Chapter Text
✶ The months following Count Bezukhov's death are quiet. Everything is now that his hearty laughter doesn't echo through the halls; the way he generously displayed every emotion on his sleeve is solely missed.
✶ You wear black and keep the curtains drawn. The sun can never saturate your being the way he once did.
✶ Pierre had always been good to his servants so they take care of you in your time of grief. They worry about the possibility of their countess losing her mind. That would throw the certainty of all of their positions completely out the window.
✶ However, the servants whisper of a presence. The lamp in his study flicks on when night falls and stays that way until it promptly goes dark at the break of dawn. They insist it's the restless spirit of the young count lingering among the living; finishing one of the hundreds of books he never had the chance to finish in life.
✶ And no matter how much you'd like to ignore the rumors, voice carry, especially in the night when the maids tell each other ghost stories.
✶ It angers you. Your husband is gone. And whatever haunts the Bezukhov estate must be some wretched demon, intent on destroying the shreds of sanity you cling to. To suggest it was your dear, sweet Pierre...it's a cruelty; a mockery.
✶ So you set out to search for the spirit yourself.
✶ In the ungodly hours of the night, you slink out of your large, lonely bed and roam the halls. Candlestick in hand, you're not sure what to look for. Can demons take on the appearance of others? If so, how could they? You won't let yourself believe that the spirit on your hands is really him.
✶ Your Pierre is gone and no amount of delusion will bring him back.
✶ It's late and this entire endeavor is ridiculous, you resolve. But you simply must check on something. Your soul demands that you put the invasive rumor to rest once and for all.
✶ For the first time since he's been gone, you enter that empty old study. A thin layer of dust covers his shelves and his furniture, but sure enough, that damned lamp is on. You step forward furiously, intending to turn it off and already formulating how you will tell off the servants for playing such a terrible trick on you, especially after you'd demanded that his study stayed untouched.
✶ Though you know deep inside that his chair is empty, you swear you see him. Cotton shirt with the first few buttons undone and head dipped over the worn pages. The floor creaks under your weight and he looks up. The warm lamplight could convince you that he still had light in those bright green eyes as he smiles wistfully and parts his lips.
✶ Your Pierre looks at you with regret one last time, "Oh, it’s late, isn’t it? I apologize, darling. I'll be off to bed soon."