This is a small addition to and rearrangement of the Nothing More story. Now we start (about a month or so earlier) from Eleanor's point of view - the last two chapters are what were previously posted from Caroline's perspective, at the hotel bar. The story isn't writing itself in a very chronological fashion, I'm sorry. The Christmas vignette pre-dates this story, and there's another interstitial in progress with Celia's death that really ties everything together. The resolution at the end of everything is hidden from me until that's complete. I always suspected it would be fun but confusing to time travel. Also - at the end of this is a short synopsis of Caroline and Eleanor's journey. :-)

Eleanor flew up the grey cement stairs and through the great arched wooden doors at the entrance of the Agnes Bates School of Music. Her coat billowed behind her, a black silk cloak trailing her like a shadow. As though it were late afternoon and the sun before her breaking over the high peak of the stone building that swallowed her up, rather than early evening. She smiled at the two young men holding the doors, dazzling white gratitude and a nod to each, though she noticed little more than their matching ginger hair and grey suits.

She was late. Very late. Late wasn't Eleanor's preferred status. Though she tried to calm herself, it upset her. Even more than the cryptic message from her gynecologist that had come through as she bustled off the train, and had paid as much attention to as the young, small boys. But she'd heard enough to frown at her phone and wish she hadn't missed the call.

Now she stood in shadow off a musty side corridor at Caroline's school, leaning against the dark wood paneling and catching her breath. Ahead she heard the demure roar of a merry but polite crowd celebrating themselves under coffered, vaulted ceilings.

She stood tall, shoulders back, and pulled at the hem and waist of her charcoal pencil skirt. She re-tucked her shirt and rearranged her bra. The chill autumn wind hadn't calmed with the coming of evening, and she'd rushed from the station. Everything about her was amiss. She pulled out a compact and orbited it around her head with one hand while she adjusted her auburn-brown hair with a fluff here and a pull there. She'd fixed her makeup on the train and it had held well enough.

Eleanor leaned back once more against the wall. She closed her eyes and brought the distant voices and energy closer to her, slipped into the stream of celebration and let it move through her until it washed away the hard, harried, professional Eleanor who'd just run through the doors. She shook her head, quietly practiced a casual laugh until it sounded as it should, and let a smile come to her lips.

A matching set of girls greeted her the soaring wooden doors to the great hall where Caroline's ambition was assembled. A teeming, anxious crowd of glittering parents and donors to laud the launch of the Agnes Bates capital campaign. Caroline's great strategic gamble and the initiative to remodel and revive that would sink or save the school.

They didn't even have money for a dinner. But Caroline had scraped grandeur, suggestions of generous philanthropy, and pomp from the edges. Crystal champagne flutes dominated the landscape and Eleanor swept one from a passing tray immediately. The hall glowed warm yellow, and the air smelled familiar and exhausting, like clean and money. Underneath it all she heard the tinkle of a piano.

The night was well underway. She gave a silent thank you, because a heavy waiting in the room and the checked volume of conversation told her she hadn't missed Caroline's talk, though it would come soon. She hoped to see her before the program began. She hadn't seen her in a week. She hadn't heard from her all day, hadn't spoken to her since yesterday evening.

"Are you excited? Are you nervous?"

"Yep."

"Don't be. You'll be brilliant."

There she was. Across the room. A flash of blonde and a magnetism, people facing a certain way. Facing the center of power at this particular little universe. Heads all held at a fascinated angle, attention focused around a woman she couldn't see but knew would be Caroline when her line of sight cleared. A couple stepped aside. The man put an arm through the woman's elbow, their expressions eager and solicitous toward another couple standing in another circle, waiting to welcome them.

Before her opened a direct path to Caroline. A clear view of her wife. And a clear view of the tall, dark-skinned, dark-haired, dark-eyed and admirable woman standing next to her, hand draped on Caroline's bare shoulder as they laughed together, pitch rising and falling in tandem, at something that must have been terribly clever, or amusing, or awful, said by a short man flanking the pair.

It must have been something amusing. Their expressions were too pleasant for it to have been awful. There was no surprise to it at all. Just reflexive ease and practice.

Eleanor stood with cold hands, numb face, and leaden feet. Any sense of momentum and energy from her dash across town evaporated. Another waiter breezed by, floating through islands of conversation and pausing near Caroline. The lithe woman with the willowy gestures, Eleanor's age but somehow unwrinkled, finally removed her hand from Caroline long enough to grab a glass of champagne and hand it to Eleanor's wife with another comfortable smile.

Caroline returned the smile and it wasn't the donor smile. Instead on her wife's face sat fat, satisfied acknowledgement of expected gratitude fulfilled. 'Of course I'll have champagne, and of course you'll take care of that for me, and of course I'm grateful.'

Caroline had expected another woman to do for her. She hadn't asked for it or been surprised by it. She'd expected it. Eleanor would have expected all this as well, if it had been Beverley by Caroline's side. In fact Eleanor would have been very put out if Caroline had not given Beverley such a look. Had not touched her wrist with affection in the way she touched this other woman's wrist with a smile just now. But it was not Beverley by her side, receiving everyday affections.

She'd assumed that Caroline had been spending her endless late nights lonely and brooding. Perhaps this wasn't the case. Eleanor's temper flared and she sought a distraction before it got the better of her. She turned and searched the room for just the right – there.

"Colin." She held up a hand and raised her voice. Raised it just enough to be noticed, but not to be impolite. Just far enough above the babble that anyone who didn't know she was listening, perhaps Caroline, would hear her, turn her head, and see her wife from across the room. She drifted over and exchanged an enthusiastic and heart-felt hug with an old friend. Any old friend would do, though she was particularly happy to see this one. Colin was adept at one sided conversation, never put out when his companion let him to do the heavy lifting.

He prattled and Eleanor waited to feel Caroline's eyes. She waited to feel the high, lyrical song of her voice in her ears. She waited to feel the cool inoculation of peace brought by a single, simple touch. She waited. As she waited, many thoughts crossed her mind. She felt things other than Caroline's absence. She felt guilt, anger, need, and frustration. Anxiety at the curves where her thoughts tapered into the future and the unknown before they circled back around to the now.

Back to Caroline, and the beautiful master cellist at her side, with those lean, skilled, nimble hands. Flora's favorite teacher at Agnes Bates, Flora's mentor. Flora's hero. Bright-eyed, brilliant, subtle, modest and most of all present every single day, Jean Danforth. There were so many words you could use to describe Jean that you couldn't to describe Eleanor.

At the front of her mind she heard Colin's voice rise word over word, pause, diminish word over word, and then pause again. Instinctively, she laughed – a knowing laugh was the right one, because the joke, comment, or observation had been understated. She wasn't sure which of these type of remarks it had been. She'd only read his tone, his eyes, and his gestures. By now, that was enough. She followed her instincts further. Breeding, training, instincts, all the same when it came to people and small talk and charm. She raised her glass at him and gave a wink. "Colin if it weren't for you I'd give up anything social at all. Promise you'll never stop supporting Agnes Bates. I'd die of boredom if you did."

Eleanor smiled and met his eyes and saw delight. She'd done well. She put more joy and emphasis in it as she leaned toward him. Unless you meant it, this was all meaningless and offensive. It was phony if you didn't mean it, and Eleanor was not a phony. No one who was anyone liked flattery, and more importantly in this case, no one donated to phonies – unless you had power over them. Eleanor had both sincerity and power.

The curve of her thoughts rushed away again. She was many things, had many things. But she wasn't subtle. And she wasn't home often enough, even before Caroline had started trying to remove herself. And most painfully, she didn't look like Flora in any way, and she certainly couldn't teach her the cello. Eleanor had many things, but beautiful Jean in her beautiful crème dress had different things.

Caroline had not come to Eleanor as she talked with Colin. She turned again. It was impossible at these things, when you had work to do and people wanted to talk to you, to get anywhere. It would have been hard for Caroline to cross the room, and so Eleanor started toward her.

The waiting in the air was becoming unbearable. The infrequent blanket of silence that came and went with the crowd came at increasing intervals. She had little time left before Caroline started speaking. She wondered if Caroline had seen her. It was important to her that her wife knew she was there. Eleanor wanted to be there, and Caroline wanted her there. But today she wondered why. Assurance? Pride? Comfort? A demonstration of independence? Or was it a test?

Caroline looked up, but not toward Eleanor. A dozen people over from where Caroline stood, Jean had caught her eye instead. Pulled her eye to her, would be more accurate. Eleanor watched as Caroline's chin came up just a few millimeters. She watched as Jean's eyes widened and her lips curved only a little, and her gaze traveled to the domineering oak grandfather clock at the head of the room, a silent message. Caroline's eyes followed, and her chin came down twice as the women caught each other again. And Eleanor watched – she stared and studied and she gaped and she obsessed, as a smile lit the other woman's face and her eyes narrowed and her nose twitched to close the unspoken conversation and reassure Eleanor's wife, 'you'll do fine.'

"No." Above all the others Eleanor shouted. In her mind, she roared. Out loud, she said nothing.