If he had ever paused to consider it - really dissect a pattern in his actions, rather than the simple surface thought - Ari supposed he visited the family more in the winter months. Because autumn was rushing onwards, winter encroaching on its heels, and Ari was dropping by the Fisk home for dinner again. Not that there was a strict limit to be enforced - he and his father, and the younger siblings still at home all lived in the same village, after all, it was never out of his way - but, all the same, he did not mean to impose. Didn't like to visit too much, lest they think he was lonely - even lonelier than they already presumed.
It was easier in summer, maybe, to occupy himself naturally with other things. To go for long walks, to spend time with friends, to feel contented in the long hours of sunlight that stretched out after work; easier than now, when already dusk drew sturdily over Scotland, so that it was dark and cold even as he left the hospital. This summer had been something of an exception, perhaps, with the darkness and the months of fog - but in fact that had been better, confined to the hospital, because he had been too busy to think about much else. There was much less to worry about now, the hospital running smoothly - as smoothly as it ever could - and much less to do with himself, except huddle up at home and read until he fell asleep.
Perhaps it was some ingrained human instinct, to seek out some warmth in the winter, some potential way to resist that animal temptation of hibernation, just burrowing down alone for a few months to sleep; but Ari had not analysed himself so thoroughly - had only been dreaming of a warm meal and a warmer, busier dinner table as he walked - when he arrived on the family house's doorstep today.
Once he had been let in, he had been left to his own devices to find out who was home from the Ministry - Xena might be upstairs, if she was not out with friends - but Ari hadn't made it to the stairs when he heard the muffled sound of crying from the parlour. Wondering if that was not Xena - or dear Merlin, not Zelda again - or whether someone had hurt themselves, Ari hastened back to the parlour door. There, he paused, and thought of knocking, but the sobs had been almost too much to bear, and sounded serious enough that he placed his hand on the doorknob, took a careful breath, and opened the door.
Whoever was in there was in there alone, he gleaned in a flash, so stepped in to help rather than to intrude, but it was not until he had pressed the door closed behind him that he realised the young woman in their parlour was not, in fact, one of his sisters. "Oh - Miss Tweedy, I - didn't know you were here -" Ari fumbled, doing a hasty double-take in shock and his brow furrowing instantly: her tears may have stopped in the moment, but it was all too clear that she had been crying. "Whatever's the matter?" He asked with concern, which had not been the apology he had been intending on issuing - and of course she did not have to answer him, but at least the question had been slightly better-phrased than the are you alright? that might have slipped out otherwise. He hadn't the faintest idea what had happened, but she was evidently not alright.
