Well, this chapter finally closes the Watchtower chapter. Sorry if I stretched that storyline too long. Anyway, enjoy the chapter and I would LOVE some reviews.
Two days later, Mallory, Canary, Isaiah, and J'onn were in the therapy room. At the last second, Batman and Superman came in. Mallory stared at them nervously.
"What are you doing here?" she asked, squeezing Isaiah's hand.
"Canary thought we should be here," Superman told her. Mallory's heart sank. She didn't want them to see the dream, but it was too late to back out now.
"Why is he here?" Batman asked, indicating Isaiah.
Isaiah started to get up, but Mallory held him in place. "Because I want him here. For moral support."
J'onn looked around. "Well, if everyone is here, we can begin. You must have physical contact with Inferno to be brought into her mind."
Isaiah tightened his grip on her hand, Canary leaned forward in her chair and touched her other hand, and Superman and Batman each touched a shoulder. Mallory looked around awkwardly, then closed her eyes.
When she opened them again, she was in the living area of the cave. There were pictures on the coffee table. One was of the team, one was of her parents, one of Clark, and one of Isaiah and her. She looked around to see the Leaguers looking around. She was still holding Isaiah's hand.
"Well, J'onn, how does this work?" Canary asked after looking around.
J'onn looked at Mallory. "To uncover her fears and find the trauma, we must go deeper than her safe place. We must go to the recesses of her mind."
He started to fly to the door, and the Leaguers, Isaiah, and Mallory followed. However, when he got to the door, it wouldn't open. Manhunter tried several times, but it wouldn't budge.
"Let me try," Clark offered.
"No! If you force it, you could cause more trauma," Manhunter warned.
Mallory watched the adults with a mixture of curiosity and anxiety. It was interesting to be inside your own mind. She let go of Isaiah's hand and started looking around. She picked up the picture of the team and smiled.
"Did you know the cave was your safe spot?" Isaiah asked.
Mallory shrugged. "I'm not surprised. It's more of a home than I've ever had."
Isaiah tilted the picture of them so he could see it better. Mallory put the picture of the team down next to it.
"So, I'm in your safe place," he said quietly.
Mallory looked over the pictures. "All the important people in my life are, it looks like."
"Mallory, " J'onn said. She and Isaiah went back over to the grownups.
"What?" she asked.
"I will have to put you in a sleep-like state so we may enter into the chambers of your mind."
Mallory looked at him anxiously. "You mean I won't be with you?" she asked.
"That is correct. Do not worry, no harm will come to you. It is only to put your mind in a more relaxed state."
Mallory racked her brains to find an excuse out of it. Manhunter must have sensed her concern, because he said, "Do not worry. We will not look into anything from before you joined the team, and we will only look at what we need to."
She still didn't like the sound of that, but she nodded hesitantly. Manhunter told her to get settled on the couch, and she gave Isaiah a look and did as she was told.
Clark watched as Manhunter put Mallory to sleep, then turned to his fellow Leaguers.
"Why do you think she was so nervous to leave us alone?" he asked. Canary shook her head.
"We mustn't waste time. Come." Manhunter went back to the door and tried the handle. It turned, and the door swung open with a creaky hinge. They walked down a long, dark corridor with doors opening off of it. All the doors were labeled, but Clark couldn't read it.
Manhunter paused at one of the doors. "This is where her memories with the team start. We must be careful not to push her mind." Clark nodded and started looking at the doors. Manhunter stopped at one near the end of the hall. "This is the day of the League's induction. Perhaps we should start here."
The Leaguers nodded and Manhunter tried to open the door. It only opened halfway. "Oh, well, we will have to make do. Her resistance to me is stronger than I expected."
Canary let out a breath. "Join the club," she muttered.
They all squeezed through the door and stood in front of a large screen. Manhunter sighed. "Television is ruining the young's minds. Well, we will just have to watch what happened that day."
They saw her day from the moment she woke up to the end of the day. They not only saw the events through Mallory's eyes, but they felt what she felt when the things happened. They felt the love, pride, and happiness when she spoke to Roy before the ceremony, and again when she saw Green Arrow give him his induction card. They felt the sorrow when Dr. Fate was admitted, and the concern for Zatanna. Clark noticed Bruce narrow his eyes slightly at the connection that was clearly between Robin and Zatanna. Funny, he'd never noticed it before. They watched through the ambush, and when Mallory thought Artemis was going to die, they felt the panic and anguish as she flew to save her, then the dread as she realized she wouldn't make it. Canary put a hand over her mouth at the intense emotions flowing through the room.
"J'onn, can't we skip this?" Batman asked. Clark stared at his friend. Even in a room charged with emotion, Batman remained as stone cold as ever.
J'onn sped through the day, stopping at highlights, but nothing seemed to stick out as particularly traumatizing. They moved on to the room that had a heavy steel door.
"This room is the day of the invasion of the Watchtower. It must be the source of the trauma for her mind to guard it so heavily." Manhunter tried the door, but immediately jerked his hand away from the metal. "It is hot," he said.
Clark stepped forward. "Let me try," he said. He stepped forward and laid a hand on the door. It was hot. He tried to pull the door open, but it wouldn't budge. He remembered Manhunter's warning about not pushing the mind and resisted the urge to just rip the door open.
"Mallory, it's me, Clark," he said, thinking she would relax if she knew it was him. The door grew two more inches thick before their eyes.
"She does not want you to see what is behind this door," Manhunter said. Clark hid his surprise and hurt.
"Well, what do we do now?" Batman asked.
Manhunter looked at the door thoughtfully. "It could take me weeks to break through her defenses."
Isaiah stepped forward and laid a hand on the door. "Mal, it's me. Please open the door," he murmured, too quietly for anyone but Clark to hear.
The door started to slowly shrink, and Isaiah backed up a little and nodded to J'onn, who tried the door. When it opened, flames leapt out and Manhunter barely avoided getting hit. He put a hand to his head.
"She is putting up too much resistance." He turned to Isaiah. "Perhaps you should go first. You seem to be a calming agent for the defences."
Isaiah walked towards the flames and disappeared in them. Clark followed, the other Leaguers not far behind.
In this room, the screen was fuzzy, and it was playing the moment when the team found out that Red Arrow was a clone. The emotion flowing through the room was suffocating. They watched through them landing on the roof of the safehouse, then the screen started to cut in and out.
"She is trying to keep us from seeing this," Manhunter explained.
Isaiah stared at the League. "Why do you have to watch this? Just skip to the fight. This isn't any of your business."
Batman glared at him, and Clark sighed. "Hotspot, we're trying to help Mallory. In this case, it means understanding exactly what happened that day."
They watched her kick the door in and felt the jolt of alarm at seeing Red Arrow pointing an arrow at her. Clark felt anger coarse through him, seeing Mallory being betrayed. They watched the whole exchange, and they were all quiet while the team talked on the bioship. Clark stared off into space. He'd had no idea Mallory and clone Roy were that close. And here he thought he knew everything about his young partner, when she had clearly carved her own place in the hero life.
The familiar sight of Metropolis drew his attention back to the screen. She went to Metropolis on the day of the Watchtower invasion? He watched curiously as she hurried down the streets and into an apartment building. She was ushered into the apartment and brought to a room with Isaiah in it. Clark glanced at the teen, who was getting more and more uncomfortable.
"You don't need to look at this. Nothing happened in there that's traumatizing her."
The other Leaguers more or less ignored the teen, but Clark took him more seriously. "J'onn, the boy's right. We don't need to watch this, it's an invasion of privacy."
J'onn nodded and sped through it, but not before they heard her say that she might not make it back. Then they were on the Watchtower and Mallory followed Robin and Conner to the big room. They watched the fight, which was pretty normal until Mallory started to fight Superman.
Clark watched in horror as he flew to Mallory and grabbed her by the throat. The fear and grief that struck the room hit Clark hard. Then Mallory said his name. It broke his heart, hearing the pleading, fear, and hope in the word. Dread crept into the room when Superman didn't acknowledge her, and fear again when he started tightening his fist. Then Conner hit him and he threw her down. Clark resisted the urge to jump forward. It was too late to catch her.
She landed on the ground hard, and a sense of sadness and regret filled the room, along with a sense of acceptance and a small amount of fear in the background.
"She thinks she is going to die," J'onn told them.
Clark watched as she lay there dying. Then, she started trying to get up. They saw Batman about to kill Robin. Clark looked over at Bruce. His eyes narrowed and his hands were in fists by his sides, but otherwise nothing changed. Mallory saved Robin, then Batman pulled a gun on her. Clark stared at the screen in shock, then looked at Bruce again. He was clearly appalled that he'd done something so against his principles. The gun went off with a bang, and everyone in the room jumped. Mallory put up a fire shield that melted the bullet on impact. Clark raised his eyebrows in surprise. He was learning quite a bit about Mallory today.
The events after that were much calmer, and Manhunter suggested that they leave the room. Back in the hall, Canary took a long breath.
"We had no idea the extent that she went through, that the whole team went through."
Batman glared at the wall, his jaw clenched tightly.
"What about the dream?" Canary asked.
Manhunter nodded and led them to another door. It took a little while to get past the door, but when they did they found themselves in the cave, staring at Wally. They could hear the team training in the background.
"Well, Rob and Z went on a date," Wally told her, handing her an ice pack. Mallory adjusted it on her ribs and they felt a pulse of excitement in the room.
"Really? Man, I missed out on a lot being stuck in my room," she said.
This was within a week of the Watchtower, Clark realised, when Mallory had just come off bedrest.
"Yeah. Bats found out, so Rob's been patrolling for two days." Wally continued, then he grinned and added, "Well, one of them has, anyway."
"What?" Mallory asked.
"Z made a double. Bats thinks Robin's been in Gotham, but he's been at the cave the whole time." Mallory laughed.
"You know he's going to find out about that, right? I mean, as aggravating and self righteous as he is, he's not stupid. He's too paranoid not to notice."
"Well, I think Robin can handle Batman. Besides, why would he be suspicious? It's not like anyone's gonna tell him."
Clark put a hand over his face to cover his smile. Bruce was seething next to him, and Clark turned to J'onn.
"Maybe we should just skip to the dream, before incriminating anyone else."
Manhunter nodded and put a hand to his head. They skipped to when Mallory went to sleep, still on the couch. They watched the dream play out in front of their eyes. By the end, everyone was in a stunned silence.
"So that's why she wouldn't tell me about it," Canary murmured.
The emotions she felt during and after the dream were thick in the room, and Wally came back into view.
"Mal, you ok?" the speedster asked, concern written all over his face.
Mallory got her breath before saying, "I'm fine, it was just a dream."
Wally didn't seem to buy it. "You've been having a lot of those dreams lately. What's going on?"
She sighed. "It's nothing. Just that, well, I've been dreaming about the watchtower since it happened. And Batman and Superman, they kill me in them."
Wally winced. "Sorry. Hey, you know, you could talk to someone, if you wanted to."
"No," Mallory said firmly. "I don't want the League to know."
"Why not?" Wally asked.
"Because I don't want Superman to find out that I'm not over our fight and feel guilty, and I don't want Bats to find out and think I'm weak."
Clark's eyes widened. She'd suffered for a month because she didn't want him to feel guilty. Well, of course he felt guilty, he'd been feeling bad since the watchtower. Every time he saw her, he remembered the bruises on her neck. But he felt even worse now, knowing that he'd given her PTSD and that he'd been the reason she hadn't gotten help.
"Well, I wouldn't worry too much about Batman. He's a dictator, sure, but he's-"
Batman was glaring at the screen. "J'onn, bring us out. We have what we need."
Manhunter nodded and the next thing Clark knew he was back in reality. He pulled his hand off Mallory's shoulder and started pacing. Mallory was still asleep, and she started to fall over, but Isaiah caught her and eased her down so she was comfortable, one hand still in hers. He thought back to Mallory going to see him before the Watchtower. He hadn't known how serious they were. He didn't know a lot about Mallory's life these days.
Batman started pacing the small room angrily.
"You didn't know?" Clark asked.
"No, the cameras were down, and I was satisfied that the team handled things."
Clark sighed. "She never said anything. I mean, I had no idea that-"
Dinah put a hand on his arm. "Kal, it's not your fault. You weren't the one hurting her."
"No, but I'm the one she associates the memory with. Me and Batman."
"So what do we do about this?" Canary asked.
"Now that she has shared the memories, perhaps she will be more open to talking about them," J'onn said.
Clark looked over at Mallory, still laying in Isaiah's arms. Guilt washed over him, and he decided that he would spend more time with her, and give her something to make sure he never hurt her again.
Mallory sat up stiffly and looked around. Isaiah was sitting over her, and they were alone in the therapy room.
"How long have I been out?" she asked, standing up to stretch.
"An hour, at least. I don't know how long we were in there."
Mallory sighed. She felt different, somehow, like her protective layers had been striped bare, leaving all the emotions of the past two months feeling very new and raw.
"They saw it, didn't they?" she asked quietly. Isaiah nodded.
"Where are they?"
"In the training room."
Mallory nodded and started walking out the door, then turned back to him. "Thanks for doing this for me." He nodded again, and she went to the training room where the four Leaguers were standing in a circle. She slipped between Superman and Canary.
"Oh, Mallory, you're awake," Canary said. Mallory waited for something more substantial to be said. "I-we're sorry, Mallory. We had no idea what you went through, and I didn't realize that the more I pushed you to talk about it the more you just couldn't."
Mallory nodded a thank you to her trainer. "So am I back on missions?" she asked, looking at Batman.
The Dark Knight sighed. "Given time to work through this, yes. J'onn told us that now that your defenses have been broken down, all that needs to be done is to talk about it. You should be ready in time for the next mission."
Mallory smiled, then thought of something. "Uh, exactly how much did you look into?"
"The day of the League induction to a little bit after the Watchtower incident," Manhunter told her.
"Oh, so you know about the morning we found out about Roy?" she asked, chancing a quick glance at Batman, who narrowed his eyes and turned on his heel and left. She looked up at Clark for an answer. He was smiling down at her.
"Well, Batgrump fits pretty well for a paranoid dictator."
She didn't know whether to laugh or be embarrassed or be scared, so she settled for all three.
"Am I dead?" she asked.
Clark shook his head. "No, not after everything else we saw. Wally and Robin, now, I'm not so sure."
Canary and Manhunter went to the watchtower, but Superman hung back. "Torch, I saw when I attacked you. I'm sorry. It isn't fair that you were so powerless against me. If Conner hadn't been there, well…"
"I know. But there's nothing we can do about that, so I'm just going to need you to stay away from mind controllers for a while."
"Well, I certainly intend to do that. But I was actually thinking that there is something we can do about it." He handed her a necklace with a small ball dangling from it.
"Thanks?" Mallory said, taking the present.
"It has kryptonite in it," Superman explained. "So that if something like that ever happens again you'll be able to stop me."
Mallory stared at the lead necklace in her hand. "Clark, I don't want this. I don't want the responsibility."
Clark shook his head. "It isn't enough to kill me, just to slow me down enough that your fire might stop me."
Mallory looked at him hesitantly, but one look at his face showed that there was no way to change his mind. She put the chain around her neck and nodded. "All right. I just hope I'll never have to use it."
"That makes two of us," Clark said, then he started for the zeta tube.
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