They'd been fighting. It had got nasty.
Bellatrix couldn't even remember why they'd started the argument in the first place, they'd been on edge for days, she was strained to breaking point, the nightmares were keeping her awake for days and she was tetchy, quick to anger and he was just as thread bare.
They'd only been home from Azkaban three weeks and it seemed only now things really had began to sink in, the horrors they'd lived through, the longing for one another, the emotional, mental and physical pain, the abuse.. all kinds. They'd been inseparable since the second they saw one another again.
Rodolphus wouldn't let her out of his sight and Bellatrix was constantly clinging to him but being back in the world after a stone cell for over a decade was overwhelming more so for her than him, she was more fragile, more unhinged, more unstable and the lack of sleep had made her more so until she'd lost all control. He, being the type of man he was, retaliated and that was how they got to be in the moment they were in.
He was shaking in anger, though at what he didn't know anymore, he'd hurt her he knew that, smacked her, hard, once, twice.. threw her into the wall. Her nails had got him, right down his face, he was bleeding from scratches resembling a cats claw marks.
She was bleeding from a cut lip, body hurting from where it connected with the wall, trembling, staring at him with unblinking mad eyes, wand raised ready to defend herself should be move closer.
Rodolphus watched her with fading rage, her tears made him want to comfort her, the blood made him want to tend to her, the bruises he could see already coming out on her too pale skin made him want to hold her but he knew if he moved closer now, she'd hex him so good he'd be a mass of pulp on the ground. So he turned to leave, give her some space. "I'm going to leave.."
Bellatrix watched him with a rising panic so strong she couldn't breathe, the anxiety she was feeling anyway sky rocketed to the point where her chest hurt with a physical pain, "DON'T!" It was all but screamed at him in open horror that he was leaving her, he couldn't take it, couldn't take her instability, she'd been fearing it would happen and now it was finally coming to a close.
Before Rodolphus had even turned he found his arms filled with his sobbing wife, her wand had clattered harmlessly to the floor and she was clinging to him like a wild thing crying salty tears into his chest, "..you alone for an hour." he finished his sentence realising she had thought he was leaving her, walking out on her, and it broke his heart she was so insecure.
He wrapped his arms around her little frame, she was thin, too thin, still far too thin. He'd have to change that, make sure she ate more and rested more than she had been. "Never Bella. Never. Do you understand me? I'll never ever leave you, only death will part us, my little scorpion, no matter what happens, I'll never leave you, baby."
She clung to him as he smoothed her hair, tangling his hands into her thick curls and pulling her head back so he could wipe away the tears and press kisses to her lips which she responded too in kind, pressing herself into his front and wrapping her arms around his neck.
They made love on the floor, never making it to the bed and he whispered in her ear over and over, "mine."