A/N: Requested by meet-me-onthe-equinox on tumblr as "Picking up the pieces."
This is related to my Andy death headcanon, so be very aware of that! Enjoy?
June 17th is a date that April would remember vividly, constantly.
People ask her how she's going to deal, how to move on - they advise her as often as they think they know better. As if they know her better. April doesn't deal in these niceties, even if Andy is involved in this way.
She visits him. Sometimes, it seems. When the night-chill punches through her bones, April just wraps another blanket around herself and lies down on the ice-cold grass. It crunches underneath her lithe weight, worsening with a dreadful appetite that deteriorates every day.
Often, it seems, she visits him.
Daily, it seems.
Each day, and every night, it seems that something changes. Something's changed, and the tone changes. She knows better, and knows what he would have wanted... and, somewhere, it seems, she changes.
She tells him stories, the most boring ones imaginable about how her day went at home, and she can't force herself to strain her tired muscles into a lackluster smile. Still, it helps.
He would want her to continue to be happy, and April does the best she can. With inspiration, she marks that day - the seventeenth, or rather the day a hellish maw opened up and swallowed her whole - and decides on something different. She invites Leslie, Ron, even Ann with a little hesitation, and tries to get Tom to come. He finally acquiesces.
Robbie and Sam arrive first, apparently headlong in catching up. The sight warms April's heart, and the entrance of Jack, followed ever so closely by Eddie and Victoria, seals the deal. Vicky's small family, the only one of them who seemed so headstrong in this ideal, awkwardly enters.
April meets her grandchild for the first time, wondering how to entice her to dark magic and pranks.
The 17th, this first one, is a day April will remember vividly, constantly. This day, so it seems to the unsure guests, will be a day to celebrate Andy's life. A mixture of Halloween tricks and decorations, with a hearty meal April asked Leslie and Ann to help with that you wouldn't get without another month's wait, all together with plenty of family - both biological and earned - sows the seed for this new holiday. This personal holiday, only theirs.
Yearly, it seems, they will celebrate, not mourn.