theresnodoor

Entry tags:

OOM

After This:

Milliways is there for those who need it.

So they say.

I was dead.
I was dead.

I was dead.

And now I'm - well, not.

The door swings behind her and the grass beneath her feet is cool and soft. The sun is going down behind the mountains and the sky is streaked with color. All is green and cool and beautiful.

Last summer, it was boiling hot and every spare day was spent indoors or at the beach - not of a lake, but the Pacific Ocean, and they had to take a bus to get there unless their parents dropped them off and... and if she were there right now, there would be no buses and the beaches probably survived but not without their own scars and if she survived if she survived if she survived if she if and if.

Walk. Steps. One in front of the other.

If she had survived, what would she have said?

Trees up ahead, turn, the way is clear.

How would she have justified?

Move, just move.

Was. Was dead.

Run.

Jog, really. Just move. Until all of her energy is taken up with breathing and moving and staying upright.

Or just the last two.

Was. Was dead.

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Eventually, after Happy Hour is over inside the bar, and after greetings and hugs are done, there is a Steph coming quietly out of the bar.

The sky here is one she hasn't seen for so long. So long. She walks slow, giving the lone jogger plenty of time to see her coming while she pads all the way down to the track by the lake.

There are a few differences from Happy Hour. She's wearing much more weather-appropriate clothing - a long-sleeved shirt, jeans, a hoodie - and also, her hair is now all colours of the rainbow. But it's still Steph, waiting for her to get done running.

That's enough change in physical description that once Rachel notices her, she still doesn't recognize her. Not until she's come around the lake for the...

Can't even guess how many times she'd gone in circles. Not even breathless.

But she slows, comes to a stop a few yards away and waits.

Her expression couldn't be called friendly.

"What?"

Steph is waiting quietly, hands in pockets, appreciating the night. She gives Rachel a small smile, almost nervous.

"I just wanted to see if you were okay. I mean, I guess that's a dumb question. But I feel bad. If there's anything I can do ..."

"There isn't."

Was dead. Now I'm not.

How.

If you ask questions, you'll get answers.

Sometimes it's not worth the risk.

Rachel sets her jaw and mutters, stiff, "Don't worry about it."

"Well - I mean, not that there's anything I could do, but - if you wanted to talk, or, you know, just get milkshakes and jog or spar or something until you're too tired to think about it, or whatever ..."

It's just that when they dropped this particular bombshell on Steph, she had people to run to. Rachel is running alone.

Who would she run to? Who wouldn't make this worse by trying to 'fix' it, trying to change her, bring her back, undo everything she did?

Rachel is running alone because it's the only way she knows how.

But she frowns at Steph now, confused by the offer. They just met, she doesn't know this girl, but she wants to hang out, go for a run, spar?

Almost everyone in Milliways uses sparring as a normal bonding activity, it seems.

Almost as much as they use talking.

"I'm fine."

"Okay."

Steph isn't exactly going to push. It's not as if she'd be exactly the perfect counsellor, as fucked up as she is these days.

"I'll be around, if you want - I dunno, anything. I think I'm still on Security. Mel seems to think so. Not that I can really handle a security shift right now or anything, I'm still kind of screwed up, but, you know. I'll be around. If."

Security. Practically everyone she meets is on Security and it irritates her more than it should, really. And this girl, this girl who was dead and isn't with her weird looking hair, her sub-par clothes, all those scars, cheerfully trying to insert herself into Rachel's life, wanting to talk, if she talked less they wouldn't even be out here on the lawn struggling - Rachel would not be out here struggling, she's not dead.

"Why are you screwed up?"

The question comes out harsh, almost snapped, and has more to do with accusation than with genuine interest.

Steph shrugs, awkward. She doesn't like to talk about it. But then she did kind of start the conversation, and the least she can do is answer Rachel's questions, really.

"Torture," she says, quietly. "Only got rid of the wheelchair a month or so ago. They didn't - they really saved me at the last possible minute, I think."

If. If.

In the movie inside her head, written ever since Steph said those words, Rachel imagines it. The fight. Tom. Saying goodbye. Feeling the bear behind her more than actually seeing it. The swing of his paw, the air she felt on the back of her neck before the blow even connected.

What if someone waited that long? Someone who knew she could be saved, someone who watched and waited until after she'd done her job before bothering to rescue her? The blow that killed her, maybe 'saving her' only put her in a wheelchair with permanent damage of her spine, and then what?

What kind of life is that?

But.

"You're better now." Her voice is low and carefully controlled.

"I'm healing." Steph holds out her arms as if to demonstrate. "Eventually, I'm going to be fine. Yeah."

Rachel swallows, still glaring narrow-eyed at Steph.

"And then you'll go kick the butt of everyone who waited so long to save you?"

It's like an olive branch of understanding. And violence.

Steph laughs, a tiny giggle. "Oh, yeah. 'Guys, I'm Steph and I'm here to punish you for saving me!'"

An eyebrow lifts and Rachel's scowl doesn't lighten an inch. "How long were you dead?"

"Six years, I think," Steph says, with a small smile. It's not all that funny.

"About that. Long enough that I've just walked back into a whole life here that I hadn't even remembered."

"Six years where the people who saved you could have figured something else out. Gotten more information from you. Saved you a little damn sooner."

It was a serious suggestion, putting up a fight for those who showed up, though almost too late. Having serious suggestions shot down has never been something Rachel takes well.

"Yeah, I'd be a little concerned about punishment if it were me."

Steph's smile grows a little - not in amusement but in friendship, appreciating Rachel's suggestions. They're good words, just not relevant to Steph.

"It wasn't like that. It was - I kind of - it was my fault. I started a war. It wasn't ... good."

Rachel falls silent.

Her first impulse is to scoff and deny it, this cheerful teenage girl with rainbow hair and ugly clothes, covered in scars and fresh to her old life, the bar, everything.

Her second impulse is to remind herself she doesn't know this girl, or what she means by 'war' or what exactly 'wasn't good' means.

But her eyes narrow anyway, calculating and cold with anger still.

"Whoever thought you deserved torture in return for it was wrong, if that's what you're trying to say. No one deserves that."

Steph shakes her head. "They don't think that. I think."

She's pretty sure, anyway, stuffing her hands in the pockets of her hoodie. It is an ugly but very comfortable hoodie. Her jeans and the long-sleeved purple top she's wearing under them fit really nicely, though. (Goldilocks again.)

"But it was - I mean, it was a war. And he took me somewhere - I didn't know where. I couldn't help them. And Gotham was - burning." Her voice trembles the tiniest bit. "They did their best. They did enough. They saved me."

It was a war.

We have to win.

Taylor.

"No."

The word comes out hard, cold, and Rachel steps forward without another thought, putting herself directly inside Stephanie's space, blue eyes focused but not on the girl in front of her.

"No, okay? Somebody hurt you. And okay, it happened, and here are the reasons why but it's not okay, it's not an excuse. If they did their best and they didn't save you from everything, then their best is crap.

"You don't do enough for people, you do everything you possibly can and if it's still not good enough, you do everything you can to make it up to them."

Steph doesn't move away. She doesn't put her hands on Rachel's shoulders, either - something tells her that wouldn't work right now.

"I'm not one of them any more," she says quietly. "They don't owe me anything. I got a lot of people killed."

Her first response is silenced with Steph's last statement.

But Rachel's eyes narrow and her voice stays cold. "You're human, right? And they're heroes? Supposed to save the world and stop wars?

"You're part of the world.

"The end."

"I was a hero, too," Steph says, her voice even softer, shakier. Rachel is confronting. And Steph has been avoiding even thinking about this for so long. She can't keep her face calm; she drops her head, looking at her sneakers on the grassy path.

"Supposed to save the world and stop wars."

That break of eye contact brings her back.

There are people and images and situations that deserved all those words, and none of them include Steph. The blue eyes staring into hers were little more than a soundboard.

A soundboard that listened and heard and felt.

Rachel steps back and looks away, her throat tight and raw.

"Sorry."

"It's okay," Steph says quickly, lifting her gaze.

She is shorter than Rachel, compact and muscled, her face freckled and tanned from the sun of another continent. It is a sweet face but there's strength in it, too, determination and courage, only highlighted by the deliberate patterns of scars. In spite of the silly hair.

"I'm just having a rough time right now. I'll get over it."

She will. It's what she does.

"We'll get over it."

Edited 2011-07-03 10:46 (UTC)

Rachel doesn't look at her, nodding absently, not paying much attention to the face or the voice or anything else about her. Embarrassed by the emotion she showed, the disconnect from reality that had her shouting at a stranger.

But she does look at the girl for clarification, frowning at the words. "We?"

"Well, our separate - things." Steph rubs a hand through her hair, a little awkardly. "You will. I'm not gonna tell you it gets easier, though, because it never did."

Sixten years old. Sixteen years old forever, watching her friends age and grow, hearing about her world falling apart, putting itself back together, moving on without her. Never needing to cut her fingernails or trim her hair. Seeing babies born and grow up, their parents develop grey hairs and frowns, knowing she'd never have that. Listening to that soft, whispering call from behind the Door, from Beyond.

"Short of a miracle, it pretty much keeps sucking. But you get better at dealing with it."

She may as well have said all those things out loud.

It does not get easier, it never will. It keeps sucking but you get better at dealing with it.

Such familiar words for such completely different situations.

I was dead.
Was dead.

Tobias upstairs, living breathing with a door he can see. Yrael, immortal but alive with a door. X and James and Jo and Ako, Milliways is so great and fantastic and they all. Have. Doors.

It keeps sucking. It never gets easier. This is her afterlife, not a party, not a reststop, and the worlds will turn and the clocks will tick but only outside the door she can't see.

And this girl, this stupid girl with her small, warm, alive hands running through her hair was dead, isn't now, and says we like anything she is can be related to anything in Rachel.

"Get away from me."

Steph looks hurt. Then she looks angry. But - damn it, punching isn't going to solve anything. Or help either of them. Besides, her best punching arm is still recovering from that bullet through her shoulder.

"Okay," she says, meaning to be friendly but with a bite to her tone in spite of her best intentions. Trying to be nice doesn't mean she has to be a complete pushover, after all.

She turns and heads back up the hill.

The bite of a rainbow-headed girl with good intentions and a pulse isn't going to phase Rachel at this point.

She watches her go and doesn't move until Steph is gone from her sight. Makes sure she's gone and won't come back, not now.

Without looking away from the door, she takes stock of the time and weather - Tobias might be inside right now. He's certainly not right above her head. And there's no one inside the bar she wants to see right now.

Jogging, sparring, training, nothing is going to cut it now but the old fallbacks.

It's getting dark. No one's going to notice an extra dolphin in the lake.

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