Summary: You remain at Valarr's side exactly as he always wanted. But every passing day steals another piece of the woman he loved, until all that's left is a beautiful ghost wearing your face.
CW: RAPE/NON-CON, coercion, implications of infidelity and child abandonment (false; Valarr's machinations), depersonalization as a response to trauma, apathy, poor professional ethics, obsession, denial, family problems, mommy issues, masochism?, unilateral joy.
AN: This one's dedicated to @rakiroad, thanks for the idea. @mei-vis wanted to be included here.
Dinner had been arranged with more care than usual, although no one had said aloud that there was any particular reason for it.
No anniversary was being celebrated, no birthday, nor any date marked in bright red on the family calendar. Nevertheless, for several weeks your eldest son had spoken of that April evening with a mixture of excitement and nervousness that was impossible not to notice. He had insisted on repeated occasions that there was no need for a grand display, that "I only want to introduce you to someone important to me," words that failed to convince anyone.
The house had understood, even before any of you had, that something was changing.
When the young woman arrived, she was welcomed with the impeccable courtesy that characterized the Targaryen family. She greeted Valarr first, shaking his hand with a politeness that seemed almost rehearsed, before turning to you with a smile that was slightly more timid. She could not have been more than eighteen. It was evident that an electoral war lasting at least two hours had taken place to choose the dress she was wearing and that, despite her efforts to project confidence, her nerves still revealed themselves through small, involuntary gestures.
The way she intertwined her fingers in front of her body, how she absentmindedly smoothed the fabric of her skirt every few minutes, or the quick glances she cast toward your son in search of reassurance that she only seemed to find whenever he smiled at her encouragingly.
"Breathe," he whispered as he guided her toward the dining room, leaning down just enough for her to hear. "I promise everything is going to be alright."
She let out a small laugh, born more from nervousness than from the mask of confidence she was wearing.
"That's easy for you to say. They're your parents."
"Precisely because they are." That answer managed to calm her nerves a little.
The table had already been prepared by the time everyone took their seats. The enormous windows overlooked gardens wrapped in the golden light of dusk, while the warm glow of the chandeliers spilled over the porcelain, crystal, and silver, creating an almost unreal setting. Everything had been arranged with the silent perfection that had always defined that house. Not a single piece of cutlery out of place. Not a single napkin folded incorrectly. Not a single detail neglected.
It was, in every definition of the word, a perfect setting.
The conversation began cautiously. Valarr asked his questions with the calm confidence he had always known how to use to put those around him at ease. He asked about her studies (Economics), about the university she hoped to attend the following year (King's Landing University. A good choice.), about her parents (a surname noble enough), and about the books she enjoyed (a bit of mystery. Arthur Conan Doyle and Agatha Christie).
There was no harshness in his voice, nor any intention of intimidating her. Quite the opposite. He listened to every answer with genuine attention, only intervening to ask another question or offer another observation that gradually eased the young woman's visible tension.
Barely twenty minutes had passed before she already seemed to be breathing much more naturally, encouraged by the occasional kiss her boyfriend would press against her cheek.
At one side of the table, your daughter watched the scene with an outrageously amused expression. "This is unbearable."
Her brother raised an eyebrow without looking up from his plate, the white streak he had inherited from his father standing out more than ever. "Who?"
"You," she insisted, pointing at him with her fork.
She made an exaggerated gesture with the utensil toward the young woman sitting beside him. "You keep looking at her as if you're starring in The Notebook."
"Because I'm in love." The answer came so immediately that it provoked a wave of laughter around the table.
"Gross," she muttered, hiding her face behind her hands.
The other brother joined in almost instantly.
"Give it a few months. Then they'll start arguing about where to have dinner, and she won't think he's so perfect anymore."
His brother turned toward him. "Don't project your failed love attempts onto me."
"I wouldn't call them 'failed love attempts.'"
The argument continued with exactly the same rhythm it had carried throughout their entire childhood. They interrupted one another constantly, exaggerated every detail, corrected things that were completely irrelevant, and eventually forgot what the conversation had been about in the first place. Even now, standing on the threshold of university, they still behaved exactly as they had when they were ten years old.
Val slowly shook his head as he lifted his cup to his lips. "I actually believed age would make you all a little wiser."
"They'll never change," your daughter declared before taking another bite.
"Thank you for the optimism, sweetie."
Laughter filled the dining room once again.
The young woman relaxed completely. She was now participating in the conversation, asking questions of her own and even daring to joke with the boys. Little by little, she stopped feeling like a guest and began, if only for a few hours, to feel like part of that table.
Only then did she begin to notice you.
Not immediately. As dinner went on, she started picking up on small details, almost insignificant and difficult to explain. It made no sense.
You remained seated where you always sat beside your husband, your back perfectly straight and your movements so measured they seemed rehearsed. You ate slowly. You smiled whenever someone addressed you. You always answered politely. You never interrupted anyone. You never raised your voice. You did not seem uncomfortable.
And yet, something felt out of place.
There was something strange, something that escaped any logical explanation.
It was as though your reactions arrived a fraction of a second too late. The others would laugh for what felt like the hundredth time; first you would watch everyone else enjoying themselves, and only then would you smile. Whenever someone asked you a question, there was a noticeable pause before you answered, as though you needed to search for the appropriate reaction before offering it.
It did not seem like shyness. Nor sadness, something nameless.
Perhaps you simply had not liked her?
The young woman tried to ignore the feeling. She couldn't.
It happened during a brief lull in the conversation, while your children were animatedly discussing the universities they hoped to attend the following year, that she finally turned toward you.
"Your son talks about you all the time."
The conversation quieted for a moment.
You looked up at her and smiled. That curve of your lips was beautiful, serene, your teeth perfectly white, and still an ominous absence lived within it.
The young woman nodded enthusiastically. "He says you always find a way to help everyone. That when he was little, you were the one who explained history to him because you somehow managed to turn even the most ordinary dates into unforgettable stories."
Your son smiled with an almost childlike blush spreading across his face. He waited. They all did.
Three pairs of mismatched masculine eyes, all fixed upon you—those darkened shades of brown watching expectantly, those dark stones submerged beneath an indigo sea stretching endlessly before you. All three of them—your sons and your husband alike—were like identical drops of water that had once stirred violent waves inside you.
Now, they barely managed to provoke a reaction.
The appropriate response to what she had just said would have been some silly anecdote, a joke about those years, some story that only a mother could tell.
You remained silent for a few seconds. Then you slowly nodded, accepting the information.
"That's very kind of you to say." Nothing more.
The conversation quickly moved on. One of the boys changed the subject. Your middle son immediately started another ridiculous argument with his brother. The young woman laughed again.
Valarr never took his eyes off you. He noticed the pause.
He remembered that years ago, you would have seized that question as an excuse to tell three different stories, leave the entire table in stitches, and lovingly embarrass your son in front of his girlfriend before the evening was over.
Now... You had only smiled.
While the family continued eating between bursts of laughter, he felt with disturbing clarity that the silence that had been growing inside you for years had finally become visible to someone else.
Valarr had also noticed the change in the young woman's expression. A blink that lasted just a little too long. A slight tilt of her head. That almost imperceptible hesitation that appears when someone realizes something does not fit, even though they still cannot put a name to it.
He had spent years seeing it reflected on other people's faces.
In psychologists who, during your sessions, would ask you a personal question and then furrow their brows when you answered with a polite smile that said absolutely nothing.
In old acquaintances who happened to meet you at some event and, after speaking with you for a few minutes, walked away carrying a strange sense of unease they could never quite explain.
In members of the household staff who had been there since the children were small and who, every now and then, found themselves watching you from afar with a quiet, unspoken nostalgia.
Everyone noticed that something was wrong, no one understood what it was, and no one ever dared to ask.
Your eldest son chattered excitedly about the university they would both be attending the following year, describing the grandeur of King's Landing thanks to the countless visits he had made to the campus during its summer programs. His brother was quick to interrupt him, listing the innumerable reasons why that choice was terrible, sparking yet another argument that drew exaggerated protests from your daughter and inevitable laughter from the young woman.
You remained there, listening, joining in every now and then, like a presence around whom everything else continued to revolve.
"And what about you?" The question came so naturally that, at first, no one paid it much attention.
"Yes," she smiled shyly. "Your son told me you studied at the same university as Mr. Targaryen."
You nodded slowly. "I did."
"What did you study?" she pressed gently, hoping to earn an answer longer than two words.
"International Business."
The young woman's eyes lit up immediately.
"Really?" She leaned forward slightly, completely forgetting the carefully rehearsed manners she had arrived with that evening. "I want to study Economics too."
Since dinner had begun, something resembling a genuine, youthful emotion briefly crossed your face so briefly it almost went unnoticed. Almost.
"It's a beautiful field," you said.
She smiled eagerly. "Did you ever work in it?" she asked innocently.
The young woman continued smiling as she waited for your answer, completely unaware that she had just pushed open a dusty door that had remained closed for far too many years.
Your husband reacted first.
It was not obvious. Anyone who did not know him well would never have noticed the change. He simply stopped moving his cutlery. His hands remained still beside his plate, his wedding band catching the light from the chandelier, while his attention abandoned the boys' argument entirely and settled on you.
He never looked away. He couldn't. He already knew the answer before you uttered a single word.
Your daughter absentmindedly held her glass of water while your son's girlfriend waited for a response, convinced she had shot at the perfect target to win your sympathy.
Only Valarr understood that she hadn't.
He watched your fingers slowly wrap themselves around the base of your glass. He saw the brief moment your eyes dropped to the table, the tiny silence you needed before answering, and felt something tighten painfully beneath his ribs, stealing the air from his lungs.
A single word, gentle. Without bitterness. Without resentment, the tone you would use while merely commenting on the weather.
You offered the serene smile you had learned to wear for everything, the same smile that left even experts of the psyche unable to find the truth hidden beneath your emotional disguise.
"No," you repeated. "Life simply took another path."
She wasn't satisfied with the answer, but she accepted it without questioning you further, unconvinced that this could possibly be the whole story.
Valarr remained perfectly still, his gaze never leaving you.
He remembered the young woman who devoted her mornings to studying theory only to spend her nights putting it into practice. He remembered the lover of ancient civilizations. He remembered the beautiful girl hopelessly addicted to coffee with almond milk, a pinch of cinnamon, and two cubes of sugar.
Beside him remained the skin of the woman who had once dominated the entire campus, the female phenomenon who had captivated professors and students alike through the brilliance of her work, the girl who cried after midnight because a 99% on an exam convinced her she simply wasn't good enough, the one who mocked his pretentious attempts to sound sophisticated, the one who laughed at him, the one who argued.
Now, instead, beside him was the other one.
The one who no longer teased his disastrous attempts at cooking, nor corrected his historical quotations out of sheer pride, nor disappeared for hours beneath mountains of books only to return carrying a new theory she could hardly wait to share. The one who smiled exactly the same way every time, nodded with the same quiet composure, and accepted every decision with a compliance that years ago would have seemed inconceivable. The one who no longer cried. The one who no longer laughed until she couldn't breathe. The one who seemed to have surrendered even the right to be angry.
A woman who still breathed, still walked, still occupied the same place beside him in bed every night, yet whose soul appeared to have quietly withdrawn from her own body long ago, leaving behind only a kind, silent, extraordinarily easy woman to love precisely because she no longer demanded anything at all.
'Life simply took another path.'
He was the other path, he had built this other path.
Valarr picked up his knife, cut a piece of meat, brought it to his mouth, chewed, and swallowed. No one could hear the noise echoing inside his mind.
Where had the student gone who could never sleep the night before an exam because even an outstanding grade didn't seem good enough? Where was the woman who could turn any conversation into an endless debate simply because she enjoyed defending her ideas? The one who filled the margins of her books with tiny handwritten notes? The one who argued with him for hours for the sheer pleasure of proving she was right? The one who was incapable of remaining silent whenever something struck her as unfair?
Where was the woman who had made falling in love with her feel as inevitable as breathing?
He lifted his gaze once more.
There you are, sitting exactly where you had always been, everything he had wanted you to become, and, at the very same time, everything he had come to hate most.
Night had fully settled by the time they left the estate.
The garden lights faded behind them, spilling over the stone pathways as the chauffeur slowly guided the car away from the front entrance. For the first several minutes, neither of them spoke. She sat staring out the window, her hands folded neatly in her lap, mentally replaying every moment of dinner as though trying to determine exactly when she had made a mistake.
Eventually, she broke the silence.
He turned his head slightly. “What about her?”
She hesitated. “I think she didn't like me.”
His response came so quickly it almost sounded startled. “What are you talking about?”
“I don't know.” She lowered her gaze to her hands. “It's just a feeling. She was very kind, but—I don't know how to explain it. It felt like... like she wanted to be anywhere else except there with me.”
He remained quiet for a few seconds before letting out a slow, almost weary breath. “It wasn't you.”
He slowly shook his head. “My mother has been... like that since I was twelve.”
The words lingered between them like a bad omen. She frowned slightly. “Like that? What do you mean, ‘like that’?”
He rested his head against the seat, seeming to wrestle with himself for a few moments, as though deciding how much he was willing to tell her.
“She used to be different.” A faint smile crossed his face. It was an odd smile. Nostalgic.
“Everyone says she was brilliant.” He fell silent for a moment before continuing. “My father always says that back in university there wasn't a single professor who could keep up with her once she started arguing. She was one of those people who could spend hours talking about history without ever becoming boring, who filled the house with books and somehow convinced everyone around her to become fascinated by subjects they never even knew existed.”
His voice gradually faded as he spoke, like the flame of a candle slowly deprived of oxygen. “I barely remember her that way.”
She listened without interrupting, until he stopped. “What happened?”
A short laugh escaped him. There wasn't a trace of humor in it. “If you asked my father, he'd tell you nothing.” His eyes drifted toward the city lights sliding past the window.
“But I remember the exact moment she stopped being herself.” The car continued through the night in silence. “She disappeared for four months.”
She blinked. “Disappeared?”
“She left.” He said it with a coldness that seemed completely at odds with the weight of those words. “With another man.”
Silence settled over the car once more. “An... affair?”
He nodded slowly. “His name was Robert.” Even saying the name still tasted bitter. “I remember the day she walked out of the house perfectly. They had a huge argument after she asked my father for a divorce and he refused to give it to her. My little sister cried for weeks. My brothers and I barely understood what was happening. My father...” He paused. “My father looked like a ghost.”
She said nothing. Neither did he.
He still wasn't looking at her. “In the end, she came back.” The words sounded dry. “She crawled back to my father like a pathetic damsel in distress” There was no compassion in his voice. Only an old resentment. A deep one.
“He was kind enough to let her come home—we all pretended nothing had happened. Every single one of us. As though Mom hadn't spent almost half a year sleeping with another man while we, her children, cried ourselves to sleep because of what she'd done.” He slowly shook his head. “Ever since then...” His voice grew quieter. “It's like she never really came back.”
She remembered the smile from dinner. Perfect. Polite. Empty. Suddenly, she understood why it had unsettled her so deeply.
It wasn't a fake smile. It was a smile with no one left behind it.
He took several seconds before answering. “So am I.”
The car slowed as it approached her home. Finally, he turned to look at her.
All that bitterness vanished almost immediately, replaced by the same gentle eyes she had fallen for. He took one of her hands in both of his, his thumb slowly brushing across her skin with a tenderness completely unlike the anger he had shown only moments before.
“You won't become like that.” She held his gaze as he smiled with quiet warmth. “I know.” He lifted her hand and pressed a soft kiss against her knuckles. “I know I'll never wake up one morning and find that the woman I love has run away with someone else.”
He paused briefly, looking at his beloved's face, trying to erase his mother's from it.
“I know you won't be like her.”
The morning unfolded with the same carefully orchestrated quiet that had come to define every day of your life for years. Outside, a sky veiled in gray clouds filtered the light into a dull glow, turning the city into a procession of faded buildings and streets still slick from the rain that had fallen before dawn. Inside the residence, the household staff moved with their customary discretion, preparing breakfast, answering calls, and organizing a schedule that rarely suffered the slightest alteration. To any outsider, the house continued to function with the flawless precision of a perfectly maintained machine.
You descended the staircase a few minutes before the appointed time wearing a simple dress in soft, pale tones, your hair carefully pinned back, and an expression so serene that no one would have imagined this was anything other than an ordinary outing. You greeted the staff with your usual kindness, asked whether the children—though they had long since ceased to be children—had already left for university, if your daughter had already gone to school, and thanked one of the housekeepers for the black coffee she placed before you, taking only a couple of quiet sips.
Valarr was already waiting beside the front door.
He wore one of his customary dark suits, the car keys resting loosely between his fingers as he gazed absentmindedly toward the gardens. At the sound of your footsteps, he lifted his head and smiled with the effortless warmth that still came so naturally whenever his eyes found yours.
You returned the exact same smile. “Yes.”
He stepped closer, tucking a loose strand of hair behind your ear before leaning down to press a loving kiss against your forehead. “We'll only be gone for a little while.”
You never asked where you were going anymore. There was no need. It was always the same place.
The drive passed with very little conversation. There was tension between you, nor because either of you was angry. It was a different kind of silence, one far older, one that had sat so naturally between you that it had become part of the way you communicated.
Valarr drove slowly, one hand resting on the steering wheel while the other occasionally lingered near the gearshift. Every so often, he glanced toward you for only a second, and each time he found exactly the same image: you gazing out the window at the passing city. You did not appear sad, nor happy. You simply watched, as though the pedestrians on the sidewalks, the buses idling at traffic lights, and the crowded cafés all belonged to a life that had never truly been yours.
“The boys called a few hours ago.”
You didn't look away from the glass. “Did they?”
“Our eldest asked if we're still having Friday dinner tonight.”
You nodded slowly. “That sounds wonderful.”
He waited for another response. A question, perhaps. A comment about how university was treating them, some curiosity about the exams they were preparing for that week.
“He also said his girlfriend will be joining us.”
You nodded once more. “It'll be delightful to see her.”
Everything and nothing at the same time again. The conversation died exactly where it had begun.
Valarr's jaw tightened ever so slightly before he returned his attention to the road. Years ago, that simple remark would have become a conversation lasting half an hour. You would have wanted to know which classes they were taking that semester, whether they were still planning the international exchange program, if she was still interested in economics, or whether they needed help with a project.
Now, you accepted every piece of information with the same quiet composure with which you accepted the weather forecast.
The office occupied the top floor of an unassuming building on a quiet street, far removed from the constant noise of the financial district. From the outside, it was impossible to distinguish it from any other professional practice. There were no large signs, no crowded waiting rooms—only a silent lobby, warm-colored walls, bookshelves overflowing with volumes, and the faint scent of freshly brewed coffee mingling with lavender.
She was the twenty-third psychologist.
Valarr knew the exact number.
He had personally interviewed every previous specialist before allowing them to meet you. He had requested international references, reviewed academic publications, and studied research on complex trauma, dissociative disorders, persistent depression, emotional apathy, and prolonged psychological grief.
The session began exactly like all the others. Simple questions. Conversations that seemed almost trivial.
The psychologist did not appear to be in any hurry. She took very few notes, never interrupted, and simply allowed the silences to breathe between one question and the next.
“How are you feeling today?”
“Have you been sleeping well?”
“How has your week been?”
“Have you done anything you've particularly enjoyed?”
You thought for a few moments. “I accompanied Valarr to two charity events.”
You smiled. “They were very well organized.”
The psychologist remained silent. You hadn't actually answered the question. She didn't press the matter.
“Your husband told me you were an exceptional student in university.”
Your fingers remained folded neatly in your lap. “That's what he says.”
Another pause. “I don't remember it very well.”
“Do you still keep in touch with any friends from that time?”
The woman tilted her head slightly. She wasn't writing. She was watching, waiting for something to emerge naturally from the silence.
“Tell me about a happy memory.”
You spent much longer thinking this time. Finally, you answered.
“The birth of my children.”
Your lips remained perfectly still. “Happiness.”
The silence stretched on for many long seconds.
Your eyes remained fixed on some indistinct point in the carpet. “It was... important.”
The psychologist understood immediately what had just happened. You weren't incapable of remembering the events themselves.
You were incapable of reaching the emotions attached to them, as though someone had carefully archived your entire life, separating every memory from the feelings that had once accompanied it.
The session ended an hour later.
When you stepped out of the office, Valarr immediately rose from the sofa where he had been waiting the entire time. He didn't ask any questions in front of you. He simply kissed your forehead with the same familiar tenderness as always.
“Would you mind waiting for me for a moment?”
You walked toward the small terrace overlooking the street while he remained behind with the psychologist.
Neither of them spoke for several seconds. Valarr was the first to speak.
“Has there been any progress?”
The woman didn't answer immediately, she looked through the window.
You were sitting beside one of the planters, absentmindedly watching the leaves sway in the breeze. You looked completely at peace—that same permanent, tranquil stillness.
That single word made Valarr's heart race.
She slowly shook her head. “Not the kind you were hoping for.”
He felt hope disappear almost as quickly as it had arrived. The psychologist rested both hands atop the folder she was holding. “I've spent more than twenty years working with people who have endured extraordinarily complex trauma. I've treated patients who couldn't speak for months, people who lost entire years of their memories, and survivors forced to relive the very experiences they were trying to escape.”
“Your wife's case is different. She isn't avoiding her memories. She isn't repressing emotions. And she certainly isn't pretending.”
She drew a slow breath before continuing. “I believe that, at some point, she learned that feeling had become unbearably expensive, so she gradually built a version of herself capable of living... without doing so.”
“Can she come back?” The question was barely more than a whisper. Pure desperation.
The psychologist remained silent for several long seconds. “I can't promise you that. Nor can I tell you it's impossible. Today, when I mentioned university, something happened for less than a second. Her pupils changed. It wasn't conscious. It wasn't a smile. It was recognition.”
She offered him a careful, almost scientific smile. “There's still someone in there.”
She looked back toward the terrace. “The problem is that she's been hiding for so many years... she may no longer remember the way back.”
Valarr watched your figure for a long time.
You remained seated, quietly watching the plants bend beneath the wind with that same familiar serenity. So beautiful. So peaceful. So impossibly close. So unbearably far away.
The bedroom lay wrapped in a quiet half-light.
Only a single lamp beside the bed cast a warm glow across the furniture, stretching long shadows over the walls. Outside, the rain had begun again, tapping softly against the tall windows with an almost hypnotic steadiness. Everything was silent. Too silent.
You sat on the edge of the bed, your hands resting neatly in your lap, your gaze fixed on some indistinct corner of the room. Had just finished brushing your hair, and wore the pale nightgown you slipped into almost every evening. You looked peaceful.
Valarr stood beside the window.
He had remained there for several minutes without moving, one hand resting against the cold glass while the other slowly curled into a fist.
He had tried to convince himself to wait. To let time continue doing its work. To give time more time.
He had spent years doing exactly that, years taking you to specialists, years reading books he had never imagined he would one day need, years searching for an explanation capable of telling him how to bring back the woman he had lost without her ever truly leaving the house.
That night... He simply couldn't bear it anymore. He couldn't sleep beside the shell.
He turned toward you. "Do you know what I miss?"
You didn't answer. Your eyes met his with that same quiet serenity they always carried.
He took a step toward you. "I miss you arguing with me." Silence. "I miss you telling me I'm wrong." Another step. "I miss us fighting over the most ridiculous things."
His breathing became uneven.
"Do you remember when we'd spend an entire hour arguing because you insisted Napoleon Bonaparte made that decision for political reasons, and I kept saying it was driven by pride?"
He waited. He waited for anything: a smile, a flicker of recognition, an automatic correction.
Only that calm, empty gaze, like the surface of a windless lake.
Valarr swallowed hard. "I hated it whenever you won." A quiet laugh escaped him. It broke apart before it had fully left his lips. "And you always won." He kept walking until he stood directly in front of you. "Do you remember how you used to make fun of my French?"
"You said it was a crime against humanity." He waited again. Nothing. "Never missed an opportunity to tell me my pronunciation was awful."
"You laughed at my speeches."
"You called me pretentious."
His voice began to crack. "Get angry!" The words echoed through the bedroom, louder than he intended.
For a moment, even the rain seemed to stop.
"Call me an idiot!" His chest rose and fell violently. "Tell me I ruined your life!" Another step. "Hit me if you have to!" His voice shattered completely. "But do something!"
You continued looking at him. There was no fear. No anger. No sadness. Only that peaceful expression that seemed capable of surviving any storm.
He slowly shook his head. "No..." His voice dropped to a whisper. "Don't look at me like that."
That calm felt infinitely worse than any scream. He could have endured hatred. Accusations. Contempt. Even silence laced with fury.
Not this peace that belonged to someone who had stopped expecting anything from the world.
"Where are you?" The question barely escaped his lips. "Where did you hide yourself?" His eyes filled with tears. "Please..."
He was no longer speaking to the woman sitting before him, he was speaking to a memory.
"Just come back once." His breathing broke. "Insult me." Another tear slipped down his cheek. "Correct me." Another. "Laugh at me."
His voice dissolved completely. "Just... come back to me."
His legs finally gave out beneath him. He collapsed to his knees before you as though every ounce of strength that had sustained him through those years had abandoned him all at once.
He buried his face against your lap.
He made no attempt to suppress the sobs. He made no effort to preserve his dignity. He wept with the exhaustion of a man who had spent far too many years carrying a hope that grew heavier with every passing one.
His shoulders trembled beneath your hands. His breathing was ragged. Painful. Desperate. You remained still for several seconds.
Then, with the same calm you might have used to tuck a blanket around a sick child, you slowly lifted one hand. Your fingers slipped gently into his hair. You stroked it slowly. Carefully with infinite tenderness.
Once, then again, and again without saying a single word. Only that quiet, almost mechanical gesture, seeking to soothe a pain you no longer fully understood.
Valarr felt the caress. That was what finally broke him.
The movement was exactly the same one you had made hundreds of times throughout your marriage. But it no longer came from the woman he had loved. It was only a learned gesture. A kind response. The echo of an affection whose origin seemed to have been lost long ago.
Even so, he did not pull away.
He remained there, his forehead resting against your lap while your fingers continued gliding slowly through his hair, clinging to that tiny fragment of tenderness like a shipwrecked man who, even knowing the rescue ship will never come, cannot bring himself to let go of the last piece of driftwood still keeping him afloat.
Over the following months, the routine settled over your lives with such unwavering consistency that it eventually ceased to feel like an attempt at recovery and became something far closer to ritual. Every Tuesday morning, at precisely ten o'clock, Valarr drove you across King's Landing following the exact same route, as though repetition itself possessed the power to repair what neither time nor love had managed to restore. Outside, the seasons continued changing with quiet indifference: trees shed their leaves before blooming once more, storefronts replaced their displays, construction projects rose where abandoned lots had once stood, and strangers hurried through streets that no longer felt connected to your own life. Inside the car, however, nothing ever truly changed. You always occupied the passenger seat with your hands folded neatly over your lap, your gaze resting beyond the window without truly seeing the city drifting past.
At first, Valarr always tried to speak because silence frightened him now.
"The twins passed another round of interviews this morning."
You turned your head just enough to acknowledge him, offering the same gentle smile that had become your answer to almost everything.
A few minutes later he tried again.
"Our daughter is thinking about changing school."
You nodded thoughtfully, as though carefully considering the information.
"I hope she chooses whatever makes her happiest."
The conversation dissolved once more, yet he refused to surrender.
"The roses finally bloomed in the east garden. You should see them."
Years earlier, those same remarks would have carried the two of you through half the journey. You would have asked which companies had interviewed the twins, whether they were nervous, whether your daughter still intended to study abroad, or whether the roses had survived the late frost after all. Every ordinary detail had once become an excuse to spend hours talking together.
Each exchange arrived complete, polite, perfectly formed, somehow incapable of giving birth to another sentence. It was like throwing pebbles into an ocean so impossibly calm that not even the smallest ripple ever returned to shore.
The appointments themselves soon adopted that same quiet predictability. The psychologist experimented tirelessly with different therapeutic approaches, refusing to let routine become surrender. Some mornings she guided the conversation toward childhood memories, inviting you to speak about your parents, your school years, or the ambitions you had once nurtured. Other sessions revolved around identity, grief, purpose, emotional attachment, or the quiet rhythms of everyday life. Occasionally she abandoned every structured technique altogether, brewed tea for the two of you, and simply allowed the hour to unfold naturally while discussing novels, newspaper articles, or whatever happened to occupy the world beyond the office walls.
She never interrupted you, never hurried your thoughts, and never filled the silences merely because they became uncomfortable. Instead, she allowed each pause to breathe, believing that some words required space rather than pressure before they could emerge.
"How have you been sleeping lately?"
"Have you been reading anything?"
"You used to enjoy reading."
A long pause followed before you answered.
"What do you enjoy doing now?"
"What makes you feel most like yourself?"
You lowered your eyes toward your folded hands.
Every answer was delivered calmly, sincerely, and without hesitation. That, more than anything else, unsettled her. You were not resisting therapy, attempting to deceive her, or protecting yourself behind carefully constructed defenses. There was no hostility, no resentment, no visible effort to conceal your emotions. You simply answered every question as truthfully as you could.
The terrifying part was that the truth itself had become almost completely empty.
Nearly two months after your first appointment, the psychologist found herself crossing a boundary she ordinarily would never have considered. It was neither desperation nor curiosity born of academic ambition. She simply wanted to know who you had once been.
Because everyone who spoke about you described two entirely different women.
There was the woman who sat across from her every Tuesday morning, unfailingly courteous, endlessly composed, and so emotionally quiet that even sadness seemed unable to disturb the stillness surrounding her.
Then there was the woman everyone remembered.
Your children remembered fragments of her.
Former professors, old classmates, previous colleagues—even members of the household staff who had watched your family grow over the years occasionally spoke about you with unmistakable nostalgia, as though mourning someone whose funeral had taken place long ago despite the fact that she still walked through the same halls every day.
It was impossible not to wonder how one person could become so completely different while remaining physically unchanged.
One evening, after her final patient had left and darkness had already settled over the city, she remained alone inside her office surrounded by scattered case notes, psychology journals, and cups of coffee that had long since gone cold. She opened her laptop intending only to verify a few dates, yet one search became another until, almost without realizing it, she found herself reconstructing the outline of an entire life.
King's Landing University preserved remarkably thorough digital archives of its graduates. Academic distinctions, published research, scholarship recipients, debate champions, conference participants, graduation ceremonies.
Your name appeared almost immediately, on repeated occasions.
Outstanding Academic Achievement. Faculty Excellence Award. International Research Fellowship. Departmental Honors. Published Undergraduate Thesis. National Debate Champion.
She continued scrolling as each page revealed another distinction, another article, another photograph, another professor describing your extraordinary potential, until a single title caused her hand to stop moving entirely.
She stared at the screen for several long seconds before opening the article.
Years younger, standing proudly beneath the banners of King's Landing University with your graduation robes draped across your shoulders and your diploma tucked carelessly beneath one arm because the other was already gesturing animatedly toward someone outside the frame. You were laughing—not smiling politely for the camera, but laughing with your entire body. Your eyes sparkled with unmistakable life, your posture radiated confidence, and there was an excitement about you that almost seemed capable of escaping the photograph itself.
The accompanying article described you as one of the brightest graduates the university had produced in decades, praising your research, your leadership, your relentless curiosity, and your unusual ability to inspire intellectual discussion among both classmates and faculty alike.
One sentence from your supervising professor refused to leave her mind.
"She possesses the rare ability to make everyone around her think more deeply than they believed themselves capable of thinking."
The psychologist read that line three separate times before looking back at your photograph, unable to reconcile that brilliant young woman with the patient who quietly answered every question by admitting she no longer knew how she felt.
The psychologist did not wait until the following week.
That very evening she remained alone in her office long after the building had emptied, unable to pull her gaze away from the glow of her computer screen. Around her, newspaper clippings, academic journals, university records, faded photographs, and handwritten notes lay scattered across the desk, each new document painting a portrait that seemed to belong to an entirely different woman. The more she read, the more impossible it became to reconcile the brilliant, fiercely curious young student described in every article with the woman who sat quietly across from her every Tuesday morning, answering every question with the same calm, almost supernatural composure.
She was no longer searching for a diagnosis.
She was searching for you.
For the woman who had existed before whatever had happened erased her without taking her body with it.
The following session began differently.
There were no questionnaires waiting on the table, no discussions about your sleeping habits, no careful inquiries regarding your mood or the events of the previous week. When you entered the office, you found only a thick folder resting neatly between the two chairs.
The psychologist waited until you had taken your seat before opening it.
"Today," she said quietly, "I don't want to talk about how you're feeling." You lifted your eyes toward her. "I want to talk about who you were."
Without another word, she reached inside the folder and slowly slid a photograph across the table until it came to rest in front of you.
It was your graduation photograph.
You lowered your gaze toward it and remained perfectly still for several long seconds, studying the young woman smiling back at you without saying a single word.
A long silence followed before you answered. "Not very well."
The psychologist nodded gently, as though she had expected exactly that response. "I'm not surprised."
She opened the folder again and began placing document after document beside the photograph.
Certificates. Newspaper articles. Academic awards. Conference programs. Published research.
One after another they formed the outline of a life that seemed increasingly impossible to associate with the woman sitting before her.
"I didn't know a university could be this proud of a single student." Your eyes moved slowly from one page to the next. "King's Scholar." Another document. "Faculty Award for Academic Excellence." Another. "National Debate Champion." Another. "Published undergraduate researcher."
The room remained silent as she continued reconstructing your past piece by piece, not with the intention of overwhelming you but of placing before your eyes the life everyone else still remembered.
"You know what surprised me the most?" She waited before continuing. "Not a single person I spoke to mentioned your grades first." Your attention lingered on an old photograph. "They all spoke about your mind."
She picked up one of the interviews.
"One professor told me he'd never met anyone so incapable of remaining quiet whenever she believed an argument lacked substance." She reached for another.
"Another said you were unbearable because you always stayed after class to ask one more question after everyone else had already left." A faint smile crossed her lips. "And Professor Harrow..." She lowered her eyes toward the paper. "He said arguing with you was exhausting. Even when you lost, you somehow managed to make everyone else question whether they had actually won."
Your fingers moved. Barely. The smallest movement imaginable.
She noticed. She deliberately chose not to acknowledge it.
"I spoke with Professor Harrow."
Your breathing faltered for the briefest instant. "He is eighty-three years old now," she continued softly, "and he still remembers your graduation."
For the first time since entering the room, you raised your head completely. Suffocated.
"He told me that while everyone else celebrated outside the auditorium, you walked back inside alone because you wanted to hear the lecture hall one last time before leaving it forever."
The room seemed to grow impossibly still. "He followed you." Your eyes never left hers. "He asked what you were doing." She opened another page. "You looked around the empty room and said..." Her voice softened even further. "'I think this place made me brave.'"
Something changed.It was so subtle that, had she blinked, she might have missed it.
Your brow tightened ever so slightly. Your lips parted. The expression that crossed your face was neither pain nor confusion. Recognition struggling against years of silence.
The psychologist remained perfectly still, terrified that the slightest interruption might cause the moment to disappear.
"You weren't a quiet woman." Another pause. "You were relentlessly curious. You argued simply because you loved thinking." Your fingers slowly curled into your palms. "You refused to accept shallow answers."
Your breathing was no longer perfectly even. "You loved history." Your eyes drifted back toward the photograph. "You loved international business." A muscle trembled faintly in your jaw."You wanted to lead a company."
Your lips opened again. "...No."
The word barely escaped your throat. The psychologist felt her heartbeat quicken.
"No..." You repeated, but this time it no longer sounded like an answer. It sounded like resistance. Like something buried beneath years of quiet obedience pushing desperately against the surface. Your eyes remained fixed on the photograph. "No..." Your voice trembled. "I—" The next word took several long seconds to emerge. "wanted—" Tears slowly gathered in your eyes, though you seemed completely unaware of them.
You continued staring at the young woman in the photograph as though meeting someone you had spent years believing was gone forever.
"I wanted—" Your voice finally broke. "more. He—hetook it from me."
Silence filled the office once again. You said nothing else. You didn't need to.
For the first time since your treatment had begun, the silence no longer belonged to emptiness. It belonged to grief. To memory.
To someone who had finally managed, however briefly, to feel something again.
The psychologist drew a slow breath to steady herself before quietly closing the folder. She did not ask another question, did not risk turning that fragile moment into another clinical exercise, and simply allowed you to remain there, staring at the photograph while silent tears traced their way down your cheeks.
When the session finally ended, you stepped into the hallway with slow, measured movements.
Valarr rose from the waiting room immediately, exactly as he always did after every appointment, having spent the last hour seated in the same chair with a book he had never truly managed to read.
He looked at you once, and something inside him stopped, he couldn't have explained what was different. You weren't crying. You weren't smiling.
You looked exactly as you always had. And god, your eyes.
There was something inside them that hadn't been there when you walked into the office.
A faint, almost imperceptible uncertainty that fractured the flawless serenity you had worn for years so small that anyone else would have dismissed it entirely.
He had spent too many years memorizing every expression your face had ever made. He crossed the room slowly.
"Love?" You lifted your head. Your eyes met his. For a single, fleeting heartbeat, he did not see the quiet woman he had learned to live beside. He saw someone thinking. Someone questioning. Someone standing on the edge of remembering.
The expression vanished almost as quickly as it had appeared, dissolving once more into that familiar calm. He had seen it. He knew he had. For the first time in years... he had not felt as though an empty shell were looking back at him.
For one impossibly brief moment you had been there. This, he thought, is the other one.
The journey home barely existed for you.
Beyond the car window, the city slipped past in a blurred procession of buildings, traffic lights, and people carrying on with their ordinary lives, completely unaware that, inside that vehicle, someone had just remembered the unbearable weight of her own existence. For years you had inhabited a silence so profound that even your memories had lost their edges; now they returned all at once, without order or mercy, crashing into you with the violence of a dam finally giving way after holding back its waters for far too long.
You weren't crying. Not yet. It was worse than that.
You sat perfectly still, your hands resting in your lap, breathing slowly as though the slightest movement might be enough to shatter you completely, while Valarr barely took his eyes off the road long enough to make sure you were still there. Every time he looked at you, he discovered something new.
Your eyes were no longer empty. There was fear. There was confusion. There was pain. Terrible, real emotions he would have given anything to see them again.
The residence welcomed you both with the same elegant silence it always had.
The staff greeted you politely before disappearing into the corridors, understanding, without the need for explanations, that the house was meant to remain quiet that afternoon.
You walked slowly through the entrance hall. It did not seem as though you were heading anywhere in particular; instead, you looked like someone wandering through a museum dedicated to a woman you could no longer remember being.
The staircase. The piano. The family portraits. Every object awakened an image. A feeling. A different version of yourself.
You stepped into the sitting room without saying a word. The gray afternoon light streamed through the tall windows, settling over the furniture with an almost painful stillness as you stopped in front of the fireplace, where the family photographs still stood: holidays, birthdays, Christmas mornings, and pictures of your children covered in paint back when they could barely hold a brush.
In every single one, you were smiling. A wide smile. Alive.
You couldn't remember ever smiling like that.
Slowly, you lifted a hand, your fingertips brushing the frame of one photograph. In it, you were holding your newborn son while Valarr embraced you from behind. The image had preserved a perfect moment forever and, yet, you did not remember the photograph.
You remembered the hospital room. The scent of disinfectant. The burning ache of your cesarean incision every time you tried to breathe. The exhaustion, the fear, the guilt, the despair, and the almost superhuman effort it had taken to force yourself to love a child whose very existence reminded you of the way he had been conceived.
Then another memory surfaced.
The packed auditorium. Your name being called at graduation. The applause. The scholarship. Your professors. Your ambitions. The absolute certainty that your life was only just beginning with a trip to London.
Emma. Robert. Divorce attempt. The argument. Shouting. Those four months. Coming back. The years. Everything, everything came flooding back at once.
The air vanished from your lungs as you pressed a trembling hand against your chest, each breath suddenly becoming painful. "No..."
The word barely escaped your lips as you slowly shook your head, as though repeating it might somehow stop the avalanche crashing through your mind.
"No..." The tears came without restraint. They were not quiet, not graceful. They were the desperate sobs of someone who had awakened inside a life she no longer recognized as her own.
You took one step backward, then another.
Your legs began to give way, you felt that you were about to faint. Your legs, they could no longer bear the crushing weight of everything you had just remembered.
Valarr had remained motionless the entire time, watching you without moving closer. He knew this pain was necessary, but the instant he saw your knees buckle, he stopped thinking altogether, crossing the room in two hurried strides and catching you before you could hit the floor.
His arms wrapped around you with desperate firmness as your body collapsed against his without the slightest resistance.
That was when you finally were reborn.
You buried your face against his chest and began to cry with an intensity that seemed impossible to contain, clutching the fabric of his shirt as though you needed something—anything—to keep yourself from falling apart completely.
"Valarr..." His name came out shattered, so shattered it scarcely sounded like a word.
He closed his eyes as he felt your full weight settle against him. After so many years of you being composed, untouchable, and impossibly serene, for the first time you allowed yourself to fall.
"I don't know who I was—" Your breathing fractured between sobs. "I don't know—when I—, when I disappeared." Every sentence seemed to tear another piece from your chest. "I forgot so many things..." You slowly shook your head, unable to stop crying. You didn't know where you started or finished, there was no physical limit, only total pain. "I forgot the girl who wanted to conquer the world—and I never even realized when she stopped existing..."
For years he had wanted nothing more than to bring you back, imagining this moment hundreds of times without ever believing it would hurt this much.
He held you even tighter, not to stop your tears but simply to keep you standing while you fell apart. One hand stroked your back in slow, soothing circles while the other rested protectively behind your head with almost reverent tenderness.
"You didn't disappear." His own voice trembled. "Not completely." He pressed a gentle kiss to your hair.
You continued sobbing against him, no longer capable of standing on your own, your entire body trembling as though years of silence had finally abandoned you all at once, leaving behind nothing but the unbearable exhaustion of carrying a life that had long since stopped feeling like your own.
"No—" you sobbed . As soon as the truth had struck you, it returned with the force of a hurricane. He. He took it from you.
You moved away from him, creating distance with a push.
Graduation. Your graduation dress. The nonexistent wallet. The tear in the fabric. His disgusting touch. All these images hit you in the way that only reason can over time, revealing the most atrocious of truths. The man in front of you, who had held you with the care necessary for a precious possession, who showered you with silk and jewels and whispered sweet nothings in your ear, took your life away. The culprit was right in front of you, looking at you with a mixture of fascination and concern.
Ire took the place of sadness.
"You—fucking son of a bitch," you spat venomously, angry tears sliding down your cheeks. "I remember—I remember it so well, you lying, cheating bastard." Word by word came out of your mouth, and he could only be satisfied.
"You raped me. You took my life, you stole what I desired most. You—" He pressed his lips against yours. His lips tasted of almond milk and satisfaction. His hand moved behind your head where it had previously been caressing you, forcing you to stay still. A sound of relief arose from deep within his chest.
"My love..." he whispered against your lips before attacking them again, his expression that of a child in a toy store. "God—it really is you. You're here." You bit his lip when he leaned over, he just moaned. "Again—fight, claw, scream. Do it. Do it, and that way I'll know you're alive."
You glared at him, kicking his leg. He slammed you against the wall. A groan escaped you, only to be silenced with another kiss. He didn't seem to need air, and even if he did, he wouldn't stop. This was what he wanted. You had given it to him after years of thirst, and today he would devour it.
Panic gripped your body again. It was too much, so much at once. The memories, his touch, his force pressing you against the wall as you tried to escape. Barriers that would keep you here at his mercy. Tears—this time of humiliation—flowed. You clawed at his arms, and he pressed his erection against your thigh like an animal in heat.
Just like on graduation night, you'd have to let him take.
He continued rubbing against you, his breathing ragged like the wet, disgusting kisses he left on your neck. When you tried to push him away for the umpteenth time, he grabbed both of your wrists in one hand, placing them above your head.
His other hand was greedy, moving from your collarbones to grasping your breast, then patting your sex from above. Even when the wall wouldn't allow it, you moved, and that only motivated him more. "Valarr— stop! Valarr—" he kissed you silence.
You despised how your body—the shell—moved your hips toward the touch of his hand, the way your cries let out some sound of primal pleasure.
"You like it as much as I do," he said, pulling down his pants hurriedly and cursing under his breath for taking so long. "Look at you—just a moment ago you were rubbing against my hand like a bitch in heat. You love it." The clinking of its strap as it fell gave you enough of a clue to know what was coming. It didn't prepare you. It entered you cruelly. You weren't wet, and it hurt and burned like hell.
You weren't a virgin, but you felt a tearing in your rubbery walls as that parasite—his member—thrust against you in a steady rhythm. You cried loudly, and he didn't stop you. Every time an insult escaped your lips, he kissed you; every time a moan escaped, he soothed it by caressing your clit.
"You feel sublime," he gasped against your ear. "So tight— so perfect"
He didn't care about the employees' eyes—they wouldn't be bothered. They'd seen this for years.
Just their boss taking his wife.
Conversation flowed through laughter, interruptions, and exaggerated protests, just as it had on countless other nights. Your son's girlfriend had just finished telling a story about university when you added one of your own, correcting one of the details your eldest son had deliberately embellished with a smile. He protested immediately, his joined the argument, and for a few seconds everyone at the table was talking over one another.
It was your daughter who, in the middle of all that familiar chaos, slowly set her cutlery down on her plate, frowned ever so slightly as she looked at you.
You lifted your gaze to hers. "Yes?"
She remained silent for a few moments before smiling with a mixture of surprise and relief. "You're different."
The table gradually fell quiet.
You tilted your head slightly. "Different?"
"Yeah." Her smile widened just a little. "I don't know... you're arguing again. You're telling stories again. You've already corrected my brother three times since dinner started."
"I... I hadn't even noticed."
Her words lingered in the air.
Valarr never took his eyes off you.
A slow, deeply contented smile spread across his face before he leaned toward you and pressed a gentle kiss to your cheek. "You have no idea how long I've been waiting to hear that."
His lips lingered against your skin for one heartbeat longer before he pulled away, and when he looked at you again, there was a happiness in his eyes so serene it was almost devastating.
He had finally gotten back the woman he had always loved.
Without realizing that, now that you had awakened, you had also recovered every memory of everything you had lost in order to remain by his side. And, at the same time, your downfall had given rise to another genesis.
'Don't stop,' your daughter had said.
Don't stop, because your downfall with Valarr was just beginning to resurface. With your rebirth came the plagues again, and this time you would experience them skin deep.
Yourself. Not the other one.
