She woke up to the sound of him.

Thrashing and gasping, it was a surprise he hadn't woken her sooner with the racket he was making from the contents of his dream. It was an unfortunate common occurrence, one she saw nearly every night these days. Despite the meditation lessons, there still seemed to be a deep disturbance in his soul. One self reflection and controlled breathing could not help.

Raven pushed back her thinning blanket and exposed herself to the air. Gooseflesh formed on her exposed stomach as she stood and crossed the room. His knuckles were white from how tightly his fists were clenched and his head twisted to an almost unnatural angle as his black hair fell wildly around his face.

She placed a gentle hand on his bicep that flexed in response to the touch but did nothing to wake him. The room held an unnatural chill to it, but it was significantly warmer than the temperature of his skin. Raven let out a sigh, the puff of breath visible in the cold as she let her magic prod beneath his skin to wake him as gently as possible.

Despite her best attempt to avoid an altercation, the halfa woke quite violently. His hand encasing hers in a grip that made her bones creak in protest. Still, she kept calm and waited for the wildness in his eyes to disappear, for him to recognize her as a friend.

"Sam-?" Danny gasped, blinking rapidly as he looked about the room. Unfocused eyes fell upon her form, his chest heaving from the exertion his lungs were forcing him through. He searched her face and the haze in his gaze faded into a look of recognition as he caught his breath and returned to reality. "...Raven?"

She hummed an affirmative as she knelt at his bedside. The halfa turned in his bed to lay on his side, facing her as he took her hands in his and pressed his ear into the pillow.

"I woke you again." It was a statement, not an ask like the first few times he had uttered the sentence.

She would have sensed his encroaching despair even without her gift of empathy. Raven shook her head slightly at his words as she reassured him, "It has never once been an inconvenience."

"I know." The whispered words were loud in the quiet room, only accompanied by the hum of the MotherShip One's (ever-running) engines. He closed his eyes. "Doesn't make me feel any better about it though."

Raven didn't have anything to say to that. The desire to ask him about the contents of his dream was strong, but not nearly as strong as her restraint. She had attempted that route before. Danny wasn't a soul who responded well to pressured inquiries. It was always best when he came to her, when he stopped being stubborn and realized he needed help. It wasn't often enough that he asked for her thoughts (in her opinion) but trying to force it was almost never worth the effort.

So she stayed quiet, holding his hands in hers as he laid before her, both very much awake and both very much unwilling to be.

Eventually, their room's lights lit up to indicate the begining of their assigned day cycle. With the brightening lights came the rising of their bodies from the bed and floor beside it. She let go of his hand as he moved to sit on his mattress before Raven left for the bathroom.

There was no need to brush her teeth or hair. They were habits that filled the time, made her feel mortal, made her feel alive in their simplicity and normality. So as she applied her Earth standard toothpaste and began to scrub, her memories came to her like a nostalgic caress after a bad night's sleep. All of the years previous, every toothbrush she'd ever had, every mirror she'd ever used during the act, briefly flashed through her mind.

A sense of calm settled deep in her bones as she spat and rinsed her mouth. A bandaid on her bleeding heart, the slightest push she needed to keep moving, and she was back in her room to sort through her uniforms. Which shirt looked the least tattered? Which pants fit best? Mundane things to help her mind pretend she was fine. To push the darkness back another day.

Raven wasn't sure how long she had been staring at her grey shirts. Long enough that the shower was turned on. Long enough for her to realize the water had stopped rushing though the pipes, now merely running down the lines of Danny's throat as he stood beside her. She blinked, and he was dressed, his fingers gently pressing into the skin of her bare wrist as his eyebrows scrunched at her state with concern.

His worry snapped her out of it. A sharp inhale and she was quick to dress, pulling on her pants and shirt without fanfare as he moved to wait by the door. Deployment days always had the pair on edge and spacey, but their conditions were made worse with the lack of sleep. The only blessing bestowed upon them was they weren't scheduled to arrive at their station for a few hours yet, and there was still plenty of time to find the will to focus.

But Raven wouldn't start worrying about that until after she'd had her morning tea.

When they entered the corridor the energy immediately shifted. Whispers echoing around the corners, the excited mumblings from other metahuman pairs as they stood just out of the thoroughfare, heads bent together as the rumor mill took root. Other couples passed them, bright smiles decorating their faces, a skip in their steps that hadn't been seen among any on Mother Ship One.

It was an odd sight, a terrifyingly confusingly odd sight.

The pair of immortals made their way towards the cafeteria, their footsteps echoing down the hall, interweaving into the mass noise that grew steadily louder the closer they got to their destination. A smell struck her nose. The unmistakable scent of sugar grew with each additional step, peaking when the pair pushed open the doors to the cafeteria to reveal a dessert upon every tray of each and every soldier within the room.

Cake.

She hadn't seen cake since she'd been incarcerated.

She heard Danny inhale in surprise at the sight of it, his simultaneous joy and suspicion sprouted within his soul as the pair moved to get into the (longer than usual) line. Neither immortal said anything as they waited, nor when they'd finally received their meals and slices of the rare treat. Only when they'd taken their seats at the abandoned table in the shadiest corner of the room, did they finally unlock their clenched jaws to speak of the oddity.

Danny broke their silence first, poking the cake with his fork as though he were afraid it were about to spring to life. "Is this real? Am I still dreaming?"

The demoness let out a slight huff of amusement as she picked up her own fork. "We are not asleep."

"It's hard to believe, okay?" The halfa explained, his words stressed and defensive, his fork dissecting the sweet as his eyes scanned for any signs of wrongdoing. "I thought the Empire ran outta sugar centuries ago! With how bland the food here is..." He trailed off, utensil playing with the icing between layers, inspecting its consistency and crumb for secrets.

"It definitely doesn't smell as sweet as it should be."

"But like, why?" Danny stressed as she carved into her own piece, the icing on the side as white and soft as she remembered icing to be. "Why are we getting cake?" He stated the obvious question as if Raven had any capability of conjuring and answer. "Shouldn't this be like, I dunno. A luxury? For the economic elite? I have no idea what's going on on Earth but everything about this feels wrong!" The half ghost gasped, his torso losing its slouch as he recoiled away from the confectionery. A dramatic lean in towards her, the slightest of smiles playing with his lips as he put on an act for her amusement. "What if it's poisoned?"

"If they wanted to kill all of us they would poison the water. Not our food." Raven remarked as she fought against the smile that wanted to sprout at his antics.

The way he tilted his head in consideration, a hand coming up to press against his chin in thought, the sight of it made her lungs feel full. Full of what, she dared not to look closer.

"What if they didn't want to risk killing the people in charge?" Danny pondered as he played with his potato substitute, his spoon making quick work of the pasty, revolting, substance as he began to form what looked like a four legged creature.

"Then I doubt they'd be doing a good job of killing us with cake when the Commanders and Loyalists are also enjoying a slice." He hummed at her words as she lifted her fork full of the treat up to her mouth to taste.

It tasted like disappointment.

"That's what they want us to think." Danny whispered only half joking, he watched her swallow her bite with a grimace before he dropped his spoon and lifted his fork to take a hearty bite of his own. He chewed twice before he gagged at the taste and choked it down, coughing and pounding at his chest as theatrically as possible while he floundered for his water. He chugged down the entire beverage in moments, only pulling it away once it was empty to huff and catch his breath. He groaned, "Oh, man. It's like they put as little sugar in it as possible."

"It's rather vile."

"Ugh." He shuddered before he took a spoon full of the potato substitute into his mouth, swallowed and sighed. "You know something went wrong when that-" he gestured his utensil at the half sculpted mush. "-is better than cake."

Raven's mouth opened to speak, but her words were lost to the overhead announcement as it crackled into existence.

"Attention all units of Squadron 3, please report to Hanger 1 for a brief announcement. Atención todas las unidades-" the rest of it continued to drone in other language variants as the immortals felt the blood drain from their skin as they turned to face one another.

"Why-" Danny coughed at the broken word, his mouth sounding as dry as hers had suddenly become. "Why not just say the announcement over the intercom?"

She hummed and placed her utensils back on her tray, her appetite suddenly gone. "They must want to say it in person."

Raven offered her partner her water as she stood from their table and made way to dispose of her hardly touched meal. He took the beverage with enthusiasm and downed it with even more as he followed her lead to the bin. His half-formed food sculpture forgotten as it fell into the depths of the trash, smashed among the other discarded sustenance.

"Think whatever it is has something to do with their sudden generosity?" The undead man asked as the pair made their way through the crowded hallways, a cacophony of similar inquiries echoing against the walls as a hundred other pairs of people made their way towards the same destination.

"I would assume so." She muttered back, but the sound in the hall was growing too loud. Raven had no way of knowing whether he'd heard her words or not. She gave up on the idea of conversing entirely when they entered the hanger bay. Hundreds of conversations accosted her ears simultaneously. A headache sprouting from the sound and ringing behind her retinas. A migraine in the making should she stay here too long.

Just as she began to contemplate leaving and asking Danny for the SparkNotes, a well decorated human man stepped onto the podium set up near the back of the room. The video wall behind him snapped on, an uncomfortably close zoom on the man's face as he smiled into the camera and out at the masses.

He spoke.

"Welcome!" His voice rang out into the room, effectively silencing all conversation instantaneously. "I have an exciting announcement to make. Too exciting to merely make over an intercom." The man began to pace, the camera'd drone easily kept the official in frame as he moved about the stage.

"We have been at war for centuries." He told them, sounding far too happy about such a bleak fact. "Billions of dollars, billions of lives and thousands of planets." Still too cheerful, the man even threw a grin at the camera as he continued to pace. "Many of our soldiers have spent the entirety of their lives living for this war. Dying for this war. They have never known peace, never known freedom from Thanagar's wrath." He stilled, body center stage and fully facing the audience as he placed his hands behind his back.

"Which is why I am pleased to announce that all of that suffering ends today." His hand extended before him, palms facing upwards as he spread his fingers, his excitement incapable of being contained. "The war is over and Earth has won."

No.

Her heart skipped, the blood draining from her face as the man's words continued to wash over her. Hearing without comprehension, too fixated on her spiking fear.

No.

"Last night a very talented S.M.U. took out the last of the Thanagarian council leaders. Their resistance will crumble and fail in the coming months."

No. No! NO!

"Without the dedication and perseverance of our soldiers, we would have never made it to see the day. To see the Earth rise into power the way our planet was always meant to. And we have all of you to thank for it."

She felt sick, this couldn't be happening. This cannot be happening.

"So enjoy your free day! Have an extra slice of cake! All of you have earned that and more in the coming months. Even you insurgents will get a few extra goodies in your monthly allowance packages."

She shut her eyes as if closing them could turn off her ears.

"Thanks again, everyone! After all..." He paused and the demoness opened her eyes. The man seemed to be looking at her, in her direction, but that was impossible. He couldn't see her from his position. The man smiled.

"We wouldn't have won without you."

The words weren't directed at her, but they felt targeted all the same. Raven wasted no time fleeing from the room and down the corridor, body checking a multitude of soldiers without so much as an 'excuse me'.

What had she done? What kind of monster had she created? Something too large and monstrous to be contained by one of the fiercest races in the galaxy! She hadn't moved fast enough. Hadn't corrected her mistakes in time. And now? Now the universe would pay for it.

Raven collapsed just as she stumbled into their room, the door sliding shut behind her as she fell to her knees on the linoleum, her palms barely bracing in time. She gasped as her magic spiked around her, tearing her last good pillow into smithereens. Tears threatened at the corners of her eyes as she fell into herself, as she clawed at the grooves and pressed her temple to the tiles.

She felt wild. Her rapid breathing was the only thing more out of control than her magic. Darkness swirled in the air around her like a feral creature, lashing out at anything unfamiliar in this time of insecurity and fear. She tried to collect herself, tried with everything she had, but she was lost. Lost to her panic, lost to her rampant hatred, and lost to her engulfing self loathing.

So when the door clicked and slid open she reacted on instinct, Danny yelped as he dodged a wave of magic as it lashed out at his unannounced intrusion. The half ghost blinked in surprise at the state of her before he stepped into the room and closed the door behind him.

"Rae?" He whispered as she turned her head away from him and back to the floor, unable to will for the strength to pretend any longer. "Shit."

He moved. Danny fell to his knees besides her, hands hovering over her skin but not daring to touch as she had a once in a lifetime, (complete and total) mental breakdown.

"Rae, you gotta calm down." He whispered as he (oh, so hesitantly) touched the outside of her left wrist. When she didn't immediately shove him off of her, he scooted closer. His other hand gently pressed against the hair at the top of her scalp. "They'll shut you down if you use too much magic."

"I-" she gasped, she felt breathless and out of focus. Out of body and out of control. A snake writhing in her lungs, curling in her stomach and biting at her heart. The poison making everything slow and impossible to deal with. She tried again, "I know."

"Rae-"

"I can't!" She cried, the darkness in the room only growing darker as she wrangled with her emotions. She knew the repercussions, knew what had to be done, but she couldn't. "I-" there wasn't enough air, she tried to slow her gasps but there wasn't enough air. "I should have destroyed the world when I had the chance."

Cold suddenly pressed against her back, around her shoulders and onto the top of her head. She turned at the sudden pressure on her body to the dark hair of her companion, his torso contorting over her own, a gentle half-hug to aid in her anxiety.

Raven managed a slow inhale through her nose, the familiar scent of mint and coffee was suddenly surrounding her. Calming her. Providing a path through the sudden breaking of the emotional dam she had managed to keep up for so long.

"Hey," he whispered as she fought to slow her intake of oxygen. "You don't really mean that." His arms unwrapped from around her as the halfa ghost moved to give her space. Raven stumbled as she scrambled into a less vulnerable position, her arms lacking the grace she'd trained into them as she fumbled. Danny slowly helped her sit up, his touches as light and brief as he could manage, her magic sparking around her as she continued to panic. "It's alright. It's gonna be alright, Rae."

How could anything be alright when the Omnia and (consequentially) Danny's imprisonment was her fault. Her naivety had led the Earth down this path, because she was the origin of this particular butterfly effect. How could he expect her to live with this guilt when she couldn't even voice it?

"Breathe with me."

She tried. Raven tried to follow his breaths but she had to make him understand. For too long she had been silent and she refused to continue the charade.

"The weight-" of these sins is too great. She wanted to tell him, her lungs unable to hold a breath long enough to choke out more than a couple of words. "-my fault." She tried again to tell him. To tell him why she was breaking. Why she was still here. Why she couldn't leave.

She'd made this monster. She had to stop it.

But how could she when even Thanagar couldn't? How could one person, trapped in the system, take it down in its entirety? She'd had a plan. She'd managed to weave spells of destruction through the light wire over the years, and nearly all of the ship (save for a heavily warded section of the middle) had been rigged to blow.

But then it had been discovered. All of her work, undone in a single night.

It had been devastating. She'd nearly broken then and there. For Danny, it had just been another Tuesday.

Raven had been forced to start over from scratch ten years ago. Forced to move even slower, forced to cast more carefully, and forced to hide the magic with even more wards. She'd been working overtime in the last decade trying to catch up. But only a fifth of the ship was laced as of yesterday and that wasn't enough to stop the Empire.

She hiccuped and hated herself for it. The immovable Raven. Unreadable. Emotionless. A face of stone. Reduced to this. A quivering, sniffling, mess who couldn't keep her emotions in check.

"Shhh..." Her partner whispered as gentle fingers wove through her hair, combing through the tangled locks and soothing her aching soul. "It's okay."

"The universe is doomed." She breathed, her eyes far away. Back on Earth, a long time ago, watching as the world burned beneath her father's wrath. She'd been helpless then too.

But back then she'd had her friends. Now? She had nothing.

"No, it's not." Danny rebuked as he lightly tugged on her head, pulling her into his chest to properly hold.

Well, she had Danny. But was that really enough? What could two people do against an Empire?

"I can't bear it." The words escaped her tight throat, sounding coarse and choked. She reluctantly melted into his embrace. It had been so long since she had last asked for a hug, she hadn't realized how badly she'd needed one until his arms were around her.

"Shh..." He soothed again, maintaining an almost unnatural stillness as he held her. From a man who could barely hold still for a haircut, the feat was an impressive demonstration of will. No, hair stroking, no rocking or rubbing. A lack of things she was immensely grateful for since she wouldn't be able to handle any more stimulation than this; than his arms around her and his breath in her ear. "It's gonna be okay."

Eventually, her breaths stuttered and slowed. For how long he held her, his body must have gone stiff. But he never shifted once as she wrangled her emotions back behind her walls, never once complained or said another word as she regained her composure.

Finally, it was over. Her magic was once more under her control and she hadn't accidentally triggered a shut down. Despite the success of it, she still felt at a loss. Her situation hadn't changed, nor had her past actions. The Earth had still won and she-

She had lost everything.

Raven was tired.

She shakily stood from his embrace, her eyes unseeing and far away as she walked towards their bathroom. "I want to shower."

"Oh. Yeah, okay." Danny uttered with surprise as he scrambled to stand, his eyes weary as he watched her wobbly form. "...Do you want help?" The ask was quiet, the uncertainty in his aura screaming at her as her long time partner hesitated to unbalance her further.

The ask had her pausing mere centimeters from the door. Everything in her was desperate to decline, wanted to raise her chin in defiance, needed to pretend she was made of stone.

But an even larger part of her couldn't stand the idea of being alone.

"...Yes." Her agreement slipped through her lips, the word surprised both her and her partner equally. He blinked at her as his spine straightened, his foot taking a step forward without his volition. When she made no move to revoke her consent and proceeded towards the plumbing, the halfa seemed to shake himself out of his shock and hurried into the smaller space with haste.

"So, um..." Danny began nervously, his dominant hand scratching relentlessly at the skin above the back of his neck. "That news hit you pretty hard." He paused as he watched her undress and place her clothes onto the top of the closed toilet. "Do you wanna talk about it?"

She stepped into the shower. "No." And harshly closed the shower's curtain.

"That's cool. I get it." His words softly echoed against the ceramic as she turned on the knob. "You said something back there, it kinda stuck with me." His voice, relentlessly pierced through the sound of the rushing water. "I think it was something like: 'I shoulda destroyed the world when coulda?'"

She turned the shower's lever, a hot spray soaked her in seconds as she stared into the wall before her. Raven closed her eyes and let out a breath holding five hundred years of tension in a pained sigh. "You aren't far off."

"Can we talk about that?"

"What is there to talk about?" She huffed as her hands came up to comb through the wet strands, pushing them off of her face and back behind her ears. Her fingers flexed, and dark magic rushed to block the room's wire. Effectively allowing the pair to speak without fear of eavesdroppers.

"I dunno." How could he sound so nonchalant? So casual after such a significant moment? "I haven't really gotten to talk to anyone else who coulda destroyed the world." Danny paused, she saw his shadow move on the other side of the curtain as he got more comfortable. "Call me curious, I guess."

"What do you mean?"

"I, uh." He paused, his aura suddenly reluctant, pain radiating and spiking from a memory only he could see. Finally, he spoke: "Well, one of the ghosts in the 'zone is a time ghost. Actually, there's a lot of time ghosts. But he's got like, actual time manipulation powers." The halfa ghost sighed as he shifted once more on the other side of the curtain. "Sorry, I'm rambling."

"It's welcome." Her words were gentle and reassuring. She knew how self-conscious the man could get about his tendency to ramble.

"Cool. So, as I was saying. Time manipulation ghost." She searched for the soap and began to scrub at her skin as he explained. "When I was a teen, he told me I was going to destroy the world if I cheated on a test. A butterfly effect kinda thing." The rage in his aura spiked, an anger she had not felt anything close to the heat of in a very long time, at least not from Danny. "I had to defeat my evil older self or my family would die." The anger grew hotter, the warmth of the water siphoned away to the chill of the room as the halfa recalled the past. "Didn't really stop that from happening."

He sighed and the heat to his hatred vanished, the chill to the room remained as Danny wrestled to reign it in. "But I did it. I beat him. It was kinda nuts seeing that future first hand. He'd killed just about everyone. I hadn't really understood how crazy powerful I could be until that moment... I still have nightmares about it."

Raven turned off the water once all of the suds were gone, and pulled away the curtain. There wasn't anything relaxing about a cold shower. "I understand."

He handed her a towel from the space beneath the sink that she took gratefully. His eyes looked at her unseeing as she wrapped it around herself, like his mind was elsewhere. "Sometimes I look in the mirror and all I can see are the parts of us that are the same. The same eyebrows, same shoulders. Stuff like that." His gaze lost its distance as he lifted his pupils to look into her own, he let out a sad chuckle. "Guess I'm not as over it as I thought."

She eyed the light wire laced beneath the crown moulding of every room, noting with a relieved breath that the device within this room was fogged enough to hide them. Raven turned to her partner and, as mechanically as she could, recounted her past to him.

"When I was born, it was prophesized that I would bring about the apocalypse." She began, her tone neutral as she fought against the waves of memory that tried to claw their way out of the depths of her mind. She shoved them away. "My purpose was to be my father's portal to the mortal realm. That he would pool blood and reign fire upon every mortal until all of reality was at Hell's command."

Raven placed the towel over her head, her fingers tapping out a spell against her scalp that barely needed any energy to work. The water was drawn from her tresses and into the fabric. She sighed as she pulled the damp cloth away from her and draped it over the shower rod.

"I was told a thousand times that that was my fate. That it was always going to be my fate. That there was nothing I could do." The demoness whispered as her eyes glazed, memories fighting to surface once more.

"And then the world ended." She paused, the words echoing off of the tile as her partner remained motionless and silent. "I managed to protect my friends, and they found what was left of me. Robin-" Nightwing, Richard. Raven finally turned to look at him, her breath caught in her throat and she turned her gaze to her earlier discarded clothes. "-he believed in me." The sorceress whispered as she grabbed the grey cloth and began to dawn her sweatshirt. "He helped me make things right."

Her head poked through the neck's hole and Raven tugged the hem to her waist before she reached for her sweatpants. "It still bothers me. That I hadn't been stronger. That I let him win initially because I had been so afraid."

"Rae, you were a kid."

"So were you." She spat, darkness swirling in a dangerous vortex at his attempt to help her forgive herself. "But that doesn't stop it from haunting us." The demoness growled, her eyes piercing into his. A knowing gaze, unwilling to play pretend that he wasn't struggling just like she was. Empty words don't help heal the scars on the soul. When he didn't reply, effectively cowed by her anger, she pushed. Raven needed to know he understood. "Does it?"

He sighed and slouched, defeated, into the sink's small countertop. "...No."

"I sent my father back. I saved the world." She pulled on her pants and gulped in a deep breath, the desperation in the pull was a need to quell the sprouting anger at her sense of helplessness. "And look what it's done.

"I said what I said, because if I had just let my father rampage..." Raven turned away from her friend, she couldn't look at him as she voiced this darkness that had been lurking in her mind. It felt taboo, like a failure to admit it. "Then none of this would be happening."

"But everyone would be dead!"

"This isn't a happy story." She hissed, her head jerking back towards him, eyes glowing red with wrath. Everyone dies because of me in each scenario, she wanted to say. She'd barely bitten the words back in time to keep them where they belong. Within. "At least it would have been a quick death, by my father's hand. Instead of this slow and torturous tyranny."

"Rae, you can't-" Danny floundered, his hands flying out to grasp at the air. "You can't lose hope."

Her heart stopped a memory rose against her will, thrashing against the surface of her mind as she tried to smother it. She failed. Hope.

You're the most hopeful person I know.

"Because if you lose it..." Danny's broken voice managed to pull her from the past. Raven blinked at him, the raggedness to his expression, the wildness to his hair, and the exhaustion in his stance. "What the hell am I supposed to do?"

"You can't place all of your hope in one person." Raven whispered into the small space, her chest right, throat pinching in a cold pain.

"It isn't hope." Danny vowed, the look in his gaze was nothing short of reverent as he looked at her. "It's faith."

Faith.

She couldn't look at him, her gaze landed on herself. Her image in the mirror was just as haggard as Danny's, if not even worse. The bags under her eyes were deep expressions of the tiredness of her soul, the limpness to her hair spoke of years of confinement, and the deadness to her eyes screamed of her helplessness. She looked like a stranger. Raven didn't recognize the woman in her reflection. Hadn't known her for some time now.

A lump grew in her throat and she forced the words past it in a hoarse voice. "You're a fool."

"Raven." Danny whispered as he moved behind her, locking eyes with her through the reflective glass. "You haven't steered me wrong yet. If there's anyone on this ship who can do anything they set their mind to..." Danny placed a gentle hand on her shoulder as he leaned into her space, he pressed a gentle kiss to her temple.

"It's you.

"It's always been you."

He breathed the words against her skin before he pulled away, her shoulder became too warm without his hand against it.

"And yeah, it sucks right now. But it won't be like this forever." The halfa promised as he stepped away from her, but his eyes remained on hers through the mirror. "This is a test of endurance-" his expression became determined and sharp, suddenly the man looked far more alive than he had a few minutes ago, "-and we're going to outlast them.

"Maybe you can't believe that right now. But as long as it's tomorrow. Or next month. Or even next year!" The man turned and grabbed her towel off the shower's rod before he made way for the door. "It could take a thousand years for you to believe me!" He paused, hand hovering over the hand scanner. A deep sigh escaping his lips before he finally let the door register him. It slid open.

"Just don't give up forever."

The door slid shut.

When she finally left the bathroom, her towel had been placed with the rest of their laundry, and Danny was nowhere to be found. He'd left her the room and given her space. The exact things she needed to recenter herself after a day such as this.

For that day, that single day, for the first time in her adult life, she sat in her bed, she let herself breathe... and she gave up.

Staring at the wall, meditating on her emotions, living in the moment, and attempting to convince herself that she had lost the will to fight.

The charade only lasted for ten hours.

Because who was she kidding? Her desire for dismantling the Empire had been her driving force for so long now. Without her need for justice, her necessity to make things right, she had nothing to live for.

To her, to give up meant to perish. And she had promised herself a long time ago that she wouldn't go down that road.

Because it wasn't what Garfield wanted.

Wasn't what any of the Titans wanted.

And it isn't what she wanted.

So she'd live. She'd live and hope and scheme and plan. Because eventually, one of them would die; the creator or her creation.

And she was going to do everything in her power to make sure the Earthen Empire went out first.

She could only hope Danny would still want to help her when the time came.