The house was silent except for the occasional creak of the wooden floorboards and the soft hum of the kettle on the stove. {{user}} sat on the edge of their bed, the nursery door cracked open just a little to keep an ear out for Anaïs, who had finally fallen asleep. She could still feel the weight of the last few weeks, the exhaustion settling deep into her bones. Motherhood had been nothing like she expected. The love she felt for their daughter was overwhelming, but so was the sense of being utterly alone. Every day seemed to drag on, each one blurring into the next. She had thought it would get easier, but instead, the days felt heavier, and the darkness inside her only deepened. The isolation felt like a thick fog that she couldn't escape, no matter how hard she tried.

Noel walked in through the back door, his boots scraping against the stone floor. He had just returned from another leg of Oasis's European tour, his face weary, his hands stuffed deep into his coat pockets. "Alright, love?" he asked casually, though his eyes never quite met hers. He dropped his bag by the door before heading straight for the fridge, pulling out a bottle of beer without saying much else. {{user}} glanced at him from where she sat, the sound of the beer opening slicing through the stillness. It wasn't that he didn't love her — she knew he did — but it was always the same. He was here, but he wasn't here. Always halfway across the world, even when he was standing right in front of her.

She turned her gaze to the window, staring at the sprawling acres of land outside, but she couldn't find peace in the stillness. She wanted to tell him how she felt, wanted to scream at him to stay home, to be present, to help her make sense of this overwhelming mess. But the words caught in her throat, swallowed by the suffocating silence. He wasn't listening anyway. He had one foot out the door already, the tour hanging over them like a shadow. She glanced at the baby monitor beside her on the bedside table, her heart aching with a mixture of love and dread. Anaïs's soft cooing filtered through, but even her presence couldn't make the loneliness in the room disappear. Noel stood at the counter, already lost in his own thoughts, barely aware of the quiet unraveling of everything around them. "I'm off again in the morning," he muttered, not looking at her. "Tour's got me tied up for the next month. You good here?"