In the months after Léon had died, Daniel had sleepwalked through life. He knew that. He simply hadn't known how to deal with the world that didn't have Léon in it - even now, three years later, he couldn't quite contemplate the idea of dating someone. He might never be able to, really.

Léon had been the love of his life, full stop.

It wasn't until long afterwards that he realized what his emotional state had done to the kids; it wasn't, in fact, until Noelle had gone to London and it was just he and Gaël. Then he'd started to see how his son was coping and it was so painfully close to the way he'd coped, when he'd been fifteen, and his parents had died abruptly and violently. He shouldn't even be that surprised about Seth Mansour, because before Léon there had been Jamie MacAllister, a grad student who was without a doubt way too old for him.

Gaël was very like his namesake, and very like Léon, too. But in some ways he was very like Daniel.

He sat down on the couch next to his son and wrapped his arm around him, pulling him close. "Ça ira, Gaël," he murmured in rusty French. It had been three years since he spoke a word of it. "It will be okay. I promise." He pressed his cheek to the top of his son's head and closed his eyes as he hugged him tighter. "I love you so much, you know. So much."