Anamnesis [Lacuna #2] {Completed}

Chapter Eighteen

"Filipendulous (adj.) Hanging by a thread"

Erin's mother wouldn't have wanted an extravagant funeral.

Yet it had somehow been unavoidable.

The day Erin had come back from England had been a nightmare. Her eyes had been puffy from crying on the plane and the airport had been far too crowded for comfort.

Because her mother had been a military "special personal" word of her passing spread quickly throughout the former S.H.I.E.L.D. and Military Intelligence communities. When Cara had come to pick her up at the airport, it was all Erin could do to get to the car through the crowd of news casters and reporters.

They bombarded Erin with questions as she tried to make it out the airport doors. Do you know anything about the circumstances of your mother's death? Was your mother killed on a mission? Is it true they labeled her death a suicide? Will you be pursuing legal action against the U.S. military? Did she know anything about the attack on S.H.I.E.L.D.? Was your family secretly a part of the HYDRA operation?

It was all Erin could do to keep from screaming.

Cara arranged most of the funeral details. The flowers, the casket, which funeral home she would be kept in. Everything. Erin had never been more grateful.

Elizabeth McCall was given a soldier's funeral. They had laid the American flag over her casket and the shots rang out as they lowered her into the ground. She was buried next to Erin's father Matt and Jamie. Her mother would have wanted that.

Erin couldn't help but wonder if she would ever be joining them.

She was used to it by now. Going through the motions, giving eulogies, accepting apologies from strangers, and receiving the other end of pitied looks seemed to be her life now.

Jill had come, but there was something different about her. Erin knew she had taken the attack on S.H.I.E.L.D. hard because of her uncle, but she barely spoken ten words to Erin before she apologized and left early. If Cara hadn't been there, Erin knew she would have gone insane.

"I promise Erin, we will investigate who did this." One of her mother's colleagues, Harrison King, has promised her a few days after the funeral when he had come to visit. He was a part of the Central Intelligence Agency and part of her mother's team.

It wasn't until a few months later that Elizabeth McCall's death had indeed been labeled a suicide.

Erin thought about showing someone, anyone the message her mother had sent, but she was so tired. She didn't have the energy to fight any longer. In some ways, it was easier to accept that maybe her mother had killed herself. By going after someone that had anything to do with her father's death... in a way Erin supposed they were right. Maybe her mother wanted to die. Sometimes Erin wanted to join them.

The night before Erin was to return to Oxford, she had finished packing and was looking through the pictures that were in the silverware box her grandfather had given her. It had been Ester, her grandmother's before her grandfather had turned it into a box he kept all of his work and special items in. On the top were letters that were important to him throughout the years, his soldier's cap and dog tags, along with pictures of the family all the way back from the 20s. In a drawer underneath, there was a compartment where he kept all of his work and journal with notes. Erin had added her father and brother's work to the pile after they had died. There was a secret compartment on the side with her grandfather's first S.H.I.E.L.D. badge and his diary. He had instructed her not to open it until he was gone, but she had never had the courage. She wondered if she would ever have the strength to open it, as if by not reading it she could keep a part of her grandfather alive somehow. It seemed the things in this box were all she had left of her family.