It had been a week, just a week, but it felt like a lifetime had passed since Rodolphus had shown up at the dress shop. It had taken Cissa twenty years to tell @lucius what had happened that year, and then it seemed no sooner had she told him, than her nightmares had come back to haunt her in the waking hours. She hadn’t thought that he would come looking for her there. She had been careful, and cautious. Since she had heard that the brothers had been released from Azkaban she had carried her wand on her arm at all times. But nothing had prepared her for seeing him that close to her again. For him touching her again.

It had been a week, she had changed her hair, and taken more scalding showers than she ever had in her life. There were spots on her skin where she had had to use a glamor spell to hide the fact that the water had burned her, or that she had rubbed the spot so raw it had bled. Andi had shown up on Tuesday. Somehow her sister had just known that she was in trouble. The bathroom had looked like it was covered in blood, and her arms had been stained brown for a couple days. Coming clean to Andi had been one of the hardest afternoons of her life, but she had survived. That was all she seemed to be doing lately. Surviving. 

She was surviving, but she wasn’t living. Cissa was terrified. That’s all there was too it. She hadn’t left the flat since she had gone into muggle London for the things to change her hair. She had called in sick all week, until she had finally just up and quit. She couldn’t stand the thought of him getting to her there again. She didn’t want him anywhere near her, and leaving herself open to that kind of exposure was terrifying. He had come there once, what was to say that the next time wouldn’t end worse? 

Instead she had thrown herself incessantly into cleaning the flat. For the last two days she had been scrubbing every inch of this place that she could reach, and she was doing it the muggle way. Nothing really felt clean anymore, and she was sure that it was all in her head, but her focus was on making this place spotless and not on the demons that were milling around in her head. Cissa barely even noticed the blood pooling on the countertop under her chapped and raw hands as she stood next to the kitchen sink. She had just finished scrubbing the bathroom again, and all of the dye seemed to finally be gone this time. Narcissa spun around quickly when she heard someone enter the room behind her, even though it couldn’t have been anyone other than her husband.

Outfit

Lucius had had a long day in the potions shop. He had been unnerved by Rodolphus showing up at the shop, but he wasn’t about to let that show to his wife. She needed him to be strong and strong was what he needed to be, what he would be. For twenty years his wife had kept her pain from him, but he wouldn’t add to it now. It was his time to be brave and keep secrets.

Coming home for the past week had been trying. Narcissa was scared. The bastard had shown up at her work and now she was refusing to leave the flat. She had changed her hair and had busied herself in the apartment, refusing to leave. It had taken her a couple days before she quit, claiming she didn’t feel safe outside of the their flat. Lucius wanted nothing more than to torture the man, causing a slow, painful death. However, his hands’ were tied. He had made a promise to the woman he loved to stay out of it.

Entering the tiny apartment they called home, Lucius called out, but didn’t receive an answer. The only sound he could hear was breathing and so he made his way to the kitchen. The sight was something he couldn’t have prepared himself. His wife, raw hands bleeding onto the kitchen counter by the sink, only changing to drop on the floor as she turned to face him. “Love, your hands,” he said quietly, looking down.

Outfit

The sight of Lucius coming into the kitchen made her relax slightly. Narcissa knew that she shouldn’t be scared in the flat, but she was. Every little noise made her jump. She was scared that one of these times something was going to frighten her and she was going to hurt herself. Not on purpose, never on purpose, it was just that she was sure that as jumpy as she was, accidents were more likely to happen. That was how she had gotten the burns. She was so out of it that the scalding water hadn’t even made an impression on her until it was too late. She knew that she should have healed them, but she hadn’t she had glamoured them. That was easier.

She followed his gaze down, as his words reached her ears, when she saw her hands she lifted them slowly. “They’re fine.” Cissa murmured quietly as she turned away from him and turned the faucet on on the back of the sink. Slowly letting the cold water wash over her hands and the bloody water run down the drain. The blood on the counter and the floor didn’t even register with her. She was lost in the darkness of her own mind.

Usually she pulled herself out of her head before he got home. She checked her glamor spells and made sure that he couldn’t see the toll that this was all taking on her. She didn’t want him to see the deep circles under her eyes from where she hadn’t been sleeping. Or the burns on her shoulder from the water. The spot on her left cheek that was so chapped it bled from all the times that she had scrubbed it, trying to get the feel of his fingers off of her skin.

When the water stopped running red she turned the water off and grabbed her wand. Drying them magically and then concealing their appearance silently before turning back to face him. “They’re fine.” She repeated just as softly as before. Stepping towards them she made an attempt to change the subject, though she was sure that Lucius wasn’t going to let this go as she would have wanted. “How was the shop today?"

Lucius wasn’t a kind man, at least not outside of his family. He also wasn’t one to worry easily, but the recent decline in his wife and the self-imposed imprisonment was enough to cause him concern. Cissa had been doing better before the release of the Lestrange brothers and the man couldn’t completely blame her. However, he was powerless because of a promise he had made, a feeling not to his liking. This situation would be his undoing.

“Love, work was fine. You are not. Here, let me heal them,” Lucius gently said, moving slowly forward to take her hands. All he wanted in that moment was to wrap his wife into his arms and never let her go. He knew there was no way he could completely heal her mental wounds but he would be damned if he didn’t try. That was what love was.

It was no secret the man was capable of love. He had proved that countless times over the years with his family. Even with all the loss he had experienced, Lucius still loved deeply, though only his family now got to see that. At one point Severus had been witness to it, the only other brother he knew who understood what love truly was. In his mind, he was failing his love now by not doing anything. He was sure there were others out there who felt the same. Perhaps he would need to make a few visits to have the situation remedied without his hands getting dirty, upholding the promise he had made to his wife.

Cissa didn’t want him to see these moments. The moments that the darkness was so thick she had trouble pulling herself out of it. These moments scared her, and as long as she got them under control before Lucius cam home it was fine. She could hold her shields through the evening and not let the pain, and the lost look fill her eyes. So far she thought she had been doing an okay job of not letting him see. She hated lying to him, but she didn’t want him to do anything stupid. What was done was done, and there was no going back, and there was no fixing it. She was damaged, and it was going to take a whole lot to put her back together again. Lucius was trying, and when he was here, she was okay, but she couldn’t force him to stay here with her all of the time. He had to work, someone had to work, and Merlin knew it wasn’t going to be her.

When he moved forward to take her hands Cissa froze. She knew that he would never hurt her, but that fear was still there. She wasn’t scared of Lucius, she was scared of what he might see. When he cancelled the spell on her hands so that he could heal them the rest of her glamours would fall away as well. He would see the circles under her eyes, and the redness of her cheek. If he moved her sweater to the side he would see her shoulder. The thought of him finding out how hurt she was caused tears to prick at her eyes. “Lucius,” he made his way towards her and she let him, but she dropped her shields and let the fear shine out of her eyes.

Looking down she registered the fact that her sleeves were covered in blood. Well great, she thought, that will never come out…A glance to her left and she saw the blood that had pooled on the counter and the spots on the floor. “Lucius, really, they are all right, you don’t need to worry about me.” She knew it was no good, and that he would check her over anyway. He always had. He loved her, and he took care of her, and she loved him for that.

There was nothing in this world Lucius wanted to see more than his wife happy again. Of course it would take time to rebuild the woman he had married, but he was determined. And if she never fully healed, the man would still love her. There was nothing she could do to make him stop. They were partners and it was his turn to carry some of the load for once. He would work multiple jobs if needed to keep her home and safe. “Love, please,” he pleaded, hoping Cissa saw reason. She needed healing and wasn’t sure she was capable of doing it at the moment.

Knowing his wife Lucius knew there was something more the woman was hiding. Normally she didn’t shy away from him, though the fear was there. “If you truly don’t want me to, may I firecall your sister? You need healing, darling. Proper healing.” He would tolerate not being the one to do so if that was what she needed. Hell, he would even tolerate Andromeda in his home for his wife’s sake. That was love.

“No.” Cissa looked up at him suddenly and shook her head, “No, I want you.” She looked at him again, and the tears really were pooling in her eyes now. “Andi, I don’t want Andi, not tonight.” She wasn’t ready to face her sister yet, though she knew that the meeting was coming. She hadn’t responded to a single one on Andi’s letters the whole week. She wasn’t ready to face the look in her big sister’s eyes when she read what had happened in Narcissa’s. Andi didn’t know, she hadn’t told her about any of it, and tonight, well tonight was not the time to go about telling her. When she did tell her she didn’t want her husband there. He may be the one healing her and holding her together, but telling Andi would be different than telling him had been, there would be something deeper there than even he could touch. No, tonight Andi would have been too much.

She took a step closer to him and looked up at him, “You can do it. I trust you.” Cissa’s voice was shaky, but she was nervous. What was he going to say when he saw the extent of the damage that had occurred in the last week? Did he even know how to fix it all? She shook that thought as quickly as it had come, of course he did, they hadn’t had healers in the war, they had healed each other. “Lucius,” his name fell softly from her lips, and she took a deep, shaky breath, “It’s not as bad as it looks. I promise. But gently, okay? Do it gently?” She doubted that he understood right then, but he would as soon as he removed her glamor charms.

Lucius knew his wife had glamors in place. He could tell just by looking at her. The glamor charms always covered everything, and unless one was careful about making sure it blended, the charms could be obviously seen. While his wife was meticulous, she was also exhausted and frazzled at the moment, letting it slip ever so slightly. Just enough for the man to notice. Tonight though, tonight was something different all together.

“I promise to be gentle, love,” Lucius murmured softly, slowly raising his wand. He dropped her charms and had to stop himself from gasping at the extent of the damage done. This all couldn’t be from just today. Rather than commenting, the blonde just set to work, gently muttering healing spells as he made his way down his wife’s body. This wasn’t the first time he had healed her and he was sure it wouldn’t be the last. Of course, normally the roles were reversed. He would come home from a revel covered in bruises, Severus trailing behind him. Cissa healed them both, gently, lovingly. In fact, the man was sure Severus was the only other to see that side of her, short of their son.

When Lucius had finished he stepped back and opened his arms, wanting his wife to make the decision as to whether or not she wanted to have him hold her, shield her from the world.

She had long ago learned to perfect a glamor charm, and most of the time they were so meticulously placed that even Lucius wouldn’t have been able to see them. Tonight though, that wasn’t the case. The ones on her hands she had done just out of habit at this point, and they were sloppy at best. The one on her cheek though she had been sure was perfect, she had taken the time to make that one blend in earlier. As he promised to be gentle and trained his wand on her she closed her eyes. She didn’t want to see the look on his face when he saw the amount of damage that had been done.

It didn’t escape her mind that this was the first time in years that the situation had been reversed. Since the end of the war neither one of them had had to heal each other all that often, and during the war she was always the one healing him. She would trail her wand over her husband just as he was doing for her now, and let her magic heal him. She showed tenderness towards Severus as well, but not nearly the amount of affection that she pushed through her magic when she healed her husband.

When she felt the magic stop she was sure that he was finished. He wouldn’t have left any part of her unhealed after all. Cissa opened her eyes and looked up at him, her bottom lip quaking slightly. “Thank you.” She murmured softly. Her hand came up to touch the newly healed skin on her cheek and she closed her eyes once more as she stepped forward into Lucius’s waiting arms. “Thank you.” She repeated into his chest. “I’m sorry I hid from you. I'm sorry that I'm scared.” She didn’t lift her head, she wanted him to hold on to her, and never let her go. “I’m sorry I’m not strong enough anymore.”

Lucius hated seeing his wife broken. They had been partners in everything, supporting one another. Even when they argued, and toward the end of the war they had argued, they still loved and supported one another. Of course he understood why she hadn’t wanted to let him know what had happened. It was her of way of supporting him; of keeping him strong enough to do what was needed. However, now things were changing.

“Shhh,” Lucius whispered gently into her air, trying to calm his wife. “There is nothing to thank and nothing to apologize for. I love you, dear,” he said. He was content to stand there with her cheek pressed against his chest, the love flowing freely between them. There truly was no magic as powerful as love. It was the only thing the old fool Dumbledore had ever been right about. “Darling, you are still the strongest woman I know.” It was the truth. Most people he knew would have broken long ago, but Cissa had held it together; was still holding it together in many ways. It had made him love her even more, if that was possible.