It's that or stay cooped up in here to wallow. And wait for Emma to come back and lay into me.

[ Emma will understand, when he tells her, but Maelle... Maelle is still so young. And she'd been an orphan, herself; he'd never quite been sure how to broach the topic with her, this dream of his, of children. A future past himself.

Who knows? She might agree with Sophie, that it's cruel to bring children into this world only to leave them a few short years later. ]

But no running along the rooftops this time, not unless you want me to lose my breakfast from five stories up.