It was a rainy Monday in early January when Blair lifted the iron knocker and tapped it against the door three times, taking a small step back though being sure to stay underneath the porch to avoid getting wet.

One million years felt like they passed when in reality, a glance at the gold watch on her wrist showed that only thirty seconds had ticked by before she heard the lock click on the other side of the wood.

The door creaked open slowly and Blair composed herself, plastering her face with a false yet convincing smile that pained her cheeks to hold.

"Blair! Gosh, I didn't expect to see you!"

Blair wasn't sure she had ever seen Frances smile quite as brightly as she did then. Her eyes warmed quickly and her cheeks turned a blush pink from almost grey, her soul seeming like it was coming back to life before her eyes.

Ushering the younger woman inside, Frances' smile didn't fade as she shut out the cold with a loud thud of the door, the sound echoing around the house eerily.

"Would you like me to fetch Mr Shelby? I think he's in his study."

Blair quickly shook her head, "No, thank you. It's the first day of the term, that's all. I'm here for Charles' schooling. I know I probably should've called ahead."

For a split second, Blair saw the light in Frances' face dim ever so slightly. She knew that her friend and colleague had been filled with hope that a family were to be reunited at her sudden arrival, though that was sadly not the case.

Truthfully, it had taken Blair a handful of days contemplating her decision before her sister finally convinced her that she couldn't possibly survive losing Thomas for a second time, as well as losing Charlie. And so, even if it was just as his teacher, Blair had decided to return to the house she once called home.

"Oh he'll be thrilled, Blair, just thrilled. He's finishing his breakfast now, I'll send him in once he's done."

Blair nodded and made her way through the house to the room she taught Charlie in, placing her bag down on the table and shrugging off her coat.

His drawings and paintings were still pinned up on the walls and a chalkboard had been recently cleaned, free of dust. Books were neatly arranged on a shelf next to the door and the draped emerald curtains that covered the lead-paned windows were pinned back with velvet and brass hooks, allowing the dull morning hue to flood the room.

She cleared space on the table and set out a handful of books, taking a wooden tray of pencils out from a sideboard on the back wall and sharpening the blunt ones, perched on the edge of the table with her eyes fixed on the raindrops trickling down the window.

A sudden pounding of footsteps didn't give Blair much time to prepare for the sound of the door slamming against the wall behind it, followed by the wind being knocked from her chest when Charlie threw himself at her.

The way Blair felt her soul crumble into a million pieces at the force in which Charles hugged her was perhaps the most painful thing she'd ever experienced. It was worse than any heartbreak and worse than any death, having an innocent heart caught up in something it didn't deserve was complete torture.

She dropped to her knees and held the boy against her chest, slowly feeling her neck grow wet with tears from his eyes as he clung to her, his arms squeezing so tight she almost had to tell him to let go so she could breathe, though in that moment, she'd rather have gone without air.

"Where did you go? Why did you leave home?"

Blair's bottom lip quivered as she held Charlie's tear-stricken face in her hands, feeling herself continue to break more and more as his innocent eyes looked to her for answers she couldn't give him.

"My darling boy," she whispered, brushing his hair from his face and pressing kisses on his cheeks, "I'm so sorry, I'm so, so sorry."

It was then that Blair realised she wasn't quite as strong as she thought she was. She'd spent the remainder of December convincing herself she could cope with being Charlie's teacher, not wanting to cut the child out of her life like she'd done with his father.

She thought she'd be fine with commuting to the house each day to give him an education, and that saying goodbye at four o'clock in the afternoon wouldn't be so hard. Though Blair for once, had been wrong, forgetting that despite being able to break up with a man, you cannot break up with a child.

Once you're a mother, you're always a mother, and her promise to Charles Shelby was one that she should've never broken.

"Will you come back? We miss you, Daddy doesn't sleep and I hear him crying sometimes at night. I don't like when you're not here, nobody is happy in this house without you, you have to come back."

Charlie reached up and brushed tears away from his mother's pale cheeks, hating the way she looked as she cried. He didn't understand why she'd disappeared after Christmas or why his father was so sad, getting no answers to any of his questions when he asked.

All he did know was that his life had turned upside down in the blink of an eye. One moment he had a mother and father, happily in love and showering him with the affection he adored being bathed in, and the next, he was cold.

The air outside was cold, the house was cold, his father was cold, and now he too, was cold. There was no warmth without Blair, no happiness or laughter. There was no romance or love and nothing for anybody to enjoy. She had given Thomas and Charles a life they could only dream of living, and although the child spent hours trying to figure out why his Daddy cried in the dead of night and why his Mummy's clothes were gone from her wardrobe, he simply did not know.

"I can't, my love. I wish I could but I can't. I thought I'd be able to-" Blair stopped herself, pausing to blink back more tears, "I have to go now, I'm so sorry."

Thinking she could push her love for the boy who became her son to one side to continue to teach him had turned out to be foolish, and as Blair pulled on her coat once more, she began to kick herself for ever thinking that she could.

Charlie continued to cry and so did Blair, although silently, as she gathered her belongings and forced her legs to carry her back to the front door of the house, despite feeling like she was being ripped away from the one thing she needed, limb by limb.

It was ruthless, cold-hearted and downright cruel the way Blair had dangled her presence in front of Charlie like a string in front of a cat, even though that had never been her intention.

As she reached the front door, almost choking on her sobs at the way Charlie was calling out after her, begging her not to leave, she realised that she was no better than Thomas.

The way Tommy had left her in the restaurant all those years ago, turning his back so he didn't have to watch her cry as she sat alone at the table was the most painful parallel for Blair to admit she was now living, unloading a lifetime of pain and sadness onto a child's shoulders the same way his father had done to her.

"Mummy please!"

Charlie grabbed his mother's hand, his cries woeful and soulful in the most torturous way. He cried as if he'd witnessed a death, and in a way, he had. He knew nothing, only that the one person that had brought light back into his life had turned it grey again, allowing him a split second of sunshine before disappearing behind an eternal cloud once more.

"Charlie, I'm sorry. Your father loves you, he loves you so much and it's better this way for-"

The sole of Tommy's shoes echoed loudly as he walked down the hallway from his study towards the front door. He wore a white shirt with grey trousers and a matching waistcoat, brown leather shoes and a gold pocket watch. His eyes were bloodshot and his hair a mess, his cheeks puffy and his lips parted in exhaustion.

"It's not for the best, Blair, I know you know that."

Sickness washed over her as she looked at Thomas, feeling like she could either throw up or flood the entire house with all the tears she wanted to cry just from being in his presence again.

Blair had never known love as pure as she felt for Thomas and Charlie. She would've died in place of either of them and not wasted even a second to deliberate her decision. Everything she'd ever wanted and needed was stood right before her, and although she knew that there was no life for her without them in it, she couldn't take any more behaviour from Tommy like she had been. He might've been exhausted now, but she had been for months.

"I can't do it," she whispered, "Tommy you know I don't deserve to live like that."

"I know," he nodded, his voice quiet as he flickered his gaze between her watery eyes and his son's red ones, both of them drowned in sadness, "I'll change, Blair. Let me change, I can't lose you, I can't lose this. I don't want anything if I can't share it with you."

Blair stood with her hand on the door, feeling her soul draining from her bones the longer she stood and looked into his eyes. It was cowardly of her to walk away knowing Tommy was the last thing she looked at and not Charlie, making it easier for herself, but she did it anyway.

"You lost it a long time ago, Tom."