Alfred arrives back at their hotel room after work to find Aurora curled up on the bed. She's on the far side, 'his' side, with her back to him, but she doesn't move at the sound of the door, and he's relieved she's taken the opportunity to catch up on some sleep.
Her nightmares have woken them both the last few nights. She hasn't wanted to talk about them, but it's not hard to guess where they're coming from. And there has been no lie in her voice in the mornings when she insists she's dealing with it in her own way. Even so, though, he worries about the physical toll her restless nights might be taking.
He leaves his shoes by the door and pads around the room on silent feet, not wanting to disturb her. But when he bends to retrieve his book from the bedside table, thinking he'll slide in beside her for a while before they go in search of dinner, he sees the redness around her eyes, the traces of dried tears smudging her makeup. Abandons the book and perches on the bed next to her instead.
She wakes at the dip in the mattress, and he's almost relieved to find only sadness, not panic, not horror, in her eyes. Reaches out to brush mussed hair back from her forehead.
"What's wrong?"
She closes her eyes again, and fresh tears spill over onto the pillow. He lets his hand linger in her hair, offering what comfort he can. And after a moment she sighs, scrubs the tears away with the heel of her hand, pushes herself up to sit against the headboard facing him. He threads his arm around her bent legs, lets his thumb sweep a reassurance against her calf.
"I visited the apartment today," she says quietly. "Where I lived with René before the war."
He's silent a moment. "Did you find what you were looking for?"
"What I should have been looking for, maybe." She tries to smile. "I found René. I found the woman I used to be. I realized I've been hiding from them both."
He offers a gentle smile. "They both went through a lot."
She nods slowly. "Since Sainte Lynette, when I think about him, when I remember him, all I can see is his death. It's like... That memory is so big I can't see past it to remember anything that came before. I shut that whole part of my life away. And then today…"
"It all came back."
He knows intimately how disconcerting that can be. Overwhelming, even without the complete sensory package his own memories provide.
"It was… a lot, all at once. And I don't know where it fits exactly with who I am now. But I'm afraid to shut it out again. The least I can do is to remember his life as well as his death. And…"
Aurora stops, clearly struggling to find a way to express what she's feeling. Alfred simply waits, gives her the space to sort through it all.
"Our old landlady," Aurora begins again. "She's still there. She kept a few things for me." She offers a small wave in the direction of two boxes stacked on the table by the window. Pauses to wipe away the tears that have escaped her control. "The one on the bottom, it's my old typewriter. My father gave it to me when I moved to France. In a case, so I could carry it with me wherever I went. René's was worth more, so we sold his to buy supplies for the newspaper on the black market. We thought we could both work on mine." Her lips twist in something that's almost smile. "Not the best idea we ever had."
She falls silent again, and Alfred shifts closer to her on the bed, tucks his arm around her hips instead. She reaches for his free hand, stares down at their joined fingers.
"All those little things. It makes me sad to remember, but I don't want to forget," she says finally.
Alfred's heart aches for her. For the absurdity of their situation. He has the perfect memory, but nothing from that time in his life worth remembering.
"It's okay to feel sad," he says quietly. "Terrible things happened to both of you. But the more you hold onto the good memories, the less sad they'll make you feel."
Aurora nods again, but drops her gaze as she fights against a fresh wave of tears.
"What's in the other box?" he asks finally, to draw her out again.
She sucks in a watery breath and sighs. "I don't know. I haven't been able to open it yet."
He hesitates, not entirely certain this is a part of her life she wants him intruding into. "Do you want to go through it together?" She looks up at him in surprise, and he fights the sudden urge to shrug his suggestion off again. "You can tell me all the little things," he says finally, "and I'll remember them with you."
Her breath hitches and she knots her fingers more tightly with his. "Will it hurt you, though? To talk about him?"
An image of René, tied to a chair and choking on the rag stuffed down his throat, flashes through his mind. The damp smell of concrete and mildew and unwashed bodies, excrement and gasoline fumes, the copper tang of blood in his mouth, the echoes of someone else's screams.
But he shakes his head, determined. "He told me. In the cell, he told me he didn't want you to remember him like that. The way he was at the end. It would be a way to, to honour his last wishes. And… I didn't know him, before, but I'd like to hold some happier memories of him."
The look in her eyes as she nods her agreement tells him his suggestion was the right one after all, and he squeezes her fingers in reassurance. "Not today. When you're ready."
She lets go of his hand to lean forward and slide her arms around his neck. He shifts closer again, lets his hands sweep comfort up and down her back. And eventually her breathing calms, the tension runs out of her spine, and she lets out a long, shuddering sigh.
"Are you hungry?" he asks. "It's getting late, we should eat something."
She takes a breath and sits back again to lean against the headboard. And he's relieved to see a small, rueful smile in the twist of her lips. "These days, it seems like I'm always hungry."
"Come on, then. It's a lovely evening out there. We can go for a walk and find something."
She runs a hand up through her sleep-mussed hair. "Just let me make myself presentable."
He offers his hand to help her off the bed, lingers within reach while she washes her face and ties her hair up in a loose chignon.
A glorious sunset paints the sky in shades of peach and pink when they step outside, and the humidity lends the cooling air a silken presence. They don't wander too far, stop into a small bistro that has become a favourite for its simple meals and quiet atmosphere. And Alfred does his best to distract Aurora with idle chatter and plans of what they might do with Mags when she eventually joins them.
By the time they head back to the hotel Aurora's smile reaches up into her eyes again, and Alfred finds a small measure of relief in that.
René has represented an open wound on Aurora's soul for so long, too infected with guilt and horror for there to be any chance of it healing clean. The best Alfred has allowed himself to hope for is that it may eventually stop bleeding, that the pain of it might one day fade to something she can live with. Because he isn't sure even Aurora is aware of how much that wound poisons her reaction to the world. So afraid to love Mags, to love anybody new, afraid even of her own child, because she knows what it feels like to kill the thing she loves. Knows she's capable of it. Learned from the Fabers the full horror of what parenthood can mean.
It breaks his heart to see her so freighted with sadness, but for the first time it's a sadness without the angry red streaks of guilt nestled within it. And if she really has begun the process of being able to see past René's death, of being able to remember all of him and not just the broken man he was at the end, then there's a chance that the wound may eventually scar over. That she may be able to forgive herself for what was, at its heart, a terrible act of kindness and mercy.
For tonight, he settles for staying close, keeping watch against any renewed signs of red in her voice. Lies awake once she has curled up to sleep with her head on his chest, just to reassure himself no nightmares have taken hold. But for the moment, at least, she seems to have found some peace, and her body grows heavy against him with no signs of distress. Finally reassured, he closes his eyes and surrenders to the warmth and comfort of her presence beside him, and they both sleep undisturbed until morning.
"What's on the menu for today?" Alfred asks her over breakfast at the café, and Aurora hides a smile. She can feel the effort he's making not to hover, to keep his tone casual.
"I'm going to take the day off," she admits. "I need a break before I start to tackle the writing of this thing."
His fingers brush the back of her hand. "I think that's a good idea."
And this time she lets him see her smile. "I thought you might."
"Do you have any plans or are you just going to wander?"
"I'm going to go looking for the things in this city that bring me joy. It will make for a nice change from the last few days."
Alfred's smile turns wistful. "I wish I could go with you."
"Me too." She catches his fingers in hers. "Will you settle for hearing all about it when I see you tonight?"
"I'll look forward to it."
Aurora walks Alfred to work, because nothing brings her more joy than him, and then wanders down to find the Seine. Sits by the river for a while, watching the people, the boats, the birds. There hadn't been any birds in Paris during the early months of the war. The French set fire to their fuel reserves as the Germans advanced towards the city, and the toxic smoke killed most of the wildlife. She can still remember the first time she heard birdsong back in the city after that, and it continues to be a sound she treasures.
She crosses the bridge to the Île Saint-Louis and meanders through its narrow, quiet streets. Cool and peaceful despite the heat of the day. She used to dream that if ever she should become fabulously wealthy, the first thing she would do would be to buy an apartment on this island, overlooking the water. A place with high ceilings and delicate furniture and French doors out onto a shallow balcony, something out of the novels she read when she was a girl.
Across another bridge, and she follows the river downstream, stopping to chat with the bouquinistes along the way, to pick through their selections and see if there's anything that Alfred might particularly like. Finds one or two for him, a novel for herself – something as light and frivolous as the ones she used to love – and a translation of Anne of Green Gables for Mags.
And then at one stall near the Pont Neuf, she comes across an assortment of children's books. They're somewhat battered, a little frayed around the edges, but she recognises some of the titles from when she was a child. Pauses there for long minutes, leafing through the worn pages of one book after another. It feels strange to consider buying gifts for a child not yet born. Even more so given the nature of the gift – it will be years before the baby is old enough to make any use of books. But until now she hasn't really considered the challenge it might be to find French books in London. And as she turns the pages, she allows herself to imagine reading stories to her child, curled up together in an armchair they don't yet own. The way her father did with her. The way Alfred sometimes does with Mags, though Mags has always been old enough to read for herself. Because it's the experience, not the story, that really matters.
In the end, Aurora picks out a small handful to buy, because she can't deny the flutter of quiet joy the idea gives her. Pays the woman running the stall and adds the books to the collection already in her satchel.
In the afternoon, she gets gloriously lost in the Louvre. It had been one of her favourite things to do when she first arrived in Paris, just spend time surrounded by these treasures. Some of them familiar as old friends, and others delightful new discoveries.
Her father has always had a passion for art, a passion he shared with her as a child, talking her through the illustrations in art books brought with him from Germany. At university, she had even minored in art history, just for the love of it – one of the reasons so many of her cover stories during the war had revolved around it in some way.
She starts with her favourite gallery and then just keeps walking, sometimes stopping to admire, sometimes sitting to rest her back. And the gentle hush of the place, its distant high-ceilinged echoes of whispering voices and squeaking shoes, feels both familiar and comforting.
Towards the end of the afternoon she starts building a list for herself of works and pieces she wants to bring Alfred to see. He's never been inside the Louvre, and for once she can have the joy of giving him something beautiful to remember. A small apology for all the sadness she somehow keeps handing him.
Aurora's grief has followed her on her wanderings throughout the day, but she hasn't fought against it, and it hasn't pushed back. It sat alongside her calm, her joy, her hope, and hasn't negated any of them. She knows better than to assume it will always be so simple, but she did at least find the respite she needed from this day.
And when she meets Alfred outside his office at the end of the afternoon, she can almost taste his relief at her lightness of mood. Finds the re-telling of her meanderings for him, the smile he wears in his eyes as he listens, to be yet another joyful moment to add to her collection.
She asks Alfred to go through the contents of the shoebox with her after dinner. Suspects she's as close to feeling prepared to face it after a day like today as she'll ever be. And the longer she leaves it, the more her dread will build.
She has an idea of what might be in the box, though she's careful not to let herself get her hopes up. Anything of value that Madame Méffèrt couldn't use herself was clearly sold or bartered away during the war – clothes, shoes, jewellery, cosmetics, household items. It's something of a miracle her typewriter actually survived. Their furniture, she saw herself, has been pressed into service in the apartment, since Madame Méffèrt can charge more for a furnished flat than an unfurnished one. And any books would have been burned long ago for warmth in the frigid wartime winters when coal was in short supply. The only thing left might be personal papers that wouldn't have value to anyone else.
And as soon as they lift the lid off the box, she can see that she is right. The box is stuffed with a hodgepodge of paper – folded and creased, some of it crumpled, but there. Preserved for her against all the odds. Photos. Letters. From her parents. From Lotte. Lotte's final words to her, as it would turn out. Shorter notes between René and herself when one or the other of them had to travel for a story. Receipts. Grocery lists. Clippings of her writing and his from pre-war papers. René's notebook, full of scraps and scribbles, names and addresses, ideas and references.
Nothing from their months in the resistance. Those papers either taken by the Gestapo or destroyed by Madame Méffèrt to protect herself. And Aurora regrets that loss. The pieces René wrote in the immediate aftermath of the occupation were extraordinary. Transcendent. His words were always one of the things she loved most about him, but in that fire of impassioned rage, they were glorious. He believed that words could stop wars, and when she read those articles, she believed it too.
Aurora goes through each item, hands each one on to Alfred, the memories they evoke tumbling from her mouth almost without her conscious thought. And she can let each one come in its turn, fade again to make room for the next, without any panic that she might forget it, might lose it. Because Alfred is remembering it with her. A gift she will never be able to properly thank him for.
Aurora sits against Alfred's chest with his arms around her and the box in her lap, and from that place of safety she manages to find a sense of peace, of relief, in having these pieces of her past restored to her rather than yet more grief.
It's late when they finish going through it all, and Alfred helps her to pack all the pieces neatly back into their box. She catches his fingers to still them as he moves to fit the lid back on, though, and he hums a quiet question in her ear.
"Thank you. That would have been… hard, to do on my own."
He shakes his head against her and presses a kiss to her temple. "You gave me another piece of you tonight."
She puts box and lid aside, and turns in his arms until she can reach him for a proper kiss.
"Good trade?" she says finally.
And he nods. "Good trade."
