Ending 2:
"Mallory?"
She groaned, shutting her eyes tighter against the light stabbing through her lids, ignoring the prick of awareness at the edge of her consciousness.
The voice chuckled. "Five years and this is the reaction I get?"
She gasped, shooting straight up as her mind finally connected the dots. A person-shaped blur stood in front of her when she threw her eyes open, but she didn't need her sight to know who it was. "Wally?" she whispered, watching the red hair, green eyes, and soul-warming grin sharpen to a clear picture. Her eyes widened, and she wondered if she was going crazy or if she was dreaming.
The smile widened, his eyes softening from humor to understanding. "Hey, Mal. Missed you." His voice was gentle, with only a fraction of his usual energy in it, but it was his, and when he opened his arms, she ran into them without hesitation.
"Wally!" she gasped, her eyes stinging with overflowing emotion as she held onto him. He was there, solid, and after all the years she'd spent grieving his loss, she never wanted to let go.
"That's better," he quipped, and a laugh like only he could earn bubbled out of her.
She finally looked around, the blinding light that had woken her up surrounding them on all sides. "Where are we?" The words left her mouth before she really thought about who she was talking to, or about the complete absence of pain from her final fight and suffocation. She stepped back, looking at his face. "I'm…dead?"
Wally nodded, and she was surprised that she wasn't upset by the answer. "This is a middle point," he explained. "You aren't dead, exactly, but you aren't alive either." She twisted her lips, not wanting to voice the question on her tongue, but he nodded, reading it on her face. "Yeah, I'm gone."
She took a breath, looking over his shoulder absently, towards the white abyss. "My dad, he's gone too, isn't he?" she asked, the events just before her death coming back to her. He nodded again, and she took a step towards the light, a longing filling her chest where once only fear and sadness had occupied. She wanted to see him, she was ready to see what came next. "So, what happens now?"
His smile softened as he edged in front of her until he was all she could see. "Now, you go back."
Her eyebrows came together, the longing faltering. "What?"
He put a hand on her shoulder patiently. "It's not your time, Mal. You have more to do."
She shook her head. "No, I died, just like I was supposed to. I'm ready, so let's go."
Wally chuckled. "That easy, huh?"
"Yes!"
He shook his head. "What about your family? The team? Do you think they're ready?"
Her conviction shook and she twisted her lips to the side, looking at the light and picturing her life back on Earth. She shook her head slowly, tears spilling over her lashes and trailing down her cheeks. "I can't." She couldn't go back to fighting her powers, living with anger and fear and loss, dealing with the betrayal that had come in her last days. She shook her head again, looking back at Wally, and suddenly a new reason came rushing to the front of her mind. "I don't want to lose you again."
He shook his head. "Don't throw your chance at life away for me."
She scoffed. "I've thrown plenty of others' away," she muttered.
His eyebrows creased together. "What are you talking about?"
She shook her head. "Nothing. Just me and my amazing decision making."
He paused, studying her face. "You're wrong, you know."
"About what?"
"Feeling like everything's happened because of you. Tula, Jason, me, none of it was your fault."
"I didn't say it was," she muttered stubbornly.
He shrugged. "You didn't have to. I've gotten pretty intuitive. Not much else to do around here." She arched an eyebrow and he added, "I also know you." She didn't argue with him, so he continued as if she had agreed. "You felt so guilty about indirectly bringing them, us, into the situations that got us killed, but you never took the time to think about it from our points of view. We made our own choices, and we did what we were supposed to do. There's a bigger picture that you never bothered to paint."
She tilted her head. "Like what?"
"Like how many lives were made because of the choices that were made. Garth was able to get into the UN and fight for us from the inside. Lagaan was able to join the team instead of going on to Atlantis's military, and now he's leading the guard and has a family. Jason, Jessica, Tim, they wouldn't have had the future they were meant to have if Dick hadn't quit being Robin when he did, and what was the catalyst of that again?"
Mallory bit her lip, that argument not softening the fact that her leave of absence was the reason Tula had joined the team in the first place.
"She saved the world, Mal. No decision you made in your life led to the Light finding those tablets. If she hadn't been there…" She twisted her lips to the side, not wanting to admit that he was right. He didn't need her words to know that he was getting through. "Peter, Zatanna, Brion, all have the life they have because of you. I could go on."
She still didn't say anything, her eyes drifting from his face to the white space behind him.
He sighed. "I can't make you go back, Mal, that's a choice you're going to have to make for yourself. Just think about the people that still need you."
"But…" she protested weakly, her eyes snapping back to his face, soaking in every detail that had started to slip out of her memory.
He smiled, his eyes softening in a way that pictures could never capture. "Hey, I'll be here, waiting. Take your time."
Her eyes burned as tears trailed down her cheeks and she wrapped her arms around her friend, her brother, craving the safety his arms had always carried, cherishing the feel of the last hug that would have to hold her for the long road ahead.
"It's time to let go," he murmured, but she held on tighter, burying her face in his shoulder.
"Thank you," she murmured, a lifetime's worth of favors paid in those two words. "I'll never have another friend like you."
He chuckled. "You better mean that. Do me a favor, and deliver a message?"
She loosened her grip, stepping back just enough to see his face start to fade, nodding her promise.
Then she was back in the cool darkness, muffled sounds echoing all around her. She reached out to the sounds with her mind, searching for their origin, and slowly she began to settle back into her body.
The first thing she felt was a steady rhythm of pressure on her chest, then her lungs compressing, her deoxygenated body struggling to act on the motion. Her muscles began to tingle, her deadened nerves waking up and seeking the oxygen that her lungs could not provide. It felt like hours, but it was mere seconds she waited, trying to remember how to breathe as the tingling turned to a searing pain radiating all over her body, and finally she was completely back.
She gasped, gulping in a ragged breath, arching her back as if that would help the oxygen flow into her lungs through her dry, scratchy tubes. The echoes grew, and it took a few seconds for her to realize they had come from other people. It took too much effort to pry her eyes open, and this time, the face that came into focus was anything but calm.
Dick was poised above her, his hands hovering at her ribcage, paused from the CPR. His eyes were wide as she continued to gulp in breaths, and he fell back into the rubble in relieved shock. Roy was kneeling beside him, his expression mirroring the former Boy Wonder's, and Mallory rolled her eyes to see who else was there, scanning the tearful, disbelieving faces of her family until they caught on the one she was looking for, the peace she still carried from the white room wrapping around the ache in her chest like a blanket. She opened her mouth, but it took three tries before she was finally able to rasp, "Wally…loes…you."
Artemis's eyes widened at the weak declaration, a choke forcing its way out of her throat before she sank to her knees and gently pulled Mallory into a hug, burying her face in her undead friend's shoulder and sobbing in an uncharacteristic show of emotion. Mallory leaned into her friend, exhaustion clouding her vision once more as she was once again caught in an embrace.
"Mallory? No, no, stay awake," Roy crooned, gently slapping her cheek until her eyes opened again.
She wanted to tell him that she was fine, that she just needed to sleep for a few days and she would be back to normal, but for some reason her lips didn't quite get the message, and she ended up settling back into Artemis's shoulder. She heard Conner from a distance as Roy and Kaldur continued to tell her to stay awake.
"Yeah, she's back, but she's not stable. We're bringing her now," and just before she drifted off, and heard Dick mutter, "thank God," before he dissolved into a thousand stars, and then nothing.
A steady, constant beeping registered in her brain before she was really awake, nudging her subconscious until she finally couldn't ignore it any longer.
"She's waking up!"
She tilted her face towards the voice, squinting her stiff eyelids before she was able to pry them open. Bright light stabbed her corneas the second the smallest crack appeared between her lids and she clamped them back shut.
"Mallory? Can you hear me?"
She drew her eyebrows together, unable to do anything else.
"Oh, thank God," a new voice muttered, and she felt pressure on her hand.
It didn't feel like a very long time to her, but it must have been, because the next voice was slightly annoyed, though it was still thick with emotion when it said, "just push her out of bed already."
She wasn't sure if it was the voice or her own indignation, but that comment gave her the strength to throw her eyes open, her pupils adjusting to the brightness slower than they should have. She was in a hospital bed, tubes delivering oxygen to her lungs and an IV dripping a clear liquid into her veins. Well, that explained the lack of pain, and the off feeling of her body.
When she shifted her gaze away from the machines, her breath caught in her throat, tears springing to her eyes. She'd been so ready to move into the light, and yet now, looking at her family gathered around her bed, she couldn't imagine why she had ever thought she could leave them. Elaine was sitting in a chair right beside her, both hands clasped around Mallory's, tears filling her sleep-deprived eyes. Peter was right beside her, one hand on Elaine's shoulder, the other clenching and unclenching a fist, his eyes shiny and his jaw locked with suppressed tears. The original team was there, Alex, Brion, Brek, and behind them, Superman stood at the foot of the bed, pure relief written on his face. Next to him, Batman stood, stoic and unemotional as ever, which, unlike the other deaths the team had faced, she found strangely comforting. No matter what happened, Batman would always be Batman.
"Welcome back," Roy said, breaking the tense silence. "For a while there we weren't sure we'd get to hear the details."
She huffed, her lips allowing a small smile. "What? You should know by now you can't get rid of me that easy." She didn't recognize the small, raspy voice as her own, and the drugs must have been doing a good job because she could tell by the effort it took to get the words out that her chest and throat should be sore.
Dick laughed unexpectedly, loudly, a clear relief in the sound, like until he heard her try to brush off her own death, he couldn't be sure it was really her who'd come back. She groaned as she flexed her stiff muscles, trying to warm them up after disuse and healing. "What's wrong with me?"
Alex let out a breath, slipping into his professional demeanor, but his eyes betrayed the emotion inside. "Four broken ribs, a fractured scapula, various contusions and lacerations," he lifted her free hand into his own, rubbing his thumb gently over the back and pointing out the gauze wrapped around it, "debrided knuckles, splintered metacarpals, low oxygen levels, concussion, esophagotracheal contusion, and a sprained ankle."
"I've had worse," she rasped, earning a chuckle from some of her friends and a stern glare from others.
"Not all at once," Elaine pointed out, her grip tightening around her daughter's hand.
"She's right, Mal. Looks like you broke your record," Artemis teased.
Mallory looked over at her friend, her eyebrows raising at the hand on the blonde's shoulder. "Eh, try a bullet in the stomach, then we can talk," Cameron said with a grin, his eyes warm with relief.
She huffed, turning her attention back to the people in front of her. Her eyes caught on the bandages on Peter's hands, the stiff plastic prosthetic attached to his leg, and she winced, struggling to sit up so she could reach him. "Hey, I'm–" the blanket that had been covering her shoulder fell to her lap and she froze, her eyes glazing over as she went into her mind, the off feeling she'd noticed when she first woke up intensifying with the cold that rushed through her body, leaving her shivering. "Alex," she said, her voice shaking slightly as she pulled her hand from her mom's grip and reached out to her boyfriend. He was there in an instant.
"What is it?" he asked.
She waited another minute, hoping that she was wrong, that it was just taking her body a minute to wake up, but she knew better than that. The channels that had once flowed from her core were sealed, numb, the heat that usually traveled through her veins gone cold. "Something's wrong," she said quietly, her eyes stinging with tears as she voiced the words that were screaming in her mind. "I can't feel my fire."
Six days later, Mallory leaned her head back on the stone wall, curling her legs beneath her and staring out over the balcony, not looking at anything in particular. Her fingers tightened around the manilla folder in her lap, the contents weighing her mind down like a rock on water, pulling her back to the moment she'd received it.
Her arm was sore, Alex had just taken blood from her for the fifth time that day, working with some of the scientists on the League to try to figure out what was wrong with her. It was just like old times, one minute she was alone, then he was there in the doorway, leaning on the frame like he'd been there for hours.
"How you feeling?" Dick asked, his hands tucked into the pockets of his favorite blue hoodie. His face was empty, no mask or glasses to conceal his eyes, and she knew that was for her benefit.
She groaned and sat up straighter. "I'm fine, or I will be once they let me out of this bed. You?"
He shrugged. "Fever's gone. Still get tremors every now and then, but Orion said they would wear off eventually, just a side effect from the pit." She nodded and they drifted into an awkward silence, their unfinished business thickening the air between them. Finally, he sighed and pushed off the wall, taking the first step to her. "Look, uh, we need to talk."
"I know."
He seemed a little surprised at her willingness, and he took it as an invitation to walk the rest of the way, taking a seat in the chair beside her bed. "I was wrong, I know that. I never intended to keep you in the dark for so long, none of us did. And I never felt right about going behind your backs, but we really believed that we were protecting you in the beginning."
"It was my lead, and our history that started you on that thread that you pulled," she said, including all of the OGs in her statement. "Why would you think any of us needed your protection?"
He dropped his gaze, focusing on the layers of bruises on her neck. "We never thought you needed protection," he said quietly. "We just didn't think it was necessary for all of us to go down if our plans went south." He raised his gaze to meet hers. "Justice vs hope, it wasn't a hard choice to make."
"It wasn't yours to make," she pointed out. "A year and a half? Did you even keep track of the lies? Is that even where it started?"
He sighed. "Honestly, I don't know. This, Batman Inc, my part in it started after the Quitters broke down for the first time. I never intended for it to go this far, and back then it was just research anyway, gathering intel that could be useful in the future. But after the Invasion, I thought about it, and I realized that I've always kept something from you. This, Artemis and Kaldur's roles in the Reach, my name. But I didn't fake the things that mattered. We created a family in the team, that means the world to me. I would die a hundred times over if I thought it would fix the rift I put in that."
He was blinking too fast, and she could tell by the slight twitch in the corner of his eye that he was fighting the instinct to shut down. She leaned back against the pillow, her eyes still on him, but her mind back in the white space, another friend standing the same distance apart, reminding her what she had to lose. "You know, dying gives you a whole new perspective. They say you see your whole life flash before your eyes. I just saw one thing when I was drifting off into space. Well, saw and felt." He tilted his head, a little surprised and a lot encouraged by the fact that she was talking to him. "Home," she answered the question on his face, her chest warming at the memory, a shadow of the peace she felt in that moment covering her. "The cave, the team, my parents…" she let her voice drift off before she said the last person, a smile tugging at the corners of her lips as she anticipated that conversation, then she continued, "I'm not saying I've completely forgiven you, because I don't think I have, but…no matter what you've done, when I think of home, you're still there, somewhere." She paused, making sure her feelings matched her words before she said, "so I will try to forgive you, in time. But Dick, this is the last time, you know that."
He nodded, knowing that she didn't just mean for her. He and the others betrayed everyone in their community, and they all had a long road back to the start. "You were right, I lost my footing, started to turn into the person I never wanted to be, but that ends now. You probably don't believe me, and I know it's going to take a long time to win back a fraction of the trust I used to have, but…" he paused, pulling a manilla folder out of his jacket and holding it out to her, "I hope this will help."
She tilted her head, staring at the olive branch, her face a practiced blank as she processed his words. Finally, with another, more distant voice in her ear, she took the folder and flipped through it. Her heart skipped a beat when she started to read the contents. "Is this…?"
"Everything Batman had on you. Every connection, past, present, and DNA. Every ability you showed and every theory he had, it's all there." She flipped to the last page and froze, the mask slipping from her face, reflecting the throbbing of her heart. He cleared his throat softly and added, "And, I added something of my own."
She didn't need to open the folder to know the contents of that last page. The folder contained everything she'd ever wanted to know about her lineage. Her mother had been a captive born to an Earthling on Apokolips, and she knew from Orion that she'd been chosen to be the container for Darkseid's genetically modified champion. It contained everything, except what happened to her after she gave birth. In that last page, Dick answered that question with a picture and an address. The location of her birth mother's grave.
Footsteps broke into her thoughts and she slid the folder to the side, her eyes focused straight ahead as the flock of doves the League kept in the Watchtower took flight, making their way across the gardens.
"That's what I'm going to miss most, I think," she said quietly, her chest aching to join the little animals. It had been a week since she woke up with her channels dry, and the tests had all come back the same. Her powers were gone. She could still touch fire and not be burned, but the inner ability she'd been born with, the ability to create her own fire and channel the energy into strength, they had little hope would ever return. She suspected it was because of her overuse of them in her final stand against Darkseid, but she hadn't told anyone that.
Clark let out a breath beside her. The news had hit him almost as hard as it had her. "You know I'll give you a ride whenever you want," he said.
She smiled, but the sadness in it was reflected on Clark's face. They both knew that wouldn't be the same. "Did you talk to Lois?" she asked, shifting her position to face him.
He sat on the ledge beside her, rubbing a hand through his hair. "Yes, and I spoke with Bruce and Diana. It'll take a while for things to calm down after the Invasion, but once that happens, I'm going to take a step back from the League, try to do some of the things that Lois and I have been talking about."
She nodded. "I'm glad you're finally doing it." She paused, looking at her own future. "I wish I knew what I was going to do."
"Nothing has to change, you still have a good job, your health, a support system. You can do anything."
"Yeah, except what I want." She hadn't meant to sound bitter, but it leaked into her tone anyway. She blinked at the tears pooling in her eyes, the fact that she couldn't steam them away only making them come harder. "I was prepared to die, Clark. I did die, and I was fine with that, but this?" she shook her head, swallowing the lump in her throat. "I never thought I'd have to live without my powers." She laughed bitterly, suddenly angry at her younger self. "I wish I could go back and punch myself every time I ever wished for them to be gone. I'm a hero, Clark. That's all I ever wanted to be, and now that's gone, too. He took that from me."
"Look at me, Torch." She did, and the sternness on his face shocked her out of her self pity for a moment. "Your powers aren't what made you a hero. You never needed them, and you don't need them now. How many of the others are going out there with nothing but their courage and some tools? If that's what you want to do, then you can figure out a way to do that."
She twisted her lips, thinking about Dick, and Artemis, and Roy, and her brother. "I don't think I'm that brave," she admitted. "And what will my place be? I was useful because I could do something that no one else could."
He shrugged. "You could find a place. Or, you could take a break, see how it feels to truly be a civilian, not running from anything or thinking about your next mission. After what you've been through, maybe you could use the break, think about what you want out of life, not what you should want." He looked at the doorway and she followed his gaze to where Orion was standing awkwardly in the doorway, obviously waiting to talk to one of them. "I guess I'll head out. Think about it, ok?"
She nodded, doing just that as she waited for Clark to walk out the room and Orion to decide it was ok to approach her.
"They told me you would recover."
She arched an eyebrow at the abrupt greeting. "Uh, yeah, more or less."
He nodded. "And, Darkseid is really gone?"
She looked out the window, imagining the new god's body floating into the abyss. "Yeah. Sorry you didn't get the chance to fight him yourself." She studied their reflections in the glass, far too similar for her comfort. He didn't seem to notice, though.
"It is true that I wanted to be the one to kill him, but of anyone else in the universe, I can come to terms with losing that opportunity to you." She narrowed her eyes, tearing her gaze away from the glass, rejecting the reference to their shared parentage. This, he did notice, and understanding softened his eyes. "I have struggled with the same thing since birth."
"What?" she asked, glancing up at him.
"Well, I am sure you must be wondering how to right the wrongs of a father who has spread so much evil into the universe."
Mallory twisted her lips to the side, thinking about his words, but when she did, the only face that came to mind was Darrin's, his sacrifice leaving a bittersweet mark on the memories she had of him. She looked down at the file beside her, pushing it further away as she shook her head. "He's not my father. He never was." She stood up, ending their conversation and walking towards the rooms, finding her mom packing the things she brought to stay with Mallory while she recovered.
"Hey, sweetheart. How are you feeling?" Mallory crossed the room and wrapped her arms around the woman who had raised her, the first person in her life who had chosen her. Elaine squeezed her back. "What's this for?"
"To thank you," Mallory replied, pulling back. "Was it worth it?"
Elaine looked at her with confusion. "What do you mean?"
"Raising me. If you had known everything that having me as a daughter would mean, all of the sacrifices and danger, would you still have chosen me that day?"
Elaine's eyes welled with tears and she put a hand on her daughter's cheek. "Oh, Sweetie, if I had known everything that would happen as a result of having you as a daughter, I would have been there on the day you were born so I wouldn't miss a single second with you, or Peter, and I know your father felt the same way."
Mallory smiled, her eyes stinging with fresh tears as she pulled her mom in for another hug. "I love you."
"I love you too, more than anything else in this life. You'll see one day, when you have kids of your own. Nothing else matters besides you and your brother." She paused and added, "well, and all the other ones you made me take in."
Mallory chuckled, thinking about how close Wally and Gar had come to be with her family. "Yeah, I guess I will."
Metropolis air had never seemed so uncomfortable. She didn't mind the heat so much, but the stickiness was unbearable, plastering her hair to her face even without sweat. She groaned as they pulled to an abrupt stop, opening her mouth to snap when Megan popped her head around the seat with a quick, "sorry." The doors opened and they spilled out, Mallory coccooned in the middle of her obnoxiously large entourage, her belly out so far that it took up enough space to fit a whole other person.
"How you doing, Sunshine?" Alex asked, one hand on her shoulder as he guided her towards the hospital.
"Fine," she snapped, grabbing his hand and squeezing as a contraction made her freeze mid-step. "Just get this kid out of me!"
The father whimpered quietly as she crushed his hand, and Raquel chuckled and put a hand on his shoulder. "Just be glad she doesn't have super strength anymore," she pointed out, guiding Mallory's hand to Conner's for future abuse.
Kaldur was the first to make it to the doors, holding one open for the others to charge through. The receptionist gave them a frazzled look, starting to scan each of them to see who was actually the patient until Mallory bent over and yelled, squeezing Conner's hand until the pain settled. "Who's the mother?" the girl behind the desk asked.
"Mallory Desdemona-Johnson," Dick offered, already prepared with all of her information to fill out her forms.
"All right, let's get you to labor and delivery. I'll grab a wheelchair."
The nurses let the group get all the way to the door of the room before stopping the group. "Who's the father?" Alex stepped up, a stricken look on his face. "All right, and who else is going to be in the room?" Elaine had already marched up to Mallory, taking her hand. "The rest of you will have to wait out here." She didn't wait for a response, just brought the redhead and the two approved guests and shut the door behind them.
Roy was the first to move, heading for the couches in the waiting room. It was empty except for them, but there still wasn't enough seating for them all. "How long do you think this'll take?" Cameron asked, settling next to Artemis, one arm going around her shoulder instinctively.
Raquel rolled her eyes, already getting comfortable with a book pulled up on her phone. "Long enough." Brion bit his lip anxiously at her words, and he slid to the ground next to Gar and Peter, settling in for the long wait.
Six hours later, the nurse finally came into the waiting room. "Desdemona-Johnson?" They all stood up and the woman narrowed her eyes. "You might not all fit in the room, but you're welcome to try. The baby's healthy and the mom's doing great."
A wave of relief went though the group, then they went to the room, squeezing in as tight as they could to fit. Mallory was on the bed, sweat plastering her hair to her face, but a smile lighting up the room as she looked down at the baby in her arms, rubbing a finger over the fuzzy red hair lightly coating its head. "It's a boy," Alex told the group, reaching out to rub his son's arm.
"He's perfect," Megan murmured, smiling down at him.
"More than you think," Elaine said, looking at Mallory.
The others looked at her too, asking if that meant what they thought it did, and she shrugged. "Well, someone was making it hot in here, and I don't think it was me."
Brion chuckled, grinning down at the child. "Well, it would seem I just met my future protege."
Clark chuckled. "Don't flatter yourself. Some of us trained his mother, after all."
Roy ended the good-natured bickering before it could grow. "What's his name?"
Mallory's smile turned sentimental, and she looked at Artemis and Dick before settling her gaze back on her son, gently brushing her finger across his cheek. "Blaze Wallace Johnson-Myers."
The group went quiet, the name adding another presence to the room. "He would love that," Artemis said quietly.
Mallory nodded, looking around the room, every inch of the space around them taken up with a body. "Blaze," she said, positioning him up higher so he could see them too, "this is your family. You're going to fit right in."
Mallory took her mother's name, Desdemona, and added it to Johnson. She's no longer Inferno here.