When her brother-in-law- returns from his two year tour of the continent his hair is long and he has gotten handsome; Gertrude had already started to pay more attention than she should before he left, but then Claudius was still mostly a boy and still becoming himself.

Without thinking about it she reaches out to touch his hair, which is just as soft as she imagined as it flows through her fingers, and it is a while before she notices how very still he has grown, but she is unwilling to let him go because they both know it can never happen again, so she lingers.

A week later, he’s cut it short again.