There is something special about the way two grown-ups can talk to each other. She sees it with Tom and Door all the time - that soft smiling, the way they look at each other like no one else in the world exists...

Ingress rarely refrains from barging in on Tom and Door, since they are Tom and Door. But she hangs back a little now. Alain has been gone a very long time.

She waves her hand in greeting and leans against a tree, waiting for an invitation. Birds twitter and peep in the trees, but she doesn't see any robins.