Disclaimer: Standard
Thanks to my wonderful beta: eeyop1428
The first time Garfield Logan notices her, she stands hidden by the shadows in the corner of the room.
He stands behind his father, who clutches his mother's hand between his own two hands as she draws in ragged breaths that grow shallower with each inhale. His older brother sits on the other side of their mother's bed with the battle to contain his tears evident on his face.
His mother lets out a particularly violent cough, leading to blood splattering on the snow-white bed sheets. He is only seven and still cannot fully grasp what is going on despite being intelligent enough to skip a grade, and so death is still a fuzzy concept in his child mind. Unable to watch his family fall apart, he turns away to the safety of the blank walls behind him.
He almost misses her at first. It is as though she is one with the shadows and composed of the darkness itself; which should be impossible as she looks as human as he does. She is young (although older than he) with shortly cut dark violet hair and an unnaturally grey complexion.
In some part of his mind he registers that this is strange; he does not know her and she should not be here. She is not family and so should not be allowed in this stark-white hospital room.
Yet that does not matter to him because for some reason he feels as though she belongs. To him, she fits in this atmosphere of loss and grieving.
Besides, all he can focus on in that moment is not watching his mother wither away. He is numb from the shock of everything happening far too quickly (just seven months ago there were no hospitals with their strange, harsh smell, no envelopes that continued to pile on the table and no such thing called c-a-n-c-e-r that eats his mother alive). It is easier, too, to prolong the pain that is sure to come at bay.
Their eyes meet between one blink and another. Her wizened piercing amethyst eyes stare at him, dissecting the layers of his young soul. Then he blinks, she is gone, and the world comes crashing back down.
Behind him the monitor keens its death tune; his father sobs.
The day his mother dies is the day Garfield Logan first sees her.
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The second time he sees her is ten years later.
It is his brother's birthday, but instead of celebrating with Mark he is wasting his night at the bottom of a red party cup. This is what he has sacrificed to be a "popular" at school: intelligence and morals. This is his crazy life, full of parties that last beyond dawn and crude, offensive jokes. He finds it is worth it, anything to escape his empty, hollow house. His father is a ghost that haunts the corridors of their broken home. His brother has escaped to a life of college and freedom.
One more year. That's the only thought that keeps him going some days when the smiles are too hard to fake. One more year and then he'll be gone, too.
Somewhere along the way he has forgotten her, the girl in the shadows with her chilling eyes. She has faded from memory, a fuzzy maybe-thought locked behind a door with his mother's death – a path he has no wish to travel down.
The party is loud, loaded with suppressed hormones and sexual tension, and supplied with booze in the house of Garth-something. To Gar, Garth is relatively a nice guy. He's intelligent, captain of the swim team and into saving the oceans. He's popular thanks to his heart-throb looks but part of the "popular" social circle like Gar.
For once he is not entertaining anybody, and Gar treasures this rare moment of relief. He slinks back into a corner of the room and finds a hidden bean bag that is unoccupied. Collapsing on it, he sets his red cup on the floor beside him and simply observes.
He sees Richard Grayson, his "friend" and leader of the "populars", being pulled two ways by the arms in a vicious tug-of-war between two girls wanting him for themselves, shrieking at each other (with the unfortunate Richard receiving an earful on both sides). One of them is Kori Anderson, the most popular of the "populars" and Richard's on-and-off girlfriend. The other is Kitten, Richard's number one fan-girl stalker and who is definitely not a "popular".
He sees Roy Harper, a "popular" playboy making out with a clearly wasted girl on a couch across the room.
Victor Stone, his old friend from middle school (before Gar left behind real people for the shallow, cutthroat teens now) talking to a girl he didn't really know, except that her name is Karen and is captain of the volleyball team at Jump High.
Jenny Hex, drenched and dripping with what must be beer, is screaming at none other than a drunken and sheepish-looking Wally West. Both are popular but not a "popular" and it is the worst kept secret in the school that both like each other but are too chicken to do anything about it.
Gar's eyes linger on the next person he sees. Tara Markov: beautiful, athletic, sunny, and fun all the time. He likes Tara, as in really likes her. There's something about the two of them being together that clicks for him, especially because they both are concerned for the economy, enjoy sports, and share the same corny humor.
Tara's talking to Garth now, smiling and laughing, flirting with him. Gar's gut twists but for the longest time he can't force his eyes away.
Finally he does, but it doesn't make the painful feeling go away. With a sudden desire to leave, he stands abruptly and almost knocks Toni Monetti over. He apologizes and cracks a joke about how much of a klutz he is, as she expects from his reputation. The goth girl shrugs and moves on to where Isaiah Crockett is hanging out. Noticing Gar's attention off her from the corner of her eye, Tara huffs at the sudden lack of attention.
Sighing, Gar runs a hand through his messy hair. He closes his eyes, suddenly tired and ready for the night to be over. When he opens them, resolute to leave, something stops him.
He spots the purple. Not the purple that most girls preferred, delicate and feminine. However neither is it loud and demanding and obnoxious. It is a subtle purple, so dark it is nearly black. It is her purple.
There she is, across the massive living room, indifferent to the crowd of party-goers around her. She is draped in the shadows near the swinging doors that leads into the kitchen. No one else seems to notice her presence despite the overwhelming number of people. She is older now with a more defined face (all angular lines and gaunt indents, darkened by shadows) and a nicely shaped body. Her hair has grown to a waterfall of purple silk that cascades down her back. She is beautiful, in a haunting, ethereal way.
There is something different about her that sets her apart from these other people. It is in the way she holds herself; how she walks, moves, exists. She doesn't quite belong. Gar can't quite place his finger on it, and his mouth twists into a frown.
She turns her head to meet his stare head on and a chill colder than anything imaginable rushes through his body that sends his every nerve tingling. This is the second time he has glanced straight into her piercing, apathetic amethyst eyes and this time the reaction is even more powerful than the first. Inside him rises the sudden impulse to get her to stay.
He opens his mouth to say something, anything, but nothing comes out. The desperation must have reflected in his eyes because she turns away from him then, breaking the contact. Startled, he blinks, but when he looks she has disappeared.
In his pocket his phone rings. Garfield reaches for it, still not fully functioning. She seems to have this effect on him that not even Tara has.
The caller is his brother. Gar lifts the phone to his ear and shoves his way outside because it's far too loud to hear anything inside.
"What's up, Mark?" He grins; his brother won't believe what he got him for his birthday. It's so awesome it will hopefully make up for the fact that he celebrating with him like the past ten years.
"Hello? Is this Mark Logan's younger brother?"
"Yeah, this is him. How did you get his phone? Who are you?"
"He had you listed under Emergency Contacts. I work for the Gotham City Hospital. I'm sorry to say that he was involved in an incident –"
From limp fingers the phone falls to the wooden floor, the man's muffled apologetic voice still speaking empty words.
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The third time she appears is the first time he speaks to her.
"I know you are there," he says, his voice hoarse. The weariness from too many nights awake worrying about himself, his father, money, and the world reflects in his tone. He's already old at the age of twenty-four as life has dealt him a hand harder than most.
In silence she comes closer, so that she is flanking him while still maintaining a distance. She has aged as he has, although she still retains that strange, non-mortal aura. Together, they watch the pale figure swathed in white lying still before them. It is a scene reminiscent of the one seventeen years ago, except this time the patient doesn't bother fighting and Gar is the only one shouldering the burden.
"He doesn't have much time left, does he." It's more of a statement than a question with a resignation of the inevitable. He carries himself ramrod straight, but there is no denying the sadness that seeps from him.
"No," she says quietly after a long period of silence. Her voice is melodic with a unique raspy quality that only adds to the otherworldly effect. She gazes at the young man before her with an indescribable look in her eyes. Her face gives not a hint of emotion or thought.
"You have done this many times." Another question-statement from him
"Yes."
She steps forward so they are standing side by side. He is not surprised to feel no heat radaite from her.
"And so will you," she adds, closing her eyes in a way that from another would have looked like regret. Instead it appears as though she is simply taking a breath.
But she does not breathe, he notes. She does not seem to require oxygen in the way he does; the way the living does.
"Before I die," he utters monotonously, finishing her sentence and saying the unsaid.
She is gone by then.
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The fourth time they meet, he is hurting – a pounding dull ache in his head and a sharp, splitting pain in his heart.
It is after a fight with Tara, another in their rapidly collapsing six-year relationship. After high school, he and the blonde had gone their separate ways to different colleges and upon meeting up again in a five-year reunion, their chemistry had rekindled a spark of romance. The long distance communication is tough, though. She travels the world on geological expeditions while he works with an elite biology team in Hawaii.
He should have seen it coming.
It hadn't been the first time she had done it. He had forgiven her like a fool.
Fool me once, shame on you.
Fool me twice, shame on me.
He had flown out to New York, where she stayed when she wasn't traveling, for a surprise visit.
Opening the door to her apartment with his spare key, he sees that the kitchen is empty, as well as the living room. Closing the door quietly behind him, Gar wanders further in. She isn't in her study nor the bathroom, meaning that only the bedroom is left. It has to be the bedroom because Tara's keys are on her table counter.
There is a nagging feeling in the back of Gar's head that had started as soon as he had landed from his long flight. It only increased upon seeing the keys. Why would she be home in bed when it is only 6 p.m.?
Garfield pushes the thought away. It could possibly be that she is exhausted and wanted an early night or was merely taking a nap. He creeps towards the door and grasps the handle. After a quick breath, he throws open the door.
A spiked flower of pain blooms in his chest. Instead of the sight of his beautiful girlfriend sleeping peacefully, he is met with the gut-twisting image of her in bed with another man. He dimly registers the scream and cries of shock as they scramble to cover their bare, sweaty bodies. He thinks that out of his mouth a strangled 'why' escapes while at the back of his eyes there is a hot prickling of tears.
But all he can think of is 'At least I didn't buy her flowers', as Tara pushes the guy off her to the far end of the king-sized bed and deftly wraps her robe around herself.
The man (who clumsily grabs his blue jeans and slips them on, still holding on to the top of it to keep it from falling) looks from Tara to Garfield, confusion and surprise in his eyes. First he glances at Tara's red, flushed face, and then at Garfield's stony expression. Realization hits.
"I'm sorry, man, I didn't know she was your girl," he babbles nervously. Something about this other guy (he supposes her boyfriend) has him sweating. Perhaps it is the 6' foot height, or the muscular build, or the pure anger radiating off him.
"Just leave," Garfield says tightly, his voice barely controlled. The other guy has no problem complying and dashes out with half his clothes on, his white shirt trailing from his hands. This is the last time he doesn't check for boyfriends before the sex.
"So this is what you've been doing the entire time: screwing around with other guys." His usually calm and controlled voice is now laced with contempt and venom. He has always exuded the sweet nice-guy image, but not tonight. Tonight, he is trembling with rage, his face rigid and unreadable. Tonight, he wants to hurt her.
However, Tara, always desperate for control and never knowing when to call it quits, tries to turn it on him. She sniffles and perfectly fake tears fill up her baby blue eyes. "That's not true!" she wails. "It's that you're never there for me. I love you, but you never make it clear to me..."
"Cut the bullshit," Garfield hisses, cutting her off and making her recoil. "We're done."
Garfield whirls around, muscles tense and hard, and slams the bedroom door behind him. While he ignores her desperate pleads, he chucks his spare key onto her glass dining table. Besides that he doesn't pause as he storms out of the apartment, slamming the door with nearly enough force to pull it off its hinges.
It's night and it's cold. Even in his state of rage, Garfield realizes the danger of the weather as a gust of icy wind slams into him. It is only then he remembers he is wearing a T-shirt and shorts. Hawaii is much different from the East Coast, mainly because the former doesn't even have a winter. The sky is dark and the stars hidden, obscured by the street lamps and constant flashing of advertising lights. The world is nasty at that moment, ugly and dark.
He remembers there is a bar somewhere in the area, something he had absentmindedly noted as he had gazed out of the taxi's window on the way here. It was only about a block or two south.
After around ten minutes of walking (and ignoring the incredulous looks of passing New Yorkers), he finds the bar. It's small and doesn't advertise as actively as some of its neighbors, but inside it is warm and not as crowded as one would think.
He flings himself onto one of the empty stools at the bar and signals for a beer. Usually he doesn't drink, but then again he usually doesn't find his girlfriend cheating on him. There is a low hum of separate conversations mixed with the crooning of an eighties singer in the background, but that is about it.
All of sudden, she is there. In her long-legged, shadow-shrouded glory, she sits next to him, silent and non-judgmental. Neither of them speaks because that's just her habit and he doesn't think he can form coherent sentences.
She doesn't comment on how he calls for drink after drink, even when the grizzled bartender begins to look concerned. Maybe it's because of the alcohol, but he forgets the long year gap between visits. It seems as though he had talked to her just yesterday. He also forgets what happens when she visits.
He doesn't remember much after the fifth bottle.
He does remember, however, waking up next to the bloody, mangled corpse of Tara Markov.
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This is the fifth time that she materializes in front of him.
The gap is three years this time. He doesn't even bother wondering how she had sneaked into a high-security (as in laser trackers, heat sensors, and a nasty barbed electric fence) prison such as this. She comes and goes as she pleases and free of the normal boundaries.
"Am I going to die now?" he asks the pale woman towering above him. Usually it is he who looks down at petite form, but this time he is lying horizontal on a prison cot while she stands over him, gazing down at him with her mystical eyes.
The thin greasy mattress does nothing to prevent the hard steel frame of the cot from digging into his back. He stares up at the grey concrete ceiling of his prison cell that he has memorized.
"Not yet," she replies solemnly. The vagueness in her voice hints that he does not command her full attention. It shouldn't bother Garfield, but it does, like a persistent itch that he can't reach.
"Hn," he grunts. Once he was quite the talker; as a child and young adult he would babble for hours at end if allowed. Now, aged by time, he finds words insignificant. He then lets out a low chuckle tinged with madness. "They all say I killed her," he whispers, turning his eyes away from the blankness above him. He sits up abruptly, nearly colliding foreheads, and stares blankly ahead.
"Did I kill her?" he asks softly. It is not the softness of a gentle soothing voice. It is the peace before the storm, the warning softness that is tightly spoken with forced calm.
No reply.
Irritation pumps through him. Didn't he deserve an answer at least? She is the one free to leave. He is the one who is chained there for what remained of his worthless life.
He knows it's a reckless move (he still doesn't know who she really is or what she can do), but he leaps up and grabs one of the haunting woman's birdlike wrist. "DID I KILL HER?" he cries, his vice-like hold rough enough to bruise. Desperation practically emits from his pore, and the scene is pitiful enough to evoke emotion from the hardest of hearts.
The purple-haired creature stares at him as though waiting for something. Flinching under the intensity, he releases her wrist after a minute, and her thin arm falls back to her side.
"How can you see me?" she inquires, dodging around answering his question. Her tone is indifferent, as it always is, but curiosity underscores the question.
"How the fuck do I know?" he spits, furious. "All I do know is that every time you show up somebody always fucking dies. Why don't you go away and haunt some other damn person?"
"I don't understand," the woman mutters to herself. "You're not supposed to see me."
The man releases a bitter laugh, a shell of what it once was. "Trust me, I don't want to," he leans back down into a sprawled position, a large hand over his eyes, "what are you exactly," he asks harshly,"a ghost or something?"
"Or something," the woman echoes solemnly.
"My name is Garfield," he says a while later, when the silence has become awkward, "I'm called Gar."
There's a pause.
Time ticks by as the sun begins to rise, but it is forgotten by the two creatures in the cell who both hold far too many scars and too little hope.
"I'm Raven. I'm called Death."
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N u m b e r 6
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He sees her for one last time.
It's many, many years later (what seems an eternity but in actual time is a little over a decade), and he is ready. He is so tired it seems as though his bones will collapse under his weight. This is a weariness that cannot be cured from physical rest; it has seeped into his very self. Life has lost whatever color it might have once retained, any promise it may have once held.
Another sunrise is a new chance that others see, although it does hold "hope" for him. It's a potential that maybe, just maybe, the guards of his block will walk in their steel-toed boots down to his cell at the end of the row and stop. That they will unlock and slide open his steel bar door, and he will look into their eyes and know. He will know from their exceptionally solemn and sometimes pitying gaze that today is finally his day.
Then one day they come. The key jingles as it fits into the lock of his reinforced cage and a silence falls over the entire row of inmates. Some are probably sighing in relief because today is not their day. He doesn't mind. In fact, a faint relief washes over him. Emptiness has dulled all emotions, but it also has brought him some resigned form of peace. It has made him prepared.
They lock handcuffs on him but they are common accessories to his thin wrists. As he emerges into the harsh artificial light, he displays how much he has wasted away, in both soul and body. He has lost the muscle and in its place is a gauntness from lack of food. He's pale, morbidly so, having lost his healthy tan from too little time in the sun (only an hour a week outside). His eyes, once emerald and sparkling with life, are hardened jade obrs.
He starts his slow, unsteady walk down the steel hall, his bony legs trembling under his weight. Another inmate (his sort-of friend that calls himself Thunder and was once a member of the infamous Rain Brothers duo) shouts a final goodbye, his voice booming like his name. Garfield raises a thin hand in a final wave goodbye, never pausing in his paced amble.
He is dead figuratively, and he is going to be dead soon literally, but for the first time in many years, he feels something. He can feel it, Death is near; she is near.
He is led down a corridor to a small grim room where they seat him into the metal chair and strap him in with metal bonds before placing a wet sponge on his head before and strapping that down with a metal head cap. Sure enough then, as he stares through the two-way glass at the audience before him, he spots her. She sits in the very back of the rows, behind Tara's stoic father and sobbing mother. She is behind the grim faces that have come to revel in his death, contorted by hate and disgust.
As he watches the warden raise his hand, for the first time in years the barest of smiles crosses Gar's face.
Then the fingers fall and the lever is pulled; his body jerks as the electricity courses through his veins.
Yet still he smiles.
Finally, finally, Death has come for him.