39. Remnant

"What?" Dora said.

"I said you're pregnant," Leslie repeated.

It took a few seconds for the sounds Leslie made with her mouth to become words Dora could associate with coherent meaning.

"I'm pregnant? But…"

The ground gave way underneath her feet and her heart sank with it. The world spun and the air became thin. The sky blurred out of focus and faded to black.

#

The bitter taste of dry apple cider lingered in Dora's mouth. It felt like acid was burning her throat. Cold sweat beaded on her face and when she reached up to wipe it off, she felt a cold pack on her forehead.

She was lying down on something something soft, squishy, and leathery… and it felt comfortable and familiar. Opening her eyes, she saw wooden shelves filled with books, anatomical models, and an array of stuffed animals.

Leslie's office. She recognized it because she had napped in here on numerous occasions in the past.

Then it all came flooding back. She swallowed a baseball-sized lump in her throat and it rolled into her belly—which felt very heavy now.

Dora heard the door open and looked up to see Lara come in with a fresh cold pack and plastic cup.

"Oh good, you're awake, sweetie. Here." Lara helped her sit up and handed her the drink.

Dora gulped it down—grape-flavored Pedialyte. She cleared her throat and asked, "What happened?"

Lara avoided her eyes and focused on pressing the fresh cold pack to Dora's forehead. "As far as I know, you got into an argument with Leslie then fainted. You had a fever and were dehydrated. Come on, you know you're supposed to take it easy when you have an infection."

Dora pushed Lara's hand away. "I know that. I mean, what happened? How come Leslie knew I'd be in the garden?"

"Oh. That." Lara balled her hands in her lap. "I'm so sorry, Dee. I Jane Doe'd your lab work, but I didn't know how to get your medications filled without giving the pharmacist your real name. Leslie's really strict about drugs coming in and out of the clinic, so when I went to pick up your stuff, the pharmacist called her for approval before I could stop her… and well…"

"She gave you the eye of Sauron?"

Lara nodded eagerly. "Yeah, it's like she has LEDs behind her eyes! It's like she's a Jedi or something!"

"Why do you think I go out of my way to avoid her? I can't lie to her so I just avoid telling her the truth."

"Which is impossible because she practically lives here," Lara said, rolling her eyes.

"Yeah, that's right," Dora scoffed, then looked closely at Lara. "Did she tell you anything about why she wanted to see me?"

"No, not really. She just grilled me for sneaking you in and threatened to give my next three shifts to someone else if I didn't tell her where we were going to meet."

"Gosh, I'm sorry I put you in that position."

Lara smiled earnestly. "Don't worry, we've all been there."

"Listen, I had a basket with me…" Dora looked around the office.

"Oh!" Lara reached around the arm of the couch and pulled it out. "This?"

"Yeah, that's for you and Tom. Thanks for having my back." Dora chuckled. "Or at least trying to have it. I understand why you couldn't."

Lara checked inside, and gasped. "Oh man, these are pasteles, right? Thanks! They're always so delicious."

At that moment, Leslie came into her office, tossing some exam gloves into a waste basket as she made her way to the sink. "Thank you, Lara, that'll be all."

"Yes, ma'am." As Leslie washed her hands, Lara took her leave, silently gesturing Dora to call her later.

As soon as they were alone, Leslie said, "I'm disappointed in you."

"Of course you are," Dora said dryly. I just fainted. No "how are you feeling, Dora?"

"I thought you were too smart for this."

"I was smart about it. We use contraception, so I don't know how it happened."

Leslie grabbed a paper from her desk and skimmed it as she sat down in the arm chair across from Dora. "It looks like the last time you picked up birth control from the pharmacy was over a year ago, so either you've run out, are using Plan B, or are using expired doses." She looked at Dora deadpan. "Whatever the case, that's not proper contraception."

Dora faltered. Fuck! Should've known better than to use the expired stuff.

Silence hung between them, thick and heavy.

"You have options," Leslie finally said.

Dora took a deep breath. "Do not go there."

Leslie asked the obvious. "What kind of life can a child have with a father like that?"

"I'm not going to have this conversation with you, Leslie. Not again. You know how I feel about abortion." Dora closed her eyes to level herself. She was furious. "Don't. Go. There."

Leslie moved from the armchair to the couch, next to Dora. She carefully held her hand. Dora didn't fight her touch. She fought the ache in her chest.

A moment later, the ache won and she lost.

Dora cried.

"You were sixteen," Leslie said. "And the father abandoned you. You had a choice then. You have a choice now."

Dora sucked in a breath and took back her hand to wipe her wet cheeks. "Jason didn't abandon me. He… died."

"You know all too well the dangers those vigilantes face and the risks they take. Are you willing to let this child grow up without a father? Because Red Hood's going to get himself killed or arrested." Leslie gave voice to all her fears. "Or worse. He'll drag you to the same fate."

Dora grabbed a tissue from the box conveniently placed on the coffee table in front of her. "I know. Stop lecturing me." She dabbed her tears away.

"Why?" Leslie pushed. "Dora, you're a smart girl. My brightest protégé. Why even give it a second thought? Why have the child of a wanted vigilante?"

Dora stayed silent for a long time, then said. "You wouldn't understand."

"Why?" Leslie pushed. When Dora couldn't meet her eyes, she asked again, "Tell me why, Dora."

"Because it's the same father," Dora snapped before she could stop herself. "It's Jason."

It was Leslie's turn to be shocked dumb.

"What? I don't understand. What do you mean it's Jason?"

Straightening her back and looking ahead, she tried to fight back more tears. She said calmly, "Jason Todd is Red Hood." There was no going back. Leslie could keep a secret. It was her judgment and disapproval Dora dreaded.

Leslie's eyes darted around, looking past Dora as if she was scrubbing through a blurry video. "Jason's still alive?" she mumbled. "But the Joker…"

Dora was confused. "What about the Joker?"

Leslie's gaze came back into focus, and she cleared her throat. "Um, I said… you're joking."

"Why would I joke about this?"

"Then how did he survive?"

Taking a deep breath, Dora reached over and took another gulp of Pedialyte. "It's a long story."

If it could help Leslie understand… it might be worth it. There was a time when Dora was eager for her advice. Whenever the world didn't make sense, there were only two people she would turn to. Her father… and Leslie.

So she explained why Jason ran away, how he survived, and the things he did to become the Red Hood. Leslie asked a few clarifying questions here and there, but it was mostly straightforward. It was different than telling Rochelle because Leslie knew Jason almost as well as she did. For once, it felt like her feet had touched the ground, and the past few weeks with him weren't a fantasy. Someone that knew him from before knew he was back. He wasn't a ghost anymore.

When Dora was finally done, she and Leslie sat in silence.

Eventually, Leslie asked, "Does Bruce know he's back?"

"No. Only me, you, Rochelle, and Ma Gunn know that Jason is Red Hood. No one else."

Leslie frowned. "Rochelle?"

"She's my best friend."

"Alright, but then Ma Gunn? How—Why does she know?"

"Because he told her. Ma Gunn was Jason's foster mom. She took him in before Bruce did."

Leslie's frown turned into a scowl. "You mean Ma Gunn is Faye Gunn? The bitch that told him to steal from us?"

Dora cringed. She had never thought of that. But it made sense. "He said… she taught him how to survive when the rest of the system abandoned him. She actually cared about him when the rest of his foster parents didn't." Seeing it from his point of view did not deafen the echoes of betrayal she still felt from that day.

Leslie shook her head. "God dammit, Dora, do you hear yourself? You're defending a criminal! There's no future with him! Why didn't you learn the first time? He was caught, you know? He would've, should have spent several years in prison for stealing your pass and breaking into the clinic. He stole opioids. Narcotics. Controlled substances. Don't you understand?" There was anguish in her expression, but her face softened as she held Dora's hand again. "But I knew you cared about him. As much as he broke your heart, you still loved him. I knew you would never forgive me for condemning him even though he betrayed you."

"What are you talking about?"

"I asked Bruce Wayne to take him in."

"It was you that introduced Jason and Bruce to each other?"

Leslie shrugged. "No, I forged a connection. Believe or not, they had met before. Jason had tried to steal the wheels off his car."

"Are you serious? He never told me that."

"That boy had a lot of problems to work through, more than you know. But I knew if anyone could turn him around, it would be Bruce. The judge couldn't overlook both my endorsement or Bruce Wayne's. He basically pays for this whole clinic out of his own pocket and he already had an excellent reputation as a foster parent. His first ward, Dick, is a police officer in Blüdhaven now."

"Well, that's ironic," Dora scoffed. "According to Jason, he felt more loved and accepted by Ma Gunn than he ever did with Bruce."

"That's because Gunn let Jason indulge his anger and rage, and that's not how you raise a troubled child. That's how you spoil one. Bruce was a hard ass, but that's the type of parent that Jason needed."

"Same way I need a hard ass like you telling me what to do?" Dora chuckled, deadpan.

"Of course," Leslie reeled back, shaking her head and smiling, sarcastic. "It all makes sense now. Who could Red Hood be other than Jason Todd? Who else could make a smart girl like you lose her right fucking mind?"

"I haven't lost my mind."

"Well, Jason clearly has. He's a terrorist now! All the more reason to terminate the pregnancy."

"You know, I was unplanned too," Dora said. "But my father never ran away or abandoned me or my mother. He stepped up and took responsibility." Dora swallowed, fighting back more tears. "Like I should have done."

"All things considered, I think you made the right choice."

"No, you forced me to make that choice and I regret it every day. After my dad passed, I realized I made a mistake listening to you all those years ago. I put myself before my family, before my child. I was selfish."

"How? You're the most giving person I know."

Wringing a lock of her hair, Dora said, "I left Mercy. I left Carla, my mom, and my dad behind. I left them all behind to chase a dream you planted in my head of being a nurse, a doctor."

"How is following your dreams selfish?"

"Because it killed my father!" Dora shouted. "His death was my fault, Leslie!"

"We talked about this. You did everything you could to save him. No amount of training could help you prevent a hemorrhagic stroke in the middle of an alleyway."

Dora shook her head so hard, her tears splattered all over her lap. "No. You want to know the real reason why I dropped out and quit?" She sniffled. "It wasn't just because my dad died. It was because I found out my dad was in debt to Kosov and Black Mask because of my tuition." She stared at Leslie with red watery eyes. "My father was killed because of me. Nobody, especially my dad, was willing to admit I was dead weight while my family was drowning."

Tears were now streaming down Leslie's face as well, but she didn't say anything.

"How could I not quit this place and go back to support my family and make up for everything I took from them? Do for them what he did for me?"

Leslie stood. "Is this why you want to keep the baby? To prove you're an adult? To prove you're a provider?"

"Yes," Dora said simply.

"No, it's not. You're doing this because you have a martyr complex. But you're not the martyr, your father was. You put your father up on a pedestal because he went to all lengths, slogged through adversity, and ultimately died to provide for his family. You want to prove you're your father's daughter by doing the same, don't you?"

"He sacrificed everything, why shouldn't I?"

"Because it's a damn myth!" Leslie yelled. "I don't know how often I talked to your mother about this. She left him because of those 'sacrifices.'" She used air quotes, then took off her glasses. "If your father couldn't afford to pay for your education, it was because he was an idiot and a drunk who made stupid business decisions, and never admitted them because he was stubborn. That bar has always been a sinking ship, and bailing water would never save it. He never looked around long enough to realize all the hard work he was doing was actually building his own coffin. He kept that damn bar afloat because it was an excuse to drink and escape his family, not a way to provide for them."

Dora stood up so fast she almost knocked the coffee table over. "How dare you say that!"

"You and your father both have the same curse. Blind to what's really important, sacrificing the wrong things for the wrong reasons. Going to college is an investment in your future, it takes sacrifice and perseverance to see it through, but you gave up before the payoff. Sometimes it's good to be selfish and look out for yourself, but you have to be smart about it because you're no good to anybody if you're dead. Doesn't your child deserve the best version of you instead of the one that's forever a work in progress?"

"Shut the fuck up. You're twisting this situation to make me come back to the clinic." Dora jabbed a finger at her. "You're trying to use me to validate your own life choices. To make me exactly like you!" She stomped up to Leslie and seared her with a glare. "Well, guess what? I won't become like you. No kids, no family, no life, no love. Just work."

Leslie gasped, shocked.

"So lay the fuck off," Dora spat. "Maybe if you ever had kids of your own, you wouldn't want to pretend to be my fucking mother."

The wounded look on Leslie's face made Dora want to take back her words—but then Leslie wheeled around, grabbed the lab results off her desk and slapped them into Dora's chest.

"You're not pregnant. You just have a simple UTI."

Dora looked down at the envelope, digesting it for a long moment—she felt sick. "Wait. You were lying to me? Why?"

"It was a test. To teach you lesson," Leslie said. She grabbed the paper pharmacy bag and threw it at Dora, who barely caught it. "To make you really consider this stupid relationship. And guess what? You failed."

Dora checked inside the bag. Anti-biotics and birth control. Looking back up, she hissed through gritted teeth, her hurt and betrayal boiling her anger. "Fuck you!"

Dora turned around to leave. When her hand was on the door knob, Leslie spoke up again.

"You can't tell Jason."

Dora gripped the handle hard. "Why would I tell him about this stupid fucking game you played with me? This god damn twisted lesson?'"

"You know exactly what I'm talking about. That boy broke your heart and left you high and dry too many times. He stole from you. He left you alone and pregnant at sixteen, staring down the barrels of teenage motherhood or abortion. He didn't die a reformed saint like you thought he did. He could've come back to you sooner, at anytime, but he didn't. If he's not the same, selfish, angry, broken boy he always was, then he's worse now. He didn't deserve to know he would've been a father eight years ago, and he certainly doesn't deserve to know now."

Dora opened the door, but Leslie wasn't done.

"He doesn't deserve your love, Dora," she said. "He doesn't deserve you."

Notes

Are you as mad at me as Dora is at Leslie? Lol

Why did I do this?

First, to detail the various angsty reasons why Dora left the clinic. I know some of you love angst.

Second, I wanted Dora's complicated pupil-mentor relationship with Leslie to mirror Jason's relationship with Bruce, so she can truly empathize with him and fuel to their dark and naughty passion. And I know some of you love that too.

Also, I like dragging skeletons out of the closet. Jason has secrets from Dora, and Dora she has secrets from him. Secrets can poison a relationship, don't you agree?

Will they overcome? Will their love persevere?

Come back and keep reading to find out.

Song Reference: "Remnant" by Erra

Version 41.1