Death Changes Everything

By: theunknownvoice

Disclaimer: All characters are property of DC Comics.

Mia sits alone at the funeral. Her former teammates—she can barely look at them. They need her to be with them but….she can't be there. She can't sit with them while Tim gives a eulogy and she mourns just like the best of them. It is the same with Conner and Ollie. She could sit with her family, let Conner hug her when she cries but then she would feel like she is diminishing the moment.

Lives are made of moments. There is birth. Then there is the pain of existence and then there is the finality of death. Mia doesn't want to contemplate that. She doesn't want to think about the moment when Bart Allen died.

Surrounded by his enemies and dying alone on the pavement. There was nothing anyone could do to prevent it.

At funerals, one only remembers the death. Bart wouldn't have liked that. He would've wanted people to think of his life. He had loved life. Even Mia had seen that from the first moment she met him.

He was amazing. That was the only word to describe him. He was the type of boy she wished she had known growing up.

She's not religious. She never has been. God, she thinks, turned His back on Mia Dearden long ago. But for some reason she knows Bart had faith in a higher power. So she prays. She prays for him and she remembers. She will ever forget.

She stares at the grave a year later. She is a year closer to dying though Ollie won't admit it and Conner will tell her that she's brave. She can feel her virus creep under her skin and it pulls at her. Her t-cells are still good and she can still have a normal life. A life as normal as anyone infected with HIV can have.

She wants to tell Bart that. She wants him to know that she's still living. But it seems pointless to talk to the grave when she knows he can't answer back. Pointless when she knows that his thoughts and voice are now only regarded to memory and video tapes. Precious moments that are fading from her, reminding her what an idiot she was not to prize her friend.

"I thought I'd be the only one here."

He hides in the shadows but all members of the bat clan are that way. They're not like the Flashes who wear the bright colors and call notice to themselves. The bats are secretive creatures, mostly emotionless but Mia is glad he's here.

Mia turns and looks at Tim. He had been her leader once and in the past two years she had seen him ripped apart by losses. His best friend—dead. His girlfriend—dead. His father—dead. His other best friend—dead.

She had thought her life story sucked and that fate liked to pick her for the looser. In reality she had suffered but Tim had most likely suffered more. At least she knew that the virus would most likely kill her—she wouldn't let it—but still she would probably see Bart on the other side sooner than Tim.

"People forget. Don't they?"

Tim nods. "Unless you're like Bruce. He mourned Jason for years. Sometimes I think he still does."

She doesn't mention his shrine to Connor and Bart. Nor does she mention his attempts to bring them back. She thinks perhaps she too is like Tim and Bruce unable to forget or move on. For one frozen moment she wishes that she could've told Bart what he meant to her. Told him that he was the type of friend she had been waiting for her whole life. The type of friend that her mother used to say came only once and should be treasured.

But she can't. Time doesn't rewind. The dead don't talk. Tombstones can't answer.

She feels Tim's warm hand and she takes it to remind herself that she still has a friend. Tim is still alive and so is she and Bart though dead isn't forgotten.

She isn't alone. At least she isn't alone right now.

They stand staring at the tombstone. They haven't spoken to each other in months but in this one moment it is as if they had never been apart. They come to remember and though it hurts and pulls through their souls like barbed wire through skin, they remember the laughing boy who became a serious hero.

"I still can't believe it," Tim said his voice is low barely a whisper over the wind. "I doubt twenty years from now I'll believe he's dead. It's just not possible. Not for someone that in love with life."

Mia doesn't like to cry. Tears were a weakness but she does cry then. She can still remember the broken shell of a body. The blood that covered the reddish-brown hair and the look of stillness of over Bart's face.

"That day I felt pain. Not the pain of the streets or the pain of being beaten but real pain like my lungs, liver, and heart had been torn out at the same time. I thought I would die," Mia whispers. "I still wonder why I didn't."

"It gets worse with every death added on. It becomes this unbelievable amount of pain and debt. Dick says we're supposed to keep living for those who can't. But it gets so heavy carrying all of that."

"Does it ever stop hurting?"

Tim smiles sadly. "I hope so."

Pain becomes something one can live with. It is something that is easy to feel and the horror of it and the terror of being stuck in its eternal embrace fades. For Mia life went on. There was the sense of missing pieces but there was the ability to keep going.

"He's back. Bart is back."

She knows then what she has to do. She picks up the phone and hits the familiar numbers. She's probably one of the few people in the world that knows how to get a hold of Tim Drake.

Bruce. She remembered his death and the look of utter anguish on Tim's face. Hadn't her friend suffered enough? He had already lost one father and now he had to loose another. She couldn't decide who fate hated more. Tim who she knew felt like a curse to everyone who had ever met him or herself.

"Hello Mia."

"Hi Tim."

She tries not to think of the fact that he's searching for Bruce. Tim has taken over Jason's identity of Red Robin and is in the Middle East. He won't tell her exactly what he's doing and she wants to strangle him for making her worry.

"What is it? Did something happen to Ollie? You never call outside the schedule."

Tim and his schedule and his plans. She wonders if he was ever anything other than a bat. Arrows are the impetuous ones. Flashes are the dependable ones. Bats are the ones in the shadows, the ones with the secrets.

"Bart's back. So Kon. They were sent back from the future and they were with Superman."

She can hear Tim drop the phone.

"Thanks for telling me." Click.

She smiles even though he has hung up. She needs Tim to feel better because if he can feel better than maybe they're not cursed. Maybe God or fate or whatever higher power there is cares about them too.

Mia feels his hands. They are so solid and similar that the hands that had hugged her when she admitted to the others the truth about her disease. She can still hear him.

"I'm always here and if you need anything I'll be there in a flash."

His voice wasn't as deep as it is now. It was still the voice of a kid breaking into a man but Mia had counted on him. She had trusted Bart Allen when she had felt alienated and isolated from the rest of the Titans. Bart had been her friend.

She hugs him like her life depends on it.

Bart has been hugged and pulled on and cheered over so much in the past few days. The state the titans are in, disturbs him to no end. The team which has once been strong is falling part. He wanted to ask her back to the team, to make her join them again but…He needs her to hold him. He needs this one moment where he knows she's there.

He can still see the cities of the 30th century in the back of his mind. He had been born in that world and while talking to his mother had been needed, this century was home. He didn't have another time or place where he belonged more. And he had missed her.

When he had come back older, he'd been a fool. A fool to think that racing off to be the Flash away from his friends was a bright idea. Here was Mia and she had left the Titians feeling broken and alone. Why hadn't he chased after her then?

Why? Knowing that he cared for her more than some ordinary girl in Central City or Keystone or hell the 30th Century?

"I'm so glad you're back. I missed you so much and—"

Bart pulls her closer. "Hey do you want to get out of here and have some ice cream?"

"It's yours and Connor's welcome back party."

"Yeah but I've already been through three of these. Wally gave me one. Barry gave me one. Jay gave me one. I mean what more does a guy need? We Flashes know how to party and this Titan one, they're all busy noticing Connor."

"Don't supers do welcome back parties?" Mia said giggling.

"Doubt. Then again Supes was with us. I doubt he thinks Conner needs a party to welcome him back. Come on."

Mia just lets him lead them where he will. Afterall as long as she is with Bart the end destination doesn't matter.

Tim is trying hard not to laugh at the obviousness of what he is seeing.

"You think he'll tell her?" Conner asks.

Tim doesn't answer keeping his thoughts and opinions to himself. That's becoming more common between them and Conner is getting tired of trying. He can't keep asking his best friend questions and getting no answers.

It's harder now that Tim's Red Robin to make a connection to him. Their team has pretty much dissolved on all fronts and Conner is trying desperately to reforge a connection with Cassie. Wonder Girl, however, has become all business. She has no need for him at the current moment and the first legitimate smile she has given him after his return was small. Not like the smile she gave Tim.

It's there in the pit of stomach, the reminder that maybe time has taken Cassie from him. Was their love not real? But Conner cannot deny that he sees Tim watching her. He can hear Tim's heart go into overtime when Cassie enters the room. It's not like Bart's heart is with Mia.

Bart who is frantically running around the room desperately cleaning his apartment and has a heart beating at what seems like a buzz. Mia is the last of them to arrive considering Cassie is already there. It's a reunion of sorts for the Titans. Just the five of them and no one else. Of course, they had invited Raven, Beast Boy, Starfire and Cyborg but each had made their excuse.

"Bart, it's clean enough," Cassie said.

She was staring slightly at the decorated table. When did Bart Allen arrange flowers, set-up a table cloth and cook dinner? What world had she landed in?

"I just don't want to leave anything embarrassing out," Bart yelled as he rapidly moved to pick up his clothes.

Tim barely glanced at his cell phone before it started ringing. The callback number surprised but as he gripped the phone he could hear his least favorite brother's voice on the other side.

"I know how you get when I f'ing call you but now's not a good time to hang up."

"How did you get my cell number?" Tim demanded.

"Look," Tim can hear Jason inhaling a cigarette, "I like Mia Dearden. She's a good kid. She's going to get screwed up by her mentor but I know she's a friend of yours. Maybe the best friend you've got at the current time. Listen she's heard and Roy Harper's kid is dead. They got her at Starr City General."

"Why are calling me?"

"Maybe, just maybe kid, I do give a damn about you."

"Bart," Tim calls out.

"What? Can't you see I'm on a tight schedule? I don't want Mia seeing this place a mess."
-=

Mia watches Green Arrow go and for once she doesn't try to follow. She'll kill Executioner if she gets her hands on him. She can feel the desire for vengeance and it courses through her pulsing with its own rabid life. She is alone now.

If she sits there in the silence waiting she'll realize the truth. The true loss of what she is feeling. Lian was—no is—her niece. She was her responsibility and now…She doesn't want to remember Roy screaming at her, rejecting her as she sobs for the little girl lost. The closest thing she has to a sibling in this world has just thrown her away. In time, Oliver says Roy will forgive her. He'll realize it's not her fault. But Mia doubts that. She doubts it to the point of anything else.

Bats brood. Flashes move on. Arrows break.

There is a whirl around her and she does not make out the streaks of red and yellow. She doesn't recognize anything other than the fact that someone is holding her. Bart strokes her hair and let's cry. In the shadows Mia can make at the shapes of her old teammates. She knows Tim is there in the shadows. Before it has always been him comforting her but now…she pulls Bart closer.

For once she's not alone.

And as she looks in the shadows she sees Cassie grab onto Tim's hand. They are no longer the ones left behind.

It is hard for Connor to watch them all sometimes. Tim and Cassie aren't over the top or very openly public. They keep to themselves pretty much as if their loving each other will hurt him. Bart and Mia are so innocent. They give each other longing looks and kiss each other frequently. They're always together and Conner can't help but feel jealous.

They have bonded together so naturally it doesn't feel rushed at all. They're friends first and foremost. Still Speedy needs her Kid Flash and Bart Allen doesn't do well without Mia Dearden to balance him at. They are perfect halves.

So when it gets hard, Conner often wanders to the old memorial statues. He often is alone here but this time sitting on the edge of one of the statues he hears faint sobs.

"I can't believe you did something like that. No powers and no way of getting out alive and you sacrifice everything for us."

It takes a minute but he recognizes Megan's voice.

"She comes here everyday. I doubt Eddie even knew how she felt."

Conner turns suddenly at the voice. "What are you doing here?"

Jason Todd merely cocks on eyebrow at the statue. "Eddie was my friend way back when. I figured since I made my great Arkham escape, I'd come here and pay my respects. Beats going in."

Connor shakes his head.

"Listen kid," Jason said. "I don't like helping you out. Fact is I'm only doing it because I owe Eddie. He's practically the only friend I've got. So, go talk to that girl. She's not going to get through his death unscathed."

Connor watched as the young martian girl continued to cry. Death changed everything. Maybe just maybe he could help her.

In the shadows Raven turned to Jason. She's agreed to help him deal with his demons in return for him getting her away from the city. Her powers are too unstable now for her fake being normal. She needs to run and Jason needs to make peace with himself.

"I didn't know you cared so much," Raven says softly looking at Jason with new eyes.

"I don't. I just know what my buddy would want."

The End