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clea opened her eyes to let the tears silently fall on her cheeks. the memories, the pain of losing her husband thrice was agonizing.
but that was the thing, stephen came back from death. he worked under death's command to return to his home. his earth. and his love.
clea told wong the faltine don't mourn. they don't really but she did. she let the pain consume her. to be able to sense how many memories that demon stole from her. her whole life alongside stephen strange. only to recover those memories the moment he died....
clea couldn't help it, she hurted herself. really bad. she made no use of healing magic, not even when stephen returned. clea wasn't planning on hiding it either. it was time to talk about it, her self-destructive behaviour.
at first, it wasn't difficult to hide it. they were fighting dead superheroes, the reunion and the whole family together again, the happiness was overshadowing everything else. it wasn't until both stephen and clea got intimate, clea wanting to claim stephen as hers once again when he noticed.
"darling, you didn't heal those..." stephen spoke with hidden concern, perhaps thinking clea got injured during the battle against sentry and just forgot about healing it.
clea retrieved her hand slowly, knowing the scars were too obvious to be considered accident. she let herself speak calmly and gave a direct answer "i wasn't planning on healing them, it's a reminder".
stephen held clea's wrist and a sudden fear crept up his spine, his mind processed his beloved words but he didn't want to believe it. of course he knew and it wasn't just their soul bounding that told her off. they knew each other, so much. "reminder of what, beloved?" stephen whispers sent a wave of sadness that showed on clea's face. she hated admitting it, that she did what she did but in the end she was dealing with her husband's death. that man was hers, the love of her life. such pain wasnt worth it but he was.
"of what we've been through. stephen, i felt so alone" stephen took a deep breathe and shook his head "you- darling, humans do this to hurt themselves. where- where did you learn this? how long has this been happening? clea..." clea avoided his gaze for a few seconds after speaking up "i was a lonely child, when you left i decided to be that child again and do something stupid. i'm sorry, i should've told you sooner" stephen hugged his wife with trembling hands. his love. his woman. hurting herself. "it's okay, i will help you. whenever you feel like you wanna do it, just tell me. please. i will be there just don't keep it from me. please" clea hugged him back, taking one of his hands to tenderly hold him. "im okay now, my love. you're here with me, i will be fine"