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The fighting is almost constant. It becomes very deeply apparent that Hatter was never sober. Mathew throws things out and Hatter moves the others. For years Mathew had lived out the same relationship with Tiffany, she was outgoing but she shied away from confrontation. Hatter ran into it head on. Invariably she started yelling first, where had the drugs gone? Maybe she didn't want his help, maybe she didn't mind being like this. So what if she didn't like it? As far as Hatter cared it was better than the alternative. In the end one of them would storm out. Hatter would sometimes go out for hours until she was forced to come back, if only for her medicine.
Eventually there came a day when there were indeed no more drugs to be found in the apartment. She tried one day to go out while Mathew was at work to go a seedier bar and acquire a new dealer. Only to run into him on the stairs, having forgotten his keys to the morgue. She lied to him abut where she had intended to go, and badly. His smile was sad, tired and when he spoke it was with the strain of a relationship that was threatening all to much to end with another girl shot dead in an alleyway. If he came home and she was not there or drugged, she'd have to leave. It wasn't something he could stomach watching again.
The apartment was silent when he got home and for a few moments Mathew thought she'd left. Until he heard her retching in the bathroom. Eight months until it was over, thirty two weeks until she'd be the girl he met in the bar. Haughty and a little snappish, but excitable, clever; and he went to hold her hair.
Eight months was a long time, and it was by no means easy punctuated at first by physical problems, fevers, occasionally at night Hatter would wake up with the most desperate need for a high and spend several hours eating quite nearly anything until a bout of nausea would force her to throw it up.
It was an awful year.
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It was worth it, staying together. It was not a perfect relationship and it didn't need to be. When Mathew came home Hatter would make tea and cakes. The tea was always strong and the cakes were burnt. Sometimes Mathew made breakfast and his eggs were never underdone, or over done. He learned to dance the lobster quadrille and she stayed up to watch an entire Star Wars marathon with him. He wore coats that she made for him (the buttons never quite matched up to the holes) and she let him cut her hair, (even though it was chunky and uneven in the end.)
Sometime Hatter woke up screaming and sometimes Mathew could not sleep at all. She would stay up wit him and he held her until she felt safe enough to sleep. She was getting better and Hatter didn't see undead wonderland characters in empty rooms quite so often. Mathew never spoke about his job, but Hatter knew when the deaths were particularly gruesome and did her best.
They still fought of course, as all couples do. Once in a frenzy Hatter had smashed plates on the floor of the kitchenette. He rarely started the fights, only once had it happened. She had looked through his documents, images of corspes during autopsy and had begun to hallucinate. He stopped bringing his work home and Hatter learned to control her temper.
It wasn't perfect, but after all perfect was never what they wanted.