I could see this was hard for him the moment he opened the door. He froze and it was like I could see the pain that radiated off of him as he looked into the room where he and his mate had lived together. I had never been in the room and I couldn't even find a bit of curiosity within me as he leaned heavily against the door frame and let out a shuddering breath. The breath seemed to shudder his entire body, a ripple of pain that moved through him.

"It's okay if you need to take a step back." I looked at how stiff he was, his shoulders held tight and tense. This was more than difficult for him and I couldn't even begin to think of how I could help him make it better. I had lost my mum but I hadn't cleaned out her house, put away the pieces of her. This was a different sort of hurt, I knew it was.

"No." His voice cracked and he coughed as if to clear a lump from his throat as he stood up straight. "I need to do this. I can't keep this shut away." He took a bolstering breath before he slowly stepped into the room. "It's..." He coughed again as he slowly turned, looking at everything. "I haven't been in here since she died." He glanced at me, his eyes slightly glassy. "Everything is how she left it." I nodded, staying just beyond the threshold to give him time.

This was a painful moment, a cracking open of a hurt that had not yet healed and I doubted would heal, not for a very long time. I clasped my hands in front of myself as I watched him. He turned and took a shaky inhale and gave a choked laugh. "It smells like her." He gave a pain smile before he hastily wiped at his eyes and gave that shuddering exhale again. "It smells like she will walk through the door at any moment. That the last three months have all been a bad dream." His voice cracked again and he hung his head, pressing his hand to his face as his shoulders shook.

"But she won't. She's out there in the cold dark earth and she will never come in here again." His voice was so pained that I felt tears prick at my own eyes as he went down into a crouch, muffled sobs escaping him as he pressed his hands to his face. I hesitated, wanting to come in and give him comfort, even just a hand on his shoulder to let him know that he wasn't alone but I wasn't allowed to enter unless he gave me leave.

"It is hard when you realize it, that you will never stop missing them." I tried hard to express my sympathy for him, give him comfort from where I stood beyond the threshold of the room. I swallowed hard and clasped my hands tighter together. I was useless in this, I didn't know why he even asked me.

Worthless.

A burden.

The words hissed at me and I flinched slightly underneath them. I knew my worth and it kept my feet exactly where they were. I wanted to help but I couldn't. I closed my eyes, I was utterly useless and this showed it clearly. I couldn't help him and I couldn't comfort him. The poor male was aching and hurting and I couldn't give him comfort to help him through.

He rubbed at his face vigorously, taking several shaky inhales before he sat on the floor. I watched him, trying to discern what he needed or his mood. He had changed from how he had been but there was a part of me that still had the expectation of being yelled at from him. It was hard to break that little bit of me. Not that I could say anything against him if he did, it was his right, as my current caretaker, to treat me how he wished. My father made sure I knew exactly what that meant.

Caretaker was simply a different word for owner and as I had no value, it made me nothing more than an object to possess. I hated it because it meant I couldn't cross the threshold and give Brochan the comfort he so clearly needed to help him through this process. The ways we lived in were tough but I had never experienced how tough it was until this moment.

"Sorry." He rubbed at his eyes as he spoke. "I shouldn't have done that." He got to legs that looked far too shaky and I twisted my hands, pulling at my fingers as I watched him.

"What hurts, hurts. It is not wrong to feel it." I didn't like how he pushed it away, how he felt the need to apologize for expressing his hurt where it could be seen. He lost his mate, that was a pain that wouldn't go away because you pushed it deep down. That was a pain that lingered along the edges of your soul for the rest of your life.

"Some would say it's been three months and that I should just get over it." He muttered it out, his jaw ticking and I felt a flare of nerves as I watched it. He was clenching his teeth, an act that usually ended up in cutting words, shouting, or a cold glare. I knew he hadn't done it in a while but it still made me more than wary to see.

"We don't simply get over loss. We simply learn to live with the ache of them being gone." I approached it tentatively and hesitantly, unsure of how he would take the words with his jaw ticking like it was.

He glanced at me, his eyes slightly red before he looked away, his jaw ticking faster. "Is that how you dealt with your mother dying?" At the question I lowered my gaze to the wood floor and frowned slightly.

"My mum...." I swallowed hard and took a bolstering inhale. "It still hurts." I pressed a hand to my chest where the ache resided within me. "Some days it is a dull ache, something I have lived with for so long I forget it's there." Desensitization. I had lived with it for so long that I didn't notice it anymore. I took another bolstering inhale. "Then there are days where someone will say something or I will see something and I will remember and the pain will flare up again and it takes all I have to simply breathe." A lump started to form in my own throat as my eyes burned and I did my best to push it away.

This wasn't about me, this was about Brochan. I had an old hurt, it could wait until when I was alone before I could take it out and try to soothe it back to it's perpetual ache rather than a flaring pain. I was there to help Brochan, not to rip open an old wound of my own and try not to cry because of the pain it caused. I glanced up at him and he had his eyes closed as he inhaled and exhaled slowly, as if trying to compose himself. I wondered, for a moment, what he was thinking about, what was going on inside of his mind, if he was thinking my words over and trying to figure out if they helped or hindered.

"We should get started." He set his jaw as he looked at me before gesturing me forward. I slowly stepped into the room and he moved towards what looked to be a closet. The room was bright and cheery and I could see the feminine touches of his female over every inch of the space. It was in the cluttered vanity that held perfume bottles, make-up, and jewellery. It was in the soft colours that decorated the bed and the rugs that rested on the floor. No wonder it hurt him so much to step inside of it again.

"What would you like me to do?" I was unsure of how he would take me speaking while inside the last space dedicated to his female. I didn't want to upset him more.

"I think." He gave a hard swallow as he pulled open the closet doors. "I think we should start with her clothes." He cleared his throat, giving a cough as if to clear it and I nodded as I moved over to where he stood. Dresses, skirts, and shirts all hung on hangers in the almost over stuffed closet. He reached out and grasped one of the dresses, a yellow one, with a shaking hand, his fingers smoothing over the fabric. He said nothing but the pain he was feeling radiated off of him so thickly it tasted thick and bitter in the air.

He said nothing as he slowly let the dress go only to grab the hangers and start to pull them off the rack. He moved almost mechanically as he set the clothes into an ever growing pile on the floor. I watched him for a moment before I moved to the pile and silently started to take the clothes off the hangers and fold them. Once the clothes were free from the hangers I carefully sorted them into the styles they were. Skirts with skirts, shirts with shirts, and dresses with dresses.

I handled each piece of clothing with care and a sombre feeling grew inside me. A female had worn these, she had been very much loved, had lived and laughed, she had grown her daughter inside of her with joy, and now she would never touch or wear the clothing again. She would never put on another dress and laugh with Brochan. It was a sad and sombre feeling as I removed the hangers and folded each piece of clothing, separating them into their designated pile.

I wondered just what type of female Chrissie had been. I had never really been allowed to see the pack so even though I had seen pictures of her, I couldn't remember a moment where I had crossed paths with her. It was a normal fact of my life but now, handling her clothing, I wondered what type of female she had been. If I had to guess I would have guessed she smiled a lot, she liked to laugh, and probably looked on the bright side of everything.

She definitely liked the colour yellow. Nearly half of her wardrobe was the bright colour in various shades. That showed me a lot about her I liked to think. She must have been a vibrant person, one that made the world a bit dimmer with her gone. I set a hanger onto the growing pile and Brochan crouched down and grabbed some of the empty hangers before returning them to the closet. He moved rather robotically and I kept my mouth closed as I glanced at him. He looked like he was hurting, in a very deep and aching sort of way.

I went back to the slowly shrinking pile of clothes that I was sorting and continued on. The pile continued to shrink and Brochan continued to take the hangers until he grabbed the last one as I folded the last skirt, a deep blue colour that had intricate little embroidery around the hem. I folded it carefully and set it on the pile of skirts before clasping my hands in my lap and looking towards Brochan.

He was staring at the pile of clothes with a pained expression that twisted his face into something that hurt my heart to see. He came over before kneeling next to the piles, he reached out for a brief moment before he pulled his hand back, as if unable to actually reach out and touch the clothing. "I-" He swallowed several times and looked off the side. "I don't know what to do now." He looked at me, his eyes coated in a sheen of tears and I was suddenly aware he was looking to me for guidance.

I looked at the clothing and tried to figure out what to say or how to proceed. "You could..." I trailed off before giving a bolstering inhale. "Donation?" He looked at the clothes before shaking his head.

"I can't... I can't see another female in her clothes." His voice cracked as he finally reached out and snagged that blue skirt I had just folded. He pulled it to his chest, staring down at the fabric with a look that neared anguish as he brushed his fingers against the fabric.

"You could pack them away." I patted a pile and he shook his head as he let the skirt fall to his lap.

"That's just ignoring the problem for later." He reached out and grabbed a pale green shirt. "She wore this the day she told me she was pregnant." His voice was thick with tears as he brought the shirt up to his face and rubbed it against his cheek, pain carving deep lines into his face.

I felt a little frantic, wondering just what else I could offer that would give him direction. I wasn't used to being looked towards for ideas. I wasn't that valuable or important enough for that.

Worthless.

The word struck out at me and I fought back against the flinch that came with it as I looked at the clothes. "It doesn't feel right to throw it out." It didn't. It seemed like an excessive waste to throw out all of the clothing, plus a poor end to the clothes his female had worn over and over again.

I watched as he set the green shirt down and nodded as he reached out and grasped that pretty yellow dress and pulled it close. "She loved this one. She wore it until her belly got too big." He gave a choked sort of laugh before he looked at me. "I don't know what to do. I-I-" He swallowed and looked own at the dress and I felt a bit frantic. I didn't know what to do either. "I don't want to get rid of them but I can't keep them." It was a broken sort of feeling that came through with the words and I thought as quickly as I could for some way to help him, for some way to fix what he was feeling.

The clothing represented memories for him, he could look at them and remember his female but like this he couldn't really look at them at all. It was so difficult to have memories associated with items when you couldn't look at them without feeling like you were breaking down. A faint memory entered my mind, a memory I had of Lisa teaching me to quilt. We had been working on a rather large quilt, it had been made from the clothes of a young male who had died in an accident. Lisa had explained to me that we had been making it for his mother, something to remember him by that she could wrap herself up in.

'If we do it right, Minnie, it will be like she is wrapping herself up in memories of him and that's the best we can do for her grief.' Lisa's voice echoed in my ears and I blinked rapidly. That...that could work.

I swallowed hard as I looked a the clothes and then to Brochan where he was touching the various fabrics of his female's clothes with that torn and pained expression on his face. "I..." I cleared my throat, feeling like my palms were sweaty and I felt a bit nauseous. I have a swallow and a bolstering inhale. "I could perhaps take some and make you a quilt with them." It came out barely a whisper and I stared down at the piles of clothing, unable to look at him.

"I would...I would have to cut them up but maybe it would be okay? Just so you can have a quilt of her clothes but not all the clothes. So you can still have the memories with you." My voice nearly failed me and I glanced at him and he was frowning slightly as he picked up another one of her dresses, a soft one in light blue.

"I... I think I would like that." His deep voice came out low and I glanced at him again and he gave me a pained sort of smile. He reached over and gently squeezed my shoulder. "Thank you. That would be nice to have. Could you make one for Maeve as well?" I nodded quickly as he let me shoulder go and I nearly sagged with relief. It was a hard thing to deal with grief but I was glad my suggestion helped him in some way. "I don't want all of them but maybe... maybe I can keep a few pieces?" It was phrased as a question and I could feel him looking at me so I simply nodded. It was his to do with what he wanted but if he needed someone to validate his need I was happy to be there if he required it.

"You take how ever much you need." I gave him a small smile. I hurt for him. I watched as he reverently handled his mate's clothing, tears falling from his eyes. I hurt for him in a way that was hard to explain.

I didn't know why Mene would punish a loving male like this but not punish the wicked, like my father.

It wasn't fair.

It wasn't.