Okay so apparently people really like the little "infatuation" series I put up, honestly so many things are wrong with it but okaaaay, I tried something similar. Oh it's definitely an AU.
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I don't know what's worse, the migraine I've been dealing with lately or the bitter taste of coffee I'm willingly putting into my mouth every other hour. I don't like coffee, I'm not a coffee person. But when you're the caretaker of two year old twins that apparently have nothing better to do that run around the house crying and eating and crying and making a mess, coffee is a necessity. Yesterday I fell asleep at noon and woke up three minutes later when I heard the fridge door open. I'm that sensitive all around.

"Is this how it always is?" My sister in law asks with a frown, trying to calm down Amelia, my daughter while she cries a fit because I won't let her eat the ants in her aunts garden.

"No, sometimes she wants to eat the spoon she has her cereal with. So there's a change." I joke, reminiscing how difficult it is to get that spoon out of her mouth.

"Well, Derek seems a lot more reasonable." She points to the two year old in my arms.

"No, he's just lazy. Likes avoiding life." Derek resembles his father up to an A, from the dark, curly hair to the shape of his lips and the small indents that formed in his cheeks. And just like Derek, Harry also was an avoider.

The problem had been brewing for some time now. I knew what I was getting into from the start, I knew Harry would become a timeless person, someone devoted to a much bigger cause, someone I was going to have to share for the better part of our lives. But residency turned into a fellowship and then suddenly he was the head of cardiothoracic surgery, missing my birthday turned to missing our anniversary and then he was missing the moment I brought our children into this world. And I was fine with it, I could handle the empty house and the soundless I love you's and I could look the other way when he put his patients before me. I could handle it, but the two toddlers I'm trying to raise on my own couldn't.

They don't even know how to count to ten, how are they supposed to know their father loves them if he's not a constant in their life?

"I should get going, I don't like driving in the dark." My brothers wife nods, standing and smoothing over her baby bump. The baby she would be having with a man who works a nine to five and still has time to visit his niece and nephew every Sunday.

"I'll help buckle them in." 

Soon enough I'm driving down my street, everything looks just the same as it did five years ago when we bought the house, before I stopped working. Don't get me wrong, I'm not the stay at home kind of a wife, I loved my job and I loved getting home and telling my husband about my day. Then pregnancy came along, and I realized no one was going to take care of me if I didn't do it myself. Harry encouraged the thought, mentioned how much better he would feel if at least one of us stayed home with the kids. And of course, I was the sacrificial lamb, I was the one to give up my career and my job and my friends and essentially, I gave up everything. I gave it all and I do it all for a man that's too busy to even call once a day.

So imagine my surprise when the sleek, black BMW is already parked behind the gates, right next to the space my car always takes up. Had his car broken down and he had to bring it home? Was some kind of an emergency going on? Immediate panic set in and I was dialing his number as the gates closed behind us.

"Y/N! Thank god, where-" His voice is different, I had forgotten how his voice sounded at four o'clock in the afternoon.

"Why is your car here, are you okay?" Then the line goes dead, how atypical of him.

Rolling my eyes, I get out of the car, ready to take the kids out of their car seats when the familiar sound of the heavy main door of the house opening is heard. And it's so odd to see my husband standing in the doorway, in a jumper and joggers and rosy tinting in his cheeks and nose.

"Hey, why weren't you home?" He asks, leaning on the doorway and staring with intent.

"Why are you home?"

"Celebration." The smile on his face is surprising, but I've missed it.

"Celebrating what?"

"You should come in." He's still grinning, looking like a five year old desperate to say whatever was on his mind.

"Okay, I'll get the kids." Following the bizarre list of things he's doing, he walks down the steps and to the right back door, pulling open and finding a sleeping Amelia buckled in. "That's not the button, it's the ones on the sides." He was aimlessly clicking the centre of the buckle, fidgeting and would surely wake her.

"Yeah, I forgot how these things work." The last time he worked one was probably the day I got discharged and he was having the time of his life trying to get both babies in their carseats. "What do I do?" He looks sincerely lost, holding his daughter with almost outstretched arms, looking at her as if she was a stranger.

"Go to their room, I'm taking Derek." With a nod, he saunters back to the door while I get Derek and then lock the car. Even with the gates, I like keeping it locked.

Harry was stood in front of Amelia's bed, with a tense, straight back and it looked like he was holding in his breath. I settle Derek in his own bed and turn to him when he's not even moved.

"Where's the giraffe?" He asks, dangling his eyes between Amelia and me.

"What?" He was being so weird.

"Amelia had this, uh... toy giraffe. I remember she really liked it, used to cry if you didn't give it to her when it was bedtime. Where is it?" His hand reaches for a small blanket draped over the bottom of the bed, lifting it aimlessly and seeing nothing is there.

"I don't know." I was being honest.

"You don't know? It's your daughters favourite toy and you don't know where it is?" The tone he uses is curt and formal and maybe even downgrading. It was his normal.

"It was my daughter's favourite toy for a few months, she doesn't like stuffed animals anymore." I really don't want to play the "who knows our children better" game, he would lose. And he doesn't take losing lightly.

Silence overcomes the room and I leave, walking downstairs with his footsteps following closely behind. They were barely heard, he knew how to get around soundlessly. I reach the kitchen, opening the fridge and pulling out a bottle of water and he's still here, leaning against the counter.

"Why are you home?" It's a Wednesday afternoon, I wouldn't have expected him until after ten pm.

"I'm starting to think you won't like this as much as I did." I raise a brow, not too worried. "Please don't get upset." He almost whispers, walking around the counter and taking my hand in his.

He leads me to the living room and I can't help but wonder what he could possibly do to upset me. Sure, we weren't the closest couple, some level of estrangement was almost an obligation. But he's not a bad person, and he's not a bad husband, so it's difficult for me to think of anything he could hurt me with.

"Vince is retiring." He says once we're both sat on one of the sofas. Okay, but why would I be upset that his boss is retiring?

"If anything I'm happy, that job sucked the life out of him." Vince was the chief of surgery at the metropolitan hospital Harry worked at, same hospital I used to work at before all this happened.

Being a surgeon was stressful and time consuming as it was, I can't imagine what it would be like to be a surgeon and to supervise the other hundreds of physicians who work under you. All that weight consumed Vince so quickly, it was painful to see.

"Yeah, he's gone in a month." He frowns, fidgeting with the sleeves of his jumper. His mouth opens and closes several times, as if he can't speak what's on the tip of his tongue. "I love you."

If my throat wasn't so dry I would've probably choked on something by now. It wasn't weird for him to say it, typically he would whisper the promise when he got home and went straight to bed. But right now it seemed so out of place, almost like he wanted to comfort himself and not me.

The green in his eyes invades my sight and it's all I can see, it's all I can feel and all I can hear until a familiar cry breaks apart our locked gazes. 

"I'll get it." I say, eager to get out of the situation because I'm feeling like whatever he has to say will surely strain this marriage even further.

"Y/N." He calls out but I'm already in the hallway, nearing the stairs.

"I think it's Derek." I've learned to distinguish their cries by how many seconds are placed between one whimper and the next.

"Y/N, I'm trying to say something here." Harry's voice is louder and his feet fast, catching up to me and grabbing my arm before I reach the first step.

"It can wait."

"It can't." He defends, letting go of my arm to run both hands through his hair.

"Well spit it out, then. I don't like leaving them alone when they're cry-"

"I got offered the job." It's like he's gotten a breath of fresh air, voice catching at the end. "Chief of surgery, I can be the next chief of surgery."

His face was serious but there was no denying the excitement and the joy in his eyes. It's all he's ever wanted, all he's ever worked for.

"I know it'll be hard and I'd have to work more but I really think we can figure it out." I stand there, my mind in monotone screams of hysteria and I don't feel remotely as fine as I was before the confession. "Darling, it's chief of surgery."

It's always something. A big surgery, a special patient of his, a meeting or a lecture or training. It's always something. But never something this big, this destructive.

I nod, not wanting to speak in case I say something I may regret. After all, he's my husband, the man I love. I don't want to ruin this for him. So instead I do the next big thing, with Derek and now Amelia's cries ringing in my ears and the look on Harry's face engraved on the back of my eyelids, I walk away. Ignoring the staircase, I head straight to the front door and to my car.

"Y/N, where are you going?" He questions in a yell, distraught while watching me get in the car and speed out of the house as soon as the gates are open.

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So I tried to make this a little more realistic to real life hardships. What did you think?

Do you think Harry's being an ass?

If you guess the two fictional characters I integrated in this imagine you will become my new friend.

Like and comment for part 2. Also, if you haven't given any of my other two stories a read, you should. Sacrilege is vampire Harry and Limonene is gang/bad boy kind of Harry