Raju frowns at the fireplace. His hands hesitate, then work at striking a spark more quickly. The casual tone is reassuring; the words aren’t. Is there any way to answer him without sounding as if he’s telling a man who’s been as loyal and attentive and generous as any wife has ever been, as steady and reassuring as any husband, this lonely, wonderful man that Raju wants to leave him to go back?

“Even if I did… leave this place,” Raju starts, skipping ahead of answering to try and push through the knot of grief and guilt in his chest and get ahead of the problem, “I wouldn’t go home. Go south, I mean. I was further north before. I imagine that’s where I’d be if I was there again . But I never dreamed about being home. Before. After the first year, I think. By the time that was out. I stopped.”

He only realises as he’s finishing saying it that the guilt’s caught up to him then too, that he’s been feeling it crawling up his throat. He swallows and bends further down, blowing on the spark he’s made for a moment of calm, of empty mind, a wall between himself and it. The tiny, more unnatural fire that’s already lit itself flickers, and Raju ignores it. Francis will ignore it too, Raju knows, or at least he’ll be kind enough not to mention it out loud. But Raju isn’t sure what he’s going to want to know. For all it’d be easier if Francis had just gone back to sleep, though, Raju realises he doesn’t mind too much — at least, in theory — if he does have to talk more about it if it means he gets to feel Francis at his shoulder too, careful and kind and looking at him. Is that selfish, considering what a real explanation might entail? Francis has already lost everything once. Raju doesn’t know. It’s beyond him just now to figure it out.