January 28th, 1991 — Portsmouth, NH
3:12 PM, EST

It had been a long winter.

As she sat in the first church pew, her hands folded and her pale face buried in her knuckles, Shelby wondered how long it had been since she had been in that room. Her grandmother had raised her Catholic, but Shelby had never had much faith in the Catholic Church. God, maybe. A god, anyways. She was never sure where she sat with faith or greater beings, but she found a familiar comfort in the building that day, as she had never quite felt more alone.

She'd gotten the call from her great aunt Eleanor, who lived in nearby New Castle.

Shelby's grandmother had passed away peacefully in her sleep.

Her mind had continued to worsen since Shelby's visit in August, though her passing was sudden, and the news had come sooner than both Shelby and the doctors had expected.

Though she was glad her grandmother had escaped the disease, Shelby was left with a devastating hole inside of her, one that she feared would never fill. She'd lost her mother mere days into life, but she had never lost someone with whom she shared so many memories before.

The wake and service had since ended, and the burial would have to wait until spring, when the ground was thawed. Aunt Eleanor and her children, Shelby's mother's cousins, had invited her to come with them to dinner in New Castle, but Shelby had never known them very well, so she felt uncomfortable going with them. She had some things to wrap up at her grandmother's house, anyways.

Instead of heading back to her gran's, though, Shelby lingered still at the church. She'd been dragged to the building by her grandmother for all sorts of reasons throughout the years. Shelby could practically smell her grandmother's rosewood perfume as she sat in the woman's favorite pew. The perfume was an expensive brand, but Shelby could hardly remember name. All she knew was that it was reserved for special occasions, and that list of occasions had included Sunday morning mass.

It had been a good service, Shelby supposed. The last funeral she had been to had been her own mother's, but she didn't remember a single bit of it. All the memories she had of her mother were in the forms of photographs. There were flowers, and lots of people had come. Shelby didn't know most of them, but her grandmother must have. Donna and Lisa had even come, though they had both needed to leave right after the funeral to get back to their respective careers and lives — Donna was still in New York, and Lisa in California. It would have been nice to catch up with her old friends, and the local citizens of Portsmouth that she had known her entire life, Shelby supposed, if it hadn't been at her grandmother's funeral.

As she sat in silent meditation, Shelby had neglected to notice that she was no longer alone in the church. A gentle hand was placed on her shoulder and she turned to see Robbo standing behind her. He'd flown in from Seattle to be with her, and the rest of his family had driven up for the funeral too.

Shelby blinked a few times before she stood and wrapped her arms around him. She'd thought the Everetts had all headed back to Salem after the service, but she could see Robbo's old beater car sitting in front of the church, and he himself was there in front of her.

"Hey, Shelby." Rob said in a quiet voice as he joined her in the pew. "I'm going to grab some food. Why don't you come with me?" Robbo knew Shelby, and he knew she had most likely not touched a single piece of food all day.

"Oh, no thank you." Shelby forced a smile as she turned to look at him. "I really should head back to Gran's house. There's some stuff I need to do."

"Shelby," Robbo sighed slightly. "I just ... I just don't want you to be alone."

"It's okay." The redhead replied quietly as she stared ahead at the front of the church. "You see, I've always been rather good at being alone."

"But you're not alone, Shelby." He knew that her grandmother had raised her, and that she was the person Shelby had been closest to her entire life. But, he also knew that Shelby wasn't alone, that there were still many people that loved and cared for her, including himself. Long gone were the days of romantic love between the two, but Shelby was one of his closest friends, and he'd do anything to make her feel better.

"Oh, you're right." Shelby snapped bitterly, surprising Robbo. "I've got my drug dealing jailbird of a father, currently locked up for an unknown amount of time in the New Hampshire State Penitentiary. How could I forget?" 

"Shelby, you know that's not what I meant," As Robbo searched to find the correct words to say, Shelby cut him off.

"Everyone I love leaves me, Robbo." She said in a shaky voice. "My gran, my mom, before I even got the chance to know her. My dad, because he couldn't keep himself out of trouble. Even the family I made at MIT ... you're all gone too." She muttered quietly. "You and Donna and Lisa, all spread out in different directions while I'm down in Florida. And Tony ..." The name felt like fire on Shelby's tongue. She sniffed a bit and the two sat in silence for a few moments before realizing that Tony might not have gotten news of her grandmother's passing. She had half been expecting him to show up, but then again, part of her didn't want to see him ever again. "Did you tell him?"

"Yes." He said in a quiet voice. "I did. He ... he  sends his condolences. He didn't want to come to the funeral because he didn't want to make things worse for you. He didn't want to make a bad situation even harder for you by showing up unexpectedly."

"That's ... that's good." Shelby nodded. It was respectable of Tony, it really was. Shelby had already been a wreck the entire day. She couldn't imagine what she would have been like if Tony had shown up.

"Come with me, Shelby." Rob said again. "You shouldn't be here all alone." The church was dark and empty, and he knew it wouldn't be good for her to sit there alone. "Why don't we just go back to your gran's house and order some food in? I can stay with you, if you want. My parents and Celia drove back already, but I've got my car. I can just head back in the morning."

Shelby reconsidered, and despite feeling mentally as though she was alone in an empty room, curled up in the fetal position, she knew that Rob was right. She shouldn't be alone. Her gran wouldn't have wanted that anyways. The older woman had always told Shelby she was too much of a loner type when Shelby was still in school in Portsmouth.

"Thank you, Robbo." She said quietly, closing her eyes as she leaned her head on his shoulder. "Can we just ... can we just sit here a few minutes, though?"

Rob nodded and slid an arm around her shoulders. "Take all the time you need, Shelbster."

January 28th, 1991 — Portsmouth, NH
7:15 PM, EST

After finally getting Shelby to eat some crappy Chinese takeout and then ice cream, Robbo was convinced that he had returned the shell of his favorite redhead into almost her normal self again.

They were seated on the couch at her grandmother's, a new episode of Full House playing on the television.

It was strange to see the place Shelby had grown up. It was not quite what Robbo had been expecting. He knew she had been raised by her grandmother, so he expected crocheted doilies, old china cabinets and maybe an old white icebox, reminiscent of the 1940s. Instead, it was just a simple yellow house with old, yet still nice, hardwood floors and floral wallpaper. Not quite as old-fashioned as he had expected, but then again, Shelby had been certainly surprised when she'd first seen his childhood home.

There was evidence of Shelby everywhere, from the old and forgotten spelling bee trophies tucked away in the curio cabinet to the small, redheaded child that stared back at him from the picture frame on the wall in the living room.

The two of them were flipping through the old photo albums Shelby had dug out for her grandmother's funeral. She hadn't looked through them previously, knowing they were full of pictures of a younger Gran and her mother too, and she wasn't sure if she wanted to see them, young and healthy and alive.

"I don't think I've seen this one before." Shelby said, pulling out a newer-looking book and placing it on the coffee table. "She kept this one by her bedside, though. That's where I found it. I think she went through and picked out all her favorites."

The redhead flipped open the cover, revealing a photograph of her grandparents, circa 1944, on their wedding day. Her gran was in a beautiful white gown, and her gramps was in his Navy uniform. They'd eloped before he had been sent off to fight in World War II.

"My grandfather was a ginger, you know." Shelby said with a smile. "I never met him, but ... I've been told."

Robbo chuckled and inspected the photo. "Yeah, I see it. He looks like you."

"I've never been that freckley though." She said with a laugh. "Gran never really talked about him much. I think it hurt her too much to do so. She never wanted to talk about my mom either, but I always asked about her, so she did."

The next pages were filled with photos of Shelby's mother as a child, and family photos of the three of them.

"Your mom was an only child, too?" Rob asked as he looked at a picture of Shelby's grandparents and their daughter in front of some mountains.

"That she was." Shelby replied as she turned the page once more. A picture of Shelby's mom in her graduation cap and gown was next, and then a photo of another wedding. This one had Shelby's mom as the bride.

"Are those your ..." Robbo trailed off, knowing fully that the couple that stood smiling in front of the church he had stood in hours before was Shelby's parents.

"My parents." She said quietly, staring intently at the photo. Her hand gripped the page tightly. "I didn't think she kept any pictures of my dad around." She slipped the picture out of its sleeve and flipped it over, seeing what her grandmother had written on the back. "Anne and Paul, June 10, 1968." She read aloud. "They were barely married before I came along and ruined everything."

"Shelby ..." Robbo sighed. "You know that what happened to your mom isn't—"

"Isn't my fault, I know." Shelby cut him off. "Sometimes I just wonder how drastically different my life would be if she hadn't died. She was working as a secretary in the doctor's office, and he was a mechanic. A really good one, at that. They really had their lives going for them. Now she's dead and he's in prison."

"Have you ever thought about going to visit him?" Rob asked.

"Thought about it, yes." Shelby admitted as she turned the page.

Robbo could sense she didn't want to talk about it, so he dropped the subject.

They stayed silent as Shelby flipped through the book. Eventually, baby Shelby appeared, and then all of the pictures were only of her. Finally, they reached the last page.

"Is that ..." Robbo chuckled. "Is that you and Adam?"

Shelby's face flushed. "Yes, she asked me to send her a picture of the two of us."

Rob took the picture out and flipped it over, reading the back. "Shelby and her NASA British boyfriend Adam." He chuckled. "Why is Adam underlined three times?"

Shelby blushed again. "She had some confusion with his name. She thought his name was ..."

"Let me guess." Robbo grinned. "Tony?"

Shelby sighed. "Yeah, Tony." She cleared her throat awkwardly.

"Where is Adam, anyways?" Rob asked nonchalantly.

"He wanted to come with me but he couldn't get off of work." Shelby said. "They needed one of us there."

Rob kind of got the feeling Shelby didn't want to talk about Adam, so he pointed to the picture on the other side. "Wow, check this out."

It was a photo of five grinning MIT graduates standing in front of a tree. Shelby was in the middle, flanked on one side by Donna and Lisa, and the other by Tony and Robbo.

"I didn't know she kept this." Shelby said with a smile.

Rob smiled and shook his head. "Good times."

"Yeah," Shelby smiled sadly. "I get why she had this on her nightstand. It was a reminder of all the good times she was scared she would forget."