(Dead muse thing) Pepper hadn't known Lana Skye for long. Long enough for the prosecutor to save her life. It was shameful that Pepper hadn't been there to return the favor. Perhaps it was naive, but the agent would have taken her place, given the chance. If the young brunette sobbing over Lana's grave was any indication, she had people who cared a great deal for her. Though the hadn't know one another long, Pepper had grown to quite like Lana. The prosecutor deserved... so much more than this.
Lana sat on top of her own gravestone, legs crossed at the ankle and kitten heels knocking against the front of it as she let her mind wander.
She’d never really been under the impression that she was safe in her job, even when she’d been moved to an office with the prosecutors, and her parents had died young themselves. Having been left to figure out the funeral arrangements for them at age 16, she’d realized very early on in her career that if she had the means to make sure that Ema wouldn’t have to experience the same hands-on lesson in funeral planning that she had, it would probably be a kindness to her sister just in case.
Lana had selected a nice gravestone for herself. She hadn’t expected to be haunting it, but as far as places to haunt went, it had a modern cut and a gravity to it. If she was stuck here, it was grassy, and sunny, so it wasn’t quite so bad. And, at any rate, she was getting the sensation that she wasn’t here all of the time–sometimes, she would feel she had only blinked, and the sun would be all the way across the sky, a different mourner at her graveside. There weren’t really many. She’d… hurt a lot of people. Many of those who showed up, long after the funeral, scowled at her grave. A single, last, fuck you. She couldn’t pretend she didn’t deserve it.
They’d all suspected, and now they’d never know. And not even he had a reason to hold any secret over a 16 year old school girl with no connections on the police force any more, even if she did want to become a detective in ten years’ time. Who knew if she would after all of this, anyway? Lana smiled. Ema was free (and she knew to go to Mia Fey).
Her sister had come and left, and now Ms. Green was here, sobbing. Lana couldn’t pretend she didn’t appreciate the concern, but she likewise didn’t want to see Ms. Green crying. She hadn’t spoken–not even to Ema–but she tried to stand up now, and hoped that whatever would pass for speaking now would carry, and she rested a hand on Ms. Green’s shoulder.
“It’s all right,” she tried. “Don’t cry… You can do better than I did.”
