Carmine Jewels ║ Wanda Maximoff

Chapter 48 - May We Meet Again

Keira slowly let her head fall back against the wall while a heavy sigh escaped her lips, her hands covering her face. It turned out that arranging a funeral was more work than she ever could've imagined. It was something she had never been forced to face before, and there was a lot to think about, to say the least.

Everything from finding a place to hold the ceremony, to making sure that the gravestone would be delivered on time.

It was difficult to get everything in place, but Keira gladly welcomed the distraction. Having something to focus on gave her an excuse to not sleep. Every time she dared to close her eyes, Pietro's death replayed behind her eyelids and not-so-kindly jolted her back to reality.

The way she had caught his body before it hit the ground. His last words. The feeling of his blood oozing down her front while she carried his body to safety.

And she knew if she was having trouble to relax, it was nothing against Wanda's struggles. But there was no way that she would let Wanda go through all this alone, so Keira shouldered the role of coordinator without complaints.

A careful knock on the door caused her head to snap up and she glanced at the door through her fingers. "Come in." She called out, her voice slightly hoarse after so many hours of silence. When Wanda appeared in the doorway and gently closed the door behind her with her foot, a careful smile dared to play in the corners of Keira's lips while her hands slipped down from her face.

"You look like crap." Wanda shot a glance at the blonde huddled in the corner while she put down the bags of takeout on the small living room table. She then made her way over to the place where Keira was sitting and kneeled down in front of her.

It was the harsh truth, because the blonde looked as if she had been up for weeks without sleep. The circles under her eyes were, if possible, even darker than they had been the weeks before, and her hair was slowly slipping out of the messy ponytail that had been untouched for days.

Honestly, it would be a miracle if she ever managed to untangle her hair ever again. Her chin was resting on one of her knees while the other leg was completely extended, with a notebook balancing on top of it.

Keira was restlessly spinning a pen between her fingers, although she stilled the moment that her eyes met Wanda's. "Geez, thanks for that one." Keira huffed in amusement, slowly shaking her head. "I know I look fantastic, but it's really great for my confidence to hear it from you too."

Wanda gently brushed a strand of blonde hair behind Keira's ear, inwardly sighing at the sarcasm. "You know what I mean. You need to rest." Upon seeing the blonde's skeptical look, an actual sigh escaped her lips and she let her hand slide down to the side of Keira's neck. "Look, I truly appreciate all that you're doing for me, and for h- him, I really do. But I can't just stand by and watch you destroy yourself in the progress." Her voice cracked slightly at the mention of Pietro, and she had to blink hard a couple of times to fight down the burning sensation in her throat as tears threatened to fall.

It hadn't even been a week, and the very mention of his name caused the lump in her throat to grow to the size of a football. Right now, it seemed impossible that she would ever be able to speak his name without crying.

Despite it being a contradictory move to some, Keira had chosen to stay in Sokovia while dealing with the funeral arrangements. It just didn't seem right to her to return back home to America while the country she had been born in was in shambles.

That was why she and Wanda were currently sitting on the floor of a murky hotel room. The wallpaper threatened to tear down from the wall in places, and what once had been a magnificent chandelier was now dusty and dull.