George knows he's meant to rebuild. That's what you do, isn't it? You wipe away the tears, suck in a deep brief, and rebuild your life. Just like they rebuilt the castle. They picked up the pieces, salvaged what they could; and room by room, tower by tower, staircase by staircase, they rebuilt.
George looks all around him and he sees people rebuilding their own houses of bone and nerve and battle-weary muscle. They're picking up the pieces, stone by stone, memory by memory and piecing it together. They falter. Some stones crumble down. But they take a breath, pick them up, and put them back in place. It doesn't always look the same, each of them with holes that they can't build over, like windows that let in the sunlight on some days, and the howling wind on others. But they rebuild, and they take shelter in their houses, and inside they laugh and they love and they live.
George doesn't know how to rebuild – people never really teach you that as a kid. And now there are just so many pieces, and so many of them are broken, and he doesn't know which one he's meant to place down first. So he doesn't. Instead, he stands there, looking at all the pieces strewn over the ground, and wonders how they could have tumbled so spectacularly. Wonders what he's meant to do with these shattered fragments of himself. Wonders if it wouldn't be easier to walk away and just not.
But after some time, he does pick up a piece. It's small, just a slither, and it's rough, like it could cut him if he isn't careful. He thinks maybe that's the way it should be.
He holds it in his hand for a while, focusing on the weight of it, the way it feels in his palm. Finally, with a tentative hand, he places it on a bare patch of ground. He considers it for some time, and it feels strange, but also right in a way. So he tries again. But his stones are so heavy, his bricks so broken, and some days his arms aren't strong enough to lift them into place, and other days he does manage it, only for them to fall straight back down again.
And all around him, people rebuild.
Their houses are sturdy. They are held together with love and purpose and hope. But George doesn't have a sturdy house. He has a small wall, hesitantly constructed with uncertainty and regret and pain, until it's tall enough for him to curl up and hide behind. He stays there, tucked away, until eventually he dares to crawl back out and place another piece. And another.
Then he reconnects with Angelina, and his stones don't feel so heavy anymore, his bricks not so jagged. She holds his hand and helps him to put each piece into place. Not where it once belonged, but where it belongs now. And stone by stone, brick by brick, kiss by kiss, George rebuilds.
Then little Fred comes along, and his house grows taller. Roxanne arrives next, and he builds again, the stones lighter, the work easier.
He often wonders what Fred's house would look like, if he was here rebuilding from the war too. If there would be someone helping him put the pieces in place.
Then he thinks about those early days, when he doubted if he could rebuild his life. Doubted if he wanted to. Some days he wonders if he could have seen what he would go on to build, if it would have made him hopeful. But he remembers those early days well enough to know that it wouldn't.
He looks around now at what he rebuilt – is still rebuilding. The house built of grief and pain and hope and eventually, love. It isn't always sturdy. It isn't always easy. But he did. And he does.