A bit less angst in this one. Enjoy!
Arms laden with food raided from the Tower's kitchen, Donna Troy strode into the infirmary. She was met with the image of the half-demon girl reading to the unconscious Gar, her hand laid over his.
"I thought you were still in Gotham," Rachel said, looking up with a smile and dropping the copy of Dracula she'd been reading to take the proffered sandwich as she gave the older Titan a one-armed hug. She didn't look at all like the girl Donna had talked to on video chat a week ago. That girl had been as broken as Donna was when she'd lost... him. Her eyes had held an emptiness Donna knew herself, one she'd seen on Rachel before.
"I wanted to make sure you actually heard what I said on the phone," Donna said and watched Rachel cringe in confusion. "And I take it I was right to come." The girl obviously didn't even know what she was talking about.
Donna had called to remind her of the amazons philosophies on personal accountability; that Rachel taking responsibility for her actions was important, but so was not taking the blame for things she couldn't control. Taking on the weight of others' actions lightens the burden on those whose responsibility is to bear it and all that.
"Though you seem a lot better than I was expecting."
The girl offered a wry smile. "Rose visited a few days ago. She isn't one to tolerate wallowing."
Donna tipped her head with respect, never having been one either. And on that note...
"I also came to do what Dick and Kory are too close to this to do, and make sure you're not about to go all demonic and world-ending again."
Rachel choked on her sandwich.
"Wha– that's–" she sputtered as she caught her breath. "Is that what they've been whispering about?! They're worried I might become a supervillain?!"
"No," The pair had barely even considered what happened last time, and it wouldn't have crossed their minds at all if it was anyone but Trigon who did this. A week ago, she'd thought they were insane—they'd all been there the last time she'd lost Gar—but seeing Rachel now, it did seem unlikely.
Donna smiled. It never hurt to double-check, but she was glad to see her doing as well as could be expected; Rachel certainly hadn't been this well-adjusted when they'd spoken before.
"Like I said, they're too close to this. They're just worried about you. And about Gar." She paused to open a bag of potato chips, giving the teenager a teasing side-eye. "And maybe a bit about how sometimes you've been sleeping next to Gar, in the bed."
Rachel's eyes widened in shock. "Over the covers!" Rachel whisper-screamed, turning scarlet. "It was harder to keep track of his health in my sleep, and he was still on life support the second night!" She looked around frantically then stood up from her chair, digging in the nightstand drawer for a post-it.
Donna eyed her with a slight grin as she realized what the post-it was meant for. It might not be how Dick found out, but he probably had it coming. Still... "Some of the cameras in this place, I agree, are creepy. But having one in here does serve a purpose: so whoever's in the ops room can know if anything changes."
"That's what I'm here for," Rachel hissed as she grabbed a chair to stand on as she covered the camera. "And for the record, I've been sleeping in the chair since he started improving."
Rachel watched in horror as Donna raised a skeptical eyebrow. It's not like it was her fault her healing abilities were stronger with physical contact.
"Dick said he only noticed two nights ago when he came to check on Gar," Donna said, her voice light-heartedly cynical.
Oh. Rachel winced. "Yeah, I fell asleep watching a movie," she said awkwardly. After talking to Jason and Rose, she'd had a Back to the Future movie marathon, thinking Gar would enjoy it, and fallen asleep sometime after Marty McFly invented frisbees. The incline on the top half of the infirmary's bed was kind of perfect for viewing the tv, though it made it a bit harder to stay awake than the chairs in here.
"They're really that worried about it?"
"Well, Kory thinks it's not all that healthy, and she talked to some therapist friend of hers about it who agreed." Donna took a potato chip, offering the bag to Rachel, who shook her head.
It really had been out of necessity the first time, and the second had been accidental, but it made her so self-conscious knowing other people had seen her sleeping next to Gar.
And that they were concerned about it. Ugh.
"As for Dick, he's worrying that things have advanced between you two without him noticing." Rachel gaped at the older Titan, her mouth opening and closing like a fish. "He seems to have finally realized there are some finer points to playing guardian to a bunch of teenagers under one roof that he has not considered. Or addressed." Donna leaned back in her chair. "He wants to know if he needs to have the safe-sex talk with you two," she rolled her eyes, "Though I get the sense he'd prefer it to be the no-sex talk."
"Oh my god!" Rachel blushed even deeper, glancing at the boy in the bed, actually glad he'd stayed unconscious through this. "Why didn't he just ask Kory to say all this?"
"Oh, she flat-out refused," Donna admitted with a smirk. "Kory has a better sense of people than our Boy Wonder. She didn't want to make things awkward before anything had even started between you two." She shrugged. "Honestly, I wouldn't have brought it up either, but you did ask."
I did? she thought, taken aback. Rachel's confusion must have shown on her face because Donna continued, "Well, you asked if they were talking about the whole supervillain thing."
Oh.
Right...
That.
Rachel sighed. "You don't need to worry. My time on Themyscira changed a lot," she said with a mirthless smile, the awkwardness draining out of her and just leaving her tired. She hadn't realized how much it had changed her until her father had gone after Gar. Some of it had been what she learned from the Amazons; their philosophies on responsibility were in direct opposition to her guilt complex, after all.
But most of it was from spending time around people who were a lot harder to break, even with magic. It gave her freedom she'd never known, the opportunity to learn her power without fearing she'd hurt people.
"When we first fought my father, I'd never once felt safe with my powers." Even when they warned her of danger, they'd terrified her. "I spent my whole life feeling like just my presence put the people around me in danger. My mom did her best, and Melissa was a good mom, but she was terrified of my powers. She knew what they could make me into.
"I grew up believing I couldn't let myself get scared; I couldn't be angry or get hurt because if I did, the darkness would come out. And I would have no control over it. It would hurt people, and I'd be helpless to stop it. The training on Themyscira—the opportunity to use my powers around people who weren't scared of them and just wanted to see them empower me—I didn't just learn control; I learned how my powers work. What they are; what drives them. What they make me." She let a wisp of black liquid and smoke pool in her palm. "And what they don't."
It had almost finished the job of healing her wounds; the job Gar had started the first time he'd taken her hand in the woods. The work he'd done every time she gave him reason to leave, and he didn't hesitate to stay by her side.
"Last time, I was convinced my powers were driven by every negative thing I felt because that was all I'd ever known, but they're not."
Melissa had loved her unconditionally; Rachel knew that. But she hadn't really accepted her because she'd been so afraid. She had known what her father was, and the plans he had for his daughter, so while Melissa had loved Rachel with or without her abilities, she'd still tried everything she could to tamp them down.
Her first experience of unconditional acceptance was with Dick, and for it, she would consider him family forever. But it wasn't quite the same as someone who knew what it was like to have powers, to have people who love you be afraid of you. For them to have reason to be.
He may have grown up with Wonder Girl, but Themysciran and demon were two very different things. Kory had kind of got it, but she wasn't one to care if people were afraid of her.
It wasn't until Gar that Rachel knew someone truly understood her. And on that day in the woods, he'd accepted her, no strings attached. There'd been no backstory given, no reason to help her, just an explosion at a church and a shapeshifter holding out his hand.
When she said she was dangerous, Gar's response was asking if she was afraid of him.
Rachel going dark the way she had before was impossible. She knew that she wasn't the monster her father had made her out to be because Gar had kept loving her through all of it.
She regarded the boy lying in the hospital bed. "I'm who I am now because he loved me."
When she looked up, Donna offered a melancholy smile, her eyes misty.
"I know the feeling."
Later, as Donna headed for the door, she turned back, her voice rough. "Make sure you don't waste it, okay?"
Rachel nodded.
Never again.
The next morning, as Rachel listened to Conner's second recording sent from Tamaran, this one of Dickens' A Tale of Two Cities, she felt an odd tugging at the corners of her lips, like she wanted to smile. She didn't know why. There was no reason to; she'd completely lost track of the names of places and characters in the book and was generally bored out of her mind—if Gar hadn't read this to Conner when he was the one comatose in this room, she would have switched it off a while ago.
She sat up so suddenly she got a twinge where her back had conformed to the shape of the chair. Rachel stood and laid a hand at Gar's temple to double-check, her heart racing, but she already knew. The misplaced joy wasn't hers. It was coming from Gar.
The barrier she'd put around him was starting to break down. Her hand still on his cheek, she tried to reach him, tried to wake him, but came up against a familiar wall. She still couldn't affect him. But she was beginning to feel him again.
Tears formed in her eyes as she let out a shaking sigh of relief, sinking back down into the chair, her head coming to rest on the edge of the bed.
Then she started laughing.
Gar even dreamed happy.
I'm not really sure where the stuff about her sleeping in his hospital bed came from. I started writing and it just sort of happened. I guess it's based on how her powers seemed much more touch-dependent in season one when they showed her learning to heal people. In my head, at a certain point, she was too tired to stay awake, but didn't want to risk breaking contact in her sleep because he could have crashed without her knowing.
Again, this story is about the characters not the actors, and the character of Rachel Roth was pronounced to be 16 in the fall of 2019 (2x10), so she'd be an adult by now, and by the time this story is set, she's almost 19.
Not sure when the final chapter will come out. When I write, I have to be kind of immersed in the show/couple, and I've finished rewatching the show, and watched what seems like every Titans BBRAE mv on youtube, so it might be a little bit.
But at least I'm pausing on a high note!
