Noticing he'd started fidgeting, Rose reached for Jason's hand in the elevator. Coming back here was hard for him; Titans Tower symbolized everything he used to have and lost, but Jason had never really fit here. He wasn't one for following orders, especially not when the person issuing them hadn't well and truly earned his respect. Being part of a team with so many unfamiliar, more experienced members had really been a doomed exercise in how many ways he could fuck up.
But she'd stopped by every few days since the news first broke of the Titans' latest battle, and Jason had come with last time since Rose had made sure it was okay. This place made him uncomfortable, but he wasn't about to let that keep him from his friend.
Jason and Gar had a weird kind of friendship; they weren't all that close but were more like brothers than friends. Brothers with a big age gap (a bigger one than actually existed) and nothing actually in common; the kind who probably wouldn't associate if they weren't related but still cared about each other a lot, even if they'd never admit it.
Well, Jason would never admit it.
The CCTV footage that kept playing on the news was hard to watch for anyone who knew the pair. Rose had never seen Rachel lose so much of whatever it was she had inside her, but at least the news stations hadn't aired the part where Gar went down. Uncensored footage had been leaked online, though, from multiple sources: the whole, dramatic takedown of a superpowered kid in HD.
The elevator doors opened with a ding, and Jason tensed. Dick and Kory were waiting for them right outside the elevator, concern written all over their faces.
"We need you to talk to her," said Dick, forgoing any greetings.
"Has something changed with Tigerboy?" Jason asked, worry in his voice even as he used the nickname.
"No," Kory answered, "but Rachel's getting worse. She still hasn't left his side, but it was different when there was still something for her to do. It's been days since he recovered physically, and she's been stuck in her head ever since. Now she barely even... Well, you'll see. We've tried to talk to her about it, but she barely talks anymore. You guys are less..." she trailed off, searching for the word.
"Gentle," Dick offered unapologetically.
Rose wondered if she should be offended by that, but as she and Jason looked at each other, they just shrugged. It fit them.
As they reached the infirmary doors, Jason left to do what they'd planned as she saw Rachel on her own. Rose walked through the door and greeted Rachel, understanding why the two adults had asked for their help. The younger girl barely even reacted to her, staying folded in on herself in a chair, legs pulled up to her chest. Her head turned a bit toward Rose in some small acknowledgment of her presence, but her eyes never left Gar's face.
Rose's eyes narrowed at the hollow expression on her friend's face. This had clearly become a case for tough love, and Dick and Kory had always been marshmallows when it came to Rachel.
"That's it," she said, making her voice extra fed up. Rachel needed to get out of this room. "It's been over a week. You're free to continue wallowing after you shower, but you're starting to stink."
As the silver-haired girl pulled her out of her chair, Rachel didn't put up a fight. It wasn't until she started dragging her away from Gar that she even seemed to notice. Once they got close to the door, Rachel began to pull back on the arm Rose was tugging; as they reached it, it was like she'd finally woken up.
On the wrong side of the bed.
She tore out of Rose's grip. "Don't even bother with the red eyes," Rose told the indigo-haired girl flatly before things could get out of control. "Whatever you do to me, I'll just heal. But friends don't let friends smell when their boyfriend comes out of a coma." Rachel made some surprised noise out of protest, and Rose just snorted. "Yeah, I know. Not your boyfriend."
"No," agreed the younger girl, the fight bleeding out of her. "But if it were me, Gar wouldn't leave my side." Rachel's eyes filled with tears. Ah, fuck.
She shouldn't have had Jason leave for the ops room. He was better at emotions than she was. Not that he was all that great at dealing with them, but he had a lot of them. With Rose tending toward apathy, they evened each other out. Jason would probably understand Rachel's feelings better––assuming he didn't act like a bull in a china shop. But he wasn't here with the now-crying eighteen-year-old. Rose was.
Alone.
Fuck.
"Gar was by my side through everything, and I was never there for him when he needed me," sniffed the teenager. "Not when Donna died, or when CADMUS took him... Hell, Gar basically died in front of me, murdered by his friends, and I spent the next few months avoiding him. It was so stupid and heartless; he was hurt so much worse than I was."
Rose put an arm around her shoulders, if somewhat gingerly. Crying people were not her strong suit. And Rachel was starting to smell. "So, when he wakes up, be different." Ugh. Rose sighed. That sounded bad.
"Learn from your mistakes," said the girl who now went by 'Ravager,' looking into Rachel's eyes. "It's all any of us can do."
She started steering Rachel again. "And maybe Gar wouldn't leave your side if the roles were reversed," she said as they passed through the door, "but he could also turn into a fucking cat and clean himself, so take a damn shower." Her eyes softened a fraction. "Jason and I will stay with him."
After she'd made sure she heard the sound of a shower through the bathroom door, Rose headed back to the infirmary. When she got there, she leaned against the door frame, perplexed and maybe a bit amused by what she saw. Jason was leaning down by Gar's ear, saying in a stage whisper, "Rachel finally realized she's into you, doofus. If you wake up, she might actually go out with you."
Jason jumped, looking sheepish as he noticed her standing there. "I heard that coma patients sometimes hear what people are saying," he said, awkwardly rubbing the back of his neck.
Rose's head bobbed to the side in a shrug as she walked toward the bed where Gar lay. Well, if anything could wake him up.
She leaned down by Gar's other ear and whispered, "If you wake up, she might actually bang you."
She and Jason's eyes met over their friend, and they grinned.
After a minute of saying things that might inspire him to wake up, including that they would steal his classic comic book collection (and take them out of the protective sleeves), she took a step back.
"He ever talk to you about what happened with her dad?"
Jason stood waiting outside Rachel's door when she finally came out, her blue hair still wet from the shower. Rose had been right to send her. The kid had needed out of that room.
"He knew that you were hurting." She looked at him, puzzled. "Rose told me what you said. About what happened after Ohio.
"He knew that you were messed up by it too," Jason said, glad he'd talked with Gar about the time he'd helped beat him almost to death. It was a hard thing to make up for, but the green-haired dork loved this girl more than life. It had never been more evident than in the video where Gar had actually yelled at the walking mind-fuck of a demon who'd made that shit happen. Helping her when she was this broken had to count for something. Jason had to atone for so many things, a number of which could never be made right. But getting the pre-Scarecrow stuff out of the way would be a relief.
"Back then, you were terrified of Dick abandoning you. And then Tigerboy was killed in front of you just months after the same thing happened with your mom. It didn't take a genius. The kid can be a dumbass, but he's not an idiot. You watched him die, and you put up walls." He watched her process that. "For what it's worth, kid, he never blamed you."
Rachel stayed quiet as they walked back to Gar, drying her hair with a hand towel she brought with her.
"Did you just call Gar a dumbass?" she asked, disbelief penetrating the numbness.
One side of his mouth pulled into a smile. People either loved him or hated him, mostly the latter, but no one was ever numb to Jason Todd.
"No judgment," he said, holding up his hands in surrender. "Clearly, I've made worse choices. But you can't be as loyal as he is and always make the smart decision. Just look at me; I never did much to earn his loyalty, but when I went dark, he never gave up on me. I'm sure a few people in this building thought he was a fucking idiot for that.''
As they reached the infirmary, Rose came up from talking in Tigerboy's ear. "Wish we could stay longer," she said to the younger girl, "but we've got stuff to do." She narrowed her eyes, appraising Rachel. "You'll be okay?"
"Better than I was," Rachel said with a rueful smile. Rose bumped her shoulder in goodbye.
Heading to the elevator, Rose took Jason's hand, intertwining their fingers. "You get what we needed?"
He nodded. "You know once it's on the internet, it's forever, right? Copies will have spread everywhere."
"Yeah," she shrugged, "but hitting the assholes who leaked it will make me feel better."
"Yeah," he agreed, the image of the never-still Tigerkid lying motionless fresh in his mind.
It really would.
Rachel finally fiddled with the Tamaranian version of an mp3 player Kory had left on the nightstand two days ago as she actively tried to avoid the chair she'd spent the last week living in. Conner had sent a recording from Tamaran, of him reading some book Gar had read to him when he was comatose. It took a while to get it to play at the right speed since Conner had recorded it with super-speed to get the whole book done so fast.
As it began to play Conner's audiobook of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, Rachel hesitantly put the device down on the nightstand and stood. Over the infirmary's intercom, she asked if Dick or Kory could come to sit with him for a bit.
Rose was right. Leaving this spot didn't mean she was abandoning Gar. And if it had been her, Gar would have spent the entire time trying to entertain her—not wallowing in grief and regret.
She'd spent enough time stuck in her own head. Gar had always been the one to pull her out of the blame-shame-regret spirals she went into, and now she owed it to him to be able to do it for herself.
If he'd been able to see her the last few days, he would have been miserable.
She would have made him miserable.
With strict instructions for Dick to call her if anything changed even a little, Rachel left to search Gar's room. Going through the shelves, she started a pile of movies to watch and books to read to him.
She had to try to make this better for Gar, in whatever small way she could.
It's what he would do for her.
I changed the title to include Not Alone because of the song by Red. Memri oxox did a Garchel video to it on Youtube back in season one and the song really is perfect for them.
I love Rachel, but for so much of their relationship on the show, the song has mostly just applied to how Gar is with her. The scared and alone verses are Rachel, and the chorus (I am with you/I will carry you through it all/ /I won't leave you, I will catch you/) has always been Gar being there for her. A lot of what Rachel's done makes her song Already Gone by Kelly Clarkson, so this story is my way of having her (finally) return the favor and be there for him, being the voice of the chorus in Not Alone.
Also, correct me if I'm wrong, but I can't remember a single time Jason has referred to Gar by his actual name.
Please follow/fave/review if you like it. There should be only two-ish chapters left.
