Saturday. The weather was heavy. Outside the sky was low and colourless, and the air was violently cold.

Connie wrapped her arms about herself. She sat curled into the window seat in her office, her breath had fogged the glass so that she could barely see the world beyond it, but still she sat, motionless, staring as though she had died watching the sunrise. Only the rise and fall of her chest gave her away.

Splinters of sunlight made her blink. It had been night...not long ago it seemed. And now suddenly the light beyond the blurred glass was rising and pulsing like a living thing, growing and bursting all at once. Skeletons of trees were no longer grey and brittle but bronze and throbbing with life, dappled with gold and stretching long, magisterial shadows across smooth perfect snow.

Each snowdrift glittered and glimmered so brightly that she had to turn away. For a moment she was blinded, the room that she had turned back to was nothing but a black hole with edges that murmured and faded until she could see again.

The office looked so big all of a sudden, it seemed such a long way to the door...such an effort to cross the long blank floorboards to turn the handle.

She let her head fall gently against the glass so that the cold of the window touched her skin and made her temple ache.

"Grace..."

Her whisper fell flat against the glass. Any minute now there would be the hum of an engine, and the silent roll of tires across the snow covered drive. Then Audrey would be here, and Grace would be leaving all over again.

She closed her eyes, the light showed a brilliant flashing red behind her eyelids and she squeezed them shut tighter so that she couldn't see anything at all.

"Connie?"

The door creaked, heavy on it's hinges, and stopped halfway. Rita held it's edge with one hand, her cheek against the wood.

"Audrey's here."

She said when no reply came.

"What?!"

She opened her eyes and for the briefest of seconds she thought she might fall off of the window seat. She grasped the edge of it, the fingernail of her index finger bending painfully back.

"I didn't hear, I..."

"Grace was watching out for her, she didn't ring the bell."

Rita cut her off and glanced behind herself, the sound of Audrey's heels could be heard making their way across the hallway to the kitchen.

"You OK?"

Rita whispered, turning back to her, but already she was slipping from the room. Already her hand fell from the side of the door and Audrey was calling Rita's name. She glanced apologetically to Connie before stepping away, leaving the door open.

Through the crack between the door and the door frame she could see Grace move in to stand beside Rita, her back to them. She looked at her hair, loose and long down her back, how she stood with her arms folded across her chest and one knee bent. How she leant her head against Rita's arm and laughed at something Audrey had said.

"I wasn't ready..."

She whispered into the room.

-.-

More later today. Everyone ready for Connie to fall apart?! xxx