The Day It Happened

The Days That Followed

A/N: As always, this is a fictional story about characters, not real people. Mean people are plot, not a reflection of anyone they borrow names from.

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Part of Shayne is surprised when Courtney seems to sleep through the night, but he figures the time spent with all her family and the stress of the whole afternoon must have taken a lot out of her. He quickly steps into the shower himself when he wakes up early enough and hears no sound of stirring from her room, quietly thankful she doesn't rise until after he's dressed and tidied his makeshift bed, and has been sat up on the sofa reading for a while.

"Morning, Court," he greets her, not wanting to immediately ambush her with asking how she is when she wanders out of her room towards the living room rubbing gently at her eyes. She gives him a small smile.

"Morning. Sleep okay?" she asks, padding over – still in pyjamas – and pausing to lean against the back of the couch, just to his side.

"Yeah. Did you?" he turns the question back on her as he carefully closes the book over and turns to his side so he can meet her eyes.

"I think so. I was exhausted. And I think today is going to be exhausting too, and I'm still just... sad. But it's okay. And I kind of want to order in something for breakfast," she admits, Shayne immediately reaching for his phone and beckoning her over to join him on the couch and pick something, wordlessly stepping in to buy the breakfast for her.

Courtney doesn't really know what to do with her morning. She spends it flitting mindlessly between random tasks in her apartment, the occasional wave of tears coming back to her as she does a load of laundry, reads a little of a book Shayne had recommended to her, and attempts to make a meal plan for the next week that she quickly abandons for the uncertainty of what the week will bring. She is endlessly thankful that Shayne simply exists alongside her through the time, equally content to sit quietly and do his own thing as he is to pull her into a comforting hug whenever she requests it.

It irritates her a little that when she gets in her car to drive back out to Thousand Oaks to finalise funeral plans with all her family again, Shayne gets in his car to go back to his own place. She knows he'd stay with her if she asked, but her older siblings had stressed family only coming to the house so heavily. It probably wouldn't irk her so much if her younger brothers hadn't included their partners.

They got to bring the people that would support them. Shayne had known her Dad longer than either of Clarke or Conrad's partners, anyway – why was it different that he was her platonic support person, not romantic?

She pushes her annoyance down when she gets to the house, quickly gluing herself to Kari's side as they all pull every chair and stool they can find up to the expansive dining table and start pulling together plans. KC steps up to lead the discussion, but he at least seems to have pulled back from his intensity the previous day, and when one of her Dad's best friends pops by mid-afternoon to let them know how they usually do things for guards of honour and they like, they all listen intently.

Courtney doesn't feel the need to ever really speak up, simply sitting quietly and glancing between everyone else as they talk and decide on all sorts of things that just make her head spin and her heart ache to just go home and be sad in peace. They do, apparently, need to decide every little detail, though, and it's when they start talking about who sits where in the first couple of rows that she finds herself engaging a little more closely.

"Well, I think if we go his children with partners in the front row, without partners and other extended family behind, that will be the most appropriate-" KC starts, Kari being the one to immediately cut him off.