In
Memoriam
by wordsthatfail
Rating: PG
Characters: Kim, Tony; mentions of Jack and Teri
Spoilers: Set post-Season Four
Summary: It’s a day of remembrance.
Disclaimer: The characters aren’t mine; the
words are. Please don’t take legal action —
lowly copy editors aren’t worth suing, anyway.
A/N: Feedback is love, but be brutal; I welcome
comments and criticism of all kinds.
She crests the hill,
clutching the three paper-wrapped roses in her fist. Two
red, one white.
She decides she hates Memorial Day.
It’s hard to suppress how she feels when there are
constant reminders of the holiday weekend everywhere,
from her desk calendar to all the flags on display and
the stupid, pointless sales.
It’s more difficult to quiet the whispers in her
head, the ones that have dogged her for weeks — the
ones that remind her she’s alone.
When she nears the gravesite, she’s startled to see
another figure standing before the twin headstones. His
back is to her, but he turns when he hears the brush of
her battered Keds over the just-mown grass and the rustle
of the tissue paper in her hand.
“Kim.” He nods respectfully, stepping back.
She manages a tight smile. “Hey.” She looks
down at her parents’ graves.
In loving memory ...
She swallows. Tony has planted a small American flag for
her father, and on her mom’s side, there’s a
single white orchid. It’s so perfect but so wrong at
the same time, she has to close her eyes for a second.
She tightens her grip on the flowers.
Tony clears his throat quietly. “I’ll just
— ”
Kim shakes her head almost imperceptibly, but she
can’t look at Tony. If she looks at him and sees the
kindness and the empathy in his dark eyes, she won’t
be able to hold back the tears.
“Stay.”
He freezes; the word was so low, he’s not sure he
actually heard it. He studies Kim’s profile and sees
her chin quiver, then gently touches his fingertips to
her forearm.
She stiffens. This — god, she can’t deal with this
— she can’t handle his concern. She’ll
crumble, and she doesn’t want to break down. Not now.
She’ll be a walking cliché, a badly scripted scene
straight out of a Lifetime movie.
But then Tony’s arms are around her and her face is
wet against his T-shirt; the roses are crushed between
them but it doesn’t matter because flowers are more
for the living than the dead.
“I’m so sorry,” he whispers, stroking her
hair.
Her father held her just like this when she was upset.
God, Dad —
The past few weeks hit her so hard her knees turn to
water. She clenches her jaw, even though she knows the
move is futile because nothing guards against this
kind of ache.
Kim sniffles and steps back, wiping at her too-hot cheeks.
She straightens the crumpled paper around the roses and
fingers the red ribbon that she wrinkled on the walk from
the parking lot. She bites her lip and crouches, placing
the flowers on the ground between her parents’ names.
Behind her, Tony takes a hesitant half-step closer.
“Kim, I’m sorry.”
She nods jerkily. “Yeah,” she chokes, her voice
thick and hoarse. I miss them so much. “Me,
too.”
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