Excerpt from a Diary.

I never slept through the night, not since Lillian had stopped her nocturnal visits. I was wandering around the halls on the early morning when it happened, trying in vain to find something to distract my mind. I even considered going outside and roving around the dew; anything to preoccupy myself from what was happening around me. The house was heavy with sorrow; suffocating like a funeral parlour. Grief seemed to seep in and slide down the walls, rising to shroud the halls in a mourning veil. It was constricting...dark and somber. Cecily was nearing her end, her heart weakening with every beat. Though, I suppose that was true for all of us. I didn't wish to think of it, or how I was to go about telling my father that I would be leaving in a fortnight...that I was running like a coward.

I do not know if I were loitering outside her bedchamber on purpose or if it was all an cruel twist of fate, but I slowed passed Cecily's door and she picked up on my tread. Her voice called to me, feeble and strained. I did not have the heart to pretend I did not hear her. I entered quietly, watching her as she turned her honey head to look at me, her face painted with moonlight. The air was bitingly cold; she requested that all the windows be opened because the cool comforted her. The chill seeped through my robe, hitting my bare chest but I didn't bother me.

I whispered her name inquiringly.

"Shy?"

"Yes, Cecily?"

"Come here."

I went to her bedside, taking her small hand and instinctively touching her forehead. "Do you want me to get father?" Her skin was pale and near-frozen. "Are you cold?" I didn't give her time to respond as I felt around on her face, trying to warm her.

She put a calming hand on mine, ceasing my movement. "I'm quite alright. I like the cold, it makes me feel-" She trailed off and I knew what she was going to say. I wondered if she were frightened to go to sleep.

"Let me get father."

"No." She tugged on my arm as she scooted over, the movement causing her to touch her chest lightly. "Come here."

I balked and tried to stand, "Let me get father." I had never been so inelegant in my life.

"Please."

I obliged after a moment's hesitation, sliding onto the covers next to her, keeping one foot on the ground as if it lessened the offense. Though, I suppose there really was no offense, she was my mother.

But she wasn't.

She sighed and laid her head on my shoulder, tucking her hands to her chest, much to my relief. My arm was trapped beneath her. I closed my eyes and envisioned that the hairs tickling my chin were black and unruly and that the woman seeking comfort from me was indeed my mother, now that I was old enough to give it. I opened my eyes to blonde strands, so much like Lillian's that I had to remind myself that it was not.

"I think it will happen tonight. My heart feels like its been beating for a thousand years...it slows every second." She murmured peacefully.

I swallowed and stroked her hair, my concern blotting out my discomfort. There was a pain in my chest, as if my heart had skipped and tripped over itself before resuming its normal pattern. I could hardly imagine the house without her loquacious chatter, or her petite hand ruffling my hair, which she never ceased even as I outgrew her reach. As a child, I had developed quite an infatuation with her. I would follow her about and watch her arrange her flowers or sew her frilly things; something that was frowned upon by the older men of the house. I was lost and lonely, and I always preferred female attention. That was something Mycroft had told me I would need to get over if I wanted to make it through life without being made a fool of left and right. "Women will destroy you if you allow them" he'd told me that day he cornered me in my room and scolded me for being so close to Lillian.

There were no flowers in the house right now.

She was quiet for a while. I started to slip out from beneath her. "I'm going to go get father."

"No, let him sleep. Let him sleep for one night. He won't be able to do anything for me."

"He should be here." I whispered into her hair.

She shook her head weakly, "I wish he hadn't already lost someone. I wish you hadn't...I wish I was your mother."

With those heartfelt words, that she had kept to herself until this moment, she stilled.

"Cecily?

Nothing.

I stood shakily and looked down at her for a bit. I felt sedated. My hand moved to my mouth, absently rubbing my cheek as I panicked internally. I finally rolled her over gently, her body as limp as Lillian's old cloth dolls. I pressed my palm to her chest and felt only stillness.

I kneeled on the bed next to her, watching the stillness of her chest, waiting foolishly for the heavy rising of falling of breath. I kissed the tip of her thumb, and then the hollow of her throat, where her heartbeat used to rest.

I ran from the room, though it felt as if I could not reach the door fast enough. I needed a drink. I made it halfway down the stairs, gripping the banister and stumbling more than actually walking. I stopped when I heard a faint sound. Lillian stood in the shadow by the library door, clutching onto the table that housed the pale bust of Socrates that my father had placed there; the only gaudy thing in the whole house.

She stared at me. I opened my mouth to say her name and tasted salt. She ran from me, weeping into a fold of her robe.

I stood stupidly.

My mind needed to take over. Things would have to be done and drinking was not one of the priorities. I debated going after Lillian but fear stopped me. I was such a coward.

I made my way back up to the second landing.

My nose had started running, feeling pinched and tight with controlled emotion. I stood outside my father's door, wiping my face with my sleeve for a bit before knocking softly.

My father had been a wreck after the death of my mother. Mycroft had been too cold for comfort and I was far too young and distraught to provide any solace to him. I did not wish to tell him he had lost someone else; and that for the second time, I would be the one who had been by their side as they'd passed.

Footsteps approached the door faster than I expected. It creaked open and he peered out at me with sleepy but not sleep-ridden eyes. He had his spectacles on and I knew he had been reading the Bible.

"I know you are not here to tell me something bad." He stated, as if saying it made it true. "She would have told you not to wake me."

"She did."

He shut the door in my face, consumed with irrational grief, and left me to burst into tears for the first time since I was seven.

That night was the first time in three years that she entered my room. The material of her nightdress pulled across her chest as she settled onto the mattress. I wasn't in bed; sitting at the bow window, watching the rain splash down my windowsill.

Her crying cut through me and I went to her; it wasn't a choice really, just as it had never been before.

We both remain above the covers, as I settle myself gently next to her. She rests the bottom of her cold feet against the tops of mine. I can feel her radiating skin, broken only by one faint scar. I kiss her, everywhere about her face and neck, feeling lost in the folds of her memories, as though they were my own. The two sides of my souls war with one another; frost or fire...that deep, dark ice that settled near my mind or that white, roaming fire that surged from my heart to my stomach.

She lets out a strangled sob as I kiss her shoulder. The rain gets heavier through the liquid night, pounding against the glass of my windowpane as her eyes shine with grief and something akin to recognition. She snuggles into my arms, the remains of her hurt blowing away

At least, for the night.