Title: Coping Mechanism
Author: wordsthatfail
Rating: PG
Characters: Kim, Jack; mentions of Teri and Carol
Spoilers: Set just after Season One
Summary: After Day One, Kim copes the only way she can.
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.
It's not that she doesn't want to look at him.
She can't.
So she grips her aunt's hand and keeps her eyes on the bottom corner of the glossy casket, jaw clenched.
If she squints, the mahogany surface blurs and she can almost pretend it's just the edge of a table and that she's not sitting in an uncomfortable wooden pew. That she's not struggling to hold back tears.
But the flowers — all the stupid, stupid flowers — won't let her forget where she is. The arrangements are everywhere, too bright, too cloying. She'll never look at a bouquet without thinking about funerals now.
A part of her wants to break down. Wants to lean on her father's shoulder.
But she can't.
If she does that, it'll be real.
Her mom will be dead. Lying in the casket that's not a table. And she'll be left holding onto the man who let it happen.
She'll be forced to reconcile the guilt, the frustration and the rage that's been building for three days — and she's terrified that it might destroy both her and her dad.
She can't do that. Not now.
So she swallows her anger and blinks back her tears. She keeps her back straight and her jaw tight, squeezing Aunt Carol's trembling fingers until her knuckles are white.
She stares hard at the one corner of the casket that's safe and doesn't dare glance at her father or let her arm brush his elbow.
It's not that she doesn't want to.
She just can't.