I promise, this is the last time I'm going to do this with Mallory's love life. Anyway, hope you like the chapter, please review.

Two days after the fight, Mallory was sleeping on the sofa when she woke up with a start to the window scraping open. She jumped up groggily, her mind registering a second later that it was just Dick coming in from patrol.

"Sorry," he said, wincing as he tried to close it quietly.

She rubbed her eyes and looked at her phone. It was three in the morning. "Where have you been?" she asked, laying back down. She could hear him moving around behind her, taking off his belt and mask and boots, but she closed her eyes again, trying to go back to sleep.

"I had to chase down a lead. Blockbuster's starting to go into business for himself."

"I thought Desmond was in Belle Rev," she murmured through a yawn, not really paying attention.

"Yeah, he is. This is his brother, he found a way to make the formula without turning into a monster without a nose, so now he's basically like Brick."

"Why would the Light want another one?" she asked. She could feel sleep coming over her, like a blanket. The last thing she registered before she let herself fall into the calm was, "they don't, he's an independent agent, as far as…"

Dick was sound asleep the next time she woke up. She had an hour to get to work, but she didn't have the motivation to get up and get ready. She checked her roommate's schedule that he had on the fridge to make sure that he was off that day, and she pulled on a sweatshirt and shoes and went down the street to a coffee shop. By the time she got back to the apartment with half a dozen banana nut muffins, she knew she wasn't going to work. She sat at the counter and called in, reasoning that she wouldn't get too far behind in her case files from one day. She just couldn't bear the thought of sitting behind her desk all day, shuffling through papers. Just the thought made her muscles ache from the boredom.

She paced the small apartment, feeling mare trapped with every second that ticked by. She needed some excitement, something to get her blood pumping. Even patrol seemed boring to her, routine. With Dick sleeping, her friends at work or busy, the team at school or tutoring, it didn't leave her with many options. She twirled a lock of hair around her finger, staring at the black ringlet for a moment, then she went to the hall closet that held her clothes, rummaging through them. She found a pair of jeans that were baggy and ripped up and a black crop top and paired it with combat boots and Brek's cap, adding a ring to the burned side of the bill. When she was dressed, she looked at herself in the mirror and smiled, then grabbed her comm and put it in her ear, leaving her phone and anything else that could identify her behind.

She went to the zeta tube and came out near the Suicide Slum in Metropolis, and from there she walked casually down the street, counting the blocks until she turned into an alley and found the metal door in the side of the building. Now that she wasn't in a hurry, she noticed a keypad sticking out of the bricks, mostly covered by a stack of old tires. A combination from one of the files stuck out in her mind, and she typed in the numbers deliberately. There was a flash of green at the top of the key pad, and a second later the door slid open. She smiled with satisfaction and walked into the darkness, adjusting her eyes to the difference in lighting.

There was a group not far down the hall, but they barely glanced at her as she strode by, her steps and demeanor confident. She remembered how to get to the main room, so she walked through, barely even looking around as she made her way through the dim halls. There were people all over, and the further she got, the more looks she got. She was just two turns away from the room that she and Roy had been discovered in when someone stepped in front of her.

"Where do you think you're going, girly?" the man asked.

Mallory narrowed her eyes a little and looked up at him. He was huge, at least 6 '10, and his muscles were so bulky from whatever steroids or serums Icicle Sr was peddling it looked like he could barely move. "I'm going to see the boss," she replied calmly. She didn't look, but she could feel the change in the air as the man's buddies came to surround her. One of them leaned over her shoulder and she watched him out of her periphery, keeping her gaze on the man in front of her.

"I don't remember seeing you around here before," the one behind her said. He reached towards her to push some of her hair out of her face. Before his fingers brushed the lock of hair, Mallory grabbed his hand and dug her nails into the top of it, twisting slightly. He went to his knees, and she raised an eyebrow at the man in front of her, who she had never broken eye contact with.

"You want to move, or you want to be moved?" she asked.

The group looked at each other, conflicted, and the man narrowed his eyes, studying her. "What did you say your name was?" he asked.

"Tana," she replied. She took a step forward, making it clear that she was no longer giving him a choice. He sidestepped, leaving just enough room for her to pass. "Thank you," she said, striding past him.

"You know, you really should work on your pain tolerance," she called over her shoulder. "It'd be a shame if you got taken out by an arrow to the hand or something." She chuckled when she turned the corner, enjoying the way her heart was hammering against her ribs.

She made it to the room without another incident and pushed the door open. There was plenty of activity, with some groups moving crates and others checking rosters, and there was a pair of fighters in the ring at the center of the room. She scooted to the side and scanned the room. She found what she was looking for a moment later: Icicle Sr talking to one of his henchmen, Cameron a few feet away. She started walking, dodging people and crates as she went.

"Hey, Boss, can I have a minute?" she said when she got closer.

Icicle Sr, the man he was talking to, and Jr all looked at her at the same time. Sr clearly didn't recognize her, and he didn't really seem to care, but Jr's face went pale, well, paler than usual, and he started shifting on his feet, his eyes darting around. She fought a smile and tilted her head. "What do you need?" Icicle Sr asked.

"There's a problem downtown. There's a crowd on the dock, so we might not be able to move the next shipment. I was thinking you might want to come take a look at it. You know, so we don't fall behind schedule."

Sr shook his head, irritated. "I don't have time for this," he said.

"Why isn't it already being handled?" he asked the man he was talking to.

The man shrugged, glaring at Mallory. "I don't know, sir. This is the first I'm hearing about it."

Sr looked at her a little harder, and she could tell he was getting suspicious. She kept her eyes on him, though, she did remind herself of the comm in her ear, just in case. "Do I know you?" he asked after a moment.

Before she could answer, Jr jumped in. "Yeah, dad, this is Tana, remember? You hired her the other week."

He was stuttering and not meeting his dad in the eye, and Mallory fought a groan. For a bad guy, he wasn't great at lying. Or maybe it was just that, for heroes, the people she was around were just too good at it.

Icicle Sr nodded slowly, and then he looked at the man he was talking to. "Well, you should send a team over to see what's going on."

"That might not be such a good idea," Mallory said.

"Why not?" Cameron's father was glaring at her now, hating that she would dare question his decision.

"Well, it's just that it might bring some unwanted attention if a lot of people go over. Why don't you just send one person, maybe Icicle Jr, since he's not so–" she eyes the henchman, who was just as bulky as the men in the hall, "big."

Icicle Sr thought about it for a moment, then he shrugged. "Sure, whatever. At least it'll get him out of my hair for a while." He turned to his son, sticking a finger at his chest. "But if you mess this up, you'll get worse than the last time."

Jr nodded. "Yeah, sure, dad, no problemo." He grabbed Mallory's arm and started to pull her away from his father. "Come on, Tana. You'll have to show me where to go."

He practically jogged out of the compound, Mallory still in tow. Once they hit the street, he started walking towards the docks, but took a turn halfway there and weaved through some streets. He dragged her into an abandoned parking garage and up three flights of stairs before he finally stopped and faced her.

"What was that?" he asked, furious. "You know they'll kill you the first chance they get. Why would you go in without backup?"

Mallory just laughed. "Sorry, I was just having some fun."

"Fun? Seriously?" He shook his head and paced a few steps in front of her. "Aren't you supposed to be at work?" he asked when he managed to calm his breathing.

She shrugged. "I didn't feel like going in. Besides, I wanted to tell you something."

He sighed. "Ok, what is it?"

"I just wanted to tell you that it wasn't fair for me to ask you to switch sides, and I'm sorry about what I said about your dad. It wasn't my place." He stared at her like she was crazy, and she tilted her head. "What?"

"Was that seriously the only reason you put yourself behind enemy lines?"

She shrugged. "How else was I going to talk to you?"

"You could have waited until we went on a date!" he yelled.

He rubbed the side of his face, and that was when Mallory noticed the bruise spreading over his temple and into his hairline. Her smile left her face and she reached up, brushing it with her fingertips. "What happened?" she asked. He just shrugged and looked away, and Mallory looked closer, noticing another bruise at the back of his neck and one on his collar bone that hadn't been there a few days ago. "Cameron, what happened?" she asked again.

He sighed. "Something went wrong on the last heist, the gun that was supposed to vaporize the cops misfired and they caught some of our top guys, and now the authorities will find out about the serum and the protection racket, which means the League will probably know by tomorrow, too. I guess it was easy to blame me for it, since I was the last one to handle the gun."

Mallory narrowed her eyes, fury flooding her veins, spilling out of her heart like poison. She shook her head and walked away a few steps, trying to get control of herself. Her hands shook with the effort of containing the flames that were begging to come out. It wasn't right that he should have to live like that. But he wouldn't quit, he wouldn't join the right side. Well, she couldn't keep watching him go back to his father, not knowing that he would get a beating every time something didn't go right. The thought hit her a second later, and her anger seeped out of her veins as she turned around, not even taking the time to think it out.

"Cameron, let's go," she said.

"Go where?" he asked tiredly.

"Anywhere. It doesn't matter. You can leave your father, I'll leave Inferno behind. We can just go and be nothing together. Please, Cam. Please, don't go back to your dad. We don't even have to tell anyone, we can just hop on a plane and disappear. People do it all the time in our business. It wouldn't be that hard to stay off the grid, I know an island we can start out on, Volcana wouldn't mind covering for us if I ask her. If you don't make a clean break, you'll never be free of him. You know I'm right, Cam. Please."

She stopped her speech, looking at him, trying to gauge his reaction, hoping that she would see some sign that he was at least considering it. Instead, she was met with a guarded stare. They were silent for a long time, him just looking at her, his face uncharacteristically unreadable. "What?" she asked finally.

"Can I ask you something?" he asked calmly.

"Anything," she replied, and a smile played on her lips as she realized that she meant it. She was willing to tell him anything he wanted to know about her. Her name, her origins, her deepest secrets. Anything.

"What happened with Brek?"

Her heart sank to her stomach. Anything but that. "What?"

"What happened when Brek went back to the future? What happened between you?"

"Cameron, what does that have to do with us?" she asked hesitantly.

He sighed. "That's what I'm trying to figure out," he admitted. "So what was it? Did you break up? Is that why he went back?"

She stared at him for a few seconds, panic trying to take hold as her mind spun, trying to find a way out of the situation, trying to backtrack until they were back on solid, comfortable ground. But his face stayed blank, his eyes insistent, and she sighed and stepped back, hugging herself.

"No," she said quietly. "We never broke up."

Jr nodded and leaned on the edge of a railing. Mallory joined him, suddenly feeling like she wasn't strong enough to keep herself on her feet.

"Guardian already told you the gist of it. A group of heroes came from the future to stop a threat, spent a few months with us in the cave, and Polar Boy, Brek," she half shrugged, not knowing how to explain her relationship, and also knowing that she didn't need to. She moved on, skipping to the end. "We thought he was going to have to go back with the others after the mission, but–well, that's a longer story, but things changed, and he was going to stay. We went on a mission right after he told me that he was going to stay, and a friend of mine got hurt. By the time I went to see Brek after all of that happened, the legion had already left, and he went with them."

It was the first time she'd ever told anyone the story. The first time she'd needed to, since everyone else in her life who she would have told was there when it happened. Tears were pricking at her eyes by the end, and her voice was thick as she added, "I thought I was going to spend the rest of my life with him, and then he was just gone." She shook her head, reminding herself that that wasn't what she should be saying here.

She should be telling Cameron that it had nothing to do with him, that Brek was just someone she knew once, and she would spend the rest of her life with Jr if he was willing to, but she couldn't. Telling him the story had changed something, helped her sort through some of the storm of emotion that she had carried for years without even really knowing it.

Cameron sighed. "I'm not going to go with you," he said. His voice was surprisingly strong, and he didn't avoid her gaze when she looked at him.

She suddenly felt desperate, and she gave one more stab at trying to patch things up. "Cameron, I'm sorry. But, just because things aren't what we thought they were, that doesn't mean they can't get there. We can still go, get away from our families and try to figure this out, try to make it work."

He shook his head. "No. It won't work, not as long as you're trying to relive your time with someone else. It wouldn't take you long to realize that you were wrong, and you would regret it, and I care about you too much to let you make that mistake."

She opened her mouth, intending to disagree with him, but in the end she just closed it. They both knew now that she didn't love him, at least not the way he wanted her to, and it wouldn't be fair to either of them, especially Jr, to pretend that nothing was wrong. The silence stretched on, and Mallory looked around. She suddenly realized why the place felt so familiar. It was the parking garage that she had followed him into all those months ago, the day that he decided to show her kindness instead of killing her. She took a shaky breath and looked at him. There were tears gathering in his eyes, but they weren't falling. Suddenly her throat felt blocked as she realized that she was about to lose him, and even if she didn't love him, he had still proved himself to be a good friend, and it was killing her that she had hurt him. She put a hand on his arm.

"Cameron…I'm so sorry. I never wanted to do this to you," she said. It didn't feel like enough, but it was all she had.

He just smiled and nodded. "I know," he said, and the first tear spilled over his lashes.

She sighed and brushed it away, pulling him into a hug. "You saved my life, you know," she said quietly against his shoulder. He pulled away slightly, his head tilted. She smiled. "Right over there," she said, nodding towards the pillar she had leaned against when her powers abandoned her. "My life was a mess, and I think I was looking for a way to end it without guilt. But, you didn't help me with that. You decided not to fight me, you gave me a reason to start trying to find myself again."

He shook his head, trying to wave away the recognition. "You would have figured it out, or your friends would have forced some sense into your head."

"Stop doing that. You're more important than you think," she said. "Besides," she added, "they tried."

He smiled, something like pride coming to his face. "You know, you're important, too," he said.

She chuckled, shaking her head. "Yeah, I don't–"

"You saved my life, too, you know."

She scoffed, looking at him. "Yeah? What did I do?" she asked.

"You were in it," he replied.

She didn't know whether to laugh or cry. "That is simultaneously the corniest and sweetest thing anyone has ever said to me," she said. A beat passed, and she sighed and pushed herself to her feet, Cameron following suit. She looked up at him, knowing that she needed to leave. "You deserve someone that can see how great of a guy you are, even when you can't show it. I hope you find them soon."

He smiled and nodded slowly. "I hope you find what you're looking for, T."

He gave her one last hug, and she held on tight, not wanting to let go of this. "If you ever need help, if you decide to get away from your dad, all you need to do is call me and I'll be there," she said.

She felt him nod. "Yeah, you too," he said.

They let go, but still neither made a move to leave. Finally, he tilted his head. "Can you do something for me?" he asked.

She nodded. "Anything."

"Can you not use Tana for anyone else? I'd like to think we at least had that."

She chuckled and nodded. "You got it." She cupped his cheek in her hand and gave him a light kiss on the lips. "Goodbye, Cameron."

She turned and went to the edge of the level and jumped, catching herself and flying without looking back. She didn't stop until she was in New York and she found the house she was looking for and landed at the door. "Mallory?" Zatanna asked when she opened the door. "What happened?" The tears started to come. "You were right," the pyrokinetic managed to choke out. Her friend didn't ask for any explanation, she just wrapped her arms around her and led her inside.

An hour later, Zatanna had her living room crowded with the girls. Megan, Karen, Raquel, and Artemis. Mallory had cried herself out while they waited for the others to come, and Zatanna had stayed with her, holding her without questioning why. Now, she had just finished telling them what happened, and the situation was becoming more and more clear in her mind.

"You were right," she said for the fifth time that night, looking at Zatanna and Artemis. "I guess I saw Brek in him. I guess I wasn't as over Brek as I thought I was."

Raquel sighed. "Mal, you need to move on. You can't let this happen to you every time you meet someone new. Wasn't that why you didn't date anyone in college? I'm not saying you should be with Jr, but someday you'll find the right person, and you need to be ready to let them in when that happens."

Mallory shook her head. "You just don't get it," she said. She wasn't mad, she wasn't blaming them, she was just stating a fact. "You don't get what it feels like to lose someone like that, without warning, and know that it was your fault."

Artemis sat up straighter, and Mallory winced, knowing what her friend was going to say before she opened her mouth. "I do," the archer said. "And I also know how hard it is to move on when you lose the person you thought you would spend the rest of your life with. But, Mal, we talked about this before. You need to make your peace with it and let yourself move forward. It doesn't mean that you should forget any of it, but he wouldn't want to be the one holding you back."

She curled her legs up to her chest and buried her face in her knees for a moment, picturing his face. She could see every detail of it as if she was there in the room. The way his hair would always fall over his face and stick up a little in the back, the surprising warmth in his ice blue eyes, the look in them that made her feel like she was the only person that mattered to him, the way his eyelashes almost seemed invisible until the light caught them, and his smile that just brightened the room. When she looked back up at her friends, her eyes were wet with tears.

"I just–I miss him," she said, her pain clear in her voice. She looked at Zatanna, her tears making the magician's face swim in front of her. She was the only one who was there, the only one who really knew why Brek went back with the other legionnaires, so she was the only person who would know what she meant when she said, "it's what I regret most. It's what I would go back and change, if I could. I would tell him everything, and I would get him to stay."

In her mind, it was the decision that changed everything, the thing that could fix everything. If Brek stayed, she wouldn't have left the team, so there may never have been a need for Tula and Garth to join the team, which would have kept Tula from dying. If Tula hadn't died, Dick may have never left being Robin, which could have kept Jason alive, and Kaldur might not have left the team, which would have meant Lagaan wouldn't have joined and they never would have had to deal with the pain of their leader's betrayal and the heartbreak of thinking Artemis was dead. And if Brek had stayed, he wouldn't have told her that she would sacrifice herself, so she wouldn't tell Wally about it, and he wouldn't have died. Maybe she wouldn't have, either. And even if she had, she would have died with the life that she wanted, with everyone she loved around her. This is what she tried to convince herself of as she stayed with her friends.

It didn't occur to her, then, how many lives were made in that scenario. How many people became a part of their family, the people who were given second chances because of their place on the team. No. That thought wouldn't occur to her until years later, when it would be pointed out to her by the one person that knew her completely.