Snapshots of a life, lived

Life After You

Author's Note: This is an idea I got while helping WintumnIsMyOTP on GotYouBlue's birthday present. All I can really say is please trust me.

TRIGGER WARNINGS: Car accident, brief mentions of blood, death, vague allusions to suicide, allusions to child abuse and domestic abuse, extreme emotional distress

"Winter?"

Autumn turned her head, ignoring the flare of pain. She squinted as she tried to bring the world into focus. Everything was spinning and she felt sick.

But all that faded away when she saw Winter in the passenger's seat, eerily still, blood trickling down his forehead.

"Winter!"

Her seat belt jammed as she tried to lunge at him, snapping her back against her seat. She grappled for it, ignoring the bits of glass that dug into her searching hands. Winter didn't react to her cry. He didn't seem to be moving at all.

"Winter, wake up. Wake up, please. Winter, wake up. Winter."

There were voices outside the car, but she couldn't make out what they were saying. She couldn't look away from her husband, too still in his seat, still not reacting to her voice. His chest wasn't even moving.

The world moved around Autumn. She was cut out of her seat belt and helped to a stretcher, but her eyes never left Winter. No one was moving fast to help him. She tried to beg them to save him, but the words were stuck in her throat. Part of her knew the truth — that there was nothing to save. Winter was gone.

But she couldn't accept that.

"My husband, please," she begged the paramedics who were picking glass out of her skin. "What about my husband?"

"Ma'am you need to hold still—"

She finally saw the firefighters tear off the passenger's side door and carefully pull Winter's limp body out. She wavered for a moment on the stretcher, suddenly feeling whoozy as her vision tunneled, zeroing in on his blank face and his broken glasses.

The world went dark.

* * * * *

Winter's funeral was a week later.

Closed casket.

Winter's parents, even in their mourning, tried to offer Autumn support. They helped with the funeral planning and did their best to hide their tears around her so she wouldn't feel bad about burdening them with her own feelings. They told her it was okay to miss him. They missed him too.

Reece knew his sister. He didn't try to offer comfort or speak. He just sat with her in silence for hours until she fell asleep, then carried her to bed.

Autumn sat up front with Winter's parents, Reece, and Marjorie. Marjorie bullied her wait to sitting next to Autumn, putting her between her emotional sister-in-law and her mother-in-law. She felt wholly inadequate sitting between them while they cried and she stared at the coffin, listening to the priest. That had been Winter's parents' idea. Autumn hadn't had the heart to tell them Winter hadn't stepped foot in a church in over a decade.

Charlotte, Mia, Sorscha, Clodaugh, and Carly were sitting behind them. Mia dared to lean forward and rest a hand on Autumn's shoulder. She allowed it.

No one tried to hug Autumn.

"I just can't believe he's gone," she heard Sorscha saying after the service when everyone had gathered around at the cemetery entrance. "The nursery's been so different without him."