She keeps it together because she has to.
Keeps it together because she has to as she signs documents. As she turns his company over to a board of people she's sure she can trust, even though she knows it's not what he would have wanted. Because she refuses to return to the building that's only twelve percent hers and one hundred percent filled to the brim with memories of him.
But they have enough to live by as it is. Enough that Morgan's grandchildren will live comfortably.
She keeps it together because she has to.
Because the reporters and paparazzi would do anything to get their story; to get her to snap. Digging up old wounds and old lovers. Old drama that doesn't matter in the wake of all of this.
Picking away at a scab they think is healing. Just a gaping wound that steals her breath. That's barely begun to clot.
She keeps it together because she has to.
Going to bed in the same sheets that still smell like that dumb aftershave she bought him once on a whim and that he kept using because she mentioned that she liked it.
She's not about to uproot Morgan now. It's bad enough she's lost her dad; she doesn't need to lose her home. The one they built together. The cabin in the woods with the little bedroom and a nightlight that used to rescue her dad from the bad things too.
She keeps it together because she has to.
Because for all the Stark genius that runs through her daughter's veins, Morgan is only five and wakes from nightmares calling for her daddy to come banish the monsters that lurk in the dark.
And Mommy has to explain all over again that he's not coming home. That he loves her three thousand, so he already took care of the bad guys. That there's no more monsters left to fight.
She keeps it together because she has to.
Until her daughter is in bed and she's had one too many glasses of wine and the dark oppressive night sinks into her very bones and she'd give anything for him to walk through the door, stupid smirk on his face, glass of some nameless alcohol in one hand and that stupid blue light on his chest banishing her misery.
She keeps it together because she has to.
Because he gave his life so that they could live. And while he would say he did it for the sake of humankind, she knows.
Knows he did it for her.
For them.
She keeps it together because she has to.