Daphne’s POV
I thought we were healing. The past few days with Xander have felt like finding solid ground again after weeks of walking on quicksand. Tentative, fragile, but real.
We've been careful with each other, but there's been touching—his hand on my waist, my head on his shoulder, small moments of connection that feel like building blocks rather than performances.
This morning, he brought me coffee in bed. Last night, we made love slowly, carefully, his hands gentle on my body like I was something precious that might break. We're not fixed, but we're trying. Actually trying.
Then I hear the crash.
It comes from Hope's nursery—sharp, sudden, the unmistakable sound of something heavy hitting the floor. Then crying. Hope's cry, high and distressed, the sound that sends every parental instinct into overdrive.
I'm running before my brain fully processes what I heard. Down the hallway, heart pounding so hard it hurts, fear flooding my system in a way that makes everything sharper and slower simultaneously.
The nursery door is open. I round the corner and the scene registers in fractured pieces.
Xander. Standing in the center of the room. Hope in his arms, crying. And on the floor, shattered into pieces—the lamp from the side table, ceramic shards spread across hardwood, the shade crumpled beside it.
"What happened?" The words come out sharp, accusatory, before I can control my tone.
Xander looks up, and there's something in his face I can't read. Shock, maybe. Or hurt. "I was just… She was fussing, and I came to check on her. When I picked her up, my elbow hit the lamp. It fell. That's all."
But I'm not listening, not really. My eyes track from the broken lamp to Hope, who's still crying, her face red and scrunched. Every protective instinct I possess is screaming.
Before Xander can say anything else, before I can think or reason or apply logic to the situation, my body moves.
I cross the room in three strides and take Hope from his arms. Pull her against my chest, my hand cradling her head, putting my body between her and Xander like he's a threat I need to shield her from.
The movement is automatic. Unconscious. Pure instinct overriding thought.
And Xander sees it.
I watch understanding dawn on his face as he looks at me—really looks at me—and sees the expression I'm wearing. The flash of fear that crossed my features when I entered the room.
The split-second suspicion that he might have hurt her, that the crying and the broken lamp meant something more than an accident.
The way I pulled Hope away from him like I don't trust him to hold our daughter safely.
His arms drop to his sides. His face goes carefully blank, but I see his jaw clench, see the muscle jump in his cheek.
"I didn't hurt her." His voice is even when he speaks, controlled in a way that only happens when he's working very hard to maintain composure. But it trembles around the edges, betraying the emotion underneath. "I can’t believe that’s how you picture me."
I open my mouth to explain. To tell him I know he didn't hurt her, that I just reacted, that instinct took over before reason could catch up. That I trust him, of course I trust him, the fear was just automatic, meaningless, not a reflection of what I actually believe.
But before I can form the words, Xander is moving.
He walks past me, his shoulder brushing mine, not looking at me or Hope. His footsteps are measured, deliberate, the careful control of someone who's afraid if they move too fast they'll shatter completely.
Out of the nursery, down the hallway. The stairs creak under his weight.
Then I hear the front door open and close. The sound echoes through the house, final and devastating.
He's gone.
I stand frozen in the center of Hope's nursery, my daughter clutched against my chest, surrounded by shattered ceramic. Hope's crying has quieted to hiccupping sobs, confused by the tension she can feel but doesn't understand.
My own tears start before I realize I'm crying—silent, hot, streaming down my face faster than I can wipe them away.
What have I done?
We were healing. We were finding our way back to each other. And I just destroyed it with one instinctive movement, one moment of fear that I can't take back, one physical manifestation of the mistrust I thought I was moving past.
The look on his face when he saw how I looked at him. The careful blankness that meant he was breaking inside.
The tremor in his voice when he said "I didn't hurt her" like he couldn't believe he had to say it, like the fact that I needed to hear it was more painful than anything else that's happened between us.
Guilt crushes my chest so thoroughly I can barely breathe.
"Daphne?"
I turn to find Maya in the doorway. She must have heard the crash, or Hope crying, or the sound of my world fracturing all over again.
Her eyes track over the scene—me standing there with tears streaming down my face, Hope pressed against my chest, the broken lamp scattered across the floor, Xander's conspicuous absence.
"What happened?" she asks gently.
I can't answer, can't form words through the guilt choking me. Can only shake my head while tears continue falling.
Maya doesn't push for explanation, doesn't ask questions that I'm too shattered to answer. She just crosses the room with quiet efficiency, her arm wrapping around my shoulders, her presence solid and grounding when everything else feels like it's dissolving.
"It's okay," she murmurs, even though it's clearly not okay, even though there's no universe where this qualifies as okay. "I've got you. Come on, let's sit down."
She guides me to the rocking chair, her hand gentle on my back. I sink into it, still clutching Hope, and Maya kneels beside me. One hand rests on my knee, the other reaches up to wipe tears from my face with a tenderness that makes me cry harder.
"He didn't hurt her," I finally manage to choke out. "The lamp fell. It was an accident. But I… When I came in and saw the mess and heard her crying, I—I took her from him like I thought—"
I can't finish the sentence, can't articulate the horror of what I've just done. How I've confirmed every fear Xander has about us—that I don't trust him with our children, that I see him as a threat, that the choice he made in the hospital has permanently destroyed my faith in him as a father.
"He thinks I don't trust him," I whisper. "And maybe I don't. Maybe that instinct to protect Hope from him means something deeper than I wanted to admit. Maybe we're not actually healing at all."
Maya's hand squeezes my knee.
"Or maybe you reacted in a moment of panic, and reactions don't always reflect reality. You were scared. You heard a crash and crying and your brain went to worst-case scenario. That's normal, Daphne. That's what parents do."
"But I hurt him. You should have seen his face."
"I know." Her voice is soft, full of understanding that somehow makes it worse. "But you can fix this, talk to him and explain everything, work through it together. You're not broken beyond repair."
I want to believe her. Want to believe that this is just another obstacle we can navigate, another moment of hurt that we can process and move past.
But the look on Xander's face is burned into my memory—the careful blankness, the trembling voice, the way he walked past me without looking back.
We were healing. We were finding solid ground. And I just reminded him exactly how fragile that ground is, how easily it can crack open and swallow everything we're trying to rebuild.
Hope has fallen asleep against my chest, exhausted from crying, oblivious to the damage her parents keep inflicting on each other. I hold her and cry into Maya's shoulder while she holds me together, and wonder if there's any amount of trying that can fix what keeps breaking between us.