Audrey is determined to continue life as usual for the children, despite the sobering developments in the news, and wakes them early the next morning for chores and breakfast as she always does.

She ignores the uncertain flutter in her chest when she hears Siegfried coming down the stairs. He doesn't clatter, like he normally does, and it feels like an acknowledgement that something new happened the night before. Their ighttime tea felt pleasantly different, despite the gloom cast by the war, though at the time she couldn't name any one thing that had changed. Perhaps they were more attuned to each other after sharing that moment of vulnerability, or perhaps it was simply the security of naming in some way their mutual support. Regardless, she fell asleep faster than she had expected given the terrible news, and slept later.

On waking, however, the memory of the interpersonal aspect of the previous evening brought a far more muddled mix of emotions. She eventually landed on a confused theory that she and Siegfried had fallen into each other's arms as they would anyone else's at such a moment; that his tender looks and the pleasant warmth of his touch were products of general emotional arousal brought on by circumstances. As she listens to his uncharacteristically careful tread, she's passively aware that her theory doesn't explain the way her heart is pounding, or the fluttering just beneath her breastbone. She dismisses this awareness with a panicky flush and sets to industriously scrubbing the egg pan.

Siegfried, by contrast, lay up until the early morning mulling over the evening's varied developments. He should be exhausted by the hours of vacillating from dread to wonder to anxiety and back again. However, sleep is the farthest thing from his mind. He feels equal parts irritable, eager, and apprehensive as he walks slowly down the stairs toward the kitchen. This damned war. For all his words of comfort to Audrey the night before, it weighs on him heavily. Audrey. Mrs. Hall? He sighs with irritation, defying the adolescent giddiness rising in him yet again. What is she to him now? How inconvenient it would be to… want more from her. Well, none of them deserve his temper at the moment, he reflects, and resolves to be as cheerful as he's ever been at 8 in the morning.

"Morning, all!" He cries, rounding the corner into the kitchen. "Morning!" The children chorus. The two eldest still have an edge of concern to their looks, but seem more at ease than the previous evening. He readily attributes this to Mrs Hall, who is the picture of domestic comfort in her floury apron. The scent of fresh bread is heavy in the air, a rare treat this early in the day.

"Morning," she says with a brief smile, before turning back to the dishes. "Breakfast is on the table."

He barely tastes the food, although he knows it's delicious. His eyes keep finding their way back to his housekeeper. In between banter with the children, he reflects that at least one of his night's nagging questions has been answered - he can't stop trying to catch her eye, and when he finally does, to share a smile over the youngest's turn of phrase, his heart races. Convenient or no, the extent of his feelings has been named, and they refuse to return to his subconscious.

The elation of recognizing the extent of what she is to him lives side by side with the damning knowledge that nothing can be done about it. Even if she did care for him like that (which he intermittently knows she does and is certain she never could), and even if he could stomach the thought of risking their bond for the chance of something more, she is still married - the wedding band she wears daily is evidence that she abides by that commitment. The only way forward, bittersweet though it is, is to continue as they always have.

Just how to do that seems elusive at first. He finds himself becoming moony as a poet watching her moving around the kitchen or pouring out the tea, or hearing her tread pass the surgery. Each day brings another reinforcement of his feelings for her. Just when he thinks they've peaked, a certain smirk or teasing word from her sends his heart into boyish somersaults. It's a strange but intensely pleasant experience, this new facet to his feelings for her. She is still intimately familiar to him, and yet excitingly new. It's a wonder to him that she doesn't call him out on it immediately; God knows he's never been able to hide anything from her. His saving grace is that their patterns are worn so deep, and she is so familiar to him, that he can allow muscle memory to carry him through the affectionate cadences and conflicts they have shared for years. Whether she sees through him (she must see through him - how could she not?) remains untold. She seems, in the main, her usual stalwart self; and although he's learned to read her over the years, when she really means to keep her feelings hidden, she's frighteningly successful.

Audrey, keenly observant at baseline and intimately familiar with Siegfried's habits and quirks, is in fact not immune to a shift of some kind occurring. Siegfried has always been tenderly caring when the situation called, but it was hardly his modus operandi on an average day. Now, however, he's solicitous in the commonest of moments and the strangest of ways. One morning he volunteers to help her wash up, and then chatters nervously about dental rot in cows as he scours the pans. Another evening he remarks abruptly on the shade of her eyes while she's studying her Scrabble tiles, and when she looks up at him in mild surprise, he seems as startled as she does that the words came out of his mouth, and suddenly becomes intimately interested in planning his next play.

Anytime her mind strays toward contemplating the meaning of this sudden tendency toward tenderness, the thought is brought up short by blank confusion and a sudden impulse to cook or clean something. If she processes the concept at all, it's to admonish herself for indulging in pointless surmise. He is Seigfried Farnon, her dear friend and employer; she is Audrey Hall, a married woman disowned by her family for breaking her sacred vows, rightfully or not. What his sudden attentions might mean has no bearing on these insurmountable facts.