed, he had to keep his use of ‘you’ to a minimum.

“Millie, it’s not like I planned this,” he started, voice as gentle as he could manage through his mix of fear and confusion. “Do you – do you remember when I found out? About Liam and Kelly?” He asked, turning to face her. “I didn’t say anything at the time because you’d just told me that I didn’t have to change for people. But of course I do, Mills. I don’t know how to be a father, and I’m never around when you or the twins need me. I have this shit job that I hate, and any time I’m home you’re just… you’re so good with them. And I’m really not. So why would I take away from time when they could spend with someone who knows what they’re doing?”

Sighing, Keiran lowered himself into the sand. Maybe her feeling taller, bigger than him would help. He had no clue what he was doing if he were being honest, and he was pretty sure he’d ruined the trip, if not everything else.

“You’re right, though,” he admitted grudgingly. “You’ve got more on your plate than you should have to. If I didn’t have this deal with the Ministry maybe I would just go work there instead and make things easier. But clearly,” he added, a sudden spark of anger returning and jabbing at him. “Clearly any efforts I’ve made have gone unnoticed.”

Looking over at her again, Keiran could hear her words racing through his mind again, a frown falling over his face once more. “I have no idea how it’s possible that I could only want you for that, Millie, when through all of this I’ve been so loathe to push anything and scare you off. Even the idea that you’re still upset at Avery is ridiculous at this point; I’ve never seen her better off, treated better, or happier than she is with Robin and there’s no way in hell I don’t want the same thing for us. Why is it that nothing I say ever sounds right to you?”

Apparently, his attempts at keeping his attack focused on himself were failing. Now he just felt tired – in the sense that he couldn’t quite believe that they were having the discussion they had over a year ago, just with the added factor of children making it more complicated.

“You want me to do the laundry, Millie? Because I will. Honestly, it’s not even a big deal. I’ll do all the damn laundry. It’s amazing, actually, how little you really seem to know me after all this time. It’s been a good year and a half and yet you don’t see that I’m standing there not knowing how to add myself into the Mille-Liam-Kelly equation. Or that I come home after they’re asleep and get so mad at myself that I can’t even talk to you because I know you’re angry, too.” Groaning, Keiran’s head fell against his palms as they were propped against his knees. “Regardless of the fact that this is all pinned on me, it certainly doesn’t get easier when the knowledge that I’m not doing well enough for you – for the kids – is staring me in the face every night. It really doesn’t. Frankly, I’ve been waiting for you to go off at me for a while, now.”

A fierce breeze tore from the water, throwing up the blonde curls that lay about her shoulders into the path that the wind travelled. Her lithe fingers caught at the buckles of her sandals and, abandoning her bag and her shoes further up the beach, she drifted into the lapping waters that eagerly enveloped her legs into its icy embrace. With every caress of the breaking, frothy waves the water grew less cold, after a while reaching her with a warm familiarity as it swept up around her, spraying her with the salty kisses. The ice was becoming of her, sending her hair and dress fluttering in the wind as she sank fast into the resolve that there was no reason that could open her husband’s eyes. There was none, either, that she could find to widen her own in belief or sympathy. For him, she held little for he, in her steady, accusatorily azure eyes, had orchestrated his own disaster.

“So sorry life hasn’t worked out for you the way you imagined,” Millie spat, turning her head to the side, able from that vantage to peer at Keiran from the corner of her eye. She shook her head minutely before throwing it back out in the direction of the water, stormily rocking at the beach with a more sudden and apt fervour.

Had she been tempted to have pressed any further then she might have pointed out that she hadn’t exactly envisioned her life quite the way that it had manifested itself. She never wanted children, the lack of suitable role models having turned her away from the idea entirely. She’d never wanted to marry, either. She wanted to roam. She wanted to live and breathe every little nucleus that the planet held and be a small part of every jigsaw – every little infinity. Had things gone according to plan she would have been a foreign Minister’s assistant, a trained lawyer, and then eventually she would have wanted to have taken on the role of her superior. She wanted to be something so different, someone who mattered. Someone who did something important for the benefit of everyone involved. Instead she took part in her own little nucleus – and hers exclusively.

She didn’t go there, though. She could already feel the deep resentment bubbling up within her and she didn’t want to add that into the mix. She didn’t blame Keiran for that. She’d never stood a chance of making her goal in the first place but that September she’d been determined to give it a try. The Ministry had torn that rug out from beneath her feet, however, and soon, shackled to another person, she found that there was little point in wondering after it. Then the twins arrived and her life gained a little bit of true meaning and purpose. Amongst trying to make something for herself and maintaining a source of income for the benefit of her brother and, ultimately, herself, she’d raised them thus far as best as she could. She didn’t regret them, not for a second. She merely regretted their absentee father who was little more than a sperm donor, wallowing in his own self-pity.

“You bastard,” she spoke, her voice stronger than she felt inside. She turned a little in the water, lifting her feet from the damp sticky sand beneath her soles as the waves continued to brush around her. “You absolute incorrigible shit. You haven’t ever even so much as tried. You’ve not tried to be with our children. You haven’t tried to be better – to get another job for yourself. The Ministry isn’t the be-all and end-all scenario, Keiran! You want to teach? Piss off and retrain. Teach Muggle children or teenagers. You want to be a part of our children’s lives? Bloody, goddamn give it a go! You’re so scared of failing, aren’t you? So scared that you’d rather wallow in a job you don’t care about and avoid your children. Scared of failing? You’ve already failed them!”

She stepped up out of the main body of the water so that it only came so far up as to lap at her heels and suddenly she felt the cold and the hate that was brewing within her. All of the hurt and all of the loneliness and the quiet desire for her children to know their father more intimately than just as the man who tucked them in at night. She had wanted story time like her father used to tell her and Elliot. She wanted bath time to be exciting and full of good humour and an intolerable mess. Instead it was she and Bridget making sure the soap suds didn’t get in their bright eyes, teaching them to blow bubbles through the spaces in their fingers and lifting them out to dry them off and wrap them up in the towels like little parcels to carry them into the nursery to get them ready for bed. Elliot had been more of a father to them than their own sire and for that she wouldn’t forgive Keiran.

“Yes, well, that’s what happens when the shit hits the fan, isn’t it?” She hissed. They were all still paying in some small way or another for the school. In the courts, Theodore was still hashing it out with the Ministry, trying his hardest to get it through their thick skulls that what they had done was right regardless of its illegalities. They had all been right but they’d suffered. Millie was lucky not to have gotten a sentence. Her eyes had found her privy to more information than they should have during her time with Elijah. They should have been sharing a cell but they weren’t and that was a small miracle. She could still be with her children. Heaven knows, if she had been in Azkaban, the burden would have been on Bridget alone to raise them.

“You’re a coward, Keiran Hayes. There’s no such thing as a ‘Millie-Kelly-Liam equation’ there’s a family here somewhere that includes Keiran, Millie, Liam and Kelly. Only, the Keiran in that family is gone so it’s an equation you have created because you don’t want to be involved. And, it’s not about the laundry.” She screwed up her face with open distaste. “It’s about the fact that you have a role to play here too and you don’t do it. I’m past being angry now. You’ve let our family down and you don’t want to change it, either. You haven’t done anything. You want to change? You get involved. You change with our children, with our family. But clearly it’s my children. My family. They barely even know you, Keiran. I’m not sure I even know you anymore.”

She didn’t understand. Of course she didn’t – she never had, how could she now? Then again, sometimes he managed to surprise even himself when it came to his mixed up fears and mercurial nature. Keiran used to believe that his place was only ever to be as a Professor, because at least there he knew exactly what he was supposed to do and how to do it. Sure, being in charge certainly helped in the sense that if anything happened he could easily right it when some sort of retribution. He had never been this weak around anyone but her. He let that realization settle for a moment, accepting the idea that his feeling weak could easily have been the trigger for everything that had gone wrong since the beginning. As she stood there yelling at him, though, Keiran found that he couldn’t sit by and let her think she was making some point or proving to him how awful he was. What bit of pride he found inside himself was completely affronted and refused to listen to her.

As her words pierced the air, Keiran’s face went from being angry to disbelieving, finally settling on remaining blank and impassive. His expression was cold, practically unfeeling as all of her accusations fell from her lips. Hours ago he’d wanted nothing but her conversation and kisses, but now he was just done. So, completely done.

As she reached the end of her rant, Keiran found himself pushing off the sand so he could rise to his full height and look down at her with his still, harsh expression. If she didn’t expect him to respond to that, she would be unpleasantly surprised. “You know what, Melissa? I’m not the only coward here. Who was it that hid when the law was repealed? Who failed to bring all of this up when we were actually at home and something could have been done about it?” Shaking his head, Keiran’s voice rose regardless of his steeled, near-bored gaze, refusing to let her get a word in until he’d said his piece.

“I don’t think you ever knew me. It’s hard to know someone who doesn’t know themself. But it’s equally hard to come to the realization that your wife, who you thought actually cared, all along just wanted you to change. That she doesn’t want what you are, but rather the imagined version of you that she thinks she can make you into. No, Melissa, this isn’t something I’ll sit around and listen to. It’s one thing to call someone on their wrongdoings or to point out flaws. But attacking the parts of your husband that you damn well should know by now are his weakest parts? That doesn’t sit well, and I won’t tolerate it. You may want to remember that for all of the Greek men you meet on the rest of your trip. Do whatever the F*** you want, Melissa. I’m done. Maybe the Ministry was wrong from the start.”

Turning over his shoulder the instant his words stopped falling, Keiran didn’t even wonder after whether or not she would follow. He had things to gather – it wasn’t like they had bothered to unpack – and a ticket to purchase. The reservations could stand; he wasn’t going to just leave her in Greece without places to stay or tickets for airplanes or someone to drive her once she hit the mainland again. Millie could have the best damn vacation that ever was for all he cared. He wanted no part in it. Not now, not tomorrow morning, not at all. If he hadn’t needed his bag from the villa he would have just tossed the key at her feet. He would have to charm her things and leave her a note so he could leave the place unlocked. At least then if someone came in unbidden they wouldn’t know there was anything to take.

Or maybe he wouldn’t leave a note, just to spite her. He didn’t think he quite had it in him.

Keiran was fairly certain that you didn’t just stop loving someone overnight. So either somewhere along the way she’d lost her faith in him, or perhaps she’d never really had any. In the beginning, it almost seemed like the law would just stand and she would be forced to deal with him forever, regardless of her wishes. Even when the law was tossed, as Millie avoided him and irritated him to no end, he hadn’t been sure anymore. Not about his own feelings, though; those were stuck. Stuck on her. It came down to the fact that no matter how well you know someone, you never really know everything about them. Everyone has secrets, and even in a lifetime he probably couldn’t figure her out completely. He was starting to wonder why he’d ever even bothered to try.

The final wounds were inflicted there on the beach, leaving their hearts bloody in the sand, washed over and stifled of their collective beat by the cool ocean. There was little left to be said. All that they could do was now stand and stare, the collective hurt felt and the betrayal clear in both façades. Time did not elapse to prove pressuring enough to prompt an apology. Rather, time provided distance as Keiran took his voluntary leave – one which felt threateningly final for the young woman whom he chose to abandon. As she watched him go, the breeze and the lapping waters no longer provided the reassurance they had done to temper her feelings. Now it only served to freeze her, sealing her irrevocably from her husband.

Eventually, the young woman stepped up furtively onto the sand and bent down to retrieve her bag and her shoes. She slowly then began to pick her way back up towards Oia in the hope of retracing their steps back towards the restaurant and then to the villa. As she walked, her soft and supple feet complaining of the press of stones and dust underfoot. She sighed heavily, believing it to be a form of penance, her mild discomfort, and persisted in walking. At the top of the steps she paused long enough to dust off and slide her sandals back onto her feet and secure the buckles around her ankles. She then picked up her pace a little but regardless felt wandering, lost and painfully at home.

There were lights on inside the villa as she reached the end of the road that theirs was perched upon. She bit her lip and inhaled, hoping to gain some courage from somewhere, and crossed the road – this time with a lot more sobriety about her. The events had turned so terrifically that she didn’t know where the evening had gone. The sunset had come and past and early evening had disappeared behind the houses. Suddenly, the night seemed long and dark, the divisions between happiness and upset, night and day, quite clear to her.

The door had been left open but whether it was in unconscious hope or intent to leave, Millie did not know and did not want to speculate. She closed it behind her, regardless, and set her bag down on one of the sideboards by the door.

She had hoped that her life would not find striking parallels her parents’ lives. She hadn’t wanted the Cold War. She could remember sitting at the top of the stairs with her brother and they’d watch as her parents battled back and forth. One would walk out and return later on, slam their things down on the hall table and storm into the kitchen for round two. Often, the walker was Lavender. Seamus lingered, if only because he knew that if the children woke they would need someone there. Millie and Elliot rarely slept through those episodes, though.

As she set her things down and leaned down to take off her shoes, she felt rather like her mother and a wayward glance into one of the mirrors made her feel all the more like the woman she had never wanted to be like.

Striding up to the mirror, Millie took a moment to inspect herself. The long nose was the same, the pert lips and the rounded cheeks. The large eyes belonged to Seamus but she looked through Lavender’s colouring and of course it was her hair that she shared. Long and lush like spun gold it was a cherished product that her mother had painstakingly pressed into a state during her early teens which would make it manageable and beautiful like hers. They were the same. She was even doing as terrifically as her mother did at ruining her marriage.

Her hands found the doorframe that preceded their room and she peered inside, lingering just outside lest she upset Keiran in any way, shape or form. Upset him anymore, that is. She didn’t dare retaliate anymore. She’d lost the desire to fight. Fatigue had returned and in a vaguely ironic way, all she wanted to do was go to bed. Exhaustion had become second nature to her, the great juggler that she was, and now, in the wake of a fight that had been cataclysmic – broken the Richter scale – she just wanted to close her eyes and try to forget about everything as though it hadn’t happened.

“I’ll take the settee, then,” she murmured. For a moment, Millie broke rank and stole into the room to fetch a nighty from her suitcase. She then took a pillow and a spare sheet from the wardrobe before returning to the main living quarters. She set up her bed first, wincing a little at the sight of the bed of thorns she imagined she’d be treated to, and then finally got undressed, setting her clothes on the back of one of the arm chairs. She changed into her pyjamas and then, in true British style, in a crisis she made tea.

There wasn’t an electric kettle but she did find one that belonged on the stove and some teabags and a fresh bottle of milk in the cupboard and fridge. She lifted both onto the side and retrieved a cup, waiting patiently for the whistle of the water as her feet tapped upon the tiled floor. Whatever decision Keiran made was on his head. She found it now beyond herself to rustle up enough within her to care. She wanted to turn back and get up when prompted to do so. She wanted to have kissed Keiran, taken away his worries with that instead of winding him up. She would’ve taken it all back if she thought she could have done. But she couldn’t. She hadn’t even seen it coming.

The kettle began to whistle.

There were few things that the two had managed to unpack before leaving their little house in the side of the island’s cliff, so most of Keiran’s preparing had involved gathering things she would need and placing them on one end of the table in the main room. He had been writing her a note to explain that all of their reservations were in tact if she chose to continue without him when she walked in. She would likely end up doing that at home, anyway, wouldn’t she? And yet here she was, dropping her things and lingering in the doorway. He glanced up at her words from his seat on the end of their bed.

As she moved past him, he looked down at the note again, deciding not to toss it in the bin in case the morning brought more troubles. Keiran wasn’t quite sure she was serious until he passed into the main room, dropping the note next to tickets, key, and the money, and found her finishing her job with setting up the couch with sheets and a blanket.

Frowning at it, he glanced over at Millie as she moved through the kitchen. “Don’t joke, Millie,” he murmured, voice nearly an apology in just the tone. “You’ll take the bed, or neither of us will.”

Tangling his fingers in his hair, Keiran leaned against the doorframe that led to the semblance of a bedroom that the house provided, keeping his distance. Not willing to wait and see if a fight was on the way, Keiran snatched up the pillow she’d put on the couch and tossed it back onto the bed before sitting down atop the sheet. He would not be taking no for an answer tonight. Not when he could at least offer something. He couldn’t find it in him to say anything else until she started pouring up her tea.

When he finally got the words out, they burned, making him ache inside and out. “I don’t think there are any flights tonight,” Keiran’s hand lifted to his neck, a nervous gesture he couldn’t quite help, “but I can... I can get one to Athens tomorrow if you need me to. There’s bound to be a flight back to London or Dublin at some point…” He peeked up at her almost sheepishly as his hand fell to his lap.

Realizing what an assumption he’d made, he added belatedly, “Or, I mean… I can just head out now if you’d rather. Catch one in the morning.”

In a motion rather unlike him, Keiran leaned against the wall with a sigh and stared at the floor blankly. He’d left her there. Of course she would have come back; where else was she supposed to go? He couldn’t believe he’d actually walked away and left her standing alone in a foreign country without anything on hand to help her take care of herself. He could’ve slapped himself. Instead, his eyes found the ceiling as he chided himself silently. He hadn’t meant to abandon her exactly; rather, he had needed so badly to walk away before she said anything that would completely shatter his faith in her. It was shaken, to be sure, but not lost entirely. If anyone had the ability to say that, it might be Millie.

He couldn’t look at her. If he did he’d be desperately tempted to walk over and hug her from behind and just stand there until they both calmed down. But he didn’t want to be physically attacked by his wife, so that wasn’t an option. Deciding to hang propriety, Keiran let himself collapse onto the settee and stared at the ceiling without a clue as to what to do next. He couldn’t see a way to fix this without her allowing him to. Maybe he should have just left anyway, regardless of her having returned. Given her space. Instead, he was stealing her privacy. Hell, he’d sleep on the deck if she told him to no matter the wind chill that inevitably would come over him in the night. It really didn’t matter that he was still so blindsided at her attacks on his person, because she mattered more than he did. To so many people. (Including him, of course.)

What good could possibly come from their trip, now, when he had so effectively shuffled everything around and turned them both on their heads? The worst part of it all was that, not only was she right about him, she was clearly everything she was supposed to be when he was nothing he should have been.

The handle of the kettle was hot to the touch, searing across the skin of Millie’s palm through the tea towel she’d wrapped around it. Two cups of tea were poured out, the latter as an almost afterthought. There wasn’t any sugar but the milk tasted sweet enough, a fact that she hoped would compensate for the lack of sugar. After setting the kettle back onto the stove, Millie lifted out the teabags and poured in the milk, stirring it carefully as her thoughts wrapped up around her. Keiran had already turned the offensive back on, endlessly and needlessly stubborn but Millie only cast a weary glance in his direction. She shook her head and continued to stir, conceding mentally that she couldn’t keep that up forever.

Curling her fingers around the handles, Millie lifted the cups from the counter and she carefully picked her way across the room, watching with a wary eye as the tea sloshed around in the mug. She eventually reached Keiran and set his cup down on the table in front of him. She bit her lip and stole a glance in his direction before taking a seat in the arm chair adjacent to the sofa. Millie curled her legs up behind her and perched her mug on her leg as her mind carried her off, seeing her stare gormlessly at the tiling. Mechanically she began to sip at her tea, putting out the fire within her and settling it to a teary storm. She wouldn’t cry in front of him, though. That she was determined not to do. It meant weakness, after all.

“This is your holiday, too,” she spoke quietly, lifting her eyes from the floor to his face for the briefest of moments before averting them in shame.

It was her way of saying ‘don’t go’ without actually having to articulate the words. She was still livid somewhere beneath the hurt and she knew he was too but she didn’t see any sense in wasting the money they had spent on the holiday by going home. She’d been looking forward to it, regardless of whether or not she was tired. She knew she’d have her second wind by the morning and the beach would be a highly attractive prospect. Why she hadn’t told him that in the first place she didn’t know. She didn’t know why anything that had happened had even occurred. When she looked at that man she saw him, still, through rose-coloured glasses. She didn’t think she’d ever stop loving him but, regardless, she still felt wounded and abandoned by him.

“You don’t need to leave,” she said finally with a heavy, shaky breath as she lifted herself to her feet. “Come to bed, if you like.”

With that said, Millie retreated to the bedroom, shutting the door to. Setting her cup down on the bedside table she switched on the lamp and took a few moments to shuffle around the room. She didn’t know what her plan was for the morning: breakfast and a swim, she imagined. She hoped to curl up somewhere in the sunshine and start reading one of the books she’d brought with her. Then perhaps she’d wander up to one of the beach bars she’d spotted on the walk back and have some lunch, swim some more and let the day run out until dinner. She’d never experienced a foreign country on her own before but she felt regardless of her words, Keiran would leave and it would be up to her to busy herself until home called.

After taking out a swimsuit and some other beach things, Millie left them on the side and tumbled into the bed. It was then that she finally allowed herself to cry. Hot salty tears ran across her cheeks as she curled herself up beneath the sheets. The tears stained at the pillows and she shook with sobs she tried to keep in, the sudden flood of emotions zapping the last of her energy and slowly, then all at once, sleep claimed her finally and permanently until morning dawned.

When Millie woke that morning she found no sign of Keiran having slept beside her even though she was sure the bed had shifted at some point during the night. With a sigh she rose and divested her body of her nighty. After folding it up on the end of the bed she entered the adjoining bathroom and washed the sleep, the travel and the sadness from her skin. Once her hair was dry, curling brightly in the warm air, she got herself into her bikini and found a sarong. After shrugging on one of Keiran’s shirts which she had stolen a long time ago when they’d first been married and living at Hogwarts in his rooms, she slid her feet into her sandals and packed her beach bag. It was then that Millie stole away, pausing only for a moment to scribble a note on the back of a piece of paper in case Keiran came to find her. For all she knew, however, he was already gone.

The sun was high and bright in the sky, soothing optimism into her heart. As she moved through Oia she couldn’t quite dispel her sadness but she was happier than she had been the night before. Sleep had given her some sprightliness which she had lost from months of stress. The air was warm and endearing and with the light on her skin she was given a renewed spirit which took her down to the beach with a spring in her step. It was there that she found a sunbed and a parasol. After paying the lady for the space she set her things out and then, placing down the shirt and the sarong, she made her way down the sand towards the water.

Whether her husband joined her or not was a different question entirely. She wanted him with her but ultimately it was still a chilly deadlock. Whether the morning had made any difference to their relationship, healed some of the cracks that had become stark, would not be clear until much, much later. She just hoped that wasn’t it. As she slid into the water, she prayed to every elusive deity that existed that when they returned home it wouldn’t be to two divorce lawyers and a stack of papers.