Hershel, ten years before the original trilogy.

He does not speak at the funeral.

In fact, for several weeks he barely speaks at all.

He spends most of his time in his new, empty office, staring out the window. Every inch of their tiny flat—his tiny flat, now—reminds him of her, from the saucepans in the kitchen to the calculus text on the nightstand to the puzzle pieces on the wallpaper. It takes him less than a week to purchase a battered old settee and start sleeping at Gressenheller.

The cleaning lady finds him there on the tenth morning, with bags under his eyes and a slightly wrinkled jacket for a blanket. (The new hat remains on his head; he finds he can hardly bear to take it off.) He is tempted to send her away, but he lacks the energy; besides, she would have told him that a gentleman is always polite to a lady—always. So when Rosa (as her name is) shakes out the jacket, chides him gently for wrinkling it, tidies his stack of newspapers and makes him a cup of incomparable loose-leaf tea, Hershel thanks her. To his surprise, the sincerity of his gratitude goes far beyond mere politeness.

The scene repeats the next morning, and the next. Though Hershel surmises the dean has filled her in on the situation, Rosa never once mentions the explosion or asks him about Claire. Instead, she gossips about ordinary, everyday things; her children, the weather, the mischief those young rascals from paleontology have gotten into this week. She occasionally asks him for small favors as she tidies up ("Be a dear and fill the kettle, won't you?"), and so he finds himself learning, then taking over, the brewing of the tea. On the day he surprises her with a perfectly-brewed pot upon her arrival, she chuckles, straightens his tie, and tells him he's the sweetest duck of a professor she's ever met.

For the first time in weeks, Hershel Layton finds himself smiling.