Just gonna stand there and watch me burn
But that's all right because I like the way it hurts
It hadn't always been this way. Once, in what seemed like a lifetime ago, they lived almost in a bubble from the horrors of the world around them. Both of them knew what the universe would expect of them, what their families would expect. She was rebelling against her parents, possibly only using him and he was a foolish boy that thought he could escape the path laid out for him and be something good, in a universe of horror.
But they grew. They grew out of the fairytale into a story of pain, suffering and hurt. The first time he hit her he didn't realize it until he saw her recoiling back, anger and pain in her eyes. The first time she hit him he felt the sting in his cheek for days after, a constant reminder of the cliche they had become. They were no different to the rest. They were just as bad. They were worse. They'd fight till the sun rose from sunset, screaming at each other until it culminated in their bodies coming together in a mixture of love, lust and pure hatred.
Until then he'd not fully understood how you could love something you hated. They abused each other physically, mentally, every and which way possible.
Uunderneath it all, he loved her. He would kill for her. He did. He knew she had ambition, she craved more power and recognition than she would ever get with him by her side. Even when they married, a sort of joke between the two that escalated until she was screaming and he dragged her to the front, glaring daggers at her until she said 'I do' with nothing but venom in her words. The irony of their day was the shocking tenderness in which he held her when they slept that night, just like most others before. She was his and he was sure she would hate him for that fact even whilst loving him.
He killed to prove his love to her, to claim the power in their small town life that he knew would only be a small step for her, for them, to keep her in his life without the use of his fists. His own father, when he needed Leonard most, fell to his brutal hands. The family name, the money, the business and the land all became his, and in turn became hers. It was a drop in the ocean of power available to her, but it was his effort to give her something, to show her that underneath it all, it was her that he lived for.
Every single time he lay his hands on her in a way intended to hurt, he hated himself. He'd wanted to be different. To be one of those men that grew in this world and tried to bring good from it. Tried to step back from the violence of the world and reclaim the humanity his people had left behind the day Zefram Cochrane murdered Solkar when he stepped from the T'Plana-Hath on Terra Firma. But he failed, every single time he hurt her.
He would only ever be like the rest, and it was agonising to know.
He was drunk on anger, on hatred, on pain and suffering. He wanted a family, he knew she didn't, and yet he abused her body and forced it upon her. Nine months of her suffering for him to get the child he wanted. He didn't care that it was a girl and not a boy; a child was a child for him. He wanted to give himself more meaning, something greater to make himself a better man.
It came at a cost; their relationship crumbled further. The fights became worse. The scars more frequent on the two of them, both physical and mental.
She fucking hates me
And I love it
Truth was, he lost himself over the years more than he would care to admit. Even with Joanna, he lost sight of the good man he'd wanted to be, once upon a time. He became a contradiction of everything he'd ever wanted and the truth was? He liked it, in the end. He liked the way it hurt her, the way it hurt him. He thrived on it.
Even then he refused to let her go time and time again. He may have walked from their marriage in a torrent of abuse but he would never fully let her go. No matter what, she would always be his in his eyes. He loved her too much to fully walk away, even with the hatred.