Cedric didn't go to the hospital that day.
He told himself it was because his schedule was light today. He told himself he had paperwork that could be done from home. He told himself several reasonable things over the course of the morning and believed none of them.
The truth was simpler.
He didn't trust what Arthur would do if he left the house. He never trusted Arthur from the time they were children.
Noel had been in that room for four days. Four days, and Cedric hadn't known, and the specific cold of that... the idea that Noel had been twenty meters above his head the entire time... sat in him as something swallowed wrong.
He stayed home.
He worked in his room until his eyes hurt from the documents, and then he stopped pretending to work and just sat, and then eventually he went to draw a bath because it was evening and he hadn't eaten and his body needed something.
.
.
The bathroom was steaming when he stepped out.
