Detachment had served a purpose for Aideen in maintaining an ability to be strong during the kidnapping of her baby-boy, but now that life had supposedly returned to normal she found that she was unable to reattach herself to most things that brought her pleasure and joy. Sure, her children still brought her back, but the detachment was from the everyday things such as cooking, her work, shopping and even herself that should have been of concern. Aideen attempted to return things to normal for herself and her family. She had rented an apartment to give them a place to sleep, she had even tried her best to hire a new nanny. Well, that is if you called her best interviewing a dozen nannies from a couple of different agencies, only to send most of the running away in tears. The two that hadn’t, she had immediately hired only to fire five minutes into their shift. It was hard to be ready for a new nanny after she’d known Freddy for so long. None of the potential candidates were Freddy. And she clearly wasn’t ready to see the potential in any of them being there to help raise her children. She felt emotionally stagnate, but time continued forward. She made changes so that she was the one watching the children at all times – even going as so far to break her own rule against drinking around the children. She felt the urge to drink and to her a babysitter was just not a viable option anymore. Not yet. But it left Aideen with the feeling that she didn’t know what to do with herself anymore. She thought that almost going back to her everyday life, well, wasn’t that the evil that had brought upon this whole situation?

Syrrin had told her of things he wanted to do once their song was back with them, marriage and they had even discussed a home. Their boy was now back and yet, nothing felt as if it had changed. She knew it had all changed, but it was like the rest of the world didn’t acknowledge it. No, she had not gone off and started planning a wedding. Mostly, because she believed it really was a wedding that was never actually going to occur. She had come to terms that Syrrin just was not ever going to be ready for another actual marriage. She had stopped bringing it up and had months ago taken the wedding dress she purchased off to her storage. His words recently, she just assumed were his way of attempting to comfort her why they waited for word on Carter. She was just struggling to move past all the events that had happened. To cope, but perhaps Aideen just wasn’t ready for that. Maybe she wasn’t ready to easily let go of everything that had occurred and perhaps it bothered her a little that no one else acknowledged it. The truth was, she was just feeling more and more alone. And if drinking with her one-month old son was the only company she kept these days, well, she would have to learn to adapt. Like the Borg.

The house hunting was something she was handling on her own; she didn’t think Syrrin really wanted to be involved. She felt like asking him to come with her, well, it would be too much of an imposition. She didn’t really know if it would put him out of his way to help her or if he really wanted to help – mostly because she didn’t bring it up. She was too terrified to do it, that the second she said anything that could possibly rock the boat in one way or the other it would begin to sink again.

So, that was how Aideen found her nights alone in the mostly bare apartment sitting on the floor with a glass of wine. Occasionally rocking her sleeping son in his cradle why her daughter June slept in the next room. There were no tears from Aideen though, mostly, because she couldn’t feel it.