ｃｈｒｙｓｓｉｅ

ｇｏｌｄｅｎ

She was crying again.

Those days, she never seemed to stop, and it made Grayson ache with despair. She tried to hide it, tried to do it when she thought he wasn't listening, tried to muffle it with pillows and sheets, but he always knew. He always heard.

He had always been observant, and that was something that she should have known.

That particular day, he didn't disturb her. He had learned his lesson before, to always wait until she had sobbed all of her tears out and was left with dry hiccups and sopping linens, then go in with a cup of chamomile tea and a new book and rub her back and whisper soothing words in her ears. Then they would watch a movie or go out, and avoid talking about it until she woke him up in the middle of the night, begging for him to hold her and speak about his own mother.

And for her, he did.

He told her everything. About how his mother's hair was a halo of fire around her head and untamable, just like her spirit, and how her eyes were the colour of lush jungles in the heat of summer that darkened in the winter and lightened in the spring. How she wore expensive perfume that smelled like wildflowers and talked in obscure tongues that didn't come up in England much at all, and how people stared as she walked elegantly down the streets, a mortal that wasn't mortal at all. Her favourite tea had been a blend of ginger and black, and she had played the piano beautifully.

She had been a spectacular mother, and Grayson would never forget that. He didn't think that her spirit ever would let him forget that - forget her, but he found that he didn't mind.

The kettle beeped, signifying that it was ready, and he stood up silently, pouring the contents into a cup. If she stuck to her normal crying schedule, Chrysanthemum would stop crying actual tears around the same time that the tea cooled off. Grayson had learned to time it so that it would all fit together, which was quite thoughtful on his part, but also quite concerning.

was she really crying that often?

The answer was, of course, yes. She had been sobbing three to seven times a day, cradled up against the wall or under the sheets or on the floor in the bathroom. Grayson remembered being much more somber than his flower was after losing his mother, and though he knew that everyone had different ways of coping with loss, he was beginning to verge into concerned territory. He couldn't even leave her alone in the hotel room for more than fifteen minutes without beginning to worry for her safety.

As expected, about three minutes later, her sobbing ceased and the room went silent. Taking that as a cue, he stood up, holding her newest novel and picking up the mug from the counter.

Pressing his fingers to the side of the cup, he frowned when he found it too hot, taking a washcloth and wrapping it around the side so that it wouldn't burn her fingers. Then he quietly made his way over to the door and opened it.

She was laying there, her cheek pressed up against the glass of the balcony's sliding doors. He walked over, shutting the door behind him, then slid into a position next to her. Placing the book and tea down beside them, he wrapped his arm around her shoulders, allowing for her to settle herself against him. She was silent as he handed her the mug, looking down with dull, red-rimmed eyes into the depths of the liquid inside.

"It's chamomile, just like you like," he said in an encouraging tone, willing her to take a sip and regain some of the water that she had lost in her sobbing escapades. "I made it just plain, but I can put milk in it if you'd like."

"No, that's fine," she murmured with a fake smile, her voice cracking slightly. "I like it plain."

"Do you, now?"