Author's Note: I've always been fascinated with the relationship between BB and Mento. This arch is based off of another story I did, When the worst happens, and shows Mento's side of things. So, hope you enjoy! Read and review please :)


Mento hadn't had a drink in years. Since taking up the Doom Patrol, he stopped. Rita had helped, watching him at events, making sure to remind him if he got a craving. Once Gar came only, he made sure that not a drop of alcohol was in the house. Now, with his wife gone and his son across the country, it was getting harder and harder to keep that habit. The house was quiet. Some nights, he blasted music at unreasonable levels just to block out his own thoughts. It didn't work. These days, the manor was always so quiet.

Chief had retired to a small little costal town, wanting to get away from the crime business. Not that Steve could blame him; after that accident, he wouldn't want to stick around either. The manor was his home, even if he was the only soul inhabiting it. The other man checked in once a week to keep in touch. It was more than Steve deserved. He looked at the phone again. There had already been one called placed to the titan base, and he doubted his son would answer any future ones. Three weeks had passed since they all died.

Gar hadn't tried to communicate with him since he went back to California. Robin had answered the phone last time he called, only to tell him that if Gar wanted to talk to him he would on his own time, and not a moment sooner. It was times like these that he wished he had better connections with the other team. It was doubtful that any of them would help him contact his son. At least he didn't have any direct contact with them while he was in the hospital. Chief said they tended to stay close to his boy.

As much as he disliked the Titans, they looked after his kid when he couldn't. Which ended up being the past five years. There were no 'Parent of the Year' awards for Steve Dayton. Shaking his head, he left the room, trying to get his mind off the phone. The urge to call again was too strong. He found a mess in one of the rooms and focused on organizing it. The work went slow, as his wounds were healing, and he didn't want to return the hospital anytime soon. However, no one could force him to go back now.

He wandered the hall aimlessly, not having a thing to do, and a mind going too fast for him to keep up with. Grief was eating him alive. He didn't clean out of the rooms. Rita's things were still in their room; Steve couldn't bring himself to sleep there at night. Not that he slept much. The counselor he had to see when he was discharged said that it wasn't uncommon to experience insomnia when dealing with loss. That same counselor was supposed to see him once a week. He couldn't bring himself to go after that first initial visit.

Steve wondered if his son was suffering in the same way. Was he pacing up and down the halls? Thinking of the last words he said to his family? He sure was. He had told Rita that he would see her in the kitchen after he submitted this last report. Told Cliff to check on the engines of the jet. Told Larry to go with him incase Cliff needed help. Meaningless words. He had failed these people, and with it, his son and himself. The Doom Patrol was nothing now. The League mentioned having him pick new candidates. He couldn't.

Several people in the community had already come forward asking for a position. Steve had told them that at this time he wasn't looking to recruit. He couldn't stomach the thought of new people, strangers, entering the manor and living here. Possibly taking the rooms that housed his family. Worse, he felt that Chief and Gar, the only people left, deserved a say on who to put under the Doom Patrol name. That conversation would be in the distant future; he couldn't have it if his son never answered his calls or replied to his messages. Steve kept on trying.

It was around four in the morning when he finally tried himself out. Passing out on the couch was the new normal for him, and he didn't know if he should be worried that sleeping there didn't hurt as much as it usually did. Maybe he was too numb to feel any aches or discomfort. Meals were another thing he avoided. The thought of food made him sick, and actually eating it made him imagine ash in his mouth. There had been so much ash from the explosion. Water was bearable. He was craving something stronger to deal with this.

There was no one stopping him from going out and buying a bottle of alcohol. Not anyone who cared. However, the idea of going outside and speaking to someone was hard. He didn't like human contact much these days. The several panic attacks in the hospital when one of the nurses tried to touch him left him with the notion of secluding himself. His therapist had mentioned that it was important to keep himself open to people, so he could be offered support, and not feel so alone during this difficult time.

Chief had left.

Gar had left him again.

He couldn't blame them for leaving. Chief had put up with him for years before this. Gar had escaped the certain brand of chaos and destruction associated with the Doom Patrol before being pulled back in. Steve was constantly pushing and pulling people away. Now, there was no one left. He went to the sink for a glass of water. At the first sip, he felt the bile at the back of his throat, so he dropped the glass and leaned over the sink, heaving. When it passed, he was sobbing. He just wanted this to end. He wanted peace.

The floor was cold when he dropped onto it. Wrapping his arms around his stomach, as if that could hold him together, Steve fell apart. There was no other word for it. Sobbing, screaming, in as close to the fetal position as he could get, the former leader cracked. His calf hit a piece of broken glass; Steve registered the pain but couldn't be bothered to check it. The pain was the only sign that he could still feel anything. He begged for anything, death or relief, but it didn't come. This was a deep hole; he couldn't climb out.

Steve didn't know if he passed out or cried himself to sleep. His back was aching from spending so long on the floor and the air was thick with the smell of blood. His pants were ruined and the white tiles, that Rita had loved, were stained red. The glass wasn't imbedded too deep in his leg, so he simply pulled it out. There wasn't a register of pain. Maybe he was losing it. The man with mental powers finally losing his mind. Would his next stop be to the psych ward? That brought up another dark memory once forgotten.

They had been fighting another telepath, and the guy screwed around in his head. It got bad enough where the others that he might do harm to one of them; personally, he believed they thought he'd go after Rita or Gar, and that's why they put him in confinement. He stayed in the ward for close to a month, and was supervised for weeks. Since then, he made it a point never to go back there. It's also where his aversion to therapists came in. Those topics made him feel all kinds of sick, and not in the physically way.

He rinsed his leg off and left the blood for now. He shuffled over to the couch and collapsed, face first, into the cushions. They didn't smell like the fabric softener that Rita used anymore, and that made his throat tighten. He wished he listened and didn't press to go on that mission. Chief had warned him. Curling up, Steve stared blankly at the TV. The remote was lost somewhere; he had thrown it during one of his rages. That was fine. He didn't want to watch anything. He didn't need the noise. The silence pressed down on him slowly.

The manor had always been quiet, save for when Gar had lived here. It was probably the hardest thing to get used to again. Every room was quiet, empty. Steve wondered if he could go somewhere else. There were cities around the area, and his face hadn't been shown to the general public. Then, he got a different idea. The states were a good place to hide; lots of cities, and the news was easy to get. Hell, California was a huge state, they wouldn't mind one more person. Legs trembling, Steve tried to sit up, then he tried standing.

It took much longer to make it to the bathroom, even longer to get cleaned up and dressed in clothes that didn't look like a crime scene. Then he walked to his bed and picked up the phone. Much to his nature, Chief picked up on the first ring.

"It hasn't been a week yet, has it?" Chief asked.

"I want to go to the States." Steve rasped out. "I won't go near Jump, but I need to leave here for the time being. Is that an option?" He wasn't aware of how awful his voice sounded on the phone.

"Steve, he told you not to seek him out."

"I'm not going to. There are other cities in California, I can pick one. I won't tell him that I'm close, I just can't stand to be here right now." Chief didn't talk for a few minutes.

"I'll see if there are any apartments for rent a few towns away from Jump. It'll take a few days." Chief said. "Are you going to try and fix things with Gar?"

"I want to." Steve whispered. He had pushed his son away for too long. "I want to fix this problem between us."

"Do you think that you can fix it?" Chief asked. "He made it pretty clear not to contact him anymore. I also think that his team is taking his words seriously as well." The Titans would be another hurdle; Steve knew that he'd have to convince them before he could see his son. Hopefully they would be receptive.

"I need to try. I need to know if there is any chance of fixing this." Steve was stubborn. He wouldn't stop trying. Even after he had lost everything.

"I'll see what I can do. Until then, stay put in the manor."

Translation: don't do anything stupid until I can find another reason to convince you to stay in the manor or until I actually find a place that is close enough but far enough away that Gar wouldn't find it. Steve hung up and let the room. The smell of Rita's perfume was beginning to get to be a bit overwhelming. The couch was once again his refugee. He picked the non-blood stained one. Perhaps the stains would still come out. That was a problem for another day. He drifted off. It wasn't near sleeping, but it was a close as he could get these days.

The room was dark when he woke up again. Maybe it was nighttime. Time was a concept that had escaped him. Hours, minutes, those things didn't matter as much to him. Funny, how before all this every second was accounted for. Now, he couldn't spend a minute doing a single task before he broke down. He shuffled over to the kitchen, noticed the stain, and began to track down a mop and some cleaner. He scrubbed the spot, then decided the whole floor needed to be done, and spent the next hour working on it.

Chief didn't call that day. Steve wasn't worried. He knew what he was asking, what he was planning on doing, was outside of his comfort zone. He had never ran after someone; he was always the one pushing people away. Out of curiosity, he scanned the news for any clues on how his boy was doing. He didn't find much, since you couldn't trust the tabloids to get all the details right. Then he started to look around Jump City. He never asked Gar what the place was like. Perhaps they wouldn't be on opposite ends of the world anymore.