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She told herself she was not going to cry in front of him.

Elsie knew she was late coming back. Elsie also knew that Elliot wouldn't ever reprimand her for it, sometimes even in cases where he ought to. It was something she usually did her best to avoid, because she felt guilty, but today she'd taken advantage of it. She would say it made her sick, but given the full thirty minutes she'd spent in a lavatory at St. Mungo's, it was quite clear that there wasn't much that didn't currently make her sick.

With no amount of bitter irony did Elsie reflect on just a year ago, when she'd seen every single one of her close friends expecting, and just how deeply she'd wanted a child of her own, too. But of course, Elliot had been bitten. There was simply no point. No discussion, even. Elsie had thought it was understood. They just couldn't. It was sad to her, of course, but it somehow seemed a very small thing after learning to cope with marriage to a lycanthrope. And she did thank every day she had Liam, because even in spite of the tenuous bond she sometimes felt with the five-year-old, she loved him dearly, and resolved that he'd be enough. Now, she just didn't know.

She told herself she was not going to cry in front of him.

But just that one look at his face… that in spite of his circumstances, he sounded so happy about a simple dinner about broke her. Her bag slipped from her grasp as her face crumpled, tears obscuring his still-smiling face from her vision.

"Elliot—" she began, trying to control the uncontrollable hitches in her throat, "I—we—"