𝟐𝟏

♕

𝑡ℎ𝑖𝑟𝑑 𝑝𝑒𝑟𝑠𝑜𝑛'𝑠 𝑝𝑜𝑣

The next morning, Iris awoke to an empty bed.

No Aurora in sight.

Iris wasn't really worried about this though. The woman could easily be somewhere around the home preparing for her day.

The sheets of the bed were cold in a sense that made the brunette want to drift back to sleep. Instead of lying in the bed daydreaming about last night's events, she got up and went to freshen herself up.

When there was still no sign of Aurora after Iris has finished her shower, she decided to search for the woman herself.

Ariella's room was the first to be inspected, but the only living thing that was found in the child's room was her small body in bed. Ariella was still fast asleep. It was fairly early in the morning, so Iris let her be in her starfish position and continued searching the upstairs.

Once reaching the foyer it wasn't hard to detect where Aurora might be. The faint sound of a pen being clicked repeatedly was heard from her office door. Iris smiled to herself. Aurora was very hardworking and that was admirable.

When Iris opened the door to the room that Aurora had locked herself away in, she hadn't expected to find the older woman with a glass of wine in one hand while the other pulled at her hair. The pen that was apparently being used as a fidget toy was abandoned on top of stacks of paper. The air in the room was tense. It was very obvious that Aurora was stressing herself.

Still, seeing as though Aurora hadn't noticed her entrance, Iris walked over to her lover and stood in front of her desk.

"What has you drinking so early in the morning?" she asked with a smile.

Aurora finally lifted her head and her face flushed with redness as she took in Iris' presence.

The only visible piece of clothing that the brunette had on was an oversized t-shirt. She still had bed hair and her eyes were still slightly squinted from just awaking. Yet somehow Aurora managed to find a certain beauty in Iris' appearance.

"Just work." Aurora sighed to herself before chugging down the last bit of wine that was in her glass, causing Iris' eyebrows to raise in worry.

Iris hesitated for a moment with a slight frown. She observed the tired, stressed out look in Aurora's eyes. They were low from either the liquid that was on the tip of her tongue or her exhaustion.

"How long have you been up?" the brunette interrogated.

Aurora had become occupied with her work once again, flipping through pages and frantically scribbling things down. She only lifted her head up for a moment to check the clock that sat on her desk. Her eyes slightly widened once seeing the time.

8:47 AM.

"Around three hours or so." she answered Iris, eyes shifting back to the papers in front of her.

"You've been up since five? Baby, we didn't even go to bed fully until around two AM." Iris' voice raised in pitch. She couldn't believe that Aurora was currently awake right now.

Aurora chuckled, reluctantly turning her attention away from the task that lay on her desk.

"I'm aware."

"You should come back to bed—"

A deep sigh cut Iris's statement short, "Although I would love to, there's a lot going on in the office right now that requires my attention."

Iris pouted.

Yes maybe it was a bit child-like, but the brunette really hated how hard Aurora was working herself. As much as she wanted to push the idea of the blonde getting rest she knew that it wasn't her place.

She bit down onto her bottom lip, "Could you atleast cut down on the drinking? I don't think it's a good idea for you to do that this early in the day."

Aurora nodded in understanding, "You're right. It's a bad habit of mine, baby."

"One that needs to be broken. We can't have you drunk on the job, yeah?"

"Mhm."

"That's not a solid answer."

Aurora tilted her head, eyes connecting with Iris' as she spoke in a whisper, "I promise to never ever drink this early in the day again."

"Perfect." Iris hopped down from the blonde's desk, not catching sight of the way Aurora's eyes glided over her body, "I'm going to go make breakfast and get Ariella ready for the day. Please don't overwork yourself."

"Gotcha."

"I mean it, Ro. Take a break."

"Alright, cara. I will."

Iris threw a soft, comforting smile over her shoulder before leaving Aurora to drown herself in paperwork once again.

♕

Aurora told the two that it would be best for them to get out of the house. This would allow her to get some quiet time as she worked and also the two 'girls' could bond together. After spending some time building snowmen and making snow angels, Iris brought up the idea of heading over to Phoebe's. Ariella seemed more than happy to see Madison again, so they went on their merry way.

Their day was full of giggles and smiles as they enjoyed the company of Phoebe and her niece.

Returning back to the Romane residence was proved to be quite a peaceful experience. Ariella snored in the backseat of Iris' car as she drove. The brunette hummed along softly to the lyrics of a Christmas tune that played. All lights seemed to be green and there was a huge lack of cars on the streets of the city. It was the perfect roadtrip home.

Iris had pulled into the driveway of the home and quietly maneuvered her way inside with Ariella's limp body in her arms. Her plan was to originally place the small girl into her bed, but quickly decided against that when the sound of glass breaking sounded from the kitchen.

The brunette instead gently placed Ariella down onto the living room couch and made her way over to where the clatter of glass came from. To her surprise, Aurora was bent down on the floor attempting to pick up the glass with her hands.

"Ro?" Iris mumbled with furrowed eyebrows.

A faint 'shit' came from the blonde who paused her current actions.

With worried eyes, Iris kneeled down beside her lover, "What happened? Why are you picking that up with your hands, my love?"

Aurora, still refusing to make eye contact, made the move to stand up. Apparently, she had tried to move too fast and ended up stumbling into the counter in front of her.

Iris watched the strange interaction with carefulness. She began to observe Aurora; her hands were shaking, her posture was lazy, her neat hair was messily thrown over her head, and most importantly her eyes were bloodshot

"What the fuck? Are you drunk right now?" Iris whisper-yelled at the taller woman in front of her.

Nothing but a tired hum left Aurora's mouth.

Iris scoffed.

It wasn't that Aurora was just drunk. She was drunk after promising to lay off on the alcohol. The stress of work is already exhausting enough. Adding alcohol into the mix of it all made Iris uneasy. A promise was made and yet Aurora broke it.

"I can't believe you." the brunette mumbled, pulling at the ends of her sleeves as she walked away from the scene.

"Wait no." came the drunken words of the blonde as she used her height advantage to pull Iris up against a nearby counter.

Aurora trapped Iris between her arms, ducking her head down to gather her attention. She saw the welling of tears in her eyes and immediately tried to sober up. There was nothing she hated more than making the brunette cry.

She grabbed Iris' face so that their eyes would connect. The shorter woman almost wanted to flinch at the tired expression on her lover's face.

"I'm sorry. Work was just really fucking stressful today and one cup became like five. It wasn't my intention to get fucked up like this. I tried to take your advice, but there were things that needed to get done. I couldn't just stop. I couldn't. So again, I'm sorry, baby."

"You promised, Ro." Iris whispered, obviously upset that the promise had been broken.

"I did." Aurora sighed, "I should've been an adult and not let my thoughts get to me. I love you and I'm so damn sorry that I broke our promise."

The two women stared into each other's eyes, hoping to gain trust from one another. Iris' concern was more than understandable. She didn't want to see Aurora self destruct in front of her eyes. Whatever issues that the blonde had, the brunette wanted nothing more than to help. She was in love and desperately wanted nothing but the best for her girlfriend.

'Maybe today was just a rough one.' she thought to herself.

Iris sighed heavily and pulled Aurora into a hug, "It won't happen again, right?"

"Never."

"Good. Let's clean up the kitchen and go tuck Ariella in. I have to check in at the bakery tomorrow."

Aurora nodded with a small hint of guilt. She was heavily upset with herself, "Sounds like a plan."

♕

-E

Hi, my loves! So so sorry for the wait on these upcoming chapters. Thank you for being patient with me and supporting my work! I love you all indefinitely <33