Aurora spends the bulk of the next several days finally working on a draft of the first article in her project. She hesitates at first at the idea of using her old typewriter – unsure whether it might be more of a distraction than a help – but in the end allows her fears to give way to practical necessity. She can keep up with her thoughts more easily when she's typing than when she's handwriting, and if that makes her sad, then so be it. Because if she can't handle that simple level of distraction, then god help her when the baby arrives.

After five years of neglect, the machine is in need of some care and attention, but there's nothing seriously wrong with it. And after a quick trip out into the city for paper and a fresh ribbon she sets herself up by an open window in their hotel room and settles down to work.

She is distracted at first, though less by sadness than by the strange feeling of time looping back on itself, and she has to pause every so often just to remind herself of where and when she is. Of whose footsteps she's listening for as the afternoon gives way to evening. The material she's working with, the memories, are still painful, still challenging at times, but the fact she's using her typewriter actually helps with that struggle somewhat. Gives her some distance, anchors her to the unbiased journalist, the impartial observer she was once trained to be.

Now and then, though, she still has to get up from the desk to take a short walk through the neighbourhood, to read a chapter from the novel she bought. To buy herself some time to find her calm again. It's a careful line to tread, but she doesn't want Alfred to find her in that distraught state ever again, and for him she can make the effort not to let it overwhelm her.


In and around the time she spends writing, Aurora also begins the slow process of tracking down old friends, old colleagues, from before the war. Another step in reclaiming her past from the veil of fear and pain that has been pulled across it for so long.

When she returned to Paris with the team, she avoided all contact with anyone she had known before, for security reasons. Not only was the Aurora they had known still wanted by the Gestapo for resistance activities, but neither did she want to bring all her new trouble down on anyone who might have avoided it thus far.

A handful of people from the old community of journalists are still in the city. Another handful have returned since the end of the war. And they are as happy to see her as she is to see them. An ocean of experience divides them now, from each other and from who they were before, but it feels good to reconnect, to know that she's not the only one who survived. Not the only one who changed.

And she begins to think, if ever she's ready to pick up the lost threads of the career she once had, there might still be a community ready to welcome her back. She might not have to start from scratch all over again.


Later in the week, a message finally arrives at the hotel from Gustave in Saint Antoine. Aurora had written him to suggest a few dates when she might be able to travel from Paris to visit, and his short reply simply offers Saturday as his choice, if they can make it.

After the emotional acrobatics of the last week, she finds she doesn't have the energy left to dread this encounter, too. She's not naïve enough to believe the news he has to share will be anything less than tragic, but it is, at least, not her personal tragedy this time. She can dredge up her inner journalist for a few hours to protect her from the worst of it.

Her only real concern is Alfred.

"You don't have to come with me," she insists gently when she passes the news along that evening. But she's hardly surprised when he shakes his head at that suggestion.

"I'd like to know what happened to them."

Aurora takes a breath, unsure how to phrase her concern.

"It's probably not going to be good news," she says finally.

"I know."

And in the silence that follows, she has to shove down the memory of his face, his body, twisted with the weight of the girls' misery. Her own shock that he allowed himself to feel it so deeply.

She should have expected it, really, after the way Alfred behaved with Marcus, the musician in Hallie's band. But she wrote that off at the time as a result of the connection Alfred already had to the music. So his reaction to the girls' retelling of their experience at the birth house had still surprised her. That depth of compassion for complete strangers had seemed so impossible to her then, reeling as she still was from the news of René's supposed death at Villemarie. So full of her own hurt, she couldn't imagine taking on anyone else's.

And she still lives with the knowledge that if it had been up to her, she would have left those girls behind. They weren't a part of her mission, and the only thing keeping Aurora moving forward at the time was a singular focus on her primary objective. Because she had already learned the brutal lesson: never let your heart rule your head. Her compassion for Annie got René killed. How could she then put Alfred's life at risk for the sake of those girls?

But Alfred showed her how. He taught her broken heart that not caring wasn't an option, no matter how painful the alternative might be.

And so she nods her assent, though she never really believed Alfred would agree to stay behind. He's the one with the deeper emotional investment in these girls. Were their positions reversed, she wouldn't want to hear the news second-hand either.


Saint Antoine is too far to make it there and back from Paris in one day, so they arrange to spend the whole weekend in Bordeaux. They can take a train from there to Saint Antoine on Saturday. The concierge in Paris recommends a nice hotel and offers suggestions for quiet, pleasant restaurants nearby. And Aurora does her best to come up with other little ways to make the trip as pleasant as is possible around its sad purpose.

Alfred leaves work early on Friday, and they take an afternoon train south to Bordeaux. The train isn't too full, and they manage to find a compartment to themselves. Aurora waves Alfred towards the window seat, then settles herself beside him rather than across from him. So he'll have to turn away from the window to face her. After two weeks in Paris, neither of them is as jumpy about confronting their wartime memories as they were when they crossed through France on their way out of Switzerland, but Aurora isn't taking any chances. They're going in search of misery enough without adding any accidental encounters.

Aurora put together another of her picnic dinners for them to eat on the train – a baguette from the boulangerie near the hotel, some cold meat, a little cheese, a couple of pears. More than enough food, but still she couldn't resist adding two additional items.

And when Alfred looks inside the paper bag she presents him with and starts to laugh, she is unreasonably pleased with her own success.

"Now who's fussing?" he says.

"It's my turn."

He reaches out to brush a finger against the back of her hand. "Thank you. But you really didn't have to."

She takes the bag back from him and rolls down the top so that the cherries are accessible. Removes the small glass bottle that's perched atop them.

"My curiosity finally got the better of me."

"You're going to try some?"

"I am."

He laughs again.

She shrugs, touched by his delight. "Well, it can't hurt me, and you never know. You may have invented a new delicacy. Here." She hands him the bottle. "There's salt already in the garlic paste, I hope that's okay."

They unpack the other bits of their dinner, lay out what they can on the seat between them. Leave the cherries for dessert by unspoken agreement. And once they've finished the main meal, Aurora wipes down the knife she brought for the cheese and hands it to Alfred. He cuts a cherry in half, pries out the stone, and then spreads a small amount of the garlic paste on each half and offers her one.

She pops it in her mouth before she can think too hard about it, determined only that she's not going to spit it out. And Alfred watches her closely, his eyes still laughing, waiting to see how she reacts.

The flavour is… deeply unusual. As though her taste buds aren't quite sure what to do with the conflicting information they're receiving. Which is hardly surprising. But it's not entirely unpleasant. The sharpness of the garlic does complement the sweetness of the cherry, in roughly the same way it would with a tomato. There's just something a little sickly sweet about the cherry-ness of it, though.

"And?"

"It's certainly unusual, but not awful by any means. I can see how it might be an acquired taste."

"Really?"

"Yes, really. That said, though, I think I'll eat the rest of mine plain."

He grins. "Fair enough."

She watches him eat his half in turn, just to see the pleasure bloom in the lines of his face. And not for the first time, she wishes she could experience the world as he does. Just to be able to understand what moments like this, sensations like this, really mean to him. No matter how much she loves him, no matter how close they are, he will still always be isolated in that.

"What is it?" he asks when he catches her watching him.

"Tell me what you remember. When you taste that."

"Bicycles on the road to Toulouse. Hallie's voice. That night in London. My first paycheque."

"Why your first paycheque?"

"I took the money and went to the grocer. It was the first time I could buy food for myself. I got a little bit of everything and spent the whole evening experimenting. To see if I could make food… feel more enjoyable."

The memory seems to be a pleasant one for him, but under his words Aurora puts the pieces together, understands with an aching heart how he ended up so painfully thin.

She brushes away her sadness before he can catch the flavour of it, though, not wanting to ruin the light mood she has worked to create. They finish the small bag of cherries while Alfred tells horror stories of some of his other culinary experiments, and then pack the remains of their meal away. As a final surprise, Aurora presents him with one of the books she bought for him during her wander down the Seine, and they pass the rest of the journey reading and talking, with Alfred leaning against the window and Aurora curled up against his side.


It's late when the train finally pulls into Bordeaux, and they take a taxi directly to the hotel, which is exactly as lovely as the concierge promised it would be. But even so, the weight of the journey's intended purpose seeps back in around the edges of their silence.

Aurora tangles her body with his under the sheets, guides his hand down to rest against her belly, trying to cocoon him in comfort to keep any dread at bay.

"I'm fine," he murmurs in her ear.

And she nods, though neither of them believes it entirely. "I know."


They wake up early, and go for a walk through the city in the fresh morning air, before the heat of the day becomes oppressive. They buy rolls fresh from the boulangerie's oven, fruit from the market, and eat breakfast by the water. Enjoy what they can of the day before it's time to board their train.