Roy sits in his dingy little apartment with nothing but a lukewarm beer in his hand and a tea-light candle on top of an empty, week-old pizza box on a makeshift coffee table. The dark isn't improving his mood any, but the light hurts...hurts so much worse than it really should. He has a sneaking suspicion that it's the beer's fault, but drinking anything else just seems wrong at this point. It's Christmas, and this year he doesn't have his little girl with him. He doesn't get to watch her make a mess with the cookie dough, and help him scrape off the burned edges once the cookies are cool enough to touch. He doesn't get to help her write her letter to Santa, and then rush around at the last minute trying to make all of those truly simplistic dreams come true. He doesn't get to read her any tales of silent nights, angels, and boys born in stables. All Roy has is an ache he can't get to go away...no matter what he tries, and a dark hole that can never be filled-so he doesn't even bother to try.
This year Roy doesn't get to watch with ever growing smiles as Lian tears through brightly colored paper to find the doll that she had asked him for multiple times starting six months in advance. He can't watch as the most important person in his life grins brightly at the simple things and unknowingly reminds him to do the same thing. He can't grumble about being woken up at the crack of dawn after only two hours of sleep thanks to a high-pitched singing voice that would put the chipmunks to shame-because this year he'd give anything for that...anything to have his little girl back.
Roy doesn't get to complain about having glitter in his eyes after wiping them with his hands after helping Lian make presents for all of her aunts and uncles. He doesn't get to spend an hour trying to wash all of that glitter out of a little girl's hair, and then spend weeks afterward finding it in food, drinks, and everything else, because no matter how much newspaper he lays down in the kitchen, glitter is persistent and evil. He doesn't have to vow that this year there will be no glitter, and then inevitably give into the dreaded pout, because Roy's never going to get to see that pout ever again, and that thought alone is enough to reduce him to tears.
Roy isn't sure that he has any more tears left to shed, though. He thinks he used them all up when he stupidly decided to look through the scrapbooks that Dinah insisted he keep. There was one for every Christmas, and inside, there were pictures of moderately charred cookies, which progressively got better looking as time went on. Roy wonders if this year would have been the year of no burns. There was also every single letter to Santa Lian had ever written. It hurts seeing how much her handwriting had changed over the years. He wonders if she would have written it in cursive this year, like she had declared she would last year. Roy could barely see through all of the tears by the time he made it to the pictures of gifts, and friends, and smiles so bright that no tears could truly obscure them completely. Roy had tossed the painful memories-ones that had once made him so very happy-across the room shortly there after.
He still isn't sure why he hasn't burned every single last one of the scrapbooks yet. The only thing that Roy can think of is that part of him won't want to cut out his heart every time he even so much as glances at them...eventually. He doesn't actually believe that, of course, but it's the working theory. Intellectually, Roy knows that he can't just remove everything that reminds him of Lian, because it won't make the pain go away. It doesn't really matter that he only really knows that because he's tried, and it only made things worse.
Roy knows that he's technically supposed to talk to someone about this. Maybe even one of his many so called friends, but what would they know? Yes, every hero has lost, and sure, maybe Batman knows a thing or two about losing a child, but how many of them really understand this? Besides, Batman got all of his kids back in one form or another, the lucky bastard. Sure, Jason's an ass, but he's an alive ass. Roy doesn't have any delusions that he'll ever get his baby girl back, because that's just not how these things work. She wasn't a hero-at least not in the community's terms she wasn't-but that doesn't change the fact that she was his hero, and that she saved him from himself enough times that it really is quite pathetic. He knows that he's not supposed to be so lost without her. It doesn't matter that she was literally his reason for waking up in the morning.
How many of the other heroes know what it's like to pull themselves out of a deep, dark pit built with stupid decisions made while drowning in pain? How many of them understand keeping that dark, horrible, sinking feeling away with the only truly 100% good thing in their life? How many of the others have had to bury their own child...a child who was the only right thing they've ever done? The only thing that they didn't destroy with a simple touch. None of them could ever really understand this, and none of them deserved to, but that doesn't make any of this any better...doesn't make it any easier...doesn't leave him wishing that this Christmas he was still in a coma dreaming of all of these horrible things and when he woke up Lian would be there scolding him for being bad and getting hurt any less than he already does.
The tears start once again, and there's nothing that Roy can do about it. He knows it just like how he knows he'll never really be okay again. He can say it now, at least. He can tell his friends that he's holding up just fine. It doesn't change anything. It's not as though they can't see it-see how he's falling apart, see how he's not holding anything together, see how much of a mess he really is. Roy wants nothing more than for all of it to just stop. The concern his friends show him-the worried expressions they flash before pretending he's doing just fine, the whispers behind his back about getting him therapy, all of it just makes him angry. He knows that no amount of therapy is ever going to make this okay.
Nothing can make any of this any better, because the only thing that could possibly make this better is the one thing that he can't have. People don't come back from the dead...except for when they do, but Roy is pretty sure that they've all had enough experience with that to know that the ones who do come back never come back the same, and that's worse, right? It would be a horror unlike any other to finally get his daughter back, only to find that she's someone...or something else entirely. Surely, that would be far worse than the pit in his stomach, the never ending ache, the tears he can't stop, and the overwhelming and crippling sadness. It's not just depression anymore...no, it's so much more than that.
And this time of year isn't helping one bit. This supposedly joyous holiday is only helping him to remember what he's lost and what he can never get back. No amount of useless trinkets is going to make up for what he's lacking this Christmas, and everyone knows it. It's why his friends have allowed him to push them all away, to wallow in this abyss of despair. They can't make it any less oppressive, and being the reminder of how it all really should be just isn't appealing to Roy. There's no out; no release from the agony of knowing that this is just the first of many holidays to come when he'll be wishing that it had been him that day-wishing that this was all just some fever induced dream, wishing that he lived in a world where children didn't die, and the wost villain anyone ever had to face was the imaginary monsters under the bed, but that's not how the world works-at least not this one.
Roy knows that this isn't helping. He knows that the longer he stays here, huddled in his gloomy little apartment, the worse he'll feel, but there's nothing that he can do about that. He can't wander outside into the night and look at all of the bright and shining decorations without feeling like he's being crushed under the weight of it all. He remembers taking the long way home just so that he could take Lian down one of the side streets where all of the houses were decorated almost to the point of insanity. He knows that if he, for some reason, can't avoid those same houses now he won't be able to stop the ensuing breakdown. It's not something that he's sure he's ever really been capable of stopping anyway.
It's there everywhere that he turns. The simple reminders, and everything else that he just can't push out of his head. And Roy isn't so sure that it's worth trying anymore. He doesn't have a lot going for him...not since the day that Lian died anyway, and he's just not sure he knows how to continue trying now. Every sight, sound, and smell that reminds him of his daughter's laughter makes him want to burrow away and hide from the world. Every time he's reminded of her smile, a part of him dies inside, and every single moment he's forced to relive all of the times that she ever said the words, 'I love you, daddy,' just drives him out of his mind a little further. Roy can't stop replaying all of the memories, and he's pretty sure that that's just one more failure on his part. He failed to protect his daughter, and now he's failing to protect himself, but really that's just status quo for him, or so he tells himself.
This won't stop. It can't stop. He knows that. It's a simple truth really, and denying a truth doesn't make it anymore false. Roy understands that better than most people. It doesn't mean that he doesn't try to hide from it, though. It just means that he knows that he's going to fail, and there's nothing anyone can do about that. He's feeling more trapped and more helpless than he ever has before. It doesn't matter that it's mostly in his own head, because no one can rescue him from the loops that play over and over again...tormenting him day in and day out. There's no escape from this-no chance that his best friend is going to come crashing in with a brilliant smile that blinds and ridiculous puns that make him groan, because there's nothing to save him from. There's no reason for anyone to bother.
There's no coming back from this. All of his past mistakes pale in comparison to failing his daughter...to not being there when she needed her father the most. Everything that he's ever said...everything that he's ever done-right and wrong-it's all irrelevant. None of it means anything to him anymore. What's the use of being who he is, doing what he does, if he can't protect the one and only thing that ever truly mattered to him? It's why he can't go out to parties and pretend that everything is okay, because nothing is. He can't just sit there drinking eggnog-no matter how spiked it is-pretending that there isn't a massive hole where once a little girl with pigtails sat playing tea-parties, and inadvertently making everything better.
Christmas wishes are meaningless. He understands this now more than ever, because no amount of wishing is ever going to make a single day of his life any better now that he's left alone in a place reminiscent of hell. It doesn't matter that it could be worse. After all, he could have to deal with the death of his daughter and a loss of a limb...oh, wait, he's already doing that, so no, he's not really sure how it could be worse, and he doesn't really care if it can, because this is his hell and he'll fail to deal whatever way he sees fit. Wishing his life was back to the way it was won't make it so...wishing that he could just turn back the clock...that he could just wake up and see his baby girl again won't do anything except make him hurt more. He knows this...understands it completely. However, he can't stop himself from doing it. Can't stop from himself from going into the bathroom and expecting to see a little pink toothbrush, or a little plastic cup with one of the Disney princesses on the side. Roy wants so much to see it...wants so much for everything to just be back to normal for five seconds that sometimes he seriously considers just going out and buying one to put there, because at least then he wouldn't have to face reality and breakdown all over again just because he wanted to brush his teeth.
And maybe if it wasn't Christmas and he didn't have to go out there and face all of the bell ringers who he always gave Lian money to to give to them because it made her feel like she was doing something good and always made her smile...maybe, just maybe, he'd bother to leave the damn apartment, and convince himself that getting a Disney princess toothbrush really isn't the best way to deal. Instead Roy just sits in front of his flickering little tea-light candle, draining his disgustingly warm beer, as he watches the light slowly go out. He doesn't expect his mood to change any with the coming darkness. It's not like Christmas...or really any other so called joyous holiday holds any meaning for him anymore. It's why he didn't bother with decorations, a tree-or hell-presents for the people that he still has left, because none of it would affect anything. He'd still be here, alone in the dark, clawing at himself, and wanting nothing more than the one Christmas present that he can't ever have again. He's always known that some Christmas presents don't come wrapped in brightly colored paper-he just wasn't aware that Lian would be the one that he'd constantly want and never be able to get. His misses his daughter and nothing is ever going to change that.
The End