Aurelie couldn’t remember much of the rest. Things continued on as they had always done, as they always would. She worked and she ate and she slept. Spoke when spoken to. Was silent when not. She did not weep. Rinse and repeat. If her heart beat out of step, if it looked as if some vital color had been bleached from her, nobody noticed. Not even her.
There was an accident.
Aurelie might have gone on like that, moving as through a dream, had Niamh not appeared outside the kitchen. To take her to the lab, she was informed. Her heart registered a faint flicker of surprise; she wasn’t sure that Niamh Madden would ever speak to her again. Dutifully she had gone to the hall, and dutifully she had greeted Niamh to the exact level of politeness she had requested when they spoke. That conversation had been a lifetime ago, she thought.
Smiling had been hard, but she had done admirably. Conversation a little more difficult again, and if spoken to she could not seem to muster up more than a few words of reply. Even still, Aurelie thought they’d always been the right ones. Brief, but said as they should. As far as she’d been listening, they’d seemed to be the right ones.
We can go home. Wouldn’t you like that?
They’d crossed into the Sciences building before it occurred to Aurelie that if Fionn was there and he hadn’t found the news he was hoping for… Well. That was alright. With Niamh there, it was easier for Aurelie to slip into the role she needed to fill. Her heart was whole. She was whole. Everything was fine. If she just concentrated on that, it would become so.
Perhaps, she thought, it would do her some good to see his face. He had not looked for her, after they spoke. Aurelie hadn’t looked either, though she’d thought of it often. At first-- before Lilliana had-- before she knew-- before, it had seemed too soon. And after? Aurelie wasn’t sure, but she thought she might have been afraid.
Why don’t you like that?
As long as Niamh was there, it would be fine.The clumsy stitches that held her together would stay in place, as long as no one pulled on them. She would be whole and she would be good and she would be useful. She didn’t need to say anything--not to Niamh, certainly, and not to Fionn either, about her parents. Or Lilliana. Focusing on someone else would help. It had to help.
The pair approached the door to the lab. Through the blur of her own grief, Aurelie felt something else grip her. The passive stopped suddenly and reached out to grab Niamh’s arm, uncharacteristically bold. For a moment her face was raw, and she opened her mouth as if to ask a question. To make a confession. In the end she thought better of it and released Niamh, her expression neutral once more.
”I… I’m sorry,” she murmured without lifting her face.
An accident.
Aurelie could hold herself together. She wouldn’t come unraveled. If she came apart, what use could she be to anybody?
If she wasn’t useful, what else was she?