Disclaimer1: I own no characters, situations, plot-lines mentioned and/or alluded to.
Disclaimer2: The title is borrowed from Leonard Cohen's song.
A/N: I'm not sure where this one came from, but, apparently, this is what ensues from a drastic lack of Lee's post-Sometimes-a-Great-Notion angst intricate exploration on the show. This drabble could be considered a darker companion-piece, of a sort, to Keep Breathing, but is well off as a stand-alone too.
…a broken Hallelujah
Dead. He absently wondered if that what it felt like to be dead – numb, and hollow, and oddly detached from… well… everything, colors dimmed and blurred, sounds and voices muffled into a low drone washing around you but not affecting enough to register, movements in slow-motion. He wondered if that was how Kara felt upon her "resurrection". But you are not supposed to feel once you're dead, right? He wondered if that's why it didn't hurt.
The simple, transparent logic of that idea evoked an unbidden smile before he could school his face, instantly earning him a disapproving glare from the priestess. Right, you are not supposed to smile at your wife's funeral. Not after she put a gun to her temple upon kissing you coyly "be-a-good-boy-and-just-imagine-the-rest-of-this-night". And he definitely wouldn't have smiled, were he alive. After all, he didn't have the slightest inclination to smile at Zak's or Kara's… or at any other memorial service they had too many of these past hideous years. But he was alive than, and in pain. Not anymore.
He wondered too, seeing as this was, in fact, a religious ceremony, if it were fitting to praise any gods for sparing him this one last time. Or should he just cut through the sacred red-tape and praise her directly, since she was the closest to grace he'd ever known – a heavenly voice to call him home. It would've been ugly otherwise, were he alive. There would have been screams and sobs, and violence. The sheer enormity of guilt and pain would've driven him over the edge and made let go of control he had so skillfully exercised on previous similar occasions. He would've probably attempted to really harm himself this time (a razor, or her very own fire-arm, or an airlock, maybe, Cally-style) – were he alive, that is. But he wasn't, so there was no point. No more hurt could befall him. No more suffering. It felt… safe… to be dead. She always made him feel safe. He had to smile again – fondly this time. Trust Dee to make him feel secure and right at her own funeral.
Another glare – steadfast grim faintly tinged with concern – from his father. Gods, he must indeed appear a basket-case, grinning goofily at the mourning. If he's learned to decipher his Old Man's stares through the time, he's just got himself into a check-out with Doc. Cottle. His father didn't get it. None of them got it – he didn't need help, or condolences, for that matter. The unalive don't need to feel better, for they don't wallow in self-pity. The unalive don't indulge into the pursuit of happiness, for nothing surpasses the blissful equilibrium death endows with. Nor need the unalive be fearful of the future, for it's where the past finally can't haunt them. The unalive have this precious power to face, what is to come, with efficient, stoic composure – the opposite of despair. He actually bit off yet another smile – the irony was just too perfect. Maybe he could become the "shining beacon of hope" they had willed him to be all along – now, that he is dead…