Raise No Fool

Summary: Estelle hasn't spoken to her parents face-to-face since they gave her away to the Empire but the message she receives of their deaths shakes her to the core anyway.

AN: This was previously posted as a preview on my tumblr under the title of What You Don't Know, until I realized that I have a fic favorited with that title and it's rude to take titles you didn't actually come up with. SO YES.

Estelle hasn't spoken to her parents face to face since they gave her away to the Empire but the message she receives of their deaths shakes her to the core anyway.

It's in the early evening and she's spending a few days in Dahngrest on business- business which was concluded in the span of two or three hours but she has the time anyway. The notice comes by messenger, a spotty teenager who looks terrified to so much as lay eyes on the Imperial princess, and he hands it off to her quickly before fleeing, leaving only a stammering goodbye in his wake.

Estelle rolls the envelope over in her palms.

"What's that?" Yuri asks from behind her. Estelle shakes her head.

"I'm not sure," she replies, "I wasn't expecting anything from Zaphias." And anything from Flynn would have been delivered personally by one of his soldiers. There's nothing to do but open it, she decides, and breaks the wax seal on the thick, embossed parchment. Despite the pomp and fanciness of the envelope, the paper inside is the thinner variety generally used by the lesser nobility and it's written in cheap, spotty ink by someone who'd never once used a fountain pen.

Kind of like when Yuri tried to use one, got mad, and chucked it out the third floor window.

Your Royal Highness, it reads.

It is with our deepest regrets and sympathies to inform you that your parents have most unfortunately passed-

She reads further and doesn't really register the words. Something about a virulent summer flu, weakened immune systems, too many rains and too much pride to seek a doctor until it was too late. It doesn't matter. Her brain's still stuck on 'parents have passed' and Estelle only registers Yuri still behind her when he reaches out to shake her shoulder.

"Estelle?"

"W-what?" she jerks and crumples the letter in her hand.

"You okay?"

Estelle is not okay.

"Hey...your hands are shaking."

Oh, are they?

"C'mon, Estelle. You're freaking me out." Yuri sounds really worried now and Estelle shakes her head again, trying to clear out the strange buzz in her head that she can barely hear him over. She stares down at the rumpled paper in her hands.

"Oh," she says. "Sorry." She stops when the words catch in her throat. It's not enough; Yuri's still waiting for an answer. "I, um. I just got this. It says…" Breathe, swallow, try again. "It's about my parents. It says that they died." Yuri reels back as if he's been hit. Estelle's never breathed a word about her parents outside of the fact that they gave her away, and that was only under the influence of alcohol. Even then she strongly implied that she didn't really remember them. Yuri's never asked further.

Estelle just wonders why she doesn't feel anything.

She should feel something.

Yuri opens his mouth and closes it again. Probably doesn't know what to say. Numbly, Estelle reads the message again.

The funeral and memorial services will be held on-

The buzzing gets louder.

"Yesterday," she says, feeling as if she's speaking from inside a fishbowl, "The funeral was yesterday."

"Spirits," Yuri breathes, "I'm so sorry."

"Yeah." Green eyes blink dazedly. "Right."

Strong hands grip her shoulders and turn her until she doesn't have a choice but to look Yuri in the face.

She should be crying. Estelle's cried over much less than this but somehow she just can't. They're her parents, the people who in a different world would have raised her, and despite it all Estelle does remember them. Quite possibly better than she'd have liked. They're her parents and now they're dead and Estelle can't cry for them. Not here, not now. Maybe not ever.

Maybe she'll never feel anything again.

"What can I do?" Yuri asks and Estelle leans into his hold like he's the only thing keeping her on her feet. Maybe he is.

"I think I'm just- I think I'm going to go to bed," she whispers, "I don't feel good."

Not feeling good is the understatement of the century and maybe things could be different if she could react like a normal person right now. But she can't and she doesn't know why. All Estelle knows is that she doesn't want an interrogation. Not now.

"Can I just go to bed?" she asks. Yuri gives her a squeeze and then gives an odd, whuffing sigh, shakes his head.

"Yeah, of course," he says. "Want someone to bring dinner up?"

The thought of food makes her stomach churn.

"N-no," she replies quickly. "No thank you. I think I just need to sleep." Sleep for days, maybe. She turns and makes to head back upstairs when he closes his fingers around her wrist. "Yuri?"

"Look, I don't know a whole lot about parents and that kind of stuff," he begins, his grey eyes solemn and steady, "And I definitely don't know a whole lot about your parents, but if you want to talk about things, even if it's just rambling, I'm here. So's everyone else. Okay?"

Those words and not the thought of her parents or their deaths or missing their funeral are what brings the heat to the back of her eyes and Estelle raises a hand to hastily scrub away the beginnings of tears. In the process she drops the letter but before she can bend down to pick it up, Yuri's taken it himself.

"I know you probably don't want everyone dive bombing you with questions and sympathy but can I tell everyone what happened? I mean, they'll be worried regardless, but…"

Estelle understands. Especially when it comes to people like Rita, who's dogged when it comes to finding things out and absolutely relentless, and she understands that it's easier sometimes to just give her what she wants to know even if it's hard to say. She's especially relieved that she might not have to do it herself.

"Um...yes," she replies, "Please. Thank you." Yuri has no connection with these people outside of his relation to her; it'll be easy for him. Estelle just wants it to all go away. Her head pounds. Yuri nods.

"Go upstairs and get some rest," he tells her, and Estelle doesn't walk upstairs so much as she flees. She's out of sight and Yuri hears her bedroom door slam.

He sighs.

"Shit," he says to no one but himself.

The dining room has Karol and Rita and Judith and a couple of newbies, and Yuri sends the latter scurrying with a jerk of his head.

"Scram for a second."

Karol looks up.

"What's up?" he asks with a frown, "I did actually have something for them to do."

Yuri shrugs.

"They're not going anywhere and I've got something a little more important to talk to you guys about." His sober expression and serious tone kill any sort of friendly bickering that might have otherwise happened and Karol's downturned expression, joking as it had been, goes very genuine.

"What's going on?"

Yuri pulls Estelle's message out of his pocket, unfolds it, and lays it on the table for them all to see. It takes only seconds for his friends to read it and then glance back up at him, Judith's face unreadable but Rita's blatantly indignant.

"So?" she snaps, "So a couple of people died. Not that it doesn't suck but it happens all the time You know 'em?"

Karol takes a closer look.

"Sidos…" he mumbles. "Sidos." Silence. Then he too lifts his face from the paper. "Those aren't Estelle's…?"

Yuri nods.

"Yeah," he says, "Yeah, they are." Rita snatches the notice off the table and reads it again, nearly crushing it back into it's previously crumpled state. She looks furious and Yuri recognizes it as her concerned face rather than actual anger.

"She never told me her parents were still around. She just said she didn't remember."

Yuri shrugs.

"How many times did you ask?"

Rita flushes.

"Okay, I see your point. She probably wouldn't have said anything if I'd asked more anyway. Is that a crime?" It's not, Yuri thinks. She let the topic lie likely for the same reason he had: worry for a friend. "Where's Estelle?" Yuri jerks his thumb in the direction of the staircase. "I'm gonna go talk to her-" Before Rita can take a step, Judy moves for the first time and tugs her back by the sleeve.

"If she's not here, it's because she doesn't want to be," she says. Not for the first time, Yuri's unbelievably grateful for her existence. "If she'd wanted to tell us herself, she'd have told us herself, which is why Yuri's here and she isn't. Right?"

"Basically."

"Think there's anything we can do?" Karol asks, looking troubled. Yuri's reminded of the fact that, unlike himself who was dropped off on somebody else as a newborn, Karol also remembers his parents, young as he was when they died. Come to think of it, so do Rita and Judy too, though they don't really talk about it much. The best family is the one you make yourself, Yuri thinks, and would take every single one of these people over a nameless, faceless someone he only knows by a title.

But other people are different.

How much did Estelle remember, really?

"She just said she wanted to get some sleep. It was kinda weird, actually," Yuri muses, "I thought she'd cry for sure."

"Sometimes it takes a while to sink in," Judy murmurs.

"Or maybe she just won't," Rita adds. "Some people never do."

Yuri considers both of their points and then nods, not really subscribing to either. He's got no clue how Estelle handles grief. Fear, yes. Stress, definitely. Trauma, unfortunately. But this is new and honestly, he's the last person to know how people should act. He still thinks that there's something fishy over the fact that she didn't cry but doesn't say anything about it.

"She said she didn't want food," Yuri says finally, "But lets make a plate for her anyway."

That night, Estelle dreams.

She dreams about being very small and the world being very big even though the world consists of little more than her family's home, yard, and the small village they live in. They weren't rich or noble, barely middle class in fact, but they had enough and that was enough for Estelle. She remembers her mother more than her father, remembers watching her in the chair and sewing, endlessly sewing because that was how she helped out with the bills, and when she was done she'd work on making something for Estelle. She'd watch, with a book to boot, until her mother would tire of her hovering and shoo her off to play outside, where she'd pretend to have sword fights with the other children and then eventually find a nice tree to read next to until she got hungry or the sun went down.

That was her favorite time of day because that was when her father would come home, tired and usually scruffy and smudged with soot from the forges but he'd always scoop her up and kiss her on the cheeks, dodging the scolding from his wife about getting their daughter dirty again.

They didn't have a whole lot but they had enough food, space, and love to go around, and that was enough.

At least she thought it was enough when she was small but it wasn't, because when the well-dressed men came to their house, examined Estelle and her hair and offered her parents a significant sum as well as a monthly stipend to take her away to live in a castle without them, they accepted it. Not without tears or arguments but they accepted it in the end.

Papa promised that he and Mama would write every day and come see her when she was bigger.

They never did.

Estelle sees them once after that, just once. It's when she's thirteen and she doesn't remember where the party was or what it was for but her instructor in social graces decides that it's safe to let her out in public without his supervision, and Estelle is super excited about this and loves her dress and apparently there's going to be dancing and really good food and she is all about this even if politics bore her to tears.

She walks down the stairs in that dress she's so proud of and greets the people who approach her despite the pounding of her heart in her throat, because she's so nervous and doesn't want to mess this up-

And then she sees them.

There's Mama in a floor length gown of a luxurious dove-grey and her neck draped with jewels and there's Papa next to her in a smart tuxedo that they'd never have afforded if they'd kept her, standing in a cluster of people who would never have spoken to them in a thousand years before, holding glasses of champagne and looking in their element.

Mama hadn't ever dripped diamonds before except for the one on her wedding ring, and Estelle swallows the bitter taste of resentment that she doesn't expect.

Do they know she's here? Have they thought about her at all these past years? If they'd been given so much money, couldn't they have come to see her once or twice? Estelle hasn't gotten a single letter, don't they care? At all?

Estelle can't breathe and when the host announces her she doesn't dare look either of them in face lest she cry and ruin the dress she's in, and she really wants to have a good time and dance, but the night's already in tatters and she spends the rest of it hiding from everyone who wants to talk to her.

She never sees either of them at a gathering ever again.

The dream breaks and she imagines, morbid as it is, what their deaths might have been like.

Did they go easy or…? Estelle's seen some horrible things that she doesn't wish on anyone.

She wakes with a start and doesn't understand at first why Judy's perched on the side of her bed and rubbing patterns into her back with her fingers, until she opens her mouth to speak and a hoarse croak comes out instead, and when Yuri enters with a glass of water and an unreadable look, Estelle realizes that she'd been screaming.

She drinks the water silently.

"Estelle?" Yuri begins, "Are you sure you're going to be alright?"

Estelle's not sure at all but she says yes anyway, even though neither he nor Judy look like they believe her. What else is she supposed to say? She forces a smile that's so painfully fake even Yuri looks like he might wince, but he pushes it back in favor of patting her on the head.

"Just...take care of yourself, okay? And let us know if we can help."

Estelle smiles and nods with absolutely no intention of doing so.

The next two days pass in a very strange, blurry daze and Estelle has no idea why.

It's not like she feels sick or injured, or even anything like she felt after the Alexei debacle, it's more like she just...doesn't. Estelle doesn't really feel all that much of anything, good or bad, and she's in the process of gathering her things to head back to Zaphias when Yuri comes up with another official envelope and it's like her heart stops and she can't pin down why.

"Easy, easy," he reassures her and flaps it a little, "It just says that Flynn's on his way to do a few things and you should probably stay here a little while longer." Which is just a little too convenient, and Estelle would have thought of that if she'd spared just a few thoughts to it.

She doesn't have those thoughts, though. Mostly she's just existing.

As it is, she merely puts down the things she's holding and says, very quietly, "Oh. Alright."

The rest of the day passes in the same eerie quiet, and Estelle should be more upset at the way Karol looks like he has no idea what to say to her and Raven's overly noisy hovering and constantly being at her shoulder every time she turns around, and Estelle has no idea how to tell them that she's okay, she doesn't need their concern.

She hasn't cried at all and she sees that as a good thing.

If she doesn't cry then it means she doesn't care and that means it doesn't hurt anymore. They can't make her hurt anymore.

Estelle's thought more about them since their deaths than she has since she last saw them and there's something horrible about it but nothing so bad that she can't deal with it.

At least until she receives a box that afternoon, addressed to her in very official pen script and forwarded to her from Ioder directly, which is more than strange. Estelle's hesitant to open it; the last time she received something addressed to her it was to tell her that people she knew had passed away. What's she going to get now?

Nevertheless Estelle's alone and she takes the box up to her room where she opens it. There's a paper envelope with something rattling about inside but there's also a letter from Ioder, which she takes out and reads.

Cousin, it reads, and Estelle can't help but smile a little because even though they're not actually related by blood (if they are it's very, very distantly) it's clear that he sees her as some kind of family and it's nice to have the validation.

I'm very sorry to hear of the passing of Lord and Lady Sidos and cannot express my condolences enough. As their only heir, you happen to be the sole beneficiary of their land and belongings, as they did not leave any sort of will. No need to rush on that, it's not actually why I wrote. This was sent to the castle under the impression that you would want it so I thought it best to pass it along to you.

I'll see you upon your return.

Ioder

That's not cryptic at all, Estelle thinks, and turns her attention to the paper packet that came along with the letter. It comes open easily and she upturns the entirety into her hand.

Out of the envelope comes a delicate silver chain, its links so tiny that Estelle can barely make out where one begins and another ends, followed closely by a pendant patterned in flowers. No...Estelle takes a closer look, past the pressed filigree, there's a hinge on one side.

A locket?

Despite it all and the fear of what she might find out next, Estelle slides a fingernail into the side to try and open it.

It pops open easily, revealing the inside, and Estelle's floor falls out from underneath her.

Her own face stares right back at her. Inside the locket is a tiny, colored picture of her. It's not a baby picture, it's not even from when she was five. It's not even from when Estelle was thirteen. No, it has to be from right before she began her journey with Yuri. The corner of the picture's poking out from the edge and she doesn't even bother containing her curiosity, tugging it further to see what lies behind it.

It's another picture but older because Estelle still has her long hair, before she cut it all off herself with her practice sword.

Estelle can't breathe.

Her fingers go slack on the locket and it drops to the floor with a skittery click and she drops with it, suddenly unable to hold herself up.

She feels like she's frozen and freezing and she can't breathe.

And then she's crying hard, curled in on herself on her bedroom floor with great heaving sobs wrenching free from her throat. It hurts, it hurts, it hurts.

Their daughter's a healer and her parents died of a fever and she didn't even know.

She didn't even go to their memorial.

Estelle would never have known they'd even thought about her for a second if she hadn't been sent that locket, and she wishes that she'd never found out and then she feels like the scum of the earth for feeling that way. Why'd she have to think about it at all? Why did anyone tell her anything in the first place?

Estelle cannot deal with this and at the same time she can't even get herself off the floor, much less pull herself together and think it through logically the way Yuri or Judy or Rita would. She can't.

She also suddenly and desperately doesn't want to be holed up alone in this room anymore.

It's too small and she just...can't.

Estelle's hands fumble along the line of the hardwood floor for the locket she dropped and when her fingers close around it, it feels like her heart breaks all over again. She has to get out of here before the walls close in.

If you want to talk about things, I'm here.

Estelle doesn't want to talk, she wants to bury herself away and hide until she feels better. But for now finding Yuri will do.

Yuri's sitting where he usually does at the big table they usually have guild meetings. Kerra, a stocky girl who was one of the first in line to join Brave Vesperia after they did away with the Adephagos, sees Estelle first and clears her throat and pointedly looks up, drawing Yuri's attention.

"Estelle?"

Estelle remains in the doorway, half leaning on the frame and praying that she doesn't shake and that Yuri won't ask her if she's okay. If he asks her that there's not a single chance that she won't cry.

"Kerra, can you…"

"Say no more, boss," she says immediately and slides out of the chair, bumping her shoulder against Estelle's as she passes her in the door. "I got it." Estelle feels a rush of affection for her-for everyone in this guild. She loves Brave Vesperia.

Yuri beckons her closer.

"C'mere," he says with a flap of his hand, "C'mere. What's up?"

Please, please, please don't ask if I'm okay.

Wordlessly, Estelle approaches and hands him the silver locket. Somehow she feels heavier when it's out of her grasp.

"Should I…?"

"Open it," Estelle croaks, "Please."

Yuri opens it, eyes the picture, and looks back to Estelle. He raises a brow. Estelle swallows.

"After my pa-after they gave me to the Empire," she begins, "I never saw them again. Not...not really. They never came to see me, I never got a letter even though I sent them all the time. Nothing. Not a word." She blinks hard to fend off the tears that threaten to do her in. "Not even…." she laughs, unhappy and pitched with just a drop of hysteria. "What am I supposed to do with this?"

Yuri shifts like he's about to get up then changes his mind. eyeing Estelle a little bit as one would a frightened creature he doesn't want to scare off. She should be offended. She's not.

Please don't ask if I'm okay.

Estelle doesn't know if she can take it.

"What can I do?" he asks.

Estelle thought that the worst thing anyone could say was to ask if she was alright. She was wrong.

"I…" Her voice shakes. "Can I have a hug?"

The last thing Estelle sees before dropping her face into her hands and curling in on herself is Yuri practically flinging himself out of his chair and the next thing she knows there are arms wrapping around her shoulders and reeling her in until all she can see through the tears is the dark fabric of his shirt and all she can hear past her own hitching heartbeat is his, strong and thrumming in her ears.

Somehow Yuri steers her out of the meeting room and into the lounge where he pulls her bodily onto the sofa, she doesn't know which one but probably the red one because it's squashy and kind of ugly and consequently her favorite. She doesn't know how long she holds onto him or how long she cries and ugly-sobs everything she didn't know she had or how long Yuri rubs endless patterns into her back or how many times someone walks in only to backpedal after a single glance. Estelle doesn't know and she doesn't care at all until suddenly there are no more tears and she's just breathing hard and hoarse into the only stable thing she can touch.

She looks down.

Yep, it's the red one.

"I'm sorry," she manages to mumble, "I didn't mean to-"

Yuri interrupts her, "I don't want to hear you apologize." He shifts in discomfort even though his hands on Estelle are steady and easy. "Pretty sure I offered an ear. Or a shoulder." What he doesn't say is Pretty sure I expected it to happen sooner. Estelle hears it anyway.

"I'm sor-"

Yuri glares.

Estelle gives up and drops her face back into the groove of his shoulder. She feels worn out and run down and for some reason the most she seems to be able to do is sit there and let herself be supported even though she's been trying so hard to take care of herself. She wants to be the sort of person who doesn't do this. She wants to be the sort of person who doesn't need to be pandered to.

Yuri wouldn't cry.

"I'm not you."

Oh, crud. She said that out loud.

Yuri sighs.

"I never knew my family. Any of 'em. Don't even know who they were. First memories of mine are being underfoot in Hanks' kitchen and his wife shaking a spoon at me. They're not my parents and I got passed around a lot because no one could really afford me, but if it wasn't for them, I wouldn't be here. If anything happened to them? Or to any of you guys? ...I'd definitely cry." Estelle goes very, very still but her hands clench in the fabric at Yuri's chest.

Yuri wouldn't cry, Estelle is sure of it. He'd fight through hell and highwater for any and all of them and she knows he'd never give up until he succeeded. Yuri wouldn't cry.

But he doesn't take the words back, just leans against the back of that ugly, ugly sofa that Estelle loves so much and pets her hair and lets her be how she needs to be. He lets her be needy and clingy and sad and doesn't tell her not to be even though her feelings are awful and selfish. Estelle's never felt so accepted or so complicated.

"I never knew at all," she says eventually, "if I'd known, maybe I'd..."

"You'd what?" Yuri asks. There's no condemnation, only a quiet curiosity, as if her thoughts and feelings and ideas are just as important to him as his own. Estelle shrugs a little.

"Maybe if I'd known, we'd have had a relationship," she mumbles. "Maybe they would have written when they started feeling sick instead of putting it off so long. Maybe I could have..." The words catch. "Maybe if I'd known, maybe I'd have at least made the memorial."

There are so many maybes.

Maybe she could have spared herself the years of hurt and isolation. Maybe she wouldn't have spent years asking herself why or what she'd done so wrong. Maybe if this had to be inevitable, Estelle wouldn't have as many questions as she does now that are never going to get answers.

Yuri's scritching fingers slow and still as she speaks and he sighs. Just a little.

"Or maybe it would have turned out the same regardless," he replies. "Don't obsess on what might have been or what you could have done. It'll destroy you."

He's right, Estelle knows he's right.

"Your parents loved you. They thought about you-all the time if there are that many pictures. They never forgot about you or stopped caring. Can that be enough?" Yuri asks. He's not asking if it was enough for them or enough for him, because he never met them and they're not around to have opinions or to care. But Estelle is and whether that will ever be enough is up to her. He doesn't say that they did the best they could because he's pretty sure he knows that they didn't and Estelle would know that he's lying, so she's grateful that he doesn't.

To be honest, she's not entirely sure she can even answer.

Estelle has no idea if that can ever be enough and it's harder to think about than she wants it to be.

"It was easier when I thought they'd forgotten me," she mumbles.

"It's almost always easier to be mad. Doesn't hurt so much if you are."

He's right.

Estelle doesn't have anything to say to that and slings her legs over Yuri's thighs, uncaring of the way it might look to anyone who walked in at that moment. Her head hurts. So does her heart.

"I guess it just hit me." She looks up and gives a wry smile in the face of Yuri's sympathy. His weird, tough love brand of sympathy, but there's a reason she went to him first. "I mean...I guess it's official that I don't have any family now. It's weird."

She doesn't expect Yuri's hand to come up and come down on her head in a light slap that makes more more noise than pain. She yelps anyway.

"Don't be stupid," Yuri grumbles and when Estelle twists around to more easily look him in the face he squeezes her around the shoulders. "Who said you didn't have any family? What the hell are we?" Estelle doesn't see it coming when her vision blurs with tears again. Yuri doesn't say things like that. He just doesn't. "Anyone can have kids. That's the easy part."

Estelle's heart clenches hard and she swipes at her eyes.

She'll claim Yuri in a heartbeat, or Karol or Flynn or Judy, Rita, Raven...almost anyone in Brave Vesperia, but that he can say it just like that almost makes it worse.

"Please don't cry again," he says quickly as if he can ward off tears like sneezes. Estelle can't help but giggle just a little bit at the look on his face, because he looks terrified at the prospect. It's not as hard to do as she expected.

"I promise nothing," she quips back shakily. She could (and probably should) slide out of Yuri's lap and pretend to be a normal human being for a few minutes but she doesn't want to and figures that she should probably take advantage of this while she can before she thinks too hard about what it looks like. Estelle doesn't really care about what it looks like. She feels safe and comfortable here and maybe it's just in her head, but she feels like she fits well into Yuri's curves and sharp edges. Always has.

It's just a little harder to ignore when she's pressed against him so close and maybe Estelle should care, but she doesn't.

It also doesn't hurt that Yuri makes no indication that he'd rather be somewhere else, one of his hands pressed unhesitating into the space between her ribs and hips. Here she is, depending on him again and again.

"Why didn't they ever write to me?" It's less that Estelle actually expects an answer and more that if she doesn't ask now, she'll never be brave enough. "If not because they didn't love me, then why?"

That's not a question Yuri can answer, but he tries.

"Maybe they couldn't," he says finally, "Maybe someone told them not to." That's something he can definitely see happening. 'Maybe they just...missed you too much that letters weren't enough."

Estelle closes her eyes and remembers things she thought she'd forgotten, like the smell of the flowers Mama always wore in her hair and the way Papa used to toss her onto his shoulders and as hard as she's tried over the years, she's never managed to replace those images with the diamonds and champagne that make her angry but hurt so much less.

She's surprised, then, that it still hurts but not the way it used to.

Yuri shifts and makes a noise of quiet surprise and it takes his index finger brushing her cheek for Estelle to realize that she is crying again. Silently this time, because Estelle has nothing to say.

The anger's gone and now all she feels is sad, and even though Estelle hasn't really had parents to miss in years, she still gets hit with a rush of loneliness so strong it makes her stomach churn. That doesn't last long because she can't feel truly alone bundled up like something precious to Yuri's chest, but she cries quietly for so long that she doesn't notice when her tears are replaced by an exhaustion that hits hard and to her bones.

She squirms, sluggish and hazy (because really, how long should Yuri be expected to indulge her?) but he rolls his eyes and in the end it's the rhythmic strokes of his hands up and down her back and the comfort of solid bone and skin and muscle and the steady thud of Yuri's heartbeat that does her in, and Estelle stays where she is. Like moving was ever really an option.

She's vaguely aware of someone eventually entering the room; even mostly asleep Estelle can recognize Raven's distinctive, affected drawl. Hands that aren't Yuri's but just as welcome touch her gently on the shoulder and she ignores them in favor of nestling down further into the fabric of Yuri's collar.

When Estelle wakes, it's in her own bed and the sun is down and stars are out, and Estelle's not all that tired but is nowhere near motivated enough to get up and entertain herself. Yuri's set her mother's locket on the bedside table and Estelle reaches out to touch it, fingertips sliding over fragile chain and silver filigree.

There will be more to do. She still has to go through their assets at some point, deal with the properties, decide exactly how much she wants to sell or give away or forget, but for now she settles for unclasping the necklace and fastening it around her neck.

There will be time, but that time is not now.

AN: Thank you for reading!