Roy entered his apartment and quietly shut the door, the security system automatically locking it behind him. It was dark, but after a night out on patrol his eyes had grown accustomed to it. He leaned down and unlaced his boots, kicking them off into the closet. His bow was placed on the rack in the back of the closet to be cleaned later. He normally cleaned it as soon as he got home, but he was too exhausted tonight to bother with it. He went down the hall to the kitchen and leaned a hip against the counter as he filled a glass with water from the tap. Tonight had been a bitch; he'd been down at the dockyards cleaning up after a couple of small-time pot smugglers, but they fought dirty and one of them had brought a gun. That had been easy enough to deal with, but one of them managed to get the drop on him and landed a hard left hook to his right eye. There would be a nice bruise there in the morning, but he didn't really care.
A small 'thud' broke the silence and Roy turned his head toward the sound. A few seconds elapsed before he heard what usually came next: the quiet meow coming from the window in his bedroom. He put the glass on the counter and grabbed a bag of peas from the freezer and the small bag of kibble from the pantry before making his way to his bedroom. The small black cat was nestled in a box he'd put out on the fire escape, and from the railing she could just manage to jump to his window sill. She'd shown up about a month ago, looking thin and weak, but still having some fight left in her. He wasn't particularly fond of cats, but after seeing her fight her way out of a brawl with several toms a few days ago, he respected her tenacity. When he stood in the doorway too long, she meowed again and butt her head against the screen. Roy sighed and shook his head, shutting the door behind him and setting the bag of kibble down on the floor.
"Yeah, yeah. I heard you. Just a second." He popped the latch on the screen and pulled it from the frame, propping it up against the wall. She politely waited until he was out of the way before cautiously jumping off the sill and into his room. Roy moved slowly, reaching for the bowl and filling it before sliding it quietly across the hardwood floor. She didn't move and didn't blink, watching as he crawled onto his bed and sat with his back against the wall, gingerly holding the bag of frozen peas to his face.
"Well? Aren't you going to eat?" Even at a whisper, his voice seemed incredibly loud. She tilted her head and meowed once before creeping up to the bowl. Her tail swished behind her and her eyes never left Roy as she started eating, but eventually she relaxed enough to ignore him while she continued. For a few minutes all Roy could hear was the crunch of the kibble and her purring.
As the peas numbed the throbbing near his eye, he thought about the last few weeks and suddenly felt downright weary. He'd thrown himself at every fight, every robbery and carjacking, chased every lead on Sportsmaster and tried hunting down Vandal Savage. But no matter what he did, it was never enough. He still felt like an outsider, like an irrelevant piece of trash. Red Arrow had made a lot of headlines lately for being such an outstanding new member of the Justice League, but those who knew him knew it was his way of trying to make up for being the one who infiltrated the Justice League, allowing Savage to make a complete and utter mess of things.
His phone stopped ringing and he stopped getting text messages around the end of January. Kaldur still dropped by once in a while, but the conversations were short and incredibly awkward. Kal kept him in the loop as far as how the team was doing and Roy shared with him the experiences he'd had while doing League business. He knew Kal was trying to make him feel like he was still a trusted member of the team, but he could sense the hesitation when Roy asked for information Kal hadn't offered him. And while Roy completely understood and identified with Kal keeping him at arm's length, he'd be lying to himself if he said it didn't hurt like hell. He.. no, Roy had known Dick and Wally for years and he hadn't seen them for months. Whenever he ran across Artemis in Star City, she would offer a sympathetic smile but that was it. And Ollie.. well, if it weren't for the fact they were both League members, he would never see the man. He did everything he could to avoid working with Roy, and Roy had no idea if it was because he didn't trust him, or if it was because he simply had no idea how to act around him.
The cat finished eating and cautiously began nosing around the things in his room. She sniffed at his basket of clean laundry next to the closet. She batted at the cord hanging from the blinds at the window before pouncing on the glove he had dropped after shutting the door earlier. He watched her as she explored, fighting the depression he knew would soon beat him into submission. As much as he told himself he was better off on his own, he knew better than to believe it. Clone or not, he missed his friends. He missed his family. He missed himself, or who he thought he was.
His eye socket and cheekbone comfortably numb, he tossed the bag of peas to the floor, startling the cat. She turned and meowed at him before turning back to the pair of socks she'd been batting around. Roy drew his knees up to his chest and circled his arms around them, leaning his forehead on his arms. The last time he'd run into Sportsmaster, he'd been beaten pretty severely, but it wasn't the blows to the face or having a baseball bat cracked across his back that had hurt the most.
"You really are broken, aren't you Arrow? Now that everyone knows you're nothing but a clone, you're useless and unnecessary. They all want to find the real Roy Harper."
Roy had looked up at Sportsmaster then, not trying to hide the broken expression he knew was clearly written on his face. He'd only laughed at Roy before landing one last kick to the ribs and disappearing. Roy had cast a glance at Cheshire in time to see her cover her mouth with her hand, horrified at the lack of fight he'd put forth. She was genuinely surprised at his apathy and turned to follow Sportsmaster when he barked an order at her. Weeks later the physical wounds had healed, but the emotional ones never would. They would fester and grow infected, likely killing him before he had the chance to find Roy and give the people who cared about him some peace of mind. He closed his eyes tightly and breathed deeply, pushing back the sorrow. He failed to notice the cat jump onto the bed, carefully creeping toward him. She rubbed her cheek against his forearm and meowed quietly. Roy turned his head sideways and looked at her.
"What do you want?"
She ignored him, arching her back and rubbing against his leg again before lying down next to him.
"I'm not sure why I expect you to answer." He looked down at her and she looked up at him curiously. "And why am I talking to a cat?"
He softly ran a hand down her back and scratched her ears, snorting softly when she leaned into his hand and nearly tipped over. They stayed that way for a few minutes- Roy sitting against the wall and the cat curled against his leg. He felt himself start to nod off and moved to get up and change, startling her. She leapt off the bed and scurried to the window sill when Roy went to the bathroom to change and get ready for bed. Just to be on the safe side, he closed the door behind him to keep her out of the rest of his apartment.
The cool water felt good against his tired face and he stared at his reflection for a moment, running a hand along his jaw. During times like these, he really struggled with the fact he wasn't Roy. How could he not be? Ollie never had a clue, neither did Dinah. No one did, for that matter, so how well did they all know the real Roy if they had no idea he'd been missing for over three years? Was he that perfect of a copy if no one knew the difference?
He turned to head back to his bedroom when the knot of guilt and despair rolled in his abdomen again, causing him to bolt back to the bathroom to be sick. As he rested his head against his forearm, he knew that either way, he was screwed. Find the real Roy Harper and he'd be in the way. Fail to find him, and everyone assumes he wanted to take Roy's place and didn't try to find him. He couldn't handle this. The one time he really needed someone, they'd all disappeared. Roy flushed the toilet, rinsed his mouth and stumbled to his bedroom, the sleep deprivation finally catching up with him. At first he was disappointed when he didn't find the cat, who he'd decided to name Luna since she'd shown up during a full moon, until he glanced at his laundry basket where she'd decided to curl up and go to sleep. At that point he didn't care that his clean laundry would be full of black cat hair come morning.
He crawled into bed and tugged the blankets up over his head. He didn't fail to notice the fact he momentarily wished he wouldn't wake up. He also noticed when Luna jumped up on the bed and curled up on the other pillow, her face inches from his. Their eyes locked and Roy's vision went blurry as he gave in to the despair and exhaustion, falling asleep in minutes. Luna raised her head and glanced at the door when it opened, flattening her ears at the stranger who peeked his head in. She didn't recognize the stranger, but she didn't think him to be a threat, either, so she put her head back down and closed her eyes.
Ollie, meanwhile, backed out into the hallway and closed the door, retreating to the living room sofa. He would ask Roy about the cat in the morning, since Roy had always hated cats. Then again, the apartment he was in didn't belong to Roy, and the boy that he'd seen nearly cry himself to sleep wasn't Roy, either. But it certainly felt and looked like Roy, and that was good enough for him.
He only hoped he could make Roy see that, too.