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okay, let me just start off by saying that this is not a love story. it was never meant to be a love story. this entire plot came to be because i wanted to play around with killing off the joker and what that could possibly do to a character. i labeled this as a jason fic because he sort of played a role in the story. but there was never going to be a romance. if i said that at the beginning though, no one would have read this fic.
now let's talk about the ending. basically, juniper made the whole thing up in her head. it seems cheap, i know, and it's definitely cliche, but i happen to think it's accurate. considering what juniper went through, it makes sense to me for this to be what actually happened. she knew about jason already, she knew what happened to him. so when her team turned against her, she made up the idea of being able to see jason. now you may ask yourself how that makes sense. here's an explanation that i hope helps: she knew about the lazarus pit and its properties, she just convinced herself she did not know enough when in reality, she did. so, she created the idea that jason was with the league, but he was not fully healed yet. this gave her a purpose and hope. then she imagined him going into the pit so he could come and "rescue her". juniper was the one who knocked everyone unconscious in the last chapter. she convinced herself that jason had done it. bruce hid and watched. so yes, bruce knows that juniper did it but he did not stop her. she imagined ra's too. so basically she made up the notion that every time she fell asleep, she would see jason.
with that being said, i just want to make something very clear: juniper is not mentally well. she struggled to recover from her trauma so she made up jason in her head to help ease the pain. but once she found out about terra, she lost it and ran away. this does not mean she is a bad person. it means that she is human. she wanted her team to forgive her and she wanted things to be normal. she just wanted everyone to still care about her and love her. and they did still love and care about her, but she was convinced that they didn't.
another thing i want to make clear: she is an unreliable narrator so take everything you read after the first chapter with a grain of salt.
since she is an unreliable narrator, it explains why you might think some characters were portrayed in strange ways. i wrote jason out of character on purpose. she never knew jason personally so when she made it all up, she pictured him in the way she wanted. also, this means that she saw members of the outsiders in a different light than what was true. halo was not the only one who did not want her gone. bart, jaime, and cassie were all in favor of her staying but were swayed by gar to temporarily remove her from the team. however, those three did not want her to move out. gar did, but his intentions were pure. brion was actually for her leaving because he's an ass.
i like to think that somewhere down the line artemis and will or the outsiders team find her and help her get better because i do actually hate leaving juniper's story at an ending like that, but it felt right and i was not going to force myself to write more chapters. however, since the ending is kind of open ended, you can imagine whatever you would like. if you want her to eventually get help, that's great. if you want her to live the rest if her life with an imaginary person, that's great too (though it is very unhealthy).
i think that's all i wanted to say, but if you have any questions or anything like that, feel free to comment and i will reply to you asap. thank you guys so much for coming along on this journey with me and i hope that you enjoyed this fic, even though it was short and possibly confusing, lol.
please feel free to check out my other fics! i am a dc acc so if you are looking for a fic with a specific dc character, i can almost guarantee i have one for them. but if not, i can promise that i probably have one in my drafts.
