Based on season 4, episode 21 - "A Shade of Gray".
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Eleanor Beaumont hadn't moved for hours. Her back was pressed to the side of the living room cabinet, the kind that still smelled faintly of aged pine and furniture polish. Her legs were bent, muscles locked in a half-coiled posture that screamed with tension. Her left arm dangled uselessly, her knuckles grazing the lacquered floorboards beside the dormant shape of her phone. The gun had become an extension of her fingers, of her fear. Her eyes, bloodshot and hollowed with insomnia, stayed open like a broken marionette's — still staring toward the curtained window.
She hadn't blinked much since.
Outside, the city was beginning to stir, the morning light creeping in reluctantly, fractured and dim through the heavy drapes. But the dawn didn't bring her peace. It brought the first sound to pierce the silence: her phone buzzing against the floor, its screen glowing with the soft light of an incoming call. She stared at it, dazed, as if trying to remember what phones were for.
Her name lit the screen: Maman. She watched it flash, the low buzz droning against her ribs, until her mind stirred enough to act. She pressed the phone to her ear with slow, aching limbs, her voice rasping out from a place that had not been used in hours. "Hi, Mom."
"Lenny, sweetheart," her mother's voice chimed, warm and clipped with a trace of the typical honking of New York morning traffic. "I was afraid you were at work."
Eleanor leaned her head back against the wood behind her and closed her eyes. Her throat felt like it had been scrubbed raw. A lie hovered on her tongue — quick, easy, efficient — but something about her mother's voice made her hesitate. "Why?" she asked, instead. "Something wrong?"
"No, no, nothing." Béatrice gave a small breathy laugh. "I got off a case and was just talking to your dad— I've been thinking... What if I come by?"
Eleanor's lids snapped open.
Of course. She couldn't take that — not today.
"You know," Béatrice added with a touch of forced lightness, "Hang out. I've been worried you might feel alone now that you don't have roommates anymore."
Alone. The word echoed like a church bell inside Eleanor's skull. She glanced toward the table, where her old chess board sat mid-game, the calendar propped beside it. The date was marked with red ink. 9:30 a.m.
"I don't think now's the ideal time," she said, carefully assembling the lie, draping it in half-truth. "I got a lot of things I need to do now that I'm back to work. You know— checkups and firearm testings. All sorts of stuff."
"Oh, yeah, yeah, don't worry." Her mother's voice softened. "How's your sleep, darling?"
Eleanor hesitated, then smiled without meaning it. "Great. Almost six hours today."
