Chapter 11: You Don't Have To Live Like A Refugee

"So, how is she?" Daphne asked as she sat by Dana in the makeshift infirmary that had once been the back lounge of the tour bus.

The former soldier looked up from the biomonitor cuff that she'd modified to fit around the girl's shrunken arm.

"Physically, she's okay- borderline malnutrition, but I don't think there's any permanent damage. Preserves probably supplemented what she didn't get from the milrats-"

"What's a milrat?"

Dana exaggeratedly slapped her forehead.

"It's what we called MREs back in my old profession. Anyways, as for how she's holding up mentally-"

"Don't sugarcoat it for me, Miss Tan."

"She's showing all the classic signs of PTSD- frankly, it's a miracle she hasn't completely snapped from the weight of whatever she's been through."

"Can you help her?"

"Yeah, but first we're going to need to get through to her."


"You okay, Mister Hex?" Thorn asked.

"Not particularly." came the reply.

The old cowboy let out a deep sigh.

"It's that kid we picked up."

"What about her?"

Silence settled over the front lounge as Jonah's eyes drifted into a thousand-yard stare, memories of Vicksburg roaring through his head.

She doesn't deserve this this isn't her war damn you to Hell Jeff Davis for reducing a child to eating rats and mules-

Just then, he felt a hand upon his shoulder, snapping him out of his nightmarish reverie.

"Wha- who goes there?!"

"Just me, Mister Hex. It's just me."


"Here, try this." Daphne said as she leaned in with a steaming mug.

The girl looked at the mug with suspicion.

"It's just a little instant hot chocolate. Don't you like chocolate?"

The girl raised an arm, and Daphne handed over the mug. Across the infirmary, Dana was writing something down, her eyes darting between the girl and her pad of paper.

Motor responses are good. she scrawled, taking particular notice that while the girl had spilled some of the cocoa on her chin, most of it had gone down and was (currently) staying down. A few moments later, Daphne gently took the mug away despite it still being half full.

"That was nice, wasn't it? You can have some more in a minute- we don't want to make you sick by giving you too much rich stuff too quickly."

The girl remained eerily silent as Daphne put the mug aside and dabbed at her brown-stained chin with a washcloth.

"Uh-oh. It looks like I made a clean spot here. Guess I'll have to the whole thing now."

Dana shot Daphne an irritated look as the latter picked up a squeeze bottle of sterilized water before proceeding to soak the washcloth.


"Looks like someone decided to make a last stand." Velma said as she and Shaggy reached the farmhouse's second floor.

Shaggy nodded at his cohort's comment as he scanned the hallway- walls peppered with bullet holes, the floor littered with shell casings and dried blood, and a hastily erected barricade just behind the doorway of the master bedroom.

"Penny for your thoughts?" he asked.

"Shot grouping's too precise for your average band of raiders. Could be renegade militiamen from one of the larger settlements, but they don't typically pick on small family farms like this."


"Hard to believe there's a little girl under all this." Daphne said as she scrubbed away at the last of the dirt and accumulated grime on the child's face.

Bending over, she stared appraisingly at the newly revealed face.

"Definitely a little girl. And a pretty one, at that."

Daphne then proceeded to examine the cloth.

Screw it- it'll just be easier to get a new one. she thought, grabbing another clean one before soaking it. Once her tools were prepared, Daphne returned to her work. Moving from the girl's face to her hands, she began excavating dirt from between the fingers and beneath the nails, revealing pink skin from behind a mask of dirty grime.

"Whoever you are, you're one brave kid."

"A-ace." the girl said, her voice barely audible.

Daphne perked up, still moving the washcloth as she leaned in.

"I'm sorry, kid, I didn't hear you. Sometimes my hearing's not so good. What did you say?"

"Ace. My n-name's Ace."

Daphne was finishing off the second hand, carefully formulating her response.

"Well, Ace- my name's Daphne."

As Ace remained silent, Daphne lifted the small hand she'd just finished cleaning and gave it a formal shake.

"Pleased to meet you, Ace."

Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed the rag doll that Ace was still clutching with a vise-like grip.

"And who is that? Does she have a name?"

"Casey. She's my only friend."

"What about me?"

"I don't want you as a friend." she said, her tone flat and neutral.

"Why not?" Daphne asked

"Because you'll either be dead or think I'm a freak."

She turned her gaze to the doll.

"Casey's okay. She'll stay with me. But you'll go away and you'll leave me alone." she said matter-of-factly.

Daphne's blood ran cold at the tone of the girl's statement.

"Now why would I think you're a freak?"

Ace looked Daphne in the eye, visibly trying her damnedest not to cry.

"Because I'm a mutant." she said, lower lip trembling and tears welling in her eyes.

Daphne looked her newfound ward over.

"I don't see anything out of place."

"That's because it's on the inside. I can do things with my mind, and that's why Mom and Dad and I had to leave Gastown. And now you'll make me leave too."

Daphne nervously swallowed.

"Oh, Ace. Did your mom and dad…leave like that?"

"They're dead. Some bad men in gray clothes and black hats came up to the farm and they started demanding we give them our crops and our animals-"

Ace suddenly began to hyperventilate as the memories came rushing back.

"And then Mom told me to go and hide so I ducked into the storm cellar and then I heard guns and when I came back out Mom and Dad were dead and in a hole in the peach orchard and everything was-"

It was at that moment that Daphne leaned in and wrapped her arms around Ace.

"Ace, I promise you I'm not going away. I'm not going to leave you and I'm not going to be dead. Cross my heart and hope to die."

And with that, she let the little girl bury her face into her shirt and weep, staining the shirt's chest with tears and mucus while Daphne petted her hair.

"Sorry to spoil the moment, but shouldn't we tell your friends about what the kid just told us?" Dana butted in.

"Just as soon as I'm done with Ace."


AUTHOR'S NOTES:

Yes, the Ace presented here is a version of the DCAU incarnation of Ace of Clubs of the Royal Flush Gang, who you all probably remember as the little psychic girl that Batman comforted in her dying moments in the JLU episode "Epilogue". As for whether or not she meets the same fate as her DCAU counterpart, that's still undecided (though either way, this version of Ace at least got to have a childhood as opposed to her canon counterpart). And for the record, yes, most of Daphne and Ace's interactions were based on Ripley and Newt's interactions in Aliens.