Alfred frowned at her response, but it was not ultimately surprising, at least at the level of detail she'd provided. There were almost certainly things he didn't know, but from what he had been aware of it had been clear that she was in a certain state of mind near the end of their relationship. She'd been like a boat adrift in a storm, all erratic movements and directionless, frantic energy and the feeling that any creak in the boards might suddenly become the rapid taking on of water. That was what had sparked the awful moment where he'd nearly slipped in the first place: the conviction that she was about to be lost, perhaps generally but at least to him specifically, if he didn't do something.

"But you're out of it now," he said. He didn't let it come out as a question, though it was; he wanted reassurances that she was doing better, that her child and her us and everything had made her happy, because if this was the last word she had to say on the subject — if he'd been right about that feeling that she was about to be lost, back then, and then he'd chosen not to intervene and everything had crumbled, then... that was going to be a lot to wrestle with.

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