darker_london | Like a mask of self-hate (Peter, Aly)

Peter had practised what he was going to say to Aly over and over in his head. He had it all planned out. How he was going to be diplomatic and sad and how he was going to tell her he understood her pain. It was a great speech. Full of big words and unconditional love, because that was what he felt for Aly, in the end. Repeating it over and over in his head had become a mantra. Something to keep him distracted from the sight of his tiny daughter who was three feet away physically, but a million miles away from him now because she was sick and he couldn't help. So he repeated promises of love silently to himself, over and over again.

When Peter finally caught sight of Aly, framed in the doorway of the gallery there, looking out over the quarantined area, all of his fancy words left him. "Hi." He mumbled to her. Oh, well done, Jackarse... So much for planned speeches.

"Hi." Aly smiled sadly at him and she stepped forward. Peter thought he heard her gasp in dismay when she caught sight of poor Anna, bleeding in the other room, but it would have been the air conditioning system kicking in.

"I've missed you." Peter admitted. There was no accusation in his voice. He didn't want to fight, and he certainly didn't want to fight here. "I'm glad you're here."

Aly ignored him completely as she stared through the glass at poor Anna. "What happened?" She whispered.

"She screamed yesterday morning and I went to find her. She was in the bathroom and I...fuck, I thought it was just her period because she...her knickers were bloody. But then she was bleeding everywhere else too, and I had to bring her here. I had to leave all the other kids with Lydia. She called your parents and they went to stay there. When I got here, Anna had bled through the towel. I can't go in there anymore... They're afraid...they don't know if ex-angels can get it."

"Are you ill?" Aly asked quickly, proving she was worried about him. That she loved him.

"No." Peter reached out and he brushed his fingers across her hand. He really looked at her and his eyes narrowed in worry. Was she thinner? "I'm not ill. Only with worry, I suppose..."

Aly nodded and she sighed, turning her head back to gaze at Anna. "Was she afraid?"

"She was..." Peter sighed heavily. "She was our brave little girl." There was so much Peter wanted to say, but he didn't. He simply repeated himself and maybe that was what Aly found so offensive. Peter was never really sure. "I missed you."

"You said that." Aly was instantly defensive. "I didn't know, alright?!"

"I-"

"I came as soon as I heard, Peter! Not everyone can box their emotions up like you do!"

Peter felt like she'd kicked him twice, once in the guts and again in the heart. Boxing up his emotions? Peter!? Peter didn't box things up. He wore his heart on his sleeve until it bled all over him and everyone else. He was as open and honest about what he was feeling as anyone he himself had ever met. "Aly I don't box things up! I've been...I've had to keep in control of myself so I could take care of this kids..." Once again, there was no accusation in his voice, but Aly seemed to find it anyway.

"Don't you blame me for this!" Aly hissed at him.

"Aly, I wasn't! Please...let's not fight here. Anna, she's-" Peter held his hand out to indicate their daughter. "Our daughter doesn't need to see this."

"She's your daughter, Peter." Aly shot right back at him.

Peter found himself quite unable to say anything to that. How could Aly say Anna was just his daughter. Sure she had been his first. But Caleb had been Aly's first. He was her biological son, but Peter loved Caleb every bit as much as he loved his own biological children. And if Aly was so sure biological was all that mattered, then technically, Anna wasn't his either. At least not according to her. She was according to Peter. "How could you say that?"

For an instant, Aly looked like she was wondering the very same thing about herself, but just as quickly, it was gone. And replacing it, was yet more anger. "I'm not thirty-eight years old, Peter! I don't know how to handle everything that comes along, alright?"

"No. You're not thirty-eight. And you're not exactly acting thirty-one either. Aly, this doesn't have anything to do with age. I'm sorry Christina is gone-"

"It's just that simple, is it? It's just because my best friend died and I can't handle it."

"You just said you couldn't-"

"SHUT UP!" Aly screamed at him, her hands over her ears. "Just shut up, Peter!"

Peter clenched his hands into fists, but immediately he relaxed them again. Aly was his wife and he would not have his hands balled into fists while he was in the room with her, even if it was just a reflex of anger as her words bored their way into him, putting more cracks into his already broken heart. He wondered how many more he could stand before it shattered entirely. He was so tired of holding himself together by nothing more than resolve. All of this...everything the world threw at him...it was too much. "I will not." He said, his voice quiet. "Aly, I love you. Please...don't say these things to me in front of Anna."

"She can't hear me!"

Peter looked shocked. "As if it matters! How do you know what she can hear? She's an angel, Aly! We have no way of knowing what she's aware of right now."

"Or I don't. Because I don't qualify for membership in your little angel's club. You and David and Mary and Thomas and Spectre and Abby and Anna. You all just get on with your lives like pain doesn't matter! You're not even human-"

"That is not tr-"

"It IS true! I'm so sick of the way you look at me! So sympathetic. Poor Aly, who can't handle life because she's sickly and human."

"I don't-"

"SHUT UP!" Aly screamed again. "You're so perfect and how can I compare! Everyone else is so perfect! And I'm just..." Aly growled because she couldn't find the words. "And you want me to feel guilt because I wasn't there to help you when your daughter was sick-"

"Stop calling her my daughter, Aly! She's ours!"

Aly closed her eyes and she shook her head. "She's your daughter, Peter. I don't...I don't want the responsibility."

"What?!"

"I never even got a childhood! I was sick and then I was married and then I was a mother and now I found a way to enjoy myself and you want to take that away because I'm supposed to mother your children!"

"Aly, what the hell?!" Peter was shocked. Completely flabberghasted by what she was saying. Not a word of it was true. Not a single word. "I want you to be happy. I thought I did that! I thought we-"

"Learn something new every day, don't you, Peter? Maybe you learn more than one thing, considering how much time you spend with your nose in a book. Makes you better than the rest of us. Why don't you just go back to your kids and show them how much better you are than me, hmm?"

"Aly, don't-"

"Don't what? Hmm? Don't say the truth?"

"It's not the truth! I don't even understand where any of this is coming from! Aly, I love-"

"The written word? Studying? Taking the Templar down with your words? Saving people? Playing the hero?"

"I do not play the hero." Peter gritted his teeth then. He hated when people called him that, so how could he play it?

"Could have fooled me. And that damn daughter of yours is so eager to be like you-"

No one talked about his kids like that. Not even Aly. Peter knew without a doubt that Aly was talking about Lydia and his defense of her was instantaneous. "Do not talk about Lydia like that. Aly, you're her mother."

"No. I'm not. Her mother is some common whore you fucked because you had no taste."

Katherine may not have been a saint, but she wasn't a whore. And the fact that Aly was speaking to him like this had brought him to the end of his rope. He was done fighting her here. He was done. "Don't you dare speak this filth in front of our children. Don't you dare."

"I thought you didn't like the idea of making your wife obey you, Peter." Aly said, throwing the words Peter's father had said back at him.

"Get out." Peter's voice was so low now, he could barely be heard. "I won't have you acting like this in front of Anna."

"Or what? You're going to hit me like husbands do when their wives misbehave?"

"No." Peter shook his head and then he glared at her coldly. "I'm going to call security and have them escort you away like a hospital administrator does when there's a disturbance." And then he moved across the room and he picked up the phone. Aly turned her back on him and she walked away. And only once she was well and truly gone, did Peter let his knees give way so he could fall to the floor.