In all honesty Lena thought she probably saw more of the maintenance men of the Ministry than she did her colleagues, such was the nature of their often solitary work. The last she had heard of Astrild she was working on something or other to do with the Pictish artefacts – as the rest of them were, but who was doing what was a mystery only known by Urquart and even then Lena was quite sure he couldn’t know everything – and she hadn’t seen her sister-in-law since…when had it been? A week? Perhaps two?

“Shouldn’t it be though? It doesn’t seem fair for you to have to worry all by yourself.”

Leaning on her elbows Lena eyed her brother, wondering how it was that a carefree life could morph seemingly overnight. Last year New Year’s Day would have found them nursing their respective headaches, ignoring Helga’s much more peppy post-celebration chatter and now there was a child upstairs and a wife god knows where.

“You can always ask me for help you know? Proper help I mean?” She smiled wryly. “If Ronnie’s too busy that is.”

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MJ: still raising the graphics bar as of 2022