Daizi, like Dark, was very proud Xander had decided to take that step, and made him promise to tell her if there was anything she could do to support him. Even though she didn't need their permission to nurse, she still felt grateful they were empathetic enough to let her stay down in the living room while she did, rather than expecting her to shuffle off alone somewhere. There had been a lot of difficulties over winter break, with Ivy being so new, so frail, and so exhausting, but looking back, one of the most difficult parts was trying to nurse her without feeling alone in the world, or like she was doing something wrong. Those weren't feelings she still had: Ivy had fewer feedings, anyway, but also they had enough of a rhythm it wasn't much of an issue.
There was an overall pattern to the week. Dark was still having trouble pulling himself out of bed in the morning, occasionally spending the day in his pajamas, which was unlike him, although Daizi took special care to help him with his hair and skincare, because she knew he'd regret it if he let it slip. But during the day, at least, he acted more or less like his usual self, except for his occasional disassociation. It was only during the night that he couldn't keep it up anymore, although he tried. A few nights he excused himself early from the dinner table, citing exhaustion, which he would play off as catching up on sleep he missed during the school year or underestimating how much work it took being with Ivy all day, every day, now that she was so much bigger and more active. Other nights he wouldn't go to bed at all.
The Friday after Sally's visit, after almost a full week of vacation, Daizi waited in her bedroom for hours after putting Ivy to bed for Dark to come up. She knew he wouldn’t sleep, but even in times like this, he always at least tried to. But she waited, sitting on the edge of their bed, for him to walk in. All she wanted to do, really, was to tell him she loved him and wish him goodnight, because although she had told him after catching him fighting hard to keep himself safe they needed to talk about it, and she told him again after he had cut his hand, she couldn’t force him to speak. Ripping open that door was just as bad as letting it go unaddressed, she knew that. This wasn’t their first time in this battle. But the longer she waited, the more her chest squeezed. After all these years together, it wasn’t like she could say this was the worst he’d ever been, which she was grateful for, but it was the worst he had been in awhile. The worst he had been since they had become parents. Dark had struggled, of course, they had both struggled. The entire period when Ivy was in the hospital, even though it was only two weeks—it was difficult for Daizi to process it had been such a short period of time, it felt like ages longer—was such a strange combination of the truest joy and the worst agony. She wondered if there would ever come a time when she thought about those days without her heart being pierced. And Dark was hurting then, too, but differently, and in those dreamlike days, neither of them particularly felt like people, which didn’t change much after discharge, especially after the calls started coming.
And when Declan showed up, Dark had hurt then, too. So did she. Because they had grown to love those two boys, and grown to love them sooner than they returned the feeling, she thought, and it seemed Declan was pulling them apart. Even in the moment, both she and Dark could tell it was all, more or less, a game to that man who had sired sons and fled, only to return and flee again. The coward. But there was no rule book, there was no guidance, no real help, and they were overwhelmed, burnt out, and spread thin, but they couldn’t really rest. Someone had to be there to pick up the pieces.
At that particular moment, as Daizi sat on the edge of her marriage bed, in silence, straining her ears to hear the steady footsteps of her husband approach their room, she was being eaten up by the thought: Was this, Dark’s current state, her fault? He had been through so much over the last year and a half. And so had she, but she had been in such a fragile state with the pregnancy and then being postpartum, and maybe, had she not been so vulnerable… Daizi bounced one leg and fiddled with her wedding ring, wondering if Dark’s current problem was because she hadn’t given him space to feel his feelings, when all of the past year’s changes and struggles came at them. She had tried to, but maybe she just… hadn’t been as supportive as she was supposed to have been. They had communicated through all of it, but if he had been withholding, and now he was being hit with all of what he had suppressed, for her sake?
No. Daizi forced herself to take a breath and stand up. She knew she did the best she could in those moments, when she could. Obviously, she couldn’t support him equally when she was recovering from birth—she was recovering from birth. Nobody would expect her to be as strong as him, then. And throughout all of it they held each other. She loved him, and had done her best for him, and she remembered all the late nights they spent up with each other and sharing everything with each other. Maybe all their recent struggles were catching up to him, and maybe she could’ve done more, but she did all that she could. All that was left was dealing with the present.
