[DARROW] May 11th

I noticed her shock of red hair, first. I'm not sure I'd ever seen anything quite like it. My own was a dull blonde, cropped around my ears since I'd left the Cottages and started to have little time for myself. I remembered when I'd first seen her, how she'd been mourning the loss of someone who'd disappeared from the city without word or warning. I still struggle to come to terms with that. But, then again, the way Ruth and Tommy left was almost as unremarkable. To the rest of the world, at least. To me, well, it still ached.

I'd just left the grocery store with my arms carrying paper bags filled with the essentials. Bread and milk and tea and fruit. Though it was more than I'd spent in my bedsit back in England, I still didn't spend all that much time in my apartment in Darrow. I mostly ate at cafés, from the cafeteria in the hospital, so I didn't need that much. It was entirely inconsequential, what I was doing, but my mood and my mouth lifted at the sight of somebody familiar. "Helen?"