Alberta stirred her tea slowly, eyes fixed studiously on the table. Neither she nor Harold felt particularly inclined to discuss what had happened yesterday (particularly last night); or at any rate, she preferred not to mention it, and Harold had not pushed the issue.

She was thankful for that; he had not said anything when she had finally made her way to the dining table, eyes so swollen her lids had receded into rounded flaps that resembled puff pastry after ten minutes in the oven. He had not said anything about the fact that she had been rubbing her neck; he had not mentioned anything about the fact that she had woken up in the chair beside the window, neck resting (somewhat awkwardly) against the pillow from their bed.

In truth (here she placed her spoon down, watching the milk swirl and melt into the water and wondering how strange it was that milk and water could taste good with tea leaves but were so odious together without)- in truth, she did not know how to feel about Harold's actions. She knew- or perhaps she would once have thought she knew- that she should be angry. Chivalry was misguided at best; chauvinistic and discriminating at its worst. Yet somewhere, somehow, she had- liked what Harold had done. It had been thoughtful, if badly carried out (for her neck really was stiff, and she had some difficulty turning to the right, unless she twisted from her waist and kept her neck fairly still). But-

"I forgot to strain it." Harold's apologetic voice sliced into her thoughts.

Belatedly, Alberta realised that she had been frowning at the tea.

"Oh no, it's fine," she said half absently, dusting his apology off. "After all, Eustace Clarence prefers his tea unstrained, goodness knows why, so-"

(so when he comes down)

The words hung, suspended in the air; bunch of knotted threads and sugar coated knives.

When, oh when, would she cease feeling like this? Would the rawness ever have time to age, form a scab, recede to a dull scar? Or would it forever be raw, raked across a shredder and raked again, so that she would never forget it?

It hadn't been this hard when her mother had passed away, addled and bedridden. Or perhaps it was only that she had lost her mother years before the illness claimed her, and she had had her time to mourn, had had Victor alongside-

Victor always strained his tea.

She set her teacup down. Most likely Harold had not let the tea sit for long enough, and that was the reason for its strangely bland flavour. (most likely not).

Dimly, she saw a shadow in the corner of her vision, and she mentally batted at it.

Not again, not again, not-

- but it was Harold, and he placed his left hand over hers, almost imperceptibly.

There was a silence, like the stillness over a lake before a breeze, before he murmured in her ear.

"Do you know, the first time I watched Eustace Clarence brew a pot of tea, he almost put the milk into the pot with the water?"

In spite of herself, Alberta laughed.

"He could be the oddest child," she whispered, words bubbling up and choking in her throat. "And he'd pile his tea cups to the side, a cup in front of a butterfly."

"Or beside a series of transistor diagrams," Harold added, and in that moment she could see Eustace Clarence, almost clear as day; bleary-eyed and standing in the doorway, raking his right arm across his face.

Morning, Alberta, he would say; morning, Harold.

And then he would sit at the chair, just left of Harold- his favourite spot- and would reach for the toast-

- but she knew, even as she blinked, that it was not so, that Eustace Clarence was (gone) not coming back, not coming back.

Behind her, Harold was rubbing her back lightly with his free hand. She sniffed, unsure herself whether it was driven by comfort, or frustration, or some other emotion she could not place her finger on. Harold's hand stilled, and still she did not know how she felt.

But something had to be said, and her tea was getting cold, and so she (didn't have the words and what sort of journalist would simply run out of words, and what sort of inadequate being did that make her if she couldn't find the words)- she needed to say something, so she patted Harold's arm and nodded towards his chair.

"Come on, before the toast is inedible," she said firmly, her voice echoing as though over a vast body of sleepless water. "Then we could- should- start sort- start cleaning Eustace Clarence's room."

Sorting through. Sorting through because-

But she couldn't go there, couldn't form the words, not this morning, not just yet.

(- because he can't, he never will)

She tried to ignore the strange pang in Harold's eyes, that awful flash that mirrored her own heart.

Nonsense, Alberta, she thought, smartly adding a layer of blueberry jam to her toast. In the dining room light it glistened, almost the way a wave might before forming a crest and breaking, scattering, across rocks, incandescent silver shifting in her grasp.

She quickly picked it up and took a bite. The crumbs suspended, dry and cold, at the back of her throat.

She surveyed the boxes Harold had taken out.

We can store things in bags, you needn't pull out the moving boxes, she had said, but Harold had only looked at her, his eyes heavy, and she had known- if Eustace Clarence was only moving, gone for a little, then there was the possibility-

So she had grasped Harold's limp hand with both hers, pressed a quick kiss to his pale knuckles.

He's not coming back, she thought, but couldn't say. But perhaps he understood her after all, for he swallowed tightly and nodded briskly, eyes dark and lonely like a lampless street after sunset.

"We could- should- tidy this place," he said at last, only his words were more like tiny breaths, as though breathing was enough difficulty and speaking would be an effort to break him.

And indeed they should tidy the place, for Eustace Clarence had left a dreadful mess in his wake. (She tried not to wince at the multiple connotations of that dreadful word, and decided to eliminate it- at least temporarily- from her vocabulary.) Those scrunched up papers on his desk, for instance; why were they there? Her Eustace Clarence was- had been- such a scrupulous child. He might have kept stashes of things at times- she had been no fool with regards to his stash of condiments as a child- but they were always boxed and neatly kept.

"I'll sort through his papers," she said, moving towards the desk, "you can-"

"I'll look through his wardrobe," Harold said, and a look of intense pain crossed his face. "I- after all, he borrowed several of my shirts and ties. I should- for work-"

"Yes," said Alberta, hoping her voice was not shaking. "For work."

Silently, she moved towards the papers.

Here were diagrams of transistors, drawn with a very even hand. Placement of diodes affects flow of electrons, she read, followed by a series of scientific notes she could not quite understand. After a point, she doubted Eustace Clarence himself would have understood, for his writing descended into an indecipherable scrawl. She carefully bunched the papers together and bundled them in a pile.

Here were quotations that he had copied out; passages from the Bible (Psalm 71 seemed rather a long psalm to her; not that she was particularly familiar with the Bible or the Psalms, but the psalms she knew tended to be short and along the "Praise the Lord for He is wonderfully made" vein). Quotations from that George MacDonald he had developed an almost disturbing admiration for. She began to gather and bundle those sheets, too, when one caught her eye. "To be humbly ashamed is to be plunged in the cleansing bath of truth", she murmured. "- And sometimes that bath is jolly painful, like peeling off a scab. Thank you, Lord, for plunging me in that bath. March 17 1949."

The day before the train, she thought, and it felt so impossibly long ago, even though it had only been nine days.

Cleansing bath of truth. It was a pretty phrase, even if it was untrue. There was nothing cleansing about the truth. Truth was cold, and it was hard, and it whispered to her that this, this was the last thing she could hold from her son; a small sheet of paper, dated the day before his death; musings on another man's words, not even his own!

Although her eyes were dry, they were hot, and she blinked several times, steadying herself at the table before continuing on to the crumpled sheets.

There were several of them, and it did not seem any of them had very much writing. She paused, hand hovering over the first sheet. Should she even be reading these?

They could merely be diagrams again, or quotations with a misspelling; but she was not sure.

If Eustace Clarence were to come home after the weekend, would you read these?

An image flashed into her mind; the hours before Eustace Clarence requested to spend the weekend with the Pevensies- (Susan's dark eyes burned into her memory, and she turned the thought aside fretfully). She recalled the hushed conversations in the sitting room, standing in the doorway and seeing that Jill Pole leaning in-

Quickly, clinically, she folded out the first crumpled sheet.

Dear Jill, she read (and felt both vindicated in her suspicion, and guilty, as though she was participating in some strange form of trespass), I've been thinking about what you said the-

The next was hardly more enlightening.

Dear Jill, remember what Father Andrew was saying on Sunday? And what you said to Mrs MacPherson? I-

Dear Jill, can you please explain to your mother that when I said- the next sentence was scratched out. I meant-

Dear Jill-

At some point, she put the unfinished, unsent letters down, the dear Jills circulating and echoing in her mind like a deafening symphony playing on a broken gramophone.

All these letters, she thought, letters that would never be sent- or received. For Jill Pole's mother, whomever she was, would be carrying out a similar purge, either today or sometime soon (for even sentimental people had to be practical at some point).

Or would she find letters? Had Eustace Clarence found the words that she herself could not find now, had he sent a finished letter over? Her son was no poet; he had more his father's skills than hers. Explanation and logic he excelled at, but eloquence was not his forte; each of his unfinished letters had been as cryptic as the first.

She was struck by a sudden urge to call upon this mysterious Mrs Pole, the mother of that Jill Pole (always 'That Jill Pole' in her mind, as if 'That' was her first name and 'Jill' a sort of hyphenated middle name), to see what this woman knew of her son, if there was anything of Eustace Clarence in their house that she might be able to keep- at least for safekeeping. And she always liked completed files.

Visit Mrs Pole?

The very idea was ludicrous. They had never exchanged a word in their entire lives.

Shifting her head ever so slightly, she watched Harold as he tiredly took out a suit, folded the shirt, sat heavily on Eustace Clarence's neat bed. He raised his head and met her gaze, and in his absence, Eustace Clarence swelled and filled the room, and the tears (was there no end to them?) came rushing up and battled their way out of her heavy, swollen eyes, spilling onto the crumpled letters before her.

Slowly, unsteadily, she felt herself move towards Harold.

"Here, Alberta," he whispered, his voice hoarse, and she reached out blindly and took his hands.

We can't continue the purge in the remains of this day, she wanted to say, or he's not here but can't you feel him Harold?

But like the unfinished letters, like the words of the past week, they remained stuck in her throat, and she could not find the right groupings to vocalise her muddied thoughts.

"I think- we have done enough," Harold murmured, and she let him lead her, quietly, out of the quiet, still room.

A/N: Oh my stars. I am SO SORRY about the amount of time it took to get this chapter up, and I am SO SORRY about the quality- or lack thereof- of said chapter. It's been a few hellish months in terms of sickness, uni work, music commitments and competitions and then a few emotional roller-coasters along the way... but even so, I am sorry and I will not keep you waiting THIS long for another installment.

For those interested, this chapter takes place the day before 'Laetare Jerusalem'- not that I expect Alberta to be aware of the irony that she is attempting to purge her son's bedroom the day before Mothering Sunday. I do not think the Scrubbs know that much about the church calendar.